A coder's dot com

Free alternative to XML Spy

2010-11-22T12:10:00.000Z

Professionally I'm sometimes faced with the challenge of being assigned a task, without having the adequate tools to perform it. An example of that is working with XML files.

Not having acquired a commercial software like XML Spy, I had to find a free alternative. To open XML files, pretty-print them and check for issues, I adopted XML Copy Editor:

XML Copy Editor is a free editor that enables you to:

open XML files
edit your own XML
check if the XML is well formed
check the XML for compliance with a given schema

Additionally it also performs advanced user operations like syntax highlighting and XPath evaluations. Overall, XML Copy Editor performs all the tasks necessary for XML analysis.

Delete Blogger pictures from Picasa

2010-06-21T15:19:00.001+01:00

Before this one, I had a couple of blogs hosted on Blogger. The pictures I used on the blogs posts were uploaded into Picasa Web Albums.

Having deleted thos blogs I no longer need the pictures, but the delete option was disabled.

The solution to delete an album associated with a blog is to first delete all the pictures on it, and then delete the album.

You don't need to delete a picture at once. If you select the option "Edit > Reorganize & Reorder", you can select all pictures and delete them.

HTH y'all!

Netbeans and Glassfish Error: CLI130 Could not create domain

2010-04-21T14:50:00.000+01:00

Having Netbeans 6.8 installed, with Glassfish V3 on a laptop running Windows 7, I had the following error upon starting the IDE:

CLI130 Could not create domain

Apparently, the J2EE development server domain could not be created. I opened a command prompt, navigated to the Glassfish installation folder and executed the "asaadmin create-domain" to create a new domain. Still no luck! A lack of privileges prevented the new domain folder creation.

Next, I repeated the same step, but opened the prompt with the "Run as administrator" option. The domain creation went smoothly and after starting the IDE, the same error appeared because it would always try to start the default domain.

I carried on, manually starting my domain with the "asadmin start-domain" command and connecting to the server as if it was a remote server. But I was not pleased with the solution.

So, I tried to start the IDE with "Run as Administrator" option. And it worked. After all, it had a really simple work around.

Migrating from Wordpress to Blogger

2010-04-07T17:33:00.000+01:00

As you might know, if you were following my blog on the previous address, I've migrated it from Wordpress to Blogger. The reason for doing so is just that Blogger let's you control the page's content with a finer grain, even write raw HTML it you want to.

I managed to get all my posts from Wordpress and import them to blogger. The problem at hand with that is Blogger only supports file exported from another Blogger hosted blog.

The solution I found was as follows:

Export all the posts from the previous site, hosted on Wordpress, to a file in the WordPress eXtended RSS (WXR) format. You can do this going to "Tools > Export" on your Wordpress dashboard.
Next I found this tool, called Wordpress2Blogger, uploaded my WXR file and downloaded a new file, this one on the Blogger RSS format.
Finally, I imported the given file into Blogger, using the available import option,

With three simple steps, not counting the new blog account registration, the migration is successful.

Developing mobile applications

2010-01-26T17:57:00.000Z

There are several big players on the smart mobile devices market, personally I have followed mostly three of them: Windows Mobile, Android and iPhone. Perhaps this three are the trends I'm most interested in.

There is also Blackberry, but for some reason I didn't get much into it. Maybe it's because I associate this manufacturer with other mobile device vendors like Nokia, Samsung or Motorola. They have an operating system, the hardware and some integrated applications but the focus is on pushing new hardware on customers.

The three vendors I mentioned as trends I like, are more focused on the software, meaning the operating system and applications that can be executed on top of it. Of course, there are a great deal of functionalities that only can be provided if the necessary hardware is available, like WiFi, GPS and Multimedia.

Just to see how one can get into mobile applications development, I tried to get informed where to start. The result was as follows:

Windows Mobile: easy one, hence the IDE is Microsoft's Visual Studio .NET. It has all the tools needed to develop and an emulator to test the applications under development. To start, you just need to have a PC with Windows XP or above and get a grip on Visual Studio .NET, preferably the latest version to take advantage of .NET framework's full potential.

Android: the documentation got me in a little back and forward understanding of the starting point. But having cleared the facts, you can develop after checking the system requirements (the tools run on Windows and Linux, needs JDK, not just the JRE). After the check, you have to get the Android SDK, Eclipse IDE and the ADT plug-in.

iPhone: unfortunately, didn't get past the register page, where it states: "To develop with iPhone SDK you must have an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X Leopard.". So, to start developing some iPhone apps, you have to register and have access to a Mac.

Handsets with Java: you can get the Eclipse Mobile Tools Platform - Pulsar. It comes with an automated tool to install/uninstall SDK from manufacturers.

Now, the choice or guess of what technology or product will be most widely used is up to whoever reads this post.

Security on ASP.NET applications

2010-01-19T11:49:00.000Z

The evolution of information systems places more and more applications on web-based architectures. The concern with security on this type of systems has to evolve also. Any programmer familiar with Web development is a potential script kiddie. The task of corrupting, destroying or getting illicit access to data cannot be facilitated.

There is a series of guides on Microsoft Developer's Network, on how to protect an ASP.NET application against injection attacks. The guides are pretty straightforward, giving a brief notion of the attacks and also the counter measures one can adopt to prevent them:

How To: Protect From Injection Attacks in ASP.NET

How To: Protect From SQL Injection in ASP.NET

How To: Prevent Cross-Site Scripting in ASP.NET

How To: Use Regular Expressions to Constrain Input in ASP.NET

Even if you have already deployed applications, it's very well worth it to spend some time analyzing them and integrating the security enhancements explained. Better safe than sorry.

Connecting VPN on Ubuntu

2010-01-12T23:07:00.000Z

Sometimes, to insure a service's quality stated on a Service Level Agreement, one has to do interventions on the systems at any given hour of the day. Even late at night, or on holidays.

Given the possibility of connecting to my Workplace´s network through VPN, I faced the challenge of configuring a VPN network client on Ubuntu Linux (9.10). Our communications staff had a ready to use setup for Windows, but that didn't help much. So I took the exported Cisco PCF file and got engaged on this task.

Overall, it wasn't as tricky as I would expect. I performed the following steps:

Open the Synaptic Package Manager

Selected the following packages: vpnc, network-manager-vpnc, KVpnc

Apply the changes

Having finished the installation:

Go to the Application menu, select Internet/KVpnc

Start the new connection wizard and import the pcf file

Save your new profile

Connect and ... that's it!

I tried to import the pcf file directly, without using the wizard and it didn't work. Anyway, when your VPN connection is active, open a terminal window and run the command "ifconfig". Your VPN tunnel should be listed on the active connections.

Network adapter disappears on Windows 7

2009-11-19T14:46:00.000Z

I had a most unusual problem after updating my laptop to Windows 7. The purpose of a laptop is really to move around so I usually take it from my workplace and use it at home, carrying it back on the next day.

I found out that, whenever I booted up the machine before plugging the network cable in, my network adapter vanished from the notification area as well as the Network and Sharing Center. A reboot, with the cable already plugged in, solved this little annoyance.

But, sometimes, the problem has it source between the computer and the chair. I was not aware of a nice feature on Power Management that allows the computer to turn off a device to save power.

So I just had to take the check off the turning off option and the situation ceased to occur. Maybe someday I'll put it back on ;)

Posting a SOAP command from the command line on Linux

2009-10-15T11:58:00.000+01:00

Having to work with servers, which connect to external systems via private networks, one must face the difficulty of having to test Web services without having direct access to the endpoint of them. Given that, and adding the Linux operating system, one could find himself in a jam.

There is a command I use often to perform simple connectivity tests, like getting the WSDL. It's called "wget". You just type "wget http://someurl/endpoint" and an HTTP request to that URL is sent and the response is captured ans saved to file.

Nevertheless, one might be able to connect to the remote server, but what id you want to check if the service is really working? Otherwise you'll never know if an error is caused by your end of the stick.

To post a SOAP request to a remote Web server, the recipe is simple:

Build a sample SOAP request and save it on a text file, maybe called "soap.txt"

To send the request to the remote server type the following command:

curl -H "Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8" \
-H "SOAPAction:" \
-d @soap.txt -X POST http://someurl

That's it!

curl -H "Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8" \

-H "SOAPAction:" \

-d @pedidoSOAP.txt \

-X POST

IE8 crashes on Windows Update

2009-08-24T15:46:00.000+01:00

Trying to automatically update my Windows XP, I got a crash from my browser, every single time, while trying to install the automatic updates ActiveX control.

The solution is to go to: Tools / Internet Options / Advanced / Security. Take the check off the "Enable memory protection to help mitigate online attacks" option.

Netbeans, JSF and Oracle Datasource

2009-08-24T14:17:00.000+01:00

I've been fiddling with Netbeans 6.5 and Java EE 5 in order to keep up to date with some of the trends in web development on a JEE architecture. When trying to perform a tutorial on the Netbeans DVD Starter Kit, with JSF and Data bounded controls and I found myself having a problem.

I followed the tutorial's steps (enumerated below, give or take a step):

Add the database connection to the IDE

Create a new project for a JSF Web Application

Add a Drop-down control from the Woodstock control palette

Add a property attribute for the control

Drag & drop the the database table onto the control to perform the data binding

Configure the Key/Value field on the drop-down

Executing the above using the JavaDB samples bundled with the IDE performed surprisingly OK, right on the first compilation and execution. However, when I performed the above steps for a neat Oracle 11g database, the Cached Row Set did not work properly and the data binding window did not display the fields available.

Searching on the Web, I found this page about Netbeans and JDBC drivers. So my first lead was the JDBC driver. I changed the driver to be used and reconfigured the connection (I was using JDBC4 and changed it to JDBC3). Tried it and still no luck.

I copied the referred jdbc url to the Service Tab on Netbeans and established the connection. But It still did not work. But something told me it should be the connection string, so I checked the web.xml file for the application and it pointed to lookups on a resource file. I edited the resource file and found the problem: the changes made on the services tab are not refactored on the application.

In conclusion, I edited the resource file, saved it and the second time around the data bind operation worked perfectly!

Nevertheless, I made an identical page using JSTL and the performance was much better. I found that JSF carries some overhead, undesired when performance is essencial.

MSDEV - Microsoft training for solution providers

2009-06-15T13:18:00.000+01:00

Some time ago, I came across a really nice site from Microsoft, where a lot of training material and tutorials are made available. The site is called msdev and it's maintained and supported by a company called IT Mentors as well as a team of Microsoft Professionals.

Arriving at the site, an anonymous user can be watching a video tutorial in no time, as well as have access to Seminars and Virtual Labs.

Because knowledge is never too much, when you have a break from a busy schedule, I really recommend visiting this site for updates on Microsoft technology.

Getting Foreign Keys on Oracle

2009-02-26T16:27:00.000Z

When maintaining a live system, sometimes one must undo a committed transaction on the database. In other words, delete some records and their trails.

A difficulty that sometimes arises on complex relational models, with cascade deletion disabled, is to find out what records on other data tables are pointing to the ones I want to erase.

On Oracle, to find out which tables have a foreign key that points to the primary key of the records we want to delete, one just issue the command:

select * from ALL_CONSTRAINTS where R_CONSTRAINT_NAME = '[Your PK constraint name]'

This statement returns as a result the tables that have a foreign key constraint pointing to the targeted table's primary key.

.NET Class creation from XML schema = XSD.exe

2008-11-19T15:54:00.000Z

While designing data exchange through the use of web services, one must think of what data is required to travel and how it can be described.

SOAP is an XML based format, so the most natural thing to happen is for us to design a schema for an XML representation of the information and later embed it on a SOAP envelope response.

When implementing a web service using .NET we can rest assured that the framework will provide the WSDL descriptor file automatically. But there's another task to be done: implement the classes to support the data handling.

The good news is that .NET also has a tool for that matter, called XSD.EXE. It's a command line utility that takes an XML schema file (XSD) and generates a file with the classes to serialize all the information described on the file.

[caption id="attachment_46" align="alignnone" width="500" caption=".NET Command Line Prompt"][/caption]

To view the options available type: xsd.exe /?

[caption id="attachment_48" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="XSD Command Options"][/caption]

To generate classes using C# for a schema called myData.xsd, with the dot.coder.data name space, you could type:

xsd -c -l:c# -n:dot.coder.data myData.xsd

After the source code file is generated you can add it to your Visual Studio Project, for Web Services or other purposes.

Windows XP Visual Styles

2008-10-07T18:06:00.000+01:00

Some kind of users, like myself, might get tired of staring at the same desktop workspace, with the same icons and window borders and stuff.

Many people consider changing from Windows to Mac just for the overall visual aspect of the OSX operating system, which is in fact gorgeous.

Other people upgrade from Windows XP to Vista, with the same hardware and curse themselves for the less then great idea. But they get the pretty gadgets and menus.

People who simpathyse with the free software movement, can already choose from a large number of linux distros that offer a great desktop experience.

People like me, who like Windows XP and just want to get some design evolution on the overall aspect can use Windows Visula Styles, called MSStyles.

MSSTYLES is a Microsoft file format, that contains the bitmaps and metadata for the Windows XP skinning engine.

The engine, in its un-modified state, only fully applies .msstyles files that have been digitally signed by Microsoft such as Luna or the Zune theme. The default Windows XP style is known as Luna, but additional custom-made styles are available on the internet - however few are digitally signed.

Custom-made styles can be used using different methods, being the most popular to just patch the file UXTheme.dll, on the Windows system folder. Among other places, the patch is available from Softpedia.

After patching the file, you can start using custom msstyles, which you can browse and download from various sites such as:

Deviant Art

XP Themes

Belchfire Themes

Happy desk modding!

PPTPlex - Presentations on a Canvas

2008-09-16T18:34:00.000+01:00

pptPlex is a plug-in that explores an alternate method for presenting a PowerPoint slide deck. Using pptPlex, you can present your slides as a tour through a zoom able canvas instead of a series of linear slides.

However, once I had downloaded and installed it, it failed to load with an error. Running windows XP SP3, MS Office 2007, when I open PPT I didn't see any ribbons or options for Plex. Going into Powerpoint Options / Addins, Plex is listed, so I click on Go for managing COM Add-Ins. I get a dialogue showing Plex is disabled with the message: Location: mscoree.dll Load Behaviour: Not loaded. A run-time error occurred during the loading of the COM Add-In.

After a while investigating, I found that getting the Primary Interop Assembly for Office 2007 from Microsoft at this link here, would solve the problem.

PPTplex is really a must have add-in for teachers and alike because it add some originality even if your slides are dull :)

Site link: PPTplex Download: Here.

Devunity - Social Development Platform

2008-09-12T09:18:00.000+01:00

Devunity is a very interesting Web application that allows collaboration between programmers for application development, using the most common programming languages.

With Devunity, coders can collaborate on new code creation, bug management, API implementation and even use version tracking servers from a Google Code or SourceForge account.

On the same platform you can collaborate, write code, manage a “to do” list and implement the most popular APIs.

Site Link: Devunity

Windows System Monitoring

2008-09-11T18:25:00.000+01:00

I've started a project on Microsoft's open source initiative CodePlex. It's similar to Source Forge but dedicated to Microsoft .NET framework programming.

I've shared with anyone interested the source code of my effort to build some components for Windows Server monitoring. It won't work with Unix/Linux because it uses WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation).

Anyway, my project's homepage is here and you can feel free to collaborate if you'd like.

F# - Functional Programming

2008-09-11T14:44:00.000+01:00

F# developed as a research programming language to provide the much sought-after combination of type safety, succinctness, performance, expresivity and scripting, with all the advantages of running on a high-quality, well-supported modern runtime system. This combination has been so successful that the language is now being transitioned towards a fully supported language on the .NET platform.

For further information, see the MSDN F# Developer Center.

A set of advice from some php gurus

2008-09-10T16:56:00.000+01:00

Here are 10 principles of some very experieced programmers, for PHP development:

Use PHP Only When You Need it - Rasmus Lerdorf

Use Many Tables With PHP and MYSQL for Scalability - Matt Mullenweg

Never, ever trust your users - Dave Child

Invest in PHP Caching - Ben Balbo

Speed up PHP Development with an IDE, Templates and Snippets - Chad Kieffer

Make Better Use of PHP's Filter Functions - Joey Sochacki

Use a PHP Framework - Josh Sharp

Don't use a PHP Framework - Rasmus Lerdorf

Use Batch Processing - Jack D. Herrington

Turn on Error Reporting Immediately - David Cummings

You can find the original end more extensive post on this blog here.

My doted life

2008-09-09T11:34:00.000+01:00

In modern days, everything in my life is dotted. I develop for .NET, I've got this .COM, I even dot my middle initial.

But it's all great and I hope to share something interesting with you... Happy browsing!