To do this you need to provide a machine key in the web.config of machine.config.

You can find a machine key generator at:  http://www.developmentnow.com/articles/machinekey_generator.aspx

The membership code looks like:

<membership defaultProvider="BfssSqlMembershipProvider">
  <providers>
    <!-- Add a customized SqlMembershipProvider -->
    <add name="BfssSqlMembershipProvider"
    type="System.Web.Security.SqlMembershipProvider"
    connectionStringName="cstrBFSS"
    enablePasswordRetrieval="true"
    enablePasswordReset="true"
    requiresQuestionAndAnswer="true"
    applicationName="BusinessForSaleSpain"
    requiresUniqueEmail="false"
    passwordFormat="Encrypted"
    maxInvalidPasswordAttempts="5"
    minRequiredPasswordLength="7"
    minRequiredNonalphanumericCharacters="0"
    passwordAttemptWindow="10"
    passwordStrengthRegularExpression=""/>
  </providers>
</membership>
<machineKey
  validationKey="7D69B8F7D5D4A9D6CC9776D6972877FC1ACA7669
    650687987EBF3C2A1709E0065AAA13ECABF4193A65920A027588
    42EF9EA97FDAC57C2F40F808AD1FFD9145"
  decryptionKey="CB0CE75BFD315E2108A96F95384BA8E28AE2AF97
    03F42B7D369EE44C09C394A6"
  validation="SHA1" decryption="AES"
/>

Please make sure you generate your own machine key.

For further information about ASP.NET Membership please visit: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff648345.aspx

http://www.filamentgroup.co/lab/update_to_jquery_visualize_accessible_charts_with_html5_from_designing_with/

If you are a web developer then you have spent many hours testing your shiny new website in multiple browsers to find unexpected behaviour and broken styles, javascript etc.  You have probably looked at html 5 and css3 and thought, yeah it would be nice but then theres ie7, ie 6, safari, opera …

It will be a long time yet until we can use html 5 and css3 and be assured of at least 90% compatability across our target platform and nobody likes resorting to multiple browser hacks to get the job done.

So for now we can use Modernizr - http://www.modernizr.com/, I haven’t tried it yet but it looks like a really useful tool.  It is a simple script that detects the support for various css3 and html 5 syntax and makes it easy to target browsers with varying support without resorting to hacks.

I am currently using FireFox with developer toolbar, firebug, yslow and pagespeed to debug, but the article claims that Speed Tracer offers hidden insights not found in other tools.

I will take a look at Speed Tracer and update this blog with my findings.

Other recommendations include:

IE 8 Developer Tools
http://msn.Microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd565628(vs.85).aspx

Opera Dragonfly
http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/introduction-to-opera-dragonfly/

By far the best app I found to breathe a new lease of life to my ageing mobile is Opera Mini which is a decent full page web browser with zoom which makes the web useable on the mobile instead of being limited to good wap sites like e-bay and facebook.

As far as finding other useful apps goes you cant go wrong with a visit to getjar.

http://download.live.com/wlmail

Probably the most useful one for me is the outlook connector for live mail.  I am often late answering e-mails sent to my live account as I need to log in to hotmail to see them.

In the past hotmail has supported pop3 but then dropped support for it.  With the connector I can now access my hotmail account through outlook 2003.  - Just downloading the last 12 years of e-mails that I haven’t managed properly.

Another handy tool is the Windows Live Writer which allows me to write and publish my blog posts from a desktop application.  I am writing this article in Windows Live Writer now as a test.  All I had to do was set the xml publishing option in Wordpress settings to allow the application to publish blogs to my website.

I used to use it a lot and then couldn’t find it when I needed it again.

So now it is here I shouldn’t loose it again.

Check it out - its a great way to apply color theory and ensure your websites look nice.

color scheme designer

I have recently been looking at availability calendars for use on Word Press and found this great little plugin that has been adapted for Word Press 2.7 by Anmari.

The plugin allows you to manage bookings on 1 or more properties via the Word Press admin panel and allows you to display the availability in a neat calendar as shown below in my test booking calendar.

Up until recently I have always relied on javascript to create image replacement and
image rollover techniques and haven’t really thought about alternatives. As far as I was
concerned javascript was just the way it was done.

The problem with javascript is that the rollover image has to be preloaded for it to
create a smooth effect and it doesn’t work in all browsers, especially with many people turning javascript support off for security reasons

This is why I have been converted to the use of CSS for all my image rollovers from now on.
They are supported in any browser that renders css and they even work with javascript disabled creating an instant smooth effect

OK, enough with the background lets look at an example CSS image rollover:

So how is it done?

Start by preparing your image for your rollover, I have used photoshop CS2 but you can create the image with any image editing software.

First of all create the standard button with these settings

I have filled in the background and applied a gradient, added text with a bevel and a small bike graphic.

When you have finished creating the standard button, group it into a folder then increase the size of your canvas to double it’s width, such as:

You should end up with a canvas similar to this:

Now duplicate your group and position it to the right of your standard button graphic

Make changes to the second group, this will act as the rollover state

Here I have changed the background gradient and used a colour overlay on the bike graphic

You should end up with an image similar to this

Save it for the web, I have saved as a png

Lets make it work

Armed with our prepared rollover image it just takes a simple bit of coding to get it working

Place the following html inside the <body> tag where you want your rollover to appear.


<a class="my-rollover" target="_blank" href="http://www.iwanttoridemybicycle.co.uk"></a>


Then in your stylesheet add the following style for my-rollover, make sure you change the background-image url to point to your own rollover image


.my-rollover {
display: block;
height: 25px; width: 100px;
border: solid 1px black;
background-image: url('Images/Btn-Bikes.png');
}
a.my-rollover:hover { background-position: -100px 0; }


This will set up the a tag to only show the first 100px of your image. When the mouse rolls over the image the :hover style will move the background image 100px to the left which brings your over state into view. No javascript, no preloading, no mess, what more could you want in a rollover?

This technique can be modified for any size of image, just change the height, width and background-position values

This technique was introduced to me by Rob at Swansea Digital Web Design

For some reason all the controls that I had moved into a LoginView were no longer binding to the DataSource used by the FormView.  I spent a lot of time looking for an answer on Google and the only post I could find about this problem is:

LoginView not showing databound controls
http://social.expression.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/web/thread/676ca185-6ff6-4419-b79b-102cbd1a7314/

This post identifies the problem occurs when an edit, delete or insert operation is performed on the FormView.

This led to to my work around for the problem:

Instead of using the command buttons provided by the FormView to change its mode I replaced the form view command buttons with standard buttons with the following code behind:

Instead of just changing the FormViews CurrentMode the button handler redirects to the script with a couple of query string parameters to tell the form what behaviour is required.

The page_load event then checks these query strings and modifies the FormView accordingly, when using this method to change the FormViews mode the databndings will display the data bound to them inside the LoginView controls.

Because the two-way binding is also affected for controls inside the LoginView, the next step is to intercept the FormViews updating, inserting, deleting events etc to load the value from the LoginViews into the DataSources parameters.

I haven’t had time to experiment with alternatives such as changing the FormView.CurrentMode in the handler instead of redirecting but if anyone knows of a neater solution then please post comments.

If you need code samples for the rest of my work around then please let me know.