Rosscify.com: Blog

Visual Studio 2008 freezes when editing ASPX files

Ross Miles — Thu, 13 May 2010 01:08:00 GMT

So I have been having this issue with Visual Studio 2008 for the past couple of days which has caused me quite a lot of frustration. I would be in the IDE and when I went to edit the source of an ASPX page the IDE would appear to freeze and not take focus as if there was a dialog sitting behind the window that I could not access. Clicking anywhere on the window would just cause the error sound in windows.

The only way I could continue working was to kill Visual Studio in task manager. I tried rebooting my machine but the problem still persisted. I decided to turn to Google to try to resolve my issue.

The culprit… Office 2010! It seems that uninstalling Office 2007 when upgrading to Office 2010 x64 had broken the web authoring component of Visual Studio, according to the KB article from Microsoft; this was due to a bad uninstall of a MSXML5 component.

The solution: From the KB Article (KB2022915)

You can work around this problem using these steps:

1. If an automatic upgrade was performed from Office 2007 (32-bit) to Office 2010 (32-bit) on a 64-bit OS:

In Add/Remove Programs, locate "Microsoft Visual Studio Web Authoring Component"

Right-click and select "Change"

When a dialog opens, choose "Repair" option

2. If you manually uninstalled Office 2007 on a 64-bit OS:

In Add/Remove Programs, uninstall "Microsoft Visual Studio Web Authoring Component"

If you are using Visual Studio 2008:

From the Visual Studio 2008 media, navigate into the WCUWebDesignerCore folder and install WebDesignerCore.exe

If you were upgraded to Visual Studio 2008 SP1, you must reinstall Service Pack 1 for Visual Studio 2008.

If you are using Visual Web Developer Express:

Uninstall and reinstall Visual Web Developer 2008 Express

So now my Visual Studio appears to be working correctly again! Woo hoo, now back to work!

Fawlty Classifications!

Ross Miles — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 14:02:00 GMT

Anyone that has been following my Twitter may have noticed my disgust in the proposed internet filter that Senator Stephen Conroy is trying to introduce into parliament. For the uninformed, I will try to break it down simply.

The Australian government want to introduce a mandatory internet filter with the intention of blocking out "Refused Classification" material. To the uninformed person; this gives the false impression that this filter will block out material that would be deemed unfit for viewing of minors e.g. porn and violence. This is not the case. The intention of the filter is to block “Refused Classification” material, now those two words are the main issue in the whole uproar and debate that has been surrounding this controversial policy.

“Refused Classification” in Australia is material that the classification board deem inappropriate for viewing by the public. Things that fall under this classification are the usual suspects such as child pornography and bestiality but also more controversial topics such as euthanasia.

This is what people are having the problem with; the definition of refused classification is quite large. The problem lies with such a large scope of material that can be blocked, where is the line drawn? What happens if a site is published that contains potential damaging information about the workings of a political party? Will this filter then be used to prevent the Australian public from finding out what is on the site? Stephen Conroy has mentioned the list of sites can be viewed by a retired judge^[link], but what is stopping someone within the government paying off this judge?

So getting back to the point as to why I am writing this blog today! I was in the newly open JB HiFi in Bendigo when in the DVD section I passed this:

What you can see above are two boxed sets of Fawlty Towers. One is the original release boxed set from 2003 and the other is was re-released in 2009.

Now can someone please explain to me how Fawlty Towers can go from being a PG rated show to an M rated show in the space of 6 years? It’s inconsistencies like this that make me even more concerned with what Stephen Conroy is trying to introduce. If the government office for classification can give the same show two different ratings what chance do we have if all the websites that we view need to be classified?

One month without Adobe Flash, my experience

Ross Miles — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 06:09:00 GMT

So I thought I would post a follow-up to my previous post regarding my un-installation of Flash. It has been an interesting experience I would have to say. Most of the sites I visit in my daily trawl of the internets were unaffected. Sure, there were a few missing pieces but I was still able to use the sites.

The stability and memory usage of Firefox had actually improved! The occasional lockup or total crash had disappeared completely; which lines up with what Steve Jobs has been reported saying that most issues on the Mac are Flash related.

So no Flash was working for me, well until I wanted to use my HP Scanner. Seems that the bundled software required Flash to work. I have no idea why, the application looks like a standard Windows application. So I attempt to install the Active X version of Flash. After convincing the Adobe site that I didn’t want to install their download manager to get their 2mb file, I then had to make sure I un-ticked the Norton security scan!! No Adobe, I already have a capable FREE virus scanner why do I want another one! So after 5 mins of stuffing around I could finally use my scanner.

In my previous post I mentioned that I could utilise the HTML5 version of the YouTube player using Google Chrome. That seemed to work for some videos but YouTube channel such as music videos still used the older flash player. The quality and streaming smoothness was not as nice as the Flash version that is currently in use. Now having the Active X Flash installed, I found myself using Internet Explorer 8 to get my YouTube fix. This made me realise how much of a better browser Internet Explorer has become. It still felt clunky compared to Firefox and Chrome, but using it still made me feel dirty; It was like I could feel my PC being infected.

One thing I would like to mention is the absolute awesomeness of Silverlight smooth streaming! I watched the Windows 7 Phone presentation from MWC10 and the quality and smoothness was great. The ability for the player to adapt to the network conditions and degrade the quality ensured that I always got to see what was going without missing a thing or having to wait for buffering. It would be awesome for a site like YouTube to pick up on this as I think this is the way forward for streaming media.

So, in the end… I have restored Flash into my Firefox BUT I have installed a plug-in called FlashBlock. This gives me the flexibility to allow Flash to work only when I allow it. Adobe Flash does have it’s place on the web. It has helped shape the web as we know it today, it’s just a pity that one of the most used browser plug-ins seems to cause the most problems; wether its poor coding in the flash applications or general issues in the plug-in itself.

Posts Migrated

Ross Miles — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:47:00 GMT

I have migrated the more popular posts from my old Wordpress blog to their new home here!

If you haven't seen them before, enjoy.

I Uninstalled Adobe Flash!

Ross Miles — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 13:08:00 GMT

Adobe have been giving me the absolute shits lately with their constant whining about the iPad and iPhone not supporting flash (Link). With YouTube now supporting native playback in HTML5 with browsers supporting the h264 codec, the reason I had Adobe Flash installed is now no longer there!

So what am I missing? Actually without Flash I now don’t get rubbish like this:

I’m still using Firefox as my main browser but if I need a fix of YouTube I just open Google Chrome!

So for a faster and better internet experience in any browser… Simply uninstall Flash!

Note: You may want to tell Firefox to stop reminding you that that banner ad needs flash, check out this to resolve that problem.

PPTP VPN Connection not working... Due to Exchange??

Ross Miles — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 13:05:00 GMT

So I thought I would start my new blog off with the strangest issue I have come across on works Small Business Server tonight.

I got an MSN from one of my colleagues saying that he couldn't connect to the VPN, fair enough we had a power outage where I had to get one of our book keepers to fire up the servers for me (She was in the office, I was enjoying Australia Day).

I attempt to VPN, error. Lucky I still have the RDP port direct into the server, so I remote on to investigate. Routing and Remote Access server is running, looked normal. Tried restarting it… Still didn’t work! Checked event logs, nothing… Then I looked in the ports, there were no PPTP port listed. I then figured it was DHCP, so I restarted that. Still no go. Off to Google I go!!

Came across an article on Experts Exchange PPTP ports do not display in RRAS, where the solution ended up being that one of the Exchange services was using port 1723 (pptp). So after shutting down all the exchange services, I started Routing and Remote Access again and hey presto! The VPN was alive again!!

Weird issue, even weirder solution!

Rosscify.com - Stage 2 - Add the CMS

Ross Miles — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 10:13:00 GMT

So I have squeezed the site I built in Edit Plus into the Graffiti CMS. The main reason was that it uses .NET, which is what I used to build things in my daily job. So here it is, the beginning!

So now that I can easily add posts to my site now, I can start working on the cool things to do with the site! Like the Silverlight twitter widget that will appear on the right hand side once I finish my epic battle with Expression Blend (I suck at design programs).

Stay tuned...

Ross

Rosscify.com - Stage 1

Ross Miles — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 14:05:00 GMT

I figured since I had the placeholder page sitting there for so long, I should put what is completed of my new site up for the world to see.
I would like to say a big thanks to Alex at AgkDesign.net for whipping me up such a cool as rad design! There are still a few bits to slide in, but I figured it would be good to see the work progress as I finish off the site. Might even motivate me to finish it faster...

In the meantime feel free to follow me on Twitter (@rosscify) and give me some ideas.

Cheers,
Ross

FlexiRent... Not so Flexi... More like FlexiFAIL!

Ross Miles — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 14:10:00 GMT

You have seen it on the Television, heard it on TV "FlexiRent to save", "FlexiRent to get the latest technology", FlexiRent to save tax". In reality FlexiRent is far from what they promote it to be! Lets step back and take a look at some of the facts. In the promotions for Flexirent, they promote the tax benefit of renting your equipment and if you are using it for business purposes you can claim the tax back. All their pricing claims use the assumption that the equipment will be used for 100% business use. In reality unless your FlexiRented computer never leaves the office you can never claim that amount. Lets use the FlexiRent Quote tool on their web site. Lets say we are going to buy a Notebook computer for $2700.00.

Over 36 months this will cost you $135.54 per month. Over the duration of the "Lease" period this will set you back $4860!
Over 24 months this will cost you $170.64 per month. Over the duration of the "Lease" period this will set you back $4095!

In both scenarios above you are paying significantly more for the product. Due to a loophole in Australian leasing and renting laws FlexiRent do not have to disclose the full term rental amount to you in the rental contract! So there are quite a few people who get stuck in these agreements when stores such as Harvey Norman have sales on. The sales reps at the stores get commission from FlexiRent for every customer they sign up. This can range from cash incentives, Playstations to holidays! So beware of staff who will push you into a FlexiRent term to get their summer vacation. The sales rep will usually compare the monthly costs of the 3 year FlexiRent to the 2 years interest free, as the monthly payments between the two are fairly similar. The extra cost in the FlexiRent will be explained as insurance premiums and accident cover. Lets look at the cost of the same $2700.00 notebook with a standard 2 year interest free structure.

Over 24 months you will make monthly payments of $112.50 plus a monthly service fee of $2.95.

So when you think about it, getting this notebook on interest free is only going to cost you an additional $70.80 in account keeping fees, compared to the $2170 in pure profit that FlexiRent is making out of you. At the end of your 24 month interest free period, you have a laptop to keep forever. At the end of your FlexiRent period you have to pay a "small amount" deemed by FlexiRent to own the equipment that you have rented. If you don't you can either keep paying the monthly cost or upgrade to a new machine. Now this is where it starts to get messy. FlexiRent will encourage you to upgrade your machine starting from 12-6 months before your lease finishes. When you take out your new lease for your upgraded computer you are not getting anything for your existing machine, you are adding to the balance of your existing FlexiRent term. Using the same example above, we still "owe" $1631 with 12 months remaining on the contract. If you were to buy a new computer at 24 months of the 36 month term, they would give you the cost of 1 or 2 payments for the current machine then add the cost of the new machine on to of the balance. So if your new machine cost $2500, $1631 (Existing Balance) - $270 (FlexiRent Payment for Goods) + $2500 (Cost of new Goods) = $3861 (Total cost of new FlexiRent term)

Over 36 months this new agreement will cost you $187.26 per month. Over the duration of the "Lease" period this will set you back $6741.36!

As you can see, the further you get into FlexiRent the bigger financial hole you start digging yourself into. The contract that you sign with FlexiRent pretty much give you no rights as a consumer at all. For starters, there is no cooling off period if you change your mind about your purchase. If your equipment fails and FlexiRent don't want to fix it, you are left with nothing and a bill. If you want out of the contract or want to increase your payments to end your term sooner you can't. They won't even negotiate with you. So from the above, you would have worked out that FlexiRent is pretty much a big scam for cash, to suck in any unsuspecting person who wants a computer and wants it now. Just a a comparative, I have included the same example using Dell's rental plan calculator.

Over 36 months Dell will charge you $110.48 per month. Over the duration of the "Lease" period this will set you back $3977.
Over 24 months Dell will charge you $140.77 per month. Over the duration of the "Lease" period this will set you back $3378.

Dell finance has a saving of nearly $1000! You are still paying more for the product in the long run, but it just puts into prospective how much FlexiRent are gouging their customers, plus with Dell finance you actually own the equipment once the rental term is complete. As you have probably guessed, the main point of this blog is to advice you to STAY AWAY FROM FLEXIRENT and also for you to be careful when purchasing a big ticket item. If you cannot afford to lash out the lump sum, should you really be purchasing the goods? Do your research and check the total cost of the rental agreements. After the sales assistant has worked out the cost, walk away think about it. Do some calculations. Ensure that you know the financial commitment you are about to make.

Remove XML Namespaces from Transformed XML / XSL

Ross Miles — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 04:33:00 GMT

The company that I work for uses a combination of XML and XSL to render website content. Obviously when we start to get into the trickier XSL we need to include some additional XML Namespaces. We do this by adding the namespace and a schema link to the xsl:stylesheet element of the XSL template, as seen below.

<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
version="1.0" xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt" 
xmlns:objDotNet="urn:my-scripts">

Although this gives you additional functionality in what you can do with the template, it will append the namespace to each element that is produced as part of the transform.

<div id="test" xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt"
xmlns:objDotNet="urn:my-scripts">
Content
</div>

After some intense digging on Google I finally found a solution to this problem. All you simply need to do is add another tag to the xsl:stylesheet element.

exclude-result-prefixes="msxsl objDotNet"

In the value, add the name of each namespace you want to exclude and separate by a space.

<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" 
version="1.0" xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt" 
xmlns:objDotNet="urn:my-scripts" exclude-result-prefixes="msxsl objDotNet">

The outputted XHTML will now not contain the xml namespaces the elements.