David Archer

Enum Reverse Parse

info@ripteq.com.au — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 05:43:44 GMT

It’s pretty obvious in hindsight, but you can reverse an enum requested within a function using the following code:

System.Enum.Parse(GetType([Class.Type]), “Text Enum Value”) = Enum Value

For example:

Public Class “CarClass”

Public Enum Cars As Integer
Audi = 1
BMW = 2
Other = 3
End Enum

The resulting value of System.Enum.Parse(GetType(CarClass.Cars), “BMW”) is 2

To find the ‘text’ member of an Enum, you can use the following code:

Dim MyEnumVal As Cars
Dim i As Integer

i = 2
MyEnumVal = CType(i, Cars)
Debug.WriteLine(MyEnumVal.ToString())

This will yield the value of ‘BMW’.

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Tags: Enum Reverse Parse

Category: Code

Saving a NULL value

info@ripteq.com.au — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 05:53:23 GMT

I often have requirements where NULL values need to be saved to the database if the data legitimately does not exist. I’ve used many work-arounds in the past (like using a default value such as zero, or a date like 01/01/1900 to denote no data), however for the current project I wanted a consistent real life approach.

Enter nullable types and parameters.

In this case, I have a table that contains a field called ‘DateOfDeath’. This is NOT a field you want to enter incorrect data!

My function to update a record within this table looks like:

    Public Function UpdatePerson(PersonID As Integer, GenderID As Integer, CountryOfCitizenshipID As Integer, CountryOfBirthID As Integer,
                                 StateofBirth As String, PlaceofBirth As String, DateofBirth As DateTime,
                                 DateofDeath As Nullable(Of DateTime), DateofDeathSpecified As Boolean) As ResultDetail

In my case, I’ve used a standard EntitySpaces function to save the data to the database, however this should work with your ORM of choice.

On the calling side of the function, all you need to do is set the value to ‘Nothing’, and a NULL value is saved to the database record.

Dim bolDeathSpecified As Boolean
Dim dteDateOfDeath As Nullable(Of DateTime)
If CheckEditDateOfDeathSpecified.Checked = True Then
     bolDeathSpecified = True
      dteDateOfDeath = Me.DateEditDateOfDeath.EditValue
 Else
     bolDeathSpecified = False
     dteDateOfDeath = Nothing
End If

result = obj.UpdatePerson(PersonID, Me.LookUpEditGender.EditValue,
          Me.LookUpEditCitizenship.EditValue, Me.LookUpEditBirthCountry.EditValue,
          Me.TextEditStateOfBirth.Text, Me.TextEditPlaceOfBirth.Text, Me.DateEditDOB.EditValue,
          dteDateOfDeath, bolDeathSpecified)

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Tags: nullable,types,VB.Net,EntitySpaces,saving null

Category: Code

Dropping multiple tables and stored procedures in T-SQL

info@ripteq.com.au — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:27:55 GMT

Sometimes, you need to delete/drop a number of tables and stored procedures in a database. This is mostly for testing deployment scripts, or just plain fixing an install gone wrong.

Below are some handy scripts for achieving this, although use with caution! And remember if something goes wrong, I told you nothing ….

Dropping all tables that begin with ‘Smith_’

DECLARE @id varchar(255)

DECLARE @dropCommand varchar(255)

DECLARE tableCursor CURSOR FOR

    SELECT name FROM sys.tables WHERE name like 'Smith_%'

OPEN tableCursor

FETCH next FROM tableCursor INTO @id

WHILE @@fetch_status=0

BEGIN

    SET @dropcommand = N'drop table ' + @id

    EXECUTE(@dropcommand)

    FETCH next FROM tableCursor INTO @id

END

CLOSE tableCursor

DEALLOCATE tableCursor

Dropping all stored procedures that begin with ‘Smith_’

DECLARE @UserStoredProcedure    VARCHAR(100)

DECLARE @Command                VARCHAR(100)

DECLARE UserStoredProcedureCursor CURSOR SCROLL STATIC READ_ONLY FOR

SELECT Specific_Name

FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.ROUTINES

WHERE Specific_Name Like 'Smith_%'

OPEN UserStoredProcedureCursor

FETCH NEXT FROM UserStoredProcedureCursor

 INTO @UserStoredProcedure

 WHILE (@@FETCH_STATUS = 0) BEGIN

        SET @Command = 'DROP PROCEDURE ' + @UserStoredProcedure

        SELECT @Command

       -- when you are ready to execute, uncomment below

        EXEC (@Command)

       FETCH NEXT FROM UserStoredProcedureCursor

        INTO @UserStoredProcedure

END

  CLOSE UserStoredProcedureCursor

  DEALLOCATE UserStoredProcedureCursor

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Tags: T-SQL,TSQL,SQL Server

Category: Code

Infographics Love

info@ripteq.com.au — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 05:15:56 GMT

I’ve been a long time supporter of the concept of infographics. The concept of being able to craft a graphic (static or animated) that conveys a story is a powerful tool. Recently, I’ve seen the combination of story-telling combined with data visualisation, and the effect is mind-blowing.

The ABC has a fantastic series called ‘Hungry Beast’. A particular segment called ‘The Beast File’ features animated infographics to illustrate little known or complex facts. Patrick Clair (a motion designer from Sydney, Australia) seems to specialise in creating some of my favourite infographics. Check out his blog for some sensation examples of his work at http://patrickclair.blogspot.com/, or design firm http://columnfivemedia.com/

Some tools that help create infographics are:

http://www.wordle.net/
- Online tool to generate ‘word clouds’
http://www.tagxedo.com/
- Online toll that builds word art
http://www.gliffy.com/
- On line chart maker
http://inkscape.org/
- A vector based graphics editor
http://www.google.com/publicdata/home
- Google’s public data area for analysing some large, public datasets
http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/
- IBM data visualisation centre
http://www.densitydesign.org/research/fineo/
- Create “Sankey” Diagrams from your own data sets

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Tags: infographics

EntitySpaces Query Object

info@ripteq.com.au — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 07:53:59 GMT

I recently tried to implement a form that dynamically re-loaded data based on a parent item. When I re-queried the collection, I realised that the EntitySpaces collection was accumulating my WHERE statements (ie. Load records where Category=1, Category=2, etc.). There seemed to be no way to clear the WHERE part of the query.

Enter the ‘Query’ object! The function now works beautifully.

Old Syntax

coll.Query.Where(coll.Query.EntityConnectionID.Equal(_entityConnectionID))
coll.Query.Load()
Me.GridControl1.RefreshDataSource()

New Syntax

Dim q As New EntityObjectQuery
q.Where(q.EntityConnectionID.Equal(_entityConnectionID))
coll.Load(q)
Me.GridControl1.RefreshDataSource()

Note:

You can also use other features of the .es class, such as:

q.es.Top = 15 (limits the return collection to the Top 15 records)

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Tags: EntitySpaces,Queries

Infographics Love

info@ripteq.com.au — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 21:49:17 GMT

The ABC has a fantastic series called ‘Hungry Beast’. A particular segment called ‘The Beast File’ features animated infographics to illustrate little known or complex facts. Patrick Clair (a motion designer from Sydney, Australia) seems to specialise in creating some of my favourite inforgraphics. Check out his blog for some sensation examples of his work at http://patrickclair.blogspot.com/

Some tools that help create infographics are:

http://www.wordle.net/
- Online tool to generate ‘word clouds’
http://www.tagxedo.com/
- Online toll that builds word art
http://www.gliffy.com/
- On line chart maker
http://inkscape.org/
- A vector based graphics editor
http://www.google.com/publicdata/home
- Google’s public data area for analysing some large, public datasets
http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/

IBM data visualisation centre

http://www.densitydesign.org/research/fineo/

Create “Sankey” Diagrams from your own data sets

More ...

Tags: infographics

Backing up SQL Express

info@ripteq.com.au — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 06:16:24 GMT

SQL Express is a fantastic database server. And cheap! It’s so good, it now makes it’s way into many production environments.

However, one of the issues with SQL Express is that you don’t get the SQL Agent component that most use to automate their backup routines. Never fear – below are some batch file scripts that can be run via Windows Scheduled Task to replicate the backup functionality, as well as deleting backup files older than x days.

Create a backup

Below is a batch script that will backup your SQL Express databases. Be sure to change lines 2 and 3 for your specific backup folder and server name:

Original Source: http://www.codecapers.com/post/How-to-Backup-a-SQL-Express-Database.aspx

@echo off
SET BACKUP_DIR=C:\TEMP\DB
SET SERVER=.\SQLEXPRESS
for /f "tokens=2" %%d in ('echo %date%') do (
   for /f "tokens=1-3 delims=/" %%j in ('echo %%d') do (
      set month=%%j
      set day=%%k
      set year=%%l
   )
)
set /a day=%day%-1
if %day% lss 10 (
   set day=0%day%
)
set year=%year:~2,3%
set mydate=%month%%day%%year%
for /f "tokens=1-2 delims=: " %%a in ('time /t') do set XTime=%%a%%b
sqlcmd -S %SERVER% -d master -Q "exec sp_msforeachdb 'BACKUP DATABASE [?] TO DISK=''%BACKUP_DIR%\?.Full.%mydate%.%XTIME%.bak'''"

Delete old backup files

Below is a script to delete old backups … (Original source: http://blogs.technet.com/b/heyscriptingguy/archive/2006/11/17/how-can-i-delete-all-the-bak-files-in-a-folder-that-are-more-than-7-days-old.aspx):

Remember to change the directory details in line 24 to the folder that contains your SQL backup files.

dtmDate = Date - 7
strDay = Day(dtmDate)
If Len(strDay) < 2 Then
    strDay = "0" & strDay
End If
strMonth = Month(dtmDate)
If Len(strMonth) < 2 Then
    strMonth = "0" & strMonth
End If
strYear = Year(dtmDate)
strTargetDate = strYear & strMonth & strDay
strComputer = "."
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
Set FileList = objWMIService.ExecQuery _
    ("ASSOCIATORS OF {Win32_Directory.Name='C:\Scripts'} Where " _
        & "ResultClass = CIM_DataFile")
For Each objFile In FileList
    strDate = Left(objFile.CreationDate, 8)
    If strDate < strTargetDate Then
        If objFile.Extension = "bak" Then
            objFile.Delete
        End If
    End If
Next

Many thanks to Michael Ceranski (http://www.codecapers.com/) and ‘The Scripting Guy’ (http://blogs.technet.com/b/heyscriptingguy/) for the code snippets.

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Tags: SQL Express,Backup,Batch Files

Category: Code

Essential tools for modern information workers

info@ripteq.com.au — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 02:12:22 GMT

This isn’t so much a post for software development. It’s more a modern day information worker’s essential tools list! I should clarify what I mean by ‘modern day information worker’. In the last 2 years, broadband has finally become ubiquitous. You don’t carry a laptop or smartphone without portable broadband data access. Along with Cloud services, this was the game changer.

I didn’t really upgrade the way I worked until I moved to using a desktop PC for the first time in my life. I’ve always lugged a (heavy) performance laptop to both my workplace, home and when travelling. Hence, I always had everything with me.

I’ve now traded this for a high spec MacBook Air 13” (which I love!), and a mega-grunty (that’s a technical term) desktop.

Suddenly I was faced with the dilemma of managing work across 2 machines. Gone are the days of copying files onto USB sticks, or emailing yourself files. I was determined to find a seamless way of working such that I didn’t have to manage this sort of headache.

I had some overriding premises. Make it simple, make it easy, make it robust, and make it easy to support (very important if you have family members who are like the Bermuda Triangle for technology!).

I’ve split the list into the following areas:

Email, Contacts and Calendar
File Management
Note Management
Invoicing
Cloud Accounting
Project Management
Backup
Remote Access
Source Control

Email, Contacts and Calendar

Use a cloud service. It’s that simple. I use Google Apps together with Google Sync, Microsoft Outlook 2010 and an iPhone. Make sure you use the Google Sync configuration on your iPhone and PC’s (not POP) and everything will sync beautifully across your devices. I am delighted with the experience and service quality.

For USD$50 per user per year, you get 25GB storage, web portal access, an ‘Exchange’ like experience whereby your email (Inbox and Sent), Contacts and Calendars are synchronised across all your devices (computers and phones). I add a contact on my phone, and it’s there like magic on both computers. I send an email on my laptop, and it appears in the sent mail on my phone. Magic.

You can limit the size of your mail box synchronised with your computers, so if you’re looking for a really old item you just go to your web mail portal.

Other communication tools are:

Skype (essential)
Office 365
WebEx (although, beware. Its a great service and very easy to setup a subscription. But to cancel was a monumental effort!).

File Management

I use two solutions here.

DropBox

DropBox is amazing. I can’t talk highly enough about this service. DropBox is basically a file synchronisation service that is available almost everywhere (computers, phones, web). The entry level is a free 2GB account. You can download an application that designates a folder as your ‘DropBox’ folder. You then work like normal, except that anything you do under the DropBox folder is trickled up to your online storage account. This means folders, files – the works. I haven’t found any sort of file size or type limitation. It is brilliant!

You can download this software onto other computers, sign in with your account details, and like magic the files are synchronised.

I set up all commonly used files and current project files under DropBox. This way, when I make a change on my laptop – it’s there like magic on my Desktop. If I need a file at a client site or on a Virtual Machine, I just log into the web portal and download/upload the file required.

You can also manage folder sharing with other parties, or send a web link to a common file in your Public folder.

These files are also available on all common smart phones, and there are many application that integrate with DropBox allowing you to upload content directly (such as Photo application on your iPhone, etc.).

You can upgrade your storage with a paid account and it’s well worth the money. A paid subscriber can also elect to have access to older versions of a file (source control), and you can also recover accidentally deleted files.

If your 2 computers are located on the same network, then the local network is used for copy files. This saves return trips to the web and so is cheaper and faster.

I’ll say it again. DropBox is brilliant! Not only does the synchronising of files work well, your have an online backup of critical working files that includes versioning. And it just works – no management required.

SecondCopy

The other solution I use here is more for synchronising more static files. I have a large hard drive at home (a QNAP NAS) that I used for local storage and backup. I choose to ‘synchronise’ a number of directories with my Desktop machine so that if I change anything locally, it’s copied to the NAS. Likewise, if anything is changed on the NAS, it gets copied to my Desktop.

For this I use Second Copy. It’s a scheduled file synchronisation tool and works very well.

Note Taking

For note taking and capturing snippets of information, I use Evernote. Evernote is a little like DropBox. You can access a free account with generous limits, from just about every device known to mankind (computers, phones, tablets, and the web). Like DropBox, Evernote synchronises everything to your web account ensuring that all devices auto-magically have access to your latest musings.

Searching for information is also brilliant. You can tag notes, and it will also index text WITHIN images so that these also appear in search results.

Know it, use it, love it!

Invoicing and Timesheets

Cash flow is king. I’ll say it again, cash flow is king. Have a great process for capturing what you do, invoicing for it, and receiving payment. Or, go back to working for someone else (where they will make you timesheet what you do, so that they can invoice it and chase payment).

After many years of trying to find/build a better mouse trap, I now use Freshbooks with a 3rd party add-on called Timersync.

Freshbooks allows you to setup Clients, Projects, Rates, Tasks, etc. You can then capture time against Projects and then raise invoices. These are emailed to your clients via a link. When they click the link, they are presented with a professional looking portal that shows then invoices, payment history, invoice disputes, support notes, and their details. You can also link Freshbooks with on line payment gateways such as PayPal so that clients can pay you directly. And of course there is an iPhone app (of course!).

Other alternatives to Freshbooks are:

Harvest
Solo

Cloud Accounting

For more fully featured applications, you can go the whole hog and use a cloud based accounting system. The best reviews I have read are for:

http://www.saasu.com/

http://www.xero.com

Project Management

Many of the above tools involve some sort of project management, or at least the ability to categorise something as belonging to a project. If you want to get a little more serious about project management, there are a number of excellent tools.

I currently use Axosoft’s OnTime product. This is mostly because I know it, and I forked out $800 in license fees. OnTime has both a Windows Client, a Web Client, a Customer Portal, and an iPhone client. You have the option of self hosting, or paying a monthly subscription. It is highly configurable, and quite useful.

http://www.axosoft.com

http://www.atlassian.com/

http://www.fogcreek.com/fogbugz/

Backup

I use a number of backup strategies, however the more I move my data and systems to the cloud, the more comfortable I get. Part of moving your systems to the cloud is the promise of redundancy. However, it doesn’t hurt to be a little paranoid.

CrashPlan (Cloud based, good storage limits, multi-computer)

Acronis (local backup to an external hard drive)

Remote Access

Accessing computers remotely can be pretty handy. Especially when travelling with a netbook, and you require access to your home desktop system. LogMeIn has a web based interface, as well as an iPhone and iPad application.

https://secure.logmein.com/

Source Control

I use Subversion. It’s fast, easy, free (although there are some excellent 3rd party add ins I highly recommend) and works. I use VisualSVN for both server and Visual Studio 2010 integration.

http://www.visualsvn.com

For database source control I use Red-Gate’s excellent Source Control, which works in conjunction with Subversion.

http://www.red-gate.com/products/sql-development/sql-source-control/

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Tags: Tools,DropBox,Evernote,Axosoft,TFS,Google Apps,Google Sync,Subversion,Xero,Freshbooks,SecondCopy,Crashplan

Category: Experience

EntitySpaces Multiple Database Connections

info@ripteq.com.au — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 01:39:44 GMT

I often use EntitySpaces in projects and find that it works very well for multiple database connections.

The guidance for using multiple connections is:

'Initialise EntitySpaces

        
            'Initialise Entity Spaces
            esProviderFactory.Factory = New EntitySpaces.Loader.esDataProviderFactory()

            Dim conn As New esConnectionElement
            'Manually register a connection 
            conn.ConnectionString = “…insert connection string …”
            conn.Name = "PrimaryDatabase"
            conn.Provider = "EntitySpaces.SqlClientProvider"
            conn.ProviderClass = "DataProvider"
            conn.SqlAccessType = esSqlAccessType.DynamicSQL
            conn.ProviderMetadataKey = "esDefault"
            conn.DatabaseVersion = "2005"

            esConfigSettings.ConnectionInfo.Connections.Add(conn)
            esConfigSettings.ConnectionInfo.Default = "PrimaryDatabase"

You can then add as many other connections, registering each with a unique name (only set one connection as the default).

To use a named connection, use the following syntax:

esUtility

esUtility u = new esUtility();
u.ConnectionName = "OptiQBackupDataBase";

Business Objects

// Single Entity
Employees emp = new Employees();
emp.es.Connection.Name = "OptiQBackupDataBase";

// Collection 
EmployeesCollection coll = new EmployeesCollection();
coll.es.Connection.Name = "OptiQBackupDataBase";

// Dynamic Query
EmployeesQuery query = new EmployeesQuery();
query.es2.Connection.Name = "OptiQBackupDataBase";

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Tags: EntitySpaces,Database

Category: Code

LightSwitch Beta Deployment

info@ripteq.com.au — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 01:39:15 GMT

Recently, I had to develop an admin interface to a web application. I thought I would use Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch, as this seems to be the compelling use case.

The experience building the application was very pleasant, and the resulting application was streets better than what I expected. The early user experience was (and I quote), “WOOT WOOT”.

However the deployment experience I had was not so good, and I banged my head against the door for a number of days trying to get the application hosted on a virtual server.

Publish Options

You have 2 supported publish options – direct publish from Visual Studio, or develop a ‘Web Deploy Package’.

I think most developers will end up using the package, however I tinkered with the direct publish initially and found no joy. I think Enterprise Developers may end up using this option, however I struggled to get this too work (you might have another experience).

Generating a package is pretty straight forward.

Troubleshooting

Check the web.config on the production server
Check the connection strings and sql permissions
Web Deploy. LightSwitch Beta 2 uses the Web Deploy 1.1 library. Currently shipping is Web Deploy 2.0. I found I had to completely remove Web Deploy 2.0 (through Remove Programmes, AND the Server ‘Features’ setting), before installing Web Deploy 1.1 through the Web Platform Installer. Apparently the install order is important (Note: I haven’t gone back and re-installed Web Deploy 2.0 to see if this breaks the install process).

Resources

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Tags: LightSwitch,Deployment

David Archer

Enum Reverse Parse

Saving a NULL value

Dropping multiple tables and stored procedures in T-SQL

Dropping all tables that begin with ‘Smith_’

Dropping all stored procedures that begin with ‘Smith_’

Infographics Love

EntitySpaces Query Object

Old Syntax

New Syntax

Note:

Infographics Love

Backing up SQL Express

Create a backup

Delete old backup files

Essential tools for modern information workers

Email, Contacts and Calendar

File Management

Note Management

Invoicing

Cloud Accounting

Project Management

Backup

Remote Access

Source Control

Email, Contacts and Calendar

Other communication tools are:

File Management

DropBox

SecondCopy

Note Taking

Invoicing and Timesheets

Cloud Accounting

Project Management

Backup

Remote Access

Source Control

EntitySpaces Multiple Database Connections

esUtility

Business Objects

LightSwitch Beta Deployment

Publish Options

Troubleshooting

Resources