httpRuntime maxRequestLength="51200" executionTimeout="60"

  Configuration config =
      WebConfigurationManager.OpenWebConfiguration("~");
  HttpRuntimeSection section =
      config.GetSection("system.web/httpRuntime") as HttpRuntimeSection;
  double maxFileSize =
      Math.Round(section.MaxRequestLength / 1024.0, 1); //
  Upload.Text +=
      "Max " + string.Format("{0:0.#} MB", maxFileSize);

using System;
using System.Web;
using System.Net;
using System.Text;
public class TextGrab : IHttpHandler {
  public void ProcessRequest (HttpContext context) {
    if (context.Request.QueryString["i"] != null){
      string url = context.Request.QueryString["i"];
      WebClient wc = new WebClient();
      try {
        string scrape = UTF8Encoding.Default.GetString(wc.DownloadData(url));
        context.Response.Write(scrape);
      }
      catch (Exception ex) {
        context.Response.Write("Please check the URL supplied is correct.");
      }
    }
  }
  public bool IsReusable {
    get {return true;}
  }
}

http://www.tonynorcross.com/lab/aspnet/handler/pagescrapedemo.htm

Call ViewURL()
Sub ViewURL()
        On Error Resume Next
        Dim objReq
        Dim URL
        Set objReq = CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP")
        URL = "http://www.google.com" 'Change this as required
        objReq.open "POST", URL , false
        objReq.Send
        Set objReq = Nothing
End Sub

If you want the task to run even when the user is not logged in, then make sure you check the “Run whether the user is logged in or not” option and the user account running the task has sufficient privileges – ideally don’t just use the admin account.

SELECT * INTO [dbo].[MyTable_20110506] FROM [dbo].[MyTable]

If you just want an empty table, but with the same headings and data types then do this:

SELECT * INTO [dbo].[MyTable_20110506] FROM [dbo].[MyTable] WHERE 1 = -1

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Codes](
	 [nvarchar](10) NOT NULL,
 CONSTRAINT [PK_Code] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED
(
	 ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX  = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE  = OFF,
           IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS  = ON,
           ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS  = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]

Once done, create and run the following stored procedure – this is for 100000 codes of 10 alpha-numeric characters, just adjust as required.

CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[uspCodeGenerate]
AS
BEGIN
	SET NOCOUNT ON;
	DECLARE @ui uniqueidentifier
	DECLARE @longcode nvarchar(36)
	DECLARE @code nvarchar(10)
	-- DELETE FROM [AppData].[dbo].[Code] --if you want to clear the table
	WHILE (SELECT count (*)	FROM dbo.Codes WITH (INDEX(IX_Code)) ) < 100000
             BEGIN
		SET @ui = newid()
	 	SET @longcode = (SELECT CAST(@ui AS NVARCHAR(36)))
	 	SET @longcode = (SELECT REPLACE(@longcode,'-',''))
		SET @code = (SELECT SUBSTRING(@longcode,1,10))
	 	-- replace the vowels, as these are often excluded,  where '?' are characters of your choice!
		SET @code = (SELECT REPLACE(@code,'A','?'))
		SET @code = (SELECT REPLACE(@code,'E','?'))
		SET @code = (SELECT REPLACE(@code,'I','?'))
		SET @code = (SELECT REPLACE(@code,'O','?'))
		SET @code = (SELECT REPLACE(@code,'U','?'))

		IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT * FROM dbo.Codes WITH (INDEX(IX_Code)) WHERE code = @code)
		BEGIN
			INSERT INTO dbo.Codes (code) VALUES (@code)
		END
           END
END

By default, theses are displayed in alpha numeric order, so to mix this up a bit we can do this:

SELECT *  FROM [AppData].[dbo].[Code] order by newid()

http://www.tonynorcross.com/lab/js/game/bullet-dodger/

I recently looked into using the various APIs to grab for site visits from Google Analytics, fans from Facebook and Followers from Twitter. To get the data to scrap every  hour, I used a .NET “cache expire” event to grab the latest feeds. Javascript perioidically grabs the next feed item from a .NET handler.

For the APIs;

• http://apiwiki.twitter.com
• http://developers.facebook.com/docs/api
• http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/

For the sake of this demo I have omitted the Google Analytics stats – as I don’t want to share stat info of all my employers clients – the result can be seen here.