Improved calculator application on Windows 7

Some new features have been added to the calculator (calc.exe). Even programmers and statisticians may want to use this tool.

All 4 calculator types can be accessed from the view menu. Here are the four different types.
Standard

Scientific

Programmer

Statistics

In Vista Home Premium computer name is not in the hosts file

I am not sure if this is a default. But this is what I found.


If you try to ping your own computer by name which has Vista Home Premium then you will

get a General failure. However, if you add the computer name to your host's file then

you can ping using the computer name. Note that the hosts file is not a text file.



The first ping to Hodentek3 returned General Failure
I modified the hosts file to include the computer name
The second ping is now accessing the computer by name
---------------------

C:\>ping Hodentek3 [Vista Home Premium]

Pinging HODENTEK3 [fe80::2c52:eb4:3f57:fe99%13] from fe80::2c52:eb4:3f57:fe99%13
with 32 bytes of data:

General failure.
General failure.
General failure.
General failure.
Ping statistics for fe80::2c52:eb4:3f57:fe99%13:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),



After modifying the hosts file



C:\>ping Hodentek3 [Vista Home Premium]

Pinging Hodentek3 [127.0.0.1] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128

Ping statistics for 127.0.0.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms

Homegroup on Windows 7 is not the same as Workgroup

This is an exclusive Windows 7 club as you see here.

I have shared folders on my wireless connected Windows XP SP3 computer but I cannot access them from my Windows 7. However Windows 7 computer belongs to my workgroup computers on Windows XP SP3. I can access files in the shared folders of my Windows 7 on the XP Computer.

However I managed to get the Remote Desktop functionality and can access my XP SP3 through this remote connection.

Looks like Homegroup is not the same as Workgroup.

Exporting data from MS Access to EnterpriseDB

These days no software has monopoly and businesses use a software mix that makes
business sense to them. Because of this businesses sometimes need to migrate, only
a part or all of their data to another kind of software.

This article discusses how to move data from MS Access to EnterpriseDB. Although EnterpriseDB
has a custom Migration tool, it does not provide out of the box support for MS ACCESS. However
MS ACCESS can export a table to EnterpriseDB using an ODBC Data connection.

This article appeared on the Databasedev.co.uk site recently,

 Exporting a table from Microsoft Access to EnterpriseDB




For a number of other EnterpriseDB related articles search my blog.

Turn off Microsoft Oracle Client and turn on ODP.NET

Excellent support from Oracle to its products has prompted (it appears) Microsoft to
deprecate the System.Data.OracleClient. The developers will of course migrate their applications
that use this product.

The comparison  listing of ODP.NET and Microsoft Oracle Client shows a lot of no's for Microsoft and lots of yes's for Oracle's ODP.NET. Of course you want to join the "yes" gang.

The ODAC downloads are on this page for specified versions of Visual Studio and Oracle versions
here.

For example the ODAC 11g 11.1.0.6.21 include the following:
a) Oracle Providers for ASP.NET (11.1.0.6.20)
b) Orale Data Provider for .NET 2.0 (11.1.0.6.20)
c) Oracle Data Provider for .NET 1.x (11.1.0.6.20)
d) Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio (11.1.0.6.20)
e) Oracle Database Extensions for .NET 2.0 (11.1.0.6.20) -- upgrade only
f) Oracle Database Extensions for .NET 1.x (11.1.0.6.20) -- upgrade only
g) Oracle Provider for OLE DB (11.1.0.6.10)
h) Oracle Objects for OLE (11.1.0.6.10)
i) Oracle ODBC Driver (11.1.0.6.0)
j) Oracle Services for Microsoft Transaction Server (11.1.0.6.0)
k) Oracle SQL*Plus (11.1.0.6.0)
l) Oracle Instant Client (11.1.0.6.0)

In order to install the above Visual Studio 2008 and Oracle 11g Servers are needed. While installing make sure that there are no white spaces in the installation folders and sub-directories.

I tried to install with my 10G XE and I got this:

Throw away your reading glasses

Download Firefox 3.5.1 and throw away your reading glasses. Just with Control & + and Control & - keys you can make the browser ZOOM IN and ZOOM out. Review the embedded screen shots.

Control + and Control - in Firefox 3.5 is great on the eyes

This is obviously with Control Key and Minus Key(-)

 

 

Implicit Line Continuation for VB in VS2010

If you wanted to break a statement in VB (even in VS 2008) you had to place
an underscore to continue the statement on another line. If you did not you
would get build errors.

This has gone in VS 2010 and you can break statement as the C# guys did.
This is a most welcome and long awaited feature. In VS2010 line continuation
is implicit. However if you were to leave it by habit, the program will forgive you.

Finally I installed SQL Server Management Studio on Vista Home Premium

As related in my previous post, as I could not add the SQL Management
Studio from SQLManagementStudio_x86_ENU I decided to try the next one on line,

SQLEXPRADV_x86_ENU.exe (502.7 MB)

It looks like the  Add   features to an existing instance of SQL Server 2008 brings up a window where everything is greyed out even in this version.

I decided to install with the other option,

Perform a new installation of SQL Server 2008

This adds a new named instance of SQL Server Express which you will configure in the the SQL Server2008 Setup screens.

I have a default instance installed when I installed VS2010 and the new named instance (which I called VistaExpress) of SQL Express. Now both these can be accessed by the SQL Server Management Studio.

Bottom line:
If you already have a SQL Express installed by VS2010 then you can install SQL Server Managment Studio only if you install another instance.

Perhaps even SQLManagementStudio_x86_ENU can add in SQL Server Management Studio if you were to choose the first option (Perform a new installation of SQL Server 2008)

Installing SQL Server Management Studio

I recently installed Visual Studio 2010 Beta on my Notebook computer with Vista Home Premium. SQLServer Express 2008 that comes with VS2010 Installation has only two tools.

• It has only Import and Export Data (32bit)
• SQL Server Configuration Manager

You could download the following:

SQLManagementStudio_x86_ENU

If you think you will be installing the Management Studio you will be fooled (this was probably created for the April 1 downloaders)

Here are the screen shots of what it really tried to install.
May be the following download may contain the Management Studio.

SQLEXPRADV_x86_ENU.exe (502.7 MB)
Brief description of the above lifted from Microsoft documentation to quote:

"Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express with Advanced Services is a free, easy-to-use version of the SQL Server Express data platform that includes an advanced graphical management tool and powerful features for reporting and advanced text-based searches. This edition provides powerful and reliable data management tools and rich features, data protection, and fast performance. It is ideal for small server applications and local data stores."

Now back to the installations shots of the one that had the name but no tool:

The installion verifies as successful 13 operations in the Setup Support Rules checking.

What the program has is shown here:

 
 
 
The SDK is greyed out and choosing any of these produces an exception.
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
If you try to search for the SQL Client Connectivity SDK mentioned you will hit a hardwall.
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Well done Microsoft.

Tweets with Linq

This is another link to programs that use Twitter API. This one is rightly called Linq to Twitter. If you are interested in following it up check out the following  link on codeplex.com.

Link to Twitter

Follow me on Twitter if you feel like,

http://twitter.com/subbagiri

Folder and File Sharing between Windows XP Pro and Vista Home Premium

When you expand your network and add new computers you have an urgent need to share resources between the old computers and the new ones. When they are two operating systems sometimes you face difficulties. This post shows how you may share files between an XP Pro and a Vista machine.

My setup consists of two desktop computers(XPHTEK and Hodentek) which are connected by wired LAN and two laptops. All four computers are wireless networked.

The two lap tops are, a Toshiba Satellite P 105-S6134 lap top(Hodentek2) with Windows Media Center Edition and a Acer Aspire Timeline note book( with Vista Home Premium).

The very first thing to do is to see if all computers (they are as can be seen) are part of a network.
-------------
Pinging Hodentek3 [192.168.1.102] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.1.102: bytes=32 time=67ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.102: bytes=32 time=90ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.102: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.102: bytes=32 time=33ms TTL=128

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.102:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 10ms, Maximum = 90ms, Average = 50ms

C:\Documents and Settings\Jayaram Krishnaswamy>net view
Server Name Remark

-------------------------------------------------------------------

---
\\HODENTEK For articles and consulting
\\HODENTEK2 Consulting & Writing
\\HODENTEK3 Hodentek3
\\XPHTEK XPHTEK
The command completed successfully.
-------------------------
In the Vista machine(Hodentek3) you should access Control Panel | Network and Sharing Center and turn on Public Folder Sharing and Password Protected Sharing (Read every bit before you do this as you will be exposing your surface area).

In the Vista machine you should place check marks for Routing and Remote Access and Remote Volume Management Check boxes as shown and click Apply. You need not turn-off the Windows Firewall.

For the folder which you want shared you should click on the Share menu item in the properties of the folder(right click the folder to get this) and enable it to be shared. In the permissions you should
add the user who wants to access this (the computer user of Hodentek2, for example) folder. When the folder is shared you should be able to see the network path as shown.

After this you will be able to access the folder on the Vista Machine on your Windows XP Pro machine as shown.

Happy file sharing!!!

Experience installing VPC on a brand new PC with OS - Vista Home Premium

I tried installing Virtual PC in order to install VS2010 and I get the message, "You are not running on a supported operating system...", etc. When I went ahead anyway it seems that Virtual PC (at least the console) can be installed. I have in mind to install Windows 7 which is not one of out-of-the box OS supported, the "other" has very small memory and disk space specified. I chose the representative closest as Windows 2008. I probably invited disaster. As I was capturing images of the installation screens ( a normal practice with me), the mouse began behaving as if punch drunk and the cursor started wandering over the monitor listless and finally I had to hard boot. It is somewhat of a nightmarish experience. The computer (a note book with enough memory and disk space, there is no other program on it presently except the VPC) is brand new and I wonder what will happen if I do install something worthwhile.

MS Chart bound to a dataset

Dataset is an in-memory data cache from a data source. It's a collection of DataTable objects and DataRelation objects. Data in an XML Document with data and schema can be read using the ReadXML method and data can be saved using WriteXML method and the schema with the WriteXmlSchema methods.

Dataset is often created in data centric web applications and this article brought to you by DotNetSlackers.com shows how you may bind MS Chart to a dataset. This article is the 4th of a series of articles on Microsoft Chart Control.

Binding a Microsoft Chart with a Dataset

Links to previous articles:

http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2009/07/binding-ms-chart-control-to-data.html

http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2009/06/ms-chart-then-and-now.html

http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2009/06/data-from-ms-excel-to-sql-server-2008.html

SWF file I created a few years ago

This is a link to the SWF file:

http://www.angelfire.com/vt2/hodentek/Htek3.swf

I think (but I am not sure) whether the program I used from the following link. I enjoyed paying with it anyway.

http://www.sothink.com/product/swfquicker/index.htm

I love SVG and Inkscape is cool

SVG is really cool. Only IE 8 (may be other IE's) does not support it. Inkscape from http://www.inkscape.org is a cool tool that you should be aware of if you design things. I am not endowed with artistic skills but I do appreciate those who have. I down loaded (version 0.46) and created this big fish eating tiny fish using inkscape. If you have earlier SVG file you can open them in inkscape and save them with a different name and they should work. The file that gets saved is quite larger than the original one. Give it a try, it's worth it.

Taking a table over to MySQL from MS Access

MySQL was bought by SUN

SUN agrees to be bought by Oracle

It's big fish eating tiny fish. May be not that tiny either.

But MySQL has a large coterie of lovers and it is the largest open source database product. As it always happen people are restless. There is always a need for moving things from here to there and there to here. We live in a dynamic world.

Here is an article that shows how you can move data from MS Access 2003 to MySQL. The XAMPP shipped MySQL is used.

In this article the built-in method of exporting tables in Microsoft Access is explored to take a table in Microsoft over to MySQL, the open source database product that changed hands recently. This article steps you through the process with a number of screen shots to guide you along the way.

Exporting data from MS Access to MySQL

This is unfair, I cannot downgrade Vista

I recently purchased a notebook computer that came with Vista Home Premium. It is not as useful to me as I wanted it to be, since I cannot install Visual Studio 2010 which requires a VPC installation. Vista Home Premium does not support VPC. It is also lacking in many other features (Group Policy Editor for example).


Well Windows XP does support VPC and so I reasoned why not downgrade to Windows XP Professional. Well it turns out the downgrade is not available for Vista Home Premium. This is unfair as till recently most laptops shipped with the Windows Media Center edition which is a Windows XP Professional. This is clearly unfair of Microsoft in not supporting downgrading Vista (any edition). Looks like I need to shell out another $200 to upgrade to a non-home Vista.  Vista  home is probably good for home entertainment and not for developers.

Downgrading Vista

Moving data from MS Access 2003 to SQL Server 2008

The Export and Import Wizard is an extremely useful tool for transferring data. In fact it is the simplest tool to copy over data from one database to another and to create data transfer packages that can be persisted. Data can be transferred between SQL Servers (between versions of SQL Servers for example) as well as between even two non-Microsoft databases. Another good reason for such a transfer (in the case of MS Access) could be to leverage the better security on the SQL Server while retaining the front end intact. Both Microsoft and proprietary data source providers are available to connect to many different database products.



This article is brought to you from Packt Publishing, the publisher of books on software



Review the following article and see how data is moved from MS Access 2003 to SQL Server 2008:
Transferring Data from MS Access 2003 to SQL Server 2008

Binding MS Chart Control to data

MS Chart control can bind to data from different soureces. In Part 1 the ground was prepared to configure a SqlDataSource tied to the backend SQL Server 2008. In Part 1 this source will be tied to the MS Chart. Procedures to bind data both at designe time as well as at run time are discussed. Both VB.NET as well as C# procedures are described.

Review the following article which appeared on the the DotNetSlacker's site:

Microsoft Chart with ASP.NET 3.5 – Part 2

A 3D chart from the article on the local intranet

: