Archive for February, 2012
Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/29
(Note the WordPress bug: you cannot have <Default> in a topic title, but having it in the text is fine, hence the [Default] in the title).
When porting some projects from .NET 1.x to .NET 4.x, I got these two errors:
Error 17 Type 'MyProject.My.MySettings' is not defined.
Error 18 'MyProject' is not a member of '<Default>'.
Both errors in the file ...\My Project\Settings.Designer.vb relative to the MyProject.vbproj file.
This was not the result of something like this Visual Studio 2005 bug, but of how the designer generated files are not being regenerated when you change the root namespace only in the MyProject.vbproj file, not through the IDE.
Steps to reproduce:
- Create a MyProject class library in VB.NET
- In the MyProject.vbproj, change the RootNameSpace into MyNameSpace.MyProject.vbproj
- Build
Lesson learned: when using text compare tools, some .vbproj changes should be propagated through the IDE, not through your favourite text compare tool.
When you change it in the IDE, it regenerates the *.Designer.vb files to reflect the changed namespace.
The solution is simple, in the IDE follow these steps:
- In the Project Options change the RootNameSpace to a dummy
- Build your project
- Chante the RootNameSpace to what you want
- Build your project
–jeroen
via: type “my.mysettings” “is not defined.” – Google Search.
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Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/28
I don’t do P/Invoke often, and somehow I have trouble remembering the value of CharSet to pass with DllImport.
In short, pass CharSet.Auto unless you P/Invoke a function that is specific to CharSet.Ansi or CharSet.Unicode. The default is CharSet.Ansi, which you usually don’t want:
when Char or String data is part of the equation, set the CharSet property to CharSet.Auto. This causes the CLR to use the appropriate character set based on the host OS. If you don’t explicitly set the CharSet property, then its default is CharSet.Ansi. This default is unfortunate because it negatively affects the performance of text parameter marshaling for interop calls made on Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows NT®.
The only time you should explicitly select a CharSet value of CharSet.Ansi or CharSet.Unicode, rather than going with CharSet.Auto, is when you are explicitly naming an exported function that is specific to one or the other of the two flavors of Win32 OS. An example of this is the ReadDirectoryChangesW API function, which exists only in Windows NT-based operating systems and supports Unicode only; in this case you should use CharSet.Unicode explicitly.
–jeroen
via: .NET Column: Calling Win32 DLLs in C# with P/Invoke.
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Posted in .NET, Ansi, C#, Delphi, Development, Encoding, Prism, Software Development, Unicode | 2 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/27
Dang this won’t work:
The ThinkPad W700/W701 DisplayPort is a DisplayPort-only source, not a Dual-Mode source, and thus cannot support the DisplayPort adapter cables.
See also this PDF:
ThinkPad W701, W701ds Multiple Monitor Configurations
Boost productivity, view more data
** DisplayPort to Single-Link DVI (45J7915) or VGA (57Y4393) monitor cables are not supported on the W701 DisplayPort
–jeroen
via: DisplayPort Adapter Cables 45J7915, 57Y4393 Compatibility – ThinkPad W700/W701.
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Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/27
Just as a mental note: it is possible to put 32GB of memory in a ThinkPad W701:
for a while now, 32GB on 2x W701
–jeroen
via: forum.thinkpads.com • Newer 8G memory sticks in a W700, W701, W500, W510 ?.
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Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/24
Recently, I noticed that Scott Adams uses a Wacom Cintiq 24HD to do his art work:
I do all of my drawing directly to the computer screen of my Wacom Cintiq 24HD. I literally feel sympathy for any artist who still works with pen and paper. The system cuts my production time in half and allows me to do better work too. If youre an artist, and youre still drawing on paper, youre like the seventy-year old author who swears by his manual typewriter.
Great gadget that has it price, but loved by artists.
–jeroen
via: Scott Adams Blog: Today I Review Everything 02/10/2012.
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Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/24
Somehow, I have the impression that not all VMware View Client network admins fully read and understand the “PCoIP Protocol Virtual Desktop Network Design Checklist“
That checklist is important, as it is easy to get things wrong and dissatisfy your users without reason (heck, they get worse than mediocre RDP performance experience, so you could’ve saved you the work of PCoIP in the first place).
So please do read the “PCoIP Protocol Virtual Desktop Network Design Checklist“.
It starts with
The PCoIP protocol provides a real-time delivery of a rich user desktop experience in virtual desktop and remote workstation environments.
To ensure a responsive desktop, the PCoIP protocol must be deployed across a properly architected virtual desktop network infrastructure that meets bandwidth, QoS, latency, jitter, and packet loss requirements.
CheckPoint VPN sometimes can be a dork combined with PCoIP. and at least make sure UDP works well over your VPN.
–jeroen
via: ”PCoIP Protocol Virtual Desktop Network Design Checklist“
(Some more backgorund reading and even more)
(fixed typo: one of the PCoIP occurances was PCiOP, luckily, Google knows better 
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Posted in Power User, View, VMware | 2 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/24
I’m in the midst of a big migration traject.
One class of systems involved in the migration is SQL Server 2000 databases (yes, I know that SQL Server 2000 has been in Extended Support mode since April 8, 2008, that’s one of the grounds for migration).
Sometimes, you need SQL Server Enterprise Manager (a plugin to the Microsoft Management Console) to work on those databases to see what needs to be migrated (yes, this should be in the documentation, of which the ultimate form is the system itself 
.
SQL Server Enterprise Manager has a nice feature that you can group SQL Server registration into SQL Server Groups.
However, it also has a limitation: you cannot add the same SQL Server to multiple SQL Server Groups. That is: unless you create an alias on the SQL Server, as aliases are not counted in the “unique” criterion.
Below are the top 2 links I found using “multiple databases” “sql server” ”enterprise manager”. Since I’m not sure the content of those will last, below are the full quotes.
Besides adding a SQL Server Alias (which has other uses as well), the most important steps are “6″ in the first quote, and “1.6″ in the second quote: your alias needs to point to the same IP address (or hostname) as your regular server.
How do I register multiple databases with MS SQL Enterprise Manager?
MS Enterprise Manager does not allow you to register the same database server multiple times. It is sometimes useful to create multiple registrations, if you want to connect to different databases on the same server. To workaround this, follow the steps below.
- Go to Start – Programs – Microsoft SQL Server – Select “SQL Server Client Network Utility”
- Go to Alias Tab
- Click “Add”
- In the “Server alias:” text box, enter a name you want to use to distinguish this database server
- In the “Network libraries:” section, select “TCP/IP”
- In the “Connection parameters” section, change the “Server name:” to your database server, i.e.; mssql01.discountasp.net
- Click OK
Once the Alias is created, you can register it using the same method described in this Knowledge Base article.
How can I open multiple databases in SQL Server Enterprise Manager?
- Create SQL Server Alias
(Please repeat the following steps if you want to open mutiple databases)
- Open SQL Server Client Network Utility.
- When Client Network Utility opens, click on the Alias tab.
- Click on the Add button.
- In the Server Alias text box enter a name for your SQL connection.
- Select TCP/IP under Network libraries
- Enter the IP address of the Server your SQL database is located on, in the Server name text box.
- Click on the OK button.
- Your Server alias will now be configured, click on the Apply button.
- Click on the OK button.
- Create SQL Server Connection in Enterprise Manager
(Please repeat following steps if you want to open mutiple databases)
- Open SQL Server Enterprise Manager.
- When Enterprise Manager opens, right click SQL Server Group and select New SQL Server Registration.
- The Register SQL Server wizard will now open.
- Click on the Next button.
- From the Available Servers drop down menu, select the server alias you created earlier.
- Click on the Add button.
- The server should now be listed under Added servers, click on the Next button.
- When the next dialog box appears select The SQL Server login information that was assigned to me by the system administrator see above.
- Click on the Next button.
- Enter your Login name and Password ? this will be used every time you connect to your SQL server.
- Click on the Next button.
- Ensure that Add the SQL Servers to an existing SQL Server group is selected and SQL Server Group is selected for Group name.
- Click on the Next button.
- When the next dialog box opens you can click on the Finish button.
- Your SQL Connection will now be created.
–jeroen
via:
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Posted in Database Development, Development, SQL, SQL Server, SQL Server 2000 | 1 Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/23
Please one of the WordPress.com support people, contact me through my contact form.
I tried posting this question, but as you can see it is marked as ‘Topic Closed, This topic has been closed to new replies’, and looks empty on your forums’:
Please stop deleting the XML from my
</h1>
Since WordPress deletes anything but the most basic XML from [sourcecode language='xml']
tags:
See http://wiert.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/wordpress-html.doc
When I put that in a WordPress post, it deletes the XML.
It does this for anything but the most basic XML.
Please fix that!
–jeroen
Thanks in advance!
–jeroen
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Posted in Development, SocialMedia, Software Development, Web Development, WordPress, WordPress | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/23
When routing networks, one of the important things to get right is your IP subnets.
Doing the math from your head is hard, and I usually used some subnet calculator web pages, but recently stumbled over the great Bitcricket IP Subnet Calculator.
IP Subnet Calculators … pioneered byby Bitcricket founder J. Scott Haugdahl … rewrite of this tool, improving upon the precedent set by the original with a refreshed GUI, native Windows or Mac operation, and support for IPv6.
As the quote tells, it is running on both Windows and Mac, so I took a quick look and found that the underlying technology is Qt with a C++ application layer. That reminds me of the old Kylix days
–jeroen
via: IP Subnet Calculator – Overview.
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Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/22
When handling SqlExceptions in C#, it is wise to assess the Class, as it indicates the severity.
Some classes are user error, others are fatal, etc.
This extension class will help you:
using System;
using System.Data.SqlClient;
namespace bo.MsSql
{
/// <summary>
/// see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms164086.aspx
/// </summary>
public static class SqlExceptionSeverety
{
public static bool IsInformational(this SqlException sqlException)
{
return sqlException.Class < 10;
}
public static bool IsUserCorractable(this SqlException sqlException)
{
return (sqlException.Class >= 10) && (sqlException.Class < 17);
}
public static bool IsSoftwareError(this SqlException sqlException)
{
return (sqlException.Class >= 17) && (sqlException.Class < 20);
}
public static bool IsFatalSystemProblem(this SqlException sqlException)
{
return sqlException.Class >= 20;
}
}
}
–jeroen
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Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/21
Some links that I found useful for doing FireMonkey and development for OS X or iOS:
–jeroen
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Posted in Delphi, Development, FireMonkey, OS X FMX, Software Development | 2 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/20
Funny how Google Search tries to interpret number sequences as dates:
Download: DirectX Redist (June 2010) – Microsoft Download Center …
www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=8109
29 Sep 1974 – The DirectX redist installation includes all the latest and previous released DirectX runtime. This includes D3DX, XInput, and Managed DirectX …
I almost skipped that search result, as the date was from 1974, but since back then DirectX didn’t even exist, I became curious.
This is the original text from the page that Google tried to interpret: Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/18
Tonight these most StackExchange sites have maintenance, including their bogs and meta sites (the chat sites like http://chat.stackoverflow.com/ are on-line). I checked these to be off-line, most of the bigger table below are offline too.
Later I will amend this post with the HTML and try to get some site previews too.
A bit later I got this kind of message from Chrome, that tried to protect one of the sites:
Error 139 (net::ERR_TEMPORARILY_THROTTLED): Requests to the server have been temporarily throttled.
Note that http://askubuntu.com/ is up and running Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/17
Interesting:
JustDecompile is a new, free developer productivity tool for easy .NET assembly browsing and decompiling.
–jeroen
via: Free .NET Decompiler – JustDecompile.
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Posted in .NET, C#, C# 2.0, C# 3.0, C# 4.0, Development, Software Development, VB.NET | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/17
Lovely comic for this Friday afternoon:
/* Sent by Muriel Godoi */
Programmer: I developed a new way to generate random strings…
A. P.: How? It’s based on processor’s clock?
Programmer? No… Just let the trainee using the “VI” and asked him to close it…
A. P.: Effective…
–jeroen
via: A Programmer’s Life | /* Code lines of a programmer’s life */
A Programmer's Life | /* Code lines of a programmer's life */
.
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Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/17
Karateka cover art
I remember playing Karateka for ages when I was at high school (yes, I’m 42 and counting <g>). Even with the bad eye-hand coordination I have, it was still fun to play (as was Lode Runner). Now it looks like there is going to be a remake of Karateka:
After a stint in film, Jordan Mechner, a legendary game developer who created The Prince of Persia blockbuster video game series, is coming back into video games to remake his 1980s hit Karateka.
…
Mechner created Karateka in 1984 on the Apple II computer. He made the game while attending Yale University and won kudos for the title’s realistic animations. The game sold more than 500,000 units, which is outstanding for the early days of video games.
“It is amazing to me how many people still remember Karateka and talk about it after all these years,” Mechner said in an email. “Somehow, the 1980s seem to be in the air again. People ask me about Karateka on my website all the time, and I keep seeing videos and retrospectives of the original game posted online. I was astonished when I was in Moscow at a press conference for the Prince of Persia movie opening in 2010, and Russian journalists asked questions about Karateka.”
–jeroen
via: Prince of Persia creator returns to games with remake of Karateka | VentureBeat.
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Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/16
Lately I’m finding more and more false positives in my Google Mail Spam folder.
I’ve manually catched mails from these domains:
- ns.nl
- barnsten.com
- malwarebytes.org
- apple.com
- linkedin.com
So: if you are awaiting mail from me, please send me an SMS or tweet me.
Note I am still glad with the Google Mail SPAM filtering, as it catched very authentic looking fake messages from ING Bank, ABN AMRO Bank, xs4all internet, and numerous others.
–jeroen
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Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/16
Somewhere the last couple of days, Google or Google Chrome has changed the default search URL.
I thought I had a webhp rootkit issue, possibly related to Avast, but it wasn’t (I posted at the Avast forums, and later replied the issue had solved itself, but I still wonder about the real cause).
What happened was that some page I had open in Google Chrome (all other web browsers were fine) forced the redirect.
I can only reproduce this on one system (that has both Avast! Antivirus installed, and Chrome open with the page http://www.eggheadcafe.com/searchform.aspx?search=Cross+Join+Excel) but not on other machines.
So far, it took me about a day of work (quarantining the machine, investigating if it was a virus, rootkit or otherwise, trying to verify this is a one off), and I still feel I don’t have the complete answer yet.
I still wonder if others have seen similar issues.
This is how it redirected
The defaults have a truckload of junk around them, but come down to the URLs below (lmgtfy is the search phrase)
It used to be of this form (which now again works, after I closed all Google Chrome pages)
The redirect made it into a longer webhp form:
The fun thing is, that if you enter the form
then you will end at the Google Search home page with the search phrase pre-filled in.
Now that is a pretty nifty “let me Google that for you”
–jeroen
via: Google.
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Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/16
If you haven’t seen Jason announce this in the general Delphi 3rd party newsgroup or his announcement thread on the FaceBook Delphi Developer group yet, this is a definitive must read:
Jason Southwell (from arcana) just published DuckDuckDelphi: a unit to do Duck typing in Delphi XE2 (not XE):
Duck Duck Delphi
DuckDuckDelphi is an Open Source (MIT License) unit for Delphi XE2 which adds duck typing functionality to a normally strongly typed language.
Great stuff that makes a truckload of my code so much easier to maintain.
–jeroen
via arcana – DuckDuckDelphi.
(Edit: 1400 UTC+1 Sorry, wrong boolean; wrote “and” but should be “not” XE).
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Posted in Delphi, Delphi XE2, Development, Software Development | 8 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/15
Recently the Android Design site was launched with great explanation on how to properly design UIs for Android Apps.
Like Apple’s iOS Human Interface Guidelines and Microsoft’s User Experience Design Guidelines for Windows Phone they are a must for any mobile developer.
Together with sites like Android UI Design Patterns, and mockup stencil tools, more Android UI mockup sketch tools and stencils allow you to give prospective users an impression on how an app might be looking like when developed.
What is lacking is a set of real Android GUI design tools. The kind of tools like the Xcode Interface Builder for iOS, or Expression Blend for Windows Phone that – together with iOS PSD templates or Windows Phone design templates (and more templates) – give you a killer start.
Also note Delphi XE2 that has a great UI designer which has consistently covered Windows UI design for 15+ years, including multi-touch and gesture support, and now covers Mac OS X and iOS for HD and 3D apps (but not yet with multi-touch or gesture support).
The only design tool for Android I could find is DroidDraw that emits the XML needed for Android UIs. It is painfully slow and lacks basic things like a property window to edit properties of UI elements.
Given the number of Android app developers, there is much room for improvement.
- Am I missing something here?
- What kind of tools are you using?
–jeroen
via: Android Design – UI Overview.
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Posted in .NET, Android, Delphi, Development, iOS Development, Mobile Development, Software Development, Windows Phone Development | 6 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/14
![What’s new in .NET Framework 4.5? [poster] (via Heikniemi Hardcoded)](http://www.heikniemi.net/hardcoded/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/WhatsNewNET45-en1.png "What’s new in .NET Framework 4.5? [poster] (via Heikniemi Hardcoded)")
I love the “Async ja Await equal to C#” in the picture and the copy-paste re-use in this blog entry from msguy.
Jouni Heikniemi originally posted “What’s new in .NET Framework 4.5 [poster]” on 20111029, then updated the poster on 20111116.
His original poster is Finnish, and his English poster contains a small translation glitch ”Async ja Await equal to C#” (“ja” is Finnish for “and”).
Both posters are PNG filess, so msguy Anil made it into a textual document, including the translation glitch.
I love that, as it shows we are all humans
–jeroen
via: Bruno Leonardo Michels – Google+.
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Posted in .NET, .NET 4.5, C# 2.0, C# 5.0, Software Development | 2 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/13
From the English Philips HMP7001 User manual page 25:
Install Philips SimplyShare on the Android device
- Make sure that you have connected the Android device to the Internet. EN 25
[ Consult the user manual of your Android device for information.
- On the Android device, install SimplyShare:
a Go to the Android Market;
b Search for, download, and install SimplyShare.
Play media from the Android device
- Make sure that you have connected the player to the same Wi-Fi network as your Android device.
- On the Android device, go to SimplyShare from the Home screen:
SimplyShare, enter the activation code 74963893 as prompted.
Thanks Toengel for this info.
–jeroen
via: Philips HMP7001 User manual
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Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/11
The start of the thread comments:
Karsten Liljegren about 24 hours ago
I was one of the Boeing pilots on this record setting flight. 19 hours and 22 minutes block to block (and 10408 Nautical Miles)… The longest ETOPS endurance test flight ever!
Air Traffic Control was fantastic and very accommodating. – Thank you!
The airplane performed flawlessly. As a matter of fact – we didn’t even top off the fuel tanks.
Karsten
Boeing Test and Evaluation
A few days after it flew from KPAE to KBFI, it took a 19+ hour ETOPS test flight from KBFI to KBFI and adding a new drawing to the list of previous drawings by other aircrafts.
Some links:
–jeroen:
via: FlightAware > BOE236 787 drawing a Boeing logo on FlightAware.
BOE236 787 drawing a Boeing logo on FlightAware
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Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/10
Helaas is het computercollectief in de oude vorm failliet, maar ik heb wel warme herinneringen aan hun gloriedagen in de jaren ’80 en ’90 van vorige eeuw.
Opgericht in 1979, is er nu alleen nog een door Mensys gerunde webshop (op dit moment nog steeds in houde stijl, zou dat ooit gaan wijzigen)
Dit is een stukje van me uit hun nieuwsbrief van september 1997, toen het “internet” zoals we nu kennen net een paar jaar begonnen waren en de eerste zoekmachines nog in de kinderschoenen stonden.
Toen was ik al een power user en life hacker, en zaten er meer taalvauwdten in mijn teksten dan nu
Even een paar puntjes die ik bij mijn zoektochten op het internet gebruik:
- zoeken valt vaak tegen; het duurt meestal vrij lang en het is niet eenvoudig te vinden wat je zoekt
- de ‘traditionele’ zoek-engines (yahoo, alta-vista, etc) zijn goed voor het vinden van bedrijven en dergelijke, maar niet voor het vinden van personen, technische vraagstukken, etc
- www.dejanews.com is een zoek-engine op (bijna) alle newsgroups. Deze werkt vaak veel beter dan de traditionele zoek engines. Je zoekt hier een paar threads die over je onderwerp gaan. Vaak staan hier al genoeg verwijzingen naar sites/personen/informatie die je zoekt.
- hou een goede favourites list bij van sites waarvan je weet dat ze voor jou waardevolle informatie hebben. Loop de lijst af en toe door om te kijken of de sites niet verhuisd zijn en zo.
- neem een abonnement op een paar goede nieuwsbrieven en kijk eens rond op news-sites (ik heb zelf een abonnement op onder meer de nieuwsbrieven comcol, broekhuis update, web-wereld nieuws, dutchmedia, daily planet en news-sites www.webwereld.nl, www.news.com, www.techweb.com, www.pcweek.com).
- er zijn informatieleveranciers (bijvoorbeeld Encyclopedia Britannica) waar je een abonnement op kunt nemen. Kan erg handig zijn.
De praktijk leert dat het je zo een paar uur tijd kost om iets te vinden wat je zoekt. Vraag je van te voren af of het je die tijd wel waard is en alternatieven niet beter zijn (telefoontje naar iemand waarvan je weet dat ie het weet doet ook vaak wonderen).
Niet alle bovenstaande links bestaan meer, en ook niet alle bedrijven bestaan nog in hun oude vorm. Zo heet PC Week tegenwoordig eWeek, Deja news is tegenwoordig Google Groups, en Alta Vista is van Yahoo.
–jeroen
via: Tips en commentaar 290997.
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Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/09
Lets start post 800 by mentioning it took quite a bit of time to solve the connection problem to VDI. I hope it will help others, and if I ever run into this again myself: now I know where to look
Some clients make heavy use of VMware VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) which moves the desktop into the VMs in the data center.
A while ago I spent most of the day tracking down a “Connect Desktop Failed” error with VMware View Client running on a Windows 7 x64 workstation to connect to a VDI VM. It would connect to the VDI server, authenticate, start the Desktop, but could not connect to the Desktop.
The amazing thing is that the VMware view client worked fine on an XP VM workstation (with and without SNX) XP physical machine with SNX, and another Windows 7 x64 VM workstation (also with and without SNX) and Windows 7 x64 physical machine with SNX.
Clearly something was wrong with this particular Windows 7 x64 workstation that is host of most of my development VMs so I didn’t want to do a re-install.
I tried many obvious things on the Windows 7 x64 workstation:
- reboot
- disable firewall
(that would have indicated some of the ports required by VMware view were not open: in practice not all ports mentioned in the list are used)
- uninstall software from various vendors that might interfere with network activity
- disabled virus scanner
- step down from VMware View Manager 5 client to VMware View Manager 4.6 client
- circumvented SNX (CheckPoint SSL VPN extender) making sure I was on the same WAN and later LAN of the VDI
- verified twice I had indeed Windows 7 SP1 applied
- laughed about the SSE support required by VMware view client
Since the “Connect desktop failed” does not return many English search results, I started browsing the Russian ones. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/08
Most Batch files for detecting Windows versions try to parse the either the output from VER or the output from SYSTEMINFO, but forget that there many Windows installations are not English. Some even use WMIC, but WMIC is only available for administrators and not available some flavours like XP Home.
Languages issues are always important to watch for. The Dutch Windows XP returns Microsoft Windows XP [versie 5.1.2600] which is just one word different from the English Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]. Other languages may differ even more.
This batch file tries to circumvent the language differences, uses VER and works at least with Dutch and English Windows versions of XP and 7, most likely with many other languages and versions as well.
On a Windows XP SP3 machine, it lists WindowsVersion=5.1.2600 and on a Windows 7 SP1 machine it lists WindowsVersion=6.1.7601.
One possible addition would be to detect x64 or x86.
The detection assumes that VER will emit the version in [angle] brackets, and uses two batch file for loops to get the text in between them using the tokens and delims for loop parameters in the first for loop right behind the begin label and the second for loop right after the parse1 label.
Then it splits the remaining text using spaces at the parse2 label, and takes the right most portion using the shift command at the parse3 label.
Many thanks to Rob van der Woude for a lot of interesting batch file documentation. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Batch-Files, Power User, Scripting, Software Development, Windows, Windows 7, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/07
When Google searching, most results for the Outlook 2003 Signature Folder Location AppData give you the wrong folder.
They mix environment keys like UserName, UserProfile, but should use AppData as that has been the base since at least Windows XP.
This is the correct folder for any Outlook version (2003, 2010, etc): %appdata%\Microsoft\Signatures
Making sure you use the right environment variable is very important, especially in large Windows based environments that often use roaming profiles and a mix of Windows environments.
For instance, at a client they have a mixed environment of Windows XP and Windows 7, with separate AppData locations for the two on a LAN:
- Windows XP:
\\server\DFS\share\Application Data
- Windows 7:
\\server\DFS\share\Application Data.v2
There is a very nice Wikipedia article on the Windows Environment variable that explains this situation in the synopsis.
–jeroen
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Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/06
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Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/03
Interesting observation at IronGeek on using hooking a Dell XPS L502X laptop to a VGA beamer:
After doing some playing around, I figured out it would not connect to a monitor or projector that did not send EDID or DDC2 info.
Lesson learned: if you run a Windows 7 laptop other than a Mac, and the laptop has a Mini DisplayPort adapter (like a Dell XPS L502X) and want it to connect to a VGA monitor, then get the StarTech model MDP2VGA adapter. It just always works, whereas a Mac Mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter won’t work on systems not providing EDID or DDC2 info.
–jeroen
via Mini-DisplayPort on New Dells: Resolving issues with output to projectors in Windows 7.
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Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/02
Handy when copy-pasting stuff from the Web or Word Processor and your tools keep too much formatting:
HTML Tags Stripper is designed to strip HTML tags from the text. It will also strip embedded JavaScript code, style information (style sheets), as well as code inside php/asp tags ()
Edit:
John Kaster indicated that http://ckeditor.com/demo works nicely too, but I could not get their “paste from word” to emit nice clean un-styled HTML for me.
WordOff does work, and cleans away all the HTML tags (I with it didn’t clean structure tags and anchor tags, which you can keep with HTML Tags Stripper).
–jeroen
via :: Strip HTML Tags :: Online Tools.
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