Anyway, hope you like the whole B-movie thing. You have to understand he’s just curious, not inherently evil.

I’ll still be tweaking things for a while, but all the basics should be working – let me know if there any any obvious accidents.

In case you’re wondering, for a week or so I was singing in my head (if a ten tonne baby… kills the both of us… to die by your side… well, the pleasure – the privilege is mine). Not that I even listen The Smiths, but it explains a little.

There is no ‘native’ iPhone application that I could find, but a mobile interface that is very impressive. Browse to m.newsgator.com on your phone, bookmark and add to your home page. Easy way to stay in touch which catching the bus to work etc.

HttpContext.Current.Request.Files["controlName"]

However, in this case I want to unit-test the action method on the controller, and any direct reference to a dependency will make unit-testing difficult. I can use Dependency Injection, but I don’t particularly want to provide a mocked version of the HttpContext.

This is a scenario where custom Model Binders can be applied. Define the following class that implements the IModelBinder interface.

   1: public class HttpPostedFileModelBinder : IModelBinder

   2: {

   3:     public ModelBinderResult BindModel(ModelBindingContext bindingContext)

   4:     {

   5:         HttpPostedFileBase file = bindingContext.HttpContext.Request.Files[bindingContext.ModelName];

   6:         byte[] fileData = new byte[file.InputStream.Length];

   7:         file.InputStream.Read(fileData, 0, Convert.ToInt32(file.InputStream.Length));

   8:

   9:         return new ModelBinderResult(fileData);

  10:     }

  11: }

Then in global.asax, hook up the custom binder to work with parameters of type byte[]…

ModelBinders.Binders[typeof(byte[])] = new HttpPostedFileModelBinder();

You can now define a named parameter on your action method of type byte[], where the name matches the name on your <input type=”file”> element, and the binary data from the uploaded file will be passed into the action method.

   1: [ActionName("Index"), AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]

   2: public ActionResult FormSubmit(byte[] photo)

   3: {

   4:    // do something with the posted image

   5: }

Unit testing the action method is now simply a case of passing a byte array, and the run-time version will pull the appropriate information from the HttpContext and pass into the action method.

I’m now coming down and trying to adjust to the idea of becoming human again. I’ve learnt and experienced a massive amount, but it’s also taken quite a lot out of me, and I think it will be a little while before I can properly focus on moving on to something new.

I started out with massive enthusiasm and great intentions, but if you’re under pressure for a prolonged time then gradually all of the non-essential things start to drop away, until eventually this includes learning, passion, curiosity, friendships etc. I think once I’ve started to defrost then these will all return quite naturally.

Anyway, enough self-pity. To kick-start my rebirth I’ve set up Vista on a shiny new MacBook. Apparantly this either means I’m gay or a girl, but that’s ok.

What started out as an overheating CPU turned into an addictive major hardware overhaul and fresh install of Vista. However, I now have lovely fans. And a pretty glowing fan controller on the front.

So for the past week I’ve been coming home from long stressful days and getting fist-deep into my case. The idea is to come out with a stable, work-worthy machine so that I can fit in the impossible by spending evenings and weekends coding.

Pretty damn useful that I like what I do.

http://blogs.msdn.com/sourceanalysis/archive/2008/05/23/announcing-the-release-of-microsoft-source-analysis.aspx

I would love to be able to give a list of my favourite bands, and subscribe to a feed of gigs they are planning in my area; or give a list of my preferred cinemas, and find out whenever a new film is showing at any of them.

Once you are providing more personal feeds, then authentication becomes an issue. There is fairly widespread support in aggregators for both SSL and Basic Authentication, but this can be overkill for certain situations.

The data we are exposing is not particularly sensitive, and it would be a real pain for a user who has authenticated with the main site to be challenged when they subscribe to a feed. Instead, the approach we’ve taken in…

• When a private feed is available on a page, the meta tag in the head includes a token on the querystring for the feed URL that is generated based on the currently authenticated user
• When serving up a private feed for a particular user, we expect the token on the querystring, and bounce the request if either the token is missing, or is incorrect

This means…

• An authenticated user can subscribe directly to a feed without an additional challenge
• If you know the URL to your own feed, you can’t get access to others simply by changing the feed URL
• The mechanism used for feed authentication doesn’t expose anything related to authentication on the main site

We’re exposed to the feed URL and token being sniffed on the wire, but unless the content is particularly sensitive this seems like a suitable, practical approach to ensuring some degree of privacy without introducing complexity and barriers to subscription.