ASP.NET MVC 3 introduces two new interfaces to allow simple integration of IoC containers into the MVC pipeline, allowing many different types to be resolved using your IoC container of choice. These interfaces are IDependencyResolver and IControllerActivator but before you go ahead and implement both, let’s take a look at whether they are both actually needed.

First some background

If you wanted to inject dependencies into your controllers in ASP.NET MVC 2, you were required to either implement IControllerFactory or subclass DefaultControllerFactory. Typically, you would pass your IoC container into the constructor of your custom controller factory and use it to resolve the controller in the CreateController method. You may also have added custom code in ReleaseController to clean up dependencies

This worked reasonably well, but in ASP.NET MVC 3 things have changed so we can use DI for a whole host of other objects such as filters and view engines

The new interface that we should implement is IDependencyResolver:



The important thing about your implementation of this interface is that it should return null if it cannot resolve a particular object. Below is a simple implementation using Unity:



When an MVC application starts for the first time, the dependency resolver is called with the following types in the following order:
- IControllerFactory
- IControllerActivator
- HomeController
….

If you do not implement IControllerFactory or IControllerActivator, then the MVC framework will try to get the controller from the DependencyResolver itself. As a side note, there is no need to worry about performance (regarding so many calls to the resolver) because MVC will only try to resolve theIControllerFactory and IControllerActivator once on startup and if no implementations are registered then it will subsequently always query the DependencyResolver first

The MVC framework goes on to try to resolve many other types which you probably have not implemented or registered with your IoC container, but as long as your dependency resolver returns null if the type is not registered, MVC will default back to the built-in implementations

If you did not implement your resolver to return null if a type is not registered then you will probably end up seeing an error similar to:

The current type, System.Web.Mvc.IControllerFactory, is an interface and cannot be constructed

The other important thing to note is that both methods on this interface take in the actual service type. This typically means that when you register your controllers with your IoC container, you should only specify the concrete type, not the IController, interface

i.e. using Unity as an example:



rather than:



Failing to register your controllers conrrectly and you will see

No parameterless constructor defined for this object

So at this stage, we have an implementation of IDependencyResolver and nothing else and yet our controller are all resolving correctly. It makes you wonder about whether IControllerActivator is really needed…

About IControllerActivator

IControllerActivator was introduced with ASP.NET MVC 3 to split the functionality of the MVC 2 controller factory into two distinct classes. As far as we can tell, this was done to adhere to the Single Responsibility Principle (SRP). So now in MVC 3, the DefaultControllerFactory outsources the responsibility of actually instantiating the controller to the controller activator. The single method interface is shown below:



If you implement this interface and register your activator with your IoC container, the MVC framework will pick it up and use it when trying to instantiate controllers, but you have to wonder why you would do this instead of just letting your dependency resolver do it directly. Brad Wilson to the rescue:

“If your container can build arbitrary types, you don’t need to write activators. The activator services are there for containers that can’t be arbitrary types. MEF can’t, but you can add [Export] attributes to your controllers to allow MEF to build them…”

This means that if you are working with any competent IoC container* (Castle Windor, Unity, Ninject, StructureMap, Autofac et al), IControllerActivator is not needed and offers no benefit over allowing your DependencyResolver to instantiate your controllers.

* (With the exception of MEF which isn’t an IoC container any way)

So we now know that we are probably not required to implement this interface, but are there any benefits to doing so? Something that we have seen mentioned (we cannot remember where) is that implementing IControllerActivator allows you you can provide a more meaningful error message if resolution fails. It is true that the message you would get otherwise (No parameterless constructor defined for this object) is not 100% clear, but we are not sure that this justifies another class just for this purpose. Surely, once you have seen this message, the next time you encounter, it you will immediately know what the problem is. Even if you do implement IControllerActivator, you will not have access to the (normally) detailed message that you IoC container provides when resolution fails, so you can do little more than say resolution failed – i don’t know why.

Conclusion

So, should you implement IControllerActivator? Probably not. If you are using pretty much any well known IoC container, just implement IDependencyResolver and it will do everything for you. There is also no need for a custom implementation of IControllerFactory. If you are worried about the lack of release method on the dependency resolver, don’t be. The worst case scenario requires a small change to the way that you are using your IoC container. Next time we will talk about how to make sure your dependency resolver plays nicely with IDisposable.

Reasons why you must trust ASPHostPortal.com

Every provider will tell you how they treat their support, uptime, expertise, guarantees, etc., are. Take a close look. What they’re really offering you is nothing close to what ASPHostPortal does. You will be treated with respect and provided the courtesy and service you would expect from a world-class web hosting business.

You’ll have highly trained, skilled professional technical support people ready, willing, and wanting to help you 24 hours a day. Your web hosting account servers are monitored from three monitoring points, with two alert points, every minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The followings are the list of other added- benefits you can find when hosting with us:

- DELL Hardware
Dell hardware is engineered to keep critical enterprise applications running around the clock with clustered solutions fully tested and certified by Dell and other leading operating system and application providers.
- Recovery Systems
Recovery becomes easy and seamless with our fully managed backup services. We monitor your server to ensure your data is properly backed up and recoverable so when the time comes, you can easily repair or recover your data.
- Control Panel
We provide one of the most comprehensive customer control panels available. Providing maximum control and ease of use, our Control Panel serves as the central management point for your ASPHostPortal account. You’ll use a flexible, powerful hosting control panel that will give you direct control over your web hosting account. Our control panel and systems configuration is fully automated and this means your settings are configured automatically and instantly.
- Excellent Expertise in Technology
The reason we can provide you with a great amount of power, flexibility, and simplicity at such a discounted price is due to incredible efficiencies within our business. We have not just been providing hosting for many clients for years, we have also been researching, developing, and innovating every aspect of our operations, systems, procedures, strategy, management, and teams. Our operations are based on a continual improvement program where we review thousands of systems, operational and management metrics in real-time, to fine-tune every aspect of our operation and activities. We continually train and retrain all people in our teams. We provide all people in our teams with the time, space, and inspiration to research, understand, and explore the Internet in search of greater knowledge. We do this while providing you with the best hosting services for the lowest possible price.
- Data Center
ASPHostPortal modular Tier-3 data center was specifically designed to be a world-class web hosting facility totally dedicated to uncompromised performance and security
- Monitoring Services
From the moment your server is connected to our network it is monitored for connectivity, disk, memory and CPU utilization – as well as hardware failures. Our engineers are alerted to potential issues before they become critical.
- Network
ASPHostPortal has architected its network like no other hosting company. Every facet of our network infrastructure scales to gigabit speeds with no single point of failure.
- Security
Network security and the security of your server are ASPHostPortal’s top priorities. Our security team is constantly monitoring the entire network for unusual or suspicious behavior so that when it is detected we can address the issue before our network or your server is affected.
- Support Services
Engineers staff our data center 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to manage the network infrastructure and oversee top-of-the-line servers that host our clients’ critical sites and services.

What is so great about RIA Services?

RIA Services mainly targets Business Application Development, and comes across good for this purpose from a few different angles.

1. RIA Services simplifies the traditional n-tier application pattern by bringing together the ASP.NET and Silverlight platforms. If you have ever gone through the motions of creating a WCF Service, and then adding a service reference to your Silverlight project you will quickly find that the service calls are all asynchronous, and require you to specify an OnRequestCompleated method for calls that you make to that web service. While there are asynchronous programming patterns out there most business application developers prefer the tried and true N-Tier approach. Asynchronous Method calls make N-Tier Architecture difficult

2. As stated above Ria simplifies tiered architecture this means it is a great choice for creating applications using some of the more popular architectural patterns like MVVM, and MVC.

3. Because RIA Services is from Microsoft, you get tight Visual Studio Integration, and lots of Blogs, and Documentation covering it's use. While some of the open source projects out there are pretty good, most lake adequate documentation and have a steep learning curve.

4. Ria Services is flat out great for Rapid Application Development. There is Code Generation generation built into Visual Studio to generate Domain Services directly from ADO.NET Entities Models that your Silverlight applications can consume.

Where Can I Get WCF RIA Services

You can Get Wcf Ria Services From the Microsoft Web Platform Installer, located here.

1. Highlight the Web Platform Tab
2. Scroll Down to Tools
3. Click the customize Tab
4. and check off what you need



If you don't have Visual Studio go ahead and check off to get the Express Version. You obviously want to get the RIA Services Toolkit, and while you're here get the the Silverlight 4 Toolkit, and Tools for Visual Studio as well. After the install completes you will have everything you need to work with Silverlight 4 and RIA Services from within Visual Studio.

Options for Integrating WCF RIA Services into your Projects

There are a few different way out of the box to integrate WCF RIA Services into your projects using Visual Studio

1. Using the Silverlight Business Application Project Template
2. ling RIA Services in the Silverlight Application Project Template
3. Using the RIA Services Class Library Project Template

In this post we take a look at each of these approaches, talk about when and how they are useful, and show how implement each one. For this purpose I have created a Visual Studio Solution containing each implementation listed above



In the real world you are not likely to have a solution which implements any combination of these approaches, but for this example it is nice to have them all in one place to look at.

The Silverlight Business Application Project

If you are creating an application that requires Login, Registration, and User Authentication the Silverlight Business Application Project Template is a good way to go. It includes all this right out of the box. It also has website like layout and styles you can customize and some useful helper methods. You can actually learn a few things just by creating this project and then giving it a gook look over.

To create a Silverlight Business Application:

Right Click on your Solution and select "Add New Project", Select "Silverlight" from the Tree Menu on the Left, and then Select "Silverlight Business Application".

This will create a new two Projects in you solution automatically



You now have a Web Application Project to host your Silverlight Application and Domain Services, and The RIA Link between the two projects is all set up so you can begin adding and consuming WCF RIA Services. If you run the project now you will see all the out of the box features I mentioned are there.

Configurable Layout and Styles



Login



Registration



Not bad for right out of the box. I do have a couple of small issues with this though. Sure, it's great Microsoft has given us all this stuff without having to write a single line of code, but, I would have a couple things different if it were up to me.

1. I wish the project template had a few config options upon creation. For example, for larger projects I may want all my services to be in a WCF RIA Services Class Library (RIA Class Library covered in detail below) in  instead of in the Web Application Project. Now I would have to move them.

2. I'm not really sure what kind of Architectural Pattern they are trying to implement here. As you can see from the image of the Solution Explorer above there is a folder named "Models" in both the Web Application Project, and in the silverlight project. Then there is a Views folder in the Silverlight project that has views in it, but then no ViewModels or Controllers. Okay, so my point is what are they going for here? It makes me want to start moving the code around. If I'm not alone on this please leave me a comment.

Anyway, small issues compared to the big picture.

WCF RIA Services Enabled Silverlight Application

If you don't need all the stuff that's included in the Silverlight Business Application above, or plan to just write them yourself, you can also enable RIA Services in a regular silverlight application.

To create a WCF RIA Services Enabled Silverlight Application:

Right Click on your Solution and select "Add New Project", Select "Silverlight" from the Tree Menu on the Left, and then Select "Silverlight Application".



When you click OK to add the new Silverlight Application a Dialog will appearer allowing you create a New Web Application to host your Silverlight Application in, or to host your Silverlight Application in an existing Web Project. Either way all you need to do is check the box to "Enable WCF RIA Services".



Then when your Project is created, it will already be set up to use RIA Services. You can now start adding domain services to your web project and the RIA link is in place and ready to go.

WCF RIA Services Class Library

The last option is the WCF RIA Services Class Library. In my experience the more separation you have in your solution the better. This project template allows you to house your Domain Services in separate assemblies.

To create a Solution that uses a WCF RIA Services Class Library:

Right Click on your Solution and select "Add New Project", Select "Silverlight" from the Tree Menu on the Left, and then Select "Silverlight Application".



When the project Dialog box appears allowing you to host your silverlight application in an existing or new Web Application, leave the "Enable WCF RIA Services" checkbox UN-CHECKED. The RIA Link will exist in the RIA Services Class Library.



Now right Click on your Solution and select "Add New Project", Select "Silverlight" from the Tree Menu on the Left, and then Select "WCF RIA Services Class Library".



This will actually create two projects. The RIA Services Class Library Consists of a Windows Class Library and a Silverlight Class Library and the two projects created contain the RIA Link. The project ending in .Web is the Windows Class Library and will run on the server while the other is the Silverlight Class Library will run on the client. Your solution should now look something like this.



All you need to do now is:

1. Add a reference to the Silverlight Class Library in your Silverlight Application
2. Add a reference to the Windows Class Library in your Web Application

And you are now set up and ready to start adding Domain Services to your server project for consumption in your Web Project. When using this set up you should add your domain services to you Windows Class Library section of your RIA Services Class Library.

Creating and Consuming Domain Services

Now that we know how to set up our RIA Services Project, Lets take a look at adding a Domain Service and consuming it in out Silverlight client to test that we have everything wired up correctly. In all of the scenarios listed above you will always add your Domain Service on the server side and consume that service on the Silverlight Client.

To show you how quick and easy it is to get a Domain Service up and running we are going to create a Domain Service form and ADO.NET Entities Data Model.

Start by Creating a Database. Mine consist of only one table with a very simple schema for this example.



Now right Click on your Web Project and select "Add New Item", Select "Data" from the Tree Menu on the Left, and then Select "ADO.NET Entity Data Model".



Highlight "Generate From Database" and click "Next".



Select your Target Database and click "Next".



Select the tables you want to generate the Model from and click "Finish".

Now that your Entities Data Model has been created do a Rebuild on the project before you do any thing else. This is important because if you forget to rebuild what will happen is when you go to create the Domain Service it will not be able to find your Entities. So go ahead and rebuild now and then we can create out first Domain Service.

Now right Click on your Web Project and select "Add New Item", Select "Web" from the Tree Menu on the Left, and then Select "Domain Service Class".



Click "Add" and you will get a Dialog Box Allowing you to generate your Domain Service from your entities. Select Enable Editing if you want it to Generate Update, Insert and Delete methods as well.



Now Click "OK" and it will generate your Domain Service class. It will look something like this.

[EnableClientAccess()]   
    public class ContactDomainService : LinqToEntitiesDomainService   
    {     

        // TODO:   
        // Consider constraining the results of your query method.  If you need additional input you can   
        // add parameters to this method or create additional query methods with different names.   
        // To support paging you will need to add ordering to the 'Contacts' query.   
        public IQueryable GetContacts()   
        {   
            return this.ObjectContext.Contacts;   
        }     

        public void InsertContact(Contact contact)   
        {   
            if ((contact.EntityState != EntityState.Detached))   
            {   
                this.ObjectContext.ObjectStateManager.ChangeObjectState(contact, EntityState.Added);   
            }   
            else  
            {   
                this.ObjectContext.Contacts.AddObject(contact);   
            }   
        }     

        public void UpdateContact(Contact currentContact)   
        {   
            this.ObjectContext.Contacts.AttachAsModified(currentContact, this.ChangeSet.GetOriginal(currentContact));   
        }     

        public void DeleteContact(Contact contact)   
        {   
            if ((contact.EntityState == EntityState.Detached))   
            {   
                this.ObjectContext.Contacts.Attach(contact);   
            }   
            this.ObjectContext.Contacts.DeleteObject(contact);   
        }   
    }

Notice it created services methods to preform all the CRUD opperations we need against our Database.

Now in our Silverlight project we will create a Grid in our MainPage.xaml to display our data like so:

<
sdk:DataGrid x:Name="DataGrid" Margin="12" AutoGenerateColumns="True" />

Then in the code behind (MainPage.xaml.cs) we will add the code to call our domain service and populate our grid.

1. You will need to add a using directive to the Namespace in your server project where your domain services are located.
2. Create a private instance of your DomainContext
3. In the constructor call the load method of your context and pass in your GetContactsQuery from your Domain Service
4. Set the ItemSource Property of your DataGrid to the Collection of Contacts now available in your DataContext.

using SilverlightApplication3.Web;     

namespace SilverlightApplication3   
{   
    public partial class MainPage : UserControl   
    {   
        private ContactDomainContext _context = new ContactDomainContext();  

        public MainPage()   
        {   
            InitializeComponent();   
            _context.Load(_context.GetContactsQuery());   
            DataGrid.ItemsSource = _context.Contacts;   
        }   
    }   
} 

Now hit F5 and run the application. TADA! You should now see your data in the grid!



I hope this helped you in getting started with .NET RIA Services. I will be covering more in future posts.

Reasons why you must trust ASPHostPortal.com

Every provider will tell you how they treat their support, uptime, expertise, guarantees, etc., are. Take a close look. What they’re really offering you is nothing close to what ASPHostPortal does. You will be treated with respect and provided the courtesy and service you would expect from a world-class web hosting business.

You’ll have highly trained, skilled professional technical support people ready, willing, and wanting to help you 24 hours a day. Your web hosting account servers are monitored from three monitoring points, with two alert points, every minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The followings are the list of other added- benefits you can find when hosting with us:

- DELL Hardware
Dell hardware is engineered to keep critical enterprise applications running around the clock with clustered solutions fully tested and certified by Dell and other leading operating system and application providers.
- Recovery Systems
Recovery becomes easy and seamless with our fully managed backup services. We monitor your server to ensure your data is properly backed up and recoverable so when the time comes, you can easily repair or recover your data.
- Control Panel
We provide one of the most comprehensive customer control panels available. Providing maximum control and ease of use, our Control Panel serves as the central management point for your ASPHostPortal account. You’ll use a flexible, powerful hosting control panel that will give you direct control over your web hosting account. Our control panel and systems configuration is fully automated and this means your settings are configured automatically and instantly.
- Excellent Expertise in Technology
The reason we can provide you with a great amount of power, flexibility, and simplicity at such a discounted price is due to incredible efficiencies within our business. We have not just been providing hosting for many clients for years, we have also been researching, developing, and innovating every aspect of our operations, systems, procedures, strategy, management, and teams. Our operations are based on a continual improvement program where we review thousands of systems, operational and management metrics in real-time, to fine-tune every aspect of our operation and activities. We continually train and retrain all people in our teams. We provide all people in our teams with the time, space, and inspiration to research, understand, and explore the Internet in search of greater knowledge. We do this while providing you with the best hosting services for the lowest possible price.
- Data Center
ASPHostPortal modular Tier-3 data center was specifically designed to be a world-class web hosting facility totally dedicated to uncompromised performance and security
- Monitoring Services
From the moment your server is connected to our network it is monitored for connectivity, disk, memory and CPU utilization – as well as hardware failures. Our engineers are alerted to potential issues before they become critical.
- Network
ASPHostPortal has architected its network like no other hosting company. Every facet of our network infrastructure scales to gigabit speeds with no single point of failure.
- Security
Network security and the security of your server are ASPHostPortal’s top priorities. Our security team is constantly monitoring the entire network for unusual or suspicious behavior so that when it is detected we can address the issue before our network or your server is affected.
- Support Services
Engineers staff our data center 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to manage the network infrastructure and oversee top-of-the-line servers that host our clients’ critical sites and services.

Introduction to ASP.NET MVC

ASP.NET MVC (Model-View-Controller) provides a light-weight framework with a lot of flexibility over the base ASP.NET framework. Unfortunately, this means we lose most of the high-level control structure provided by ASP.NET. This isn't necessarily a bad thing when you consider where web appplications are today. The focus has shifted to provide better and more unique user-interfaces. Thus MVC is the perfect fit whereby we can generate very controlled markup and user navigation.

From this base we can carefully add components to the project as necessary to build web applications. Out of the box, MVC projects include several JavaScript libraries including jQuery-1.4.1.js, jQuery.validate.js, etc. One library which could bring a lot to your MVC project is jQuery UI. The jQuery UI library allows you to easily create high-level UI functions in JavaScript. Using jQuery + jQuery UI you are able to easily create some of those controls which are missing from MVC. Listed below are 5 ways in which you can use jQuery UI to improve your MVC projects.

1. Dialog/Popups

Creating popup windows within JavaScript is not an easy proposition when you need to factor in features such as modal/non-modal, moveable, etc. Within jQuery UI all popups are known collectively as a dialog. When using dialogs there are a couple common usages such as displaying a static popup message, displaying a popup add/edit screens. Often add/edit dialogs, such as those used on grids are quite complex as it requires a call to the server before displaying the dialog. With a the help of a Partial View and the jQuery UI dialog it is quite simple as shown below.

First we need a DIV element which we will use to house the content for the popup. For our purpose here we can can just create a DIV with the id of EditDialogDiv. Then we need to create a javascript method to retrieve the contents for the dialog, open the popup and to close the popup. These two javascript methods are listed below.

  <script type="text/javascript">
  function GetEditDialog()
  {
     var lnk = '<%= Url.Action("EditDialog") %>'; 

     $.ajax({
        url: lnk,
        success: function (data) {
          //Set the Dialog Contents
          $('#EditDialogDiv').html(data); 

          //Initialize and show the Dialog
          $('#EditDialogDiv').dialog();
          $('#EditDialogDiv').dialog({ title: 'Dialog Title', resizable: true, modal: false });
          $('#EditDialogDiv').dialog('open');
        }
     });
  } 

  function EditDialogComplete()
  {
     $('#EditDialogDiv').dialog('close');
  }
  </script>

The first method GetEditDialog uses a jQuery Ajax request to grab the contents of a PartialView returned from a Controller method. Once the Ajax call has the contents it replaces the EditDialogDiv with the data returned. Then the method initializes the jQuery Dialog and opens it. The second method EditDialogComplete will be called from within the dialog and is used to close it. Now that we have the JavaScript needed to open and close the Dialog, we need to look at how to trigger these. The open is simple enough, call GetEditDialog()  on an a button or link. To understand the close we need to look at the markup within the partial view used for the contents of the edit dialog. The partial view is shown below:

  <% using (Ajax.BeginForm("EditDialogSave", new AjaxOptions { UpdateTargetId = "EditDialogDiv", OnComplete = "EditDialogComplete" }))
  { %>
     Partial Edit Dialog
     <br />
     <input type="submit" value="Save" />
  <% } %>

This partial view is using the Ajax.BeginForm instead of the Html.BeginForm which allows us to asynchronously postback the contents of the form. Upon completion of the call, it will call the EditDialogComplete JavaScript method which will close the dialog. While a simple example it should illustrate how easy it is to make use of the jQuery Dialog an create Add/Edit dialogs which has been traditionally a very complex operation.

2. The Missing Date Picker

A date picker is a complex component to build yourself in JavaScript, luckily jQuery UI includes an effective Date Picker. To create a DatePicker we first need a text input box and a call upon document ready to initialize it as shown below:

  <input id="DatePicker" type="text" /> 

  <script type="text/javascript">
  $(document).ready(function ()
  {
     $('#DatePicker').datepicker();
  });
  </script>

As you can see this simple snippet is all you need to start a Date Picker. When the user clicks on the DatePicker input box the calendar will be displayed and allow the user to choose a date.

3. Simple Autocomplete

The autocomple provided with jQuery UI allows for very easy integration with MVC. We start by creating an input box and a call upon document ready to setup the Auto Complete as shown below:

  <input id="AutoComplete" type="text" /> 

  <script type="text/javascript" >
  $(document).ready(function()
  {
     $('#AutoComplete').autocomplete({
          minLength: 2,
          source: '<%= Url.Action("AutoComplete") %>'
     });
  }
  </script>

The AutoComplete method within the Controller will receive a QueryString item of the name of the term. The method will need to return a JsonResult with a list made records each with an id, label and value.

4. Prebuilt Themes and Style Builder

When using many 3rd party tools we are often forced to use the built-in styles or go down the path of modifying the included CSS. Modifying CSS files for 3rd party tools can be extremely time consuming, especially if the documentation is lacking. jQuery UI is completely backwards to many other 3rd party controls. The jQuery UI website provides a suite of themes as well as a tool called Theme Roller which allows users to create and edit themes. This allows you to start from scratch or start with one of the similar themes and create the one that matches your site. This can be a huge time saver and drastically reduce the amount of time it takes to utilize jQuery UI within your site.

5. Better User Interactions With the Tabs, Accordion, Sortable Lists, additional Effects, etc.

jQuery UI also includes several elements which primarily serve to improve user interaction. The Tabs and Accordion elements are both useful in user navigation in that they allow you to embed more content on the page without using up more screen real estate. One important note about Tabs is that the content for each Tab can be fetched asynchronously allowing for you to use a Controller Action and a Partial View as a Tab. Another useful control is the Sortable or Sortable List which enables you to take a group of elements and allow the user to reorder them as needed. jQuery UI also includes other controls which can be useful such as a Slider and simple Progress Bar. Also included are additional animation effects similar to those included with jQuery.

Conclusion

Traditional ASP.NET is a bit of a challenge to take full advantage of jQuery UI due to the high-level nature of the platform. Since MVC and its low-level nature you are able to take advantage of jQuery UI without a lot of effort. With the flexibility provided by MVC, you to pull in and utilize just about any JavaScript library, jQuery UI is particularly attractiven given that MVC works so well with jQuery. Similar to jQuery, jQuery UI is also a very small library dispite the number of features packed in. Not to mention the documentation and tools provided for jQuery UI.

Reasons why you must trust ASPHostPortal.com

Every provider will tell you how they treat their support, uptime, expertise, guarantees, etc., are. Take a close look. What they’re really offering you is nothing close to what ASPHostPortal does. You will be treated with respect and provided the courtesy and service you would expect from a world-class web hosting business.

You’ll have highly trained, skilled professional technical support people ready, willing, and wanting to help you 24 hours a day. Your web hosting account servers are monitored from three monitoring points, with two alert points, every minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The followings are the list of other added- benefits you can find when hosting with us:

- DELL Hardware
Dell hardware is engineered to keep critical enterprise applications running around the clock with clustered solutions fully tested and certified by Dell and other leading operating system and application providers.
- Recovery Systems
Recovery becomes easy and seamless with our fully managed backup services. We monitor your server to ensure your data is properly backed up and recoverable so when the time comes, you can easily repair or recover your data.
- Control Panel
We provide one of the most comprehensive customer control panels available. Providing maximum control and ease of use, our Control Panel serves as the central management point for your ASPHostPortal account. You’ll use a flexible, powerful hosting control panel that will give you direct control over your web hosting account. Our control panel and systems configuration is fully automated and this means your settings are configured automatically and instantly.
- Excellent Expertise in Technology
The reason we can provide you with a great amount of power, flexibility, and simplicity at such a discounted price is due to incredible efficiencies within our business. We have not just been providing hosting for many clients for years, we have also been researching, developing, and innovating every aspect of our operations, systems, procedures, strategy, management, and teams. Our operations are based on a continual improvement program where we review thousands of systems, operational and management metrics in real-time, to fine-tune every aspect of our operation and activities. We continually train and retrain all people in our teams. We provide all people in our teams with the time, space, and inspiration to research, understand, and explore the Internet in search of greater knowledge. We do this while providing you with the best hosting services for the lowest possible price.
- Data Center
ASPHostPortal modular Tier-3 data center was specifically designed to be a world-class web hosting facility totally dedicated to uncompromised performance and security
- Monitoring Services
From the moment your server is connected to our network it is monitored for connectivity, disk, memory and CPU utilization – as well as hardware failures. Our engineers are alerted to potential issues before they become critical.
- Network
ASPHostPortal has architected its network like no other hosting company. Every facet of our network infrastructure scales to gigabit speeds with no single point of failure.
- Security
Network security and the security of your server are ASPHostPortal’s top priorities. Our security team is constantly monitoring the entire network for unusual or suspicious behavior so that when it is detected we can address the issue before our network or your server is affected.
- Support Services
Engineers staff our data center 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to manage the network infrastructure and oversee top-of-the-line servers that host our clients’ critical sites and services.

Error Message

403 Forbidden error messages are often customized by each website, especially very large ones, so keep in mind that this error may present itself in more ways than the common ones listed below:

- 403: Forbidden
- HTTP Error 403 – Forbidden

The 403 Forbidden error displays inside the Internet browser window, just as web pages do.

Cause

The 403 Forbidden error is an HTTP status code that means that accessing the page or resource you were trying to reach is absolutely forbidden for some reason.

Resolution

1. Check for URL errors and make sure the actual web page is specified. The most common reason for a web site to return the 403 Forbidden error is if the URL is pointing to a directory instead of a web page.

2. If you're sure the page you're trying to reach is correct, the 403 Forbidden error message may be a mistake. At this point it's probably in your best interest to contact the webmaster or other website contact and inform them of the problem.

Reasons why you must trust ASPHostPortal.com

Every provider will tell you how they treat their support, uptime, expertise, guarantees, etc., are. Take a close look. What they’re really offering you is nothing close to what ASPHostPortal does. You will be treated with respect and provided the courtesy and service you would expect from a world-class web hosting business.

You’ll have highly trained, skilled professional technical support people ready, willing, and wanting to help you 24 hours a day. Your web hosting account servers are monitored from three monitoring points, with two alert points, every minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The followings are the list of other added- benefits you can find when hosting with us:

- DELL Hardware
Dell hardware is engineered to keep critical enterprise applications running around the clock with clustered solutions fully tested and certified by Dell and other leading operating system and application providers.
- Recovery Systems
Recovery becomes easy and seamless with our fully managed backup services. We monitor your server to ensure your data is properly backed up and recoverable so when the time comes, you can easily repair or recover your data.
- Control Panel
We provide one of the most comprehensive customer control panels available. Providing maximum control and ease of use, our Control Panel serves as the central management point for your ASPHostPortal account. You’ll use a flexible, powerful hosting control panel that will give you direct control over your web hosting account. Our control panel and systems configuration is fully automated and this means your settings are configured automatically and instantly.
- Excellent Expertise in Technology
The reason we can provide you with a great amount of power, flexibility, and simplicity at such a discounted price is due to incredible efficiencies within our business. We have not just been providing hosting for many clients for years, we have also been researching, developing, and innovating every aspect of our operations, systems, procedures, strategy, management, and teams. Our operations are based on a continual improvement program where we review thousands of systems, operational and management metrics in real-time, to fine-tune every aspect of our operation and activities. We continually train and retrain all people in our teams. We provide all people in our teams with the time, space, and inspiration to research, understand, and explore the Internet in search of greater knowledge. We do this while providing you with the best hosting services for the lowest possible price.
- Data Center
ASPHostPortal modular Tier-3 data center was specifically designed to be a world-class web hosting facility totally dedicated to uncompromised performance and security
- Monitoring Services
From the moment your server is connected to our network it is monitored for connectivity, disk, memory and CPU utilization – as well as hardware failures. Our engineers are alerted to potential issues before they become critical.
- Network
ASPHostPortal has architected its network like no other hosting company. Every facet of our network infrastructure scales to gigabit speeds with no single point of failure.
- Security
Network security and the security of your server are ASPHostPortal’s top priorities. Our security team is constantly monitoring the entire network for unusual or suspicious behavior so that when it is detected we can address the issue before our network or your server is affected.
- Support Services
Engineers staff our data center 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to manage the network infrastructure and oversee top-of-the-line servers that host our clients’ critical sites and services.

There is a good preliminary documentation on building Report Parts in MSDN:
Publishing Report Parts in Report Builder 3.0 – http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee633670%28v=SQL.105%29.aspx.

Creating the Report

Download document/screenshots: Exploring SSRS 2008 R2 Report Builder 3.0 – Report Parts

For this mini tutorial I am going to assume you have created your report in BIDS 2008

1. Deploy your report to the report server.

2. Go to that report. Hover over the report name, and click on the down arrow to reveal the contextual dropdown. Select Edit in Report Builder.



3. Once Report Builder opens, go to the Report Builder main button (I think it looks like a scroll), and select Publish Report Parts.



4. In the Publish Report Parts window, select Review and modify report parts before publishing (unless you really want to publish all report parts with default settings).



5. In the next window, select which Report Parts you want to publish. Put a description too, makes it easier for your Report Builder users to identify report parts later on.



6. When you’re done, click on Publish. Note there is no dialog box notifying you that publishing is done. All you get are the green checkmarks beside the report parts you selected, and the message at the bottom of the Publish Report Parts dialog box saying how many report parts were published, and how manyfailded.



7. If this is the first time you published a Report Part, a new Report Part folder will be created in your report server.



8. Inside the Report Part folder are your published report parts. Note that the icon of the report parts give it away – puzzle pieces! Also note that when you hover over a report part and click on the down arrow, you will reveal the contextual menu for a report part (move, delete, security, manage and download).



That’s it. Great job.

Report Part Gallery

Inside the Report Builder 3.0, you will also see the Report Part Gallery tab, which will list all available Report Parts you can add to your report.



Report Part Updates

It is also important to note that if any report parts get updated, the reports that use that report part will display a notice when opened in Report Builder. It will tell you that the published report part(s) have been updated on the server.



Once you choose to view changes, you can select which report parts you want to update.



And once it’s updated, no in-your-face notice again that the update was successful. It’s still just that subtle green checkmark beside the report part you chose to update.



Reasons why you must trust ASPHostPortal.com

Every provider will tell you how they treat their support, uptime, expertise, guarantees, etc., are. Take a close look. What they’re really offering you is nothing close to what ASPHostPortal does. You will be treated with respect and provided the courtesy and service you would expect from a world-class web hosting business.

You’ll have highly trained, skilled professional technical support people ready, willing, and wanting to help you 24 hours a day. Your web hosting account servers are monitored from three monitoring points, with two alert points, every minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The followings are the list of other added- benefits you can find when hosting with us:

- DELL Hardware
Dell hardware is engineered to keep critical enterprise applications running around the clock with clustered solutions fully tested and certified by Dell and other leading operating system and application providers.
- Recovery Systems
Recovery becomes easy and seamless with our fully managed backup services. We monitor your server to ensure your data is properly backed up and recoverable so when the time comes, you can easily repair or recover your data.
- Control Panel
We provide one of the most comprehensive customer control panels available. Providing maximum control and ease of use, our Control Panel serves as the central management point for your ASPHostPortal account. You’ll use a flexible, powerful hosting control panel that will give you direct control over your web hosting account. Our control panel and systems configuration is fully automated and this means your settings are configured automatically and instantly.
- Excellent Expertise in Technology
The reason we can provide you with a great amount of power, flexibility, and simplicity at such a discounted price is due to incredible efficiencies within our business. We have not just been providing hosting for many clients for years, we have also been researching, developing, and innovating every aspect of our operations, systems, procedures, strategy, management, and teams. Our operations are based on a continual improvement program where we review thousands of systems, operational and management metrics in real-time, to fine-tune every aspect of our operation and activities. We continually train and retrain all people in our teams. We provide all people in our teams with the time, space, and inspiration to research, understand, and explore the Internet in search of greater knowledge. We do this while providing you with the best hosting services for the lowest possible price.
- Data Center
ASPHostPortal modular Tier-3 data center was specifically designed to be a world-class web hosting facility totally dedicated to uncompromised performance and security
- Monitoring Services
From the moment your server is connected to our network it is monitored for connectivity, disk, memory and CPU utilization – as well as hardware failures. Our engineers are alerted to potential issues before they become critical.
- Network
ASPHostPortal has architected its network like no other hosting company. Every facet of our network infrastructure scales to gigabit speeds with no single point of failure.
- Security
Network security and the security of your server are ASPHostPortal’s top priorities. Our security team is constantly monitoring the entire network for unusual or suspicious behavior so that when it is detected we can address the issue before our network or your server is affected.
- Support Services
Engineers staff our data center 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to manage the network infrastructure and oversee top-of-the-line servers that host our clients’ critical sites and services.

MVC 3 now has a GlobalFilterCollection that is automatically populated with a HandleErrorAttribute. This default FilterAttribute brings with it a new way of handling errors in your web applications. In short, you can now handle errors inside of the MVC pipeline.

What does that mean?

This gives you direct programmatic control over handling your 500 errors in the same way that ASP.NET and CustomErrors give you configurable control of handling your HTTP error codes.

How does that work out?
Think of it as a routing table specifically for your Exceptions, it's pretty sweet!

Global Filters

The new Global.asax file now has a RegisterGlobalFilters method that is used to add filters to the new GlobalFilterCollection, statically located at System.Web.Mvc.GlobalFilter.Filters. By default this method adds one filter, the HandleErrorAttribute.

public class MvcApplication : System.Web.HttpApplication
{
    public static void RegisterGlobalFilters(GlobalFilterCollection filters)
    {
        filters.Add(new HandleErrorAttribute());
    }

HandleErrorAttributes

The HandleErrorAttribute is pretty simple in concept: MVC has already adjusted us to using Filter attributes for our AcceptVerbs and RequiresAuthorization, now we are going to use them for (as the name implies) error handling, and we are going to do so on a (also as the name implies) global scale.

The HandleErrorAttribute has properties for ExceptionType, View, and Master. The ExceptionType allows you to specify what exception that attribute should handle. The View allows you to specify which error view (page) you want it to redirect to. Last but not least, the Master allows you to control which master page (or as Razor refers to them, Layout) you want to render with, even if that means overriding the default layout specified in the view itself.

public class MvcApplication : System.Web.HttpApplication
{
    public static void RegisterGlobalFilters(GlobalFilterCollection filters)
    {
        filters.Add(new HandleErrorAttribute
        {
            ExceptionType = typeof(DbException),
            // DbError.cshtml is a view in the Shared folder.
            View = "DbError",
            Order = 2
        });
        filters.Add(new HandleErrorAttribute());
    }Error Views

All of your views still work like they did in the previous version of MVC (except of course that they can now use the Razor engine). However, a view that is used to render an error can not have a specified model! This is because they already have a model, and that is System.Web.Mvc.HandleErrorInfo

@model System.Web.Mvc.HandleErrorInfo          
@{
    ViewBag.Title = "DbError";
}

<h2>A Database Error Has Occurred</h2>

@if (Model != null)
{
    <p>@Model.Exception.GetType().Name<br />
    thrown in @Model.ControllerName @Model.ActionName</p>
}Errors Outside of the MVC Pipeline

The HandleErrorAttribute will only handle errors that happen inside of the MVC pipeline, better known as 500 errors. Errors outside of the MVC pipeline are still handled the way they have always been with ASP.NET. You turn on custom errors, specify error codes and paths to error pages, etc.

It is important to remember that these will happen for anything and everything outside of what the HandleErrorAttribute handles. Also, these will happen whenever an error is not handled with the HandleErrorAttribute from inside of the pipeline.

<system.web>
 <customErrors mode="On" defaultRedirect="~/error">
    <error statusCode="404" redirect="~/error/notfound"></error>
 </customErrors>Sample Controllers
public class ExampleController : Controller
{
    public ActionResult Exception()
    {
        throw new ArgumentNullException();
    }
    public ActionResult Db()
    {
        // Inherits from DbException
        throw new MyDbException();
    }
}

public class ErrorController : Controller
{
    public ActionResult Index()
    {
        return View();
    }
    public ActionResult NotFound()
    {
        return View();
    }
}

Putting It All Together

If we have all the code above included in our MVC 3 project, here is how the following scenario's will play out:

1. A controller action throws an Exception.
You will remain on the current page and the global HandleErrorAttributes will render the Error view.

2. A controller action throws any type of DbException. You will remain on the current page and the global HandleErrorAttributes will render the DbError view.

3. Go to a non-existent page.
You will be redirect to the Error controller's NotFound action by the CustomErrors configuration for HTTP StatusCode 404.

But don't take my word for it, download the sample project and try it yourself.

Three Important Lessons Learned

For the most part this is all pretty straight forward, but there are a few gotcha's that you should remember to watch out for:

1) Error views have models, but they must be of type HandleErrorInfo.
It is confusing at first to think that you can't control the M in an MVC page, but it's for a good reason. Errors can come from any action in any controller, and no redirect is taking place, so the view engine is just going to render an error view with the only data it has: The HandleError Info model. Do not try to set the model on your error page or pass in a different object through a controller action, it will just blow up and cause a second exception after your first exception!

2) When the HandleErrorAttribute renders a page, it does not pass through a controller or an action.
The standard web.config CustomErrors literally redirect a failed request to a new page. The HandleErrorAttribute is just rendering a view, so it is not going to pass through a controller action. But that's ok! Remember, a controller's job is to get the model for a view, but an error already has a model ready to give to the view, thus there is no need to pass through a controller.

That being said, the normal ASP.NET custom errors still need to route through controllers. So if you want to share an error page between the HandleErrorAttribute and your web.config redirects, you will need to create a controller action and route for it. But then when you render that error view from your action, you can only use the HandlerErrorInfo model or ViewData dictionary to populate your page.

3) The HandleErrorAttribute obeys if CustomErrors are on or off, but does not use their redirects.
If you turn CustomErrors off in your web.config, the HandleErrorAttributes will stop handling errors. However, that is the only configuration these two mechanisms share. The HandleErrorAttribute will not use your defaultRedirect property, or any other errors registered with customer errors.

In Summary

The HandleErrorAttribute is for displaying 500 errors that were caused by exceptions inside of the MVC pipeline. The custom errors are for redirecting from error pages caused by other HTTP codes.

Reasons why you must trust ASPHostPortal.com

Every provider will tell you how they treat their support, uptime, expertise, guarantees, etc., are. Take a close look. What they’re really offering you is nothing close to what ASPHostPortal does. You will be treated with respect and provided the courtesy and service you would expect from a world-class web hosting business.

You’ll have highly trained, skilled professional technical support people ready, willing, and wanting to help you 24 hours a day. Your web hosting account servers are monitored from three monitoring points, with two alert points, every minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The followings are the list of other added- benefits you can find when hosting with us:

- DELL Hardware
Dell hardware is engineered to keep critical enterprise applications running around the clock with clustered solutions fully tested and certified by Dell and other leading operating system and application providers.
- Recovery Systems
Recovery becomes easy and seamless with our fully managed backup services. We monitor your server to ensure your data is properly backed up and recoverable so when the time comes, you can easily repair or recover your data.
- Control Panel
We provide one of the most comprehensive customer control panels available. Providing maximum control and ease of use, our Control Panel serves as the central management point for your ASPHostPortal account. You’ll use a flexible, powerful hosting control panel that will give you direct control over your web hosting account. Our control panel and systems configuration is fully automated and this means your settings are configured automatically and instantly.
- Excellent Expertise in Technology
The reason we can provide you with a great amount of power, flexibility, and simplicity at such a discounted price is due to incredible efficiencies within our business. We have not just been providing hosting for many clients for years, we have also been researching, developing, and innovating every aspect of our operations, systems, procedures, strategy, management, and teams. Our operations are based on a continual improvement program where we review thousands of systems, operational and management metrics in real-time, to fine-tune every aspect of our operation and activities. We continually train and retrain all people in our teams. We provide all people in our teams with the time, space, and inspiration to research, understand, and explore the Internet in search of greater knowledge. We do this while providing you with the best hosting services for the lowest possible price.
- Data Center
ASPHostPortal modular Tier-3 data center was specifically designed to be a world-class web hosting facility totally dedicated to uncompromised performance and security
- Monitoring Services
From the moment your server is connected to our network it is monitored for connectivity, disk, memory and CPU utilization – as well as hardware failures. Our engineers are alerted to potential issues before they become critical.
- Network
ASPHostPortal has architected its network like no other hosting company. Every facet of our network infrastructure scales to gigabit speeds with no single point of failure.
- Security
Network security and the security of your server are ASPHostPortal’s top priorities. Our security team is constantly monitoring the entire network for unusual or suspicious behavior so that when it is detected we can address the issue before our network or your server is affected.
- Support Services
Engineers staff our data center 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to manage the network infrastructure and oversee top-of-the-line servers that host our clients’ critical sites and services.

A new MVC 2 project worked on my local machine but when it was deployed to the test server it gave the error 'Could not load file or assembly 'System.Web.Mvc, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' or one of its dependencies.' I have the full Visual Studio 2010 installed on my local machine but just the .NET 4 framework installed on the test servers. It seems the MVC assemblies do not come with .NET 4 framework itself so how to make MVC 2 work on the test servers?

When I installed Visual Studio 2010 on my local machine it came with all the fruit included (.NET4 framework, MVC2 etc) so the System.Web.Mvc.dll can be found in my machine's GAC (C:\Windows\assembly). However, since there is no need to bloat the web servers only the plain old .NET4 framework has been installed on the test servers. This does NOT include the MVC assembly and that is why it cannot be found by the web application.

You need this assembly to be on your web servers that you are deploying to but you want to avoid having to copy them into the GAC manually and doing all that gacutil mess or maybe you don't have access to your servers if they are hosted by provider.

Solution

You need to make the System.Web.Mvc assembly bin deployable... okay that doesn't sound easy but here is how to do it for the necessary MVC references:

Simply right click the reference and select 'Properties'

Then change 'Copy Local' to 'True':



Note

If your server has .NET 3.5 sp1 installed the new(ish) assemblies System.Web.Routing and System.Web.Abstractions will already be in the GAC. If you had previously deployed an MVC 1 application to a .NET 3.5 server you may remember having to deploy the other two assemblies too. Since MVC2 requires at least .NET 3.5 sp1 you will not need to worry about these assemblies, just System.Web.Mvc

Reasons why you must trust ASPHostPortal.com

Every provider will tell you how they treat their support, uptime, expertise, guarantees, etc., are. Take a close look. What they’re really offering you is nothing close to what ASPHostPortal does. You will be treated with respect and provided the courtesy and service you would expect from a world-class web hosting business.

You’ll have highly trained, skilled professional technical support people ready, willing, and wanting to help you 24 hours a day. Your web hosting account servers are monitored from three monitoring points, with two alert points, every minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The followings are the list of other added- benefits you can find when hosting with us:

- DELL Hardware
Dell hardware is engineered to keep critical enterprise applications running around the clock with clustered solutions fully tested and certified by Dell and other leading operating system and application providers.
- Recovery Systems
Recovery becomes easy and seamless with our fully managed backup services. We monitor your server to ensure your data is properly backed up and recoverable so when the time comes, you can easily repair or recover your data.
- Control Panel
We provide one of the most comprehensive customer control panels available. Providing maximum control and ease of use, our Control Panel serves as the central management point for your ASPHostPortal account. You’ll use a flexible, powerful hosting control panel that will give you direct control over your web hosting account. Our control panel and systems configuration is fully automated and this means your settings are configured automatically and instantly.
- Excellent Expertise in Technology
The reason we can provide you with a great amount of power, flexibility, and simplicity at such a discounted price is due to incredible efficiencies within our business. We have not just been providing hosting for many clients for years, we have also been researching, developing, and innovating every aspect of our operations, systems, procedures, strategy, management, and teams. Our operations are based on a continual improvement program where we review thousands of systems, operational and management metrics in real-time, to fine-tune every aspect of our operation and activities. We continually train and retrain all people in our teams. We provide all people in our teams with the time, space, and inspiration to research, understand, and explore the Internet in search of greater knowledge. We do this while providing you with the best hosting services for the lowest possible price.
- Data Center
ASPHostPortal modular Tier-3 data center was specifically designed to be a world-class web hosting facility totally dedicated to uncompromised performance and security
- Monitoring Services
From the moment your server is connected to our network it is monitored for connectivity, disk, memory and CPU utilization – as well as hardware failures. Our engineers are alerted to potential issues before they become critical.
- Network
ASPHostPortal has architected its network like no other hosting company. Every facet of our network infrastructure scales to gigabit speeds with no single point of failure.
- Security
Network security and the security of your server are ASPHostPortal’s top priorities. Our security team is constantly monitoring the entire network for unusual or suspicious behavior so that when it is detected we can address the issue before our network or your server is affected.
- Support Services
Engineers staff our data center 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to manage the network infrastructure and oversee top-of-the-line servers that host our clients’ critical sites and services.

This is the error message that you almost find when you use Filezilla:

Response:           200 PORT command successful. Consider using PASV.
Command:          LIST
Error:     Connection timed out
Error:     Failed to retrieve directory listing

I ran the Filezilla configuration wizard to diagnose the problem. The configuration wizard utility ran for a while reporting success until the very end. After timing out, I received the following messages:

Response: 200 PORT command successful
LIST
Response: 150 opening data connection
Response: 503 Failure of data connection.
Server sent invalid reply.
Connection closed

Searching the Internet led to not so helpful posts such as "Please read the Network Configuration guide.". After analyzing the situation, it turns out the solution isn't so obvious. My Client had the default setting of Connection -> FTP -> Active Mode: Get External IP Address From This URL. Which pointed to http://ip.filezilla-project.org/ip.php . This is the source of the problem. If you go to that URL, you will probably get a result of 127.0.0.1. If the Filezilla client needs the external address, and is given 127.0.0.1, then there will be problems indeed!

If you have a similar problem with Filezilla, and the problem persists even when the Windows Firewall is disabled, here is what you need to do

- Open Filezilla, go to Edit -> Settings
- Click on Connection -> FTP: Choose Active
- Click on Connection -> FTP -> Active Mode: Select "Ask your operating system for the external IP address”
- Click on Connection -> FTP -> Passive Mode: Choose Fall Back to Active Mode
- Press OK.

Try connecting to your FTP site once again. It will work!!



Reasons why you must trust ASPHostPortal.com

Every provider will tell you how they treat their support, uptime, expertise, guarantees, etc., are. Take a close look. What they’re really offering you is nothing close to what ASPHostPortal does. You will be treated with respect and provided the courtesy and service you would expect from a world-class web hosting business.

You’ll have highly trained, skilled professional technical support people ready, willing, and wanting to help you 24 hours a day. Your web hosting account servers are monitored from three monitoring points, with two alert points, every minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The followings are the list of other added- benefits you can find when hosting with us:

- DELL Hardware
Dell hardware is engineered to keep critical enterprise applications running around the clock with clustered solutions fully tested and certified by Dell and other leading operating system and application providers.
- Recovery Systems
Recovery becomes easy and seamless with our fully managed backup services. We monitor your server to ensure your data is properly backed up and recoverable so when the time comes, you can easily repair or recover your data.
- Control Panel
We provide one of the most comprehensive customer control panels available. Providing maximum control and ease of use, our Control Panel serves as the central management point for your ASPHostPortal account. You’ll use a flexible, powerful hosting control panel that will give you direct control over your web hosting account. Our control panel and systems configuration is fully automated and this means your settings are configured automatically and instantly.
- Excellent Expertise in Technology
The reason we can provide you with a great amount of power, flexibility, and simplicity at such a discounted price is due to incredible efficiencies within our business. We have not just been providing hosting for many clients for years, we have also been researching, developing, and innovating every aspect of our operations, systems, procedures, strategy, management, and teams. Our operations are based on a continual improvement program where we review thousands of systems, operational and management metrics in real-time, to fine-tune every aspect of our operation and activities. We continually train and retrain all people in our teams. We provide all people in our teams with the time, space, and inspiration to research, understand, and explore the Internet in search of greater knowledge. We do this while providing you with the best hosting services for the lowest possible price.
- Data Center
ASPHostPortal modular Tier-3 data center was specifically designed to be a world-class web hosting facility totally dedicated to uncompromised performance and security
- Monitoring Services
From the moment your server is connected to our network it is monitored for connectivity, disk, memory and CPU utilization – as well as hardware failures. Our engineers are alerted to potential issues before they become critical.
- Network
ASPHostPortal has architected its network like no other hosting company. Every facet of our network infrastructure scales to gigabit speeds with no single point of failure.
- Security
Network security and the security of your server are ASPHostPortal’s top priorities. Our security team is constantly monitoring the entire network for unusual or suspicious behavior so that when it is detected we can address the issue before our network or your server is affected.
- Support Services
Engineers staff our data center 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to manage the network infrastructure and oversee top-of-the-line servers that host our clients’ critical sites and services.

Here are the steps:

1. Build your Service Library in release mode.

2. Go to your Win2k8 server, and add the "Web Server" role - make sure ASP.NET is enabled.

3. Create a dir on your disk - I put mine in c:\code\HelloWorld <-- this will be the physical directory that will run my WCF service.

4. Fix the security on this dir by adding the following permissions
- Ensure that "Network Service" has Read & Execute + List folder contents + Read.
- Ensure that  IIS_IUSRS have Read & Execute + List folder contents + Read.

5. Now, go to IIS MGR, and add a new application pool called "Hello World". Ensure that this Application Pool is set to the settings as shown below



6. Next, create a website in IIS7 with the following settings



7. Are we done yet? Heck no! Apparently, WCF .. doesn't work with IIS 7 OOTB. So you need to run command prompt as administrator, and run the following command

"%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.0\Windows Communication Foundation\ServiceModelReg.exe" -r –y

8. Now, the DLL that you created in step #1, copy that to C:\Code\HelloWorld\Bin .. where C:\Code\HelloWorld is the physical path of my website

9. Next, create a file called HelloWorld.svc at C:\Code\HelloWorld with the following text in it

<% @ServiceHost Service="MyServices.HelloWorld" %>

10. Next, create a web.config with the following

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
  <system.serviceModel>
    <services>
      <service behaviorConfiguration="MyServices.HelloWorldBehavior" name="MyServices.HelloWorld">
        <endpoint address="" binding="wsHttpBinding" contract="MyServices.IHelloWorld" />
        <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange" />
        <host>
          <baseAddresses>
            <add baseAddress="http://localhost:8000/" />
          </baseAddresses>
        </host>
      </service>
    </services>
    <behaviors>
      <serviceBehaviors>
        <behavior name="MyServices.HelloWorldBehavior">
          <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" />
          <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="false" />
        </behavior>
      </serviceBehaviors>
    </behaviors>
  </system.serviceModel>
</configuration>

As you can see, I have set a base address of http://localhost:8000 <-- change that to what suits you. Also, I have created 2 endpoints, one uses wsHttpBinding, and the other uses mexHttpBinding

11. Now browse to this URL - http://localhost:8000/HelloWorld.svc, you should see the service hosted as shown below



12. Done. Great job!!

Reasons why you must trust ASPHostPortal.com

Every provider will tell you how they treat their support, uptime, expertise, guarantees, etc., are. Take a close look. What they’re really offering you is nothing close to what ASPHostPortal does. You will be treated with respect and provided the courtesy and service you would expect from a world-class web hosting business.

You’ll have highly trained, skilled professional technical support people ready, willing, and wanting to help you 24 hours a day. Your web hosting account servers are monitored from three monitoring points, with two alert points, every minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The followings are the list of other added- benefits you can find when hosting with us:

- DELL Hardware
Dell hardware is engineered to keep critical enterprise applications running around the clock with clustered solutions fully tested and certified by Dell and other leading operating system and application providers.
- Recovery Systems
Recovery becomes easy and seamless with our fully managed backup services. We monitor your server to ensure your data is properly backed up and recoverable so when the time comes, you can easily repair or recover your data.
- Control Panel
We provide one of the most comprehensive customer control panels available. Providing maximum control and ease of use, our Control Panel serves as the central management point for your ASPHostPortal account. You’ll use a flexible, powerful hosting control panel that will give you direct control over your web hosting account. Our control panel and systems configuration is fully automated and this means your settings are configured automatically and instantly.
- Excellent Expertise in Technology
The reason we can provide you with a great amount of power, flexibility, and simplicity at such a discounted price is due to incredible efficiencies within our business. We have not just been providing hosting for many clients for years, we have also been researching, developing, and innovating every aspect of our operations, systems, procedures, strategy, management, and teams. Our operations are based on a continual improvement program where we review thousands of systems, operational and management metrics in real-time, to fine-tune every aspect of our operation and activities. We continually train and retrain all people in our teams. We provide all people in our teams with the time, space, and inspiration to research, understand, and explore the Internet in search of greater knowledge. We do this while providing you with the best hosting services for the lowest possible price.
- Data Center
ASPHostPortal modular Tier-3 data center was specifically designed to be a world-class web hosting facility totally dedicated to uncompromised performance and security
- Monitoring Services
From the moment your server is connected to our network it is monitored for connectivity, disk, memory and CPU utilization – as well as hardware failures. Our engineers are alerted to potential issues before they become critical.
- Network
ASPHostPortal has architected its network like no other hosting company. Every facet of our network infrastructure scales to gigabit speeds with no single point of failure.
- Security
Network security and the security of your server are ASPHostPortal’s top priorities. Our security team is constantly monitoring the entire network for unusual or suspicious behavior so that when it is detected we can address the issue before our network or your server is affected.
- Support Services
Engineers staff our data center 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to manage the network infrastructure and oversee top-of-the-line servers that host our clients’ critical sites and services.

Creating the ViewModel:

The first step is to create a ViewModel which will represents the elements on the View. Our ViewModel revolves around the relationship between the category and products. The user will select a category from a dropdownlist which will populate all the corresponding products in another dropdownlist. The implementation bellows shows the ArticleEditViewModel:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Mvc;
namespace MvcApplication1.ViewModels
{
    public class ArticleEditViewModel
    {
        private List<SelectListItem> _categories = new List<SelectListItem>();
        private List<SelectListItem> _products = new List<SelectListItem>();
        [Required(ErrorMessage = "Please select a category")]
        public string SelectedCategory { get; set; }
        [Required(ErrorMessage = "Please select a product")]
        public string SelectedProduct { get; set; }
        public List<SelectListItem> Products
        {
            get { return _products;  }
        }
        public List<SelectListItem> Categories
        {
            get
            {
                _categories.Add(new SelectListItem(){ Text = "Ruby", Value = "1"});
                _categories.Add(new SelectListItem(){ Text = "JavaScript",Value="2"});
                return _categories;
            }
        }
    }
}

As, you can see that to keep the demo simple we have hard-coded the categories. In the next section we will demonstrate how to populate the categories dropdownlist using the ArticleEditViewModel.

Populating Categories DropDownList:

The Index action of the HomeController returns the new ArticleEditViewModel to the view. The view uses the Categories property of the ArticleEditViewModel to populate the dropdownlist. The Index action is shown below:

public ActionResult Index()
       {             

           return View(new ArticleEditViewModel());
       }

The DropDownList is populated using the code below:

<text>Select a category: </text> @Html.DropDownListFor(x => x.SelectedCategory, new SelectList(Model.Categories,"Value","Text"),"Please Select a category") 
@Html.ValidationMessageFor(x => x.SelectedCategory) 

The DropDownList is bind to the SelectedCategory property of the ViewModel. The SelectedCategory property is also decorated with the [Required] attribute which makes sure that the SelectedCategory is not left blank or on the default item. The screenshot below shows the validation being fired when the Categories DropDownlist is left at the default option and the view is submitted.



The validation is fired because the default option "Select a category" does not have any value associated with it. ASP.NET MVC framework tries to bind the empty string with the SelectedCategory property but fails since the SelectedCategory is marked with [Required] attribute.  
 
Fetching the Products and Populating the Dependent DropDownList:

Our next task is to get the selected category and then fetch the associated products using the categoryId. This will be performed by an ajax call using our beloved jQuery library. The implementation below shows the details.

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
    $(document).ready(function () {
        $("#SelectedCategory").change(function () {
            $.get('/Home/GetProductsForCategory/' + $(this).val(), function (response) {
                var products = $.evalJSON(response);
                var ddlSelectedProduct = $("#SelectedProduct");
                // clear all previous options 
                $("#SelectedProduct > option").remove(); 
                // populate the products 
                for (i = 0; i < products.length; i++) {
                    ddlSelectedProduct.append($("<option />").val(products[i].Value).text(products[i].Text));
                }
            });
        });
    });
</script>

The code above calls the GetProductsForCategory action with the categoryId as the input parameter. The GetProductsForCategory returns the JSON response which represents the products. Before populating the DropDownList with the products we clear all the items in the DropDownList. The GetProductsForCategory action is implemented below:

 public string GetProductsForCategory(string id)
        {
           // get the products from the repository 
            var products = new List<SelectListItem>();
            if (id == "1")
            {
                products.Add(new SelectListItem() {Text = "Introduction to Ruby", Value = "1"});
                products.Add(new SelectListItem() {Text = "Ruby Unit Testing", Value = "2"});
            }
            else if(id == "2")
            {
                products.Add(new SelectListItem(){ Text = "JavaScript testing",Value = "1"});
                products.Add(new SelectListItem() { Text = "JavaScript Ninja", Value = "2"});
            }
            return new JavaScriptSerializer().Serialize(products); 
        }

The above action simply returns the hard-coded values but in actual application you will retrieve the products from a data storage system.

The screenshot below shows the final result:



Reasons why you must trust ASPHostPortal.com

Every provider will tell you how they treat their support, uptime, expertise, guarantees, etc., are. Take a close look. What they’re really offering you is nothing close to what ASPHostPortal does. You will be treated with respect and provided the courtesy and service you would expect from a world-class web hosting business.

You’ll have highly trained, skilled professional technical support people ready, willing, and wanting to help you 24 hours a day. Your web hosting account servers are monitored from three monitoring points, with two alert points, every minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The followings are the list of other added- benefits you can find when hosting with us:

- DELL Hardware
Dell hardware is engineered to keep critical enterprise applications running around the clock with clustered solutions fully tested and certified by Dell and other leading operating system and application providers.
- Recovery Systems
Recovery becomes easy and seamless with our fully managed backup services. We monitor your server to ensure your data is properly backed up and recoverable so when the time comes, you can easily repair or recover your data.
- Control Panel
We provide one of the most comprehensive customer control panels available. Providing maximum control and ease of use, our Control Panel serves as the central management point for your ASPHostPortal account. You’ll use a flexible, powerful hosting control panel that will give you direct control over your web hosting account. Our control panel and systems configuration is fully automated and this means your settings are configured automatically and instantly.
- Excellent Expertise in Technology
The reason we can provide you with a great amount of power, flexibility, and simplicity at such a discounted price is due to incredible efficiencies within our business. We have not just been providing hosting for many clients for years, we have also been researching, developing, and innovating every aspect of our operations, systems, procedures, strategy, management, and teams. Our operations are based on a continual improvement program where we review thousands of systems, operational and management metrics in real-time, to fine-tune every aspect of our operation and activities. We continually train and retrain all people in our teams. We provide all people in our teams with the time, space, and inspiration to research, understand, and explore the Internet in search of greater knowledge. We do this while providing you with the best hosting services for the lowest possible price.
- Data Center
ASPHostPortal modular Tier-3 data center was specifically designed to be a world-class web hosting facility totally dedicated to uncompromised performance and security
- Monitoring Services
From the moment your server is connected to our network it is monitored for connectivity, disk, memory and CPU utilization – as well as hardware failures. Our engineers are alerted to potential issues before they become critical.
- Network
ASPHostPortal has architected its network like no other hosting company. Every facet of our network infrastructure scales to gigabit speeds with no single point of failure.
- Security
Network security and the security of your server are ASPHostPortal’s top priorities. Our security team is constantly monitoring the entire network for unusual or suspicious behavior so that when it is detected we can address the issue before our network or your server is affected.
- Support Services
Engineers staff our data center 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to manage the network infrastructure and oversee top-of-the-line servers that host our clients’ critical sites and services.