Below is a list of PDF printer drivers, some of which I still need to check out.
Anyone having additions to the list or comments, please be welcome. Read the rest of this entry »
Archive for September, 2010
Dropbox – Why cant I establish a secure connection? –
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/09/16
Dropbox can show you this message when it can’t update (and the icon in the system tray gets a red cross 
):
can’t establish a secure connection
In my case, it was because I was using the Fiddler2 tool to debug some web-traphic.
Fiddler intercepts the WinInet API layer by putting itself as a proxy in it.
The great thing is that Fiddler2 can hook HTTPS traffic.
The not so cool thing is that I forgot that DropBox routes its’ HTTPS traphic through the WinInet API too :-)
Disabling Fiddler2 enabled DropBox to start connecting 
again and finally making a good connection 
.
As soon as DropBox has a good connection, you can restart Fiddler2 again to debug your internet traffic.
–jeroen
via: Dropbox – Why cant I establish a secure connection? –.
Share this:
Posted in Development, Fiddler, Power User, Software Development, Web Development | Leave a Comment »
SQL Server: alternative to “ALTER TABLE TableName ALTER COLUMN ColumnName DROP DEFAULT”
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/09/15
SQL Server used to support the “ALTER TABLE TableName ALTER COLUMN ColumnName DROP DEFAULT”:
- SQL Server Compact 3.5 Service Pack 1 Books Online
- SQL Server CE Books Online
- SQL Server 2005 Row Versioning-Based Transaction Isolation
In the current Books Online version for the SQL Server 2005 version of ALTER TABLE documentation, the “DROP DEFAULT” has been disappeared.
In the SQL Server 2005 documentation, Microsoft already indicated that the “DROP DEFALT” would be removed in a future version.
I was surprised it already had disappeared in SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3, especially since it is documented to be removed after SQL Server 2008 R2.
By removing this feature, SQL Server is moving further away from the SQL-92 standard.
Anyway: When you try to perform a ALTER TABLE TableName ALTER COLUMN ColumnName DROP DEFAULT, now you get this error message:
Incorrect syntax near the keyword ‘DEFAULT’.
Below is how I approached towards a solution. Read the rest of this entry »
Share this:
Posted in Database Development, Development, SQL Server | Leave a Comment »
Batch file trickery: finding the first file from a list in a certain directory
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/09/14
Using the Windows command shell, I recently needed a batch file that operated on the first occurrence of a file in a certain directory, where the filename was dynamically obtained from a list.
Wait: that sounds too complex; lets make this clear with an example. Read the rest of this entry »
Share this:
Posted in CommandLine, Development, Power User, Software Development | Leave a Comment »
Windows filename search replacement: Everything
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/09/13
When searching for files, I almost exclusively search for filenames.
This becomes easier when naming files carefully (like “20100525 – PSO – KONING en HARTMAN – Windows Embedded Standard 7 Seminar – WES7.pdf”, “The Delphi Developers Guide to C#.zip”, “20090226-Jeroen-Pluimers-BASTA-Shoot-M-Up” or “bo.Windows.Forms.SendPololuCommands.csproj”).
I know those filenames are long, and sometimes you bump into tools that suffer from MAX_PATH pathname length issues, but most built-in Windows functionality is OK with this, and the quality tools are too.
Finding files that I know is crucial for me, regardless of the file attributes (hidden, system, et cetera) or filename extension. Read the rest of this entry »
Share this:
Posted in Everything by VoidTools, Power User, Windows | 3 Comments »
Apple on App Store Review Guidelines: relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/09/10
To quote the Apple statement:
we are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code. This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need.
Which seems to mean you can use both Mono (using MonoTouch) and Flex to develop your Apple iPhone and iPad apps.
–jeroen
via Statement by Apple on App Store Review Guidelines.
Share this:
Posted in .NET, Delphi, Development, Software Development | Leave a Comment »
Flusing the DNS cache
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/09/10
DNS is the fundament for resolving names to IP-adreesses.
Without it, no internet browsing or other connections to the outside world.
Like a lot of communication optimizations, caching improves the speed of DNS too ([Wayback/Archive] All programming is an exercise in caching -Terje Mathisen).
Sometimes, bad or unwanted DNS entries end up in your cache.
Those prohibit some of the communication.
Luckily, How to Flush DNS explains this for 3 platforms: Windows, Mac OSX and Linux:
- Windows:
ipconfig /flushdns - Mac OSX:
10.5 and up: dscacheutil -flushcache
pre 10.5: lookupd -flushcache - Linux:
/etc/init.d/nscd restart
–jeroen – now happy he flushed an unwanted DNS entry from the cache
via: [Wayback/Archive] How to Flush DNS – Top Bits
Share this:
Posted in *nix, Power User | Leave a Comment »
SQL Server 2008 installation UI #fail Alt-N bound to two UI controls
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/09/09
Click on the image on the right to see the full size.
The Alt-N keybinding is bound to two UI controls.
But since the “Next” button is later in the tab order, pressing Alt-N will switch to “Perform a new installation” and deselect the “Add feature to …”
Very handy indeed when you don’t want a new installation, but just quickly want to go to the next step in the wizard.
#fail
–jeroen
Share this:
Posted in Opinions | Leave a Comment »
Delphi: Use TStrings to parse non-standard separated strings, and validate it with DUnit tests
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/09/08
Recently, I was at a client where in a project strings had to be split from:
'FI-150 1U; FI-049-I L=20 MM;LET OP LASVORM'
Into:
'FI-150 1U''FI-049-I L=20 MM''LET OP LASVORM'
At first sight, this looks simple: Semicolon Separated Values and you are done.
Not so fast Mr Smart Alec: watch the optional spaces!
The best thing for problems like these is to start with an empty implementation that some units tests covering it.
I use DUnit for Delphi unit testing.
Unit testing should go with code coverage, but there are few Delphi code coverage articles.
I’ll get into code coverage later on, as I’m working with two of the code coverage people to get this to work nicely with Delphi 2010.
Mock objects can be a good addition to unit testing too, so in a future article, I will cover using mock objects with Delphi.
Share this:
Posted in Agile, Conference Topics, Conferences, Delphi, Development, DUnit, Event, Software Development, Unit Testing | 8 Comments »
SQL Server: Google search tip for MSDN
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/09/07
When searching on MSDN for SQL Server syntax related things, you often get results matching other languages or frameworks.
For instance, searching for INSERT site:msdn.microsoft.com gets other results having to do with the .NET Framework. Those usually are not relevant to SQL Server.
Google search can be tweaked to limit your search results: there is a nice Google search help page on this.
The above search phrase already includes a the site: prefix to limit the results to the msdn.microsoft.com domain.
There are a few tricks to limit the search phrase even further:
- Add “SQL Server” to your search phrase:
“SQL Server” INSERT site:msdn.microsoft.com
Microsoft always had the “SQL Server” in their Books Online topics.
This way, you will find SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server Compact Edition information now as well as more current SQL Server versions. - Add “Transact-SQL” to your search phrase:
“Transact-SQL” INSERT site:msdn.microsoft.com
Microsoft started to suffix SQL Server T-SQL keywords with “(Transact-SQL)” for the Books Online in November 2008 (covering SQL Server 2005) to make finding results easier.
This way you will favour topics for SQL Server 2005 and up.
Luckily the MSDN site has done a lot of SEO, so even if you don’t add these two to your search phrase, SQL Server relevant results end up pretty high in the result list.
They strive to get the SQL Server 2008 R2 Books Online topics as high in the ranking as possible.
If you want to search for specific versions of SQL Server, then it is easiest to use this Microsoft SQL Server Library page to begin your search.
Conclusion:
Depending on what kind of search results you are interested in, you might want to extend your search phrase a bit.
–jeroen
Share this:
Posted in Database Development, Development, Google, Power User, SQL Server | Leave a Comment »
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 