In the Line of Fire….Shaunak Pandit

Google chrome just another browser or the mother of all browsers?

Google has done it again..another product/service in the market that has caught all the attention… yeah there are some negative feedbacks especially by the German media on the same too but hey whats success without some criticism??

The argument they have setup is pretty much the old stuff… personal data going to google with respect to the auto suggest feature explained more in detail here

 Google did bend to the criticism and declared they will anonymise the data within 24 hrs of collecting it..but the speculations will always be there..don’t understand the logic behind it… guys its a open source just dig into the source and satisfy your speculative minds ( if you are upto it )…. rather than just barking into the wind…

yeah its a bit risky giving a Beta to inexperience non techie users its like giving a child a Bazooka !! but am sure the Beta isn’t a actual Beta in the scientific terms its definitely a well tested and tried version of the product.we can trust google on this..

© Shounak Pandit

One wonders ….Why in the name of God would one want to spend (waste as some people say) time on performing a code review on any piece of code which we/peers have written and seems to be working properly and providing the functionality

I remember back then when i was an intern and i was assigned to a project in which my PM was a guy working in our US branch…people having worked with US bosses might be knowing thr are 2 types of techies our there… one who have less knowledge than you and the other lot who has so much knowledge than you that they make you feel like you are learning the alphabets of development while they are shooting out complex phrases after phrases of sentences….

man how i hated that guy i can still recall his words “Shounak, Dont even show me the functionality i dont care about it, first make sure you have it as per the coding standards” and i used to think what kind of a weirdo have i got as my boss ..he doesn’t even want to see if the requirement has been met but cares about some stupid code review…..and i used to laugh at his code review obsession…

but over the years as i grew into a techie…into what they call a seasoned developer ..i realised the importance of code review

Code review isnt a tool to find mistakes in others code…its a tool by which one ensures the code is going to meet the standards expected of a seasoned developer.

There are various technical ways of achieving our requirements…or rather let me put it this way there are abundant ways of screwing up the way you meet your requirement.and there are some ways in which you meet the requirement in one of the optimum ways…and code review is a tool that helps us walk on the optimum path or close to the optimum path…

for an example check my post on string builder usage vs string concat… at String Builder Vs String concat/

Code reviews are important for a developer to understand how to keep improving his coding style ..

there are various good tools used for having automated code checking one that i have used extensively in my development days is FxCop and one more that i can’t recall the name of…these were tools which would use the assembly n metadata as source and parse the assembly for any coding style /optimization errors

will try and write up about one of them soon

Cheers

© Shounak Pandit

One wonders ….Why in the name of God would one want to spend (waste as some people say) time on performing a code review on any piece of code which we/peers have written and seems to be working properly and providing the functionality

I remember back then when i was an intern and i was assigned to a project in which my PM was a guy working in our US branch…people having worked with US bosses might be knowing thr are 2 types of techies our there… one who have less knowledge than you and the other lot who has so much knowledge than you that they make you feel like you are learning the alphabets of development while they are shooting out complex phrases after phrases of sentences….

man how i hated that guy i can still recall his words “Shounak, Dont even show me the functionality i dont care about it, first make sure you have it as per the coding standards” and i used to think what kind of a weirdo have i got as my boss ..he doesn’t even want to see if the requirement has been met but cares about some stupid code review…..and i used to laugh at his code review obsession…

but over the years as i grew into a techie…into what they call a seasoned developer ..i realised the importance of code review

Code review isnt a tool to find mistakes in others code…its a tool by which one ensures the code is going to meet the standards expected of a seasoned developer.

There are various technical ways of achieving our requirements…or rather let me put it this way there are abundant ways of screwing up the way you meet your requirement.and there are some ways in which you meet the requirement in one of the optimum ways…and code review is a tool that helps us walk on the optimum path or close to the optimum path…

for an example check my post on string builder usage vs string concat… at String Builder Vs String concat/

Code reviews are important for a developer to understand how to keep improving his coding style ..

there are various good tools used for having automated code checking one that i have used extensively in my development days is FxCop and one more that i can’t recall the name of…these were tools which would use the assembly n metadata as source and parse the assembly for any coding style /optimization errors

will try and write up about one of them soon

Cheers

© Shounak Pandit

Have moved to this blog as my previous blog got deactivated due to lack of blogging !!!! have reposted all my posts from the other blog into here… and hope to blog quite frequently….

Got the following error some time back when i tried running the project,

since it said that it wasnt configured to be dubugged i ran it with the good old “CTRL + F5″ option and got the following error message in IE

my first guess after reading the error (make that reading half the error) was that somehow there was some configuration problem regardign who overrides whom in the web.config and the machine.config.

but after reading the Total error message understood that the error wasnt in the Web.config it was in the IIS virtual Directory settings that I had ,somehow it had changed.

Anyways, here is how to solve the error :-

Just open IIS and goto the properties for the Virtual directory and click on this button

How to have Multiple Instances of Project Server 2003 on 1 Machine

How to have Multi[ple Instances of Project server on 1 Machine

I am using the following as examples throughout this article this will describe the steps needed to follow using EditSite tool by Microsoft:

SQL Server : Shounakp (my machine)

Database Name : ProjServer

Site name : ProjServer

Edit site tool : http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=20891

1. 1. Copy the DATABASE directory – inside the support directory from your SQL 2002/ MS Project server installation CD, to the local drive on your SQL server (Server containing the ProjectServer DB).
   2. Create the new DB ( check fig below ) that will host your new Project Server instance in your SQL server. We need the <SETUPDB.CMD> file.
      NOTE: We cannot name the new instance DB as ProjectServer since the already existing instance of project server creates a DB named ProjectServer for use.

3. On your SQL server, go to command prompt and execute the following command from the Database directory.

4. In this case, <ProjServer> is my SQL Server and using the <SA> account with password < pa$$@word1 >. The command will look like this : E.g

5. Hit ‘Enter”

6. The processing will take up few minutes let it finish properly (check the following screen)

7. The screen will look like the following screen shot, you will have to press any key to continue.

8. We need to grant permissions to the MSProject Roles on our new instance Database. Follow the steps

• • • Open SQL Server Enterprise Manager
    • Click <Security>
    • Click <Logins>
    • Double-click on MSProjectServerUser and grant permission to access the new Dataabse instance <ProjServer>
    • Check <Public> and <MSProjectServerRole> in the <Database Roles> in ProjServer DB (the name of your new DB is) Tab.
    • Double-click on MSProjectUser and grant permission to access the new <ProjServer> Db
    • Check <Public> and <MSProjectRole> in the Dabase Roles in ProjServer (the name of your new DB is) Tab

See the following snap shot :-

9. Install the EditSite tool

10. Browse to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 Resource Kit\Toolbox\EditSite and open the tool .

11. Click on “Add” in the Edit Site tool.A prompt will appear with focus on <Site Information> Tab (see folowing screen shot).

12. Enter the <SiteName> and In <Session Manager> enter the name of your SQL server Machine managing your Session
in my case I used <shounakp>. Select “Default Web Site”, and any of the application pools. I selected MSPS2003AppPool.

13. Click on the Database Information tab and fill in the details.

• • Enter the name of your SQL server, the name of your new manually created DB (in my case I used ProjServer)
  • Enter the SQL user that has the MSProjectServerRole in ITProjects DB (in my case I used MSProjectServerUser with password “password”) and its respective password.
  • Do the above for the MSProjectRole Member (in my case I used MSProjectUser with password “password”.

14. Click on the <Windows Sharepoint Services Information>

We need to use the same Sharepoint Services settings that we are already using for the 1st instance of Project Server
Hence we can get the WSS Settings from the 1st instance of the ProjectServer.

By following the path : Admin - > Manage Windows Sharepoint Services (See snapshot)

15. Click on Create of Edit Site tool You will get the message indicating that the new site was successfully created

16. Open IE and go to your new PWA instance. In my case, I go to http://shounakp/ProjServer

You will be given the following screen :-

17. Enter User name: Administrator and DO NOT enter a password. Hit “Enter”
You will see your newly created Project Server Instance and this message will pop up giving you the opportunity to change the PWA
Administrator’s password.

Change and save the password

18. Enjoy your newly created Project Server instance.

Cheers!!!!!

UPDATE: Reposting from my previous blog..

Copyright © Shounak Pandit

Reposting from old blog

One of my colleague faced a strange problem while using Crystal Reports

He got his report published on the ASPX page but the images in the toolbar weren’t being displayed.
While trying to find out the problem for it I checked the ASPX page and noticed that the src path for the images on the toolbar was from another virtual directory  “crystalreportwebformviewer2” which to our surprise didnt exists on his machine at all.
Well no idea whether that was due to inapropriate installation or what but the fact was we didnt have a directory to which
t he images were being referenced from.

Well anyways here’s the solution to the above problem
When you plan to use the Crystal reports toolbar in your reports it will automatically
refer to the images stored in your program files directory i.e

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Crystal Reports\Viewers\Images

this directory has all the images in appropriate sub directories inside but for .NET to refer to it at runtime there
needs to be a virtual directory

in Our case the virtual directory being referenced was This might change according to the version of Crystal reports being used.

So all we had to do to get the Images on the toolbar was to

1# Create a virtual directory   crystalreportwebformviewer2
2# Map it to  C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Crystal Reports\Viewers\Images

After which the images on the toolbar were displayed without any other issue

Shounak Pandit

reposting from older blog

How String Concatenation String Builder Append affects performance

Most of us have used String concatenation in our projects, Have we ever given a thought to what goes on behind while concatenating the strings?

There is a major flaw in using string concatenation as against the String builders append concerning performance only.
Except for performance and memory management both are same and give us the same desired output.

How they work

Lets take a look at how the things work when we concatenate strings

lets take a case where we are concatenating 2 strings and assigning the output to a 1^st string

outputString += secondString;

In the above case, each instance of the string is created and assigned hence

in total we will have 3 instances of the strings!! Surprised?? well thats how strings concatenation works

It will create a new string outputString,with both old outputString and secondString

String objects in .net are immutable. Once the string has been created, the value can’t be changed. When you type
outputString = outputString + secondString;
you actually discard the old outputString and create a new string object containing the result of the concatenation. When repeated several times, you end up constructing many temporary string objects.

now just imagine the case where you have n number of strings you have to concatenate how many string objects will be created wont that be a waste of time ??? Creating a string object assigning it some value then again creating a string object and so on …..

Imagine the impact on the performance of the application!!!!

Now lets see how String builder works

Using a string builder you will have

System.Text.StringBuilder outputString = new System.Text.StringBuilder();

outputString.Append(secondString);

StringBuilder, is a mutable string hence in this case we just have 1 instance of outputString and the second string is appended into that existing instance
no other instance is created hence the process is efficient and fast.

Note :- The point to remember here is that using StringBuilder for a concatenation of 2-3 strings doesnt make a significant difference in the performance but when you have numerous strings then the usage of StringBuilder has a big positive Impact on the performance

To see a example check my post

Shounak Pandit

Here is  in which you can send appointments via ICalendar format through code and not using the Outlook Object library (This is a very basic version of the way and does not involve much exception handling,and doesnt take care of nth case , explore a bit on that front :))

I am going to show the method of sending an appointment by creating a ICalendar Appointment file first and then sending it as an attachement over email.  (The way in which ICalendar format files are sent when you click on Tools ->Export -> as ICalendar file in the appointment )

Here is the declaration for the TimeFormat and some variables used to fill  the Appoinment details. viz start time,endtime etc.

Create a Skeleton for the appointment ICalendar file format and using the variables created above we will assign the values accordingly into the Appoinment skeleton. (This string concatation can be optimised by using string builder)

Assign the Appointment values to the variables declared in the first code section and in the appropriate format.

Using String.format fill in the Appoinment skeleton created earlier with the variable values.

Now that we have the ICalendar file created, we need to write it to the disk so as to attach it to the outgoing email
(Anybody knows a method of just creating the ICalendar file in memory and directly attaching the file without creating a Physical file please leave a feedback on how to do that,didnt get much time to look into it.)

Now that we have the ICalendar all we need to do is send a mail to the persons involved in the Appoinment with the ICalendar file as an attachment.

When the Person who receives the mail opens the attached ICalendar file,it will open up in Outlook as an Outlook Appoinment.

Cheers!!

P.S There are a lot of improvements that can be done in this code like for e.g using stringbuilder etc but I have skipped on them as this is just a code snippet.

To see the code for the above SendAppoinment method click here

*Update : For those of you interested in sending a Meeting Request here is the VCalendar format

* Known Issue: If a person rejects the meeting it wont be conveyed to you

Datagrid Sorting ASP.NET or How to Sort Datagrid

Step I )

In the Datagrid definition:
add 2 properties AllowSorting = true and OnSortCommand=”MethodName in code behind”

e.g
<asp:datagrid id=”dgSearchList” runat=”server” Height=”125px” Width=”627px” CssClass=”panelChildSolidBorder”
CellPadding=”2″ AllowCustomPaging=”True” AutoGenerateColumns=”False” OnItemCommand=”detailsClicked”
ShowHeader=”True” AllowSorting=”True” OnSortCommand=”dgSearchList_SortClick” PageSize=”4″>

AllowSorting=”True” makes the datagrid sortable and OnSortCommand=”dgSearchList_SortClick” tells which method to call when the header is clicked.

Step II )

Now we need to define the method to call when the column headers are clicked
here dgSearchList_SortClick is the method that will be called when the Column headers are clicked for sorting.

Codebehind :

public void dgSearchList_SortClick(object sender,DataGridSortCommandEventArgs e)
{
sortField = e.SortExpression; // ie the Sortexpression assigned to the Column.Check STEP III for how to assign a   // sortexpression on a column.
PopulateDatagrid(); //Call the method that populates the Datagrid with
//the values from the Dataview.
}

PopulateDatagrid()
{
if(sortMode.ToString().Trim().Equals(SORT_ASC))
{
sortMode = SORT_DESC; // Here sortMode is just a Variable storing the
direction of the sort.There are better ways to store this than the current one shown hereJ
}
else
{
sortMode = SORT_ASC;
}
txtSortMode.Text = sortMode;

// SORT_DESC and SORT_ASC are constants with the following string values.
// SORT_DESC = “Desc”
// SORT_ASC = “Asc”

DataView dv = new DataView(dt);
dv.Sort = sortField.Trim() + ” ” + sortMode;
dgSearchList.DataSource = dv;
dgSearchList.DataBind();

}

The code above checks whether we want to sort in Ascending order or in Descending order
and assigns the SortExpression concatenated with the Sorting direction (Asc/Desc)
and binds the datagrid again (don’t forget to bind the data grid its very important)

Step III)
You need to specify the sorting expression for that column in the column definition in the ASPX page

e.g
<asp:BoundColumn DataField=”Location” SortExpression=”Location” HeaderText=”LocationArea”>
<ItemStyle Height=”10px” Width=”10px”><!–ItemStyle>
asp:BoundColumn>

be carefull of what you define as the sortexpression because this is what is passed to the codebehind and sortexpression is what identifies which column was clicked for sorting

in this case the sort expression for the LocationArea column is “Location”, hence when we clicking on the location column will set the e.SortExpression (check Step III for e.SortExpression) to “Location”. Hence identifying the column clicked.