Whenever you get this kind of error messages with instructions, do not follow the instruction straight away.
Always turn to your best friend, google, to see how others solve it and search for the best possible answer.
May be this is a bad advice but I never trust error message instructions. Of course you must read the message and instruction properly to see it is a sensible/reasonable instruction on the problem. As for me, I just have to find out whether others are actually following the instructions as mentioned or not.

The error:
Unable to find script library ‘/aspnet_client/system_web/1_1_4322/WebUIValidation.js’. Try placing this file manually, or reinstall by running ‘aspnet_regiis -c’.

The error dialog box pops up on those pages with form validation.
This problem happens whenever the system cannot access aspnet_client folder either you don’t have a permission or it is not in your root directory, ie. when you changed the root directory for your virtual folders, from Inetpub/wwwroot to some other folder, and when you use Validation controls (eg. RequiredFieldValidator, ValidationSummary, etc) on input TextBoxes in one of your site.

You can check whether you are using the default root or not by checking the property > Home Directory of your IIS virtual directory as shown on the following images.

Default virtual root

Custom virtual root

For this error, I don’t like uninstalling IIS and reinstall again just for the sake of one site error. There got to have some easier way to solve it and yes, there is.
I’ve also found out that when you follow the error instructions straight away, you might screw up the problem more and some of the google results shows that it actually got screwed in some cases.
Some people uninstalled and reinstalled IIS but that doesn’t solve the problem and they have to uninstalled and reinstalled .net framework as well.
Different solution for different cases I’m sure, but for my case, I tried the easiest resolution ie. copy the aspnet_client folder from wwwroot to my new virtual root folder, and voila it works!

Read more in the following sources:

• When running ‘aspnet_regiis -c’ still doesn’t fix it…
• http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/thread-1257776.php
• http://www.experts-exchange.com/Programming/Programming_Languages/Dot_Net/Q_20762240.html

I came to work quite late this morning and the taxi driver said, “don’t worry about it, the guys will be watching soccar”. He was right, we can hear the yelling from the road when we got to the office. All the guys were downstairs watching and cheering semi-final. I just thought oh well crazy guys as usual and went upstair to my place. To my surprise one lonely guy was working hard in the empty office. I asked “All the guys are watching soccer downstair, aren’t you interested in soccer?” Then a cheer went on again from downstair. He quickly answered “Oh no they score again!!!”, and rush down to see the match. haha seem like he rushing up and down juggling between his work and the game. I guess it left me the only one in the office.

What with the guys and the sport anyway? Too much don’t you think? (Okok I know the answer, don’t answer that. :>)
Here is something for you to try out.

Letter To My Boss – Soccer Maniac

Dear Sir/ Madam,

I wish to let you know that the FIFA World Cup has began. This is not just any other tournament, it’s the World Cup! Please note that this tournament takes a month to finish, i.e from 9th June to 9th July. During this period take note of the following:

• Will be knocking off earlier than usual in order to watch the kick off of the first game.
• Do not be surprised if I report a little bit late every morning, it will depend of the time the last game finishes.
• Production will go up during this month as almost all employees will be happy and highly motivated (Check Maslow’s motivation Theories with Human Resource).
• I know you are into other boring sports like golf, bowling, etc. Please if you want to fit in the work environment for the next one month, try to know something about soccer, even asking a foolish question like “Is Zambia playing tonight?” is welcome, that is if you really want to fit in, or else no one will be a loner for one full month.
• Greeting each other in the morning will change from “Good morning” to “How was the game last night?”
• I will not accept to work overtime during this period as no amount of money can buy me to miss a game. Therefore make sure you do not give me any work after 19:30 hours.
• I will need to be up-to-date with the latest therefore the first 1 hour every morning is for accessing sports websites and other updates on the internet and also chatting with friends.

Lastly, please do not think you can fire me should you decide to break any of the above rules as you will have to fire everyone.

Thank you for your understanding.

Yours faithfully,

Soccer Crazy Employee!

Forza Italia… Forza Azzuri! and… Italy has made it to the world cup final!

Technorati Tags: FIFA World Cup, Soccer, Germany, Italy, Semi-final

I don’t feel like blogging lately. Not that I don’t have anything to write about, actually I got lots to write about. Just that I’m lacking motivation to type up. My random thoughts are always roaming in my head but to put them in proper wording is the problem.

One of the reasons I’m lacking motivation these days is cos’ I’m disappointed with one of my current projects.
We’re using WSS(Windows Sharepoint Services) in intranet project that I’m doing and it’s giving me such a pain and messing up my good mood.

To start of, WSS is such a pain in the god damn unspoken part. It has such a crappy user interface and a documentation. The customization is too painful and lack of good sample resources online. (I still can’t find proper sample documentation for what I’m trying to do yet). I’m struggling with it for a few weeks already and still can’t figure out much from head to tail. The whole day I sit at my desk, read, research, test, scratch my head, pull hair, curse this and that, etc etc. Not only that, I go home, thinking about WSS, I watch TV thinking about WSS, I eat, sleep, go toilet, thinking about WSS. I can’t think of other things to do but think about WSS and have unsettle feeling about unresolved things on WSS. I’m starting to get scared to go to work, to face that damn project again. God damn WSS!!!

Another reason my lack of motivation is that, I’m pretty much disappointed with my whole life situation. (yah big thing haha) There are lots of things I want to do which cannot be done. For example,
I’m disappointed with my work,
I’m disappointed with my pay,
I’m disappointed about my mentor leaving the company,
I’m disappointed about my inability to do things,
I’m disappointed that I’m a terrible programmer,
I’m disappointed about me being a bad sister,
I’m disappointed about me being an unhelpful daughter,
I’m disappointed about me being an unfriendly friend,
I’m disappointed that I’m so lazy,
I’m disappointed that I lack motivation to do things,
I’m disappointed that I can never satisfy with things,
I’m disappointed about me talking about my disappointments here,
Damn I’m so disappointed in me.

Oh well enough about my gloomy life, I’ve decided to pull myself back on track and catch things up. Hope to update my blog regularly this month and months ahead.
Thanks you for visiting here and being an understandable reader.

With Sincere Appreciations,
Gloomy May.

Live coverage from here at Election Media Center.

We are having an election here in Fiji and I’m on duty on polling as well as counting days. So for the next 2 weeks our team will be on and off at Election Media Center over at police academy. Everything here is pretty much organized, like the food(most important part), the facilities(network, computers etc), the stationeries and the support staffs.

The only thing I gotta say is that…there are lots of mosquitoes at election media center. My gosh, my shift is in the afternoon and the mosquitoes are killing me. I can’t imagine how it would be like for the gang at night shifts. I guess I gotta tell them to bring Motein with them. I just murdered 3 mosquitoes and plenty more around me. God damn blood suckers!

Anyway I was pretty busy doing some data entries and now I’m free so blogging about my first shift here. They’re having live media coverage with a few reporters and election officers. So yah I gotta see live rather than on TV. Well no difference, same old people, they look no better outside than in TV haha.

Oh yah I forgot to bring my camera with me so I can’t take picture of the media center and the set ups. Will do that next time on my shift. Nothing much really to show you since it’s just starting days and kinda boring sitting here. Just watching people come and leave as the shift changing and my coffee gone cold cos’ it’s too bitter, man no suger!
Oh one more thing I notice about the media center is that, there’s a few water leakage from the roof. I mean not from the roof, from the louvers, when it rains the water spills a bit from the top. Kinda annoying, but not too serious so it’s ok.

Hmm what else? Yah that’s about it for today. I’m gonna check how I can get some photos form information group camera man.

Hmmm…I’m in the same situation as the guy in the conversation.

I guess I should try that out…
But…I’m a gal…I should keep my cool.
I can’t punch like that…may be slapping or hire a hitman.
Punching is better…so…

Who’s willing to lend me a hand?

I was fighting with asp dropdownlist for not being able to combine two columns directly. Say I got the same scenario as the following:

Suppose you want a drop-down list to display both the first name and the last name of each employee in the company.

I should be able to use DataTextField to combine two columns like:

ddlemployeename.DataTextField = "firstname" + ', " + "lastname";

But noooo…it gives me this error:

DataBinder.Eval: ‘System.Data.DataRowView’ does not contain a property with the name firstname, lastname.

You have to go mingle with your storeprocedure or Sqlcommand statement to change the string. Then only you can set that new string to DataTextField. Something like below. Very inefficient!

There is another efficient way of adding multiple fields in Dropdownlist using DataSet and DataTable by adding a new column on fly in DataTable object.
I did tried that method, but didn’t work for me, I’ll have to try again later. Anyway that code is in page 4 of the referenced article, so you can check that out as well.

SQL Statement
SELECT lastname + ‘, ‘ + firstname AS ‘EmployeeName’
FROM Employees

Binding Code
ddlemployeename.DataTextField = “EmployeeName”;

You can use a data-binding expression to set the DataSource property. The expression you use must evaluate to a .Net object that exposes the ICollection interface. You cannot use expressions to set the other properties. The values for DataTextField and DataValueField each must match the name of one field in the data source, so you cannot assign DataTextField by combining two or more fields in the datasource.

What the hell that bold part suppose to mean? For the moment I’ll just change my storeproc for that and play around with DataTable column later.

Any of you have any better way of solving this problem please let me know.
Thanks.

Ref: Data Bound Controls (.PDF)

I was reading, “Are You Following the Instructions on the Paint Can” article on Codeing Horror, which directed me to The Jole Test: 12 Steps to Better Code and thought I might as well check out his checklist.

1. Do you use source control?
   Yes, we do. We use Visual Source Safe, VSS, as our source control.
2. Can you make a build in one step?
   This is a tough one. We did have a batch file which do all those check outs and build all projects at once but the file itself screwed up a few times and we gave up using it (lazy to fix). So answer to this step, no, we can’t make a build in one step (for the moment).
3. Do you make daily builds?
   I think we do daily builds 90% of the time, well atleast I do final build before I go home everyday. We got a small team so never really happen a serious source breaking. Yes good idea about babysitting punishment.
4. Do you have a bug database?
   My first impression on this, What’s bug database?, but then he was just talking about Bug Tracking. So yes, we have bug tracking list where we usually update after every build.
5. Do you fix bugs before writing new code?
   I think half of the time, Yes, the other half, No.”zero defects methodology”, good point.
6. Do you have an up-to-date schedule?
   Definitely No. We do have some schedule in the beginning but then it keeps falling apart after a few week. All of us really slack at keeping up-to-date schedule.
7. Do you have a spec?
   Yes, we do but pretty bad spec cos it’s some what incomplete. I hate writing and I don’t like the idea of sending programmers to “an intensive course in writing”. So I propose for “hiring smart program managers” to do all the write up.
8. Do programmers have quiet working conditions?
   Ah…I guess so, most of the time. Well that doesn’t really affect me since my eyes and ears are pretty well trained. Once I’m into something, I won’t see or hear a thing around me. You can yell right at my ear and I won’t hear you. But if I got stuck or frustrated and lost my concentration, tiny bit of noise would annoy me like hell and there follow my bad mood.
9. Do you use the best tools money can buy?
   We do have a few grumpy programmers over the tools we got to use. But understanding for the company as it’s a small one and I guess what they provide is not the best but pretty much efficient.
10. Do you have testers?
    Testers? Ah…does PM count as a tester? No, we don’t have dedicated testers.
11. Do new candidates write code during their interview?
    Not at all. I did have to explain a functionality of written piece of code during my interview. I guess the main reason I got job was cos’ I was a GIRL which they lack and need to add some feminine in their team. Pretty bias I know, but what the heck, I turn out ok.(I think)
12. Do you do hallway usability testing?
    Usability test is one thing we don’t do often. So yah we need to improve on this.

To summ up, I guess we do ok considering we have a small team. Ofcos some good points to note and need improvement.

So how did you do with the checklist over your team?

Technorati Tags: Programming, Programmers, Checklist, Coding, Project Management