Visual Basic (and C#, J#, XML) Code Snippet Editor

Visual Basic Code Snippet Editor

"Are you eager to produce your own Visual Basic Code Snippets but prefer not to think in terms of angle brackets? The Visual Basic Snippet Editor is a Windows Forms application with UI for creating, editing, testing VB code snippets. You can specify snippet code and metadata (e.g., title, author, description, keyboard shortcut), replacement variables, and referenced assemblies. You can preview your snippet as it will appear when inserted into the code window, and you can even test whether it will compile. ..."

Sometimes (well many times) I feel stupid...

I wanted to create some of my own snippets. So I did a little R&D, found the XML spec, and crafted them... in notepad.

Okay, using notepad for xml can be fun, but doing it once was enough. After doing it three times, I was done...

Then just now I happened across the VB Snippet Editor. Talk about a "smack myself in the head" moment... The Snippet editor sure makes creating and testing a whole lot easier!

It defaults to VB Snippets, but via its Options dialog (top right toolbar button, next to the Help), you can turn on/enable C#, J# and XML snippet trees.

VS6 MSSCCI Provider for TFS

bharry's WebLog : VS6 MSSCCI Provider for TFS

"I'm pleased to announce that a pre-release version of a MSSCCI provider for Team Foundation Server will be available shortly. This provider will allow the version control functionality of TFS to be accessed from within VS6 (and many other IDEs). This provider is going to be an unsupported tool and won't be an official part of the TFS release. None-the-less we realize that it will be a valuable addition for many customers and will work hard to make sure it is good. At this time it does not support VS2002 or VS2003 however we are working on adding that support and expect to have it in a few months. I'm expecting the provider to be available for download sometime within the next week or so."

Very cool... And very important to our moving to TFS...

"USB Air Darts"

USB Air Darts - Gizmodo

"You cubicle warriors out there can get pretty intense in your day to day work environments. This may be the perfect weapon to add to your arsenal. This contains three darts and is USB powered. Firing is done simply using the mouse and the included software. ..."



Now if only it had an API...

Let's see, a motion capture webcam to aim and launch USB air darts to keep the damn cat's off the kitchen table...

Oh yeah, THAT would be cool.

;)

Build Your Own PBX with Asterisk@Home. Also Asterisk@Home 2.1 Has Been Released...

The Geek Gazette - Build Your Own PBX

"What would it mean to you to have your own full-featured PBX system at your home or small office? What would it mean to you if you could build an entire PBX system (minus the phones) on hardware you probably have laying around, AND that it can probably also save you money on your phone bill? Sounds too hard to believe doesn't it, but using old hardware and some open source software, you really can build a commercial quality phone system that would normally cost thousands of dollars.

The Hardware
As I mentioned in the opening, we are going to build our PBX system from equipment that we have laying around the house. After cannibalizing three spare systems, what was left was a PII 450, 386mb RAM, 12gb HD, 48x CDROM drive, and an Intel Pro 10/100 network card. This is all you 'need' to get going as long as you are going to get VOIP dial tone service from a company like BroadVoice (more on this later). If you want to use regular analog phone lines you will need modem card. Not every card will work properly, however, the most recommended card is the Digium Wildcard X100P FXO card which can be purchased brand new on eBay for $6.95 each. So far, total out of pocket expense for the card plus shipping: $12.90.

...

While Asterisk can run on numerous systems from Linux to even flash ROM for some LinkSys routers, we will focus on installing Asterisk on our salvaged equipment as simply as possible. To aid in our install, Asterisk@Home is a pre-package ISO image that automates the installation of Asterisk and adds a usable web interface to monitor and configure your system.

..."

This is a short guide for installing Asterisk@Home on old hardware you may have laying around...

When checking this out, I also noticed that Asterisk@Home released v2.1 on 11/30.

So now I have two tasks. This first is to download 2.1 and play with in a VPC (I had problems getting 2.0 to install in as VPC guest OS... could just be a bad download though). The second is to install it on an old 400mhz machine that I've not turned on for years (it has a beta of Win2003 server on it... yeah, it's been off for a while).

Related Past Post XRef:
"Running Asterisk@Home Under Windows"
Slashdot | Asterisk Open Source PBX 1.0 Release

Update #1 12/3/2005 @ 12:57PM (PST):
My Asterisk@Home install problem was pervasive... I couldn't run/install 2.0, 2.1, 1.3 or even any of the LiveCD's!

Okay, that's not a problem with them/the downloads but must be me/my setup. All would "freeze" when trying to mount the HD (or there about).

You know, it's a wonder what uninstalling and reinstalling can do... ;)

Installing Asterisk 2.1 now (it's in its Package Installation phase now).

"Converting PDF to Text in C#" with PDFBox/IVKM.Net

Converting PDF to Text in C# - The Code Project - C# Programming

"How to parse PDF files?

When extending the indexing solution for an intranet built using the DotLucene fulltext search library I decided to add support for PDF files. But DotLucene can only handle plain text so the PDF files needed to be converted.

After hours of googling I found a reasonable solution which uses 'pure' .NET - at least there are no other dependencies than a few assemblies of IKVM.NET. Before we start with the solution let's take a look at the other ways I tried..."

This is a cool example for extracting text from PDF's using PDFBox. I like how the author talks about the other methods he tried, Adobe PDF IFilter and ITextSharp, before ending up with PDFBox.

This is the first time I've seen PDFBox. It looks pretty cool and something I might be able to use....

From the PDFBox site:
"PDFBox is an open source Java PDF library for working with PDF documents. This project allows creation of new PDF documents, manipulation of existing documents and the ability to extract content from documents. PDFBox also includes several command line utilities.

Features
PDF to text extraction
Merge PDF Documents
PDF Document Encryption/Decryption
Lucene Search Engine Integration
Fill in form data FDF and XFDF
Create a PDF from a text file
Create images from PDF pages
Print a PDF"

PDFBox - .NET Version
"Even though PDFBox is written in Java, there is also a .NET version that is available. It utilizes IKVM to create a fully functioning PDF library for the .NET framework. The released version contains a bin directory with all of the required DLL files. For the command line applications that are available in the Java version a native windows executable is also included. This page contains information that is specific to using the .NET version of PDFBox. "

Some interesting stuff...

Related Past Post XRef:
Java Implementation for Mono/.Net (IVKM.Net)
iTextSharp - PDF Lib for .Net

Standalone QuickTime Player Download

Apple - QuickTime - Download - Standalone QuickTime Player

I'm finally getting around to installing QuickTime on my new notebook... What is with the ITunes + QuickTime bundling? I don't fricken want ITunes just so I can play QuickTime streams!

After a quick google, I found the link to the standalone QuickTime installer.

(via Download Apple Quicktime Without iTunes for Windows, OS 8, OS 9, or OS X)

Skype 2.0 Beta (Now With Video)

Skype - The whole world can talk for free.

"Skype 2.0 beta.

Now with free video calling. Say hello, smile or even wave to anyone, anywhere in the world. Try it out but remember, it’s just a beta. (Some of you might prefer to wait for the shiny final version.)"

'Cause I just don't have enough crap running in the background. ;)

I would like to try the conference call feature and see if the video from everyone is available. I've been looking for a free, easy and firewall/NAT friendly, multi-party video conferencing tool...

Time to dig out my Cam I guess.

(via Laurent Kempé - Skype 2.0 Beta out — now with free video calling)

Blogpoly

Blogger Buzz: Play Blogpoly

"Based on a blogging-themed version of the Monopoly board from littleoslo, gaming site Kurnik just launched Blogpoly. From their post about the launch:

For a geek like me, there was no better theme for a Monopoly-like game that I planned to add ..."



LOL... That's cool...

SquawkBox - Online Flight Controllers for MS Flight Simulator

SquawkBox

"What is SquawkBox?

SquawkBox is an add-on for Microsoft Flight Simulator that connects virtual pilots to online air traffic control networks. It adds tremendous realism to your flights by connecting you to an online world populated with virtual air traffic controllers. These controllers are real people that communicate with you on voice, handling every aspect of your flight: filing your flight plan, getting clearance, pushback, taxiing, takeoff and landing.

Best of all, SquawkBox is 100% free to download and use!

What Does SquawkBox Do?

SquawkBox is a simple and unobtrusive application which provides the core functionality needed to get you connected to online air traffic control networks. Here is a brief list of the main functions of the software:

Connects you to an air traffic control server.
Integrates with Microsoft Flight Simulator to communicate information about your flight over the network.
Displays information about air traffic controllers in your vicinity.
Enables radio communication using text or voice with air traffic controllers and other pilots.
Enables private text chat and private voice communication with air traffic controllers and other pilots.
Displays other pilots in your vicinity with accurate renditions of the aircraft they are flying.
Changes the weather in Flight Simulator using weather data downloaded from the network. ..."

My first thought was, wow, that's kind of cool. My next was, wow, some people have too much time on their hands...

Still I think this is kind of neat... Makes me almost want to go out and get Flight Sim just to play with it.

(via Nick Whittome - "The Naked MVP" - Squawkbox 3.0.4 Released)

ClickOnce and IIS HTTP Compression

HOW TO Enable ClickOnce Compression on IIS

"ClickOnce supports using HTTP compression for the file downloads, a Web server technology that uses the GZIP algorithm to compress a data stream before sending it to the client. The client—in this case, ClickOnce—decompresses the stream before reading the files. This results in shorter download times for your ClickOnce deployments.

If you are using Internet Information Services (IIS), you can enable HTTP compression easily.

..."

I've started using ClickOnce and am pretty jazzed about it (it actually seems to work in a production enviorment... yeah!).

This post provides instructions on how to configure IIS to enable HTTP compression and how to set it up so .application, .manifest, .deploy, .dll, .exe, etc, files are configured for IIS HTTP compression.

"Running Asterisk@Home Under Windows"

VoipSpeak - Running Asterisk@Home Under Windows

"We have been touting how cool the Asterisk Open Source PBX is and especially how nice the Asterisk@Home installation package is for some time now. You are all excited to try it out but don't have an extra machine, or maybe you are like us and want a way to show clients the web interface and the features but you don't want to run Linux on your laptop or carry a second machine. Well now, with the help of a few free downloads, you can now do a complete installation into a virtual machine on your system. You won't want to run a production system like this, but it does work great for developing scripts, testing IVR menus, and doing product demonstrations.

Requirements
Keep in mind that you will be emulating an entire computer system within the Windows environment, with that in mind you will better appreciate the need for a high-end machine for this setup. The system we used for this is about the minimum we would want to try this on:

Pentium M Processor 1.7ghz (Hyperthreading processor recommended)
512mb RAM (1gb recommended)
4gb of available disk space

..."

I've been wanting to play with Asterisk since I first heard about it... I mean why spend $50 on a new answering machine when I can use a $500-$1000 PC? ;)

I'm thinking of a system of vmail boxes for the family with no default box as one method to avoid the coming election year vmessage crap storm... Kind of a phone CAPTCHA system.

"If you are a human, press 1 to leave a message. If you are an automated message, stay on the line to leave a message in the VSPAM Must DIE voice mailbox..."

:)

(via Make: - HOW TO - Running Asterisk@Home Under Windows)

Paint.NET 2.5 RTM

Paint.NET - Roadmap and Change Log:

"Paint.NET v2.5
v2.5 Released: November 26th, 2005 - Download

The major goals of this release were to improve performance, expand selection support to be much more useful and powerful, provide support for localization to other languages, and to have an easier way for users to have the latest version (update manager). Other features added include the ability to work with measurements in inches and centimeters, a 3D Rotate/Zoom effect, Sepia adjustment, Radial Blur and Add Noise effects, GIF transparency support, TGA file format support, file format plugin support, and a refined Text tool. ..."

The very cool Paint.Net has reached 2.5 RTM. I'm looking forward to 2.6, which will be using .Net 2.0...

"Regular Expression Visualizers for VS 2005"

Announcing Regex Kit: Regular Expression Visualizers for VS 2005

"Announcing Regex Kit: Regular Expression Visualizers for VS 2005

I've been hibernating with everything relating to regular expressions for quite sometime now. I'm still working on the Regulator 3.0 (built on .NET 2.0), but for now, I thought I'd release these:

Regex Debug Visualizers for Visual Studio 2005
Visual Studio allows creating 'Debug Visualizers' for all types in .NET framework as well as custom types.
You can find such visualizers for Datasets, strings and XML. There wasn't one for Regular expressions, until now.

These visualizers allow you to 'visualize' the following types:
System.String
System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex
System.Text.RegularExpressions.Match
System.Text.RegularExpressions.MatchCollection

..."

Very cool... Downloaded and installed.

"The P/Invoke Wizard"

The P/Invoke Wizard

"What is the P/Invoke Wizard?

I wrote the P/Invoke Wizard to save time for both myself and my co-author, David Durant, while we were writing our .NET Compact Framework books. I wrote this tool because I found that P/Invoke declarations were both tedious and error prone when done by hand. Now with a few clicks of my mouse, I get complete and correct declarations in a fraction of the time it previously took. My company started selling the P/Invoke Wizard in 2002. Since finishing my books, I have been able to make some time to update the tool - and now version 1.3 is available.

The P/Invoke Wizard is a tool that automates the process of writing declarations in managed code for calling into unmanaged DLLs. With just a few mouse clicks, the P/Invoke Wizard can opens a C or C++ include file and create thousands of .NET-compatible P/Invoke declarations in a choice of C# or Visual Basic .NET. The wizard can be set for compatibility with either the .NET Compact Framework or the .NET Framework.

...

How Does The P/Invoke Wizard Work?

P/Invoke works by reading C/C++ include (.H) files. The P/Invoke processing engine takes the various declarations and produces a compatible .NET version in your choice of C# or Visual Basic .NET.

P/Invoke understands the following kinds of C/C++ declarations:

#define statements for integer and string constants
enum statements that define enumerated constant values
typedef struct declarations that define the layout of structures
typedef declarations for custom data types
union statements
function prototypes

The P/Invoke Wizard converts #define constants into the equivalent C# or VB.NET declarations. It converts C/C++ data structure definitions and converts them into the equivalent .NET data structures. It also reads C/C++ function prototypes and generates the equivalent function.

...

P/Invoke Wizard Limitations

Version 1.3 of the P/Invoke Wizard relies on information found in include (*.H) files. So if you do not have the include file, then P/Invoke cannot help you. It does not, for example, use the binary DLL file for input. Nor does the P/Invoke Wizard use a COM Type Library. In short, you need include (*.h) file declarations. Another limitation is that this tool does not accept executable C++ statements -- function calls, loops, etc.

What it *does* provide is a shortcut when you have a lot of native code declarations that you need to access from managed code. ...."

This $59.95 tool sounds interesting. I downloaded the demo and pointed it at a couple *.H files and it seemed to translate them with no problems. The next time I need to do some header file translations, I'm checking this utility out in detail...

(via pinvoke.net: Helpful Tools (misc))

"Exploiting the Blogger Atom API"

Exploiting the Blogger Atom API - The Code Project - .NET

"I was looking for a Blogger.com client for Pocket PC, but unfortunately I wasn’t satisfied by any of the applications that I found. So I decided to develop one myself.

I started by developing an independent .Net API for interacting with Blogger.com, which I’m presenting here. This component, which I named NBlog, allows any .Net application to simply perform different operations against Blogger.com without any knowledge about the underlying communication protocols.

NBlog uses the new Blogger Atom API as the main communication protocol. However, being designed with extensibility in mind, it allows for implementations of any other Blogger-supported protocol to be added. These new implementations can then be plugged into existing applications by using a simple configuration setting.

To show how NBlog can be used within an application, I’ve also developed a simple Windows Forms Blogger client. The image at the top is a screenshot from this application. ..."

This is a good Code Project C# posting, providing a real world abstraction example, ATOM usage, interesting WinForm design and Blogger intergration...

DPack 2.5.1 with Visual Studio 2005 (RTM) Support Released

DPack Blog - Blog Archive - Major DPack update with Visual Studio 2005 (RTM) support is out

"I’m proud to announce that after several months of development, new DPack version 2.5.1 with Visual Studio 2005 (RTM) support is finally released. Please note that all Visual Studio 2005 pre-RTM versions are no longer supported.

Here’s what’s new and changed in this version:

Added new Solution Browser feature.
Added opened files only option to File Browser feature.
Added support for Whidbey RTM. All pre-RTM versions are no longer supported.
Removed Bookmarks feature task list support and introduced a brand new bookmarks toolwindow accessible from the View menu.
Repackaged all assemblies into a single assembly. This should improve overall DPack load time.
Introduced a new installation task, which adds a Windows shell “Visual Studio Command Prompt Here” item. This is simply a convenient shortcut to Visual Studio command prompt batch file.
..."

The very cool DPack, now with VS 2005 RTM support, has been released.

Installing now...

Quick Blog Comment Policy/Guideline

Just a quick comment policy/guideline post…

This blog is like a white board in my house. I post stuff here that I find interesting. Thinking that others might also like what I like, I invite them into my house to read it and make comments.

But let’s be clear about this, this is my house and my blog. I reserve the right to delete any comment at any time for any reason.

If a comment is on topic, is polite and courteous then it will very likely stay. But comments that I consider are off topic, appears to be spam, is discourteous, rude or lame will be nuked.

That’s it… Thanks  :)