Arjuna

Rocking Horse – Gumeracha South Australia

2011-12-05T17:00:00.001+05:30

When you come to South Australia another good place you should visit is the Rocking Horse at Gumeracha. There you will find a huge wooden rocking horse to which you can climb after paying few dollars. You can also watch the birds kept there and do not forget the Toy Factory nearby to do some shopping which has a good collection of gifts.

Rocking Horse - SA

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If any one interested visiting below are the contact details. But do not try to rock the horse.

Address
The Toy Factory,
Adelaide-Mannum Road,
Gumeracha, SA 5233,
South Australia,
Australia.

Telephone
(08) 8389 1085

Map

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Developing iPhone and Android Applications using C# .Net

2011-12-05T15:26:00.001+05:30

Being a .Net developer did you think how great if you could develop applications for most popular mobile device platforms like iPhone and Android with the .Net skills you already have. If you were thinking like me then the wait is over.

Now with Mono you can create cross platform applications using your .Net framework skills. Mono is a software platform using which you can develop applications which runs on iPhones, Android devices, iPads and iPod Touches.

As per the Mono site, “The Mono Project is an open development initiative sponsored by Novell to develop an open source, UNIX version of the Microsoft .NET development platform.” If you are wondering about the name Mono, it is 'monkey' in Spanish.

You can try Mono for free by downloading the trial by going to the trial link. The good thing is after installing Mono you can use the more familiar Visual Studio to do the development using the available Mono templates.

Whispering Wall – Williamstown South Australia

2011-11-30T17:21:00.000+05:30

Barossa Dam or whispering wall in Williamstown is not a place you should miss in your visit to South Australia. From the outer look it is just a dam created in Barossa Reservoir. But the magic starts after you send a friend to the other side of the dam and speak.

You and your friend will be able to talk as you two are near each other. The sound is very clear hence the name you can whisper and that will be heard by a person who is in the other side of the dam.

I was said that when the dam was built the lead engineer used to listen to the workers using this amazing facility to get to know what they are talking about him. Also it seems a later attempt to build a similar dam following the same design and material failed to demonstrate the whisper ability. So this is a unique dam you will not find elsewhere.

Whispering Wall

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Map

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Adelaide – South Australia

2011-11-30T07:54:00.001+05:30

Thought to share some nice photos captured in the city I live in. Even though the city is small there are many thing that you can enjoy in this city so I recommend Adelaide for travelers. If you are in Australia don’t forget to visit Adelaide for few days.

Adelaide City 1

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Album contain photos of Adelaide city and few of the many gardens Adelaide.

Cathedral shown is the famous St. Peters Cathedral located in 27, King William Road, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia. Which is located in the following map.

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Expandable Regions using HTML

2011-11-29T21:09:00.001+05:30

You can create nice looking expandable regions using just HTML and some Java scripting. This is specially useful if you are to create a site without any major programming languages. Today I thought to share an expandable region that I created to give you an idea to get it done.

When the code works it will look like the following.

You should be excited by now, to get it working you need the following code inserted into a body section of a HTML file. Please note I have added the CSS also in to the page body, but if you have a separate CSS file please separate the CSS .

 <style type="text/css">
    a.headingStyle
    {
        text-decoration: none;
        margin-left: 0.5em;            
    }
    a.headingStyle:hover
    {
        text-decoration: underline;
    }
    a.headingStyle span.charStyle
    {
        font-family: monospace;
        font-weight: normal;
    }
    .contentStyle
    {
        display: none;
        margin-left: 1.5em;
        margin-right: 0.5em;
        margin-bottom: 0.5em;
        border-width: thin;
        border-style: outset;
        background-color:#D2E3FF;
    }
    .upArrowStyle
    {
        height:32px;
        background-image: url('Up_Arrow_32x32.png');
        background-repeat:no-repeat;
    }
    .downArrowStyle
    {
        height:32px;
        background-image: url('Down_Arrow_32x32.png');
        background-repeat:no-repeat;
    }
</style>
 
<script type="text/javascript">
    function display(item) {
        if (document.getElementById) {
            // Retrieving the first child item.
            var firstChildItem = item.firstChild;
            // Getting the correct child item with inner HTML text.
            firstChildItem = item.firstChild.innerHTML ? item.firstChild : item.firstChild.nextSibling;
            // Toggling the + or - according to the state after click.
            firstChildItem.innerHTML = firstChildItem.innerHTML == '+' ? '-' : '+';
            // Toggling the display image after click.
            item.className = item.className == "downArrowStyle" ? "upArrowStyle" : "downArrowStyle";
            // Get the sub item to toggle visibility.
            var nextSubItem = item.parentNode.nextSibling.style ? item.parentNode.nextSibling : item.parentNode.nextSibling.nextSibling;
            // Toggle visibility of the sub item.
            nextSubItem.style.display = nextSubItem.style.display == 'block' ? 'none' : 'block';
        }
    }
 
    // Displaying everything if item could not be found.
    if (!document.getElementById)
        document.write('<style type="text/css"><!--\n .dspcont{display:block;}\n //--></style>');
</script>
 
<!-- If Java scripts are blocked, display everything expanded. -->
<noscript>
    <style type="text/css">
        .dspcont
        {
            display: block;
        }
    </style>
</noscript>
<div>
    <!-- If + or - is required to be displayed besides the image simply change display:none; to display:block; in following sections. -->
    <h1>
        <a href="javascript:void(0)" class="downArrowStyle" onclick="display(this)">
            <span style="display:none;">+</span><span style="margin-left:34px;">Main Title 1</span>
        </a>
    </h1>
    <div class="contentStyle">Title 1 content goes here.</div>
    <h1>
        <a href="javascript:void(0)" class="downArrowStyle" onclick="display(this)">
            <span style="display:none;">+</span><span style="margin-left:34px;">Main Title 2</span>
        </a>
    </h1>
    <div class="contentStyle">
        <h2>
            <a href="javascript:void(0)" class="downArrowStyle" onclick="display(this)">
            <span style="display:none;">+</span><span style="margin-left:34px;">Sub Title 1</span></a></h2>
        <div class="contentStyle">
            Sub title 1 content goes here.</div>
        <h2>
            <a href="javascript:void(0)" class="downArrowStyle" onclick="display(this)">
            <span style="display:none;">+</span><span style="margin-left:34px;">Sub Title 2</span></a></h2>
        <div class="contentStyle">
            Sub title 2 content goes here.</div>
    </div>
    <h1>
        <a href="javascript:void(0)" class="downArrowStyle" onclick="display(this)">
        <span style="display:none;">+</span><span style="margin-left:34px;">Main Title 3</span></a></h1>
    <div class="contentStyle">Title 3 content goes here.</div>
</div>
 

Remember to correct the image URLs, otherwise they will go missing.

I need to thank M. C. Matti for his great article which gave me this idea. Also you can use this method to create expandable regions in other sites which use different technologies. For example if you need to add this to a SharePoint site, just use a Content Editor web part and paste the code using Source Editor in web part properties.

Hope this helps.

HTML Menu

2011-11-15T18:47:00.001+05:30

Today I thought to share with you, how to create menus using HTML only. These menus will be very useful if you need to create web sites using only HTML.

Above menu is created using basic unordered list (UL), list items (LI), links and some CSS.

Below is the HTML code for the menu. In the code I have created the full menu using HTML lists and used CSS to format the list to work as a menu.

 <ul class="mainMenu">
    <li class="mainMenuItem"><a href="Home.html" class="mainMenuLink">Home</a>
        <ul class="subMenu">
            <li class="subMenuItem"><a href="Page1.html" class="subMenuItemLink">e</a></li>
            <li class="subMenuItem"><a href="Page2.html" class="subMenuItemLink">ee</a></li>
        </ul>
    </li>
    <li class="mainMenuItem"><a href="Module1.html" class="mainMenuLink">Module 1</a>
        <ul class="subMenu">
            <li class="subMenuItem"><a href="Module1_Page1.html" class="subMenuItemLink">dd</a></li>
            <li class="subMenuItem"><a href="Module1_Page2.html" class="subMenuItemLink">ddd</a></li>
            <li class="subMenuItem"><a href="Module1_Page3.html" class="subMenuItemLink">dddd</a></li>
        </ul>
    </li>
    <li class="mainMenuItem"><a href="Module2.html" class="mainMenuLink">Module 2</a>
        <ul class="subMenu">
            <li class="subMenuItem"><a href="Module2_Page1.html" class="subMenuItemLink">c</a></li>
            <li class="subMenuItem"><a href="Module2_Page2.html" class="subMenuItemLink">cc</a></li>
            <li class="subMenuItem"><a href="Module2_Page3.html" class="subMenuItemLink">ccc</a></li>
        </ul>
    </li>
    <li class="mainMenuItem"><a href="Module3.html" class="mainMenuLink">Module 3</a>
        <ul class="subMenu">
            <li class="subMenuItem"><a href="Module3_Page1.html" class="subMenuItemLink">bb</a></li>
            <li class="subMenuItem"><a href="Module3_Page2.html" class="subMenuItemLink">bbb</a></li>
            <li class="subMenuItem"><a href="Module3_Page3.html" class="subMenuItemLink">bbbb</a></li>
        </ul>
    </li>
    <li class="mainMenuItem"><a href="Module4.html" class="mainMenuLink">Module 4</a>
        <ul class="subMenu">
            <li class="subMenuItem"><a href="Module4_Page1.html" class="subMenuItemLink">aa</a></li>
            <li class="subMenuItem"><a href="Module4_Page2.html" class="subMenuItemLink">aaa</a></li>
            <li class="subMenuItem"><a href="Module4_Page3.html" class="subMenuItemLink">aaaa</a></li>
        </ul>
    </li>
</ul>
 

Below is the CSS that you need to make the above HTML work as a menu.

 .subMenu
{
    padding: 1px;
    position: absolute;
    visibility: hidden;
}
.subMenuItem
{
    list-style: none;
    float: left;
    position: relative;
    margin: 0px;
    display: block;
    width: 92px;
}
.subMenuItemLink
{
    color: White;
    text-align: left;
    text-decoration: none;
    padding-left: 5px;
    display: block;
    height: 32px;
    width: 92px;
    background-image: url('./Images/menuButtonSelected.jpg');
}
<!-- Changing the menu when mouse is over the menu. -->
.mainMenuItem:hover .mainMenuLink
{
    color: White;
    background-color: Blue;
    background-image: url('./Images/menuButtonSelected.jpg');
}
<!-- Changing the menu when it is selected. -->
.mainMenuItem:active .mainMenuLink
{
    background-image: url('./Images/menuButtonSelected.jpg');
}
<!-- Showing the sub menu items when mouse is over the main menu. -->
.mainMenuItem:hover .subMenu
{
    visibility: visible;
    z-index: 100;
}
 

Do not forget to import the CSS into the HTML page by using a link as shown below.

 <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="DefaultStyles.css" />
 

I used the following images as the background images of the links.

I think the code is not that complex, so hope this helps, let me know if you need any help on this, I will try to help you out.

Microsoft Flight

2011-11-15T17:22:00.001+05:30

In early 2009 I got shocked when I heard that Microsoft Aces game studio was closed down by Microsoft which was responsible for developing well known PC simulation software's and games such as Flight Simulator, Combat Flight Simulator and Train Simulator.

But recently after getting to know that Microsoft is now developing the Flight Simulator internal at Microsoft I am more than happy. After seeing the new visuals of the renamed product Microsoft Flight, I am extremely exited and waiting until they release the next version.

See for your selves by visiting Microsoft Flight site which is the next version of Microsoft Flight Simulator X.

Word Field Code Samples

2011-11-04T20:10:00.001+05:30

As I mentioned in my last post, I will list down some uses of Word field codes here. If you would like to know what they are I invite you to read my previous post on field codes.

Notes -

Always remember to user Ctrl + F9 to put curly braces, sorry no copy pasting, you have to type all.
If the codes are misbehaving, right click and click on Update Field.

1. Using Word how to greet the user according to the time of the day.

{ If "{ Time \@ "HH:mm" }" > "12:00" { If "{ Time \@ "HH:mm" }" > "15:00" { If "{ Time \@ "HH:mm" }" > "18:00" "Good Night" "Good Evening" } "Good Afternoon" } "Good Morning" }

2. Concatenating text and displaying in Word.

Welcome { UserName } you are reading { FileName \* MergeFormat }.

3. Displaying page number in odd pages and text on others in Word.

{ If { =Mod({ Page }, 2) } =1 { Page } "PTO" }

4. Using Word skipping page number on first two pages and then showing page numbers starting from number 2.

{ If { Page } < 3 "" { ={ Page } - 1 } }

5. Displaying last saved user name on the last page in Word.

{ If { Page } = { NumPages } "This { FileName } was last saved by { LastSavedBy } on {DocProperty LastSavedTime }. Document was edited for { EditTime } minutes." "" }

6. Displaying number of characters, words, paragraphs, pages in a Word document.

This document has { NumWords } words in { NumPages } pages.

This document has { NumChars } characters in { DocProperty Paragraphs } paragraphs.

Field Codes in Word

2011-11-03T18:33:00.001+05:30

When playing with Microsoft Word I found a nice feature from which we can do few more things with Word other than typing documents.

It is known as field codes. Below are some of them with their descriptions.

Field Code	Description
DocProperty	Retrieves current document properties.
NumChars	Retrieves the number of characters in the current document.
NumWords	Retrieves the number of words in the current document.
NumPages	Retrieves the number of pages in the current document.
Page	Retrieves the current page number of the document.
LastSavedBy	Retrieves the name of the user who saved the document last.
SectionPages	Retrieves the total number of pages in the current section.
Template	Retrieve the name of the title the document is based on.
Time	Retrieves the current system time and you can format the time using date formats.
UserInitials	Retrieves the current user’s initials.
UserName	Retrieves the current user’s name.

I did mention only few field codes above to just make you start thinking the things which can be achieved by using them in your documents.

To demonstrate I will create a Word document which greets the user with his name. To do this there are 2 ways, one is easy and the other is little hard.

Method 1

1. First the easy way, just open Word, place your cursor where you need your greeting to appear and click on Insert tab to show the insert ribbon. Then click on Quick Parts and then on Field…

2. From the field window select UserName field and choose an appropriate format from the format list and press ok.

This will add the following to your Word document which is responsible in showing the current user’s name.

{ USERNAME \* Caps \* MERGEFORMAT }

3. To hide the code and display the user name right click on the code and click on Toggle Field Codes.

Since I did put the word Welcome in front of this the code the output appears as below.

If you need to change the code you can right click on the user name displayed and click on Edit Field.

Method 2

Bit difficult way of doing the same is to just type in the code without the help of Word. Since we know what to type in, the trick is to press Control key and F9 (Ctrl + F9) keys before doing anything.

To get this done just go to the place where you need the user name to appear and then press Ctrl + F9 keys. This will add two curly braces (“{ }”) onto Word (Always press Ctrl + F9, never type the braces manually since then it will not work). Then just type in the code we used earlier and it will work the same way.

Knowing the below keyboard shortcuts will ease your life.

Ctrl + F9 – Will add code insertion points to Word.

Shift + F9 – Will toggle the currently selected field code.

Alt + F9 – Will toggle all the filed codes found in the Word document.

If you find that the codes are not working as they should be, simply try right clicking on it and clicking on Update Field.

Hope this is helpful to you and later I will be putting another post with some field codes in action.

JavaScript Performance Testing

2011-10-31T16:58:00.001+05:30

Recently I found a site which enable us to compare the performance of different JavaScripts that we write. This makes us choose the best code when we have several ways of doing the same thing because we can compare the performance of the script that we wrote easily.

If you are interested, go to http://jsperf.com/ to start testing.

You need to just put in “Presentation code HTML” and the required JavaScripts as test cases. Then after saving you can run the tests to check for performance.

Another feature of this site is that you can share your tests with others since you can access the tests using the shown public URL.

TechEd Australia – Videos

2011-09-16T21:34:00.001+05:30

As you might know TechEd Australia ended few weeks back. I am sure lot of you might not have the chance to visit it. The good thing is you can watch the recorded sessions online now by visiting the following site.

http://channel9.msdn.com/events/teched/australia/tech-ed-australia-2011

I think this will be mostly useful to people who didn’t visit TechEd and also to people who visited it to refresh their minds.

Installing a Telephone Connector

2011-08-28T20:32:00.001+05:30

In the current place I am living I didn’t have a telephone connection, when I applied for a connection and got the connection I found that some of the line wiring and connectors are out of shape. So I had to replace some items and rewire. When doing it I faced few issues since the connector was a legacy connector. So I thought to put an article on how to correctly get it done.

The connector I found in my place is the old Australian connector which is sometimes named as legacy Australian connector or 610 socket. Following are some images to correctly identify it.

To get it correctly fitted first you need to identify your correct wire pairs, luckily in mine only one pair was working (meaning only one line was present). So I just used my multi meter to find the correct wire pair. Since phone wires will have DC current remember to put your multi meter into DC mode before measuring. Also note that phone lines may conduct 24v-50v DC current normally. When ringing this will change to 75v-90v AC.

IMPORTANT - If you touch them directly you might get an electric shock even though it is not deadly so always make sure you are wearing gloves or adequate footwear since if you do not like to get shocked.

Even though the old phone cables only had 4 wires the new ones are having more. Sometimes this can even be 50. When there are more wires it means that the wire can be used to connect more lines. For example a cable with 4 wires can be used for 2 lines. A cable with 16 wires can transmit 8 phone lines. To identify the pairs correctly phone wires inside a cable are color coded. Since I am not an expert in this area I will only talk about 6 wired cables. The following will be helpful to find the correct wire pairs for you.

Pair 1 ring (Blue) 6
Pair 1 tip (White) 2
Pair 2 ring (Black) 1
Pair 2 tip (Red) 5
Pair 3 ring (Green) 3
Pair 3 tip (Orange) 4

Now you may be wondering few things, wait I will try to explain.

In the above cable since it has 6 wires it can accommodate 3 phone lines or pairs. For example first pair is White and Blue wires, second pair is Black and Red wires and third pair is Green and Orange wires.

The words ring and tip are like live and neutral or + and –. Ring is battery negative and tip is ground. Since some answering machines do need these correctly hooked in it is always good to connect them correctly to get the ultimate from your equipment.

The last digit in Black represent the place the wire should be connected in the phone socket. To explain this more I will use the following picture I took on 610 socket after removing its cover.

If you closely look into the socket you will see there are numbers from 1 to 6 (sorry they are not visible in the image) marking the pins. The numbering starts from right to left in the image. So the Red wire in the image is connected to pin 1 and Blue wire is connected to pin 6.

After identifying the pins in the socket and wire pairs the next step is to correctly connect them. You just need to connect the pairs as per the last digit shown in the bulleted list above. If you correctly got it it should end up like this.

From right to left on the socket.

Pair 2 ring (Black) – Pin 1
Pair 1 tip (White) – Pin 2
Pair 3 ring (Green) – Pin 3
Pair 3 tip (Orange) – Pin 4
Pair 2 tip (Red) – Pin 5
Pair 1 ring (Blue) – Pin 6

Then replace the socket cover and plug in the compatible plug (605) into the socket.

As you see in my plug only four contacts are there meaning I only can use 2 phone lines (pairs), but since I only have one line this is not an issue to me. So make sure to find the correct plug if you are trying to utilize all 3 pairs.

I know there must be many unanswered questions. Even though I am not an expert on this area let me know if you face any problems, I will try to help you.

Comparing Content Management Systems

2011-07-28T19:09:00.001+05:30

Recently I needed to compare the features of different Content Management Systems (CMS) and came up to the following site which has a huge list of Systems with the ability to compare their features.

http://www.cmsmatrix.org/

Came Back to Australia

2011-07-07T19:47:00.001+05:30

Since last May I was back in Australia with my wife, so didn’t had a chance to update my site for a long time. This time I will be staying in Adelaide for long.

Thought to share some pictures I took on my way here through Singapore.

Following are some photos I took while we were in some indoor gardens at Singapore Airport.

Some photos I captured while we were in Singapore City.

Even though this was my second time in Singapore I will never be bored being in Singapore due to vast variety of facilities Changi airport is providing.

In flight to Adelaide, Australia on Singapore Airlines Airbus A330.

Database Not Accessible

2011-04-25T22:13:00.001+05:30

Recently after restoring a database backup which I got from another server I repeatedly encountered an error when logged in using a user who is given permission. But when ‘sa’ account is used I could work with the database without any problem.

The error message was “The database DATABASE NAME is not accessible. (ObjectExplorer)” which was not helpful since it didn’t give any clue to figure out the issue.

Later I found that the issue is because the user in the restored database is not properly mapped to the user in the new server and the resolution for this is to run the stored procedure sp_change_users_login to correct the orphaned user.

sp_change_users_login 'update_one', 'USER', 'LOGIN' – Links the given user in the current database to the specified login.
sp_change_users_login 'auto_fix', 'USER' – Links the given user in the current database to the login having the same name in the current server.

After running this you will be able to access the restored database without any issue using the mentioned database user.

SharePoint 2010 Videos

2011-04-03T12:04:00.001+05:30

Thought to share few sites I found which might help you start development on SharePoint 2010.

Official Microsoft SharePoint Site

Getting started developing on SharePoint

SharePoint Resources for Developers – This has links to many SharePoint learning videos

Using SharePoint 2010

Hope these helps.

Menu Overlapping with Report

2011-04-03T00:11:00.001+05:30

If you had lengthier menus in you ASP.Net application and had used report viewer control you may have faced the problem of report and menu overlapping when ever the report is loaded with data. For example in my sample application it appeared as below.

To correct this behavior you need to set the z-index for menu and report viewer using CSS class property. For this I have used the following CSS classes in the Style.CSS.

 /* CSS Class for the Menu. */
div.menu
{
    padding: 4px 0px 4px 8px;
}
 
/* CSS Class for a Menu Item. */
div.menu ul
{
    list-style: none;
    margin: 0px;
    padding: 0px;
    width: auto;
    z-index: 1; /* Setting the control to appear on top of level 0 controls for e.g. report viewer. */
}
 
/* CSS Class for the Report Viewer. */
.report
{
    z-index: 0; /* Setting the control to appear below the level 1 controls for e.g. menu items. */
}
 

To apply the CSS use a code similar to following.

Appling CSS Class to menu in master page.

 <asp:Menu ID="NavigationMenu" runat="server" CssClass="menu"
EnableViewState="false" IncludeStyleBlock="false" Orientation="Horizontal">
    <Items>
        <asp:MenuItem NavigateUrl="~/Default.aspx" Text="Home"/>
        <asp:MenuItem NavigateUrl="~/About.aspx" Text="About"/>
        <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item">
            <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item"></asp:MenuItem>
            <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item"></asp:MenuItem>
            <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item"></asp:MenuItem>
            <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item"></asp:MenuItem>
            <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item"></asp:MenuItem>
            <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item"></asp:MenuItem>
            <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item"></asp:MenuItem>
            <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item"></asp:MenuItem>
            <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item"></asp:MenuItem>
        </asp:MenuItem>
        <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item">
            <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item"></asp:MenuItem>
            <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item"></asp:MenuItem>
            <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item"></asp:MenuItem>
        </asp:MenuItem>
        <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item"></asp:MenuItem>
        <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item"></asp:MenuItem>
    </Items>
</asp:Menu>
 

Appling CSS Class to report viewer.

 <rsweb:ReportViewer ID="ReportViewer1" runat="server" Font-Names="Verdana" CssClass="report"
    Font-Size="8pt" InteractiveDeviceInfos="(Collection)" WaitMessageFont-Names="Verdana"
    WaitMessageFont-Size="14pt" Width="636px">
    <LocalReport ReportPath="Report1.rdlc">
        <DataSources>
            <rsweb:ReportDataSource DataSourceId="ObjectDataSource1" Name="DataSet1" />
        </DataSources>
    </LocalReport>
</rsweb:ReportViewer>
 

This will correct the overlapping issue as seen below.

Amazing Craft Shop Benthota – Sri Lanka

2011-02-27T04:10:00.001+05:30

Recently when I visit my home town Benthota I happen to step into a craft shop on the way to my home thinking to buy a wooden model of an elephant. Before stepping into the shop it was appeared to me as a shop having a huge collection of animal models but I felt I am wrong after entering into the shop.

The collection was larger than I imagined, it had almost all the craft items you can possibly buy in Sri Lanka. To name some it had many different god statues, animal models, traditional masks, resting chairs, wall hangers, leather items, hand bags, shoes, African masks, etc… Since the list may go on for some time I thought to put some pictures I took of the place to give you an idea.

View Full Album

If you are a tourist visiting Sri Lanka or if you are a Sri Lankan searching for handi/crafts I recommend you to visit this shop. You can find this shop besides the road when you are travelling from Benthota to Yathramulla.

If you need any help finding the place or buying these stuff let me know, I might be able to help you.

Saman Villas Benthota – Sri Lanka

2011-02-20T23:42:00.001+05:30

If you are in Sri Lanka there are many places that you should visit, among them one very good and different hotel that I recommend is Saman Vilas Benthota.

Even though a friend told me that it is an amazing hotel I didn’t think that it would be such a great place until I went there. Because of its shear beauty I thought to put a post on that amazing hotel.

It is different because it will not provide you rooms but it will provide private villas for your comfort. Some of them are even having private swimming pools as well. Among the many other goodies you will get there, one thing is that you can wake up into the rising sun from your villa with a great view of the ocean. Also the food is very tasty and the presentation is also very attractive. Another specialty of the hotel is that the kitchen staff is working all 24 hours for you. If you need to have a late dinner at about 1:00 AM they are very happy to cater you without any extra payments and you only needs to ask the friendly staff.

If you would like to relax your body the best place is to go to their spa, you will be entitled to a 15 minutes free massage. If interested you can also use their library as well.

Before putting pictures I should say that it is having very nice views which are worth experiencing. No need to explain more since the following pictures that I took will prove my fact.

View Full Album

Contact them to get more details.

Hotel

Aturuwella, Benthota. Sri Lanka
Tel: +94 34 2275435, +94 34 4936200.
Fax: +94 34 2275433, +94 34 4287063.
resv@samanvilla.com

Head Office

90 Gothami Road, Colombo 08. Sri Lanka
Tel: +94 11 4866515, +94 11 2679562.
Fax: +94 11 4611049.
resv_samanvil@sltnet.lk

http://www.samanvilla.com/

How to Allow Simple Passwords for Domain Users

2011-01-27T00:25:00.001+05:30

Even though it is always better to use complex passwords, you may get a requirement to allow users to have simple passwords. To allow domain users to use simple passwords you need to modify the domain policy. In my following post I am using a Windows 2008 R2 machine.

1. Start Group Policy Management by clicking Start –> Administrative Tools –> Group Policy Management in your domain server or type gpmc.msc on the run window.

2. In the group policy management expand the forest node and then the domain node. By then you will see the domains available. Expand the domain you want the setting changed and right click on the Default Domain Policy item and select Edit. This will bring the Group Policy Management Editor.

3. In the Group Policy Management Editor find the policy ‘Password must meet complexity requirements.’ by expanding Computer Configuration –> Policies –> Windows Settings –> Security Settings –> Account Policies and selecting Password Policy. Then right click and get the properties of the policy.

4. To disable complex passwords select the Disabled radio button and click Apply.

5. To check whether the setting is really applied you can close the Group Policy Management Editor and check the settings tab at Group Policy Management.

My Wedding and Home Coming

2011-01-26T02:04:00.001+05:30

Even though it is sometime after my wedding, I didn’t had a chance to blog about it, and suddenly thought to put a post with some pictures of that fabulous day of my life.

Wedding Day

Poruwa Ceremony

Our Wedding Cake

Parents and Us

Home Coming Day

Disabling Browser Back Button after Logout

2010-11-25T22:50:00.001+05:30

Recently in an application we developed there was a requirement to stop the browser back button after user logs out of the application.

The reason behind this was to stop the security risk of another user without proper permissions peeking into the earlier users screens. If you notice in many applications if the browser back is not properly handled then after the user is logged out you can re visit the site by just pressing the browser back button. This happens because the browser shows the cached page when the back is pressed. Even if you have server side code to check for the user they will not fire since the page will load from cache.

With the limited time I found a genius idea to handle this in the internet. What this javascript does is it will always try to put the user back to the last page in the history. For example, I am having a login page and a default page which I am taking a user after he logs in. You need to place the following javascript in the default page to make the above happen.

<script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript">
     window.history.forward(1);
 </script>
 

Then once a user logs out from the system and if presses the back button of the browser, when the default page loads it will put the user again to login (history forward) page which is the login page. Ultimately user needs to login again to go back to the site.

How to Set the Clock in Car Audio

2010-11-21T16:04:00.001+05:30

After disconnecting the battery for a maintenance job, I had some clueless days while trying to reset the clock in a car audio system. Even though there should be a way to set the clock in audio systems it is bit difficult to find it without the manual of the system.

My in my scenario I found it after sometime, so thought to share it since it might help someone with the same problem.

Car audio system in which I had the issue was JVC KD-S5055.

To start the resetting you need to press and hold the “Select” button for about 5 seconds. Then a message similar to “Hour-h” will be shown in the display. Once this appears use the + and – buttons located on the left to set the hour value of the time.

Then to set the minute value you need to press the mode change buttons located on the right side. Once you press the mode change button while on the hour changing mode you will see a message similar to “Minute-m”. Then again you can use the + and – buttons to set the minutes portion of the time.

After successfully setting both hour portion and minute portion you can press the Select button again to save the changes made to he clock.

Additionally if you need the system to show the time when the device is switched on you can press the Display button located below the Select button. This will show the current time instead of the Radio/CD/Track information.

Hope this helps.

Sending the Same Letter to Different People with their Details

2010-11-17T17:13:00.001+05:30

Today a friend of mine needed some help from me on sending the same letter to different people while addressing the letters differently. This can be easily achieved by using Word Mail Merge feature.

Since I am having Word 2010 installed in my machine this post will list the steps required in Word 2010.

1. To start the process type in your letter and click on Mailings on the Word 2010 ribbon.

2. Click on Start Mail Merge and select Letters.

3. Then you need to select the people you need to send the letter to. To do that you have three options Type List, Use Existing List or Select from Outlook contacts. In this post I will use the first option.

4. When you click Type new List… you will get a window in which you can create a list of users with their details as shown in the following screenshot. For simplicity I will only create 2 users.

When you are done creating the list of users click ok so you will be prompted with a save window. Save it for later use since you may need the list for future use.

5. Then in your letter go to the appropriate places you need to place the differencing information, for example I need to put the address of the receiver after the text The Manager. To do so place the cursor on the required location and press on Address Block icon on the ribbon.

From the Insert Address Block window you can customize the way the address is printed on the letter. For example if you do not want to print the company name of the recipient then you can remove the checkmark on the Insert company name field. Preview pane will show you a preview of the actual data you have in your contact list. For the simplicity I will use the default options.

When you press ok you will see something similar to the following appearing in your letter, which will be the placeholder for the address block.

Following similar method but using the Insert Merge Field icon I did add the title and the last name of the recipient into the body section of the letter as you see below.

6. Preview your work by clicking Preview Results icon, by clicking the navigation buttons on the preview results pane you can navigate through your contacts to see the actual letters that will be created. For example below screenshot shows the letter for Mr. Withana with the changes for him.

7. When you are satisfied you can finish the merge with three options, in my case I will use the first option again.

As the final output of the merge I got one new document with the 2 letters addressed to the recipients i had in my contact list as shown in the following screenshot.

Configuring SQL Server Instance for Azure Development Storage

2010-11-12T23:55:00.001+05:30

If you have not configured Azure Development Storage to use your SQL Server, then while running your application targeted for Azure you will see an error similar to the following.

“Windows Azure Tools: Failed to initialize Development Storage service. Unable to start Development Storage. Failed to start Development Storage: the SQL Server instance ‘localhost\SQLExpress’ could not be found. Please configure the SQL Server instance for Development Storage using the ‘DSInit’ utility in the Windows Azure SDK.”

To overcome this you need to run the DSInit command using Windows Azure SDK Command Prompt.

Step 1 – Start the Windows Azure SDK Command Prompt.

Step 2 – Type DSInit /sqlinstance:. on the prompt and press enter.

The dot (.) at the end denotes the local SQL Server instance running on your machine. DSInit command details are as follows.

Syntax:

DSInit [/sqlinstance:<SQL server instance>] [/forceCreate] [/user:<Windows account name>]

Description:

Initialize the development store for usage by

Reserving http ports for the blob, table and queue services for the current user, and

Creating the database needed by the blob and queue services

Options:

sqlinstance : the name of the SQL Server instance on the local machine that should

be used for Development Storage. The default is SQLExpress.

Use "." for unnamed instance.

forceCreate : recreate the database even if it already exists.

user : user for whom ports are to be reserved. By default it is the current user.

After doing the configurations it will display a success screen similar to the following.

Then when you run your Azure ready application the Azure Development Storage and Azure Development Fabric will get started and notify you on your system tray as shown below.

After a while your application will also start without complaining if it is Azure ready.

Saving Table Changes in SQL Server 2008 R2

2010-11-02T18:41:00.001+05:30

Have you noticed that with the default settings of SQL Server 2008 R2 you cannot use the design view to edit and save table changes which requires table to be recreated. But if you used earlier SQL Server installations you should remember that this functionality was possible. When you try to save such a table you will see an error similar to the following in SQL Server 2008 R2.

But the good news is that we can enable this functionality by going to SQL Server options.

Click Tools –> Options and expand Designers node and select ‘Table and Database Designers’.

Then uncheck the option ‘Prevent saving changes that require table re-creation’ and press OK.

Now if you try to save the table changes SQL will do the alteration without any complains.

Sorting SharePoint Folder Contents

2010-11-02T00:08:00.001+05:30

Recently I needed to sort the contents of a SharePoint folder, in which I used IComparer to get my task done. Following is the code I used. Hope it is helpful.

As you see below I am using the TimeCreated property of SPFile object to do the comparison, other than this you can use any other property of the SPFile object. For a list of available properties refer MSDN.

// Comparer Class.
 public class SPFilesComparer : IComparer
 {
     #region IComparer Members
     public int Compare(object object1, object object2)
     {
         return new CaseInsensitiveComparer().Compare(((SPFile)object1).TimeCreated, ((SPFile)object2).TimeCreated);
     }
     #endregion
 }
 

ArrayList fileList = new ArrayList(attachFiles);
 IComparer compFiles = new SPFilesComparer();
 // Do the sorting based on the SPFilesComparer.
 fileList.Sort(compFiles);
 
 foreach (SPFile attachFile in fileList)
 {
     // Use the sorted list.
 }
 

Piano + Guitar = Harpejji

2010-10-22T01:21:00.001+05:30

Are you interested in musical instruments? If so have you seen an instrument which combines the Piano and the Guitar? It is manufactured by a company named Marcodi and is named as Harpejji. The sounds from it is truly fascinating, experience the sounds for you self by visiting their site. For people who would like to buy it the pricing and ordering details are also there in the site.

Click this link to see the event of presenting Harpejji first time to the great musician A. R. Rahman.

MaxLength property not Working in TextBox

2010-10-02T12:43:00.001+05:30

If you are involved in coding using .Net sooner or later you will notice that when the TextMode of a TextBox is changed to MultiLine the MaxLength property will stop working. What this means is in the textbox users will be able to type as many character as they want.

When searching the web for a fix for this I found several ideas to solve this. Following is the code which I modified for my requirement. Hope this helps.

ASPX

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
 <head runat="server">
 <script type="text/javascript">
     function RestrictLength(textBox) {
         /* Get the Max Length attribute's value. */
         var allowedLength = textBox.getAttribute('MaximumLength');
         /* Check for the number of characters typed in by the user. */
         if (textBox.value.length > allowedLength) {
             /* If it is more than the allowed limit remove the additional text. */
             textBox.value = textBox.value.substring(0, allowedLength);
             /*  Show a message to user with the tooltip used for the textbox. */
             alert("Maximum characters allowed for '" + textBox.title +"' is " + allowedLength + ".");
         }
     }
 </script>
     <title></title>
 </head>
 <body>
     <form id="form1" runat="server" style="vertical-align:top;">
     <!-- I am binding my java script to the onkeyup event of the textbox. So each time a key
     is pressed it will fire my javascript. -->
     Address <asp:TextBox ID="TextBox1" runat="server" MaxLength="10" 
         onkeyup="RestrictLength(this);" Height="58px" TextMode="MultiLine"></asp:TextBox>
     </form>
     </body>
 </html>
 

ASPX.CS

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
 {
     // Adding the attribute to the TextBox1. 
     // Note that this is different to the MaxLength property.
     // Also this is not case sensitive.
     TextBox1.Attributes.Add("maximumlength", "10");
     // Adding a tooltip which is used in the message.
     TextBox1.ToolTip = "User Address";
 }
 

The output will me something similar to the following.

Repairing a Corrupted Database

2010-09-18T01:23:00.001+05:30

When we are regularly using databases, sometimes those will get corrupted. This happened to one of my applications, it was a Windows Mobile application with SQL Server CE database. Since it is running in a mobile it is bit difficult for us to fix the database using the desktop machine. I used the following .Net Compact framework code to fix the corrupted database while the database is in the mobile.

 private void btnRepair_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
 {
     Cursor.Current = Cursors.WaitCursor;
     Cursor.Show();
 
     // txtDBPath will contain the path to the database.
     engine = new SqlCeEngine(@"Data Source=" + txtDBPath.Text + ";Password=DBPassword");
     try
     {
         if (!engine.Verify())
         {
             Cursor.Current = Cursors.Default;
             Cursor.Hide();
 
             DialogResult result = MessageBox.Show("Database is corrupted. Do you want to repair?", "My App", MessageBoxButtons.YesNo, MessageBoxIcon.Question, MessageBoxDefaultButton.Button1);
             if (result == DialogResult.Yes)
             {
                 Cursor.Current = Cursors.WaitCursor;
                 Cursor.Show();
 
                 // You can also use RepairOption.DeleteCorruptedRows.
                 engine.Repair(null, RepairOption.RecoverCorruptedRows);
 
                 Cursor.Current = Cursors.Default;
                 Cursor.Hide();
 
                 MessageBox.Show("Database repaired successfully.", "My App");
             }
         }
         else
         {
             Cursor.Current = Cursors.Default;
             Cursor.Hide();
             MessageBox.Show("Database is not corrupted.", "My App");
         }
     }
     catch (Exception ex)
     {
         Cursor.Current = Cursors.Default;
         Cursor.Hide();
         MessageBox.Show(ex.Message, "Error!");
     }
 }

Next time you get a corrupted SQL CE database try it out.

Cannot connect to YouTube using iPhone

2010-08-13T02:02:00.001+05:30

Do you guys also get the ”Cannot connect to YouTube” error on your iPhone when using the provided YouTube application?

If yes follow the steps below to get it fixed.

1. Open Cydia from your spring board.

2. Press on the Manage tab in the bottom.

3. Press on Sources, then on Edit and press again on Add to add a new source.

4. Type the URL http://apt.iphonemodding.com and press on Add Source button.

5. Now find the iPhoneModding item and press on the triangle ‘>’.

6. Scroll down and find the “Push Fix” item and press on it.

7. Press Install to get Push Fix installed on your iPhone.

8. After pressing confirm on the confirmation screen the application will get installed on your iPhone.

9. After a complete restart you will be able to use YouTube application within your iPhone.

Comparing SharePoint 2010 vs 2007

2010-08-09T14:38:00.001+05:30

It is some time since the SharePoint 2010 is released and now is a good time for you to migrate to the new improved version of it. When searching the net I found some good sites which compares the 2 versions.

Read through the following sites if you are interested.

http://www.rharbridge.com/?page_id=103

http://www.khamis.net/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=4

Installing and Uninstalling Internet Explorer 8

2010-08-08T13:53:00.002+05:30

Since Internet Explorer (IE) 8 is a built-in feature of Windows Server 2008 R2 there is no way to install or uninstall it using the user interfaces. Instead you need to run the following commands in a command prompt window which has administrative privileges.

If you are only having IE in your machine as an internet browser be sure to install another internet browser before uninstalling IE, otherwise you will not be able to browse internet.

Click the start button and type Cmd in the search box.
Right click on the Cmd icon and click on Run as Administrator.
Choose the appropriate command from below for your need and copy it.

To Install -
dism /online /Enable-Feature /FeatureName:Internet-Explorer-Optional-amd64
To Uninstall -
dism /online /Disable-Feature /FeatureName:Internet-Explorer-Optional-amd64
or
FORFILES /P %WINDIR%\servicing\Packages /M Microsoft-Windows-InternetExplorer-8*.mum /c "cmd /c echo Uninstalling package @fname && start /w pkgmgr /up:@fname /norestart"

Paste the command into the command prompt windows you just opened by right clicking and clicking on Paste.
Press enter to run the command, when the command is successful you need to restart your machine to complete the action.

Rounding a value Down

2010-08-02T22:56:00.001+05:30

If you did work with .Net Math classes you may have noted that you can quite easily round value upwards. But what about rounding values down?

For example if you tried to round the value 1.23501 into 2 decimal places using the Round method provided by the Math class as below, the result you will get is 1.24. Meaning .Net had rounded the value up.

double dbl = Math.Round(1.23501, 2);
 

If the value is rounded down it should be 1.23, but in .Net I couldn’t find an easy way to get this done. So I did create a small code to get it done. It is very simple only a method with one statement as shown below.

double RoundDown(double Number, int Digits)
 {
     try
     {
         return Math.Truncate(Number) +
             (Math.Floor(Math.Round((Number % 1), Digits) * Math.Pow(10, (Math.Round((Number % 1), Digits).ToString().Length - 3)))) *
             (1 / Math.Pow(10, Math.Round((Number % 1), Digits).ToString().Length - 3));
     }
     catch (Exception)
     {
         MessageBox.Show("Error ! Please check values.");
         return 0.0;
     }
 }
 

Ohh, I think this is complicated right? Please find a bit of self explanatory code below.

double RoundDownExplained(double Number, int Digits)
 {
     try
     {
         // Get the whole number from the double value.
         // For example we'll take Number = 788.34567 and Digits = 3.
         // WholeNumberPart = 788.
         double WholeNumberPart = Math.Truncate(Number);
         // Getting the decimal part from the doouble value.
         // DecimalNumberPart = 0.3457.
         double DecimalNumberPart = Math.Round((Number % 1), Digits);
         // Finding the number of decimal places so we can multiply by 10 to make it suitable for Floor().
         // MultiplicationValue = 3.
         int MultiplicationValue = Math.Round((Number % 1), Digits).ToString().Length - 3;
         // Create the double value to round down.
         // RoundedDownValue = 345.
         double RoundedDownValue = Math.Floor(DecimalNumberPart * Math.Pow(10, MultiplicationValue));
         // Finding the value to devide the result to make it decimal again.       
         // DivisionValue = 0.001.             
         double DivisionValue = 1 / Math.Pow(10, MultiplicationValue);
         // Creating the decimal part with rounded down value.
         // RoundedDownValue_Float = 0.345.
         double RoundedDownValue_Float = RoundedDownValue * DivisionValue;
         // Creating the full rounded down value.
         // return = 788.345.
         return WholeNumberPart + RoundedDownValue_Float;
     }
     catch (Exception)
     {
         MessageBox.Show("Error ! Please check values.");
         return 0.0;
     }
 }
 

The complete code of the application I created is below with a screenshot of the application running. Hope this helps to you.

using System;
 using System.Text;
 using System.Windows.Forms;
 
 namespace WindowsFormsApplication1
 {
     public partial class Form1 : Form
     {
         public Form1()
         {
             InitializeComponent();
         }
 
         double RoundDown(double Number, int Digits)
         {
             try
             {
                 return Math.Truncate(Number) +
                     (Math.Floor(Math.Round((Number % 1), Digits) * Math.Pow(10, (Math.Round((Number % 1), Digits).ToString().Length - 3)))) *
                     (1 / Math.Pow(10, Math.Round((Number % 1), Digits).ToString().Length - 3));
             }
             catch (Exception)
             {
                 MessageBox.Show("Error ! Please check values.");
                 return 0.0;
             }
         }
         double RoundDownExplained(double Number, int Digits)
         {
             try
             {
                 // Get the whole number from the double value.
                 // For example we'll take Number = 788.34567 and Digits = 3.
                 // WholeNumberPart = 788.
                 double WholeNumberPart = Math.Truncate(Number);
                 // Getting the decimal part from the doouble value.
                 // DecimalNumberPart = 0.3457.
                 double DecimalNumberPart = Math.Round((Number % 1), Digits);
                 // Finding the number of decimal places so we can multiply by 10 to make it suitable for Floor().
                 // MultiplicationValue = 3.
                 int MultiplicationValue = Math.Round((Number % 1), Digits).ToString().Length - 3;
                 // Create the double value to round down.
                 // RoundedDownValue = 345.
                 double RoundedDownValue = Math.Floor(DecimalNumberPart * Math.Pow(10, MultiplicationValue));
                 // Finding the value to devide the result to make it decimal again.       
                 // DivisionValue = 0.001.             
                 double DivisionValue = 1 / Math.Pow(10, MultiplicationValue);
                 // Creating the decimal part with rounded down value.
                 // RoundedDownValue_Float = 0.345.
                 double RoundedDownValue_Float = RoundedDownValue * DivisionValue;
                 // Creating the full rounded down value.
                 // return = 788.345.
                 return WholeNumberPart + RoundedDownValue_Float;
             }
             catch (Exception)
             {
                 MessageBox.Show("Error ! Please check values.");
                 return 0.0;
             }
         }
 
         private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
         {
             try
             {
                 label1.Text = RoundDown(double.Parse(textBox1.Text), int.Parse(textBox2.Text) + 1).ToString();
             }
             catch (Exception)
             {
                 MessageBox.Show("Error ! Please check values.");
             }
         }
         private void button2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
         {
             try
             {
                 label2.Text = RoundDownExplained(double.Parse(textBox1.Text), int.Parse(textBox2.Text) + 1).ToString();
             }
             catch (Exception)
             {
                 MessageBox.Show("Error ! Please check values.");
             }
         }
     }
 }
 

Error Accessing Path

2010-07-30T20:37:00.001+05:30

Today is a day full of errors, when I fixed one error another error came while trying to run my hosted application. This time it was “Access to the path 'C:\inetpub\wwwroot\……’ is denied.

Full error is as follows,

Access to the path 'C:\inetpub\wwwroot\Mining2 Setup\Images\temp\tempImage.png' is denied.

Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.
Exception Details: System.UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path 'C:\inetpub\wwwroot\Mining2 Setup\Images\temp\tempImage.png' is denied.

The issue here was generated by a code written in my application which tries to access an image named tempImage.png in the said folder (Images\temp).

The reason for this is when you install IIS 7 the account used by the application pool (IIS_IUSRS) is not given access to the folder Images\temp. Since it is created by the application I just installed.

To sort out the issue give write permission to the folder Images\temp for the account IIS_IUSRS using the security tab in the folder properties page.

Error when Installing MSI

2010-07-30T15:27:00.001+05:30

Recently when trying to install a setup I made for a project on a new server having Windows Server 2008 R2 I continuously encountered an error as of below.

“The installer was interrupted before “Application” could be installed. You need to restart the installer to try again.”

The server had IIS 7, .Net Framework 3.5 and 4 installed. After putting in some time onto this I found out that this is because the II6 Management Compatibility services was not installed for the Web Server role.

To fix it simply open the Server Manager and open up Web Server role and click on Add Role Services.

Then select IIS 6 Management Compatibility node and all the child nodes below in under the Management Tools parent node and press next.

When the installation is complete the setup will work as desired.

Changing the Control Style at Runtime using the ASPX

2010-07-23T18:31:00.001+05:30

Recently I changed the style of some controls in my ASPX page at runtime based on the values set on another control in my page. For example the color of the table is changed based on the radio button that was selected and the color of the button is changed according to the text that was typed in the textbox. Hope this is helpful.

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
 <head runat="server">
     <title>Changing the Control Style</title>
      <style type="text/css">
         .Style1
         {
             background-color: Red;
         }
         .Style2
         {
             background-color: Blue;
         }
     </style>
 </head>
 <body>
     <form id="form1" runat="server">
         <asp:RadioButton ID="RadioButton1" runat="server" Text="Red" GroupName="1" Checked="True" AutoPostBack="True" />
         <asp:RadioButton ID="RadioButton2" runat="server" Text="Blue" GroupName="1" AutoPostBack="True" />
         <!-- Styling the table based on the radio button selection. -->
         <table class="<% if(RadioButton1.Checked) { %> Style1 <% } else { %> Style2 <% } %>">
             <tr>
                 <td> &nbsp; See the change... </td>
             </tr>
             <tr>
                 <td> &nbsp; </td>
             </tr>
         </table>
         <asp:TextBox ID="TextBox1" runat="server" MaxLength="3"></asp:TextBox>
         <!-- Styling the button based on the textbox value. -->
         <input id="Button1" type="submit" value="button" 
                class="<% if(TextBox1.Text=="") { %> Style1 <% } else { %> Style2 <% } %>" />
     </form>
 </body>
 </html>
 

Output looks as below.

Cure for HIV/AIDS

2010-07-20T15:35:00.001+05:30

Even though very little publicity was given a great medical finding was done by an American Doctor working in Berlin to find a cure for HIV/AIDS or Human Immunodeficiency Virus / Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

As per the articles a stem cell transplant from a donor who had a gene mutation known as “CCR-5 Delta- 32” cured a patient with HIV infection with no traces of HIV after two years of the transplant.

At the moment a transplant is much riskier thing to do since it involves of destroying and rebuilding the patients’ immune system. But this case of success will open up new ways to think and will help finding more safe and solid cures for HIV/AIDS in the near future.

Firing TreeView TreeNodeCheckChanged Event

2010-07-14T20:24:00.001+05:30

Normally in ASP.Net TreeView you can enable it to show checkboxes in its node levels. So if you need to do any actions when a node is checked or unchecked you need to use the TreeNodeCheckChanged event. But the problem is TreeNodeCheckChanged event will not fire when a checkbox is clicked. The cause for this is because the TreeNode class which represents a node in the TreeView will not add onClick event on the checkbox.

But if you carefully check it the event is getting fired at the next page postback. Since I needed to do some actions when the checkbox statuses are changed I made the page post back when a checkbox is checked or unchecked by the following java script. What it does is simply it will check the element which caused the event is a checkbox and do a postback of the page.

<script type="text/javascript">
     function TreeViewCheckBoxClicked(Check_Event) {
         var objElement;
         try {
             // Get the element which fired the event.
             objElement = window.event.srcElement;
         }
         catch (Error) {
             //srcElement is failing, objElement is null.
         }
 
         if (objElement != null) {
             // If the element is a checkbox do postback.
             if (objElement.tagName == "INPUT" && objElement.type == "checkbox") {
                 __doPostBack("", "");
             }
         }
         else {
             //    If the srcElement is failing due to browser incompatibility determine 
             // whether the element is and HTML input element and do postback.
             if (Check_Event != null) {
                 if (Check_Event.target.toString() == "[object HTMLInputElement]") {
                     __doPostBack("", "");
                 }
             }
         }
     }
 </script>
 

To make this work you need to bind the onClick event with the javascript shown above as shown below.

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
 {
     // Adding the onClick script to the TreeView.
     TreeView1.Attributes.Add("onClick", "TreeViewCheckBoxClicked(event)");
 }
 

Even though I have done this in Page Load this can be done in other places of code as well, for example if you are adding the TreeView by code you can use this right before adding it to the page.

The above will make the page post back when ever a checkbox in the TreeView is clicked, but nothing special will happen. You need to implement the code for TreeNodeCheckChanged event to get some task done out of it, for example I am using the following code to check or uncheck the child nodes depending on the action done for the parent node.

protected void TreeView1_TreeNodeCheckChanged(object sender, TreeNodeEventArgs e)
 {
     // Loop through all the child nodes and change the checked status as required.
     foreach (TreeNode tn in e.Node.ChildNodes)
     {
         if (e.Node.Checked)
             tn.Checked = true;
         else
             tn.Checked = false;
     }
 }
 

Changing GridView Column Headers

2010-07-13T01:55:00.001+05:30

If you are wondering a way to change the column header appearing in the .Net GridView control in run time then this post will help you to get it done.

For example think that you need to change the normal grid headers shown in Screen A into something like shown in Screen B.

Screen A

Screen B

I have removed few columns from the grid header and then I did add few customized column headers. The added “Edit” column and “Id” column are spanning to 2 rows, the “Temp Columns” column is spanning to 2 columns.

I think the code is self explanatory. This way you will be able to create complex gridview headers.

protected void GridView1_RowCreated(object sender, GridViewRowEventArgs e)
  {
      if (e.Row.RowType == DataControlRowType.Header)
      {
          // Remving the first two colummn headers.
          e.Row.Cells.RemoveAt(0);
          e.Row.Cells.RemoveAt(0);
 
          // Creating the gridview row object.
          GridViewRow headerGridRow = new GridViewRow(0, 0, DataControlRowType.Header, DataControlRowState.Selected);
          headerGridRow.ID = "hdrGridRow";
          TableCell HeaderCell;
 
          // Creating and adding the first header cell.
          HeaderCell = new TableCell();
          HeaderCell.Text = "Edit";
          HeaderCell.ID = "cellEdit";
          HeaderCell.Font.Bold = false;
          HeaderCell.HorizontalAlign = HorizontalAlign.Center;
          HeaderCell.RowSpan = 2; // Spans across 2 rows.
          HeaderCell.ColumnSpan = 1;
          HeaderCell.BackColor = System.Drawing.Color.LightGray;
          HeaderCell.BorderColor = System.Drawing.Color.White;
          HeaderCell.ForeColor = System.Drawing.Color.Red;
          headerGridRow.Cells.Add(HeaderCell);
 
          // Creating and adding the second header cell.
          HeaderCell = new TableCell();
          HeaderCell.Text = "Id";
          HeaderCell.ID = "cellId";
          HeaderCell.Font.Bold = false;
          HeaderCell.HorizontalAlign = HorizontalAlign.Center;
          HeaderCell.RowSpan = 2;
          HeaderCell.ColumnSpan = 1;
          HeaderCell.BackColor = System.Drawing.Color.LightGray;
          HeaderCell.BorderColor = System.Drawing.Color.White;
          HeaderCell.ForeColor = System.Drawing.Color.Red;
          headerGridRow.Cells.Add(HeaderCell);
 
          // Creating and adding the third header cell.
          HeaderCell = new TableCell();
          HeaderCell.Text = "Temp Columns";
          HeaderCell.ID = "cellTempColumns";
          HeaderCell.Font.Bold = false;
          HeaderCell.HorizontalAlign = HorizontalAlign.Center;
          HeaderCell.RowSpan = 1;
          HeaderCell.ColumnSpan = 2; // Spans across 2 columns.
          HeaderCell.BackColor = System.Drawing.Color.LightGray;
          HeaderCell.BorderColor = System.Drawing.Color.White;
          HeaderCell.ForeColor = System.Drawing.Color.Red;
          headerGridRow.Cells.Add(HeaderCell);
 
          // Adding the header row to the gridview.
          GridView1.Controls[0].Controls.AddAt(0, headerGridRow);
      }
  }
 

Class not registered

2010-06-27T15:27:00.001+05:30

Recently when I tried to build and run an existing .Net application code I got the following error which generated from a component named “axShockwaveFlash1” which is an object used to embed flash content on to the application.

System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException was unhandled
Message=Class not registered (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80040154 (REGDB_E_CLASSNOTREG))
Source=System.Windows.Forms
ErrorCode=-2147221164
StackTrace:
       at System.Windows.Forms.UnsafeNativeMethods.CoCreateInstance(Guid& clsid, Object punkOuter, Int32 context, Guid& iid)
       at System.Windows.Forms.AxHost.CreateWithoutLicense(Guid clsid)
       at System.Windows.Forms.AxHost.CreateWithLicense(String license, Guid clsid)
       at System.Windows.Forms.AxHost.CreateInstanceCore(Guid clsid)
       at System.Windows.Forms.AxHost.CreateInstance()
       at System.Windows.Forms.AxHost.GetOcxCreate()
       at System.Windows.Forms.AxHost.TransitionUpTo(Int32 state)
       at System.Windows.Forms.AxHost.CreateHandle()
       at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl(Boolean fIgnoreVisible)
       at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl(Boolean fIgnoreVisible)
       at System.Windows.Forms.AxHost.EndInit()
       at Tour_Management_System.Loading_Form.InitializeComponent() in D:\Projects\Acc\TMS_20100205_Desktop\Tour_Management_System 2010-01-19\Tour_Management_System\Form1.Designer.cs:line 99
       at Tour_Management_System.Loading_Form..ctor() in D:\Projects\Acc\TMS_20100205_Desktop\Tour_Management_System 2010-01-19\Tour_Management_System\Form1.cs:line 30
       at Tour_Management_System.Program.Main() in D:\Projects\Acc\TMS_20100205_Desktop\Tour_Management_System 2010-01-19\Tour_Management_System\Program.cs:line 18
       at System.AppDomain._nExecuteAssembly(Assembly assembly, String[] args)
       at System.Runtime.Hosting.ApplicationActivator.CreateInstance(ActivationContext activationContext, String[] activationCustomData)
       at Microsoft.VisualStudio.HostingProcess.HostProc.RunUsersAssemblyDebugInZone()
       at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state)
       at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart()
InnerException:

After some investigation I found that the reason for this was Flash Player’s incompatibility with 64 bit. Since my machine is running Windows 64 bit version it generates an error while trying to start Flash player. Good thing is Adobe is planning to release a Flash player which supports 64 bit soon.

For people who cannot wait until that (like me) can fix the problem in the following manner by running the application as an x86 application by changing the target platform in project properties.

Step 1 - Right click on your project and click on the properties.

Step 2 - Click on the Build tab and select x86 as the Platform target:.

Step 3 - Rebuild the application and run it, you will not get the error.

Changing the Tab Container

2010-06-22T02:51:00.001+05:30

Are you seeking a way to customize the tabcontainer which comes with AJAX toolkit? AJAX tab container has several Cascade Style Sheet (CSS) properties which you can use to change the look of the tab container. But you need to make sure that you are not changing the keywords used in the CSS (ajax__tab_header, ajax__tab_outer, etc…).

You can change the look of the tabs by two methods. Tab container is using few images to give the 3D look it is having in its default view. so the first method is by changing the images and associating the new images to the tab container using a style sheet, second method is to change the tabs using the CSS without images, by using the CSS you can change the colors, sizes etc of the tabs.

Following are the default images that are shipped with the toolkit.

tab
tab-active
tab-active-left
tab-active-right
tab-hover
tab-hover-left
tab-hover-right
tab-left
tab-right
tab-line

In the following code I am changing the tabcontainer look by using CSS and then placing the updated images to the relevant (Images/Controls) folder.

.tabCont .ajax__tab_header
 {
     font-family: verdana,tahoma,helvetica;
     font-size: 11px;
     background: url(../Images/Controls/tab-line.gif) repeat-x bottom;
 }
 .tabCont .ajax__tab_outer
 {
     padding-right: 4px;
     background: url(../Images/Controls/tab-right.gif) no-repeat right;
     height: 21px;
 }
 .tabCont .ajax__tab_inner
 {
     padding-left: 3px;
     background: url(../Images/Controls/tab-left.gif) no-repeat;
 }
 .tabCont .ajax__tab_tab
 {
     height: 13px;
     padding: 4px;
     margin: 0px;
     background: url(../Images/Controls/tab.gif) repeat-x;
 }
 .tabCont .ajax__tab_hover .ajax__tab_outer
 {
     cursor: pointer;
     background: url(../Images/Controls/tab-hover-right.gif) no-repeat right;
 }
 .tabCont .ajax__tab_hover .ajax__tab_inner
 {
     cursor: pointer;
     background: url(../Images/Controls/tab-hover-left.gif) no-repeat;
 }
 .tabCont .ajax__tab_hover .ajax__tab_tab
 {
     cursor: pointer;
     background: url(../Images/Controls/tab-hover.gif) repeat-x;
 }
 .tabCont .ajax__tab_active .ajax__tab_outer
 {
     background: url(../Images/Controls/tab-active-right.gif) no-repeat right;
 }
 .tabCont .ajax__tab_active .ajax__tab_inner
 {
     background: url(../Images/Controls/tab-active-left.gif) no-repeat;
 }
 .tabCont .ajax__tab_active .ajax__tab_tab
 {
     background: url(../Images/Controls/tab-active.png) repeat-x;
 }
 .tabCont .ajax__tab_disabled
 {
     color: #A0A0A0;
 }
 .tabCont .ajax__tab_body
 {
     font-family: verdana,tahoma,helvetica;
     font-size: 10pt;
     border: 0px solid #999999;
     border-top: 0;
     padding: 8px;
     background-color: #f1f1f1;
     margin: 12px;
 }
 

To apply the style to the tab container you can use the following code.

<asp:TabContainer ID="tcnManageUsers" runat="server" ActiveTabIndex="0" CssClass="tabCont">

Following is the full code of my tab container.

<asp:TabContainer ID="tcnManageUsers" runat="server" ActiveTabIndex="0" CssClass="tabCont">
      <asp:TabPanel runat="server" HeaderText="Add" ID="tplAdd" >
          <ContentTemplate>
              <uc1:CreateUser ID="AddCreateUser" runat="server" />
          </ContentTemplate>   
      </asp:TabPanel>
      <asp:TabPanel ID="tplEdit" runat="server" HeaderText="Edit" >
          <ContentTemplate >
             <asp:Button ID="btnSelectUser" runat="server" Text="Select User" OnClick="btnSelectUser_Click"/>
             <uc1:CreateUser ID="EditCreateUser" runat="server" />
          </ContentTemplate>
      </asp:TabPanel>
  </asp:TabContainer>
 

Water World Kelaniya – Sri Lanka

2010-06-19T13:36:00.005+05:30

Recently we went a trip to an aquarium which is located at Kelaniya Sri Lanka. They have named it Water World and claims that they have the largest collection of fish in South Asia.

Mainly they have 2 sections one for birds and the other for fish. If you are going to watch bird park then you need to buy a ticket of Srilankan rupees 70, if you are going for the fish section then the ticket would be 150 Srilankan rupees. You can also contact them if required by using the telephone number +94 11 5555433.

Following are some photos I took on my visit and as I feel they have some rare species on display.

View Full Album

Update

To help the people who whould like to visit Water World I thought to share their new phone number with the address.

Telephone -
+94 11 5555434

Address -
Water World Lanka Pvt. Ltd.,
No: 95, Biyagama Road,
Thalwatta,
Kelaniya,
Sri Lanka.

Location -

View Larger Map

Tech-Ed 2010 – Sri Lanka

2010-06-19T11:35:00.001+05:30

In February 2010 Microsoft held Tech-Ed 2010 and we (IronOne) were the silver sponsors for the event.

It was a good event which attracted many of my friends which I didn’t meet for a long time.

In appreciation to the sponsorship Microsoft sent us a thank you cake as well. Looks delicious right?

Creating Rounded Corners

2010-06-17T23:15:00.001+05:30

When designing web sites it always looks nicer if you could round the sharp corners, for example see below, what looks nicer to you?

Sharp Corners

Rounded Corners

My feeling is the rounded corners are better looking than the normal one. But the problem is, there is no easy way to create this. You need some Cascade Style Sheet (CSS) knowledge to do this. The easy way to round the required corners is to use the following code.

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
 <head runat="server">
     <title></title>
     <style type="text/css">
         .CornerTopLeft
         {
             float: right;
             width: 100%;
             margin-top: 10px;
             background: url(../Images/TopLeft.png) 0 0 no-repeat rgb(237,28,36);
             border: 1px double #f1f1f1;
         }
         .CornerTopRight
         {
             float: right;
             width: 100%;
             background: url(../Images/TopRight.png) 100% 0 no-repeat;
         }
         .CornerBottomLeft
         {
             float: right;
             width: 100%;
             background: url(../Images/BottomLeft.png) 0 100% no-repeat;
             height: 100%;
         }
         .CornerBottomRight
         {
             float: right;
             width: 100%;
             background: url(../Images/BottomRight.png) 100% 100% no-repeat;
         }
         div#Content
         {
             margin: 15px;
         }
     </style>
 </head>
 <body bgcolor="rgb(232,232,232)">
     <form id="form1" runat="server">
     <div class="CornerTopLeft">
         <div class="CornerTopRight">
             <div class="CornerBottomLeft">
                 <div class="CornerBottomRight">
                     <div id="Content">
                         Your content here.....
                         <asp:TextBox ID="TextBox1" runat="server"></asp:TextBox>
                         <asp:Button ID="Button1" runat="server" Text="Button" />
                     </div>
                 </div>
             </div>
         </div>
     </div>
     </form>
 </body>
 </html>
 

The above code is self explanatory so I didn’t put any comments there. To make it work you need the following 4 images placed on your Images directory.

TopLeft.png –

TopRight.png –

BottomLeft.png –

BottomRight.png –

If I am to explain the code, the corners are curved by using 4 different DIVs and placing the above images on them. For example the following DIVs does the trick.

<div class="CornerTopLeft">
         <div class="CornerTopRight">
             <div class="CornerBottomLeft">
                 <div class="CornerBottomRight">
                     <div id="Content">
                         Your content here.....
                         <asp:TextBox ID="TextBox1" runat="server"></asp:TextBox>
                         <asp:Button ID="Button1" runat="server" Text="Button" />
                     </div>
                 </div>
             </div>
         </div>
     </div>
 

The content you need to put in the middle should be wrapped by these DIVs. In the above code I used another DIV for placing content having the ID Content.

Inserting curved images to the corners of the DIVs are done by using a style per DIV. The CSS classes which are used to change these DIVs are as of below.

 <style type="text/css">
         .CornerTopLeft
         {
             float: right;
             width: 100%;
             margin-top: 10px;
             background: url(../Images/TopLeft.png) 0 0 no-repeat rgb(237,28,36);
             border: 1px double #f1f1f1;
         }
         .CornerTopRight
         {
             float: right;
             width: 100%;
             background: url(../Images/TopRight.png) 100% 0 no-repeat;
         }
         .CornerBottomLeft
         {
             float: right;
             width: 100%;
             background: url(../Images/BottomLeft.png) 0 100% no-repeat;
             height: 100%;
         }
         .CornerBottomRight
         {
             float: right;
             width: 100%;
             background: url(../Images/BottomRight.png) 100% 100% no-repeat;
         }
         div#Content
         {
             margin: 15px;
         }
     </style>
 

The filling of the required area is done by assiging a color at the background tag in CornerTopLeft style which will be applied to CornerTopLeft DIV.

background: url(../Images/TopLeft.png) 0 0 no-repeat rgb(237,28,36);

Note the last div#Content which was placed to style the Content DIV making the contents placed centered so the final output will be nicer.

Sharing Screen with Multiple People

2010-06-16T23:39:00.001+05:30

As you might know the new Skype allows us to share our desktop to another contact by only using Skype. Best things are it is free and we can share through internet. But this has a limitation which is you cannot share the screen with multiple contacts.

To overcome this I happen to find this nice Skype add-on named InnerPass Share and Collaborate which enable us to share our desktop with many people at once freely.

To get it installed go to Skype Extras Manager by clicking Tools –> Extras –> Get Extras.

Type InnerPass on the top left search box and press search.

Then on the left search results select the InnerPass Share and Collaborate add-on and install.

After installing you can launch InnerPass by clicking Tools –> Extras –> InnerPass Share and Collaborate. This will bring you a screen similar to the following.

You can click Get Started button to create your free InnerPass account and start using the features offered by InnerPass.

Some of the features are,

Managing meeting rooms.
Add contacts from other sources like Yahoo, Gmail, etc.
Schedule meetings.
Attend meetings.
Host meetings.
Sharing your screen.
Viewing others’ screens.
Share documents.

Selecting a Row in ASPxGridView

2010-06-10T23:50:00.001+05:30

I found that with the flood of new possibilities with DevExpress grid view a simple functionality of selecting one row is bit hidden. After doing bit of searching in the internet I found the way and thought to share it.

The way we need to do this is by using a java script and biding that in to the RowClick event of the grid.

The java scrip will look like the following.

Then the binding to the RowClick would be as below.

The outcome of this is a grid which you can select a row.

The value of the selected row can be taken as below.

dxgdSearch.GetRowValues(dxgdSearch.FocusedRowIndex, "Customer_ID")

For example in my application I used to pass the Customer Id to the Customer.aspx form as below.

Response.Redirect("~/Customer.aspx?cusID= " + dxgdSearch.GetRowValues(dxgdSearch.FocusedRowIndex, "Customer_ID"));
 

The full source is as of below.

Page.aspx

<asp:Content ID="Content4" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainContent" runat="server">
     <script type="text/javascript">
         function OnRowClick(e) {
             //Unselect all rows
             dxgdSearch._selectAllRowsOnPage(false);
             //Select the row
             dxgdSearch.SelectRow(e.visibleIndex, true);
         }
     </script>
     <dx:ASPxGridView ID="dxgdSearch" ClientInstanceName="dxgdSearch" runat="server" AutoGenerateColumns="False"
         SettingsBehavior-AllowFocusedRow="True" SettingsBehavior-AllowMultiSelection="False">
         <ClientSideEvents RowClick="function(s, e) { OnRowClick(e); }"></ClientSideEvents>
         <Columns>
             <dx:GridViewDataTextColumn Name="Id" ShowInCustomizationForm="True" VisibleIndex="1"
                 Caption="Customer ID" FieldName="Customer_ID" Visible="False">
             </dx:GridViewDataTextColumn>
             <dx:GridViewDataTextColumn Name="Name" ShowInCustomizationForm="True" VisibleIndex="0"
                 Caption="Name" FieldName="Full_Name">
             </dx:GridViewDataTextColumn>
             <dx:GridViewDataTextColumn Name="TelephoneNo" ShowInCustomizationForm="True" VisibleIndex="1"
                 Caption="Tele. No." FieldName="Mobile_Number">
             </dx:GridViewDataTextColumn>
             <dx:GridViewDataTextColumn Name="EMail" ShowInCustomizationForm="True" VisibleIndex="2"
                 Caption="EMail" FieldName="Email">
             </dx:GridViewDataTextColumn>
             <dx:GridViewDataHyperLinkColumn Name="Select" VisibleIndex="3">
                 <DataItemTemplate>
                     <asp:Button ID="Button1" runat="server" CommandArgument='<%# Eval("Customer_ID") %>'
                         OnClick="Button1_Click" Text="Edit" />
                 </DataItemTemplate>
             </dx:GridViewDataHyperLinkColumn>
         </Columns>
         <SettingsBehavior AllowFocusedRow="True"></SettingsBehavior>
         <Settings ShowGroupPanel="True" ShowFilterRow="True" />
         <Settings ShowFilterRow="True" ShowGroupPanel="True"></Settings>
     </dx:ASPxGridView>
 </asp:Content>
 

Page.aspx.cs

protected void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
 {
     Response.Redirect("~/Customer.aspx?cusID= " + dxgdSearch.GetRowValues(dxgdSearch.FocusedRowIndex, "Customer_ID"));
 }
 

iPhone 4

2010-06-10T21:06:00.001+05:30

If you are a iPhone lover then your next dream is in stores.

Apple had released iPhone 4 with many improvements.

Go and have look into it at Apple.

Unable to start debugging on the web server

2010-06-09T20:06:00.000+05:30

Recently a set of developers who are working in one of my projects started getting an error while trying to debug the web application under development using ASP.Net. The targeted framework was .Net 4.0 and they were using Visual Studio 2010 in 64bit machines. The problem was whenever they tried to run/debug the application they gets an error saying unable to start debugging on the web server even though there are no compile errors as shown below.

It gave an error HTTP Error 500.21 - Internal Server Error Handler "PageHandlerFactory-Integrated" has a bad module "ManagedPipelineHandler" in its module list when ran direct from IIS. The error page is shown below.

Later I found the reason for this is ASP.Net 4 was not properly installed on the machine. To fix this get an administrative privileged command prompt.

Then type in the following,

aspnet_regiis -ir

You can find the aspnet_regiis.exe at the folder,

[Windows Dir]\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.xxxxx

for example,

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319

This will register ASP.Net 4.0 in your machine, the -ir option will keep the existing applications unchanged. If you want them to be changed to use the new version use -i instead -ir.

When the installer ends type iisreset to restart the IIS service.

Now your applications will work fine without any complains.

Enable Hibernation and Sleep in Windows Server 2008 R2

2010-06-05T01:19:00.002+05:30

Normally when you install Hyper-V role in your server, it will disable sleep and hibernate facilities provided by Windows.

But you can avoid this by doing some alterations to Windows.

Hibernate and seep features are disabled when the Hyper-V service is started, so you can regain hibernate and sleep by changing the start parameter of the Hyper-V service (hvboot).

To change,

1. Open the registry editor by typing “regedit” in the run window.

Locate the key,

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\hvboot and then set the start value of it to 3.

Start property can hold the following values.

0	Boot (Not supported by hvboot.)
1	System
2	Auto
3	On Demand
4	Disabled

Now you will have the hibernate and sleep facilities until you start the Hyper-V services in your machine.

2. Type the following command in a command prompt window with administrative rights.

sc config hvboot start= demand

Note that there needs to be a space between the = sign and the word demand.

Enabling Hibernate in Windows

2010-06-05T00:56:00.001+05:30

Some server versions of Windows are having the hibernate feature disabled by default. So if you need to change the hibernation do the following simple steps.

1. Click start and type “cmd” or type command in the search box.

2. Then in the search results, right click the Command Prompt and click on Run as Administrator.

3. If you are prompted by the user account control click continue.

4. Then,

To turn hibernation on in your machine type -

“powercfg.exe /h on” or “powercfg.exe /hibernate on”

To turn hibernation off in your machine type -

“powercfg.exe /h off” or “powercfg.exe /hibernate off”

5. Lastly you can exit the command prompt by typing “exit”.

Sometimes you might get an error similar to the following while trying to enable hibernation.

Hibernation failed with the following error: The request is not supported.

The following items are preventing hibernation on this system.
An internal system component has disabled hibernation.

This means your machine is running roles or services that are disabling hibernation feature. One such a role is Hyper-V. If your version of Windows 2008 is running Hyper-V then you cannot enable hibernation. This is not an error but is deliberately done since hibernating a server running virtual machines is a very complicated and rarely requiring service in an enterprise server.

But there is a way to enable hibernation on a Hyper-V installed machine, which you will be able to find in my next article.

Changing the Shared Feature Directory in SQL Server Setup

2010-05-30T20:37:00.001+05:30

Today when I tried to install SQL Server 2008 R2 I couldn’t change the shared feature installation directory in the setup. Both the textbox and browse button were disabled restricting me to select the desired path.

After sometime I found the cause for this. It is because there were some SQL related programs already installed in my computer, because they are there the SQL setup uses the same directory to setup the rest of the programs.

If you need to relocate the install directory then simply you need to uninstall all the SQL related programs using Programs and Features and re-run the SQL Server setup. Then the browse buttons will be active enabling you to select an alternate location.

How to Make a Bootable Flash Drive

2010-05-29T18:11:00.001+05:30

Recently I installed Windows using a flash (Pen/Thumb) drive, since I couldn’t get hold of a blank DVD to burn the ISO into.

It might be helpful to you as well. Because we don’t need to burn DVDs to install OSs that are coming as ISOs anymore.

Follow the steps below.

1. Find a good USB Flash drive with required space.

Make sure you have backed up all the required data in the flash drive because the flash drive will be formatted.

2. Get a command prompt by typing “cmd” in the run window.

3. Type “diskpart” and press enter.

This will open up a new window for DiskPart utility, you need to use the following commands within the diskpart utility to make the flash drive bootable.

4. In the diskpart utility select the flash drive by typing “select disk 2”.

Use extra caution when selecting the flash disk since if you select the wrong disk you will loose all data of that disk. You can use “list disk” command within the diskpart utility to list all the disks attached to your computer. Note the disk referred here is a physical disk attached to the computer not a partition.

5. Clean the disk by using the command “clean”.

6. Create a primary partition inside the flash drive by typing in “create partition primary”.

7. Select the newly created partition by using command "select partition 1”.

8. Make the selected partition active by typing in the command “active”.

9. Then you need to format the partition by using the command “format fs=fat32” inside the diskpart.

Note that we are formatting the disk using FAT32 file system.

10. Use the command “assign” to assign a drive letter for the newly formatted drive, since we are not giving a drive letter it will get the next available drive letter automatically. Then exit the diskpart utility by typing in “exit”.

11. Now we need to copy the setup files to the flash drive.

For this we can use the good old xcopy command as of below.

“xcopy F:\*.* /s/e/f G:\”

In the above command I am coping the contents of the drive F (which is a virtual drive created by Power ISO) to drive G which is the flash drive I created.

The meanings of the flags I used are as follows.

“xcopy F:\*.* /s/e/f G:\”

F:\ – Source Drive

*.* – All Contents

/s – Copies directories and sub directories which are not empty

/e – This will add the empty directories also so now all the directories and sub directories will be copied even though they are empty

/f – Will show the source and destination file names while copying.

G:\ – Destination Drive

When xcopy completes you will have a flash drive which you can boot your computer, in my case I had a Windows 2008 R2 installer. You may even be able to copy the OS files to your flash drive and boot an OS with this method.

Then you may need to change your BIOS options and/or press function keys to let you boot from the flash drive.

Connecting to MySQL in Visual Studio 2010

2010-05-19T14:36:00.001+05:30

If you need to access MySQL databases using Visual Studio you have to install MySQL connector into your machine.

Currently only mysql-connector-net-6.3.1 is supporting Visual Studio 2010 which is still an alpha product.

To download it, use this link and switch to Development Releases tab.