Implementing a File Download in ASP.NET

Recently I gave some help to a colleague of mine implementing a file download. So I thought of sharing it with you.
If you need to make a web site user to download a file from your site you have to use HTTPResponse.Page.Response object. By using this you will be able to make the user download numerous kinds of files to their machines. The code required is as follows.

// This defines the type of the file that you are allowing to download.
Response.ContentType = "application/vnd.ms-excel";
// Path to the file to be downloaded.
string FilePath = MapPath("Xcel.xlsx");
// Initiating the file download.
Response.WriteFile(FilePath);
Response.End();

The above code will let the user download an Excel file named Xcel. Aprt from Excel you can use other file types as well by changin the Response.ContentType to the required file type.
A list of available content types are as follows.

SQL Server Native Client Cannot be Found

Recently when I try to install SQL Server 2005 I got the following error saying that Microsoft SQL Server Native Client cannot be found. A screen shot of the error is as follows.This error is due if the SQL Server Native Client is already installed using a different edition of SQL Server.
The resolution for this is to uninstall all the SQL related stuff (specially SQL Native Client) which are installed in the computer and try the SQL installation again after doing a system restart.

Creating a Crossover Cable

A crossover cable is a special cable we use when we needs to connect two computers together directly. But the thing is when creating the crossover cable you have to create it properly. As of the name suggests we have to cross some cables when clipping the network cable.

The following image will show how to do the cross.

If you have additional time you can visit the following site which is a good site explaining different color code standards.
http://www.patraswireless.net/tutorial/basic%20tutorial/tut-equipemt/cable_utp.htm

If you already have an existing network cable and if you would like to make it a crossover cable, the following site will be useful since there you can change the wires (by changing the color drop down controls) as it is clipped in one end and can find out the way the other end needs to be clipped.

http://www.davidj.org/tools/cabler/cabler.html

Configuring Usage Reporting in SharePoint

SharePoint has a nice feature to trace the activity happening around the site. This is called Usage Reporting. Initially this is been disabled in SharePoint. To use it first you needs to enable this from several levels as follows.
1. Enable Usage Reporting from Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) level.
2. Enable Usage Reporting from Microsoft Office SharePoint Services (MOSS) level.
3. Activate Usage Reporting.
4. View Usage Reports.

1. Enable Usage Reporting from Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) level.
1)On the Central Administration home page, click Operations.
2)On the Operations page, in the Logging and Reporting section, click Usage analysis processing.
3)On the Usage Analysis Processing page, in the Logging Settings section, select Enable logging.
4)Keep the default or type a log file location and number of log files to create.
5)In the Processing Settings section, select Enable usage analysis processing, and then select a time to run usage processing.
6)Click OK.

Now we have to enable in MOSS.
2. Enable Usage Reporting from Microsoft Office SharePoint Services (MOSS) level.
1)On the Shared Services Provider (SSP) home page, in the Office SharePoint Usage Reporting section, click Usage reporting.
2)On the Configure Advanced Usage Analysis Processing page, in the Processing Settings section, click Enable advanced usage analysis processing.
3)In the Search Query Logging section, select Enable search query logging.
4)Click OK.

3. Now Activate Usage Reporting.
1)On the Site Actions menu, click Site Settings.
2)On the Site Settings page, in the Site Collection Administration section, click Site collection features.
3)On the Site Collection Features page, click the Activate button for the Reporting feature.

Now everything done. You just have to wait and see the reports when they are available.
Reports can be viewed in several places,
1)Site administrators, including administrators of the SSP administration site, can view usage reporting for their site by clicking Site usage reports in the Site Administration section of the Site Settings page.
2)Site collection administrators can view usage reporting by clicking Site collection usage reports in the Site Collection Administration section of the Site Settings page.
3)Site collection administrators for the SSP administration site can view a usage summary by clicking Usage summary in the Site Collection Administration section of the Site Settings page.
4)SSP administrators for search can view search usage reports by clicking Search usage reports in the Search section of the SSP home page.

If you would like you can go through the Microsoft TechNet site which I too referred by visiting the following link.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262541(TechNet.10).aspx

SoftLogic -> IronOne Technologies

I thought to get a bit of a change in my Carrier. So thought of leaving SoftLogic and joining IronOne Technologies.
Goodbye my SoftLogic friends, Please keep in touch.

Know More On Finding Stuff

Recently I came up to see an article showing how you can improve the searching capabilities while using Google. It is more towards finding things on your GMail. But definitely you will be able to use some of the skills you get on Google search as well.
Thought it would be helpful to you.
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/how-to-find-any-email-with-gmail-search.html

Getting Time part only from SQL DateTime Value

Have you tried getting the time value only from a SQL DateTime value?

I have seen many people struggling with datetime fields in their programming life. Some people face problems getting the date only from datetime field. If you are one who is struggling please read my article on April 2007.

In this article I would like to mention how you can get the time only from a datetime value.

SELECT CAST(CAST(GETDATE() AS FLOAT) - FLOOR(CAST(GETDATE() AS FLOAT)) AS DATETIME)

Here what I am doing is simply casting the datetime value returned by GETDATE() into FLOAT then I am substracting the full value (value without the fractions) from that. So I will get the fraction part of the float value.

Note that when you cast a datetime value to a float, the full part represents the date and the fraction part represents the time.

2008-01-18 18:22:15.640
39463.7654587963

Then I will cast the result back to the datetime which brings me the time.

This method of casting datetime value to a float value is always handy when working with datetime values.

Inserting a Double Quote in to a String in .NET

Even though this is not new I do forget this always, so thought of putting an entry on how we can put a double quote inside of a string.

VB.NET
Dim str As String = "Example String " & """" & "This is the String with double quotes." & """"
MessageBox.Show(str)

In VB.Net you can indicate that there is a double quote in a string by using 4 double quotes ("""").

C#.NET
string str = "Example String " + "\"" + "This is the String with double quotes." + "\"";
MessageBox.Show(str);

As you will notice in C# the double quote can be represented as double quote, back slash and again using two double quotes ("\"").

The above string will be displayed as follows.

Microsoft Office Mobile 6.1

Microsoft has released Office Mobile 6.1. This is an upgrade to earlier versions of Office Mobile. This version will enable opening Office 2007 files in mobiles (Open XML formatted files).
Additionally it will have the following features,

• Enhanced viewing experience for charts in Excel Mobile.
• Ability to view SmartArt in PowerPoint Mobile.
• Ability to view and extract files from compressed (.zip) folders.
as Microsoft has quoted.

Download it from Microsoft using the following link.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=4b106c1f-51e2-42f0-ba32-69bb7e9a3814&displaylang=en&tm

Try Your Flying Skills

If you would like to have fun flying aircraft's check the link below to get access flying either of Bombardier Dash 8 Q400, Boeing 737-400 or the giant in the skies Airbus A380.

http://www.creativesql.co.uk/flightgame

See how many miles that you can fly :-).
Happy Flying.

KITT is Back

Can you remember Knight Rider? An indestructible Black car which drives itself. It was then called Knight Industries Two Thousand (KITT).

It seems that they are going to bring back KITT to life again in TVs. This time also it will be known as KITT (Knight Industries Three Thousand). The new three thousand model will have abilities like changing colour and size. Also this will have more Artificial Intelligence (AI) making KITT the ultimate car for fighting against crime.

If everything goes smoothly new KITT will start dominating television from first quarter of 2008.

Read more at,

http://editorial.carsales.com.au/car-review/2871278.aspx

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/34497

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117972829.html?categoryid=14&cs=1

Adding an existing Dataset to a project - VS.NET 2003

Did you try adding an existing typed dataset to a project in Visual Studio 2003?

If you did then you may have noted that it will only add the files having the extensions .xsd (designer file) and .xsx (resource file) to the project, it will not add the .vb (class file). As a result you will not be able to use the added dataset. Also if anyone tries to add the class file again manually then it will be there as a separate class. Even though this works fine it will be misleading at a latter stage of the projects life. (In the following image you can see the 'dsDataset1.vb' file separately.)

Normally this 'dsDataset1.vb' file should come under 'dsDataset1.xsd'.

To get the dataset class file recreated in the correct location,

• First open the dataset designer using Visual Studio (double click on the dataset).
• Then right click on the dataset designer and select the 'Generate Dataset' menu option.

Now you will see the class ('dsDataset1.vb') file nicely located under 'dsDataset1.xsd'.