Archive for April, 2007
Media server network finally completed
Posted by suddenelfilio in Uncategorized on 15/04/2007
I’ve finally been able to finish the media server network here at home. It wasn’t easy to make every device play nice with each other. So this is how it looks now:
- 2 Noxon Wireless MusicCenters which plays the music. you connect the speaker with an ordinary 3,5 inch jack.
- 1 Linksys NLSU v.2 this is network attached storage device which can get 2 usb hard drives connected to your network.
- 1 Samsung HD 120 GB in an external Revoltec HD Case. Ofcourse this is the storage where the music will be stored.
- 1 Linksys WRT54GC to connect 1 Noxon in the bedroom because the signal isn’t strong enough to reach the bedroom.
- 1 Linksys WRT54G which is ofcourse my internet access for the entire network. The NLSU 2 is connected to this router so that everything can have access to the media server.
- Unslung v.6 which is an alternative firmware image for the NLSU v2 which extends it with a small linux distribution.
- TwonkyMusic 4.1 from TwonkyVision is a piece of software that can be installed onto the NLSU running Unslung. This is the actual media server software. It’s really cheap and works nicely.
All these items make it possible to listen to wathever music is on the NLSU Media server as well as a number of internet radio stations.
Using the internet radio option I’ve already dicovered a lot of nice to listen stations. Of course all that depends on what you like 
Currently the station we listen to here at home is Batanga Internet Radio Merengue. It’s really nice if you like latin music 
Some links that you might like if you ever want to setup something similar:
- Linksys wireless routers: WRT54G and WRT54GC
- TwonkeyVision Media Server
- Revoltec external cases
- Unslung linux firmware
- Terratec Noxon devices
Old posts imported
Posted by suddenelfilio in Blog, General on 13/04/2007
I’ve been able to import my posts from the old blog. However I’ve lost all the comments and tags on them. I also have to edit those that are layed out incorrect and assign the proper categories to them.
Anyways they are here
New blog and yes I am a traitor to my religion
Posted by suddenelfilio in Blog, General on 12/04/2007
Altough I’m a strong believer of the .Net evangely I have switched blogging engines from community server (100% .net) to WordPress (PHP & MySql). It’s because I feel limited by the community server features and it still does not achieve the same level usability as WordPress does. So here we are. I’m going to look for a way to import my posts from CS to WP, but that might take a while because I’m still investigating this.
Enable PDF search in Windows Sharepoint Service 3.0
Posted by suddenelfilio in .net on 11/04/2007
The sharepoint Search Service uses the indexing capabilities like the OS Indexing service does. This means that you can extend it’s capability by implementing the IFilter interface. This is an interface that the indexing service uses to get text from files and so on. So you can implement it to support any file type you like as long as you yourself know how to parse it to text . Lukily for me Adobe has been so kind to provide an implemented version of the IFilter for pdf documents.
So you go to http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=2611
There you can download the Ifilter and install it.
After installing you’ve enabled the indexing service to use it, but you still need to make sure that sharepoint can use it. To do this you will have to do some registry hacks:
1. Open regedit and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Search\Applications\>\Gather\Search\
Extensions\ExtensionList (mind the line break!)
Note: The is different on different systems anyways it should like {XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX}
2. Create a new String Value (Edit –> New –> String Value)
3. Rename the new string value to 38
4. Right click 38 and choose Modify
5. Set it’s value to pdf and click OK.
Ok you’re set. Now upload some pdf documents to your wss site and after that restart the Sharepoint Search Service using net stop spsearch to stop the service and net start spsearch to start the service. (oh yeah you run these commands in a command prompt ofcourse start -> run -> type cmd and hit enter)
Et voila pdf indexing and search has been enabled on your wss setup. You should give the system some time to index the files.
Note:If there were already pdf’s uploaded to the wss site before you installed the IFilter there is still a small problem. These files won’t get indexed automaticaly, but you can trigger indexing by changing just any property of the file. For example change the title of the document. Another way is to just upload the files again.
Ok before you think that I’m some sort of Guru on searching, indexing or even sharepoint please note that all that I mentioned here can be found in the following KB article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927675
Why CAB? A business manager’s perspective on [Microsoft] ’s CAB
Posted by suddenelfilio in .net on 10/04/2007
As I’ve been working with CAB I really like this initiative. I’ve seen that it’s hard to convince managers higher up the chain of this new way of working because they can’t see anything different. In the end it’s still an application that runs like another, but it’s the way you application runs that is very different. Maybe this will help to get you some valid arguments and win the conquest.
http://www.ideablade.com/CAB_Webcast.htm?reffer=CodeProject
Check if a certain interface is implemented
Posted by suddenelfilio in .net on 06/04/2007
Today a coworker of mine needed to know how he could check a property of a certain class implemented a certain interface. In this case it was the System.Collections.IEnumerable interface. The following code is a custom class to demonstrate that it’s property implements the interface System.Collections.IEnumerable.
using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Text; namespace InterfaceCheck { public class ClassToCheck { private List stringsProperty; public List StringsProperty { get { return stringsProperty; } set { stringsProperty = value; } } }
The property is of type System.Collections.Generics.List<String>. If everything is correct this property will return that it implements the IEnumerable interface because the List<T> implements it. The following code is checking it:
ClassToCheck ctc = new ClassToCheck(); foreach (PropertyInfo propertyInfo in ctc.GetType().GetProperties()) { if (propertyInfo.PropertyType.GetInterface("System.Collections.IEnumerable")!= null) Console.WriteLine("Interface is implemented"); elseConsole.WriteLine("Interface not implemented"); }
It's following piece of code that does the checking: if (propertyInfo.PropertyType.GetInterface( "System.Collections.IEnumerable") != null) If the property implements the IEnumerable interface it will return it, if not it will return null.
Who broke the build?
Posted by suddenelfilio in General on 06/04/2007
Here at work we have a new custom everytime you brake a build you have to wear “The Hat”.
Some examples:
He broke the build:
He broke the build also:
He broke the build also:
Sharepoint Designer and Forms authentication
Posted by suddenelfilio in Uncategorized on 05/04/2007
There was a small problem when I tried opening the site in the Sharepoint Designer (SD). I couldn’t find the site. So after googling for a couple of minutes I discovered that SD and Forms Authentication don’t play well together. I found 2 solutions of which 1 actually did the trick for me:
The first one was when you log into sharepoint you can check the “Log me in automatically” box so the site remembers your credentials. You can than click the the File menu in IE and choose the option Open in Sharepoint Designer. This will open the current page in the designer, but not the entire site. So that’s a no go because you won’t be able to use SD to create workflows and so on, it will just function as an overgrown WYSIWYG editor for that specific page. If you don’t check the box at login and you open a certain page you will see the login page in SD which doesn’t help much…
Okay time for option 2. For this option you need some more guts and more important rights . You need to convert to Windows authentication. The Problem is that you don’t want to change the authentication provider every single time you want open the site in SD.So you need to extend the existing webapplication. For example On my server I have a web application running on http://myserver:8000 for the default zone. This is the one that uses forms authentication. Next I extend that same webapplication to the intranet zone and put it on http://myserver:8001. This one will get you to the same sites that exist on http://myserver:8000 but instead of using forms authentication it uses the windows authentication. You can now open the site in SD not by going to http://myserver:8000 but by going to http://myserver:8001. When doing this you will be prompted to provide your windows credentials. After that the entire site opens like it should.
My first steps in Workflow Foundation
Posted by suddenelfilio in Uncategorized on 04/04/2007
MCP Logo Builder
Posted by suddenelfilio in .net on 01/04/2007
Today I browsed a bit the mcp site to look for the welcome pack and other benefits. I found the logo builder that allows you to builup a MCTS logo specific for the certifications you obtained. I created mine for the MCTS: .net framework 2.0 distributed development. and it looks like this:
Nice eh ?!? :-p Anayways I alos subscribed to the Redmond Maganzine and wanted to buy some stuff form the mcp estore, but the last didn’t go through because I ordered for about $ 28, but the crazy people at Microsoft charged $ 43 shipping costs for only 3 writing pens. No way I’m gonna pay for that and as a surplus you got a warning that the goods ordered internationaly can be charged again the amount of the bought goods (so $ 28) at customs. For that money I can buy myself a very nice pen here in Belgium.