Scott Hanselman

Just wirelessly downloaded the new PSP 2.0 Firmware. New features include a legit Web Browser which makes the PSP finally useful enough to carry in my bag with me. Also new in the 2.0 release is a Wallpaper feature, new graphics format support, support for unprotected AAC and WAV audio files which should please my iTunes collection.

This device has so much potential it's ricockulous.

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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If you're a relative and you've stumbled on this technical blog, here's our Baby Registry. For the .NET Technical folks, move along, nothing to see here! :)

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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Peter was getting the error "You must implement the Add(System.Object) method on MyClass because it inherits from IEnumerable" while serializing an object. He added an Add() method and the error went away, but he was rightfully confused by this odd message because IEnumerable doesn't require an Add as part of its contract! The error message arguably uses the word "implement" in a way that implies something about the interface in question.

Remember that the XmlSerializer has to serialize and deserialize, and does so only via public means. For something that implements IEnumerable, there'd be no way to get objects back in without something like an Add.

Sairama pointed to this paragraph buried in the MSDN docs:

The XmlSerializer gives special treatment to classes that implement IEnumerable or ICollection. A class that implements IEnumerable must implement a public Add method that takes a single parameter. The Add method's parameter must be of the same type as is returned from the Current property on the value returned from GetEnumerator, or one of that type's bases. A class that implements ICollection (such as CollectionBase) in addition to IEnumerable must have a public Item indexed property (indexer in C#) that takes an integer, and it must have a public Count property of type integer. The parameter to the Add method must be the same type as is returned from the Item property, or one of that type's bases. For classes implementing ICollection, values to be serialized will be retrieved from the indexed Item property, not by calling GetEnumerator

Now playing: Ladysmith Black Mambazo - N'kosi Sikeleli Afrika (God Bless Africa)

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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In ASP.NET the Response object has a very useful method called AppendToLog. It was also around in the Classic ASP days. The Response object hangs off the HttpContext. If you're running with the context of an HttpRequest you can always get ahold of the current HttpContext via the static HttpContext.Current.

However, not everyone executes within managed code in ASP.NET. We've got a bunch of ISAPI code that is all C++/ATL/MFC. Within MFC you can get ahold of the context via the CHttpServerContext class. This class isn't as friendly as the whole Request/Response ASP model.

If you want to get to the really useful stuff you have to run through a 3rd Class API actually named ServerSupportFunction that's hanging off an Extension Control Block. Lame. The second parameter is a DWORD that indicates the function you're trying to call. Since we were trying to call the equivalent of Response.AppendToLog we would use HSE_APPEND_LOG_PARAMETER. The additional information you're trying to log will show up in the cs-uri-query extended field within IIS if you're using the W3C Extended Log File Format. You'll need to go into IIS Properties and enable the logging of this field.

So, doing this in managed code:

Is this in unmanaged "classic" C++ ISAPI:

m_pCHttpServerContext->m_pECB->ServerSupportFunction( 
                                m_pCHttpServerContext->m_pECB->ConnID , 
                                HSE_APPEND_LOG_PARAMETER , 
                                szFoo, 
                                &dwFooLen , 
                                NULL 
                            );

Big ups to Paul Gomes from Corillian for figuring this out! And no I'm not off vacation yet; my wife is asleep. :)

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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I'd mentioned Amazon's foray into maps earlier, but they've gone even farther and launched http://maps.a9.com with "BlockView Images" for a bunch of cities. It's very Ajax-esque and while I think the dragging of the magnifying glass could use some work (I keep expecting it to work like Google Maps) it's a pretty interesting concept.

UPDATED: This is cool, adding A9 images to Google Maps.

Here's the lay of the land as I see it.

Interesting Map Sites

• http://maps.google.com
• http://virtualearth.msn.com
• http://maps.a9.com

Amazing Map Fat Clients

• http://earth.google.com

GPS Map Clients with DVDs

• http://www.microsoft.com/streets

Map Sites That No Longer Serve a Purpose

• http://maps.yahoo.com

Map Sites That Totally Missed The Boat But Are Still Used As Verbs

• http://www.mapquest.com

Map Sites That Should Have Been Integrated with Another Map Site But Aren't For Whatever Reason I'm Not Privy Too But That's Still No Excuse

• http://maps.msn.com

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

About   Newsletter

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