Philip Wolfe - Just the idea guy

Don't be stupid like HTC

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 06:00:00 GMT

To download a rom update from their site, I was required to enter my phone's serial number, which didn't work by the way. The textbox that allowed users to enter their serial number wouldn't let you press the Home key or arrow keys...something I was doing often to try to enter the right serial number. So remember, let users press navagation keys on narrowly defined textboxes.

http://www.htc.com/www/SupportViewNews.aspx?dl_id=501&news_id=64

Using VS10 Beta 1 (Post 1)

Tue, 19 May 2009 17:00:00 GMT

I downloaded Visual Studio .NET 10 like everyone else yesterday....had good download speeds, so no complaints so far. The installation on my laptop failed at first because I had netfx 1.0 installed and netfx 4.0 wouldn't install. I found the fix on a MSFT blog and got everything installed. At work, the installation went just fine. When I started VS10 up, the splash screen would load but the IDE would not come up. After several trys I was able to get it to work with the safemode switch, so I knew it was an addin problem. I then use the 'log' switch and saw the addins that were being loaded. Seeing the TestDriven.NET addin in the list, I assumed that it wasn't coded for VS10. To remove it, I had to edit the registry and remove the path from this key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\AutomationOptions\LookInFolders. Afterthat, VS loaded and in the Help menu I see 3 TestDriven.NET menu entries. Stay tuned for more.

Also, I don't like the close buttons on each tab so I sent a feedback about it. Please vote for it! https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=453791

TechEd 2009 Presentation

Fri, 15 May 2009 16:00:00 GMT

This presentation was given as an interactive session at TechEd 2009 in LA. In this session I covered how to communicate with state machine workflows that were listening for events through the ExternalDataExchange. The workflow is a simple approval workflow that demonstrates multiple states listening for the same event and one state listening for two events.

The three important classes are the MSMQMessageBroker, FileSystemBroker, and DatabaseBroker. These message brokers translate the system events into events that can be consumed by states in the workflow.

The event collector is a class that can host multiple "brokers" by loading it as the ExternalDataExchange instead of the specific message brokers. To do this, the base class of the specific message brokers must be changed to the NotifierBase.

The WCF project is an example of how to reuse the broker base and communicate with a state machine workflow hosted in WCF which is ultimately an IIS process.

I hope to write a paper on this to explain it better.

Teched 09 State Machine Demo.zip

WWF Persistence Demo

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 06:00:00 GMT

I was working through the WWF MSDN forums and saw some questions on the differences between states and statuses and how does persistence and idle work. I decided to get an example together that is illustrates these points without being overly complex. The result was this 1 workflow, 1 code file, and (the best part) self contained SQLExpress database.

The example shows how by changing the UnloadOnIdle setting in the config file, the developer can control how a workflow idles and unloads. It also demonstrates how delay activities help transition between states in a state machine workflow and how the timespans are min values, not exact. The delay activities rely on the load interval, another setting that can be controlled with a config file attribute. The final part is the database. This is a SQLExpress database that has all the necessary tables to run a persistence store and is right in the project! When the app runs, it connects to that database without the developer having to attach it to SQL Server. I have also uploaded the database as a seperate zip file to use in your other projects.

Enjoy.

Attachments:

TechEd Windows Workflow Foundation Presentation

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 06:00:00 GMT

Attached is the presentation I gave at TechEd this year. It was a heck of a lot of fun to prepare and give this talk on a technology I am very passionate about.

Session Description:
More WWF Hosting Options Than You Thought
Have you ever considered all the possible hosting environments for a Microsoft Windows Workflow? This session will explore different types of hosting, from simple to complex. (Including: simple scenarios such as Console hosted and Service hosted, intermediate scenarios such as Web hosted and asynchronous-Web service hosted, and complex scenarios such as synchronous-Web service hosted and WCF hosted). All of the demos show best practices for hosting in each scenario.

TechEd2008 SOA10-TLC.zip

A cool string formatting piece of code

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 07:00:00 GMT

Today I had to come up with a way to format phone numbers from a string containing just the digits. One solution was to just return a bunch of substring calls, but that didn't seem ".NET" enough so I poked around on the net a bit and found this idea.

http://www.thescripts.com/forum/thread361943.html

The post talks about a class that can format a string by using placeholders with substring parameters. Sounds cool, where's the code? I didn't find the code so I had to come up with it on my own. (See below.) I hope this helps you when you need to format strings.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;

namespace Utilities
{
	/// <summary>
	/// This class returns substrings of an argument when used in a call to String.Format
	/// </summary>
	/// <remarks>
	/// Idea from (http://www.thescripts.com/forum/thread361943.html)
	/// It will use standard formatter placeholders to generate the string.
	/// The placeholders are in the form of {0:Sx,y}
	/// 0 = String.Format argument index
	/// x = Starting index of the argument
	/// y = Length desired
	/// </remarks>
	/// <example>
	/// To format 1234567890 into a phone number: String.Format(new StringFormatter(), "({0:S0,3} {0:S3,3}-{0:S6,4}", "1234567890");
	/// To format 14AB225 into an inventory location: String.Format(new StringFormatter(), "Item found in Warehouse {0:S0,2}, Room {0:S2,1}, Row {0:S3,1}, Shelf {0:S4,1}, Position {0:S5,2}", "14AB225");
	/// </example>
	public class StringFormatter : IFormatProvider, ICustomFormatter
	{
		///<summary>
		///Gets an object that provides formatting services for the specified type.
		///</summary>
		///
		///<returns>
		///The current instance, if formatType is the same type as the current instance; otherwise, null.
		///</returns>
		///
		///<param name="formatType">An object that specifies the type of format object to get. </param>
		public object GetFormat(Type formatType)
		{
			return new StringFormatter();
		}

		///<summary>
		///Converts the value of a specified object to an equivalent string representation using specified format and culture-specific formatting information.
		///</summary>
		///
		///<returns>
		///The string representation of the value of arg, formatted as specified by format and formatProvider.
		///</returns>
		///
		///<param name="arg">An object to format. </param>
		///<param name="format">A format string containing formatting specifications. </param>
		///<param name="formatProvider">An <see cref="T:System.IFormatProvider"></see> object that supplies format information about the current instance. </param>
		public string Format(string format, object arg, IFormatProvider formatProvider)
		{
			if (format.StartsWith("S"))
			{
				string[] parts = format.Remove(0, 1).Split(',');

				int start = int.Parse(parts[0]);
				int length = int.Parse(parts[1]);

				return ((String)arg).Substring(start, length);
			}

			return arg.ToString();
		}
	}
}

Useful data layer functions

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 21:00:00 GMT

A friend, Rob, and I wrote these functions today. You may find them helpful when coverting null values from stored procedures or datatables/datarows in your data layer.


/// <summary>
/// This method compares value with DBNull.Value and returns null or the value
/// </summary>
/// <typeparam name="T"></typeparam>
/// <param name="value"></param>
/// <returns></returns>
public static T? GetValueTypeValue<T>(object value) where T : struct
{
	if (value == DBNull.Value)
		return null;
	else
		return (T)value;
}

/// <summary>
/// This method compares value with DBNull.Value and returns null or the value
/// </summary>
/// <typeparam name="T"></typeparam>
/// <param name="value"></param>
/// <returns></returns>
public static T GetReferenceTypeValue<T>(object value) where T : class
{
	if (value == DBNull.Value)
		return null;
	else
		return (T)value;
}