Microsoft® Tech·Ed Middle East 2010

Oh..at last i got the opprotunity to attend the Tech-Ed 2010 MENA. The even was very successfull, being attended by professionals from across Midde East and Africa.

I have got the wonderful chance to meet Joel and Shahid Gaglani (once again). Joel as always done sessions with smiles and Shahid was not lined up for the session (unfortunately).

The other exciting figures of the event are Scott Hanselman and Micheal Noel!. Scott is excellent in his work, his session was awesome!...You are the man!.. You made the Asp.net MVC simpler to me.

Noel, you are the ocean of knowledge. You have the stuff to speak!

The very interested tracks were on MVC and SharePoint!

Active Directory and .Net

Excellent resource for programming AD (LDAP) in .Net

http://www.dotnettreats.com/tipstricks/adnet.aspx

Open Source IDE for .Net (Free...)

The open source IDE for .net (Free Tool)
http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SD/Default.aspx

Microsoft Search Engine - Bing

Microsoft has formally launched its new "decision engine" called Bing,
Try www.bing.com

How to return value from window.showModalDialog to parent window in javascript ?

Here is the example

Function to open dialog window from parent window

function showFleetDialog()
{
var oReturnValue = window.showModalDialog("/abc/page.aspx", this, "dialogWidth:800px;dialogHeight:500px;resizable:yes;");
if(oReturnValue != null)
document.getElementById('<%= txtFleetNo.ClientID %>').value = oReturnValue.FleetCode;
return false;
}

Function to retun value from dialog window
function closeThisWindow(fleetCode, fleetId)
{
var o = new Object();
o.FleetCode = fleetCode;
o.FleetId = fleetId;
window.returnValue = o;
window.close();
}

</dotnetSoldier>

Failed to decrypt the Web.config in asp.net

After encrypting the appSettings in web.config file using the command

aspnet_regiis -pef "appSettings" "c:\<appfolder>"
you may recieve the following error

"Failed to decrypt using provider 'RsaProtectedConfigurationProvider'. Error message from the provider: The RSA key container could not be opened."

or the site will not work since it cannot read/decrypt the web.config contents (connection string or any similiar data).

Resolution
This is because your ASP.NET application identity does not have access to the .NET Framework configuration key store. To give rights use the following command

aspnet_regiis -pa "NetFrameworkConfigurationKey" "<application pool identity account>"

Hope this helps..

Millions effected with windows worm - Conficker, Kido or Downadup

The worm Conficker was discovered in October 2008. Anti-virus firm F-Secure estimates there are now 8.9m machines infected.

According to Microsoft, the worm works by searching for a Windows executable file called "services.exe" and then becomes part of that code. It then copies itself into the Windows system folder as a random file of a type known as a "dll". It gives itself a 5-8 character name, such as piftoc.dll, and then modifies the Registry, which lists key Windows settings, to run the infected dll file as a service.

Once the worm is up and running, it creates an HTTP server, resets a machine's System Restore point (making it far harder to recover the infected system) and then downloads files from the hacker's web site.

Anti-virus firm F-Secure says that the worm uses a complicated algorithm to generate hundreds of different domain names every day, such as mphtfrxs.net, imctaef.cc, and hcweu.org. Only one of these will actually be the site used to download the hackers' files. On the face of it, tracing this one site is almost impossible.

Once the worm is running on the computer, it makes it very hard for users to restore their machine to a safe point before their operating system was infected, and automatically starts to download more malicious programs, that further compromise the PC, from hackers’ websites.

It’s using multiple replication mechanisms, including USB sticks, so if someone got an infection from one company and then takes his USB stick to another firm, it could infect that network too.

Computers users are advised to ensure their anti-virus software, operating system and firewall is up to date, and that they have installed a Microsoft patch designed to combat the problem, MS08-067, which is available from the Microsoft site.

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