Fix: Re-enable ClickOnce deployment at Mozilla Firefox

When you try to run a ClickOnce Windows application from Mozilla Firefox, on some machines you may see it try to save a .application (ClickOnce deployment manifest) instead of running the ClickOnce application installer/updater/launcher.

To fix that issue you can open Firefox add-ons dialog and search among available to download/install add-ons for "net framework assistant". From the results list select to install "Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant" (version 1.3.1 shown at the screenshot below).

You can try the ClickOnce installation process with ClipFlair‘s WebCapture tool.

HowTo: Check your web browser and plugins for needed updates

Qualys BrowserCheck will perform a security analysis of your browser and its plugins to identify any security issues. You can install it at https://browsercheck.qualys.com/

 

Another useful quick online tool (needs no installation) for checking that you do have the latest in web browser technology is Browse Happy, at http://www.BrowseHappy.com

Set default document for IIS via web.config at Silverlight Web project

When you tell the Visual Studio IDE to generate a web project (instead of just using an autogenerated page) for a Silverlight project, it creates a project named SilverlightAppName.Web with a SilverlightAppNameTestPage.aspx (ASP.net) and an SilverlightAppNameTestPage.html. Either one can be served from a web server (obviously the .aspx one from IIS or any web server that supports ASP.net at the server-side) to run the Silverlight app in the browser, or for debugging from within Visual Studio (with the included test web server [Cassini] or IIS).

Note that at that Web project’s Properties, there’s a tab Silverlight applications, where Silverlight apps hosted by that Web project are listed. If you add more there, Visual Studio will generate respective pages for them, in the pattern mentioned above.

By right clicking one of those two pages you can select “Set as Start Page” to set the default page that “Start” or “Start without debugging” uses. However that setting isn’t replicated to the web.config file automatically so that after publishing (by right clicking the web project and selecting “Publish”) that Web project to say a subfolder under “wwwroot” of IIS (or deeper in the web folders hierarchy).

If it was doing so, you would be able to just visit that folder and have IIS (or any other web server that supports the web.config scheme) serve the wanted page as the default document (instead of showing a can’t browse folder error or displaying the folder contents if Directory Browsing has been enabled at IIS console for that folder or some ancestor of it [and has not been overridden to disable at that folder])

However, you can edit web.config yourself to achieve that, like below:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!--   For more information on how to configure your ASP.NET application, 
       please visit   http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=169433   -->
<configuration>

<system.web>
    <compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.0" />
  </system.web>

 
  <system.webServer>
    <defaultDocument>
      <files>
       <clear />
        <add value="SilverlightAppNameTestPage.aspx" />
      </files>
    </defaultDocument>
  </system.webServer>

 
</configuration>

Kotsovolos: Case of a failed e-mail campaign

I recently received a promotional e-mail from an e-shop I mainly use to buy home appliances in Greece that was really funny: at the top offer there was a TV, but although the e-mail had been just sent (judging from its date/time stamp) the image already had a mark “exhausted” (out of stock) on it.

Obviously it was pulling the e-mail images from the e-shop’s web server, but it’s impossible to  believe that so many clients had rushed already to buy that TV. Most probably they had too few items stocked on it, but then you don’t make that the top offer at your e-mail campaign.