In the Line of Fire -- Ramblings of the incoherent mind

Google has done it again... a product built on the problems of the browser users. 

To get a good idea about the features of the browser visit the features video site. The browser isn't a complex browser Google  has stuck to its simplicity but effectiveness moto once again and delivered.

The Features list includes:

• One box for everything


• New Tab page


• Application shortcuts


• Dynamic tabs


• Crash control


• Incognito mode


• Safe browsing


• Instant bookmarks


• Importing settings


• Simpler downloads

Heil Google!!!!

Another great feature implemented is the way the new tab opens.. it will open a tab with the most visited sites icons in it. All one has to do is click on the one of th emost visited sites. else there is also links on  the right hand side in the new tab to click on the new bookmarks added.

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

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