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After listening to Jeff Atwood rant about email on the most recent Stack Overflow Podcast I thought I would write a quick guide to creating an effective business email.  I am defining “business email” as email designed to garner information needed to perform some larger, work related task.  Business emails tend to be a constant stream of communication between two parties over an extended period of time.  This quick guide should eliminate 90% of problems related to those emails.  We now resume our regular “How To Fix” formatting:

The Problem: People send email  to occupy time and simulate forward motion, and in some cases convey information, but they seldom use email to elicit information from co-workers.  Attempts to elicit information are likely to transmit anxiety from sender to receiver rather than triggering a useful response from receiver back to sender. Read more on How to write an effective email…

Popularity: 2% [?]

The Problem: You have a brand new Windows 2008 server and you are testing your web application and trying to send an email.  Every time you try to send an email via the web application you get the following error

“System.Net.Sockets.SocketException: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it 127.0.0.1:25″

The Cause: SMTP services are not installed on the server, they do not seem to be installed by default. Read more on How to fix the No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it 127.0.0.1:25 error…

Popularity: 19% [?]

This is not computer related, but it was meaningful enough to merit mention here.

Last February I purchased a Triton Woodworking 3.5 Horsepower router, the only “elite” tool I have for my woodworking hobby.  About 4 months ago I managed to get a 1″ radius round-over bit stuck (“Frozen” in woodworking jargon) into the router.  I tried everything I could think of to remove the frozen router bit.  I pulled so hard I bent the factory wrench (really, I did), I tried using micro lubrication, I let it run long enough for everything to heat up, I consulted the woodworking elders at Highland Woodworking, all to no avail.  As Triton is an Australian company, they do not have a local service center. Read more on How to fix frozen router bits…

Popularity: 2% [?]

The Problem: QuickBooks 2010 refuses to print to pdf when you attempt to send an invoice on Vista 64 bit.

The Cause: Quickbooks 2010 on Vista 64 bit does not work well.

Read more on How to fix Print to PDF problem in QuickBooks 2010 – Version Two…

Popularity: 4% [?]

The Problem: You are trying to create a new website programatically via the Microsoft.Web.Administration.ServerManager and having no luck.  In fact, you are getting invalid binding errors at every turn. Read more on How to fix binding problems with Microsoft.Web.Administration.ServerManager…

Popularity: 2% [?]

The Problem: While coding away on the Stronico signup process I came across a problem with creating a reference to the Microsoft.Web.Administration dll, namely it was not present as a reference.  No problem, I added the dll manually via Visual Studio (it is in the %WinDir%\System32\InetSrv directory), yet once that was done I could not reference the dll.

Read more on How to fix the Microsoft.Web.Administration.dll problem…

Popularity: 10% [?]

The Problem: You have a lovely graphic, you save it for the web in the standard way, and the colors are way, way off.  Usually there is extra purple.  You scour the web and alter setting after setting in PhotoShop, all to no avail.

Read more on How to fix the color shift in PhotoShop CS 4 Save for Web…

Popularity: 8% [?]

I recently came up with the need to have a validated CheckBoxList in and Asp.net page.  Over the years I’ve come up with a standard way of setting up validated CheckBoxLists, so I thought I would share the method and start the brand new “Code Samples” section..

The aspx code is as follows

<strong>Section Name</strong>
<asp:TextBox ID="tbBox" runat="server" Width="1" BorderColor="White" BackColor="White" BorderStyle="None" />
<asp:CustomValidator ID="cvBox" ValidateEmptyText="true" runat="server" ControlToValidate="tbBox" Display="none" ErrorMessage="<b>Required Field Missing</b><br />You must select at least one option" SetFocusOnError="true" ValidationGroup="Main" onservervalidate="cvBox_ServerValidate" />
<ajaxToolkit:ValidatorCalloutExtender ID="vceBox" runat="server" TargetControlID="cvBox" Width="300" />

<br />

<asp:CheckBoxList ID=”cblForms” runat=”server” RepeatColumns=”2″ RepeatDirection=”Horizontal”>
<asp:ListItem Text=”Option A” Value=”A” />
<asp:ListItem Text=”Option B” Value=”B” />
<asp:ListItem Text=”Option C” Value=”C” />
<asp:ListItem Text=”Option D” Value=”D” />
</asp:CheckBoxList>

Please note, the control that I am validating is actually a 1 pixel wide textbox that one should not type in. Read more on How to set up the CheckBoxList control in Asp.net…

Popularity: 6% [?]

The Problem: The web application works just fine on the local machine, but when you upload it to the web server you get the error “The entry ‘ScriptModule’ has already been added.”

The Cause: It is a conflict between asp.net versions.

The Solution: Simply comment out the <add name=”ScriptModule” type=”System.Web.Handlers.ScriptModule, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35″/> line in the web.config file and you should be good to go.

Read more on How to fix "The entry ‘ScriptModule’ has already been added." error…

Popularity: 16% [?]

The Problem: You have to have a fully validated date box. The dates must be valid dates and there must be data entered in the field.

The Cause: Not a problem really, I wind up rewriting it slightly differently each time. I thought I would put a definitive version here.

The Solution: Use this code
<asp:TextBox ID=”tbDate” runat=”server” CssClass=”body” />
<ajaxToolkit:MaskedEditExtender ID=”meeDate” runat=”server”
TargetControlID=”tbDate”
Mask=”99/99/9999″
MessageValidatorTip=”true”
OnFocusCssClass=”MaskedEditFocus”
OnInvalidCssClass=”MaskedEditError”
MaskType=”Date”
DisplayMoney=”Left”
AcceptNegative=”Left”
ErrorTooltipEnabled=”True” />
<ajaxToolkit:CalendarExtender ID=”ceDate” runat=”server” TargetControlID=”tbDate” PopupButtonID=”imgDate” />
<asp:RequiredFieldValidator ID=”rfvDate” runat=”server” ControlToValidate=”tbDate”
Display=”none” ErrorMessage=”<b>Required Field Missing</b><br />You must supply a date”
SetFocusOnError=”true” ValidationGroup=”MainB” />
<ajaxToolkit:ValidatorCalloutExtender ID=”vceDate” runat=”server” TargetControlID=”rfvDate” Width=”300″ />

<asp:CompareValidator ID=”compVDate” runat=”server” ValidationGroup=”MainB”
ControlToValidate=”tbDate” Display=”None” ErrorMessage=”<b>Required Field Missing</b><br />You must supply a valid date”
Operator=”DataTypeCheck” Type=”Date” />
<ajaxToolkit:ValidatorCalloutExtender ID=”vceCompDate” runat=”server” TargetControlID=”compVDate” Width=”300″ />
<asp:ImageButton runat=”Server” ID=”imgDate” ImageUrl=”img/icon_calendar.gif” AlternateText=”Click to show calendar” />

That’s it!

Read more on How to create a fully validated asp.net calendar control…

Popularity: 1% [?]