Category Archives: Programming
Repeatable random numbers in JavaScript
Ever since programming BASIC on the Spectrum I’d wondered why it was possible to seed a “random” number generator. But then I found I wanted to do something that would produce repeatable results, but look like a random sequence. Strangely, … Continue reading
Firing JavaScript functions after a .Net AJAX request
I wanted to have a function called after data was returned to the page from a .Net AJAX call. (The idea was to fade out when you pressed “submit” and then redraw when data came back.) It turns out there … Continue reading
Moritz Stefaner is a genius
I was thinking about how to best represent connections between people in my Six Degrees of Separation Facebook application and Paul Crabtree recommend I get in touch with Moritz Stefaner as he had something that would fit very nicely indeed. … Continue reading
Identifying slow blocking queries on SQL Server
This piece of SQL is perfect for finding which query is running at any particular time, especially if you want to find what it is that’s running very slowly. sp_who2 This should return a list of what’s running, including process … Continue reading
Facebook’s new ‘Invite friends’ tag
Everyone’s been either copying and pasting or writing from scratch some code to add “Invite friends” to their Facebook apps, but now there’s a simple tag that they’ve provided. It’s currently in beta and, knowing Facebook, is bound to change … Continue reading
SQL Server backup and ‘operating system error 5′
Whilst trying to backup a SQL Server 2005 database on Windows 2003 I was given an error which said, amongst other things operating system error 5. That didn’t help a great deal, but the resolution was relatively simple: give the … Continue reading
‘Object reference not set to instance of an object’
The “Object reference not set to instance of an object” error in ASP.Net has to be one of the most annoying of all error messages giving, as it does, almost no clues as to what the error can be about. … Continue reading
FCKEditor and 500 server image browser error in asp.net
The apparently XML derived “500 server error” problem with FCKEditor’s image upload tool and asp.net seems very common, and there seem to be half a million different confusing solutions on the web. In my case, it turned out the problem … Continue reading
Events and postback with dynamic ASP.Net user controls
I’ve been trying to build an editable organisation chart for an intranet project and have built up a structure of nested dynamic user controls. This was all working well for displaying the information but wasn’t working so well for posting … Continue reading
