I found this nice sandbox the other day http://rendera.heroku.com/. They have some nice example and am learning a lot from it.

W3Schools has a nice primer. You can find it here: http://www.w3schools.com/html5/html5_reference.asp

Some questions I have and would like to answer for myself are...

1. What is the purpose of the <address> node? What do I gain from using it?
2. How can I integrate HTML5 with ASP.NET Web Controls?

More questions to come.

Database _db = DatabaseFactory.CreateDatabase(<Connection String Name>);

Let's now assume that we have a stored procedure usp_MyStoredProc that takes a single parameter @param1. If this is a require parameter, both of the following statement blocks will result in the same outcome:

public DataSet CallMyStoredProc( int value ){
  return _db.ExecuteDataSet( "usp_MyStoredProc", value )
}

public DataSet CallMyStoredProc( int value ){
  DbCommand command = _db.GetStoredProcCommand("usp_MyStoredProc" );
  _db.AddInParameter( command, "param1", value );
  return _db.ExecuteDataSet( command );
}

However, now let's assume that @param1 is an optional parameter that we don't want to pass in from our data access method, we are limited in our options.

public DataSet CallMyStoredProc(){
  return _db.ExecuteDataSet( "usp_MyStoredProc")
}

This method will fail with an exception because the parameters provided to the stored procedure (none) don't match the parameter count for the stored procedure (1).

Creating an actual DbCommand and executing it, however, will not cause an exception. In this scenario, the following code block will work without causing an exception:

public DataSet CallMyStoredProc( int value ){
  DbCommand command = _db.GetStoredProcCommand("usp_MyStoredProc" );
  return _db.ExecuteDataSet( command );
}

1. Download the installation package from Sourceforge.net. As of writing this article, the latest version is available here.
2. Run the installer. This will copy the files you need and create the IIS site/virtual directories needed to access Cruise Control .NET from your browser.
3. Open your Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager (Start -> Run -> inetmgr )
4. Create a new website point the site to <INSTALL PATH>\webdashboard.
5. Change the bindings for the new site to a unique port. ( I use port 90 and the CCNET is then accessed via http://localhost:90)
6. Open the application pool created for this site and change the 'Managed pipeline mode' to 'Integrated'.
7. Open the services manager (Start -> Run -> services.msc) and start the Cruise Control .NET service.

Working on top of what I learned from this article, I decided to leverage the rich capabilities of .NET's Web UI components as part of my ajax implementation using HTML injection. I used jquery to bind a standard button to make a call to my Web Service method.

The service created and populated a standard GridView object. The service would then render that object and return the HTML that was generated. This HTML, once returned by the service call, would be injected into a DIV tag that served as the container for the results table.

My initial implementation is a naive solution that renders full HTML on the server side and passes that back to the client-side. My ASP.NET page already has a script manager so I added a reference to my web service (simple .asmx in this scenario).

<asp:ScriptManager ID="ScriptManager1" runat="server">
<Services>
<asp:ServiceReference Path="~/Services/MyService.asmx" />
</Services>
</asp:ScriptManager>

namespace Client.Project.Services
{
/// <summary>
/// Summary description for ConceptServices
/// </summary>
[WebService(Namespace = "http://tempuri.org/")]
[WebServiceBinding(ConformsTo = WsiProfiles.BasicProfile1_1, Name = "MyBinding")]
[System.ComponentModel.ToolboxItem(false)]
[System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptService]
public class ConceptServices : System.Web.Services.WebService
{
[WebMethod]
[ScriptMethod]
public String Foo()
{
return "<table><tr><td>Hello World!</td></tr></table>";
}
}
}

var i = 3
var s = "bar"
Client.Project.Services.Foo( i, s,  successMethod, failureMethod )

My Cruise Control .NET implementation consists of numerous development projects each with multiple different CCNET projects associated with it (one per environment per branch). In order to make the projects more maintainable, I have created a separate configuration file for each development project.

Defining variables and separating ccnet.config configuration file into smaller files allows for easier maintenance as the number of projects as time went on.

Defining and using variables

Variables can be defined using the following format

<cb:define KEY="VALUE" />

To reference that variable later in the configuration file, simply use $(KEY)

Check out the Cruise Control .NET website for complete explanation of variables using the pre-processor.

Separating the configuration files

<!DOCTYPE cruisecontrol [
<!ENTITY PROJECT_NAME SYSTEM "file:project.xml">
]>
<cruisecontrol xmlns:cb="urn:ccnet.config.builder">
&PROJECT_NAME;
</cruisecontrol>

project.xml would, then, contain the regular xml configuration for a Cruise Control .NET project:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
 <project name="My Project" category="A Category">
  <workingDirectory>MyProject</workingDirectory>
  <artifactDirectory>MyProject</artifactDirectory>
  <webURL></webURL>
  <triggers>
   <intervalTrigger seconds="900" buildCondition="IfModificationExists" />
   <scheduleTrigger time="04:00" buildCondition="ForceBuild" />
  </triggers>
 <labeller type="svnRevisionLabeller">
   <pattern>Version {major}.{minor}.{build}.{revision}</pattern>
   <major>1</major>
   <minor>0</minor>
   <url>$(SvnBaseUrl)</url>
  </labeller>
<sourcecontrol type="svn">
   <trunkUrl>$(SvnBaseUrl)</trunkUrl>
   <workingDirectory>$(BaseDirectory)</workingDirectory>
   <cb:SvnOptions />
  </sourcecontrol>
<tasks>
   <nant>
    <executable>$(NAntExecutablePath)</executable>
    <baseDirectory>$(BaseDirectory)</baseDirectory>
    <targetList>
     <target>dist.deploy</target>
    </targetList>
   </nant>
  </tasks>
 <publishers>
   <xmllogger />
   <cb:include href="EmailConfig.xml"/>
  </publishers>
</project>

On caveat with this idea is that changes to the separate configuration files are not recognized until the cruise control is restarted by either restarting the service or modifying the ccnet.config file.

Building and Deploying ASP.NET Web Applications

The NAnt target below is a full parameterized call to MsBuild.exe to compile any solution. ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.MsBuild.dll provides an MSBuild logger that allows Cruise Control .NET to report the bulid output.

Parameters

MSBuildPath - The path to the MsBuild executable.

For .NET Framework versions 2.0 and 3.5  on a 32-bit Windows OS, use C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\MsBuild.exe
For .NET Framework version 4.0, use C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\MsBuild.exe

SolutionFile - The relative path from the build file to the solution file. Fully qualified paths are also allowed.

SolutionConfiguration - "Release" or "Debug".

I have created the site using ASP.NET and SQL Server. I made this decision solely because I use Microsoft's platform every day for my professional work.

BootBootReboot.com

Picture Uploads and Thumbnails

The pictures page (http://www.bootbootreboot.com/pictures) allows visitors to add their own pictures. Upon uploading a picture, a thumbnail is also generate for that picture. The code below shows how to create a thumbnail of an uploaded image.

Ajax using jquery + .NET Web Services

Recently, I have also been introducing some new ajax functionality using jquery and .NET web services. This combination has allowed me to easily introduce a "preview" feature for uploading images and YouTube videos.

Content Management

Youtube Videos

The site is being updated to use the Youtube play list as the content manager for the videos page. Comments and ratings will be retrieved for the detail page and visitors to bootbootreboot.com can add their own comments and ratings.

I originally planned on using WebLoad 8.4 for the performance testing but have decided to stick with version 8.1. The free license for 8.4 limits you to 10 virtual users (the load size) where as V8.1 does not have any limitation.

WebLoad 8.1 can be downloaded here.

Perfmon Counters

The following counters will give the most pertinent results.
ASP.NET

• Requests Queued
• Requests Current
• Request Execution Time (lower is better)
• Request Wait Time (lower is better)
• Requests Rejected (lower is better, is best)

System

• Context Switches / sec

Memory

• Pages / sec
• Available Bytes
• Committed Bytes

Processor

• % Processor Time
• Active Server Pages
• Request Wait Time
• Requests Queued

Web Service

• Current Connections
• Bytes Send / sec
• Connection Attempts / sec
• Current Blocked Async I/O Requests
• Current Blocked bandwidth bytes

Microsoft provides a few tools that can help debug your WCF services.

• WCF Test Client

Error Handling

Typically, I add Global.asax to a web application in ASP.NET and use the Application_Error event to handle any uncaught exceptions.

protected void Application_Error(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
//Insert your application's exception logging here
}

This doesn't work (still looking into why) for WCF services, even when hosted on IIS. A good work around is to wrap each service method with a try...catch block and calling the exception logger in the catch block.

public Object MyWcfWrapperMethod( int i )
{
try
{
//Call the method being exposed by WCF
}
catch( Exception e ){
//Log the exception
}
finally
{
//do your clean up here
}
}

Testing

Unit tests are especially helpful (aren't they always?) in the development of your WCF services as messages from errror and exceptions can (and will) be hidden by subsequent errors. An invalid parameter to a stored procedure call can result in a high level System.ServiceModel.CommunicationObjectFaultedException.