100 free XHTML/CSS templates

Here is an article from Smashing Magazine with links to 100 free XHTML/CSS templates. I like these ones best: Old Forest, Biz Company, Electronix, and Urban Artist. Some sites require registration to get the download.

uTest testing community

I joined uTest a few weeks ago. They had a contest to find bugs in Firefox, IE, and Google Chrome, but haven't published the winners yet. There's also a good web cast by James Whittaker on the future of software testing.

SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Guide

Document containing best practices when upgrading from 2000 or 2005 to SQL Server 2008

There's also a utility called Upgrade Advisor that will analyze your SQL 2000 or 2005 instance and reports possible upgrade issues

Web Test Timeout Setting

Web tests can be set to fail if the execution time exceeds the timeout setting. This is in the Local.Testrun settings under Test Timeouts and it's defaulted to 30 minutes. There's also a setting called "Abort a test run if total execution time exceeds"

Can't run Watir tests "The RPC server is unavailable"

The error happens when you close the browser. I tried running my scripts, but nothing happened. There were also two browser windows open. Fixed it by changing the IE security settings, at least on my machine. The Watir scripts worked under a different Windows User, so I figured it had to do with security. Add the server name under Internet Options> Securiry> Trusted Sites list.

Parameterize Web Server and ReturnUrl

Changing the web server in a web test: I have a web test with the web server name as parameter and tried changing the address under the WebServer context parameter. I changed it from http://localhost: to http://server, but got an error when I ran the test. The error message was "Response URL Validation The value of the ExpectedResponseUrl property 'http://server/site/Default.aspx' does not equal the actual response URL 'http://server/Default.aspx'. QueryString parameters were ignored." It failed because the site name was mapped to the port number in the virtual directory on localhost. I had to change the value of the ReturnUrl QueryStringParameter from %2fDefault.aspx to %2fsite/Default.aspx.

I need to remember to change the site name in 2 places:

1. WebServer1 ContextParameter at the bottom of the webtest
   
2. ReturnUrl QueryStringParameter at the top under the login step

Integrated Windows Authentication in Firefox

I couldn't figure out why Firefox was prompting for login, but IE was not. The web application uses NTLM authentication. I found out there's a browser setting under about:config called network.automatic-ntlm-auth.trusted-uris. It accepts comma and space separated list of server names that will use integrated Windows authentication. (webserver1, test2, svr3). Now I don't have to re-enter my username & password.

Web Development Helper

Web Development Helper is an IE browser extension written by Nikhil Kothari who co-authored the Microsoft Press book "ASP.NET Server Controls and Components". It includes Page Information, DOM inspector, Capture Screenshot, script debugging, script console, script class browser, HTTP logging, and ASP.NET tools.

The script console allows you to execute script snippets or load a script and you can save the script to a file.

The ASP.NET tools are the biggest difference between this and other tools like the IE Developer Toolbar or the Firebug add-in for Firefox. The ASP.NET tools only work with Web Applications running in debug mode on localhost. The ASP.NET tools allow you to Show Viewstate, Show Trace Information, View Managed Cache, or Restart Application.

Ideavine open source community for .NET

Open source community for .NET opened yesterday. Founders: James Avery and Nate Kohari. It is called Ideavine.

awesome CAPTCHA

Hey, Digg just called me an ASSWP

Ubiqity Firefox Addin from Mozilla Labs

awesome new add-in that allows users to create mashups using commands.

Make screenshots of your website in different browsers

Here's a cool way to test your website in different browsers. I read about a site called browsershots.org on an MSDN blog. It will generate screenshots for different operating systems and browsers. It also has settings for screen size, color, Javascript, Java, and Flash. It took 20 minutes to generate 20 screenshots.

Ajax style animated gifs

Here's a site where you can generate you own animated gifs used as a wait icon. It lets you choose color and style. I read about it on an MSDN blog.

This webpage knows your gender

Actually it just uses your browser history to guess. Here's the link. For me it said there was a 50-50 chance that I could be male or female. It finds pages in history with the visited CSS style, checks them against the Quantcast top 10,000 sites, applies a ratio of male to female users for each site, and then guesses your gender.

VS2008 Toolbox is gone

I had this happen before and had to delete my user profile from Vista. It is caused by a known issue in Windows Vista.

I found a workaround here but I still have missing menus. I'll probably have to delete my profile anyway but will need a day to copy documents to temp folder {again}

This is bogus

how to solve a puzzle by Micahel Hunter the Braidy Tester

I got the obvious solution as I read this puzzle

I wouldn't have gotten the other solutions because I didn't know that information, until now. Thanks Braidy Tester, I learned something useful today.

Number of Days to Copy Files

I was copying some files to a Virtual Machine the other day and a message said it would be complete in 5 days and 22 hours. It actually took about 20 minutes; good thing I didn't believe the message.

Here's a screenshot with the filename and directory erased: