October 2007 - Posts

• Case Sensitive SQL Server

  Recently a friend at work had a problem querying a SQL server that indicated that the column name was wrong. The only thing wrong was the the case. For example he had COLUMN1 instead of Column1. I had never seen that problem in SQLServer. I had seed that in Sybase but not in SQLServer. He solved that by changing the database collating sequence to something like this: alter database database1 collate SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AI the CI in the collating indicates Case Insensitive For more information on SQL Server collations check: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa258233(SQL.80).aspx And you determine your current database collation use a code like this: USE yourdb> GO print 'My database [' + db_name() + '] collation is: ' + cast( DATABASEPROPERTYEX ( db_name(), N'Collation' ) as varchar(128) ) print 'My tempdb database collation is: ' + cast( DATABASEPROPERTYEX ( 'tempdb', N'Collation' ) as varchar(128) )   Posted Oct 26 2007, 11:29 AM by Mrojas with no comments Filed under: .NET General Tip, Databases, VB6 Migration, C#, Software Development

• Track Changes in VSS (Visual Source Safe)

  MS VSS (Visual SourceSafe) is not really my preferred Source Control application, but sometimes in your company that is what is available and you need to used it to have at least some versioning of the code. But haven't you had a situation where last week everything worked and now everything is broken. And now is up to you to determine what went wrong? I have it all the time.   VSS have some search tools but I really do not enjoy using them. The Code Project Site provides an excellent tool called VssReporter Do take a look at it, it makes it more easy to track changes. :)   Posted Oct 24 2007, 11:18 AM by Mrojas with no comments Filed under: VIsual Basic .NET, .NET General Tip, VB6 Migration, C#, SVN, Source Control Management

• Get GUIDs/CLSIDs from Exe, dll, ocx, tlb, etc

  A simple way of getting the GUID from an exe, dll, ocx, tlb is using the  TLBINF32.dll This file is in the system path and it must be registered (Remember to use regsvr32 if you haven't registered).             TLI.TLIApplicationClass a = new TLI.TLIApplicationClass();             try             {                 TLI.TypeLibInfo inf = a.TypeLibInfoFromFile(@"c:\windows\system32\MSHFLXGD.OCX");                 MessageBox.Show(                 "TypeLibrary Name " +  inf.Name + "\r\n" + //name of (Type Library)                 "Tlb ID " +  inf.GUID + "\r\n" + // GUID for Library                 "LCID "  + inf.LCID + "\r\n" + // Language / Country                 "Major Version "+ inf.MajorVersion + "\r\n" + // Major Version                 "Minor Version "+ inf.MinorVersion); // Minor Version                 for (short i = 1; i < inf.TypeInfoCount; i++)                 {                     TLI.TypeInfo inf2 = inf.TypeInfos[i];                     MessageBox.Show("CLSID " + inf2.Name + " - " + inf2.GUID,i + " of " + inf.TypeInfoCount);                 }             }             catch (Exception ee)             {                 MessageBox.Show("No guid");             }     Posted Oct 23 2007, 03:08 PM by Mrojas with no comments Filed under: .NET General Tip, C#, Software Development

• cfgrid or ext grid change column align

  If you are using Coldfusion MX 8 cfgrid or the excelent Ext library and you want to change the aligment for the column then a simple way to do that is: Add an style block like  .x-grid-col-0 {text-align:center}  .x-grid-col-1 {text-align:left}  .x-grid-col-2 {text-align:right} And that's all just remember to change  .x-grid-col-n change the n for the column you want to modify. Posted Oct 23 2007, 10:42 AM by Mrojas with no comments Filed under: ColdFusion

• Clean Up your Coldfusion application

  Currently I'm working in some tools to clean your code, whether it is VB, ASP or Coldfusion. Mostly simple tools, but for now if you are a ColdFusion Developer I want to recommend a nice application called CF Project Cleaner This tools lends you a hand so you can get rid of unused files. The tool is not perfect. But it is always handy to review your code. Posted Oct 22 2007, 02:56 PM by Mrojas with no comments Filed under: ColdFusion, VB6 Migration

• MAN for .NET

  Microsoft recently published the MTPS Content Service In brief, the MTPS Content Services are a set of web services for exposing the content in Microsoft/TechNet Publishing System (MTPS). And Craig Andera, has develop a swift nice tool called msdnman that you use from the command line to get information from the MSDN Also I recommend you to see this cool video of a Human LCD that Hugo sent me Posted Oct 05 2007, 08:32 AM by Mrojas with no comments Filed under: VIsual Basic .NET, .NET General Tip, VB6 Migration, C#, Software Development

• Comparison Tool for Windows

  If you need a good and FREE comparison tool I recommend WinMerge Posted Oct 04 2007, 04:53 PM by Mrojas with no comments

• Input Line Too Long

  I was trying to compile a C++ Project in Visual Studio and this project has a post-build step that executes some batch statements. And succendly from one day to the other the project failed and the only message I had was The input line is too long After some googling I found that this error is displayed when the command line in the command prompt exceeds the maximum number of characters. (Something quite obvious jeje) The bottom line was that recenlty I had installed some software and my PATH variable became TOO long I fixed it by creating a new environment variable called EXTRA_PATH where I put some references to Some big paths and then changed my PATH variable replacing all those long variables for %EXTRA_PATH%. And problem solved! Posted Oct 03 2007, 02:35 PM by Mrojas with no comments Filed under: .NET General Tip, Software Development

• VB6 References Explorer

  I recently found this decent tool called VB6 Reference Explorer. It even comes with source code. This tool will show a list of the references for a set of projects in your path. Here at Artinsoft, some colleagues have develop some tools that perform even more exhaustive project analisys like CreateObject dependencies and others. Maybe I'll post something about those tools in the future Posted Oct 01 2007, 04:22 PM by Mrojas with no comments

• VB6 Printer Object and PrintForm migration

  If you ever had any problems while migrating from VB6 Printer Object or the PrintForm functionality we have goods news for you the Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 Power Pack 2.0. Our version of the Visual Basic Companion already provides and extended migration of the Printer Object, and we're now updating it to use this new implementation. This Printer Compatibility Library makes it a breeze to migrate Printer Functionality. This is the description of the PowerPack: "The new Line and Shape controls included in this version of the Visual Basic 2005 Power Packs are a set of three graphical controls that enable you to draw lines, ovals, and rectangles on forms and containers at design time making it much easier to enhance the look of your user interface. These new shape controls also provide events such as click and double-click allowing developers to respond and interact with end users. The Printer Compatibility Library allows projects that used the Printer and Printers Collection in Visual Basic 6.0  to be upgraded without having to re-write your printing logic. By simply adding a reference to the library, declaring a Printer and making a few minor syntax changes, your project will be able to print using the Printers collection and Printer object as it did in Visual Basic 6.0. This version adds a new Write method to the Printer object which allows you to print text without a forced carriage return similar to the semicolon syntax used by Print method in Visual Basic 6.0. The PrintForm component is designed to bring back the ability to easily print a Windows Form. With this the new PrintForm component you can once again layout the Windows Form exactly as you want it and allow your users to print the form as a quick report." You can download the PowerPack from here NOTE: there's is another link that only includes the Printer Library but MS recommends to download the PowerPack because minor upgrades and fixes will be done on the PowerPack distribution   Posted Oct 01 2007, 03:55 PM by Mrojas with no comments Filed under: VIsual Basic .NET, .NET General Tip, VB6 Migration, C#