Calling Code-Behind Method from JavaScript

While this page is still popular I have blogged about an alternate method for sending data from client to server using Javascript. You may want to check that out while you are here.

It shouldn’t be too hard should it? You want to use some Javascript on the client-side to call a method on in the Code-Behind of your aspx page – how hard can that be? Surely it must be possible. I was developing a DotNetNuke module (so the code below is VB.NET and not C#) which would allow the user to search for locations using Virtual Earth and store the latitude and longitude (as well as the zoom level) in a database.

The problem is that the Virtual Earth API is a Javascript (and hence Client-Side) technology and in the normal scheme of things cannot access .NET code on the server. So how do you do it? How do you get a Javascript function to call a Server-Side method – Is it even possible?

Problems with the WAMP Stack

Had an interesting problem at work today trying to configure the WAMP Stack on a Vista PC. I needed this configuration to evaluate the Joomla CMS application for an internal project. I had some minor experience with Joomla and the LAMP stack on a Ubuntu Linux system but as it didn’t fit my needs I never got very far into it. Now I had a change to continue my climb the learning curve and get paid for it – neat huh!

Recording Internet Radio Stream with Ubuntu

A friend of mine recently started co-presenting a show on a local radio station but due to the timings I was unable to listen to it live. I thought about trying to record it off the radio but this was not going to be straightforward as I would not be in when the show started or finished – and this is the 21st century for heavens sake, why was I thinking about going back to cassettes and ‘pressing play and record as the same time’? Surely there had to be another way, preferably one that meant I could get the show in MP3 format so that I could listen in the car, at the gym or at work. A podcast was what I needed but unfortunately the radio station in question did not produce one. However, they did provide an live stream – great, now what is the equivalent to pressing play and record at the same time on a computer?

Dirty Checking and the .NET GridView

Most Web Developers have come across this problem at one time or another, how do I stop someone navigating away from a page if they have not saved any changes they have made?

gnash not Flash enough

I’m a comparative newbie to Ubuntu (and Linux in general) but one of the plus points is that it’s Free. You can install Ubuntu on an old PC without putting your hand in your pocket and you get not only a fully functional operating system but all the tools that most users require, i.e. an Office Suite, Web Browser and Email/Calendar client. I recently found that I could not view some pages properly, e.g. Google Analytics, and traced the problem to the playback of Flash components. I had installed gnash as my Flash plugin for Firefox and frankly it just doesn’t cut it. The only option was to remove gnash and install Flash itself. But how? As it turns out is is pretty simple, with just two commands in the Terminal I had Google Analytics as a number of other Flash enabled sites running perfectly.