I got the following question recently.

What is the difference between Dispose and SupressFinalize in garbage collection?”

The problem with this question is it assumes Dispose and SupressFinalize have similarities, which I’m sure is not what is being asked here.  So let’s rephrase it in terms that make sense.

I see three methods available to me in .NET that all seem to have something to do with garbage collection.  Can you explain what Dispose, Finalize, and SupressFinalize do and why I could use or call each one in my code?”

Read More

By now, most people are familiar with the fact that ASP.NET will send mail from the codebehind by simply adding a few lines to your web.config file and adding another few lines of code in the codebehind file.

But it wasn’t until recently that I found that you don’t need to have access to an SMTP server to test your code.

Read More

I received the following question a few days ago but I’ve been so busy with billable work that I just haven’t had a chance to answer it until now.  Actually, I’m still busy, but I hate letting these questions go for too long.

“Right now I am working on a project where I have to screen a user.  This is a multi-step process.  At the end of the process I store the data back to the system.

Currently, I am storing all the options a user will select in a session variable and then finally using them at the last step.

Can you please suggest a better way to store this temporary data that does not require using a session? This type of situation comes up a lot.  We’ve used multiview to get it working.

Read More

In previous posts, I’ve covered the core architecture of jQuery.  How it works.  How you call methods.  A brief overview of what’s available.

From here on out, we will focus more on specific solutions that jQuery can provide.  One of those is the ability to load partial content from the server and display it back in a section of our web page.

Read More

I received the following question recently about my article “ASP.NET AJAX using JSON - Here’s how.“

If we update the value of a textbox or label via a JSON web service call - will the value of that textbox/label be written to the viewstate or whatever so that the server side code can see the new values that came from the JSON request?

Read More

When you need to deal with a number that is a fraction, what do you specify for its type?  If you are like most programmers I know, you’ll reach for Float (Single if you are using VB) or Double.

If you are working with currency, though, this could get you into a lot of trouble.

Here’s why.

Read More

It seems like such a trivial thing to be talking about but not knowing the difference between && vs & or || vs | can make a huge difference between working code and code that only seems to work. Let me illustrate:

Read More

Over the weekend I got a question about how to prevent postbacks on buttons from within jQuery tabs.  But the question really isn’t specific to jQuery.  There are other times when you might not want a button to post back.  So how do you do this? There are several ways you might accomplish this depending on what your goal is. The first, and most obvious choice, is to not use an ASP:Button control and use an HTML input type=”button” tag instead.  This will allow you to have full control over what is happening on the client side.  If at all possible, this should be your first choice.

Read More

Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror writes:

“I find it difficult to believe, but the reports keep pouring in via Twitter and email: **many candidates who show up for programming job interviews can’t program. At all.**”

Read More

One of the things to keep in mind when using jQuery is that nothing is a blocking call.  Sure, there is a certain sequence to when things operate.  But, to be safe, you should always assume that step two will happen during step one.

Nowhere is this more evident than when retrieving content from a URL and inserting that content in your page.

The temptation is to write code that looks something like this:

Read More