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IIS Error 500.19 with ASP.NET Core Application


Running on IIS locally is pretty rare, but if for some odd reason you decide to run IIS locally on your dev machine you might find yourself getting a 500.19 error which relates to an issue in the web.config configuration. The solution is simple enough: Make sure the ASP.NET Core Hosting Module is installed. In this post I describe in more detail what the problem is and why you need a seemingly superfluous extra install to get IIS and ASP.NET Core to cooperate on local dev machine.

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Dotnet Tool Component not found on the Mac


I've run into this problem a few times: I install a new Mac OS and then install the .NET SDK. A bit later I install a dotnet tool using `dotnet tool install -g` and then try to run it, only to find out that the SDK is not able find it. This post is a note to self on how to fix the pathing for .NET tools to be found correctly and to be able to run your dotnet tools.

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Map Physical Paths with an HttpContext.MapPath() Extension Method in ASP.NET


ASP.NET Core doesn't have a Server.MapPath() method as classic ASP.NET had, and getting at the root path in Core is a little bit more involved than in those older versions. In this post I describe how to find the application Content and Web root folders and describe a MapPath() helper that simulates the old behavior.

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A WPF Statusbar Control


Statusbar controls are boring, but because of the way that they are used there are a number of caveats like ensuring the UI updates even in linear code, allowing for timeouts of status messages and resetting to default, and to provide some visual clues to draw attention to the status messages displayed. In this post I talk about a custom status bar control and helper that make it super easy to use a new status bar control or attach additional functionality to an existing status bar.

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Getting the .NET Desktop Runtime Installed with a Custom Runtime Checker and Installer


I've recently moved my Markdown Monster Desktop Application to .NET 7.0 and I had to make a decision on how to get the Runtime installed or packaged with my application. In this post I review the different deployment modes, the plus's and cons and the solution I ended up with which was to build a custom install wrapper that can check and install the runtime if not already present from an Installer or interactively.,

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Getting .NET Library Projects to Output Dependent Assemblies


Recent .NET Core versions have changed how .NET Core Library projects output dependencies into the build folder. The new behavior doesn't output depdencies, unlike full framework .NET projects which always automatically dumped dependencies into the build output folder. This isn't a common requirement, but when you need it, the options are sufficiently obscure and this post discusses how you can make your dependencies output into the build folder

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Implementing Two-Factor Auth using an Authenticator App in ASP.NET


Two factor authentication using Authenticator apps is getting more popular. One advantage of Authenticator 2FA is that you don't need to use a service nor do users have to provide additional bits of personal information. It's easy to implement, doesn't cost anything and also very secure as it uses one-time codes that can't easily be corrupted short of physical take over of a device. In this article I describe how Authenticator based 2FA works in the context of an application without using ASP.NET Identity.

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Removing the IIS Server Request Header from ASP.NET Core Apps (any version)


ASP.NET Core applications that run on IIS as InProcess output an Server name for IIS into the HTTP headers. If you want to remove the server header, you'll find that the process for IIS is different than for the internally created Kestrel header and you can't use the same approach to remove the header as with Kestrel applications. In this post I discuss why the header behaves differently in IIS and how to remove it regardless of ASP.NET version.

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Sending and Receiving GMail Email Attachments that contain Code or Binaries


As a developer, you're likely to occasionally send an email with attachments that are either code or binary executable files either as straight files or in a zipped up collection of code or binary files. You'll find that you can't actually send certain types of files or even files embedded in archives and even encrypted archives as most mail servers these days scan file content both before sending and when receiving email. In this post I discuss what works and what doesn't and how you can work around those files that don't work. It ain't pretty...

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Setting an Absolute Output Path for .NET SDK Projects


By default .NET SDK project dump their final build output into a deeply nested folder structure that describes the build configuration, target, platform and sometimes additional package folders. While that's useful especially for multi-targeted projects. Sometimes you just want your output to go to specific folder without all that noise. In this short post I show you what you need to set in your project file to put your files exactly where you tell them to,

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Preventing iOS Textbox Auto Zooming and ViewPort Sizing


If you've build mobile Web applications that need to run on iOS Safari and on an iPhone you might have run into the problem of input fields 'auto-zooming' the display when the input field and popup keyboard get focus. The view zooms and doesn't return back to the unzoomed even after exiting the input field. In this post I describe why this happens in some scenarios, and a couple of ways you can work around this annoying iOS Web browser behavior.

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Using Application Insights in .NET Desktop Applications


Using Application Insights with desktop applications isn't the most obvious operation, as App Insights has been primarily designed as a tool for providing logging, statitics and exception report for Web based applications. However, with a little bit of reworking it's actually quite straight forward to use Application Insights with Desktop applications and in this post I show you how I integrate App Insights in my WPF applications.

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WkHtmlToPdf: Dealing with broken Url Encoded and Extended Character Links


WkHtmlToPdf is a commonly used tool to create PDF documents from HTML files or Urls. Unfortunately it's a bit cranky and one of the problems you can run into is that links that include URL encoding won't work in your output PDF. In this post I describe the problem and a hacky workaround to make broken PDF links work by hacking the HTML file prior to conversion.

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Async Event Methods and preventDefault() in JavaScript


When using async events, it's important to understand how events work when called asynchronously. Specifically if you need to interact with the event context for things like preventDefault(), cancelBubble() or returning values that determine completion state, you need to be careful as these may have no effect if called after an `await` call.

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UpperCase Styling via CSS and text-transform


I learned something new today: there's a CSS `text-transform` style property that can be used to transform text automatically to upper, lower or capitalized case. No JavaScript contortions and it just works. In all my years doing Web dev I've not run into this property before, so I'm posting it here for others to find as well...

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A Button Only Date Picker and JavaScript Date Control Binding


The native date picker in HTML is a bit of a pain to work with as it's overly simplistic in features and how you have to assign and retrieve values from it. It also isn't customizable so if you need to build custom behavior like a button date popup that doesn't show the input control, you're out of luck. In this post I discuss the challenges of the HTML date picker control, provide small component to make binding values easier, and provide an example on how to create a button only date picker both with plain JavaScript and as a small Vue component.

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Basic Windows Machine Hardware information from WMI for Exception Logging from .NET


When writing out error information for a desktop application to a log whether local or to a telmetry engine, it's useful to get some idea of what hardware the app is running on. WPF applications in particular can have odd behaviors that are related to hardware acceleration, running inside of a VM or particular video drivers. In this short post I show how you can get very basic machine and GPU information that provides information on these basic system stats that can prove useful to trackdown rare hardware related issues.

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Windows Audio Encoding Failure after Settings Change


Ran into a problem with Windows Audio not playing for MP3, WAV and other music files as well as some applications like Spotify. Any audio playback ended up resulting in an error related to an invalid encoder. Turns out the problem was an unexpected settings change. Here's the scoop.

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HTML Table Cell Overflow Handling


HTML table column wrapping and truncating doesn't work like other HTML elements. Specifically if you want to keep table column content from wrapping via `overflow` or `white-space` wrapping settings you'll find that tables just laugh in your face. Here's a quick post that describes table wrapping and text truncation issues and the hacky workaround.

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Fix that damn Git Unsafe Repository


As of Git 2.36.2 Git has a new security feature that won't allow running Git commands until the folder the repository lives in is 'trusted'. This can be annoying, but it's relatively easy to fix. In this post I look at what causes the issue and show a number of ways that you can use to trust the repository to get on with life...

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SetResolution: Setting Windows Display Resolution from the Terminal


I recently switched to a single 4k monitor and had a need to quickly switch resolutions to avoid the UI hostile Windows Display Resolution widget in Settings. I ended up creating a small command line utility called SetResolution that lets you quickly and easily set a new Resolution, create profiles of resolutions to switch to.

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Avoid WebDeploy Locking Errors to IIS with Shadow Copy for ASP.NET Core Apps


If you're self-hosting ASP.NET Core applications on IIS and using WebDeploy to publish to the server, you've very likely run into the dreaded locked file problem on the server. In this post I show you how you can work around locking problems with the base WebDeploy configuration and by using a new experimental feature in ASP.NET 6.0 to Shadow Copy deploy binaries. As a bonus this post also describes setting up and using Web Deploy in some detail.

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HSTS: Fix automatic re-routing of http:// to https:// on localhost in Web Browsers


If you're doing local Web develop with multiple development tools you've probably run into a problem where you end up not being able to access a local site via unsecured `http://` requests and automatically get redirected to `https://` no matter what you try. If you don't have a certificate set up for the site you may not even be able to access the site at all. Turns out this usually is due to HSTS which is a nasty little bugger of a security protocol that is applied universally to a domain even in applications that don't use HSTS. In this post I discuss how HSTS works and why it can be a problem for local development as well as how to clear out the HSTS cache or avoid using it locally.

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Testing HttpRequest.Form Variables in Unit Tests for ASP.NET Core Components


Here's a quick post that shows how to create a testable HttpRequest.Form collection so you can test form variables in a unit test.

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Referencing a Local Private NuGet Package in your Solution


I recently needed to add a local reference to my project and I couldn't quite figure out the best way to do it in a transparent way to consumers of the repository, so that they wouldn't have to explicitly configure additional build settings in order to find dependencies. In this post I discuss how to add local references or use a local Nuget source to add non-public packages to your projects without explicit package feed configuration.

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