My Setup

Operating System: Vista
Web Server: Microsoft IIS7 - Internet Information Services. This is the standard web server in the windows family.
Internet Connection: Connected to internet through a router.

Static IP address

Configure your PC so that when it connects to your router it will have a static IP address. Without a static IP address you may have to re-configure every time.

Here is a guide to setup Static IP address on Vista: http://portforward.com/networking/static-vista.htm

Virtual PC and XP Images

Download and install Microsoft Virtual PC 2007.  At the time of writing the Microsoft Virtual PC download and information pages are at:  http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/

Download and install a Virtual PC Image.  E.g. IE6-XPSP3.exe contains a Windows XP SP3 with IE6 VHD file. At the time of writing the Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Image download page is at:  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=21eabb90-958f-4b64-b5f1-73d0a413c8ef&displaylang=en

There are Virtual PC Images for testing IE6,IE7,IE8

Virtual PC Networking

When you have installed your Virtual PC 2007 and your selected Virtual PC, you will need to setup networking. In the Virtual PC Console select the Virtual PC you want to run and click settings. Select Networking in the list on the left. You should see a list of connection options. Select the one that is the Networking Controller that your Host PC is using to connect to the router. E.G. in my case it is “NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller”. The other options I have are “Not Connected”, “Local only”, “Shared Networking (NAT)”. You do not want to select any of those.

At this point you should be able to browse the internet in the Virtual PC using Internet Explorer. You can test live websites from here.

Virtual PC hosts file

To see websites on you host PC'c webserver, you must set the host PC's IP address in the Virtual PC's hosts file for each website you want to test.  The hosts file may be in this location: C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc

If not then you can use the windows search function to find it. Make sure that you tell it to search hidden folders.

Once you have found the hosts file you should make a shortcut to it and save it on the desktop of your Virtual PC. Then you can just add lines to the hosts file by opening it in Notepad.

E.g. My PC's static IP address is 192.168.1.8 so the line to add to the hosts file to see the website called localhost is:

192.168.1.8    localhost

Hopefully, now when you browse localhost on the Virtual PC you will now see the localhost website on the Host PC. You can setup all you development websites in the VPC hosts file so that you can test all your websites.

In Sitefinity, when editing a page if you click properties you can enter extra page URLs.

Add a new URL something like "~/home.html" and click Save Changes.

Then Make all html pages run as though Asp.Net pages. Look here.

http://dotnetnotes.i-do-it.com/2009/11/28/MapHTMLPagesThrougthASPNETDllRunHtmlPagesWithAspnetisapidll.aspx


Then add this to the Global.Asax

 void Application_Error(object sender, EventArgs e) 
    {        
//Redirect missing Old html Pages to the default url of that page. Add Additional Urls to pages in sitefinity to redirect to those pages.
        Exception lastException = this.Server.GetLastError();
        if (lastException is HttpException)
        {
            HttpException httpException = (HttpException)lastException;
            if (httpException.GetHttpCode() == 404)
            {
                // get the name of the requested page - just the /thisPage.htm or /DIR/thisPage.asp etc
                string pageName = string.Concat("~", Request.Url.AbsolutePath.ToString());

                // create a new instance of CmsManager
                Telerik.Cms.CmsManager cmsManager = new Telerik.Cms.CmsManager();

                // let's get the page by passing one of it's additional url's
                Telerik.Cms.IPage myPage = cmsManager.GetPageByAdditionalUrl(pageName);

                // we can cast myPage as ICmsPage and redirect to the Default URL
                if (myPage != null)
                {
                    //If there isa default page then redirect to it.                    
                    this.Server.ClearError();                    
                    Response.Redirect(((Telerik.Cms.ICmsPage)myPage).DefaultUrl.Url);
                }
            }
        }
    }

Here is the code needed to run HTML pages with asp.net. Add it to the Web.Config.

The code comes from this post:
http://forums.iis.net/p/1158398/1907100.aspx


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
  <system.webServer>
    <handlers>
      <add name="ASPX-HTML-Integrated" path="*.html" verb="GET,HEAD,POST,DEBUG" type="System.Web.UI.PageHandlerFactory" preCondition="integratedMode" />
      <add name="ASPX-HTML-2.0-Classic-32bit" path="*.html" verb="GET,HEAD,POST,DEBUG" modules="IsapiModule" scriptProcessor="%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_isapi.dll" preCondition="classicMode,runtimeVersionv2.0,bitness32" responseBufferLimit="0" />
    </handlers>
  </system.webServer>
  <system.web>
    <compilation>
      <buildProviders>
        <add extension=".html" type="System.Web.Compilation.PageBuildProvider" />
      </buildProviders>
    </compilation>
    <httpHandlers>
      <add path="*.html" type="System.Web.UI.PageHandlerFactory" verb="*" />
    </httpHandlers>
  </system.web>
</configuration> 

Here is a list of good Affiliate Marketing Web Sites who are trust worthy:

I just found this site http://buysellads.com/ that holds a database of publishers that want to sell advertising space on their website(s).

It looks very cool for publishers as it allows you to see exactly who is advertising on your site and all the statistics related to your advertisement slots.

Here are some points for publishers:

• You have access to stats: e.g. Impressions, clicks, click through percentage, estimated cost per click per month etc.
• Advertisement slots are sold with a fixed 30-day rate.
• You receive 75% of the cost per 30 days hire of the advertisement slot.
• You set the price per advertisement slot.
• You also have the ability to allow rotation of adverts or just show one advert in a particular ad slot.
  

Advertisers can select sites by filtering the list of available sites. Filters include Impressions, Price for 30 days, Traffic Rank, category and advertisement size. This allows them to easily find sites that fit their budget and other requirements.

This seems like a very good service for anybody who wants to sell direct to advertisers while not having to setup and maintain your own advertisement selling/tracking system.

The big difference to Google AdSense is the ability to set your own advertisement slot price and the ability to know who is buying space on your site.

Do you know of any other good companies like the one above?

Ajax is very good for adding functions and effects to your web pages.

So next time you need to add a specific effect or solve a problem on your website, remember to think to yourself, ‘Can Ajax solve my problem?’ If so then somebody may very well have already written the code for you. Check out the free Ajax libraries on the web.

Here are some links to very cool Ajax JavaScript Libraries.

• http://freeajaxscripts.net/
• http://script.aculo.us/
• http://www.netzgesta.de/cvi/ (lots of cool image effects)
• http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/ (The Yahoo! User Interface Library - very big project)
  

Set “pageExtension” to nothing to tell SiteFInity to use Extension less URLs.

The line to change looks like this:

<cms defaultProvider="Sitefinity" pageExtension=".aspx" disabled="false" pageEditorUIMode="Overlay">

Change  it so that the pageExtension property is empty liek this: pageExtension=""

Note: The FormsAthentication and RoleManager modules are not available for extensionless request but you need them for the admin section of Sitefinity.

To enable FormsAthentication and RoleManager add the runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests property to the modules section of the Web.Config file.
E.G. <modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true">

Now you should have Extension less URLs in Sitefinity.

Add functions such as Indent, Outdent, Custom Styles Selector, Custom Links Selector, Font Name, Font Size, Font ForeColor, Font BackColor, ConvertToLower, ConvertToUpper  Apply Custom Class Drop Down, Superscript, Subscript, Insert Paragraph, Insert Horizontal Rule, Help, Style Builder, Xhtml Validator, TrackChangesDialog, FormatCodeBlock, TableWizard, InsertSymbol etc.

To see available tools open file: Sitefinity/Admin/ControlTemplates/EditorToolsFileAll.xml.

E.g.

  <tools name="DropdownToolbar" dockable="false">
    <tool name="ForeColor" />
    <tool name="BackColor" />
    <tool separator="true" />
    <tool name="FontName" />
    <tool name="FontSize" />
    <tool name="ApplyClass" />
    <tool name="InsertCustomLink" />
    <tool name="FormatBlock" />
    <tool name="FormatStripper" />
  </tools>
 

Copy the required lines to the file: Sitefinity/Admin/ControlTemplates/EditorToolsFile.xml

Now save the file and and open Rad Editor to see the extra tools.

When trying to add inline Java Script to a Generic Content control the script tags are HTML encoded / removed.
This is the default behaviour so we must enable script tags.

To do this you must edit the control template for Generic Content.

Open the following file in Visual Studio:
Sitefinity --> Admin --> ControlTemplates --> Generic_Content --> App_LocalResources --> ContentVersionView.aspx.resx

Add a new setting: ContentFilters = None

There are still some problems with this. E.g. If you use a noscript tag then the contents of that tag will still get HTML encoded.

Radgrid;  Add New Record Button not visible

The first time you use RadGrid you may spend a lot of time trying to work out how to display the Add New Record Button. I had to search for ages to find out what to do to display the Add New Record Button.

The property you need to set is the CommandItemDisplay of the MasterTableView property.

In Visual Studio you can edit the properties of the RadGrid in the property editor window. Select the RadGrid on your page, and then find the property called MasterTableView and its child property CommandItemDisplay.  Now select one of the drop down options: None, Top, Bottom , TopAndBottom.  Like magic the Add new button appears.

Remember to set AllowAutomaticInserts to true if you are not writing your own insert code.

 The MasterTableView code that may look something like this, notice the property CommantItemDisplay="Top":

<MasterTableView DataKeyNames="PriceTypeID" 
        DataSourceID="PriceType_LinqDataSource" CommandItemDisplay="Top">
<RowIndicatorColumn>
<HeaderStyle Width="20px"></HeaderStyle>
</RowIndicatorColumn>

<ExpandCollapseColumn>
<HeaderStyle Width="20px"></HeaderStyle>
</ExpandCollapseColumn>
    <Columns>
        <telerik:GridBoundColumn DataField="PriceType" HeaderText="PriceType" 
            SortExpression="PriceType" UniqueName="PriceType">
        </telerik:GridBoundColumn>
    </Columns>
</MasterTableView>