We will start by creating a very simple page in our application with a single button.  When clicked the button will begin the OAuth process via Twitter.  Essentially, the user will tell us they would like to grant acesss to their account from our application.  From there we will take their request, send the request to Twitter, then grab the response.

So our first step is to create a way for the user to let us know they would like to use our app.  As stated above, this will just be a simple button they user will click to start the process.

<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="_Default" %>

In our code behind we will start our process in the function tied to our button.  You will notice that I have set some variables that hold some of the values we set up in the first post.  When you registered your new application with Twitter they set us up a Consumer Key and a Consumer Secret.  We will use these as part of the request we pass back to Twitter.  So make sure you replace the variables below with the values from your application.  We have tied our click event to a function named Oauth_Click.  This function starts our OAuth process.  We first set up our request, then pass our user to Twitter.

using System;
using Dimebrain.TweetSharp.Extensions;
using Dimebrain.TweetSharp.Fluent;
using Dimebrain.TweetSharp.Model;

return result;
}
}

So when our user clicks the button, they will see a message from Twitter asking if they would like to grant our app access.  From here the user can log into their Twitter account and verify our access to their account.

Easy so far!  Our last piece of completing the OAuth access is set up our callback URL.  Remember from our first post that we set up a callback URL as part of setting up our application.  This URL is where Twitter will send the response back to our application.  From here, we need to verify our response, then store the returned OAuth information for the user.

I set up my callback URL as welcome.aspx.  The display of this page is just a label, where we can pass the result to our user.

<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="welcome.aspx.cs" Inherits="welcome" %>

Once again in our code behind we will use the Consumer Key and Consumer Secret variables for our application.  When this page is loaded we will first check to make sure we have a valid request that has been returned from Twitter.  If not, you can trap this and do something like send the user back to our default page to try again.  If we do have a valid request returned, we can validate the credentials passed back to us and display a nice neat welcome message to our user.

using System;
using Dimebrain.TweetSharp.Extensions;
using Dimebrain.TweetSharp.Fluent;
using Dimebrain.TweetSharp.Model;

return result;
}
}

We have now successfully set up access to our application for a user via OAuth.  One step that is not in this demo is storing the values returned from Twitter.  Depending on what you plan to do with your app, you will need to store these values for future API requests.  TweetSharp will return to you two variables, Token and TokenSecret for the user.  In my apps I store these in a database to grab for future use.

That’s it for today’s post.  Our final post in this series will show you how to post status updates via your application.

So what is TweetSharp?  It’s a .NET library that hooks 100% into the Twitter API.  The project is constantly updated as bugs and enhancements are pushed out to the Twitter API.  I have been using TweetSharp in an application I wrote 6 months ago and it has worked flawless.

I will start by explaining what this series will cover.  In the first post I will go over how you actually create an application on your Twitter account.  By the end we will be grabbing our security tokens via OAuth and posting status updates to Twitter via OAuth.

Our first step in setting up our little application will be to register a new app with Twitter.  In order to use the OAuth features, you must start by doing this.  So let’s get started.

Log into your Twitter account via the web.  Once you are logged in point your browser to http://twitter.com/apps where you will see a listing of your current apps, or a link to register a new application.

Click on the link to register a new application.  From this page you can start to enter in the details of your new application including an icon and the name of your app.  Our most important areas of the signup for this post are to set the application type to “Browser”, the default access type to “Read & Write” and the Callback URL.  The Callback URL is where Twitter where send the user to after they grant your application access to their account via OAuth.  We will discuss the code on this page in another post.  It’s also important to note that this URL needs to be publicly available.  For now set this to the full URL of your callback page.

Once you submit this page you will be taken to the main screen for your new application.  Take note of all the information returned on this page, as it will be critical later on!  Both the consumer key and the consumer secret fields will be used in our code to work with OAuth.

So now that your new app is set up, you can read a little more about TweetSharp and go ahead and download the library.  Our next post will explain how to authorize a user’s Twitter account to use your application via OAuth.

I feel that one should start by learning the core basics of programming.  Get your mind thinking in a logical way that allows you to solve problems.  After all, that is essentially what programming is: You are solving a problem.  I am not sure that learning a script based language would fully accomplish this.  I ended up recommending .NET (C#) to start learning the fundamentals, then moving on from there. 

If someone asked you this question, what would your answer be?  I am very curious to hear the opinions of others on this topic, as I get asked this question more and more.

Clean Web.Config Files by Scott Guthrie

reg delete HKLMSOFTWAREMicrosoftSQMClientWindowsDisabledSessions /va /f

After running this command, SP1 installed with no issues.

You can then use your normal server side code to the change the value, just as you would the label control:


myControl.Text = "My new random value"



Guid id = new Guid(yourStringValue);


Easy enough, and now I had my Guid data type to pass into the service.

The answer is very simple. All you need to do is add a reference to a .NET library and then tack on a using statement for the library. You can then use some of the VB functions right inside your C# code.

To add a reference in Visual Studio, just right click on the root item of your project and select Add Reference. From the .NET tab scroll down and find Microsoft.VisualBasic. Then click the OK button. At the top of your code behind file add:

using Microsoft.VisualBasic;


That’s it! In my application I can now use the VB function for IsNumeric like so:

if (Information.IsNumeric(Field1.Text) && Information.IsNumeric(Field2.Text))
{
//Do something here
}


First up the ColdFusion code:


Value Found

Value Not Found



This code is fairly simple. We create a UUID, use the ListAppend function to add the value to our list, then use ListFindNoCase to see if our value is in the list.

Now for the .NET code:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using System.Collections;

if (idList.Contains(newID) == true)
foundLabel.Text = "Item Found";
else
foundLabel.Text = "Item Not Found";
}
}

This code is fairly simple as well. The big difference between the two languages is that .NET treats the list as an array, so we first set uo our ArrayList object, add our Guid value to the ArrayList, then search for our value using the Contains function. We then update the value of a label on our front end page depending on our results.

So as you can see using lists is easy no matter which language you use. Both languages also allow you to store your lists in the session scope as well. The one pointer for doing this in .NET is you must cast your value back out to an ArrayList object when reading it from the session:


ArrayList newsList = (ArrayList)Session["newsList"];