Asim Riaz

Create habits

2017-09-11T04:57:00.002-07:00

A person only has a certain amount of “will power” available to them each day to spend on tasks. Turning a task into a daily habit will stop the task requiring will power to do it. Instead, the brain will accept the new behavior as a subconscious task. Habits don’t require will power because they become automatic behaviors that the person does every day. It typically takes thirty days to turn a new action into a habit. Setup the beginning of your day to look something like this:

· Wake up at 8:00 AM

· Breakfast

· Meditate for 10 minutes

· Go for a run

· Shower

· Start concentration music and timer, then begin work on hardest most important task

· 30 minutes tea and drink break

· Re-focus on hardest, most important task

· Re-focus to finish the hardest most important task for that day

· Check email

· Break for Lunch

You will get more done by lunch time than most people can do in a whole day. The “after lunch” part of the day can be spent on easier tasks, like emails, design, organization and maintenance tasks where less concentration is required.

Burn calories and control weight

2017-09-11T04:25:00.003-07:00

You must have heard endless times how exercise is good for your health. Do you know that it can actually help you feel positive, too? Getting the legitimate amount of exercise can step up your energy levels and even help in improving your mood swings.

One should not exercise only to tone up the body but to feel confident. Exercise strengthens your muscles, keeps your bones strong, improves sleep patterns and strengthens immune function.

It's never too late to start exercising, and one doesn’t have to be an athlete to exercise. Even starting with a 30 minutes brisk walk a day can bring a major difference in your health.

Scientific research has shown that people who exercise regularly have more energy to think clearly.

Here are some unbelievable health benefits of exercising daily:

Reduces stress

Exercising can help manage physical and mental stress . Exercise also increases concentrations of norepinephrine, a chemical that regulates brain’s response to stress.

Improves self-confidence

Physical fitness advances self-esteem and improves positive self-image.

Exercise controls weight

When you enlist yourself in any physical activity, you burn calories. The more intense the activity, the more calories you burn.

Exercise combats diseases

Regular exercise saves you from stroke, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes and depression.

Exercise boosts energy

It distributes oxygen and nutrients to tissues and helps cardiovascular system work more efficiently. When your heart and lungs work well, you get more energy to tackle the daily chores.

Postpones disability in adults

Running postpones the development of disability in older adults by strengthening the muscles.

Better sleep

Regularly exercising helps one fall asleep faster.

TIPS:

Start slow
Start with aerobics
30 minutes per day
5 minutes break at intervals
Drink plenty of water

Enabling Exception Handling using Log4net

2017-08-28T07:43:00.000-07:00

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[error_log](

[Id] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,

[Date] [datetime] NOT NULL,

[Thread] [varchar](255) NOT NULL,

[Level] [varchar](50) NOT NULL,

[Logger] [varchar](255) NOT NULL,

[Message] [varchar](4000) NOT NULL,

[Exception] [varchar](2000) NULL,

CONSTRAINT [PK_error_log] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED

(

[Id] ASC

)WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON)

)

configSections>

</configSections>

</appSettings>

</filter>

</parameter>

</layout>

</parameter>

</layout>

</parameter>

</layout>

</parameter>

</layout>

</parameter>

</parameter>

</appender>

<root>

<appender-ref ref="AdoNetAppender" />

</root>

</log4net>

Import Excel Into SQL Server using MVC

2017-08-25T07:18:00.002-07:00

[Authorize]

public class ImportDataController : Controller

{

SMSNotificationService smsNotification = new SMSNotificationService();

// GET: ImportData

public ActionResult Index()

{

return View();

}

[HttpPost]

public ActionResult ImportUsers(HttpPostedFileBase file, string sendSms)

{

try

{

string ImportSMSAlertMessage = new LookupService().GetConfigurationKeyValue("ImportSMSAlertMessage");

string role_id = new UserService().GetUserRoleByRoleKey("guide");

string senderName = "daifnaqaba";

string usersAlreadyExists = "";

DataSet ds = new DataSet();

string sendSMS = Request["sendSms"];

if (Request.Files["file"].ContentLength > 0)

{

string fileExtension =

System.IO.Path.GetExtension(Request.Files["file"].FileName);

if (fileExtension == ".xls" || fileExtension == ".xlsx")

{

string fileLocation = Server.MapPath("~/Content/") + Request.Files["file"].FileName;

if (System.IO.File.Exists(fileLocation))

{

System.IO.File.Delete(fileLocation);

}

Request.Files["file"].SaveAs(fileLocation);

string excelConnectionString = string.Empty;

excelConnectionString = "Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source=" + fileLocation + ";Extended Properties=\"Excel 12.0;HDR=Yes;IMEX=2\"";

//connection String for xls file format.

if (fileExtension == ".xls")

{

excelConnectionString = "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=" + fileLocation + ";Extended Properties=\"Excel 8.0;HDR=Yes;IMEX=2\"";

}

//connection String for xlsx file format.

else if (fileExtension == ".xlsx")

{

excelConnectionString = "Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source=" + fileLocation + ";Extended Properties=\"Excel 12.0;HDR=Yes;IMEX=2\"";

}

//Create Connection to Excel work book and add oledb namespace

OleDbConnection excelConnection = new OleDbConnection(excelConnectionString);

excelConnection.Open();

DataTable dt = new DataTable();

dt = excelConnection.GetOleDbSchemaTable(OleDbSchemaGuid.Tables, null);

if (dt == null)

{

return null;

}

String[] excelSheets = new String[dt.Rows.Count];

int t = 0;

//excel data saves in temp file here.

foreach (DataRow row in dt.Rows)

{

excelSheets[t] = row["TABLE_NAME"].ToString();

t++;

}

OleDbConnection excelConnection1 = new OleDbConnection(excelConnectionString);

string query = string.Format("Select * from [{0}]", excelSheets[0]);

using (OleDbDataAdapter dataAdapter = new OleDbDataAdapter(query, excelConnection1))

{

dataAdapter.Fill(ds);

}

excelConnection.Close();

}

for (int i = 1; i < ds.Tables[0].Rows.Count; i++)

{

string conn = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["AverosAVLProd"].ConnectionString;

SqlConnection con = new SqlConnection(conn);

string first_name = Convert.ToString(ds.Tables[0].Rows[i][0]);

string email = Convert.ToString(ds.Tables[0].Rows[i][1]);

string password = Convert.ToString(ds.Tables[0].Rows[i][2]);

string user_external_identifier = email;

string contact_number = password;

DateTime created_on = DateTime.Now;

bool userExists = new UserService().CheckIfUserExists(email);

if (!userExists)

{

string query = "Insert into users(user_external_identifier,first_name,last_name,email,password,contact_number,role_id,created_on,updated_on,status) Values('" + user_external_identifier + "',N'" + first_name + "','','" + email + "','" + password + "','" + contact_number + "'," + role_id + ",'" + created_on.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss") + "','" + created_on.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss") + "','A')";

con.Open();

SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand(query, con);

int isSaved = 0;

isSaved = cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();

if (isSaved != 0)

{

TempData["SuccessMessage"] = "users created successfully.";

}

con.Close();

}

else

{

usersAlreadyExists += email + ", ";

}

if (sendSms == "on")

{

string contactNumber = smsNotification.AdjustPhoneNumber(contact_number);

string ImportSMSAlertMessageTranslated = ImportSMSAlertMessage.Replace("{U}", email).Replace("{P}", password);

string sentStatus = smsNotification.SendSMS(contactNumber, ImportSMSAlertMessageTranslated, senderName);

if (true || sentStatus != "")

{

string query = "Insert into sms_logs(sms_status, sent_number,sent_message,sent_date) Values(N'" + sentStatus.ToString() + "','" + contact_number + "',N'" + ImportSMSAlertMessageTranslated + "','" + created_on.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss") + "')";

con.Open();

SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand(query, con);

cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();

con.Close();

}

if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(usersAlreadyExists))

{

TempData["UsersAlreadyExist"] = usersAlreadyExists;

}

return RedirectToAction("Index");

}

catch (Exception ex)

{

new LogService().LogException(ex);

TempData["SuccessMessage"] = ex.Message;

return RedirectToAction("Index");

}

finally

{

string fileLocation = Server.MapPath("~/Content/") + Request.Files["file"].FileName;

if (System.IO.File.Exists(fileLocation))

{

System.IO.File.Delete(fileLocation);

}

Goal setting examples

2017-08-25T05:00:00.000-07:00

On Time Project Delivery

on time development and delivery of high quality features for Averos project. which will help client to make Hajj operations successful.

Effective Requirement Analysis

Proactive requirement analysis and effective preparation of sprint planning , with detailed task/effort estimates (We are using Trello and slack for task and effort estimation)

Effective Object Oriented Analysis and Design

Thorough object oriented analysis and design of project features with the documentation of necessary design artifacts

Adherence to Effective Scrum Practices

Adhering to all the scrum processes with active and punctual participation of scrum meetings

Continuous Improvement of Domain, Technical and Behavioral

Continuously enhancing the project domain knowledge, technical and behavioral competencies to grow to next level

Active contribution of team's growth

Understanding and practicing agile principles and helping the team to increase its efficiency and effectiveness with timely contribution to team member's success

Azure Blob Storage

2017-07-16T00:15:00.000-07:00

The first thing we need to do is to create an Azure Storage account in the Azure Portal. Once logged into the Portal, you’ll want to click on the big green plus sign for New in the top left.

Next, you’ll want to select Data + Storage and then Storage to get to the configuration blade for your new storage account.

Here, you’ll want to enter a unique name for your Azure Storage account. Note that this name must be globally unique and must be a valid URL. You’ll also want to make sure that the physical location you select is closest to the consumers of your data as costs can increase based on the proximity of the consumer to the storage region. You can leave the rest of the information with the defaults and then click the Create button. Azure will grind away for a bit to create your storage account as you watch an animation on your home screen. There’s a much more in-depth article specifically on Azure Storage Accounts at the Azure site that you may find interesting, though don’t be alarmed that the screenshots there differ from what I have here or what you might actually encounter on the Azure Portal itself. The Azure folks have been tweaking the look of the Azure Preview Portal pretty regularly.

Eventually, the Azure Storage account will be created and you will be presented with the dashboard page for your new storage account.

Adding the Container

In Azure Blob Storage, each blob must live inside a Container. A Container is just a way to group blobs and is used as part of the URL that is created for each blob. An Azure Storage account can contain unlimited Containers and each Container can contain unlimited blobs.

So, let’s add a Container so we’ll have somewhere to store our images. In the Summary area, you want to now click on the Containers link to show your containers for this storage account and then click the white plus icon just below the Containers header.

In the Add a Container blade, enter a name for your container and select Blob and click OK.

Once your container is created, it will be displayed in the list of containers. Copy the URL that is created for your container from the URL column. Let’s go ahead and copy that into our web.config file as we’ll soon need it.

Configuration Settings

Open the Visual Studio solution we created in the last Azure Bit so we can wire up saving of our UploadedImageinto our newly created Azure Storage account.

While you’ve still got that URL in your clipboard, let’s paste that into the appSettings of our web.config file as ImageRootPath. Also, go ahead and add an appSetting for your Container name as we will need that as well.

web.config

1. <appSettings>

2. <add key=“ImageRootPath“ value=“https://imagemanipulator.blob.core.windows.net/images“ />

3. <add key=“ImagesContainer“ value=“images“ />

4. </appSettings>

Since we already have web.config open, let’s go ahead and grab the connection string for our storage account and add that to our connectionStrings in web.config. In the main dashboard for your storage account, you’ll want to click the All Settings link and then select Keys so that you can see the various key settings for your storage account including the connection strings. You should be seeing something that looks roughly like the below. Note that I’ve masked some of my super secret keys in this screenshot. It’s very important that you guard your keys as they can be used to gain unfettered access to your storage accounts if they are compromised. You can always regenerate new keys by using the buttons just under the Manage keys header in the Azure Portal if you find that your keys have been compromised. Also, there are various rotation strategies you can employ to automate the exchanging of primary and secondary keys, but that is beyond the scope of this series.

Now copy the value given for Primary Connection String and add this to the connectionStrings section of web.config:

web.config

1. <connectionStrings>

2. <add name=“BlobStorageConnectionString“

3. connectionString=“DefaultEndpointsProtocol=https;AccountName=imagemanipulator;AccountKey=XXXXXXXXXXXXX“/>

4. </connectionStrings>

Next, we’ll update ImageService to grab the values we just placed in web.config and assign these to private fields in ImageService. In addition, now that we have these values, we can construct and assign the URL for our UploadedImage in the CreateUploadedImage method.

ImageService.cs

1. public class ImageService : IImageService

2. {

3. private readonly string _imageRootPath;

4. private readonly string _containerName;

5. private readonly string _blobStorageConnectionString;

6. public ImageService()

7. {

8. _imageRootPath = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings[“ImageRootPath”];

9. _containerName = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings[“ImagesContainer”];

10. _blobStorageConnectionString =ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings[“BlobStorageConnectionString”].ConnectionString;

11. }

12. public async Task<UploadedImage> CreateUploadedImage(HttpPostedFileBase file)

13. {

14. if ((file != null) && (file.ContentLength > 0) && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(file.FileName))

15. {

16. byte[] fileBytes = new byte[file.ContentLength];

17. await file.InputStream.ReadAsync(fileBytes, 0,Convert.ToInt32(file.ContentLength));

18. return new UploadedImage

19. {

20. ContentType = file.ContentType,

21. Data = fileBytes,

22. Name = file.FileName,

23. Url = string.Format(“{0}/{1}“, _imageRootPath, file.FileName)

24. };

25. }

26. return null;

27. }

28.}

Wiring the Image Service to Upload

For this next section, we will need to bring in some additional packages via Nuget. To do this, right-click on the web project and select Manage NuGet Packages and then search for WindowsAzure.Storage and click Install. This will bring in all of the required Nuget packages needed for interaction with Azure Storage, so be sure to click “I Accept” when prompted.

The flow for saving our image to Azure Blob Storage is that we first need to get a reference to our Storage Accountand use that to create a reference to our Container. Once we have our Container, we configure it to allow public access and we use it to get a reference to a block of memory for our blob. Lastly, we tell the block that we are about to insert an image and finally we kick off the upload of the image to our Container using the name we generated earlier. Let’s now see what that looks like in some (heavily-commented) code.

First, add the new method to the IImageService interface:

IImageService.cs

1. public interface IImageService

2. {

3. Task<UploadedImage> CreateUploadedImage(HttpPostedFileBase file);

4. Task AddImageToBlobStorageAsync(UploadedImage image);

5. }

And now, implement the new method in ImageService:

ImageService.cs

1. public async Task AddImageToBlobStorageAsync(UploadedImage image)

2. {

3. // get the container reference

4. var container = GetImagesBlobContainer();

5. // using the container reference, get a block blob reference and set its type

6. CloudBlockBlob blockBlob = container.GetBlockBlobReference(image.Name);

7. blockBlob.Properties.ContentType = image.ContentType;

8. // finally, upload the image into blob storage using the block blob reference

9. var fileBytes = image.Data;

10. await blockBlob.UploadFromByteArrayAsync(fileBytes, 0, fileBytes.Length);

11.}

12.private CloudBlobContainer GetImagesBlobContainer()

13.{

14. // use the connection string to get the storage account

15. var storageAccount = CloudStorageAccount.Parse(_blobStorageConnectionString);

16. // using the storage account, create the blob client

17. var blobClient = storageAccount.CreateCloudBlobClient();

18. // finally, using the blob client, get a reference to our container

19. var container = blobClient.GetContainerReference(_containerName);

20. // if we had not created the container in the portal, this would automatically create it for us at run time

21. container.CreateIfNotExists();

22. // by default, blobs are private and would require your access key to download.

23. // You can allow public access to the blobs by making the container public.

24. container.SetPermissions(

25. new BlobContainerPermissions

26. {

27. PublicAccess = BlobContainerPublicAccessType.Blob

28. });

29. return container;

30.}

One thing to note about the public access we set on our Container (since I know that the PublicAccess = BlobContainerPublicAccessType.Blob might make some folks nervous). Containers are created by default with private access. We are updating our Container to public to allow read-only anonymous access of our images. We will still need our private access keys in order to delete or edit images in the Container.

The last step for the upload process is to actually call the AddImageToBlobStorageAsync method from our HomeController’s Upload action method.

HomeController.cs

1. [HttpPost]

2. public async Task<ActionResult> Upload(FormCollection formCollection)

3. {

4. if(Request != null)

5. {

6. HttpPostedFileBase file = Request.Files[“uploadedFile”];

7. var uploadedImage = await _imageService.CreateUploadedImage(file);

8. await _imageService.AddImageToBlobStorageAsync(uploadedImage);

9. }

10. return View(“Index”);

11.}

At this point, you should be able to run the application and upload an image and it should save to Azure Blob Storage and you should see it appear in your web page. You can right-click on the image and choose Inspect Element or View Properties (depending on your browser) to see that the image is actually being served from your Azure Storage account.

Debugging with Azure Storage Explorer

Now that you have the site working and saving to Azure Blob Storage, I’ll point you to one of my favorite debugging tools that I use when I am working with Azure Storage. There are several tools that exist for viewing and manipulating the contents of Azure Storage accounts, but my favorite is Azure Storage Explorer. Once you install Azure Storage Explorer, you’ll want to click on the Add Account button in the top menu. To get the values needed for the Add Storage Account dialog, you’ll want to return to the All Settings blade for your storage account in the Azure Portal. The first two settings are the ones you want for creating a new account in Azure Storage Explorer. Here’s the mapping:

Once you have the storage account configured in Azure Storage Explorer, you can view the contents of your container(s), like this:

You can double-click on any of the items and the View Blob dialog will open showing you the Properties Tab with everything you could possibly want to know about your blob item and even allows you to change most of the properties directly from the interface. If you then click the Content Tab, select Image, and then click the Viewbutton you can see your image:

Let’s Get it to the Cloud

As a final step, we want to publish all of this new Azure Image Manipulator goodness that we’ve created in these first two Azure Bits back out to our Azure website. You do this by right-clicking on the web project in Solution Explorer and choosing “Publish..”. Once Visual Studio completes the publishing process, you should be able to run your Azure website and upload an image to Azure Blob Storage just the same as when you were running against localhost earlier.

Now that we have our original image safely stored away in Azure Blob Storage, we need to give notice that our image is ready for processing. We’ll do this by placing a message in an Azure Queue.

2017-03-14T05:26:00.003-07:00

Proactivity

This is my favorite story about proactivity:

There was once a grasshopper who loved life. He spent his time lazing in the sun, eating when he wanted to, sleeping when he wanted to, generally enjoying himself all the time. He lived like he did not have a care in the world.

One day as he was sun-bathing, he saw an ant pushing a bread crumb across the ground. The grasshopper asked, "Hey brother! What are you doing?" The ant replied, "I am gathering food for the winter while the weather is still warm. Once winter sets in, I am going to stay home and just eat from my stock of food."

The grasshopper made fun of the ant's dull life and went on sun bathing saying, "There's enough time for such boring work. You should take time to have fun like me." Soon the summer passed and the winter started to set in.

As the weather became colder, it became harder for the grasshopper to get out. However, he soon started to feel hungry. He decided to brave the weather and find himself some food.

When he stepped out, everything was covered with snow and he could not find anything to eat. He continued to search for food everyday. He did not find anything. Finally, he grew weak and died of hunger.

Just like the grasshopper, you can have all the patience in the world but without being proactive and going for it, your gift of patience might never become a positive. In fact it actually might hurt your career.

SharePoint 2010: Scheduling Reports and Alerts for Web Analytics

2016-10-06T16:20:00.000-07:00

Web Analytics is one of those hidden gems included in SharePoint 2010 that I don't think many people are taking advantage of. We spend a lot of time building solutions, but if we don't maintain them and really understand how they are being used then we are missing out on a lot of great information. In SharePoint 2010 we have some great features that make this monitoring process easy. Huge improvements have been made since 2007, but I think many people don't realize the impact. In the rest of this blog we are going to look at the new features that allow us to configure alerts and reports via a site workflow. By taking advantage of these features we can be automatically notified when our sites meet certain criteria. Using these reports we can become very proactive in the management of our solutions.

SharePoint On-Premise Only

The first thing that we want to note about this is that these features are not available in the Office 365 offering. Hopefully, over time as the offering matures we will be given access to these features, but as of the current release these features are not available.

Site Web vs Site Collection

The next thing we want to note is that there are two types of reports we can look at, the Web (subsite) or the Site Collection. When we look at the site collection we will get additional information such as search statistics. When you generate reports and alerts you will need to select the scope to be either the current site you are working on or the site collection.

Here is a screenshots of the Site Collection summary page:

There are a few things to notice on this page:

You can use the option in the Ribbon to modify the date range.
You can see the previous value as well as the trend over time.

Notice that whenever you choose to change the settings that you also have an option to Schedule Alerts or Reports. When you click this option you are taken to a page that you can use to configure a site workflow. You have two options available:

Reports- this will email you an excel file with a status report on the items you select.
Alerts- this will email you an alert when a certain condition has been fulfilled (ie- page views greater than 5,000)

Below is a screenshot for configuring an alert:

And now, here is a screenshot of the alert that is generated. The condition for mine was if the page views are greater than zero, send me an alert.

Below is a screenshot for configuring a scheduled report:

And here is the email that is generated for the reports. Notice that if no data is included for the report that a note is added to the message.

Here is one of the reports that are attached with the email:

So as you can see we have two ways that we can configure our site collections to notify us about usage. It is very likely that we don't have the bandwidth to go in and review each of our solutions usage statistics, but with these reports we can have them configured to notify us when we need to take action. If you aren't using these features yet, I highly recommend them!

SharePoint 2013 Quick Actions

2016-10-06T16:12:00.002-07:00

One trick for working with your users is to put the tasks they need to complete right in front of them. The easier you can make things work for them, the better things will be for the adoption of the solution. Using SharePoint Designer 2013 you can easily help users by creating Quick Actions for them. These are basically shortcuts that allow them to quickly kick off a workflow or navigate to a specific page. Below is an example of a Quick Action that was added to the display view of an item:

Quick Actions

There are three actions that you can create within a quick action, including:

Navigate to a Form (example:DispForm.aspx)
Initiate a Workflow
Navigate to a URL

These are the common actions that you can use for a quick action, but there are various locations where the Quick Action would appear.

*Location*	Description
List Item Menu	This would be displayed on the list drop down item (when you select the item (…) ellipse )
Display Form Ribbon	This would be displayed when you select the view properties page for the item.
Edit Form Ribbon	This would be displayed when you select the edit properties page for the item.
New Form Ribbon	This would be displayed when you select the New Item page.
View Ribbon	This would be displayed on the Items ribbon of the list view. This would allow you to click the check mark next to an item in the full list (tabular view) and then select the quick action from the Ribbon.

Image & Rights Masking

When you create a quick action you can assign an Image to the Quick Action that will be displayed (provided the Master Page isn't hiding it). You are allowed to upload a 32 x 32 or 16 x 16 image. The best way to do this is to upload the image to one of the site libraries and then just link to it. It is very important that you use an image with the exact measurements as any other size image will not load.

Rights masking is a way that you can display the action to only users that have the same role as the one you list. This is a way that you can hide the actions from people who can just read the site while still showing custom actions to the site administrators. For a list of all available masks you can check out this article from TechNet -http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.sharepoint.spbasepermissions.aspx

Examples & Ideas

This approach can really help you add something a little extra to your solution to help your users make the most of it! Here are some ideas for ways that you could utilize this approach:

Provide a Link to a Page with Additional Detail on the View Item. This would allow users to select a button from the Ribbon if they needed additional information (and would help keep the display page cleaner).
Provide a link to the most common workflows that users would need to start.
Provide a link for workflows that only the admins could see. This would make things easier for them while at the same time not showing additional buttons for all the users.

SharePoint 2013: A Quick Overview of Workflow

2016-10-06T16:12:00.001-07:00

This is one of those topics that I feel gets overlooked a lot as we move forward with additional releases of SharePoint. If you happen to have been using SharePoint for years you probably have a good idea of the workflows available and what you can do with them, but if you are just getting started (like so many I talk to are) then it can be often times overwhelming. In this post I am going to provide a very high level overview of the workflows available how they all work together.

What is a Workflow?

The first thing is an understanding of what a workflow is and how it works within SharePoint. In the most basic terms in SharePoint a workflow is a way to route content to a library or a list, collect data from a user, create tasks for a user or to send notification to users. The workflows come in two flavors – configurable or custom. There are currently two different workflow engines available and visible within SharePoint – the SharePoint 2010 workflows and the SharePoint 2013 workflows. These are two different types of workflows with two different sets of actions and functionality. This means that there are some things you can do in one version of the workflow that you simply cannot do in the other. This is honestly where some of the confusion comes from in my opinion. The reason that both exist today is to help ensure that workflows you built in SharePoint 2010 are still compatible in SharePoint 2013.

There are several different kinds of workflow that you can create –

List Workflow: These are associated with a single list and are started for each item in the list.
Site Workflows: These are workflows that are not based on a specific list and can be found in Site Actions. An example of these would be "sending a weekly email reminder".
Reusable Workflows: These are workflows that are associated with a content type (think "Project Charter" or "Sales Report") and can be configured to run on any content that is of that same content type.

In my experience, most workflows that the typical business power user creates are the List Workflows and are based on a specific process that can be clearly identified.

Configurable or Custom?

The next area that seems to cause some confusion is around the area of adding a workflow to a list or creating a custom workflow. In SharePoint 2010 workflows there are a collection of workflows that exists as templates that can be configured for lists. These workflows are common activities such as document approval or collecting comments. In 2013, these configurable workflows don't exist so all of the workflows you build are custom workflows that you can build within SharePoint Designer. If you want to add one of these configurable workflows to your list you can do so through the Workflow settings option (ensure the workflows feature is activated).

2010 Workflows on a 2013 Site?

Yes, this is completely possible. In fact in many cases I have seen users purposely create a 2010 workflow because they are wanting to use a set a features that was only available within 2010 and not available at all in 2013. Whenever you create a new workflow in SharePoint 2013 you will be given the opportunity to select if you would like to build the workflow using the 2010 or the 2013 foundation.

Hopefully this very quick, high level post helps shed some light on the concept of workflows and helps you see the available options for out of the box workflows.

SharePoint 2013: Create a Weekly Reminder Workflow

2016-10-06T15:58:00.004-07:00

One of the most common requests I get from users is the ability to create a weekly reminder notification that will remind users to complete an action. Using the SharePoint 2013 workflows this is a pretty easy requirement to meet since we now have access to looping.

To get started you will need to create a site workflow. For my example I am creating an initiation variable that allows the user to set an end date when they start the workflow. The workflow will send an email, pause for 7 days and then loop again. The first check in the loop is to determine if the date is less than the end date. By doing this we are able to set a reoccurring workflow that will repeatedly remind users of items.

Here are some screenshots to get you started.

Create a Site Workflow in SharePoint Designer

Create an Initiation Variable so the person who starts the workflow can select an end date.

Add the Workflow Actions (including the loop)

Our workflow first sets a variable (type date) to the current date. It then enters the loop and tests to see if the variable Today is less than the End Date (variable entered by workflow starter). If the condition is true it will send an email and then add 7 days to the variable and wait until the 7 days are up and then start the loop again.

The email is a pretty basic email and a screenshot of the design of it is included below.

Start the Workflow (from Site Contents)

Enter in the date that you would like the reminders to stop being sent.

Once this has been started, the users you selected in your workflow will get an email notification (as you configured in your workflow).

Additional Ideas

This post has an example of how you could send out a weekly reminder via email to a team, but there are multiple uses for this concept. Another common example would be if you wanted to create new tasks every week. So an example would be "we have a weekly set of tasks that need to be completed" – your workflow could create and assign those new tasks every week. Reminders are a huge part of our daily tasks and using these simple workflow techniques will help you really make the most of your business solutions!

.NET Framework Overview Training Session

2014-11-14T05:12:00.000-08:00

Table of Contents: Training

1.What is .NET?

–Microsoft .NET platform architecture

2.What is .NET Framework?

–.NET Framework Architecture

3.Common Language Runtime (CLR)

4.Managed Code

5.Intermediate Language MSIL

6.Assemblies and Metadata

7..NET Applications
8.Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) and integration of different languages

–Common Language Specification (CLS)

–Common Type System (CTS)

9.Framework Class Library

10.Integrated Development Environment Visual Studio

Love Your Solitude

2014-10-29T00:04:00.000-07:00

“Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away… and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast.

Be happy about your growth, in which of course you can’t take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don’t torment them with your doubts and don’t frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn’t be able to comprehend.

Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn’t necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust.

And don’t expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.”

~ Letters to a Young Poet.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Upload File In Selenium Webdriver In C#

2014-10-21T23:54:00.000-07:00

Many web applications contain HTML forms which interact with the user. The user is able to enter data in to the form fields and submit the data to a server. Selenium is able to handle form inputs such as entering text in text fields, selecting radio buttons, selecting a value from a drop-down menu and so on. Things get a little tricky when dealing with input form fields of type “file”, to allow users to browse for a file and attach the file to the HTML form and submit the file.

We can upload file in selenium webdriver easily. We have to just find the element with file control, open the widow popup, select the file and then set the value of document we want to upload in it.

Complete example in C#.Net to upload the document using selenium webdriver.

using OpenQA.Selenium;

using OpenQA.Selenium.Interactions;

using OpenQA.Selenium.Support.PageObjects;

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.IO;

using System.Linq;

using System.Text;

using System.Threading.Tasks;

using System.Windows.Forms;

public class UtilityManageRateSheetsPage

{

public void UploadFile(string fileToUpload)

{

//Open window popup

IWebElement upload = Browser.WebDriver.FindElement(By.XPath("/html/body/div[2]/div/table/tbody/tr[1]/td[3]/div/form/input[1]"));

Actions actions = new Actions(Browser.WebDriver);

actions = actions.MoveToElement(upload);

actions = actions.Click();

actions.Build().Perform();

System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(1000);

//Select the file

System.Windows.Forms.SendKeys.SendWait(fileToUpload);

System.Windows.Forms.SendKeys.SendWait("{ENTER}");

System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(1000);

//Click import button

Browser.WebDriver.FindElement(By.XPath("/html/body/div[2]/div/table/tbody/tr[1]/td[3]/div/form/input[2]")).Click();

//Wait for the file to be uploaded

System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(10000);

}

Test Automation using C#, Selenium WebDriver and NUnit

2014-10-20T23:37:00.002-07:00

What is Selenium?

Selenium automates browsers. That's it! What you do with that power is entirely up to you. Primarily, it is for automating web applications for testing purposes, but is certainly not limited to just that. Boring web-based administration tasks can (and should!) also be automated as well.

Selenium has the support of some of the largest browser vendors who have taken (or are taking) steps to make Selenium a native part of their browser. It is also the core technology in countless other browser automation tools, APIs and frameworks.

Selenium IDE is an integrated development environment for performing Selenium tests. Selenium tests can be written as HTML tables or coded in various languages like C#, PHP, Perl, Python and can be run directly in most modern browsers.The IDE can help you to record, edit and debug tests. Currently the IDE is only available for Firefox (as if we developers will use any other) as a addon.

Here is a possible scenario for using Selenium. Imagine you have created a HTML form with about twenty fields and you have to repeatedly test the form. Filling the form every time can quickly become tedious. With Selenium you can automate the whole process and run the test as required. In this part we will see how to create a simple test in Selenium. So let’s get started.

Creating a Test Automation Framework is a challenging task due to following reasons:

Test framework design and the coding of that design requires significant time and effort

Test framework must be easy to expand and maintain

Test framework should be independent of application

Test design should remove most testers from the complexities of the test framework

SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS:

Windows 7 as OS

Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 as IDE

SpecFlow as BDD tool for .Net

NUnit as Unit Testing Tool

Selenium as a Test Automation Tool

Basic Architecture:

I have developed test framework for test automation using selenium which can be over viewed as shown below.

Page-Object pattern:

Test code is easily readable.
Distinguished reusable code.
No duplication of Selenium API calls.
Creation of tests are easy and improves maintainability.
Used effectively with IDE such as Visual Studio, Eclipse, IntelliJ, Visual Studio.
Excellent support for languages such as C#, Java, Ruby, Python, Perl.

Test Framework Code Overview.

Application Test code hierarchy which categorized the tests for each application and its releases.

A Very Simple Test for Utility App:

Simple understandable test cases using page objects.

Reference: http://www.seleniumhq.org/

Famous Failures: Never Give Up!

2014-09-29T23:56:00.000-07:00

Success comes in all shapes and colors. You can be successful in your job and career but you can equally be successful in your marriage, at sports or a hobby. Whatever success you are after there is one thing all radically successful people have in common: Their ferocious drive and hunger for success makes them never give up.

Successful people (or the people talking or writing about them) often paint a picture of the perfect ascent to success. In fact, some of the most successful people in business, entertainment and sport have failed. Many have failed numerous times but they have never given up. Successful people are able to pick themselves up, dust themselves off and carry on trying.

I have collected some examples that should be an inspiration to anyone who aspires to be successful. They show that if you want to succeed you should expect failure along the way. I actually believe that failure can spur you on and make you try even harder. You could argue that every experience of failure increases the hunger for success. The truly successful won't be beaten, they take responsibility for failure, learn from it and start all over from a stronger position.

Let's look at some examples:

Henry Ford - the pioneer of modern business entrepreneurs and the founder of the Ford Motor Company failed a number of times on his route to success. His first venture to build a motor car got dissolved a year and a half after it was started because the stockholders lost confidence in Henry Ford. Ford was able to gather enough capital to start again but a year later pressure from the financiers forced him out of the company again. Despite the fact that the entire motor industry had lost faith in him he managed to find another investor to start the Ford Motor Company - and the rest is history.

Walt Disney - one of the greatest business leaders who created the global Disney empire of film studios, theme parks and consumer products didn't start off successful. Before the great success came a number of failures. Believe it or not, Walt was fired from an early job at the Kansas City Star Newspaper because he was not creative enough! In 1922 he started his first company called Laugh-O-Gram. The Kansas based business would produce cartoons and short advertising films. In 1923, the business went bankrupt. Walt didn't give up, he packed up, went to Hollywood and started The Walt Disney Company.

Richard Branson - He is undoubtedly a successful entrepreneur with many successful ventures to his name including Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Music and Virgin Active. However, when he was 16 he dropped out of school to start a student magazine that didn't do as well as he hoped. He then set up a mail-order record business which did so well that he opened his own record shop called Virgin. Along the way to success came many other failed ventures including Virgin Cola, Virgin Vodka, Virgin Clothes, Virgin Vie, Virgin cards, etc.

Oprah Winfrey - who ranks No 1 in the Forbes celebrity list and is recognized as the queen of entertainment based on an amazing career as iconic talk show host, media proprietor, actress and producer. In her earlier career she had numerous set-backs, which included getting fired from her job as a reporter because she was 'unfit for television', getting fired as co-anchor for the 6 O'clock weekday news on WJZ-TV and being demoted to morning TV.

J.K. Rowling - who wrote the Harry Potter books selling over 400 million copies and making it one of the most successful and lucrative book and film series ever. However, like so many writers she received endless rejections from publishers. Many rejected her manuscript outright for reasons like 'it was far too long for a children's book' or because 'children books never make any money'. J.K. Rowling's story is even more inspiring because when she started she was a divorced single mum on welfare.

Bill Gates -co-founder and chairman of Microsoft set up a business called Traf-O-Data. The partnership between him, Paul Allen and Paul Gilbert was based on a good idea (to read data from roadway traffic counters and create automated reports on traffic flows) but a flawed business model that left the company with few customers. The company ran up losses between 1974 and 1980 before it was closed. However, Bill Gates and Paul Allen took what they learned and avoided those mistakes when they created the Microsoft empire.

There are lots of more example.

ASP.Net MVC Training Table Of Contents

2014-09-26T00:26:00.000-07:00

Please get the installation completed of the following tools on your machine

Visual Studio 2012 or 2013
SQL Server 2012 (for developing database driven applications)

Following are the contents of training we will cover

1 .NET Framework Overview

We will read a book and will have a training session over Microsoft .NET Framework Application Development Foundation which covered most of the .Net Framework concepts as follow

o .NET, CLR, MSIL/JIT, Assemblies, CTS, .NET languages

o Data Types, Operators, Expressions, Statements, Console I/O, if / switch / case, Loops, Arrays, Methods

o Creating and Using Objects, Exceptions, Strings, Generics, Collections, Attributes

o OOP Concepts such as Defining Classes, Constructors, Properties, Events, Interfaces, Inheritance, Polymorphism

2 Introduction to ASP.Net MVC

The MVC Pattern

o Model, View, Controller

o The MVC Pattern for Web and Examples

ASP.NET MVC

o Comparison with ASP.NET Form

o ASP.NET MVC Advantages

Creating ASP.NET MVC Project

3 Introduction to ASP.Net MVC Advance Topics

ASP.NET MVC Bundling

o JQuery and JavaScript

ASP.NET MVC Routing

o Route constraints

Controllers and Actions

o Action results and filters

Razor Views

o Layout and sections

o Helpers

o Partial views

Areas

Firstly, we are going to start .Net Framework Fundamentals which will cover most of the basic concepts of .Net framework and then we will start over ASP.Net MVC (Pro ASP.NET MVC 4).

Building Applications with ASP.Net MVC 4:

http://pluralsight.com/training/Player?author=scott-allen&name=mvc4-building-m1-intro&mode=live&clip=0&course=mvc4-building

Prevent SQL Server Reporting Services Slow Startup

2014-09-26T00:08:00.001-07:00

Problem:

I've installed a SQL Reporting server 2012, with some reports. But I've some performances issues.

The first call of the day to the server(report is access in MVC application), is VERY slow(something like 20-35 seconds at best), The report generation is then fast(1-2 seconds). I've the impression that it loads alll supporting dlls in the memory on first call the use cached dlls for rest of calls. But what can takes 20-35 seconds to be loaded in memory? And how to load it only once?

These reports will be launched along with web application and will be accessed frequently, so they will always be slow on first load if I can't change this. And since it's available for customer, I just can't make them understand this(and the report is called through a website, so I risk to have timeout).

Solution:

I have solved the problem by Using the following articles as guidance:

Technet – “RSReportServer Configuration File” – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms157273.aspx
MSSQL Tips – “Prevent SQL Server Reporting Services Slow Startup” –http://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/2735/prevent-sql-server-reporting-services-slow-startup/

I Scheduled a SQL Server job that will handle a report call periodically (for example every morning before everyone rushes to the office like I schedule it for 6:00 AM), for this I have written a powershell script which will warm up MS reporting server.

# URL to your SSRS. As example localhost is used.

[string] $url = "http://localhost/ReportServer";

$httpRequest = [System.Net.HttpWebRequest]::Create($url) ;

$httpRequest.Credentials =[System.Net.CredentialCache]::DefaultCredentials;

$httpRequest.Method = "GET";

# Time out has been set to 5 minutes to make sure the call is properly completed

$httpRequest.Timeout = 300000;

$objResponseReader = [System.IO.StreamReader]($httpRequest.GetResponse().GetResponseStream());

$objResponseReader.Dispose();

I Scheduled this job for daily at 6:00 in the morning.

DEEP THINKING

2013-01-14T23:46:00.000-08:00

Have you ever thought about the fact that you did not exist before you were conceived and then born into the world and that you have come into existence from mere nothingness?Have you ever thought about how the flowers you see in your living room everyday come out of pitch black, muddy soil with fragrant smells and are as colorful as they are?

Have you ever thought about how mosquitoes, which irritatingly fly around you, move their wings so fast that we are unable to see them?

Have you ever thought about how the peels of fruits such as bananas, watermelons, melons and oranges serve as wrappings of high quality, and how the fruits are packed in these wrappings so that they maintain their taste and fragrance?

Have you ever thought about the possibility that while you are asleep a sudden earthquake could raze your home, your office, and your city to the ground and that in a few seconds you could lose everything of the world you possess?

Have you ever thought of how your life passes away very quickly, and that you will grow old and become weak, and slowly lose your beauty, health and strength?Have you ever thought about how one day you will find the angels of death appointed by Allah before you and that you will then leave this world?

Well, have you ever thought about why people are so attached to a world from which they will soon depart when what they basically need is to strive for the hereafter?

Man is a being whom Allah furnishes with the faculty of thought. Yet, most people do not use this very important faculty, as they should. In fact, some people almost never think.In truth, each person possesses a capacity for thought of which even he himself is unaware. Once man begins to use this capacity, facts he has not been able to realize until that very moment begin to be uncovered for him. The deeper he goes in reflection, the more his capacity to think improves, and this is possible for everyone. One just has to realize that one needs to reflect and then to strive hard.

Someone who does not think will remain totally distant from truths and lead his life in self-deception and error. As a result, he will not grasp the purpose of the creation of the world, and the reason for his existence on the earth. Yet, Allah has created everything with a purpose. This fact is stated in the Qur'an as follows:

We did not create the heavens and the earth and everything between them as a game. We did not create them except with truth but most of them do not know it. (Surat ad-Dukhan: 38-39)

Did you suppose that We created you for amusement and that you would not return to Us? (Surat al-Muminun: 115)

Therefore, each person needs to ponder the purpose of creation, first as it concerns him himself, and then as it pertains to everything he sees in the universe and every event he experiences throughout his life. Someone who does not think will understand the facts only after he dies, when he gives account before Allah, but then it will be too late. Allah says in the Qur'an that on the day of account, everybody will think and see the truth:

That day Hell is produced, that day man will remember; but how will the remembrance help him? He will say, "Oh! If only I had prepared in advance for this life of mine!" (Surat al-Fajr: 23-24)

While Allah has given us a chance in the life of this world to reflect and derive conclusions from our reflections, to see the truth will bring us great gain in our life in the hereafter. For this reason, Allah has summoned all people, through His prophets and books, to reflect on their creation and on the creation of the universe:

Have they not reflected within themselves? Allah did not create the heavens and the earth and everything between them except with truth and for a fixed term. Yet many people reject the meeting with their Lord. (Surat ar-Rum: 8) Those who remember Allah, standing, sitting, and lying on their sides, and reflect on the creation of the heavens and the earth: "O Lord, You have not created this for nothing. Glory be to You! So safeguard us from the punishment of the Fire." (Surat Al 'Imran: 191)

How to Stay Motivated and On-Track When You’re Struggling

2011-09-12T09:12:00.000-07:00

Maybe you’ve been trying to kick-start your business and it just hasn’t worked yet. Maybe you’ve just started but you’re already frustrated. Or maybe you’ve wanted to hit that next level for years and haven’t been able to get there. Regardless of your situation, getting motivated and on-track isn’t difficult. It’s staying that way that’s the trick. And when you’re struggling to “make it,” sometimes it’s even harder. You find yourself wandering, letting yourself get distracted, and wondering if you’ll ever really make your mark. Want to end the cycle of struggle? Master these tips and you’ll be virtually unstoppable.

First, know that this is a temporary state. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been where you are. All that you need to know is that nothing is permanent. All things change, even if it seems that they don’t. It’s simply a law of nature — nothing stays the same forever. The universe is constantly moving, evolving, and changing, and so are you. So instead of seeing this as a neverending path into darkness, know that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, and every day, it’s getting closer. And as soon as you get a new client, sell your first product, or hit that next target, everything within you will shift.

Second, remind yourself what you’re fighting for. When you’ve been trying to make something happen for awhile, you can start to lose sight of the end goal. Instead of focusing on the reason you started this journey in the first place, you begin to focus on smaller, more immediate outcomes. For example, if you started your business so you could eventually free up enough time to spend with your family, but you’ve been working for a long time and haven’t seen the results you’d expected or hoped for, your goal may have shifted from “be with my family” to “make my business work.” This has exactly the opposite effect than you originally intended. By shifting your priorities, now you’re probably spending less time with your family.

Sometimes it’s helpful to create tangible reminders of the reason you started down this path. A vision board may be useful, or just a statement, penned boldly and tacked to a bulletin board near your workspace. If you want to remind yourself of a forgotten goal and reintegrate it into your thinking process and mindset, set your alarm a few minutes earlier each morning and spend that time meditating on what you’re working towards. Reaffirm what you’re fighting for and you’ll find the will to fight is restored and renewed once more.

Third, believe in yourself. It can be hard to believe in yourself when you’ve been trying to make something work for a long time. Sometimes you just lose faith in your own ability to make it work or see it through. One of the best ways to stay strong in your belief in yourself is to keep track of your successes, even the small ones. When you’re feeling down on yourself, go back to the list of successes and review them. Remind yourself that you are capable and you can make this work.

Another way to rebuild your confidence involves something social psychologists have known for decades — that our feelings about ourselves are frequently a reflection of how we think others perceive us. So take advantage of that! Read through your client testimonials and e-mails. Ask your clients for periodic evaluations and you’re bound to receive some fantastic feedback (and if there are some negatives, folks, that’s a great learning experience — it tells you exactly what you need to do to improve and make your clients happy). Even if your faith in yourself falters, others still believe in you.

Finally, get help before you’re in crisis. If your business isn’t where you want it to be, if you aren’t making the leaps ahead that you want to be making, there’s obviously something going on. Before things go too far, before you get lost and become totally unmotivated, get help!

The problem may be with your business — it could be a branding issue, a marketing issue, or maybe just you aren’t giving your clients what they want. Hire a consultant who can turn your business inside out finding ways to improve your results. The problem may also lie within — you yourself might benefit from some “fine-tuning.” Hire a coach and work through any roadblocks that may be getting in the way of your success. Hire a mentor and model his/her behavior. Or if you’re struggling with self-discipline and need a budget solution, ask a reliable friend to be your accountability partner so you both can improve.

As you begin to master the ability to keep your motivation high, it will become easier to stay on-track. Moments of frustration will be fewer and farther between and, as you master your mindset, you’ll find that you actually achieve success and reach your targets faster.

Dialogue between a traveler and the Holy Prophet(Peace Be Upon Him)

2011-09-12T09:11:00.000-07:00

A traveler once came to the masjid to see the prophet. After greeting the prophet he was asked where he was from. The traveler replied that he came from
very far just to get a few questions answered. Following is the
dialogue between the traveler and the prophet.

Traveler: I do not want azaab to be written in my account.
Prophet : behave well with your parents

Traveler: I want to be known amongst people as an intelligent person.
Prophet : fear Allah always.

Traveler: I want to be counted amongst Allah's favorites.
Prophet : recite quran every morning and evening.

Traveler: I want my heart to always be enlightened. ( roshan and munawer)
Prophet: never forget death

Traveler: I never want to be away from Allah's blessing.
Prophet: always treat fellow creature well.

Traveler: I never want to be harmed by my enemies.
Prophet : always have faith in only Allah.

Traveler: I never want to be humiliated.
Prophet: be careful of your actions.

Traveler: I wish to live long.
Prophet: always do sile rahm. (Goodness towards blood relations)

Traveler: I want my sustenance to increase.
Prophet : always be in wudhoo.

Traveler: I wish to stay free of adhaab in the grave.
Prophet : always wear pure (paak) clothes.

Traveler: I never want to burn in hell.
Prophet : control your eyes and tongue.

Traveler: how do I get my sins forgiven.
Prophet: always ask forgiveness from Allah with a lot of humility.

Traveler: I want people to respect me always.
Prophet : never extend your hands of need at people.

Traveler: I want to always be honored.
Prophet : never humiliate or put down anyone.

Traveler: I don't want to be squeezed by fishare qabr.
( squeezing in the grave)
Prophet: recite sura e mulk often.

Traveler: I want my wealth to increase.
Prophet: recite sura e waqia every night.

Traveler: I want to be safe and at peace on day of judgment.
Prophet: do zikr of Allah from dusk to night.

Traveler: I want to be in full attention and concentration during namaaz.
Prophet : always do wudhoo with concentration and attention

An Element of Motivation

2011-04-26T23:55:00.000-07:00

Life is tough, that’s a given. When you stand up, you’re gonna be shoved back down. When you’re down, you’re gonna be stepped on. My advice to you doesn’t come with a lot of bells and whistles. It’s no secret: you’ll fall down, you stumble, you get pushed, you land square on your face. And every time that happens, you get back on your feet. You get up just as fast as you can, no matter how many times you need to do it. Remember this: success has been and continues to be defined as getting up one more time than you’ve been knocked down. If experience has taught me anything, it’s that nothing is free and living ain’t easy. Life is hard, real hard, incredibly hard. You fail more often than you win, nobody is handing you anything. It’s up to you to puff up your chest, stretch your neck and overcome all that is difficult – the nasty, the mean, the unfair. If you want more than what you have now, prove it! If you want to beat the very best out there that is, get out there and earn it! Once you decide that, you’ll know where it is you want to be. Then you won’t stop pushing forward until you get there! That’s how winners are made. At the end of the day, success is what we all want. We all want to win, and the race will be won. There is no question about that. So c’mon, get out on top, run faster, dream bigger, live better than you ever have before. This is in you. You can do this. Do it for yourself. Prove it to yourself.

My Daily Work Routine

2011-03-15T07:08:00.000-07:00

Start day with the name of Allah
Wake early in the morning at 8 o Clock
Brush your teeth and take bath
Prepare breakfast
Leave for office at 9:30 or 10 O clock max
Perform breath taking exercise
Read mission statements and encourage yourself and believe in Allah
Check for emails
Analyze and Prioritize tasks
Start work on tasks
Avoid any stress giving situations and be proactive if any conflict arise
Be polite while talking to others
Listen to your language and other's language and try to learn from other's experiences
Focus on your work and learning
Have Lunch with relaxation
Play table tennis
Offer prayer and pray to Allah for help and courage.
Start Learning new technology for few hour
Make sure you learn new technology after 2 month
At evening have a cup of tea with 3 biscuits
Email task status
Leave office at 7 O clock
Prepare for gym
Eat any seasonal fruit (banana and apple)
Leave for gym at 8 o Clock
Prepare dinner and eat
Walk for few minutes and smile whilst walking
Drink milk
Go to bed at 10 O clock
Perform breath taking exercise
Read your mission statements
Have courage and faith in yourself
Sleep at 11 o Clock
Repeat that process again for everyday and never miss two days in a row

Delegates and Events in C# / .NET

2010-12-20T23:32:00.000-08:00

Content

Overview
Delegates
Call a Function directly - No Delegate
The very basic Delegate
Calling Static Functions
Calling Member Functions
Multicasting
Events
Conventions
Simple Event
The Second Change Event Example
Conclusion

Overview

All of us have been exposed to event driven programming of some sort or the other. C# adds on value to the often mentioned world of event driven programming by adding support through events and delegates. The emphasis of this article would be to identify what exactly happens when you add an event handler to your common UI controls. A simple simulation of what could possibly be going on behind the scenes when the AddOnClick or any similar event is added to the Button class will be explained. This will help you understand better the nature of event handling using multi cast delegates.

Delegates

A delegate in C# is similar to a function pointer in C or C++. Using a delegate allows the programmer to encapsulate a reference to a method inside a delegate object. The delegate object can then be passed to code which can call the referenced method, without having to know at compile time which method will be invoked.

Call a Function directly - No Delegate

In most cases, when we call a function, we specify the function to be called directly. If the class MyClass has a function named Process, we'd normally call it like this (SimpleSample.cs):
using System;

namespace Akadia.NoDelegate
{
    public class MyClass
    {
        public void Process()
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Process() begin");
            Console.WriteLine("Process() end");
        }
    }

    public class Test
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            MyClass myClass = new MyClass();
            myClass.Process();
        }
    }
}
That works well in most situations. Sometimes, however, we don't want to call a function directly - we'd like to be able to pass it to somebody else so that they can call it. This is especially useful in an event-driven system such as a graphical user interface, when I want some code to be executed when the user clicks on a button, or when I want to log some information but can't specify how it is logged.

The very basic Delegate

An interesting and useful property of a delegate is that it does not know or care about the class of the object that it references. Any object will do; all that matters is that the method's argument types and return type match the delegate's. This makes delegates perfectly suited for "anonymous" invocation.
The signature of a single cast delegate is shown below:
delegate result-type identifier ([parameters]);
where:
result-type: The result type, which matches the return type of the function.

identifier: The delegate name.

parameters: The Parameters, that the function takes.

Examples:

public delegate void SimpleDelegate ()
This declaration defines a delegate named SimpleDelegate, which will encapsulate any method that takes
no parameters and returns no value.

public delegate int ButtonClickHandler (object obj1, object obj2)
This declaration defines a delegate named ButtonClickHandler, which will encapsulate any method that takes
two objects as parameters and returns an int.

A delegate will allow us to specify what the function we'll be calling looks like without having to specify whichfunction to call. The declaration for a delegate looks just like the declaration for a function, except that in this case, we're declaring the signature of functions that this delegate can reference.
There are three steps in defining and using delegates:
Declaration

Instantiation

Invocation

A very basic example (SimpleDelegate1.cs):
using System;

namespace Akadia.BasicDelegate
{
    // Declaration
    public delegate void SimpleDelegate();

    class TestDelegate
    {
        public static void MyFunc()
        {
            Console.WriteLine("I was called by delegate ...");
        }

        public static void Main()
        {
            // Instantiation
            SimpleDelegate simpleDelegate = new SimpleDelegate(MyFunc);

            // Invocation
            simpleDelegate();
        }
    }
}
Compile an test:
# csc SimpleDelegate1.cs
# SimpleDelegate1.exeI was called by delegate ...

Calling Static Functions

For our next, more advanced example (SimpleDelegate2.cs), declares a delegate that takes a single string parameter and has no return type:
using System;

namespace Akadia.SimpleDelegate
{
    // Delegate Specification
    public class MyClass
    {
        // Declare a delegate that takes a single string parameter
        // and has no return type.
        public delegate void LogHandler(string message);
        // The use of the delegate is just like calling a function directly,
        // though we need to add a check to see if the delegate is null
        // (that is, not pointing to a function) before calling the function.
        public void Process(LogHandler logHandler)
        {
            if (logHandler != null)
            {
                logHandler("Process() begin");
            }

            if (logHandler != null)
            {
                logHandler ("Process() end");
            }
        }
    }

    // Test Application to use the defined Delegate
    public class TestApplication
    {
        // Static Function: To which is used in the Delegate. To call the Process()
        // function, we need to declare a logging function: Logger() that matches
        // the signature of the delegate.
        static void Logger(string s)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(s);
        }

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            MyClass myClass = new MyClass();

            // Crate an instance of the delegate, pointing to the logging function.
            // This delegate will then be passed to the Process() function.
            MyClass.LogHandler myLogger = new MyClass.LogHandler(Logger);
            myClass.Process(myLogger);
        }
    }
}
Compile an test:
# csc SimpleDelegate2.cs
# SimpleDelegate2.exe
Process() begin
Process() end

Calling Member Functions

In the simple example above, the Logger( ) function merely writes the string out. A different function might want to log the information to a file, but to do this, the function needs to know what file to write the information to (SimpleDelegate3.cs)
using System;
using System.IO;

namespace Akadia.SimpleDelegate
{
    // Delegate Specification
    public class MyClass
    {
        // Declare a delegate that takes a single string parameter
        // and has no return type.
        public delegate void LogHandler(string message);
        // The use of the delegate is just like calling a function directly,
        // though we need to add a check to see if the delegate is null
        // (that is, not pointing to a function) before calling the function.
        public void Process(LogHandler logHandler)
        {
            if (logHandler != null)
            {
                logHandler("Process() begin");
            }

            if (logHandler != null)
            {
                logHandler ("Process() end");
            }
        }
    }

    // The FileLogger class merely encapsulates the file I/O
    public class FileLogger
    {
        FileStream fileStream;
        StreamWriter streamWriter;

        // Constructor
        public FileLogger(string filename)
        {
            fileStream = new FileStream(filename, FileMode.Create);
            streamWriter = new StreamWriter(fileStream);
        }

        // Member Function which is used in the Delegate
        public void Logger(string s)
        {
            streamWriter.WriteLine(s);
        }

        public void Close()
        {
            streamWriter.Close();
            fileStream.Close();
        }
    }

    // Main() is modified so that the delegate points to the Logger()
    // function on the fl instance of a FileLogger. When this delegate
    // is invoked from Process(), the member function is called and
    // the string is logged to the appropriate file.
    public class TestApplication
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            FileLogger fl = new FileLogger("process.log");

            MyClass myClass = new MyClass();

            // Crate an instance of the delegate, pointing to the Logger()
            // function on the fl instance of a FileLogger.
            MyClass.LogHandler myLogger = new MyClass.LogHandler(fl.Logger);
            myClass.Process(myLogger);
            fl.Close();
        }
    }
}
The cool part here is that we didn't have to change the Process() function; the code to all the delegate is the same regardless of whether it refers to a static or member function.
Compile an test:
# csc SimpleDelegate3.cs
# SimpleDelegate3.exe
# cat process.log
Process() begin
Process() end

Multicasting

Being able to point to member functions is nice, but there are more tricks you can do with delegates. In C#, delegates are multicast, which means that they can point to more than one function at a time (that is, they're based off the System.MulticastDelegate type). A multicast delegate maintains a list of functions that will all be called when the delegate is invoked. We can add back in the logging function from the first example, and call both delegates. Here's what the code looks like:
using System;
using System.IO;

namespace Akadia.SimpleDelegate
{
    // Delegate Specification
    public class MyClass
    {
        // Declare a delegate that takes a single string parameter
        // and has no return type.
        public delegate void LogHandler(string message);

        // The use of the delegate is just like calling a function directly,
        // though we need to add a check to see if the delegate is null
        // (that is, not pointing to a function) before calling the function.
        public void Process(LogHandler logHandler)
        {
            if (logHandler != null)
            {
                logHandler("Process() begin");
            }

            if (logHandler != null)
            {
                logHandler ("Process() end");
            }
        }
    }

    // The FileLogger class merely encapsulates the file I/O
    public class FileLogger
    {
        FileStream fileStream;
        StreamWriter streamWriter;

        // Constructor
        public FileLogger(string filename)
        {
            fileStream = new FileStream(filename, FileMode.Create);
            streamWriter = new StreamWriter(fileStream);
        }

        // Member Function which is used in the Delegate
        public void Logger(string s)
        {
            streamWriter.WriteLine(s);
        }

        public void Close()
        {
            streamWriter.Close();
            fileStream.Close();
        }
    }

    // Test Application which calls both Delegates
    public class TestApplication
    {
         // Static Function which is used in the Delegate
        static void Logger(string s)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(s);
        }

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            FileLogger fl = new FileLogger("process.log");

            MyClass myClass = new MyClass();

            // Crate an instance of the delegates, pointing to the static
            // Logger() function defined in the TestApplication class and
            // then to member function on the fl instance of a FileLogger.
            MyClass.LogHandler myLogger = null;
            myLogger += new MyClass.LogHandler(Logger);
            myLogger += new MyClass.LogHandler(fl.Logger);

            myClass.Process(myLogger);
            fl.Close();
        }
    }
}
Compile an test:
# csc SimpleDelegate4.cs
# SimpleDelegate4.exe
Process() begin
Process() end
# cat process.log
Process() begin
Process() end

Events

The Event model in C# finds its roots in the event programming model that is popular in asynchronous programming. The basic foundation behind this programming model is the idea of "publisher and subscribers." In this model, you havepublishers who will do some logic and publish an "event." Publishers will then send out their event only to subscriberswho have subscribed to receive the specific event.
In C#, any object can publish a set of events to which other applications can subscribe. When the publishing class raises an event, all the subscribed applications are notified. The following figure shows this mechanism.

Conventions

The following important conventions are used with events:
Event Handlers in the .NET Framework return void and take two parameters.

The first paramter is the source of the event; that is the publishing object.

The second parameter is an object derived from EventArgs.

Events are properties of the class publishing the event.

The keyword event controls how the event property is accessed by the subscribing classes.

Simple Event

Let's modify our logging example from above to use an event rather than a delegate:
using System;
using System.IO;

namespace Akadia.SimpleEvent
{
    /* ========= Publisher of the Event ============== */
    public class MyClass
    {
        // Define a delegate named LogHandler, which will encapsulate
        // any method that takes a string as the parameter and returns no value
        public delegate void LogHandler(string message);
        // Define an Event based on the above Delegate
        public event LogHandler Log;

        // Instead of having the Process() function take a delegate
        // as a parameter, we've declared a Log event. Call the Event,
        // using the OnXXXX Method, where XXXX is the name of the Event.
        public void Process()
        {
            OnLog("Process() begin");
            OnLog("Process() end");
        }

        // By Default, create an OnXXXX Method, to call the Event
        protected void OnLog(string message)
        {
            if (Log != null)            {
                Log(message);            }
        }
    }

    // The FileLogger class merely encapsulates the file I/O
    public class FileLogger
    {
        FileStream fileStream;
        StreamWriter streamWriter;

        // Constructor
        public FileLogger(string filename)
        {
            fileStream = new FileStream(filename, FileMode.Create);
            streamWriter = new StreamWriter(fileStream);
        }

        // Member Function which is used in the Delegate
        public void Logger(string s)
        {
            streamWriter.WriteLine(s);
        }

        public void Close()
        {
            streamWriter.Close();
            fileStream.Close();
        }
    }
     /* ========= Subscriber of the Event ============== */
    // It's now easier and cleaner to merely add instances
    // of the delegate to the event, instead of having to
    // manage things ourselves
    public class TestApplication
    {
        static void Logger(string s)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(s);
        }

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            FileLogger fl = new FileLogger("process.log");
            MyClass myClass = new MyClass();
             // Subscribe the Functions Logger and fl.Logger
            myClass.Log += new MyClass.LogHandler(Logger);
            myClass.Log += new MyClass.LogHandler(fl.Logger);
            // The Event will now be triggered in the Process() Method
            myClass.Process();

            fl.Close();
        }
    }
}
Compile an test:
# csc SimpleEvent.cs
# SimpleEvent.exe
Process() begin
Process() end
# cat process.log
Process() begin
Process() end

The Second Change Event Example

Suppose you want to create a Clock class that uses events to notify potential subscribers whenever the local time changes value by one second. Here is the complete, documented example:
using System;
using System.Threading;

namespace SecondChangeEvent
{
   /* ======================= Event Publisher =============================== */

   // Our subject -- it is this class that other classes
   // will observe. This class publishes one event:
   // SecondChange. The observers subscribe to that event.
   public class Clock
   {
      // Private Fields holding the hour, minute and second
      private int _hour;
      private int _minute;
      private int _second;

      // The delegate named SecondChangeHandler, which will encapsulate
      // any method that takes a clock object and a TimeInfoEventArgs
      // object as the parameter and returns no value. It's the
      // delegate the subscribers must implement.
      public delegate void SecondChangeHandler (
         object clock,
         TimeInfoEventArgs timeInformation
      );

      // The event we publish
      public event SecondChangeHandler SecondChange;

      // The method which fires the Event
      protected void OnSecondChange(
         object clock,
         TimeInfoEventArgs timeInformation
      )
      {
         // Check if there are any Subscribers
         if (SecondChange != null)
         {
            // Call the Event
            SecondChange(clock,timeInformation);
         }
      }

      // Set the clock running, it will raise an
      // event for each new second
      public void Run()
      {
         for(;;)
         {
            // Sleep 1 Second
            Thread.Sleep(1000);

            // Get the current time
            System.DateTime dt = System.DateTime.Now;

            // If the second has changed
            // notify the subscribers
            if (dt.Second != _second)
            {
               // Create the TimeInfoEventArgs object
               // to pass to the subscribers
               TimeInfoEventArgs timeInformation =
                  new TimeInfoEventArgs(
                  dt.Hour,dt.Minute,dt.Second);

               // If anyone has subscribed, notify them
               OnSecondChange (this,timeInformation);
            }

            // update the state
            _second = dt.Second;
            _minute = dt.Minute;
            _hour = dt.Hour;

         }
      }
   }

   // The class to hold the information about the event
   // in this case it will hold only information
   // available in the clock class, but could hold
   // additional state information
   public class TimeInfoEventArgs : EventArgs
   {
      public TimeInfoEventArgs(int hour, int minute, int second)
      {
         this.hour = hour;
         this.minute = minute;
         this.second = second;
      }
      public readonly int hour;
      public readonly int minute;
      public readonly int second;
   }

   /* ======================= Event Subscribers =============================== */
   // An observer. DisplayClock subscribes to the
   // clock's events. The job of DisplayClock is
   // to display the current time
   public class DisplayClock
   {
      // Given a clock, subscribe to
      // its SecondChangeHandler event
      public void Subscribe(Clock theClock)
      {
         theClock.SecondChange +=
            new Clock.SecondChangeHandler(TimeHasChanged);
      }

      // The method that implements the
      // delegated functionality
      public void TimeHasChanged(
         object theClock, TimeInfoEventArgs ti)
      {
         Console.WriteLine("Current Time: {0}:{1}:{2}",
            ti.hour.ToString(),
            ti.minute.ToString(),
            ti.second.ToString());
      }
   }

   // A second subscriber whose job is to write to a file
   public class LogClock
   {
      public void Subscribe(Clock theClock)
      {
         theClock.SecondChange +=
            new Clock.SecondChangeHandler(WriteLogEntry);
      }

      // This method should write to a file
      // we write to the console to see the effect
      // this object keeps no state
      public void WriteLogEntry(
         object theClock, TimeInfoEventArgs ti)
      {
         Console.WriteLine("Logging to file: {0}:{1}:{2}",
            ti.hour.ToString(),
            ti.minute.ToString(),
            ti.second.ToString());
      }
   }

   /* ======================= Test Application =============================== */
   // Test Application which implements the
   // Clock Notifier - Subscriber Sample
   public class Test
   {
      public static void Main()
      {
         // Create a new clock
         Clock theClock = new Clock();

         // Create the display and tell it to
         // subscribe to the clock just created
         DisplayClock dc = new DisplayClock();
         dc.Subscribe(theClock);

         // Create a Log object and tell it
         // to subscribe to the clock
         LogClock lc = new LogClock();
         lc.Subscribe(theClock);

         // Get the clock started
         theClock.Run();
      }
   }
}

Conclusion

The Clock class from the last sample could simply print the time rather tahn raising an event, so why bother with the introduction of using delegates? The advantage of the publisg / subscribe idiom is that any number of classes can be notified when an event is raised. The subscribing classes do not need to know how the Clock works, and the Clock does not need to know what they are going to do in response to the event. Similarly a button can publish an Onclick event, and any number of unrelated objects can subscribe to that event, receiving notification when the button is clicked.
The publisher and the subscribers are decoupled by the delegate. This is highly desirable as it makes for more flexible and robust code. The clock can chnage how it detects time without breaking any of the subscribing classes. The subscribing classes can change how they respond to time changes without breaking the Clock. The two classes spin indepentdently of one another, which makes for code that is easier to maintain.

SCOPE_IDENTITY, IDENT_CURRENT, and @@IDENTITY

2010-11-29T04:53:00.000-08:00

SCOPE_IDENTITY, IDENT_CURRENT, and @@IDENTITY are similar functions in that they return values inserted into IDENTITY columns.

IDENT_CURRENT is not limited by scope and session; it is limited to a specified table. IDENT_CURRENT returns the value generated for a specific table in any session and any scope. For more information, see IDENT_CURRENT.

SCOPE_IDENTITY and @@IDENTITY will return last identity values generated in any table in the current session. However, SCOPE_IDENTITY returns values inserted only within the current scope; @@IDENTITY is not limited to a specific scope.

For example, you have two tables, T1 and T2, and an INSERT trigger defined on T1. When a row is inserted to T1, the trigger fires and inserts a row in T2. This scenario illustrates two scopes: the insert on T1, and the insert on T2 as a result of the trigger.

Assuming that both T1 and T2 have IDENTITY columns, @@IDENTITY and SCOPE_IDENTITY will return different values at the end of an INSERT statement on T1.

@@IDENTITY will return the last IDENTITY column value inserted across any scope in the current session, which is the value inserted in T2.

SCOPE_IDENTITY() will return the IDENTITY value inserted in T1, which was the last INSERT that occurred in the same scope. The SCOPE_IDENTITY() function will return the NULL value if the function is invoked before any insert statements into an identity column occur in the scope.

See Examples for an illustration.

Examples

This example creates two tables, TZ and TY, and an INSERT trigger on TZ. When a row is inserted to table TZ, the trigger (Ztrig) fires and inserts a row in TY.

USE tempdb
GO
CREATE TABLE TZ (
   Z_id  int IDENTITY(1,1)PRIMARY KEY,
   Z_name varchar(20) NOT NULL)

INSERT TZ
   VALUES ('Lisa')
INSERT TZ
   VALUES ('Mike')
INSERT TZ
   VALUES ('Carla')

SELECT * FROM TZ

--Result set: This is how table TZ looks
Z_id   Z_name
-------------
1      Lisa
2      Mike
3      Carla

CREATE TABLE TY (
   Y_id  int IDENTITY(100,5)PRIMARY KEY,
   Y_name varchar(20) NULL)

INSERT TY (Y_name)
   VALUES ('boathouse')
INSERT TY (Y_name)
   VALUES ('rocks')
INSERT TY (Y_name)
   VALUES ('elevator')

SELECT * FROM TY
--Result set: This is how TY looks:
Y_id  Y_name
---------------
100   boathouse
105   rocks
110   elevator

/*Create the trigger that inserts a row in table TY 
when a row is inserted in table TZ*/
CREATE TRIGGER Ztrig
ON TZ
FOR INSERT AS 
   BEGIN
   INSERT TY VALUES ('')
   END

/*FIRE the trigger and find out what identity values you get 
with the @@IDENTITY and SCOPE_IDENTITY functions*/
INSERT TZ VALUES ('Rosalie')

SELECT SCOPE_IDENTITY() AS [SCOPE_IDENTITY]
GO
SELECT   @@IDENTITY AS [@@IDENTITY]
GO

--Here is the result set.
SCOPE_IDENTITY
4
/*SCOPE_IDENTITY returned the last identity value in the same scope, which was the insert on table TZ*/

@@IDENTITY
115
/*@@IDENTITY returned the last identity value inserted to TY by the trigger, which fired due to an earlier insert on TZ*/

Reference: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa259185(SQL.80).aspx