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  • need prefuse graph edges like arrows

    - by merve
    Hello, I did my homework and searched both google for a sample and a topic that is answered before on stackoverflow. But nothing has been found. My problem is ordinary edges who does not have a view like arrows. Here is what i do to hope there is forward arrows from target to destination: LabelRenderer nameLabel = new LabelRenderer("name"); nameLabel.setRoundedCorner(8, 8); DefaultRendererFactory rendererFactory = new DefaultRendererFactory(nameLabel); EdgeRenderer edgeRenderer; edgeRenderer = new EdgeRenderer(prefuse.Constants.EDGE_TYPE_LINE, prefuse.Constants.EDGE_ARROW_FORWARD); rendererFactory.setDefaultEdgeRenderer(edgeRenderer); vis.setRendererFactory(rendererFactory); Here is what i see about colour of edges, hoping these must not be transparent: int[] palette = new int[]{ColorLib.rgb(255, 180, 180), ColorLib.rgb(190, 190, 255)}; DataColorAction fill = new DataColorAction("socialnet.nodes", "gender", Constants.NOMINAL, VisualItem.FILLCOLOR, palette); ColorAction text = new ColorAction("socialnet.nodes", VisualItem.TEXTCOLOR, ColorLib.gray(0)); ColorAction edges = new ColorAction("socialnet.edges", VisualItem.STROKECOLOR, ColorLib.gray(200)); ColorAction arrow = new ColorAction("socialnet.edges", VisualItem.FILLCOLOR, ColorLib.gray(200)); ActionList colour = new ActionList(); colour.add(fill); colour.add(text); colour.add(edges); colour.add(arrow); vis.putAction("colour", colour); Thus, i wonder where am i wrong? Why my edges do not seem like arrows? Thanks for any idea. For more detail, i want to paste all of the code: /* * To change this template, choose Tools | Templates * and open the template in the editor. */ package prefusedeneme; import javax.swing.JFrame; import prefuse.data.*; import prefuse.data.io.*; import prefuse.Display; import prefuse.Visualization; import prefuse.render.*; import prefuse.util.*; import prefuse.action.assignment.*; import prefuse.Constants; import prefuse.visual.*; import prefuse.action.*; import prefuse.activity.*; import prefuse.action.layout.graph.*; import prefuse.controls.*; import prefuse.data.expression.Predicate; import prefuse.data.expression.parser.ExpressionParser; public class SocialNetworkVis { public static void main(String argv[]) { // 1. Load the data Graph graph = null; /* graph will contain the core data */ try { graph = new GraphMLReader().readGraph("socialnet.xml"); /* load the data from an XML file */ } catch (DataIOException e) { e.printStackTrace(); System.err.println("Error loading graph. Exiting..."); System.exit(1); } // 2. prepare the visualization Visualization vis = new Visualization(); /* vis is the main object that will run the visualization */ vis.add("socialnet", graph); /* add our data to the visualization */ // 3. setup the renderers and the render factory // labels for name LabelRenderer nameLabel = new LabelRenderer("name"); nameLabel.setRoundedCorner(8, 8); /* nameLabel decribes how to draw the data elements labeled as "name" */ // create the render factory DefaultRendererFactory rendererFactory = new DefaultRendererFactory(nameLabel); EdgeRenderer edgeRenderer; edgeRenderer = new EdgeRenderer(prefuse.Constants.EDGE_TYPE_LINE, prefuse.Constants.EDGE_ARROW_FORWARD); rendererFactory.setDefaultEdgeRenderer(edgeRenderer); vis.setRendererFactory(rendererFactory); // 4. process the actions // colour palette for nominal data type int[] palette = new int[]{ColorLib.rgb(255, 180, 180), ColorLib.rgb(190, 190, 255)}; /* ColorLib.rgb converts the colour values to integers */ // map data to colours in the palette DataColorAction fill = new DataColorAction("socialnet.nodes", "gender", Constants.NOMINAL, VisualItem.FILLCOLOR, palette); /* fill describes what colour to draw the graph based on a portion of the data */ // node text ColorAction text = new ColorAction("socialnet.nodes", VisualItem.TEXTCOLOR, ColorLib.gray(0)); /* text describes what colour to draw the text */ // edge ColorAction edges = new ColorAction("socialnet.edges", VisualItem.STROKECOLOR, ColorLib.gray(200)); ColorAction arrow = new ColorAction("socialnet.edges", VisualItem.FILLCOLOR, ColorLib.gray(200)); /* edge describes what colour to draw the edges */ // combine the colour assignments into an action list ActionList colour = new ActionList(); colour.add(fill); colour.add(text); colour.add(edges); colour.add(arrow); vis.putAction("colour", colour); /* add the colour actions to the visualization */ // create a separate action list for the layout ActionList layout = new ActionList(Activity.INFINITY); layout.add(new ForceDirectedLayout("socialnet")); /* use a force-directed graph layout with default parameters */ layout.add(new RepaintAction()); /* repaint after each movement of the graph nodes */ vis.putAction("layout", layout); /* add the laout actions to the visualization */ // 5. add interactive controls for visualization Display display = new Display(vis); display.setSize(700, 700); display.pan(350, 350); // pan to the middle display.addControlListener(new DragControl()); /* allow items to be dragged around */ display.addControlListener(new PanControl()); /* allow the display to be panned (moved left/right, up/down) (left-drag)*/ display.addControlListener(new ZoomControl()); /* allow the display to be zoomed (right-drag) */ // 6. launch the visualizer in a JFrame JFrame frame = new JFrame("prefuse tutorial: socialnet"); /* frame is the main window */ frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE); frame.add(display); /* add the display (which holds the visualization) to the window */ frame.pack(); frame.setVisible(true); /* start the visualization working */ vis.run("colour"); vis.run("layout"); } }

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  • Visual Studio C++ list iterator not decementable

    - by user69514
    I keep getting an error on visual studio that says list iterator not decrementable: line 256 My program works fine on Linux, but visual studio compiler throws this error. Dammit this is why I hate windows. Why can't the world run on Linux? Anyway, do you see what my problem is? #include <iostream> #include <fstream> #include <sstream> #include <list> using namespace std; int main(){ /** create the list **/ list<int> l; /** create input stream to read file **/ ifstream inputstream("numbers.txt"); /** read the numbers and add them to list **/ if( inputstream.is_open() ){ string line; istringstream instream; while( getline(inputstream, line) ){ instream.clear(); instream.str(line); /** get he five int's **/ int one, two, three, four, five; instream >> one >> two >> three >> four >> five; /** add them to the list **/ l.push_back(one); l.push_back(two); l.push_back(three); l.push_back(four); l.push_back(five); }//end while loop }//end if /** close the stream **/ inputstream.close(); /** display the list **/ cout << "List Read:" << endl; list<int>::iterator i; for( i=l.begin(); i != l.end(); ++i){ cout << *i << " "; } cout << endl << endl; /** now sort the list **/ l.sort(); /** display the list **/ cout << "Sorted List (head to tail):" << endl; for( i=l.begin(); i != l.end(); ++i){ cout << *i << " "; } cout << endl; list<int> lReversed; for(i=l.begin(); i != l.end(); ++i){ lReversed.push_front(*i); } cout << "Sorted List (tail to head):" << endl; for(i=lReversed.begin(); i!=lReversed.end(); ++i){ cout << *i << " "; } cout << endl << endl; /** remove first biggest element and display **/ l.pop_back(); cout << "List after removing first biggest element:" << endl; cout << "Sorted List (head to tail):" << endl; for( i=l.begin(); i != l.end(); ++i){ cout << *i << " "; } cout << endl; cout << "Sorted List (tail to head):" << endl; lReversed.pop_front(); for(i=lReversed.begin(); i!=lReversed.end(); ++i){ cout << *i << " "; } cout << endl << endl; /** remove second biggest element and display **/ l.pop_back(); cout << "List after removing second biggest element:" << endl; cout << "Sorted List (head to tail):" << endl; for( i=l.begin(); i != l.end(); ++i){ cout << *i << " "; } cout << endl; lReversed.pop_front(); cout << "Sorted List (tail to head):" << endl; for(i=lReversed.begin(); i!=lReversed.end(); ++i){ cout << *i << " "; } cout << endl << endl; /** remove third biggest element and display **/ l.pop_back(); cout << "List after removing third biggest element:" << endl; cout << "Sorted List (head to tail):" << endl; for( i=l.begin(); i != l.end(); ++i){ cout << *i << " "; } cout << endl; cout << "Sorted List (tail to head):" << endl; lReversed.pop_front(); for(i=lReversed.begin(); i!=lReversed.end(); ++i){ cout << *i << " "; } cout << endl << endl; /** create frequency table **/ const int biggest = 1000; //create array size of biggest element int arr[biggest]; //set everything to zero for(int j=0; j<biggest+1; j++){ arr[j] = 0; } //now update number of occurences for( i=l.begin(); i != l.end(); i++){ arr[*i]++; } //now print the frequency table. only print where occurences greater than zero cout << "Final list frequency table: " << endl; for(int j=0; j<biggest+1; j++){ if( arr[j] > 0 ){ cout << j << ": " << arr[j] << " occurences" << endl; } } return 0; }//end main

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  • I am trying to insert value from combo box to database !! but this is not working

    - by user3675488
    At first I have taken some string in which I am trying to save the input values of textboxs and there is a combo box, I am trying to save the input value of the combo box to database, but this following code is unable to do that !!! what is the prob please help me. private void OK_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { string sTxtcmpnyName = ""; string sTxtcmpnyAdd = ""; string sPhoneno = ""; string sTxtFax = ""; string sPanNo = ""; string sTxtTin = ""; string sTax = ""; string sAccYr = ""; string sComboSt = ""; foreach (Control c in this.Controls) ////*Adding Validation to the textbox.*// // Here the control is entered into GroupBox Grpcmp where c is denoting the name of the control into the groupbox. { // c1 is another control which denotes the textboxes under the GroupBox Grpcmp. foreach (Control c1 in c.Controls) { /////Now this following code snippets reperesents that the name of the company should not be blank. if (c1 is TextBox == true) // simpler that what you've done there { TextBox temp = (TextBox)c1; //The control is entering into Txtcompany. if (temp.Name == "Txtcompanyname") { //Condition checking is the TextBox is empty or Null then the following message will be shown. if ((temp.Text == "") || (temp.Text == "NULL")) { MessageBox.Show("Company Name should not be Blank"); } sTxtcmpnyName = temp.Text; } else if (c1.Name == "TxtcompanyAddress") { sTxtcmpnyAdd = c1.Text; } else if (c1.Name == "Txtphoneno") { sPhoneno = c1.Text; } else if (c1.Name == "TxtFax ") { sTxtFax = c1.Text; } else if (c1.Name == "Txtpanno") { sPanNo = c1.Text; } else if (c1.Name == "TxtTin") { sTxtTin = c1.Text; } else if (c1.Name == "Txtservicetax") { sTax = c1.Text; } //Now I am converting the TxtAcYr into Date format. //For this purpose two conditions are checked first. //First If the TextBox TxtAcYr is Null or empty it will show the message to enter the accountyear!! //Second If the length of the TextBox TxtAcYr is less than 10, it will again generate a message The date format should be in DD/MM/YYYY // Then the value of the use input will be picked using a For loop. if (c1.Name == "TxtAcYr") { sAccYr = c1.Text; //Here a string is taken named as yearlength and the value of the TxtAcYr is assigned to it by using control c1. //Condition Checking If the TextBox TxtAcYr is Null or empty it will show the message to enter the accountyear!! if ((c1.Text == "") || (c1.Text == "NULL")) { MessageBox.Show("Account Year should be entered!!"); } //Condition 2 is checking. Here the length of the string yearlength is whether equals to 10 or not is checked. //Because there are total 10 characters in Date Format along with special character. else // MessageBox.Show(yearlength.Length.ToString()); if (sAccYr.Length != 10) { MessageBox.Show("The Data Format DD-MM-YYYY"); } //Now the value of user will be picked by using the code snippets. else { //A string named as JK is taken for further use. String JK = ""; //This following loop is initiated to pick the user input. //The loop will check wheather the value of i is less than the length of string yearlength or not. //If Yes then it will go further. for (int i = 0; i < sAccYr.Length; i++) { //This condition is checking special characters. //The positions of special characters(Here '-') are placed at 2nd and 5th numbers. //So, the value of i can not be equals to 2 && 5. if ((i != 2) && (i != 5)) { //The new of value of year length i is assinged to the variable JK. JK = JK + sAccYr[i]; } //If the value of i is equals to 1, then enter the following. if (i == 1) { //*Should add the function of TOInt32* // If ToInt32(JK)>= the maximum length of days of a month then the following alert message will be shown. if (Convert.ToInt32(JK) >= 32) { MessageBox.Show("The Data Format DD-MM-YYYY"); } //**Comment should be added.** JK = ""; } else //If the value of i is equals to 4, then enter the following. if (i == 4) { //*Should add the function of TOInt32* // If ToInt32(JK)>= the maximum length of month then the following alert message will be shown. if (Convert.ToInt32(JK) >= 13) { MessageBox.Show("The Data Format DD-MM-YYYY"); } JK = ""; } } } } } else if (c1.Name == "state_cmb") { //sTxttate = c1.Text.ToString(); sComboSt = c1.Text; MessageBox.Show(c1.Text); } } } //////DATABASE CONNECTION///// try { SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(); SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand(); conn.ConnectionString = ("Data Source =192.168.0.2 ;database= Mee_Company; Persist Security Info =true; User ID =sa;Password = soso654321@"); conn.Open(); cmd.CommandText = ("INSERT INTO CompanyMaster(CompanyName,Address,State,Phone,Fax,PAN,TIN,STAX,AccountsYear)values('" + sTxtcmpnyName + "','" + sTxtcmpnyAdd + "','" + sComboSt + "','" + sPhoneno + "','" + sTxtFax + "','" + sPanNo + "','" + sTxtTin + "','" + sTax + "','" + sAccYr + "')"); //('" + sTxtcmpnyName + "', '" + TxtcompanyAddress.Text + "', '" + Txtphoneno.Text + "', '" + TxtFax.Text + "', '" + Txtservicetax.Text + "','" + TxtAcYr.Text + "')"); cmd.Connection = conn; cmd.ExecuteNonQuery(); conn.Close(); //cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue } catch (Exception ee) { MessageBox.Show(ee.ToString()); } } //An event is created here so that when the user will click on the Cancel Button, the Form will be closed. private void BtmCancle_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { //this means the form. this.Close(); } //Another Event is created here named as TxtAcYr_KeyPress. //It is for making the TextBox TxtAcYr only allowance of numeric input along with special character '-'. private void TxtAcYr_KeyPress(object sender, KeyPressEventArgs e) { //If the input is number or '-' is checked //And also the backspace and delete option is enabled here. if (char.IsNumber(e.KeyChar) || e.KeyChar == (char)Keys.Back || e.KeyChar == (char)Keys.Delete || e.KeyChar == '-') { e.Handled = false; //ok } else { e.Handled = true; //not ok } }

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  • Visualising a 'Smarties' lid using XAML (WPF/Silverlight, Visual Studio/Blend)

    - by Mr. Disappointment
    Hi folks, First off, to clarify something in the title which could well be ambiguous/misleading, I'd like to inform you of my definition of 'Smarties', as I know often products are available all over - only under a different alias. Smarties are a candy product in the UK, little chocolate drops covered in a crispy shell which are distributed in a card tube, this tube used to have a plastic lid/top with an individual letter on the underside (they've taken a more economical approach as of late), the lid/top of the old-style tube is the main element of this question. Familiarisation Link Lid View Link Okay, now with the seller-type pitch out of the way (no, I don't work for Nestlé ;)), hopefully the question is becoming rather clear. Essentially, I'd like to recreate one of these lids using XAML, ultimately to be utilised in a Silverlight web application. That is, I'd like to result in a reusable control, of which the following is true: It looks like a Smarties lid. The colour can be specified. The letter can be specified. The control can be rotated to display either side. The second two seem trivial, but we must bare in mind that the background colour specified will almost, if not always, be the same as the foreground, leaving a visibility issue where the character content is concerned; as for the rotation, I'm hoping this kind of functionality is reasonably available, and acceptable to implement. So, to put this out there, consider a control named SmartiesLid which derives from ToggleButton (appropriate?) and further plotted out using a style in a resource dictionary which applies to it, as follows: <Style TargetType="local:SmartiesLid"> <Setter Property="Background" Value="Red"/> <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="Red"/> <Setter Property="VerticalContentAlignment" Value="Center"/> <Setter Property="HorizontalContentAlignment" Value="Center"/> <Setter Property="Template"> <Setter.Value> <ControlTemplate TargetType="local:SmartiesLid"> <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot"> <Grid.ColumnDefinitions> <ColumnDefinition Width=".05*"/> <ColumnDefinition/> <ColumnDefinition/> <ColumnDefinition Width=".05*"/> </Grid.ColumnDefinitions> <Grid.RowDefinitions> <RowDefinition Height=".05*"/> <RowDefinition/> <RowDefinition/> <RowDefinition Height=".05*"/> <RowDefinition Height=".1*"/> </Grid.RowDefinitions> <Ellipse Grid.RowSpan="4" Grid.ColumnSpan="4" Fill="{TemplateBinding Background}" Stroke="Transparent"/> <Ellipse Grid.RowSpan="2" Grid.ColumnSpan="2" Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="1" Fill="{TemplateBinding Background}" Stroke="Transparent"> <Ellipse.Effect> <DropShadowEffect Direction="280" ShadowDepth="6" BlurRadius="6"/> </Ellipse.Effect> </Ellipse> <TextBlock Grid.RowSpan="2" Grid.ColumnSpan="2" Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="1" Name="LetterTextBlock" Text="{TemplateBinding Content}" Foreground="{TemplateBinding Foreground}" FontSize="190" HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Center"> </TextBlock> <!-- <Path Stretch="Fill" Grid.Row="3" Grid.RowSpan="2" Grid.Column="1" Grid.ColumnSpan="2" Fill="Black" Data="..."> How to craw the lid 'tab'? </Path> --> </Grid> <ControlTemplate.Resources> <TranslateTransform x:Key="IndentTransform" X="10" /> <RotateTransform x:Key="RotateTransform" Angle="0" /> <Storyboard x:Key="MouseOver"> </Storyboard> <Storyboard x:Key="MouseLeave"> </Storyboard> </ControlTemplate.Resources> <ControlTemplate.Triggers> <Trigger Property="IsMouseOver" Value="true"> <Trigger.EnterActions> <BeginStoryboard Storyboard="{StaticResource MouseOver}"/> </Trigger.EnterActions> <Trigger.ExitActions> <BeginStoryboard Storyboard="{StaticResource MouseLeave}"/> </Trigger.ExitActions> </Trigger> <Trigger Property="IsPressed" Value="true"> <Setter TargetName="LayoutRoot" Property="RenderTransform" Value="{StaticResource IndentTransform}"/> </Trigger> <Trigger Property="IsChecked" Value="true"> <Setter TargetName="LayoutRoot" Property="RenderTransform" Value="{StaticResource RotateTransform}"/> </Trigger> <Trigger Property="IsEnabled" Value="False"> <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="Gray"/> <Setter Property="Opacity" Value="0.5"/> </Trigger> </ControlTemplate.Triggers> </ControlTemplate> </Setter.Value> </Setter> </Style> With this in mind, can anyone give input on, in decreasing order of my incompetence in an area: Designing the overall look and feel of the damn thing (I'm no designer, and while I could hack away at this single control for days and potentially get something relatively useful, it's always a gamble). The particular barrier for me here is 'pathing' the tab of the lid, as you will see in the XAML as an element commented out. Should Path be used, or would it be more appropriate to transform a rectangle with rounded corners, or any specific suggestions? Bevelling the individually displayed letter; as detailed above, when the colour of both the foreground and background are the same then this will be invisible if no effects are applied, also for a decent level of realism I'd like to be able to apply such an effect/s. So far use of DropShadow and Balder3DEngine have fulfilled my requirements for graphics in XAML, how achievable is a bevel effect? Rotating the control on mouse-click, that is, showing the opposing face. Is this going to be possible using a style and XAML only for the design? Or is it that ugliness may rear it's head in the form of code-behind to show/hide embedded controls? Should the faces be separate controls and later somehow combined? Allowing the control to size dynamically. I'm supposing I will be able to convert a solid, absolute layout to a nice generic one when I actually have the former in place. Obviously this entails sizing the centralised letter and the lid 'tab', but that's it really, other than keeping the aspect ratio equal (since the ellipses grow nicely with the grid). Any suggestions to approaching this would be greatly appreciated, particularly with a dynamically growing font - I've done that before in a web-imaging scenario using code and System.Drawing, and wouldn't like to approach it in even a similar way. By the way, the reason I specify both WPF and Silverlight is that, from my current knowledge, the inputs being written targeting either of these will be fairly transferable for similar output by the other, albeit not without alterations in either scenario. The resulting application is in fact destined to be written in Silverlight, however, so I don't fancy inviting anything from WPF which will guarantee my only being able to convert 90% of it. I'll go give this little project a start, maybe in Blend(?), hopefully can catch up with some advice shortly. Thanks, Mr. D EDIT: Next question, ought this to be broken up into separate questions? :/

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  • What’s New from the Oracle Marketing Cloud at Oracle OpenWorld 2014?

    - by Richard Lefebvre
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Marketing—CX Central is your hub for all things Marketing related at OpenWorld in San Francisco, September 28-October 2, 2014. Learn how to personalize the modern marketing journey to improve customer loyalty. We’re hosting more than 60 breakout sessions, half of which will highlight customer success stories from marquee brands including Bizo, Comcast, Dell, Epson, John Deere, Lane Bryant, ReadyTalk and Shutterfly. Moscone West, Levels 2 and 3 To learn more about how modern marketing works, visit Moscone West, levels 2 and 3, for exciting demos of each of the Oracle Marketing Cloud solutions (BlueKai, Compendium, Eloqua, Push I/O, and Responsys). You also can check out our stations for Vertical Marketing Best Practices, the Markie Awards, and more! CX Spotlight Sessions “Accelerating Big Profits in Big Data,” Jeff Tanner, Baylor University “Using Content Marketing to Impact Every Stage of the Buyer’s Journey,” Jennifer Agustin, Bizo “Expanding Your Marketing with Proven Testing and Optimization,” Brian Border, Shutterfly and Matthew Balthazor, Epson “Modern Marketing: The New Digital Dialogue,” Cory Treffiletti, Oracle A Special Marquee Session Dell’s Hayden Mugford will speak on “The Digital Ecosystem: Driving Experience Through Contact Engagement.” She will highlight how the organization built a digital ecosystem that supports a behaviorally driven, multivehicle nurturing campaign. The Dell 1:1 Global Marketing team worked with multiple partners to innovate integrations with Oracle Eloqua, Oracle Real-Time Decisions for real-time decision logic, and a content management system (CMS) that enables 100 percent customized e-mails. The program doubled average order values for nurtured contacts versus non-nurtured and tripled open and click-through rates versus push e-mail. Other Oracle Marketing Cloud Session Highlights Thought leadership by role Exploring the benefits of moving to the Cloud Product line roadmaps and innovations in Marketing Technical deep dives for product lines within Marketing Best practices and impactful business measurements Solutions that are Integrated across CX Target Audience Session content is geared toward professionals in Marketing, Marketing Operations, Marketing Demand Generation, Social: Chief Marketing Officers, Vice Presidents, Directors and Managers. Outcomes Customers attending Marketing—CX Central @ OpenWorld will be able to: Gain insight into delivering consistent cross-channel marketing Discover how to provide the right information to the right customer at the right time and with the right channel Get answers to burning questions and advice on business challenges Hear from other Oracle customers about recommended best practices to help their organization move forward Network and share ideas to help create a strategy for connecting with customers in better ways It Wouldn’t Be an Oracle Marketing Cloud Event Without a Party! We’re hosting CX Central Fest:  a unique customer experience specifically designed for attendees of CX Central. It will include a chance to rock out at a private concert featuring Los Angeles indie electronic pop group, Capital Cities! Join us Tuesday, September 30 from 7-9 p.m. OpenWorld is a fabulous way for your customers to see all that Oracle Marketing Cloud has to offer. Pass on an invitation today. By Laura Vogel (Oracle) /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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  • Silverlight 4 Released

    - by ScottGu
    The final release of Silverlight 4 is now available. What is in the Silverlight 4 Release Silverlight 4 contains a ton of new features and capabilities.  In particular we focused on three scenarios with this release: Further enhancing media support Building great business applications Enabling out of the browser experiences On Tuesday I gave a 60 minute keynote about Silverlight 4 which showed off many of the new features and capabilities now available.  You can watch my keynote to learn more about Silverlight 4 and see a ton of great demos of it in action. Also check out these three great posts by Tim Heuer that talk about the new features and provide a guide to the new Silverlight 4 capabilities: Silverlight 4 Beta – A Guide to the New Features Silverlight 4 RC – What was updated Silverlight 4 Released Also read David Anson’s great Silverlight 4 Toolkit post to learn more about the new controls and functionality also available within the Silverlight Toolkit release we also made available today.  Also visit this page to learn more about the new Pivot functionality in Silverlight 4 – which makes it really easy to visualize and interact with collections of images using Silverlight. Lastly – make sure to visit the www.silverlight.net web-site and visit the “Get Started” section to find free tutorials that you can use. Download and Install Silverlight 4 Tools for VS 2010 To develop Silverlight 4 applications you should first download and install Visual Studio 2010 or download and install the free Visual Web Developer 2010 Express edition. Then install the Silverlight Tools RC2 for Visual Studio 2010.  This setup includes the Silverlight 4 Developer Runtime, Silverlight 4 SDK, RIA Services, and VS 2010 tools support.  Once installed you can do File->New Project and choose Silverlight Application to create your first Silverlight 4 project.  You can then use the new WYSIWYG Silverlight designer in Visual Studio 2010 to design and build rich Silverlight 4 applications. Important: If you previously installed the Silverlight 4 Beta or RC build on your machine, please make sure to go into Add/Remove programs and uninstall the “Update for Visual Studio 2010 (KB976272)” package prior to installing the Silverlight Tools RC2 for Visual Studio 2010 setup.  Note that while Silverlight 4 is released, the “Silverlight 4 Tools for VS 2010” is currently in “RC2” mode (meaning we are going to keep an eye out for any remaining issues before finally calling it done).  We’ll update the tools to be “final” in a few weeks once we verify that no last minute issues/bugs remain. Download and Install Expression Blend 4 Release Candidate You can also download and install the Expression Blend 4 RC to create and design great Silverlight 4 applications.  Blend contains “Sketchflow” support – which makes it really easy to rapidly prototype ideas and applications.  To learn more about Sketchflow watch this 90 second video of it in action. Summary Today’s release is the fourth release of Silverlight that we’ve shipped in the last 2.5 years.  The team has done a great job of advancing it quickly and staying focused.  We think today’s Silverlight 4 release opens up a ton of new opportunities to build great solutions for both consumers and business scenarios.  We are looking forward to seeing what you build with it! Hope this helps, Scott

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  • SQL SERVER – Disable Clustered Index and Data Insert

    - by pinaldave
    Earlier today I received following email. “Dear Pinal, [Removed unrelated content] We looked at your script and found out that in your script of disabling indexes, you have only included non-clustered index during the bulk insert and missed to disabled all the clustered index. Our DBA[name removed] has changed your script a bit and included all the clustered indexes. Since our application is not working. When DBA [name removed] tried to enable clustered indexes again he is facing error incorrect syntax error. We are in deep problem [word replaced] [Removed Identity of organization and few unrelated stuff ]“ I have replied to my client and helped them fixed the problem. What really came to my attention is the concept of disabling clustered index. Let us try to learn a lesson from this experience. In this case, there was no need to disable clustered index at all. I had done necessary work when I was called in to work on tuning project. I had removed unused indexes, created few optimal indexes and wrote a script to disable few selected high cost indexes when bulk insert (and similar) operations are performed. There was another script which rebuild all the indexes as well. The solution worked till they included clustered index in disabling the script. Clustered indexes are in fact original table (or heap) physically ordered (any more things – not scope of this article) according to one or more keys(columns). When clustered index is disabled data rows of the disabled clustered index cannot be accessed. This means there will be no insert possible. When non clustered indexes are disabled all the data related to physically deleted but the definition of the index is kept in the system. Due to the same reason even reorganization of the index is not possible till the clustered index (which was disabled) is rebuild. Now let us come to the second part of the question, regarding receiving the error when clustered index is ‘enabled’. This is very common question I receive on the blog. (The following statement is written keeping the syntax of T-SQL in mind) Clustered indexes can be disabled but can not be enabled, they have to rebuild. It is intuitive to think that something which we have ‘disabled’ can be ‘enabled’ but the syntax for the same is ‘rebuild’. This issue has been explained here: SQL SERVER – How to Enable Index – How to Disable Index – Incorrect syntax near ‘ENABLE’. Let us go over this example where inserting the data is not possible when clustered index is disabled. USE AdventureWorks GO -- Create Table CREATE TABLE [dbo].[TableName]( [ID] [int] NOT NULL, [FirstCol] [varchar](50) NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK_TableName] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ([ID] ASC) ) GO -- Create Nonclustered Index CREATE UNIQUE NONCLUSTERED INDEX [IX_NonClustered_TableName] ON [dbo].[TableName] ([FirstCol] ASC) GO -- Populate Table INSERT INTO [dbo].[TableName] SELECT 1, 'First' UNION ALL SELECT 2, 'Second' UNION ALL SELECT 3, 'Third' GO -- Disable Nonclustered Index ALTER INDEX [IX_NonClustered_TableName] ON [dbo].[TableName] DISABLE GO -- Insert Data should work fine INSERT INTO [dbo].[TableName] SELECT 4, 'Fourth' UNION ALL SELECT 5, 'Fifth' GO -- Disable Clustered Index ALTER INDEX [PK_TableName] ON [dbo].[TableName] DISABLE GO -- Insert Data will fail INSERT INTO [dbo].[TableName] SELECT 6, 'Sixth' UNION ALL SELECT 7, 'Seventh' GO /* Error: Msg 8655, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 The query processor is unable to produce a plan because the index 'PK_TableName' on table or view 'TableName' is disabled. */ -- Reorganizing Index will also throw an error ALTER INDEX [PK_TableName] ON [dbo].[TableName] REORGANIZE GO /* Error: Msg 1973, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 Cannot perform the specified operation on disabled index 'PK_TableName' on table 'dbo.TableName'. */ -- Rebuliding should work fine ALTER INDEX [PK_TableName] ON [dbo].[TableName] REBUILD GO -- Insert Data should work fine INSERT INTO [dbo].[TableName] SELECT 6, 'Sixth' UNION ALL SELECT 7, 'Seventh' GO -- Clean Up DROP TABLE [dbo].[TableName] GO I hope this example is clear enough. There were few additional posts I had written years ago, I am listing them here. SQL SERVER – Enable and Disable Index Non Clustered Indexes Using T-SQL SQL SERVER – Enabling Clustered and Non-Clustered Indexes – Interesting Fact Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Constraint and Keys, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • The Microsoft Ajax Library and Visual Studio Beta 2

    - by Stephen Walther
    Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 was released this week and one of the first things that I hope you notice is that it no longer contains the latest version of ASP.NET AJAX. What happened? Where did AJAX go? Just like Sting and The Police, just like Phil Collins and Genesis, just like Greg Page and the Wiggles, AJAX has gone out of band! We are starting a solo career. A Name Change First things first. In previous releases, our Ajax framework was named ASP.NET AJAX. We now have changed the name of the framework to the Microsoft Ajax Library. There are two reasons behind this name change. First, the members of the Ajax team got tired of explaining to everyone that our Ajax framework is not tied to the server-side ASP.NET framework. You can use the Microsoft Ajax Library with ASP.NET Web Forms, ASP.NET MVC, PHP, Ruby on RAILS, and even pure HTML applications. Our framework can be used as a client-only framework and having the word ASP.NET in our name was confusing people. Second, it was time to start spelling the word Ajax like everyone else. Notice that the name is the Microsoft Ajax Library and not the Microsoft AJAX library. Originally, Microsoft used upper case AJAX because AJAX originally was an acronym for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. And, according to Strunk and Wagnell, acronyms should be all uppercase. However, Ajax is one of those words that have migrated from acronym status to “just a word” status. So whenever you hear one of your co-workers talk about ASP.NET AJAX, gently correct your co-worker and say “It is now called the Microsoft Ajax Library.” Why OOB? But why move out-of-band (OOB)? The short answer is that we have had approximately 6 preview releases of the Microsoft Ajax Library over the last year. That’s a lot. We pride ourselves on being agile. Client-side technology evolves quickly. We want to be able to get a preview version of the Microsoft Ajax Library out to our customers, get feedback, and make changes to the library quickly. Shipping the Microsoft Ajax Library out-of-band keeps us agile and enables us to continue to ship new versions of the library even after ASP.NET 4 ships. Showing Love for JavaScript Developers One area in which we have received a lot of feedback is around making the Microsoft Ajax Library easier to use for developers who are comfortable with JavaScript. We also wanted to make it easy for jQuery developers to take advantage of the innovative features of the Microsoft Ajax Library. To achieve these goals, we’ve added the following features to the Microsoft Ajax Library (these features are included in the latest preview release that you can download right now): A simplified imperative syntax – We wanted to make it brain-dead simple to create client-side Ajax controls when writing JavaScript. A client script loader – We wanted the Microsoft Ajax Library to load all of the scripts required by a component or control automatically. jQuery integration – We love the jQuery selector syntax. We wanted to make it easy for jQuery developers to use the Microsoft Ajax Library without changing their programming style. If you are interested in learning about these new features of the Microsoft Ajax Library, I recommend that you read the following blog post by Scott Guthrie: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2009/10/15/announcing-microsoft-ajax-library-preview-6-and-the-microsoft-ajax-minifier.aspx Downloading the Latest Version of the Microsoft Ajax Library Currently, the best place to download the latest version of the Microsoft Ajax Library is directly from the ASP.NET CodePlex project: http://aspnet.codeplex.com/ As I write this, the current version is Preview 6. The next version is coming out at the PDC. Summary I’m really excited about the future of the Microsoft Ajax Library. Moving outside of the ASP.NET framework provides us the flexibility to remain agile and continue to innovate aggressively. The latest preview release of the Microsoft Ajax Library includes several major new features including a client script loader, jQuery integration, and a simplified client control creation syntax.

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  • Links to my “Best of 2010” Posts

    - by ScottGu
    I hope everyone is having a Happy New Years! 2010 has been a busy blogging year for me (this is the 100th blog post I’ve done in 2010).  Several people this week suggested I put together a summary post listing/organizing my favorite posts from the year.  Below is a quick listing of some of my favorite posts organized by topic area: VS 2010 and .NET 4 Below is a series of posts I wrote (some in late 2009) about the VS 2010 and .NET 4 (including ASP.NET 4 and WPF 4) release we shipped in April: Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4 Released Clean Web.Config Files Starter Project Templates Multi-targeting Multiple Monitor Support New Code Focused Web Profile Option HTML / ASP.NET / JavaScript Code Snippets Auto-Start ASP.NET Applications URL Routing with ASP.NET 4 Web Forms Searching and Navigating Code in VS 2010 VS 2010 Code Intellisense Improvements WPF 4 Add Reference Dialog Improvements SEO Improvements with ASP.NET 4 Output Cache Extensibility with ASP.NET 4 Built-in Charting Controls for ASP.NET and Windows Forms Cleaner HTML Markup with ASP.NET 4 - Client IDs Optional Parameters and Named Arguments in C# 4 - and a cool scenarios with ASP.NET MVC 2 Automatic Properties, Collection Initializers and Implicit Line Continuation Support with VB 2010 New <%: %> Syntax for HTML Encoding Output using ASP.NET 4 JavaScript Intellisense Improvements with VS 2010 VS 2010 Debugger Improvements (DataTips, BreakPoints, Import/Export) Box Selection and Multi-line Editing Support with VS 2010 VS 2010 Extension Manager (and the cool new PowerCommands Extension) Pinning Projects and Solutions VS 2010 Web Deployment Debugging Tips/Tricks with Visual Studio Search and Navigation Tips/Tricks with Visual Studio Visual Studio Below are some additional Visual Studio posts I’ve done (not in the first series above) that I thought were nice: Download and Share Visual Studio Color Schemes Visual Studio 2010 Keyboard Shortcuts VS 2010 Productivity Power Tools Fun Visual Studio 2010 Wallpapers Silverlight We shipped Silverlight 4 in April, and announced Silverlight 5 the beginning of December: Silverlight 4 Released Silverlight 4 Tools for VS 2010 and WCF RIA Services Released Silverlight 4 Training Kit Silverlight PivotViewer Now Available Silverlight Questions Announcing Silverlight 5 Silverlight for Windows Phone 7 We shipped Windows Phone 7 this fall and shipped free Visual Studio development tools with great Silverlight and XNA support in September: Windows Phone 7 Developer Tools Released Building a Windows Phone 7 Twitter Application using Silverlight ASP.NET MVC We shipped ASP.NET MVC 2 in March, and started previewing ASP.NET MVC 3 this summer.  ASP.NET MVC 3 will RTM in less than 2 weeks from today: ASP.NET MVC 2: Strongly Typed Html Helpers ASP.NET MVC 2: Model Validation Introducing ASP.NET MVC 3 (Preview 1) Announcing ASP.NET MVC 3 Beta and NuGet (nee NuPack) Announcing ASP.NET MVC 3 Release Candidate 1  Announcing ASP.NET MVC 3 Release Candidate 2 Introducing Razor – A New View Engine for ASP.NET ASP.NET MVC 3: Layouts with Razor ASP.NET MVC 3: New @model keyword in Razor ASP.NET MVC 3: Server-Side Comments with Razor ASP.NET MVC 3: Razor’s @: and <text> syntax ASP.NET MVC 3: Implicit and Explicit code nuggets with Razor ASP.NET MVC 3: Layouts and Sections with Razor IIS and Web Server Stack The IIS and Web Stack teams have made a bunch of great improvements to the core web server this year: Fix Common SEO Problems using the URL Rewrite Extension Introducing the Microsoft Web Farm Framework Automating Deployment with Microsoft Web Deploy Introducing IIS Express SQL CE 4 (New Embedded Database Support with ASP.NET) Introducing Web Matrix EF Code First EF Code First is a really nice new data option that enables a very clean code-oriented data workflow: Announcing Entity Framework Code-First CTP5 Release Class-Level Model Validation with EF Code First and ASP.NET MVC 3 Code-First Development with Entity Framework 4 EF 4 Code First: Custom Database Schema Mapping Using EF Code First with an Existing Database jQuery and AJAX Contributions My team began making some significant source code contributions to the jQuery project this year: jQuery Templates, Data Link and Globalization Accepted as Official jQuery Plugins jQuery Templates and Data Linking (and Microsoft contributing to jQuery) jQuery Globalization Plugin from Microsoft Patches and Hot Fixes Some useful fixes you can download prior to VS 2010 SP1: Patch for Cut/Copy “Insufficient Memory” issue with VS 2010 Patch for VS 2010 Find and Replace Dialog Growing Patch for VS 2010 Scrolling Context Menu Videos of My Talks Some recordings of technical talks I’ve done this year: ASP.NET 4, ASP.NET MVC, and Silverlight 4 Talks I did in Europe VS 2010 and ASP.NET 4 Web Forms Talk in Arizona Other About Technical Debates (and ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC debates in particular) ASP.NET Security Fix Now on Windows Update Upcoming Web Camps I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who follows my blog – I really appreciate you reading it (the comments you post help encourage me to write it).  See you in the New Year! Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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  • April 30th Links: ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, Visual Studio 2010

    - by ScottGu
    Here is the latest in my link-listing series. [In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu] ASP.NET Data Web Control Enhancements in ASP.NET 4.0: Scott Mitchell has a good article that summarizes some of the nice improvements coming to the ASP.NET 4 data controls. Refreshing an ASP.NET AJAX UpdatePanel with JavaScript: Scott Mitchell has another nice article in his series on using ASP.NET AJAX that demonstrates how to programmatically trigger an UpdatePanel refresh using JavaScript on the client. ASP.NET MVC ASP.NET MVC 2: Basics and Introduction: Scott Hanselman delivers an awesome introductory talk on ASP.NET MVC.  Great for people looking to understand and learn ASP.NET MVC. ASP.NET MVC 2: Ninja Black Belt Tips: Another great talk by Scott Hanselman about how to make the most of several features of ASP.NET MVC 2. ASP.NET MVC 2 Html.Editor/Display Templates: A great blog post detailing the new Html.EditorFor() and Html.DisplayFor() helpers within ASP.NET MVC 2. MVCContrib Grid: Jeremy Skinner’s video presentation about the new Html.Grid() helper component within the (most awesome) MvcContrib project for ASP.NET MVC. Code Snippets for ASP.NET MVC 2 in VS 2010: Raj Kaimal documents some of the new code snippets for ASP.NET MVC 2 that are now built-into Visual Studio 2010.  Read this article to learn how to do common scenarios with fewer keystrokes. Turn on Compile-time View Checking for ASP.NET MVC Projects in TFS 2010 Build: Jim Lamb has a nice post that describes how to enable compile-time view checking as part of automated builds done with a TFS Build Server.  This will ensure any errors in your view templates raise build-errors (allowing you to catch them at build-time instead of runtime). Visual Studio 2010 VS 2010 Keyboard Shortcut Posters for VB, C#, F# and C++: Keyboard shortcut posters that you can download and then printout. Ideal to provide a quick reference on your desk for common keystroke actions inside VS 2010. My Favorite New Features in VS 2010: Scott Mitchell has a nice article that summarizes some of his favorite new features in VS 2010.  Check out my VS 2010 and .NET 4 blog series for more details on some of them. 6 Cool VS 2010 Quick Tips and Features: Anoop has a nice blog post describing 6 cool features of VS 2010 that you can take advantage of. SharePoint Development with VS 2010: Beth Massi links to a bunch of nice “How do I?” videos that that demonstrate how to use the SharePoint development support built-into VS 2010. How to Pin a Project to the Recent Projects List in VS 2010: A useful tip/trick that demonstrates how to “pin” a project to always show up on the “Recent Projects” list within Visual Studio 2010. Using the WPF Tree Visualizer in VS 2010: Zain blogs about the new WPF Tree Visualizer supported by the VS 2010 debugger.  This makes it easier to visualize WPF control hierarchies within the debugger. TFS 2010 Power Tools Released: Brian Harry blogs about the cool new TFS 2010 extensions released with this week’s TFS 2010 Power Tools release. What is New with T4 in VS 2010: T4 is the name of Visual Studio’s template-based code generation technology.  Lots of scenarios within VS 2010 now use T4 for code generation customization. Two examples are ASP.NET MVC Views and EF4 Model Generation.  This post describes some of the many T4 infrastructure improvements in VS 2010. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. If you haven’t already, check out this month’s "Find a Hoster” page on the www.asp.net website to learn about great (and very inexpensive) ASP.NET hosting offers.

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  • Ubuntu Control Center Makes Using Ubuntu Easier

    - by Vivek
    Users who are new to Ubuntu might find it somewhat difficult to configure. Today we take a look at using Ubuntu Control Center which makes managing different aspects of the system easier. About Ubuntu Control Center A lot of utilities and software has been written to work with Ubuntu. Ubuntu Control Center is one such cool utility which makes it easy for configuring Ubuntu. The following is a brief description of Ubuntu Control Center: Ubuntu Control Center or UCC is an application inspired by Mandriva Control Center and aims to centralize and organize in a simple and intuitive form the main configuration tools for Ubuntu distribution. UCC uses all the native applications already bundled with Ubuntu, but it also utilize some third-party apps like “Hardinfo”, “Boot-up Manager”, “GuFW” and “Font-Manager”. Ubuntu Control Center Here we look at installation and use of Ubuntu Control Center in Ubuntu 10.04. First we have to satisfy some dependencies. You will need to install Font-Manager and jstest-gtk (link below)…before installing Ubuntu Control Center (UCC). Click the Install Package button. You’ll be prompted to enter in your admin password for each installation package. Installation is successful…close out of the screen. Download and install Font-Manager…again you’ll need to enter in your password to complete installation.   Once you have installed the two dependencies, you are all set to install Ubuntu Control Center (link below), double click the downloaded Ubuntu Control Center deb file to install it. Once installed you can find it under Applications \ System Tools \ UCC. Once you launch it you can start managing your system, software, hardware, and more.   You can easily control various aspects of your Ubuntu System using Ubuntu Control Center. Here we look at configuring the firewall under Network and Internet.     UCC allows easy access for configuring several aspects of your system. Once you install UCC you’ll see how easy it is to configure your Ubuntu system through an intuitive clean graphical interface. If you’re new to Ubuntu, using UCC can help you in setting up your system how you like in a user friendly way. Home Page of UCC http://code.google.com/p/ucc/ Links Download Font-Manager ManagerDownload jstest-gtkUbuntu Control Center (UCC) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Adding extra Repositories on UbuntuAllow Remote Control To Your Desktop On UbuntuAssign a Hotkey to Open a Terminal Window in UbuntuInstall VMware Tools on Ubuntu Edgy EftInstall Monodevelop on Ubuntu Linux TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 How to Forecast Weather, without Gadgets Outlook Tools, one stop tweaking for any Outlook version Zoofs, find the most popular tweeted YouTube videos Video preview of new Windows Live Essentials 21 Cursor Packs for XP, Vista & 7 Map the Stars with Stellarium

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  • Add Keyboard Input Language to Ubuntu

    - by Matthew Guay
    Want to type in multiple languages in Ubuntu?  Here we’ll show you how you can easily add and switch between multiple keyboard layouts in Ubuntu. Add a Keyboard Language To add a keyboard language, open the System menu, select Preferences, and then select Keyboard. In the Keyboard Preferences dialog, select the Layouts tab, and click Add.   You can select a country and then choose an language and keyboard variant.  Note that some countries, such as the United States, may show several languages.  Once you’ve made your selection, you can preview it on the sample keyboard displayed below the menu. Alternately, on the second tab, select a language and then choose a variant.  Click Add when you’ve made your selection. Now you’ll notice that there are two languages listed in the Keyboard Preferences, and they’re both ready to use immediately.  You can add more if you wish, or close the dialog. Switch Between Languages When you have multiple input languages installed, you’ll notice a new icon in your system tray on the top right.  It will show the abbreviation of the country and/or language name that is currently selected.  Click the icon to change the language. Right-click the dialog to view available languages (listed under Groups), open the Keyboard Preferences dialog again, or show the current layout. If you select Show Current Layout you’ll see a window with the keyboard preview we saw previously when setting the keyboard layout.  You can even print this layout preview out to help you remember a layout if you wish. Change Keyboard Shortcuts to Switch Languages By default, you can switch input languages in Ubuntu from the keyboard by pressing both Alt keys together.  Many users are already used to the default Alt+Switch combination to switch input languages in Windows, and we can add that in Ubuntu.  Open the keyboard preferences dialog, select the Layout tab, and click Options. Click the plus sign beside Key(s) to change layout, and select Alt+Shift.  Click Close, and you can now use this familiar shortcut to switch input languages. The layout options dialog offers many more neat keyboard shortcuts and options.  One especially neat option was the option to use a keyboard led to show when we’re using the alternate keyboard layout.  We selected the ScrollLock light since it’s hardly used today, and now it lights up when we’re using our other input language.   Conclusion Whether you regularly type in multiple languages or only need to enter an occasional character from an alternate keyboard layout, Ubuntu’s keyboard settings make it easy to make your keyboard work the way you want.  And since you can even preview and print a keyboard layout, you can even remember an alternate keyboard’s layout if it’s not printed on your keyboard. Windows users, you’re not left behind, either.  Check out our tutorial on how to Add keyboard languages to XP, Vista, and Windows 7. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Add keyboard languages to XP, Vista, and Windows 7Assign a Hotkey to Open a Terminal Window in UbuntuWhat is ctfmon.exe And Why Is It Running?Keyboard Shortcuts for VMware WorkstationInput Director Controls Multiple Windows Machines with One Keyboard and Mouse TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro MELTUP – "The Beginning Of US Currency Crisis And Hyperinflation" Enable or Disable the Task Manager Using TaskMgrED Explorer++ is a Worthy Windows Explorer Alternative Error Goblin Explains Windows Error Codes Twelve must-have Google Chrome plugins Cool Looking Skins for Windows Media Player 12

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  • Add New Features to WMP with Windows Media Player Plus

    - by DigitalGeekery
    Do you use Windows Media Player 11 or 12 as your default media player? Today, we’re going to show you how to add some handy new features and enhancements with the Windows Media Player Plus third party plug-in. Installation and Setup Download and install Media Player Plus! (link below). You’ll need to close out of Windows Media Player before you begin or you’ll receive the message below. The next time you open Media Player you’ll be presented with the Media Player Plus settings window. Some of the settings will be enabled by default, such as the Find as you type feature. Using Media Player Plus! Find as you type allows you to start typing a search term from anywhere in Media Player without having to be in the Search box. The search term will automatically fill in the search box and display the results.   You’ll also see Disable group headers in the Library Pane.   This setting will display library items in a continuous list similar to the functionality of Windows Media Player 10. Under User Interface you can enable displaying the currently playing artist and title in the title bar. This is enabled by default.   The Context Menu page allows you to enable context menu enhancements. The File menu enhancement allows you to add the Windows Context menu to Media Player on the library pane, list pane, or both. Right click on a Title, select File, and you’ll see the Windows Context Menu. Right-click on a title and select Tag Editor Plus. Tag Editor Plus allows you to quickly edit media tags.   The Advanced tab displays a number of tags that Media Player usually doesn’t show. Only the tags with the notepad and pencil icon are editable.   The Restore Plug-ins page allows you to configure which plug-ins should be automatically restored after a Media Player crash. The Restore Media at Startup page allows you to configure Media Player to resume playing the last playlist, track, and even whether it was playing or paused at the time the application was closed. So, if you close out in the middle of a song, it will begin playing from that point the next time you open Media Player. You can also set Media Player to rewind a certain number of seconds from where you left off. This is especially useful if you are in the middle of watching a movie. There’s also the option to have your currently playing song sent to Windows Live Messenger. You can access the settings at any time by going to Tools, Plug-in properties, and selecting Windows Media Player Plus. Windows Media Plus is a nice little free plug-in for WMP 11 and 12 that brings a lot of additional functionality to Windows Media Player. If you use Media Player 11 or WMP 12 in Windows 7 as your main player, you might want to give this a try. Download Windows Media Player Plus! Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Install and Use the VLC Media Player on Ubuntu LinuxFixing When Windows Media Player Library Won’t Let You Add FilesMake VLC Player Look like Windows Media Player 10Make VLC Player Look like Windows Media Player 11Make Windows Media Player Automatically Open in Mini Player Mode TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 Easily Create More Bookmark Toolbars in Firefox Filevo is a Cool File Hosting & Sharing Site Get a free copy of WinUtilities Pro 2010 World Cup Schedule Boot Snooze – Reboot and then Standby or Hibernate Customize Everything Related to Dates, Times, Currency and Measurement in Windows 7

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  • This Week in Geek History: Gmail Goes Public, Deep Blue Wins at Chess, and the Birth of Thomas Edison

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Every week we bring you a snapshot of the week in Geek History. This week we’re taking a peek at the public release of Gmail, the first time a computer won against a chess champion, and the birth of prolific inventor Thomas Edison. Gmail Goes Public It’s hard to believe that Gmail has only been around for seven years and that for the first three years of its life it was invite only. In 2007 Gmail dropped the invite only requirement (although they would hold onto the “beta” tag for another two years) and opened its doors for anyone to grab a username @gmail. For what seemed like an entire epoch in internet history Gmail had the slickest web-based email around with constant innovations and features rolling out from Gmail Labs. Only in the last year or so have major overhauls at competitors like Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail brought other services up to speed. Can’t stand reading a Week in Geek History entry without a random fact? Here you go: gmail.com was originally owned by the Garfield franchise and ran a service that delivered Garfield comics to your email inbox. No, we’re not kidding. Deep Blue Proves Itself a Chess Master Deep Blue was a super computer constructed by IBM with the sole purpose of winning chess matches. In 2011 with the all seeing eye of Google and the amazing computational abilities of engines like Wolfram Alpha we simply take powerful computers immersed in our daily lives for granted. The 1996 match against reigning world chest champion Garry Kasparov where in Deep Blue held its own, but ultimately lost, in a  4-2 match shook a lot of people up. What did it mean if something that was considered such an elegant and quintessentially human endeavor such as chess was so easy for a machine? A series of upgrades helped Deep Blue outright win a match against Kasparov in 1997 (seen in the photo above). After the win Deep Blue was retired and disassembled. Parts of Deep Blue are housed in the National Museum of History and the Computer History Museum. Birth of Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison was one of the most prolific inventors in history and holds an astounding 1,093 US Patents. He is responsible for outright inventing or greatly refining major innovations in the history of world culture including the phonograph, the movie camera, the carbon microphone used in nearly every telephone well into the 1980s, batteries for electric cars (a notion we’d take over a century to take seriously), voting machines, and of course his enormous contribution to electric distribution systems. Despite the role of scientist and inventor being largely unglamorous, Thomas Edison and his tumultuous relationship with fellow inventor Nikola Tesla have been fodder for everything from books, to comics, to movies, and video games. Other Notable Moments from This Week in Geek History Although we only shine the spotlight on three interesting facts a week in our Geek History column, that doesn’t mean we don’t have space to highlight a few more in passing. This week in Geek History: 1971 – Apollo 14 returns to Earth after third Lunar mission. 1974 – Birth of Robot Chicken creator Seth Green. 1986 – Death of Dune creator Frank Herbert. Goodnight Dune. 1997 – Simpsons becomes longest running animated show on television. Have an interesting bit of geek trivia to share? Shoot us an email to [email protected] with “history” in the subject line and we’ll be sure to add it to our list of trivia. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware How to Change the Default Application for Android Tasks Stop Believing TV’s Lies: The Real Truth About "Enhancing" Images The How-To Geek Valentine’s Day Gift Guide Inspire Geek Love with These Hilarious Geek Valentines RGB? CMYK? Alpha? What Are Image Channels and What Do They Mean? Clean Up Google Calendar’s Interface in Chrome and Iron The Rise and Fall of Kramerica? [Seinfeld Video] GNOME Shell 3 Live CDs for OpenSUSE and Fedora Available for Testing Picplz Offers Special FX, Sharing, and Backup of Your Smartphone Pics BUILD! An Epic LEGO Stop Motion Film [VIDEO] The Lingering Glow of Sunset over a Winter Landscape Wallpaper

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  • Logging connection strings

    If you some of the dynamic features of SSIS such as package configurations or property expressions then sometimes trying to work out were your connections are pointing can be a bit confusing. You will work out in the end but it can be useful to explicitly log this information so that when things go wrong you can just review the logs. You may wish to develop this idea further and encapsulate such logging into a custom task, but for now lets keep it simple and use the Script Task. The Script Task code below will raise an Information event showing the name and connection string for a connection. Imports System Imports Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime Public Class ScriptMain Public Sub Main() Dim fireAgain As Boolean ' Get the connection string, we need to know the name of the connection Dim connectionName As String = "My OLE-DB Connection" Dim connectionString As String = Dts.Connections(connectionName).ConnectionString ' Format the message and log it via an information event Dim message As String = String.Format("Connection ""{0}"" has a connection string of ""{1}"".", _ connectionName, connectionString) Dts.Events.FireInformation(0, "Information", message, Nothing, 0, fireAgain) Dts.TaskResult = Dts.Results.Success End Sub End Class Building on that example it is probably more flexible to log all connections in a package as shown in the next example. Imports System Imports Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime Public Class ScriptMain Public Sub Main() Dim fireAgain As Boolean ' Loop through all connections in the package For Each connection As ConnectionManager In Dts.Connections ' Get the connection string and log it via an information event Dim message As String = String.Format("Connection ""{0}"" has a connection string of ""{1}"".", _ connection.Name, connection.ConnectionString) Dts.Events.FireInformation(0, "Information", message, Nothing, 0, fireAgain) Next Dts.TaskResult = Dts.Results.Success End Sub End Class By using the Information event it makes it readily available in the designer, for example the Visual Studio Output window (Ctrl+Alt+O) or the package designer Execution Results tab, and also allows you to readily control the logging by choosing which events to log in the normal way. Now before somebody starts commenting that this is a security risk, I would like to highlight good practice for building connection managers. Firstly the Password property, or any other similar sensitive property is always defined as write-only, and secondly the connection string property only uses the public properties to assemble the connection string value when requested. In other words the connection string will never contain the password. I have seen a couple of cases where this is not true, but that was just bad development by third-parties, you won’t find anything like that in the box from Microsoft.   Whilst writing this code it made me wish that there was a custom log entry that you could just turn on that did this for you, but alas connection managers do not even seem to support custom events. It did however remind me of a very useful event that is often overlooked and fits rather well alongside connection string logging, the Execute SQL Task’s custom ExecuteSQLExecutingQuery event. To quote the help reference Custom Messages for Logging - Provides information about the execution phases of the SQL statement. Log entries are written when the task acquires connection to the database, when the task starts to prepare the SQL statement, and after the execution of the SQL statement is completed. The log entry for the prepare phase includes the SQL statement that the task uses. It is the last part that is so useful, how often have you used an expression to derive a SQL statement and you want to log that to make sure the correct SQL is being returned? You need to turn it one, by default no custom log events are captured, but I’ll refer you to a walkthrough on setting up the logging for ExecuteSQLExecutingQuery by Jamie.

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  • SharePoint.DesignFactory.ContentFiles–building WCM sites

    - by svdoever
    One of the use cases where we use the SharePoint.DesignFactory.ContentFiles tooling is in building SharePoint Publishing (WCM) solutions for SharePoint 2007, SharePoint 2010 and Office365. Publishing solutions are often solutions that have one instance, the publishing site (possibly with subsites), that in most cases need to go through DTAP. If you dissect a publishing site, in most case you have the following findings: The publishing site spans a site collection The branding of the site is specified in the root site, because: Master pages live in the root site (/_catalogs/masterpage) Page layouts live in the root site (/_catalogs/masterpage) The style library lives in the root site ( /Style Library) and contains images, css, javascript, xslt transformations for your CQWP’s, … Preconfigured web parts live in the root site (/_catalogs/wp) The root site and subsites contains a document library called Pages (or your language-specific version of it) containing publishing pages using the page layouts and master pages The site collection contains content types, fields and lists When using the SharePoint.DesignFactory.ContentFiles tooling it is very easy to create, test, package and deploy the artifacts that can be uploaded to the SharePoint content database. This can be done in a fast and simple way without the need to create and deploy WSP packages. If we look at the above list of artifacts we can use SharePoint.DesignFactory.ContentFiles for master pages, page layouts, the style library, web part configurations, and initial publishing pages (these are normally made through the SharePoint web UI). Some artifacts like content types, fields and lists in the above list can NOT be handled by SharePoint.DesignFactory.ContentFiles, because they can’t be uploaded to the SharePoint content database. The good thing is that these artifacts are the artifacts that don’t change that much in the development of a SharePoint Publishing solution. There are however multiple ways to create these artifacts: Use paper script: create them manually in each of the environments based on documentation Automate the creation of the artifacts using (PowerShell) script Develop a WSP package to create these artifacts I’m not a big fan of the third option (see my blog post Thoughts on building deployable and updatable SharePoint solutions). It is a lot of work to create content types, fields and list definitions using all kind of XML files, and it is not allowed to modify these artifacts when in use. I know… SharePoint 2010 has some content type upgrade possibilities, but I think it is just too cumbersome. The first option has the problem that content types and fields get ID’s, and that these ID’s must be used by the metadata on for example page layouts. No problem for SharePoint.DesignFactory.ContentFiles, because it supports deploy-time resolving of these ID’s using PowerShell. For example consider the following metadata definition for the page layout contactpage-wcm.aspx.properties.ps1: Metadata page layout # This script must return a hashtable @{ name=value; ... } of field name-value pairs # for the content file that this script applies to. # On deployment to SharePoint, these values are written as fields in the corresponding list item (if any) # Note that fields must exist; they can be updated but not created or deleted. # This script is called right after the file is deployed to SharePoint.   # You can use the script parameters and arbitrary PowerShell code to interact with SharePoint. # e.g. to calculate properties and values at deployment time.   param([string]$SourcePath, [string]$RelativeUrl, $Context) @{     "ContentTypeId" = $Context.GetContentTypeID('GeneralPage');     "MasterPageDescription" = "Cloud Aviator Contact pagelayout (wcm - don't use)";     "PublishingHidden" = "1";     "PublishingAssociatedContentType" = $Context.GetAssociatedContentTypeInfo('GeneralPage') } The PowerShell functions GetContentTypeID and GetAssociatedContentTypeInfo can at deploy-time resolve the required information from the server we are deploying to. I personally prefer the second option: automate creation through PowerShell, because there are PowerShell scripts available to export content types and fields. An example project structure for a typical SharePoint WCM site looks like: Note that this project uses DualLayout. So if you build Publishing sites using SharePoint, checkout out the completely free SharePoint.DesignFactory.ContentFiles tooling and start flying!

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  • 5 Steps to getting started with IronRuby

    - by Eric Nelson
    IronRuby is a Open Source implementation of the Ruby programming language for .NET, heavily relying on Microsoft's Dynamic Language Runtime. The project's #1 goal is to be a true Ruby implementation, meaning it runs existing Ruby code. Check out this summary of using the Ruby standard library and 3rd party libraries in IronRuby. IronRuby has tight integration with .NET, so any .NET types can be used from IronRuby and the IronRuby runtime can be embedded into any .NET application. These 5 steps should get you nicely up and running on IronRuby – OR … you could just watch a video session from the lead developer which took place earlier this month (March 2010 - 60mins). But the 5 steps will be quicker :-) Step 1 – Install IronRuby :-) You can install IronRuby automatically using an MSI or manually. For simplicity I would recommend the MSI install. TIP: As of the 25th of March IronRuby has not quite shipped. The download above is a Release Candidate (RC) which means it is still undergoing final testing by the team. You will need to uninstall this version (RC3) once the final release is available. The good news is that uninstalling IronRuby RC3 will work without a hitch as the MSI does relatively little. Step 2 – Install an IronRuby friendly editor You will need to Install an editor to work with IronRuby as there is no designer support for IronRuby inside Visual Studio. There are many editors to choose from but I would recommend you either went with: SciTE (Download the MSI): This is a lightweight text editor which is simple to get up and running. SciTE understands Ruby syntax and allows you to easily run IronRuby code within the editor with a small change to the config file. SharpDevelop 3.2 (Download the MSI): This is an open source development environment for C#, VB, Boo and now IronRuby. IronRuby support is new but it does include integrated debugging. You might also want to check out the main site for SharpDevelop. TIP: There are commercial tools for Ruby development which offer richer support such as intellisense.. They can be coerced into working with IronRuby. A good one to start with is RubyMine which needs some small changes to make it work with IronRuby. Step 3 – Run the IronRuby Tutorial Run through the IronRuby tutorial which is included in the IronRuby download. It covers off the basics of the Ruby languages and how IronRuby integrates with .NET. In a typical install it will end up at C:\Program Files\IronRuby 0.9.4.0\Samples\Tutorial. Which will give you the tutorial implemented in .NET and Ruby. TIP: You might also want to check out these two introductory posts Using IronRuby and .NET to produce the ‘Hello World of WPF’ and What's IronRuby, and how do I put it on Rails? Step 4 – Get some good books to read Get a great book on Ruby and IronRuby. There are several free ebooks on Ruby which will help you learn the language. The little book of Ruby is a good place to start. I would also recommend you purchase IronRuby Unleashed (Buy on Amazon UK | Buy on Amazon USA). You might also want to check out this mini-review. Other books are due out soon including IronRuby in Action. TIP: Also check out the official documentation for using .NET from IronRuby. Step 5 – Keep an eye on the team blogs Keep an eye on the IronRuby team blogs including Jimmy Schementi, Jim Deville and Tomas Matousek (full list) TIP: And keep a watch out for the final release of IronRuby – due anytime soon!

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  • UPK 3.6.1 (is Coming)

    - by marc.santosusso
    In anticipation of the release of UPK 3.6.1, I'd like to briefly describe some of the features that will be available in this new version. Topic Editor in Tabs Topic Editors now open in tabs instead of separate Developer windows. This offers several improvements: First, the bubble editor can be docked and resized in the same way as other editor panes. That's right, you can resize the bubble editor! The second enhancement that this changes brings is an improved undo and redo which allows each action to be undone and redone in the Topic Editor. New Sound Editor The topic and web page editors include a new sound editor with all the bells and whistles necessary to record, edit, import, and export, sound. Sound can be captured during topic recording--which is great for a Subject Matter Expert (SME) to narrate what they're recording--or after the topic has been recorded. Sound can also be added to web pages and played on the concept panes of modules, sections and topics. Turn off bubbles in Topics Authors may opt to hide bubbles either per frame or for an entire topic. When you want to draw a user's attention to the content on the screen instead of the bubble. This feature works extremely well in conjunction with the new sound capabilities. For instance, consider recording conceptual information with narration and no bubbles. Presentation Output UPK content can be published as a Presentation in Microsoft PowerPoint format. Publishing for Presentation will create a presentation for each topic published. The presentation template can be customized Using the same methods offered for the UPK document outputs, allowing your UPK-generated presentations to match your corporate branding. Autosave and Recovery The Developer will automatically save your work as often as you would like. This affords authors the ability to recover these automatically saved documents if their system or UPK were to close unexpectedly. The Developer defaults to save open documents every ten minutes. Package Editor Enhancement Files in packages will now open in the associated application when double-clicked. Authors can also choose to "Open with..." from the context menu (AKA right click menu.) See It! Window See It! mode may now be launched in a non-fullscreen window. This is available from the kp.html file in any Player package. This version of See It! mode offers on-screen navigation controls including previous frame, next frame, pause etc. Firefox Enhancments The UPK Player will now offer both Do It! mode and sound playback when viewed using Firefox web browser. Player Support for Safari The UPK Player is now fully supported on the Safari web browser for both Mac OS and Windows platforms. Keep document checked out Authors may choose to keep a document checked out when performing a check in. This allows an author to have a new version created on the server and continue editing. Close button on individual tabs A close button has been added to the tabs making it easier to close a specific tab. Outline Editor Enhancements Authors will have the option to prevent concepts from immediately displaying in the Developer when an outline item is selected. This makes it faster to move around in the outline editor. Tell us which feature you're most excited to use in the comments.

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  • [MISC GEEKERY] Support for Some Versions of Windows is Ending

    - by Matthew Guay
    Are you sticking with your older version of Windows instead of upgrading to Windows 7?  There’s no problem with that, but here’s a quick reminder to make sure you’re running the latest service pack to stay protected. Microsoft offers security updates and more throughout the lifetime of a version of Windows, and periodically they roll all the latest updates and improvements together into a service pack.  After a while, only computers running the latest service pack will still get updates to keep them safe. Recently, Microsoft has been warning that support is ending for Windows XP with Service Pack 2 and the release version of Windows Vista.  When support ends, you will not receive any new security updates for Windows.  You can continue to use your computer the same as before, but it may not be as secure and if new security issues are discovered they will not be updated. However, it’s easy to stay supported: simply install XP Service Pack 3 or Vista Service Pack 2, depending on your computer.  Here’s how to do that: Windows XP To install Windows XP Service Pack 3, you can either check Windows Update for updates, or simply download it from Microsoft at this link: Download XP Service Pack 3 Run the download (or if you’re updating from Windows Update the installer will automatically launch), and proceed just as you normally would when installing a program.  Your computer will have to reboot during the install, so make sure you’ve saved all your work and closed other programs before installing.   To check what service pack your computer is running, click Start, then right-click on the My Computer button and choose Properties. This will show you what version and service pack of Windows you are running, and in this screenshot we see this computer has be updated to Service Pack 3. Please Note:  The version of XP shipped with Windows XP Mode in Windows 7 comes preconfigured with Service Pack 3, and does not need updated.  Additionally, if your computer is running the 64 bit version of Windows XP, then Service Pack 2 is the latest service pack for your computer, and it is still supported. Windows Vista If your computer is running Windows Vista, you can install Service Pack 2 to stay up to date and supported.  Simply check Windows Update for Service Pack 2 if you haven’t installed it yet, or download the installer for your computer from the link below: 32 bit: Vista Service Pack 2 32-bit 64 bit: Vista Service Pack 2 64-bit Run the installer, and simply set it up as a normal program installation.  Do note that your computer will reboot during the installation, so make sure to save your work and close other programs before installing. To see what service pack your computer is running, click the Start orb, then right-click on the Computer button and select Properties. This will show what service pack and edition of Windows Vista your computer is running right at the top of the page. Conclusion Microsoft makes it easy to keep using your computer safely and securely even if you choose to keep using your older version of Windows.  By installing the latest service pack, you will make sure that your computer will be supported for years to come.  Windows 7 users, you don’t need to worry; no service has been released for it yet.  Stay tuned, and we’ll let you know when any new service packs are available. www.microsoft.com/EOS – End of Support Information from Microsoft Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Remove Optional and Probably Unnecessary Windows Vista ComponentsRequesting Hotfixes from Microsoft the Easy WayUnderstanding Windows Vista Aero Glass RequirementsAdd Network Support to Windows Live MovieMakerCustomize the Manufacturer Support Info in Windows 7 or Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional OutSync will Sync Photos of your Friends on Facebook and Outlook Windows 7 Easter Theme YoWindoW, a real time weather screensaver Optimize your computer the Microsoft way Stormpulse provides slick, real time weather data Geek Parents – Did you try Parental Controls in Windows 7?

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  • View Weather Underground Forecasts in Google Chrome

    - by Asian Angel
    If you like a simple straightforward interface for keeping up with weather forecasts then join us as we look at the Weather Underground extension for Google Chrome. Weather Underground in Action As soon as you click on the “Toolbar Icon” you will need to enter a location. Keep in mind that you will need to enter the “city and country” if using that option. Going with less information will yield an “error”. Note: The extension did not work for some Asian locations during our tests. In honor of the Olympics we chose Vancouver, Canada. You can hover over the “Toolbar Button” to see the current conditions or click to view the current day’s conditions, the current day’s forecast, and the forecast for the following three days. It is a simple straightforward interface. Note: There are no options to worry with. Clicking on the “Detailed Forecast Link” in the drop-down window will take you to the Weather Underground webpage for your location. Clicking on the “Weather Underground Link” in the drop-down window will take you to the Weather Underground U.S. Homepage. Additional Weather Underground Fun Since we were focusing on Weather Underground we have an extra bit of fun for you. If you love being able to view a “large scale” map of your location with current conditions and forecast combined then you might want to have a look at Weather Underground’s “wxmap webpage”. Using the link below you can access the basic starting page where you will be asked to enter your location. Once you have entered the information you will see the default “Terrain View” for your location and a “Current Conditions & Forecast Window” in the lower left corner. You can modify how your map looks by choosing from “Temperature, Precipitation, Clouds, Satellite, Hybrid, & Terrain” views. Going full screen in your browser with this gives your monitor a wonderful and unique look that will have your family & friends asking you how you did it. Note: Terrain View shown here. Clicking on the “Settings Link” in the upper left corner will let you tweak your map view very nicely. Conclusion If you love using Weather Underground for your weather forecasts then you can add a “double dose” of goodness to your browser. Links Download the Weather Underground extension (Google Chrome Extensions) Access the Full Screen Weather Underground Map & Forecast for your area Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Add Weather Forecasts to Google ChromeMonitor the Weather for Your Location in ChromeView the Time & Date in Chrome When Hiding Your TaskbarView Maps and Get Directions in Google ChromeGoogle Image Search Quick Fix TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Windows 7 Easter Theme YoWindoW, a real time weather screensaver Optimize your computer the Microsoft way Stormpulse provides slick, real time weather data Geek Parents – Did you try Parental Controls in Windows 7? Change DNS servers on the fly with DNS Jumper

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  • Keep a Window on top with a handy AutoHotkey script

    - by Matthew Guay
    Are you tired of shuffling back and forth between windows to get your work done?  Here’s a handy tool that lets you keep any window always on top when you need it. There are many ways to use multiple windows efficiently, but sometimes it seems you need to keep a smaller one in front of a larger window and they never quite fit right.  Whether you’re trying to use Calculator and a web form at the same time, or see what music is playing while you’re catching up on your news, there’s many scenarios where it can be useful to keep one window always on top.  There are many utilities to do this, but they are often needlessly complicated and bloated.  Here we look at a better solution from Amit, our friend at Digital Inspiration. Always on Top Thanks to AutoHotkey, you can easily always keep any window on top of all the others on your screen.  You can download this as a small exe and run it directly, or can create it with a simple script in AutoHotkey.  For simplicity, we simply downloaded the application and ran it directly. To do this, download Always on Top (link below), and unzip the file. Once you’ve launched it, simply select the window you want to keep on top and press Ctrl+Space.  This program will now stay in front, even when it is not the active window.  Here’s a screenshot of a Hotmail signup dialog in Chrome with Notepad kept on top.  Notice Notepad isn’t the active application, but it is still on top. If you wish to un-pin the window from being on top, simply select the window and press Ctrl+space again.  You can keep multiple windows pinned at once, too, though you may clutter your desktop quickly! Always on Top will keep running in your system tray, and you can exit or suspend it by right-clicking on its tray icon and selecting exit or suspend, respectively. Create Your Own Always on Top Utility with AutoHotkey If you’re a fan of AutoHotkey, you can create your own AutoHotkey script to keep windows on top simply and easily with only one line of code: ^SPACE:: Winset, Alwaysontop, , A Simply create a new file, insert the code, and save it as plaintext with the .ahk file extension.  If you have AutoHotkey installed, simply double-click this file for the exact same functionality as the premade version. Conclusion This is a great way to keep a window handy, and it can be beneficial in many scenarios.  For instance you can use it to copy data from a PDF or image into a form or spreadsheet, and it saves a lot of clicks and time.  Links: Download Always on Top from Digital Inspiration Download AutoHotkey if you want to make it yourself Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Get the Linux Alt+Window Drag Functionality in WindowsGet Mac’s Hide Others (cmd+opt+H) Keyboard Shortcut for WindowsAdd "Run as Administrator" for AutoHotkey Scripts in Windows 7 or VistaKeyboard Ninja: Pop Up the Vista Calendar with a Single HotkeyKeyboard Ninja: Assign a Hotkey to any Window TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional OutSync will Sync Photos of your Friends on Facebook and Outlook Windows 7 Easter Theme YoWindoW, a real time weather screensaver Optimize your computer the Microsoft way Stormpulse provides slick, real time weather data Geek Parents – Did you try Parental Controls in Windows 7?

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  • How to Sync Any Browser’s Bookmarks With Your iPad or iPhone

    - by Chris Hoffman
    Apple makes it easy to synchronize bookmarks between the Safari browser on a Mac and the Safari browser on iOS, but you don’t have to use Safari — or a Mac — to sync your bookmarks back and forth. You can do this with any browser. Whether you’re using Chrome, Firefox, or even Internet Explorer, there’s a way to sync your browser bookmarks so you can access your same bookmarks on your iPad. Safari on a Mac Apple’s iCloud service is the officially supported way to sync data with your iPad or iPhone. It’s included on Macs, but Apple also offers similar iCloud bookmark syncing features for Windows. On a Mac, this should be enabled by default. To check whether it’s enabled, you can launch the System Preferences panel on your Mac, open the iCloud preferences panel, and ensure the Safari option is checked. If you’re using Safari on Windows — well, you shouldn’t be. Apple is no longer updating Safari for Windows. iCloud allows you to synchronize bookmarks between other browsers on your Windows system and Safari on your iOS device, so Safari isn’t necessary. Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Chrome via iCloud To get started, download Apple’s iCloud Control Panel application for Windows and install it. Launch the iCloud Control Panel and log in with the same iCloud account (Apple ID) you use on your iPad or iPhone. You’ll be able to enable Bookmark syncing with Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Chrome. Click the Options button to select the browser you want to synchronize bookmarks with. (Note that bookmarks are called “favorites” in Internet Explorer.) You’ll be able to access your synced bookmarks in the Safari browser on your iPad or iPhone, and they’ll sync back and forth automatically over the Internet. Google Chrome Sync Google Chrome also has its own built-in sync feature and Google provides an official Chrome app for iPad and iPhone. If you’re a Chrome user, you can set up Chrome Sync on your desktop version of Chrome — you should already have this enabled if you have logged into your Chrome browser. You can check if this Chrome Sync is enabled by opening Chrome’s settings screen and seeing whether you’re signed in. Click the Advanced sync settings button and ensure bookmark syncing is enabled. Once you have Chrome Sync set up, you can install the Chrome app from the App Store and sign in with the same Google account. Your bookmarks, as well as other data like your open browser tabs, will automatically sync. This can be a better solution because the Chrome browser is available for so many platforms and you gain the ability to synchronize other browser data, such as your open browser tabs, between your devices. Unfortunately, the Chrome browser is slower than Apple’s own Safari browser on iPad and iPhone because of the way Apple limits third-party browsers, so using it involves a trade-off. Manual Bookmark Sync in iTunes iTunes also allows you to sync bookmarks between your computer and your iPad or iPhone. It does this the old-fashioned way, by initiating a manual sync when your device is plugged in via USB. To access this option, connect your device to your computer, select the device in iTunes, and click the Info tab. This is the more outdated way of synchronizing your bookmarks. This feature may be useful if you want to create a one-time copy of your bookmarks from your PC, but it’s nowhere near ideal for regular syncing. You don’t have to use this feature, just as you really don’t have to use iTunes anymore. In fact, this option is unavailable if you’ve set up iCloud syncing in iTunes. After you set up bookmark syncing via iCloud or Chrome Sync, bookmarks will sync immediately after you save, remove, or edit them.     

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  • Collaborate10 &ndash; THEconference

    - by jean-pierre.dijcks
    After spending a few days in Mandalay Bay's THEHotel, I guess I now call everything THE... Seriously, they even tag their toilet paper with THEtp... I guess the brand builders in Vegas thought that once you are on to something you keep on doing it, and granted it is a nice hotel with nice rooms. THEanalytics Most of my collab10 experience was in a room called Reef C, where the BIWA bootcamp was held. Two solid days of BI, Warehousing and Analytics organized by the BIWA SIG at IOUG. Didn't get to see all sessions, but what struck me was the high interest in Analytics. Marty Gubar's OLAP session was full and he did some very nice things with the OLAP option. The cool bit was that he actually gets all the advanced calculations in OLAP to show up in OBI EE without any effort. It was nice to see that the idea from OWB where you generate an RPD is now also in AWM. I think it makes life so much simpler to generate these RPD's from your data model. Even if the end RPD needs some tweaking, it is all a lot less effort to get something going. You can see this stuff for yourself in this demo (click here). OBI EE uses just SQL to get to the calculations, and so, if you prefer APEX, you can build you application there and get the same nice calculations in an APEX application. Marty also showed the Simba MDX driver used with Excel. I guess we should call that THEcoolone... and it is very slick and wonderfully useful for all of you who actually know Excel. The nice thing is that you leverage pure Excel for all operations (no plug-ins). That means no new tools to learn, no new controls, all just pure Excel. THEdatabasemachine Got some very good questions in my "what makes Exadata fast" session and overall, the interest in Exadata is overwhelming. One of the things that I did try to do in my session is to get people to think in new patterns rather than in patterns based on Oracle 9i running on some random hardware configuration. We talked a little bit about the often over-indexing and how everyone has to unlearn all of that on Exadata. The main thing however is that everyone needs to get used to the shear size of some of the components in a Database machine V2. 5TB of flash cache is a lot of very fast data storage, half a TB of memory gets quite interesting as well. So what I did there was really focus on some of the content in these earlier posts on Upward ILM and In-Memory processing. In short, I do believe the these newer media point out a trend. In-memory and other fast media will get cheaper and will see more use. Some of that we do automatically by adding new functionality, but in some cases I think the end user of the system needs to start thinking about how to leverage all this new hardware. I think most people got very excited about these new capabilities and opportunities. THEcoolkids One of the cool things about the BIWA track was the hand-on track. Very cool to see big crowds for both OLAP and OWB hands-on. Also quite nice to see that the folks at RittmanMead spent so much time on preparing for that session. While all of them put down cool stuff, none was more cool that seeing Data Mining on an Apple iPAD... it all just looks great on an iPAD! Very disappointing to see that Mark Rittman still wasn't showing OWB on his iPAD ;-) THEend All in all this was a great set of sessions in the BIWA track. Lots of value to our guests (we hope) and we hope they all come again next year!

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  • List of Upcoming Appearances

    - by Chris Gardner
    Greetings. I know I have been in work sponsored hiding lately. We are working furiously on a beta project to secure a contract, and I can't really talk about it yet. Hopefully, the contracts will be soon signed. Not only will we then have money, but I can talk about all this really cool tech with which I have been playing. However, since the contract is not signed, I need to bring you people up to date with where I will be during the summer. Let's face it, you can't be a speaker / blogger without pandering to shameless self-promotion. First, I will, once again, be staffing the Hands-on-Labs at TechEd North America. Unfortunately, TechEd North America is already sold out for this year. However, if you're already going, drop by the labs and say Hi. Also, keep an eye on Twitter to track me throughout the event. Also, look for a post in a few hours with my specific picks for what content I'm looking forward to seeing this year. Immediately following TechEd North America, I will be flying into Knoxville to speak at CodeStock. I will be presenting my introduction and intermediate Xbox 360 development talks. There are a TON of great content at CodeStock this year, but there are only about 50 tickets left. After that whirlwind of work, things settle for awhile. That means I'm available to speak at your User Group, luncheon, bowling league, birthday party, anniversary, or bat mitzvah. Mid August brings us to That Conference. This one is going to be a blast. If you haven't heard of That Conference yet, you should really check it out. This will also be my introduction and intermediate Xbox 360 development talks. This is a new conference, and it looks like it will be a great one. Finally, we will turn our attention to DevLink. DevLink has the distinction of picking up my newest talk, Creating Stereoscopic 3D Graphics in XNA. On top of that, I'm giving an general Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7 talk. DevLink has added an new "XNA and Kinect" track, so there will me a ton of great game content. That should bring us through the summer. As I solidify the Stereoscopic talk, look for some content on that to creep up on here. I will say it's the first topic I've played around with that is easier in 3D than 2D. Also, the organizers of Alabama Code Camp are still trying to reschedule the event. When that happens, I'll get that information out. Also, we are looking to expand our development team. If you are interested in working for / with me, keep an eye on the T & W Operations website. I know we're immediately looking for a junior level developer, but I think a few higher level position may come up soon. You MUST apply through the website, but drop me a personal line if you do apply. I'll keep an eye out for the application.

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  • Home Energy Management & Automation with Windows Phone 7

    A number of people at Clarity are personally interested in home energy conservation and home automation. We feel that a mobile device is a great fit for bringing this idea to fruition. While this project is merely a concept and not directly associated with Microsofts Hohm web service, it provides a great model for communicating the concept. I wanted to take the idea a step further and combine saving energy in your home with the ability to track water usage and control your home devices. I designed an application that focuses on total home control and not just energy usage. Application Overview By monitoring home consumption in real time and with yearly projections users can pinpoint vampire devices, times of high or low consumption, and wasteful patterns of energy use. Energy usage meters indicate total current consumption as well as individual device consumption. Users can then use the information to take action, make adjustments, and change their consumption behaviors. The app can be used to automate certain systems like lighting, temperature, or alarms. Other features can be turned on an off at the touch of a toggle switch on your phone, away from home. Forget to turn off the TV or shut the garage door? No problem, you can do it from your phone. Through settings you can enable and disable features of the phone that apply to your home making it a completely customized and convenient experience. To be clear, this equates to more security, big environmental impact, and even bigger savings.   Design and User Interface  Since this panorama application is designed for win phone 7 devices, it complies with the UI Design and Interaction Guide for wp7. I developed the frame and page hierarchy from existing examples. The interface takes advantage of the interactive nature of touch screens with slider controls, pivot control views, and toggle switches to turn on and off devices (not shown in mockup). I followed recommendations for text based elements and adapted the tile notifications to display the most recent user activity. For example, the mockup indicates upon launching the app that the last thing you did was program the thermostat. This model is great for quick launching common user actions. One last design feature to point out is the technical reasons for supplying both light and dark themes for the app. Since this application is targeting energy consumption it only makes sense to consider the effect of the apps background color or image on the phones energy use. When displaying darker colors like black the OLED display may use less power, extending battery life. Other Considerations For now I left out options of wind and solar powered energy options because they are not available to everyone. Renewable energy sources and new technologies associated with them are definitely ideas to keep in mind for a next iteration. Another idea to explore for such an application would be to include a savings model similar to mint.com. In addition to general energy-saving recommendations the application could recommend customized ways to save based on your current utility providers and available options in your area. If your television or refrigerator is guilty of sucking a lot of energy then you may see recommendations for energy star products that could save you even more money! Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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