A Bug's Life

How to Pin Cygwin Bash Shell to Taskbar and Start Menu in Windows 7

2011-09-24T11:29:00.000-04:00

Cygwin is a collection of tools which provide a Linux look and feel environment for Window mainly via the Bash shell. I love it because it gives me the ability to use my Bash skills in Windows. Details of the project can be found at http://www.cygwin.com/.

After you install the project on Windows 7, you'd typically want to pin the "Cygwin Bash Shell" launcher (link) either to the Taskbar or Start Menu (or both). However, when you right-click the icon to do so, you'll notice none of the said options are available.

At the very least, you'd expect that the launcher would make it into the "frequently used programs" list of the Start Menu, assuming you use it frequently like I do. But you'll be disappointed here too as that never happens regardless of how frequently you use the program.

The issue is the specified target for the launcher. If you right-click the Cygwin Bash Shell launcher, and select Properties, here's what you get.

As highlighted in the image above, because the target is a batch (.bat) file, Windows doesn't give you options to pin it to the Taskbar and Start Menu in addition to not listing it as a frequently used program.

Luckily, the solution is simple. All you need to do is enter the following in Target: and click OK.

%comspec% /K "C:\cygwin\Cygwin.bat"

Of course, I am assuming that you've installed Cygwin to the default location, i.e., C:\cygwin. If you've installed it to a different location, you'll need to update the path accordingly. After you're done, properties of the launcher should look like the following:

Now if you right click the launcher again, you'll see that you can pin it to the Taskbar and Start Menu.

Not only that, Windows will now list the program as a frequently used one, if you use it frequently, giving you direct access to its launcher for quick access.

Hope that helps.

Cheers!

Windows 7 Shortcuts

2010-11-08T19:10:00.001-05:00

Here's a handy list of Windows 7 shortcuts that you'll love:

Window Management Shortcuts

The full list of keyboard shortcuts includes:

Win+Home: Clear all but the active window.
Win+Space: All windows become transparent so you can see through to the desktop.
Win+Up arrow: Maximize the active window.
Shift+Win+Up arrow: Maximize the active window vertically.
Win+Down arrow: Minimize the window/Restore the window if it’s maximized.
Win+Left/Right arrows: Dock the window to each side of the monitor.
Shift+Win+Left/Right arrows: Move the window to the monitor on the left or right.

You can also interact with windows by dragging them with the mouse:

Drag window to the top: Maximize
Drag window left/right: Dock the window to fill half of the screen.
Shake window back/forth: Minimize everything but the current window.
Double-Click Top Window Border (edge): Maximize window vertically.

Taskbar Shortcuts

You can use any of these shortcut combinations to launch the applications in their respective position on the taskbar, or more:

Win+number (1-9): Starts the application pinned to the taskbar in that position, or switches to that program.
Shift+Win+number (1-9): Starts a new instance of the application pinned to the taskbar in that position.
Ctrl+Win+number (1-9): Cycles through open windows for the application pinned to the taskbar in that position.
Alt+Win+number (1-9): Opens the Jump List for the application pinned to the taskbar.
Win+T: Focus and scroll through items on the taskbar.
Win+B: Focuses the System Tray icons

In addition, you can interact with the taskbar using your mouse and a modifier key:

Shift+Click on a taskbar button: Open a program or quickly open another instance of a program.
Ctrl+Shift+Click on a taskbar button: Open a program as an administrator.
Shift+Right-click on a taskbar button: Show the window menu for the program (like XP does).
Shift+Right-click on a grouped taskbar button: Show the window menu for the group.
Ctrl+Click on a grouped taskbar button: Cycle through the windows of the group

Extra Shortcuts

Here’s a few more interesting hotkeys for you:

Ctrl+Shift+N: Creates a new folder in Windows Explorer.
Alt+Up: Goes up a folder level in Windows Explorer.
Alt+P: Toggles the preview pane in Windows Explorer.
Shift+Right-Click on a file: Adds Copy as Path, which copies the path of a file to the clipboard.
Shift+Right-Click on a file: Adds extra hidden items to the Send To menu.
Shift+Right-Click on a folder: Adds Command Prompt Here, which lets you easily open a command prompt in that folder.
Win+P: Adjust presentation settings for your display.
Win+(+/-): Zoom in/out.

I've reproduced this list from here.

Cheers!

Setting a Default Browser for Visual Studio

2010-11-04T17:00:00.003-04:00

I came across an insightful post that details how you can have Firefox (or any other browser for that matter) set as default system browser while still use Internet Explorer with your Visual Studio development adventures. In short, here's how you can configure IE as your default Visual Studio browser:

Open a WebForm file in Visual Studio.
Right-click the form (or the file) and select the "Browse With..." option from the File menu.
Select (or add) your preferred browser from the list and click the "Set as Default" button.

Here's a snap of the dialog box.

For details, follow the original post here.

How to dynamically number rows in a SELECT Transact-SQL statement

2010-10-13T15:59:00.002-04:00

In a Microsoft Support article available at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/186133, a technique is mentioned that enables a developer to dynamically number rows in a SELECT Transact-SQL statement. This technique is handy for paginated display of data.

To achieve the same functionality, typically, developers resort to techniques like copying data (or primary keys) to a temporary table with an identity column and then selecting data for the requested page from the temporary table (or joining it to the source table if only primary keys were copied). Both of these (and other) approaches are tremendously slower compared to the technique outlined in the article mentioned above.

As an example, consider the following query:

select row_number() over (order by a.au_id) as sequence, a.au_id, a.au_lname, a.au_fname, a.city

from pubs.dbo.authors a

sequence au_id city

-------------------- ----------- --------------------

1 172-32-1176 Menlo Park

2 213-46-8915 Oakland

3 238-95-7766 Berkeley

4 267-41-2394 San Jose

5 274-80-9391 Oakland

6 341-22-1782 Lawrence

7 409-56-7008 Berkeley

8 427-17-2319 Palo Alto

9 472-27-2349 Covelo

10 486-29-1786 San Francisco

11 527-72-3246 Nashville

12 648-92-1872 Corvallis

13 672-71-3249 Walnut Creek

14 712-45-1867 Ann Arbor

15 722-51-5454 Gary

16 724-08-9931 Oakland

17 724-80-9391 Oakland

18 756-30-7391 Oakland

19 807-91-6654 Rockville

20 846-92-7186 Palo Alto

21 893-72-1158 Vacaville

22 899-46-2035 Salt Lake City

23 998-72-3567 Salt Lake City

(23 row(s) affected)

As you can see, there is now a dynamically generated sequence in the result set. The best thing is that this sequence number is generated by sorting on a specific column (or a set thereof) and, so, any given row is guaranteed to always have the same sequence number provided that it’s sorted on a primary key (typically a numeric, auto-incrementing one, though, any primary key incrementing in a natural sort order would work).

Now imagine you want to paginate over this result set. To make the example simple, let’s just say that you want to select rows 5 through 10 (in a real world application, you’d calculate start and end sequence numbers based on the following information: total number of pages in result set, currently requested page, and rows per page). Here’s how you’d do that:

select *

from (

select row_number() over (order by a.au_id) as sequence, a.au_id, a.city

from pubs.dbo.authors a

) as ResultSet

where sequence >= 5 and sequence <= 10

sequence au_id city

-------------------- ----------- --------------------

5 274-80-9391 Oakland

6 341-22-1782 Lawrence

7 409-56-7008 Berkeley

8 427-17-2319 Palo Alto

9 472-27-2349 Covelo

10 486-29-1786 San Francisco

(6 row(s) affected)

As these examples demonstrate, with 2005 and later versions of SQL Server, there is no need to use temporary tables or complex cursors for paginating through large sets of data.

Happy coding.

Deferred Execution of LINQ Query Expressions

2010-09-10T15:05:00.001-04:00

An important feature of LINQ query expressions is deferred execution. What this means is that LINQ query expressions are not evaluated until you iterate over the (would be) resultset. This has a very important implication -- this enables you to apply the same LINQ query multiple times to a container by simply iterating over it and be sure that each time you do, you get the latest results.

The following example demonstrates this feature:

static void Main(string[] args) {
   // Define a set of numbers; query to select even numbers.
   int[] numbers = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 };
   var results = from i in numbers
                 where i % 2 == 0
                 select i;

   // Display results; the LINQ query is evaluated here!
   Console.WriteLine("Even numbers (original)...");
   foreach (var i in results) {
       Console.WriteLine(i);
   }

   // Modify the array to include two more even numbers.
   numbers[6] = 12;
   numbers[8] = 14;

   // Display results; the LINQ query is AGAIN evaluated here!
   Console.WriteLine("\nEven numbers (modified)...");
   foreach (var i in results) {
       Console.WriteLine(i);
   }

   Console.ReadLine();
}

Here's the output you get:

Even numbers (original)...
2
4
6
8
10

Even numbers (modified)...
2
4
6
12
8
14
10

Happy coding!

Free Transfer of Personal Documents to Kindle

2010-09-10T13:16:00.000-04:00

If you've a 3G only Kindle (Kindle DX, for example) and you'd like to transfer your personal documents to your Kindle without incurring the associated fee, you can send attachments to "name"@free.kindle.com (notice that it's FREE.kindle.com vs. kindle.com) to be converted and e-mailed to your computer at the e-mail address associated with your Amazon.com account log-in. You can then transfer the document to your Kindle using your USB connection.

For example, if your Kindle email address is jdoe@kindle.com, send your attachments to jdoe@free.kindle.com.

Happy saving money!

Automatic Properties and the Serializable Attribute

2010-08-25T07:56:00.001-04:00

In order to make a type serializable, two of the available methods (in the context of the binary serialization engine) are:

Mark the type with the Serializable attribute
Implement the ISerializable interface

In most cases, simply marking a type with the Serializable attribute is sufficient.

It's important to note that the binary serialization engine serializes fields (both public and private) but not properties. This has an important implication for [Serializable] types implementing automatic properties. With automatic properties, the engine serializes the underlying compiler-generated fields. The names of these fields, as you'd expect, can change when you modify the type (to include more properties, for example) and recompile it. This breaks compatbility with existing serialized data!

The workaround is either to avoid automatic properties in types marked with the Serializable attribute or to implement the ISerializable interface.

How .NET Managed Services Interact with the SCM

2010-08-24T13:10:00.000-04:00

I just came across this great post that details how .NET managed services interact with the Service Control Manager (a.k.a. SCM). Check it out on the BCL Team Blog.

CNN: Opposition to New York mosque grows and ICNA's Response

2010-08-12T21:57:00.000-04:00

Minimizing Skype and Windows Live Messenger to Notification Area

2010-07-23T13:41:00.000-04:00

Windows 7 is a digital blessing and even more so as Windows Vista proved to be such a pain in the neck. However, like most things in life, Windows 7 is also not perfect. One of the issues (some might say it's a feature) is that certain programs, which typically would run minimized in the Notification Area, like the Taskbar so much that they always remain there while running. Two such programs are Skype and Windows Live Messenger.

Luckily, forcing these programs to stay where they belong -- the Notification Area -- is easy. Follow the following two links for two great short tutorials that show exactly how to achieve that:-

1. How to Minimize Skype to Windows 7 Notification Area
2. How to Minimize Windows Live Messenger to Windows 7 Notification Area

I hope you'll enjoy the extra, valuable Taskbar space after you send these two sticky programs to the Notification Area!

Murphy's Laws of Programming

2010-02-16T20:45:00.000-05:00

Here are some of Murphy's laws of programming that I am producing from an excellent software architecture book -- Microsoft .NET: Architecting Applications for the Enterprise. Read and have fun!

Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.
Ninety percent of a programmer's errors come from data from other programmers.
Walking on water and developing software to specification are easy as long as both are frozen.

Happy architecting software!

ACM Membership Benefits

2009-11-15T18:20:00.002-05:00

I've been a member of ACM (http://www.acm.org) for about a year now and it's almost renewal time. It's been arguably the best investment I made last year! As a member of ACM, I am entitled to a number of great benefits that help me excel in my career. My favorite ACM benefits are online books from Safari and Books24x7 and Element K-based online courses and virtual labs. Here's a complete list of what you get with an ACM membership:

A full year 12-issue subscription to the newly redesigned and redefined "Communications of the ACM," ACM's flagship publication, the most trusted source for industry information for today's computing professionals.
http://www.cacm.acm.org
Access to 2,500 online courses in multiple languages and 1,000 virtual labs.
http://pd.acm.org
Access to 1,100 online books on today's hottest IT topics including 600 selections from Safari® Books Online featuring leading publishers such as O'Reilly, and 500 titles from books24x7®.
http://pd.acm.org
ACM Career & Job Center - Whether you are a seasoned professional, or a student studying computing, you will find valuable career resources and extensive job postings in the ACM Career & Job Center.
http://campus.acm.org/careercenter
Full access to ACM's enormous bank of over two million bibliographic citations in the Online Guide to Computing Literature.
http://www.acm.org/guide
Full access to the new acmqueue website featuring Planet Queue blogs, case studies, CTO Roundtables, video and audio content, and much more.
http://queue.acm.org
The option to subscribe to the powerful ACM Digital Library with 50+ years of archives and more than 40 publications.
http://www.acm.org/dl
The opportunity to become a mentor through ACM's partnership with MentorNet, the leading organization promoting e-mentoring relationships between students and professionals in the areas of engineering and science.
http://www.acm.org/mentornet
ACM online publications that keep you current on the latest computing developments:-
- "TechNews" and "CareerNews" digests for professional and career trends
- "MemberNet" brings you the world of ACM…and beyond
http://www.acm.org/publications

It's important to note that all members must subscribe to the purposes of ACM. To access the ACM Code of Ethics go to: http://www.acm.org/about/code-of-ethics.

System.Transactions Maximum Timeout

2009-06-21T10:50:00.005-04:00

I used System.Transactions for a recent project which has transactions running as long as nearly 30 minutes. So, I added the following to my app.config file:

<system.transactions>
<defaultSettings timeout="00:40:00"/>
<system.transactions>

However, most of my transactions would err out apparently for stupid reasons, like violations of foreign keys. When this kept happening again and again and I noticed that all transactions failed approximately after 10 minutes, I thought to myself, "boy, it got to be something else."

Research revealed that System.Transactions have a maximum timeout which, by default, is definable in the machine.config file only. It has precedence over any timeout values you specify in your app.config file or programmatically through one of the TransactionScope constructors. Effectively any value you define, if greater than the maching.config max timeout, will be scaled down to the max timeout value defined in the machine.config file. So, in my case I was defining 40 minutes for the transaction timeout but that was scaled down to 10 minutes; the reason why my transactions kept timing out after approximately 10 minutes.

Luckily, this can be resolved simply -- all you have to do is hack the machine.config file. You need to add the following to your maching.conifg file:

<system.transactions>
<machineSettings maxTimeout="01:00:00" />
<system.transactions>

This sets the maximum System.Transactions transaction timeout to 1 hour.

Cheers.

What's in a Codename?

2009-05-15T18:11:00.007-04:00

It's often helpful to codename a project that a team is working on. This has many benefits including secrecy of the product being developed (hiding it from competitors), giving a common and, perhaps, interesting name to the project, and giving the company/team a lot of time to decide on a good product name while it's under development. Here are some codenames Microsoft have used for their products:

Whidbey
Orcas
Jakarta

And here are some used by Apple:

Leopard
Jaguar
Puma

Thinking of great project codenames may not be as easy as it seems. So help comes along. Here's a link to a Web Site that generates cool codenames in a military-oriented way but they can be used for any sort of project. Here's the link: http://ubique.ch/codename/

VirtualBox 2.2.0 Bug: HostKey Can't Be Changed

2009-04-25T14:49:00.003-04:00

I recently upgraded my VirtualBox installation to the latest & greatest version 2.2.0, on my Vista Business notebook, just to find that NAT and bridged-networking wouldn't work in my Windows XP Professional guest. Research revealed that this problem could be fixed simply by re-running the installation and choosing "Repair." That's precisely what I did and that fixed the issue, however, only partially. Now I could browse the Internet in my guest OS but I couldn't access any resources on my office's network (my host connects to the office via Cisco VPN). So this time around, I uninstalled VirtualBox, restarted my notebook, and installed VirtualBox 2.2.0 afresh. This resolved all networking-related issues. However, now it wouldn't let me change the HostKey from Right Ctrl to Right Alt, or any other for that matter. After a bit of Googling, I landed at a page describing this was a bug in the newest version (the bug's been fixed and the fix will be available in the upcoming release). Crap! Because I couldn't live with Right Ctrl as my HostKey, I had to figure out a way to change it to Right Alt. Here's how you do it without having to hand-edit any configuration files. Perhaps an easy way of changing the HostKey until the fix is released is to use VBoxManage with the setextradata switch. So if you wanted to change the HostKey to the Right Alt key (numeric code 165), you would execute the following command: VBoxManage.exe setextradata global GUI/Input/HostKey 165 I've posted this solution at the bug page also. You could see details on the bug and this work-around (and others) here.

DivX Web Player Permission Error in IE7 on Windows Vista

2008-07-27T20:03:00.004-04:00

If you have "Protected Mode" on in IE7 and you are running Windows Vista (this setting is on by default), you'll get the following error when you try watching a movie off a Web Site (like stage6): "The DivX Web Player could not write the video file to disk...." The current stable version of DivX Web Player (1.4.0.233) doesn't support IE7's Potected Mode. No matter how you configure permissions for the DivX video cache folder (%USERPROFILE%\Videos\DivX Movies), you keep getting this error. To resolve the issue, you have three choices which I list below in order of most secure to less secure:

Download and install the latest version of DivX Web Player (currently in beta), which you can install on top of your current DivX installation package. Get the player at http://labs.divx.com/node/6277#DownloadWinWebPlayer141b1.
Add your movie Web Site to the list of trusted sites in IE.
Turn Protected Mode off for Internt Zone.

Enjoy!

My Programmer Personality Type

2008-04-27T13:42:00.002-04:00

I just took the programmer personality test and here's my programmer personality type: PHTB You're a Planner. You may be slow, but you'll usually find the best solution. If something's worth doing, it's worth doing right. You like coding at a High level. The world is made up of objects and components, you should create your programs in the same way. You work best in a Team. A good group is better than the sum of it's parts. The only thing better than a genius programmer is a cohesive group of genius programmers. You are a liBeral programmer. Programming is a complex task and you should use white space and comments as freely as possible to help simplify the task. We're not writing on paper anymore so we can take up as much room as we need.

A Day Out

2008-04-26T01:40:00.002-04:00

Note: This is an old post that I moved in here from another blog of mine. The original date of the post is 12/8/07. Macrosoft's team working at Autoweb, which I am a key member of, went out on an all day event a week back. We ate lunch at Tawa Restaurant in Dearborn. After that we went to Henry Ford Museum. However, because we got so late, the museum was closed. So we went to Fairlane Shopping Mall where we did a bit of shopping. Then we watched the movie Beowulf in Star Theater. Finally, we had our dinner at China Town Restaurant. That day it snowed very heavily; so much that on the way back to home I had to drive no more than 40 MPH while usually I do no less than 75 MPH!

Working Out of a Client Location in MI

2008-04-26T01:39:00.001-04:00

Note: This is an old post that I moved in here from another blog of mine. The original date of the post is 8/24/07. This post is in fact a little bit late. It's been a month since I have relocated to Rochester Hills, MI. But now is a good time to share with you a little bit of info about what I am doing here. After three weeks of stay in NJ, and enjoying a very calm and cool work environment at Macrosoft, I got placed at a client's (Autoweb) site in Rochester Hills, MI. They are developing the new generation of a well-known product for the automotive industry. The main function of this product is providing a platform for sharing intellectual property data and collaboration among first tier automotive vendors like General Motors and Ford, and their suppliers. My role in the development of this project is v. critical. In a nutshell, I am developing a component that would enable the old product and its new incarnation to work together seamlessly. This component's ultimate goal is to gradually migrate all clients from the old product to the new one and to enable vendors and suppliers to continue IP collaboration in the mean time regardless of which product they are using. As you can see, this component which I am developing for my client is v. important for the success of the new product. And because we have almost run out of time-to-deadline, we're working not only long hours but weekends as well. And it's been like this for a month, non-stop. Man, this tough schedule! I didn't have to work like that even in Pakistan. This is for you Pakis who always complaint that we have but unorganized software development industry where every other project is a chaos. Trust me, it's no better here either. In fact, software development is such a challenging and complex task that if it's not exercised with due caution and expertise, you're almost guaranteed to end up with a project that is a nightmare to develop, maintain, and evolve. Stay tuned for more updates. Cheers.

Relocation to USA

2008-04-26T01:36:00.002-04:00

Note: This is an old post that I moved in here from another blog of mine. The original date of the post is 6/26/07. On Wednesday, 20 June, 2007 I relocated to the USA to work for Macrosoft Inc., a US-based software development and consulting company with operations in many countries including Pakistan. I flew to the US via PIA. Their service was good and I would like to travel with them in future as well. New Jersey is a very green and calm state. It's really an ideal place to live in. It's been a week since I'm living and working in NJ and I'm really lovin' it!

Back to the Future, arghhh, Windows!

2008-04-22T00:11:00.001-04:00

Yes! I am back, back to Windows!! And I love it as ever before!!! The past one year has been very difficult for me trying to learn Linux and Linux programming (which often, but not always, means mastery in C and C++) while working as a .NET developer in Team Lead position. I've learned a lot. As of this writing I can:

Install most flavors of Linux,
Configure it for everyday operations like Internet, multimedia, etc.,
Configure and work with Samba, SSH, FTP, and MySQL,
Configure PHP and a PHP development environment,
Develop moderately complex PHP Web applications,
Develop moderately complex C/C++ programs on the Linux platform, and
Comfortably use and configure Linux using the shell

That's a lot if you consider I've learned all this by myself -- no coaching, no classes, no nothing -- and while working full time as a .NET developer in Team Lead position! There are several important reasons why I decided to turn my complete attention back to Windows and .NET once again:

I've now over five years of solid, professional .NET development experience,
I've moved to the USA based on my expertise with Microsoft technologies,
I'm now in a senior position and can see a very bright career ahead of me,
Starting with a Linux-based C/C++ job would mean starting from scratch, perhaps accepting a low pay job as a junior

Trying to learn and then switching to the Linux world was my decision. Now, sticking to just Windows is my decision. I am happy to be through this because today I am good as ever in Microsoft technologies. In addition to that I also know a lot about Linux and can use it as easily as Windows, both from the GUI and the shell. Now that I am back, this blog is going to see frequent posts. So, stay tuned! Cheers!

Access Memory

2006-12-23T17:29:00.001-05:00

Big mistake. Yes I made a big mistake today. I have 384 MB of RAM in my PIII computer with 855 MHz processor installed on Intel D815e board. I planned to upgrade my system by adding more memory to it. So I went and bought a 512 MB memory stick for Rs.3,100. But when I installed the memory module in my system, guess what, it displayed a message on startup that "216: Memory exceeds the maximum limit". Terrible! Isn't it? Man, I should have given it a bit of thought. But no, I went straight to the market and bought myself an extra 512 MB of RAM. Gosh. Well, so what now? Hmmm. I've installed the new 512 MB module into my system and the other two modules (128 MB and 256 MB) are lying in front of me. No use for them currently. May be I might go for selling them or something. But for that I don't want to rush as I did for buying RAM. So whenever planning to upgrade your PC, be sure to checkout if it is upgradeable to the extent you're planning. Cheers.

Accessing Hotmail from Thunderbird

2006-11-21T01:33:00.001-05:00

Nope. Not possible yet. This is the one thing that I would categorize as a missing feature. Since I can connect to Hotmail using Microsoft Outlook Express or Microsoft Office Outlook, I would expect to be able to do the same using Thunderbird as well. But Thunderbird can connect using POP or IMAP protocols. HTTP is none of the options. I wish the Mozilla people add this feature to Thunderbird in their future release. Cheers.

Thunderbird Gmail Configuration

2006-11-21T01:21:00.001-05:00

Configuring Thunderbird 1.5.0.8 to receive emails from my Gmail account proved to be challenging for me. I configured my account exactly as outlined by the Gmail Help Center http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=38343. It didn't work for me, however. I was continuously receiving error "Failed to connect to email server gmail.google.com". It turned out that I had configured Thunderbird to use my proxy server. In order for the configuration as outlined in Gmail Help Center, you'll need to select Direct Connection to the Internet option (Go to Tools > Options... On General tab click Connection Settings...). After you do this, you should be able to send and receive email thru your gmail account. And, yes, I am behind an ISA firewall. Cheers!

Digital Signatures Simplified

2006-11-20T06:47:00.001-05:00

For simplified information on how digital signatures work, please follow this link: http://www.youdzone.com/signature.html. I've not seen information on digital signatures that is more easy to follow and comprehensive than found on the above link. Cheers.

My Mobile Phone Gets Snatched!

2006-11-01T10:18:00.000-05:00

Yesterday night around 2115 hrs, when I reached near my home, getting back from office, two robbers, riding a bike, approached me suddenly. One of them, aiming at me with a loaded pistol, demanded that I surrender my mobile phone and wallet. I, surprised in shock, obeyed (what else could I do in front of a loaded gun; after all it was real life not a movie). I requested them to give me back my purse after getting the money. The robbers took my mobile phone, got money out of my purse (about Rs.300), thrown the purse on the field, and went off on their bike. God! With my mobile I've lost hundreds of very, very important phone numbers. This is where you understand how important it's to back-up your important data. Unfortunately, I have no backup of the phone numbers :( Anyways I lodged complaint of the incident soon afterwards. It was a really bad experience. According to a news I read couple of days back, around 3,000 mobile phones are snatched daily across Pakistan! Since I am all okay, thanks God, I'll end this blog with cheers :) Cheers.

Moving to Linux

2006-10-29T00:27:00.000-04:00

This Eid, taking advantage of lot of holidays, I decided to tryout Linux. So I downloaded Mandriva Linux 2007 and installed it on my P3 machine. It was a breeze to install and even easier to use. Honestly, I've found it to be easier than Windows even though this is the first time that I've used Linux. I've been planning to shift to the Linux World for quite a while now for several reasons. I won't be detailing why (everybody knows that Microsoft monopoly and similiar stuff, right). Since I am a .NET developer, I've installed Mono on my Linux box. It's great! However, currently it lakes capability of developing things like Windows Forms (it supports GUI development using Gtk#) and Windows Services (well they are called daemons on Linux). But it's pretty good at creating Console Applications, Class Libraries, Web Forms (ASP.NET), and GUIs using Gtk#. Until now it's been really interesting. But I know there is a long journey ahead. I've on my to-do-list such things as mastering the Linux Shell Commands, Command-Line management & configuration of Linux, Learning Java, Learning Java Server Pages, and Learning MySql. If things go as I've planned, I believe I'll have completed this list witihin six months. If you are a Windows user and have been thinking to move to Linux but afraid, don't be so anymore. Believe me Linux is no longer that dreaded, command-prompt driven, gurus-only operating system. If you've basic Windows skills, I am sure you'll have no trouble adapting to Linux. Don't believe me, give it a try. -- * Mandriva Linux -> http://www.mono-project.com/ * The Mono Project - > http://www.mandriva.com/ * Gtk# Home -> http://gtk-sharp.sourceforge.net/ -- Happy Linux :)

Eid Saga

2006-10-29T00:19:00.000-04:00

This Eid was really joyous for me. I stayed at home on first day of Eid meeting the coming relatives and friends. Second day of Eid I went to see my friends Zahid and Imtiaz. We then went to Pizza Hut for dinner and really enjoyed it. Third day of Eid was also great. I met many of my relatives and friends. Yestrday I recieved my Bank Alfalah Credit Card. I am also a Citibank Credit Card holder but somewhat dissatisfied with their service. So I plan to stop using CitiCard in favor of Alfalah Credit Card. My office will be on from Monday, i.e., tomorrow. Now I am going to have breakfast. In an hour or so I'll be leaving for Waqas's (my friend) house. Cheers.

Windows Vista On Time - This Time

2006-10-21T00:24:00.000-04:00

Windows Vista is on time - this time :) Microsoft said it is on track to deliver the new Windows Vista operating system to its volume license customers around the world in November, and to the general public in January. Below are some Vista-related links I think you'd like: * Windows Vista is on time - this time -> http://mcpmag.com/news/article.asp?EditorialsID=1076. * Windows Vista is better than the older Windows -> http://mcpmag.com/news/article.asp?EditorialsID=1081. * Microsoft Working With Security Vendors -> http://mcpmag.com/news/article.asp?EditorialsID=1079 * McAfee Claims Foul on Vista Security Code -> http://entmag.com/news/article.asp?EditorialsID=7891 Cheers!

Iftar @ Pizza Hut and Holidays on Eid-ul-Fitar

2006-10-20T23:32:00.000-04:00

Holdays for Eid-ul-Fitar have been announced by the govt. of Pakistan from Monday 23 Oct. to Wednesday 25 Oct. Since Saturday and Sunday is my official off, the vacation is going to be five days for me! Kool. I plan to utilize this time by studying, playing around, visiting my relatives, and having fun with friends and family. I also have plan to write on at least one technical (.NET-related) issue for this blog. So stay tuned! Yesterday I was out with coleagues to have Iftaar at Pizza Hut. In Ramadan they are offering an "All You Can Eat for just 299+ST" deal as does KFC. I've noted that quality of pizzaz was not as good as it is in normal days. Anyways if you're a big eater, I'd suggest you go have this deal at Iftar. By the way, this deal is available for Sehri as well. Cheers.

Microsoft Jobsblog

2006-10-16T21:20:00.000-04:00

For those of you who are interested in landing a job @ Microsoft, one of the best places to start your quest is their careers website at http://www.microsoft.com/careers/. They also have an excellent *jobsblog* which I suggest you visit . Their jobsblog is available at http://blogs.msdn.com/jobsblog/. Cheers.

Imagine Cup 2006

2006-10-14T01:28:00.000-04:00

Registrations for Microsoft Imagine Cup 2006 are open. Please go to http://www.imaginecup.com/ for more infromation. Cheers.

Blogspot is Back!

2006-10-14T01:20:00.000-04:00

So blogspot is back! You might be wondering when did it go off anyway. The thing is blogspot was one of the sites banned in Pakistan for at least three+ months. That's one reason that I was not writing any posts. But since it's available once again in Pakistan, I plan to be writing regularly. So stay tuned! Cheers.

VS.NET Removes Controls From Inherited Forms!

2006-06-12T12:26:00.001-04:00

Today I would like to be a little bit technical and talk about how VS.NET 2003 sometimes removes controls from inherited forms and what can we do about it. So, let's get started. I've seen quite often that Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 removes controls from forms that are inherited from other forms thru Visual Inheritance. This usually happens when you've the inherited form open in design mode and you run your application. Regardless of how much I've tried, I've been unable to find the exact steps to reproduce the problem. However, if your inheritance hierarchy goes down a few levels, this problem occurs more than often. And yes, I've seen this problem happening only with Visual C# .NET 2003. So, what now? You've esthetically layed out your form in a few hours and everything, or most of it, has gone. You're left with desperation and repetition of your hard work. Worry not! Fortunately, when this happens, VS.NET doesn't delete code in the C# source file. What it does, however, is remove lines of code that add controls to their container controls from the designer-generated InitializeComponent() method. So, all you've to do is close the designer, get to the InitializeComponent() method, locate definition of each control that VS.NET has removed from the designer, and add a line of code to add this control to its container control (be it a GroupBox, for example, or the form itself). For example, the following lines of code adds a TextBox control to its container GroupBox control and then adds the GroupBox to the Form. private void InitializeComponent() { . . . // Definition of streetTextBox control (auto-generated by VS.NET) addressGroupBox.Controls.Add(streetTextBox); . . . // Definition of addressGroupBox control (auto-generated by VS.NET) employeeForm.Controls.Add(addressGroupBox); . . . } I hope you find this information useful. Please feel free to comment on this information. Cheers.

Trip to Urdu Bazar

2006-06-11T12:06:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I went to Urdu Bazar with a friend of mine, Nisar Ahmad, and purchased several books: Database Systems A Practical Approach to Design, Implementation, and Management, Exam Cram 70-229 (for myself), Professional C# 2005, and Professional ASP.NET 2.0 (for office). Nisar purchased a bag for himself. After getting done with shopping, we ate Nehari, my favourite dish, in lunch at Sabiri Restaurant. Getting back to home was painful, however. We're stuck in traffic for about an hour in that hot season! I hate traffic jams!! I searched the web for a free file sharing web site and found one (well, many but liked one :)). I need such a web site because I want to share some code, that is having hard time serializing data from client to the server even though it works fine the other way around, with members of the MSDN and Wrox forums. By the way, the file sharing web site I've subscribed to is esnips (http://www.esnips.com/). It offers 1 GB of free space free of charge. You might want to visit this site if you wish to share some of your stuff with others without spending money. By the way, if you know of a better file sharing service that is also free, don't hesitate to let me know of it. Cheers.

.NET Devlopers Required

2006-06-09T14:11:00.000-04:00

After a very busy week, got here finally. I wish to update my blog on daily basis but, you know what, it seems that updating it weekly would be more than acceptable, keeping in view a very busy schedule of mine. Anyways, when there is a will, there is a way. This week I interviewed three candidates for the post of Software Engineer with expertise on .NET (C#, ASP.NET, Web Services, Remoting, SQL Server). If you're a software engineer with the mentioned expertise and an year of experience, live in Karachi, Pakistan, and willing to join a dynamic, challenging and professional organization, please feel free to send me your updated resume. (See my profile for my email address.) Please note that we're an US-based ISV and Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. Well, right now I am listening to music and surfing the internet. Football World Cup has started. I planned to watch the match but was too tired for that. Nevertheless, hopeful for the matches that are to come. Keeping in view many of the tasks I've got to do tomorrow, I am going to have to go to the bed now. I'll be here tomorrow with activities of tomorrow. Cheers.

Saturday Night

2006-06-05T05:09:00.000-04:00

Saturday night I watched Fana of Aamir Khan. In the beginning, it's sort of boring. However, as the movie progresses, things get to be interesting. Overall the movie is cool, specially its music. Yesterday night, I also worked on a web site (won't tell u the url :)) to fix some bugs. Phew, whenever I work with code written by someone else, I appreciate it more and more that code be properly commented. This, however, is the most overlooked part of most of software developers', or engineers' as they like to be called, work. After weekend, first day of the office seems pretty boring. Anyways, if anything goes interesting at all, I'll be sharing it with you. Cheers

Aamir's Fana and Cultures in .NET :)

2006-06-03T14:27:00.001-04:00

Finally, I've decided to be writing a blog on my (daily) life and putting in information on .NET development that developers would find interesting, knowledge-enhancing, and what not. This is the very first blog I've ever written. So, I am excited but also kinda confused. Since Saturday is off from office, I spent all the day with my best friend, my PC! I studied Globalization in .NET 2.0. Also finished reading two articles from MSDN Magazine on new features of ADO.NET 2.0. I'm impressed by what ADO.NET 2.0 has to offer, honestly. By the way, if you too want to be impressed, go read the articles: 1) Data Points: DataSet and DataTable in ADO.NET 2.0 http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/05/11/DataPoints/default.aspx 2) Data Points: SqlConnectionStringBuilder, DataView, and More http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/06/01/DataPoints/default.aspx While I am writing this post, I've written a sample application in C# that enumerates all cultures and displays information on the culture that the user selects. I plan to be sharing this sample app with you. Now it's 23.30 hrs. I am now going to watch Aamir Khan's movie "Fana". By the way, Aamir Khan is my favourite actor. Cheers.