Getting started with Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi is a small, low powered motherboard contains 512 RAM, combined CPU and GPU. It has LAN, 2 USB, HDMI input, Audio Out, SD Card reader and S-Video connectors.

We can have many Linux distribution OS on it. To configure, we just need to attach SD Card to it. SD Card could range from class 4 to class 10. In some cases Raspberry Pi could support less then class 4 cards too. It could be powered through mini USB mobile charger.

Let's get started with installing OS on SD Card. There are various ways to install OS. Like we can download OSes through http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads and follow the instructions given on it. There is something BerryBoot multi-boot loader through which we can have more then one OS on Raspberry Pi and boot OS according to our need. http://www.berryterminal.com/doku.php/berryboot instructions could be followed to install OS with very simple steps. You need to have internet connection on Raspberry Pi to install OS. It could be done by connecting through LAN or some Raspberry PI WiFi dongle.

Give it a try to Raspbian wheezy and XBMC OS. Raspbian wheezy is similar to any other Linux distribution OS. Through XBMC we can convert normal TV into smart TV or can have HTPC. It is able to play Full HD video and also it could be controlled through mobiles, slates or some TV remotes. XMBC is having tons of features through it's various add-ons.

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Handling JSON DateTime format on Asp.Net Core

This is a very simple trick to handle JSON date format on AspNet Core by global settings. This can be applicable for the older version as well.

In a newer version by default, .Net depends upon Newtonsoft to process any JSON data. Newtonsoft depends upon Newtonsoft.Json.Converters.IsoDateTimeConverter class for processing date which in turns adds timezone for JSON data format.

There is a global setting available for same that can be adjusted according to requirement. So, for example, we want to set default formatting to US format, we just need this code.

services.AddMvc() .AddJsonOptions(options => { options.SerializerSettings.DateTimeZoneHandling = "MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss"; });

Elegantly dealing with TimeZones in MVC Core / WebApi

In any new application handling TimeZone/DateTime is mostly least priority and generally, if someone is concerned then it would be handled by using DateTime.UtcNow on codes while creating current dates and converting incoming Date to UTC to save on servers.
Basically, the process is followed by saving DateTime to UTC format in a database and keep converting data to native format based on user region or single region in the application's presentation layer.
The above is tedious work and have to be followed religiously. If any developer misses out the manual conversion, then that area of code/view would not work.
With newer frameworks, there are flexible ways to deal/intercept incoming or outgoing calls to simplify conversion of TimeZones.
These are steps/process to achieve it. 1. Central code for storing user's state about TimeZone. Also, central code for conversion logic based on TimeZones. 2. Dependency injection for the above class to be able to use globally. 3. Creating Mo…

Trim text in MVC Core through Model Binder

Trimming text can be done on client side codes, but I believe it is most suitable on MVC Model Binder since it would be at one place on infrastructure level which would be free from any manual intervention of developer. This would allow every post request to be processed and converted to a trimmed string.

Let us start by creating Model binder

using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.ModelBinding; using System; using System.Threading.Tasks; public class TrimmingModelBinder : IModelBinder { private readonly IModelBinder FallbackBinder; public TrimmingModelBinder(IModelBinder fallbackBinder) { FallbackBinder = fallbackBinder ?? throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(fallbackBinder)); } public Task BindModelAsync(ModelBindingContext bindingContext) { if (bindingContext == null) { throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(bindingContext)); } var valueProviderResult = bindingContext.ValueProvider.GetValue(bindingC…

LDAP with ASP.Net Identity Core in MVC with project.json

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), the name itself explain it. An application protocol used over an IP network to access the distributed directory information service.

The first and foremost thing is to add references for consuming LDAP. This has to be done by adding reference from Global Assembly Cache (GAC) into project.json

"frameworks": { "net461": { "frameworkAssemblies": { "System.DirectoryServices": "4.0.0.0", "System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement": "4.0.0.0" } } },
These System.DirectoryServices and System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement references are used to consume LDAP functionality.

It is always better to have an abstraction for irrelevant items in consuming part. For an example, the application does not need to know about PrincipalContext or any other dependent items from those two references to make it extensible. So, we can begin with some bas…

Architecture solution composting Repository Pattern, Unit Of Work, Dependency Injection, Factory Pattern and others

Project architecture is like garden, we plant the things in certain order and eventually they grow in similar manner. If things are planted well then they will all look(work) great and easier to manage. If they grow as cumbersome it would difficult to maintain and with time more problems would be happening in maintenance.

There is no any fixed or known approach to decide project architecture and specially with Agile Methodology. In Agile Methodology, we cannot predict how our end products will look like similarly we cannot say a certain architecture will fit well for entire development lifespan for project. So, the best thing is to modify the architecture as per our application growth. I understand that it sounds good but will be far more problematic with actual development. If it is left as it is then more problems will arise with time. Just think about moving plant vs a full grown tree.

Coming to technical side, In this article, I will be explaining about the various techniques tha…

Making FluentValidation compatible with Swagger including Enum or fixed List support

FluentValidation is not directly compatible with Swagger API to validate models. But they do provide an interface through which we can compose Swagger validation manually. That means we look under FluentValidation validators and compose Swagger validator properties to make it compatible. More of all mapping by reading information from FluentValidation and setting it to Swagger Model Schema.
These can be done on any custom validation from FluentValidation too just that proper schema property has to be available from Swagger.
Custom validation from Enum/List values on FluentValidation using FluentValidation.Validators; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using static System.String; /// <summary> /// Validator as per list of items. /// </summary> /// <seealso cref="PropertyValidator" /> public class FixedListValidator : PropertyValidator { /// <summary> /// Gets the valid items /// </sum…

Custom authorization based on dotnet core policy with Attribute filter

Around 2.5 years back I had written about custom authorization on MVC Custom authorization on class, action/function, code, area level under Asp.Net MVC application, there are few approaches which are changed in Core version for authorization. Like Authorization filter approach is discouraged since it cannot be unit tested. I believe this is right step but also global or basic authentication could still be driven by Attribute due to enhancing simplicity on codes by focusing on the primary objective rather than writing authorization check everywhere.

The whole approach and usage remain same from the original Post, in this, we would be just looking into making it compatible with dotnet Core MVC. You would need to go through earlier Post to understand the approach that was taken for authorization of a user.

Also, can go through official post: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/security/authorization/policies to understand new approach.

More of all we need to create Requiremen…

Kendo MVC Grid DataSourceRequest with AutoMapper

Kendo Grid does not work directly with AutoMapper but could be managed by simple trick using mapping through ToDataSourceResult. The solution works fine until different filters are applied.
The problems occurs because passed filters refer to view model properties where as database model properties are required after AutoMapper is implemented.
So, the plan is to intercept DataSourceRequest and modify names based on database model. To do that we are going to create implementation of CustomModelBinderAttribute to catch calls and have our own implementation of DataSourceRequestAttribute from Kendo MVC. I will be using same source code from Kendo but will replace column names for different criteria for sort, filters, group etc.
Let's first look into how that will be implemented.
public ActionResult GetRoles([MyDataSourceRequest(GridId.RolesUserGrid)] DataSourceRequest request) { if (request == null) { throw new ArgumentNullException("reque…

Unit Of Work injection through Asp.Net Core Dependency Injection

This article is not directly related to UnitOfWork but leveraging Asp.Net Core Dependency Injection to consume Unit Of Work.

In one of the previous article about project architecture, I was not very satisfied with the approach for Unit Of Work implementation for initialization of repository even if with some advantage.

Here is old code for UnitOfWork.

public sealed partial class MyProjectUnitOfWork : UnitOfWork<DbContext>, IMyProjectUnitOfWork { public MyProjectUnitOfWork(IContextFactory<DbContext> contextFactory) : base(contextFactory) { } /// <summary> /// BookRepository holder /// </summary> private MyProject.DB.Repository.BookRepository _bookRepository; /// <summary> /// Gets the BookRepository repository. /// </summary> /// <value> /// The BookRepository repository. /// </value> MyProject.Interface.Repository.IBoo…

Storing and restoring Kendo Grid state from Database

There is no any built in way to store entire grid state into database and restore back again with all filters, groups, aggregates, page and page size.
At first, I was trying to restore only filters by looking through DataSourceRequest. DataSourceRequest is kind of communication medium between client and server for the operation we do on grid. All the request comes via DataSourceRequest. In previous approach, I was trying to store IFileDescriptor interface which come with class FileDescriptor by looping through filters and serializing into string for saving into database but this IFileDescriptor can also contain CompositeFilterDescriptor which can be nested in nested object which are very tricky to handle.
So, I had decompiled entire Kendo.MVC library and found out that all Kendo MVC controls are derived from “JsonObject”. It is there own implementation with ”Serialize” abstract function and “ToJson” function. In controls they are overriding “Serialize” method which depicts the obje…

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