Ash Tewari

tips

Paste Table from Microsoft Excel to Confluence Wiki

tewari

1. Create the table in Microsoft Excel. 2. Open this page in browser: http://excel2jira.bluurgh.com/ 3. Paste the table from Microsoft Excel into the input box on the page. 4. Click on “Convert Me Now” button 5. Place the cursor at the intended insertion point in the wiki document. 6. Click on “Insert more content” (+) button on Wiki toolbar 7. Click on “Markup” 8. Paste converted markup from step 2  in the left pane and verify the preview. 9. Click on “Insert” 10. Review and verify the inserted content and make any correction if needed.  

Get Your Windows 8 Start Menu Back With Pokki

tewari

I like the new Windows 8 experience. Start screen with live tiles is awesome. But I have been missing the Start Menu when I am on the desktop. There are plenty of rumours that Microsoft will bring back the Start Menu in the next version of Windows – Windows Blue. Until then, you can use one of many third party utilities for that functionality – ClassicShell, Start8 and Pokki. I started using Pokki. And I love it. It feels like my world is whole again. Pokki is free. If you want to do what I did, after installing it, open settings and make these changes:

Sideload Windows Phone

tewari

1. Create your AppHub account here – http://create.msdn.com. Registration walk through is here. 2. Unlock your phone – using PhoneReg.exe (usually) located here – “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Phone\v7.0\Tools\Phone Registration\PhoneReg.exe” 3. Sideload xap into your phone. Use XapDeploy.exe (usually) located here – “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Phone\v7.0\Tools\XAP Deployment\XapDeploy.exe” You can also deploy straight from Visual Studio to Windows Phone Device. Connect your phone to your computer. Make sure Visual Studio deployment target is “Windows Phone 7 Device” : From Toolbar, select Build, Deploy Solution.

SVN Merge – Selecting Changesets

tewari

Here is a simple scenario – I have already merged changesets 45-55 from the trunk to branch b1. After this merge, more changes (56-60) were submitted into the trunk and I now need to merge those changes also to branch b1. Which changesets do you select to merge ? 56-60, right ? Well, not exactly. It depends. If you are using Subversion merge command, you will need to specify 55-60. If you are using TortoiseSVN, you will select 56-60. You should keep this in mind if you are used to TortoiseSVN and you are attempting a merge using SVN merge command. Otherwise, you will end up with a merge without change 56. Selecting changes to merge can become non-trivial when […]

Code Validation in TortoiseSVN pre_commit_hook

tewari

If you want to abort a commit if your code fails certain rule and you don’t have access to the SVN Server to configure a hook. What do you do ? Assuming you are using TortoiseSVN, you can configure a Client-Side hook. Here is an example – Say you want to abort commit if you have a comment in your code that starts with //Do Not Commit. You can create a PowerShell script that validates all the files in your changeset and use this script as a Client-Side pre_commit_hook in TortoiseSVN. The pre_commit_hook configuration : //Powershell script : pre_commit.ps1 $donotcommit = “//Do Not Commit“; $changeset = Get-Content $args[0]; foreach($file in $changeset) { if( Get-Content $file | Select-String $donotcommit -quiet ) […]

Use Legacy Printer From Windows 7

tewari

I have NEC SuperScript 870 laser printer connected to my Home PC. I was not able to print to this printer from my new HP dv6-1375dx Windows 7 laptop. My machines are connected via Hamachi. Here is what I did to get around the lack of NEC driver for Windows 7 (I found this tip here) – 1. Created a new printer (pointing to the same LPT port that is connected to NEC 870) on my Home PC using HP Laser Jet III driver. 2. Shared this new printer. 3. On the Windows 7 laptop, I dropped the document I wanted to print on this new printer. Voila !!!

Using DbUpdater with MySql

tewari

DbUpdater can be used with mysql. Here are the files you need to jumpstart the integration – DbUpdater-MySql.zip 1. You might need to change the path to mysql.exe in mysql-exec.bat. 2. Modify values in mysql-sample-command-line.bat. Make sure mysql.data.dll is placed in GAC or in the same directory as DbUpdater.exe. Connector binaries can be downloaded from here – http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/net/6.1.html

GUI Prototyping Tools

tewari

Special purpose UI prototyping tools, like the ones listed on C2 Wiki, offer a convenient blend of usability and flexibility. I have tried some of these tools. I was looking for something that – doesn’t become unwieldy when used to prototype a large and complex GUI allows me to use my own screenshots/images/icons allows me to modify the prototype without making it a hair-pulling experience. can prototype all aspects and artifacts of modern web and desktop interfaces, specially – tree controls  – you will be surprised how many prototyping tools don’t have this. Pencil, I am looking at you 🙂 tabbed panels  – can you position your tabs at the bottom ? on the right edge ? film strips ribbons NavBars The […]

ReSharper vs CodeRush + Refactor Pro

tewari

I have been playing with JetBrains ReSharper (version 4.1) and DevExpress CodeRush + Refactor! Pro (version 3.2.2) lately. I wanted to decide on which one to go with. Here are some notes – R# = ReSharper CodeRush = CodeRush + Refactor! Pro R# seems to be better for refactoring, because it does not assume that I follow a rigid work flow when writing code. For example, I don’t always decide on the class hierarchies upfront. I do discover them as I write code. So, when I discover that I need to extract a base class from the class I am working on, I can do so with R#. I couldn’t find a way to do extract a base/super class with CodeRush. […]

Customize log4net Output Path

tewari

The default log4net output path is relative to the startup directory of your executable. To customize the output path, you can override the base Appender’s File property in your own Appender class. The following example describes how to route the log files relative to the temp folder : public class MyOwnAppender : log4net.Appender.RollingFileAppender { public override string File { get { return base.File; } set { if (Path.IsPathRooted(value)) { base.File = value; } else { base.File = Path.Combine(Path.GetTempPath(), value); } } } } Your log4net config file must be modified so that log4net can locate and use your custom Appender. If MyOwnAppender is in MyNamespace and you have implemented it in MyLoggerLib.dll :

Career Advice

tewari

The value of any advice is tied to the degree of its relevance to your particular situation and circumstances. Very specific advice, like legal and medical advice, is very expensive. It is very relevant to the individual’s situation and therefore quite valuable. The degree of relevance of inexpensive/free advice to your specific circumstances is usually very low. Inexpensive/free advice, as in sayings and quotes, but also in everyday personal and business communication, is very generic. The same message is usually perceived differently by different people. Especially when the entire message is very succinct and pithy. Various aspects of the message are accentuated differently as it is filtered through individual perception. Developing a sense of how generic advice applies to your […]

Leveraging XPATH Axes

tewari

XPATH axes come in very handy when nodes need to be selected based on (attribute’s or child element’s) values that must match those of other nodes elsewhere in the xml tree. Consider the following log4net configuration file : <?xml version=”1.0″?> <configuration> <configSections> <section name=”nhibernate” type=”System.Configuration.NameValueSectionHandler, System, Version=2.0.0.0,Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089″ /> <section name=”log4net” type=”log4net.Config.Log4NetConfigurationSectionHandler,log4net” /> </configSections> <nhibernate> <add key=”hibernate.connection.provider” value=”NHibernate.Connection.DriverConnectionProvider” /> <add key=”hibernate.connection.driver_class” value=”NHibernate.Driver.SqlClientDriver” /> <add key=”hibernate.connection.connection_string” value=”Server=servername; Database=dbname; User=username; Password=secret;” /> <add key=”hibernate.connection.isolation” value=”ReadCommitted” /> <add key=”hibernate.dialect” value=”NHibernate.Dialect.MsSql2000Dialect” /> </nhibernate> <log4net> <appender name=”NHibernateFileLog” type=”log4net.Appender.RollingFileAppender”> <file value=”Logs/nhibernate.txt” /> <appendToFile value=”true” /> <rollingStyle value=”Size” /> <maxSizeRollBackups value=”10″ /> <maximumFileSize value=”100KB” /> <staticLogFileName value=”true” /> <layout type=”log4net.Layout.PatternLayout”> <conversionPattern value=”%d{HH:mm:ss.fff} [%t] %-5p %c – %m%n” /> </layout> </appender> <appender name=”GeneralLog” type=”log4net.Appender.RollingFileAppender”> <file value=”Logs/general.txt” /> <appendToFile […]