Given Path Not Supported on Uploads with PostedFile.FileName

Have you intermittently been experiencing issues with uploads on your ASP.NET site?
Seeing errors thrown like "The given path is not supported"?

I recently stumbled across this issue with a couple of pages. I was able to dig down and fix all of my code to handle uploads again.

It looks like the code I was formerly using to save files to my web server is no longer functioning the way it used to. Previously, I saved files something to the style of:
myFileUpload.SaveAs("C:\uploads\" & myFileUpload.PostedFile.FileName)

When I started exploring the error, I discovered that the file path being generated was:
C:\uploads\C:\Users\robfine\Desktop\myFileToUpload.txt

It seems that the function .PostedFile.FileName no longer returns just the name of the file being uploaded, but rather the entire path the file was located at on the uploader's computer.

It's an easy solution to the issue; all you need to do is use the IO.FileInfo class to extract the name of the file:
Dim myFileName as String = New IO.FileInfo(myFileUpload.PostedFile.FileName).Name
myFileUpload.SaveAs("C:\uploads\" & myFileName)

I've done a little of research and it looks like this may be linked to the browser the end user is using. Some version of IE7 and a couple other browsers throw the entire path of the file out there, while other browsers may only give the filename.

Since you never know what browser your user will be using, it's best to cast the .PostedFile.FileName result into the FileInfo class just to be on the safe side.

Is the Back Button needed on Web Browsers

A friend recently was ranting about the Back button on a browser and that it often messes up pages he visits. A counterpoint argued that a good developer is always prepared for users to hit the back button and always programs to handle the user trying to go back in time.

As a web developer, I definitely agree that the Back button is a great nuisance. It also creates a layer of uncertainty in where your user is/came from when they arrive at a page. Anytime a user needs to be able to get back to page they came from, there should be an easily accessible link/button, so is the Back Button really needed?

I could foresee a lot of malicious intent if browsers didn't have a Back button. Maybe the true problem is how overused or available it is.

Maybe one alternative would be to present the user with a new tab for every new site (domain) they navigate to and remove the Back button. Each website is now responsible for the navigation around it's own site, yet if you ever pull up something you didn't actually want, you can easily close the tab and you're back at the site that sent you there. It's really just your web history presented different, but it would take up a shit load of memory (depending on the sites you had pulled up). I'm sure other problems would come from such a strategy as well.

I can't really think of a method that would keep you in full control of web surfing yet remove the Back button entirely. Feels like it might be a necessary evil that developers just have to accept and work around.

How To Display HTML Code on a Website

I used to think that the PRE html tag would let you type anything and show it as it appears in your source, but it seems like all the PRE tag does is allow you to type spaces without the web browser ignoring it.

Anyways, you can show html code on your page without the browser attempting to render the html object, as shown in the picture below.



All you have to do is change all of your tags brackets from <> to &lt; and &gt;.
The letters lt and gt stand for less than and greater than, as in the convention use of the symbols. So, if you wanted to show someone how to make some text bold and some text italic underneath a picture, you could type:

<div><img src="selfportrait.jpg" alt="A Picture Of Me By Me!" /></div>
<div><b>My Self Portrait</b> - <i>Created By Me</i></div> 

And they would see:

<div><img src="selfportrait.jpg" alt="A Picture Of Me By Me!" /></div>
<div><b>My Self Portrait</b> - <i>Created By Me</i></div>

Another little side note, in order to display &lt; without the browser turning it into a <, you can encode the ampersand the same way we encoded the bracket: &amp;lt;