Steve’s Bunker

It took me a few minutes to figure this one out, a simple MessageBox won’t do as that’s a blocking call. Then I stumbled upon this old msdn blog article:
http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2006/09/25/770536.aspx.

Basically I had a requirement for a certain project to display some sort of progress message to the end user while performing complicated logic that could take 10seconds to a couple minutes and this had to be done from within a replacement GINA for WinXP. The above article was of extreme help in understanding the way message passing works in Win32.

DialogBox (with reference to the callback function)

• callback function.
• show message window do all my work here.
• then call EndDialog to return to the previous function.

Skip the techno-babble, and go to the download.

For those of you familiar with TSAmp (http://www.pelicansoiree.com/TSAmp/), there is a problem with the original app when running on Vista64. The problem is not with the code, but rather the way in which it was compiled with the “any” cpu option. This leads to MSIL code that crashes and burns in a 64 bit environment.

I tried opening the source and running it from within the IDE, and found this:

Not one to be dissuaded so easily, I fired up Google to figure out WTF that error meant. I ended up here (http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/netfx64bit/thread/35b09f74-1d8e-4676-90e3-c73a439bf632). No way it could’t be that easy. Yes, yes it was. Simply force Visual Studio to compile to x86 only and not “any cpu”.  As you can see here, it’s working like a charm.

I’ve made both the recompiled binaries ready to run and the modifed Visual Studio solution available.

Download Binaries | Download Source (VS .sln)

I’m kicking the habit, as of 06/05/2009. 5 days now. It’s crazy how hooked you can get on coca cola not to mention how prevalent it is everywhere you go.

Just thought I’d publish a quick update. I’m swamped with projects at work. Fine tuning a project started last summer, a web based inventory system, and a graduate student application reviewing system.

My brain is swimming with relational database diagrams and all that good stuff. Summer rocks!

So I woke up really early this morning, and for some reason I decided to finally make a little ftp+weblink dropper. It’s very simple, just configure your FTP server settings and the corresponding website root URL. Done.

Now just drag and drop. The app spins off another thread to perform the upload task. When it’s done it gives you the direct URL to the file with the option to copy to clipboard.

Very simple, easy to use and works for what I need. There is some error handling, but I know of a few places where you can still break it

Download: Compiled | Source

I don’t think I can completely put into words how this video has changed my view of the world and of life. I know this video is a little old, but I just came across it again today and just had to make a post. All the little, and indeed the big things we all worry about everyday, are completely pointless. Stop worrying and live it up

It’s been a while since I’ve messed around with asp.net web.config files. Here’s a tip for anyone trying to use the mysql connector with asp.net. You need to add the following to your web.config or it will bitch to you about trust levels.

  <system.data>
    <DbProviderFactories>
      <clear />
      <add name="MySQL Data Provider" invariant="MySql.Data.MySqlClient"
           description=".Net Framework Data Provider for MySQL"
           type="MySql.Data.MySqlClient.MySqlClientFactory, MySql.Data,
             Version=6.0.2.0, Culture=neutral,
             PublicKeyToken=c5687fc88969c44d" />
    </DbProviderFactories>
  </system.data>

GoDaddy has modified their medium trust environment to use the connector. All new connectors are compiled to accept partially trusted callers. It is important to note that the version in your web.config must match the version of the connector DLL.

Title says it all.