Kong Kong de World

Emacs keybinding in Visual Studio 2010

2011-03-28T10:28:00.000+01:00

I've been using Visual Studio 2010 from early last year. Unfortunately I used to emacs many years ago. In Visual Studio 2008 and earlier versions there's a key mapping settings for emacs. However MS seized support since 2010 beta version. I always pressed wrong key and gain much anger at Visual Studio as all my other IDEs are using emacs key bindings, including emacs and Eclipse. Later last year, all my projects were ported to Visual Studio 2010 from 2008. Since then I was trying to convince myself the shortcut keys used in many MS editors – word, notepad, SQL management studio etc. But – compromise is not the only solution! I found this:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2010/09/01/emacs-emulation-extension-now-available.aspx

I was wondering why I didn’t find it earlier as it released last year! Maybe my frustration with the beta version didn’t evoke my hope. This one is among the best tastes in Visual Studio 2010. Shame for MS. I wish someone would also make same thing for word, notepad, SQL management studio ...

SharePoint 2010 upgrade from 2007 (content database, UI etc)

2010-07-15T16:21:00.002+01:00

Upgrade is always painful. SharePoint is no exception. Microsoft has suggested two ways of upgrade: inplace and database upgrade. All articles suggest database upgrade, which is also my choice. I don't trust third party migration tools. They will mess up the whole thing as I tried the most famous one, and missed a lot of things. However I don't trust Microsoft either, maybe SharePoint itself too.

Firstly I exported content database to new farm. The PowerShell window in SharePoint 2010 menu must be opened as Administrator. Run Test-SPContentDatabase in the new farm then it reported some error. Check the log it says some features are missing. Those features have already deleted but some elements still reference to them. After some search I found a tool that claims to remove even the toughest features. It's called WssRemoveFeatureFromSite written by an MS guy. Still one feature can't be deleted. My colleage suggested me to create a dummy feature using the same GUID. It's brilliant and did work! Deploy the feature, and delete it using the tool or even stsadm command in the original farm. Export the content database again, and run Test-SPContentDatabase. This time only warnings, no errors.

I thought it will be a smooth upgrade experience from then on. I was wrong. Tried many times of Dismount-SPContentDatabase and Mount-SPContentDatabase still it reported as if the whole database was broken. I tried back and forth, nothing indicate the problem. No error log, no clue at all. Frustrated, and seeked help online. Nobody had the problem. In the end, I have no way but follow the official guidance to redo in database backup/restore approach. This time it seemed work, eventually. But why???

Anyway it worked. After this step it's time to deploy all custom features, solutions etc to the site. Because the cab file structure is the same, not much is required to change in the solution files. Just remember to change the reference to the new Microsoft.SharePoint and similar assemblies. Build the solution files again, and here you go!

The new site will look exactly like the one before, include site admin and all other UI. Boss won't happy because there's no ribbon, just like the previous version. Ok. Let's delete the content database and redo the content database upgrdade. This time with -UpdateUserExperience switch.

Now the whole site will use the v4 master page. You can go to SharePoint designer 2010 and choose your own master page, apply it recursively. Wait, you still can't see the ribbons etc because you didn't include them in your master page. Follow this MSDN article to add ribbons on your old master page: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee539981%28office.14%29.aspx

For me I also extended

because the right edit panel will out of screen in Web Part edit mode.

Now at least it seemed right.

Deploy WSP with SharePoint 2010 PowerShell

2010-07-01T15:31:00.001+01:00

The stsadm command was replaced by PowerShell cmdlets in 2010. To deploy on a Produciton, QA or DEV server you may probably need PowerShell scripts (with .ps1 suffix). However if you prefer GUI, you'll thank to Visual Studio 2010 as development and deployment is as simple as a few clicks.
You can use PowerShell to deploy on non-local servers and/or carry admin tasks. If the following message shows on the first line

The local farm is not accessible. Cmdlets with FeatureDependencyId are not registered.

then you may grant yourself access to the farm. Run as Aministrator and run

Add-SPShellAdmin -UserName domain\user

Then

Get-SPShellAdmin

It will show shell admin accounts. You mast be in that group. PowerShell authorization is very different to Central Admin, where you perform all tasks using Application Pool's account. If you cannot add yourself to SPShellAdmin group, try to add machinename\user instead and always run as administrator from the SharePoint 2010 group in Start Menu.

Make sure no warning message comes when you run SharePoint PowerShell then you can create an XML file and a script file to deploy wsp solution files.

config.xml:

<Solutions>
    <Solution Path="VisualWebPartProject.wsp" CASPolicies="false" GACDeployment="true">
        <WebApplications>
            <WebApplication>http://deploy</WebApplication>
        </WebApplications>
    </Solution>
</Solutions>

PowerShell script:

#install.ps1
    function Install-Solutions([string]$configFile)
    {
        if ([string]::IsNullOrEmpty($configFile)) { return }

        [xml]$solutionsConfig = Get-Content $configFile
        if ($solutionsConfig -eq $null) { return }

        $solutionsConfig.Solutions.Solution | ForEach-Object {
            [string]$path = $_.Path
            $path = "$pwd\$path"
            [bool]$gac = [bool]::Parse($_.GACDeployment)
            [bool]$cas = [bool]::Parse($_.CASPolicies)
            $webApps = $_.WebApplications.WebApplication
            Install-Solution $path $gac $cas $webApps
        }
    }

    function Install-Solution([string]$path, [bool]$gac, [bool]$cas, [string[]]$webApps = @())
    {
        $spAdminServiceName = "SPAdminV4"
        [string]$name = Split-Path -Path $path -Leaf
        $solution = Get-SPSolution $name -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
        if ($solution -ne $null) {
            #Retract the solution
            if ($solution.Deployed) {
                Write-Host "Retracting solution $name..."
                if ($solution.ContainsWebApplicationResource) {
                    $solution | Uninstall-SPSolution -AllWebApplications -Confirm:$false
                } else {
                    $solution | Uninstall-SPSolution -Confirm:$false
                }
                Stop-Service -Name $spAdminServiceName
                Start-SPAdminJob -Verbose
                Start-Service -Name $spAdminServiceName    
            
                #Block until we're sure the solution is no longer deployed.
                do { Start-Sleep 2 } while ((Get-SPSolution $name).Deployed)
            }
            
            #Delete the solution
            Write-Host "Removing solution $name..."
            Get-SPSolution $name | Remove-SPSolution -Confirm:$false
        }
        
        #Add the solution
        Write-Host "Adding solution $name..."
        $solution = Add-SPSolution $path
        #Deploy the solution
        if (!$solution.ContainsWebApplicationResource) {
            Write-Host "Deploying solution $name to the Farm..."
            $solution | Install-SPSolution -GACDeployment:$gac -CASPolicies:$cas -Confirm:$false
        } else {
            if ($webApps -eq $null -or $webApps.Length -eq 0) {
                Write-Warning "The solution $name contains web application resources but no web applications were specified to deploy to."
                return
            }
            $webApps | ForEach-Object {
                Write-Host "Deploying solution $name to $_..."
                $solution | Install-SPSolution -GACDeployment:$gac -CASPolicies:$cas -WebApplication $_ -Confirm:$false
            }
        }

        Stop-Service -Name $spAdminServiceName
        Start-SPAdminJob -Verbose
        Start-Service -Name $spAdminServiceName    
        
        #Block until we're sure the solution is deployed.
        do { Start-Sleep 2 } while (!((Get-SPSolution $name).Deployed))
    }

$pwd=Get-Location
Install-Solution $pwd+"/config.xml"

When the two files are prepared, at PowerShell prompt type .\Install.ps1 will invoke the script. All you need to modify is the config.xml file.

Script is modified from:
http://stsadm.blogspot.com/2010/06/deploying-sharepoint-2010-solution.html

Shortcut URLs in MOSS 2007

2009-10-22T15:45:00.002+01:00

Link to Heather Solomon's MOSS URL matrix

I am a newbie in SharePoint. As what I've discovered so fat the product may be good for intranet use for medium and large organizations with out of box features, to facilitate cooperation between employees. The internet site developers, however, will immediately facing branding issue which requires master pages, page layouts, CSS, images, almost all Web Parts to be rewritten to fit "in-house" styles. C# programming is essential. Not to mention the development have to be carried on windows server family. The speed of virtual machine, compilation, deployment of features, testing loop will drive you mad.

It's not impossible to re-branding, just even a medium organization won't have so much resources to feed the black hole. When I'm working on SharePoint, I couldn't stop thinking about alternative approaches... yes, Drupal, django, pure ASP.NET, even the good old LAMP. What if I could work on things like the open source products? Why the business world don't like open source? My own laptop is now 100% Ubuntu. It's very strange when I go to office and all PCs are running windows.

Force to delete SharePoint items

2009-10-22T10:50:00.000+01:00

“This item cannot be deleted because it is still referenced by other pages”

When you see this message when you are trying to delete MasterPage or Page Layout, use SharePoint Designer to create a new folder and move the locked item to it and then delete the folder in whole.

It's the simplest work around to "unlock" the bizarre dead lock.

Use reverse ssh tunnel to access remote machines behind NAT

2009-09-24T16:33:00.001+01:00

If you have ever connected to your cooperate network using VPN you may understand the complexity of the tools and configurations IT engineers must deal with. In Windows world, it's true. To do anything that looks complicated there's always some software available, to make simple tasks over complicated.

Say if you want to access your home Linux machine from your office. Both are behind firewall and use NAT. You don't have permission to change firewall settings. We see this a very common scenario in today's world. We don't need VPN or any software to connect to home machine (A). What we need is a machine (B) at middle and through B we can connect to A with ssh connection from the machine (C) you are working on. This is the easiest solution I found so far. No need for VPN, expensive software, configuration, ... all you need is ssh.

ssh has a very useful parameter -R. This tells ssh server at remote (B) will forward the given port number to itself (A). For more details always $man ssh. The following diagram is basically everything you need to do.

Step 1.
Create a connection to server B from the server you would wish to connect to which is A in the diagram. By creating a connection to the middle server, you have made port 12345 to listen on the remote server. All connections from remote server which talks to port 12345 would redirect to A.
After the operation you'll be logged into B. Don't close the session otherwise the following work would be pointless.

Step 2.
Connect to the middle server B from your machine C which can be your office desktop machine. If you are using Windows at office, install cygwin or virtual machine in order to use ssh command. It's just a very basic ssh command.

Step 3.
Now you are actually logged on middle server B. Just ssh to localhost with the port that A is listening to, then you would see you have logged on to A!

Not complicated, is it? If not all of your machines are using NAT you don't need middle server. Just remove C and 2nd step in the diagram and you can connect to A from B.

My Ubuntu 9.04 desktop

2009-09-23T23:44:00.000+01:00

It looks nice now. Linux is quite robust. I didn't re-install for more than a year now. It's unbelievable when I was running Windows. Even with the promising Windows 7 I don't believe a heavy user like me don't need to re-install for over a year.

The music player is Audacious, nice to render non-unicode characters. Also when use Dust theme and 50% gray background, turn on minimal visual effects it rocks.

Vista supports more devices?

2009-09-15T00:44:00.002+01:00

No. Today I tried some of my devices I don't expect to work under Ubuntu: an unknown usb bluetooth dongle and a Logitech webcam. Since I don't use them for long time the last memory with them were in Vista which asks for drivers of these devices. Some could be found online, some not. I can't remember precisely but Ubuntu definitely work out of box.

I just installed additional software to provide GUI to use the devices - apt-get install cheese for webcam image/video recording, bluetooth file transfer under Gnome to transfer files to bluetooth devices. I must say that Ubuntu/Linux may support more hardware than Vista.

Linux, Mac, and PC

2009-07-08T22:10:00.002+01:00

URL Validator

2009-06-11T14:45:00.001+01:00

URL Validator using .Net

Download source code

Upgrade packages that have been kept back

2009-04-26T22:59:00.004+01:00

After upgrading to Ubuntu 9.04 I found something not upgraded when I work with apt-get commands.

$ sudo apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
mplayer
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.

To fix this I have to run

$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed
libamrnb3 libamrwb3
The following packages will be upgraded:
mplayer
1 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 4684kB of archives.
After this operation, 598kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
Get: 1 http://packages.medibuntu.org jaunty/non-free libamrnb3 7.0.0.2-0.1medibuntu1 [141kB]
Get: 2 http://packages.medibuntu.org jaunty/non-free libamrwb3 7.0.0.3-0.0medibuntu1 [119kB]
Get: 3 http://packages.medibuntu.org jaunty/non-free mplayer 2:1.0~rc2-0ubuntu19+medibuntu1 [4424kB]
Fetched 4684kB in 35s (132kB/s)
Selecting previously deselected package libamrnb3.
(Reading database ... 145875 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking libamrnb3 (from .../libamrnb3_7.0.0.2-0.1medibuntu1_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package libamrwb3.
Unpacking libamrwb3 (from .../libamrwb3_7.0.0.3-0.0medibuntu1_amd64.deb) ...
Preparing to replace mplayer 2:1.0~rc2-0ubuntu19 (using .../mplayer_2%3a1.0~rc2-0ubuntu19+medibuntu1_amd64.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement mplayer ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Setting up libamrnb3 (7.0.0.2-0.1medibuntu1) ...

Setting up libamrwb3 (7.0.0.3-0.0medibuntu1) ...

Setting up mplayer (2:1.0~rc2-0ubuntu19+medibuntu1) ...

Processing triggers for libc6 ...
ldconfig deferred processing now taking place

This method was found at here.

Flash on Firefox (For Ubuntu 9.04 AMD64)

2009-04-26T18:08:00.002+01:00

swfdec/gnash does not work well with BBC iplayer. So I decided to remove them. Also the default flash comes with the software repository doesn't work. I removed them all.

sudo apt-get remove swfdec-mozilla
sudo apt-get remove mozilla-plugin-gnash
sudo apt-get remove flashplugin-nonfree

Then reinstalled the Flash plugin nonfree with official flash plugin (amd64)
unzip and save the file into ~/.mozilla/plugins (create this folder if doesn't exist).

Ubuntu upgrade

2009-04-24T13:56:00.006+01:00

Ubuntu upgrade from 8.10 to 9.04 was very successful and straightforward. Everything started normally except VMWare. When I run VMWare on console it returns:

$ vmware
Logging to /tmp/vmware-ubuntu/setup-15021.log
modinfo: could not find module vmmon
modinfo: could not find module vmnet
modinfo: could not find module vmblock
modinfo: could not find module vmci
modinfo: could not find module vsock
modinfo: could not find module vmmon
modinfo: could not find module vmnet
modinfo: could not find module vmblock
modinfo: could not find module vmci
modinfo: could not find module vsock
Segmentation fault

I thought it was the same problem as before when the kernel is updated. So I ran the setup program again with root account. The bundle program uninstalled and reinstalled VMWare for me. However the result was the same, it didn't solve the problem.

After research on Internet I found the following solution that worked for me:

sudo mv /usr/lib/vmware/modules/binary /usr/lib/vmware/modules/binary.old
sudo vmware-modconfig --console --install-all

This was originated from
http://geekdom.wesmo.com/2008/11/14/fedora-10-vmware-workstation-650/

A web based tool to test GFW of China

2009-04-20T23:31:00.002+01:00

Well, this is a quite useful tool for web masters like me, especially when the major audiences are from China.

Time sync in Vista and Ubuntu

2008-08-03T21:18:00.002+01:00

In a dual boot system Ubuntu time is set to UTC by default. The display time on Linux desktop is calculated based on the UTC (GMT) time of BIOS.

Vista uses BIOS' time as local time, thus lead to incorrect reading for LT.

To solve this issue use a favorite editor tool to edit /etc/default/rcS and change UTC=yes to UTC=no so that BIOS' time is set to local time rather than UTC.

Fix Vista MBR which was previously managed by Grub

2008-05-08T21:00:00.004+01:00

It's automatic, maybe the Active flag of the partition do the trick. While Grub try to take over MBR and the snippiest points the rest of boot sequence to the destinated partition, to restore MBR for Vista is fairly quick and easy.

Take out your DVD installation disk, boot from it and choose system mantenance. In command line interface, type:

bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /fixmbr

That's it. Now you can restart your PC, take out installation DVD and it should boot directly to Vista.

reinstall grub onto MBR after windows installed on a dual boot system

2007-09-07T14:10:00.000+01:00

It's not the first time CSDN blog lost my work.. I have to come here to post my technical articles. sorry for the inconvience for myself.

Here are the steps
- find a bootable linux CD
- get a terminal and type

sudo grub

- now find where's grub installed

find /boot/grub/stage1

- tell grub where is the grub root installed (for example, first hard disk, first sector) and set it up on MBR

root (hd0,0)
setup (hd0)

Make sure that /boot/grub/menu.lst is there and unaffected when you install windows. Or you'll have to make change to that file.

Vista Gadgets

2007-08-27T17:16:00.002+01:00

Gadgets are useful. Although Microsoft is anything but a pioneer its products are not too bad.

New Interface

2007-07-11T23:25:00.000+01:00

New face have been installed on the blog. It's easier to read than ever before! Also remind you to visit my Chinese site which is updated more frequently than here which I'm not expecting high trafic volumn.

Move

2006-10-06T12:36:00.000+01:00

Todays' quite boring. The biggest thing I did this morning was to make a decision to move from CSDN blogs here. It is another kind of community here, familiar to me but may be a bit strange for audiances in China.

I didn't expect many readers from CSDN will come here to pay me a visit. But if you are one of them I welcome you and hope you will put my RSS/Atom feed in your feeding list.

Google analytics is absolutely fantastic!

2006-06-01T10:21:00.000+01:00

Yep! When i checked the service this morning (actually I couldn't sleep well last night) it's set up and collecting data! the first time set up take less than 24 hours, and the new profiles can be added in real time... up to 5 profiles can be set, which is not sufficient for me.. i think the statistics take too much resources and i can understand why there's a 5 profile limit.

So, i have dropped cnzz and 50bang statistics.. and statcount (or sth like that) that's a great leap over all those services. I would suggest every webmaster apply for an account (i waited 3 months to get an activation code). good luck..

Google analytics

2006-06-01T07:13:00.000+01:00

Tested google's analytics service just now. Can't say any word but the interface is even better than most windows applciations. and it's real analysis, beyond many competitors' so called statistics services. well done!

However I can't see the real time report which was told to be still pendding for some 24 hours for the first time. I don't know wheather it works or not. just wait for tomorrow...

Today's visited blog.com and found it forced to display a non-removable adsense sidebar.. what a pitty the best blog name has been registered and be used to display google adwords (wondering why google not to buy it)

Again i get less and less sleeping hours..

Hah.

2006-05-18T18:25:00.000+01:00

So this time my blog is recreated and I shall stick on it as it shoudl before.

the brit weather is not too hard, i shall start, after several years of hibernation in the dark country my heart can beat again with my new ideas and clearer pathway for my dreams for 20 years.

Good thing is that I have brand new blog

2006-04-22T02:26:00.000+01:00

Just too tired.

I want to sleep rather than write endlessly. The good thing is that I find here a good gift from google again ,which is perfect.

I'm not sure what i will do here.. but my diary had been sealed two years ago.. that's why i must start to write sth here, as my open diary can remind me and, as i trust google i have no need to backup the data in my messy usb disk..

that's perhaps not IT guys do... however i suppose few people will be really interested in reading my blog.. because there's no topic and i'm just a boring IT guy.

OpenCourseWare

2006-02-20T13:44:00.000Z

http://ocw.mit.edu

Yahoo Domain Registration Service

2005-12-21T17:51:00.000Z

It's on sale ($2.99 per year)

Favorite free course at Edinburgh University

2005-12-13T17:40:00.000Z

Favorite free course at Edinburgh University

Agent Based Systems
Automated Reasoning
Bioinformatics
Cognitive Modelling
Computational Cognitive Neuroscience
Computational ComplexityComputational Neuroscience of Vision
Computational Systems Biology
Data Mining and Exploration
Fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence
Genetic Algorithms and Genetic Programming
Informatics 2D: Reasoning & Agents
Informatics Research Methodologies
Intelligent Autonomous Robotics
Introduction to Cognitive Science
Knowledge Modelling and Management
Knowledge Representation and Engineering
Learning from Data
Modelling and Simulation
Multi-agent Semantic Web Systems
Neural Computation
Neural Information Processing
Operating Systems

Find Linux distro and version info

2005-12-01T14:36:00.000Z

[From] ftp://metalab.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/utils/scripts/survey-0.95.tar.gz

==============BEGIN=================
echo
echo ++++ LIST SYSTEM/VENDOR VERSION INFO: ++++
uname -a
if [ -f /etc/redhat-release ]
then
echo RedHat Linux system release file - /etc/redhat-release
cat /etc/redhat-release
echo RedHat Linux release - rpm -q -a \ grep redhat
rpm -q -a grep redhat
fi
if [ -d /var/lib/LST ]
then
echo Caldera OpenLinux release - rpm -q -a \ grep Open\COL
rpm -q -a egrep Open\COL
echo Caldera Base Version - /var/lib/LST/BASEVERSION:
cat /var/lib/LST/BASEVERSION
echo Caldera Main Version - /etc/.issue:
cat /etc/.issue
fi
if [ -f /sbin/SuSEconfig ]
then
echo This is a SuSE Linux system - /sbin/SuSEconfig exists
echo SuSE Release Version: /var/adm/inst-log/info
cat /var/adm/inst-log/info
fi
if [ -d /usr/lib/setup ]
then
echo This is a Slackware Linux system - /usr/lib/setup exists
echo The Slackware Version - /usr/lib/setup\grep version
ls /usr/lib/setup grep version
fi
if [ -d /var/lib/corel_setup ]
then
echo This is a Corel Linux system - /var/lib/corel_setup exists
echo Debian Linux system release file - /etc/debian_version
cat /etc/debian_version
echo The Corel Linux Version - /etc/issue
cat /etc/issue
else
if [ -f /etc/debian_version ]
then
echo This is a Debian Linux system
echo Debian Linux system release file - /etc/debian_version
cat /etc/debian_version
fi
fi
=============END============

Dilbert

2005-11-17T14:11:00.000Z

Intelligent agent project - A proposal

2005-05-17T14:46:00.000+01:00

Intelligent agent project - A proposal

The aim is to build a software robot which can mimic most of human's intelligical activities, such as free will, memory, deductive thinking etc. The agent must also implement three laws for robots, can be able to evolution by itself. The agent must also communicate with each other, and learn from the environment.
With this in mind, I can imagine several steps:
1. Create a road map
2. Research the technologies
3. Devlope a prototype
4. Review and redesign
5. Repeat 3 and 4 until a mature agent is created
6. Release on Internet to see how well it (they) can glow
There's no weak points (such as time bomb) at design stage for them, as they are supposed to be intelligent enough to break the code by themselves. To maintain the security level it's necessary to review the prototypes carefully enough to make sure that they will not make real impact on human beings. Although the current technologies used in virus production will be reviewed and used but the aim of this project is by no meaning of producing a deadly virus.