Please see this new ad for Mango update: !

I just got confirmation that it is officially certified and published to private beta test.

Please let me know if you are interested in testing

In design time (Visual Studio) my static sample data that I created showed up just fine. During application start I created some “real” data and bound it to the list box. As a result, the list box is empty and does not show any data at all … no exceptions or other runtime errors. After a bit of testing I found out that the problem is with the entity class definition. The class was specified to be private instead of public. This little keyword led to an empty list box.

For very long time now, I had to struggle with updates to database schemas. In almost any custom software development project you have to somehow take care of such issues. I used different tools from different vendors (e.g. Schema Compare, UDB Workbench, Altova DatabaseSpy, etc.). Some proved to be more efficient, flexible or productive, but at least you get to a point that automates some of your tasks (and I guess this is seems to be one (of many) success factor).

After a little bit of research I was able to solve this issue. Here is what I did:

- open up the URL http://<your_site_url>/Lists/TaxonomyHiddenList/

- under “List Tools” click on the “List” tab and select “List Permissions” from the ribbon

- add your “Users” group and provide “Contribute” permissions

After changing the list permissions I was able to create new items in the custom list with terms assigned from the Managed Metadata Service.

A couple of days ago my wife noticed that our refrigerator is quite warm inside and it does not get to the specified temperature anymore. As you can see on the following photo is was quite hot inside:

I wasted a couple of hours trying to find some helpful information on what could be the cause of this inconvenient situation. But, as you can imagine most of the information available did not shed much light on the darkness (i.e. did you plug in the electric cable, did you check the fridge temp, etc.).

It was until I found a link to document named SAM0074.pdf that encouraged me to move on. This document is not quite specifically related to my version of the fridge, but the panel looked quite similar so I decided to run the self-diagnostic test described on page 29. By pressing on Power Freeze and Power Cool buttons simultaneously for 8 seconds the device initiates a self-diagnostic test and displays a possible cause of an error (if applicable) by illuminating only specific LED segments. On page 30 you will then find a check list of error items related to the LED display. In my case, it indicated that there is some error with the refrigerator fan (the LED highlighted in the figure below was the only LED segment illuminated).

So, what did I do in order to get this thing fixed. Just follow the steps below to disassemble the fridge if you struggle with a similar case:

1. remove the power plug (it’s always good to stay safe )
2. open the fridge door (just to be sure)
3. remove all compartments (just the quick cool item should be left inside)
4. remove both screws as indicated below:
5. unplug the quick cool’s cable:
6. remove both screws from the water pipe (bottom part of the fridge):
7. your fridge should by now look similar to the figure below, go ahead and remove all six screws from the back wall of the fridge:
8. after removing all screws, be careful when trying to lift the back wall, it might very well be frosted and glued to the back of the fridge. Go ahead and unplug two cable jacks … one on the top left and one on the top right part of the fridge’s back wall … see below:
9. now you can remove the back wall … very carefully though …. you fridge will probably look like this:
10. the fan part is attached to the fridge’s back wall with four screws, go ahead and remove them:
11. in my case, the hole for the fan was pretty much iced, so I had to use a hair-dryer to carefully melt and remove the ice
12. I unplugged the fan itself and replaced it with a replacement part (i.e. http://shop.euras.com/thumb.php?eed=1&kdnr=20297&artnr=8757103&sessionid=42432203211&resize=400)
13. after this is done, accurately assemble the fridge back again

After all, our fridge is working just fine again. It was quite a nice challenge, although it is no rocket-science. Just proceed really carefully and remember all the steps.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

The ASP.NET application is created on another server that lives in a DMZ (demilitarized zone). This web server does not have access to the Internet from inside, but is accessible from outside of this company. A connection (HTTP) from the web-server to the database server is then responsible for communication between the user-interface and the server tier.

In general, everything worked just fine (as it usually does with this code generator). However, the page load and thus the overall performance of this web application was pretty bad. I then did some investigation and finally found out that code sign validation and certificate revocation and status checking could be a reason for such a poor user experience. This information is described in Remus Rusanu’s blog post. He basically says that if a web-server can open the URL crl.microsoft.com/pki/crl/products/CSPCA.crl then code signing is unlikely the issue.

I checked this URL on the database server first and the website opened just fine. However, the same test on the web-server was not successful (since it does not have access to the Internet at all from the inside) and so I decided to define these two general policy options (ChainUrlRetrievalTimeoutMilliseconds and ChainRevAccumulativeUrlRetrievalTimeoutMilliseconds) in the registry of this computer. These two registry entries basically specify a timeout for accessing this public key infrastructure (PKI). The defaults for these timeouts are (if set to 0 or not present) 15 and 20 seconds. We initially set these values to 200 and 500 milliseconds.

Interestingly enough, after doing so, the performance of this web application increased dramatically and everything is back to normal.

Some more detailed information on this can be found in a MS TechNet article on Certificate Revocation and Status Checking.

tickWell is a social networking platform with a focus on privacy which enables you to record and share selected moments of your life.