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  • Office 2010 Trust Center settings: How to enable data connections in the "old" way?

    - by GSerg
    We're planning an upgrade Office 2003 - 2010 and have identified a big problem. In Office 2003, if the workbook you're opening contains a query table that fetches data from a data source automatically (upon file open or in certain intervals), then a security dialog pops up - whether you want to allow that. If you say Yes, the queries will refresh automatically when they need to. If you say No, the queries will not refresh automatically, neither on file open nor on time intervals, but you will be able to refresh any of them manually at any time by right-clicking and selecting Refresh. There is also a registry parameter to say, Don't display that dialog, just allow the queries. This is exactly what we want. On users' computers we have the registry parameter applied, so the users never see any dialogs. On developers' computers the parameter is not applied, so every time a file is opened the developer decides whether to allow the auto-refreshing for the current session. Usually the answer is No, because for developing, it is essential to not have quieres refresh when they want to, but instead, refresh them when the developer wants. The problem is that in Office 2010 which we are testing we can't find a way to achieve this functionality: The allow/disallow messages are now grouped into one yellow button, that either allows everything or disallows everything (including, say, macros, if macro security is set to "Disable, but ask"). If you don't click the yellow Allow button, the queries are disabled completely, not just for automatic execution. You cannot right-click and refresh a particular query -- doing that would summon a security dialog prompting for enabling queries, and if you say Yes, all queries in the document will be enabled for auto-execution and will start executing immediately. This sort of ruins our development environment. Is there a way to get the trust thingies in Office 2010 to work in the same way as before? Is there a yet another registry parameter to say, Prompt for auto-refresh, but allow manual refresh even when auto-refresh is disabled?

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  • Avoid Powerpoint(/Word) 2010 creating temporary files in working directory

    - by Ben
    When opening a temporary file, Powerpoint 2010 usually creates a temporary, hidden file called ~$filename.pptx in the same directory. This is undesirable, since it can cause unnecessary activity with e.g. Dropbox. Furthermore, the "Documents" folder should not be used for temporary files -- we have the %TEMP% folder for that. So, is it possible to have Powerpoint create its temporary files in %TEMP% instead? The following link suggests that it might not be possible: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/211632 Also, why does Microsoft not use the %TEMP% folder?

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  • Getting beyond basic web programming languages. How to be awesome?

    - by user73962
    I'm a web developer that's done a bunch of projects using PHP, JQuery/JS, Mysql using PhPMyAdmin, CSS, HTML and a tiny bit of XML. Basically lots of work with CMS's and freehand coding. I'm looking to take things to the next level. I've done a lot of freelance and small contract work, but I'm dying to excel. I'm tired of acting as tech support for all these "non-tech" companies that barely know how to use their own computers..."really, you didn't think to backup your files before switching to a new server??". Think of potential employers as amazon, netflix, twitter, google, etc. I don't necessarily want to work for these guys specifically, but potentially organizations like this. I could be wrong, but I feel like a big company like this would laugh at me if I interviewed. For example, how helpful is knowing Ruby, SQL (commands without interface), C++, API's, Oracle, Java, debugging, qa, etc? (I realize this is a very random list). I use Notepad ++, but have heard that the bigger boys use IDE interfaces. I'm not really interested in building desktop apps, only web related stuff. I feel like I've reached my potential and want to really take it up a notch. I see a lot of projects on GitHub and I'm amazed at what people have created. Note - my degree is in economics but I've done web dev since high school. I definitely wish I took more comp sci/programming courses in college. I'm 27 and want to be awesome at web dev before it's too late. Not just decent. Any advice? Book suggestions? Thanks

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  • Suggested Web Application Framework and Database for Enterprise, “Big-Data” App?

    - by willOEM
    I have a web application that I have been developing for a small group within my company over the past few years, using Pipeline Pilot (plus jQuery and Python scripting) for web development and back-end computation, and Oracle 10g for my RDBMS. Users upload experimental genomic data, which is parsed into a database, and made available for querying, transformation, and reporting. Experimental data sets are large and have many layers of metadata. A given experimental data record might have a foreign key relationship with a table that describes this data point's assay. Assays can cover multiple genes, which can have multiple transcript, which can have multiple mutations, which can affect multiple signaling pathways, etc. Users need to approach this data from any point in those layers in the metadata. Since all data sets for a given data type can run over a billion rows, this results in some large, dynamic queries that are hard to predict. New data sets are added on a weekly basis (~1GB per set). Experimental data is never updated, but the associated metadata can be updated weekly for a few records and yearly for most others. For every data set insert the system sees, there will be between 10 and 100 selects run against it and associated data. It is okay for updates and inserts to run slow, so long as queries run quick and are as up-to-date as possible. The application continues to grow in size and scope and is already starting to run slower than I like. I am worried that we have about outgrown Pipeline Pilot, and perhaps Oracle (as the sole database). Would a NoSQL database or an OLAP system be appropriate here? What web application frameworks work well with systems like this? I'd like the solution to be something scalable, portable and supportable X-years down the road. Here is the current state of the application: Web Server/Data Processing: Pipeline Pilot on Windows Server + IIS Database: Oracle 10g, ~1TB of data, ~180 tables with several billion-plus row tables Network Storage: Isilon, ~50TB of low-priority raw data

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  • Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word documentation

    - by rold2007
    I need to use the Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word namespace to extract if a Word document contains macros, and which ones. The MSDN documentation for this namespace doesn't give much information compared to the documentation on other .Net classes. Where can I get more informations about this namespaces (examples, complete documentation, etc.). I already searched on Google and SO but didn't much information.

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  • Retrieve the content of Microsoft Word document using OpenXml and C#

    - by ybbest
    One of the tasks involves me to retrieve the contents of Microsoft Word document (word2007 above). I try to search for some resources online with not much luck; most of the examples are for writing contents to word document using OpenXml. I decide to blog this as my reference and hopefully people who read this post will find it useful as well. To retrieve the contents of Microsoft Word document using XML is extremely simple. 1. Firstly, you need to download and install the Open XML SDK 2.0 for Microsoft Office. (Download link) 2. Create a Console application then add the DocumentFormat.OpenXml.dll and WindowsBase.dll to the project, you can find these dlls in the .NET tab of the Add Reference window. 3. Write the following code to grab the contents from the word document and display it on the console window. You can download the complete source code here. References: Getting Started with the Open XML SDK 2.0 for Microsoft Office Walkthrough: Word 2007 XML Format Word Processing How To Open XML SDK 2.0 for Microsoft Office Office Developer Center openxmldeveloper Open XML Package Explorer

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  • Duplicate IIS web site with Web Deploy

    - by gsantovena
    I have a Win2008 server with IIS 7 and I want to duplicate one web site and just change the binding port and the application pool that is using, so I will have 2 web sites (locally or remote) with same configuration but listening on different ports. Is there a way to do this with web deploy tool ir order to deploy locally and remotely this unique web site and change the binding ports in the destination?

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  • SQLAuthority News – Statistics Used by the Query Optimizer in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 – Microsoft Whitepaper

    - by pinaldave
    I recently presented session on Statistics and Best Practices in Virtual Tech Days on Nov 22, 2010. The sessions was very popular and I got many questions right after the sessions. The number question I had received was where everybody can get the further information. I am very much happy that my sessions created some curiosity for one of the most important feature of the SQL Server. Statistics are the heart of the SQL Server. Microsoft has published a white paper on the subject how statistics are useful to Query Optimizer. Here is the abstract of the same white paper from Microsoft. Statistics Used by the Query Optimizer in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Writer: Eric N. Hanson and Yavor Angelov Microsoft SQL Server 2008 collects statistical information about indexes and column data stored in the database. These statistics are used by the SQL Server query optimizer to choose the most efficient plan for retrieving or updating data. This paper describes what data is collected, where it is stored, and which commands create, update, and delete statistics. By default, SQL Server 2008 also creates and updates statistics automatically, when such an operation is considered to be useful. This paper also outlines how these defaults can be changed on different levels (column, table, and database). In addition, it presents how certain query language features, such as Transact-SQL variables, interact with use of statistics by the optimizer, and it provides guidance for using these features when writing queries so you can obtain good query performance. Link to white paper Statistics Used by the Query Optimizer in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 ?Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)   Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Documentation, SQL Download, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL White Papers, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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  • AutoVue at the Oracle Asset Lifecycle Management Summit

    - by celine.beck
    I recently had the opportunity to attend and present the integration between AutoVue and Primavera P6 during the Oracle ALM Summit, which was held in March at Redwood Shores, on Oracle Headquarters grounds. The ALM Summit brought together over 300 Oracle maintenance practitioners who endured the foggy and rainy San Francisco weather to attend the 4th edition of this Oracle-driven conference. Attendees have roles in maintenance management and IT. Following a general session, Ralph Rio from ARC Advisory Group provided a very interesting keynote session discussing Asset Management directions, both in the short and long run. An interesting point that Ralph raised is that most organizations have done a good job at improving performance at the design / build, operate and maintain and portfolio management phases by leveraging solutions like Asset Lifecycle Management and Project & Portfolio management solutions; however, there seem to be room for improvement in between those phases, when information flows from one group to the other, during the data handover phase or when time comes to update / modify drawings to reflect the reality of physical assets. This is where AutoVue comes into play. By integrating with enterprise applications like content management systems, asset lifecycle management applications and project management solutions, AutoVue can be a real-process enabler, streamlining information flows from concept/design to decommissioning and ensuring that all project stakeholders have access to asset information and engineering data throughout the asset lifecycle. AutoVue's built-in digital annotation capabilities allows maintenance workers and technicians to report changes in configuration and visually capture the delta between as-built and as-maintained versions of asset documents. This information can then be easily handed over to engineers who can identify changes and incorporate these modifications into the drawings during the next round of document revisions. PPL Power Generation, an electric utilities headquarted in Allentown, Pennsylvania discussed this usage of AutoVue during an interesting Webcast around AutoVue's role in the Utilities space. After the keynote sessions, participants broke off into product-centric tracks around Oracle's Asset Lifecycle Management solutions (E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, and JD Edwards). The second day of the conference was the occasion for us to present the integration between AutoVue and Primavera P6 to the Maintenance Summit audience. The presentation was a great success and generated much discussion with partners and customers during breaks. People seemed highly interested in learning more about our plans for integrating AutoVue and Primavera P6 with Oracle's ALM solutions...stay tune for further information on the subject!

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  • Microsoft MVP 2012 – ASP.NET/IIS

    - by hajan
    It’s Sunday. I wasn’t really sure whether I should expect something today or not, although its 1st of July when we all know that the new and re-awarded MVPs should get the ‘Congratulations’ email by Microsoft. And YES! I GOT IT! This is my second year, and first time re-awarded… Microsoft MVP 2012 The feeling is exactly same as the first time… I am honored, privileged, veeeery happy and thankful to Microsoft for this prestigious award! The past year was really great with all the events, speaking engagements in various conferences and camps, many other community activities and the first time visit at MVP Global Summit. I am looking forward to boost even more the Microsoft community activities in the next year... And… part of the email message: Dear Hajan Selmani, Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2012 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. We appreciate your outstanding contributions in ASP.NET/IIS technical communities during the past year. I would like to say a big THANK YOU to all stakeholders. First of all, THANK YOU MICROSOFT for this prestigious award, Thanks to CEE & Italy Region MVP Lead, Alessandro Teglia, who did a great job by helping and supporting MVPs through the whole past year, I hope we will continue collaborating in the same way on the forthcoming year! Thanks to my family, friends, supports, followers, those who read my blogs regularly and have made me reach more than thousands of comments in my ASP.NET Blog :), those who collaborate and work with me on a daily basis and are supporting me in all my community activities. Thank You Everyone! There are lot of new, exciting, great and innovative technologies in the Microsoft Technology Stack. I am excited and really looking forward to rock the community in the years to come! THANK YOU! Hajan

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  • Multi-module web project with Spring and Maven

    - by Johan Sjöberg
    Assume we have a few projects, each containing some web resources (e.g., html pages). parent.pom +- web (war) +- web-plugin-1 (jar) +- web-plugin-2 (jar) ... Let's say web is the deployable war project which depends on the known, but selectable, set of plugins. What is a good way to setup this using Spring and maven? Let the plugins be war projects and use mavens poor support for importing other war projects Put all web-resource for all plugins in the web project Add all web-resources to the classpath of all jar web-plugin-* dependencie and let spring read files from respective classpath? Other? I've previously come from using #1, but the copy-paste semantics of war dependencies in maven is horrible.

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  • Office 2007 constantly crashes, logged as Event ID 1000

    - by Nori
    I have a user, who despite my best efforts, is having constant Office 2007 crashes. I've tried deleting their profile and setting it up again, repairing office, uninstalling completely and then reinstalling, and swapping out memory sticks. One event log error I keep getting is the following: (note all the Office errors are event id 1000) Faulting application name: OUTLOOK.EXE, version: 12.0.6539.5000, time stamp: 0x4c12486d Faulting module name: EMSMDB32.DLL, version: 12.0.6539.5000, time stamp: 0x4c1246f8 Exception code: 0xc0000005 Fault offset: 0x0005d8e2 Faulting process id: 0xf6c Faulting application start time: 0x01cb6633f33384f3 Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office12\OUTLOOK.EXE Faulting module path: c:\progra~2\micros~1\office12\EMSMDB32.DLL Report Id: 0d4a2eab-d231-11df-80a0-4061868f5d10 I also get this: Faulting application name: OUTLOOK.EXE, version: 12.0.6539.5000, time stamp: 0x4c12486d Faulting module name: olmapi32.dll, version: 12.0.6538.5000, time stamp: 0x4bfc6ad9 Exception code: 0xc0000005 Fault offset: 0x002357a9 Faulting process id: 0x5e4 Faulting application start time: 0x01cb661f4546aa77 Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office12\OUTLOOK.EXE Faulting module path: c:\progra~2\micros~1\office12\olmapi32.dll Report Id: a4a90658-d224-11df-80a0-4061868f5d10 The Excel error is this: Faulting application name: EXCEL.EXE, version: 12.0.6535.5002, time stamp: 0x4bd2a7f1 Faulting module name: KERNELBASE.dll, version: 6.1.7600.16385, time stamp: 0x4a5bdbdf Exception code: 0xe06d7363 Fault offset: 0x0000b727 Faulting process id: 0x14a8 Faulting application start time: 0x01cb61ab7bc0abab Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office12\EXCEL.EXE Faulting module path: C:\Windows\syswow64\KERNELBASE.dll Report Id: ba0c454b-cd9e-11df-80a0-4061868f5d10 Also have gotten this for PowerPoint: Faulting application name: POWERPNT.EXE, version: 12.0.6500.5000, time stamp: 0x49a68f9d Faulting module name: COMShim.dll, version: 2010.3.325.110, time stamp: 0x4c51e0b1 Exception code: 0x40000015 Fault offset: 0x0001e388 Faulting process id: 0x1480 Faulting application start time: 0x01cb5fe9a0660e81 Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office12\POWERPNT.EXE Faulting module path: C:\Program Files (x86)\FactSet\COMShim.dll Report Id: e03d2a21-cbdc-11df-9bc8-4061868f5d10 (Some of the above lines edited to keep you from scroll horizontally.) Lastly, I get this error several times a day, I don't think it is related but maybe it is: Failed extract of third-party root list from auto update cab at: http://www.download.windowsupdate.com/msdownload/update/v3/static/trustedr/en/authrootstl.cab with error: A required certificate is not within its validity period when verifying against the current system clock or the timestamp in the signed file. Any ideas? This is driving me nuts.

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  • How do I force excel (and other office products) to stop opening files in the same application?

    - by KronoS
    Whenever I "double click" on an Excel file and another Excel file is open, the newly opened file automatically opens in the same application window as the previously opened Excel file. This isn't limited to just Excel, as I've seen Word do this as well. This poses a problem when wanting to compare documents side by side. The current solution I have for this is to actually open another Excel or Word instance, and then open the file from within that application window itself. Is there a way to force Office to open a new instance of the application when double clicking on the file icons? I'm currently using Office 2007 and Windows XP but I've seen this on Office 2010 and Windows Vista and 7. I'm looking for an overall solution if possible.

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  • Django - how should I implement generic apps that have dependencies on other generic apps?

    - by MikeRand
    Hi all, I'm using Marty Alchin's Django app that creates historical records (add, change, delete) based on models found in other Django apps (found in chapter 11 of Pro Django). Question: how do I implement this historical_records app into my other generic Django apps while still maintaining loose coupling? For example, I have a generic app (forecast) that manages a Forecast (of any other model). For one project, I'd like to use historical_records so that I can track changes to a Forecast instance. But I don't want to require all future projects that might want to use forecast to also use historical_records. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Mike

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  • Microsoft Application Request Routing with Windows Authentication

    - by theplatz
    I'm running into a problem trying to get Windows Authentication working in an environment that uses Microsoft Application Request Routing and was hoping someone might be able to help. The problem I'm running into is that only some requests are authenticated, while others fail with 401 errors. I have followed the Special Case of Running IIS 7.0 in a Web Farm instructions found at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/webtopics/archive/2009/01/19/service-principal-name-spn-checklist-for-kerberos-authentication-with-iis-7-0.aspx to no avail. My current server setup looks like the following: ARR Two servers set up with IIS shared configuration using IIS 7.5 on Windows 2008 R2 Anonymous authentication turned on for the Default Web Site Web Farm Two servers running IIS 7.5 on Windows 2008 R2 Three web sites set up using port binding to differentiate between virtual hosts. Ports being used are 8000, 8001, and 8002 Application pools for Windows Authentication all use a common domain account SPN added to domain account for http/<virthalhost-name>:<port-number> and http/<virtualhost-name>.<fully-qualified-domain>:<port-number> The IIS logs show the following when authentication is working/failing. If I understand correctly, all requests should show DOMAIN\User_Name: 2012-11-19 15:03:17 CLUSTER-IP-ADDRESS GET /home/stylesheets/techweb.landing.css - 8002 DOMAIN\User_Name ARR-HOST-1-IP-ADDRESS 200 0 0 62 2012-11-19 15:03:17 CLUSTER-IP-ADDRESS GET /home/images/user-background-right.gif - 8002 - ARR-HOST-1-IP-ADDRESS 401 2 5 0 2012-11-19 15:03:17 CLUSTER-IP-ADDRESS GET /home/images/user-background-left.gif - 8002 DOMAIN\User_Name ARR-HOST-IP-ADDRESS 200 0 0 31 2012-11-19 15:03:17 CLUSTER-IP-ADDRESS GET /home/images/user-icon.png - 8002 - ARR-HOST-1-IP-ADDRESS 401 2 5 0 2012-11-19 15:03:17 CLUSTER-IP-ADDRESS GET /home/images/user-icon.png - 8002 - ARR-HOST-1-IP-ADDRESS 401 1 2148074248 0 2012-11-19 15:03:17 CLUSTER-IP-ADDRESS GET /home/images/application-icon.png - 8002 - ARR-HOST-1-IP-ADDRESS 401 1 2148074248 0 2012-11-19 15:03:17 CLUSTER-IP-ADDRESS GET /home/images/user-background-right.gif - 8002 - ARR-HOST-1-IP-ADDRESS 401 1 3221225581 15 2012-11-19 15:03:17 CLUSTER-IP-ADDRESS GET /home/images/building.gif - 8002 DOMAIN\User_Name ARR-HOST-2-IP-ADDRESS 200 0 0 218 Does anyone know what might cause this problem and how I can resolve it?

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  • Perform Better with Microsoft Project 2007 and Visio 2007. Now 20% OFF!

    To increase productivity, it is essential that your employees have easy access to productivity tools that make the best use of their resources. Microsoft Office Project 2007 and Microsoft Visio 2007 now work Better Together by: · Reducing repetitive tasks with diagrams that refresh automatically with Data Refresh and Data Connect · Tracking the source of issues quickly with the Track Drivers feature · Tracking budgets with the new Costs Resources field · Building ready-to-use reports with the Visual reports engine · Share and manage documents on collaborative workspaces with Windows SharePoint Services For a limited time, you can now license Microsoft Office Project 2007 system and Microsoft Office Visio 2007 system under the No Better Time offer at a 20% discount for Open Value and a 15% discount for Desktop SKUs. Hurry, there’s No Better Time for you to buy Microsoft Office Project 2007 and Microsoft Office Visio 2007. Click here to view the Terms and Conditions. span.fullpost {display:none;}

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  • MS Office on Virtual Machine (Parallels): licensing

    - by keijo
    I'm running Win XP on Parallels on my two home computers (iMac and macbook pro). I'm planning to buy Office 2010 Student version and install it on my virtual xp:s. How the licensing of MS Office goes on virtual machines? I'm worried about the scenario where I have to re-install virtual machines (which happens some time), and because of that I have to install Office 2010 Student version many times. I think that the licensing of MS Office Student version allows installation only for three times?

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  • The broken Promise of the Mobile Web

    - by Rick Strahl
    High end mobile devices have been with us now for almost 7 years and they have utterly transformed the way we access information. Mobile phones and smartphones that have access to the Internet and host smart applications are in the hands of a large percentage of the population of the world. In many places even very remote, cell phones and even smart phones are a common sight. I’ll never forget when I was in India in 2011 I was up in the Southern Indian mountains riding an elephant out of a tiny local village, with an elephant herder in front riding atop of the elephant in front of us. He was dressed in traditional garb with the loin wrap and head cloth/turban as did quite a few of the locals in this small out of the way and not so touristy village. So we’re slowly trundling along in the forest and he’s lazily using his stick to guide the elephant and… 10 minutes in he pulls out his cell phone from his sash and starts texting. In the middle of texting a huge pig jumps out from the side of the trail and he takes a picture running across our path in the jungle! So yeah, mobile technology is very pervasive and it’s reached into even very buried and unexpected parts of this world. Apps are still King Apps currently rule the roost when it comes to mobile devices and the applications that run on them. If there’s something that you need on your mobile device your first step usually is to look for an app, not use your browser. But native app development remains a pain in the butt, with the requirement to have to support 2 or 3 completely separate platforms. There are solutions that try to bridge that gap. Xamarin is on a tear at the moment, providing their cross-device toolkit to build applications using C#. While Xamarin tools are impressive – and also *very* expensive – they only address part of the development madness that is app development. There are still specific device integration isssues, dealing with the different developer programs, security and certificate setups and all that other noise that surrounds app development. There’s also PhoneGap/Cordova which provides a hybrid solution that involves creating local HTML/CSS/JavaScript based applications, and then packaging them to run in a specialized App container that can run on most mobile device platforms using a WebView interface. This allows for using of HTML technology, but it also still requires all the set up, configuration of APIs, security keys and certification and submission and deployment process just like native applications – you actually lose many of the benefits that  Web based apps bring. The big selling point of Cordova is that you get to use HTML have the ability to build your UI once for all platforms and run across all of them – but the rest of the app process remains in place. Apps can be a big pain to create and manage especially when we are talking about specialized or vertical business applications that aren’t geared at the mainstream market and that don’t fit the ‘store’ model. If you’re building a small intra department application you don’t want to deal with multiple device platforms and certification etc. for various public or corporate app stores. That model is simply not a good fit both from the development and deployment perspective. Even for commercial, big ticket apps, HTML as a UI platform offers many advantages over native, from write-once run-anywhere, to remote maintenance, single point of management and failure to having full control over the application as opposed to have the app store overloads censor you. In a lot of ways Web based HTML/CSS/JavaScript applications have so much potential for building better solutions based on existing Web technologies for the very same reasons a lot of content years ago moved off the desktop to the Web. To me the Web as a mobile platform makes perfect sense, but the reality of today’s Mobile Web unfortunately looks a little different… Where’s the Love for the Mobile Web? Yet here we are in the middle of 2014, nearly 7 years after the first iPhone was released and brought the promise of rich interactive information at your fingertips, and yet we still don’t really have a solid mobile Web platform. I know what you’re thinking: “But we have lots of HTML/JavaScript/CSS features that allows us to build nice mobile interfaces”. I agree to a point – it’s actually quite possible to build nice looking, rich and capable Web UI today. We have media queries to deal with varied display sizes, CSS transforms for smooth animations and transitions, tons of CSS improvements in CSS 3 that facilitate rich layout, a host of APIs geared towards mobile device features and lately even a number of JavaScript framework choices that facilitate development of multi-screen apps in a consistent manner. Personally I’ve been working a lot with AngularJs and heavily modified Bootstrap themes to build mobile first UIs and that’s been working very well to provide highly usable and attractive UI for typical mobile business applications. From the pure UI perspective things actually look very good. Not just about the UI But it’s not just about the UI - it’s also about integration with the mobile device. When it comes to putting all those pieces together into what amounts to a consolidated platform to build mobile Web applications, I think we still have a ways to go… there are a lot of missing pieces to make it all work together and integrate with the device more smoothly, and more importantly to make it work uniformly across the majority of devices. I think there are a number of reasons for this. Slow Standards Adoption HTML standards implementations and ratification has been dreadfully slow, and browser vendors all seem to pick and choose different pieces of the technology they implement. The end result is that we have a capable UI platform that’s missing some of the infrastructure pieces to make it whole on mobile devices. There’s lots of potential but what is lacking that final 10% to build truly compelling mobile applications that can compete favorably with native applications. Some of it is the fragmentation of browsers and the slow evolution of the mobile specific HTML APIs. A host of mobile standards exist but many of the standards are in the early review stage and they have been there stuck for long periods of time and seem to move at a glacial pace. Browser vendors seem even slower to implement them, and for good reason – non-ratified standards mean that implementations may change and vendor implementations tend to be experimental and  likely have to be changed later. Neither Vendors or developers are not keen on changing standards. This is the typical chicken and egg scenario, but without some forward momentum from some party we end up stuck in the mud. It seems that either the standards bodies or the vendors need to carry the torch forward and that doesn’t seem to be happening quickly enough. Mobile Device Integration just isn’t good enough Current standards are not far reaching enough to address a number of the use case scenarios necessary for many mobile applications. While not every application needs to have access to all mobile device features, almost every mobile application could benefit from some integration with other parts of the mobile device platform. Integration with GPS, phone, media, messaging, notifications, linking and contacts system are benefits that are unique to mobile applications and could be widely used, but are mostly (with the exception of GPS) inaccessible for Web based applications today. Unfortunately trying to do most of this today only with a mobile Web browser is a losing battle. Aside from PhoneGap/Cordova’s app centric model with its own custom API accessing mobile device features and the token exception of the GeoLocation API, most device integration features are not widely supported by the current crop of mobile browsers. For example there’s no usable messaging API that allows access to SMS or contacts from HTML. Even obvious components like the Media Capture API are only implemented partially by mobile devices. There are alternatives and workarounds for some of these interfaces by using browser specific code, but that’s might ugly and something that I thought we were trying to leave behind with newer browser standards. But it’s not quite working out that way. It’s utterly perplexing to me that mobile standards like Media Capture and Streams, Media Gallery Access, Responsive Images, Messaging API, Contacts Manager API have only minimal or no traction at all today. Keep in mind we’ve had mobile browsers for nearly 7 years now, and yet we still have to think about how to get access to an image from the image gallery or the camera on some devices? Heck Windows Phone IE Mobile just gained the ability to upload images recently in the Windows 8.1 Update – that’s feature that HTML has had for 20 years! These are simple concepts and common problems that should have been solved a long time ago. It’s extremely frustrating to see build 90% of a mobile Web app with relative ease and then hit a brick wall for the remaining 10%, which often can be show stoppers. The remaining 10% have to do with platform integration, browser differences and working around the limitations that browsers and ‘pinned’ applications impose on HTML applications. The maddening part is that these limitations seem arbitrary as they could easily work on all mobile platforms. For example, SMS has a URL Moniker interface that sort of works on Android, works badly with iOS (only works if the address is already in the contact list) and not at all on Windows Phone. There’s no reason this shouldn’t work universally using the same interface – after all all phones have supported SMS since before the year 2000! But, it doesn’t have to be this way Change can happen very quickly. Take the GeoLocation API for example. Geolocation has taken off at the very beginning of the mobile device era and today it works well, provides the necessary security (a big concern for many mobile APIs), and is supported by just about all major mobile and even desktop browsers today. It handles security concerns via prompts to avoid unwanted access which is a model that would work for most other device APIs in a similar fashion. One time approval and occasional re-approval if code changes or caches expire. Simple and only slightly intrusive. It all works well, even though GeoLocation actually has some physical limitations, such as representing the current location when no GPS device is present. Yet this is a solved problem, where other APIs that are conceptually much simpler to implement have failed to gain any traction at all. Technically none of these APIs should be a problem to implement, but it appears that the momentum is just not there. Inadequate Web Application Linking and Activation Another important piece of the puzzle missing is the integration of HTML based Web applications. Today HTML based applications are not first class citizens on mobile operating systems. When talking about HTML based content there’s a big difference between content and applications. Content is great for search engine discovery and plain browser usage. Content is usually accessed intermittently and permanent linking is not so critical for this type of content.  But applications have different needs. Applications need to be started up quickly and must be easily switchable to support a multi-tasking user workflow. Therefore, it’s pretty crucial that mobile Web apps are integrated into the underlying mobile OS and work with the standard task management features. Unfortunately this integration is not as smooth as it should be. It starts with actually trying to find mobile Web applications, to ‘installing’ them onto a phone in an easily accessible manner in a prominent position. The experience of discovering a Mobile Web ‘App’ and making it sticky is by no means as easy or satisfying. Today the way you’d go about this is: Open the browser Search for a Web Site in the browser with your search engine of choice Hope that you find the right site Hope that you actually find a site that works for your mobile device Click on the link and run the app in a fully chrome’d browser instance (read tiny surface area) Pin the app to the home screen (with all the limitations outline above) Hope you pointed at the right URL when you pinned Even for you and me as developers, there are a few steps in there that are painful and annoying, but think about the average user. First figuring out how to search for a specific site or URL? And then pinning the app and hopefully from the right location? You’ve probably lost more than half of your audience at that point. This experience sucks. For developers too this process is painful since app developers can’t control the shortcut creation directly. This problem often gets solved by crazy coding schemes, with annoying pop-ups that try to get people to create shortcuts via fancy animations that are both annoying and add overhead to each and every application that implements this sort of thing differently. And that’s not the end of it - getting the link onto the home screen with an application icon varies quite a bit between browsers. Apple’s non-standard meta tags are prominent and they work with iOS and Android (only more recent versions), but not on Windows Phone. Windows Phone instead requires you to create an actual screen or rather a partial screen be captured for a shortcut in the tile manager. Who had that brilliant idea I wonder? Surprisingly Chrome on recent Android versions seems to actually get it right – icons use pngs, pinning is easy and pinned applications properly behave like standalone apps and retain the browser’s active page state and content. Each of the platforms has a different way to specify icons (WP doesn’t allow you to use an icon image at all), and the most widely used interface in use today is a bunch of Apple specific meta tags that other browsers choose to support. The question is: Why is there no standard implementation for installing shortcuts across mobile platforms using an official format rather than a proprietary one? Then there’s iOS and the crazy way it treats home screen linked URLs using a crazy hybrid format that is neither as capable as a Web app running in Safari nor a WebView hosted application. Moving off the Web ‘app’ link when switching to another app actually causes the browser and preview it to ‘blank out’ the Web application in the Task View (see screenshot on the right). Then, when the ‘app’ is reactivated it ends up completely restarting the browser with the original link. This is crazy behavior that you can’t easily work around. In some situations you might be able to store the application state and restore it using LocalStorage, but for many scenarios that involve complex data sources (like say Google Maps) that’s not a possibility. The only reason for this screwed up behavior I can think of is that it is deliberate to make Web apps a pain in the butt to use and forcing users trough the App Store/PhoneGap/Cordova route. App linking and management is a very basic problem – something that we essentially have solved in every desktop browser – yet on mobile devices where it arguably matters a lot more to have easy access to web content we have to jump through hoops to have even a remotely decent linking/activation experience across browsers. Where’s the Money? It’s not surprising that device home screen integration and Mobile Web support in general is in such dismal shape – the mobile OS vendors benefit financially from App store sales and have little to gain from Web based applications that bypass the App store and the cash cow that it presents. On top of that, platform specific vendor lock-in of both end users and developers who have invested in hardware, apps and consumables is something that mobile platform vendors actually aspire to. Web based interfaces that are cross-platform are the anti-thesis of that and so again it’s no surprise that the mobile Web is on a struggling path. But – that may be changing. More and more we’re seeing operations shifting to services that are subscription based or otherwise collect money for usage, and that may drive more progress into the Web direction in the end . Nothing like the almighty dollar to drive innovation forward. Do we need a Mobile Web App Store? As much as I dislike moderated experiences in today’s massive App Stores, they do at least provide one single place to look for apps for your device. I think we could really use some sort of registry, that could provide something akin to an app store for mobile Web apps, to make it easier to actually find mobile applications. This could take the form of a specialized search engine, or maybe a more formal store/registry like structure. Something like apt-get/chocolatey for Web apps. It could be curated and provide at least some feedback and reviews that might help with the integrity of applications. Coupled to that could be a native application on each platform that would allow searching and browsing of the registry and then also handle installation in the form of providing the home screen linking, plus maybe an initial security configuration that determines what features are allowed access to for the app. I’m not holding my breath. In order for this sort of thing to take off and gain widespread appeal, a lot of coordination would be required. And in order to get enough traction it would have to come from a well known entity – a mobile Web app store from a no name source is unlikely to gain high enough usage numbers to make a difference. In a way this would eliminate some of the freedom of the Web, but of course this would also be an optional search path in addition to the standard open Web search mechanisms to find and access content today. Security Security is a big deal, and one of the perceived reasons why so many IT professionals appear to be willing to go back to the walled garden of deployed apps is that Apps are perceived as safe due to the official review and curation of the App stores. Curated stores are supposed to protect you from malware, illegal and misleading content. It doesn’t always work out that way and all the major vendors have had issues with security and the review process at some time or another. Security is critical, but I also think that Web applications in general pose less of a security threat than native applications, by nature of the sandboxed browser and JavaScript environments. Web applications run externally completely and in the HTML and JavaScript sandboxes, with only a very few controlled APIs allowing access to device specific features. And as discussed earlier – security for any device interaction can be granted the same for mobile applications through a Web browser, as they can for native applications either via explicit policies loaded from the Web, or via prompting as GeoLocation does today. Security is important, but it’s certainly solvable problem for Web applications even those that need to access device hardware. Security shouldn’t be a reason for Web apps to be an equal player in mobile applications. Apps are winning, but haven’t we been here before? So now we’re finding ourselves back in an era of installed app, rather than Web based and managed apps. Only it’s even worse today than with Desktop applications, in that the apps are going through a gatekeeper that charges a toll and censors what you can and can’t do in your apps. Frankly it’s a mystery to me why anybody would buy into this model and why it’s lasted this long when we’ve already been through this process. It’s crazy… It’s really a shame that this regression is happening. We have the technology to make mobile Web apps much more prominent, but yet we’re basically held back by what seems little more than bureaucracy, partisan bickering and self interest of the major parties involved. Back in the day of the desktop it was Internet Explorer’s 98+%  market shareholding back the Web from improvements for many years – now it’s the combined mobile OS market in control of the mobile browsers. If mobile Web apps were allowed to be treated the same as native apps with simple ways to install and run them consistently and persistently, that would go a long way to making mobile applications much more usable and seriously viable alternatives to native apps. But as it is mobile apps have a severe disadvantage in placement and operation. There are a few bright spots in all of this. Mozilla’s FireFoxOs is embracing the Web for it’s mobile OS by essentially building every app out of HTML and JavaScript based content. It supports both packaged and certified package modes (that can be put into the app store), and Open Web apps that are loaded and run completely off the Web and can also cache locally for offline operation using a manifest. Open Web apps are treated as full class citizens in FireFoxOS and run using the same mechanism as installed apps. Unfortunately FireFoxOs is getting a slow start with minimal device support and specifically targeting the low end market. We can hope that this approach will change and catch on with other vendors, but that’s also an uphill battle given the conflict of interest with platform lock in that it represents. Recent versions of Android also seem to be working reasonably well with mobile application integration onto the desktop and activation out of the box. Although it still uses the Apple meta tags to find icons and behavior settings, everything at least works as you would expect – icons to the desktop on pinning, WebView based full screen activation, and reliable application persistence as the browser/app is treated like a real application. Hopefully iOS will at some point provide this same level of rudimentary Web app support. What’s also interesting to me is that Microsoft hasn’t picked up on the obvious need for a solid Web App platform. Being a distant third in the mobile OS war, Microsoft certainly has nothing to lose and everything to gain by using fresh ideas and expanding into areas that the other major vendors are neglecting. But instead Microsoft is trying to beat the market leaders at their own game, fighting on their adversary’s terms instead of taking a new tack. Providing a kick ass mobile Web platform that takes the lead on some of the proposed mobile APIs would be something positive that Microsoft could do to improve its miserable position in the mobile device market. Where are we at with Mobile Web? It sure sounds like I’m really down on the Mobile Web, right? I’ve built a number of mobile apps in the last year and while overall result and response has been very positive to what we were able to accomplish in terms of UI, getting that final 10% that required device integration dialed was an absolute nightmare on every single one of them. Big compromises had to be made and some features were left out or had to be modified for some devices. In two cases we opted to go the Cordova route in order to get the integration we needed, along with the extra pain involved in that process. Unless you’re not integrating with device features and you don’t care deeply about a smooth integration with the mobile desktop, mobile Web development is fraught with frustration. So, yes I’m frustrated! But it’s not for lack of wanting the mobile Web to succeed. I am still a firm believer that we will eventually arrive a much more functional mobile Web platform that allows access to the most common device features in a sensible way. It wouldn't be difficult for device platform vendors to make Web based applications first class citizens on mobile devices. But unfortunately it looks like it will still be some time before this happens. So, what’s your experience building mobile Web apps? Are you finding similar issues? Just giving up on raw Web applications and building PhoneGap apps instead? Completely skipping the Web and going native? Leave a comment for discussion. Resources Rick Strahl on DotNet Rocks talking about Mobile Web© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2014Posted in HTML5  Mobile   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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  • Migration & Modernization: Windows/VB6 Apps to ASP.NET HTML5

    - by Visual WebGui
    I would like to invite you to a webinar we are doing in collaboration with Jeffrey S. Hammond , Principal Analyst serving Application Development & Delivery Professionals at Forrester Research. The webinar is free and it will will introduce the substantial changes brought on by the move to Web Applications and Open Web architectures, and the challenges it places on application development shops. We’ll also introduce how we at Gizmox are helping client navigate this mobile shift and evolve existing...(read more)

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  • Cannot Expand/Collapse tasks in Microsoft Project 2010

    - by Dean
    I opened an existing Microsoft Project file today and was unable to expand/collapse the subtasks use the cursor and the '+/-' signs beside the parent tasks. I am able to expand and collapse using the 'View-Outline' ribbon icon. However when I attempt to do this using the mouse on specific tasks, my cursor will not perform the task. My cursor is a 'white cross' when I need it to be an 'arrow'. I'm assuming this is something minor that I'm missing. Any assistance appreciated. Thanks

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  • Insert SVG directly into Microsoft Publisher without converting file format

    - by nhinkle
    How can I insert an SVG image into a Microsoft Publisher 2010 document as a vector image without having to first convert it to a bitmap format like PNG? Copying and pasting an SVG file into a Publisher document does not work. I am aware that one can convert an SVG to EPS, and insert that, since Publisher accepts EPS files. The problem is that it is time consuming to convert, and often the colors come out wrong. If this is the only way to get vector graphics into Publisher, then is there a one-step method to convert an SVG to EPS and paste it into Publisher at one fell swoop?

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  • Weird outline numbering in Microsoft Word 2008

    - by GarnerCX
    This is quite a weird question, as I think I am asking the opposite of what most people want to try and achieve with outline numbering in Microsoft Word. The outline numbering associated with the styles "Heading 1" and "Heading 2" are fine and working as normal, but the outline numbering associated with all the heading styles from "Heading 3" onwards are broken. Here is a summary of how they look: 1 1.1 1.2 2 2.1 3 3.1 1.1.1 1.1.2 4 4.1 1.1.3 So you can see that while the first two headings are numbering correctly down the document, the third level heading doesn't restart and it doesn't have the correct 1st and 2nd level numbering - they all have '1.1' as a prefix. These are all controlled by the heading styles and I have tried every combination of options in the outline numbering section of the styles. Short of building a whole new template, recreating all my custom styles and then pasting the text across, I really don't know what to do. Before I try that, does anyone know what is going on here?

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