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'.

Detecting Whether the Application is Already Running

Recently a colegue of mine needed to know how he can determine whether his application is already running in the machine at application start.

Using this post I am going to share the solution with you all, showing how you can determine whether your application is already running in the computer. By detecting this either you can stop starting of the second instance of the application and activate the already running application for the user or you can attempt to close the earlier application and start the new one. If you does not check this then multiple applications might start and the user might complain about the application performance. Also this may cause problems occurring from locked resources.

* Visual Basic (VB)
Using VB you can easily check this by using the App object.
------------------------------------------------------------
If App.PrevInstance = True Then
MsgBox("The program '" & App.EXEName & "'is already running. Please use the running application.")
End
End If
------------------------------------------------------------

* Visual Basic .NET (VB.NET)
Using VB.NET you can do this by using Diagnostics.Process class.
------------------------------------------------------------
If Diagnostics.Process.GetProcessesByName(Diagnostics.Process.GetCurrentProcess().ProcessName).Length > 1 Then
Application.Exit()
End If
------------------------------------------------------------

Microsoft SQL Server Compact 3.5 for Windows Mobile

SQL Server CE 3.5 has been released. According to Microsoft this is having some cool features. Some of them are as follows according to Microsoft.

• Side-by-side installation together with SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition (version 3.1)
• Support for newer and more secure encryption algorithms
• Additional timestamp (rowversion) data type
• Enhanced support for Transact-SQL statements including:

- Nested query in FROM clause
- CROSS APPLY and OUTER APPLY
- CAST and DECIMAL
- SET IDENTITY INSERT
- TOP CLAUSE

To download and learn more visit Microsoft using the following URL.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=38ED2670-A70A-43B3-87F3-7AB67B56CBF2&displaylang=en

First Delivery of Airbus A380

 

Airbus delivered its first Airbus A380 on 15th of October 2007. If anyone of you who is interested have missed the occasion you can have a look at the event by visiting the following web site.

http://www.a380delivery.com/

You can watch many other multimedia content highlighting the development and launch of A380 in the same web site.

Enjoy !!!

Microsoft Flight Simulator X

I got Flight Simulator X (FSX), which is the latest version of Microsoft Flight Simulator line of products. It seems to be really high in detail, also they have improved the liveliness of the artificial world. This version has moving traffic on roads, moving ships in the sea, people are there, birds are flying, push back vehicles are there. Also they have improved the virtual cockpit a lot. Only problem is, to support all these you need a good machine with high powered processor and a good graphics card.

My earlier graphics card doesn't seems to be much comfortable with FSX, so had to buy a new graphics card as well.

But it seems to me FSX is a really good game to go for if you are a flight enthusiastic like me.

Also I am planning to start again creating some fun stuff for FSX as I did some years back for FS2004.

Visit the official web site and find out more.

http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimulatorx/

There is also a trial version available from Microsoft at the following location.

http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimulatorx/downloads.html

Microsoft HealthVault

Microsoft HealthVault is an online service which you can use to collect, store, and share the health information critical to your family's well-being.

Above all this service is provided free by Microsoft.

Try it out by paying a visit to Microsoft.
http://search.healthvault.com/hvindex.htm?rmproc=true

Executing .NET Applications Located on a Remote Location

Have you tried executing an application which is on a remote machine from yours. Think it like this, you have an application written in .NET (any version) and two users are there who are willing to use the application using there machines. (Please note that in this secnario all the machines are in the same network.)

The normal process is to setup your application on both machines and tell them to use. But the problem is that you are not yet finished development so constatly there will be updates to the application. So if you install in two machines, all the time you change the application you have to install the new version in both machines. (This is ok as you think because it is only two machines, but think is there are 50 users using in 50 machines.)

In this kind of a scenario, installing the application in one machine and sharing it and making the other user access the same installation can ease your life. Isn't it?

If you just try running the application from the remote location, application might not work correctly. This is because you have to set a code group for the remote application in the local machine. Then only the local .NET classes will be accessible without problem to the remote application. To configure the things follow the points.

1. Install your required application in one machine and share the application folder if possible. (It doesn't really matter whether it is shared or not. What matters is the accessibility to the folder.) Run the application from the installed machine first to make sure the application is working properly in the local environment.

2. Install the required .NET framework on all the client (user) machines. (In my scenario above, in both uiser machines.) This is because the application is actually ran on the users machine even though it is located on a remote machine.

3. Browse to the application installation folder from a client (user) machine.
Get the 'Run' window by clicking on Start -> Run. Type the machine name or IP address of the machine where your application is installed (Note that my application resides in the machine having the IP 192.168.1.165 in my LAN).If the login criteria is asked, enter them and login. It is ok even if you use the 'Guest' account to log into the system if you have access to the shared application by the guest.
4. Open the .NET Configuration window by clicking on Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Microsoft .NET Framework x.x Configuration.

5. Expand the 'Runtime Security Policy' node from the left hand pane. Then expand the 'Enterprise' node and finally 'Code Groups' node. Then right click on 'All_Code' and click on New....

6. Specify a Name and Description for the code group and click Next.

7. Choose the condition type of the code group as 'URL'. In the underneath URL text box type the path to the remote application folder and put a backslash and an asterisk . In my case I typed file://192.168.1.165/Bin/* (The asterisk is used to include all the items under the folder Bin into the code group that we are creating). Then press Next.

8. From the list of existing permission sets select 'LocalIntranet' and click Next. Then click Finish in the next screen to finish and setup the new code group.

9. Now the code group is created for our remote application. But to make the application really run you have to change one property in the Code Group Properties. Continue by right clicking on the new code group that we created named 'My Code Group' and selecting 'Properties'. 10. In the code group properties, check the 'Policy levels below this level will not be evaluated' check box and press 'Ok' to apply the setting.

11. Close the open .NET Configuration windows and launch the application from the share.

If any specific functionality or if the entire application is not working please contact me, I might be able to help you out of the problem.