Toluu

Waaargh.NET

Programming makes me wanna scream. In a good way :)

Silverlight Alpha 1.1 TextBoxMay 7 2007

I managed to extend the SilverLightControls samples that are part of the SDK to make a TextBox.

At the moment it's pretty barebones. It has a moving cursor (or is it a caret, I never know), you click on it to focus, you can type text into it, you can get/set text with the Text property and that's about it.

It still needs:
- position the cursor
- resizing
- move the start of the text to the left if it becomes too long for the box
- selecting text
- enable Ctrl-V and Ctrl-C etc...
- enable text styles
- ...

How to make it work:
1. include the files in the SilverLightControls project in the SDK (freely downloadable from silverlight.net)
2. make sure the xaml files are 'embedded resources'
3. replace Page.xaml and Page.xaml.cs in the TestApp project (also in the SDK) with the ones below
4. rebuild TestApp and run
5. click on the textboxes to type
6. click on submit

The code for the controls

Replacement Page.xaml

Replacement Page.xaml.cs

Indirect package configuration in Sql Server Integration Services (SSIS)May 30 2006

Today I was struggling with package configurations in SSIS. I wanted to use a Sql Server store to configure an SSIS package, but I needed the configuration filter to be dynamic. A colleague pointed me in the right direction: use the indirect 'environment variable' technique in the Configuration Package manager.

In SSIS it is possible to store configuration values in an Xml file, environment variable or Sql Server table. Every time your package is executed, the values are loaded first (e.g. into your user-variables). With the SqlServer store, it is also possible to use the same table in a database to store configuration data for more than one package by using a Configuration Filter to select the right records. It's a bit counter-intuitive in the UI for creating package configurations though, so I thought I'd post a short howto.

1. Create a (direct) Sql Server package configuration from the SSIS > Package Configurations... menu.
2. 'Add' a configuration, and select Sql Server.
3. Select a database and create a table with the 'New' button.
4. Fill in a key for the Configuration Filter value (it doesn't matter what).
5. Now click 'Next' and select the variables you want to store in the configuration. (Note: notice how you can click the '+' sign in front of a user variable to deselect stuff that you don't need. In most cases you just need the value of the variable and not wether it was changed or not...).
6. Finish and you have a

Enable Intellisense for NAnt and Wix files in VS2005 Beta1March 15 2005

Edit: This still works for VS2005 Beta2

Since Beta 2 is still a month off or so, I think this could still be relevant :-)

This blog tells you how to enable intellisense for NAnt .build files in VS2003.
This blog does the same for Wix .wxs files.

Both should be slightly altered to work with VS2005 beta1.

1) copy the schema files (.xsd) to the following folder: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Xml\Schemas

2) the registry key with which Wix (.wxs) and NAnt (.build) files can be registered as being xml is now:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\Editors\{412B8852-4F21-413B-9B47-0C9751D3EBFB}\Extensions]"wxs"=dword:00000029
(replace the "wxs" by "build" for NAnt)
Note the subtle difference: dword value is 0x29 and not 0x28, which is ".htm" in vs2005b1, and the guid is different.

 

Reader-annotated edition of Neal Stephenson's "Command Line"January 10 2005

For those of you who don't read BoingBoing.net:
'In the beginning was the command-line' is a really good essay that touches upon the different cultures that OS'es have become. We all feel like we belong to some sort of tribe, but ours isn't called 'The Comanches' or 'The BlackFoot', but instead it's called .NET, java, Mac, Windows, Linux, GNU, ...

Read it online (via BoingBoing.net)

With Neal Stephenson's permission, this guy has annotated In the Beginning was the Command line and posted it online for everyone to see. I think this is a great example of how works can evolve and be improved upon. Unfortunately, In the Command Line has not been 'set free', but it's great that the author was able and willing to give permission for this development.

http://home.earthlink.net/~android606/commandline/index.html

Another interesting read by Neal Stephenson is 'Mother earth, mother board', about global communication backbones in the internet-age. You can read it online here: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass.html

Virtual PC - 'NTLDR is missing' errorDecember 24 2004

I was playing around with a VPC image for windows 2003 server. I created a 'blank' image and wanted to copy this, do I wouldn't have to go through the install each time I wanted to try out some new server stuff. I copied both the config file (.vmc) and the hard disk file (.vhd) for the vpc to another location and tried to re-start this new copy. Instead of the usual bootscreen I was confronted by a "NTLDR is missing. Press any key to restart..." message. I almost freaked and switched to using VMWare ;-)

The solution to this error is simple: instead of copying both files, just copy the hard disk file (.vhd) and create a new virtual pc configuration on top of this copied hard disk. The cause is probably some name or path settings in the vmc file that ar no longer in synch with its location. Creating a new vpc config is as easy as starting up the vpc console, clicking 'New' and following the wizard. (this even works after you get the error, there's nothing wrong with the hard disk file)

EDIT: turns out I was wrong. The VPC tried to boot from a USB stick I had left in one of the slots and didn't find a boot sector. Removing the USB stick removed the problem