Entries for Yggdrasil

Trial versions of Visual Studio 2005 [Trial versions of Visual Studio 2005]

Yggdrasil — Sat, 23 May 2009 08:04:52 GMT

Does anyone know if the trial versions of VS2005 are still available anywhere? I couldn't find them on microsoft.com, and various links people had to them seem to be dead.

I need it to check compatibility for some things, so VS2008 doesn't help me much.

Thanks.

in reply to Trial versions of Visual Studio 2005

Free hosted source control? [Free hosted source control?]

Yggdrasil — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:26:10 GMT

A couple of months ago I left my job in order to finish my degree, and have since walked the fine line between "freelance consultant" and "unemployed bum", much to my enjoyment. One thing this means is that I code at home, on my personal laptop, projects that are a bit more serious than just hobby-projects. This means I want a slightly more serious source control system other than "occasionally copy the code to an external drive".

Since this isn't big business (yet?) I'm looking for a company that offers hosted source control (SVN? TFS? I don't care), hopefully a free plan that could later be upgraded to a paid plan if I need more storage/features/etc.

Are there any recommendations for such a service? I found DevjaVu, which seems OK, but which requires an invite code for the free plan. Also SpringLoops, who seem ok but have a "only 3 active projects" policy which bothers me.

Anyone have any experience with this?

in reply to Free hosted source control?

Google Chrome: Technical pros and cons [Google Chrome: Technical pros and cons]

Yggdrasil — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 09:27:47 GMT

I've spun this off into a separate thread because the previous one got a bit too big, and was also too political. I want a thread talking about technical merits, without the EULA business, IP tracking and so forth. Here are my impressions from using it as my default browser for a couple of days:

* Installation

This went very smoothly, the download was fast and installation effortless. One annoying feature was that it defaulted to Hebrew UI, though it was changeable after installation. I hate Hebrew UI for software. I think Sven said it before in some other thread, but software should go by my existing UI language, not by my regional settings. The safest bet is always to go with the same UI language that the user has proven he can use.

Another (very) minor point is the "Set as my default browser" option. Most browsers pop up the question the first time you launch them, while Chrome didn't. I'd rather it did, so I can tell it No (and "Don't Ask Again") if I want, but wouldn't send me looking for the option in the settings pages later.

* Configuration

The Options screen is divided into three tabs, Basics, Minor Tweaks and Under the Hood. I find this division meaningless and confusing, since what is a minor tweak for one is an arcane comand for others. Division by topic seems a lot more intuitive to me.

* Everyday Use

Chrome really excels in the one feature that's kept IE my favorite over FF in recent years - speed from click to usable page. For some reason, FF 3 takes about 3-4 seconds to start up initially, and this is one only 2-3 add-ons loaded. I don't like keeping browser windows open for a long time, so being to open a new window from scratch at sub-second speeds was my main IE bonus. Chrome beats IE 7, certainly IE 8b2, in that respect.

Browsing speed is very fast, so it seems the DNS prefetch does the trick well, as well as the WebKit parser. Beats both FF3 and IE8b2. Javascript is fast, but very buggy. Most JS-intensive pages break in some way. Trying to mark text as Bold or Italic here on C9 causes the thread to jump back to page 1 for some reason. Lots of other small problems abound as well.

One thing I miss is the bookmarks view. One of the primary feature I use in IE is opening a favorites group in tabs simultaneously. Chrome's lack of a decent bookmark menu is annoying, The "Other Bookmarks" button in the New Tab page, which apparently is supposed to show all bookmarks, is both unwieldy because it's available only in the New Tab screen (or as a toolbar, which I dislike). Additionally, it seems to have imported only a handful of my IE bookmarks.

Visually speaking, I like the minimalist approach very much, but dislike the custom chrome used, especially in XP. As many have said, the fake Aero buttons are annoying, and the custom drawing of the title bar means that custom title bar buttons (such as UltraMon's) aren't shown. I would prefer a minimalist style that respected the host OS, rather than tried to pretend that it's host-agnostic. It doesn't work for Apple's Windows apps and it's what keeps Linux UIs from being annoyingly non-standard.

It is still irrelevant for me for intranet apps, since it breaks our javascript and also doesn't support integrated Windows authentication

* Summary

I may have come off very negative in previous threads about Chrome, but that was mainly to try to balance out some overly excessive praise. I like Chrome. I think its main features are speed and simplicity, and since I don't use Firefox's wide array of add-ons anyway, I don't mind their lack here. From a purely technical standpoint, I think Chrome is a good - though not groundbreaking - browser, with good improvements in terms of speed and usability. I hope they don't muddle it up too much, but I also hope that they don't give us non-technical reasons to avoid the browser. :)

in reply to Google Chrome: Technical pros and cons

Branding WDS 4.x [Branding WDS 4.x]

Yggdrasil — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:45:52 GMT

I've gone over the developer's, administrator's and user's guides for Windows Desktop Search, but couldn't find an answer, so I figured I'd abuse the fact that there's a PM lurking around here and throw the question out here. :)

Is there a way to brand an instalaltion of WDS that is deployed in my organization? Using the IEAK, I can brand an IE deployment with custom logos and such, and I wonder if it can be done for WDS as well. The basic needs would be 1) adding a logo, and 2) the ability to add, in addition to the Search Desktop and Search Web buttons, a third "Enterprise Search" button that launches IE with my enterprise search app of choice.

Is this possible with WDS 4.0?

in reply to Branding WDS 4.x

Group Policy: Create new taskbar toolbar [Group Policy: Create new taskbar toolbar]

Yggdrasil — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:48:10 GMT

On my desktop, I can right-click the taskbar -> Toolbars -> New Toolbar and create a new toolbar pointing at some location on disk.
Does anyone know of a way to do that for a number of machines via Group Policy? Hopefully it'll allow me to set the toolbar properties as well, such as location and width.

I tried running Regmon to catch the changes that occur, but it appears that it's a bit more complicated than that.

in reply to Group Policy: Create new taskbar toolbar

window_onload inside IFRAME [window_onload inside IFRAME]

Yggdrasil — Wed, 14 May 2008 15:25:26 GMT

Good morning, folks. Got a bit of a javascript problem, and I hate javascript, so I figured I'll call for help.

I have an ASP.NET 2.0 app that relies on a lot of custom javascript on the client side. One of the things that happen is a window_onload event that checks data that came in from the server and populates some fields. Everything works fine.

Now we're trying to run our app inside an IFRAME, hosted inside a bigger site. Everything works - all the javascript, AJAXish calls, everything - except for that window_onload call in the beginning. We pass in initial parameters but nothing gets populated.

I realize that this is due to some security restrictions on IFRAMEs - the hosting app is on a different server than our app - but there's got to be some way to get this to work, right? Most everything else does seem to work.

Does anyone know of any javascript hacks, tricks, workarounds or solutions to this problem? Googling around I mostly found tricks to have my host's window_onload be aware of when the inner IFRAME is finished loading, but this isn't exactly my scenario.

Thanks.

in reply to window_onload inside IFRAME

Yet Another Camera Recommendation Thread [Yet Another Camera Recommendation Thread]

Yggdrasil — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:16:12 GMT

We've had a couple of those in the past, but I might as well start a new, relevant one rather than dig an old one. They weren't too relevant to me before.

I've lost my camera, and am planning on buying a new one. I would appreciate any opinions, recommendations and reviews.

My last camera was a Canon SD700 / IXUS800 / whatever it's called in different parts of the world, and I was very pleased with it. Before that I had a Canon SD300 that I was also pleased with until I dropped it to its untimely death.
In short, I had good experience with Canon cameras and would go for another unless someone has specific experiences to share.

My requirements:
* Ultra-portable. This is to be an everyday camera that's always on me, so the size definitely matters.
* SD-card compatible, since I have quite a few cards and readers floating around and it'd be a shame not to use them. Not a biggie, since cards are cheap.
* At least 4x optical zoom.

That's mostly it. I'm not a megapixel hog, I don't need too many advanced features, manual white balance, wide ISO selection and so forth. Just a plain, reliable camera to carry around in my bag.

Anyone got any recommendations and (especially) horror stories to report? Models that disintegrate within months, batteries that die, LCDs that crack?

in reply to Yet Another Camera Recommendation Thread

Configuring DHCP Relay for RRAS on Windows Server 2008. [Configuring DHCP Relay for RRAS on Windows Server 2008.]

Yggdrasil — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:37:16 GMT

Good morning, folks. I wonder if anyone could help me set up my Windows 2008 box, which I've been fiddling with. Doing this mostly blindly, since I never messed with this before.

I have a Windows 2008 server behind a router. My router is the DHCP server. I now want to enable VPN access into it. My router doesn't support it, so I opened all the necessary LL2P ports pointing at the server and installed Routing and Remote Access on the Windows server. I've also set up DHCP Relay pointing at the router's IP. My understanding is that when my remote client connects, the server will forward the DHCP request to the router, get an IP for me and let me start working.

What seems to be happening is that my remote client gets the same IP as the server, which naturally doesn't really help much.
I tried giving RRAS a set of static IP addresses instead of DHCP Relay, but that gives me a default gateway and subnet mask that only allow me to access that specific subrange, not the rest of the local network.

Anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

in reply to Configuring DHCP Relay for RRAS on Windows Server 2008.

Remote Debugger for new processes [Remote Debugger for new processes]

Yggdrasil — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:34:27 GMT

I'm doing a lot of remote debugging lately, and I'm having problems when debugging an app that throws an exception during startup. I can attach a remote debugger to a running process, but then I'll miss the errors in the beginning. I would like the ability to start a new process already attached.

Is this possible with the VS2005 remote debugger as-is? If not, is it possible to build some sort of bootstrapper that can run, attach the debugger and then launch my own app? Process.Start won't do since it'll launch a new, unattached process. I was thinking of doing Assembly.Load() for my EXE and looking for the static void Main() to run, but that seems overcomplicated.

Am I missing something trivial here?

in reply to Remote Debugger for new processes

ReadyBoost on Windows Server 2008? [ReadyBoost on Windows Server 2008?]

Yggdrasil — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 15:16:15 GMT

I've installed Windows Server 2008 RTM on my dev machine recently (damn Sharepoint!), and couldn't help but notice that I don't get the ReadyBoost prompt for USB disks like in Vista.
Also couldn't find anything in the control panel/server management, or by googling around.

Does anyone know if it's possible to enable it, and if so how? I'd rather not try to replicate registry settings from a Vista machine unless I know it'll do me good.

in reply to ReadyBoost on Windows Server 2008?

Recommend a good archiver library? [Recommend a good archiver library?]

Yggdrasil — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 15:32:01 GMT

Soon I'm going to scour the market for a good .NET library that allows me easy access to common archiver formats - ZIP, RAR, CAB and anything else that's in common usage. I figured I'd toss it here, see if anyone has any good experience with such a library.

My requirements:
1) Supports .NET 2.0 and (soon) 3.5.
2) Build for high performance and robustness. This will run as a server process and do an awful lot of work.
3) Support concurrent operations - single threaded is *so* 90's.
4) Support piped memory streams. I can't guarantree all my files will sit on a local/UNC disk, and they may come from different sources, so IStream it shall be.

Anyone worked with a good one? I'd rather hear of personal experiences, since I can probably google up 5-6 solutions myself. These is the sort of thing where a press release can never really give you the full story.

in reply to Recommend a good archiver library?

Strong Names in config files - painless? [Strong Names in config files - painless?]

Yggdrasil — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 17:51:12 GMT

The advantages of using strong names on my assemblies are clear. They help prevent tampering, they're used as CAS evidence, they let me use the GAC and COM+ if I so choose - the benefits are obvious.

However, using a strong name means that every assembly-qualified reference I have - configSections in my app.config files, reflection-based plug-ins, ASP.NET code-behind directives, etc - have to use a specific version number. This is annoying, especially if using Continuous Integration, and the version numbers change all the time.

I'm sure I'm not the first to run into this problem, but I can't seem to find the painless way to do this.

My first instinct was to use <assemblyBinding> and <bindingRedirect> in my app.config to redirect any calls to my assemblies to the current version, but that will just mean I have to update my app.configs (and web.configs) with every build. It's better than doing it for every assembly-name, but still icky and error-prone. Ideally this will be done as a task inside my build script, but still dangerous.

So what is the recommended way to do this, taking into account I have 5+ app.config files, each with 3-10 <configSection> entries, some of which have to reside in strongly-named assemblies?

in reply to Strong Names in config files - painless?

Problem binding to static C lib [Problem binding to static C lib]

Yggdrasil — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 10:17:08 GMT

I'm far from a proficient C/C++ dev, so I'd appreciate if someone could help me unravel this problem.

I have a 3rd-party component that is written as a static C .LIB file. To access it from C#, I've written a managed DLL in C++/CLI and wrapping the C calls.

At first I had problems with linking to the external functions, but these were resolved by add extern "C" around the #include, so all the functions are declared as undecorated C calls.

Now, when I call my C++/CLI code in the debugger, I get a LoaderLock MDA exception. If I disable it, or if I run without the debugger, I get the following error:

Can anyone point me in the right direction? I've googled this R6034 extensively and got nowhere.

Is this a matter of the original libs being compiled against a different MSVCRT version? How do I check? DEPENDS is only for EXEs and DLLs, and dumpbin doesn't seem to show any such information (apart from showing a dependency on MSVCRT. No version specified).

in reply to Problem binding to static C lib

Changing a device's driver via code [Changing a device's driver via code]

Yggdrasil — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 13:36:05 GMT

This question probably sounds suspicious, so I'll explain my motivation:

I have a new MP3 player, a Sansa Express. Nice enough player, and it supports both MTP and UMS modes. MTP is nice for letting Media Player of Winamp sync with it - I especially like WMP's "Shuffle" mode where it just selects 2GB of random music off my harddrive and sends it to the device. However, most of the time I prefer it to be UMS: it lets me play from winamp directly off the player when it's hooked up, which MTP doesn't.

The way to switch between the two modes is to go to the Device Manager, choose Update Driver and switch between the MTP and UMS drivers whenever I want to change modes. This is an operation I would like to automate, if I can.

Now, this is certainly a sensitive operation. I'm guessing I don't simply have some easy "ChangeDeviceDriver" API call. The closest I could find is InstallNewDevice under newdev.dll, which apparently starts the UI process for it. These are not areas of the Windows API that I'm familiar with.

So - in this paranoid world we're forced to live in, is this even possible? I don't want any send-mouse-clicks sort of solutions, so a "no" is a legitimate answer.

in reply to Changing a device's driver via code

Disk Space Visualizer [Disk Space Visualizer]

Yggdrasil — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 10:33:52 GMT

For the past couple of years, I've been using SpaceMonger to get a graphical view of what's hogging up space on my harddrive. It's small, easy to carry and gives a nice graphical representation of the drive.

Problem is, it's getting a bit old. It's not as fast as it used to be when used on pretty full >100GB drives, and the newest version isn't free like the old v1.4 was.

(Screenshot of SpaceMonger 1.4)

So I was wondering - what do you use to see a graphical breakdown of disk space? What would you recommend? Also - why? What makes your choice better? Any special gimmicks or features?

It's time to refresh my toolbox a bit, so this is a good start.

in reply to Disk Space Visualizer

Fingerprint Reader SDK for IBM Thinkpad T60 laptops. [Fingerprint Reader SDK for IBM Thinkpad T60 laptops.]

Yggdrasil — Tue, 08 May 2007 15:06:55 GMT

Good morning.

I've got a new laptop, an IBM ThinkPad T60. It comes with a fingerprint reader for login and such, which is pretty cool. However, I'd like to take it further, though, and write a program that listens to events from the reader and launches custom programs/code based on it. Of course, I would like the use hte data from the ThinkVantage Enrollment database, so I'll know what finger was swiped - that way I can launch a specific program based on the finger used.

I only want to do this INSIDE a user session. I don't want to override or mess with the security/credentials bit. Just using it as another input device.

Does anyone know of any documentation, or if it's at all possible? I couldn't find anything on the IBM/Lenovo site, Googling only pointed me towards UPEK, apparently the manufacturer of the hardware, but they only offer SDKs as part of their Partner Program.

Thanks.

in reply to Fingerprint Reader SDK for IBM Thinkpad T60 laptops.

RSS Reader for Nokia mobiles [RSS Reader for Nokia mobiles]

Yggdrasil — Wed, 02 May 2007 20:39:19 GMT

Good morning, niners and ninerettes.

I've got a new phone, a slick and soon-broken Nokia 6280 slider that has a nice, large screen with a decent resolution. Now I'm thinking I can find a decent RSS reader for it, to carry some feeds on the go.

I've looked around for good reader, but everything I've found is either totally worthless, or else relies on synchronization via GPRS. I'm looking for these features:

1) Update feeds via bluetooth and my PC, not directly. GPRS data rates here are a killer.
2) Some sort of PC-side application for managing my feeds, or at the very least OPML import.
3) Support for images. I can live without audio and video enclosures.

Does anyone know of a good java based reader that does that? Can't run Compact Framework on Nokia's SymbianOS, as far as I know.

in reply to RSS Reader for Nokia mobiles

Windows Live customer support frustration. [Windows Live customer support frustration.]

Yggdrasil — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 16:19:42 GMT

Just going to vent a bit here.

I've been trying to change my Windows Live ID's attached email account (quit my job!) and receiving an error. Trying to get an answer from Customer Support about it has been a model of Kafkaesque futility.

I send then an email saying it refused to accept my new email domain.
I get back an email stepping through the Change Email process.
I send back an email saying I know how to do it, but it doesn't work.
I get back an email from a different support tech stepping through the Change Email process.
I reply again, asking if anyone has actually been reading my emails or are they just copy/pasting me the same text the minute they notice the words "change email" in my text.
I get back, you guessed it, an email stepping through the Change Email process.

Seriously, are there even PEOPLE on the other end?
I have no problem with being told something is impossible. I do take exception to my emails not being read at all.

in reply to Windows Live customer support frustration.

Entity-relationships mind-map software-thingie. In 3D, maybe. [Entity-relationships mind-map software-thingie. In 3D, maybe.]

Yggdrasil — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 19:43:16 GMT

Can anyone recommend a good program that can help me build relationship models between entities? I'm thinking of something similar to a mind-map, where I can throw different entities on the canvas, then drag relationships between them.
It's imperative that it support multiple relationships between entities, like having two Person entities be both "boss of" and "friend of". Single- and bi-directional relationships are also important.

The really groovy bit would be if it supported 3D rendering and navigation, but that's just a bonus.

Does anyone have experience with one of those? I've been going over some mind-map programs, but none seem to fit what I had in mind.

Thanks.

in reply to Entity-relationships mind-map software-thingie. In 3D, maybe.

Two unrelated WDS questions. [Two unrelated WDS questions.]

Yggdrasil — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 20:28:28 GMT

Yes, Paolo, I am looking at you.

1) WDS 3.0 under XP - I'm trying to disable the search pane in Windows Explorer. It's annoying - most of the time I'm searching unindexed folders (network shares in different networks - me and my laptop get around), and every time I have to open the search pane, then click the Search Companion link at the bottom and wait 2-3 seconds for it to load before I can search.

I tried using the ADM file to set Group Policy to disable it, but apparently that's for an old version and did nothing. Is there any way to go back to the built-in XP search?

2) Under Vista, when I search from the start menu it brings up the Search Results in Indexed Locations window. Let's say I didn't find what I was looking for locally (in today's case, I was looking for an installation of Quicktime Alternative), so I wanted to search again, this time on the internet - however, I could find no simple way, using a click or two, to run the search again on the web. I could search again against any number of locations on my computer, but couldn't push the search out.
Is there any way of doing that?

Thanks in advance, even if you aren't Paolo.

in reply to Two unrelated WDS questions.

Extending the AttributeUsageAttribute [Extending the AttributeUsageAttribute]

Yggdrasil — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 08:17:05 GMT

Does anyone know if it's possible to extend the AttributeUsage attribute? I'm worried it's all hardcoded in the compiler without any way for us to mess around in there.

Right now, I can use the AttributeUsageAttribute to specify the target on which my custom attribute will be applied, but I'm limited to the AttributeTargets enum. I can't build more complex rules, like "This attribute can only be applied to a class deriving from MarshalByRefObject", or "Only applies to a method with a return value". I can implement these checks at run-time with reflection, but I'd rather get as many compile-time warnings as possible.

I was hoping that this was extensible - that I can inherit AttributeUsageAttribute, override the "validate target" method and insert my own custom logic there and let the compiler handle it. However, the class is sealed and doesn't even have any such method - the logic is hiding somewhere else. I'm assuming the compiler loads and runs the code for the AttributeUsageAttribute at compile-time, rather than there being a sneaky shortcut involved.

Naturally, I'm aware of the danger of having the compiler execute unvalidated code at compile-time. I'm still hoping for some method of achieving this.

Any ideas?

in reply to Extending the AttributeUsageAttribute

File synchronization/backup [File synchronization/backup]

Yggdrasil — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 16:12:19 GMT

I'm looking for a convenient way of backing up files from my laptop onto my desktop computer at home, mostly documents and such. I can think of various solutions, but I'd appreciate any new ideas or recommendations of particularly convenient programs for it.

1) Offline Files.
I hate Windows' implementation of offline files. It keeps on popping annoying windows when I'm doing other things. It refuses to synchronize various file types (MDB, for instance) and the whole model is backwards - I don't want to work on the server and have my files cached somewhere on the client - I want to work on the client, and synchronize those files to the server.

2) Groove
Haven't actually used Groove for more than 5 minutes. Can it handle large masses of files (several GBs of pictures, mainly)?

3) Robocopy
I can just make a batch file and run it to sync my files to the server. It has cool switches like /MIRROR that make sure the two trees are in sync. However, I'm a lazy bum and would like a new GUI for the process and error messages. I don't want to write them myself.

4) SyncBack
I used SyncBack for this exact purpose for a while, and it's quite a good software package that does pretty much what I want. I'll probably go back to using it unless someone here has a really cool tool for this.

in reply to File synchronization/backup

Vista Downgrade - Ultimate to Business [Vista Downgrade - Ultimate to Business]

Yggdrasil — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 09:32:46 GMT

I've installed Vista Ultimate to play around with, but have never activated. Messed around for a few weeks, and now the activation timer is nearing.
I have a license for Vista Business through my workplace, but I really don't want to format my Vista box to reinstall Business on it.
Is there a way to downgrade an existing Ultimate installation to lock out the non Business features just by specifying a new CD-Key, without all the hassle of a reinstall?

in reply to Vista Downgrade - Ultimate to Business

Community Bar infiltrating dark corners? [Community Bar infiltrating dark corners?]

Yggdrasil — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 14:46:16 GMT

So I'm updating my blog over at weblogs.asp.net and I'm adding a post attachment, and I was very much surprised to find the tiny little Attach Post dialog decorated with a Community Bar, like the one we have up here.

9Team - any idea why? Does it attach itself to some CSS class? Am I completely off track?

in reply to Community Bar infiltrating dark corners?

Should I go 64bit? [Should I go 64bit?]

Yggdrasil — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 07:19:49 GMT

I'm buying a new computer these days, an Intel Core2Duo machine with all the latest nifty features and all. Since that machine supports EMT64, I was wondering whether I should install a 64bit OS on it (Either Vista or 2003). Use of this computer:

1) Storage and media playback.
2) Occasional gaming (nothing too excessive or FPS-hungry).
3) Some C# development.
4) Running Virtual Server with a couple of old OSs.

I won't be doing any CPU-intensive graphics or anything like that.

Do I stand to gain anything from using a 64bit OS? Will I simply run into problems with drivers and compatibilty? Should I bother?

in reply to Should I go 64bit?