SSIS 2005 Business Intelligence

Unable to instantiate XML DOM document, please verify that MSXML binaries are properly installed and registered.

 Other variations are  Failed to save package file “.dtsx” with error 0x8002801D “Library not registered.”

The reason you see this error is because MSXML got corrupted.

The fix is

1. Close Studio / Business Intelligence

2. Download Latest MSXML 4.0 (sp3)  as of today.

3. Install it. Done

2a. Some cases you may need to install MSXML 6.0.

The three Superpowers …

Google Search

Firefox Browser

WordPress Software

Power of Three

The one common attribute in all of the above is “features & usability”. 

Google Search : Amazing search results on anything and everything.

Firefox : Just think of any “genuine” feature you need. Its already available as plugin. (Power of Open Source)

WordPress : The architecture is unbelievable. Again, think of any feature, theme,  its already available. It takes one extra step by handing over the source file itself. (Power of Open Source)

In future something better will come, atleast for next few years these 3 will rule and make life easier for designers and developers.

Note: Its a belief there is one almighty which gives whatever you ask for. 

“Google Andavar” ?

To find out Windows Server Name using IP

Goto Command Prompt (Start > Run > cmd>

C:> nbtstat -A  <<ip address>>

(remember upper case A)

Note (added on mar 31st)

this works on all versions of windows

http://www.computerhope.com/nbtstat.htm

List of interesting  tools / .net components. Visit  www.codeplex.com for more

DoddleReport will add automatic reporting (HTML/PDF/Excel/etc) for any LINQ Query, IEnumerable, DataTable or SharePoint List

http://www.codeplex.com/doddlereport

Open DBDiff is an open source database schema comparison tool for SQL Server 2005/2008.

http://www.codeplex.com/OpenDBiff

Map Report

http://www.codeplex.com/MapReport

Visual Studio 2008 XHTML 1.1 Templates

http://www.codeplex.com/VSXHTML11Templates

MultiMenu ASP.NET Cascading Menu WebControl

http://www.codeplex.com/MultiMenu

Simple weather control

http://www.codeplex.com/aspnetweathercs

TytanNET – Visual Studio Great Add-in

http://www.codeplex.com/tytannet

.Net Documentor

http://www.codeplex.com/netDocumentor

Sharepoint Admin Report

http://www.codeplex.com/spadminreport

AJAX FileUpload

http://en.fileuploadajax.subgurim.net/

Extended Gridview Control

http://aspalliance.com/946_Extended_GridView_Control.all

ASP.NET Alerts

http://www.codeplex.com/alerts

HelpDesk – Very simple ticket and bugtracking web app for very small companies

http://www.codeplex.com/HelpDesk/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=13594

PickList ASP.NET WebControl

http://www.codeplex.com/picklist/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=16222

TooltipExtender

http://www.codeplex.com/tooltipextender

Multi-select listbox without holding down Ctrl Title is required

http://www.codeplex.com/AjaxControlToolkit/WorkItem/View.aspx?WorkItemId=11907

Created a quick HTML page to find the font size mapping between various units (em, px, pt)

The font size looks uniform  in FF 3 and Chrome. (Images attached)

In IE.. you see it by yourself.

IE 8 Profiler

Microsoft IE-8 profiler is great tool for developers. Read more about it directly from MS website.

more details..

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc848895(VS.85).aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc848893(VS.85).aspx

WordPress is becoming popular day by day and features are breath taking. If you have decided to go with WordPress then consider you have made a very wise decision.

For hosting the new Wordpress blog all you need is  PHP 4.3 or greater  / MySQL 4.0 or greater

There are 1000′s of themes to choose your taste and 1000′s of plugins to suit your needs.

Plugins : http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/

Dont forget to install WordPress Automatic Upgrade Plugin. This is an amazing plugin which simplies your job when new version of WP is released. Check this URL for reference.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-automatic-upgrade/

Themes : http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/

Apart from this search on google / yahoo for fabulous WordPress Themes.

Hosting :
If you are looking for reliable hosting, try www.oviamhosting.com they have PHP 5.0 and MYSQL 5.0.

1. Simple interface.
2. Transfering huge MYSQL database is breeze.
3. Easy to manage and very affordable.
4. Domain is $1.99 per year (rate as of this date)

Happy Blogging

IE8 Beta 2 and Asp.net Menu Control rendering issues

If your code works on IE 6,7 and Firefox even on chrome it may not work on IE8. The reason being Microsoft suddenly woke up and started to be strict with design and style standards.

For styles not working the way it should or DHTML not appearing on screen the problem is inline styling. IE 8 doesnt parse the code if its inline styling.

So the simple fix is move all the style=” “  to stylesheet class

This is better way to clean your code too.

I found this Freebie (not great interface though) which helped me to cleanup my stylesheet.

http://www.dotnetsurfers.com/Blog/ct.ashx?id=5eb69d72-b844-412a-9da2-ac8f21b5a714&url=http%3a%2f%2fwww.dotnetsurfers.com%2futils%2fcsscleaner.zip

Word of caution

By default this looks for .aspx,.ascx,.master files.

So before removing the unused class, please search the entire solution to make sure you haven’t used them in code behind files.

object.cssclass = “cssclassname”

Happy Style Cleaning !

I have been fixing and updating skmMenu for sometime now. Thought of writing a consolidated post with all the fixes and sourcecode for easy reference. For skmMenu fans and for those who are migrating from 1.1 to 2.0, I have rebuilt the dll on 2.0 framework.

Based on this article by Chris , I have incorporated Javascript changes so that skmMenu works on FireFox, IE and Chrome.

Download skmMenu 2.3 – DLL

Download skmMenu 2.3 Source Code

 The project was checked out from Source Safe. You “may” experience Source Safe binding issues. Please ignore it and remove all the source safe bindings.

Wherever I have made the fix I have marked it as  //GC  with relevant comment next to it. Hope its easy to understand.

The changes are updated in “Readme.txt” file.

 skmMenu Version 2.3 (Bug-Fixes and Changes)

Fixed:
 Recompiled for framework 2.0 and fixed the obselete methods with new methods.
 Change javascript to work with IE 8, Firefox 2,3

Changed: Added <statusbar> to XML element
  Example: <statusbar> </statusbar>

  Added IE 8 (beta 2) support. As IE8 is doesnt like inline styling, two more stylesheet items needed to be added to your stylesheet.
�
  1. td.skmcur
�
  Example: td.skmcur{cursor:hand;}
�
  2. iframe.skm
�
  Example: iframe.skm {position:absolute;top:0px;left:0px;display:none;}
�
  Removed the auto generating z-index for submenu. Again IE 8 doesnt like inline styling. Its now done via css class.

Sample Menu Control (.aspx / .ascx)  (replace all [ & ] with < & > respectively)

 [cc1:menu id="Menu1" Layout="Horizontal" HighlightTopMenu="False" ItemPadding="0" ItemSpacing="1" runat="server" SubMenuCssClass="skmsubmenu"]
 [SelectedMenuItemStyle cssclass="skmSelMenuItem"][/SelectedMenuItemStyle]
[/cc1:menu]

Sample CSS  

iframe.skm {position:absolute;top:0px;left:0px;display:none;}

td.skmcur{cursor:hand;}

.skmsubmenu{ text-align : left; border : solid 1px #FBBD05;color:Black;
background-color:#FFEFC0;cursor:pointer; z-index:auto;
font-family : Verdana; font-size : small; font-weight : bold; width : 175px;line-height:20px;
vertical-align:middle;}

.skmSelMenuItem{background-color: #FBBD05

Screen Shots

IE 8

FireFox 3.01

IE 7.0

Google Chrome

Hopefully it works on all browsers from now on. Lets carry it to .net 4.0 too