How Microsoft and others, empowers you with PowerShell [Think Server Services that PowerShells]

TechNet Wiki - PowerShell-Enabled Technologies

Many companies have provided out of the box support for managing their software with Windows PowerShell. This list only covers those companies, not any 3rd-party modules or snap-ins.

• For the list of standalone (i.e. not bundled with any bigger product) 3^rd-party and community extensions please see Popular Powershell modules.
• For the list of Windows Features, roles and technologies that are Windows PowerShell-enabled out of the box (i.e. not requiring any community or 3rd-party add-ons) please see List of Windows Features and Roles that Take Advantage of Windows PowerShell.
• For the list of miscellaneous links please see Automating IT Tasks with Windows PowerShell Overview.

..."

I thought this a nice visual of all the server side tech that's PowerShell enabled/supported/etc. If you're an IT and don't know or user PowerShell, maybe this will help nudge you...

Read More

Awake Await, Async Asink... Think before you async...

//InterKnowlogy/ Blogs - Async or Asink?

More and more nowadays there is a push  to run more application code in an asynchronous manner to prevent blocking the UI thread and making the application unresponsive.  As the need for this type of programming becomes more prevalent thankfully the APIs to do so have also become easier to implement.  The last part (easier APIs) has led to more and more async code sprinkled through an application like the little candies on top of donuts.  Unfortunately the easier APIs also mean it’s easier to abuse the functionality by not properly implementing exception handling.

All of these async sprinkles can sink an application fast as code may be exploding left and right with the application user non the wiser.  From the users perspective everything seems like it’s ok (i.e. the app doesn’t abort or show error dialogs) but nothing seems to be working.

I’d like to take a moment to look at various ways to async a task and highlight the exception handling issues related to each.  To do this I am going to use the following program framework.  My goal each time is to first see whether an unhandled exception occurs and if so then to handle it appropriately.

...

..."

Thought this a great, in-depth article on async and some the perils and pitfalls of async dev.

Read More

Shaping up Office 2013 with these 300 Visio icon stencil...

Microsoft Downloads - New Office Visio Stencil

This stencil contains more than 300 icons to help you create visual representations of Microsoft Office or Microsoft Office 365 deployments including Microsoft Exchange Server 2013, Microsoft Lync Server 2013, and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013.

Version: 1.0
Date published: 12/18/2012

Language: English

FLEX_Stencil_121412.vss, 3.9 MB

Creating visual representations of your Microsoft Office and Office 365 architectures, including Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync is a helpful way to communicate your deployment. This Visio stencil provides more than 300 icons -- many depicting servers, server roles, services and applications -- that you can use in architecture diagrams, charts, and posters. These icons are primarily centered around deployments of Microsoft Exchange Server 2013, Microsoft Lync Server 2013, and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 as well as hybrid Office 365 deployments of aforementioned technologies.

..."

With all the Office 2013, Office 365 news this, and in recent, weeks I can image that a few of you will be creating docs and diagrams that might need some 2013 wave look and feel... sorry for not including a screenshot, but I just realized I don't have Visio on this box. What! I know! Guess when I get to a fat pipe, it's time to download it (or maybe jump to Office 2013... hum... ;)

Read More

Today's LINQPad fun, SelectExcept! (a tip on selecting all the fields, except...)

Managing My Technical Mess - Use SelectExcept When You Are Too Lazy To Type

"Do you love LINQPad?  Use it every day?  Do ad-hoc queries non-stop against your DataContexts?  Love C#/LINQ’s ability for anonymous object projections into new forms?  I’m assuming you said yes to all those.  Here is the question that drives this post…do you hate having to type *every* field *except* one (or a few) when you *only* need almost all fields?  If you answered yes to that last question or are wondering why I don’t just allow the entire row to be selected/returned, continue reading…

...

..."

A cool, with source, example of leveraging LINQPad and making it conform to your WILL!!! MUAHAHAHA... Oh... sorry... Been that kind of week... :)

Read More

Helping a sick system get better... Five Windows AntiVirus bootable CD's

The Windows Club - 5 Free Bootable AntiVirus Rescue CDs for Windows

Some malware cannot be removed from your computer easily, once they get past your anti-virus protection and integrate themselves deeply in your system – sometimes making it unbootable. In such a situation,  it may be advisable to use Rescue CDs. A Rescue CD will help you recover your system by removing nasty threat that resist removal by regular antivirus software.

These CDs perform a scan and removes computer virus without booting the computer system. They then allow you to launch the operating system directly from the CD so that you don’t need Windows to be running on your PC. It is from this CD-based operating system that you are allowed to access and launch your hard drive and all your files.

Most bootable Rescue CD builds are usually based on Linux Live CD distribution, which load a simple operating system to scan malware threats without writing any system files on your hard drive. Some use DOS or a DOS clone such as FreeDOS while some use a cut down version of Windows called the Windows pre-installation environment. Rescue CD’s are usually available in the .ISO image file format and are required to be burnt to a media.

..."

Every couple years, a "friend" needs one of these and I need up searching for one... cached here for future reference.

Read More

Helping you Hadoop with "Hadoop illuminated" the free weBook...

SHMsoft blog - Announcing open access Hadoop book, "Hadoop illuminated"

"Friends, we would like to tell you about an open access book on Hadoop, called "Hadoop illuminated." You can find it here.

We want to make learning about Hadoop and its ecosystem fun and engaging. The book is accompanied by its project on GitHub. The book is work in progress, we consider it in alpha stage. We will be updating and adding to it. Your feedback is welcome.

..."

Hadoop Illuminated

1.1. About "Hadoop illuminated"

This book is our experiment in making Hadoop knowledge available to the open source community. The book is freely available, and its code is open source.

We want this book to serve as an introduction, as a cookbook, and in later parts as an advanced manual.

"Hadoop illuminated" is work in progress. Techniques get added, chapters added and updated. We appreciate your feedback. You can follow it on Twitter, discuss it in on Google Groups, or send your feedback to our emails.

..."

Hadoop is all the rage, right? Maybe this weBook will help you towards wrapping your head around it (or not, but the price is just right anyway...)

Read More

Robert continues to guide us in the right direction... This time with a Visual Studio Extension Guide

Robert MacLean - Visual Studio Extension Guide

This page is meant to provide a one stop shop for the Visual Studio Extensions that are available for Visual Studio 2012. Included here will be only extensions from Microsoft that are available on the Visual Studio Gallery. Some maybe betas, CTPs etc… 

..."

Robert continues his Guide series, this time pointing out a number of long time and brand new Visual Studio extensions...

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Robert's "One Stop VS Update Shop" guide to all things VS 2012 (and related) updates

Read More

IE10 RTW now available for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 (in about a million [95] languages...)

Download Internet Explorer 10

You can download Internet Explorer 10 in the language that matches your version of Windows or choose the English version, which works with all versions of Windows 7.

Internet Explorer system requirements (For Windows 7)

Processor

• Computer with a 1 gigahertz (GHz) 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor.

Operating system

• Windows 7 32-bit with Service Pack 1 (SP1) or higher

• Windows 7 64-bit with Service Pack 1 (SP1) or higher

• Windows Server 2008 R2 with Service Pack 1 (SP1) 64-bit

Memory

• Windows 7 32-bit—512 MB

• Windows 7 64-bit—512 MB

• Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit—512 MB

Hard drive space

• Windows 7 32-bit—70 MB

• Windows 7 64-bit—120 MB

• Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit—200 MB

Drive

• CD-ROM drive (if installation is done from a CD-ROM)

Display

• Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher-resolution monitor with 256 colors

Peripherals

• Modem or Internet connection

• Microsoft Mouse, Microsoft IntelliMouse, or compatible pointing device

Looks like IE10 has shipped!

 

Related Past Post XRef:
IE10 for Win7 is getting closer... and now you can block it. IE10 Automatic Update Blocker Toolkit

Read More

LINQToWiki (yes, even Wikipedia)

Wikipedia - User:Svick/LinqToWiki

LinqToWiki is a library for accessing MediaWiki wikis (including Wikipedia) through the API from .Net languages like C# and VB.NET.

It can be used to do almost anything that can be done from the web interface and more, including things like editing articles, listing articles in categories, listing all kinds of links on a page and much more. Querying the various lists available can be done using LINQ queries, which then get translated into efficient API requests.

The library is strongly-typed, which means it should be hard to make invalid requests and it also makes it easy to discover available methods and properties though IntelliSense

LinqToWiki

LinqToWiki is a library for accessing sites running MediaWiki (including Wikipedia) through the MediaWiki API from .Net languages like C# and VB.NET.

It can be used to do almost anything that can be done from the web interface and more, including things like editing articles, listing articles in categories, listing all kinds of links on a page and much more. Querying the various lists available can be done using LINQ queries, which then get translated into efficient API requests.

The library is strongly-typed, which means it should be hard to make invalid requests and it also makes it easy to discover available methods and properties though IntelliSense.

Because the API can vary from wiki to wiki, it's necessary to configure the library thorough an automatically generated assembly.

...

The best part is the source for the library is available too. That's officailly cool... :)

 

(via reddit - LinqToWiki: A strongly typed library for accessing the Wikipedia API)

Read More

Sacha say IOC you! Sacha Barber presents his BarbarianIOC...

CodeProject - BarbarianIOC : A simple IOC Container

• Introduction
• What Does It Do
  • How Do You Configure The Container
  • Allow For Non IOC Constructor Parameters
  • Constructor Injection
  • Property Injection
  • Resolving Instances
• How Does It Work
  • Registering Instances
    • Registering Concrete Instances
    • Registering Service Instances
    • Specifying The Instance Mode
  • Providing Extra NON IOC Constructor Parameters
  • How The Instance Mode Works
    • Transient Instance Mode
    • Singleton Instance Mode
    • Putting This To The Test
  • Wiring It All Together
  • How Resolving Instance Works
• That's It

Introduction

...

Thing is I have always wanted to try and make one of these  myself, just to see what is involved. I did not want to go too nuts on this, and  just wanted the following really:

1. Instance configuration : singleton / transient
2. Simple registration process, maybe some sort of fluent interface
3. Use the Expression API to compile into delegates for quick creation of  objects
4. Constructor / property injection
5. Provide the ability to accept non IOC held constructor parameters

So those couple of points are ALL I wanted to get working. As I say there are  a whole slew of full fledged IOC containers out there (where I have named a few  above), this articles container is more of a learning exercise, that I thought  I would share, in case anyone else is interested in this sort of thing.

I am calling my container BarbarianIOC as the existing  containers all seems to have these short snappy names, and it's kind of play on  my name, and if you saw me without a shave I do kinda look a bit like a  barbarian.

So there we go. That's essentially what this article is about, but just  before we get into the guts of it, please read this important note below.

IMPORTANT NOTE

I should point out that you should stick to using one of the major IOC containers out there,  as this was an exercise  to see what you needed to do to create your own. That is not to say I am not  happy with it, I totally am, and I think with more tinkering, I could make it  act near enough like one of the "proper" IOC containers out there, but I just know that,  that tinkering will never happen, as I am always  eager to move on to something new. So yeah just stick to using one of the big  "proper" IOC containers out there.

What Does It Do

In this section I will should you how to use BarbarianIOC, and  what that looks like in a typical application

..."

Mare than anything I just like this Project's name... I've been meaning to jump into some real world IOC ("What? Greg, you're not IOC'ing every day in every app? ZOMG!" Yeah, yeah, I know... but my brain is only so big and I'm still trying was out the VB6'ness... sigh.. GC.Collect... GC.Collect.... ;)

Anyway, I like Sacha's past work and have learned a good bit from reading his articles, so this one looks like it's going to my "Must grok soon" list.

Read More

Robert's "One Stop VS Update Shop" guide to all things VS 2012 (and related) updates

Robert MacLean - Visual Studio 2012 Update Guide

This page is meant to provide a one stop shop for the updates that are available for Visual Studio 2012. Included here will be only updates from Microsoft. Some maybe betas, CTPs etc…  If you think I have missed any please contact me!

..."

Robert's put together this awesome guide for VS2012 and related tools/extension upgrade guide. If you're using VS2012, bookmark this, well his, page (You know, you or a co-working are going to need it one of these days...)

Read More

Windows 8 + Kona + Steve = Itinerary Hunter

#WINNING with C# - Windows Store App Example: Itinerary Hunter

Source: https://github.com/stevenh77/ItineraryHunter-Win8

Using KONA as a framework, you can think of KONA as the Windows 8 equivalent of PRISM, I have created a Windows Store App for Itinerary Hunter.

The solution features distinct projects for UI views, UI logic (view models, converters, etc), services and tests.  Interfaces are used throughout to enable mocking for unit tests.

Here’s some screenshots of the app

..."

stevenh77 / ItineraryHunter-Win8

I've not seen to many examples yet of Kona based apps, so when I saw this I wanted to make sure to highlight it...

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Kona, Kona, Kona! [Think P&P dev guidance for composite application WinStore Apps {Yes, like Prism, but not}]

Read More

ClickOnce, Windows 8 and SmartScreen (If you're using ClickOnce, planning on Windows 8 [Desktop] and don't have a CA cert, read this...)

RobinDotNet's Blog - Windows 8 and ClickOnce : the definitive answer

There have been a lot of copies of Windows 8 sold since it came out a few months ago, and the Surface Pro was just released. (In fact, I’m writing this on my brand new Surface Pro, which I really like, but that’s a subject for another time.)

If you’re using ClickOnce deployment, you’re probably wondering how (or if) it’s going to work with Windows 8. I’ve worked with Saurabh Bhatia at Microsoft to ensure that this article will cover what you need to know. We use ClickOnce at GoldMail (whose product is now called Point Across) for our desktop product and VSTO applications, as well as several internal utility applications, so I’ve also tested this on our products to make sure it’s accurate.

If you are hosting your deployment on a file share or on an intranet, you won’t have to make any changes. You can go get ice cream now while the rest of us soldier on.

If you are hosting your deployment on the internet, you will eventually get calls from your customers who have upgraded to Windows 8 or purchased a Windows 8 machine. So let’s talk about that.

I’m not going to talk about the bootstrapper right now; that’s going to come up later. For now, let’s concentrate on the ClickOnce application itself. When a user installs a ClickOnce application on Windows 8, here’s what happens:

...

How will the application work after publishing it with a signed executable?

If you sign your executable and your deployment with a valid certificate from a Certificate Authority like Verisign using one of the methods above, when the user clicks install, it will install without stopping and showing the SmartScreen filter, and updates will do the same. Yay!

Do I have to use a certificate from a Certificate Authority to circumvent the Smart Screen Filter?

Yes.

Is there any workaround?

No.

...."

This is a great article on ClickOnce in the Win8/IE10/SmartScreen filter world. Looks like I'm going to have to pony up and get a real cert, which is not all that bad, but still...

Read More

Wak-A-PST with Microsoft Exchange PST Capture 2.0

Microsoft Downloads - Microsoft Exchange PST Capture 2.0

Microsoft Exchange PST Capture 2.0 is used to discover and import .pst files into Exchange Server or Exchange Online

Version: 15.00.0641.000
Date published: 2/20/2013

Language: English

KB articles: KB2815301

PSTCapture.msi, 11.2 MB

PSTCaptureAgent.msi, 632 KB

PST Capture 2.0 is used to discover and import Outlook Personal Folder (.pst) File Format files into Exchange Server and Exchange Online. PST Capture helps an organization that wishes to gain more control over their email data repositories by placing them into Exchange. By optionally installing PST Capture Agents on target machines, administrators can determine where .pst files are located and who their file owner is via the PST Capture Console. Administrators can import .pst files via Import Lists to Exchange Server or Exchange Online. Data can be directly imported into the primary mailbox or associated archive mailbox.

System requirements

Supported operating systems: Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Vista

• Review the Technical Documentation prior to installation of Microsoft Exchange PST Capture 2.0
• Exchange Server 2010 or Exchange Server 2013, if used to import to Exchange Server 2010 and Exchange 2013 mailboxes or archives
• Exchange Online (Office 365) subscription if used to import to Exchange Online (Office 365) mailboxes or archives
• Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5 or later
• PowerShell 3.0 or later
• Microsoft Outlook 2010 x64 (only required on the host computer where you install the Central Service and Console)

..."

If you have PST Sprawl then you know how cool this might be for you,  if you've ever SELECT PST.* FROM All My PC, Notebooks, Network Shares... then again you'll know how cool this sounds. If not, then move on, nothing for you here... :P

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Recapture your sanity and get a handle on PST sprawl... Microsoft releases free "PST Capture" utility
Ahh.... All those PST's on my network are killing me. I wish I could capture them all and import them... (hint: The Exchange Team has heard your cries and will have something for you soon)

Read More

Excel with Excel without Excel... Seven Excel/XLS Libraries

Ginktage - 7 Libraries for Reading and Writing from/to Excel File in C#

Few months back , I was making an R&D on the possibilities of reading and writing to/from the Excel file from .NET (C#) . At that point of time , I came across various libraries and SDK’s available for Reading and Writing from Excel File in C# .

In this blog post ,I will list some of the libraries used for reading and writing from/to Excel sheet using C#. Note that some of the libraries are free/open source and few are commercial one’s.

...

..."

If you've ever Automated/Inter-op'd Excel, you know that it can be "fun." The primary issue isn't the the Object Model, it's that it's COM and with .Net that can be a challenge to get the Releasing right. Then there's the license requirements, versions, etc.

So in short, if you don't need it, don't use it. As shown above, there's a number of libraries that you can use to read/write Excel files without having Excel installed...

Read More

The All-In-One Framework goes Metro... errr... umm... Modern... um... Windows Store App! One app, 5000+ samples...

Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework - Developers' Pain Killer - Releasing Sample Browser for Windows 8 – Get Your "Hands" on 5000 Amazing Code Samples

Sample Browser 1.0 for Windows 8 is released in the Windows Store today – a new relaxing way for Developers to search, browse, learn and share over 5000 code samples on any Windows 8 devices, including Surfaces! This is a collaborative effort from Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework, Windows 8 Content Publishing Team and MSDN Samples Gallery.

...

With the launch of Windows 8 in October, 2012, a new era of app use experience begins.  The Windows Store app platform and the amazing touch experience on Windows 8 release computer users from the “desktop”.  Developers love code samples, but they have been sitting in front of desktop for too long.  A Sample Browser Windows Store app can give them some time to sit relaxingly in a sofa and continue to learn the beloved code samples.  Mobile agility is another important consideration when we develop the app.  It has to support both online and offline mode.  It has to be easy to find and share code samples.

Today we released the first version of Sample Browser Windows Store app.  The best is yet to come.  The team has a big pipeline of cool features to be added to the app.  We will continue surprising the world of developers as months roll on.

Could a Windows Phone version of Sample Browser be our next milestone in the journey?  We will see.

...

..."

My only wish is that the source for this app was released too. Anyway, I still think it's cool that this team just keeps chugging on, releasing samples every day, providing new and interesting ways to browse these samples and more. You go guys! :)

 

Related Past Post XRef:
All for one, one [Sample Browser for the All-In-One Code Framework for VS2010/VS2012 Extension Updated] for all
The Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework: Five million downloads, three years and one new blog...
Always a sunny day when we get a new All-In-One Code Framework Sample Browser...
All-In-One Code Framework Sample Browser v4 (aka Metro version) now Visual Studio Extension'd (Don't leave your Visual Studio without it...)
The All-in-One Code Framework Browser v4 goes major Metro
All-In-One Code Framework is now on MSDN Code Gallery, has a new sample browser and is cooler than ever
All-In-One Code Framework, your one stop shop for Windows code samples, examples and guidelines
All-In-One Knowledge Base Articles (aka another way to see all the coolness that’s in the All-In-One sample code base)
Three languages, tons of technologies, continual additions, all source: The Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework (think “An Official Boat Load of Code Samples!”) (Added bonus “How can I on earth write a managed shell extension” with .Net 4 sample)

Read More

Modernize your WPF app's with the Modern UI for WPF Templates

Visual Studio Gallery - Modern UI for WPF Templates

A collection of project and item templates for Modern UI for WPF.

Adding a number of Visual C# project and item templates to Visual Studio 2012 for creating WPF applications with a Modern UI look & feel.

New Project Template 'Modern UI WPF Application' available in Visual C#\Windows

New Item Templates in Visual C# Items\Modern UI for WPF

For more information about Modern UI for WPF see http://mui.codeplex.com

Modern UI for WPF

A set of controls and styles converting your WPF application into a great looking Modern UI app. This open source project is a spin-off of XAML Spy, the visual runtime inspector for Silverlight, Windows Phone, Windows Store and WPF. Read the announcement at xamlspy.com.

Make sure you visit the documentation to learn how to incorporate Modern UI for WPF into your application.

Features

• Appearance, configurable at runtime
  • Dark and light theme
  • Accent color
  • Large and small fonts
• New modern controls
  • BBCodeBlock
  • ModernButton
  • ModernDialog
  • ModernFrame
  • ModernMenu
  • ModernTab
  • ModernWindow
  • TransitioningContentControl
• Layout
  • A set of predefined page layouts for a consistent look & feel
• Control styles
  • Styles for common WPF controls, such as Button, TextBlock, etc.
  • All styles automatically adapt the dark and light theme and use accent colors where appropiate
• Project and item templates
  • Visual Studio 2012 project and item templates for creating ModernUI apps as fast and smooth as possible

No need for Modern UI envy if your stuck in a Windows 7 world. Now you can style your WPF app's to mimic the Modern UI look and feel...

Related Past Post XRef:
Making your WPF app look like the Zune client? Yes, you can (and here’s a tip how)
Like the new VS2012 UI style? Here's how you can use like styles in your WPF app..

Read More

The Expression death march continues... Expression Gallery is now locked and going to be killed on March 7th

Just got this email...

A note about the Expression Gallery

You are receiving this note because you are shown as an owner of one or more projects in the Expression Gallery.  As noted on the Expression Gallery home page, on February 14th, 2013 the Expression Gallery was locked, and new contributions will no longer be accepted. On March 7th, 2013, the Expression Gallery will be shut down. The MSDN and Visual Studio galleries are available for posting future items.

At your earliest convenience, please retrieve any project files that you wish to retain from the Expression Gallery, as they will no longer be accessible after March 7^th; you are welcome to resubmit them to the Visual Studio or MSDN galleries

Thanks for your attention.

Here's a snap of the Gallery (for future reference...)

Kind of makes me sad seeing this. It's a shame all that community work is being nuked. Would have been kind of nice to have this auto-magically migrated to one of the two Galleries that are still around. 

 

Related Past Post XRef:
So long and thanks for the all the Expression... Expression Design & Web are End of Life'd (but now free) [oh, and the rest of the Expression Suite is dead too]

Read More

Kevin's Tips To Technology Presentation Perfection. Six tips for to help you toward Demo Mastery

Kevin E. Kline - Demo Mastery for the Technology Evangelist

In the same way that the finest presentations involve much more than the simple relaying of information, the finest software demos are much more than just presenting features.

REMEMBER: The goal of a demo is to INSPIRE the audience to use the software/technology, not to teach them every nuance of software/technology.

I’ve spent the last 10 years learning how to give good presentations and to give good software demonstrations. Here are several tips to take your software demonstration from informative to masterful:

1. Know your audience

2. Start, but only start, with an agenda

3. Skip the lengthy intro

4. Show what is pertinent

5. Don’t get sidelined

6. Hit the jackpot

...

One day, I might become a Developer/Technology Evangelist (officially... I already kind of am unofficially... just ask anyone I work with... lol) so I like gathering these kinds of tips and tricks.

The best part of sharing this? These tips can be applied to ANY presentation.

Read More

The HTML5 Quick Start For Greg's (err... Dummies... um... err... um.. for the HTML5 Challenged. Yeah. Them)

CodeProject - HTML5 Quick Start Web Application

Background

I started learning more about HTML5 from December last year. Since it was new, talked about and had real good features, I got a jump start from the thought of using it in our upcoming projects and possibly giving a session on HTML5 to my team once I have some good insight on the same. While learning about the HTML5, I started developing a demo web application that was fully HTML5 based with all the new major features that we will be discussing in this article going ahead.

Once the thought of sharing the features in a quick and easy manner hit me, I tried to develop a HTML5 enabled ASP.NET application that would be self sufficient in explaining and showcasing the new HTML5 features - kind of self starter kit to see and play around with the feature implementation straight away post download.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Tools
• Structure
• Forms
• Drag & Drop
• Audio & Video
• GeoLocation
• Web Storage
• Web Workers
• Web Socket
• Canvas
• Offline Application
• Device Support

...

"

Being HTML5 "Challenged" (Man, I seem to say that about a bunch of things don't I? That's why I love my job and the tech space... so much to learn! That's also why I hate the tech space... so much to learn! lol ) I found this article a great read and tool to jump start my HTML5'ness... The best things are the diagrams/snaps/images. they really help demonstrate the point at hand...

Read More

Find your inner App Hero with these two new Windows 8 App Templates

Mark Arteaga - Windows 8 App Templates Released

"For the past month we have been busy putting together some Windows 8 templates to help developers build apps for Windows 8 faster. With the help of Barranger, I have built out two Windows 8 templates with each having a companion backend server.

If you are a regular reader of my blog, your will know that almost everything I do is .NET C#/XAML development.  For these templates, I decided to go the HTML5/CSS/JavaScript route and use WinJS for Windows 8 client apps. On the backend decided to use NodeJS on Windows Azure with a MongoDB data store on MongoLab.

So what templates are being released?

Finder App Template

The Windows 8 Finder App Template is a template developed to allow developers to quickly and easily create a location based type application for the Windows 8 store.  It allows a developer to easily pull existing point of interest data into the app to display on a map.

...

Hero App Template

The Windows 8 Hero App Template is a template developed to allow developers to quickly and easily create an application to collect certain information while out in the field on a Windows 8 device. For example, if a developer wanted to create an app to allow people to submit information on roads needing pothole repairs, the Hero App Template is a good starting point.  The Hero App Template is a derivative of the Windows 8 Finder App Template described above.

...

..."

I thought these two templates interesting in their scope and all the stuff they provide out of the box... Why write it if you don't have too?

 

Related Past Post XRef:
One download of wonderful [Samples] for Windows 8. 258 samples, one'ish download. C++, C#, JavaScript and VB samples all available
Metro XAML and HTML Control Sample Packs (Two downloads, bunches of controls sampled, lots of code examples, hours of...)

Read More

It's a Rap! The Surface Pro Rap, that is...

Go DevMENTAL - The Surface Pro Rap

"The Surface Pro was released on Saturday, enjoy this little rap inspired by the Surface Pro commercial below

...

The rap

(thanks MC Sean I warned you I would post it!)

To rock my business

I needed something fine

So I got a Surface Pro

To make my business shine

Running all my apps

In the modern UI

Jump into desktop mode

Business on the fly

Super sleek and light

Black as the night

Keyboard is the cover

Stand props just right

 

Full Desktop in the day

Keeping competition at bay

Win8 apps at night

Keeping friends real tight

It’s at the Microsoft Store

Or a retailer near you

Supplies running out fast

You best buy two

..."

Come on... you know you want too (rap it, that is... and maybe buy one too, now that they are back in stock... :)

Read More

Microsoft Message Analyzer better in Beta 2 (Gantt viewer, Quick filter, Parsing REST Protocols and more)

MessageAnalyzer - Microsoft Message Analyzer Beta 2 is released (build 5950)!

Install the Beta 2 version from here: https://connect.microsoft.com/site216/Downloads.  You’ll need to be a member of our connection.

This release adds a range of new functionality and resolves a number of bugs:

· IntelliSense UI for filter creation – As one of the most requested features, Filter IntelliSense is now available for exploring protocol message hierarchies to find the fields you need to build filter expressions. The capabilities are vastly improved compared to Network Monitor, now displaying protocols, messages, fields, structures, properties, annotations and more!

· Quick filter - Quick filtering makes it easy to create a time window in which to view trace results!   Unlike BSV, it filters messages in memory after loading them instead of during import.  Just select the traces you want, adjust the time slider as needed, and you are done.  It’s that easy.

· Capture firewall discard events – This feature allows you to discover how the firewall is affecting network traffic.  New messages tell you when traffic is blocked and associated IDs point to the specific firewall rule responsible for dropping the message.

· OPN Viewer – You can right click on any field and select Go to Definition to view the field’s OPN definition.  This feature provides the equivalent functionality of the NPL Viewer in Network Monitor 3.4.

· Parsing REST Protocols – This feature enables you to diagnose and analyze RESTful web services.  RESTful web services are one of the fastest growing network areas.

· Performance improvements:

· Gantt viewer – Do you need to see a bird’s eye view of your message traffic?  Message Analyzer now includes a highly customizable Gantt Viewer that provides easy-to-use navigation, zooming, and the ability to drill down into further details, as necessary.

· Console viewer – provides an interactive command-line interface for filtering, sorting, grouping, and viewing messages collections.

..."

Lots of cool features if you're into Network traffic analysis (and who isn't?  :P )

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Goodbye Microsoft Network Monitor... Hello Microsoft Message Analyzer!

Capturing data (cough… passwords… cough) on unsecured wireless isn’t hard… (so don’t use them or SSL it baby!)

Network Monitor (NetMon/NM) 3.3 Released
NetMon Parsers – Existing parsers available and more coming via CodePlex
NetMon API – Capture, Parse and and Capture File Access (with Managed P/Invoke example too)
Network Monitor 3.2 (aka NetMon, NM3) Beta Released – Now with application network conversation tracking UI
NetMon 3.1 Released
Network Monitor 3 (aka NetMon 3, aka NM3) Re-released for Vista
NetMon 3.0 RTW

Read More

Note to Los Angeles Metro (aka subway) riders: Don't block the darn doors...

blogdowntown - Metro continues transit manners campaign with new platform decals

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — A few weeks after Metro beefed up their bike etiquette signs aboard trains, they have continued to promote good public transit manners with new platform decals at the 7th/Metro Center Station.

These floor signs have been placed on red and purple line platforms and are intended to help coordinate the flow of traffic on and off trains, Metro's blog The Source reports.

These decals look like large yellow mats with arrows pointing away from the train, indicating that riders should be let off the light-rail line before new ones board. There are two additional diagonal arrows outside the yellow mat that point towards the train -- telling passengers they should wait to the sides until it's their turn.

Stephen Tu of Metro's rail operations told The Source that the 7th/Metro station is the busiest rail station in the system, and that they already build an extra minute into the subway schedule to account for the large number of boardings at this station. These trial-run floor decals are an attempt to reduce wait times and ease passenger transitions at the station.

..."

<rant>

I know light rail & subways are kind of new to Los Angeles (though we've had them for over a decade) so maybe people don't know the right waiting for a train etiquette, but you know it's really much easier for you to get in, if you wait for the people to get out first (and thereby giving them some room to get off the darn train too). Yeah, I know, people waiting to get on a train, standing right in front of the doors are causing a traffic jam by blocking people from getting off, imagine that! Matter of fact, same rant for elevators too.

Come on people, get a clue. Do you really have the IQ that requires a mat this this to figure this out?

Really?

(sigh... yes, they do... I almost "expressed myself loudly and forcefully" (aka almost lost it) today with people blocking me from getting off the train... TGIF ;)

</rant>

Read More

Adobe Photoshop Source Now Available! (For the 1990 v1.0.1 version... ;)

Computer History Museum - Adobe Photoshop Source Code

When brothers Thomas and John Knoll began designing and writing an image editing program in the late 1980s, they could not have imagined that they would be adding a word to the dictionary.

...

That first version of Photoshop was written primarily in Pascal for the Apple Macintosh, with some machine language for the underlying Motorola 68000 microprocessor where execution efficiency was important. It wasn’t the effort of a huge team. Thomas said, “For version 1, I was the only engineer, and for version 2, we had two engineers.” While Thomas worked on the base application program, John wrote many of the image-processing plug-ins.

With the permission of Adobe Systems Inc., the Computer History Museum is pleased to make available, for non-commercial use, the source code to the 1990 version 1.0.1 of Photoshop. All the code is here with the exception of the MacApp applications library that was licensed from Apple. There are 179 files in the zipped folder, comprising about 128,000 lines of mostly uncommented but well-structured code. By line count, about 75% of the code is in Pascal, about 15% is in 68000 assembler language, and the rest is data of various sorts. To download the code you must agree to the terms of the license.

...

Commentary on the source code

Software architect Grady Booch is the Chief Scientist for Software Engineering at IBM Research Almaden and a trustee of the Computer History Museum. He offers the following observations about the Photoshop source code:

..."

That's just kind of awesome....

Have I downloaded it? You bet!

588k zipped. Nice.

(via Bram.us - Adobe Photoshop 1.0.1 Source Code)

Read More

Microsoft SQL Server Licensing Question? There's a hotline for that...

MSSQLFun - Microsoft SQL Server License Helpline

Microsoft SQL Server license has lots of flavors in terms of user based \ CAL or processor based license, license based on versions or license based on environment (physical or virtual).

Although, Microsoft release license guidelines for each & every SQL server version. But there are more complex scenarios for licensing then we think.

Best person to answer your all queries over licensing is MICROSOFT itself.

[GD: Post Leach level 99%]

Why a snap? I leached enough of Rohit Garg's post, I felt icky leaching that last bit... So an image presents the information but doesn't steal too much from his SEO... well, so I hope anyway. Being a web curator is waling a fine line...

Anyway...

Seems the questions of the ages are Microsoft License/CAL (well actually any big corp software license related...) so when I saw this, the fact that I could call a human and get answers from the horses mouth so to speak, well I knew I had to grab it for future need.

And if you guys can use it too... :)

Read More

Wiki-wiki, here's some popular PowerShell add-ons...

TechNet Wiki - Popular Add-Ons for PowerShell Users

Just a few of the many add-ons and things you can extended PowerShell with, but good ones none-the-less...

Read More

Table Per Type(TPH) Inheritance in Entity Framework, a Beginner's guide oneness (well understanding at least)...

CodeProject - A Beginner's Tutorial on Understanding Table Per Type(TPH) Inheritance in Entity Framework

"Introduction

In this article we will discuss about implementing Table per Type inheritance hierarchy using Entity Framework. We will see a small sample to see how this can be implemented in a step by step manner.

Background

There are times when our database design has tables that do not logically match with the entities that we need in our application. There could be chances that the database has too many or too few tables than the entities required logically by the application. Some other times when the tables are created one per logical entity but the relationship between them is not logical from the application and entity perspective.

Inheritance in entity framework provides a way to create the required logical entities to act on a set of database tables and also to create a more meaningful relationship between entities using inheritance.

There are three type of inheritance relationships in the entity framework. Table per type(TPT), Table per hierarchy (TPH) and Table per concrete type(TPC).

In this article we will try to look at the Table per Type inheritance relationship because from an efficiency standpoint this tends to be the efficient(comparatively) and this provides a great way to model the tables having one to one relationships.

...

..."

Since I'm an EF newbe, I can use all the Idiots Beginner's guides I can get... :)

Read More

Gaming up a story with the PowerPoint Game Design Storyboard Shapes...

Visual Studio Gallery - Storyboard Shapes - Game Design Shapes

"Use these shapes to visualize your game and then connect them to the Team Foundation Server

This is the first of a number of icons that you could use to design your games.  This is not intended to be used in place of your final graphics, but allows you to determine what graphics you need and to explain your work goals.

For connectors in Storyboarding, use the "shapes" and select a connector.  The Storyboard shapes do not normally have connectors. If you are used to using Visio that can be confusing.

This will aid in showing non-app devs what your plan of work is for your game.  This storyboard might be improved overtime since it needs improvement.

..."

Storyboarding in PowerPoint/VS2012 has saved me untold hours of effort... There's just nothing like showing a user a near-app like view of what you THINK they are asking for (and getting back, "Oh no, not THAT! Now that I see it, I'd...")

Here's a snap of more of the shapes in this pack;

Read More

Glima!... Gilma v3 is a .Net 4.0 update...

CodeProject - Gilma - GUI for the ILMerge Application Revised for .NET 4.0

Introduction

I saw the beautiful interface made by Tomer Shalev on the SourceForce Web site and thought I could rewrite it in a self-contained way. The original Tomer Shalev's Gilma is a front-end application to ILMerge: Microsoft's command-line utility that can be used to merge multiple .NET assemblies into a single assembly. ILMerge is freely available from Microsoft's Web site.
ILMerge's license does allow commercial usage.

In my implementation, the snapshot of which you can see in the image above, I have referenced the ILMerge executable directly in Visual Studio 2010.

Using the Code

The MSI file contained in the demo installs the application. .NET 4.0 Client profile and the 3.1 Installers are pre-requisites. In the source zip, the entire Visual Studio 201 project is contained.
The only thing to point out is the presence of the possibility to use a strong key in the preferred *.snk format to digitally sign the assembly.

...

I last blogged about Gilma five years ago (Gilma - GUI for ILMerge Branched for .Net 2.0). I guess it's okay to blog about it again, now... :)

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Want to ILMerge but you're building a WPF app? Resource them baby!
ILMerge get's a rev...
Have a bunch of referenced DLL’s cluttering up your deployment? Just say no and ILMerge them…
Automate ILMerge'ing - Using Project Attributes to mark an Assembly for merging and then MSBuild to ILMerge them...
Gilma - GUI for ILMerge Branched for .Net 2.0
VS2005 Power Toys Pack Installer
MSBuild and ILMerge
"Gilma - GUI for ILMerge Application"
ILMerge Updated
The Code Project - Merging .NET assemblies using ILMerge - .NET

Read More

"Official" Surface Getting Started Guide (free 68 page PDF) is now available...

Microsoft Press - Quick news: Surface Getting Started Guide now available

Greetings, gang. Just wanted to let you know about this guide to the Microsoft Surface, which was published yesterday. You can download the 68-page PDF (1.35 MB) here: Surface_Getting_Started_guide.pdf

Surface Getting Started Guide

Here's the table of contents...

Am resisting the urge to insert a snarky comment about how nice this PDF might have been 90+ days ago with the release of the Surface RT device... must... resist...

Read More

You've heard of ASCII Art? How about DNS Art!?

Saving the world, one bug at a time - Hilarious network configuration

"I call this DNS art :) Try running this from a cmd prompt:

tracert -h 99 216.81.59.173

You'll get something like this:

...

14 150 ms 153 ms 144 ms Episode.IV [206.214.251.1]
15 152 ms 147 ms 143 ms A.NEW.HOPE [206.214.251.6]
16 146 ms 148 ms 147 ms It.is.a.period.of.civil.war [206.214.251.9]
17 147 ms 145 ms 148 ms Rebel.spaceships [206.214.251.14]
18 145 ms 147 ms 150 ms striking.from.a.hidden.base [206.214.251.17]
19 144 ms 150 ms 143 ms have.won.their.first.victory [206.214.251.22]
20 145 ms 142 ms 145 ms against.the.evil.Galactic.Empire [206.214.251.25]
21 143 ms 145 ms 147 ms During.the.battle [206.214.251.30]
22 155 ms 153 ms 147 ms Rebel.spies.managed [206.214.251.33]
23 156 ms 146 ms 153 ms to.steal.secret.plans [206.214.251.38]
24 145 ms 148 ms 146 ms to.the.Empires.ultimate.weapon [206.214.251.41]
25 142 ms 171 ms 145 ms the.DEATH.STAR [206.214.251.46]
26 171 ms 146 ms 153 ms an.armored.space.station [206.214.251.49]
27 157 ms 151 ms 142 ms with.enough.power.to [206.214.251.54]
28 161 ms 148 ms 144 ms destroy.an.entire.planet [206.214.251.57]
29 148 ms 150 ms 149 ms Pursued.by.the.Empires [206.214.251.62]
30 144 ms 145 ms 147 ms sinister.agents [206.214.251.65]
31 146 ms 142 ms 146 ms Princess.Leia.races.home [206.214.251.70]
32 152 ms 149 ms 147 ms aboard.her.starship [206.214.251.73]
33 151 ms 156 ms 145 ms custodian.of.the.stolen.plans [206.214.251.78]
34 149 ms 145 ms 147 ms that.can.save.her [206.214.251.81]
35 149 ms 150 ms 145 ms people.and.restore [206.214.251.86]
36 152 ms 150 ms 148 ms freedom.to.the.galaxy [206.214.251.89]
37 144 ms 151 ms 150 ms 0-------------------0 [206.214.251.94]
38 149 ms 144 ms 151 ms 0------------------0 [206.214.251.97]
39 149 ms 145 ms 149 ms 0-----------------0 [206.214.251.102]
40 148 ms 145 ms 146 ms 0----------------0 [206.214.251.105]
41 146 ms 144 ms 160 ms 0---------------0 [206.214.251.110]
42 150 ms 151 ms 146 ms 0--------------0 [206.214.251.113]
43 145 ms 147 ms 147 ms 0-------------0 [206.214.251.118]
44 147 ms 148 ms 148 ms 0------------0 [206.214.251.121]
45 149 ms 149 ms 147 ms 0-----------0 [206.214.251.126]
46 146 ms 149 ms 153 ms 0----------0 [206.214.251.129]
47 146 ms 143 ms 149 ms 0---------0 [206.214.251.134]
48 150 ms 149 ms 148 ms 0--------0 [206.214.251.137]
49 149 ms 153 ms 148 ms 0-------0 [206.214.251.142]
50 169 ms 146 ms 147 ms 0------0 [206.214.251.145]
51 149 ms 111 MS 260 ms 0-----0 [206.214.251.150]
52 204 ms 166 ms 204 ms 0----0 [206.214.251.153]
53 160 ms 153 ms 169 ms 0---0 [206.214.251.158]
54 181 ms 150 ms 147 ms 0--0 [206.214.251.161]
55 160 ms 150 ms 149 ms 0-0 [206.214.251.166]
56 163 ms 151 ms 151 ms 00 [206.214.251.169]
57 150 ms 153 ms 152 ms I [206.214.251.174]
58 150 ms 149 ms 149 ms By.Ryan.Werber [206.214.251.177]
59 152 ms 152 ms 151 ms When.CCIEs.Get.Bored [206.214.251.182]
60 160 ms 124 ms 129 ms  read.more.at.beaglenetworks.net [206.214.251.185]
61 151 ms 150 ms 149 ms FIN [216.81.59.173]

..."

How did I do the Starwars Traceroute?

How did I do the Starwars Traceroute?

Bored, and in a blizzard in Boston; I was inspired by my IRC friend 'Plazma' constantly making fun of my reverse dns of scrye.net, I came up with this pretty neat hack.

It is accomplished using many vrfs on (2) Cisco 1841s. For those less technical, VRFs are essentially private routing tables similar to a VPN. When a packet destined to 216.81.59.173 (AKA obiwan.scrye.net) hits my main gateway, I forward it onto the first VRF on the "ASIDE" router on 206.214.254.1. That router then has a specific route for 216.81.59.173 to 206.214.254.6, which resides on a different VRF on the "BSIDE" router. It then has a similar set up which points it at 206.214.254.9 which lives in another VPN on "ASIDE" router. All packets are returned using a default route pointing at the global routing table. This was by design so the packets TTL expiration did not have to return fully through the VRF Maze. I am a consultant to Epik Networks who let me use the Reverse DNS for an unused /24, and I used PowerDNS to update all of the entries through mysql. This took about 30 minutes to figure out how to do it, and about 90 minutes to implement. All VRFs and DNS were generated by a PHP script. 
..."

That's pretty darn funny...

Read More

Adding a 4th row of Windows 8 Start Screen tiles to any 1366x768 display (i.e. a Surface RT or standard notebook...)

Kurt Shintaku's Blog - INFO: Adding a 4th row of tiles to the Start page of Surface for Windows RT

What you need to do is:

1. Open the Registry via the desktop using REGEDIT.EXE
2. Create the following key[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\
   CurrentVersion\Explorer\Scaling]
3. Create the following String value in this key:
   MonitorSize="12.1"
4. Reboot

Don’t fully know all the side effects of this change, other than the keyboard getting a bit smaller and the fonts looking a little less sharp.  You can however roll back the changes by removing the Scaling key.

..."

I've seen this tweak republished in a number of spots this past week and thought, "Hey, I wonder if this will work on my notebook? A 11x Alienware?"

Yep, is sure did! Here's a snap of my start screen...

BTW, the MonitorSize is a REG_SZ (i.e. a "string value")

Having that extra row is nice, real nice when running on a non-touchscreen device... Remember though, that your mileage may vary and that there might be a very good reason this isn't the default setting...

For background on this, check out where Kurt gathered this information/tweak from, Windows 8 Release Preview user interface is small on a MacBook Pro with Retina display

Read More