Archive for June, 2010
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/30
It seems quite a few “web 2.0″ apps too have the same glitch: they throw away user input when the first page finishes loading.
This is especially noticeable on slow connections (UMTS, DSL that is a long distance from the phone company, EDGE, GPRS, etc): the connection speeds that a lot of developers don’t seem to test on.
So, the sequence of events goes like this:
- The data entry fields (in this case, from and to location) become visible
- You put the focus on the from field
- You type the from address (I do blind typing)
- You press the tab key to go to the to field (more and more Web 2.0 apps get their tab order right nowadays)
- You type the to address
- You wait until the “GO” button becomes visible
- The Web 2.0 app keeps loading
- It erases the “from” and “to” fields that you just typed
Or more general:
when you start typing in a Web 2.0 app which is still loading, almost all the times you loose your input.
And since there is usually no visual clue when the Web 2.0 app has finished loading, you have to wait until you feel comfortable not loosing your input.
Bad!
Examples that get this wrong:
Please add your own in the comments…
–jeroen
Posted in Development, Opinions, Software Development, UI Design, Web Development | 1 Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/29
For my own memory: a small script to list SQL Server databases and their data/log files.
"%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\Binn\OSQL.EXE" -S .\SQLEXPRESS -E -Q "select name from sys.databases"
"%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\Binn\OSQL.EXE" -S .\SQLEXPRESS -E -Q "select name,filename from model.sys.sysfiles"
"%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\Binn\OSQL.EXE" -S .\SQLEXPRESS -E -Q "select name,filename from master.sys.sysfiles"
"%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\Binn\OSQL.EXE" -S .\SQLEXPRESS -E -Q "exec sp_msforeachdb 'select ''?'',name,filename from ?.dbo.sysfiles'"
SQL Server maintains a list of databases in the system table sys.databases.
It also has an unsupported procedure sp_msforeachdb that you can use to investigate for instance performance issues.
In the above example, sp_msforeachdb just builds a statement (filling the ? with the database name) to execute.
–jeroen
Posted in Database Development, Development, SQL Server | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/28
Recently, I had to print multiple months or weeks from within Google Calendar.
The default UI does not allow that, but it is in fact pretty easy to do.
These are the steps to get PDF versions of a whole year.
Edit 20100714: thanks to Kilian Croese, I could explain a few more parameters, and cut out the steps for Fiddler, so it now works with most browsers on most platforms.
All text that is not relevant any more is marked deleted, so you can still read it if you want to use Fiddler.
It works from Google Chrome and Internet Explorer on Windows (FireFox works if you install FiddlerHook) Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Google, Google Apps, Power User | 17 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/25
Recently, I had to configure a pretty up-to-date Windows XP SP3 VM with SQL Server 2005 for a proof of concept.
The SQL Server 2005 setup failed consistently on installing MSXML 6.
I tried making the XP VM really up-to-date.
But the SQL Server 2005 setup still failed at the same reason.
In the end it appeared that the MSXML 6 install that is included in the SQL Server 2005 install barfs when MSXML 6 SP2 is already installed. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Database Development, Development, SQL Server | 5 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/24
Recently I took over some system management at a client.
They run Windows 2008 Server x64 and a Windows Server 2008 VM under VMware Server 2.0 and a LAN with some client machines
A lot of things were not covered, backup, power outage, etc, so I’m implementing those step by step.
They now have an APC UPS connected through USB.
There are a lot of references on the internet about the APC software (well, more like UPS vendor supplied software in general) being crap.
Luckily, Windows Server 2008 (and 2003) have built-in support for APC UPSes.
Furthermore when Windows Server shuts down, VMware Server needs to perform some actions on the guests as well.
This post covers the configuration of both 
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Power User, VMware | 2 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/23
Sometimes you want to hava a NIC in a VMware VM to have a static MAC address in stead of a dynamically generated one.
This sanbarrow.com page explains what to change in the VMX configuration file.
From:
ethernet0.addressType = “generated”
ethernet0.generatedAddress = “00:0c:29:40:7e:22″
ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset = “0″
To:
ethernet0.addressType = “static”
ethernet0.address = “00:50:56:3e:86:29″
VMware also has a few docs on this for workstation and ESX installs and a KB article for both.
–jeroen
Posted in Power User, VMware | 1 Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/22
I always seem to forget the solution for the error messages about DsgnIntf or DesignIntf.dcu not found when porting old (D# projects) to new (D####) projects.
Googling for this always gets a few false hits at the top, so for my memory,
here it is: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Component Development, Delphi, Designer Development, Development, Package Development, Software Development | 2 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/21
One of the things I use most when writing blog entries is in WordPress the “Alt-Shift-A” keyboard shortcut (the “Insert/edit link” button in the toolbar).
This used to work fine in Google Chrome (my favourite browser), but now it fails, well sort of.
This is what happens: when you perform the Edit/Insert action, you see only a blank popup window, and a wait cursor for about 30 seconds, then you see the final Insert/Edit link popup window.
I’m not sure it is because of the new stable build of Chrome, changes in the WordPress.com engine or the Vodafone UMTS network (I’ll explain below why).
It does work fine in these current browser versions:
I have put FireFox last, as the WordPress.com engine does not always works nice (kinds of display issues).
So back to IE for editing WordPress posts for at least a while…
Finding the cause
The reason I’m not sure that I’m not sure what caused this issue is that both WordPress.com and Google Chrome recently got updates:
Since I could not find similar stories on the internet about my problem, I’ve played around a bit with Fiddler 2, and found that the difference between the Insert/Edit link feature in Google Chrome and Internet Explorer is that Google Chrome tries to load this link
http://1.2.3.4/bmi-int-js/bmi.js
That obviously fails, but I have not found out why it is loaded in Google Chrome and not in Internet Explorer yet.
It might have to do that I recently used the Vodafone UMTS network, and Vodafone runs a transparant proxy messing up with the HTML.
The odd thing is that it fails now, I tried both an ADSL (xs4all ADSL) and a Cable (UPC Fiber Power) connection.
To be continued…
–jeroen
Posted in Google, Power User | 3 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/19
Funny how two completely different products have very similar symbols:
Activia Symbol
Lactacyd Femina Symbol
–jeroen
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/18
Sometimes you want to know which network shares your system exposes to the outside world.
For me (I’m a keyboard addict), the easiest way is to run the “net share” command on the command-line.
The output looks like this: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Power User | 3 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/17
When you do some maintenance on old projects, you sometimes bump into things you have completely forgotten about.
This time it is in Visual Studio 2005, with a WPF app, and messages about App.xml.
Since there are few threads covering this problem, so I’m not sure how many people bump into this.
I know that the problem does not limit itself to C#; I have seen people in VB.NET and Delphi.net bump into this as well.
This problem is not limited to Visual Studio 2005, some people also have it in Visual Studio 2010.
Some people also have it with other objects than App.xaml (like Windows1.xaml, etc).
If you get this error, the solution is simple:
- perform a “Clean Solution”,
- then run your app again.
This trick has worked for me every time I bumped into it. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in .NET, C#, Delphi, Development, Prism, Software Development, Visual Studio and tools, WPF | 2 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/17
My favourite pointing device: xkcd: Appropriate Term.
Posted in About, Opinions, Personal | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/16
When you want to support long pathnames on Windows, you need to watch for the MAX_PATH limitation.
Some tools, like RoboCopy (developed in C++), Beyond Compare (developed in Delphi) and others get it right.
Getting it right does not depend in your development environment: it is all about calling the right API’s with the right parameters.
Let me take a tool – in this case DropBox, though other tools suffer from the same problem – and investigate how they should do it.
Even though DropBox is cross platform, the Windows version of DropBox limits itself to synchronizing files having less than 260 characters in their path.
This is a big drawback: it is so 20th century having a limitation like this. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in .NET, Delphi, Development, Opinions, Software Development | 6 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/15
In a lot of network environments, you (still ) find a situation where workstations run a .EXE from a network share.
In these situations, you cannot update the .EXE on the server: you get “Access Denied” errors.
Below is a simple batch-file trick to overcome this.
It kills all the handles that the workstations have to the .EXE
After you have run this batch-file, you can copy the .EXE.
Note:
There still is a small race condition: if between you kill the handles and copying the new .EXE, someone starts the old .EXE Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in CommandLine, Development, Power User, Software Development | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/14
Once every while, I come across an environment where the built-in ZIP support is enabled.
This often is a pain when searching files; searching ZIP files takes very much longer than not.
But sometimes you want to search within ZIP files, so then you need to enable it.
Luckily the top search for disable zip support reveals how to: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Power User | 2 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/11
wget is a great tool for downloading from http, https or ftp.
It works on many platforms, and there is a win32 build of wget.
wget usually works, but when a website requires a referer (lots of them seem to), you need to add the referer option like this:
wget -m -np –referer=http://almico.com/sfdownload.php http://www.almico.com/installspeedfan440.exe
The -m -np part creates an on-disk structure for the url, which you need when downloading a complete tree.
I often find that practical even for single files too.
–jeroen
Posted in Power User | Tagged: wget speedfan | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/10
Sometimes you get an error message “Unable to obtain hardware information” or ”Unable to determine Guest Operating System” when using VMware Converter 4.01.
This happens at least with VMware Converter 4.01 and converting x64 VM’s like “Windows 7″ and “Windows Server 2008 R2″ from ESXi 4 U1.
Others found out it also happens with some Linux VMs, I have not tried those yet.
A the VMware communitie, user wildblue posted a workaround: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in ESXi4, Power User, VMware | 18 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/09
For almost all actions inside the VMware Infrastructure Client UI, you don’t need the “edit…” action.
The only place you need this is in the “Configuration” and “Users & Groups” tabs.
So when you want to enter your ESXi license, you might wonder how to do that.
Well: hit the “Edit…” action on the far right.
Indeed: far right, especially when running 1920×1200 or other high resolutions
I wonder who did the UI design for the VMware Infrastructure Client, and what the reasoning for the placement of the “Edit…” action is.
–jeroen
via: VMware Communities: Where do I enter my ESXi license key? ….
Posted in Development, Software Development, UI Design | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/08
Below are some links for (at the moment of writing) current HDD testing tools from various HDD manufacturers. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Hardware, Power User | 2 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/07
Boy, this feels like yesterday: Play Infocom Games Online.
–jeroen
Via: wired
Posted in Geeky | 1 Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/07
Posted in .NET, C#, Delphi, Development, HTML, Java, Opinions, Software Development, VBS, Web Development, WPF | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/07
Sometimes in Windows 7 you miss the quick launch bar with its’ shortcuts.
How-To-Geek explains to Add the Quick Launch Bar to the Taskbar in Windows 7.
–jeroen
Posted in Power User | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/04
Two weeks ago, Google blog celebrated PAC-MAN’s 30th birthday and the Google logo turned into a playable Pac-Man game.
It was supposed to be up only for 48 hours, but due to the popularity, it got its’ own Google Pacman page.
This is like bing at high school again
–jeroen
Posted in About, Personal | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/04
Recently I had to do some work in Visual Studio 2005 and TFS 2005.
I missed the “Folder Compare” feature on one of my machines, and I was sure it was on one of my others.
This feature is standard in Visual Studio 2008. A very handy feature indeed
Then this post reminded me to install the Team Foundation System Power Tools. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in .NET, Development, Software Development, Visual Studio and tools | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/03
When you try to delete an EISA Hidden Recovery or Diagnostic partion, some options fail:
- DiskMgmt.msc does not show the “delete” option
(the link is for Windows XP, but the – usually very useful – tool has been almost the same for ages)
- DiskPart.exe fails with “Cannot delete a protected partition without the force protected parameter set“
- The free partition managers I tried (Partition Assistant 2.0 Home Edition and EASEUS Partition Master) refuse to install on the x64 editions of Windows (x64 is used more and more at home these days)
Luckily, this thread discusses both problems, and points to this page for a solution with DiskPart.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in CommandLine, Development, Power User, Software Development | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/02
Next to Greasemonkey – the script engine that empowers FireFox and Chrome, there is another very powerful way to enhance your browser:
Bookmarklets.
Bookmarklets are like shortcuts, but they don’t point to a static URL: they add action, usually by some JavaScript.
If the bookmarklet returns a string, then the browser will follow that as a URL.
But the since bookmarklet has access to the current page, it can also perform just a local action.
The cool thing is that most bookmarklets work on almost any popular browser.
These are a few bookmarklets that I use on a regular base, most are from bookmarklets.com: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Development, Power User, Web Development | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/01
After years of doing web-development, I just stumbled on example.com/example.net/example.org second level domain names.
Those are domains meant for documentation or example purposes.
And there is RFC 2606 that documents them.
There are even these first level domain names:
.test/.example/.invalid/.localhost
You’re never too old to learn something new
–jeroen
Posted in Development, Software Development, Web Development | 1 Comment »
