September 2009 Entries
Just in case anyone out there glances over this and has some ideas, I’m going to throw up a flare and ask a couple of quick Domino questions. *queue flare sound* Converting Word/Excel attachments to PDF on the fly in a Domino web application. The requirement is that a user clicks on a link which points to a $File attachment, I want to convert it to PDF and spit that out to them. Some of Jake Howlett’s DEXT code using Java and the lowagie packages looks incredibly handy and close to what I’m after, but minus...
This morning Visual Studio stopped working, and wouldn’t repair. While uninstalling to reinstall(!) I came across this less than helpful error. Still, it could be worse – it could be a 3 page eclipse error message that scrolled off the screen, so I should be thankful. Tags: Visual Studio
The latest edition of Hanselminutes contains a few interesting tidbits. Mainly some interesting comments about people hating Microsoft simply so they can hate Microsoft. Microsoft has been doing some great things lately, but yet for some people it’s very hard to shake off old preconceptions about the company and what they represented. I was recently involved with a discussion with a client who was quite simply afraid that using Microsoft products would somehow mean they could be held to ransom. Across the board, Microsoft as of late seems to be doing some great stuff for technology in general....
Why is it that not many hotels (if any) provide toothpaste? Even if it was a tiny single serve tube, it’d be something a lot of guests would find useful. Look at the toothpaste purchasing profile for many households – often couples will often adapt their toothpaste consumption patterns to match each other, so by nature of this fact the aforementioned couple will typically purchase one tube of toothpaste for both people as part of their normal consumption pattern. So when one member of this couple travels, they’re faced with a dilemma: ...
A quick selection of useful links for Monday. Firstly, information about Microsoft's CDN. Having options for these sorts of things is always good. Also from Scott Guthrie, a quick tip for regaining some Visual Studio screen real estate. It’s fairly obvious, but yet I’d never really thought to do it myself – which is funny, as I disable a whole hell of a lot of other UI elements as I don’t use them. On a complete change of subject and technology, check out this little gem of a security hole in the Lotus Notes client RSS...
I came across this post tonight: Current Problems of Windows 7 for Developers. I’ve not experienced the first 3 issues - but in terms of the other items mentioned I recently installed Visual Studio 2008 and subsequently SP1 as well as the SQL Management Tools without any problems at all. YMMV of course, but Windows 7 is too much of an upgrade to write it off because of one bloggers bad experience.
YouTrack from JetBrains claims to be the fastest bug and issue tracker out there. It’s currently in beta and available with a temporary license and looks well worth keeping an eye on. On the subject of bug tracking, after tinkering with TRAC on and off for years I’ve recently implemented BugNET for our customer bug tracking – simply because I needed/wanted something which would run on IIS and that was quick yet flexible. BugNET isn’t perfect, but it’s quick to setup, open source, and looks to be an active project with some good things in the works. Before...
A quick follow up to my Snow Leopard / Windows 7 upgrade post a couple of weeks on. I mentioned in the original post that Windows 7 could now read OSX volumes – I was wrong in attributing that to Windows 7, as I’ve since found out that it’s a new feature of the Bootcamp 3.0 drivers. Thanks Apple, that’s incredibly handy! I’m loving Windows 7, however I have a couple of minor annoyances to mention: I’d downloaded an additional tile for the Vista Mobility center which let me easily toggle my Macbook Pro’s bluetooth on/off quickly....
This interesting collection of hints about the potential quality of Notes/Domino 8.5.1 (the NDA has been lifted from beta testers) makes for some interesting if slightly saddening reading. Personally if the bits about improving Domino Designer performance are slightly true then that’s probably going to be enough for me as a casual user only, but at the moment switching between using Visual Studio 90% of the time vs Domino Designer 10% of the time makes for an interesting comparison between the 2 environments. A post about IBM quality control seems like a suitable place to drop in this little...
While doing a a recent replacement of one of my data drives (swapping out a 1TB Seagate drive with a much cooler running Samsung 1.5TB) I came across a bit of a quirk with the Windows Home Server connector. It wasn’t hard to get around in my case, but for some people reading this post might save some time. After booting, the connector informed me that the computer had a new hard drive, and I should update the backups. Fair enough. However it complained bitterly that it couldn’t locate the old drive: The computer is...
Then you might want to fill in the 2nd annual feedback usage and satisfaction survey and/or learn a bit about what's available in the PP3 beta. Tags: Windows Home Server
Like many people, I spent a bit of time this weekend performing operating system upgrades. Firstly Snow Leopard, and then (and for me, more importantly) Windows 7 both on my Macbook Pro. Some notes and observations follow, for those who may be interested. The Snow leopard upgrade was painless, and just worked. It took a fair amount of time for what is essentially a service pack but the fact that you just say “go” and it “goes” kind of makes up for that. Finder feels quicker, and the Expose functionality in the dock looks pretty useful, but...
About me
My name is Ross Hawkins and I'm a Developer, Consultant and Writer based in Auckland,
New Zealand (pictured below!). My current work revolves around ASP.NET, C#, jQuery, Ajax,
SQL Server, and a mix of other Microsoft development technologies.
I also have about 14 years of experience with IBM Lotus Notes/Domino and associated technologies. While Notes/Domino
is no longer my primary focus I still like to dabble and keep my skills up to date.
I own and run 2 businesses - Hawkins Consulting Services,
and Ignition Development.
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Popular Content
Troubleshooting WebResource.axd
The .NET 2.0 framework changed the way clientside JavaScript is
delivered to the browser. Previously, ASP.NET 1.1 used the
aspnet_client directory whereas now 2.0 uses WebResource.axd.
Published on October 8, 2006
Microsoft AJAX Extensions: Sys.Debug is null or not an object
One of the breaking changes which was made with
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of the 'Debug' class to 'Sys.Debug' for reasons of compatiability
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Published on May 22, 2007
Simple ASP.NET Character Counter
A textbox character counter is a pretty simple piece of functionality, and there's a lot of different ways to apply one to your application. The following method is nice and simple, and can be done using only clientside JavaScript if required, or combined with server side code in order to create a more dynamic effect
Published on December 4, 2006
Adding Tooltips to Gridview Headers
As the title says, this is a very simple but dynamic way of achieving tooltip text on a header column. It's not overly flash, but it's lightweight and quick to implement.
Published on April 15, 2007
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