Microsoft announced the ASP.NET Core September 2016 Patch Release

Microsoft announced on September 13, 2016 that they are making available a patch release to the ASP.NET Core 1.0 release.  The official announcement can be read here.

According to the release note, this patch contains the following security advisory:

and the following changes:

To update an application to make use of the new release, simply update the package references in project.json file to use the latest 1.0.1 versions of the packages.

Microsoft recommends that the following packages version number be updated to 1.0.1 Read more

MySQL Connector for ASP.NET Core

mysql
This is pretty exciting!  MySQL now has its Connectors available to use with .NET Core.

For more details, please see Gabriel Valencia‘s September 7 blog on
MySql Connector NET for .NET Core 1.0.

Prior to this, I have been using Bradley Grainger‘s MySqlConnector.

It has served me well, but I believe it has been intended as a stopgap until MySQL has come out with its official version. The Nuget packages for MySQL Connector/NET 7.0.5 m4 Development Release is now available at:

Check it out if you use MySQL as your data store!

Using Mailgun in ASP.NET Core on Linux Mint 17

The Problem

How can I set up a simple ASP.NET Core web application (running on Linux Mint 17) that sends out email?  This is mostly so that the application can send out email on new account to confirm the user’s registration, and also to support password reset via email.

The Background

Some of you may know that I have hurt my left foot.  It is just so happened that .NET Core was released right around the same time.  To take a break from my usual routine and keep me distracted from my injury, I have decided to try something new: to learn C# and check out .NET Core on my Linux box (running Linux Mint 17.2 Rafaela / Ubuntu 14.04).

I started with the basic console application tutorial, then moved onto Web API, then Web Application.  The last one I tried was the tutorial on setting up email service with the web application.

I found parts of the email tutorial a bit tricky.  The reason being that not all email services out there support ASP.NET Core yet, and part of it being that plugging in credentials to their corresponding part in the API can be a bit confusing.

Because of that, I have decided to write up my own little tutorial so that later on, should I find the need to actually set up a web application with email service myself, I could follow these steps along and not having to figure these out all over again.

Read more

Sending Mail from WordPress on a Multiuser localhost on Linux Mint 17

The Problem

How can I have a WordPress in my multiuser localhost development Linux (Mint 17) box send out (registration) email as me?

The Background

I have a development box with Linux Mint 17 Qiana installed.  The box is configured to host multiple users.  Each user can serve up web content from his/her own home directory.  (In Apache lingo, mod_userdir module is enabled.)

In this box, I have WordPress set up in my home directory.  I want this WordPress to be able to send out email.  I don’t want these emails to be sent out as a generic system user.  Instead, they should be sent out using my name and my email address.  At the same time, and understandably, I don’t want other users to use my email account.  So, the configuration needs to be local to my home directory and not global for everyone on the box. Read more

How-To: Virtual Host Setup on Localhost with Linux Mint 17

I have a local development machine that has Linux Mint 17 installed.  To make my life as a web developer easier, I would like to configure my single machine to host multiple development environments.  In addition, I would like to configure these environments such that the link would like similar to that in the “real world”.

After struggling for a bit, I finally come up with the steps to reliably configured it on my own set up. Read more