Mostafa Elzoghbi

Microsoft.ReportViewer.Common.dll is missing!

noreply@blogger.com (Mostafa Elzoghbi) — Thu, 09 May 2013 16:40:00 +0000

Hi Folks,

If you are having ASP.NET web application that is using Report Viewer control, you should be having the following dlls on your machine:

Microsoft.ReportViewer.WebForms.dll
Microsoft.ReportViewer.Common.dll

The first dll, has to be added as a reference in your bin directory while the second one can reside in GAC.

You probably will be getting an error if you don't have the common dll on your machine, first, first check the GAC: C:\Windows\assembly

If you don't have it, then you need to install Report Viewer Redistributable package.

Here you have to note that the version of the dll will vary based on the installer version.

If you want version 10, you have to install VS 2010 release, here is the link:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-ie/download/details.aspx?id=6610

If you want version 09.00.21022.08 of the dll, you need to install VS 2008 release:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=6576

If you want version 8 of the dll, you need to install VS 2005 release:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=6219

Hope this helps.

Import SSIS package error 0xC0010014 when importing SSIS package

noreply@blogger.com (Mostafa Elzoghbi) — Tue, 07 May 2013 13:01:00 +0000

Hi Folks,

I'm writing this blog post to share an interesting find while i was developing a SSIS package using VS 2012 with BI tools. Microsoft has release on March this year 2013 BI tools to VS 2012 so you don't need to use VS2010 shell while developing SSIS packages.

The download link for BI tools in VS 2012 is here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj856966.aspx

After i developed my SSIS package and try to deploy it on the SQL Server 2008 R2. I was getting the following error message when importing the package, here is the screen shots:

If you are using the Management studio you will get this above error without details!, but to get the detailed error message use SSIS Execute Package Utility, you can launch it from SQL SERVER 2008 R2 --> Integration Services --> SSIS execute Package utility

If you read the actual error message it says:
Package Migration from Version 6 to Version 3 failed with error 0xC001700A

Basically the Version that i used to develop the SSIS is higher than the recognized version by the SQL Server 2008 R2. To fix this problem you need to change the package version from 6 to 3 and it works like a charm!

Follow the following steps:
1) Right clich on our dtsx file and select edit, Open the file in notepad.
2) Look for:

DTS:Name="PackageFormatVersion">6

3) Change the number 6 for the version to 3 and save the file.
4) Select the File System File from the SSIS execute utility and you will not get any errors!
6) From the management studio you can import the SSIS with no errors.

Hope this helps.

[Update 05/09/2013] You will run through other issues if you used VS 2012 SQL Data tools against SQL Server 2008 R2, one of them is the sql job agent will fail to run the imported job due to the xml format mismatch while executing the package. So, it is recommended to develop any SSIS SQL2008 R2 components using the old BIDS VS 2008.

-ME

How to convert your WCF Service Library to WCF Service Application

noreply@blogger.com (Mostafa Elzoghbi) — Mon, 06 May 2013 16:00:00 +0000

Hi Folks,

If you have a WCF Service Library Project in VS 2012 and after you wrote some functional code and then you decided to change the project from a WCF Service Library that doesn't contain web configurations and can't be hosted in the IIS to a WCF service application that is hosted in IIS, this blog post will tell you how to do it in details.

The WCF service library doesn't contains the Web Configuration Tab when you open the project configuration (By right click on the project --> Project Properties) and it has only app.config file and not web.config file because it is not suppose to be hosted in the IIS.

To change your WCF service library to WCF Service Application:

1) Right click on the wcf project and click on unload project.
2) After the project is being unloaded, right click on the wcf project and click edit the project configuration file ".csproj".
3) Look for the following attribute :

{3D9AD99F-2412-4246-B90B-4EAA41C64699};{FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}

Change the project type to the following:

{349c5851-65df-11da-9384-00065b846f21};{fae04ec0-301f-11d3-bf4b-00c04f79efbc}

4) Reload the project.
5) Open the project configuration, you will be able to see the web tab to configure the wcf service.
6) Add web.cofig file to your project.
7) Copy any necassary keys from the app.config to the web.config.
8) Rename or delete the app.config file.
9) Make sure that you have correct port and end point configuration in the web.config.
10) Clean and Build your project. At this point the project is build with no errors.

After you run the project you will see that there is no .svc file that is the service application file used to call the WCF. But you need to have one in your project.

11) First Rename your Service.cs and IService.cs.
12) Add new WCF Service svc to your project and name it as you like.
13) Copy the code you have in the Service Class and the interface to the newly created service.
14) Compile the project.
15) Run the WCF Service application and now your WCF can be accessed through the web.

Note:
This works with VS 2012 project templates with Update 2 as well.

Hope this helps.

Few tips to know when considering developing MVC4 Applications in VS 2012 - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Mostafa Elzoghbi) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 14:49:00 +0000

Hi Folks,

I'm writing this blog post for ASP.NET web forms developers who have been working with Web forms for years and they are hesitant to develop MVC 4 ASP.NET applications; maybe for different reasons either it is not easy to understand or there are a lot of things you need to wrap your head around to get started building your first business application!

So i decided to write these series of posts,I will try to makes it easier for you to get started in MVC 4 applications with few tips that will help you know how it works and some other considerations to think about.

1) Basic Concepts of the MVC design pattern:
In MVC design pattern implementation by Microsoft, any page you see in the browser is a view, it can be a page or a user control. it can be aspx,ascx or cshtml. MVC has introduced cshtml which is the new render engine called RAZOR, this engine allows you to wirte cs code within your html elements by prefexing any C# Code by @ symbol. For example:

<div>@Html.ActionLink("Home", "Index", "Home")</div>

The above line is rendered by Razor as a link with a caption called Home and Index is the method will be called in the Home Controller.

2) Controllers:
All controllers in MVC 4 are stored under a folder called controllers, if you want to create a new controller, right click on this folder and select add new controller and the new controller will be created with all functions if you picked the model "Table" you want to target for this controller.
All controllers MUST have Controller suffix.
Usually you have one controller per 1 entity, but you can design your controllers as you want.
Any action in any view should be mapped to a method in a controller, and the controller takes care of the execution and return the results to the view. That's why you see all controllers can return a view that could be a page or partial page, file, redirect, or Empty.
Check out this link for the types of result you could get from any controller method call:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.mvc.actionresult(v=vs.108).aspx

3) No Master page in the MVC4 web project:

You will not see a default master page in your project, the general look and feel in the project is controlled by a "Shared View", This Shared View acts as Master Page in the web forms.

If you want to modify the shared view, it is under Shared View Folder --> _layout.cshtml

You still can add a master page to your project and link all your views to it.

4) Connecting to a database/ Creating your Model:
Model is your database/datasource file in the project. First thing you should do before creating any controllers or views is to create your entity model for your project.
There is no change in this regard. Just add any data entity file that you are familiar with such as: Entity Framework, Entity Data Model, LINQ or SQL Compact Db files.

After creating your model, you can add your controllers since the MVC 4 gives your the ability to create all your CRUD operations once you pick your entity/model and context "dbml or any data source file"

I want to keep it short and simple, I will keep posting more parts in details for building your first MVC 4 application.

Thanks and drop a line if you have any questions or feedback!

Regards,
Mostafa

WCF Error: The underlying connection was closed: The connection was closed unexpectedly.

noreply@blogger.com (Mostafa Elzoghbi) — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 14:31:00 +0000

Hi Folks,

While i was developing a WCF service API for my enterprise application, I got an error while i'm calling a search function in the WCF. The WCF function is calling a stored procedure.

I tested the stored procedure and there is no issues with it at all, and the error was being thrown in my web when the data is being serialized and sent over the network.

The error message:

The underlying connection was closed: The connection was closed unexpectedly.

The point here is that i have other functions in the WCF work perfectly with no errors but only the search function is throwing an exception.

So, it is not configuration thing, it is something else i want to nail it down!

The only way to get the actual error message from calling a WCF service, is to install a tool called "Microsoft Service Trace Viewer" . Here is the download link:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=3138

After you install it, add the following section in the web.config before the closing of the configuration attribue:

<system.diagnostics>

<sources>

  <source name="System.ServiceModel" switchValue="Information, ActivityTracing" propagateActivity="true">

   <listeners>

    <add name="traceListener" type="System.Diagnostics.XmlWriterTraceListener" initializeData= "traces.svclog" />

   </listeners>

  </source>

 </sources>

</system.diagnostics>

Run your applicaiton, and execute the action that throws the exception then do the following:
1) Open the following path:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0\Bin

2) Double click on SvcTraceViewer.exe tool

3) From the File Menu, Click on Open.

4) Navigate to your project folder and you will find a file called: traces.svclog, select this file.

5) Check the actual WCF call that causes the error from the activity window and then see the details of the error in the right pane.

Hope this helps.

How to enable MS Dynamics CRM 2011 to integrate with Windows Azure

noreply@blogger.com (Mostafa Elzoghbi) — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 17:01:00 +0000

Hi,

I'm writing this article to explain a good architecture design for integrating your Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 with windows azure.

Let's say you have on-premise CRM 2011 instance, and you want to use Windows Azure Blob storage to store Customer's documents on the cloud. How would you do that ?

The example i'm giving is applicable to any other windows azure service such as: SQL Azure, Mobile Notification Service, AppFabric Features..etc.

Since Windows azure is a scalable Cloud platform, you can easily integration your CRM 2011 with the windows azure on the cloud in 4 main steps.

Before going through the details, I'd like to explain the architecture of the proposed solution.

MS CRM 2011 has a backend windows service called "CRM Asynchronous Service" this is the component that will be in charge to communicate with the windows azure through a service bus.

MS CRM 2011 has 2 types of plugins, out-of-the box (OOB) and custom plugins. The OOB plugins runs with full trust but the custom plugins runs with partial trust, and we will develop a custom plugin to connect to a listener through azure service bus.

The solution has the following components:

1) Configure CRM to be Windows Azure Aware.

2) We need to configure a service bus on Azure with an endpoint to communicate with the CRM server.

3) A listener hosted in Windows Azure to communicate with the asyncrhounous service, specificially listening to CRM assembly "Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk" with RemoteExecuteContext defined. so we need to develop a listener and deploy it on windows azure.

4) A custom CRM Plugin to communicate with the Windows Azure Listener.

How To accomplish, configure and develop this solution:

1) To accomplish step 1 , "Configure CRM for Integration with Windows Azure" :
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg328249.aspx

2) To accomplish step 2, "Configure Windows Azure ACS on Azure" :
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj863635.aspx

3) How to write a windows azure listener:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg309615.aspx

C# Sample code - Listener:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg309657.aspx

4) To accomplish step 4, "How to write Azure Aware CRM Plugin":
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg328194.aspx

Note, if you want to develop a custom workflow activity:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg327854.aspx

Registration step - FINAL:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg328524.aspx

**Here is some sample code for all what i mentioned above "listeners & plugins":
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg334712.aspx

Note: you should be having CRM SDK and Windows Azure SDK 1.7 or higher to be able to exercise and develop the solution.

Hope this helps.

Reference:
-Azure Extensions for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg309276.aspx

Fix It: Application deployment Failed, Please try again in VS 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Mostafa Elzoghbi) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 01:40:00 +0000

Hi,

A well-known error message is being thrown from VS 2012 when you try to run the emulator for Windows Phone 8. After you installed all the tools and trying to see your application on the emulator you get the above error and it is a show stopper! It's so frustrating and annoying not to be able to view your running code.

After i was stuck for 3 days, and posting my question in MSDN and contributing on StackOverflow and other forums, all of these suggestions didn't work with me.

My case is fairly simple: I have a brand new laptop, Lenovo AMD E1500 (Supports SLAT) with 4GB RAM on Windows 8 Pro 64bit with VS 2012.

Every time i try to run my windows phone 8 application after selecting "WVGA 512MB" Emulator, it takes forever and i got this error:

Application Deployment Failed, Please try again.

When i check the output window in VS2012, I see the error happens when the VS 2012 tries to connect to the created VM in Hyper-V.

Here is the steps you have to make sure befor uninstalling the SDK or the other tools:

1) Turn off windows firewall.
2) Make sure that you are running VS 2012 as an administrator.
3) Make sure that you are a member of Hyper-V Administrator on your machine.
4) Open Hyper-V and check the you have a VM called "Emulator WVGA 512MB" since this is the VM that VS 2012 is trying to deploy the xap file into.
NOTE: IF YOU DON'T HAVE THE VM, THIS POST IS NOT INTENTED TO FIX IT.

5) Check the connection type for "Windows Phone Emulator Internal Switch" in Hyper-V manager by clicking on Virtual Switch Manager link on the right pane is Internal.

6) In the control panel, Check Network and Sharing Center and then click on change adapter settings --> you should be able to find 3 adapters starts with vEthernet, those are being used with Hyper-V.
Don't change any configuration by your self without any direction from a network guy! missing around these configuration might need you to re-install all the tools and rebuild all virtual switches!

7) Check below Article for MSDN and verify you have the following configuration for "vEthernet (Internal Ethernet Port Windows Phone Emulator Internal Switch)"

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/jj681694(v=vs.105).aspx

8) IMPORTANT: Turn off any antivirus real time scanning, This turns into scanning all communications which slow down the VS/Emulator and times out the emulator running process so you won't be able to deploy your application. THIS WAS MY FINDING AFTER SPENT 3 DAYS!

After following all above instructions you shouldn't have any issues with running your WP8 Emulator.

Have Fun.

VS 2012 Update 1 is available

noreply@blogger.com (Mostafa Elzoghbi) — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 17:05:00 +0000

Hi,

Yesterday, Microsoft released a new update for VS 2012. In this first update for VS 2012, They included a lot of enhancements in terms of TFS services, SharePoint Development ALM, .NET Framework enhancements, Mobile development Enhancements and IDE fixes.

The complete list of all the updates in details are listed here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2797915

So, if you are developing using VS 2012, it is strongly recommended to install this update, this is the download link:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35774

Hope this helps.

Generic Failure in WP8 Emulator and Error when opening Hyper-V Switch Manager!

noreply@blogger.com (Mostafa Elzoghbi) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 00:20:00 +0000

Hi,

I was developing a windows phone 8 application using VS 2012, and after i did some changes in the network adapter by disabling the hyper-v virtualization protocol "vEthernet" and all its components, the emulator stops working!.

The reason i did this because i wasn't able to give a static IP to my machine so i can access it from my second machine, installing TCP/IP 4 to set the static IP and unchecked Hyper-V protocol screw my virtual Ethernet adapter and emulator components that are using it.

I was looking and searching what caused this problem, the only thing i was sure about it it is something related to the network adapter settings! since the network adapter doesn't have the required settings for the Hyper-V neither The emulator nor the Hyper-V switch manager is working and throwing errors.

The emulator was throwing an error: Generic Failure in VS 2012.

The Hyper-V Switch manager is throwing this error message: An error occurred while trying to retrieve a list of virtual switches.

To cleanup your machine and get back developing on the emulator, do the following:

1) Open Hyper-V Manager, you will find a VM created for your emulator, Delete this VM.

2) From Control Panel, Open Add or Remove windows Features -> Un check Hyper-V. This will un install all Hyper-V configuration. Reboot your machine.

3) From Control Panel, Add back Hyper-V to your windows, this will install Hyper-V manager and install all required vEthernet and other components that are required to run the emulator.

4) Open Hyper-V Manager, Click on "Add Virtual Switch Manager" and then add a virtual switch of type Internal.
Notice: you won't get the error message we had earlier!

5) Open your visual studio, and run your WP8 application, this will configure the emulator VM and all its components.
Notice: The first will take a longer time to run, since the windows will install all required drivers and create the VM used by the emulator and setup the network adapters between the PC and the VM.

6) If you check the Hyper-V manager after the first run for your application, VS 2012 has created a new VM and used the new Virtual Switch we created earlier.

Hope this helps!

Drop me a line if you have this problem and have other solutions or workarounds to it.

Thanks.

Calling Stored procedure from EF takes long time and times out!

noreply@blogger.com (Mostafa Elzoghbi) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 15:13:00 +0000

Hi Folks,

I was going through an interesting performance issue when calling a stored procedure from my web application more than one time and the WCF was timing out because of the stored procedure execution takes long time to execute.

At the first, I have a parameterized stored procedure that takes different parameters. First time it executes as expected.

The second time, the EF calls the stored procedure and i don't get any results back to my application. i thought there is an issue in the Stored procedure but no because the stored procedure works as expected from the SQL management studio.

This means, there is something is going on between the EF bindings and getting results to mapped views/entities we have in the DBML file.

I was searching and trying to find any clue why this could happen ? I tried different things but it didn't work, until i read the following articles about performance issues in EF:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc853327.aspx

I realized that i don't have issues in terms of the SQL performance, but EF does have some overhead on executing any stored procedure and getting the results back to mapped view objects. Since this search stored procedure return list of objects to one of my entities, i want to know why does it take long time to execute and i don't get my results back ?!

I found the solution for my problem by doing 2 steps:

1) Since i don't want to track any loaded objects for my entities, i added the following merge option with No Tracking when i call my stored procedure.

C# Code:

this.ObjectContext.Search(EmpId,EmpName, DeptId,DeptName, System.Data.Objects.MergeOption.NoTracking).ToList();

2) Since SQL Server has a known performance issue called Paramter sniffing, which means the SQL Server engine allows to compile the plan for the stored procedure and reuse this plan for subsequent calls of the same stored procedure with different paramters! and this was my case, i pass long list of parameters but with different values. the first time executes as expected because the server chose to compile the plan with the results but the second time it re-uses the compiled plan which might not work well with the results that i want and this takes long time to get the expected results!

This is a known issue when your stored procedure inlcudes Like keyword in your queries and you use the input paramters directly to filter your results without using other temp paramters assigned from the input parameters.

What you need to do is to force SQL to compile the query each call and not to use a precompiled plan and this can be accomplished by using : RECOMPILE query hints along with your query. This is supported in SQL 2005 and above. I'm using SQL 08 R2 server.

Select * FROM myView
WHERE DeptName like '%' + @DeptName+ '%'
OPTION (RECOMPILE); -- This enhance the performance query and fix the parameter sniffing issue for multiple calls stored procedure.

After these 2 changes, I ran my web application, the application works as expected and no times out for the stored procedure that is being called twice!

Hope this helps.

Reference:
1) Table Hints in SQL Server:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms181714.aspx

2) Paramter Sniffing in SQL Enginer:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/mdegre/archive/2012/03/19/what-is-parameter-sniffing.aspx

What do you expect from Entity Framework 6 Alpha ?

noreply@blogger.com (Mostafa Elzoghbi) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 20:06:00 +0000

Hi,

I was reading the MSDN magazine March 2013 and i found an article by Julie Lerman about EF 6 Alpha features.

If you haven't had the chance to read the article, here is a summary of this article for .NET developers and architects:

1) EF 6 will be supporting multiple schemas. So in your dbml file you will be able to reference and import multiple schemas in your database.

Julie has written a detailed article about this feature, here is the link for this:

http://thedatafarm.com/blog/data-access/digging-in-to-multi-tenant-migrations-with-ef6-alpha/

2) EF6 will be supporting the asynchronous processing (Async).

Since we have Asynchronous pattern supported in .NET 4.5. The EF 6 will be bringing some of these features by having: SaveChangesAsync(), ExecuteSqlCommandAsync and FindAsync() functions that don't block the UI while executing and you will be able to write asynchronous code in your application in EF 6.

For Linq to Entities, they have added bunch of other Async methods for enumerations such as: ToListAsync(), FirstOrDefaultAsync(), MaxAsync().

This is a very important feature especially for Silverlight, WPF and Windows Phone developers in addition to web developers.

3) Enum and Spatial support

EF 6 will be supporting enums and Spatial data types. Unlike earlier version where dependent on the .NET framework you are using/targeting. The new EF 6 will be supporting this no matter which .NET framework you are targeting. So you can use enums and spatial support even you are targeting .NET 4.0 framework that doesn’t support certain EF 6 features.

Hope this helps.

Conditional using statement in C# debug versus Release

noreply@blogger.com (Mostafa Elzoghbi) — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 16:32:00 +0000

Hi Folks,

I'm writing this blog post to share how to write conditional using statements in C#. The meaning of this is how to use using statements in Debug mode versus Release mode in reference to different dlls. This is needed when you are using any testing/sandbox DLLs that use any non production environment and you want your code to use other reference when you build a Release for your application in reference to production dlls.

The below code is using In-App Purchase library for Windows Phone 8.

C# Code:

#if DEBUG
using MockIAPLib;
using Store = MockIAPLib;
#else
using Windows.ApplicationModel.Store;
#endif
Notice: you give the same alias name for the testing Libaray namespace as the one that will be used in production so you don't need to re-write your code.

Then, you can use any class for the referenced namespace:

ProductListing p = new ProductListing();

Tip: You should select Release before your deploy your application to products so the application will refer to the production assemblies and not the ones are used in the debug mode.

Hope this tip helps!

Adding Custom Propeties to EF 4.0 that doesn't exist in the DB model

noreply@blogger.com (Mostafa Elzoghbi) — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 17:13:00 +0000

Hi Folks,

I was extending my EF 4.0 model by having custom propeties that don't exist in my DB, Since EF 4.0 doesn't support adding custom properties if it doesn't exist in the DB, I found a workaround for that by creating a partial class with my custom properties in it.

public partial class myEntityName: EntityObject

{

[DataMemberAttribute()]
public string customerName{ get; set; }

[DataMemberAttribute()]
public int customerCode{ get; set; }

}

Implementing this workaround will help you to add any properties you would like to add in your EF 4.0 entities.

You might encounter this error since you are adding properties to your entity that doesn't exist in the edm file:

"The number of members in the conceptual type does not match with the number of members on the object side type .Make sure the number of members are the same."

The fix for error; Remove "EdmScalarPropertyAttribute" attribute from your custom propeties:

//[EdmScalarPropertyAttribute(EntityKeyProperty = false, IsNullable = true)]
[DataMemberAttribute()]
public string customerName{ get; set; }

Hope this helps!

WCF Error: The service cannot be activated because it does not support ASP.NET compatibility.

noreply@blogger.com (Mostafa Elzoghbi) — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 20:04:00 +0000

Hi Folks,

I was developing a secure WCF service that allows only authenticated windows users to access this service in IIS 7.5. After disabling the anonymous access i figured that wsHttpBinding will not work because you have to enable it to make the WCF binding working, then i changed the WCF binding to basicHttpBinding and passed the user credentials from the web application by using below line of code:

C# Code:
svc.ClientCredentials.Windows.AllowedImpersonationLevel = TokenImpersonationLevel.Impersonation;

The above line passed the user credentials from the client web application to the service.

Passing the credentials from the client web application wasn't accepted by the WCF service because i was getting another error message from the wcf service:

"The underlying provider failed on Open WCF when hosting in IIS with impersonation is enabled"

Since i have enabled the impersonation to pass the user credentials from the web application to the wcf i was missing the step to add the following configuration in the web.config of the WCF service:

<system.serviceModel>
<serviceHostingEnvironment aspNetCompatibilityEnabled="true" multipleSiteBindingsEnabled="true" />
</system.serviceModel>

"The default is false. When this attribute is set to true, requests to Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) services flow through the ASP.NET HTTP pipeline, and communication over non-HTTP protocols is prohibited"

One last thing you should add in the service class "aspNetCompatibilityEnabled" attribute to comply with configuration entry otherwise still your service won't work because it will use the default IIS account to access your database.

C# Code:

[AspNetCompatibilityRequirements(RequirementsMode = AspNetCompatibilityRequirementsMode.Allowed)]
public class myService : ImyService{
// your implementation to the service.
}

Hope this helps!

References:

1) WCF serviceHostingEnvironment element:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms731336(v=VS.110).aspx

How to parse comma delimited string into IN Clause in SQL Server

noreply@blogger.com (Mostafa Elzoghbi) — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 22:22:00 +0000

Hi Folks,

Today i was trying to pass multi-value parameter into my select query in SQL Server. To accomplish this i stored the multi-value parameter in a comma delimited string. Then, i want to pass it in my IN clause of the select statement. here is an example to what i want to accomplish:

Delcare @myVar varchar(500)
Set @myVar='1,2,3,4,5,7'

Select * from Employee
where EmployeeId IN (@myVar)

You will get this error:
Msg 245, Level 16, State 1, Line 7
Conversion failed when converting the varchar value '1,2,3,4,5,7' to data type int.

It makes sense, because i have a varchar that holds all my values and i want to pass those in the IN clause that only accepts integer values!.

The solution for this problem is to parse this string into set of integers and pass it back to your query in your IN clause. For this reason, i have created a function that return a table of 1 column of type int. This will be passed back to the select statement i have mentioned above.

The function code to parse comma delimited string into set of integers:

-- =============================================
-- Author: Mostafa Elzoghbi
-- Create date: 12/10/2012
-- Description: Parse a string into set of numbers
-- =============================================
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[ParseCommaDelimitedString]

( @CommaSeparatedStr
nvarchar(1000) =NULL)
RETURNS @myTable TABLE ([Id] [int] NOT NULL)
AS
BEGIN
declare @pos int
declare @piece varchar(500)
-- Need to tack a delimiter onto the end of the input string if one doesn't exist
if right(rtrim(@CommaSeparatedStr ),1) <> ','
set @CommaSeparatedStr = @CommaSeparatedStr + ','
set @pos = patindex('%,%' , @CommaSeparatedStr )
while @pos <> 0
begin
set @piece = left(@CommaSeparatedStr , @pos - 1)
-- You have a piece of data, so insert it, print it, do whatever you want to with it.
insert @myTable
select @piece

set @CommaSeparatedStr = stuff(@CommaSeparatedStr , 1, @pos, '')
set @pos = patindex('%,%' , @CommaSeparatedStr )
end
RETURN
END
-- =============================================

What you need after that to re-write your query as follows:

Select *
from Employee
where EmployeeId IN
( select * from ParseCommaDelimitedString(@myVar))

Now, you will be able to pass any comma delimited string, varchar,nvarchar to this function and it returns table of integer that you can set in the IN clause of you select statement or any other T-SQL statements you works with your logic.

Hope this helps.

--ME

Error: unable to retrieve column information from the data source in SSIS

noreply@blogger.com (Mostafa Elzoghbi) — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 17:55:00 +0000

Hi Folks,

I was trying to call a stored procedure from OLE DB Source in SSIS. and i getting this error:

"Error: unable to retrieve column information from the data source"

I wasn't even able to get the columns returned from this stored procedure.

My stored procedure is having a dynamic query i'm building based on passed parameters from SSIS package.

My Stored procedure code:

Declare @sqlStatement as nvarchar(1000)

SET @sqlStatement = ' SELECT * FROM dbo.myTable
WHERE ID IN ('+ @Ids + ' )'
-- For tracing purposes
print @sqlStatement
execute sp_executesql @sqlStatement

To fix this problem, the SSIS when it executes the stored procedure in the design time, it doesn't pass any parameters, with that being said, you have to make sure that your stored procedure is working when you pass NULL values by default. and this was the trick to fix the problem. In my case, when i pass NULL values for my parameter that contains multiple values my SQL query statement is not valid!

I fixed my stored procedure through the following:

Declare @sqlStatement as nvarchar(1000)
IF @Ids is not NULL
SET @sqlStatement = ' SELECT * FROM myTable WHERE ID IN (' + @Ids + ' )'
ELSE
SET @sqlStatement = ' SELECT *FROM myTable'

-- For tracing purposes

print @sqlStatement
-- EXEC @sqlStatement
execute sp_executesql @sqlStatement

After fixing my stored procedure to work with null passed values and my dynamic sql statement is correct i was able to view my columns returned from the stored procedure and it works like a charm!

Hope this tip helps you when you create any stored procedure that is being called from SSIS objects such as OLE DB source or SQL Task.

Thanks,
--ME

Study Material Notes for Programming HTML5 and CSS 3 Microsoft Exam

noreply@blogger.com (Mostafa Elzoghbi) — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 15:47:00 +0000

Hi Folks,

I got a free voucher from Microsoft for programming HTML 5 and CSS 3 Exam. I studied and reviewed online video materials and i want to share with you my study notes and hope this will be helpful for passing the exam. Congratulations in advance for everyone!.

My Notes:

Use accepts:'application/bin,text/xml' to accepts only XML and binary content in HTML responses.
Use the following condition to check if the html response content is binary: If(request.getResponseHeader("Content-Type")=="application/bint"
To show the status of upload is displayed in the progress bar:Xhr.upload.onprogress=
To support 2 way communication between a web page and a worker role, implement the following:

From the main page, use onmessage event handler of the web worker to capture events.
From the web worker, use the onmessage event handler of the main page to capture events.

Standard-complaint screen readers must be able to identify the links contained within the navigation structure automatically: Use
semantic markup.
Use appendChild to add a control in DOM document.
To extend a class with a method you should use prototype keyword as follows: Customer.prototype.GetCommission() = funct() {…}
If you want an input control to allow only numeric values, use the following: type="number"
To pass objects between web page and web worker you can use: JSON,String and JavaScript types.
To register an event listener for the web worker use addEventListenr and to stop a web worker use: self.close();
Anchor selector order: a:link --> a:visted --> a:hover --> a:active
Use Figure semantic markup to include image and its caption using figcaption markup.
To store user's information you can use: localStorage to get or set user's data.
To write a code to throw an error: throw new Error("Invalid",200)
To show @ in the email address for a submitted form, Use: str=$("form").serialize() ; str=decodeUriComeponent(str);
Apply styles from highest to lowest priority:

User agent style sheets
Author normal style sheets
Author important style hseets
User normal style sheets
User important style sheets

To make sure that the advertisement section on the right most of the page use:
markup.
To handle automatically each time the request status change use xhr.onreadstatechange
Catch specific error number by using e.number and not e.message
To use text-transform in CSS, you should use captalize semantic tag.
You need to group page content together to maximize search engine readability use article semantic markup.
When you want the inner paragraph exactly far from the outer paragraph, then you should use Relative.
To show JSON confirmation number in a label: $("#txtValue").text(JSONObject.Confirmation);
To show text around an image is showing in the center of the page use: -ms-wrap-side: both
Use header to apply css or classes to different heading markup such as: H1,H2

**Videos - Jump start from Microsoft Virtual academy:

https://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/tracks/developing-html5-apps-jump-start

Good Luck, Feel free to drop a line with any feedback you would like to add.

Functions vs. Methods in JavaScript with Encapsulation!

noreply@blogger.com (Mostafa Elzoghbi) — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 19:35:00 +0000

Hi Folks,

I found something interesting to share with all of you in Javascript. Functions in javascript as we all know is defined with function keyword while Method in Javascript is a function but can have a scope and you can hide it as we do in object oriented programming. I will be showing 2 examples that implement function versus method in your web page to add 2 numbers.

1) Function to add 2 numbers in Javascript:

In your script tag, this is the declaration of the function:

<script language=javascript >

function myfunction() {
document.getElementById('txtResult').value = parseInt(document.getElementById('Text1').value) +                                             parseInt(document.getElementById('Text2').value);
</script>

My page, see the result after you change the second text box:

<p>Using Functions</p><input type="text" id="Text1" /><br /><input type="text" id="Text2" onchange="myfunction();" /><br /><input type="text" id="txtResult" /><p>

2) Method to add 2 numbers using Methods:

<script language=javascript >
// Methods
var ops = {

add: function AddTwoNumbers() {
                              document.getElementById('txtResult2').value =
                              parseInt(document.getElementById('Text3').value) +
                                 parseInt(document.getElementById('Text4').value);
                                               }
         };</script>

My page:

<p>Using Methods</p><input type="text" id="Text3" /><br /><input type="text" id="Text4" onchange="ops.add();" /><br /><input type="text" id="txtResult2" />

You will see that we implemented the add function that has the scope within ops object, and in this way you can design and organize your functions within different scopes and with that being said you implement encapsulation for your methods!.

Anoter note, you gave an alias to your function with "add" alias name and this is not the actual name of the method since if you try to call the method as AddTwoNumbers you won't be able to do that.

The running application:

Hope this helps!

Asynchronous Programming in C# - async/await

noreply@blogger.com (Mostafa Elzoghbi) — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 18:17:00 +0000

Asynchronous Programming in C# - async/wait

Hi Folks,

I want to share with you an important enhancement in .NET framework 4.5. The asynchronous programming paradigm for .NET developers using new C# keywords async/await. Since I'm C# developer; I will be highlighting this new design pattern keywords in C# for asynchronous programming which is async/await which is supported only starting from .NET framework 4.5.

what's async/await for C#?

Async is a new modifier in C# 4.5. async specifies to the compiler that the method is executing in asynchronous mode and not synchronous.

For example - C# Code:

async Task Sum(int x, int y) {
// your method implementation.
}

The async method returns a Task object or doesn't return any objects and this case you will write void instead of Task object.

The async method doesn't allow input parameters by reference or output.

The async method has to contain a line to call the async method by using await operator.

For example - C# Code:
private async void btnAdd_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
     int x=10,y=15,z=0;
    // The complier will call Sum asynchronously and return the value in z.
    z=await Sum(x,y);
}

An async method provides a convenient way to perform potentially long-running processing without blocking the caller's thread.

The caller of an async method can resume its work without waiting for the async method to finish which makes your application more responsive and user friendly.

Read more about async/await from MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh156513(v=vs.110).aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh156528.aspx

Hope this helps.

-ME

Error connecting to TFS 2010 using VS BIDS 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Mostafa Elzoghbi) — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 16:48:00 +0000

Hi All,

If you are experiencing an error when connecting to TFS 2010 using Microsoft Visual Studio Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) while you don't have this problem connecting using VS 2010 so follow below steps to fix it.

1) Close your VS 2008 instance if you have it open.

2) Install VS 2008 SP1 if you don't have it already.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=10986

3) Install Team Explorer Forward Compatability Update:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=10834

4) From the start menu, Open Run window and type: regedit
we need to update the default entry of your Team Explorer for TFS server url.

Navigate to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER -->Software -->Microsoft-->VisualStudio-->9.0 -->TeamFoundation -->Servers

Right click on Server and click on add string:
set the name to: tfsservername
set the value to: your tfs server url, for example:
http://TFSServer:8080/tfs/CollectionName

Collection Name: is the project collection you want to connect to in TFS.

5) Close registry editor window and open VS 2008 BIDS.

6) You will automatically be connected to the project collection you previously specified and be able to bind your projects to the TFS 2010.

Enjoy Coding!

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Mostafa E.

Error When activating Windows 8 Code 0x8007007B

noreply@blogger.com (Mostafa Elzoghbi) — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 05:51:00 +0000

Hi Folks,

If you are facing a problem activating your windows 8 machine this is because there is a bug till this point that won't allow you to activate or even change the product key from the user interface. The solution for this problem is to change the key using the command line. you will be able to do this in 2 simple commands.

The Error Code when trying to activate your windows 8:

1) Open Command Prompt as Administrator
From the Metro Desktop, Hover the top right corner to get the menu; then search for "Command Prompt" and then hit enter. you will get the command prompt tile. then right click on this tile and click on Run As Administrator.

Below Figure shows the appearance before you click on Run as Administrator.

2) Type in this command to uninstall the product key

slmgr /upk

Once you enter this command you will get this popup window.

3) Install your product key

slmgr /ipk XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX

Once you install the new key you will get this message

Once you installed the new key, you will notice that if you go back by typing Activate Windows in the search menu from Metro Desktop you will be noticing that the windows is activated.

Congrats and have fun with Windows 8!

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Mostafa E.

Getting Started Windows 8 Store Apps Resources

noreply@blogger.com (Mostafa Elzoghbi) — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 15:29:00 +0000

Hi Folks,

I'm writing this post to share the resources that every software engineer or developer needs to get started with Windows 8 Store App development.

First, Before heading out and install Development resources (SDK) to start playing and exploring with windows 8 store app tools looks like. here is some sites you need to read to have a basic understanding about windows 8 store apps principles, design and concepts:

1) Windows Store Apps development center:
This site is the main site that contains all materials you want to get or read about Windows Store Apps design and development.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps

2) First document i suggest to read, Windows 8 Product Guide for Developers, find it here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/apps/hh852650

3) Spend some time understanding the API reference for Win Store apps using JavaScript, C#,C++ or VB.NET:
This source shows how to use,understand & explore Windows 8 API using different programming languages. Using C# or JavaScript to build HTML Store Apps is different than using Traditional JavaScript in some manner.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/windows/apps/br211369

4) Get some basic understanding of Metro Style Store apps guidelines and principles:
Even if you are not a designer, it is crucial to have basic understanding of designing Views and pages.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/windows/apps/hh779072

After the previous four steps, you should be able to build your development box with Windows 8,VS 2012 Express, Blend and SQL 2012 Express, so you proceed to the following resources.
Downloads link:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/apps/br229516

5) Getting started with development tutorials:
Get some samples, tutorials to get dirty hands working with VS 2012, Blend and All windows Store necessary tools to get up to speed in development.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/windows/apps/br211386

Since I'm a C# guy, here is the Get Started Development resources for C# Developers:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh974581.aspx

Once you reach this step, you should be able to build your first windows store app. now the time for deployment/licensing and selling your application.

6) Selling you application:
Get to know the available markets, languages and how to get paid.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/windows/apps/hh694064

I will keep updating this post as i find good resources to read for early adopters!

Hope this helps,

Regards,
Mostafa E.

Microsoft Surface - Product Review

noreply@blogger.com (Mostafa Elzoghbi) — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 15:00:00 +0000

Hi Folks,

I'm writing this blog post to share with all my blog readers and friends my experience in using Microsoft Surface. I was eager and waiting till it is available to pre-order it online and i ended up getting it from the store right away with no waiting LONG lines...lucky me!

I have been using Microsoft Surface for 6 days, and i want to share with you my personal insights from technical point of view and not from the marketing aspect! So, Let's start by answering basic questions:

1) Why did i buy Microsoft Surface ?
Since my wife has an iPad and we are using it for quite long time, I have much deeper experience using my iPhone and iPad or in general Apple Products. Before i bought MS Surface; I watched few reviews about mini iPad which is the latest and greatest from Apple. After comparing the 2 products i found that the mini iPad was over priced in comparison to the MS Surface, doesn't have Office, OS is locked not as Windows 8 and it serve the purpose as a E-Reader and a handy PC with fully featured Windows OS including IIS, Control Panel and Services. In addition to that, Fully fledged SDK for Developers to build Windows Phone Apps, Surface Apps and Web Apps for different platforms using HTML 5 and JavaScript!

If i would buy an E-Reader tablet my choice will be Kindle Fire from Amazon for 199$ and not min iPad for 329$.

All above was enough for me to go with the Surface!

2) What you can do with the Surface ?

a) Metro Style Experience: With Windows RT, You would have the same experience when you have Windows 8 on your PC. Very intuitive Tiles and fluid touch experience for what's in the start page, Pin to Task bar, and switch to Desktop Mode (You regular Windows Experience). The User Experience is fresh and new and this is a winner for The surface over iPad.

b) Cloud Connected Device: With the surface as for iPad, you will be able to sync up all you files to SkyDrive - Cloud Service from MS and they offer you to upgrade with extra 3GB for free when you purchase it! This is really cool. I have all my files linked to my Microsoft Account and i access it wherever i want and using any machine. MS is little behind since Apple introduced iCloud long time back, but here we are now we have it for both.

c) Store: Windows RT comes with the store where you can install all your applications as AppStore for Apple. The MS store still doesn't have lots of applications as Apple AppStore but it is growing tremendously!

d) MS Office: You have Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Access, OneNote, InfoPath for Free when you have Surface unlike iPad. Microsoft Office price is included and you don't need to pay extra for Office, this is a big plus!

e) Kinect: If you have XBOX 360, you will be able to play XBOX from the Surface, this is really cool! I tried it to surf internet and run Netflix and other applications in my XBOX and it was amazing experience.

Note: This feature requires you to have Windows Live Gold Membership to fully utilize all your applications in XBox.

f) People Hub: Connect & Read all your social media network notifications including: Facebook, Twitter, Windows Live and Mail notifications all through one place.

g) For Developers: If you are a geek and likes to develop apps for the surface. you can have all development environment for free from Microsoft. SDK,VS 2012 Express with Blend and SQL 2012 seamless integration for building Windows 8, Windows RT application with the ability to test your applications against these platforms. check out Windows Store Dev Center for details:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/br229512.aspx

-- Updated 11/13/2012
h) Connect the Surface to your TV: I bought a mini-HDMI cable from Amazon and now i'm able to stream any shows and vidoes i'm watching to my TV. here is what you can search for: mini HDMI to HDMI cable and you can get it for only 5$ from Amazon.

This is all what i have been seeing and experiencing during my last few days using the Surface!

Hope you like it and see it useful!
Drop me a line if you have any other questions or a feedback!

Thanks.

Mostafa E.

Product Review: Zoomph

noreply@blogger.com (Mostafa Elzoghbi) — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 14:52:00 +0000

Hi Folks,

This is a product evaluation blog post about a product evaluation & review for a social media service called: Zoomph.

Zoomph is a social media product that provides moderation, analytics, feed management & Social Media mash up information from Facebook and Twitter into one set of displays for all your twitter and social media activities.

Zoomph primarily provides a twitter moderation capabilities though setting up a feed moderation team in the product to moderate your feeds in your account. Setup a feed in few seconds by setting the hash tags, keywords or users you are looking to pull the information from Twitter and the rest will be done for you!

The intelligence set of real-time services in Zoomph pulls Twitter tweets based on the keywords, hash tags and other set of configurations and gives the ability to the feed’s moderators to approve and reject tweets content from Twitter in few clicks!

The product is supported by intuitive user interface that makes it easy for real time moderation that can be used in your conferences and events on the spot! In addition to that, the product pulls your content from your Facebook fan pages into the system.

Zoomph contains set of analytics and reporting capabilities that provide each account manager to analyze all data that have been captured and provides more insights such as: geo-location information, top influencers, and top tweets.

Last and most important features in Zoomph, the product provides set of displays with different dimensions that you can use to display your moderators’ approved tweets on big display screens with creative nifty designs that you can customize and brand it as you want!

What about the price? The service is not expensive at all! You setup your feed for only 9.99$

Check out all features of Zoomph in below URL:

https://www.zoomph.com/features.aspx

This product is fully designed and developed on Microsoft Windows Azure cloud platform.

Hope this post helps in evaluating Social Media products in the market and specially Zoomph and gives you insights about why would you sign up for Zoomph…

Feel free to provide your feedback!

https://www.zoomph.com

SharePoint 2013 Training Materials

noreply@blogger.com (Mostafa Elzoghbi) — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 12:51:00 +0000

Hi Folks,

This post is to list all what you need as resources to get up to speed for SharePoint 2013. Either as Developer or ITPro you can check out below links and hopefully will be useful.

Feel free to drop comments with more resources you are using to learn about SharePoint 2013.

1) SharePoint 2013 Developer Training Videos:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/apps/fp123626.aspx

2) SharePoint 2013 ITPro Training Videos:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/fp123606

3) SharePoint 2013 TechNet KB url for all topics:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc303422(v=office.15).aspx

A free ebook for SharePoint 2013 Deployment guide:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30384

Hope this helps.

Happy SharePointing!

-ME