Ozzie.eu

Having a personal Windows Azure account all setup, I began developing a blank site for the purpose of being a “test tube” for my self taught dabblings on Razor, Twitter Bootstrap and other subjects of interest to me.

The initial setup was:

• Provisioning the Azure Web Site;
• Getting the Bootstrap starter page and its custom stylesheet;
• Adding the files to a new Project on the TFS default collection.

Afterwards, I submitted a first check-in to TFS service just for the sake of testing the whole of the development tools. I got the error: “No files were checked-in”.

After a few exploitations, I realized the Webmatrix development tool failed to create the TFS project. I had to create the project manually on the TFS Web console and afterwards it worked fine.

Still, it’s kind of a let down to find this bug on such an early stage of development. 

For the past days I’ve been bugged by a weird behavior on my professional organization software, Microsoft’s Outlook 2013. Apparently at random, it hanged when sending replies to e-mail messages.

After reading the manufacturer’s suggestions to solve the given scenario, I checked them all out (and if you have the same problem, you should too):

• This issue can occur if you have not installed the latest updates.
• Outlook may be in use by another process.
• A previously installed add-in may be interfering with Outlook.
• Your mailbox may be too large.
• You may need to repair your Office programs. 
• Outlook data files may have become corrupt, or damaged.
• Antivirus software may be outdated, or conflicting with Outlook.
• Your user profile may have become corrupt.
• Another program may be conflicting with Outlook.

After going through all of that unfruitful effort, I noticed that the program only crashed when replying to digitally signed messages. With that piece of information I arrived at this support article:

Application freezes when you access a password protected certificate in Windows 8

I requested the hotfix, downloaded it and restarted the PC. I took one of the messages that caused the crash and then, instead of crashing, the following window appears:



This is because I also have a digital certificate installed and Outlook tries to reply in the same fashion as the sender.

Hope this helps someone.

This post is to share with you a personal project with some work mates. PSMSSQL. This Github repository has scripts done in Powershell to interact with MSSQL databases.
It uses SQL Server Management Objects (SMO) to connect and interact with the remote database instances. You can read further on SMO at this URL: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us//library/ms162169.aspx
The first script submitted, "CompareMSSQLDB.ps1", takes the file "servers.txt" with a pair of server/database per line and compares the database identified on the first line against all other databases on the remaining lines.
Happy coding!

Working on the application development scene, it’s hard to keep up with everything new. Every bit of help counts. Great resources are the eBooks you can find, for free, online on the Web. The books you can find in PDF format are great because you can take them with you anywhere. The ones that are available to view online are also great because you get any updates made on the subject. On this post I leave everyone a small set of links where you can find eBook compilations.
The first one comes from Speck boy Design Magazine and it’s mostly about User Interface design. For instance, the Mobile Web Design Best Practices by Mobify “is a handy mobile web design guide with over 50 tips that will help you build amazing mobile websites”. You can visit the Specky boy eBook compilation here: http://speckyboy.com/2013/06/10/free-ebooks-for-designers-and-developers/
The next eBook compilation is from Revolunet. It’s all about the Python programming language. You have the classic “Dive into Python” and a whole bunch of other interesting books. You can find them all at this Web page: http://pythonbooks.revolunet.com/
Finally, this list wouldn’t be complete without the emerging trend on multi-platform application development: javaScript. Here you have subjects for all tastes: Node.js, MongoDB, Windows 8, and so on. Get them all on this page: http://jsbooks.revolunet.com/
Happy readings!
Photo Credit: Mark J P via Compfight cc

Trying to install Virtualbox on my latest Windows 8 machine, the result was always the same, a screen like the one below:

The error message is irrelevant, if you google for it you’ll get mostly useless rants. The cause for my problem as well as the solution was to enable hardware virtualization support on the BIOS setup:

Hope this helps someone.

After having the setup needed to start developing code, keep track of it’s changes and deploy the resulting application, all resorting to Microsoft Cloud resources, it’s time to start building the proof of concept.
So, open up Web Matrix and from the startup screen choose “New > Template Gallery”:

On the template selection, choose “Personal Site” and give it a name of your liking:

You can create a site on Windows Azure where you’ll later deploy the web site on, if you skip this you can do it later at deploy time:

After the template has completed the installation and configuration steps, you can start by adding it to source control, using the “Use TFS” on the source control section of the ribbon:

Insert your Team Foundation Service URL and press connect. Afterwards choose the project where you’d like to keep version control of you web application:

Check in all the files of the initial version of your site (basically as-is from the template installation):

Afterwards, you might want to check on the TFS Web portal if the changeset has been successfully checked in:

Continue to edit the personal site, following Microsoft’s instructions on how to place your personal data into to web pages. Test it on the local machine, here’s how mine looks like:

If all is well, check in your changes to TFS once again. Next, let’s publish the site onto Windows Azure:

Pick the site you created upon starting, or create one now:

Confirm the publishing operation, if all goes well you’re done:

The site is live on Microsoft’s cloud platform. The URL of my testing site is: http://ozziepersonalsite.azurewebsites.net/
Happy coding!

Microsoft has been very persuasive pushing Windows Azure as a cloud hosting alternative. It’s a broad range of services that one can use to support many kinds of scenarios: web applications, mobile apps, databases, content distribution networks and more.

I will finally get around to test drive Windows Azure for Web application development. I’ll be using the following tools and services from Microsoft:

• Web Matrix 3 (still in beta at the time of this post): a free, lightweight, cloud-connected web development tool.
• Team Foundation Service: Your source code and work items are stored in the cloud. Plan projects, collaborate with your team, and manage your code online from anywhere.
• Windows Azure: Microsoft’s cloud platform.

To use the free TFS service you have to register your Microsoft account here. This free service includes:

• Up to 5 users
• Unlimited number of projects
• Version control (TFVC or Git)
• Work item tracking
• Agile planning tools
• Feedback management
• Build (still in preview)
• Test management (still in preview)

For a free trial of Windows Azure services, you also have to register your Microsoft account here. Your free trial contains:

• virtual machines & cloud services / 750 compute hours per month
• SQL server / 750 hours of web, standard, or enterprise
• web sites / 10 web sites
• mobile services / 10 mobile services
• relational database / 1 SQL database
• SQL reporting / 100 hours per month
• storage / 70 GB with 50,000,000 storage transactions
• backup / 20 GB
• data transfer / unlimited inbound & 25GB outbound
• media services encoding / 50 GB (input & output combined)
• cdn / 20 GB outbound with 500,000 transactions
• cache / 128 MB
• service bus / 1,500 relay hours and 500,000 messages

To download and install Web Matrix you don’t need any extra registration. Be aware that version 3 is the one used here to take advantage of the Azure and TFS integration.

In conclusion, the working setup for the Azure test-drive will be:

• Team Foundation Service for source code version control;
• windows Azure account to deploy applications and services on;
• Downloaded and installed Web Matrix to build a Web application, add it to Source Control and deploy it from there.

While installing a third party software on my laptop running Microsoft Windows 8, the operating system informed me that it required to download and install the .NET Framework 3.5. After my consent, it failed to download the package to install. I thought nothing of it and left the task for later.

However, this began to be a recurring episode. Even the very .NET Framework setup program would fail. While installing Windows Live Essentials (I really love Live Writer), the error happened again:

The error code 0x800F0906 wasn’t something I knew about and the support link is an awful article which suggest an over the top work around.

So I tried some common sense and analogy. If you’re used to administering Windows 2008 Servers you should know that the Microsoft .NET 3.5 Framework is installed from the feature selection on the add/remove role operation for the Application Server. Windows 7 itself has features that are essential for system administration like Telnet, and yet you have to add them manually.

With these aspects in mind I went to the Windows 8 Start screen and typed “Features”. Afterwards I selected “Settings” in the search bar and the desired option appeared, called “Programs and Features”:

From the list, you just choose the .NET Framework 3.5 and choose to download from Windows Update:

Now just wait for the installation to complete:

I was all set to go. You should be too .

Today Microsoft announced a new set of tools to help you support modern and older versions of Internet Explorer.

The site makes available a scanning tool that, provided a URL, detects common coding practices that may cause compatibility problems or prevent your users from getting the best possible experience on a webpage rendered on IE. For instance, I ran the scanner on this blog and the report was as follows:

A common problem from supporting old versions of IE was detected. The scanner found that the blog webpage was currently rendering in a Compatibility Mode on Internet Explorer 9 and 10, due to the following tag:

<meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible"
      content="ie=emulateie7">

Other “nice to have” issues were detected like a lack of responsive design and no Windows 8 features like a touch browsing interface or a live tile for the start screen.

After removing the compatibility tag, the common problems were all fixed.

Another interesting part of this site is that virtual machines are made available for both Mac and Linux developers to download and be able to test their Web applications on Internet Explorer, using various versions of the windows operating system and the browser:

Finally I leave you with the insights from two IT professionals about how challenging it is to develop web application given the number of browser and client devices that exist:

Modern IE Homepage: http://www.modern.ie/

This year's posts with the most views were the following:

• Sharepoint 2010: BCS Login failed for user "NT AUTHORITY\ANONYMOUS LOGON"
• Sharepoint 2010: create new list items using pure javascript
• Test open network ports using Powershell
• Google Drive on Ubuntu Linux
• Windows 8 activation error: DNS name does not exist
• Weblogic Server Unexpectedly Shuts Down

Some weeks ago I published about the free preview of  Introducing Windows 8: An Overview for IT Professionals. Well, the final version of this free ebook has been released. You can download it from here.
If you prefer a hard copy of the final book, you can order it here for $8.46 from Amazon (pre-order price).

Is this book for you?

Get a headstart evaluating Window 8—guided by a Windows expert who’s worked extensively with the software since the preview releases. Based on final, release-to-manufacturing (RTM) software, this book introduces new features and capabilities, with scenario-based insights demonstrating how to plan for, implement, and maintain Windows 8 in an enterprise environment. Get the high-level information you need to begin preparing your deployment now.

Topics include:

• Performance, reliability, and security features
• Deployment options
• Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit
• Windows PowerShell™ 3.0 and Group Policy
• Managing and sideloading apps
• Internet Explorer® 10
• Virtualization, Client Hyper-V, and Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack
• Recovery features

Source: Microsoft Press

A few months ago I posted about the feee e-book Programming Windows 8 Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
The companion content for has been updated. So download the companion content again if you’ve already got it:
http://go.microsoft.com/FWLink/?Linkid=270057 (59.9 MB)
Here are the details of the update from the author:
This update fixes one bug in the HereMyAm examples for Chapters 8, 9, 13, and 17 in the file pages/home/home.js. The one line within the updateImage function:
    app.sessionState.fileToken = list.addOrReplace(app.sessionState.fileToken, newFile);
is replaced with
    list.addOrReplace(app.sessionState.fileToken, newFile);
This corrects a bug where transient session state was preserved across the suspend-terminate-restart boundary only every other time because the app.sessionState.fileToken was erroneously overwritten with “undefined”.

Source: Microsoft Press

The Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) is a specification that defines a software interface between an operating system and platform firmware. UEFI is meant as a replacement for the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) firmware interface, present in all IBM PC-compatible personal computers.[1][2] In practice, most UEFI images have legacy support for BIOS services. It can be used to allow remote diagnostics and repair of computers, even without another operating system. (quote from Wikipedia).
This month’s issue of Full Circle magazine has a great article on what is UEFI that is really concise but also enlightening of what is the purpose of this new kind of firmware. In a nutshell, it explains these topics:

• UEFI is not Microsoft but Windows 8 logo machines must have secure boot enabled
• Users can, if they wish, disable secure boot
• Disabling secure boot leaves Windows 8 vulnerable
• Secure boot keys must be kept secure
• UEFI does not replace the BIOS, but works with it

If unbreakable, this firmware could add some really nice security and reliability features on top of the hardware, but as it’s apparently as vulnerable as the former BIOS, I guess it’s work in progress.
I really recommend, if you’re interested, to download the magazine and read the full article.

After migrating my laptop to Windows 8 RTM, I installed Cisco VPN client software. All went well but when trying to connect to my workplace VPN, I got the error “Failed to enable virtual adapter”.

The problem is that, for some unknown reason, the adapter’s name get’s garbled on your windows registry.

The solution lies on the following steps:

1. Open Registry editor by typingregedit in Run prompt
2. Browse to the Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\Services\\CVirtA
3. Select the DisplayName to modify, and remove the leading characters from the value data up to "%;" i.e. for x64, change the value data from something like " @oem8 .inf,%CVirtA_Desc%;Cisco Systems VPN Adapter for 64-bit Windows” to "Cisco Systems VPN Adapter for 64-bit Windows”
4. Try connecting again

Good luck!

The Windows 8 operating system is the newest member of the Microsoft Windows family. It differs from earlier Windows releases as much for what it does not change as for what it does change. That is, the features that IT pros loved about Windows 7 are still there in Windows 8—just better. The same keyboard shortcuts, management tools, security features, and deployment options are available in Windows 8. But in many cases, Windows 8 improves them in intuitive and significant ways. Some examples are the ribbon in File Explorer and faster disk encryption when using BitLocker Drive Encryption. This book describes these enhancements plus many of the new features in Windows 8.
Enjoy this preview edition that contains Chapters 1-11. 
Download the PDF version of the book here: Introducing Windows 8: An Overview for IT Professionals - PDF ebook

Source: Microsoft Press

For those who are still not using the RTM version of Windows 8 but want to take advantage of the new Cmdlets present on Powershell v3, you can download it already from Microsoft as a part of the Windows Management Framework.

The supported operating systems are: Windows 7 Service Pack 1, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2.

Download Windows Management Framework 3.0

I am deeply dependent on having a decent remote desktop connection tool, that allows to organize and save machine into groups, as well as store corresponding usernames. Learning today that mRemote is being discontinued, I was concerned and researched the Web for an alternative. The first one was of course the open source spin-off project from mRemote called mRemoteNG (next generation). But it’s not appealing because of the simple chance of that project also ending and having to go through the motions of migrating all catalogued machines to yet another manager.

There was the possibility of using the RoyalTS manager, but on it’s shareware version it only supports up to 10 connections. It’s not nearly enough for my needs. So I got back to basics and found a pearl from back in 2010: Microsoft Remote Desktop Manager.

It’s a full fledged remote desktop connection manager with a tree organization interface, desktop thumbnail previews and some other very interesting features. For a full review on this tool, you might want to check out this post.

Today I attended a Windows 8 Development Camp. The Windows 8 camps are free training events for developers ramping up on Windows Store app development. It’s of great value added for developers trying to get traction on the new development technolgies and tools associated with the Windows modern UI. Nonetheless, I personally felt that the workshop could be handled on my own. So, for all the people out there that don’t have the good fortune to able to attend one of these events, or are simply too eager to wait, I recommend downloading Windows 8 Camp in a Box.It includes the hands-on-labs, presentations, samples and resources from the Windows 8 camps.
Download: Windows 8 Camp in a Box

Last night I finally installed Windows 8 RTM on my laptop. Having tried and enjoyed the developer’s preview, everything was thumbs up until I tried to activate the software and prove it genuine. The process didn’t ask me for the 5x5 digit key (seemed like it already had one) and it presented the following error message:



After searching the Web for a solution, I found out here that this might happen when you get your installation media from MSDN or Technet and try to install and activate outside your corporate network. The activation wizard  by default will look for a Key Management Service (KMS) host on your internal network. It will not try to activate using the internet to reach Microsoft Activation servers.

I tried the suggested solution, which is to open an elevated CMD prompt and run the following command, as shown below::



It still didn’t work, reporting an invalid key error. My installation media is not illegal or counterfeit software, so I edited the file “slmgr.vbs” and examined the script content. There was an option to uninstall the existing product key:



After executing the script with the “upk” option, I simply pressed the “Activate” button again, it asked for my activation key and worked like a charm:



Hope this helps!

Microsoft has released in it’s download center a free e-book about how you can use the powerful infrastructure services that are part of Windows Azure to simplify development; integrate the component parts of a hybrid application across the cloud, on-premises, and third-party boundaries; and maximize security, performance scalability, and availability.
This guide is intended for architects, developers, and information technology (IT) professionals
who design, build, or operate applications and services that run on or interact with the cloud. Although applications do not need to be based on the Microsoft® Windows® operating system to operate in Windows Azure, this book is written for people who work with Windows-based systems. You should be familiar with the Microsoft .NET Framework, the Microsoft Visual Studio® development system, ASP.NET MVC, and the Microsoft Visual C#® development language.
This content was already available on MSDN as part of the patterns and practices series. You can now download the full e-book here.