.NET From India

Media Sharing and PS3

I have always had a number of computers at home, but till recently all media(videos/music) etc was always centralized on my main desktop. Then around six months ago, I upgraded an old disposed computer and installed Windows Home Server (currently running Power Pack 3) on it. I love the automatic backup and centralization that Home Server provides and slowly started moving some of my media over to the home server. Everything was fine as the main desktop was still the place where I watch the media from and I just integrated the home server path into my Windows 7 Videos library and everything was fine.

Then I got a PS3 (mostly for the BR functionality) as a part of a bundled offer and there I had a media extender connected to my TV. So obviously I wanted to now watch my videos on my TV rather than my monitor (which was smaller).

It was a no brainer with the Win 7 desktop. You turn on Media Sharing and then if required you can select which devices to allow etc. I just set it to allow all devices on my home network and everything was fine. My PS3 was able to find all the videos in my Library (This is a really cool feature of Windows 7. So all my different folders of Videos are now available in a single place and easy to find). No problems there. (From what I read online, looks like it was a little more complicated with Vista and Windows 7 and the latest firmware upgrade of PS3 actually make this integration easy).

PS3 was also able to find my Home Server easily as a media source, but was not able to load all the videos from my videos share. I was able to find only a couple of folders (actually only 2 from around 7 folders in my video share got listed). I searched online, did all kinds of setting changes, but even after 2-3 weeks I was unable to get my all home server videos streaming to the PS3.

So in the end I gave up trying to get the home server to stream the videos and decided to install a new media server software on my home server to do it right. I ended choosing PS3 Media Server, just because of the name.. This is a open source DNLA compliant UPnP server, targeted to work for PS3. One of the main features of this media server is that it would actually transcode videos that are in a format that cannot be handled by the PS3. Obviously if you need to transcode videos, then you better have the CPU power to do that. My home server built from a old PC, cannot actually support this, but almost all of my videos are in PS3 compliant format (esp since PS3 now supports DivX). Another cool feature of PS3 Media Server is that it has an option to run it as a service. This is the option I use as it is not always that I am logged into my home server.

 

With this setup, I am now able to stream all of my videos out of my home server into my TV via the PS3…

Technorati Tags: PS3,Windows Home Server,Media Sharing

Creating a Wireless Access Point on the Fly

Most WiFi networks are setup with WPA or related security and you are able to connect to it from most devices. But connections in places like airports have special login pages which prevent some devices from being used. Also sometimes, you have a wired connection, but your other devices (phone etc) do not have a way to connect.

This is where the new tool called Connectify helps. Connectify creates a virtual wireless connection based on the network connection you have on your laptop/desktop. It just uses your existing Wireless Card and does not need any other hardware. The only caveat is that it will run only on Windows 7, as it uses technologies that are part of the Windows 7 stack.

So once you are connected to a network on your computer, you run the tool and you can then setup the properties of your WiFi connection, including the type of security setting you want, WPA2 or WEP, and the connection name.

 

Start your hotspot and there you have a new WiFi hotspot. Connectify is still in beta and the initial versions had a number of problems that would not allow me to even start the hotspot due to some IP problems with my router. But the current version seems to have solved most of these problems.

 

There are still a number of small problems and mostly it will tell you reset your wireless connection and restart, but this is still a cool tool and really useful in a number of scenarios.

Under the scenes this use the Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) built into Windows 7 to  enable you to share the internet connection.

Once you connect to the access point, you are on the network, your laptop/desktop is on. The desktop app also shows the clients connected to this hotspot, so you can monitor to make sure there are no hop-ons.

Test Data Generation - EnhancedDataGenerator

One of the most problematic part of any new development is to make sure that you test your application with data that is near real life. 90% of the cases developers just test with a couple of rows of data that they enter and the data is rarely diverse enough or similar to real life data.

There are a number of data generator tools out there in the market, but they are costly and development teams rarely get the budget to buy these tools. There are a number of random data generation free-wares, but most of these are developed over a weekend hacks and though they generate random data, I don’t think they are representative of most real life data (Who actually has a name like “$ssoghetn2u#a”).

Few people know that Visual Studio Database Edition has a set of tools to generate test data. Called Data Generators, you can add a data generation plan to your database project and use that to generate test data. It ships with multiple data generators and you can also write custom data generators very easily. Since the Database Edition is now available with the developer and some of the other editions, it is easy to use by most developers.

I actually started writing a data generation application that can generate real life representative data a couple of years back. As is the fate of a number of those weekend projects, this went into hibernation once I ran into time issues and then was forgotten.

Then a couple of months back I started playing around with the Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) Database Edition and then remembered I had some code that I had written for the original data generator and so started looking into writing custom data generators for VSTS DB. There is not too much data on writing custom generators and most of the blogs are out of date. So if you want to write custom generators, I would point you to MSDN.(That information is quite good and you should be able to get up and running quickly)

I was surprised at how the VSTS DB custom generator interface was so similar to what I had come up with and so started writing a couple of data generators based on the code I already had. After a couple of weekends, I had my first couple of custom data generators.

Note: These are written for VS 2008 SP1 and Database Edition GDR R2. I am not sure if this will work for GDR 1. (I suspect it will as the interface for custom data generators have not changed).

This EnhancedDataGenerator currently contains two DataGenerators:

1. FirstNameGenerator – Generates real-life First Names

2. LastNameGenerator – Generates real-life Last Names

These are also locale aware and currently support two locales en-US and de-DE. So based on the locale this generates different kinds of First and Last Names. (Locale is a property in each generator, so you can generate English first names and German last names, if that is what you want). If you have data for common First and Last names in other cultures, please send them to me and I will update the database to handle those cultures too. (The maximum time I actually spent was to search for and get the base data into a format that I can import into the database)

The FirstName Generator is also Gender aware.

A couple of screenshots of these at work:

en-US	de-DE

 

EnhancedDataGenerator – DLL and config Files. For people who know how to do a manual deploy of custom extensions.

EnhancedDataGenerator Setup – Setup File that will deploy the files to the default VS install location (Don't use if you had used a custom path to install Visual Studio)

Other Things to Notes

1. Error Handling is not great. I have not yet found a way to report errors to the IDE user. So as of now if there are any errors, nothing happens. E.g. if you set the locale to anything other than en-US or de-DE, you just get empty data back. So if no data appears, that means you have an error .

2. The setup kit has not be fully tested. So if this does not work for you, use the DLL kit and do a manual deploy

3. Retain the directory structure inside the zip file when doing manual deploy

3. If your Visual Studio is installed to a custom path (not <prog Files x86>\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0, then you will have do a couple of more things.

a. Use the manual depoy method and get the Extensions deployed in the VSTSDB\Extensions

b. Change the config file setting DBPath to point to the Database directory inside your custom extensions directory.

4. The .Extensions.xml file is already created with the correct data, so you will not have to create those again when doing a manual deploy.

Office 2010 Enters Beta

Office 2010 has been in technical preview available for invited testers till now. It has now moved into Beta.

It is now available for download for MSDN and Technet subscribers. When I checked it looked like it was uploaded on the 16th, but I am yet to get an official mail from the Connect site on the beta being available. So looks like MS wants to keep the hype low so as to not crash their servers.

Anyway, no information on public availability of the beta as of now.

The more exciting news is that SharePoint 2010 has also gone into beta. I see that the SharePoint 2010 Foundation download is now available in MSDN.

Update: It is official now and you can download the beta from http://office.microsoft.com/beta. As of now this seems to still lead to the MSDN or TechNet sites, but I assume this will be available to everybody soon.

Apps for BlackBerry Storm 2

Recently my office shifted cell providers and so I got a chance to pick a new blackberry. I choose to go with the new blackberry Storm 2. Most people used to a BB have a problem shifting from the old keyboard based interface to a touch interface. I too had some teething problems, but having used a WinMo (Anyone remember the HTC Wizard or 8125 as it was known in the US) for a number of years before I got my first BB did help.

I find the device quite responsive and the clickable screen does help to get the feedback when typing feel. But I do think if you are someone who spends a lot of your time writing emails on the phone, you will be more comfortable with the keyboard based device than this one.

Anyway, coming to the crux of this post, the first thing I usually do when I get a new device is to play around with the themes and new apps.

So I installed the Blackberry App store and started browsing around. I found a number of interesting apps. (Do note, that since the Storm 2 is so new, a number of apps are not yet compatible with it yet)

Here is a list of apps I currently use:

 

1. DriveSafe.ly – I would say this is one of the must have apps. They have a free version and an paid version, so you can start using this without spending a dime. When you enable it, it would read out incoming emails and SMS so that you don't have to check your phone every time to see if you got a new email, when driving. If you are a long standing BB user, you know about the urge to check for mails :). Do note, this will always use the phone’s speaker (even if you have a headset) to read out the mail and so if you are travelling with others, be careful before you enable it. (Actually this is available for multiple mobile OSes/phones)

2.BeBuzz – This app allows you to change the color of the LED based on different events. They too have a free and pro version. So you can set the color to be green if there is a new email and a red when you are getting a call etc. The pro version allows you to set up more events.

3. WeatherBug – The free weather app that allows you to see the current temprature and weather information. The other nice thing about this app is that it allows you to have an icon in the home screen and so you can read off the current temperature without having to launch the app.

One of the other apps I want to have is called QuickPull. But it is currently not available for the Storm2 (or rather for OS 5, which is what the Storm runs) without a number of hacks. Looks like a newer version is in the works.

Expect to see more apps surface as I dig around more. Do leave comments on your favorite BlackBerry apps (preferably free ones :))

Adding the Quick Launch Toolbar to Windows 7

I like the new dock UI though it takes some time to get used to it, but I really miss the quick launch toolbar. I especially miss the single click launch functionality that quick launch provides.

It is very easy to enable this in Win 7 and there are a number of posts online, but there are some gotchas that I found while enabling it on my machine (since most of these posts are based on the beta).

The first step is to create a new toolbar. So right-click the somewhere on the taskbar and choose the Toolbars and add a New toolbar. This will open a dialog to choose a directory that will be displayed as the toolbar.

Goto %appdata%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\.

This directory should map out to something like C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer.

Now create a directory called Quick Launch under this folder and use that as the directory for the new toolbar and click OK.

You will find the new toolbar has been created but at the right corner of the taskbar right next to the system tray. It is quite easy and tricky to move this. Click the dotted vertical bars and pull it to the left edge right next to the start button. (You may have to unlock the toolbar to move it).

Once you have positioned the toolbar to the right position, you now need to change its look. By default the toolbar shows only the text, we need it to show the icons to resemble the original quick launch.

Right-click the new toolbar and de-select the Show Text and Show Title options.

And you have your Quick Launch back…

What is this??

Take a look at this photos

 

What do you think this is? A manufacturing facility, a water treatment plant (what with all of those tubes??)

 

Well it is to do with computers and this belongs to Microsoft. These are pictures of the new Microsoft Data Center in Chicago. The new Azure Services run out of this data center.

Photo 2 & 3 - What you're seeing is a tiny section of the 7.5 miles of cooling pipes inside Microsoft's new 700,000-foot Chicago data center, which is one of the—if not the—largest in the world.

This is one of the largest data centers in the world and MS will use this to learn and fine tune its data center strategy as this is just the first in a series of data centers that MS will build

Even the inside of the building doesn't look like that much. The ground floor looks like a large indoor parking lot filled with a few parked trailers.

It's what's inside those trailers, though, that is the key to Microsoft's cloud-computing efforts. Each of the shipping containers in the Chicago data center houses anywhere from 1,800 to 2,500 servers, each of which can be serving up e-mail, managing instant messages, or running applications for Microsoft's soon-to-be-launched cloud-based operating system--Windows Azure.

Read complete article at Inside one of the world's largest data centers

 

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Data Centers,Photos

Location Aware Printing in Windows 7

I like to call this Network Aware Printing as that is what it is.

Basically what this allows you to do is to have different default printer settings based on the network you are connected to. This is a real boon for people like me who carry laptops between home and office. So now that I upgraded to Win 7 I can setup my computer to switch the default printer based on whether I am in Office or Home and it really makes life easy (take it from me).

The way to set this up is to go to the Printers and Devices screen and select one of the available printers. You will find a “Manage Default Printer” Option appear at the top bar. Clicking that brings up a second screen that allows you to do this magic.

In this screen, first choose the option to have different default printers (This is the option chosen by default). Then start doing your mapping between the network and the printer. You need to have connected to the network at least once for it to appear here and the printer needs to be installed. Once you map, click Add and the magic happens.

So now when you change networks you will see that the default printer switches. The small green tick mark () that appears next to the default printer in the previous window actually moves too. If you want to have fun, try changing between the single default printer and location aware setting and see the default printer change on the fly.. :)

Do note that this is mapping a network to a default printer. So if like me you travel to different Offices which share the same basic network, then you still may end up having the wrong default printer. I am still trying to find if I can some how get this to work based on a subnet, but have not found a way to do it yet.

Also to note this is supposedly available only on the premium versions (Professional and Ultimate) of Win 7 and only on Laptop or other mobile devices.

Technorati Tags: Windows 7,Printing,Location Aware,Network Aware

Upgrade to Windows 7

I have mostly installed Win 7 on a clean machine till now (many number of times counting the Beta and the RCs). I have usually found the clean install very fast and straight forward. I am yet to come across a scenario where I had to download and install drivers with Win 7. Almost always it was able to find the drivers from the MS and get the system up and running in no time.

This weekend I decided to get my laptop onto Win 7. I have been putting this task away for quite sometime as my laptop has a multitude of software installed and I hated having to spend the time to reinstall everything.

So this weekend I decided to go the upgrade route. So I upgraded my Vista install to Win 7. Initially the setup came up with a list of software already installed that would not work with Win 7. Surprisingly this included SQL Server 2008. I did some “binging” and found a number of references of SQL 2008 needed SP1 to work with Win 7(SQL Server on Windows 7). So I un-installed all the mentioned software and then went ahead with the upgrade.

Well it went on for a couple of hours and I just let it run overnight. Next morning I had a running Win 7 with most of my programs working fine (At least the ones I have used till now). There were a couple of clinks. My gadgets settings did not migrate correctly. I actually had to remove and re-add the weather gadget to get it working and my clocks had been reset. But these were very minor problems, easily rectifiable.

So if you are upgrading to Win 7 then be ready for the upgrade to take a lot longer than a clean install.

Technorati Tags: Windows 7,Upgrade,Vista

PPTPlex – A Tool for Non-Sequential Presentations

PowerPoint is a very powerful tool and when used well can really have a great impact during a presentation. But the biggest problem when using Powerpoint is the sequential flow of thoughts.

When you had a presentation where you are not sure about the flow or do not fully control the flow of the presentation (say a discussion around a number of topics), then it becomes quite difficult to design a PPT for that. Also if you have a scenario where you are not sure how in-depth you will be diving into a topic, you need slides if you dive deep, but what if you do not. Currently most of us, try and use link and buttons to create a kind of non-sequential flow. But the problem here is that, we are really only creating different paths, but what if the conversation flows in a path that we had not foreseen.

That is where an PowerPoint Add-in from OfficeLabs (This a site by MS Research focused on Office Related Innovations), called PPTPlex really comes in. This Add-in that works with PowerPoint 2007 (and to an extent 2010. I have had a few crashes and some things like adding a canvas do not work with PP 2010), allow you to create something like categories into which you can put slides. Then you can jump from slide to slide or category to category. You can also follow the sequential flow if required.

Do note, you will not be able to use a lot of animations that come with PowerPoint as PPTPlex does not seem to support too many of those yet.

I have used this for around six months now and every time I have used it, it has evoked a tremendous response and everyone asked me how I did it and wanted to know where to get the add-in. The best part of course is that this is a free download and I really hope they integrate this into the next version of PowerPoint.