Srinivas's Portal

Comindware Software Development Solution

2011-11-17T17:34:00.007+05:30

Create the Environment You Want to Work In
Comindware Software Development Solution comes with a number of pre-defined processes that are intended to save your time for setting-up process. You can adapt the process to your own needs with a flexible workflow builder and powerful WYSIWYG form designer.

You can create a model of subject area with specific items that are not included into the workflow. It’s possible to make convenient links between different items to make the navigation simple. For example you can model such objects as Customer, Implementation Project, Release, Test Case and Department and so on, and link them logically between each other. Use the object you have created in the workflow, assign them to different Item States, manage all of the subject area Items and Objects in a single application.

Be Truly Agile
Agile development requires from you to quickly adapt the processes to the changing environment. It has been painful to use business automation software for agile development while any automation was built manually, without the possibility to change the running process or even clone it to bring changes into it. Using programming skills for bringing changes into the process model is taking time. With the Comindware Solution you can change your processes in seconds without programming: workflow steps and the form elements are added by Drag-and-Drop in a visual Workflow builder. You do not need to stop/start or backup/restore or pause/publish your process: it starts working right after you’ve pressed the “Save” button. This possibility of immediate process change powered by Semantic Data Storage™ technology is indispensable for agile processes modeling.

Easily Involve Management into Important Decisions
It’s crucial for success of many development projects to involve stakeholders into process. Unfortunately it’s not always simple to coordinate the necessary time with the top executives. With the Comindware Solution intuitive interface you can invite managers to collaborate within the system. Comindware User Interface is familiar for almost every computer user since it’s similar to Microsoft Windows, Word, Excel, Outlook interface. With the help of a plug-in, the solution can be integrated into your Outlook interface so that you will be able to use single application for all your project-related communication.

Collaborate with any Department within the Company
It usually happens that different departments of a software development company use different automation systems. Thus they cannot collaborate efficiently and share data within a single application. In this case, the Customer Support, Sales, Marketing departments stand aside from the Development because of data interconnection problems. With the Comindware Software Development Solution you can automate all processes within one system and bring collaboration to a new level: common data will be used among all departments and processes can become really cross-functional.

For more information visit: http://www.comindware.com/tracker/

How to make ASP.NET Application Offline with a message

2011-08-12T22:24:00.005+05:30

Once the application goes live into production environment and if you want implement a change i.e. code/database/configuration, we wish no user to visit/use the application. We try to stop the website but stopping the website at IIS level will not give the end user a proper message that the site is under maintenance. To display a proper message to user and to avoid usage of the application during the change, follow the below steps:

1. Create a file called App_Offline.htm (a html file with an appropriate message to the end user i.e. for example "Currently site is under maintenance". You can create this file with the same theme/style sheets/header of the actual site).
2. Place the file App_Offline.htm in the virtual directory folder of the application.
3. IIS detects this file and send the contents as response to the request to any page under the virtual directory.

Alternatives to Microsoft Products

2010-09-16T23:49:00.004+05:30

This is for people who are looking for freeware.

Checkout alternative software to the Microsoft products.

http://alternatives.rzero.com/

WebPagetest

2010-09-13T18:51:00.003+05:30

WebPagetest is a tool that was orginially developed by AOL for use internally and was open-sourced in 2008. The online version at www.webpagetest.org is an industry collaboration with various companies providing the testing infrastructure for testing your site from across the globe.

www.webpagetest.org

Source: http://www.webpagetest.org/about

Microsoft Codenames

2010-04-10T09:52:00.006+05:30

Codename	Product	Derivation
DEVELOPMENT TOOLS
Thunder	Visual Basic
Boston	Visual Studio 97
Blackbird	Internet Studio, a development environment for MSN which eventualy became Visual InterDev.
Aspen	Visual Studio 98 (6.0)	Ski resort in Colorado.
Jakarta	Visual J++ 6.0	Capital of Indonesia, located on the island of Java.
Cool	C#	Short for ‘C-based Object-Oriented Language’.
Rainier	Visual Studio .NET	Mount Rainier is a dormant volcano south of Seattle.
Everett	Visual Studio .NET 2003	Town north of Seattle.
Whidbey	Visual Studio .NET 2005	Island north of Seattle.
Whitehorse	Design tools supplied with Visual Studio .NET 2005	Capital of Yukon Territory in Canada which became famous during the Klondike Gold Rush.
Burton	Visual Studio 2005 Team System	Unknown, although it is the name of a North American manufacturer of snowboards.
Orcas	Successor to VS.NET 2005 for developing ‘Longhorn’ applications	Island north of Whidbey.
Hawaii	Successor to 'Orcas'	An island 'much further out' than Orcas or Whidbey. Also, where the development team plan to celebrate its completion.
OPERATING SYSTEMS
Janus	Windows 3.1
Sparta	Windows for Workgroups 3.1
Snowball	Windows for Workgroups 3.11
Daytona	Windows NT 3.5
Cairo	Collected technologies that may eventually come to fruition in Longhorn.	Capital of Egypt on the river Nile.
Impala	Windows NT4 Embedded
Chicago	Windows 95	The windy city.
Nashville	Internet Explorer 4 Desktop Update for Windows 95	The home of country music, in Tennessee.
Memphis	Windows 98	City in Tennessee.
Whistler	Windows XP	Mountain in Canadian ski resort around four hours drive north of Seattle. (The ‘XP’ stands for eXPerience.)
Lonestar	Tablet PC 2004
Longhorn	Originally successor to Windows XP, and then successor to Windows Server 2003	The Longhorn Saloon & Grill is situated between the Whistler and Blackcomb mountains.
Indigo	Communication services in ‘Longhorn’
Avalon	Display services used by ‘Longhorn’
Blackcomb	Original name for server-side version of Longhorn	Another mountain in the Whistler-Blackcomb ski resort.
BACKEND SERVERS
Sphinx	SQL Server 7.0	Mythical creature famous for asking riddles.
Plato	SQL Server 7.0 OLAP Services	One of the greatest analytical thinkers in ancient Greece and pupil to Socrates.
Shiloh	SQL Server 2000	Location of major Civil War battle in Tennessee.
Liberty	SQL Server 2000 64-bit
Aurum	SQL Server 2000 data mining features	Latin word for gold.
Yukon	SQL Server 2005	Yukon Territory in Canada, capital city Whitehorse.
Katmai	SQL Server 2008	The Katmai National Park and Preserve is in the south of Alaska (also used by Intel for the Pentium III).
Osmium	Exchange Server 5.5	One of the Platinum group of elements and the most dense metal known. Atomic number 77 in the Periodic table.
Platinum	Exchange 2002	Silvery-white metal often used in jewellery. Atomic number 78 in the Periodic table.
Titanium	Exchange 2003	As strong as steel but half the weight. Atomic Number 22 in the Periodic table.
Kodiak	Abandoned successor to Exchange 2003 that was supposed to use the SQL Server 2005 database engine.	Island in the Gulf of Alaska.
Falcon	Message Queue Server (MSMQ)
Viper	Transaction Server 2.0
Tahoe	SharePoint Server 2001	A lake resort between California and Nevada.
Hydra	Windows NT Terminal Services	Multi-headed dragon-like creature from Greek mythology.
Babylon	Host Integration Server 2000
Cedar	COM Transaction Integrator for CICS and IMS (COMTI)
Wolfpack	Cluster Server
Vienna	Office Live Communication Server 2005	Capital of Austria.
Hermes	System Management Server
MOBILE PLATFORMS
Alder	Windows CE 1.0	Thanks to an internal set of tools called the OEM Adaption Kit (OAK), early releases of Windows CE were codenamed after trees
Birch	Windows CE 2.0
Cedar	Windows CE 3.0
Merlin	Pocket PC 2002
Stinger	Smartphone 2002
Starlite	.NET Compact Framework 1.0
Talisker	Windows CE 4.0	With the introduction of .NET, and new colleagues to the team, codenames were based on whiskeys.
Jameson	Windows CE 4.1
McKendric	Windows CE 4.2
Macallan	Windows CE 5.0
Yamazaki	Windows CE 6.0
MISCELLANEOUS
Cirrus	Access 1.0
Athena	Outlook Express
Hailstorm	.NET My Services
Nile	OLE DB	River in Africa
Kajera	OLE DB provider for ODBC	River that, like the Nile, flows from Lake Victoria.
Trident	Dynamic HTML
Denali	Active Server Pages	Denali National Park in Alaska contains North America’s highest mountain.
Springboard	Microsoft’s security project which will result in Office 2003 SP1, Windows XP SP1 and Windows Server 2003 SP1
Palladium	A forthcoming secure run-time environment called Next Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB)	Silvery-white metal in the Platinum group. Atomic Number 46 in the Periodic Table.
Xenon	Successor to the Xbox

Source: http://www.dnjonline.com/articles/backend/codenames.asp

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition on Windows 7

2010-02-14T23:09:00.004+05:30

I tried installing SQL Server 2005 Express Edition on Windows 7. I had a lot of compatibility issues and for some reason the XP Mode in Windows 7 didn't work. After a long search I found the solution, check the below msdn blog:

http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlexpress/archive/2009/05/14/installing-sql-server-express-on-windows-7-release-candidate.aspx

For instant solution visit:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=b448b0d0-ee79-48f6-b50a-7c4f028c2e3d&displaylang=en

Synchronize Hotmail contacts with your mobile

2009-12-25T00:24:00.006+05:30

At last Microsoft came up with a contact synchronizing tool to synchronize contacts from your mobile with Hotmail/Live and vise versa. Currently it is a beta release and supports only few models.

http://specials.msn.co.in/sp09/pdm/index.asp

Check the above url.

Microsoft facts

2009-11-02T14:35:00.004+05:30

Fact#1: Nobody can create a FLODER anywhere on the computer with the name 'CON'.

Fact#2: Open Microsoft Word and type =rand(200,99) and the press ENTER.

Fact#3: For those of you using Windows, do the following:

Open an empty notepad file
Type "Bush hid the facts" (without the quotes)
Save it as whatever you want.
Close it, and re-open it.

is it just a really weird bug? :-??

LINQPad

2009-10-05T18:14:00.005+05:30

LINQPad is one of the best tools to use for easy building of queries using LINQ, ADO.NET Entity Framework or SQL.

http://www.linqpad.net

ADO.NET Entity Framework Essential Resources

2009-09-30T15:47:00.007+05:30

Thumbnail image from database in ASP.NET

2009-09-29T11:51:00.007+05:30

We often need to display images from database like profile photo of the user or something. Displaying images from database to an ASP.NET Image is not a big deal but maintaining the exact aspect ratio and displaying a web friendly image is very important. The following program will help us to do that.

The below code is written in the code behind page. Either the Width or Height of the image is specified. The second dimension is calculated by the program, maintaining the aspect ratio.


ImgPhoto.ImageUrl="ImageDisplay.aspx?Width=300&PhotoID=2";

ImageDisplay.aspx is a webpage which contains the following code. This page is used to retrieve the image from the database and generate a thumbnail of the dimensions given by the user.


using System;
using System.Data;
using System.Data.SqlClient;
using System.Configuration;
using System.Collections;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Security;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;
using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Drawing.Imaging;

public partial class ImageDisplay : System.Web.UI.Page
{
    DAL_Users objUser=new DAL_Users();

    protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        #region Page_Load

        if (!IsPostBack)
        {
            int orgwidth = 0;
            int orgheight = 0;
            int imgwidth = 0;
            int imgheight = 0;

            byte[] bytes = null;
            if (Request.QueryString["PhotoID"] != null)
                bytes = (byte[])objUser.GetPhotoFromDatabase(Convert.ToInt32(Request.QueryString["PhotoID"].Trim()));
            System.IO.MemoryStream streamBitmap = new System.IO.MemoryStream(bytes);
            Bitmap objBm = new Bitmap((Bitmap)System.Drawing.Image.FromStream(streamBitmap));

            orgwidth = objBm.Width;
            orgheight = objBm.Height;

            imgwidth = objBm.Width;
            imgheight = objBm.Height;

            if (Request.QueryString["Width"] != null)
            {
                imgwidth = Convert.ToInt32(Request.QueryString["Width"].Trim());
                imgheight = Convert.ToInt32((imgwidth * orgheight) / orgwidth);
            }
            else if (Request.QueryString["Height"] != null)
            {
                imgheight = Convert.ToInt32(Request.QueryString["Height"].Trim());
                imgwidth = Convert.ToInt32((imgheight * orgwidth) / orgheight);
            }

            //Generate the Thumbnails
            Bitmap objb2 = new Bitmap(objBm.GetThumbnailImage(imgwidth, imgheight, null, IntPtr.Zero));

            //Converting Bitmap to Byte array
            System.IO.MemoryStream stream = new System.IO.MemoryStream();
            objb2.Save(stream, ImageFormat.Jpeg);
            stream.Position = 0;
            byte[] data = new byte[stream.Length];
            stream.Read(data, 0, Convert.ToInt32(stream.Length));

            objb2.Dispose();
            objBm.Dispose();
            bytes = null;
            GC.Collect();

            //Write the byte array
            Response.BinaryWrite(data);
            Response.End();
        }

        #endregion
    }
}

Configuring Hotmail account in your Sony Ericsson Mobile phone

2009-09-25T12:34:00.002+05:30

Recently I brought a Sony Ericsson W 705 and I wanted to configure my Hotmail account in it. GPRS is enabled in my phone and tried to configure using the wizard which will automatically configure the server information, but it didn’t so I tried to do it manually. I googled a lot for the configuration details and found one which is very useful. The following are the POP3 and SMTP details.

Incoming POP3:

Server: pop3.live.com
ssl
Port: 995

Outgoing SMTP:

Server: smtp.live.com
same as pop3
ssl
Port: 465

Random password generator

2009-09-16T19:33:00.003+05:30

It is always a good practice that when ever a new public user registers in your web site, the system must send the credentials and the activation link to the user's email ID. It is beneficial in two ways, one to validate the email ID provided by the user and two, to send the system generated password, which can later be changed.


public string GetRandomPassword()
{
    StringBuilder objSB = new StringBuilder();
    objSB.Append(RandomString());
    //objSB.Append(RandomNumber());
    return objSB.ToString();
}

private string RandomString()
{
    StringBuilder objSB = new StringBuilder();
    Random objRandom = new Random();
    char ch;
    for (int i = 0; i < 8; i++)
    {
        ch = Convert.ToChar(Convert.ToInt32(Math.Floor(26 * objRandom.NextDouble() + 65)));
        int x = objRandom.Next(1, 8);
        if (x == i)
            ch = Convert.ToChar(ch.ToString().ToUpper());
        else
            ch = Convert.ToChar(ch.ToString().ToLower());
        objSB.Append(ch);
    }
    return objSB.ToString();
}

private int RandomNumber()
{
    Random objRandom = new Random();
    return objRandom.Next(234, 892);
}

Encrypt and Decrypt data

2009-09-14T20:12:00.006+05:30

Passing information like IDs, etc. is quite common via QueryString, but due to the current internet threats, its not advisable to send the data in plain text. The following are two reusable methods that can be used to encrypt the data while sending via QueryString and decrypt them upon reception.


//Namespace
using System.Web.Security;
using System.Security.Cryptography;
//Declare the below
TripleDESCryptoServiceProvider cryptDES3 = new TripleDESCryptoServiceProvider();
MD5CryptoServiceProvider cryptMD5Hash = new MD5CryptoServiceProvider();
string key = "SomeKeyValue";


public string Encrypt(string text)
{
    cryptDES3.Key = cryptMD5Hash.ComputeHash(ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetBytes(key));
    cryptDES3.Mode = CipherMode.ECB;
    ICryptoTransform desdencrypt = cryptDES3.CreateEncryptor();
    byte[] buff = ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetBytes(text);
    string Encrypt = Convert.ToBase64String(desdencrypt.TransformFinalBlock(buff, 0, buff.Length));
    Encrypt = Encrypt.Replace("+", "!");
    return Encrypt;
}


public string Decypt(string text)
{
    text = text.Replace("!", "+");
    byte[] buf = new byte[text.Length];
    cryptDES3.Key = cryptMD5Hash.ComputeHash(ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetBytes(key));
    cryptDES3.Mode = CipherMode.ECB;
    ICryptoTransform desdencrypt = cryptDES3.CreateDecryptor();
    buf = Convert.FromBase64String(text);
    string Decrypt = ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetString(desdencrypt.TransformFinalBlock(buf, 0, buf.Length));
    return Decrypt;
}

File operations - Reusable code

2009-09-14T01:11:00.006+05:30

It is always preferable to write the code that is reusable in methods. The following is a reusable code that can be used to perform Read and Write operation on Files:

Read Operation:


    public byte[] ReadFile(string path)
    {
        byte[] data = null;
        if (File.Exists(path))
        {
            FileStream fs = new FileStream(path, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.Read);
            data = new byte[fs.Length];
            fs.Read(data, 0, data.Length);
            fs.Close();
        }
        return data;
    }

Write Operation:


    public void WriteFile(byte[] data, string path)
    {
        FileStream fs = new FileStream(path, FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write);
        fs.Write(data, 0, data.Length);
        fs.Close();
        data = null;
        GC.Collect();
    }

101 LINQ Samples

2009-09-07T17:34:00.003+05:30

Visit the below link for some of the best LINQ samples from Microsoft.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vcsharp/aa336746.aspx

Connection Strings in ADO.NET

2009-09-02T19:38:00.002+05:30

Most of us usually work with different databases like MS SQL Server, Oracle, MS Access, MySQL, etc. and sometimes very rare databases comes into picture, depending upon the application, for which we don't even know how to connect with the .NET application.

The following link takes you to a site where you will find all the information required to connect to any database.

http://www.connectionstrings.com

CSS Round cornered box

2009-08-25T17:19:00.006+05:30

Some times it would be necessary to display a group or controls or data in a round cornered box with a heading in it, to accomplish it we generally use images, but using images is not that developer friendly because they must be designed by a graphic designer, heavy on browser, need to updated when ever we use multiple themes, etc.

Add the below in your style sheet or in the head section of the page:


.b1h, .b2h, .b3h, .b4h, .b2bh, .b3bh, .b4bh{font-size:1px; overflow:hidden; display:block;}
.b1h {height:1px; background:#aaa; margin:0 5px;}
.b2h, .b2bh {height:1px; background:#aaa; border-right:2px solid #aaa; border-left:2px solid #aaa; margin:0 3px;}
.b3h, .b3bh {height:1px; background:#aaa; border-right:1px solid #aaa; border-left:1px solid #aaa; margin:0 2px;}
.b4h, .b4bh {height:2px; background:#aaa; border-right:1px solid #aaa; border-left:1px solid #aaa; margin:0 1px;}
.b2bh, .b3bh, .b4bh {background: #ddd;}
.headh {background: #aaa; border-right:1px solid #aaa; border-left:1px solid #aaa;}
.headh h3 {margin: 0px 10px 0px 10px; padding-bottom: 3px;}
.contenth {background: #ddd; border-right:1px solid #aaa; border-left:1px solid #aaa;}
.contenth div {margin-left: 12px; padding-top: 5px;}

Use the below html:



 
     Here is your Header!

 

 
     Look ma, no images!

Source: http://blog.benogle.com/2009/04/29/css-round-corners/

Keyboard Shortcuts in JavaScript

2009-08-21T13:31:00.005+05:30

Shortcuts in win32 applications are common, they are used for quick operations like opening help or saving a file. You can have shortcut keys in web applications also, we need to use JavaScript to implement them. Shortcuts in web applications are also helpful in quick interaction.

Visit the following url, they show the implementation:

url 1: www.openjs.com/scripts/events/keyboard_shortcuts/
url 2: http://code.google.com/p/js-hotkeys/

Get rid of Thumbs.db

2009-08-20T15:03:00.004+05:30

What is Thumbs.db file?

Thumbs.db file is a Windows thumbnail cache file used to store thumbnail images for Windows Explorer’s thumbnail view. You can find this file in Windows 9x, Windows XP. It can occupy a size of few hundred MB.

Get rid of Thumbs.db:

Go to Start –>> Control Panel –>> Folder Options
Go to the View tab
Check the check box, Do not cache thumbnails and click on Ok

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumbs.db

Round edges for fieldset in Firefox

2009-08-19T12:12:00.008+05:30

A simple fieldset looks good in IE, because IE creates rounded corners, but when you look the same page in Firefox the edges are angled. To make the edges round add the following in the stylesheet:


fieldset
{
   -moz-border-radius-bottomleft: 7px;
   -moz-border-radius-bottomright: 7px;
   -moz-border-radius-topleft: 5px;
   -moz-border-radius-topright: 7px;
   border-radius: 3px;
}

This applies only for Firefox.

Viewing docx files without Office 2007

2009-08-16T01:06:00.002+05:30

Microsoft has introduced a new file format called the Microsoft Open Office XML Format (.docx) with their latest office suite, Office 2007.

But most people are still using Office 2003. The big problem is that this new format is incompatible with older Microsoft Office versions or any other Office alternatives such as Open Office or Lotus, StarOffice, NeoOffice. So Microsoft created a program called Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats. After you’ve downloaded this program, you can easily convert new Office format such as .docx to old Office format .doc and vice versa.

Source: http://www.bridgetonova.com/2007/11/how-to-open-docx-files-without-office.html

HIPAA Securing an ASP.NET Website

2009-08-13T14:32:00.027+05:30

The following are the necessary steps/guide lines in order to make web application or distributed application HIPAA secure:

Hash Passwords with Unique Salt Values
1. Encrypt the password using SHA-1 and then save them in database with Unique Salt Values i.e. even though the password is same the encrypted result will be different.
Require Strong Passwords
1. Should be at least 8 characters in length
2. Should contain alphabets least one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter one number and one symbol
Password Change Policy
1. The application should force the user to change his password at regular intervals.
Automatic Log Off
1. The system should require the user to re-login after a period of inactivity.
Implement Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
Use of Cookies in Web Applications
1. Do not use persistent cookies.
2. Do not place user login or patient related information in cookies.
3. Use Non-persistent cookies if necessary, which expire once the browser session ends.
Database Security
1. SQL-Server security be turned off so that Windows Authentication is always used to connect to the database even for administrators
2. If that is not an option, remove the sa user and create another admin account with a strong password.
3. Users should never have access to directly update, insert or delete records instead executed by the web server components are written as stored procedures.
4. Only allow execute on stored procedures and select permissions to the web server components.
5. Always use ADO.NET command parameters in SQL statements to mitigate against SQL-Injection attacks.
6. Do not concatenate strings even in stored procedures.
Database Audits
1. Each time a user adds, edits or deletes a patient data row in the database, at minimum the user making the change and the time the change was made must be recorded.
2. Recording the columns that have changed is a more complete auditing solution but usually requires database triggers which can affect performance.
Server Component and Database Connection Security
1. The production application servers should run under a least privileged domain account
2. connect to the SQL-Server database via integrated security
3. Encrypt sections of the web.config file which contains sensitive information

5 Ways to Make Your Website More Interesting

2009-08-12T20:33:00.004+05:30

Everyone who owns a website wants visitors to be coming frequently. To do that follow simple

Use attractive colors i.e. web 2.0
Design simple logo and name which can be remembered easily
Add a site map
Offer email reminders for events, new content, sales, etc. so that the visitor remembers your site.
Create user polls. Ask visitors what they'd like to see.

Cross Browser Tool tips

2009-08-06T18:44:00.004+05:30

The following are some of the cross browser tool tips:

http://www.walterzorn.com/tooltip/tooltip_e.htm
http://ashishware.com/Tooltip.shtml