Response buffer Limit

I was facing a typical issue in production related to displaying large amount of data on web page.

The web page contains history information of a loan (The data is huge). On developer machine it was able to display the complete data but when the change was deployed to server it was showing http 500 error. The error was something like “Response Buffer Limit Exceeded. Execution of the ASP page caused the Response Buffer to exceed its configured limit.”

Quick solution:

• Add Response.buffer = true on the top of your page.
• Edit AspBufferingLimit limit in the metabase.xml file. By default the value is around 4194304 (bytes, i.e. 4Mb). Increase the limit to higher values based on the amount of data to display.
• The IIS restart is not required for the metabase.xml editing, but to make the Metabase.xml file write-able, you need to go to the IIS control panel, right click the server, select properties, and check off the box that says “allow changes to MetaBase configuration while IIS is running".

Browser compatability issues: With Dropdowns

The biggest problem in design of web pages is that styles applied for the pages won’t behave ‘same’ in different browsers. As a result an application that is developed for one browser might not work as expected in other browsers. This is due to the design/development of the browsers itself. But a job of good web designer lies in finding an effective solution for the problem at hand and not to get bogged down by the browser limitations. Recently I came across such an issue with the HTML dropdowns (List Boxes). When the width of a dropdown (DD) is fixed and the content length is more than the DD width, the content can’t be seen fully in IE6&IE7 but works perfectly well in Firefox. I.e. In Firefox the content gets adjusted keeping the width of the DD same, whereas in IE the content gets cut.

Here is one of the solutions to overcome such problem with Dropdowns

C# Code to add events on server side:

ddlList.Attributes.Add("onactivate", "maxWidth(this);");
ddlList.Attributes.Add("ondeactivate", "restoreWidth(this);");

Javascript code:

//This method will calculate the width dynamically based on the largest data in select options
//The maximum width will be assigned to dropdown
//The width will be changed only when the cursor is focused on dropdown
function maxWidth(mySelect)
{
var maxlength = 0;
for (var i=0; i<mySelect.options.length;i++)
{
if (mySelect[i].text.length > maxlength)
{
maxlength = mySelect[i].text.length;
}
}
mySelect.style.width = maxlength * 7;
mySelect.focus();
}

//This method is to restore to original width onblur of dropdown
function restoreWidth(mySelect)
{
mySelect.style.width="90px";
}

Is doing your work enough?

What makes people think that you are right person for the job?

A person delivers the module in time and gets a pat from the boss. It is a good sign to be noticed. But as time passes the expectation on him grows and if he continues doing the same thing, it does not lead him anywhere.

How to sustain the performance consistently over time?

Consider an example of development
Knowing the module alone will not help the person grow. This is fine at the beginning of the career. But in the long run to the person needs to know what others are working on.

The list of things that need to be known by any person:

• A comprehensive view of the project
• The architecture of the project that he is working on
• The advantages and disadvantage in it.
• The ability to fix an issue of other modules or at least trigger out the problem
• Can the code be moved to production environment
• Analyzing the requirements
• Value addition to the team
  

These are necessary to know your contribution to the project. Develop an interest in learning other work outside the scope of the module. Make people depend on you to an extent, but not totally dependent on you. It is not necessary that you should be involved in all the aspects of a project but get involved in as many aspects as you can. It is very tough to get these points when you are new to the industry. As time passes try to show your interest by doing some of the above.

This is just one of the ways to show that you are interested. By following all these it is YOU who will be benefited. Whatever may be the field you are working, this approach is universal. Follow these and it will make a difference for you.

Google Hosts BarCamp5 @ Hyderabad

Theme: Social web and beyond

Technologies, demos and startups- betting on Web2.0, Social web, Semantics Web and beyond!
Entrepreneurship
Social Web and Beyond
Opensource and Emerging Technologies
Product/Prototype/Idea Demos

On February 16th, 2008. Saturday

Venue ( Map of the venue )
Block 1, DivyaSree Omega
Survey No. 13, Kondapur Village,
Hyderabad, A.P 500 032
India.

Thats the latest Google office and is bang opposite the Satyam Building near Kondapur crossroads.

10:00am

Kickoff

10:05pm

Main sessions

11:30pm

Break

11:40pm

Demos

Open Source

12:40pm

Tech sessions-2

Entrepreneurial track

2:00pm

Wrap up

2:05PM

lunch

Meet u all there :)

Know that it is good for you

Why the hell I am not getting support from others? Why nobody is helping me in finishing my work in less time? Ask for help and the reply will either be search in Google or think or do some R&D or try …

There is a famous saying, build your foundation from the stones thrown at you, as a beginner in your career, these might be the hurdles you would be facing and in this post I am here to help you.

At the beginning of your career, it is very important to understand the basics and how things work. The pre-requisites for anyone to excel are: get to know the actual problem, the way of implementation; and given a chance provide your inputs and views without fear.

The person, who is guiding or mentoring you, may want you to think and come up with a solution instead of receiving ideas and you just implementing them. So if you go for help you get one of the above replies from him. Some times these may trigger you to think that your colleague/senior is not helping and ultimately may create a negative impression about him. It is not right to think so. By asking you do everything, they are trying to increase your thinking capability and logic. When you face such situations then try to analyze things than just following blindly.

There is a famous quote which goes like this ‘The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire.’ So go and explore instead of getting bogged down. If this does not happen at early stages of your career, you would soon become dependent on others and in no time your identity will be lost.

All they (colleague/senior) want from you is
How will you tackle the given problem?
What will be your approach?
How do you react to different situations?

Any or all of the above will help in your growth and build self confidence.

Importance of Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting is the process of taking a general problem, such as a service, system, or network failure, and narrowing it down to one specific component.

Troubleshooting is especially important because it is rarely done at your leisure. For example if you need to deliver a product and in the last moment you realize that it has some issues, which need to be resolved. In these situations you are challenged to find out what the problem is and find out the cause for it and finally find a way to rectify the problem immediately.

One best way to improve your trouble shooting skills can be “Don’t allow others to work on your problems without you spending some amount of time to solve it”. At the same time spending too much time on solving one problem is also not recommended. Try for some time, if you are not able to figure out the problem then I think that will be advisable to take help of others. You need to have patience and should be smart enough to improve your trouble shooting skills over time.

In the beginning you may feel it is taking too much time but soon you will realize that you can solve any type of problem and become productive.

Welcome to Scintillation!

Hi All,
Thanks for stopping by.
Scintillations - the name itself suggests this.

The process of scintillation is one of luminescence whereby light of a characteristic spectrum is emitted following the absorption of radiation. This radiation is usually of a higher energy than the emission.

With the help of this blog I will try to share my knowledge that I had absorbed. Let us see how we can add value to each others life.

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