Ever since I got my zune, I've subscribed to all kinds of podcasts, one I particularlly enjoy is the 60 second science from Scientific American.  It's good stuff and REALLY lasts 60 seconds (with intro and junk, 1:15).  One that really caught my attention was one regarding Training Scientists to Run for Office.  It's an awesome idea and here's the transcript...

[The following is an exact transcript of this podcast.]

Would America be a better place if more people with science training held elective office?  One organization that thinks so is Scientists and Engineers for America, or SEA.  On May 10th, they’re holding a daylong workshop in Washington, D.C., to teach researchers the nuts and bolts of running for office.  More than 70 attendees have signed up.
 
SEA points out that understanding a lot of today’s most pressing challenges requires a science background. Energy, health care, climate, even general competitiveness are all deeply connected to scientific research and progress.  Even more important may be the general intellectual approach that scientists could bring. The group’s director, Lesley Stone, says, “Scientists and engineers have an appreciation for the kind of evidence-based decision making necessary for tackling our nation’s most pressing problems.”
 
For more information, go to www.Elections.SEforA.org.

--Steve Mirsky 

in the past couple posts, I've been covering custom modules in sitefinity with subsonic.  This morning, I hit a snag and I'm not sure how I'm going to go about fixing it.  Immediately after one of the overloads, the SalesStatManager constructor is called where it gathers the provider info and promptly bombs out as such...

Configuration Error

Description: An error occurred during the processing of a configuration file required to service this request. Please review the specific error details below and modify your configuration file appropriately.

Parser Error Message: Could not find a type for a name.  The type name was 'SalesStats.DefaultProvider'.

Source Error:
Line 215: <providers>
Line 216: <clear/>
Line 217: <add name="Sales" securityProviderName="" type="SalesStats.DefaultProvider" conectionStringName="DefaultConnection" visible="true"/>
Line 218: </providers>
Line 219:</salesStats>

I've submitted a question to one of their devs in hopes they can tell me its something stupid (it has to be) and I can move forward with my uber cool research.  I love these projects.

After a solid day of working with my happy little module "SalesStats" I've come to some conclusions.

1. Subsonic CAN be used.

2. After the pain of the learning curve, sitefinity's setup ain't all bad!

3. I have yet to get my module working ...but I think I know why

First off, I had to figure out how to make subsonic work within an application and not a website.  No big deal, easy to do.  I had to do some quick research on how to generate ONE table out of the database (subsonic supports this!) and ok, great, I've got my data object, good, great, dandy -- for ref reasons, it looks something like this for your subsonic service...

<SubSonicService defaultProvider="MyProvider">
<providers>
<clear/>
<add name="MyProvider" type="SubSonic.SqlDataProvider, SubSonic" connectionStringName="MyConnection"
fixPluralClassNames="false" spClassName="sp" generatedNamespace="MyClass.Data" includeTableList="MyNewUsefulTable"/>
</providers>
</SubSonicService>

"includeTableList" is a comma seperated list, so pound out what you need there.  For sitefinity, all you need is two ID fields, a guid as "ID" and an application nvarchar(50), ok fine, got that added in, ran the subsonic generator, done and done.

For a custom module, I've noted a couple objects you need to be aware of (at least as I understand it)

Configuration/ConfigurationHelper.cs - just a helper class, pulls the config section out for your newly added control.  Pay attention to this for the "GetSection(<place>)" and make sure it matches up.

Configuration/SectionHandler.cs - this pulls in your roles/users and other providers (if they exist).

Resources/Messages.resx - for localization.

Also in the resources folder I put in my subsonic DAL folder.

WebControls/Admin/CommandPanel.cs - inherits "CompositeControl" and "IControlPanelCommand".  This class is rather lightweight, contains a panelId, a simple override for CreateChildControls (take note of this, it'll come back a BUNCH of times) and a private value of panelId.  Easy stuff.  This is for your :gasp!: command panel, its the white er, gray space on the left in your admin module section.

WebConrols/Admin/ControlPanel.cs - inherits "CompositeControl".  Very involved and there's a few note worthy spots.  Enums -  Displaymode, 3 values, "new", "edit", "<object>List" or not new/edit.  Methods - override CreateChildControls(), probably the most important part in this control.  This is the controls you get on the screen.  That includes event handlers for buttons you add, dont forget those (you'll need 'em).  DefaultTemplate - InstantiateIn(Control container), main action happens here such as adding a datagrid, add/delete buttons, etc - you like this one.

In part 3 I'll finish this post with the rest of the explination (as I understand it) of the rest of the classes.

I don't know why but it seems the crazy complicated research projects get tossed at me - "Hey, figure out how ________ works".  Well today, it's Sitefinity and custom modules.  Consider this my notes as I work to make this stupid simple and easy.

Before I go down this path, I've collected a ton of links with various things on it that hopefully will make my life easier.  So far, not so much.  I've got a couple problems I'll have to overcome.

• The ORM (I'm guessing) has generated classes -somehow- and I have no idea where to make those change/update/whatever.  In the sample project Sample.Contracts.Data there's a "Department.dbclass" -- how that is made I have no idea.  There's no app.config, nothing that might tell me how, but I'm guessing I'll have to look into "Nolics.Engine.v4.2" (A referenced class) to find out how its generating this info.  Again, there's no explaination in the sample -- I expect a google search to fix this though.
   
• The example's out of date (1 year old, May 2007).  Right when I loaded it up, one of the implementations is obsolete - "IControlPanelCommand" needs to be replaced with "CommandPanelBase".  Doesn't seem to be an issue (builds no problem), I'm just wondering what other goodies might be inside...

Good news is it builds right after you re-reference the dlls, no problems there.

*Update* 11:30am - ugh, found the ORM and its freakin expensive, 950 euros.  I'd rather use subsonic but who knows what kinda problems that'll cause...I feel more research coming on.

*more Updates* 5pm - ok, subsonic is very doable, I might even have it all setup and ready.  I'm going to pound out a bit more code and I think its done.  We'll see.

Right now I'm working on deploying a project that I never would imagine would be this difficult.  The idea was to swoop in, drop the code, show off (ooooooo ahhhhhhhh) and done.  Does anything ever go according to plan?  Of course not.  Well, this one had a rude surprise waiting on us.

The client I speak of has a huge, global network.  Active directory (which is good!) and somewhere around 10+ forests and god knows how many domains.  It's massive, utterly massive.  I would GUESS they have at least 5000 users on this one domain and probably 50-100k user accounts globally, ignoring groups.  So why is this a problem? :Sarcastic laugh:  A couple few reasons.

1. Not all (logical) networks are setup "best practice".  Best practice is a cookie cutter template, it doesn't always fit and should be used as a guide so immediately you cannot assume "all domains trust each other" or "all accounts have rights".  Transitive trusts, one way trusts, mutual trusts all mean very different things -- they could screw you in different ways too.
2. Not all authentication can be trusted to work across domains.  This includes SQL accounts.
3. Not all network devices allow traffic.  This means your www traffic, ftp, etc might not work across the world.  Chances are, http traffic is your best bet, but its not a sure shot.
4. Network policies (more specifically, group policy) can be your best friend and your worst enemy.  You may not know which nor have a straight answer.

So translate : it means your codes magic won't always work thanks to network conditions -- it also means it might work on one domain (ohio domain lets say), it might on one network (wired works whereas a wireless may not), or it might work across one domain and not another (ohio might work with texas, but not necessarily in reverse or from colorado to texas), it may not run at full speed (ohio's domain has flood control turned on).

This makes my head hurt.  I have to think of ALL the network stuff I haven't used in a while plus the admin stuff and toss some happy code to get a wonderful steaming pile of confusion and pain.  After thinking about this for a minute (ok, half hour) I've decided that after this, I'm going to insist web services, anonymously.  Now before you have me skinned alive, hear me out and here's my thinking behind it.

Anonymous webservices can still be secured protected via https, certificates and credentials.  Sure, you can make a request without any network creds, but the service won't talk back because you don't meet the needs.  "But this'll increase the overhead on the server, it'll slow everything down!" and you would need to be fired -- speed should never trump a security decision.  "But what if an account isn't disabled and cleaned up?!" good point, not your problem, a well administered network will not have this concern. 

Now that those problems are addressed, why anonymous?  More likely than not, a network, and I'm speaking of the whole network, will allow web traffic from point A to point X without too much drama.  Furthermore, once the request gets to that service, I'd bet money that server is sitting in a screened subnet/protected area (I've yet to see one NOT setup like this in a really long time) -- perfect place to make all your sql calls (via ipsec I'm sure).

Will this make code more complicated?  Yes.  Will it tax the server/client more?  No doubt.  Will it drive up costs?  Yes -- BUT, and thats a full, wholesome but, it's meant for enterprise, treat it as such and bring the big guns.

Quick post -- I tried to get into the project to take out a reference to an object but oh well, my internet connection doesn't want to stay connected for long.  For now, its live, everyone can view it and watch the progress.  I need to get wcf finalized and the visuals are a bit woeful (see the post on the silverengine) but we'll see where this goes!

Take a look at www.codeplex.com/silversurvey

ClubStarterKit-Baseball.zip (7.50 mb)

I'm starting to like these types of research projects -- I learn a ton of stuff, sometimes painfully, but its never time wasted.  Now I'm playing with SiteFinity by telerik -- which is why I needed the virtual PC.  Install is easy, download it from their site BUT there's a slight process involved.

Upon completion of my VPC, you have to install IIS (duh)

So I do.  I install sql server express with advanced services (I want the management studio) -- done and done.  Set the network service account to have write permissions to C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\Temporary ASP.NET Files (you'll get an error later).  Next, install the exe and away you go.

From here, it's stupid simple.  Click create project and you'll end up with a nice CMS template site to start playing with.

I've loved virtual machines since hardware became cheap (stupid amounts of ram for 100$) -- I love 'em, been using them for a while now and today, I've been tasked with creating one.  Yay!  As with anything, there's a couple tricks I've found, kind of best practice thing, but not quite.  You can get a lot of this good stuff for free, so pick your favorite and go with it.  I use virtual PC since its easy to move them around from desktop to desktop.

First, let's be elementry, make sure you have enough RAM/CPU to run these things -- 1gb of ram is do-able, 2gb+ is best.  Most OS apps will run nicely with 512+ of ram (I run desktops with 512-1gb and servers with 1gb+).  Dual Core or at least hyperthreaded helps me keep sane, and the drive's got to have space as well -- sta-ndard installs take up 2-15gb.  On to the virtual PC!

1. Have a clear-ish idea of what machine you want to make.  If you want a 2k3 web, don't install 2k3 server or 2k3 enterprise.  Know what you need, stick with it.
2. Have your CDs in ISO style.  This'll make your life easy and the installs stupid fast.
3. Have your keys available -- I know this is a duh but I get pissed every time when you don't.  Having the -right- key is even better.
4. Don't over do it.  Base installs, no configuring unless absolutely necessary.  Leave a text doc on the desktop with this info.
5. If you're using virtual pc, install the VM Additions (action, install or update within a virtual machine) -- this will allow drag/drop file copy and it won't hijack your mouse.
6. For the love of god, ACTIVATE YOUR COPY if you're using something that needs it.
7. Use a standard admin password.  If it's "Password", so be it -- document it so someone else can find it easily.

When you're done, if you plan on dropping this out on the network for others to enjoy, remove write permissions on the files so that no one can accidently torch your nicely created core install.  Every once in a while its a good idea to update the core with the latest updates as necessary.