TechEd Australia – Videos

As you might know TechEd Australia ended few weeks back. I am sure lot of you might not have the chance to visit it. The good thing is you can watch the recorded sessions online now by visiting the following site.

http://channel9.msdn.com/events/teched/australia/tech-ed-australia-2011

I think this will be mostly useful to people who didn’t visit TechEd and also to people who visited it to refresh their minds.

Installing a Telephone Connector

In the current place I am living I didn’t have a telephone connection, when I applied for a connection and got the connection I found that some of the line wiring and connectors are out of shape. So I had to replace some items and rewire. When doing it I faced few issues since the connector was a legacy connector. So I thought to put an article on how to correctly get it done.

The connector I found in my place is the old Australian connector which is sometimes named as legacy Australian connector or 610 socket. Following are some images to correctly identify it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

To get it correctly fitted first you need to identify your correct wire pairs, luckily in mine only one pair was working (meaning only one line was present). So I just used my multi meter to find the correct wire pair. Since phone wires will have DC current remember to put your multi meter into DC mode before measuring. Also note that phone lines may conduct 24v-50v DC current normally. When ringing this will change to 75v-90v AC.

IMPORTANT - If you touch them directly you might get an electric shock even though it is not deadly so always make sure you are wearing gloves or adequate footwear since if you do not like to get shocked.

Even though the old phone cables only had 4 wires the new ones are having more. Sometimes this can even be 50. When there are more wires it means that the wire can be used to connect more lines. For example a cable with 4 wires can be used for 2 lines. A cable with 16 wires can transmit 8 phone lines. To identify the pairs correctly phone wires inside a cable are color coded. Since I am not an expert in this area I will only talk about 6 wired cables. The following will be helpful to find the correct wire pairs for you.

• Pair 1 ring (Blue) 6
• Pair 1 tip (White) 2
• Pair 2 ring (Black) 1
• Pair 2 tip (Red) 5
• Pair 3 ring (Green) 3
• Pair 3 tip (Orange) 4

Now you may be wondering few things, wait I will try to explain.

In the above cable since it has 6 wires it can accommodate 3 phone lines or pairs. For example first pair is White and Blue wires, second pair is Black and Red wires and third pair is Green and Orange wires.

The words ring and tip are like live and neutral or + and –. Ring is battery negative and tip is ground. Since some answering machines do need these correctly hooked in it is always good to connect them correctly to get the ultimate from your equipment.

The last digit in Black represent the place the wire should be connected in the phone socket. To explain this more I will use the following picture I took on 610 socket after removing its cover.

If you closely look into the socket you will see there are numbers from 1 to 6 (sorry they are not visible in the image) marking the pins. The numbering starts from right to left in the image. So the Red wire in the image is connected to pin 1 and Blue wire is connected to pin 6.

After identifying the pins in the socket and wire pairs the next step is to correctly connect them. You just need to connect the pairs as per the last digit shown in the bulleted list above. If you correctly got it it should end up like this.

From right to left on the socket.

• Pair 2 ring (Black) – Pin 1
• Pair 1 tip (White) – Pin 2
• Pair 3 ring (Green) – Pin 3
• Pair 3 tip (Orange) – Pin 4
• Pair 2 tip (Red) – Pin 5
• Pair 1 ring (Blue) – Pin 6

Then replace the socket cover and plug in the compatible plug (605) into the socket.

As you see in my plug only four contacts are there meaning I only can use 2 phone lines (pairs), but since I only have one line this is not an issue to me. So make sure to find the correct plug if you are trying to utilize all 3 pairs.

I know there must be many unanswered questions. Even though I am not an expert on this area let me know if you face any problems, I will try to help you.

Comparing Content Management Systems

Recently I needed to compare the features of different Content Management Systems (CMS) and came up to the following site which has a huge list of Systems with the ability to compare their features.

http://www.cmsmatrix.org/

Came Back to Australia

Since last May I was back in Australia with my wife, so didn’t had a chance to update my site for a long time. This time I will be staying in Adelaide for long.

Thought to share some pictures I took on my way here through Singapore.

Following are some photos I took while we were in some indoor gardens at Singapore Airport.

Some photos I captured while we were in Singapore City.

Even though this was my second time in Singapore I will never be bored being in Singapore due to vast variety of facilities Changi airport is providing.

In flight to Adelaide, Australia on Singapore Airlines Airbus A330.

Database Not Accessible

Recently after restoring a database backup which I got from another server I repeatedly encountered an error when logged in using a user who is given permission. But when ‘sa’ account is used I could work with the database without any problem.

The error message was “The database DATABASE NAME is not accessible. (ObjectExplorer)” which was not helpful since it didn’t give any clue to figure out the issue.

Later I found that the issue is because the user in the restored database is not properly mapped to the user in the new server and the resolution for this is to run the stored procedure sp_change_users_login to correct the orphaned user.

• sp_change_users_login 'update_one', 'USER', 'LOGIN' – Links the given user in the current database to the specified login.
• sp_change_users_login 'auto_fix', 'USER' – Links the given user in the current database to the login having the same name in the current server.

After running this you will be able to access the restored database without any issue using the mentioned database user.

SharePoint 2010 Videos

Thought to share few sites I found which might help you start development on SharePoint 2010.

Official Microsoft SharePoint Site

Getting started developing on SharePoint

SharePoint Resources for Developers – This has links to many SharePoint learning videos

Using SharePoint 2010

Hope these helps.

Menu Overlapping with Report

If you had lengthier menus in you ASP.Net application and had used report viewer control you may have faced the problem of report and menu overlapping when ever the report is loaded with data. For example in my sample application it appeared as below.

To correct this behavior you need to set the z-index for menu and report viewer using CSS class property. For this I have used the following CSS classes in the Style.CSS.

1. /* CSS Class for the Menu. */
2. div.menu
3. {
4.     padding: 4px 0px 4px 8px;
5. }
6.  
7. /* CSS Class for a Menu Item. */
8. div.menu ul
9. {
10.     list-style: none;
11.     margin: 0px;
12.     padding: 0px;
13.     width: auto;
14.     z-index: 1; /* Setting the control to appear on top of level 0 controls for e.g. report viewer. */
15. }
16.  
17. /* CSS Class for the Report Viewer. */
18. .report
19. {
20.     z-index: 0; /* Setting the control to appear below the level 1 controls for e.g. menu items. */
21. }

To apply the CSS use a code similar to following.

Appling CSS Class to menu in master page.

1. <asp:Menu ID="NavigationMenu" runat="server" CssClass="menu"
2. EnableViewState="false" IncludeStyleBlock="false" Orientation="Horizontal">
3.     <Items>
4.         <asp:MenuItem NavigateUrl="~/Default.aspx" Text="Home"/>
5.         <asp:MenuItem NavigateUrl="~/About.aspx" Text="About"/>
6.         <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item">
7.             <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item"></asp:MenuItem>
8.             <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item"></asp:MenuItem>
9.             <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item"></asp:MenuItem>
10.             <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item"></asp:MenuItem>
11.             <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item"></asp:MenuItem>
12.             <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item"></asp:MenuItem>
13.             <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item"></asp:MenuItem>
14.             <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item"></asp:MenuItem>
15.             <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item"></asp:MenuItem>
16.         </asp:MenuItem>
17.         <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item">
18.             <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item"></asp:MenuItem>
19.             <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item"></asp:MenuItem>
20.             <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item"></asp:MenuItem>
21.         </asp:MenuItem>
22.         <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item"></asp:MenuItem>
23.         <asp:MenuItem Text="New Item" Value="New Item"></asp:MenuItem>
24.     </Items>
25. </asp:Menu>

Appling CSS Class to report viewer.

1. <rsweb:ReportViewer ID="ReportViewer1" runat="server" Font-Names="Verdana" CssClass="report"
2.     Font-Size="8pt" InteractiveDeviceInfos="(Collection)" WaitMessageFont-Names="Verdana"
3.     WaitMessageFont-Size="14pt" Width="636px">
4.     <LocalReport ReportPath="Report1.rdlc">
5.         <DataSources>
6.             <rsweb:ReportDataSource DataSourceId="ObjectDataSource1" Name="DataSet1" />
7.         </DataSources>
8.     </LocalReport>
9. </rsweb:ReportViewer>

 

This will correct the overlapping issue as seen below.

Amazing Craft Shop Benthota – Sri Lanka

Recently when I visit my home town Benthota I happen to step into a craft shop on the way to my home thinking to buy a wooden model of an elephant. Before stepping into the shop it was appeared to me as a shop having a huge collection of animal models but I felt I am wrong after entering into the shop.

The collection was larger than I imagined, it had almost all the craft items you can possibly buy in Sri Lanka. To name some it had many different god statues, animal models, traditional masks, resting chairs, wall hangers, leather items, hand bags, shoes, African masks, etc… Since the list may go on for some time I thought to put some pictures I took of the place to give you an idea.

Amazing Craft Shop - Benthota VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

If you are a tourist visiting Sri Lanka or if you are a Sri Lankan searching for handi/crafts I recommend you to visit this shop. You can find this shop besides the road when you are travelling from Benthota to Yathramulla.

If you need any help finding the place or buying these stuff let me know, I might be able to help you.

Saman Villas Benthota – Sri Lanka

If you are in Sri Lanka there are many places that you should visit, among them one very good and different hotel that I recommend is Saman Vilas Benthota.

Even though a friend told me that it is an amazing hotel I didn’t think that it would be such a great place until I went there. Because of its shear beauty I thought to put a post on that amazing hotel.

It is different because it will not provide you rooms but it will provide private villas for your comfort. Some of them are even having private swimming pools as well. Among the many other goodies you will get there, one thing is that you can wake up into the rising sun from your villa with a great view of the ocean. Also the food is very tasty and the presentation is also very attractive. Another specialty of the hotel is that the kitchen staff is working all 24 hours for you. If you need to have a late dinner at about 1:00 AM they are very happy to cater you without any extra payments and you only needs to ask the friendly staff.

If you would like to relax your body the best place is to go to their spa, you will be entitled to a 15 minutes free massage. If interested you can also use their library as well.

Before putting pictures I should say that it is having very nice views which are worth experiencing. No need to explain more since the following pictures that I took will prove my fact.

Saman Villas – Benthota VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Contact them to get more details.

Hotel

Aturuwella, Benthota. Sri Lanka
Tel: +94 34 2275435, +94 34 4936200.
Fax: +94 34 2275433, +94 34 4287063.
resv@samanvilla.com

Head Office

90 Gothami Road, Colombo 08. Sri Lanka
Tel: +94 11 4866515, +94 11 2679562.
Fax: +94 11 4611049.
resv_samanvil@sltnet.lk

http://www.samanvilla.com/

How to Allow Simple Passwords for Domain Users

Even though it is always better to use complex passwords, you may get a requirement to allow users to have simple passwords. To allow domain users to use simple passwords you need to modify the domain policy. In my following post I am using a Windows 2008 R2 machine.

1. Start Group Policy Management by clicking Start –> Administrative Tools –> Group Policy Management in your domain server or type gpmc.msc on the run window.

2. In the group policy management expand the forest node and then the domain node. By then you will see the domains available. Expand the domain you want the setting changed and right click on the Default Domain Policy item and select Edit. This will bring the Group Policy Management Editor.

3. In the Group Policy Management Editor find the policy ‘Password must meet complexity requirements.’ by expanding Computer Configuration –> Policies –> Windows Settings –> Security Settings –> Account Policies and selecting Password Policy. Then right click and get the properties of the policy.

4. To disable complex passwords select the Disabled radio button and click Apply.

5. To check whether the setting is really applied you can close the Group Policy Management Editor and check the settings tab at Group Policy Management.

My Wedding and Home Coming

Even though it is sometime after my wedding, I didn’t had a chance to blog about it, and suddenly thought to put a post with some pictures of that fabulous day of my life.

Wedding Day

Poruwa Ceremony

Our Wedding Cake

Parents and Us

Home Coming Day