GridView Export to Excel Problems

This guy researched why simple methods like export datagrid to Excel don't work with GridViews or other controls. I have also stumbled on this stupid error when trying to use RenderControl to get the output of a UserControl.

Apparently, the entire problem lies with the
Page.VerifyRenderingInServerForm Method which throws an exception if the page is not currently in the render phase of page processing, and inside the <form runat=server> tags.

Luckily it can be overridden. Here is the bug posting at Microsoft and their suggested solutions. Microsoft removed the page, so I can't show it to you.

This is the actual code for the method in the Page control in NET 2.0. Just override the hell out of it.

public virtual void VerifyRenderingInServerForm(Control control)
{
    if (this.Context == null || base.DesignMode) return;
    
    if (control == null)
    {
        throw new ArgumentNullException("control");
    }
    if (!this._inOnFormRender && !this.IsCallback)
    {
        throw new HttpException(System.Web.SR.GetString("ControlRenderedOutsideServerForm",    new object[] { 
            control.ClientID,
            control.GetType().Name 
        }));
    }
}

Business - Redefining How Software Works

REST (Representational state transfer)

Representational State Transfer

Probably what I am saying here is naive, as I hate XML and don't quite understand the full scope of things like REST, but from what I managed to gather, this system has a few possible advantages: good caching, good division of resources (both computational and data) which should allow for better user in multitask/multiprocessor systems, true native use of XML (or any other format :D), therefore saving a lot of time from serializing, instantiating, deserializing, etc.

If what the first article says is correct, this would prove to be a system both adaptable and scalable, something that programmers seek all the time. It can be spread out on more computers on a net or used on the same computer, with more efficiency and easy of programming than the dreaded web services or SOA.

Personally, I think I wouldn't particularly like programming in a REST way, but one never knows.

WinDirStat - Windows Directory Statistics

WinDirStat is a little useful program that creates a graphical representation of one's harddrive. It uses colored rectangles to represent directory structure, file size and file type. You can click on the rectangles and see what the file is, zoom in and out, etc. What's mostly useful for is seeing the big space wasters as large rectangles and being able to identify them. I am still not sure what Unknown space is, but I have 6.5Gb of it.

A good friend of mine was telling me when we were in highschool that people are made out of different personalities, each alive and fighting for control. He called them rather pompously infrapersonalities. They all define you in some way or another and the "you" is not a simple sum, but a warped weighted average.

Taking the reasoning further, I reached the conclusion that the way we perceive other people is also encapsulated in a hostage personality that describes that person. We don't relate to the actual people, but with our projection of them. Of course, that applies to everything, not just people, but it's besides the point I am trying to make.

What if you spend a lot of time defining such a person? Doesn't it mean the associated infrapersonality "gains weight"? It becomes more alive inside you. There is even a disorder when people switch from one dominant personality to another.

But what if you had feelings for that person? Could its infrapersonality remain alive, evolving separately inside you? Of course it could. And then, why can't you retain the feelings you had for that person if it is alive and so close to you?

I end my reasoning here. I completely pass the (important) point that even if you do love a living and existing person it is still a feeling related to an internal representation of that person. At least it gets updated. Can one projection of another person make you continue to be in love with it, in the absence of that person? I think it can. Worse, I think it is happening to me, and that makes me (even more than you possibly thought) in love with myself. Bummer, huh?

It just occurred to me that the biggest problem on Earth is not war, but the unending talks that come afterwards. Therefore, I propose a UN resolution that bans war. If any country starts a war without being sanctioned by the UN, it is to pay. And pay a lot. No, the answer is not military retaliation or anything, but money. Each unsanctioned war day is to cost between 10 and 100 million EUROs.

The solution is both simple and elegant. If you need to start a blitzkrieg, do it, just make sure to pay afterwards. You want to go to a country, bomb its infrastructure, steal its oil? No problem, just make sure you win more than you pay to the UN. You want to stall the peace talks? Ok, but do it on your own money. You don't agree to pay? Just forget about exporting or importing anything.

Of course, there is a catch. Lately, no conflict was called a war. Therefore a clear definition of it is also required. That would help mentally challenged leaders to use the right words, too. What's my definition of war? Any conflict outside your borders perpetrated by the national armed force.

What about Hezbollah? you will ask. They attack outside the Lebanon borders and are not the official national armed force. They should be off the hook. Yes, you heard me right. Israel wants retaliation, do it with a private force of people payed or otherwise motivated to do so. In other words: pay for it!

And if you don't want to pay, ask the UN, NATO, or any other legitimate international force to sanction your need for blood or solve your problems or whatever. We can't wait for politicians to solve a problem WHILE the problem exists. They move slow, they have no foresight and their hindsight is limited to what helps them look good. Use preemptive measures: any war costs. Don't forget that the military and the politicians are ruled by the same type of people that rules everybody today: suits! The modern name for aristocracy. And they only care about one thing: money!

Accessing Row based data in an efficient and maintainable manner - The Code Project - C# Database

This is a nice and simple article about accessing data from a lot of datarows. While using the string index will make the code more readable, using the integer index will make the code faster. The solution? Get the numeric indexes at the beginning of the loop, based on string indexes. Assert the indexes exist for better debugging. Very elegant. Also, check out the user comments, which are pretty good and to the point.

Code example:

int customerIDIndex = table.Columns.IndexOf("customerID");
int customerFirstNameIndex = table.Columns.IndexOf("firstName");
int customerLastNameIndex = table.Columns.IndexOf("lastName");

System.Diagnostics.Debug.Assert(customerIDIndex > -1, 
    "Database out of sync");
System.Diagnostics.Debug.Assert(customerFirstNameIndex > -1, 
    "Database out of sync");
System.Diagnostics.Debug.Assert(customerLastNameIndex > -1, 
    "Database out of sync");

foreach(DataRow row in table.Rows){
    customer = new Customer();
    customer.ID = (Int32)row[customerIDIndex];
    customer.FirstName = row[customerFirstNameIndex].ToString();
    customer.LastName = row[customerLastNameIndex].ToString();
}//end foreach

How to include a header on each page when printing a DataGrid - The Code Project - .NET

There is a simple solution for printing tables with repeating headers on each printed page. It involves CSS styling of the THEAD section of a table. Unfortunately, neither DataGrids nor GridViews render the THEAD tag. Somehow, Microsoft seems hellbent against it. So either create a control that renders THEAD, then add "display:table-header-group;" to the THEAD style, or use this Javascript function:

function AddTHEAD(tableName)
{
   var table = document.getElementById(tableName);
   if(table != null)
   {
    var head = document.createElement("THEAD");
    head.style.display = "table-header-group";
    head.appendChild(table.rows[0]);
    table.insertBefore(head, table.childNodes[0]);
   }
}

Update:
Building a GridView, DataGrid or Table with THEAD, TBODY or TFOOT sections in NET 2.0

Using SQL Server instead of Access files:
1. Run aspnet_regsql.exe (from the NET Framework 2.0 folder)
2. Add to web.config (inside the configuration tag):
<connectionStrings>
<remove name="LocalSqlServer"/>
<add name="LocalSqlServer" connectionString="Data Source=localhost;Initial Catalog=aspnetdb;Integrated Security=True" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient"/>
</connectionStrings>
(that's because LocalSqlServer is already defined by default. Really dumb)
3. Go to the Website menu in Visual Studio -> ASP.NET Configuration and create users, roles and access rules.

Logging out programatically:
FormsAuthentication.SignOut();

Changing settings for the membership (in system.web section):
<membership defaultProvider="CustomizedProvider">
<providers>
<remove name="AspNetSqlMembershipProvider"/>
<add name="AspNetSqlMembershipProvider"
type="System.Web.Security.SqlMembershipProvider"
connectionStringName="LocalSqlServer"
enablePasswordRetrieval="false"
enablePasswordReset="true"
requiresQuestionAndAnswer="true"
applicationName="/"
requiresUniqueEmail="false"
minRequiredPasswordLength="1"
minRequiredNonalphanumericCharacters="0"
passwordFormat="Hashed"
maxInvalidPasswordAttempts="5"
passwordAttemptWindow="10"
passwordStrengthRegularExpression=""
commentTimeout=""/>
</providers>
</membership>

Gibson arrest 'handled correctly'

This is a rant marginally related to the Holocaust sucks post. Let me first say that I am NOT against the jewish people, even if I strongly think the Israeli external policy is a dark shameful spot on the face of humanity in general.

There are some words or attitudes that are socially not cool, politically incorrect, or whatever you want to call them. For example talking about fascists or terrorists as bad people is good. Talking about Jews as bad people is not good. Using 'nigger' when you're white is not good, but as a black man it's completely ok. I wonder if it's ok to say it if you're Asian. Of course, this is all bullcrap. People have the right to say what they think and not be persecuted by it. Eventually, if a behaviour is determined by society to be wrong, then it should be punished or looked down upon in ALL its manifestations.
My main focus today will be antisemitism. First of all, the very word annoys the hell out of me, Semites are Jews as well as Arabs and some other nationalities. To hijack the term to mean almost exclusively racism against Jews is discriminating in itself. Second of all, there is no need for a special word that describes racism against a single race or group of races. We've determined that racism is bad and that antisemitism is racism, so why use two words? Is it because, somehow, idiots think hating Jews is worst than hating Romanians, for example? And third of all, have you noticed that the most "opressed" of nationalities usually have a strong xenophobic culture, almost always having a special word for people that are not like them? The Jews have Goim, which means People and also Body. They very rarely use it in relationship with jewish people and most of the time only to refer to non-Jews. They also have specific other words that mean non-Jewish. They don't use kind words about Goim either. But I guess that's not racism, because they actually look down upon all races equally, except their own. In a way, they discriminate themselves, right?
So my solution is this: let us consider any racist remark a bad thing, while in the same time consider idiotic and not worth any attention any phrase or argument that contains "antisemitic". That would solve it, right?

Scripting Center
Download details: Scriptomatic 2.0

WMI or Windows Management Instrumentation is Windows service who's basic function if to get information from a computer (even remote ones), but that has been upgraded to be able to also put information or run stuff. Weird little things like the manufacturer of the sound card or information about installed and running programs can be extracted with WMI, but also reading from a database or automate Sysadmin tasks for all the computers in the network, etc.

Well, this blog entry is not supposed to explain what WMI is, but to introduce the Microsoft Scripting Center. The link is above, it shows you how you can access and display/modify, etc information with WMI using scripts. The tool Scriptomatic 2.0 (download link above) automatically creates scripts in vbs, js, python and perl to list information in any of the WMI classes. The Scripting Center has a lot of scripts, categorised, so that you can download them and use them directly or with little modification, also tutorials and other useful links. Check it out!

I had problems with WindowsFormsParkingWindow and a lot of the references on the web pointed to this blog article. Unfortunately, the page was not available when I started searching for it. The only place I could find it was google cache, god bless their big googly hearts :) Therefore I am reprinting the content here, maybe it helps people:

=== WindowsFormsParkingWindow a.k.a The devil ===

I have been working on an application for a few weeks and suddenly it started freezing up for no reason. After copious amounts of swearing and breaking keyboards I found a hidden window in the windows task list. It was called - WindowsFormsParkingWindow. My new worst nightmare.

Nothing seemed to stop this issue from killing my program. After more swearing and cursing I found that this error happened after ALT-Tabbing away from my app and back into it. The parking window would appear and my app would die. I ran WinSpy++ and made the hidden window visible. Behold the glory of the following...

The hidden window contained a user control that I had previously removed off the form. This might not make sense to you now but let me explain the significance. When you remove a control from a form/panel, it gets put onto a WindowsFormsParkingWindow until you put it back onto the panel/form. So the WindowsFormsParkingWindow is kind of like an intermediate place windows keeps user controls before they are put into containers.

You might ask now - "What has that got to do with my app freezing?" Well, I'll tell you exactly why... Because when you remove a control from a panel/form and it has focus, the focus stays on the control (which is now on an invisible form). That's why events fail to fire and the app becomes unresponsive.

The solution? Easy...

Instead of using pnlParent.Clear() or just removing the control you need to do the following:

1. Remove the focus from the current user control by setting it to the parent form.
2. Remove the desired user control by using the ParentControl.RemoveAt( indexOfUsercontrol )

This should clear up the issue.

Just now I watched a little youtube.com video that explained the two slit experiment. Basically, what happends is that a pattern emerges if you use waves and another when you use particles. Then you fire electrons in the thing, and wave patterns emerge, even if you fire one electron at a time, therefore the single electron is interfering with itself! But even stranger, when you put an observer to see what slit the electron goes through, the pattern changes into a particle pattern. This proves that observation changes what we observe.

Wait a minute! But isn't science supposed to be based on observation? This very experiment has been observed, for crying out loud. So what does it mean? If you demonstrate something by scientific experimentation, therefore using observation, doesn't that mean you only demonstrate what happends when you look at something, rather than what that something is? Since the same experiment has been observed using eyes and it behaved differently when they use a finer tool, then it means the type of observer alters the result. Would things start behaving differently if an alien was to come on Earth? This is mind boggling.

Links:
YouTube video -< it was removed from YouTube
Another YouTube video
Wikipedia on the double slit experiment
Cool java applet on wave interference

Do you know how some games have so much publicity spin on them and so much advertising that they immediately start making money and becoming "the most popular game"? Arx Fatalis is not one of those. This game is a rediscovery of the good old values of Ultima Underworld: good story, great playability, nice AI, very little or no getting stuck possibilities, fantastic immersion in another world. If you loved Ultima Underworld (which can be found free on the net, but I am not sure you can make it work on the newest computers around), you will definitely fall in love with Arx Fatalis. I am telling you, I am hooked. I finished the game in a working week and two weekends and I did it so fast because my wife wanted me to give some attention to her. Yes, you read right, Arx Fatalis IS better than sex.

You can get it very cheaply from Good Old Games.

Ok, what is so great about it? I will give a few hints and let you discover the rest for yourselves:

• you make magic by mouse gestures (you move the mouse in certain patterns, like in Black and White)
  
• the AI characters yell for help from associated NPCs and run away when too hurt
  
• I once ran into an impenetrable beast that could kill me with one touch. Running away from it I reached a dead end. I expected to find no way out, but the beast disappeared and reappeared a few feet behind, just enough to let me run away.
  
• I couldn't find ONE spot where I would have gotten stuck in the entire game.
  
• the quests are intelligent. You need to use brains to finish this one. It's not something that must be searched on google to finish, either. If you have the will, there is a way.
  
• you can kill almost every character in the game as well as finish their quests.
  
• a lot of side quests. You can finish the game in a week or in a few months, it depends on you.
  
• hidden magic spells. Each rune has a specific meaning. Try combining them in innovative ways.
  

Not interested yet? Oh, come on!

Update: I have found a Doom3 mod that tries to be a prequel to Arx Fatalis. A pretty neat effort and I am glad I found a new reason to upgrade my computer :). This is their site: Arx – End Of Sun and this is a gameplay video: Arx - End of Sun (Gameplay Video #1) [Doom 3 SP Mod].

Mark's Sysinternals Blog

I hope this is something Microsoft did in order to improve their products, but I fear that the only reason for this purchase is to shut down the sites that give for free better tools than the one Microsoft puts in their OS. If this happends, I'll just move to Cygwin and ports from Linux for system tools X(

Nowadays Indigo seems to be a classy name. Everything is Indigo, from WCF to skins for every possible program or device. The new beta for Yahoo Messenger comes with the classic skin (aka Old Windows Forms style), Indigo (something that looks like Windows XP) and Maverick. Even if I changed my skin to classic, every time I restarted Yahoo I got the Indigo skin back. The only solution I found for this is going to Program Files/Yahoo!/Shared/Graphics and delete/rename the Indigo and Maverick folders. Now Yahoo looks and feels like the low profile/high utility app that it's supposed to be.