The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

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Archive for the ‘Development’ Category

Google Calendar – printing multiple months or weeks to PDF – URL parameter tips and tricks

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 Development, Fiddler, Google, Google Apps, GoogleCalendar, ISO 8601, Power User, Software Development, Web Development | 19 Comments »

Adding wordpress.com blog as connected site in Google Buzz (thanks Pēteris!)

Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/26

Pēteris wrote about Adding wordpress.com blog as connected site in Google Buzz.

Thanks – that saved me a lot of time!

–jeroen

Posted in Development, Google, Power User, Software Development, Web Development, WordPress | 1 Comment »

SQL Server 2005 setup fails when MSXML Core Services 6.0 Service Pack 2 has already been installed

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 »

Porting old Delphi component packages – things I always forget

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 »

Visual Studio 2005/2008 WPF bug: App.xaml not found messages

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:

  1. perform a “Clean Solution”,
  2. 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 »

Long pathname support: Watch for MAX_PATH (was: Windows pathname max length problem « Dropbox Forums)

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, Encoding, Opinions, Software Development, Unicode | 6 Comments »

Deploying .EXE on a server share when it is in use by workstations (using Handles.exe and for)

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 »

RT: How we test the compiler backend – Visual C++ Team Blog – Site Home – MSDN Blogs

Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/12

An interesting post on how the Visual C++ compiler backend gets tested:

How we test the compiler backend – Visual C++ Team Blog – Site Home – MSDN Blogs.

–jeroen

Posted in Development, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

VMware Virtual Infrastructure Client UI: why is the “edit…” on the top right, away from all other actions?

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 »

For a good laugh: Modern computer languages are a bit like people in some ways. – from “The Lounge – CodeProject”

Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/07

For a good laugh: read the Modern computer languages are a bit like people in some ways thread in the CodeProject lounge.

–jeroen

Via: The Lounge – CodeProject.

Posted in .NET, C#, Delphi, Development, HTML, Java, Opinions, Software Development, VBS, Web Development, WPF | Leave a Comment »