Frederick Chapleau weBlog on IT.

MSVCR71.dll

2008-12-31T18:22:46Z

If an error occured when running a program that is using the version 7.1 of the runtime, you must intall it to get it work.

But the problem is, where is the runtime?

Yes, it is only available/included with .NET 1.1! So get it, install it, and it should work. Also, guest what... it's not installed by default in Windows Vista ;)

-f.

Dundas Chart included in .NET 3.5

2008-12-09T18:10:03Z

There was a great new on ScottGu' Blog, that was stating that a new, and free Charting component, based on the Dundas Charting Component, which was bought by Microsoft a few month ago.

This is a really great suite of charting component, that is already included in SQL Server 2008.

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/11/24/new-asp-net-charting-control-lt-asp-chart-runat-quot-server-quot-gt.aspx

-f.

Moving the Viewstate or a SEO technique

2008-12-09T17:06:25Z

Viewstate is a core concept of ASP.Net, but it can be a waste of bytes, when we know that some search engines are only indexing the top of the pages.

This can be done easily, and Scott Hanselman did a really good test on how to do that better.

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/MovingViewStateToTheBottomOfThePage.aspx

-f.

C.0.8.54 expected C.0.8.52

2008-11-19T22:20:58Z

Another Google Catcher page catcher.

When Installing Report Server and applying the SP2, this may occurred when you restore a backup from another SQL 2005 RS SP2 database.

The answer: you installed the CTP2 of the RS 2005 SP2, check out the latest one, and install it, this should be solved.

-f.

service reference reuse types in referenced assemblies

2008-11-09T16:25:50Z

When developing using Web Service, you may want to reuse common components, so that adding a service reference do not generate Type proxy to common Types.

In .NET 3.5, WCF (windows communication framework) enable you to do that. But with a catch, you MUST use the 3.5 WCF Service to enable the "Reuse Types in References Assemblies".

Only this type of Project/Service enable Service Contracts, that defines type mapping understandable by Visual Studio.

Here is a clear example on how to do that, from Jane Mattila a Senior Consultant at Microsoft Services in Finland.

http://blogs.msdn.com/jannemattila/archive/2008/10/15/web-services-and-namespaces-or-wcf.aspx

-f.

A quick Tutorial for Linq to SQL

2008-11-09T14:22:53Z

In less than an hour, I've made a COMPLETE web application, from the UI, to the Database including simple CRUD.

I have used ASP.Net > WebServices > Linq > DBML > SQL > SQL Server.

This is the tutorial for the basic concept, and the rest was... intellisense :)

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/05/19/using-linq-to-sql-part-1.aspx

-f.

My Slashdot-like RSS Date Converter

2008-11-06T12:57:35Z

What is this crazy format,

1970-01-01T00:00+00:00

There is no way to format this using XSL. So my solution inside a XSL transformation template, was to call a C# function that convert it back to a DateTime object and after that that formatting this like...

My Solution :

To add to the xsl:stylesheet tag

xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt"
xmlns:cy="urn:my-scripts"

Include this function:

<msxsl:script implements-prefix='cy' language='CSharp'>
    <![CDATA[
    public string Since(string abc)
    {
        DateTime dt = DateTime.ParseExact(abc, "yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:sszzzz", System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
        TimeSpan sp = DateTime.Now - dt;
        string formattedDate = string.Empty;
        if(sp.TotalDays>=1) formattedDate += Math.Round(sp.TotalDays).ToString() + "d ";
        if(sp.Hours>0)         formattedDate += sp.Hours.ToString() + "h ";
        if(sp.Minutes>0)     formattedDate += sp.Minutes.ToString() + "m ";
                            formattedDate += sp.Minutes.ToString() + "s";
        return formattedDate;
    }
    ]]>
</msxsl:script>

And call it like this:

<xsl:value-of select="cy:Since(dc:date)"/> ago, at <xsl:value-of select="dc:date"/>

-f.

TX1000 Windows XP Drivers

2008-11-04T13:45:03Z

As requested my many people, here are the complete list of Windows XP drivers for my HP tx1218ca (tx1000).

Those are Windows XP x32 version of the drivers, hopping that they are compatible with the x64 version.

Audio
HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_10EC&DEV_0862&SUBSYS_103C30BF&REV_1000\4&1AFC31B3&0&0001
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?softwareitem=ob-45958-1&lc=en&cc=us&lang=en&os=228&product=3177437&dlc=en
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PFid=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3

nForce Chipset
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_026C&SUBSYS_30BF103C&REV_A2\3&13C0B0C5&0&81
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0264&SUBSYS_30BF103C&REV_A3\3&13C0B0C5&0&51
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0269&SUBSYS_30BF103C&REV_A3\3&13C0B0C5&0&A0
http://us.download.nvidia.com/Windows/nForce/standalone/430_410/8.26_11.09_nforce_winxp_english.exe

Coprocessor
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0271&SUBSYS_30BF103C&REV_A3\3&13C0B0C5&0&53
Have disk, select System Devices and pick up the SMU directory under the extracted files, force the driver
ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp33001-33500/sp33411.exe

BlueTooth
USB\VID_03F0&PID_171D\5&7630A81&0&7
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=321957&prodSeriesId=1839144&prodNameId=1839169&swEnvOID=1093&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=ob-41446-1

Modem
HDAUDIO\FUNC_02&VEN_1057&DEV_3055&SUBSYS_103C30BF&REV_1007\4&1AFC31B3&0&0101
http://rapidshare.com/files/58969387/Motorola_SM56.rar.html

Authentec fingerprint
USB\VID_08FF&PID_1600\6&2D7CB5BB&0&2
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=321957&prodSeriesId=1839144&prodNameId=1839169&swEnvOID=1093&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=ob-52313-1

-f.

XML Serializer and the TimeSpan object

2008-10-25T16:02:42Z

If you are looking at this, you probably did a Google to find out why the Timespan object is not serialize when you are using the XMLSerializer from the .NET platform.

Yes, it's right. It is not serialize, and there is no way to serialize it. But there is many workaround. The more elegant one that I found is from Kenneth Xu.

http://kennethxu.blogspot.com/2008/09/xmlserializer-doesn-serialize-timespan.html

It consist of (kinka) overriding the property by one that can be serialized.

-f.

A simple way to add HTTP compression in an ASP.Net Application

2008-10-17T17:07:49Z

Basically, add a HTTPModule that will add a filter on the Response Stream. A couple of lines and a web application 4 times faster.

http://www.microsoft.com/belux/msdn/nl/community/columns/desmet/compression.mspx

-f.

A cross App Domain way to do things, or the basics of a Plugin Framework

2008-10-15T21:21:12Z

The basic way to do a Plugin Framework, is to use a AppDomains, because you can Load & Unload AppDomains. But, how can you communicate easily between them?

Here is a generic way (a way that use generics...!) to do it, using the singleton design pattern.

http://www.dolittle.com/blogs/einar/archive/2007/05/18/cross-appdomain-singleton.aspx

But, you might want to do more, like compile on demand, dynamic load, caching, calling without knowing what's inside etc. On the famous Code Project, Bob Amand wrote an excellent article on how to use a plugin framework.

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/dynamicpluginmanager.aspx

For sure, this is the way to do it...

-f.

Truncating all databases at Once

2008-10-15T18:03:25Z

I already posted a way to truncate log, so that they do not grow indefinitly.

Here a little routine found on the Mark Brown's Blog. A generic way to truncate all the log files.

See the disclaimer it's important.

http://blogs.msdn.com/mab/archive/2008/01/26/how-to-backup-and-truncate-all-log-files-in-a-database.aspx

declare @sqlstring nvarchar(1024)
SET @sqlstring='use ?;DBCC SHRINKFILE (?, TRUNCATEONLY);DBCC SHRINKFILE (?_log, TRUNCATEONLY);BACKUP LOG ? WITH TRUNCATE_ONLY;DBCC SHRINKFILE (?_log, TRUNCATEONLY);';
SELECT @sqlstring;
exec master.dbo.sp_MSforeachDB @command1=@sqlstring

-f.

Clipboard Copy HTML

2008-10-04T13:38:00Z

A simple Clipboard.SetData using the Clipboard.SetDataObject(obj, true); method is not enough to copy HTML to the Clipboard using C#.

I found a method from Tommy Carlier, that is doing exactly what I want, but this trim the first letters/html tags. Why?

The HTML Fragment method used inside this function is using the encoding GetByteCount method. This method count every single character, so, a \r\n (Environment.NewLine) is a count of two, and ... guess what, when pasting that into the clipboard, Windows count it as a single character, but only for the HTML content part of the pasted text.

So, the resulting function is

Encoding lEncoding = Encoding.UTF8;
string begin = "Version:0.9\r\nStartHTML:{0:000000}\r\nEndHTML:{1:000000}"
   + "\r\nStartFragment:{2:000000}\r\nEndFragment:{3:000000}\r\n";
string html_begin = "<html>\r\n<head>\r\n"
   + "<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\""
   + " content=\"text/html; charset=" + lEncoding.WebName + "\">\r\n"
   + "<title>HTML clipboard</title>\r\n</head>\r\n<body>\r\n"
   + "\r\n";
string html_end = "\r\n</body>\r\n</html>\r\n";
int count_begin = lEncoding.GetByteCount(begin);
int count_html_begin = lEncoding.GetByteCount(html_begin);
int count_html = lEncoding.GetByteCount(html);
int count_html_end = lEncoding.GetByteCount(html_end);
string html_total = String.Format(
   begin
   , count_begin
   , count_begin + count_html_begin + count_html + count_html_end
   , count_begin + count_html_begin - (html_begin.Split(Environment.NewLine.ToCharArray()).Length)
   , count_begin + count_html_begin - (html_begin.Split(Environment.NewLine.ToCharArray()).Length) + count_html - (html.Split(Environment.NewLine.ToCharArray()).Length)
   ) + html_begin + html + html_end;
DataObject obj = new DataObject();
obj.SetData(DataFormats.Html, new System.IO.MemoryStream(lEncoding.GetBytes(html_total)));
Clipboard.SetDataObject(obj, true);

-f.

Reverse DNS lookup with Timeout in c#

2008-09-09T10:50:22Z

Everybody can use the method GetHostEntry of the DNS class inside .NET 2.0. But as far as I know, it does timeout only after 5 seconds, that is absolutely too much in an application context where you want to resolve multiple IP addresses.

Also, you might want to return the requested IP address instead of an exception.

That is why I build this little widget that is using asynchronous call to timeout the GetHostEntry method, and return the IP address in the case of a timeout.

private delegate IPHostEntry GetHostEntryHandler(string ip);

public string GetReverseDNS(string ip, int timeout)
{
    try
    {
        GetHostEntryHandler callback = new GetHostEntryHandler(Dns.GetHostEntry);
        IAsyncResult result = callback.BeginInvoke(ip,null,null);
        if (result.AsyncWaitHandle.WaitOne(timeout, false))
        {
            return callback.EndInvoke(result).HostName;
        }
        else
        {
            return ip;
        }
    }
    catch (Exception)
    {
        return ip;
    }
}

-f.

Changing the name of a SQL 2005 Server

2008-09-08T19:43:59Z

A good article on MSDN

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143799.aspx

Greatly improved since SQL 2000...

-f.