Here is a quick and dirty regex based IsString() .Net extension method.

C# version

public static bool IsString(this object word)
        {
            return word == null ? false : Regex.IsMatch(word.ToString(), @"^[A-Za-z]+\Z");
        }

VB.Net version

<System.Runtime.CompilerServices.Extension> _
Public Shared Function IsString(word As Object) As Boolean
	Return If(word Is Nothing, False, Regex.IsMatch(word.ToString(), "^[A-Za-z]+\Z"))
End Function

The method will match strings only no spaces or other characters will be matched

Enjoy

Here is a quick and dirty IsNumeric extension method in C#. the method uses Regex to determine the result

C# version

public static bool IsNumeric(this object number)
        {
            return number == null ? false : Regex.IsMatch(number.ToString(), @"^[-+]?[0-9]+(\.[0-9]{1,2})?\Z");
           
        }

VB.NET version

<System.Runtime.CompilerServices.Extension> _
Public Shared Function IsNumeric(number As Object) As Boolean
	Return If(number Is Nothing, False, Regex.IsMatch(number.ToString(), "^[-+]?[0-9]+(\.[0-9]{1,2})?\Z"))

End Function

The pattern will match -##.##, +##.## ,##.## and #.#

Enjoy :-)

Today I needed to post a strongly typed model using jquery and MVC 3.0 using razor engine.

My first thought was this should be easy, just hijack the submit button and send the request. well to my surprise, I was wrong :-)

The post was processed OK but my model didn't have ant of its properties populated.all of model's properties were null

The solution was to hijack the form's submit event and post the serialized form using jQuery's ajax function.

Note, the $(this).serialize() call in the body of the ajax function.

HTML and javascript

<form id="frmCreateUser" action="" method="post" >
    
    <div class="bordered" id="UserForm">
        <fieldset>
            <legend>User Information</legend>

           
                @Html.LabelFor(m => m.UserName, "UserName:")
                @Html.TextBoxFor(m => m.UserName, new { @class = "text-box" })
                @Html.ValidationMessageFor(m => m.UserName) <br /> 

                @Html.LabelFor(m => m.Password, "Password:")
                @Html.PasswordFor(m => m.Password, new { @class = "text-box" })
                @Html.ValidationMessageFor(m => m.Password) <br />

                @Html.LabelFor(x=>x.Email,"Email:")
                @Html.TextBoxFor(x=>x.Email)
                @Html.ValidationMessageFor(x=>x.Email)<br />


                <input id="createButton" type="submit" value="Create" />
           
        </fieldset>
    </div>

<script type="text/javascript">
        $(document).ready(function () {
         
            $("#frmCreateUser").submit(function (event) {
               
                $.ajax(
                {
                    url: '@Url.Action("CreateUser", "dashboard",new {area="Security"})',

                    dataType: 'json',
                    data:$(this).serialize(),
                    type:'POST',
                    success: function (result) {
                        
                        alert(result);
                    },
                    error: function (xhr) {
                        alert(xhr.statusText);
                    }

                });
                event.preventDefault();
            });
        });
    </script>

here is my action.

[HttpPost]
        public JsonResult CreateUser(User model)
        {
            bool isSuccess=false;
            MembershipCreateStatus createStatus;
            Membership.CreateUser(model.UserName, model.Password, model.Email, null, null, true, null, out createStatus);
            return Json(createStatus.ToString(), JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet);
        }

Recently we started upgrading an old Asp.NET 2.0 application to Framework 4 and IIS 7. Upgrades went OK and the application started working on test environment hosted on an older Windows 2003 server. Once the application went to production we started seeing "Request is not available in this context".
We knew the application calls a licensing service in the Application_Start() event.

obviously this exception related to IIS7 because the application worked without any issues on the test environment. After some research we found out this issue is related to IIS 7 Integrated mode. The solution was easy. I created a static constructor in global.asax and used a static readonly variable to use in the Application_Start() event.

Here is the code

static readonly HttpRequest initialRequest;
        static MyApplication()
        {

            initialRequest = HttpContext.Current.Request;
           
            
        }

    protected void Application_Start()
        {
      //Get the IP Adddress of the host to send for the licensing service
      var domainUrl= initialRequest.ServerVariables["LOCAL_ADDR"];
            
        }

I hope this can help some

This page is a must see

http://www.blabla.co.za/2011/04/01/top-list-7-poorly-named-websites/

That's why we should think first then act?