MS Office Compatibility Pack for Office 2007 Files (Open, Edit, Save Office 2007 files in Office 2000,XP, 2003...)

Microsoft Downloads - Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats

"Open, edit, and save documents, workbooks, and presentations in the file formats new to Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007.

...

By installing the Compatibility Pack in addition to Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP, or Office 2003, you will be able open, edit, and save files using the file formats new to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007. The Compatibility Pack can also be used in conjunction with the Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003, Excel Viewer 2003, and PowerPoint Viewer 2003 to view files saved in these new formats. For more information about the Compatibility Pack, see Knowledge Base article 923505.

..."

With Office 2007 RTM, I'm sure it won't be too long before I start seeing the new Office 2007 "x" (docX, xlsX, pptX, etc. Think "X = Just XML") and "m" (docM, xlsM, pptM, etc. Think "M =  Includes Macros") file formats...

(via The Road to Know Where - Freely Use Microsoft Office 2007 Files Without Office 2007)

SlickEdit VS2005 Gadgets Updated

"A new version of SlickEdit Gadgets is available that fixes some of the bugs that have been reported.  Many thanks to all the people who have reported them and gave us feedback.  The new version (build 77) can be downloaded at the same location: http://www.slickedit.com/gadgets.

Summary of fixes:
1. The installer now allows you to install Gadgets to directories other than the default.
2. The SLOC report now works for VB and web projects.
3. The Data Object Analyzer has been fixed when generating a handler if a class file is not open.

Please uninstall the previous version before installing the new one.  All of your settings will be preserved. "

I've found myself using the Data Object feature more than any of the other features... The Editor objects are cool, but I've found that they work best for me if I turn them on just when I need them, to not leave them on all the time...

Related Past Post XRef:
Slick Edit Gadgets - Free VS2005 Utilities

WinXP SP2 IE6 VPC Image

Microsoft Downloads - WinXP SP2 IE6 VPC Image 

"A VPC hard disk image containing a pre-activated Windows XP SP2, IE6 and the IE7 Readiness Toolkit."

Upgraded to IE7 already, but now you have run into an issue where you need IE6? Well this VPC looks like it just might help.

I'm downloading it now to confirm that for myself, that this VPC can be used as a IE6 fallback resource.

One thing I can't tell is if the WinXP instance is timebombed or not. Guess I'll just have to wait and see...

Resource Refactoring Tool Powertoy for VS2005 (Refactor Strings into a String Resource)

Microsoft Downloads - Resource Refactoring Tool

"The Resource Refactoring Tool provides developers an easy way to extract hard coded strings from the code to resource files.

The Resource Refactoring Tool "Alpha Release" provides:
Lists existing resources by their similarity level to the text being replaced.
Automatically replaces hard coded string with a reference to resource entry
Support for with both C# and VB.NET projects.

Instructions

1. Run ResourceRefactorSetup.msi
2. Launch Visual Studio 2005
3. Open either a VB.NET or C# project
4. Right-click on a hard coded string in a a code window and choose Refactor - Extract to resource
5. Choose the resource file you want to use. Next, choose either an existing resource or create a new one.
6. Press OK to commit changes

The string will automatically be replaced with the reference to resource you have chosen"

Very nice. Now if they would release the source (or just integrate a spell checker for me) I'd be in heaven!  ;)

[It looks like there already are resource file spell checkers... I'll have to check those out...]

Speaking of SMO, SMO for PowerShell - PowerSMO

Dan Sullivan - PowerSMO!

"Last year I wrote a blog article about using what was then called MSH with SQL Server Management Objects http://pluralsight.com/blogs/dan/archive/2005/12/29/17703.aspx. MSH is now called PowerShell and mixing some SMO with it makes PowerSMO!

SMO is a set of object models for SQL Server. With PowerSMO! you can manipulate those object models from the command line or with a script. The two object models probably of most interest to SQL Server developers and DBA’s are the Server and ManagedComputer object models and that’s what this article is going to use them to show how to use PowerSMO!.

..."

Nice...

Related Past Post XRef:
Execute T-SQL Scripts (with GO's) Programmatically with SMO (or DMO)

C# String Library Inspired by PHP

C# String Library

"...it struck me that there are a number of useful functions in the PHP string library that are missing in C#'s implentation of String. This library is the result of that wee epiphany.

The intent of the article is to introduce you to the PHP inspired String Library for .Net. ...

• Base64StringEncode: Base64 encodes a string.
• Base64StringDecode: Decodes a Base64 string.
• CaseInsenstiveReplace: A case insenstive replace function.
• ReplaceFirst: Replaces the first occurrence of a string with the replacement value. The Replace is case senstive. [The inclusion of this method and ReplaceLast was suggested by a reader's comment.]
• ReplaceLast: Replaces the last occurrence of a string with the replacement value. The replace is case senstive.
• FilterWords: Removes all the words passed in the filter words parameters. The replace is NOT case sensitive.
• HasWords: Checks the passed string to see if it contains any of the passed words. Not case-sensitive.
• HtmlSpecialEntitiesEncode: A wrapper around HttpUtility.HtmlEncode.
• HtmlSpecialEntitiesDecode: A wrapper around HttpUtility.HtmlDecode.
• MD5String: MD5 encodes the passed string.
• MD5VerifyString: Verifies a string against the passed MD5 hash.
• PadLeftHtmlSpaces: Left pads the passed string using the HTML non-breaking space ( ) for the total number of spaces.
• CaseInsenstiveReplace: Performs a case insenstive replace.
• PadLeft: Left pads the passed string using the passed pad string for the total number of spaces. (It will not cut-off the pad even if it causes the string to exceed the total width.)
• PadRightHtmlSpaces: Right pads the passed string using the HTML non-breaking space ( ) for the total number of spaces.
• PadRight: Right pads the passed string using the passed pad string for the total number of spaces. (It will not cut-off the pad even if it causes the string to exceed the total width.)
• RemoveNewLines: Removes the new line (\n) and carriage return (\r) symbols.
• Reverse: Reverses the passed string.
• SentenceCase: Converts a string to sentence case.
• SpaceToNbsp: Converts all spaces to HTML non-breaking spaces.
• StripTags: Removes all HTML tags from the passed string.
• TitleCase: Converts a string to title case.
• TrimIntraWords: Removes multiple spaces between words.
• NewLineToBreak: Converts each new line (\n) and carriage return (\r) symbols to the HTML <br /> tag.
• WordWrap: Wraps the passed string at the passed total number of characters (if cuttOff is true)or at the next whitespace (if cutOff is false). Uses the environment new linesymbol for the break text. "

There are some methods I can use here...

It's packaged as a single CS file, so if you're already using C# you can just compile it right into your app. Since I dream in VB.Net, I'll probably wrap it into an assembly (or maybe convert it?).

(via .Net Adventures - C# String Library by Chad Finsterwald)

Update #1 3/6/2008:
Fale (Alejandro Fallas) has found, and commented with, the new location for this library, http://www.wtfdeveloper.com/Default5.aspx).

Thanks Fale!

Customized .Net OpenFileDialog in C#(OpenFileDialogEx)

The Code Project - Customizing OpenFileDialog in .Net

"...

How many times had happen where you want to put some extra control in the OpenFileDialog control and you can’t…

Searching for code on the .Net I found a couple places where they used MFC, but nothing for .Net. OpenFileDialog is not native implemented in .Net, instead it make use of a Win32 API “GetOpenFileName”.

a) Create my own OpenFileDialog from scratch.
b) Create my own OpenFileDialog reusing resources, (using the API “GetOpenFileName” and provide my own template)
c) Hack on .Net OpenFileDialog and add the functionality I need for it.

A – Was not an option because it could require a lot of development time when there is a lot more stuff to be done, later when the product is finished I can review this.
B – Required to provide my own template using calls to Win32 API and resources.
C – Was the more viable option at this time, don’t think of this as a bad hack, basically a hack is when you want make the control do some extra functionality and you must from different thread or process.

So because I like the challenges, I decided to “hack” OpenFileDialog class to create my own customizable control. ..."

I was just thinking about a new/tweaked file open dialog (with a large image preview) for my Picture Post WLW Plugin.

Looks like Castor has just saved me a good bit of time... ;)

Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Announcement

SharePoint Apps: Alexander Malek's weblog - Welcome to VS extensions for WSS!

"Greetings from TechEd Barcelona! Today, we finally got to announce a project I've been working on for the last year: "Visual Studio 2005 extensions for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0". Yup, the name's a mouthful :). Explaining it is pretty easy though - make "F5" work for SharePoint stuff in VS! That's essentially what VSeWSS brings to the table. Once you have it installed, you can actually boot VS, create stuff for WSS and have it work. For example, if you want to build a web part, from the "New Project" dialog in VS, choose "Web Part" under the "C#/SharePoint" node. Add some code and you're done. You can hit F5 and immediately debug your web part. Pretty cool, no?

..."

Very nice... When/if I get back into the WSS dev biz, this could come in handy.

I'm very glad these VS2005 Extensions are coming out and we don't have to wait for Orcas to ship... (and thereby giving MS time to get Orcas right?)

Execute T-SQL Scripts (with GO's) Programmatically with SMO (or DMO)

Jon Galloway - Handling "GO" Separators in SQL Scripts - the easy way

"If you've ever had to execute one or more SQL scripts from ADO.NET, you've likely run into the GO batch terminator issue....

Until recently, there have been two ways to handle this problem - execute SQL scripts by shelling to OSQL, or splitting the script on GO separators and running them in sequence. Both solutions kind of worked, but SQL Server Management Objects (SMO) has a better solution for us: Server.ConnectionContext.ExecuteNonQuery(), which parses T-SQL statements and "gets" the GO statement as a batch separator. And the crowd goes wild!!!

..."

This is a very cool tip from Jon. And it smells much better than OSQL or GO parsing based solutions...

And for those of us in SQL2k land, it looks like SQL DMO has similar functionality in its SQLServer/SQLDatabase .ExecuteImmediate, .ExecuteWithResults, .ExecuteWithResultsAndMessages methods.

I tested ExecuteImmediate with a test T-SQL script with a number of GO's (creating a table, SP, dropping the SP, creating it again, all in one script with GO's separating the batches) and it seemed to work just as expected...

Related Past Post XRef:
Call SQLCMD from .Net with Output Capture

.Net 3 RTM's

I know you're probably already be seeing this news, but just in case...

The .Net Framework 3.0 (WCF, WPF, WF, etc) has been officially released/RTM/etc.

Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 Redistributable Package 

Microsoft® Windows® Software Development Kit for Windows Vista™ and .NET Framework 3.0 Runtime Components

Visual Studio 2005 extensions for .NET Framework 3.0 (WCF & WPF), November 2006 CTP

Visual Studio 2005 extensions for .NET Framework 3.0 (Windows Workflow Foundation)

Now that it's real, it's time to REALLY start playing with it... WF here, I come.  ;)

(via Bryant Likes's Blog - .NET 3.0 Released!!!)

Wow for WoW

Surround gaming with TripleHead2Go
World of Warcraft

OMG, that just rocks... I so want this.

Santa, you read my blog, right?

;)

(via The ADO Guy - Playing WOW With Matrox's Three Headed Card...I am jealous!)

Microsoft VHD Edition Day...

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition VHD

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 VHD - 32-bit version

Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2006 VHD

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition VHD

"The Microsoft VHD Test Drive Program provides customers with an enhanced server-based software evaluation experience that’s faster, better supported and more flexible. You can now access the entire catalog of pre-configured Microsoft and partner products and solutions in the VHD format and start evaluating and testing today from www.microsoft.com/vhd.

..."

Run IT on a Virtual Hard Disk

"The Microsoft VHD format is the common virtualization file format that provides a uniform product support system, and provides more seamless manageability, security, reliability and cost-efficiency for customers.

Using the power of virtual machines, you can now quickly evaluate Microsoft and partner solutions through a series of pre-configured Virtual Hard Disks (VHD). You can download the VHDs and evaluate them for free in your own environment without the need for dedicated servers or complex installations. Start now by selecting a lab from the VHD catalog below.

..."

Very nice and makes good sense. Since Virtual PC is free, this is the near perfect way to let people play with different products.

For example, I'd like to check out Exchange 2007, but didn't want to deal with the whole install thing... This makes it a slam dunk.

Another Weekend, Another WLW Plugin - WLW Picture Post Plugin

I've recently been bitten by the photo post bug... But I'm a lazy guy and want the photo uploading and posting to be easy and to not distract from my writing (such as it is).

While there's an already very cool Flickr browser/search plugin for WLW (Flickr4Writer), it doesn't yet allow uploading or support other Flickr API hosts (i.e. Zooomr).

So that meant it was time to put on my WLW Plugin Coder hat.

The above post is the result (i.e. it works, Yeah!!!)

It's still very alpha at this point, and I need to get permission from work to release it, yada, yada, yada. But it's do'able and it works. I'm waiting on my Zooomr API Key, after which I'll add support for it too...

Hat's off to Sam Judson(FlickrNet API Library) and Tim Heuer (Flickr4Writer) for their outstanding work. I'm standing on the shoulders of giants (which makes changing light bulbs much easier ;)