Saturday, June 19, 2010

Water World Kelaniya – Sri Lanka

Recently we went a trip to an aquarium which is located at Kelaniya Sri Lanka. They have named it Water World and claims that they have the largest collection of fish in South Asia.

Mainly they have 2 sections one for birds and the other for fish. If you are going to watch bird park then you need to buy a ticket of Srilankan rupees 70, if you are going for the fish section then the ticket would be 150 Srilankan rupees. You can also contact them if required by using the telephone number +94 11 5555433.

Following are some photos I took on my visit and as I feel they have some rare species on display.

Update

To help the people who whould like to visit Water World I thought to share their new phone number with the address.

Telephone -
+94 11 5555434

Address -
Water World Lanka Pvt. Ltd.,
No: 95, Biyagama Road,
Thalwatta,
Kelaniya,
Sri Lanka.

Location -


View Larger Map

Tech-Ed 2010 – Sri Lanka

In February 2010 Microsoft held Tech-Ed 2010 and we (IronOne) were the silver sponsors for the event.

It was a good event which attracted many of my friends which I didn’t meet for a long time.

In appreciation to the sponsorship Microsoft sent us a thank you cake as well. Looks delicious right?

 

Friday, June 18, 2010

Creating Rounded Corners

When designing web sites it always looks nicer if you could round the sharp corners, for example see below, what looks nicer to you?

Sharp Corners

Rounded Corners

My feeling is the rounded corners are better looking than the normal one. But the problem is, there is no easy way to create this. You need some Cascade Style Sheet (CSS) knowledge to do this. The easy way to round the required corners is to use the following code.





  1. <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
  2. <head runat="server">
  3.     <title></title>
  4.     <style type="text/css">
  5.         .CornerTopLeft
  6.         {
  7.             float: right;
  8.             width: 100%;
  9.             margin-top: 10px;
  10.             background: url(../Images/TopLeft.png) 0 0 no-repeat rgb(237,28,36);
  11.             border: 1px double #f1f1f1;
  12.         }
  13.         .CornerTopRight
  14.         {
  15.             float: right;
  16.             width: 100%;
  17.             background: url(../Images/TopRight.png) 100% 0 no-repeat;
  18.         }
  19.         .CornerBottomLeft
  20.         {
  21.             float: right;
  22.             width: 100%;
  23.             background: url(../Images/BottomLeft.png) 0 100% no-repeat;
  24.             height: 100%;
  25.         }
  26.         .CornerBottomRight
  27.         {
  28.             float: right;
  29.             width: 100%;
  30.             background: url(../Images/BottomRight.png) 100% 100% no-repeat;
  31.         }
  32.         div#Content
  33.         {
  34.             margin: 15px;
  35.         }
  36.     </style>
  37. </head>
  38. <body bgcolor="rgb(232,232,232)">
  39.     <form id="form1" runat="server">
  40.     <div class="CornerTopLeft">
  41.         <div class="CornerTopRight">
  42.             <div class="CornerBottomLeft">
  43.                 <div class="CornerBottomRight">
  44.                     <div id="Content">
  45.                         Your content here.....
  46.                         <asp:TextBox ID="TextBox1" runat="server"></asp:TextBox>
  47.                         <asp:Button ID="Button1" runat="server" Text="Button" />
  48.                     </div>
  49.                 </div>
  50.             </div>
  51.         </div>
  52.     </div>
  53.     </form>
  54. </body>
  55. </html>




The above code is self explanatory so I didn’t put any comments there. To make it work you need the following 4 images placed on your Images directory.

TopLeft.png –

TopRight.png –

BottomLeft.png –

BottomRight.png –

If I am to explain the code, the corners are curved by using 4 different DIVs and placing the above images on them. For example the following DIVs does the trick.

<div class="CornerTopLeft">
<div class="CornerTopRight">
<div class="CornerBottomLeft">
<div class="CornerBottomRight">





  1. <div class="CornerTopLeft">
  2.         <div class="CornerTopRight">
  3.             <div class="CornerBottomLeft">
  4.                 <div class="CornerBottomRight">
  5.                     <div id="Content">
  6.                         Your content here.....
  7.                         <asp:TextBox ID="TextBox1" runat="server"></asp:TextBox>
  8.                         <asp:Button ID="Button1" runat="server" Text="Button" />
  9.                     </div>
  10.                 </div>
  11.             </div>
  12.         </div>
  13.     </div>




The content you need to put in the middle should be wrapped by these DIVs. In the above code I used another DIV for placing content having the ID Content.

Inserting curved images to the corners of the DIVs are done by using a style per DIV. The CSS classes which are used to change these DIVs are as of below.





  1. <style type="text/css">
  2.         .CornerTopLeft
  3.         {
  4.             float: right;
  5.             width: 100%;
  6.             margin-top: 10px;
  7.             background: url(../Images/TopLeft.png) 0 0 no-repeat rgb(237,28,36);
  8.             border: 1px double #f1f1f1;
  9.         }
  10.         .CornerTopRight
  11.         {
  12.             float: right;
  13.             width: 100%;
  14.             background: url(../Images/TopRight.png) 100% 0 no-repeat;
  15.         }
  16.         .CornerBottomLeft
  17.         {
  18.             float: right;
  19.             width: 100%;
  20.             background: url(../Images/BottomLeft.png) 0 100% no-repeat;
  21.             height: 100%;
  22.         }
  23.         .CornerBottomRight
  24.         {
  25.             float: right;
  26.             width: 100%;
  27.             background: url(../Images/BottomRight.png) 100% 100% no-repeat;
  28.         }
  29.         div#Content
  30.         {
  31.             margin: 15px;
  32.         }
  33.     </style>




The filling of the required area is done by assiging a color at the background tag in CornerTopLeft style which will be applied to CornerTopLeft DIV.

background: url(../Images/TopLeft.png) 0 0 no-repeat rgb(237,28,36);

Note the last div#Content which was placed to style the Content DIV making the contents placed centered so the final output will be nicer.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Sharing Screen with Multiple People

As you might know the new Skype allows us to share our desktop to another contact by only using Skype. Best things are it is free and we can share through internet. But this has a limitation which is you cannot share the screen with multiple contacts.

To overcome this I happen to find this nice Skype add-on named InnerPass Share and Collaborate which enable us to share our desktop with many people at once freely.

To get it installed go to Skype Extras Manager by clicking Tools –> Extras –> Get Extras.

Type InnerPass on the top left search box and press search.

Then on the left search results select the InnerPass Share and Collaborate add-on and install.

After installing you can launch InnerPass by clicking Tools –> Extras –> InnerPass Share and Collaborate. This will bring you a screen similar to the following.

You can click Get Started button to create your free InnerPass account and start using the features offered by InnerPass.

Some of the features are,

  • Managing meeting rooms.
  • Add contacts from other sources like Yahoo, Gmail, etc.
  • Schedule meetings.
  • Attend meetings.
  • Host meetings.
  • Sharing your screen.
  • Viewing others’ screens.
  • Share documents.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Selecting a Row in ASPxGridView

I found that with the flood of new possibilities with DevExpress grid view a simple functionality of selecting one row is bit hidden. After doing bit of searching in the internet I found the way and thought to share it.

The way we need to do this is by using a java script and bind that in to the RowClick event of the grid.

The java script will look like the following.

<script type="text/javascript">
        function OnRowClick(e) {
            //Unselect all rows
            dxgdSearch._selectAllRowsOnPage(false);
            //Select the row
            dxgdSearch.SelectRow(e.visibleIndex, true);
        }
</script>

Then the binding to the RowClick would be as below.

<ClientSideEvents RowClick="function(s, e) { OnRowClick(e); }"></ClientSideEvents>

The outcome of this is a grid which you can select a row.

The value of the selected row can be taken as below.

dxgdSearch.GetRowValues(dxgdSearch.FocusedRowIndex, "Customer_ID")

For example in my application I used to pass the Customer Id to the Customer.aspx form as below.

 
 


  1. Response.Redirect("~/Customer.aspx?cusID= " + dxgdSearch.GetRowValues(dxgdSearch.FocusedRowIndex, "Customer_ID"));


 

The full source is as of below.

Page.aspx

 
 


  1. <asp:Content ID="Content4" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainContent" runat="server">
  2.     <script type="text/javascript">
  3.         function OnRowClick(e) {
  4.             //Unselect all rows
  5.             dxgdSearch._selectAllRowsOnPage(false);
  6.             //Select the row
  7.             dxgdSearch.SelectRow(e.visibleIndex, true);
  8.         }
  9.     </script>
  10.     <dx:ASPxGridView ID="dxgdSearch" ClientInstanceName="dxgdSearch" runat="server" AutoGenerateColumns="False"
  11.         SettingsBehavior-AllowFocusedRow="True" SettingsBehavior-AllowMultiSelection="False">
  12.         <ClientSideEvents RowClick="function(s, e) { OnRowClick(e); }"></ClientSideEvents>
  13.         <Columns>
  14.             <dx:GridViewDataTextColumn Name="Id" ShowInCustomizationForm="True" VisibleIndex="1"
  15.                 Caption="Customer ID" FieldName="Customer_ID" Visible="False">
  16.             </dx:GridViewDataTextColumn>
  17.             <dx:GridViewDataTextColumn Name="Name" ShowInCustomizationForm="True" VisibleIndex="0"
  18.                 Caption="Name" FieldName="Full_Name">
  19.             </dx:GridViewDataTextColumn>
  20.             <dx:GridViewDataTextColumn Name="TelephoneNo" ShowInCustomizationForm="True" VisibleIndex="1"
  21.                 Caption="Tele. No." FieldName="Mobile_Number">
  22.             </dx:GridViewDataTextColumn>
  23.             <dx:GridViewDataTextColumn Name="EMail" ShowInCustomizationForm="True" VisibleIndex="2"
  24.                 Caption="EMail" FieldName="Email">
  25.             </dx:GridViewDataTextColumn>
  26.             <dx:GridViewDataHyperLinkColumn Name="Select" VisibleIndex="3">
  27.                 <DataItemTemplate>
  28.                     <asp:Button ID="Button1" runat="server" CommandArgument='<%# Eval("Customer_ID") %>'
  29.                         OnClick="Button1_Click" Text="Edit" />
  30.                 </DataItemTemplate>
  31.             </dx:GridViewDataHyperLinkColumn>
  32.         </Columns>
  33.         <SettingsBehavior AllowFocusedRow="True"></SettingsBehavior>
  34.         <Settings ShowGroupPanel="True" ShowFilterRow="True" />
  35.         <Settings ShowFilterRow="True" ShowGroupPanel="True"></Settings>
  36.     </dx:ASPxGridView>
  37. </asp:Content>


Page.aspx.cs

 
 


  1. protected void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
  2. {
  3.     Response.Redirect("~/Customer.aspx?cusID= " + dxgdSearch.GetRowValues(dxgdSearch.FocusedRowIndex, "Customer_ID"));
  4. }


iPhone 4

If you are a iPhone lover then your next dream is in stores.

Apple had released iPhone 4 with many improvements.

Go and have look into it at Apple.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Unable to start debugging on the web server

Recently a set of developers who are working in one of my projects started getting an error while trying to debug the web application under development using ASP.Net. The targeted framework was .Net 4.0 and they were using Visual Studio 2010 in 64bit machines. The problem was whenever they tried to run/debug the application they gets an error saying unable to start debugging on the web server even though there are no compile errors as shown below.

image

It gave an error HTTP Error 500.21 - Internal Server Error Handler "PageHandlerFactory-Integrated" has a bad module "ManagedPipelineHandler" in its module list when ran direct from IIS. The error page is shown below.

image_thumb[1]

Later I found the reason for this is ASP.Net 4 was not properly installed on the machine. To fix this get an administrative privileged command prompt.

image

Then type in the following,

aspnet_regiis -ir

You can find the aspnet_regiis.exe at the folder,

[Windows Dir]\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.xxxxx

for example,

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319

This will register ASP.Net 4.0 in your machine, the -ir option will keep the existing applications unchanged. If you want them to be changed to use the new version use -i instead -ir.

When the installer ends type iisreset to restart the IIS service.

image

Now your applications will work fine without any complains.