Duck Bytes

Working with Office 2007 (Open XML File Format) in earlier versions of Office for Windows and Mac

2008-06-29T15:50:00Z

If you have Microsoft Office 2003 for Windows or Office 2004 for Mac, or if you don't have Microsoft Office at all, there are a number of options available for working with documents created in Office 2007 for Windows or Office 2008 for Mac (for example, .pptx, .docx, .xlsx files).

For Windows users:
1. If you have Office 2003, download and install the free Office 2007 Compatibility Pack which will allow you to view and edit documents created in the newer format. Some features and formatting will not be available, such as SmartArt in PowerPoint 2007.
2. Download and install the appropriate free viewer, such as PowerPoint 2007 Viewer for Windows for viewing and printing PowerPoint 2007 files. Similar viewers exist for Word and Excel.

For Mac Users that have Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 for Mac, download and install the free OpenXML Document converter. There are unfortunately no free viewers from Microsoft for Mac computers.

Changing the Password Complexity in ASP.NET

2008-05-17T15:33:00Z

Here is a great blog post on how to change the password complexity requirements in ASP.NET:

http://weblogs.asp.net/owscott/archive/2005/05/11/406550.aspx

Referencing a subform in Microsoft Access

2008-05-09T21:07:00Z

Referencing controls in a subform, for example, in query criteria is not very intuitive. Here is a great concise article that explains how to do it:

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/msoffice/?p=188

Using two ASP.NET membership providers

2008-05-03T22:56:00Z

Recently I wanted to give someone access to one of my teaching web sites. They were not a student or faculty member so they didn't have an account in our active directory. I am not a system administrator so I wasn't able to add them to the active directory either. The solution was to add a second membership provider to my ASP.NET site. The first membership provider is based on active directory. The new, 2nd provider is a SQL provider. I found a great blog post that had the relevant code for checking the username and password against the second provider: http://www.stevideter.com/2008/03/20/using-two-membership-providers-for-aspnet-logins/.

The code behind for the login page was in C# so I thought I would provide the bare bones Visual Basic equivalent:

Protected Sub Login1_Authenticate(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Web.UI.WebControls.AuthenticateEventArgs) Handles Login1.Authenticate

Dim foundUser As Boolean = False

'this will call the default MembershipProvider
If (Membership.Provider.ValidateUser(Login1.UserName, Login1.Password)) Then
foundUser = True
' otherwise, explicitly call secondary provider
ElseIf Membership.Providers("AspNetSqlMembershipProvider").ValidateUser(Login1.UserName, Login1.Password) Then
foundUser = True
End If

If (foundUser) Then
e.Authenticated = foundUser
End If

End Sub

The membership section of web.config looks like this:
<membership defaultProvider="AspNetActiveDirectoryMembershipProvider">
<providers>
<add name="AspNetActiveDirectoryMembershipProvider" type="System.Web.Security.ActiveDirectoryMembershipProvider, System.Web, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a"
connectionStringName="ADConnectionString" attributeMapUsername="sAMAccountName" enableSearchMethods="true"/>
<add name="AspNetSqlMembershipProvider" type="System.Web.Security.SqlMembershipProvider, System.Web, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" connectionStringName="LocalSqlServer" />
</providers>
</membership>

Search engine tools

2008-04-22T02:30:00Z

These tools can help you analyze your pages and optimize them for improved search engine rankings.

1. Yahoo Site Explorer: Allows you to see which pages are linking to your site. For example, link:isom.uoregon.edu will show you all pages that link to isom.uoregon.edu

2. Google Webmaster tools: Tools that ensure Google is indexing your site correctly.

More tools coming soon.

Some of the information in this post is from a presentation given by Andrea Loreto of SEO Architect