Net Industry

CKEditor 3.0 released

2009-08-24T15:12:00.001+02:00

Fresh from the FCKeditor website:

CKEditor 3.0 is here! After almost two years of hard development, we are proud to announce the first stable release of our next generation editor. You can now enjoy the best editor out there, added by even better (amazing!) performance, full accessibility, new interface, a brand new and rich API and more.

Other than a new name, CKEditor also brings us a new logo and a new site. For full details, check out http://ckeditor.com.

ReSharper 4.5 Beta

2009-03-18T11:54:00.000+01:00

Resharper 4.5 Beta has just been released!

My favorite new feature is the new Solution wide analysis of unused code, this allows you to assume the code you are writing is NOT for a shared library, and thus can be marked as unused if it's never used within the current solution.

Unused non-private declarations
Unused return values of non-private methods
Unaccessed non-private fields
Unused parameters in non-private members
Abstract or virtual events that are never invoked
Unassigned fields
Members and types that can be made internal instead of public

My second favorite new feature is definitely the MSTest project support, like they supported NUnit and other test frameworks before.

ReSharper:: The Most Intelligent Add-In To Visual Studio 2008 - C# 3.0, LINQ, VB.NET, ASP.NET, XML, XAML, build scripts. Best-of-breed tools for code analysis, code cleanup, code generation, and unit testing, plus multiple refactorings and code templates.

two-finger-scroll - Google Code

2009-03-04T10:39:00.000+01:00

Recently I've bought a MacBook Pro. Great piece of hardware, and OS X is really nice for organizing photo's and creating presentations.

The real work obviously still needs to be done on a PC, however I couldn't live without the two-finger-scrolling anymore, so I tracked down this great little tool on Google Code:

two-finger-scroll

Wake On LAN in C#

2008-07-01T10:35:00.001+02:00

Wake On LAN in C#

Run SysInternals tools directly

2008-06-12T11:24:00.001+02:00

live.sysinternals.com - /

SysInternals has opened a share to their folder with utilities, meaning you can now run the SysInternals tools directly from explorer or the Run window by typing in:

\\live.sysinternals.com\tools\[toolname]

You can also browse the tools by opening the folder share:

\\live.sysinternals.com\tools

Download details: Parallel Extensions to .NET Framework 3.5 June 2008 CTP

2008-06-09T14:34:00.000+02:00

Download details: Parallel Extensions to .NET Framework 3.5 June 2008 CTP

Parallel Extensions for .NET 3.5 June 2008 CTP is out! I still have to figure out what to do with it though...

Google Contacts API | Google Groups

2008-06-05T18:28:00.001+02:00

Apparently while I wasn't watching for a while, Google launched their Contacts API last March. It's about time anyway. Can't wait to find a spare weekend to start experimenting.

ReSharper 4.0 RC and LLBLGen 2.6 RC

2008-06-05T14:39:00.003+02:00

Two of my favorite products released important release candidates of their new products on the same day!

For both products the most significant addition is full LINQ support.

developer happiness is on it's way :)

ASP.NET development server very slow on Vista with Firefox - ASP.NET Forums

2008-05-30T17:55:00.001+02:00

ASP.NET development server very slow on Vista with Firefox - ASP.NET Forums

In case your Visual Studio 2008 is really slow on Vista (Windows 2008 in my case) opn Firefox, helped me out: to Disable autotuning, run this from the command prompt:

netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled

Additionally, disabling IpV6 in Firefox could help:

Goto the about:config address in firefox
filter by "network.dns.disableIPv6" and double-click to set to true

Windows Server 2008 Standard + RAID driver problems

2008-04-27T17:19:00.005+02:00

When trying to install Windows Server 2008 Standard on a desktop system with a RAID-1 configuration, we couldn't load the appropriate drivers.

A message appears: "to continue installation, use the load driver option to install 32-bit and signed 64-bit drivers. installing an unsigned 64-bit device driver is not supported and might result in an unusable windows installation".

The only option is to press OK, and the installation will not list any drivers at all. There's no other option than to cancel the installation.

We've tried 3 different motherboards, trying to use the latest RAID drivers, all yielding the same results:

Anyone else experiencing problems with RAID drivers on Windows Server 2008/Vista?

Grading Vista 64-Bit plus RAID 1 No More: RAID 1 No More

update 23-5-2008: Additional non-working drivers include:

3Ware 9650SE
SuperMicro

Issues like this remind me how lucky I am to only have to deal with deal with SOFTWARE problems normally

ASP.NET MVC Source Refresh Preview - ScottGu's Blog

2008-04-23T11:49:00.001+02:00

A new ASP.NET MVC Source Refresh Preview is available:

ASP.NET MVC Source Refresh Preview - ScottGu's Blog:

Waste Management sues SAP over software failure | Technology | Reuters

2008-03-31T16:58:00.002+02:00

Waste Management sues SAP over software failure

Nice to see a SAP customer finally having his "4 o' clock cup-a-soup" moment. (Dat zouden meer mensen moeten doen)

Microsoft: Future of personal health (video) - istartedsomething

2008-03-18T13:15:00.001+01:00

As I'm starting an assignment at Crossing Channels regarding a health care related project, I was particulary interested in the following Microsoft video: Microsoft: Future of personal health (video) - istartedsomething shown at a MIX08 session.

Google Calendar Sync: Getting Started

2008-03-18T12:24:00.001+01:00

I'm back!

After quite some silent time, (the web logs at my previous employer are internal) I'm starting as a free lance software engineer, so this is a good time to start web logging again.

To start with, I've migrated all my outlook mail to Gmail, and started using Google Calendar.

However to sync my calendar with my new SamsungI600, I do require outlook for synchronization purposes.

What an excellent timing of Google to release Google Calendar Sync!

Diff/Merge/Patch Library for C#/.NET

2006-08-16T14:17:00.001+02:00

Diff/Merge/Patch Library for C#/.NET Nice, a PERL differencing engine ported to .NET.

Found on this URL: A Generic - Reusable Diff Algorithm in C#

An alternative to TLS for application contexts / ASP.NET contexts (Thread Local Storage)

2006-05-12T10:38:00.001+02:00

ASPAlliance - Create your own HttpContext class: "System.Runtime.Remoting.Messaging.CallContext"

Macromedia - ActiveX issues ("click to activate and use this control")

2006-03-22T14:26:00.001+01:00

Recently I was getting strange behaviour with ActiveX (mostly Flash Files) in Internet Explorer, where the Active content had to be clicked to be activated first (when hovering over the control, the message "click to activate and use this control" appears).

How annoying, especially since Flash sites are usually design-oriented sites, and a big dotted gray border doesn't really add to my idea of being 'stylish'.

The resolution is to remove the recent Windows Update (or better, not to install it at all):

Adobe - Macromedia Flash Player: "Update for Windows XP (KB912945)"

Asymptomatic : How to Disable that Blasted "Restart Now" Message from Windows Update

2005-09-08T15:38:00.001+02:00

As commented on the blog entry above, the 'restart now' message returning every 15 minutes after running the windows update can be useful in some (very few) situations, for example grandma's never restarting their PC's...

Hey wait no grandma's always shut down their PC immediately after they're done playing solitaire... ehm ... no I'll get a reason later.

However, the Windows Update application doesn't seem to understand that if you don't click 'restart later' immediately, there might be a REASON for it, like running 3 virtual machines, and having to wait 1 hour before a workstation is back to the state it was before restarting.

Or for example a heavy load Windows 2003 Advanced server, Webserver or whatever server where a restart has to be planned very carefully to prevent the management from getting pissed, because yes, even there the lovely messagebox pops up.

I must add that the validaty of the "grandma" argument doesn't really count in a server environment, and if everything is all right, neither does the "help out people who don't know what they're doing" argument.

There are 2 checkboxes missing in this messagebox: don't show this annoying box this session again and don't show this annoying box ever again

I know it's not much, but here's an alternative to the first one:

place this command in a batch file named 'GoAwayWindowsUpdate.bat':
```
net stop wuauserv
```

beautiful...

Annoyances.org - Possibly another way (Windows 2000 Discussion Forum)

2005-09-08T13:56:00.001+02:00

I always disable all sounds on Windows. There's nothing more annoying than hearing the (way too long) windows startup sound on the wrong moments.

However, disabling all system sounds results in getting a system speaker 'beep' (at maximum volume) everytime you change the main volume control.

Better, but still bad, especially when using earphones and having iTunes at a low level volume.

Well, here's the solution:

- run regedit.exe 

change these key values:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Sound] "Beep"="yes" "ExtendedSounds"="yes" 

into

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Sound] "Beep"="no" "ExtendedSounds"="no".

Ahh enjoy the silence...

C# From a Java Developer's Perspective

2005-04-27T19:13:00.001+02:00

I stumbled upon a pretty extensive comparison between Java and C#. Probably a little pro-MSFT because it"s written by Dare Obasanjo, but still, they"re getting closer to the illusion of an unbiased comparison:

C# From a Java Developer's Perspective

FlexWiki - Make double click editing a user setting

2005-04-24T12:48:00.000+02:00

The first time I encountered a WikiWiki site, I immediately mailed the webmaster that there was something seriously wrong with their security. Yes, my only excuse is not reading TFM, and that it's a while ago.

FlexWiki is a .NET variant to Wiki, and I've been really annoyed with the fact that if you double click on a page, it starts editing.

Like a proper contributor of Open Source projects, I contributed the code that allows a user to save his preferences to a cookie, and disables the double click functionality, also because mr. Candera encouraged me to code it myself: SourceForge.net: Modify: 1186821 - Make double click editing a user setting, so I did!

Open source the microsoft way

They couldn't accept my contribution because I don't work at Microsoft, and I have to sign an Assignment Agreement before I can contribute anything. You've got to be kidding me. What's the point of creating an open source product in the first place, if only one company is allowed to work on it?

I've left this comment (before they're childish enough to remove it);-)

How can you build an open source community like that?

Do microsoft guys have to take the fun out of everything?

Can't it just be some kind of checkbox?

I've requested the assignment agreement, how long is that
going to take?

Appearently, this is allowed by the license (CPL, or Common Public License) they're using.

Also, I was suprised to see that there are actual Developer Guidelines, as the source code doesn't comply at all, it contains so many unused code blocks and procedures, that I couldn't even find where to add a link in the menu on the left.

Update May 8: I've received, signed and sent the assignment agreement back to MS.
Even if it's just for the fun of sending something to

One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052

Where's the # in C#?

2005-04-15T11:31:00.000+02:00

I'm one of the lucky ones to go from Delphi to C#.

Lucky, because the two languages share their intellectual father, Anders Hejlsberg, who copied many existing Delphi and C++ language concepts to C#

This means that Delphi programmers have a big advantage to Visual Basic programmers because they're already familiar with inheritance, polymorphism. Even to C++ coders who lack interfaces, events and delegates, and a even proper IDE (except for the very underrated Borland C++ Builder maybe).

I know that c++ got it's name from the incremental operator (c++ as a next iteration of C), but where did C# get it's pound suffix from?

Still I'm disappointed to miss some features that are available in Delphi, but not implemented in C#, like:

Delegate by Interface

In delphi it's possible to delegate the complete implementation of an Interface to a property. This way you don't have to redeclare each interface member inside the class, but it is possible to pass it to functions that need a IMyInterface Implemenation:

IMyInterface = interface (IInterface)
  function Foo() : Boolean;
  procedure Bar();
end;

TMyInterfaceImpl = class ( IMyInterface )
  function Foo : Boolean;
  procedure Bar() ;
end;

TMyType = class ( TObject, IMyInterface )
 private 
    FMyImplementation : IMyInterface;
  protected 
    function GetImplementation() : IMyInterface;
  public property MyImplementation : IMyInterface 
    read GetImplementation 
    implements IMyInterface;
end;
   
function TMyType.GetImplementation() 
begin
  if not assigned (FMyImplementation then 
    FMyImplementation := TMyInterfaceImpl.Create();
  result := FMyImplementation;
end;

Currently in C# you have to redeclare each member and delegate it to the implementation if you want separate your interface implementation from the class :

public interface IMyInterface {
  bool Foo();
 void Bar();
}

public class MyInterfaceImpl : IMyInterface {
  bool IMyInterface.Foo(){ ... }
  void IMyInterface.Bar(){ ... }
}

public class MyType : IMyInterface {
 IMyInterface myImplementation;
 IMyInterface MyImplementation{
   get 
   {
     if (myImplementation==null)
       myImplementation = new MyInterfaceImpl();
     return myImplementation;
   }
 }

// All members have to be redeclared even though 
// the implementation is delegated to the 
// MyImplementation property

  bool IMyInterface.Foo(){ 
    return MyImplementation.Foo();
  }
  
  void IMyInterface.Bar(){ 
    MyImplementation.Bar();
  }
}

Strictly Typed Types

In Delphi it's possible to declare a variable, that contains a reference to the class of a type, and can be used as a type. I know that sounds a little complex (don't even know if it's correct) but an example should clarify:

TMyType = class ( TObject, IMyInterface )
 private 
    FMyImplementation : IMyInterface;
  protected 
    function GetImplementation() : IMyInterface;
  public property MyImplementation : IMyInterface 
    read GetImplementation 
    implements IMyInterface;
end;

TMyTypeClass = class of TMyType;

function CreateInstance(AType : TMyTypeClass):TMyType
begin
  result := AType.Create();
end;

procedure Main()
 var MyType : TMyType;
begin
  MyType := CreateInstance(TMyType);  
end;

Now it's only possible to pass a type that inherits from TMyType.

Why doesn't c# have anything like this? C# only knows the Type type, and if you would want a method to only accept a certain type, you need to do it like this:

public MyType CreateInstance(Type type){

  if( !type.IsSubclassOf( typeof(MyType) ) )
    throw new ArgumentException("Type parameter is of incorrect type");

  return Activator.CreateInstance(type);
} 

public static void Main(){
  MyType instance = CreateInstance(typeof(MyType));
}

Type Suffices and Generics in C# 2.0:

With generics in C# 2.0 it's possible achieve something like strictly typed types, using the where keyword in generics, wich will force the collection to only accept members that implement ICloneable:

public class CloneableCollection<T> : Collection<T>, ICloneable where T : ICloneable
{
  
  public CloneableCollection<T> Clone() {
    CloneableCollection<T> collection = new CloneableCollection<T>();
    
    foreach (T o in this)
      collection.Add( (T) o.Clone() );
    
    return collection;
  } 

  object ICloneable.Clone() {
    return this.Clone();
  }
}

In C# 2.0, types can contain certain suffices to express additional compiler functionality:

<Type> - expresses a generic type, for example Collection<MyType> for a strictly typed collection.

? - expresses a value type that can contain a null value, for example

int myValue = null;

is impossible, but when declaring it as Nullable:

int? myValue = null;

it is possible. The question mark is actually a shorthand for the generic type Nullable<T>, so Nullable<int> and int? are in fact the same.

Too bad they didn't implement a NotNullable type for non-value types, using the ! (exclamation mark):

// doesn't compile
MyType! myType = null;

This is however, it is implemented in the CÏ‰ Language (pronounced COmega), a C# variant with support for type-safe support for table and document manipulation (in other words: strictly typed SQL and strictly typed XML)

COmega also supports for the * (stream) operator. This might confuse C++ developers, however it has nothing to do with a pointer. The stream operator can be seen as a array, but of unspecified length, or a dynamic strictly typed (lazy) collection. If a type contains this suffix, it both implements the C# IENumerable (edit: was C# INumerable) and the IEnumerator interface, and the values are dynamically returned as the collection is iterated:

// generate s, s+1, ..., e
static int* FromTo(int s, int e) {
  for (int i = s; i <= e; i++) yield return i;
}

public static void Main() {
  int* OneToTen = FromTo(1,10);
   // prints 1, ..., 10
   foreach(int j in OneToTen){
     Console.WriteLine(j);
   };
}

In other words, the for-loop in FromTo, continues only if the next value is requested by the iterator. In this case the foreach loop through the entire collection, so for every value between 1 and 10 the for loop is executed. This creates great possibilities for ASynchronous communication like reading a large recordset from a database, because the next record is only fetched when it's requested, somewhat like the DataReader class, but in a strictly typed way.

And the point is...

Here I finally come to my point. Both the where and typeof keywords are essentially performing the same function, where I think the typeof isn't event necessary now, because there's no reason why this syntax shouldn't work, because MyType is already a type, why is the extra typeof() call necessary?

public MyType CreateInstance(Type type){
  return (MyType) Activator.CreateInstance(type);
} 

public static void Main(){
  MyType instance = CreateInstance(MyType);
 // instead of
  // MyType instance = CreateInstance(typeof(MyType));
}

My proposal for C# 3.0 would be to replace them both with the Type# syntax, finally giving the # (pound) a function in C#, wich performs the same functionality as the Delphi "TMyTypeClass = class of TMyType" syntax.

Additionally, you would be able to use this as a typeof specifier in a method, and this could be our previous example rewritten, without having to specify:

public MyType CreateInstance(MyType# type){
  return (MyType) Activator.CreateInstance(type);
} 

public static void Main(){
  MyType instance = CreateInstance(MyType);
}

This could even give the previous ICloneableCollection<T> a easier to read look, and conforms more to the C# syntax:

//public class CloneableCollection<T> : Collection<T>, ICloneable where T : ICloneable
public class CloneableCollection<ICloneable# T> : Collection<T>, ICloneable
{
  
  public CloneableCollection<T> Clone() {
    CloneableCollection<T> collection = new CloneableCollection<T>();
    
    foreach (T o in this)
      collection.Add( (T) o.Clone() );
    
    return collection;
  } 

  object ICloneable.Clone() {
    return this.Clone();
  }
}

And, last but not least, it would eliminate 2 extra keywords, wich must be important to Microsoft as well, because they're very proud of the low amount of keywords in C#.

I'd like to hear your comments on this.

Google defining Yahoo?

2005-03-15T17:30:00.000+01:00

Today I was doing some research for school. On my search I stumbled across a feature in Google named "definitions".

It works as follows: you type "define:" followed by the word you want defined. Of course, curious as I am, I wondered how Google would be defined. Because they say that Google definitions, "(...) get glossary definitions gathered from various online sources." and "If Google has seen a definition for the word or phrase on the Web, it will retrieve that information and display it at the top of your search results". This suggests that there is no filtering what so ever on the given results, right?

Well after typing "define:google", it returned 8 results. A bit less then I expected, as Google is "Currently the most important spidering search engine by far". Believing of course the first result in the list.

Then I typed "define:yahoo". Yahoo being the biggest competitor of Google. As a result I got around 20 hits... quite more then on my previous search. It became even more interesting when I actually read the results. The second definition in the result list I got, was the following: "A Web directory created by a couple of guys from Stanford who now have more money than the entire country of Luxembourg. Rumour has it they own one business suit between them." What?!

Apparently the Google search engine for definitions considers the word "rumour" as being part of a definition. Very interesting indeed.

Proposion N2N Review

2005-02-21T11:40:00.001+01:00

For my current employer Vitronics Soltec, I had to build a coupling between Lotus Notes and SQL Server.

Proposion N2N is an excellent library to achieve this. Basically, it's a (partial) implementation of an ADO.NET DataProvider for Lotus Notes. It has many advantages (and way less bugs) over the Notes ODBC Connector, as it can even query for attachments, retrieve rich textfields and retrieve field values not included in a view. You can even dynamically execute Lotus Notes Formula's from the SQL query

The SQL isn't close to any SQL standard, but the resemblance is good enough. However, it is very well documented, and examples for almost every possible usage is provided, so learning is very easy, though knowledge of both SQL and Lotus Notes will help a lot

The current version (version 2.11) still contains several bugs, of wich the most annoying is that the IDbDataAdapter methods aren't implemented correctly, wich you can call the methods directly (NsfDataAdapter.Fill(myDataset), however you can't call them through the interface (IDbDataAdapter.Fill(myDataSet)) as it raises a NotSupportedException.

.NET Application Blocks

The Proposion variant of some of the Microsoft Application Blocks are freely provided: the Exception Management Application Block, and the Data Access Application Block.

Proposion N2N Application Blocks

I needed to use the Data Access Application Block, however the FillDataSet caused an endless recursion, so I had to modify the examples. The improved Visual Studio project is available here:

Proposion N2N Data Access Application Block

I've had good results with Proposion N2N, however there are some issues that would prevent me from deploying it with clients:

Potential Adminstration problems

The Proposion N2N Library comes with a strict Activation, and once installed, it isn't possible to install it again. To move the license to another computer, you would have to mail to Proposion to transfer the license. So far I've had very good responses, but I don't want to know what I'd have to do when their website would go down, or the small company would decide to start doing something else.

High priced

The Proposion N2N is quite expensive to deploy, for my development I needed to install a development it on my laptop, and later on another machine to maintain the synchronization between the databases, I'd have to buy another license, or transfer the license from my laptop to another machine, wich would mean I can't develop anymore using the library, and incorporating the problems mentioned before. With a support contract included ($495/y), a developer license ($795) and a processor license ($1395), it would mean I have to pay about $2600 for a ADO.NET driver that can only be used on 1 machine.

conclusion

To us it's well worth the money, because it save's a lot of Domino API programming, but the Activation policy and maintenance contract will definately have me waiting as long as possible before buying a license for the server.

XSD2DB: Generate a SQL Server database from a XML schema (XSD)

2005-02-05T17:23:00.000+01:00

XSD2DB

I've become a developer with XSD2DB, a command line tool written in C#, that will read a Microsoft ADO.NET compatible DataSet Schema File (XSD) and generate a database from it.

To make it a little more accessible, I've created the descriptive HTML website for it, and planning on creating new releases.

Now all we need is people that want to use it and give us some comments on it...