Visual Studio 2010–Publish ASP.NET MVC Website to IIS7.5

 

Recently – After finishing the final touch, I was to deploy an ASP.NET MVC application with IIS 7.5.

 

This error was coming each time, I did publish and change anything in the code. Simply – when I clean the solution and republish again, it works. Seems like a bug in VS…

ASP.NET MVC – Control page not found exceptions with IgnoreRoute for known files

 

When our site was promoted to Production recently, we started getting exceptions for Page Not Found errors. The surprising aspect of these errors where the files like robots.txt, xmldata etc… I found a nice blog which explains the best possible routes to ignore while working with ASP.NET MVC.

http://szahariev.blogspot.com/2010/03/aspnet-mvc-best-practices-routes-to.html 

You can also take this list and add it to your list of ignored routes. Happy Coding!!!

ASP.NET MVC Intermittent exceptions public action method ‘abc’ could not be found

 

In one of our ASP.NET MVC applications, we have enabled email notification/DB logging on exceptions. When we promoted the application from Staging to Production, we started getting exceptions for our Logout action. The exception used to look like this:

Message: A public action method ‘Logout’ was not found on controller ‘MyMvcApp.Web.Controllers.AccountController’.

Stack Trace:
at System.Web.Mvc.Controller.HandleUnknownAction(String actionName)
at System.Web.Mvc.Controller.ExecuteCore()
at System.Web.Mvc.MvcHandler.<>c__DisplayClass8.b__4()
at System.Web.Mvc.Async.AsyncResultWrapper.<>c__DisplayClass1.b__0()
at System.Web.HttpApplication.CallHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute()
at System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously)

I searched all placed in my code but couldn’t find what is going wrong. Finally – got the help from following thread on Stackoverflow:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1745182/intermittent-asp-net-mvc-exception-a-public-action-method-abc-could-not-be-foun

I tried both web.config setting to deny verbs and removing the [HttpGet] attribute from the action – both works fine.

Prepare for Microsoft Certifications

With Microsoft Certification, you can prove your ability to successfully implement, build on, troubleshoot, and debug a particular Microsoft technology, such as a Windows operating system, Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft SQL Server, and Microsoft Visual Studio. This validates your experience and knowledge in using Microsoft products and solutions. In a nutshell, it gives you & your employer (prospective or current) the confidence that you can work on a technology and have the bare minimum knowledge to be called a developer/beginner on that technology. One thing to remember Certifications don’t guarantee expertise.  Expertise is a function of experience. People prefer different ways to prepare for a certification – someone would go and download dumps and someone would want to really learn and legitimately finish the exam. I am going to give you some tips to prepare for the exam and actually learn it:

1. Use Microsoft Learning Courses or Use Self Paced Training Kit for the Exams
http://learning.microsoft.com/Manager/Catalog.aspx

2. Utilize Free Trainings from Channel9 of specific topics

http://channel9.msdn.com/

3. Utilize Microsoft rampup portal

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/rampup/default.aspx

Divide your schedule as follows:

1. First 4 weeks – go through the books and resources etc.

2. Take practice tests from websites like http://www.measureup.com

3. Use Free tests from Brainbench

4. Create a study group with friends and discuss topics that you feel difficult

5. Try hands on labs and virtual labs from Microsoft

All the Best!!!

the “Will Code for Green” Developer Contest

http://willcodeforgreen.gnomedex.com/ 

Bing and Gnomedex are sponsoring a “Will Code for Green” developer contest. Make the world a little better, win US$10,000 and be featured at Gnomedex. Create a green app using the Live Search API (search results, phonebook, video, images etc.) with any tech platform or language.

Microsoft Contributes Open Source Linux Drivers for Hyper-V

Microsoft has contributed 20,000 lines of code to the Linux kernel community. The code contribution, a Linux device driver, will be published on CodePlex, and will be immediately available to the Linux Community and customers, enabling any distribution of the Linux operating system to be virtualized on Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008. For more, check out the Channel 9 video.

MSN Soapbox is shutting down. Another good move from MS. MSN will no longer offer Soapbox. It was really an overhead and confusing offering.

Why Projects fail

An eye opener from my friend Sajad.

Microsoft India launches Online Services

Cloud based services have been in focus for a few years now. From FREE online email services (e.g. hotmail, gmail) to paid online services (e.g. Google Apps, Office Online, Yahoo Premium emails), the adoption of these services has been steadily rising. The safety of these applications have been questioned (as exposed by recent Twitter docs leak)..
While Microsoft had launched its service in US way back, it has now launched these services in India. These services follow the initial launch of Hosted Exchange and Hosted Dynamics. These pay as you go/ subscription based services are meant for companies who want to avoid internally maintaining these basic IT services.
The service is being launched as Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite. This suite includes Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Office Live Meeting and Microsoft Office Communications Online.
Exchange Online provides email, calendaring and contact management. Sharepoint Online is a collaboration suite for managing content and workflows. Office Live Meeting is a online conference solution to host real-time meetings, training session and events. Office Communications Online provides Instant messaging and presence awareness to facilitate rapid connections between people.
Currently, the Productivity Online Standard Suite (that includes all the above) is priced at USD 180/ per user per month. Individual applications can also be bought individually. The service is providing FREE trails right now. The commercial launch will be in Oct 09.
Google the other player in this space provides the service at USD 50/ per user per year. However, this doesn’t include any conferencing facilities.
The service details can be accessed at: http://www.microsoft.com/india/onlineservices

Free course on Microsoft Virtualization

Microsoft Virtualization eLearning Collection – 10 hrs of courses for FREE! ($159 value)
Get access to five 2-hr courses to brush up on your Virtualization skills. For a limited time, access this eLearning collection for FREE! ($159 value). These eLearnings will prepare you for Windows Server Virtualization Certification. Use promo code 9350-Y2W6-3676 and register now! HURRY: Offer expires June 30th, 2009