Ramblings of a c# developer

That's funny

2008-01-30T23:29:00.000Z

I had to chuckle today, I was searching for a link someone told me existed for TaskClerk and stumbled across a whole lot of sites stating they had cracked TaskClerk. What! I exclaimed - its free you wallies what are you trying to crack?

My guidance to would be users is -> Download it from an official site, its quicker and very free!

TaskClerk Version 107

2007-12-15T13:45:00.000Z

Version 107 of TaskClerk has shipped. This version contains some bug fixes and was compiled under Visual studio 2008 - The framework has not been upgraded but work has started on the WPF version and some enterprise features, thanks to the efforts of my friends.

Download at http://www.taskclerk.com/downloads.ashx

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Enjoy!

Version 106 of TaskClerk

2007-07-01T22:25:00.000Z

A new version of TaskClerk has been shipped. This version contains an updated printing dialog and some improved UI usability features.

Enjoy!

Looks like success.

2007-05-29T19:31:00.000Z

Over the last few months TaskClerk has been downloaded well over 300 times from software sites all over the world. I thought I would note down its progress to help me when I reminisce one day. Some facts about the TaskClerk web site.

46 web pages on the site: Target for next year this time 150
2287 visits: Target for next year this time 10000
8,425 page views: Target for next year this time 50000
411 cities: Target for next year this time 1000
315 downloads: Target for next year this time 2000
10 comments by community: Target for next year this time 500

The only one that I think will be a stretch is the “comments by community”, the product does not provoke a reaction that warrants contacting the developers, most of us just don’t behave that way – so thanks to those who do comment, you fundamentally change the shape of the applications you comment on for the better.

Strategy as a process

2007-05-19T21:32:00.000Z

My next course is Strategy and this diagram best portrays "strategy as a process" and the fundamental building blocks I will have to understand for the exam in October!

This is going to be hard work! One aspect that I wrestled with during the tutorial today was operational and strategic thinking. Sometimes I have mistaken my operational thinking as a type of stategy.
"Operational thinking relates to those activities or sets of activities that characterise the internal functioning of an organisation on a day-to-day basis. Examples of such activities include procedures to control quality of input and output, systems for handling customer complaints, techniques for minimising costs or cycle time, systems for managing recruitment or performance-related rewards and so on"
"Strategic thinking, by contrast, considers the performance of such systems and activities in their entirety." - OU Business School, What is Strategy, pg18

The effects of multitasking someones time.

2007-05-03T22:03:00.000Z

Here is the basic effect of multitasking someones time, all but the last work stream is late. This concept does not take into account the increased marshaling between task types so this means the last work stream is also invariably late.

The top row shows 3 plans following a sequential pattern, the second row shows an interleaved pattern and P1b (the end of P1) completes the same time as the original P2 plan etc.

New Version of TaskClerk

2007-05-02T00:33:00.000Z

A new version of TaskClerk has been shipped. Version 1.0.1.104 contains a new iCal exporter that can be used to add calendar information to both Outlook and Google calendar.

Formal Public Identifiers (FPIs)

2007-04-03T21:25:00.000Z

I came across this identifier whilst creating an iCal exporter for TaskClerk.

An FPI has the following syntax.

"+-//Owner//Keywords Description//Language"

The + denotes a registered owner and the - denotes unregistered owner.

The Owner is the company name like Google or BritishMicro; it can also be ISO or ISBN.

The Keywords indicate the type of information the FPI refers to. Some common keywords are DTD, ELEMENT, ENTITIES, and TEXT.

The Description provides an area in the FPI where you can provide extra detail like a version or format.

The Language is a two character ISO language code. EN is used for English.

Examples
PRODID:-//Google Inc//Google Calendar 70.9054//EN
PRODID:-//BritishMicro//TaskClerk 1.0.1//EN

Can its be worse than this.

Looking at your potential competitors.

2007-03-30T21:33:00.000Z

So as a budding timesheet developer in my spare time I decided I needed to understand my competitors. This is a disheartening process for a start-up, it takes hours. I suggest using one of Porters models as a structured strategy.

So let’s go through the model in the context of an ISV.

Your current competitors; doing a little research using the internet and looking for services and products that compare with yours. Looking at the cost, look and feel, features and support to name but a few aspects.
Buyers; you need to understand who is going to buy from you. What need does your product for fill and what is the perceived value can they see in your product that will make them part with their hard earned cash.
Suppliers; I struggled with this one and settled on the effect of their service or integrated product could have on your delivery.
New entrants; how hard is it for others to join your market. What is the barrier to entry; we invariably combat this by adding features or dropping the price or both.
Substitutes; something comes along and makes you software superfluous. E.g. floppy disks or CRT’s. Here you just need to keep at the R&D and be the next best thing!

After this start at understanding the competitive market, I think what I will do is contact each of the competitors I have identified and propose an xml timesheet standard – this could be quite fun if it’s not already been done, imagine you name on a RFC standard, mint!

TaskClerk 1.0.1.103 release

2007-03-29T23:52:00.000Z

This release addresses some bugs and adds the new TaskDescription Add dialog.

You can download the lastest version at http://www.taskclerk.com/downloads.ashx.

Self hosting a web site

2007-03-29T23:38:00.000Z

I found this an interesting exercise and promote the idea for those wanting to understand how the mechanics and technology works. The process was fairly trivial for me because my ISP had given me a fixed IP address back in 2001 and the broadband upstream speeds are fast enough now to get the text part of the pages down to the requester in a good time. If you don't have a fixed IP address you can use a service like DynDNS.

Some things I did to make the site more snappy:
Run the web site from a memory stick and back it up.
Put images and big file downloads on a proper internet host like Google groups.
Add Google analytics to your pages!

This arrangement is not suitable if the site is of commercial importance or needs to be up 24/7. Home machines are not as reliable as hosted servers and the xDSL links can go up and down.

Its quite a thrill having your web site hosted in your loft!

The moon @ home

2007-03-03T23:01:00.000Z

This was the best image I could find that looked like the moon in Somerset tonight. The Moon started to enter the planet's shadow from 2215 GMT.

The sky above me link.

Stealth on my desktop

2007-03-02T00:00:00.000Z

There seems to be a stealth aircraft (at 90 degrees) hiding on my desktop background. I can't stop looking at it.

Web Poet Machine

2007-03-01T23:47:00.000Z

So why hasn’t anyone created a “Web Poet Machine”, I’m not saying being a poet is easy and can be replicated by a machine, what I am saying is this sounds like a cool app to write.

The process could be:
1. You type in a word or two
2. You choose a poem type
3. http://thesaurus.reference.com/ is used to get Synonyms and Antonyms
4. These words are then plumbed into Google
5. Millions of pages get returned and phrases get extracted from the pages
6. Rhyming pairs are found
7. The phrases are then ordered into the poem type/pattern

Could it work, sure – would it be any good? As good as any random number lottery generator could be I suppose!

Bit Evaluation and(&) Flags

2007-01-29T10:38:00.000Z

I always find myself looking up the syntax for bit manipulation purely because its not something I do that often. An Enum with the “FlagsAttribute” causes my brain to reset and think back to the Z80 days, ahhh TLL and Cyclone. Anyway back to the code

Example

usersServices     =             00111010
VirusScanning     =             00010000
Answer of &       =             00010000 (VirusScanning)

But what I really want is a true or a false and to use it like this


if (IsBitSet(usersServices, ServiceTypes.VirusScanning) == true)

So I have crafted the following function to work out if the bit is set on an enum. Remember this only works if the enum is constructed correctly and the FlagsAttribute is added.


private static bool IsBitSet(Enum source, Enum lookingFor)
{
 int s = Convert.ToInt32(source);
 int l = Convert.ToInt32(lookingFor);
 if((s & l) == l)
 {
  return true;
 }
 return false;
}

Why do the Convert calls, well it turns out that the language support for the "&" cannot be applied to a type of System.Enum.

Any Comments!

2004-12-09T13:03:00.000Z

PJ has a blog at Blogspot, mint.

compilewith.net/

VMWare or Virtual PC

2004-11-08T01:28:00.000Z

I am currently trying Virtual PC from Microsoft, so far so good. I have had no real trouble with VMWare other than networking issues, I don't have these problems with Virtual PC so thats a bonus.

Mac Virus

2003-09-04T09:13:00.000Z

MattS blog has some great info in it. Its early and our development database has not been restored yet so I will blogitup for a few mins and check the database again.

OutPost Firewall

2003-09-03T08:34:00.000Z

I will test OutPost today on and off as ZoneAlarm is not reporting enough information.

This is a great product, I will use this one from no on. It took 1hr to get out of the car park last night (bummer).

FtpWebClient

2003-09-03T08:31:00.000Z

Added the code for a new filter on the WebClient, Downloaded it from aspalliance a great bit of code. I also hand crafted my own version of an ftpclient but I like the above extension better. When to bed late on this one. I could download files for other ftp servers but had a problem with my local ftp server, I had to forceably disconnect, I will look at this tonight.

I need to find a blog file specification. At the moment I serialize my object to disk.

Dog Fence

2003-09-01T07:23:00.000Z

Build a dog fence for our 14 week old puppy, its works (for now). Worked on the FtpClient class for the blog code, managed to download files from a number of locations. A better technique would be to extend the WebClient object with a new handler, next weekends job.

Hay Hay Its Friday

2003-08-29T13:26:00.000Z

When I finnish work today I want to build my own blog engine in c#.

WebSite Deployment

2003-08-28T15:42:00.000Z

Trying to get the Custom actions in a Deployment Projects to work is tough, I have added a user interface dialog based on one of the CheckBox dialogs setup the text and assigned a property name. I the custom actions I then try to execute an application based on a condition RUNSIC = "Checked". No the application does not run. The help was on MSDN Disk 2 April 2003 ?

Contact with friends

2003-08-28T15:20:00.000Z

Had emails from Gavin and Andre', its great to hear from them again. We lost touch for about 5 years. I must try and get hold of PietM, BobC and Jono.

Managed Service Mutex

2003-08-28T14:55:00.000Z

Today we tried to use a mutex in a managed service. Creating the mutex in the OnStart and trying to release the mutex in the OnStop.
FAIL: the mutex can only be released by the thread that owns it; the OnStop is called on a different thread to the OnStop. It’s like changing the channel and then giving the remote away.

Some other method will have to be found to tell the other components to stop.

Previously on my UDPCatcher Service I did not experience this scenario, this new service loads up another app domain. Best we look at the whole problem again.

Update: Paul has removed the mutex code and using thread.Suspend and thread.Resume.

The title of this entry has given me a thought "Manages Service Mutex" the Mutex Service, the caller will make a connection to the service and do an async read, the async read complete could mean the mutex is now in your ownership. Ship a little class lib and start the service and bang you have a Mutex that is bound to a tcpip connection, I think this can be handed around.