Entries for Mark Seymour

Weird unclickable area. [Weird unclickable area.]

Mark Seymour — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:56:07 GMT

I've noticed the past week, there is an area on my screen that is unclickable.

For instance, I'm working with SQL in Access 2007. An error message pops up that tells me that I'm doing something wrong. I go to click the 'OK' button. I can't.

I have to move the window up a little bit to click the button.

At the moment, it's around 45% from the top of my screen and seems to vary a little, It was once around 75% and only went from the left side to about 1/5th of the screen width, it's weird. I click on the area, and the taskbar button stays pressed, and the window appears to be deactivated.

4-month-old Toshiba Satellite A350 with Windows Vista x64.

in reply to Weird unclickable area.

Figuring out data about my ISP's network from the hostname? [Figuring out data about my ISP's network from the hostname?]

Mark Seymour — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 18:09:39 GMT

I was doing a tracert to my college's website (which refused to return any information after I went past the Dept. of Education's 'trade-router,') and I noticed this hostname after my router gateway's IP:

loop0.49w.ba09.hlfx.ns.aliant.net [142.166.182.88]

What I'm assuming here that loop0 is the subscriber line I'm connected to (possibly within residence? We have switches set up as well as a fiber optic link going out from the building), but I'm not sure about 49w or ba09 (which I am assuming could be the backbone.)

Just curious. :)

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Web Development Music (redux) [Web Development Music (redux)]

Mark Seymour — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 04:42:26 GMT

About a year ago, I made a post regarding Web Development music.

So I pose the question once more, with an extension:

What kind of music do you like to listen to while doing Web Development, or even coding or designing in general?

To answer my own question (which I believe that I never answered back then :P), I like listening to trance/j-trance, alternative rock, and folk. Sometimes I need something energetic to get me going, or sometimes I just need something help me think.

in reply to Web Development Music (redux)

Portable settings (AppName.exe.config) in C# [Portable settings (AppName.exe.config) in C#]

Mark Seymour — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 22:25:02 GMT

I've been looking through Google for a good while trying to find an answer to my question... How do I make my application save and load it's settings from a single file (AppName.exe.config, ex. "Vanilla.exe.config") that is located in the same folder as the executable?

in reply to Portable settings (AppName.exe.config) in C#

Advanced scheduled tasks [Advanced scheduled tasks]

Mark Seymour — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:54:47 GMT

I am trying to make a scheduled task that when I put a file in a certain folder (an example would be I'm in a paint chat app and I save a screenshot of it from the page) I want that file to be uploaded to a remote ftp server. I don't think that there is an event that is logged when I place files in any folders, and I would rather be able to do this right in Windows rather than having another program running. For instance the folder that has the files in it is c:\user\john\desktop\paintchat\ and the ftp server is ftp://example.com/pictures/pchat/.

I did try to get to the Windows Vista help groups, but it's broken in both Firefox 3 and IE 7.

in reply to Advanced scheduled tasks

BSOD on starting up Apache in XAMPP [BSOD on starting up Apache in XAMPP]

Mark Seymour — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 00:22:18 GMT

Alright, so today I decided to try to use .htpasswd to lock my small server (mainly as a test,) so when I went into XAMPP to start up Apache, BSOD. So upon restarting, I removed the code in .htaccess and removed the .htpasswd file, started XAMPP, then started Apache... and then again, another blue screen. So all that I could do was just uninstall XAMPP, and right now I am unsure about even using Apache on my system anymore.

My computer is Windows Vista Home Premium, service pack 1, and I have installed all updates through Windows Update. Could it be that an update to Windows Vista may have caused this to happen? It has been a couple of days since I've last started up XAMPP.

in reply to BSOD on starting up Apache in XAMPP

New favicon [New favicon]

Mark Seymour — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 15:20:28 GMT

I assume that at least a few other Niners, including myself do agree that the current favicon does not reflect the new look of Channel9. Maybe some of us could whip up a couple?

It's only a minor aesthetic, however.

Just a suggestion. :)

Attached is a comparison of the C9 favicon as related to the other four community sites' favicons.

And by the way, great work on the site :)

edit: Well I just noticed this in the Communities bar: http://mscommunities.com/images/sites/ch9.gif Perhaps that could be used? :)

in reply to New favicon

testing tags. [testing tags.]

Mark Seymour — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 20:12:21 GMT

Seeing if using p tags instead of BR's will work

If so, awesome. :)

And also add in a third one for good measure.

In the titlebar, <p> appears, but however in the title that is in the page, I see a line break both in the h1 tag as well as the breadcrumbs at the bottom.

It should be made so then it'll convert any special characters to their correct HTML entities, because if for some reason someone uses 'greater than' and 'lesser than' (more or less the 'lesser than' character), it'll cut off their title. :)

p.s. The 'edit' function works like a charm!~ :p

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Seeing a white box with a magnifying glass with DWN disabled. [Seeing a white box with a magnifying glass with DWN disabled.]

Mark Seymour — Tue, 06 May 2008 22:20:16 GMT

How come I see this every time I go to play a game (e.g. Stepmania) or turn off desktop composition (same thing, I know) :

Driver Version: 7.14.10.1437
Operating System: Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium* , (6.0.6000)
Default Language: English
DirectX* Version: 10.0
Physical Memory: 2037 MB
Minimum Graphics Memory: 8 MB
Maximum Graphics Memory: 256 MB
Graphics Memory in Use: 118 MB
Processor: x86 family 6 Model 14 Stepping 12
Processor Speed: 1728 MHZ
Vendor ID: 8086
Device ID: 27A2
Device Revision: 03

in reply to Seeing a white box with a magnifying glass with DWN disabled.

For those whose Music folder icon under Vista is plain... [For those whose Music folder icon under Vista is plain...]

Mark Seymour — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 15:37:06 GMT

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/fix-for-special-folders-reverting-to-default-folder-icon-in-windows-vista/

A commenter mentioned that you can rename the file, and then it'll revert it back to the icon.

The thing is, now it looks like you have two copies of the same folder.

For me, I renamed mine to "The Music." What I did was that I looked at the "Location" tab in the property sheet, and indeed, it said "The Music."

So I simply changed it back to "Music," replaced the old Desktop.ini with the newer (and larger) Desktop.ini file, and the two Music folders merged back into one and "The Music" was nowhere to be found.

After a restart/logoff (I had UAC turned off for a brief moment, then turned it back on,) sure enough my music folder was back to it's former glory.

It should work for all special profile folders, so just try it.

I hope that this helps a lot of people who just get annoyed with seeing special folders with plain folders.

in reply to For those whose Music folder icon under Vista is plain...

Managing your time well... [Managing your time well...]

Mark Seymour — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 23:24:49 GMT

How do you manage your time?

What I do right now is that I just use Windows Calendar and a *.txt file for whatever needs to be done at the moment, although I'm looking for a good solution to that. (Probably stickies, but so far I haven't found the best app for it, and the built-in application and gadget doesn't cut it for me; I personally do not use Sidebar. =/ )

in reply to Managing your time well...

The issue of detecting malicious code in web pages. [The issue of detecting malicious code in web pages.]

Mark Seymour — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 02:53:34 GMT

Alright, so this is my problem: for the past couple of months, my host's website (I am hosted on a subdomain) as well as my subdomain has been compromised and injected with malicious, obfuscated javascript that appears to affect *.php and *.htm? files.

Would there be any safe way to check certain pages (assuming that the attack was automated) for anything that looks out of the ordinary, such as an abnormally long string of hex codes? I do have a sample saved onto my computer from when I was trying to figure out why my Wordpress installation was going whacko earlier today.

in reply to The issue of detecting malicious code in web pages.

Minimizing Windows Media Player to Notification Area [Minimizing Windows Media Player to Notification Area]

Mark Seymour — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:04:53 GMT

Well, after switching over from iTunes to Windows Media Player, I am finding that the deskbar is taking up a bit of space on my taskbar. Are there any good, free plugins that can provide this functionality?

in reply to Minimizing Windows Media Player to Notification Area

Opening windows and accessing properties in WPF. [Opening windows and accessing properties in WPF.]

Mark Seymour — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 16:46:59 GMT

Okay, so I am trying to create a drawing program in WPF using InkCanvas and a couple of buttons to open up self-created tool windows to change properties of the pen.

So far I've tried to make a (single) button in my WindowPenTools change the pen size from the default to a larger size. So far, the only things that I can access in WindowMain are the events, and when I do type in the control name (which does not appear in Intellisense,) WindowMain.InkCanvas1, I see "Reference to a non-shared member requires an object reference."

So I searched for a while and came across this:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa289529(VS.71).aspx

In Windows Forms, I did not have to do this (as far as I can remember,) It just worked. And this is Visual Basic 2008 with .NET 3.5.

So does this mean for every window that I want to able to change properties in, I would have to have 30+ lines of code in each form, even to open a window?

in reply to Opening windows and accessing properties in WPF.

custom WPF UI's [custom WPF UI's]

Mark Seymour — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:17:18 GMT

Yesterday I decided to give WPF a go. Before I used to use Windows Forms for creating my applications but however, I found that what I wanted to do (expanders, etc.) were not there (even though it would be easy enough to code a custom control that did that.)

So right now I am writing a custom text editor (in WPF.)

Are there any good resources / reads for creating a custom interface? (in terms of colors and styling)

(Also, maybe full screen WPF applications something like Media Center, which IS using a custom UI language from what I remember...)

in reply to custom WPF UI's

Custom Renderer? - Visual Basic 2008 [Custom Renderer? - Visual Basic 2008]

Mark Seymour — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:49:40 GMT

Hi all,

I am trying to work on (another, kind of based on the previous one that I created a few days ago) text editor, and I am attempting to create a custom renderer for the application.

I've been looking over the code from MSDN, and so far I've only been able to get the menubar to have a custom background. I also want to render the toolbar as well, but it seems that there's nothing there at all for it; All that I see is "RenderToolStripBackground", and all that it does when I render it (using the code below) is format the Menubar. I want to do more than just the menubar.

    Private Sub CustomProfessionalRenderer_RenderToolStripBackground(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripRenderEventArgs) Handles Me.RenderToolStripBackground

        Dim b = New SolidBrush(Color.FromArgb(255, 64, 64, 64))

        e.Graphics.FillRectangle(b, e.ToolStrip.Location.X, e.ToolStrip.Location.Y, e.ToolStrip.Width, e.ToolStrip.Height)

        b.Dispose()

    End Sub

The link to the code from MSDN: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.toolstripmanager.renderer.aspx

in reply to Custom Renderer? - Visual Basic 2008

SaveFileDialog is not using UAC. [SaveFileDialog is not using UAC.]

Mark Seymour — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 18:28:25 GMT

I am trying to write a simple text editor, and so far I have the Open and Save/As functions working, however when I attempt to save a file to c:\, it tells me that I do not have permissions to do so. I am running as admin as well as having UAC turned on, so how do I enable use of UAC as needed? I am also currently running VB2008 Express in Administrator mode.

in reply to SaveFileDialog is not using UAC.

Microsoft.VisualBasic.Targets warnings and errors [Microsoft.VisualBasic.Targets warnings and errors]

Mark Seymour — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 03:09:07 GMT

Just a couple of minutes ago I attempted to build an application that I am making, and for some reason the IDE is telling me all of these things, like X isn't declared, or Y was referenced multiple times.

I cannot figure out what I am supposed to do about this.

Warning    1    The element 'PropertyGroup' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003' has invalid child element 'MSBuildAllProjects' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003'. List of possible elements expected: 'Property' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003'.    C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Microsoft.VisualBasic.targets    21    10    Miscellaneous Files

Warning    2    The element 'PropertyGroup' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003' has invalid child element 'CreateManifestResourceNamesDependsOn' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003'. List of possible elements expected: 'Property' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003'.    C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Microsoft.VisualBasic.targets    47    10    Miscellaneous Files

Warning    3    The element 'ItemGroup' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003' has invalid child element '_Temporary' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003'. List of possible elements expected: 'Item' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003'.    C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Microsoft.VisualBasic.targets    56    14    Miscellaneous Files

Warning    4    The 'PrependCultureAsDirectory' attribute is not declared.    C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Microsoft.VisualBasic.targets    73    15    Miscellaneous Files

Warning    5    The element 'ItemGroup' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003' has invalid child element '_Temporary' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003'. List of possible elements expected: 'Item' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003'.    C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Microsoft.VisualBasic.targets    83    14    Miscellaneous Files

Warning    6    The element 'PropertyGroup' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003' has invalid child element 'FinalDefineConstants' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003'. List of possible elements expected: 'Property' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003'.    C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Microsoft.VisualBasic.targets    89    10    Miscellaneous Files

Warning    7    The element 'ItemGroup' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003' has invalid child element 'DocFileItem' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003'. List of possible elements expected: 'Item' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003'.    C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Microsoft.VisualBasic.targets    102    10    Miscellaneous Files

Warning    8    The element 'PropertyGroup' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003' has invalid child element 'CoreCompileDependsOn' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003'. List of possible elements expected: 'Property' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003'.    C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Microsoft.VisualBasic.targets    106    10    Miscellaneous Files

Warning    9    The element 'PropertyGroup' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003' has invalid child element '_NoWarnings' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003'. List of possible elements expected: 'Property' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003'.    C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Microsoft.VisualBasic.targets    129    14    Miscellaneous Files

Warning    10    The 'ModuleAssemblyName' attribute is not declared.    C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Microsoft.VisualBasic.targets    152    15    Miscellaneous Files

Warning    11    The 'NoVBRuntimeReference' attribute is not declared.    C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Microsoft.VisualBasic.targets    155    15    Miscellaneous Files

Warning    12    The 'NoWin32Manifest' attribute is not declared.    C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Microsoft.VisualBasic.targets    157    15    Miscellaneous Files

Warning    13    The 'ToolExe' attribute is not declared.    C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Microsoft.VisualBasic.targets    175    15    Miscellaneous Files

Warning    14    The 'Win32Manifest' attribute is not declared.    C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Microsoft.VisualBasic.targets    184    15    Miscellaneous Files

Warning    15    The element 'ItemGroup' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003' has invalid child element '_CoreCompileResourceInputs' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003'. List of possible elements expected: 'Item' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003'.    C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Microsoft.VisualBasic.targets    189    20    Miscellaneous Files

Error    16    The item "obj\Debug\Text_Editor___290308.frmMain.resources" was specified more than once in the "Resources" parameter. Duplicate items are not supported by the "Resources" parameter.    C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Microsoft.VisualBasic.targets    134    9    Text Editor - 290308

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edit: It seems to be only from the one project, and nothing more. The warnings are still in this post (I hope), just commented out. edit2: or maybe not...

in reply to Microsoft.VisualBasic.Targets warnings and errors

Setting all controls to default system font. [Setting all controls to default system font.]

Mark Seymour — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 14:23:56 GMT

Well I have been working on a program lately, and in my options dialog I want the font to match the systems default font. I figured that if I use a For Each loop and get all controls from there, I could set the font for all of them. Here's the code:

' Sets all controls to the default MessageBoxFont, which under Windows Vista, is Segoe UI.

For Each currentcontrol As Control In Me.Controls

Dim theControl As New Control

theControl = DirectCast(currentcontrol, TextBox)

theControl.Font = SystemFonts.MessageBoxFont

Is there an easier way to do this?

in reply to Setting all controls to default system font.

SetWindowsHookEx? FN+F# keys? [SetWindowsHookEx? FN+F# keys?]

Mark Seymour — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 17:43:59 GMT

I am trying to figure out how to use SetWindowsHookEx to hook my keyboard in and use FN + the F# keys (or alternatively, Windows + F# keys?) that would carry out a certain action when pressed (such as FN + F12 ejects my CD, FN + F11 turns up my volume, etc. [maybe even with a little sound]), and to be done in the background.

But I do not know where to start.

in reply to SetWindowsHookEx? FN+F# keys?

Docking controls in Visual C# 2008 Express (or any of the Visual Studio 2008/Express programs for th [Docking controls in Visual C# 2008 Express (or any of the Visual Studio 2008/Express programs for th]

Mark Seymour — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:25:51 GMT

I cannot seem to figure out why this is happening.
I present to you:

I am not using any code to generate this; it's all set in the property panel. Why is it doing this?

(I am using C# 2008 express this time)

in reply to Docking controls in Visual C# 2008 Express (or any of the Visual Studio 2008/Express programs for th

Auto-incrementing build number in Visual Basic 2008 Express [Auto-incrementing build number in Visual Basic 2008 Express]

Mark Seymour — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 17:58:59 GMT

Well I have been scouring through the Microsoft Document Explorer ("Help") in Visual Basic Express 2008, and I cannot seem to find this information:

A list of special *.vb filenames and the corresponding code, and
build scripts.

I am trying to figure out how to increment the build number, but however anything that I've found was for C#, C++.

I really do not want to be going to "Project Properties" > Application > Assembly Information to change the build number by one every time I click on "Build."

So what do I do?

in reply to Auto-incrementing build number in Visual Basic 2008 Express

Options/Preferences form? [Options/Preferences form?]

Mark Seymour — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 19:46:06 GMT

This may seem a mundane question to alot of you long-time Visual Basic users, but I cannot figure out how to create an Options/Preferences form and code my application(s) so then it will use the settings that's set within the Settings panel in the Project window, however I can probably figure out how to reload the main form with that data.

in reply to Options/Preferences form?

Application icon in VS2008 (Express) not getting all icon sizes [Application icon in VS2008 (Express) not getting all icon sizes]

Mark Seymour — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 03:33:48 GMT

When I made a new icon for this small application that I am writing, when I added an icon to the project, not all of them get into the executable. Approximately between Small and Medium icons, instead of my icon, I see a blurry blue and white window icon, and I made sure that my icon had the 256x256 PNG-compressed, 96, 64, 48, 40, 32, and 16px icons included. What could be causing this?

in reply to Application icon in VS2008 (Express) not getting all icon sizes

Visual Basic 2005 Express question [Visual Basic 2005 Express question]

Mark Seymour — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 03:54:58 GMT

I just recently gotten Visual Basic 2005 Express with a text book that I bought for my Programming I class, and just starting to use the form editor and doing some coding, and I am wondering, how do I make any form conform to the Windows Vista style?

in reply to Visual Basic 2005 Express question