ControlParameters are a really nice way to declaratively define the behavior of DataSources, but often you need values that aren't directly in controls. Here is how to bind a ControlParameter so that it reads any page property you define.

Today I learned how to compare text columns in different SQL server databases that use different collations.

A question that comes up fequently about TestComplete is; "How do I call a script routine in another project from the project I am currently working in?"

On March 1st, Falafel Software Inc opened a new office in Santa Cruz, California.

The dotNet object in TestComplete (requires the .NET Classes Support plug-in) allows you to access .Net objects in your TestComplete script code. For example

If you need to create a 'sometimes connected' or briefcase model web application, be sure to check out Google Gears...

With new technology making the web a viable option for more and more applications, we are now seeing the web browser take over for the traditional desktop. Developers making this transition, quickly learn about some of the key differences between the two paradigms. One of the issues they are often forced to deal with is Session expiration. Out of the box, ASP.NET and IIS typically allow only 20 minutes of idle time before the session expires. This can be configured, but knowing that the session expired, or redirecting to a particular page often comes in handy. One way to do this is to add a cookie during the Session_Start method of the global.ascx.cs file, and then check for that same cookie the next time a session is created. If the cookie is there, the session either timed out, or was reset.

ActiveFocus is a Web-based project management application that unites project teams for peak performance whether they are located in the same office or across the world. The application, which is scalable and can be tailored to any business model, provides a complete overview of each project and and enables teams to capture all the details that are important to them.

If you need to quickly go to a specific artifact, and you know it's number, this is what to do...

ActiveFocus has a powerful built in Free Text Search capability.

In most projects, you will want to subdivide your project into separate phases, steps, milestones, iterations or whatever it is you call them. We will call them Milestones.

You can specify how many rows you want to see in your main grids.

At the end of an event/milestone if you entered defects against a project, you will typically need to review your bugs. Here is an example of how to use the filter to do this.

I was designing a load test against Active Focus the other day using TestComplete. I kept getting the error "Connection 0 of the task assigned to the virtual user VirtualUser1 was simulated partially. Only 3 of 41 requests were completed." in the test log.

My colleague Steve Trefethen notified me this morning that Windows Vista SP1 was available on MSDN downloads, so I took it for a spin...