dudesdoingdotnet: 2008

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Ideas Into Reality : Microsoft Research Beta

Wow.. brand new design of the Microsoft Research Web Site. Quite amaze by the overall layout, published as 'easier to use'.. hmmm...
Also new style of navigation and site organization, browsing... searching (by Live of course) and much more..

Do check image above.. how they design a cute hourglass... woohoo... like it

Give 'em a try... or maybe more.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) New Website : Version 14 or 1.4?

Cool. The awesomeness is there.. much more neat, clean and so-called-Web-2.0 kinda site. Kudos to the whole team.

But few points I want to bring forward is just the positioning of near full research article on the front page and a tricky copyright years (from 2008 - 2012) at the bottom of the site.. Hmm.. Any comments?

Friday, December 5, 2008

Whoa! Google Chrome Has Crashed : Oooppss

After few months of toying around with Google Chrome 0.4.154.29 with so much proud and confident :) , finally the 'whoa' thing came out for the first time... hehehe

It crashed baby... yeah... how? I just trying to clear browsing data, using the clear 'everything' option... luckily just the browser crashed, not 'everything' :)

Monday, December 1, 2008

Maybank2u New Login : For how long? :)

Just finished top-up my prepaid credit with so-called brand new Maybank2u Web 2.0.. and hey, the login now was directed to the 'supposedly' Web 2.0 version of the login features. Hehehe.. Don't know since when this login thingy UP and running. The last transaction I did, still went to the old-reliable Web 1.0 logon precedure.. :)

Since it launch in September this year, there are some hooh haah wow wee.. about this site.. and the most popular is its 'slowness' to log into the system.. but maybe, they are 100% confident to 'release' it now.. Congrats anyway.... We trust you... Tigers!!

Wowwee : 11Million Skypers Online..

Nope, its not a brand new design for wifi device, access point or antenna kinda stuff.. but i just captured my skype client, stating its current online users. The number just more than 11 million users.. Not interested? Yeah... hahaha...
Just wondering if this lowsy blogsite can reach that amount of unique users... say.... daily?.... wowweeeee...

Friday, November 21, 2008

Free Copy of OpenOffice : In Java Update Ads

"The global Standard in free, Microsoft compatible office productivity software..." hmmmm..... the big M$ was mentioned in Java Update pop-ups. Not really a big hoo haa actually, but for me.. it's kinda officially endorsed somebody else thingy in your product campaign or initiative ... :) (which is nobody didn't want to argue about that)

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Do You Flock?

"The Social Web Browser"... Is it or just another web browser trying to be your favourite surfboard?.... With great taglines such.... You Have Needs.Flock Knows. ...... The Browser That's All About You..... hmmm... so cool...
For me, its is a very straight forward.. Flock is Awesome!

"Get Flock and rock the Web without breaking a sweat." -hahaha

Tell us your story dudes!

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

The Awesomeness Continues : Facebook in Bahasa Melayu

Now this is what I can called cooool. One of the most "IN" thing.. in your own mother tounge really help, if not for me.... maybe for few other millions (and some granmas and granpas too).. yeah, like i said... the awesomeness continues.. Kudos FB!

(this post finally being posted after numerous attempt due to bad broadband sevices and a cup of black-thick-coffee at Al-Barokah)

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Free : The World is Just Awesome - FOSS.my 2008

Awesomeness continues in about 25 days .... Well, if you love those "free and open source software" out there.. maybe this event is a must-go especially for those who live 'near' Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. But hey, we'll love to have all of you foss-freak from all over the planet camping in KL for that 2 days (got more fund, then stay longer). More about foss.my

..or else.. you're too boring to attend the event, just bring your empty stomach to try out all you can eat stuffs , Malaysian style.. hahahaha

1. Durian "fear factor" King of the fruits

2. Extra Hot Pregnant Heavily Chilli-ed Crab

3. Gear Box Soup (ox-special parts soup)

(item 1,2,3 is not part of the foss.my event, bring your own dollars for it)

The Ultimate Free! (..if you can crunch 'em)

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Mozilla Crash Reporter : bettergmail2 not working on Firefox 3.0.3?

Hmm.. continuously getting the unwanted Mozilla Crash Reporter popup window everytime I'm trying to open my latest version of Firefox... 3.0.3 . Details report as below...

Add-ons: bettergmail2@ginatrapani.org:0.6.1,support@daemon-tools.cc:1.0.0.2,dlembed@aeruder.net:0.5,{c50ca3c4-5656-43c2-a061-13e717f73fc8}:1.6.1,{19503e42-ca3c-4c27-b1e2-9cdb2170ee34}:1.0.5,fdm_ffext@freedownloadmanager.org:1.3.2,{e4a8a97b-f2ed-450b-b12d-ee082ba24781}:0.8.20080609.0,{CAFEEFAC-0016-0000-0004-ABCDEFFEDCBA}:6.0.04,{CAFEEFAC-0016-0000-0003-ABCDEFFEDCBA}:6.0.03,{CAFEEFAC-0016-0000-0002-ABCDEFFEDCBA}:6.0.02,{CAFEEFAC-0016-0000-0005-ABCDEFFEDCBA}:6.0.05,{c45c406e-ab73-11d8-be73-000a95be3b12}:1.1.6,{D5EDC062-A372-4936-B782-BD611DD18D86}:3.0.0.2,{5c8bfb7c-9a54-11dc-8314-0800200c9a66}:3.0.1,{7694c49c-9fbd-11dc-8314-0800200c9a66}:3.0.1,{972ce4c6-7e08-4474-a285-3208198ce6fd}:3.0.3,{07b2a769-ed19-4483-87ce-c643914c81bb}:2.0.0.38
BuildID: 2008092417
CrashTime: 1223732551
InstallTime: 1223384539
ProductName: Firefox
SecondsSinceLastCrash: 131592
StartupTime: 1223732512
Theme: Vista-aero
URL:
UserID: 7a00c566-7cdb-4d8c-b44f-a6b2951d8599
Vendor: Mozilla
Version: 3.0.3

This report also contains technical information about the state of the application when it crashed.

Starting with "new session" or "restore previous session" also ... at world's end (cannot start Firefox)... :( Guys.. any workaround to fix this?... sent already the error details to firefox 'engineers'.. still waiting the response

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

The New Face of Facebook : Awesome!

Back after a full week hiatus, really amazed on how cool the new facebook. Wow... Big kudos to all fb team. You guys do kick a$$.. Hopefully all other 100 million active fb users are singing the same tone like us.. haha

Fb, we like!

Firefox 3.0.3 : Latest version of Firefox, updated

Completed the updating process. Now, experience how it behave. Hmm... wanna see how its anti-phishing/anti-malware feature works... :)

Highlights :-

Fixed a problem where users were unable to retrieve saved passwords or save new passwords (bug 454708)

Better than Chrome? Safari? ...else...??

Get it!

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Fatality !!! - Fatal error: Call to undefined function curl_init()

Long time ago... in a galaxy nearby, I'm addicted to they call it Mortal Kombaaaatttt... woohooo, coool fighting game. Our desktop keyboard seems like to pull out from its original factory default location. Crazy stuff during college days. Sweet.
Now, the fatality is coming, but in the form of error la.. hahaha.... trying to call 3rd party software to snap url to display it on the browser. Understand? You should.. :) ....

Nice tips from php.net/curl

Tip for Installing cURL with AppServ development server on Windows

If you are running AppServ as a WAMP development environment on a Windows machine, you may experience difficulty installing cURL. Here are some helpful steps:

First go to the PHP directory and copy the following libraries to the windows/system32 dir.
ssleay32.dll
libeay32.dll

Open the php ini file and remove the ; from extension=php_curl.dll

Reboot your machine to load […]

Have try it before? Can it solve the prob....

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

XAMPP with Oracle : oci.dll not found

For my quickie...
By codrai .. OTN Forum
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=406036&tstart=60&start=15

How to configure Oracle, Apache and PHP.

Ingredients
XAMPP implementation of Apache and PHP
Apache version 2.2
PHP 5.1.2
Oracle 10G Base client
Windows XP
Remote Oracle 9.1 database
URL’s
Oracle 10G Base client
http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/oci/instantclient/instantclient.html
File Monitor
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/FileAndDisk/Filemon.mspx
Dependancy Walker
http://www.dependencywalker.com/
Steps
As with all things, this is easy once you know how. It is equally easy to get it wrong. I have included some information on how to debug issues.

I do not cover the install of Apache and PHP. XAMMP does a good job of this.

Start with configuring the Oracle client. Note; I had version 9 of the Oracle client on my machine. I had also read that the Oracle DLL for PHP supported versions 9 and 8 of Oracle so it took me a while to click that I needed version 10 of the client. There is a link above to version 10 of the client, this is a cut down client.

Download the client and copy the files to a suitable directory, say C:\Oracle10Client.
You need to manually configure some environment variables. I had read numerous articles with conflicting advise on this. I set the following:

TNS_ADMIN=C:\Oracle10Client\instantclient_10_2
Path=C:\Oracle10Client\instantclient_10_2;
NLS_LANG=ENGLISH_UNITED KINGDOM.WE8MSWIN1252
Enable oracle in PHP.INI

I only had to change one line, but 1st I had to make sure I had the right php.ini, XAMPP had created 3 and I had other versions from earlier installs.

My installation of XAMPP has the following file: http://localhost/xampp/phpinfo.php
This pointed me to the following location C:\Program Files\xampp\apache\bin\php.ini

I only had to change one entry, uncommenting the following line:
;extension = php_oci8.dll

That should have been enough. All I should have needed to was restart Apache and I’m away. I should have been able to go back to http://localhost/xampp/phpinfo.php and search for OCI to learn that OCI had been enabled.
Debugging options

It was not working and I probably made it worse until I solved the problems, but these are the activities I undertook.

I found the following error statement at C:\Program Files\xampp\apache\logs\error.log:

PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library 'C:
Program Files\\xampp\\php\\ext
php_oci8.dll' - The specified procedure could not be found.\r\n in Unknown on line 0

I did the usual Google searches to find a solution.

I downloaded Dependency Walker. This is quite complicated for a novice, but it did give me a clue. I opened php_oci8.dll and it showed red on opening oci.dll and php5ts.dll. The real value was that it gives you path information for the instances of DLL’s I realised that it was calling the wrong DLL’s.

I played with paths and copied DLL’s all over the place. This made Dependency Walker happy, but not Apache.

I tested PHP directly from the command line with my little Oracle/PHP script

"C:\Program Files\xampp\php\php.exe" "C:\Program Files\xampp\htdocs\test\test.php". This worked successfully. I seen posts on the web that this helped identify other issues, such as wrong versions of DLL’s.

I was now stumped.

I then decided to use an old tool I had from a company called sysinternals (now looks like it is owned by Microsoft?) called filemon. I recorded the activity as Apache started up.

I noticed that apache was calling an earlier version of OCI.DLL. I overwrote this with the 10g version and voila.

I confirmed it was setup with the http://localhost/xampp/phpinfo.php which showed that OCI Support was enabled.

In short my main problems were due to not having a clean install base and having to ensure Apache used the correct DLL’s.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

oci.dll was not found : I'll 'find' YOU!

Troubled by the "...oci.dll was not found" error while trying to use oracle with PHP. Tried so many ways of workaround.. still koyakk.. Things should have been easier if this site is not giving the "file not found on server" error. C'mmon ORA... give me those instant client dll files ... please

From OTN :-

Installation Steps:

1. Download the appropriate Instant Client packages for your platform. All installations REQUIRE the Basic package.

2. Unzip the packages into a single directory such as "instantclient".

3. Set the library loading path in your environment to the directory in Step 2 ("instantclient"). On many UNIX platforms, LD_LIBRARY_PATH is the appropriate environment variable. On Windows, PATH should be used.

4. Start your application and enjoy. (----hopefully)

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Downloaded, Installed and Slurped : Google Chrome in action

You're Welcome.

Now you guys are into the browser battlefield. Welcome to the war!! Be it for good , bad or else... me don't really care whatsoever as long I experience a far more better surfin' incident. :)
Keep polishing your stuff. Kudos!!

(to 'others', keep on pushing... untill somebody is ......huhu )

...super easy.. depends on your network

Normal dialogue..

What makes Google chrome different? Give your comment...

Monday, September 8, 2008

Very google-friendly : IE8 Beta 2 express setting

Recently upgrade my IE8 Beta (not so sure what version, 1.0 maybe) to Beta 2. As depicted above, express settings for search provider is Google. :) ..... don't know if it grab my old settings or what.... but... huhu... your comment please..

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

You can download 'em tomorrow : Google Chrome

The most used search engine, the most what not this and that. With a whole bunch of apps and services, now they will be releasing their own so called open source web browser. Yupp... a browser. Get to know 'em in a comical way. Nice.

So you got another 'option' doncha?

Ready to eat 'others' or end up being 'eat' ..:) What your say.

..not today :)

"By keeping each tab in an isolated 'sandbox', we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites," Pichai and Upson wrote.

more [G blog]

Friday, August 22, 2008

Live Mesh Tech Preview : ..not yet here :(

So unlucky .. not yet available for 'preview' (here). Hopefully it wont be long... to wait.. Those who has tasted it, feel free to xp it with all of us :)

Nice article here. Do read 'em

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Final Day Part 1 : Tech.Ed SEA 2008, KLCC, Kuala Lumpur

Day 4 : The Finale...
I don't know why... maybe its the final day, my journey to da'place went so smooth. (Thank you god.) Initially I 'planned' to arrived 'late'... huhu.... Amongst the dudes... I'm 1st to 'get' my early morning 'coffee-tea-sir?' ... (try again next year friends.. haha).. Around 835am.. me already at the convention centre.. searching for another you-talk-i-learn session... Went for Architecture in Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 (Instructor Lead), but... "...sorry guys, seat or stand is full!" ... adoi.. get another cuppa tea la ini macam...

Also went for SharePoint Governance: Chaos No More, 10 Steps to Success by Joel Oleson.. No code demo whatsoeva.. pure i-show-u-learn session... (correct until the moment i have to left the session).. Quite pack room.. but lucky, we got our seat. (at the back lorr).. not so much pixs i could snap... so many 'head'.. :)

A cup of tea to start day 4.... (actually.. 2 cups)

Dark Knight on day 4?

Pasar malam 'crocs' in action... again

..continued...

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Day 3 Part 1 : Tech.Ed SEA 2008, KLCC, Kuala Lumpur

Day 3 :
After fantastic two days of whollotta walk, talk, eat, (sleep a.k.a rest)... again we're here on the 3rd day of Tech.Ed SEA 2008, KLCC. Still alive and kicking as expected...

No need to talk about the not-so-rapid-LRT service, for me.. huhu... nvmd lah.. as long as I safely arrived on 'time', that was great.

First session ...Silverlight 2 – Building Rich Internet Applications Using
Microsoft Silverlight by Oliver Scheer. Nice presentation and the demo was OK. (see attached imgs)..

..with my trusted 'pasar malam' crocs'.. huhu

demo by Oliver... Silverlight rules!

Silverlight your day, and night...

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Day 2 Part 1 : Tech.Ed SEA 2008, KLCC, Malaysia

Day 2:
..start of with another jam-sardines-packed-kinda experience 'riding' with LRT. After 3 full loadz of 'arrival', i'm not gonna miss the number 4.
Off we go to KLCC...

Arrived a lil bit late.. Chad's class started already... (.NET: ASP.NET MVC
Framework). Nice session though! Great work Chad. Mr Kudzu and his 'Tablet' really kick a$$...

...flat, tired and ....zzzzzz.

Tech.Ed SEA 2008 Vs Dark Knight?

"Jom isap Rokok?" - Mr H

Monday, August 11, 2008

Day 1 Part 1 : Tech.Ed SEA 2008, KLCC

Finally, its ON. Tech.Ed SEA 2008 off to a great start. Hopefully it ends well. :)
Managed to attend few sessions... but need to concentrate more on WPF, SQL 2008 and Mobile/game development... looks interesting when its being showcased during keynote session.

..not so early birdies...

..off to keynote address..

MSC Malaysia big boss in action.

1 minute "hands-on lab" experience... sorry guys, need to go home (530pm). If not, i'll make a 'official' complaint. :)

p/s - lunch is burpppp..... awesome!

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Registered and ready to rock! : Tech.Ed SEA 2008, Kuala Lumpur

Afraid of 'unnecessary' you-cannot-registered incident for tomorrow long awaited Tech.Ed SEA 2008, me myself off to KLCC for a mission : "Get your name IN". Arrived, around 11am at pre-registration counter - level 3. No que needed as there is no people on que.. haha. There are few international atttendees collecting their goodies. Yeah , very nice backpack dudes.

Welcomed with a warm smile by organizer (very professional and cool). Present my 'HR approval' so called letter and some clarification here and there... 'registered' as 2nd walk in attendee ( i think so, based on ID). Woohoo.. thank god. Mission accomplished! Hopefully everythings goes well.

Ozzie sheepskin not included! Nice backpack..

WI00002... Walk In attendee numero second?

"Hang this thing on your neck from monday to thursday, and pack all your stuff inside this green goblin sponsored back -miss x"

Friday, August 8, 2008

Tech•Ed SEA 2008 Online Pre-Registration CLOSED!

Near-bad news..... Some miscommunication that could cost us.... the 'seat'. Hold on, don't panic yet. We have this coming Saturday and Sunday to 'pre-register' at the 'site'. Hopefully nothing scarry happens. :)

Tech•Ed Online Pre-Registration is now closed.

Should you still wish to register, please WALK-IN and register onsite at the following Date(s) and Time(s):-

Venue: Kuala Lumpur Convention Center.

* Aug 9 (12pm to 6pm) – Registration Center at Center Core on Level 3
* Aug 10 (10am to 6pm) – Registration Center at Center Core on Level 3
* Aug 11 (7.30am to 10am) – Registration Center at Banquet Hall on Level 3
* Aug 11 (10am to 6pm) - Registration Center at Center Core on Level 3
* Aug 12 & 13 (7.30am to 6pm) - Registration Center at Center Core on Level 3

We apologize in advance that the Registration Team will not be contactable from 12.00pm on Aug 7 to 12.00 pm on Aug 9, as we will be moving onsite.

Nuclear Blast! Part 2: Dotnetnuke 4.8.4 Installation with SQL Server DB connection

Installing the database scripts.... (automatically) ... woohoo

Completed or ......

setting your super power user , the 'host'

..choose your modules. You can do it later....

which authentication services you like to have.... cardspace, LiveID, openID, AD....

To be continue....

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

We're In : Tech·Ed SEA 2008, KLCC Kuala Lumpur , Malaysia

At first, we don't think that we are going to have a blast of this year TechEd SEA (..same fate as last year), but yesterday.. :) we've been told that "yes..you can go". Woohooo... super cool. Thanks Boss. After a long time not 'doingdotnet' fulltime, this is a great opportunity to keep abreast with .NET world.

UPDATE : Confirmation email 'arrive'! 1530

Most Wanted 'Classrooms'. Hopefully they don't clash or whatsoever :-

TLA333 - Cosmos - Running .NET without Windows
Session Level: 300
Speaker:Chad Hower

TLA231 - Writing a 3D game in 60 minutes
Session Level: 200
Speaker:Dirk Primbs

TLA311 - Best Practices with the Microsoft Visual C# 3.0 Language Features
Session Level: 300
Speaker:Bikesh Lakhmichand

TLA312 - Building Smart Clients the Smart Way
Session Level: 300
Speaker:Maung Maung Phyo

TLA326 - .NET: XNA - .NET for the Xbox 360! (someone please donate your xbox ...)
Session Level: 300
Speaker:Chad Hower

MED333 - Using Microsoft Silverlight for Creating Rich Mobile User Experiences
Session Level: 300
Speaker:Loke Uei Tan

SBP322 - Messaging, Identity, and Workflow in the Cloud
Session Level: 300
Speaker:Nigel Watling

WUX233 – Fly with Popfly
Session Level: 200
Speaker:Rohan Thomas

God willing, we want to attend all but.. you know, 'something' might happen. Whateva it is, Tech.Ed SEA 2008..... here we conquer!! (i want the goodies, knowledge, freebies, meet the experts, DVD player, meet friends, expand network, LG Portable DVD player.. huhuhu)

...sexy, isn't it? Please come to papa! Its been about 2 years since the last DVD I play thru a DVD player. :(