1. Check the site authentication mode. It must have only one authentication. Check “Anonymous” and un-check “Integrated windows”
2. Check Theme style link binding. Sometimes you need to add aspnet_isapi.dll wildcard in order to make the theme work again.
   IIS > Website > Properties > Home directory tab > Configuration > Wildcard application maps > Add (C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\aspnet_isapi.dll)
   Make sure to UNCHECK “Verify that file exists” or you will have 404 errors everywhere.
3. Check if your server have all required MIME types eg. Silverlight MIMEs
4. Give the website folder “ASPNET” and “NETWORK SERVICE” WRITE access
5. Reindex all your search indexes.
6. Update your license file to correct site domain license

… will add more as I find things later.

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• Sitefinity – Fixing Version Dependent Custom Controls Errors
• Sitefinity – Linking External JS file in Master pages
• How to fix Cruise build deployment that adds extra assemblies and .nlp files
• Sitefinity – Empty Document Uploader Screen and Silverlight MIME

Could not load file or assembly ‘Telerik.Sitefinity, Version=…, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b28c218413bdf563′

To fix that, place the assembly binding redirect info to the runtime section of your web.config and change the values of the “oldVersion” and “newVersion” acordingly. Your site should work again after a rebuild.

<runtime>
<assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">
<dependentAssembly>
<assemblyIdentity name="Telerik.Sitefinity" publicKeyToken="b28c218413bdf563" />
<bindingRedirect oldVersion="4.1.1574.0" newVersion="4.2.1650.0"/>
</dependentAssembly>
<dependentAssembly>
<assemblyIdentity name="Telerik.Sitefinity.Model" publicKeyToken="b28c218413bdf563" />
<bindingRedirect oldVersion="4.1.1574.0" newVersion="4.2.1650.0"/>
</dependentAssembly>
</assemblyBinding>
</runtime>

Some of the most recent version numbers I’ve tracked are as followed:

• Sitefinity 4.0 (4.0.1210.0)
• Sitefinity 4.1 (4.1.1395.0)
• Sitefinity 4.1 SP1 (4.1.1405.0)
• Sitefinity 4.1 SP2 (4.1.1501.0)
• Sitefinity 4.1 SP3 (4.1.1574.0)
• Sitefinity 4.2 (4.2.1650.0)
• Sitefinity 4.2 SP1 (4.2.1733.0)

Another short note/ref to check out is this post on stackoverflow explaining some of the solution to version conflict error:

“Found conflicts between different versions of the same dependent assembly”.

Below is the direct quote from Brian which I find it pretty useful.:

This warning means that two projects reference the same assembly (e.g. System.Windows.Forms) but the two project require different versions. You have a few options:

1. Recompile all projects to use the same versions (e.g. move all to .Net 3.5). This is the preferred option because all code is running with the versions of dependencies they were compiled with.
2. Add a binding redirect. This will suppress the warning. However, your .Net 2.0 projects will (at runtime) be bound to the .Net 3.5 versions of dependent assemblies such as System.Windows.Forms. You can quickly add a binding redirect by double-clicking on error in Visual Studio.
3. Use CopyLocal=true. I’m not sure if this will suppress the warning. It will, like option 2 above, mean that all projects will use the .Net 3.5 version of System.Windows.Forms.

Here is a utility to identify the offending reference(s):
http://www.brianlow.com/index.php/2010/01/25/find-conflicting-assembly-references/

K that’s about it for now.

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• Checking SQL Server Edition Version
• How to fix Cruise build deployment that adds extra assemblies and .nlp files

Exception Details: System.BadImageFormatException: Could not load file or assembly ‘Microsoft.VisualBasic.Activities.Compiler’ or one of its dependencies. An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format.

The Error Page

I did not make any changes to the build configs at all and the site runs fine locally. There is no reference to ‘Microsoft.VisualBasic.Activities.Compiler‘ in my project and it doesn’t have VB code. I found some extra files, see below list, in the deployment bin while comparing the bin assemblies on deployment server and my local. Once remove those files, the site comes back on, but the files are added with every cruise build.

• Microsoft.VisualBasic.Activities.Compiler.dll
• Microsoft.Practices.ServiceLocation.dll
• Microsoft.Practices.ServiceLocation.xml
• mscorlib.dll
• normidna.nlp
• normnfc.nlp
• normnfd.nlp
• normnfkc.nlp
• normnfkd.nlp
• PresentationCore.dll
• System.Data.dll
• System.Data.OracleClient.dll
• System.EnterpriseServices.dll
• System.EnterpriseServices.Wrapper.dll
• System.Printing.dll
• System.Transactions.dll

I google a bit to check similar problems out there and found only one link, which was fixed by installing missing SDK or something. I didn’t think that was the right solution for me but got an idea to check for target platform configuration on the solution and project files.

I compare with one of my working project many times using visual studio property window to check for the solution and project file configuration properties but they seemed to be the same, using ANYCPU for the build platform. I didn’t trust the VS property designer so used WinMerge to compare the two files and found that there are some additional configuration lines added to the solution file. So I open the .sln and .csproj in notepad, removed all the extra configs, see the image below, checked back in, forced build the Cruise Control and walah all those craps gone and the site is back to the way it was.

.sln Solution file comparison and the lines to remove

.csproj Project file comparison and the line to remove

The point I like to make here is that although no error with cruise build, your site can still be broken and freaking Visual Studio design views lie many time so remember to go for the good old way of editing it in notepad.

Note: If you don’t have any working version to compare, just search for “Mixed Platforms” or “x86” in .sln file and “<PlatformTarget>AnyCPU</PlatformTarget>” in .csproj file and remove them accordingly.

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• List storedprocedures or database objects by last modified date
• Checking SQL Server Edition Version

<sf:JsFileLink id="jsLink" runat="server" ScriptType="jQuery"></sf:JsFileLink>
<sf:JsFileLink id="jsLink" runat="server" ScriptType="prototype"></sf:JsFileLink>
<sf:JsFileLink id="jsLink" runat="server" ScriptType="mooTools"></sf:JsFileLink>

To use it, reference the assembly from the project and add the following code in the master page.

<%@ Register Assembly="Telerik.Cms.Web.UI" Namespace="Telerik.Cms.Web.UI" TagPrefix="sf" %>

It didn’t mention which version of Sitefinity it’s used at but after testing, found out that it’s definitly not for our current 4.1 SP2 version. The “JsFileLink” property is for older version of the sitefinity 3.6 etc which comes from Telerik.Cms.Web.UI assembly.

Did a bit more digging around and got the right referencing for 4.1 version.

1. Add this to master page, immediately after Page tag.

<%@ Register TagPrefix="sf" Assembly="Telerik.Sitefinity" Namespace="Telerik.Sitefinity.Web.UI.PublicControls"%>

2. Place the following inside the “form” tag, NOT in the “head” section.

If you have the “JS” folder location as mention in this structure, reference as followed:

<sf:JavaScriptEmbedControl runat="server" ID="jsLink1" ScriptEmbedPosition="Head" Url="~/Sitefinity/WebsiteTemplates/YourSiteTemplates/JS/test.js"></sf:JavaScriptEmbedControl>

If you have the script folder in your website root, use the following:

<sf:JavaScriptEmbedControl runat="server" ID="jsLink2" ScriptEmbedPosition="Head" Url="~/scripts/test.js"></sf:JavaScriptEmbedControl>

For built-in JQuery library, reference as followed:

<sf:JavaScriptEmbedControl runat="server" ID="jQyeryLink" ScriptEmbedPosition="Head" ScriptType="jQuery"></sf:JavaScriptEmbedControl>

3. Must have unique “ID” and specify “ScriptEmbedPosition” fields.

The JavaScriptEmbedControl will register a script in the selected ScriptEmbedPosition (Head, InPlace, BeforeBodyEndTag). This control is also available in the page editor in the Scripts and Styles toolbox section. You can add references to scripts when editing the page through the UI, and even write inline scripts by hand. ref

IMPORTANT
Place all the external JS link or code blocks at the end of the page rather than the “Head”. ie. use “BeforeBodyEndTag” for some reason sitefinity loads it’s own copy of jquery in the middle of the markup and it tends to mess up the rest of the scripts.
eg.

<sf:JavaScriptEmbedControl runat=”server” ID=”jQyeryLink” ScriptEmbedPosition=”BeforeBodyEndTag” Url=”~/scripts/jquery.min.js”></sf:JavaScriptEmbedControl>
<sf:JavaScriptEmbedControl runat=”server” ID=”JavaScriptEmbedControl1″ ScriptEmbedPosition=”BeforeBodyEndTag” Url=”~/scripts/jquery.cycle.all.js”></sf:JavaScriptEmbedControl>

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• Checking SQL Server Edition Version
• List storedprocedures or database objects by last modified date

Name the solution.
Open the solution via Sitefinity Project Manager and save the solution in the project folder with proper name

Set up DB with appropriate name.
Click “Browse” on the Project Manager to set up the DB.

Add all references as solution items.
Copy all reference DLLs from the bin folder of the project to the “Lib” folder. Add them under solution folder items.

Repoint/Rereference the dlls from “Lib” folder
Remove all sitefinity related references from the project and rereferences them from the “Lib” folder.
Tip: The easiest way to reference the sitefinity related dlls to the project file would be:
- open the project file in the notepad
- search for “bin\”
- replace the appropriate dll refernces with “..\Lib\”
DO NOT hit “Replace All” as not all places require replacement.
All sitefinity related dlls will be rereferenced to correct folder EXCLUDING AjaxControlToolkit and a few others.
Search for the followings:

..\Reference Assemblies\AjaxControlToolkit.dll
..\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\WindowsAzure\Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Diagnostics.dll
..\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\WindowsAzure\Microsoft.WindowsAzure.ServiceRuntime.dll
..\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\WindowsAzure\Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient.dll

and repoint to Lib folder as well.
Note: Everytime you do the upgrade or add a custom dlls, make sure to add/update them in the Lib folder and repoint the project references to Lib.

Rename the Assembly and DefaultNameSpace with the project name
Right click on the project > Properties > Application tab > Type in project name in the “Assembly name” and “Default namespace” textboxes.

Build the solution
If the aboves are done correctly, your solution will build successfully and once browsed, will display “Thank you for visiting our web site. Please return soon for updates.”
Else you’ll get the error mentioned in the DON’T section below.

DON’T

Don’t use dots “.” in the project name.
Current version throws error when using dots in the project name.
Don’t build the solution before repointing the references.
After creating a new sitefinity site using Sitefinity Project Manager, do not build the project or solution as it will overwrite the dlls from the bin folder and throw the following error.
_”Unable to load one or more of the requested types. Retrieve the LoaderExceptions property for more information.”_ Ref

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select serverproperty('edition')
select @@version

And another annoying thing I found is that when you script the whole database with schema + data, it generates huge script file which sometimes cannot open in SQL Management Studio and even if the file gets opened, cannot execute it due to not enough memory problem. So found out that I cannot solve the problem of restoring backups on different servers by scripting whole db.

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• List storedprocedures or database objects by last modified date

I wished many times to list storedprocedures by last modified date but stupid enough never Google it and just did the painful way of noting down and scripting them. Then I face the problem of all those script files keep piling up over the period of time and lost track of which scripts have been executed or not.

Today I’m in a bit of sensible mode and did a quick googling and found this useful script, so I’m posting here for later reference.

Listing last modified storedprocedures
select name, create_date, modify_date
from sys.procedures
order by modify_date desc

Listing last modified tables
select name, create_date, modify_date
from sys.tables
order by modify_date desc

Listing db objects by type and date
SELECT *
FROM sys.objects
WHERE type in ('P', 'U')
AND DATEDIFF(D,modify_date, GETDATE()) < 90

Type “P” is for storedprocedures and “U” for tables. More on available Types: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190324.aspx

Now that I know which objects have been last updated, I can do the DB script very easily by just selecting those objects. Sweet isn’t it?

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As planned, I woke up at 4:30am, got myself ready and revised my training manual while I was waiting for the pickup. They (an Indian driver and a Fijian gal) got to my place at 5:15am and stopped at service station for coffee and hot bread before we left Suva around 5:30am.

It was a cold and drizzling morning with a pitch black sky and not a single soul on the road until we pass Lami. We had a small chat on the road and found out that the driver is very fluent in Fijian. He conversed with the girl in Fijian nonstop to keep himself awake or just being his talkative nature.

They laughed their heads off several times in their conversations and checked back at me a few times to see how I was doing. Myself being a quiet nature, I didn’t/couldn’t join in their conversation and just dozed off at the back.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t doze for long as I had to catch my breath on these lumps on the road where the car just practically flew over them. I noticed then that the driver was driving with a scary speed of 160km/hr and would not slow down near the turns or on the road block lumps.

I hurried to belt myself up but I couldn’t pull out the seat belt as it stuck to the wall and wouldn’t budge an inch. I started getting sick in the stomach on every jump and kept checking the car speed meter. It reached over 175km/hr almost right to 180km/hr mark.

Amazingly both the girl and the driver did not seem to care about how fast they were driving and enjoying their conversation. I normally get motion sickness after 1 or 1.5hr of normal driving. This time, it was not even 1hr yet and I started throwing up at the back. As usual, I prepared myself with tissue paper, plastic bags and a water bottle so I did not mess up the car. I rolled down the window and tried to get myself fresh air but the wind was too strong and I couldn’t keep it open for long. I didn’t make a sound on my first two throw ups so they didn’t notice me and I didn’t want to let them know either. Then a few turns before Singatoka, I couldn’t bear anymore and made a big puking sound and kept throwing up all the water I drunk after the first two pukes.

They then shocked to discover that I was very sick and made a stop near Singatoka temple. It was around 6:40am and a few shop already opened so we stopped for about 10min and continued to Nadi. I was a lot better after the stop and the driver did slow down his speed and drove around 125-140km/hr.

I noted that it was the fastest drive I’ve ever ridden in my life and the shortest time taken to reach Nadi. If I guessed it right, we took just 2.25 or 2.5hr to reach Nadi which normally takes around 3.5 to 4hrs. The driver mentioned that his normal record from Suva to Nadi is 2hr 20min and he can drive faster than that if the road is clear. I’m so used to my Dad’s driving of 60km/hr that I dislike speedy driving. I decided I refuse to ride his car ever again after that day.

As we get closer to Nadi, the weather is getting hot and the sun started glaring. We reached to Nadi around 7:30, picked up one of their staffs at his place and got to Namaka around 8am. We setup all the machines in the lab with the software and ready to start the training at 8am. They introduced me to their big boss (said he’s the new director) and he thanked me for the good work done with the project. We then started off the day with a somewhat long prayer. The director then made a short (15min) speech on this year theme, what they plan to achieve, how this system will help them etc. and left for his other appointments. Then I started with my training; there were only 8 participants in this session out of 14 from the previous one. There was one new face in the group and the rest attended the previous session so they all have the manual and CD with them except the new one. I’ve prepared a few extra manual print outs so it wasn’t a problem and commenced the training smoothly.

The TPAF trainers were very busy that day and every now and then, they went out of the room to attend their classes and pop back in after a few minutes. I find it annoying that people moving around while I’m talking but couldn’t do anything as they have their business to do. I tried to cover all sections in the manual and went through individually with late comers or those moving in and outs. We previously planned to have a whole day training in which I planned to go through both version of the system but they couldn’t spare the lab for the evening and I can only cover the administrator version of system. We finished around 1:30pm and waited for our pick up. One of the TPAF staffs showed me around their Namaka centre and we went in to one of the classroom commenced by one of the participants in my training. She introduced me to her students; they were roasting boneless chicken and baking some buns. It smelled really nice and I was so hungry as it’s passed lunch time. I guess she noticed me hungrily staring at the chicken so she offered some to taste but unfortunately the chicken wasn’t cooked enough yet and she asked the student to put it back in the oven for a few min again. While we were waiting for the chicken and continuing with their cooking session, my pick up arrived. I couldn’t wait for the chicken so just took a few buns, said thanks to the students and left the Namaka centre around 2:30pm.

They then took me to their office at Nadi Airport to pick up something. My dad called to ask how things were and told me to try out lunch at Ta Ta’s place. I asked the place to the driver but he wasn’t sure where so we drove around Nadi town and asked some policemen for direction. We found the place and had our lunch around 3:15pm.

We left Nadi around 3:30pm; we were supposed to come back together with their boss but we left the boss group and took off early to Singatoka for vegetable shopping. I bought a few heaps of oranges, cabbage and papaya. There were lots of good looking dalo bundles and some of them were purple. I remember mom loves purple dalo and asked the girl if that’s the right dalo but turned out they were not. The vendors told us to look for some on the way to Suva as they don’t plant purple type in Singatoka. We drove slowly and stops many times to wait for the group behind us. The driver got out and smoked on every stop and he told us that he love smoking and drinking grog. We quickly strolled into Outriggers for a loo and waited the other group outside.

Finally the other group caught up and took a lead in front of us. Their driver was driving with 120km/hr flat and our driver cannot over take him as the boss was in that car. So he followed behind disgruntled and making faces and fits at the driver in front via the mirror. As we get closer to Suva, the car in front slows down to 80-100km/hr and no more over taking at all as the cars from Suva coming nonstop from the opposite lane. It was raining and with a slow drive, I didn’t puke at all on the way home. We then saw some guys selling dalo at the road side and the girl asked for purple dalo. Luckily they got one last purple bundle and I happily bought it.

I got home around 7:35; the driver repeated his name 3 times and told me to call him if I ever need to drive to Nadi as he drives private taxi in his free times. I thanked him and the girl for the day and forgotten their names after 5min. I was so tired and sat around for an hour reporting back the day events to the family; had shower, dinner, check emails, wrote down a few lines for the post and slept. And finish up the post after a week.

The End.

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I’ve done twice/thrice more complicated and bigger projects than this project in the past but never ever had this much of discussions, arguments, back and forth explanations and long meetings after meetings with the customer before.

I grew a few white hairs after handling this project and going to grow some more since the project is no near to the closing stage.

I thought I’m 90% done after sending out the last build and the user manual. I’m only expecting minor bug fixes but NOOOOOOOO he just has to go change the whole damn lot and have to fix almost everything from the DB schema to almost every form.

It’s all because of this F*ed up requirement spec and F*ed up customer to start with. I need a bad ass project manager to handle this kind of bad ass customer. Unfortunately, there is no proper project manager was assigned to this project, thinking it’s going to be a small one. I know I should
turn myself into a bad ass bitch to take matters into my own hand but the problem is I can’t become the bad ass bitch; I don’t know how.

It’s not that easy to become a good “bad ass bitch” when you’re trying to become one. You need certain skill in that area as well. I’m terrible in that area. The most I can do is I start raising my voice and become angrier but there is no art/tactic in it.

My main problem is that the angrier I am, the quieter I become. I’ll just yell back a few words then I won’t talk anymore. I got mess up in the head that I can no longer put those mess into proper word. I need some trained/naturally talented bad arses to back me up with the arguments. I think I need to go take a course on the art of bitching. Let me know if anyone providing one.

Anyways, my boss is just so nice dealing with customers. He accepts anything if they pay for it. Ok, it’s actually a good thing if they pay for it but what if they don’t pay and just keep bullying me and dragging the project on and on?

There should be a time when we say, “That’s it, no more, we are done, no nil nada F* off!”, and close the damn project.

Anyways, I’ll have to do more analysis and effort sizing on the new changes. I’ll bitch more about it later. Bye!

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You see, we have this disc stakka where we stored all our department softwares. It’s attached to a spare box sitting on my desk and I kind of become an unofficial librarian. Whoever ask to borrow software from me, I’ll just eject the discs from the stakka and hand it to them. There is no record of how many discs we have and who borrowed them. The stakka itself is installed for everyone hence anybody can login to the box and eject any disc as they like. The result is we lost a few important discs over the months. I have no idea who took them but discs are obviously keep missing from the disc stakka. We sent a few notification emails to everyone in the office asking about the missing discs but nobody responded.

I kind of feel responsible about it since it was sitting on my desk and I am the one who is giving out the discs most of the time (unless ofcos they login to the box and eject the discs themselves when I’m away). The problem with me is that whenever I am into something or concentrating on a task at hand, I seriously don’t care about things happening around. I don’t see or hear anything unless someone pokes at me or waves in front of face. Even so, I don’t hear half of the thing they are saying. So when someone asks a disc from me while I am busy, I just remove the disc and give it to them without looking at their faces or noting their names. That must be one of the reasons people take advantage of my ignorance to snatch some discs from me.

Anyways, last week we had a very loud and noisy discussing about how to maintain our softwares. Most of my colleagues say not to borrow software to anybody outside our department. Our HR manager disagrees and wants everyone to share the software the company owns. (Ok, I wasn’t in the discussion/arguments as it was happening at one of our colleagues’ desk and I just over heard bits and pieces.) Finally we agree to properly keep track of the disc movement in some way. Boss made up a software borrowing register spreadsheet and mail it to everyone saying, unless and otherwise people fill in the register prior to picking up a disc, we are not to give it to them. But the spreadsheet was editable by everyone which is not a good idea so I created a form out of it and pass around the form. After checking the form, one of our colleagues argues that the form is very easy to fill and we like to make thing difficult for whoever comes to borrow our discs. So he suggested a few adjustments to the form.

Here are some of his suggestions:

Way too easy, we need some pain here. Can we add some more fields :
Put this under “Borrower Details“

• Weight (kg)
• Height (cm)
• Eye colour (offer Green, Blue, Grey, Brown)
• Blood Type (offer A, B, AB, O) (suggestion to add negative, positive as well)
• Hair Colour (offer Black, Grey, Brown, Red, Blond)
• Random Question from http://www.survey-machine.com/take_survey/627331 that we’ll change every week or so, we’ll start with no. 1 “Have you ever peed your pants after age 8?”

Make all fields required.

There is a few more input from other colleagues as well such as “Do you have any recent health problem say in last 6 months?”, “Provide the medical certificate to prove your blood type”, etc…

How about that!? Is the form painful enough yet? Haha, I’m not sure how many borrowers will be able to fill in that form and surely throw some serious curses at us.

Anyways, I felt sorry for whoever have to fill in the form, and I did not implement those “Borrower Details” but left the simple form as below and see how things turn out. We had a few beta tests with our gang and now it is released to suva_everyone. One serious flaw we try to ignore is that anyone can login to the machine and remove the disc while I’m away from my desk. But for the time being, it’s doing quite well without complaint, a few minute ago, someone filled in the form and took 3 discs from me. I wonder how long this system will last though.

So how do you keep track of the softwares in your organization? Do share with us some of the cool systems you use in your company. And ofcos’ you are most welcome to make suggestion to our system above as well.

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Anyways, just now I was browsing my feeds and this post, “Japanese Firm Offers Heartache Leave“, from Mr Trump really cracked me up. Well it’s not funny but somewhat makes me laugh, and think for sometimes.

I wasn’t surprised when I found out that all the employees at this company are women. I don’t mean to be sexist, but I don’t know many men who would call in sick to work because they broke up with their girlfriend.

Are you sure about that? What do you, guys, think? Don’t give me those man’s pride excuses and bluff about it.

But then I don’t know many women who would do it either. If you’re serious about your job, you don’t let heartbreak or store bargains keep you from doing your work.

I wonder our lives only exist around our jobs. He must be talking about those workaholics who got no life of their own and think only about work. It’s understandable since the billionaire such as Mr. Trump, who always think of how to increase his enterprise and who can get(or ditch) any women anytime without much effort would think work more important than other matters.

For me, I think if I ever get a serious heartbreak (I wish not), I wouldn’t want to do anything for sometimes. But then that’s all depends on individuality and how serious you take your relationships as. But I bet most Asian tends to take relationships matter more serious than those of the westenners. I’m just speaking in general but then hey what do I know; so may be not.

But I must say, that Japanese company is very considerate about their staffs well being. I’m sure the staffs appreciate about it and would boost their motivation to work harder for the company.

It’s a nice read for my morning tea break. Makes me think.

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The followings can be used in search functions where you search by date range or by datepart such as by Day or Month or Year.

For my first scenario, I want to search records by “Date” ie. “dd/MM/yyyy” only and not considering the Time part.

By default when you insert a Date using WinForm DateTimePicker or Infragistic ultraDatePicker, the Time part goes in as 0s. eg. “10/01/2008 12:00:00″. But sometimes there are cases where you have to record the Time as well. My saved records include default Date values as well as DateTime values.

In such case, to search by Date (passing DateTime variable), we cannot use the normal PredicateExpression to filter records. If you’re using normal expression ie. filter.PredicateExpression.Add(EntityField.Field == _searchDate) while EntityField has Time value, that compare expression will never retrieve proper search result for _searchDate is passing as Date value with default Time value ie. 12:00:00/0s. To solve it, we have to choose either FieldCompareRangePredicate or FieldBetweenPredicate and split the date into StartDate and EndDate as in the following function.

public EntityCollection<actualflightentity> SelectFlightsByDate(DateTime arrDate)
    {
        // Declare Flight EntityCollection
        EntityCollection<actualflightentity> _flightCollection = new EntityCollection<actualflightentity>(new ActualFlightEntityFactory());

        // Create RelationPredicateBucket named "filter"
        IRelationPredicateBucket filter = new RelationPredicateBucket();

        // Split passed variable ie. arrDate into startDate and endDate
        DateTime startDate = Convert.ToDateTime(arrDate.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd") + " 00:00:00");
        DateTime endDate = Convert.ToDateTime(arrDate.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd") + " 23:59:59");

        // Add FieldBetweenPredicate expression to the filter.
        filter.PredicateExpression.Add((new FieldBetweenPredicate(ActualFlightFields.ScheduledDateTime, null, startDate, endDate)));

        // Fetch the filtered EntityCollection and return it.
        using (DataAccessAdapter adapter = new DataAccessAdapter())
        {
            adapter.FetchEntityCollection(_flightCollection, filter);
            return _flightCollection;
        }
    }

For the second scenario, I need to search by “Year” part, where you pass “Integer” instead of “DateTime” property. Say, you are searching “Public Holidays” by “Year”. This function took me ages to figure it out. I tried using many predicates and even thought of creating a storeprocedure and use the “RetrievalProcedures” call. Finally after a long search in the documentation and the forum, got the solution. Have to set the field with DbFunctionCallexpression. Pheeeewwh! Check the following code and compare with the above.

// Select All Public Holidays by Year
    public EntityCollection<publicholidayentity> SelectAllPublicHolidayByYear(int _year)
    {
        // Declaring Public Holiday EntityCollection
        EntityCollection<publicholidayentity> _publicHolidays = new EntityCollection<publicholidayentity>(new PublicHolidayEntityFactory());

        // Create RelationRedicateBucket for filter
        IRelationPredicateBucket filter = new RelationPredicateBucket();

        // Create a new PublicHoliday Date field and set the expression on that field.
        EntityField2 field = PublicHolidayFields.Date;
        field.SetExpression(new DbFunctionCall("YEAR", new object[] { PublicHolidayFields.Date }));

        // Apply the expression with value passed ie. _year and at to the filter.
        IPredicateExpression phExpression = new PredicateExpression(field == _year);
        filter.PredicateExpression.Add(phExpression);

        // Fetch the filtered EntityCollection and return it.
        using (DataAccessAdapter adapter = new DataAccessAdapter())
        {
            adapter.FetchEntityCollection(_publicHolidays, filter);
            return _publicHolidays;
        }
    }

There you have it.
Refer to this section of LLBLGen documentation for further information on Predicate Expressions.

Generated code – The predicate system, Adapter
Generated code – Field expressions and aggregates

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My two weeks trip was exciting, tiring and a great fun. I met lots of new faces and visited new places. It was a great experience for me. Couldn’t come back quickly cos’ I caught a cold after the trip due to too much excitements and weather changes; then my laptop screwed up and had to repair OS. Now everything is settling down so catching up on my feeds and blogging here.

I took lots of photos and a few videos of my two weeks stay at GC, Syd and Adelaide. The main event was ofcos’ GC Tech-Ed. It was my very first business related overseas trip. I thank my bosses and the company for giving me an opportunity to participate in such event. I met lots of geeks and super geeks at Tech-Ed. There were total of 2400 delegates made their mark at Gold Coast Tech-Ed this year. ~80% of them are male with very few female delegates, regardless of this year Tech-Ed having the most female participants compare to the previous years. I’m one of those very few female delegates and most of the time I found myself lost in the superiority and the geekiest air around them. I felt like disappearing when I have no idea what the geeks were talking about. Yet, I somehow found myself enjoying their conversations and was inspired by their intense knowledge and skills on various subject matters.

Here are some of the photos Sarnil and I took from the event.

Note: Lightbox enabled. (Click on the photo, hover over it to browse “Next” or “Previous”)

Surf Parade Apartment

We stayed at Surf Parade apartment which is about 20-30min walking distance from Gold Coast convention center and about 10min Bus ride. The room was very neat and well furnished – TV, fridge, oven, microwave, washing machine, in-room spa, etc. The view from the room was also great. Can see the beach and also the buildings from Surf Paradise area. The room costs around AUD 119 per night and ideal for two people but I stayed alone so quite a big room for me. There were heated swimming pool and tennis courts downstairs but I didn’t even have a time to peek at them. The whole day out and we only came back to our rooms after 9 or 10pm to sleep so we couldn’t check out the whole building and the surroundings.

Gold Coast City Views

There wasn’t much time for us to explore the city as our times were fully occupied inside the convention center. I found Gold Coast has many weird looking buildings, some having spiral type and some has alien style weird diamond shape in the middle. I didn’t see any building of my liking but overall the city is quite lovely and quiet.

Activities at Tech-Ed

There were lots of sessions to attend to and I had a hard time choosing them but Sarnil and I sorted out ourselves on which sessions we should attend and share them later. We couldn’t attend any hand-on-lab sessions because they were always too full. I sat one exam there but I didn’t make it. It was the very first failure in my exams history and I was very disappointed about it. I stayed 2 whole hours burning my head hard in the exam room; I missed one session and my lunch. I was so hungry and was mad at myself for the failure. Anyway what done is done and I’ll try that exam again later. So let just say, the exam was a hard one and I didn’t prepare well. Some of the sessions I attended are:

• WEB316 Ajax Patterns with ASP.Net
• DEV307 Developing Office Business Applications with Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Office
• DAT302 Database Schema Versioning: How to Use Microsoft Visual Studio Team System for Database Professionals and Team Foundation Server to Version and Deploy Your Databases
• CON206 Custom Activities with Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation: A Developer’s Primer
• ARC307 Enterprise Library 3.1
• DEV308 A Lap around Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation
• DEV311 NET Framework 3.0 End-to-End: Putting the Pieces Together
• CON311 Building Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation Enabled Windows Communication Foundation Services in .NET Framework 3.5
• DEV320 Microsoft Visual C# Under the Covers: An In-Depth Look at C# 3.0
• OFC418 Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies 2007: Deployment and Advanced Administration Topics
• ARC312 Make your Customer’s Day: User First Design

I also attended the “Blogger Lunch” and here is one live post which covers pretty much everything about the session. I found out later in the “Ask the Expert” section that one of the Blogger Lunch session speakers, Darren Neimke, is in fact from Adelaide and live near Flinders University where my sister is studying.

One of the fun things about Tech-Ed was collecting stamps and freebies from exhibition stands. I collected a few pens, toys, a cap, a T-Shirt, a few evaluation product CDs and lots of information brochures. I also filled in lots of forms to place in the daily draws. There were some gift packs and good stuffs such as Xbox 360 draws everyday. My friend Robert won Xbox360 and we were very jealous of him. Such a lucky guy but he didn’t even invite us to play with him. Bad Robert!

There were tons of food and drinks at Tech-Ed; if you are a drinker, you would definitely love it. Coffee stands were always packed and I liked the breakfast donuts. Lunches and dinner were great too but for some reason I only ate lots of salad. I think it’s cos’ of different cooking style, their meat/main dishes didn’t taste good in my tongue.

Movie World Night

They booked the whole “Movie World” park for 2400 Tech-Ed delegates from 6:30 – 11pm on Thursday night. It was a great fun. We met one of the speakers and Sharepoint expert, Milan Gross, from Hawaii and team up with him to enjoy the night. We rode “Lethal Weapon” (roller coaster ride), “ScoopyDoo” ride, Batman stimulation and the Waterfall ride. I couldn’t believe I actually rode all of them and enjoyed it. I couldn’t have ride them if it wasn’t for the guys who kept pushing me to try so. Every ride I closed my eyes, shut my mouth and sit very still and stiffly so I didn’t get to see the high/dangerous views. But the feeling alone is scary enough for me. That was a great fun and we all enjoyed the night.

Evening at the Beach and Last Night Out

The final day closing note ended around 4:30pm and we rested a few min at our apartment. Then we paid our (my) first and final visit to the beach in front. It was lovely evening and we saw some surfers, walkers and swimmers there. We took some photos at the beach then went back to the apartment and waited our friend to go for dinner. The final night out was enjoyable. Conversation between Sarnil and Milan was interesting and amusing. They did the talking and I did the listening part as usual. We then had Korean BBQ for dinner and done a lot of walking around to digest the food. Actually the guys were searching for a good place to dance. I had a very early flight to catch and have to wake up around 4am in the following morning so I took an early leave, said goodbye to the guys and came back to the apartment. Then I packed my stuffs and get ready for Sydney departure in the next morning.

So Tech-Ed ended pretty well and some of Tech.Ed 2007 Statistics from lock note are:

• This year there were 89,608 teeth at Tech.Ed.
• You ate 12,628 bread rolls, and drank over 14,000 liters of enough coffee and Coke.
• And at MovieWorld, on the Superman ride, we recorded 1,216 cries of “shhh****tttt…!!!!”
• If all our Tech.Ed delegates were laid end-to-end, you’d stretch 4.15 kilometers long. But only an average of 1 meter wide. In most cases.
• If all this year’s delegates forms a conga-line, that would be the end of Gold Coast Tourism.

Interesting stats, aren’t they?

I was checking out the next Tech-Ed SEA 2007 at Kuala Lumpur 10-13 Sept and found out that there is one Burmese in the speaker list. The speaker name is “Maung Maung Phyo” and is a Senior Consultant from Singapore. He looks pretty young. Kuala Lumpur Tech-Ed got quite a few female speakers and most of them look very young. Also there are lots of Asian speakers. Impressive! Our friend “Milan Gross” is in the list as well. Being a Sharepoint expert, he got to travel a lot I bet.

Anyways Gold Coast Tech-Ed 2007 was great and I enjoyed it. Tech-Ed SEA 2007 looks interesting too so do share some words about it if any of you out there attending.

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Couldn’t blog long. Just dropping a line during session break. I’ll write about my Tech-Ed experiences very soon. At the moment, I’m at “Ask the Expert” session, and quickly posting this. I got one exam to sit tomorrow and couldn’t finish studying yet. Gotta cram tonight.

Anyways gotta run. Will post about things properly later. Tar.

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In VS2005 WinForm IDE, it adds or writes to the licenses.licx file whenever you use custom controls/third party controls such as Infragistic in your form. Though I’m not so sure, I observe that the licenses.licx file is not needed if you work entirely with normal winform controls, but with third party controls, it acts as a config file storing the references of the controls.

Once you add a project to VSS DB, the licenses.licx file is always binded since it’s part of the project property. You can check out the code just fine but when you work with the form design, you’re forced to check out the licenses file. If you don’t/can’t check it out, you can’t do anything to the form design. With VSS, it’s really a pain if one developer checked out the licenses file exclusively, others can’t do any design work on any of the forms. To solve the exclusive checkout on licenses file, we tried to exclude the licenses.licx from the project and let it stay in local folder. Unfortunately, the file itself is part of project property and once it’s excluded, it loses the references as well. For that little experiment, I’ve lost two of my form designs and have to start all over; thank god, they were just small forms. With that failed experiment and out of ideas, we searched for the solution on the web. Found out that it was a known issue for VS2005 IDE and the fix would only available with the next release of Visual Studio. The only work around they suggest so far is to use VSS multiple check out mode.

We don’t want to use Multiple check out mode in our VSS DB for:

1. VSS doesn’t provide individual file multiple check out mode but for the whole DB,
2. There are a few careful steps to take before checking back in the multiple check out file. (You cannot check in directly. You must get latest on that file to ensure you get different versions from other developers to merge the file then only you can successfully check it back in.)
3. VSS merge is a real pain and should I would never trust it. Unless ofcos’ you don’t care about losing some of your codes or have a separate backup, go a head and try it out.
4. There is the need of source control administrator for merging files.
5. And again, don’t trust VSS Merge and can’t rely on it.

But untill the next VS release, it’s the only possible way so we don’t have a choice but to use that method. Don’t have time to dig up properly either. So gonna stuck with this problem for the whole project. It’s just making my life miserable. *sign*

Readings: MS Feedback | Forum Q&A

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