What Gender Is Your Brain?

Your Brain is 46.67% Female, 53.33% Male

Your brain is a healthy mix of male and female You are both sensitive and savvy Rational and reasonable, you tend to keep level headed But you also tend to wear your heart on your sleeve

What Gender Is Your Brain?

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

This is my linguistic profile when I tested it... Does it make any sense? These days Most of the time at office is spent doing nothing. So why not taking a test like this. It's just took less than 5 minutes. I must get ready for my other MCP certification rather than wasting time.

Your Linguistic Profile:

55% General American English

25% Yankee

15% Dixie

5% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

Ahhhh.... Now I know that I'm not Midwestern definitely. I am Sri Lankan!!!!!!

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Got through 70-315 with 962/1000

Yesterday (25th of April 2005) I did my Developing Web Applications using C#.Net Examination (70-315). I felt that I'm not prepared so well on the 18th so I postponed it to the 25th (Sorry could not blog about it ;-> ). I managed to score 962 out of 1000. I'm planning to do Developing XML Web Services and Server Components (70-320) Examination on the 16th of May. If I pass it successfully I will be a MCAD.

Creating Visual Studio .Net Setup Projects With Custom User Interfaces and Actions

Given Below is a Problem that one Member of the Sri Lankan Dotnet UserGroup came up with..

"As you all of them aware that we can build setups using setup wizard or setup project in visual studio.NET enviornment. Once we have build a setup and when installing the same, the dialog boxes which directs the
user to successfull installations are fixed in the visual studio.NET envrionment. But we can add additional Read Me, License Agreement, Register User,..etc through the User Interface.
My problem is this, if I need to request additional data from the user while he was installing the application such as Server Name, User Name, Password. how can I do this....
note : - the application which is insalled in the client machine depends on the data which he has entered while he was installing.
(for example : when we are installing SQL Server, Oracle or any other
applications the setup will ask for the Server Name, user name, passwords...like wise I have to do with my setup project)
if anyone know the anwer for this, please help me..!
tks,
Ammar."

Here is the answer I came up with

"You can add Dialogs which contain text boxes for the user to input some data for you. Did you notice there are 3 builtin Textbox Dialogs.Namely TextBoxes (A),TextBoxes (B),TextBoxes (C)
You can set the labels for these text boxes and also you can make them visible/invisible using the properties window.

Ok. You now have the information from the user, Now you want to configure your application using this information.

To achieve this you have to add a custom action to your setup.

What differs from the solution given in the c-sharpcorner ????

We're not going to create an Installer Class rather we use a simple executable file (.exe/.dll).
To this executable file we can pass the information we got from the user as arguments. Lets say that you want to pass Information from the Textboxes (A) window to the custom action. Then we set the Custom Actions
Arguments property to [EDITA1], [EDITA2],[EDITA3],[EDITA4] (you must include them in square braces when you are refering to the textboxes exactly as given above also notice that I have included a comma
to separate the arguments)

Since we are not going to use an Installer Class we have to set the Custom Actions InstallerClass Property To False. In the executable file you have to write code to modify your applications configuration file or where you plan to store configuration information.

Lolitha"

Our friend Prasanna(MVP) gave a solution too....

"You can use the user interface option to create new screen in your
deployment.

But if you want something advanced you can try creating custom actions to
show the UI you want and customizing the setup as per that. Also try out
the following URL on creating custom actions for your setup
http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/Code/2003/Dec/CustomInstallMG.asp

Just try it out and if you face any problems shoot a msg here.

Prasanna(MVP)"

If any one comes up with such a problem above information will help you to get a solution.

Visual Studio .Net 2005 Beta 2 released

It's a great news to hear that VS .Net 2005 beta 2 has been released. It's the hottest news in the world of .net developers.


get more information

Update for WeRock247.Net

Got to know that there is an update for WeRock247.Net it has been released on the February 15th 2005.

"WeRock 247 .NET Update
A new and exciting update for the WeRock247 mobile application suite. This updated Windows Mobile Smartphone application is a showcase of how easy it is to develop compelling and graphically rich applications on the Windows Mobile Smartphone platform.
The zip file contains: Cool stand alone demo; Visual Studio solution with code comments and Corresponding word document.
Go right ahead and dig into the code to see just how easy it is! To download the zipped update"

Check it out

WeFly247 release is nearing

I received a notification from Learn247.Net today saying that they plan to release WeFly247 within the month of April. They are gonna run a series of webcasts before the release.

The WeFly247 scenario focuses on a fictitious airline company and contains everything that a developer needs to know about building applications with Visual Studio 2005 beta 2.

The applications for WeFly247 scenario are broken down into 3 areas covering all areas of development, including Windows Mobile, VSTO, Smart Client, and InfoPath and much more....


Given below is the schedule of the first webcast

18 April: 5pm - 6:15pm GMT

WeFly247 Application Walkthrough and Technologies

Come and learn about the WeFly247 project, learn about the technologies used to build the solution and the architecture design.
This session will give you a chance to get an understanding of the entire project and see all the applications working together as well as hear from the developers of the applications that built each application.
AGENDA:
WeFly247 Application Overview
WeFly247 System Architecture
Building the Pilot applications (Windows Forms, VSTO)
Building the Passenger application (ASP.NET 2.0)
Building the Crew application (.NET CF)
Wrap up / Q&A

Interesting Ha....
Get your self registered for the event today.

MSN Messenger 7.0 is released

I've been using the MSN messenger 7.0 beta for the past few months. And I'm glad to hear that the MSN Messenger 7.0 has been released today.


And you know that I also have the MSN Messenger Plus Pack by Patchou installed on with MSN messenger which provides some extra features as chat logs, boss protection, automated replies, customized statuses and much more...

You can download or get more information here MSN Messenger Plus Pack

April Sri Lankan Dotnet User Group Meeting

In the April meeting of the Sri Lankan Dotnet forum Prasanna (one of the MVPs in Sri lanka) presented us with an introduction to NHibernate which is a .Net based object persistence library. It is an open source project from sourceforge. NHibernate is a direct port from Hibernate Hibernate 2.0.3 which is a java based object persistence tool.

Given below are some links to get to know Nhibernate

HQL Query Analyzer

Prasanna's Presentation

NHibernate Forum Posted Questions in CHM Format

Thank you prasanna for the nice presentation I am pretty impressed about exploring more of NHibernate which of course previously I did not do.

And Merill encouraged people who were at the meeting to start bloging. I think we might get quite a lot of dotnet forum blogers in the future.

I must keep mine also alive....

Now a MCP

On the 28th of March I took my first MCP examination Developing Windows Applications in C#.Net, Guess what...! I got 960 marks out of 1000. I felt great. I was planning to take the examination from about one or two years back but never did because I never felt that I'm ready enough. I had only one week to get prepared since I was so busy at my work place to launch the Toyota Formula1 Ticket Ordering Application.
So I first paid for the examination and fixed a date, then I told all my friends that I'm gonna take the examination on the 28th. So I had to keep the promise.

I must thank my family for all the support they provided me.
And also Priyakara one of our Sri Lankan Dotnet Forum Members.
The Company that I'm working at E-Code Lanka.
And My Wife Uchini and My Son Manuda ........ your smiles I always think of and see, are encouraging me to face challenges.


Ok. I announce that I'm taking my Developing Web Applications using C#.Net Examination (70-315) on the 18th of April. Here we go again......

Wela Starts Blogging

Our friend Wela (MVP) at the Sri Lankan Dotnet Forum has started blogging you can checkout his blog at http://www.welasharp.net/
The greatest thing is that he created every bit & byte of his blog by him self.
Great work man.

Hey Wela, Welcome to the world of blogs.

Draw a Line between Two Checked List Items of Two CheckedListBoxes

I saw a message on the SLDotnetDevelopers2005 ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SLDotNetDevelopers2005/ ) posted by a sri lankan developer named shiran.

Shiran wanted to draw a line between two checkedlistItems of two checkedlistboxes on a windows form. Similar to the SQL server Design Query View. Given below is my answer I gave to him.

( Hey hey shiran you must be upto something very interesting .....??? )

Hello Shiran,

I have given below the most primitive approch that you can get this solved using the GDI+.

I think you may have time to improve it more to suite your need.

////////////////////////

//Add Items to the 1st CheckedListBox

checkedListBox1.Items.Add"ABC",true);

checkedListBox1.Items.Add("DEF",true);

checkedListBox1.Items.Add("GHI",true);

checkedListBox1.Items.Add("JKL",true);

//Add Items to the 2nd CheckedListBox

checkedListBox2.Items.Add("123",true);

checkedListBox2.Items.Add("456",true);

checkedListBox2.Items.Add("789",true);

checkedListBox2.Items.Add("111",true);

checkedListBox2.Items.Add("222",true);

checkedListBox2.Items.Add("333",true);

// Get the Fourth Items Rectangle of the First CheckedListBox

System.Drawing.Rectangle FromRectangle = this.RectangleToClient(checkedListBox1.RectangleToScreen(checkedListBox1.GetItemRectangle(3)));

// Get the Third Items Rectangle of the Second CheckedListBox

System.Drawing.Rectangle ToRectangle = this.RectangleToClient(checkedListBox2.RectangleToScreen(checkedListBox2.GetItemRectangle(2)));

//Create a Graphics Object

System.Drawing.Graphics graphics = this.CreateGraphics();

//Create Points From Screen Rectangles

Point FromPoint = FromRectangle.Location;

Point ToPoint = ToRectangle.Location;

//Draw the Line From Start Point To the End Point

graphics.DrawLine(Pens.Black,
FromRectangle.X,
FromRectangle.Y,
ToRectangle.X,
ToRectangle.Y);

//Dispose Graphics Object

graphics.Dispose();

////////////////////////////////

If you have any more questions do not hesitate to throw it to us.

Bye

Lolitha Samarajeewa

P.S:

I have searched google for you and came up with one link(since i don't have much time these days ;-) )

http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/2/gdi_plus.asp

You better search on MSDN also where you get more samples.

Busy With Ticket Ordering Web Application caused blog holidays

I was heavily busy for the last few weeks because we got a project (CodeName: toyotaf1 ) on very tight schedule. It came with a one months deadline. This kept me away from many things I liked to do including blogging.
What we had to do was to add new functionality to an existing application done by some other development team in Belgium ( poor guys were unable to complete ontime due to the bad design I say). The design of the web application was very bad ( they were running the whole application using one web form (index.aspx) and loading and unloading controls at runtime using the querystring ( Request.QueryString ).
The whole team did not see the daylight for long five/six weeks except for some weekends. The whole team has developed an allergy against Pizza, Chinese Food, Coke and Pepsi ;-). I say to all people who are developing web applications using ASP.Net please use web forms as much as you want. There is no limitation saying that you must restrict your self to one and only one web form.
Some how after all the struggle we have delivered a some what stable version of the application to the client.