TimWeb

Merbla wrote a short post today about a site he came accross, CodeRun. The site is an online code respository, with the added advantage of an online IDE include on the site which allows you to see the code and run / debug it as it is. After signing up with a free account you can create your own projects (AJAX, ASP.NET, PHP and WPF – AJAX and ASP.NET also have support for facebook applications) which you can develop, store and run all from their website.

The concept is brilliant – everything from start to go can be done online via your standard web browse (currently only supports Internet Explorer and FireFox) and publishing of your source code is as simple as a right-click and a left-click. Once source has been published other people can freely go and search for source code in the repository and open it directly in the browser, make modifications and run them all from within the browser.

However; The actuall implementation of it so fair (while still very impressive) is significantly lacking from a development perspective. Although it is possible to do the majority of thing you can do in Visual Studio, it is a little cumbersome and slow at times and does have a few limitions. For example, there is no toolbar – and therefore no drag and dropping of controls (which Microsoft presentations always seem to contain a lot of ;-).

Although the site seems to be focused on web applications some features are also unavaliable in the online IDE. You do not have the ability to create folders with underscores in them, and there does not seem to be anyway of creating the special ASP.NET folders such as App_Data or App_Themes… not such a big deal. Designer files are not automatically created and if you try to create one an exception is thrown saying the file already exists.

The biggest problem however is the speed. Perhaps it is just my machine or my internet connection, but the online IDE is very slow to use and navigate. Menues and and prompts tend to hang the browser for a couple of seconds before they load and the intellisense (ctrl+space) does not allows function correctly. Code highlighting, although not important or required, is lacking from the Visual Studio equivalent and take a signifant amont of time to process and display.

Copying and pasting from Visual Studio in to the online IDE also seems to be out of question, as it seems to past the text multiple times; Copy and paste from within the online IDE works fine.

All that being said the online IDE is quite feature rich and imitates Visual Studio very well. You are able to apply breakpoints and step through code, attach to processes (only online applications – not system processes), watch variables, etc. There is also an option to open a project from a zip file – which works great, providing you zip the project from the root of the project folder (it must not be under a sub folder).

In the end (as Merbla suggested in his post) something like this teamed up with StackOverflow, for the purpose of displaying simple solutions to problems with working example would be brilliant! However as far as online development goes I think there is a long way to go.

See running example: Hello World!

Links, Programming C#, Cloud Computing, CodeRun, Development, FireFox, IDE, Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Programming, Repository, StackOverflow

Some time ago Greater Union Birch Carroll & Coyle revamped the Cinebuzz club and now offer 1 free movie for every 10 movies that you see. With this promotion they also include the above ad during the movie previews prior to each and every movie. The goal: List all 50 famous movie titles:

1. Catch-22 -- 22s caught in the spider webs.
   
2. Along Came A Spider -- Spider entering the scene.
3. Spider-Man -- Male spider.
4. Kiss of the Spider Woman -- Female spider blowing a kiss.
5. Signs -- The collection of street signs.
6. Kangaroo Jack -- Kangaroo sign with the kangaroo holding a jackhammer.
7. Stripes -- The poles from the sign posts become stripes on the screen. (Thanks R.K.)
8. Cat On A Hot Tin Roof -- Cat with its paws on fire on the tin roof.
9. To Kill A Mocking Bird -- 2 shooting dead the bird on the roof.
10. The Queen -- Queen waving.
11. Cactus -- The cactus next to the queen.
12. The Skull -- The bulls skull next to the queen. (Thanks R.K.)
13. The Castle -- The castle in the background of the desert.
14. Priscilla, Queen of the Desert -- Man in the dress, in the desert.
15. Cinderella -- The pumpkin carriage.
16. Saw III -- The three saws cutting the tree.
17. The Hills Have Eyes -- The hills with eyes all over them.
18. A Clockwork Orange -- The orange with a clock face on it.
19. One Flow Over the Cuckoo’s Nest -- The 1 flying over the ‘cuckoo clock’ in the nest.
20. American Graffiti -- USA spray painted on the building.
21. Blue Crush -- Orange being crushed in to blue liquid.
22. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers -- The two famous (Eiffel tower and Tower of Pisa) towers next to one another. (Thanks R.K.)
23. Sex in the City -- The two buildings having sex.
24. The Fast And The Furious -- The angry man in the fast car.
25. Iron Man or The Giant Iron -- The Iron wearing a tie.
26. Crash -- Car crashing in to the bull.
27. Raging Bull -- The bull after the crash.
28. Twelve Monkeys or Twelve Angry Men -- The twelve monkeys/men who get out of the car.
29. Matchstick Men -- The two men made from matchsticks.
30. Out of the Box -- Two matchstick man coming out of the box. (Thanks R.K.)
31. The Thin Red Line -- The red line the matchstick men light.
32. Mission: Impossible -- Fuse being lit and burning off screen. (Thanks Adam)
33. Walk The Line -- The man walking on the thin red line.
34. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels -- The two smoking barrels next to the stock of locks.
35. Napoleon Dynamite -- The dressed up dynamite stick.
36. The Devil Wears Prada -- The devil dressed up in a yellow outfit.
37. Hot Fuzz -- The two police officers trying to cool off in hell.
38. Hell Boy -- The Buoy in hell.
39. Strongman -- Very strong man lifting the screen to the next scene. (Thanks R.K.)
40. Top Gun -- Guns on the winners podium. (Thanks rilstix)
41. The Running Man -- Man running.
42. Cool Runnings -- Man running in to the fridge. (Thanks D-jei)
43. The Big Chill -- Man standing in front of the big fridge. (Thanks Adam)
44. Black Hawk Down -- The black bird falling out of the sky.
45. The Man From Snowy River -- The man getting out of the white river. (Thanks Adam)
46. March of the Penguins -- Penguins marching in a line.
47. Titanic -- Sinking ship.
48. The Last Samurai -- Red Samurai running in after the penguins.
49. Swordfish -- The fish holding the sword.
50. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy -- The anchor wearing the tie and top hat.
51. Million Dollar Baby -- Baby sitting on bags of money.
52. Kill Bill -- The money being shot.

Can you see any more? Post your findings in the comments.

Update: It seems we have gone over 50 now! Keep your findings coming in and we’ll see how many we can get in total.

Misc Advertisement, Birch Carroll & Coyle, Cinebuzz, Club, Game, Greater Union, Movies, Video, YouTube

tim.bellette.net is now compatible with the iPhone, iPod Touch, Google Android and Blackberry Storm. If you visit the site from any of the aforementioned devices it will automatically detected that you are connecting from said device and display a mobile friendly version.

News Android, Apple, Blackberry, Google, IPhone, IPod, iPod Touch, Mobile

Metadata Wrangler a great plugin by Jeffrey Friedl which allows you to automatically control the metadata which is included (or excluded) from your exported lightroom photos. The plugin works by stripping the metadata from your plugins when you export them from Lightroom. Prior to exporting the images you can specify what data you would like to keep, and what data you would like to exlude. This could particular be useful for stock / pro photographers who only want to keep the IPTC block (i.e. copyright details and keywords). Once you have set up a preset the same preset will be remembered the next time you do an export, making managing metadata extremely easy.

Links EXIF, IPTC, Lightroom, Lightroom Plugins, Metadata, Metadata Wrangler, Photography, Plugins

Adobe has release version 2.3 of Lightroom which includes a number of bug fixes. Some of the big fixes include a memory leak while processing files with local adjustments, failure to burn to disc on windows machines and undo (ctrl+z) on windows could a series of previous actions to be undone. The upgrade is free for all Lightroom 2.x users, with 1.x users required to purchase an upgrade disc (which if you haven’t already done, is definitely worth it with all the changes since version 1.x).

Update for Windows or Update for Mac.

Links, News Adobe, Bug Fixes, Bugs, Burn, Fixes, Lightroom, Mac, Memory Leak, Photography, Upgrade, Windows

I recently come across an article by Datacolor (the company who make the Spyder range of monitor / printer calibrators) which explains how to enable ICC profiles in Firefox 3. It is a very simple boolean (true/false) property which you need to change in the ‘hidden’ Firefox configuration.

In Firefox enter about:config in to the address bad and press enter. A warning message will show up saying “This might void your warranty!” ignore this and click “I’ll be careful, I promise” (don’t worry you don’t have warranty anyway ;-). Next, in the filter bar type in gfx.color_management.enabled. There should now only be one option in the list of configuration options, and it should be set to false by default. Simply double click this option to change it to true (it should now be bold, indicating it is no longer the default value). Restart Firefox and you should be up and running with ICC profiles.

Check out the original post by Datacolor for more information and for two images which will indicate if your browse supports ICC profiles.

Tips Browsers, Colour Management, Configuration, Datacolor, FireFox, ICC, ICC Profiles, Spyder

One useful feature of InfoPath is its built in support for user Roles. While it is not overally powerful (and it should not be used for security purposes as all data can be viewed and edited in xml format via notepad or a similar) it can be handy for autmoatically switching views based on AD users or groups.

To add a role simply go to Tools -> User Roles (alt + t + e) and click Add (alt + a). You can then specify which users, groups or user names from the form should belong to the new role.

One thing to note is that when you are designing an InfoPath form and click “Preview Form” it shows the form based on the default role. If you wish to preview the form under a different role you need to go to File -> Preview Form -> With User Role… (alt + f + r + r). The form will then be launched in preview mode under the select role.

There is also the option to set a role as either the default role or the initiator role (only one role can occupy either or both of these options). The default setting specifies that this role is the default role for all users, should they not meet the requirements of another role. The initiator setting is the role assigned to a user when they open the infopath form for the first time.

Another point of interest is that roles are assessed on a top-down approach, however you can not change the ordering of roles from within the InfoPath IDE. In order to change the ordering of roles, should you be required to, you must open the manifest.xsf and manually re-order the <xsf:role /> elements.

Programming, Tips InfoPath, InfoPath 2003, Permissions, Programming, Roles, Security, SharePoint, Users, XML

Images Beach, Dicky Beach, Images, Ocean, Photography, Surf, Surfing, Water

Links Music, Songs, Stop Motion, Video Clips, Videos, YouTube

This one is a quick and easy one, but is the basis for creating some very useful workflows in for use in SharePoint lists. Firstly you will need a SharePoint website and a copy of SharePoint Designer (a 60 day trial version is avaliable from microsoft) and a list in SharePoint which you can apply the workflow to – for this example I am using a fairly simple Travel Requsition list which is a document library which contains InfoPath documents.

To create the workflow open SharePoint designer and connect to your SharePoint website. Once connected, go to File -> New and select the SharePoint Content tab and select Workflow (blank workflow). You should now be presented with the a form similar to the following. Here you can specify a name for your workflow (each workflow in a site must have a unique name) which list the workflow is attached (associated) to and when the workflow should be triggered. In this case we want to trigger the workflow whenever a list item is added or updated.

The next step is to define the actual steps of the workflow. Although it’s not necessary, the first step that I like to perform is to log a message indicated that the workflow has been initialised and is being performed. Additionally I like to also log a message when each step is starting and when each step has been completed. This logging can be achieve simply by using the action “Log message to the workflow history list”.

For this workflow what we want to do now is send an email to the travel requisition assignee, notifying them of a new request which requires their approval. As the workflow is being triggered when a new item is added, or when an item is modified (to capture updates later) we will need to safe gaurd against the fact that the assingee might have already been sent a notification email (this could also be done using a specific column with a boolean value and updating this column in the workflow). To do this we need to create a workflow status column in our sharepoint list and put a condition around our next workflow step.

To create the required column; In SharePoint create a new column of type “Choice”, on the associated list, and add several workflow statuses. For example, Pending Approval, Approved, Declined, Completed.  Now back in SharePoint Designer, in our workflow wizard, click Add workflow step and in the conditions select Compare [list name] field then set the first field to the Workflow Status column we just created and the equals field to the first value (in this case Pending Approval). This will restrict this step from only being processed if the document is pending approval, i.e. when the form is first submitted.

A step would be pretty useless if it did not contain any actions, so go a head and create an action to log the task we are about to perform (or don’t :-). The next action we want to perform is to send an email to the approver, to notify them of the new requisition. The action we want is called send an email – select this and then click this message, to specify the message contents.

In the Define E-mail Message screen click the address book button next to the To field. You can now specify who should receive the email address – this can be anyone from Active Directory, a custom email address, a SharePoint user, or in our case a workflow lookup value. To specify a workflow lookup value double click on Workflow Lookup… in the list on the left. The source should be left as Current Item and the field value should be set to the field containing the email address of the person who is going to approve the form.

After clicking OK twice you should be back at the Define E-mail Message screen, where you can now specify the subject and body. If you wish to make the email a little more personalized you add lookup’s to the body by clicking the Add Lookup to Body button and selecting a field using the same method as when we select the email address. One useful field to add to the body is the Encoded Absolute URL field. This field outputs the complete URL of the form to allow the approver to click this link and directly open the form for completion – instead of having to browse to the site and then search through the list for the new form.

Now we are done! This is a very simple workflow, however it can easily be extended to allow additional tasks to be automated. For example, the next step may be to email the appropriate person based on the actions of the approver – if they approve the requsition it might then notify a line manager of this approval; if they decline the requisition it might notify the person it has been declines; or the approver may not be responsible for this approval and as such delgate the task to some who is responsible. The following image show such example.

Where to next? Complex workflows in Visual Studio, with code behind functionality…

Programming, Tips Email, Forms, InfoPath, InfoPath 2003, Lists, Microsoft, SharePoint, SharePoint Designer, Travel, Visual Studio, Workflows