We successfully deployed our Pivotal enhancement Friday. We started promptly a 6:00AM and finished at 6:30PM. Took only a 10-minute lunch break. Otherwise it was nose to the grindstone. All in all it was a very success full effort. We validated the overall system installation, rebuilt our offline system and rebooted both the SQL and IIS server. This was followed by the actual enhancement installation followed by a complete system functionality test. We were actually complete with all the changes by 4:00PM. It took the balance of the time to perform a full system test. Monday will be the big test as our users start using the system. I am just glad that it’s over. Friday night was beer and TV zone out time…

It’s March already. Just don’t know where the time has gone. Managed to survive a cold and bout of “Strep Throat”. Got it from the grand kids. Have been just to busy at work. Just glued to the screen coding away and no end in sight. On top of everything else have to start work at 6:00 AM tomorrow to role out a change to our production Pivotal system. This is going to be a much welcome weekend.

Purchased a copy of Apples DVD Studio Pro 2 on eBay. Managed to get it a very reasonable price. This is now my latest home project… learning to be proficient with this product. I am running this product on a 12”-Powerbook. Performance so far has been excellent.

To list shares on a server…create and run the following script.

SERVER=”<<your server name>>”
Set objFileShare=GetObject(“WinNT://” & SERVERNAME & “/Lanmanserver”)

objfileShare.filter=Array(“FileShare”)

For each FileShare in objFileShare
wscript.echo “Share Name:” & FileShare.Name & bvCRLF & “Path=” & Fileshare.Path
Next

This code snippet is from a great reference book. “Managing Enterprise Systems with the Windows Script Host”, A Press Publisher, ISBN# 1-893115-67-4

When users click on the browser refresh button, the page resubmits and executes code associated with the last button clicked….not good. To prevent this problem do the following.

1. Add SmartNavigation to the page

Change this
<%@Page language=”c#” Codebehind=”Webform2.aspx.cs” AutoEventWireup=”false” Inherits=”WebApplication2.WebForm2” %>

to this
<%@Page language=”c#” Codebehind=”Webform2.aspx.cs” AutoEventWireup=”false” Inherits=”WebApplication2.WebForm2” SmartNavigation=”true”%>

2. Verify that .NET 1.1 Framework is installed on the web server

From the “Start” button, select “Control Panel”. Then select “Add or Remove Programs”. Scroll down the list of installed items and look for Microsoft .Net Framework 1.1. If not found, you can download it from www.microsoft.com or msdn.microsoft.com.

3. Verify that ASP.Net client script library 1_1_4322 is available

Look for folder [WEBROOT}\aspnet_client\system_web\1_1_4322. If it does not exist, create the path and extract file 1_1_4322.zip into the folder.

4. Close the browser and then test the page….the problem is gone

Have been working on a project where I need to move through a dataset one row at a time. Now this is not too difficult. However, I just could remember the syntax. After some research I found a strategy …

1. First create a DataTable object:

         Private DataTable dataTable;

2. Next, set the dataTable equal to the DataSet table with your data:

         DataTable = dataSet.Tables[0];

3. Next get the first row of data from the DataSet:

         DataRow dataRow = dataTable.Rows[0];

4. Then get a column value for display such as a text box:

         textBox .Text = dataRow[“Fname”].ToString();

Now that was not too hard. Problem is remembering.

Purchased iLife 04’. Could not wait to play with all the new tools especially GarageBand. Was disappointed that no keyboards are available from my local Apple store. I was told there is a 6-week wait. Discovered that my G4 iBook could not handle the demands of GarageBand. Bummer. Sold the G4 iBook on eBay and purchased a 12” powerbook with a superdrive. The powerbook is great. It’s got the power to meet my GarageBand needs. I’ve owned a 15” Titanium in the past. However, for me the 12” format is the best. It’s just easy to carry around yet has more then ample power for my needs. In the last two days I managed to pull all my videos from a DirecTV Tivo box. Cancelled the service but wanted to save the accumulated videos. The PowerBook with iMovie and a Cannon ZR45 did the work without a hitch. Look forward the challenge of transforming these into DVD’s.

We are back from Vancouver. Our flight was good. Only 2.5 hours flying time. The training at Pivotal was intense. Feel confidant that I can successfully modify our installation now. The foundation of the Pivotal product is Microsoft SQL Server. Since I have lots of experience with SQL Server, even certified in both Administration and Design, I figured this couldn’t be too difficult. Wrong! The less one knows about SQL the better. This product uses screens to do everything and none resemble writing traditional SQL code. Once you get your mind past that, things start to work.

The weather in Vancouver was a gray overcast and rain every day. The sun did peek out for a very short time Friday afternoon. Never did get a chance to see much of the city. Did manage to find a good bookstore and see some of the underground mall. Everything is very expensive. The exchange rate helps. I do like what I saw and look forward to my next visit. Hopefully next time it will be in the summer months.

Daylight view from our 12th floor hotel room…

We made it. Arrived in Vancouver BC about 3:00 PM there time. It was a very comfortable flight. We flew non-stop on America West. Departed about 40 minutes late because the planes log was incomplete. Don’t know what that was all about, but hey this is America West and you never know what to expect.

Expected very cold weather. However it was a very pleasant 44 degrees F. We are staying at The Georgian Court Hotel downtown Vancouver on Beatty St. I picked this place because the rooms include a complementary high speed internet connection. As it turns out this place is quite nice. Big rooms, nice view, clean and comfortable. The network was a snap to use. After I verified the network worked, we toured the local area around the hotel. We found many interesting place to visit and eat. Sandy of course identified a number of stores she intends to sharpen her shopping skills on.

This is the evening view from our 12th floor hotel room.

Just when you think you got it all planned out, a new wrinkle appears. Friday everything seemed under control. Had plans for dinner with friends, and tickets to Vancouver BC for Sunday. Looking forward to a combination business and pleasure weeklong trip. But wait, hold on…. Mom took a fall and was transported to the local hospital. Now, she has had both hip and back surgery. With this in mind we rushed to the hospital, our plans all cancelled and fearing the worse. Fortunately there is no broken hip or damage to any surgically implanted parts. However, there does appear to be a problem with one of the disks in her back. The prognoses are with just bed rest she will recover. Isn’t life grand?

We have lots (25+) family members in the local area, so the trip to Vancouver is still a go. The flying time is only 3 hours, so if needed we can return quickly.

The business part of this trip entails a week of training on Pivotal. My company purchased Pivotal sales management and my task will be to modify its functionality to support our business needs. It’s a great tool.

Well It’s off to the hospital…

For some reason I have a mental block on the syntax required to get information from the Web.config file in a .Net web application. Its not difficult, you just need to include the System.Configuration name space with a using statement in the header of the C# code behind page. Then you can access any of your configuration values from the static property AppSettings in the ConfigurationSettings class. The AppSettings property is a NameValueCollection. So you can retrieve a particular value using its key.

Example:

---

using System.Configeration;
…
string path = ConfigerationSettings.AppSettings[“NA_PATH”];
…

---

Example web.config file:

---

…
<configuration>
…
<appSettings>
<add key=”NA_PATH” value=”D:\documents\engineering\” />
</appSettings>
</configuration>

---