Catching authorization errors with JQuery when using Forms Authentication in ASP.NET MVC 3

When there's an authentication error (timeout or invalid credentials) in ASP.NET MVC 3, the framework returns the login pages as a result of this. What if you want to catch the error in JQuery and handle it client side. Well, you can't. Unless, of course, you read this article.

Kudos to http://trycatchfail.com

Firefox 4 is out!

I like the new version of FF a lot. A while ago I stopped using Firefox 3.x and switched to Chrome. The main reason was that the memory footprint of FF would increase a lot when I had a lot of tabs open (I'm a tab addict).

The new FF version seems to behave better, so I'm giving it a second chance.

AJAX Panel vs. Page Methods

A coworker sent this article to me http://encosia.com/2007/07/11/why-aspnet-ajax-updatepanels-are-dangerous/. I have used both technologies (check out ajax.net), and personally, I think Page Methods work great. Just keep in mind that if you use Page Methods, it's better to use Dojo or JQuery to access the DOM.

I have to say that my first thought was that Page Methods were kind of a hack, because they work around the Postback model. Maybe they're just the best of two worlds (client/server side). In my case, I prefer to use Page Methods when a website contains a lot of JavaScript code, and UpdatePanels when server side development is heavy.

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Postback doesn't fire when radiobutton is defaulted to checked

This was really strange behavior. I am using an UpdatePanel to trigger a partial postback, and by just setting Checked to true the RadioButton would not trigger a postback. I ended up moving the RadioButtons inside the UpdatePanel, and this fixed the problem.

Is there a logical explanation for this or is this a "feature" (bug)?

HttpContext.Current.User.Identity.Name is emtpy

If this happens to you, it's likely you forgot to disable anonymous access for the application.

Google Analytics/Google Webmaster Tools

A while ago I started using Google Analytics. It was really easy to set up, and it gives you useful information, like:

1) site usage statistics
2) visitor profile information (like location)
3) browser used
4) Navigation analysis

OK, I agree this is information that you could retrieve with other commercial software. However, Google Analytics provides you with easy-to-read reports, and it's free (of course, you should be willing to share the collected information with Google). You can even build custom reports!!

In fact, I just read something about Google Webmaster Tools. I'll give it a try!

Google Maps API and Microsoft Virtual Earth SDK

After thinking about what would be worth to learn, I decided to choose the Google Maps API and Microsoft Virtual Earth SDK. I just got started, you can find my "Hello, World" example here. I will keep on posting examples (more interesting than this one, I promess!)

Microsoft Popfly

Check out Microsoft Popfly. Is website development becoming more user-friendly? It even has a plugin for Mac users, although it has some issues when opened in Firefox.

It basically has two capabilities: creating mashups and creating websites. For the mashups, it seems it only links to a set predefined set of websites, which definitely limits what the tool can do. Still, it is an interesting concept! I will stick to DotNetNuke for the moment.