I ran into a scenario in which I needed to know when a PDF file finished "rendering" to the browser. Actually, it was being served as an attachment. Either way, I needed to know when the client got the response back from the server. This stumped me for a while until I found this extremely useful block post describing a very elegant solution using a cookie. The gist of it is to create a token on the client side and send it to the server with your file request. I did it via the query string. On the server side, when the pdf is done, add a cookie with the value of the token. Back on the client side, poll for a cookie with the token. That's it! Check out the full explanation here.

Say, for example, you want to execute a pre-build event if the current configuration is not Debug. Then you can do it like so:

if not '$(ConfigurationName)' == 'Debug' [YOUR PRE-BUILD STATEMENT]

I need to sort a list based on the selected value of a dropdown. I didn't find anything built in in CanJS. The can.Model.List does not have a sort method. Luckily, Curtis created a fiddle that does sorting. I adapted his code a bit and added the dropdown.

You can see the jsfiddle here

I started getting this error in a production system a day ago but nothing had changed in that application. The application is a REST web service and hasn't been touched in months. BUT, I did deploy a different application that uses the same database. The new application uses Entity Framework 5.0 and the existing application uses 4.3. Also, the new application uses Code First Migrations so a new table called __MigrationHistory was automatically added. It turns out that the existing application had automatic migration enabled. So, all I had to do was turn that off using this line of code and redeploy the dll.

Database.SetInitializer<MyModelContext>(null);

I don't think automatic migrations should be enabled by default but I suppose some people would want it. Sometimes I think MS tries to put too many "automagic" features in their frameworks...

Finally, Entity Framework 5.0 is out and it has a whole slew of new cool features. Well, they're cool in the sense that they're finally here but better late than never.

What’s New in EF5

EF 5 includes a number of new features and bug fixes to the EF4.3 release. Most of the new features are only available in applications targeting .NET 4.5, see the Compatibility section for more details.

• Enum support allows you to have enum properties in your entity classes.
• Spatial data types can now be exposed in your model using the DbGeography and DbGeometry types.
• Performance enhancements - these are exciting. Essentially queries will be compiled automatically now. Read more here
• Code First will now detect if you have LocalDb or SQL Express available for creating new databases. Visual Studio 2012 includes LocalDb, whereas Visual Studio 2010 includes SQL Express.
• Code First will add tables to existing database if the target database doesn’t contain any of the tables from the model.

The EF Designer in Visual Studio 2012 also has some new features:

• DbContext code generation for new models means that any new models created using the EF Designer will generate a derived DbContext and POCO classes by default. You can always revert to ObjectContext code generation if needed. Existing models will not automatically change to DbContext code generation.
• Multiple-diagrams per model allows you to have several diagrams that visualize subsections of your overall model. Shapes on the design surface can also have coloring applied.
• Table-Valued functions in an existing database can now be added to your model.
• Batch import of stored procedures allows multiple stored procedures to be added to the model during model creation.

Here's a link to the getting started page of Entity Framework if you're new to it or want to see how to use features like Migrations.

This is a short style rule to help you rotate text in your html page using CSS.

.rotated-text {
    width:100px; height:20px; line-height:20px;
    -moz-transform: rotate(310deg);  /* FF3.5/3.6 */
    -o-transform: rotate(310deg);  /* Opera 10.5 */
    -webkit-transform: rotate(310deg);  /* Saf3.1+ */
    transform: rotate(310deg);  /* Newer browsers (incl IE9) */
    /* IE8+ - must be on one line, unfortunately */    -ms-filter: "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Matrix(M11=0.6427876096865394, M12=0.766044443118978, M21=-0.766044443118978, M22=0.6427876096865394, SizingMethod='auto expand')";      /* IE6 and 7 */    filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Matrix(M11=0.6427876096865394, M12=0.766044443118978,            M21=-0.766044443118978, M22=0.6427876096865394, SizingMethod='auto expand');   /*    * To make the transform-origin be the middle of    * the object.      */
    zoom:1;
    background:#ccc;
    font-weight:normal;
    margin:0 0 0 0;
}

No matter how many times I used this, I always seem to forget. So, how DO you get just the date part from a DateTime object in SQL? Easy, like this:

DECLARE @someDate DATETIME
SET @someDate = '08/08/2012 10:15AM'
SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR, @someDate, 101)

Try it, you'll see

If you try to use one of the system functions in a TimeSpan, DateTime, or DateTimeOffset you will get a "not supported" exception. That's because the function has no translation for the db provider. Thankfully, Microsoft added a handy utility function called EntityFunctions that implements the provider functions like AddDays. You can find them here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.data.objects.entityfunctions.aspx

Since I always seem to forget this, this is an SQL snippet you can run to disconnect all users from a database. Just replace the database name.

USE master;
GO
ALTER DATABASE AdventureWorks2012
SET SINGLE_USER
WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE;
GO

ALTER DATABASE AdventureWorks2012
SET MULTI_USER;
GO

I've been scrounging the internet for a C++ implementation of en entity system or component framework and have come across many. Since there is no single source of frameworks, I thought I'd list what I've found here.

More to come as I collect them all. If you know of any you want me to add, please leave a comment.

Entity System/Component-based articles/posts:

http://t-machine.org/index.php/2010/05/09/entity-system-1-javaandroid/

http://t-machine.org/index.php/2007/09/03/entity-systems-are-the-future-of-mmog-development-part-1/

http://www.purplepwny.com/blog/?p=215

http://cowboyprogramming.com/2007/01/05/evolve-your-heirachy/

http://entity-systems.wikidot.com/es-approaches