Blue Probe

Azure VM - Endpoint Not found: There was no endpoint listening

2013-05-05T08:48:49-05:00:00

The only solution was to delete the VM and recreate. There are ways to clone the VM from the VHD that was used, but the original VM must be deleted.

Strangely enough I had a running VM, then added an SSL cert to a separate Cloud Service via the portal, and that seemed to doom my VM. It went into a stopped state, and when trying to start it received the error above.

PluralSight MVC course error - No parameterless constructor defined

2013-04-27T12:02:09-05:00:00

The ASP.NET apps I develop/support at work have all been WebForms. So while taking a lovely course by Scott Allen on PluralSight, I decided to skip the IOC crap in my lab. Wrong! In order for the EF DBContext (interface) to be passed into the constructor for my controller, I need magic to occur. StructureMap provides this be giving my app a DBContext object each time the IDepartmentDataSource interface is asked for. See the following controller constructor:

 public DepartmentController(IDepartmentDataSource db)
{
    _db = db;
}
 

What I don’t need is a default parameterless constructor. I could just create a new DBContext myself, but it seems Scott, and others, support this pattern in MVC. I’m not a big fan of magic because it becomes a maintenance nightmare, but alas…

VS2012 Error 1 The build stopped unexpectedly because of an internal failure.

2013-04-27T11:18:27-05:00:00

Microsoft.Build.Exceptions.BuildAbortedException: Build was canceled. Failed to successfully launch or connect to a child MSBuild.exe process. Verify that the MSBuild.exe "C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\MSBuild.exe" launches successfully, and that it is loading the same microsoft.build.dll that the launching process loaded.

Sometimes my leg falls asleep, and sometimes you just need to restart VS2012.

HP Slate 7 – the $160 Android Jellybean Device

2013-03-01T14:56:53-06:00:00

This is a great play by HP. It’s not a knock-off Android O/S, it’s Jellybean with all the goodness of Google Now, Gmail, Drive, Maps, etc. These other el cheapo devices out there are giving Android a bad name. Plus, many techies want to root the device as soon as they buy it, which is cool, but I love that this is now a straight consumer play, with devices that work fantastic straight out of the box.

The HP Slate will add a micro SD slot and a rear facing 3mp camera. Add that to the 1.6GHz dual core processor, and Beats audio and it should rock. The pixel density is less than the Google Nexus 7, so hold both in your hands before you make the purchase.

Love the Google Nexus 7

2013-03-01T14:48:10-06:00:00

Here’s just a couple reasons why:

My eyes are getting old. Double tap on a web page and zoom to that DIV. Awesome! Fonts adjustable in reader and on Chrome browser too.
Launch Navigate from home while on wifi, and take with you on the road. The GPS will get you there with voice navigation and maps (downloaded while on wifi at home). WOW!
Google Now is just cool.

OAS - The operation with name getMBeanInfo could not be found.

2012-11-29T20:59:31-06:00:00

I saw this in the OC4J log when I stopped and started the application. This is a false error. When I undeployed and redeployed the app, the true error displayed in Oracle Enterprise Manager: ORA-01017: invalid username/password; logon denied. This happened when I switched DB servers and missed updating a config value (datasource).

The death of Kodak digital

2012-11-20T19:52:25-06:00:00

Months ago Kodak announced that it was discontinuing its digital video to focus on “significant opportunities for profitable growth”. Three years ago I picked up the little Kodak Zi6 (pronounced Zix) for the kids for Christmas. It is an HD pocket video camera with a nice 3” LCD all built into a something a bit longer than an deck of cards. It is low tech and great! The kids have had a ball with it, and for around $100 it was perfect. It comes with 2 AA rechargeable batteries and the recharger. You can add an SD card, but don’t need to, and the USB is not a cable but a pop-out dongle so everything is right in the one package.

Too many companies look for the next big thing and fail to see the stuff that is good enough, and right in front of their eyes.

WmiPrvSE.exe consuming 25% of CPU on Win7

2012-11-19T08:10:59-06:00:00

On my HP laptop the WMI Provider Host was consuming 25% of my CPU. This just started one day. The offending process ended up being the HP Wireless Assistant Service, which is not needed as Win7 provides WiFi services. To turn it off:

On your desktop right-click on Computer and select Manage
Select Services and Applications and double click Services
Right click on the HP Wireless Assistant Service and select Properties
Change the Startup Type to Manual

Google App Engine local running old version of code

2012-11-18T08:28:50-06:00:00

I found starting and stopping the GAE SDK from Eclipse would sometimes not be enough for GAE to deploy a code change to a servlet. This would occur unexpectedly, even after working form multiple code/test iterations. A recommendation I found on a Google board was to touch the appengine-web.xml file. Which works just fine.

First look at the cloud with Google App Engine and Udacity

2012-11-18T08:28:09-06:00:00

Udacity is free online university and offers a CS253 intro to web development class. Since I am currently a web developer/architect in ASP.Net (and recent project has brought me back to Java) it is a bit light. However, it does offer me a nice problem set and my first exposure to writing cloud apps with GAE and Google Datastore. Steve Huffman, who developed reddit, is the instructor and does offer nice real-life stories. Give it a look.