misc

Can we deploy a Content Type as a feature with some extended settings like "Workflow settings" and "Information management policy settings"?

Madhawa Karunaratne — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 11:41:44 GMT

I have a small question for sharepoint experts. :)

Can we deploy a Content Type as a feature with some extended settings like "Workflow settings" and "Information management policy settings"?

If so please enlighten me on how to do that.

Connecting to the VPC Console Session Directly from RDP

Madhawa Karunaratne — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 02:31:17 GMT

Type below in the command line replacing <MC name or IP> with the machine name or IP you want to connect. This works with WinXP and Vista.

mstsc -v:<MC name or IP> /f -console

Updated:

:D There is a easy way. Just type mstsc /console in the command prompt.

Effective Error handling in SQL Server 2005

Madhawa Karunaratne — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 17:35:47 GMT

One of the main things you should consider if you believe in good coding is error or exception handling. When it come to programming languages, now all popular object oriented languages have try, catch method to handle an exception.

We can put our code (which might gives errors or exceptions) inside the try block and error handling code in the catch block. This has become the de-facto of error or exception handling now.
But when it comes to T-SQL we hadn’t got that luxury. Error handling in T-SQL was always tedious and tricky job. Most of the time we used not to handle the error at the T-SQL level but handling it in the upper most level. (data access layer or business layer, handling database errors in business layer is a totally wrong practice)

But now in SQL 2005, 2008 you have proper error handling mechanism just like in modern OO languages. You can use try catch in the stored procedures and functions. Actually I knew that I can use try catch in stored procedures but only today I got to know about a more interesting method we can use.

After catching an error what we can to do was a question for me. If it’s in C# or Java we can log the error and may be throw a customized exception to the next layer. (There are so many options in handling errors)
Can you remember throw exception in C#? Of cause you know it. :) Well… we can do the same in T-SQL using RAISERROR function.

Using the RAISERROR is as follows,

BEGIN TRY
    -- RAISERROR with severity 11-19 will cause execution to
    -- jump to the CATCH block.
    RAISERROR ('Error raised in TRY block.', -- Message text.
               16, -- Severity.
               1 -- State.
               );
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
    DECLARE @ErrorMessage NVARCHAR(4000);
    DECLARE @ErrorSeverity INT;
    DECLARE @ErrorState INT;

    SELECT
        @ErrorMessage = ERROR_MESSAGE(),
        @ErrorSeverity = ERROR_SEVERITY(),
        @ErrorState = ERROR_STATE();

    -- Use RAISERROR inside the CATCH block to return error
    -- information about the original error that caused
    -- execution to jump to the CATCH block.
    RAISERROR (@ErrorMessage, -- Message text.
               @ErrorSeverity, -- Severity.
               @ErrorState -- State.
               );
END CATCH;

Pretty good ha…
You can follow up this more in MSDN.

Deploying Sharepoint sites in x64 servers

Madhawa Karunaratne — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 06:51:57 GMT

Well... After 6 months I’m gonna do it again. I don’t know people who used to visit my blog still are doing that. Anyway will tell ya what happened in last 6 months later. :D

Well today I was working on deploying a SharePoint site in 64 bit server. This is the first time I’m putting my hands on x64 bit machines. If you are used to do or want to do SharePoint deployments and never done that in 64 bit servers just keep in mind below.

There are 2 programming files folders in 64 bit machines. Normal "programming files" folder for x64 bit programs and "programming files (x86)" for 32 bit programs. So when you are using script files or solutions (wsp files) for deployment make aware of this. More info will follow…. :)

Is .net answer for GWT more powerful?

Madhawa Karunaratne — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 11:48:37 GMT

Visual WebGui is the .net answer for GWT (Google Web Toolkit). But it’s seems more powerful than GWT even though it’s not coming from Microsoft and yet it’s open source. Still I hadn’t got time to put my hands on deeply but you can feel it by just browsing their web site and checking the features and comparing those with GWT.
Not like GWT, in Visual WebGui you can use existing windows controls to create your UI. Major advantage of Visual WebGui over GWT is we can deploy Visual WebGui applications as web applications or desktop applications. That’s a huge step taken by Visual WebGui. And most importantly Visual WebGui is open source.

And with world best IDE (Visual Studio 2005) you have the ultimate power of designing your graphical user interfaces. Just check these features out by visiting Visual WebGui.

User-Friendly – Visual WebGui was designed to be the next VB6 for the web. Simple to program, simple to deploy. With a full WinForms API and design time support you can start developing complex AJAX applications in seconds with no web know-how.

Secured – Visual WebGui was designed to provide for military grade secured AJAX applications by eliminating client side service consumption and business logic processing using an empty client concept. The browser is used as a looking glass to the server that runs the application.

Productive – With full WinForms API and design time support, Visual WebGui is almost as productive as R.A.D. platforms without limiting your options. Debug your application the same way you would debug any .NET application free of script debugging nightmares.

Powerful – Visual WebGui was designed to support enterprise class applications with unlimited complexity supported by full object oriented programming. Using our unique AJAX transport, Visual WebGui applications consume 1% of bandwidth compared to any alternative AJAX framework.

Feature-Rich – Visual WebGui contains most of WinForm's components including non trivial implementations of controls such as the PropertyGrid that provides a simple way to edit live objects.

Supported - Visual WebGui is supported by its Core Team of developers and a dedicated international community. Through online forums and our support@visualwebgui.com mail box support is always close at hand (commercial support will be available soon).

Easily Installed – Visual WebGui comes with a simple installation that will get you started on developing your AJAX application in no time. Visual WebGui's toolbox and templates are integrated into Visual Studio so they are always available.

Localized – Visual WebGui includes full .NET and WinForms multi-language localization support which allows you to localize your application in the designer the same way you localize a WinForms application.

Open Source – Visual WebGui SDK is provided free, as open-source software, and licensed under a standard LGPL agreement. It allows individuals to do whatever they wish with the application framework, both commercially and non-commercially.

Cutting-Edge – Visual WebGui provides the developer with full object oriented .NET support allowing utilization of all the .NET capabilities including reflection, generics and more. This is enabled by a unique architecture that provides an alternative HTTP processing pipeline that does not include serializing JavaScript.

Extensible – Visual WebGui is provided with many customization and extensibility features including custom control creation, theme creation and gateways.

Interopable – As an extension to ASP.NET, Visual WebGui can also interact with standard ASP.NET pages hosting them within your Visual WebGui application or calling Visual WebGui dialogs and forms from your ASP.NET code.

Visual WebGui's roadmap includes…

Mono deployment - Allowing your Visual WebGui application to run on non Microsoft servers (Visual WebGui for .NET 1.1 is already compatible with mono).

Legacy to web – Migrating WinForms or VB6 applications to web with out rewriting your application.

Dual mode deployment – Deploy your Visual WebGui application as a desktop application or a web application enjoying the best of both worlds.

Simply the best video clip I have ever watched.....

Madhawa Karunaratne — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 22:35:45 GMT

Check this out. Worth to see.

http://www.glumbert.com/media/battlespecies

Thx Senthil for the url.

I'm back....

Madhawa Karunaratne — Fri, 25 May 2007 17:45:27 GMT

Well… folks it’s have been a long time that I didn’t post anything in the blog or in the forum. People were asking me, dude… what’s going on?

Actually what going on was mmm… nothing. Its just I didn’t post anything. I was kinda busy sometimes but that doesn’t mean I hadn’t got time to post sth in the blog. Any way I’m gonna start doing that thing again.

Well I think I have to explain what’s happening on past couple of months. That surely requires dozens of posts. BTW Here I’m gonna give a brief summery.

I started doing an MSc. Yes it’s the MSc in IT at University of Keele UK. I’m doing it here at IIT Sri Lanka. Actually I had planned to do a Software Engineering one but later I decided to go for an IT one. I think I made the right decision. BTW there are lots of assignments coming along. Oh man I hate assignments  but nothing to do as I have invested lots of money on the MSc.

last couple of months was a hectic in my personal life which I don’t like to talk abt here. And my professional life was so boring and I can say I was idle and that was my most boring time in the career. There were lots of reasons behind that and I think I have made a good move to overcome that. The move ha… mmm as some of you folks already know I’m doing java these days. :D
Doing .net for abt 4 years and moving into java… as to some of my friends it’s the maddest and craziest decision I have ever made in my professional life. But I’m happy abt the move and these days I feel like I’m alive again. I had one month to learn java and still I’m learning various aspects of java technology. Honestly I don’t like swing and I’m looking forward to do some backend works but who knows what would happen? BTW if I get front end things to do there would be another big move in my professional life.

When I was looking for OO things like design patterns I always preferred java sites. Especially in java world there are tons of good articles on that. So I always thought I will do some java in my developer life. So I think this is it and I got a good chance. And I won’t let my .net skills to go away I’m planning a big training session on .net framework (3.0 and 3.5) on my self. Well I have witnessed some similarities as well as different things in java and c# as well as .net framework and j2ee/j2se.

Mmm I think this is enough for this post. I’m trying to maintain high cohesion in my blog : D.