.Net, Security, and Powershell goodies

Long time!

2010-03-15T22:59:00.001-04:00

It has been a long time since I posted. I have been so busy on multiple projects but have focused most on the Android app. I will try and post some more when I can.

Android Release!

2010-02-02T23:11:00.001-05:00

OK, I think it has been a week or so since I posted to the blog. I have been crazy busy with a whole bunch of things. I finally got a beta version for my android application. For those of you with an android phone, you can download it here.

Hopefully, I'll get some time to post some things about the project on this blog.

Weekend

2010-01-23T18:30:00.001-05:00

I hope everyone had a good weekend!

Kindle Store

2010-01-22T12:46:00.001-05:00

The kindle is now also creating an app store? Wow...

Android Virtual Keyboard not showing up

2010-01-21T19:33:00.002-05:00

I added a textbox but the virtual keyboard is now showing up? Seems thisis the solution...

Sysprep on Windows 2008

2010-01-20T21:19:00.001-05:00

Talk about a nightmare! It was so much easier in 2003. Here is a good link that explains how to do that step by step.

Android and Capitalize Letter

2010-01-19T23:38:00.003-05:00

I had a textview and what was weird is that I could not get it to always assume capital after a period. Here is what I learned:

android:capitalize

If set, specifies that this TextView has a textual input method and should automatically capitalize what the user types. The default is "none".

Must be one of the following constant values.

Constant     Value    Description
none         0        Don't automatically capitalize anything.
sentences    1        Capitalize the first word of each sentence.
words        2        Capitalize the first letter of every word.
characters   3        Capitalize every character.

This corresponds to the global attribute resource symbol capitalize.

API Link

Back

2010-01-18T15:15:00.001-05:00

Finally back, but so tried.

Rain

2010-01-17T07:20:00.001-05:00

Really? Rain on vacation!

Vacation

2010-01-16T20:18:00.001-05:00

I'll be back on Tuesday!

Weekend

2010-01-15T16:14:00.001-05:00

Have a good weekend everyone!

ASP.NET MVC 2.0

2010-01-14T16:29:00.001-05:00

I just came across this...why am I behind.

2010 Trends

2010-01-13T13:46:00.000-05:00

Trends for 2010

Mutliple versions of Android

2010-01-12T17:32:00.003-05:00

I am finding it painful to test my app on multiple versions of android. It seems 1.5/1.6 are the main ones out there and a small percentage of people are on 2.0/2.01 and 2.1. Some of my problems also stem from the very drastic difference in hardware! Anyway, searching google, it seems others are complaining about this as well ;)

...I'll try and get back to my AzMan posts tomorrow

Interesting Powershell Post

2010-01-11T17:32:00.001-05:00

Interesting Post

Android Today

2010-01-10T19:11:00.000-05:00

Played some more with android today...my application is taking shape! I hope to get it to the market within the next two weeks.

Good Weekend

2010-01-09T17:58:00.000-05:00

Hope everyone is having a good weekend...

AzMan API Library II

2010-01-08T10:54:00.003-05:00

To continue my post on the AzMan Library, I wanted to show all the basic classes and makeup and since I briefly discussed it yesterday, I figure it is worth showing:

//AzLibApplication
IAzApplication _app;

       public AzLibApplication(object app)
       {
           _app = (IAzApplication)app;
       }

       public IAzApplication Native
       {
           get { return _app; }
       }

       public string Name
       {
           get { return _app.Name; }
       }

       public string Description
       {
           get { return _app.Description; }
       }

       public List<AzLibOperation> Operations
       {
           get { return AzLibAzManHelper.GetOps((IAzOperations)_app.Operations); }
       }

       public List<AzLibRole> Roles
       {
           get {
               return AzLibAzManHelper.GetRoles(
                   this,
                   (IAzRoles)_app.Roles,
                   (IAzTasks)_app.Tasks
                   );
           }
       }

       public List<AzLibTask> Tasks
       {
           get { return AzLibAzManHelper.GetTasks((IAzTasks)_app.Tasks); }
       }

       public List<AzLibScope> Scopes
       {
           get { return AzLibAzManHelper.GetScopes(this, (IAzScopes)_app.Scopes); }
       }

       public List<AzLibApplicationGroup> ApplicationGroups
       {
           get { return AzLibAzManHelper.GetApplicationGroups((IAzApplicationGroups)_app.ApplicationGroups); }
       }

I mentioned yesterday the simple objects...some examples below:


public class AzLibOperation
   {
       IAzOperation _op;

       public AzLibOperation(object op)
       {
           _op = (IAzOperation)op;
       }

       public string Name
       {
           get { return _op.Name; }
       }

       public string Description
       {
           get { return _op.Description; }
       }

       public int OperationID
       {
           get { return _op.OperationID; }
       }       
   }

Store:

 IAzAuthorizationStore _store;

       public AzLibStore(IAzAuthorizationStore store)
       {
           _store = store;
       }

       public List<AzLibApplication> Applications
       {
           get { return AzLibAzManHelper.GetApplications((IAzApplications)_store.Applications); }
       }

The API Library as I mentioned is broken out into two assemblies and the first one is what I have been explaining yesterday and today. This weekend I'll explain the second part and post the code for the two assemblies. Next week, I'll get onto secondary applictions built off this API such as the AzMan reporter.

AzMan API Library

2010-01-07T15:27:00.004-05:00

Over the years my work with AzMan has forced me created many applications and libraries. Having re-worked my original Lib, I feel that I need to first show the lib code before we can even get to the secondary external applications that I built around this. The library contains a ton of classes and I will go through some of them this week and upload them as well. I'll start by going through the main AzManHelper class:


public static List<AzLibRole> GetRoles(ITasksSource tasksSource, IAzRoles roles, IAzTasks tasks)
       {
           List<AzLibRole> result = new List<AzLibRole>();
           NamedTasks namedTasks = new NamedTasks(tasks);
           List<string> usedTasks = new List<string>();
          
           for (int it = 0; it < roles.Count; it++)
           {
               IAzRole role = (IAzRole)roles[it + 1];
               IAzTask task = namedTasks.FindMatchingTask(role);

               if (task != null)
               {
                   result.Add(new AzLibRole(tasksSource, role, task));

                   // Keep trach of the used task
                   usedTasks.Add(task.Name);
               }
               else
               {
                   result.Add(new AzLibRole(tasksSource, role));
               }
           }

           for (int it = 0; it < tasks.Count; it++)
           {
               IAzTask task = (IAzTask)tasks[it + 1];

               if (usedTasks.Contains(task.Name) == false)
               {
                   if (InteropHelper.IsTrue(task.IsRoleDefinition))
                       result.Add(new AzLibRole(tasksSource, task));
               }
           }           

           return result;
       }

       public static List<AzLibOperation> GetOps(IAzOperations ops)
       {
           List<AzLibOperation> result = new List<AzLibOperation>();

           for (int it = 0; it < ops.Count; it++)
           {
               result.Add(new AzLibOperation(ops[it + 1]));
           }

           return result;
       }

       public static List<AzLibScope> GetScopes(AzLibApplication app, IAzScopes scopes)
       {
           List<AzLibScope> result = new List<AzLibScope>();

           for (int it = 0; it < scopes.Count; it++)
           {
               result.Add(new AzLibScope(scopes[it + 1], app));
           }

           return result;
       }
      
       public static List<AzLibApplication> GetApplications(IAzApplications apps)
       {
           List<AzLibApplication> result = new List<AzLibApplication>();

           for (int it = 0; it < apps.Count; it++)
           {
               result.Add(new AzLibApplication(apps[it + 1]));
           }

           return result;
       }

       public static List<AzLibApplicationGroup> GetApplicationGroups(IAzApplicationGroups groups)
       {
           List<AzLibApplicationGroup> result = new List<AzLibApplicationGroup>();

           for (int it = 0; it < groups.Count; it++)
           {
               result.Add(new AzLibApplicationGroup(groups[it + 1]));
           }

           return result;
       }

       public static AzLibClientContext GetContext(AzLibApplication app)
       {
           IAzClientContext context = app.Native.InitializeClientContextFromToken(0, null);
           return new AzLibClientContext(context);
       }

The above does not show, but the AzLibOperation (and tasks, roles, etc.) just are simple objects that are gets of the Name, Description, and ID from AzMan. It will be clear once you look at all the code...but let's take it one step at a time.

All nighter...

2010-01-06T03:14:00.003-05:00

Still up trying to get things done for a deadline today...I am finally almost done!

Crazy Day

2010-01-05T17:32:00.001-05:00

I will do my best to post the AzMan reporter sometime this week as someone just requested it...

Start Android Application on Boot

2010-01-04T20:54:00.001-05:00

Here is an article on how to do that...will try it out tomorrow.

Powerboots

2010-01-03T16:44:00.001-05:00

It has been a long time since I used powerboots...I had a need for it today and you can find the codebase on codeplex.

Weekend

2010-01-02T19:59:00.001-05:00

Hope everyone had a good long weekend! More android stuff next week.

Happy New Years!

2010-01-01T06:46:00.001-05:00

Happy New Years!

New Years Eve

2009-12-31T17:14:00.001-05:00

Have a happy new year everybody!

Remote Session and Powershell

2009-12-30T14:03:00.003-05:00

The Powershell Blog has three great posts on this:

Powershell Help Reader

2009-12-29T13:13:00.001-05:00

I came across this on the powershell blog, take a look at the site here.

Call Stack Details in Java

2009-12-28T15:35:00.003-05:00

As I get more into Android and back into Java, I wanted to know if there was a way to find out where a method was called from. It seems that the StackTarceElement class can be used to get details about the call stack. I found a great article on this blog showing me how to to do this.

I made one addition to the code found on this blog:


public static String getCallStack(int skip)
 {
  StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
  
  StackTraceElement[] stackTraceElements = 
   Thread.currentThread().getStackTrace();
  
  for (int i = 3 + skip ; i<stackTraceElements.length; i++)
  {
   StackTraceElement ste = stackTraceElements[i];
   String classname = ste.getClassName();
   String methodName = ste.getMethodName();
   int lineNumber = ste.getLineNumber();

   sb.append(classname + "." + methodName + ":" + lineNumber + "\r\n");
  }
  
  return sb.toString();
 }

Back to work

2009-12-27T17:42:00.001-05:00

After the long holiday weekend, gotta get back to work...not sure how I am going to do that.

Weekend

2009-12-26T18:32:00.001-05:00

Hope everyone is having a great holiday weekend!

Identify Leaks and Bugs in Android Code

2009-12-25T14:12:00.001-05:00

I found this tool that has a free trial. Let's see if it works for me...

Happy Holidays

2009-12-24T15:15:00.001-05:00

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Log in Android

2009-12-23T15:04:00.003-05:00

Logcat was helpful, but not formatted that nicely. I came across this which will require a python installation but will make your logs a lot easier to follow.

If you want to read the log on your device as opposed to on the emulator approach you would just run the command:

adb -d logcat

Taking this one step further, I like to use ddms.bat which will give even nicer logs, CPU usage, etc. This is very helpful when seeing memory issues on your device.

Android Icons

2009-12-22T14:29:00.001-05:00

Why is the hardest thing always the images and icons :) I am reading a nice tutorial on creating Android Icons here.

Android SqlLite DB

2009-12-21T14:04:00.001-05:00

I was curious if I starting writing to the db, how I can actually retrieve and read what is in there. I came across this old article and it was enough to get me on my way.

Shovel Today and Android Dev

2009-12-20T16:27:00.001-05:00

More details tomorrow...

Snow

2009-12-19T17:14:00.001-05:00

I really hate snow.

Weekend

2009-12-18T13:14:00.001-05:00

Have a good weekend everyone! TGIF!

Scott Guthrie December Presentations

2009-12-17T18:36:00.000-05:00

Download them here

Vacation

2009-12-16T20:28:00.001-05:00

Really, I need one!

Google Phone

2009-12-15T17:45:00.000-05:00

So I read about it yesterday and I was not going to post on it...but this bothers me. Android phone choices are getting more complex...which actually hurts the developers in some ways.

Java and POP3 with Hotmail

2009-12-14T20:00:00.004-05:00

A simple example as we learn more on the mail protocols:


package email;

import javax.mail.*;

public class MailUtils {

public static Store getStore(Account account) throws MessagingException {
 return getStore(account.Email, account.Password);
}

public static Store getStore(String email, String password) throws MessagingException {
 java.util.Properties props = new java.util.Properties();
 props.setProperty("mail.pop3.socketFactory.class", "javax.net.ssl.SSLSocketFactory");
 props.setProperty("mail.pop3.socketFactory.fallback", "false");
 props.setProperty("mail.pop3.socketFactory.port", "995");

 javax.mail.Session session = Session.getDefaultInstance(props);

 Store store = session.getStore("pop3");
 store.connect("pop3.live.com", email, password);

 return store;
}

public static Folder[] getFolders(Store store) throws MessagingException
{
 return store.getDefaultFolder().list("*");
}

public static Folder getFolderByUrl(Store store, String url) throws MessagingException
{
 return store.getFolder(new URLName(url));
}

public static Message[] getMessages(Folder folder) throws MessagingException {
 try {
  folder.open(Folder.READ_ONLY);
  Message[] messages = folder.getMessages();
 
  for(Message m : messages) {
   String s = m.getSubject();
   System.out.print(s);
  }
 
  return messages;
 }
 finally {
  //folder.close(false);
 }
}

}

Good Weekend

2009-12-13T21:46:00.002-05:00

Hope everyone had a good weekend! A lot of work on POP3 and IMAP this weekend...will share the details tomorrow.

Android 2.1 Update

2009-12-12T19:17:00.000-05:00

So far it has fixed the camera problems. Now let's see if it fixed any other quirks that it has claimed to fix.

Weekend

2009-12-11T16:07:00.001-05:00

Have a good weekend!

Android

2009-12-10T22:57:00.001-05:00

Just got my 2.1 update! Finally, my camera works!

Crazy Day

2009-12-09T22:54:00.000-05:00

Just a crazy day today. Hope to post some updates tomorrow.

Powershell Hashtable

2009-12-08T12:58:00.001-05:00

A nice little post by Jeffrey Snover can be found here.

Windows API code pack for .NET

2009-12-07T19:59:00.000-05:00

Updated with Windows 7.

Sharepoint Foundation 2010 Beta

2009-12-06T01:13:00.001-05:00

Download it here.

Good Weekend

2009-12-05T17:27:00.000-05:00

Hope everyone is having a nice weekend.

REST on Android

2009-12-04T09:27:00.002-05:00

For my upcoming application, I wanted to work with REST on Android. It seemed to be straightforward after I came across this article. I have an interesting idea for an app and I am hoping to get it on the Android Market soon.

AzMan Reports

2009-12-03T21:17:00.001-05:00

Had to generate a whole bunch of reports from AzMan. I'll post some code this weekend that shows what I did in detail. I know I mentioned this reporting project in the past, but it had some major upgrades today....

Android Music Player and Sync

2009-12-02T19:55:00.001-05:00

Download doubletwist to sync from your machine and MixZing from the android market (an iphone clone). Dvd Jon brings us doubletwist, but this app is legit in that no DRM is broken.

Android Wishlist?

2009-12-01T15:45:00.001-05:00

So what is on your android wishlist? I need some ideas on what to build!

Alphabet in C#

2009-11-30T15:30:00.003-05:00

I saw some code that someone wrote at our company and he was reading the English alphabet from a config file. Granted, that I don't like that...I was looking for an easy way to do it and add to an array not from a config...or build it on the fly. I know I can easily add it to an array like:

char[] alpheng = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ".ToCharArray();

I came across this:

char[] az = Enumerable.Range('a', 'z' - 'a' + 1).Select(i => (Char)i).ToArray();
foreach (var c in az)
{
   Console.WriteLine(c);
}

Even funnier was that the suggested answer was what I said at the begining of this post and then someone came after that and gave this unique solution.

Droid Yahoo Mail and Hotmail

2009-11-29T18:20:00.002-05:00

Getting gmail is straightforward, after all it it is google based! However, what about Yahoo, Hotmail, and other providers? Here is how you would get Yahoo. You can find Hotmail here.

I have been enjoying my new phone!

Android SDK

2009-11-28T18:25:00.002-05:00

Hope everyone had a nice day today. I downloaded the android SDK...looks very nice. Now just need to find that one app that everyone needs. Anyone have a wish-list?

Vacation Day!

2009-11-27T11:19:00.001-05:00

Good to have a day off...allows me to play with my new phone as well :)

Opera Unite

2009-11-26T20:02:00.001-05:00

A friend of mine recently showed me this. It is so cool! You should check it out.

MSMQ Count with C#

2009-11-25T11:30:00.003-05:00

We had a bug in our production environment that filled up MSMQ and would be tied to a specific windows service that we had running. In order to fix this, the solution was to stop and start the windows service. The catch was that we only wanted to do this when the MessageQueue count was above a certain number. You can get access to the class here. A snippet of the main code is below:

public void Run()
      {
          if (TotalMessagesInAllQueues() >= MessagesCriticalCount)
          {
              StopService();
              SendEmail();
              StartService();
          }
      }

private ManagementObject GetServiceByName(string name)
      {
          List list = SearchObjects(string.Format("Select * From Win32_Service WHERE Name='{0}'", name));

          if (list.Count == 0)
              throw new Exception(string.Format("Service '{0}' can not be found", name));

          return list[0];
      }

      private ulong TotalMessagesInAllQueues()
      {
          var list = SearchObjects("Select * From Win32_PerfRawData_MSMQ_MSMQService");
          return (ulong)list[0].GetPropertyValue("TotalMessagesInAllQueues");
      }

Android Programming

2009-11-24T18:21:00.000-05:00

I have to get into that! I love my new phone...

Testing in IE5 - IE7

2009-11-23T18:45:00.001-05:00

I am a firefox/chrome guy..but you always need to test in IE. I had an issue with a .js file that worked in IE8 but failed in 5,6,7. I could have downloaded a virtual, but someone sent me this great tool...what a time-saver!

Administrator not needed to Run Remote PowerShell Commands

2009-11-22T22:23:00.001-05:00

I always impersonated, but it is good to read this article.

Weekend

2009-11-21T20:02:00.001-05:00

Hope everyone is having a good weekend!

Ruby and Rake to Deploy ASP.NET and SQL II

2009-11-20T11:09:00.003-05:00

In a follow-up to my article from yesterday. It seems that starting last night the website that I am pointing too went down. I am posting a link to the ruby file here with all credit to derek who wrote it up. The details of what he did are on his site and I hope it comes back up soon.

Ruby and Rake to Deploy ASP.NET and SQL

2009-11-19T14:47:00.002-05:00

I currently use NAnt and some powershell to deploy most of my web applications in our environment. I was curious if I could do this with Ruby. I came across this informative article here that discusses how to use Rake and Ruby to do deployments for ASP.NET and also how to do SQL compares. Very interesting!

Add Uses to Group in Bulk using C#

2009-11-18T13:53:00.003-05:00

So I had a task to take a list of usernames in a text document and add them to AD and map them to group(s). I am sure I could have done this quickly in Powershell, but I wanted to do it in C#. You can get the code here. The application is console based and uses some of our past AD classes.

The format was simple:

user1
user2
user3

A snippet of the code is below:

//using log4net;
//using ActiveDs;
public void Run()
       {
           foreach (AdUser user in ReadUsers())
           {
               using (user)
               {
                   Dictionary userGroups = GetUserGroupsDn(user.Entry);

                   foreach (string groupDn in _groupsToAddUserTo.Keys)
                   {
                       if (userGroups.ContainsKey(groupDn))
                           continue; // User already in this group
                      
                       AdGroup group = _groupsToAddUserTo[groupDn];

                       try
                       {
                           group.NativeObject.Add(user.Entry.Path);

                           log.Info(string.Format("User: {0} added to Group: {1}",
                           user.Entry.Properties["sAMAccountName"][0], group.NativeObject.Name));
                       }
                       catch (Exception)
                       {
                           log.Error(string.Format("User: {0} can't be added to Group: {1}. Possibly this is it's primary group already.",
                               user.Entry.Properties["sAMAccountName"][0], group.NativeObject.Name));
                       }
                   }
               }
           }
       }

...and main:

 private void Run(string[] args)
       {

//logging removed for brevity in snippet

           Settings settings = SettingsReader.ReadFromConfig();

           Adder adder = new Adder(settings);
           adder.UsersToProcess = ReadUsersToProcess(settings.UsersFilePath);
          
           adder.Run();
       }

Anyone want to show how this can be done in powershell in 25 or so lines?

Reflection to invoke objects

2009-11-17T08:42:00.002-05:00

So where did the ComWrapper come from yesterday? What is the point of this article in regards to reflection? Well, in short I wanted to show some some of the classes that helped me with my new AzMan library. Here is the TypeUtilities class:

//using System.Reflection;
public class TypeUtilities
{
    private static string ToString(Type[] types)
    {
        string str = "";

        foreach (Type type in types)
        {
            if (str.Length != 0)
                str += ", ";

            str += type.Name;
        }

        return str;
    }

    public static object GetProperty(object obj, string prop)
    {
        PropertyInfo pi = obj.GetType().GetProperty(prop);
        return pi.GetValue(obj, new object[0]);
    }

    public static object GetProperty(Type type, object obj, string prop)
    {
        PropertyInfo pi = type.GetProperty(prop);
        return pi.GetValue(obj, new object[0]);
    }

public static Type[] GetTypes(object[] parameters)
      {
          Type[] types = new Type[parameters.Length];

          for (int it = 0; it < parameters.Length; it++)
          {
              Type type = parameters[it].GetType();

              if (type == typeof(ComWrapper))
              {
                  ComWrapper wrapper = (ComWrapper)parameters[it];
                  type = wrapper.Type;
                  parameters[it] = wrapper.Object;
              }

              types[it] = type;
          }

          return types;
      }

      public static object InvokeOverloaded(object obj, string method, params object[] parameters)
      {
          Type objType = obj.GetType();
          Type[] types = GetTypes(parameters);
          MethodInfo mi = obj.GetType().GetMethod(method, types);
          Assert(mi, objType, method, types);
          return mi.Invoke(obj, parameters);
      }

      public static object Invoke(object obj, string method, Type[] types, object[] args)
      {
          Type objType = obj.GetType();
          MethodInfo mi = objType.GetMethod(method, types);
          Assert(mi, objType, method, types);

          try
          {
              return mi.Invoke(obj, args);
          }
          catch (Exception ex)
          {
              Logger.Error(ex);
              throw;
          }
      }

      public static void Assert(MethodInfo mi, Type objType, string method, Type[] types)
      {
          if(mi == null)
              throw new Exception(string.Format("Can't find method:  {0}.{1}({2})", objType, method, ToString(types)));
      }

Using the above classes, I'll show how in my AzMan library I was able to do things like:

while (!(entity is AzStore)) {
            entity = (IAzParent)TypeUtils.GetProperty(entity, "Parent");

C# COM Wrapper

2009-11-16T17:01:00.001-05:00

One of the classes that I use often, will show in details this with other classes that are part of my AzMan main solution.

public class ComWrapper
   {
       public object Object { get; set; }
       public Type Type { get; private set; }

       public ComWrapper(object obj, Type type)
       {
           this.Object = obj;
           this.Type = type;
       }

       public static ComWrapper Create(T obj)
       {
           return new ComWrapper(obj, typeof(T));
       }
   }

One Line Powershell to show installed software

2009-11-15T17:47:00.003-05:00

Do this with one line in powershell!

Powershell Slides

2009-11-14T22:46:00.000-05:00

Can be found here.

Good Weekend

2009-11-13T16:48:00.001-05:00

Have a good weekend everyone. Next week will share some AzMan administration tools built with C# that I had to do this week.

Ever have one of those days?

2009-11-12T17:19:00.001-05:00

Well...I am having one of those today!

Ruby Part II

2009-11-11T15:49:00.001-05:00

Yup, Ruby really does rock. I am starting to read up on Rails and what it can do. I question why I have been working with C# for so long :) Anyone else see the light when they started working with Rails?

Ruby Rocks!

2009-11-10T14:48:00.000-05:00

Yes, it really does. I am starting to play a bit more with rails now as well.

Windows Server 2008 R2

2009-11-09T14:47:00.000-05:00

Good post here.

Happy Sunday!

2009-11-08T16:49:00.001-05:00

Hope everyone is having a good Sunday.

Wave first impression...

2009-11-07T17:59:00.001-05:00

One word...very slow!

Powershell Challenge for Money

2009-11-06T10:14:00.001-05:00

Win $1000..details can be found here.

Got my Google Wave invitation!

2009-11-05T11:05:00.002-05:00

Sweet...finally got my Google wave invitation!

IdentityModel and WIF

2009-11-04T11:08:00.002-05:00

Dominick Baier and I have worked on some cool AzMan thinks in the past and I saw a recent post on his blog about WIF (Windows Identity Foundation). He has put something together with examples on codeplex. You can find details here.

Sending Automated emails with powershell

2009-11-03T08:51:00.002-05:00

James Brundage shows how in less than 25 lines of powershell code, you can create a scheduled task to email detailed reports of the installed programs on the machine. The main point here was to show that from his powerpack that he released a few weeks ago, it is simple to email reports from powershell. You can see the full article here. The code snippet that he posted is below:


New-Task |                       
   Add-TaskAction -Hidden -Script {                       
       $ErrorActionPreference = "Stop"                       
       try {                       
           $messageParameters = @{                       
               Subject = "Installed Program report for $env:ComputerName.$env:USERDNSDOMAIN - $((Get-Date).ToShortDateString())"                       
               Body = Get-WmiObject Win32_Product |                        
                   Select-Object Name, Version, Vendor |            
                   Sort-Object Name |            
                   ConvertTo-Html |                        
                   Out-String                       
               From = "Me@MyCompany.com"                       
               To = "Me@MyCompany.com"                       
               SmtpServer = "SmtpHost"                       
           }                       
           Send-MailMessage @messageParameters -BodyAsHtml                       
       } catch {                       
           $_ |                        
               Out-File $env:TEMP\ProblemsSendingHotfixReport.log.txt -Append -Width 1000                       
       }                       
   } |           
   Add-TaskTrigger -Daily -At "9:00 AM" |                       
   Add-TaskTrigger -OnRegistration |                        
   Register-ScheduledTask "DailyHotfixReport"

Force IE7 Compatibility Mode in IE8

2009-11-02T12:48:00.002-05:00

We are migrating to IE8 and we wanted a way to force this. It seems that you can add a meta tag in the header, but that would have taken days with the number of pages we would have to change. I wanted to know if there is a simple way in IIS to do this. It turns out that someone else blogged about the same thing here. It seems that meta tag can easily be added as a custom HTTP Header and we are all set.

Rainy Sunday

2009-11-01T07:22:00.000-05:00

Why can't it just be nice?

Happy Weekend!

2009-10-31T18:52:00.001-04:00

Happy weekend everyone!

Ajax Library (Preview 6)

2009-10-30T09:40:00.001-04:00

Read about it here.

Windows & Upgrade

2009-10-29T06:32:00.001-04:00

Spent the night installing Windows 7 and re-installing software on my home machine. I did a clean install so everything needed to be re-installed!

Windows Management Framework is here!

2009-10-28T08:59:00.000-04:00

You can read all about it here.

Logparser and Charts

2009-10-27T09:08:00.002-04:00

I'll start off with this subject with some of the basics, then I'll try and get a bit more complex and perhaps even write up a helper class.

Logparser uses OWC (only 2003 and earlier...)which is a blessing and a curse. It is a curse since not much is out there on OWC but a blessing in that OWC has a lot of charts! Having said this, logparser has OWC built in, but that should not stop any developer from sending output to a jquery or flash charting application and charting it that way. It is just easier with OWC. After you install the OWC on your server, here is a quick script to see if it works:

COMTSVInputContextClassClass inputFormat = new COMTSVInputContextClassClass();
chartOuputFormat = new COMChartOutputContextClassClass();
chartOuputFormat.chartType = "ColumnStacked";

string query = "select * from abc.log"
LogQueryClass logQuery = new LogQueryClassClass();

logQuery.ExecuteBatch(query, inputFormat, chartOuputFormat);

The above code is hacked up and I did not really test it, but should do the trick. I'll start posting more detailed helper classes this week.

Crazy Day

2009-10-26T16:28:00.000-04:00

Nutty day at work...will try and post the charts and logparser tomorrow.

nHibernate Trouble

2009-10-25T14:14:00.000-04:00

As you know, I am using nHibernate in my new project...had some minor issues with it and will blog about it this week.

Good Weekend

2009-10-24T20:59:00.001-04:00

I hope everyone has had a good weekend so far!

Charting with Logparser and C#

2009-10-23T11:51:00.001-04:00

I have been asked to show some examples on how to use logparser with charts and specifically from c#. I will try and post those up this weekend.

Windows 7 is here

2009-10-22T09:08:00.001-04:00

Yup, I have been using the evaluation copy for a couple of months now and ready to get the retail version. Good job Microsoft, this one may rival XP in stability.

jQuery Flot (charts and graphs)

2009-10-21T11:17:00.002-04:00

Or as they call it: Attractive Javascript plotting for jQuery.

I need to do some charting and my sql reports buddy is not here so time to turn to flash or jQuery. I came across this jQuery tool and I am gonna play with it and let you know what it's like.

Powershell v2 Launch Party

2009-10-20T12:48:00.001-04:00

Read about it on the powershell blog. It is this Thursday, so take a look today and read about it.

Combine & Minimize JavaScript using Ruby

2009-10-19T10:57:00.005-04:00

AC shared with me this great way of combining many .js files to one big file. I am not sure if all the code was his or if some he found, so credit to whoever helped out with this. This is really a great and easy way to do this, and you can run this on a postscript or even from NAnt if you wanted. In order to use it, you will first need to download and install some software:

Java
Ruby (http://rubyinstaller.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.pl)
RubyGems (http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=126 & unzip to lcoation)
command line > gem install rake
command line > gem install rio

For those that want to know how to install Gems:

command line > ruby.exe c:\rubygems-1.3.1\setup.rb

Finally, make sure you have E:\Ruby\bin; (change E: to your drive) as a path variable as it makes things easier.

For the code below, I need to download jslint.js, jsmin.js, pack.js, and packer.js and store them in the same folder as well.

You then have a batch file with has just one word: rake. You run this batch file (which is in the same directory as your rake file explained below)

Now, the code is all in one little Rakefile:

require 'rio'

$rhino_compile_enabled = false
$minify_enabled = true
$jslint_enabled = false
$output_dir = "out"

puts "Starting..."

def get_files
  files = []

   files << as_is("http://yui.yahooapis.com/combo?2.5.2/build/yahoo-dom-event/yahoo-dom-event.js")
   files << as_is("http://yui.yahooapis.com/combo?2.5.2/build/yahoo-dom-event/yahoo-dom-event.js&2.5.2/build/container/container-min.js&2.5.2/build/cookie/cookie-beta-min.js&2.5.2/build/json/json-min.js&2.5.2/build/element/element-beta-min.js&2.5.2/build/datasource/datasource-beta-min.js&2.5.2/build/connection/connection-min.js&2.5.2/build/charts/charts-experimental-min.js")

   files << minify("../WebApp/js/diag.js")
   files << as_is("../WebApp/js/jquery-1.3.1.min.js")
   #add more files here

  end

def as_is(file_path)

 task file_path do
 end

 file_path
end

def minify(file_path)
 mkdir_if_not_exist "#{$output_dir}/min" 
 min_path = get_min_path(file_path)

 file min_path => file_path do
   do_jslint file_path
   do_minify file_path, min_path
 end

 min_path
end

def do_minify(file_path, min_path)
 if $minify_enabled
   `java -cp build/js.jar  org.mozilla.javascript.tools.shell.Main  build/min.js #{file_path} #{min_path}`
 else
   rio(min_path) < rio(file_path)
 end
end

def do_jslint(file_path)
 return unless $jslint_enabled

 puts "jslint #{file_path}"

 mkdir_if_not_exist "#{$output_dir}/tmp"
 mkdir_if_not_exist "#{$output_dir}/jslint_errors"
 tmp = "#{$output_dir}/tmp/jslint.tmp.js"

 rio(tmp) < rio('jslint-options.js')
 rio(tmp) << rio(file_path)

 errors = `java -cp build/js.jar org.mozilla.javascript.tools.shell.Main build/jslint.js #{tmp}`
  
 unless /jslint: No problems found/.match(errors)
   rio("#{$output_dir}/jslint_errors/#{File.basename(file_path)}.err") < errors
 end
end

def get_min_path(file_path)
  "#{$output_dir}/min/" + File.basename(file_path) + ".min"
end

def mkdir_if_not_exist(dir_name)
 Dir.mkdir dir_name unless File.exist? dir_name
end

def do_rhino_compile(file_path)
 return unless $rhino_compile_enabled

 puts "Rhino compiling..."
 `java -cp build/js.jar org.mozilla.javascript.tools.jsc.Main #{file_path}`
 puts "Rhino compilation done."
end

def  get_combined_path
 "#{$output_dir}/combined.js"
end

task :combine => get_files do
 mkdir_if_not_exist "#{$output_dir}"
 combined = get_combined_path

 rio(combined) < "
/*
* Combined JavaScript.
*     #{Time.now}
*/
"

 get_files.each do |file_path|

   puts "Combining: #{file_path}"
   rio(combined) << "

/************************************************************************
* Source: #{file_path}
************************************************************************/

"
   rio(combined) << rio(file_path)

   puts 'next...'
 end
end

task :rhino_compile do
 do_rhino_compile get_combined_path
end

task :copy_combined do
 rio("../WebApp/Combined/combined.js") < rio(get_combined_path)
end

task :default => [:combine, :copy_combined]

Thanks AC for this.

Cmdlet Designer Tool

2009-10-18T13:22:00.000-04:00

This is nice.