case statement

Access has an IIF statement, SQL has the case. Want to display your bit data as "yes" or "no"? Enter the case statement! Example:


SELECT thisVariable, thatVariable,
CASE
WHEN likesApples = 1 THEN 'yes'
WHEN likesApples = 0 THEN 'no'
WHEN likesApples = 2 THEN 'not sure'
else 'not answered'
END AS appleVariable
FROM thatTable


organizing your stylesheet

UPDATE (7/12/09): Having read Andy Budd's CSS Mastery, I favor the structure he demonstrated. I highly recommend that book by the way. See sampleCSS.css in the resources folder of our repo.

----------------------------------

Organizing a css file is something we should probably think a little more about. I have tried various ways. If the stylesheet is very clearly organized you not only make it easier to read and modify, but also to debug later. Here is a sample I found online of a stylesheet for a free wordpress theme. I like the way the author organized their styles.

Do you have a good example? Blog about it! ;)

ARTICLES ON THE TOPIC ---> links at the bottom.


/*
Theme Name: statement
Theme URI: http://www.blogohblog.com
Description: The "Statement" WordPress theme has been built by Blog Oh! Blog and comes under a Creative Commons License.
Version: 1.0
Author: Jai Nischal Verma
Author URI: http://www.blogohblog.com
*/

/*+++++++ BODY +++++++*/
* { margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style:none; text-decoration:none; }
body { font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; color: #4d4b4c; background: #fff url(images/bkg.gif) repeat-x; }

/*+++++++ H1,H2,H3 HYPERLINKS +++++++*/
h3 { padding:10px 0 10px 0; font-size:14px;}
a:link { text-decoration: none; color: #006666; border: 0px;}
a:active {color : #006666; border: 0px;}
a:visited { color :#006666 ; border: 0px;}
a:hover { color:#333333; border: 0px;}
a:focus { outline: none;}
.clear { clear: both; }

/*+++++++ MAIN +++++++*/
#wrapper { width: 1000px; margin:auto; }
#frame,#content { width: 975px; margin:auto; }

/*+++++++ TOP +++++++*/
#header { height: 106px; width: 1000px; }
#logo { float: left; width: 210px; padding-top:30px; padding-left:10px; }
#logo h1{text-indent:-10000px;}
#logo h1 a{display:block; background: url(images/logo.gif) no-repeat; height:63px; outline:none;}
#topleft { float: right; height: 106px; width: 630px; }
#searchbox { float:right; width: 233px; height: 36px; background: url(images/s.gif) no-repeat; margin:20px 5px 0 0; }
#searchbox #s { float: left; margin: 4px 0 0 6px; border: 0; width: 200px; background: none; color:#999999; }
#searchbox #go { float: right; margin: 3px 4px 0 0; width:18px; height:18px; }

/*+++++++ NAVIGATION +++++++*/
#nav { float:right; padding-right:10px; margin-top:10px;}
#nav ul { }
#nav ul li {display:inline; height:35px; line-height:35px;}
#nav ul li.current_page_item a { background:url(images/navbg-acho.gif) repeat-x; color:#fff; }
#nav ul li.current_page_item a:hover{background:transparent;color:#fff;}
#nav ul li a { color:#fff;float:left; text-transform:uppercase; padding:0 0 0 20px;}
#nav ul li a:hover{background:none;color:#dadada; text-decoration:none;}

/*+++++++ INFOBAR +++++++*/
#infobar { height: 30px; width: 975px; line-height:30px; font-size:11px; margin-bottom:15px; }
#browse { float: left; width: 570px; background:url(images/folder.gif) no-repeat 0 6px; padding-left:22px; }
#rss { float: right; height: 30px; width: 383px; background:url(images/feed.gif) no-repeat right; }
#rss p { padding-right:22px; text-align:right;}

/*+++++++ ENTRY +++++++*/
#left { float: left; width: 570px; }
.entry { width: 540px;
padding:4%;
background:#fff;
border:1px solid #dadada;
margin-bottom:10px;
line-height:140%;
font-size:0.9em;
color:#4F5B5F;
}
.entry h2 { font: bold 1.3em "lucida grande",georgia,"Myriad Pro","Myriad Set","Myriad Apple",Myriad,Helvetica Nueue,Arial,Verdana,Sans-serif;letter-spacing: -1px;margin-bottom:0; margin-top:0;margin-left:-8px;}
.entry h2 a { color:#327489; }
.entry h2 a:hover {color:#B80EA2;}
.entry p { padding-bottom:10px;}
html>body .entry ul { padding: 0 0 0 30px; padding-left: 10px; }
html>body .entry li { margin: 7px 0 8px 10px; }
.entry ul li:before { content: "\00BB \0020"; }
.entry ol { padding-left: 2em; margin:0;}
.entry ol li { background:#fafafa; list-style-type: decimal; line-height: 120%; font-size:0.9em;}
.entry img {margin:0 10px 10px 10px;}
img.centered { display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; }
img.alignright, img.alignleft { padding: 11px; margin: 7px; display: inline;background:#EBE5EF; border:1px solid #C7BBD0; }
.alignright { float: right; }
.alignleft { float: left ;}
.allinfos { font-size:0.7em;font-family:georgia;font-style:italic; height:20px; padding-bottom:1.4em;margin-left:-8px;}
span.date {font-weight:bold;font-family:'lucida grande';font-style:normal; }
span.comments { background:url(images/comment.gif) no-repeat; padding-left:20px; }
span.category { background:url(images/posted.gif) no-repeat; padding-left:20px; }
.navigation { width: 540px; padding:10px; line-height:140%; font-size:11px; }
.entry p a {color:#9C0F6F;}


/*+++++++ SIDEBAR +++++++*/
#sidebarbottom { float:right; width: 400px; }
#right { float:left; width: 400px; }
#topsidebar { width: 380px; padding:0 10px 0 10px; border:1px solid #dadada; background:#fff; margin-bottom:10px; }
#lsidebar h2 { font-size:15px; margin-bottom:10px; color:#4c4c4c;}
#rsidebar h2 { font-size:15px; margin-bottom:10px; color:#4c4c4c; }
#lsidebar { float:left; width:160px; padding:5px; border:1px solid #dadada; background:#fff;}
#rsidebar { float:left; width:195px; padding:5px 10px 5px 10px; border:1px solid #dadada; background:#fff; margin-left:8px;}
#sidebarbottom ul{ margin:10px auto 20px;}
#sidebarbottom ul li{}
#sidebarbottom ul li ul{}
#sidebarbottom ul li ul li{display:block; background:url(images/bullet.gif) no-repeat 0 0; padding-left:24px; padding-bottom:5px; border-bottom:1px dotted #dadada;}
#sidebarbottom p{padding:0 5px;}
#lsidebar li, #rsidebar li {font-size:0.8em;}

/*+++++++ COMMENTS +++++++*/
.postmetadata { padding:5px; background:#feffe5; }
#commentform p { padding-bottom:10px;}
#commentform #author { border:1px solid #dadada; height:20px; width:200px; }
#commentform #email { border:1px solid #dadada; height:20px; width:200px; }
#commentform #url { border:1px solid #dadada; height:20px; width:200px;}
#commentform #comment { border:1px solid #dadada; height:200px; width:500px;}
.commentlist cite { background:#f9f9f9; padding:5px 5px 5px 10px; }
.commentlist cite a { color:#333;}
.commentlist .ctext { background:url(images/doth.gif) repeat-x bottom; font-size:11px;}

/*+++++++ FOOTER +++++++*/
#footer { background: #222222 url(images/footer.gif) repeat-x; width: 100%; margin:15px auto 0px; height:100px; font-size:10px; }
#foo { background:url(images/foobg.gif) no-repeat right; width: 955px; margin:auto; padding:10px; height:80px; color:#fff; }
#foo a:link { color : #FF9900; border: 0px;}
#foo a:active { text-decoration: underline; color : #FF9900; border: 0px;}
#foo a:visited { color : #FF9900; border: 0px;}
#foo a:hover {color: #FFFFFF; border: 0px;}
#foo ul { float:left; margin-top:10px; }
#foo ul li {display:inline; height:35px; line-height:35px; font-weight:700;}
#foo ul li.current_page_item a { background:url(images/navbg-acho.gif) repeat-x; color:#fff; }
#foo ul li.current_page_item a:hover{background:transparent;color:#fff;}
#foo ul li a { color:#fff;float:left; padding:0 20px 0 0;}
#foo ul li a:hover{background:none;color:#dadada; text-decoration:none;}

/**************** Misc *********************/
acronym, abbr, span.caps { cursor: help; }
acronym, abbr { border-bottom: 1px dashed #999; }
blockquote { margin: 15px 30px 15px 10px; padding-left: 20px; border-left: 5px solid #ddd; }
blockquote cite { margin: 5px 0 0; display: block; }
.center { text-align: center; }
hr { display: none; }
a img { border: none; }
pre {border: solid 1px #9a9a9a;color: blue;margin: 10px;padding:10px;background: #f3f2ed}
code {font-size:1.0em;color: #000}

/**************** Gallery *********************/
.gallery {text-align:center;}
.gallery img {padding:3px;}
.attachment {text-align:center;}
.attachment img { padding:5px; border:1px solid #999999;}
.imgnav {text-align:center;}
.imgleft {float:left;}
.imgleft img{ padding:5px; border:1px solid #999999;}
.imgright {float:right;}
.imgright img{ padding:5px; border:1px solid #999999;}


- 5 Tips for Organizing Your CSS
-Tips from Doug Bowman

Firefox add-ons: source code viewing tools

Two helpful tools for viewing the source code of any pages:
View formatted source: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/697
View source chart: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/655

interacting with Active Directory

Recently I had to work on a web application that authenticated via Active Directory/IIS. In other words in IIS, anonymous access was turned off for my app, and Windows Authentication was turned on (image shows default setting for a web app; for this situation you need to uncheck anonymous access and check windows integration). When you do this, you then set at the folder level in Windows explorer who has access. It is at the folder level that it was indicated, in my case, to use Active Directory. For the current ePortfolio, on the other hand, users were added, account by account, to the folder via the Security tab.


Here are some articles on the topic:

Integrated Security with Web Application

Accessing the Active Directory from Microsoft .NET

Howto: (Almost) Everything In Active Directory via C#

Now I didn't really use the methods describes in these articles because they all demonstrate a way to interact with Active Directory that involves connecting directly to the Active Directory server. In my situation, I was not able to obtain the information needed to create the connection (LDAP server info). So below I will show you the code I did use.


string strADUser = Request.ServerVariables["LOGON_USER"].ToString().Substring(Request.ServerVariables["LOGON_USER"].ToString().LastIndexOf("\\") + 1);


Note that for ePortfolio Dave accessed the "HttpContext.Current.User.Identity.Name" property. I tried this first but it appears AD does not populate this property.

The last of my code:

Here I compare the SAMAccountName of the logged in user, to see if that person is a member of a specific AD group:


DirectorySearcher search = new DirectorySearcher();
search.Filter = String.Format("(SAMAccountName={0})", strADUser);
search.PropertiesToLoad.Add("memberOf");

SearchResult result = search.FindOne();
if (result != null)
{
int groupCount = result.Properties["memberOf"].Count;

for (int counter = 0; counter < groupCount; counter++)
{
string str = (string)result.Properties["memberOf"][counter];
if (str.Contains(editGroupName))
{
return true;
}
}
}


Any questions, suggestions for improvement? Post to the comments!

transaction

I am always looking through our code for a previous example of using transactions in .NET, so I am posting the code here. That's what here is for!

        private void TRANSACTION EXAMPLE(int example)
        {
            using (SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(dsn))
            {
                conn.Open();
                SqlCommand cmd = conn.CreateCommand();
                SqlTransaction transaction;

                transaction = conn.BeginTransaction("GiveItAName");
                cmd.Connection = conn;
                cmd.Transaction = transaction;
                try
                {
                    //1st query, initializes sql variable
                    string sql = "INSERT INTO someTable etcetc";
                    cmd.CommandText = sql;
                    //define needed parameters is any
                    cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();
                    
                    //next query
                    sql = "UPDATE or WHATEVER QUERY etc etc";
                    cmd.CommandText = sql;

                    // define needed parameters
                    // NOTE you don't have to define any param if it was already defines and used for a previous query
                    cmd.Parameters.Add("@something", SqlDbType.VarChar, 50).Value = exaple;
                    cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();

                    //next query
                    sql = "UPDATE etc etc";
                    cmd.CommandText = sql;
                    cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();

                    // Attempt to commit the transaction.
                    transaction.Commit();
                }
                catch (Exception)
                {
                    // Attempt to roll back the transaction.
                    try
                    {
                        transaction.Rollback();
                    }
                    catch (Exception)
                    {
                        // This catch block will handle any errors that may have occurred
                        // on the server that would cause the rollback to fail, such as
                        // a closed connection.
                        throw;
                    }
                    throw;
                }
           }
     }    

adding using statements

anyone know a good shortcut for adding it to all cs files in a project in Visual Studio?

Calculation in an UPDATE statement

This is how you do it:
UPDATE myTable SET myField = myField + 1 WHERE myId = XXX