Tech Off

Recommend a command line FTPS (FTP over SSL) client

Simo — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:28:45 GMT

Hi,

Am wondering if anyone could recommend a decent DOS based/command line FTPS client for Windows. Alternatively, I'd take a COM interface instead of command line options.

Wikipedia provides this list, but I can't see a clear winner. O - and as times are tight it needs to be free (as in beer).

Thanks.

VSeWSS --> Visual Studio 10 SharePoint functionality

oskar.austegard — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:04:07 GMT

This looks like an interesting evolution of VSeWSS, though it appeared the only part that would perhaps require VS 2010 is the Server Explorer additional capability to handle SharePoint hierarchies.

Questions:

Is MOSS 2007/WSS3.0 supported, as well as SharePoint vNext?
Will VSeWSS for 2005 and 2008 be updated to support similar functionaliy (where possible)?
Will VS 2010 support Workstation-based development, working against a MOSS/WSS server, rather than keep the VPC tax?
Will there be a CustomFieldType template?
Will there be a ContentType template?
Wil there be a SiteColumn template?
How about a wizard for configuring FBA?

Also (for anyone not already aware) note that much of the demonstrated functionaliy is also currently available courtesy of Carsten Keutmann's excellent SharePointManager and WSPBuilder.

Return count in an Astoria reply [Return count in an Astoria reply]

staceyw — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:32:58 GMT

Someone may find this useful. I created a workaround to return the query count in same reply as the query results.
Mostly useful when doing paging (i.e. take, skip) queries.
http://staceyw.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!F4A38E96E598161E!1443.entry

in reply to Return count in an Astoria reply

VS2008 - How do you do code snippets?

Harlequin — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:15:25 GMT

In conferences you always see guys with this little window in VS where they drag something into their code and "plop", a snippet of 100 lines of code gets pasted. Where is this in VS2008?

An unexpected error has occurred while adding user in sharepoint portal

nits — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 13:12:12 GMT

Hi,

I am having Share Point Portal 2003 with share point portal service 2.0 build 11.0.8173.0 and SQL 2000. I have migrated server from one Windows 2003 Server primary domain to secondary domain. I have taken backup from share point backup utility and restore it on another server. I am facing problem while adding user into portal. Whenever I add user and provide permission e.g. content manager/web designer or contributor, it gives me error An unexpected error has occurred. I am not able to add the user. Any thoughts? what could be the problem?

Regards,

Nitin

'Registering' a VS designer

jh71283 — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:43:41 GMT

I am using DevExpress XtraReports in one of my projects.

When I open one of the reports, I get taken directly to teh code behind, and even if I right-click the item, there is no option to View Designer.

In a different project on the same machine, they work perfectly.

Do I need to edit my sln or something to reinstate the relationship between the reports and their designer?

Generating a Prism from a Polygon in XNA

Cupiditas — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 09:33:08 GMT

Apologies. Double post. Channel9 gave a non-descript error message several times when I tried to post the original and edit this duplicate.

Generating a Prism from a Polygon in XNA

Cupiditas — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 09:32:38 GMT

I'm working on a project for a client, and this has been really bugging me. I'm not quite mathematical enough to solve this problem by myself and I desperately need some insight. I'm vainly attempting to generate three-dimensional prisms in XNA for the display of cabinets. So far, I've got the following code but it does not draw properly at all. I know the actual draw code is correct as it works for other shapes, so it's the vertex and index buffers that are wrong.

If anyone can point to a sample or something I'd be incredibly grateful. So far, everything I've got I've derived from my limited knowledge of three dimensional mathematics.

My current, and non-functioning, solution is a constructor method (don't worry about the length, I'll refactor it later) taking an array of Vector2s as the outline of the polygon to extrude into a prism and a Vector3 that represents the centre of the prism (thus giving it depth and direction).

Currently I:

Create a rotation matrix by concatenating three matrices constructed using the angle derived from the dot product of the prismVector and the three cardinal axis
Use this to transform the 2D vertices into 3D and subsequently create the bottom by subtracting prismVector
Here the problems start (I know they're not above because I've simplified most of that out at the moment)

Generate the caps of the prism:

            //CAPS:

            // prism vector will be 0 in the vertex array
            for (int i = 1; i <= topVertices.Length; i++)
            {
                Indices.Add(i);
                Indices.Add(0);

                if (i - 1 == topVertices.Length)
                {
                    Indices.Add(1);
                }
                else
                {
                    Indices.Add(i + 1);
                }
            }

            // zero vector will be topVertices.Length + 1 in the vertex array
            for (int i = 1; i <= bottomVertices.Length; i++)
            {
                Indices.Add(i + topVertices.Length + 1);
                Indices.Add(topVertices.Length + 1);

                if (i - 1 == bottomVertices.Length)
                {
                    Indices.Add(topVertices.Length + 2);
                }
                else
                {
                    Indices.Add(i + topVertices.Length + 2);
                }
            }

Generate the sides:

            for (int i = 1; i < topVertices.Length; i++)
            {
                // connect this vertex to the next vertex and the corresponding bottom vertex
                Indices.Add(i);
                Indices.Add(i + 1);
                Indices.Add(i + topVertices.Length + 1);
            }

            for (int i = 1; i < bottomVertices.Length; i++)
            {
                // connect this vertex to the next vertex and the NEXT corresponding top vertex
                Indices.Add(i + topVertices.Length + 1);
                Indices.Add(i + topVertices.Length + 2);
                Indices.Add(i + 1);
            }

Add all vertices

            Vector3 topNormal = Vector3.Normalize(prismVector);
            Vertices.Add(createVertex(prismVector, topNormal));

            for (int i = 0; i < topVertices.Length; i++)
            {
                Vertices.Add(createVertex(topVertices[i], topNormal));
            }

            Vector3 bottomNormal = Vector3.Normalize(-prismVector);
            Vertices.Add(createVertex(Vector3.Zero, bottomNormal));

            for (int i = 0; i < bottomVertices.Length; i++)
            {
                Vertices.Add(createVertex(bottomVertices[i], bottomNormal));
            }

            TriangleCount = Indices.Count() / 3;

I'm in way over my head with this project. Of course I don't expect anyone to actually read all that and come up with a solution, but I'm sure this is something that people have had to do a million times before and I'm absolutely confused as to why I can't find anything with Google (maybe I'm searching for the wrong thing…).

If you know of any samples or have ever had to do anything like this before, please help.

Cheers,
Chris

Anti Bot Script / Image

turrican — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 13:51:10 GMT

Trying to create an anti-bot image ( no, I don't like using ready made stuff like captcha ) how do you rotate a font? I managed to create the image and put fonts in it, but not sure how I would rotate those.

Thanks.

Trying to revoke a drop target that has not been registered (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80040100 (DRAGDROP_E_NOTREGISTERED))

Sathyaish Chakravarthy — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 07:10:24 GMT

On a call to the print preview ole command on IOleCommandTarget interface of the WebBrowser in shdocvw.dll, I get the exception shown below.

Relevant code snippet:

object i = null;

            /*try
            {*/
                if (this._axIWebBrowser2 != null)
                    this._axIWebBrowser2.ExecWB(SHDocVw.OLECMDID.OLECMDID_PRINTPREVIEW2,
                        SHDocVw.OLECMDEXECOPT.OLECMDEXECOPT_DODEFAULT, ref i, ref i);

Exception:

System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException was unhandled by user code
Message="Trying to revoke a drop target that has not been registered (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80040100 (DRAGDROP_E_NOTREGISTERED))"

Could you please point me to the problem and any resources that will help?

DrawItemEventArgs

VB Man — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 04:01:38 GMT

This is in the System.Windows.Forms assembly. Does this not exist in the .NET CF?

I'm trying to draw my own ListBox items so I can add more than one line of text and add images etc.

Delay in SQL server and Web server on two different machines.

turrican — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 01:42:39 GMT

Hm... I got two servers, both dual 3ghz xeons, linked with a 100mbit connection between them. One of them is a WWW server and the other is running MS SQL. Now, if I put the MS SQL on the same machine as WWW it's OK. But as soon as I have the SQL server on the other server, I feel a delay between each request.

Is there any special setup needed to get rid of the delay? ( The site is ASP.NET and creates a connection via the IP of the SQL server to reach it )

Is 100mbit too small? Should I get a 1Gbps link between them perhaps?

I also tried to link the two servers and have a view on the WWW machine, still same delay, half a second or something.

Get a reference to an internal static class declared in another assembly

Sathyaish Chakravarthy — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 01:07:06 GMT

Assembly B references pre-compiled assembly A.

In Assembly B
---------------------------
namespace B
{
    class ClassB
    {
       /* here I need a reference to an internal static class declared in assembly A */
    }
}

How may I get that?

Dispatcher.BeginInvoke works on Vista, not on XP?

Bas — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 00:38:52 GMT

I've been having the hardest time getting a multithreaded application to work on XP. If I try it out on Vista, it works like a charm, but on XP, I get the good old error dialog as soon as a certain piece of code is hit. I've managed to isolate the problem to the following:

I have a simple .NET 3.5 WPF application. The code for Window1.xaml is as follows:

[code language="xaml"]

<Window x:Class="TestCase.Window1" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"

xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"

Title="Window1" Height="300" Width="300">

    <StackPanel>
        <Button Height="23" Name="button1" Width="75" Click="button1_Click">Button</Button>
        <TextBox Name="textbox1">Default text</TextBox>
    </StackPanel>
</Window>
[/code]

Nothing special there, a button with an event handler and a textbox called "textbox1" with "Default text" as the value for the Text property. In the codebehind, the class looks as follows:

[code language="csharp"]

/// <summary>
/// Interaction logic for Window1.xaml
/// </summary>
public partial class Window1 : Window
{
    public Window1()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
    }

    private void button1_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
    {
        if (this.Dispatcher.Thread == Thread.CurrentThread)
        {
            textbox1.Text = "Same thread";
        }
        else
        {
            this.Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(new SomeDelegate(SomeFunction));
        }
    }

    public delegate void SomeDelegate();
    public void SomeFunction()
    {
        textbox1.Text = "From somefunction.";
    }
}
[/code]

When the button gets clicked, the code checks if the current thread is the same as the one the control was created in. In this simple example, this is always the case. And indeed, in Vista, this is true, because there the textbox's text changes to "Same thread". Nothing happens with the call to BeginInvoke, or the delegate, or the SomeFunction method, because that code just never gets reached.

If I run the exact same program on XP, though, the application crashes. All because the call to BeginInvoke, because if I comment that line out, it works fine on XP as wel. I wanted to make sure that the code there is never actually reched, so I changed the if statement to

[code language="csharp"]
bool alwaysTrue = true;
if (alwaysTrue = true)
{
    textbox1.Text = "Same thread";
}
else
{
    this.Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(new SomeDelegate(SomeFunction));
}
[/code]

This way, the code in the else block can never be executed. And indeed, with the else block commented out, the application works fine under XP, changing the text to "same thread" as soon as I click the button. This means that the code in the else block doesn't get executed. However, as soon as I uncomment the else block, the application crashes again when I click the button. It crashes on code that isn't being executed. What's going on here?

Edit: jay, copy paste from Visual Studio means messed up formatting.

How do I avoid this type mismatch

Sathyaish Chakravarthy — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 00:11:01 GMT

I am extending the .NET WebBrowser control by using its internal/private member _axIWebBrowser2, which is of type:

private UnsafeNativeMethods.IWebBrowser2 _axIWebBrowser2;

where UnsafeNativeMethods is an internal class in WindowsBase.dll. Using reflection, I've managed to get the instance of the intrinsic object that implements IWebBrowser2. However, when I call the QueryStatusWB or ExecWB methods, they expect the OLECMDID struct parameter to be from the UnsafeNativeMethods class, whereas I am using the OLECMDID values from ShDocVw.dll's global namespace.

Therefore, I get a type mismatch. Here's the relevant snippet:

            if (this._axIWebBrowser2 != null)
            {
                IWebBrowser2 objWebBrowser2 = (this._axIWebBrowser2 as IWebBrowser2);
                return (objWebBrowser2.QueryStatusWB(SHDocVw.OLECMDID.OLECMDID_SAVEAS) == S_OK);
            }

And I get:

The best overload method match for 'IWebBrowser2.QueryStatusWB(UnsafeNativeMethods.OLECMDID)' has some invalid arguments. Please help.

TFS 2008 , Customized work item, Link Control problem

ahmednasr — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 18:51:04 GMT

Hi All,

I'm doing some modification on process template in TFS 2008 with SP1,

My problem is with the Link Control: That I need to have 5 or 6 of it in my customized work item, but if I used one of these link controls lets call it "A" and i linked a work item inside it lets call it "LWI", I find that "LWI" is shown in every Link Control i have in the form beside the link control "A" !!!!

I tried to search for a solution for this problem but I couldn’t find, I really appreciate your help in this issue

Thanks alot

ShDocVw.ShellUIHelper::AddFavorite()

Sathyaish Chakravarthy — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 18:49:07 GMT

I want to bring up the favorites dialog box in my C# app. I am calling the COM function AddFavorite but it doesn't work.

I've added the reference to ShDocVw.dll and generated the Runtime Callable Wrapper. Is there anything else I need to do for it to work?

Very long class name ?

cro — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 15:13:28 GMT

I try to rewrite our C++ app in C# and refactoring the app in doing it. In C++ we have that class hierarchy:

SubModel
    PotentialEvapotranspiration
        Penman
        HydroQuebec
        Thornthwaite
    VerticalWaterBudget
        Bv3c

Following some guideline in C# and came up with this:

SubModel
    PotentialEvapotranspirationSubModel
        PenmanPotentialEvapotranspirationSubModel
        HydroQuebecPotentialEvapotranspirationSubModel
        ThornthwaitePotentialEvapotranspirationSubModel
    VerticalWaterBudgetSubModel
        Bv3cVerticalWaterBudgetSubModel

So, how long is too long ? The kernel of our app is open source, so as a developper, would you like having those class name ?

Extract icon file from IE shortcut (.url)

Sathyaish Chakravarthy — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 09:08:35 GMT

I want to get the icon from an IE shortcut (.url) file without passing a new WebRequest to the server.

The .url is an INI file that has the path to the original URI where the icon file resides, but I don't want to make a new web request.

Surely the file must be somewhere already on the local system. Is there a way to get it?

Updating Windows2003

raptor3676 — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 04:29:51 GMT

Hi again everyone,

I got about 12 Win2K3 servers isolated from the Internet (which I think is a good thing) they have been that way for like 3 years now and there should be a lot of updates that they have missed. And given the important updates going these days and the fact that they accessed by very virus prone clients PCs, I think is better to get'em updated.

Securing Internet access for them is something that, well... it's gonna happend the very same day hell freezes over. (client policy and they are very stubborn)

So, do you guys know if is there a tool that I can download, run it on the servers, tell me what patches are needed so I can download'em from somewhere else.

Sure, It's cumbersome but I can't think of another way.

Raptor

CSV to POCO helper [CSV to POCO helper]

staceyw — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:21:13 GMT

Sure xml and json get all the press. But sometimes the right tool is just a simple CSV. It is easy for editing and has broad support with tools like Excel. TMK, there is no built-in CsvToObject converter, so I wrote one. To make it easier, we go from csv, to json, to POCO.
http://staceyw.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!F4A38E96E598161E!1437.entry

in reply to CSV to POCO helper

Tell Windows that my program is responding

ploe — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:41:25 GMT

So I have this c++ console application that takes a while to close. In my SetConsoleCtrlHandler handler I have to write some things to disk before my program can closes. So when you close my application the End Program dialog comes up because Windows thinks my application is not responding. Is there a way for me to tell Windows "hey I am still responding, it just takes me a while to close"?

Compiler related question

Shining Arcanine — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 20:14:30 GMT

I am taking a data structures class which is taught 73% in Java and 27% in C. Right now, we are now doing C and the examples of C code on the lecture slides are is what I consider to be Java-style C code in that it is very verbose. C is a programming language in which I am very comfortable in programming, but C is also my favorite programming language and each time I see Java-style C code, it feels like a piece of me dies inside, so to resolve this, I would like to write a program that will do the following things in the following order:

Read a C source file from the file system
Verify it has no syntax errors (if it does, it will stop here)
Generate a parse tree containing a description of the program
Do manipulation to the parse tree to apply optimizations to the code
Output a neatly formatted C source file to the file system

After I have written this program, I will give it to my professor in the hope that he uses it to fix his lecture slides. I know all of the optimizations that I want the program to do and I could list them, but I have a more fundamental problem.

I have a copy of the dragon book and I have read its first few chapters, but it but it is very abstract in its descriptions. Consequently, its examples only show how portions of things are done, such as mathematical expressions. It would take several months for me to derive how all of this would be applied to something as complicated as the C language and to write a working program that does what I want, so I am wondering, is there any sort of shortcut I can take?

More specifically, is there any sort of idiot's guide for specialized tools compiler writers use like LEX and YACC that would enable me to quickly get code that will produce a parse tree so I can do the manipulations I want and then output the tree's information to a text file without having to concern myself with the algorithms behind how the parse tree was generated in the first place?

How do you distribute a VB6 InteropForm with your VB6 app?

RodAtWork — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 20:05:26 GMT

Our two major apps are both written in VB6. I'm working on converting one now, due to the number of issues that it has, but the other one works reasonably well and so for the time being we're leaving it alone. However, every now and then I have to make changes to it. Whenever I have to make changes to this old VB6 app, I loath getting into VB6. It is such a pain, after having worked in Visual Studio .NET.

So, I've been considering replacing one or two of the old VB6 forms with a VB6 InteropForm Library project. I could use either VS 2005, which I've already gotten the VB6 InteropForm Library project for, or I would assume that there might be one available for VS 2008. Anyway, my question deals with how to distribute this with our app, if I do include it? Right now we've using an older version of the Wise installer, because we've got to install Crystal Reports 11 Release 2 with this VB6 app, along with several third party COM components. I'm just not sure how I would include a VB6 InteropForm Library assembly in the Wise installation.

Windows Dev Advice and Resources

impulsionaudio — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 18:05:15 GMT

I am new to Windows development and am looking for good references and advice about technologies to use. My goal is to develop audio applications with a real-time graphical interface that may one day be deployed to the internet. I know .NET has classes for wav file playback and drawing but I need flexibility: mp3, midi, audio generated by the app itself, animated plots. Can .NET classes handle this variability? Should I use DirectX? Do DirectX and .NET get along? How will using DirectX affect web deployability? Should I use some other media technology? Flash? I know this seems like a lot of meandering questions but my goal is just to develop audio apps with a sophisticated real-time graphical interface that might be deployed to the internet. I am just trying to sort out the technologies to use.

If you have suggestions, I would also appreciate recommendations for resources to learn how to develop with the recommended technologies, e.g. books or sites with a more practical, less reference feel, than msdn.com. The instruction videos linked to by msdn.com are neat but can't be flipped through like a book or site.

If I have posted in the wrong forum, please tell of some forums I should look at.

Thanks!