Adding Custom 404 Page in IIS for ASP.NET Websites
Additions you make in the web.config file, such as redirecting 404’s, will work for all files that go through the .NET engine, but not for other files like htm, html, and directory requests. For these, you have to modify IIS in the ‘Custom Errors’ tab under Properities of a website. You can set the ‘404′ entry to the .NET page that is receiving 404 errors (should be the same one you set in your web.config).
End of the Recession?
Most people don’t seem to be seeing it yet, but at least some of the numbers aren’t so bad anymore:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091029/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/us_economy
iPhone Getting Ready to Take Over the World
Two very interesting articles:
AT&T exec implies iPhone exclusivity in U.S. ending
iPhone close to overtaking BlackBerry as most popular smartphone
The first bit of news is what everyone who is not on AT&T is waiting to hear-when can they get the iPhone on their favorite network (for me, it’s Verizon). The end of the exclusivity can only mean good things for the iPhone-more and more sales. For developers like us, it will mean more and more users that can download our iPhone applications.
The second article is equally promising for the iPhone-it will take over BlackBerry someday. Not if, but when. The article also goes on to point out that the number of smart phone users has increased as well. That’s the news that I find even more interesting. The conversion from cell phones to smart phones means more people are doing more on their mobile device.
Target and BestBuy both have iPhone applications now. Target’s is a little more useful, it knows which store you’re in, and can tell you the aisle that a product is in as well. You can see the future where people no longer as a sales associate where something is, they just punch it up on their iPhone. The Target app let’s you read reviews, see product details, etc. Now I wish my local grocery store had the same thing, I can never find the yeast.
Upstate NY not doing so bad!
It’s always good to hear that you live in an economically stable region. Of course, with the internet and globalization I am not sure how much it really matters.
Either way, the Upstate NY region including Syracuse, Rochester, Albany and Buffalo haven’t been hit too hard by the recession. Makes sense, we still have a lot of web development projects in the pipeline!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/bw/20091023/bs_bw/oct2009bw20091021441398
LogMeIn on the iPhone
The iPhone is turning out to be one of the most popular gadgets out there. Everyone is asking about developing apps on the iPhone. There hasn’t been this much corporate buzz about a new development platform since SharePoint 2007 (and that buzz kindof fizzled).
The iPhone’s success will be driven by the apps-it’s all about the software. Anyone who has the iPhone has a few favorite apps that love to talk about and share.
Here’s a cool one that we found recently: you can access LogMeIn on the iPhone. Doesn’t everyone need that?
ASP.NET MVC – It’s a Prototyping Machine
So far, ASP.NET MVC is working out pretty well. We’ve probably done almost a dozen apps so far. The general hype seems to be true, you’re closer to HTML, and there’s less .NET controls getting in your way. Apps seem to be completed a little faster (although traditional webform apps were pretty fast too).
The biggest plus so far has been in the prototyping stage. Along with the ASP.NET MVC approach are some nice patterns for testing. Something people tend to miss is that you could have done most of this with Webforms, it just wasn’t fashionable then.
Either way, we tend to build out the HTML pages first, and populate them with fake repositories. It is generally easy to prototype with some realistic (but fake) data. We’ve built entire apps that look pretty darn real, and you can get the prototype in front of a customer and have an intelligent conversation.
It was refreshing to get rid of datagrids, repeaters, etc, and just go back to an HTML table. Sometimes it’s all you really need.
I found that some .NET developers really did get to far from the HTML, and were generally out of touch with which .NET control was going to produce which set of HTML tags.
For some efforts, we spent too much time getting a datagrid to work just the right way, or worse yet, one of the .NET tab controls.
ASP.NET MVC is a good start at making the balance between having controls and allowing developers to just write code.
It seems quite odd that we’ve come from classic ASP that had code mixed with HTML, to .NET with no code mixed in, to MVC with some code mixed in. If you do this long enough everything comes full circle.
A major issue I have with ASP.NET MVC is the code mixed in with HTML-the compiler doesn’t catch any errors in that code. You’ll find it at runtime. Something tells me they’re working on that.
MVC frameworks are nothing new, I remember getting into MVC pretty heavily with ColdFusion way back when. The biggest issue back then was lack of documentation. One framework that was quite popular (at the time) had little documentation, but you could go to a one week training course for a few thousand dollars. Not quite what I was looking for.
The great thing about ASP.NET MVC is the documentation-there’s plenty of it. I generally buy three books on a topic and cherry pick the best ideas. For about $100 you’re good to go.
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