Miguel Carrasco's Blog

2006-09-27T04:34:00.000-05:00

Inmigracion

Inmigracion a Canada es posible! Inmigracion

2006-04-26T11:17:00.000-05:00

This will be my final post on this blog, I am switching to using TypePad. I waited and waited... and waited for some new features on blogger, but they never came. You can view my NEW AND IMPROVED BLOG at: www.miguelcarrasco.net or miguelcarrasco.typepad.com

Hope to see you all there!

2006-04-09T18:48:00.000-05:00

Non Stop Travel...

I've been traveling about 80% of the time over the last three months, and at the same time trying to finish all our wedding plans for July 4th in Kelowna. A lot of work! At the moment I'm in Las Vegas at Infor Inforum, a software conference at Mandalay Bay. Vegas is not as much fun as you would think when you are trying not to spend to much money. You have to come down here willing to flop down a good couple of grand to really enjoy the whole Vegas experience.

After a year of development we have almost completed our first software product that we will begin selling and marketing in September. Most of my travels have been to sales offices across the United States to try and get a better feel for the demand for our product. It's looking fantastic.

We are also well underway with our new office layout and re-design. We are also extremely close to launching our new company that has been internally coined "Price Business Solutions", however our new name and marketing of our brand will blow you away. We now have a team of 12 software developers and 3 business Analysts full time working on software products only. No Consulting. I'd love to say more but by the end of the year and moving into next year we are striving to become the biggest software development firm in Winnipeg. Although that's not the largest accomplishment, it will be a start!

Go Detroit Red Wings!

Cool Sites I've Been using:

www.pageflakes.com
www.live.com
www.flickr.com
www.riya.com

2006-03-22T09:37:00.000-06:00

Awesome Web Sites!

Here is a list of awesome web sites I have stumbled on lately:

www.zillow.com
Check out the prices of homes across the united states. Amazing tool

www.kijiji.ca
Classifieds site owned by eBay.

www.liveplasma.com
Have a favorite movie? Band? Artist? Director? You can type it in, and this tool will find similar things for you that you might like.

www.extratasty.com
An amazing Web 2.0 application. Your new bartender!

2006-03-07T19:00:00.000-06:00

THE GET SMARTER GUIDE

Saturday
Brush your teeth with your 'wrong' hand and take a shower with your eyes closed.
Sunday
Do the crossword or Sudoku puzzle in your Sunday paper and take a brisk walk.
Monday
Have oily fish for dinner, and either cycle, walk or take the bus into work.
Tuesday
Select unfamiliar words from the dictionary and work them into conversations.
Wednesday
Go to yoga, Pilates or a meditation class, and talk to someone you don't know.
Thursday
Take a different route to work; watch Countdown or Brainteaser.
Friday
Avoid caffeine or alcohol; memorise your shopping list.

2006-01-31T20:39:00.000-06:00

Tech Toy Wish List

I thought I’d make a list of some cool toys I’m looking to get this year! Some of them are so cool!

Optimus Keyboard - http://www.artlebedev.com/portfolio/optimus/
Optimus Mini Three - http://www.artlebedev.com/portfolio/optimus-mini/
MoGo Mouse - http://www.newtonperipherals.com/index.html
Apple Airport Extreme - http://www.apple.com/airportextreme/
Mathmos Airswitch - http://www.mathmos.co.uk/erol.html#2701x0&&
TV-B Gone - http://www.tvbgone.com/cfe_tvbg_main.php
USB 2 USB File Transfer Device - http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/7f0c/
Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard - http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details/US/EN,CRID=2166,CONTENTID=10717
TypeMatrix Keyboard - http://www.typematrix.com/

2006-01-20T21:21:00.000-06:00

I jsut ran across all these powerpoints, some are usefull... enjoy:

http://commnet.microsoftpdc.com/content/downloads.aspx

2006-01-19T21:18:00.000-06:00

HOT.. need i say more.. i want one.. NOW! This is the coolest mouse ever, it charges in your Laptop!

http://www.newtonperipherals.com/index.html

2006-01-16T19:16:00.000-06:00

So I'm getting married! In sunny Kelowna BC on July 4th 2006! I hope to see you all out at the social. For details, visit: www.miguelanderin.com

2005-12-12T19:45:00.000-06:00

X10 Programming with .net Framework 2005

Ok as you may know if you have been reading my blog, I have some X10 equipment in my house, and I love it. Makes certain boring things during the day fun. I get home and I can ask the computer to show me all videos with motion and I usually only see the mailman (Although sometimes my neighbor seems to like and walk up and down my drive way). Here's some neat projects you can work on if you have a system at home, complete with video!

http://www.msdn.microsoft.com/coding4fun/diy/X10Comp/default.aspx

Happy CO DEN

2005-12-11T18:03:00.000-06:00

Installing Team Foundation Server

Ok so I figured it would be good to put my notes on how I installed Team Foundation Server on a new clean machine.

Installed Windows 2003 Enterprise
Added IIS from the Windows Wizard as a role
Installed SQL Server 2005 Enterprise

Created and SQL Service Account on the domain
Added the SQL Service Account to local admin
Installed everything to the D Drive (Application Drive)

Installed Windows Sharepoint Services without MSDE

Download STSV2.exe to your computer.
Run STSV2.exe to extract the installation files.
When the Windows SharePoint Services installation starts, click Cancel.
Click Start, and then click Run.
In the Open box, type C:\Program Files\STS2Setup_1033\setupsts.exe remotesql=yes
The Windows SharePoint Services Setup program opens.
On the End-User License Agreement page, review the terms, and then select the I accept the terms in the License Agreement check box, and then click Next.
On the Type of Installation page, click Server Farm, and then click Next.
On the Summary page, verify that only Windows SharePoint Services will be installed, and then click Install.
Setup runs and installs Windows SharePoint Services.

Installed Team Foundation Server

Ceated three accounts on the domain for services/reporting/Setup
Used these accounts during the install.
I installed to D Drive

Team Foundation Server assumes your Windows Sharepoint Service Admin is on port 17012, sucks.. do step 7 or 8
Change the Windows Sharepoint Service Admin Web Site port to 17012 or
Edit TFSIntegration database table tbl_service_interface wssadminservice and put your port instead of the port that Microsoft Assigns
Get some Beer, your done!

That’s it… J Then you install the client component on your machine and your golden!

Now if your like me and created a few projects that were not completed correctly, your going to need to delete them... simple:

use TFSDELETEPROJECT /teamfoundationserver:
it will probably give you an error, so go to: http:///reports/pages/folder.aspx
create a new folder and name it the name of the project your trying to delete
Now the tricky part, you have to go to the TFSIntegration database and load the tables: tbl_node_ancestors, tbl_nodes, and tbl_projects.
in projects, find the project you want to delete, remember the project_id and go to the tbl_nodes database and find the project_id guid in the project_contect column
look to the left and remeber the id... now load up tbl_node_ancestors and look for the id in the id column and delete all instances.
go back to the tbl_nodes and delete the project you want.. then go to the tbl_projects table and delete all the projects...
re-run step one and your good to go, project deleted, go create a new project.

FINALLY... this took FOREVER to figure out.. hope this is all fixed in the RTM version.

2005-12-06T22:09:00.000-06:00

Speed Up The Start Of Your Day by 10 Minutes!

Every morning I start my car, open the garage door, have my coffee, read some blogs... wait till the last minute to turn off my laptop, quickly put it in my bag... place my ear piece on, turn on Bluetooth on my blackberry, and hit the road. This is my morning battle with technology at home... I have managed to speed a few things up and save me about 60 hours a year. If you are in the I.T field... 60 hours a year is GOLD... no... It’s the freaking blue diamond from Titanic!

Here's what I did:

1. Buy an X10 basic system and install the flood light camera system.
2. Get Command Start!
3. Get a Blackberry... if you don’t have one... OMG please tell me how you survive... never had one I guess... probably smart :P
4. Set up the camera with a simple trip switch so your TV changes to the camera input when the camera is set.
5. Install the wireless 4 panel switch from X10, program button one to open the garage door.
6. OK you’re done that... now what you can do is Press the button, it opens the garage door... now use your command start to turn the car on... your car is warming up.
7. OH NO YOUR GARAGE IS OPEN!.. No problem... if someone gets close... you have the flood light camera that will turn your TV on to the video input for the wireless camera if someone gets close.... Go read your blogs and get your coffee...

Ok so you got that part... next... the problems start when you get to work... what do you do then... well I QUICKLY unpack the laptop and ensure I haven’t missed anything VERY important on msn.... Luckily my Blackberry has MSN installed so now I'm always on hahaha.... but I set it to offline most of the time because I don’t really have the time to chat anymore... Ok so next I boot up my laptop... but then I have to sit and wait to log it in to get it going... and then I lock it so that nobody can steal anything!.... well this can be solved EASY

1. Install PowerToys and set your computer to auto log in
2. Create a start up shortcut to point to: %windir%\system32\rundll32.exe user32.dll, LockWorkStation

Now you can just turn on your laptop... take a washroom break... get your second cup of coffee.... walk around and entertain the developers... come back... all is loaded...

AWESOME...

Hope these tips help...

2005-12-04T01:11:00.000-06:00

Audible .aa files to .mp3

I've been listening to The Google Story and wanted to put it on an MP3 Player I use vs my iPod (I dont care if the MP3 Player gets stollen or I forget it at the gym), but I couldn't seem to convert it without having to burn 10 CD's, and then rip the CD's. Well, I found a better way!

Converting .aa files to mp3's. DBpoweramp comes in handy again as a way to get my audible files onto unsupported devices. Audible is great but they don't support every device.
Here's how:

Install dBpowerAMP Music Converter which can be found at: DBPowerAmp
Install the DirectShow codec.
Install AudibleManager AND Windows Media Player Filter (bottom of download page) of Audible software
Set DirectShow to know about Audible file types with Start >> Programs >> dbpoweramp Music Converter >> Configure DirectShow Decoder
at the end of this text file type (on a new line): .aa
Save the file (File >> Save)
Run dBpowerAMP Configuration with Start >> Programs >> dBpowerAMP Music Converter >> Configuration >> dMC Configuration
That's it, dbpoweramp can read audible files and Sveta Portable audio can upload Audible files to portables that support it.

2005-12-03T16:27:00.000-06:00

Fondue Date Night!

Should be fun, some karaoke and some cheese. Can't beat that! Here's a good Fondue Recipe:

1 garlic clove, halved crosswise 1 1/2 cups dry white wine (preferably Swiss, such as Fendant) 1 tablespoon cornstarch 2 teaspoons kirsch 1/2 lb Emmental cheese, coarsely grated (2 cups) 1/2 lb Gruyère , coarsely grated (2 cups)

My mouth is watering already. Oh I also finished a new .net 2005 app that has my iPod Top 5. I'm going to next set it up to auto post for me every week, or optionally whenever I right click the tool on my tray. I'm just trying to decided if I should make it call a web service which would then post to the blog site (just for learning purposes btw), or just post right from the application. Anyway, have a great weekend!

My iPod Top 5
Bullet Proof Skin - Institute
ACDC - Thunderstruck Johnny Cash - Hurt
Dirt off Your Shoulders - Jay-Z
Think Twice - Eve 6

For more cool software and videos visit www.price-hvac.com

2005-11-30T23:17:00.000-06:00

Well, we are finally going to redo our office it seems. That’s pretty exciting! We have been working really hard over the last year on rebuilding our team for our internal company. We have about 8 software developers ranging from Certified Microsofties to Masters and some
working on PhD’s in Computer Science. We also have an amazing marketing and 3D team and are hoping to meld the two talents together and build some really cool software. Meld that with our Machine Development Shop, some really talented CAD and SolidEdge .net programmers and a tablet PC... what do you get.. hmmm... lol....In fact, we have already done some great software and web sites, and are working on some really cool top secret internal software. Anyway back to the office designs, I'm just curious what everyone thinks of office designs. I want to build the coolest office in Winnipeg, if not Manitoba... lol, people that live in Manitoba will see the humor in that statement. here are some pictures of what I'm thinking:

I want a nice clean cut look, more like a minimalist postmodern feel, but also at the same time futuristic. I also really want to leave enough room to get at least a couple of Aeron chairs, they are pretty sweet looking and are supposed to be really good for your back.

Anyway I'll start posting more on some things in the next few months. The last few months were really a build the team period and took a lot of work and time. I used to think solving problems with code and hardware was pretty complex, and it is do its degree. But so far for me, building a team from 0 to 9 and beyond with a total team size of 29 people was the hardest undertaking yet, and not something I necessarily ever want to have to do again. But once you find a group of people that get along at work, and outside of work, the benefits of a great team that works together is undeniable and powerful.

One more thing, I'm reading The Google Story, it’s a great read. I'm midway through chapter 3 and can't put the thing down. A must read.

2004-10-19T20:26:00.000-05:00

Microsoft Beware Google is comming...

Don't you hate when you have an impromptue meeting called in 5 minutes and you cant find that email that someone sent you that you'd love to print. Oh and you could also use that excel spreadsheet you worked on last week, where did you put it? is it on your external drive? is it on your data drive, in my documents? Well fret no more my friends, Google Desktop Search has arrived. This bad boy will actually index emails, documents, as well as tie into the web to search your favorite web sites, and blogs, your favorites that you have no time to categorize.... and.. and and... Oh boy I love this thing.. download it.. use it... It's saved me countless times in the last week alone. For the next version I'd love to see it organize certain things for me! It seems to always know what im looking for!

http://toolbar.google.com/deskbar/index.html

2004-10-14T21:00:00.000-05:00

This is awesome! Now you can google your computer. And it works amazing! I love it already, check it out!

http://desktop.google.com/

2004-09-29T13:46:00.000-05:00

VB6 Scrolling

Heres a utility that will allow you to use your scroll mouse in vb6
http://www.gasanov.net/Donation.htm?VBScroll.zip

Miguel

2004-09-06T17:44:00.000-05:00

Installing VB6 Without Java

Wanted to clean off a machine this weekend, and I thought I would install VB6 before I installed VS.net 2K3 as I usually end up instlling it anyway... And got that anoying "You have to install Java before you install a microsoft product" error... which by the way proves that Microsoft was trying to place fair... anyway... to get around it just do this:

createa new file and call it msjava.dll
place it in the windows folder
install vb6
delete the msjava file

Ahhhh.. no more installing java :)

Hope your summers going great!

2004-06-19T14:03:00.000-05:00

Fathers Day Entry...

The smartest man I have ever met in my entire life forwarded this email to me from someone that had sent it to him. I hope I can be half the man that he is one day. My Dad... please read...

"People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self centred;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends, and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between them and you anyway."

I recently had to make one of the hardest, if not the hardest decision I have ever made in my entire (be it short) life. This passage has really helped and I have read it many times... I have always struggled with one thing, and that is to please everyone. Reality is you can’t, and it’s extremely tiring to try... Through the tough, hard decisions you make in life, you learn who your true friends and family are. The above passage mentions that it is between you and God... If you don’t believe in God, then this could be replaced with family, loved ones... Always put your best foot forward, and once you’re committed, take action. My parents came to Canada with 1,000 dollars. With that they have raised 3 kids, one of them myself. Though my father might have left everything in Chile, he came here so I could have a better life. I will always be greatfull for that. He might have left his degrees, training, everything in Chile, and though he might think he has not accomplished what he might have been able to, I think he accomplished more than he will ever know. Through Martial Arts, Day Care, he has talked to hundreds if not thousands of students, children, and has impacted all of there lives drastically. All you need is have one conversation with my father and you will know what I mean. Though he might not be doing what he studied to do, and engineer, through the lives he has touched he has honestly made this world a way better place to live for everyone. The people he has talked to will make a difference, and if one child that might have been hanging out with his friends, and gotten involved with drugs and gangs, murdereder someone, ends up going to school instead because my dad taught him or her Karate for free for years (with an occasional lecture for 3 hours after class) and gave them something to do while there parents were at a bar with friends, he has done more than I will ever do.

I love you dad,

Miguel

2004-06-19T13:49:00.000-05:00

A day in the life of a consultant...

A consultants life is not easy, as youve heard from Joels latests posts... I couldnt imagine owning the company. As Randy Jackson says on Idol, Props to Joel and Company.

That said... here's a day in the life of a consultant:

Consultant: "hey your servers are gonna blow up if you dont do this.. your software will not work if you dont impliment this, you need a build process, you need to conduct integration testing."

Client: "hey, leave it to our team leaders and our architects.. they know what they are doing... you here to help"

****3 months pass**** (twilight zone music please) *******

Client: "HEY MR CONSULTANT BOY!!!! WHY DIDNT YOU TELL US THIS WOULD ALL FAIL! YOU KNOW HOW MUCH MONEY YOU COST US!"

Consultant: "um.. i did.. here are the emails.."

Client: "HEY!!!! DONT GET SMART.. THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!! CUT YOUR RATES!!! AND FIX THIS MESS NOW!!!!"

Consultant: "ummm ok... but i have a family thing this weekend and.."

Client: "HEY!!! ARE YOU NOT BEING A TEAM PLAYER!!!! DAMN IT!!! WHAT KINDA CONSULTANT ARE YOU!!!"

Any consultant can attest to this as fact, I've worked with so many clients and honestly most places I have worked at have been great, and all do have their sower moments, and great moments...

2004-06-01T19:37:00.000-05:00

Remove MSN Messenger 4.7

I find it so annoying that when you install MSN Messenger, Windows Messenger stays in the background. Run this in the Start-->Run command to get rid of it once and for all.

RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %windir%\INF\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove

Have a great day!

2004-05-27T13:31:00.000-05:00

Web Content Management and Internal Document Collaboration

I’m going to be speaking at a large event next week in Winnipeg on Web Content Management, followed by a presentation on SharePoint Portal Server. I am extremely excited about both of these topics for a couple of reasons….

Coming from a web development background in the early 90’s, its amazing to see the change from using Mosaic to view extremely plain web sites, to what we have now, rich media packed web sites. Writing Basic programs was fun and dandy but the ability to write a site that would instantly be viewable by slightly over a million people just blew my mind. Passing around floppy disks of my latest version of chess in class was simply not fun anymore. I jumped on the web development band wagon instantly. However, the big down fall was the immediate loss I felt, of structure. HTML, Pearl, ASP, none really gave what I wanted until the rise of ASP.net. ASP.net 2.0 has some even better features, but I digress.

Ok so now you have hundreds and thousands of companies writing web pages, web applications, content being translated from the original hard print documents created in quark, or PageMaker, to be placed on the web… STOP. If you stop to think how many times in a company the same thing is re-typed, formatted with the same style that hundreds of items before have been formatted, you might fall off your chair. And you would definitely be headed for the canvas if you realized how much money DAILY a large organization waist’s in the simple mundane task of converting data, promotional material, images, for the web world. Not only that, but what happens after a document is on the web? What happens if that server goes down? Typical world, you have the worlds worst server powering the company web site, and possibly some other tiny web applications that your company has decided will help there business. Server goes down, well, time to maybe go to the developers machine and get is local copies to stick on the web server, maybe install your applications again, etc etc. Truth of the matter is there is software out there that empowers organizations to tie in a database, and have web sites created at the click of a button. Not only that, but the data is saved in such a dynamic format, that you can literally choose to create web page, or a multimedia cd all from the same data.

Anyway, I will write more later, but this is such a huge topic, and I haven’t even gotten to the content creation aspects where you can empower your business users to create there own content, right from the comfort of word. There’s some cool stuff out there, I love showing people that they can do all these great things today! Not tomorrow. Longhorn will be cool, but cool is already here!

2004-05-11T19:19:00.000-05:00

I was at VSLive! in Toronto last week. So much to talk about, that I'm not even going to attempt to talk about it.

Top 3 From VSLive!

1. ASP.net 2.0
2. One Click Deployment
3. New Controls in VS.net 2005

I will be speaking at the next Winnipeg .net User Group on ASP.net 2.0 Some of the new features are just amazing and have to be seen to be fully appreciated. The amount of code, or lack there off that needs to be created now is insane. One of the coolest features is the out of the box personalization and security aspects. At first I noticed that this worked by leveraging an mdb file... *SCREAM*... however, Microsoft has graciously provided us with SQL scripts to create the supporting database if you would like to use SQL Server instead. Something else that is back from the original days of web development, you no longer need to recompile your web site! That’s right, Notepad is back, and in working with VS.net 2005, it’s goodness! Just load up notepad and make your tweaks if your environment keeps crashing. Anyway... come out to the next user group if you have time!

2004-02-13T11:48:00.000-06:00

Last night...

Before I went to bed I read about MainSoft leaking the code... They didnt mean to.... However the funny part is it was a linux machine that was compromised to get the code lol. Boy am I glad I dont work with those guys... So if you were thinking of installing linux now... I highly suggest against that lol

Miguel

2004-02-12T22:42:00.000-06:00

Windows 2000 and NT4 code has been leaked...

"update Microsoft is investigating how a file containing some protected source code to Windows 2000 was posted to several underground sites and chat rooms. " from cnet.. they are so slow.. but anyway, yes it was leaked.. 203MB file, however the code was incomplete... hmmmmmmmmmm the begining of the open source movement from microsoft. I personally am in some ways happy about the way microsoft has been going about this. Share certain portions of code... however you still own it.. they own it. give them feedback.. they will fix it. Not the.. heres the code... feel free to contribute. I think its ok to make certain parts of the code "open source", but not all. Anyway.. we shall see how this plays out....

Miguel

2004-02-12T18:17:00.000-06:00

on cnet now.....

so it has hit cnet now..... c net article

2004-02-12T17:53:00.000-06:00

Windows 2000 and NT4 Source Leeked? Rumour or True?...

I had noticed a post today on a forum i read... now it seems to have hit the major sites... is it true? I still find it hard to beleive... but in case you were wondering on some links... here are a few...

And here is the alleged file list...

File Listing

lol, that one makes me laugh... anyway.. just posting this to remeber either the day that Microsoft leaked the code on purpose ;) or the day a huge joke was pulled on the web! A guy that used to work at microsoft posts:

"From the file listing, it looks like and old copy of the partial source. I worked at Microsoft for a while, and while the directory structure looks very Microsoft-ish, there's not enough there to be all of the source. Also note that all of the files are from 2001 or earlier, so a lot of the security holes in that source have already been patched."

Happy Coding...

Miguel

2004-02-12T15:05:00.000-06:00

One word... Niobe...

Joel has always talked about how he loves SmartClients... and ive been ramping up my Outlook skills, mostly with the .net framework...

Niobe is a prototype project that allows managed, smart client add-ins to be developed for Microsoft Office Outlook 2003. Basically it is an abstraction of the current VBA, MAPI stuff and gives you a new managed object model to work with in .net. Anyway, yes this is a prototype (when was the last time you saw a prototype car on the lot), so I doubt it will ever make it to production, but Microsoft is watching this project, and it is fully usable (as far as I can tell).

Anyway I just download it last night and just playing with it over my coffee break... pretty cool, ill post some source code to look at when i get home and can connect my laptop. I just created a small app that takes the xml contacts file from msn and adds them to my outlook contacts... not hard at all...

Lastly, The guy that wrote it is pretty smart guy (Simon Guest, a program manager with Microsoft's .Net Enterprise Architecture Team.) so im not that worried about it crashing my outlook. Althought if it does i know who to email.

happy Code-ing

Miguel

2004-02-12T14:53:00.000-06:00

Windows 2000 and NT source code leaked...

apparently the source code has leaked.. I find it hard to beleive that any one person would have access to all these lines of code... but we will wait and see what comes of this story.

2004-02-11T06:46:00.000-06:00

ISAPI what? IHttpModule BABY!...

So I was trying to implement an ISAPI filter last night.... not that easy.. you have to register it with IIS Metabase bla bla bla. In some cases you might need to do this in order to always have your code fire before anything else, but for my purposes IHTTPMODULE did the trick. IHTTPModule works wonderful for asp.net apps where you want logging to occur. I'm using it for something else.. but here it where it sits in case your wondering...

Request --> IIS --> aspnet_isapi.dll --> HTTPApplication --> HTTPModule --> HTTPHandler

anyway the basics to hook this up are.

1. create a class that implements IHttpModule
2. add a reference to your new handler
3. make a mod to your web config in system.web section:

I was looking into this for my own purposes.. but hey.. why not have a logger that logs all requests to sql server. You could have it read from your config file and decide what eactions to take (ie: debug mode on etc...)

anyway, if you want more information, email me here

Miguel

2004-02-09T20:40:00.000-06:00

msn went down today...

msn messneger went down today... mydoom c is working well i guess... when will virus writers find something better than the good old DOS attacks? like guys, at least think of something new and unique!

Miguel

2004-02-09T20:15:00.000-06:00

How many times have you wondered about how much information is actually saved in a word document? Well, the other day I was trying to see exactly what is stored in a word document... and how to remove embedded content from the document... well.. here is the solution...

remove emebed content from word docs

happy coding..

Miguel

2004-02-09T00:59:00.000-06:00

microsoft beta stuff...

They are about to release this so might as well post the link...

Beta TechNet

you might also want to see this amazing video that shows off the power of the latest .net tools comming with longhorn... much better than other videos i've seen where they dont really show why we need advanced graphic elements in windows.

Healthcare

Miguel

2004-02-09T00:51:00.000-06:00

Cool use of .net..

I was taking a break from some code and looking at usefull uses for .net framework... and stumbled on this site.

World Wide Media eXchange

Microsoft Interactive Visual Media Group

Microsoft reasearch comes up with some pretty cool ideas... a lot of which you never see... some you do.. or some you will. This is one of those rareaties that you can try right now.

The basic principle is, type a place you want to view.. and all the images tracked for that location come up! Its pretty cool! Anyway, back to Visual Studio .net... oh, TRY OUT BORLAND TOGETHER! You should see this thing in action! I'll write about it after I've used it longer...

Miguel

2004-02-08T19:12:00.000-06:00

ASP.net V1.1 and Windows Xp...

This weekend I was working on some asp.net apps on a computer that was older, so I decided I'd go try out my other more powerfull gaming machine to try and get some stuff done quicker. We'll I ran into an interesting hickup when the machine kept telling me the web server didnt have .net framework installed on the web server. It's actually pretty easy to fix...

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework>cd v1.1.4322

C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322>aspnet_regiis /i
Start installing ASP.NET (1.1.4322.0).
Finished installing ASP.NET (1.1.4322.0).

C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322>

so there you have it.. once your in the right folder:

C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322>aspnet_regiis /i

Anyway, i just wanted to make note of that for myself If I have trouble again getting asp.net to start up on a web server.

Happy Coding!

Miguel

2004-02-06T19:35:00.000-06:00

Outlook stuff..
I've never written any outlook code in my life so i figured its about time i crack the macro editor open. I should note this idea originally came from Eric Legault's Blog, Anyway, here's some macro code that shows you images from multiple selected emails in one nice formated IE window. Would be nice to put this into a .net component and make it an outlook add in, im not crazy about non compiled code.

Private Declare Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" (ByVal sleepMilliseconds As Long)

Sub ViewImages()

    Dim outlookApplication As Outlook.Application
    Dim outlookSelection As Outlook.Selection
    Dim fileSystem As Object

    Dim imagesFound As Boolean
    Dim htmlBody As String
    Dim tempPath As String

    outlookApplication = New Outlook.Application
    outlookSelection = outlookApplication.ActiveExplorer.Selection
    fileSystem = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

tempPath = "c:\tempImages\"

If Not fileSystem.FolderExists(tempPath) Then fileSystem.CreateFolder(tempPath)

htmlBody = "<HTML><HEAD>" & vbCrLf
    htmlBody = htmlBody & "<meta http-equiv=""Content-Language"" content=""en-us"">" & vbCrLf
    htmlBody = htmlBody & "<meta http-equiv=""Content-Type"" content=""text/html; charset=windows-1252"">" & vbCrLf
    htmlBody = htmlBody & "<title>View Email Attachments</title>" & vbCrLf
    htmlBody = htmlBody & "<style>" & vbCrLf
    htmlBody = htmlBody & "" & vbCrLf
    htmlBody = htmlBody & "</style>" & vbCrLf
    htmlBody = htmlBody & "</HEAD><BODY>" & vbCrLf & vbCrLf

    For Each obj In outlookSelection
        imagesFound = False
        htmlBody = htmlBody & "Subject: " & obj.Subject & "<br>" & vbCrLf
        htmlBody = htmlBody & "Sent On: " & obj.SentOn & "<br>" & vbCrLf
        For Each Attachment In obj.Attachments
            Select Case LCase(Right(Attachment.FileName, 3))
                Case "jpg", "gif", "tif", "bmp"
                    Attachment.SaveAsFile(tempPath & Attachment.FileName)
                    htmlBody = htmlBody & "Image Name: " & Attachment.FileName & "<br>" & vbCrLf
                    htmlBody = htmlBody & "<IMG alt="" & Attachment.FileName & "" border=""1"" hspace=""0"" src=""" & tempPath & Attachment.FileName & _
                    """ align=baseline border=0><br><br><br>" & vbCrLf
                    imagesFound = True
            End Select
        Next
        If Not (imagesFound) Then
            htmlBody = htmlBody & "<b>Sorry, there were no images found for this message.</b>" & vbCrLf
        End If
    Next

    htmlBody = htmlBody & "</BODY></html>"
    OpenBrowser(htmlBody)
    For Each obj In outlookSelection
        For Each Attachment In obj.Attachments
            fileSystem.DeleteFile(tempPath & Attachment.FileName)
        Next
    Next

    fileSystem = Nothing
    outlookSelection = Nothing
    outlookApplication = Nothing

End Sub

Private Sub OpenBrowser(ByVal myHtml As String)

    Dim internetExplorer As Object

    internetExplorer = CreateObject("internetExplorer.application")
    With internetExplorer
        .toolbar = 0
        .statusbar = 0
        .menubar = 0
        .Left = 200
        .Top = 50
        .Height = 600
        .Width = 800
        .FullScreen = False
        .navigate("about:blank")
        .document.Open()
        .document.Write(myHtml)
        .document.Close()
        .Visible = True
    End With

    Do Until internetExplorer.readyState = 4 : Sleep(10) : Loop

    internetExplorer = Nothing

End Sub

Conclusion? While it is very easy to write macros... (took about 20 min to write this thing, 5 minutes to fix Internet Explorer hanging all the freaking time).... I think ill stick with managed code. I can’t easily deploy this to anyone, and.. I don’t know.. I don’t see the reason to use this tool when I have vs.net, the best coder application ever created! ... I've been privileged to work in large organizations where they end up having hundreds of these little apps that next to impossible to maintain. Though I do see the value in having macro capabilities to do VERY small tasks, I don’t deem this to be a good long term solution by any stretch of the imagination.

So.. I decided to talk this over with an outlook guy because I figured since I’ve never even looked at the macro editor I might be missing something here and just giving macros no chance.... anyway, In talking this over with him, because honestly I didn’t really understand why the macro editor was so bad lol... he explained to me that really, the macro editor and stuff is only in there for backwards compatibility really... which does make way more sense to me now.... that editor is so old... Microsoft always recommends to use managed code now... A major firm I am very familiar with deployed an extremely large outlook solution, all done with .net managed code. There was one section apparently that used macro code (from this point forward to be known as legacy code), but was quickly replaced with the managed code, and made things amazingly faster... when you have 1,000 people using the same thing, every second counts.. macro code is not compiled.... poor processor.

Speaking of processors... Intel gets my thumbs down for there new ways of ripping people off.. apparently they are adding stuff on there chips to make it harder to write c++ code against to monitor your motherboard... well.. unless you purchase there dll's I guess....

Oh here's the link to Microsoft’s .net Building Outlook 2002 Add-ins with Visual Basic .NET, a great article written by our friend Randy at Microsoft...

Microsoft’s .net Building Outlook 2002 Add-ins with Visual Basic .NET

Happy Coding!

2003-10-30T06:57:00.000-06:00

Hopefully soon I'll be able to try out Longhorn.

2003-10-28T09:45:00.000-06:00

Darn snow! At least it melted some what today. Planning on playing some badminton at lunch today should be fun! Heres some neat tid bits/buzz words form Microsoft PDC youll see in the next few years:

WinFX: the successor to Win32

ClickOnce: the "equivalent of Xcopy to a machine" that will make application install/deinstall a snap.

SuperFetch: a feature designed to improve and speed up the current paging system

XAML: a declarative markup language that will separate code and content in the next generation of Windows applications

MSBuild: a unified build engine for Windows, the Windows software development kit and Visual Studio.

You can learn more about the PDC here: http://mymsevents.com/MyMSEvents/Default.aspx?se=31

Anyway have a wicked day!

2003-10-27T14:21:00.000-06:00

Well looks like the snow is going to let up and I might actually be able to get home! Heres something neat:

http://games.mess.be

An add in to MSN 6 that allows you to play other games created by others. I really like battleship and Tetris. Growing up I remember playing tetris for hours and hours on the game boy!

2003-10-27T11:19:00.000-06:00

Another Monday morning in Winnipeg! It has snowed finally, and still is snowing. Time to get the winter tires on the Mustang. I've been playing around with Microsoft Content Management Server on Windows 2003 and found out something rather interesting.

If you want it to work make sure you Install it without the Dev tools, upgrade it with the service pack 1, then install the Dev tools. Otherwise you'll have to install VS.net 2002 and 2003, what a pain. Anyway just thought I'd throw that out there.

Well anyway I hope it stops snowing soon, otherwise its going to be a painfully drive home! I really need to get winter tires on soon I guess, crappers... Ok I called Ford, getting the butt ugly tires on this Saturday at 9 am... yippie! Ugly rims for 6 months... Oh well.

Anyway I better get back to working!

Miguel