I took advantage of the long Labor Day holiday weekend to format my Tablet PC. On one hand I was lucky, because through various conferences, and Microsoft promotions, and so on, I have all the licenses I need for my machines. On the other hand I wasn't lucky, because I couldn't find my case for my copy of Microsoft Office 2007 that I had gotten at a Microsoft Launch event. Why didn't I add the key to my master list. I don't know. I guess the case was just too shinny for all that.

I've found myself in this situation before, and in the past, I've always turned to Magic Jelly Bean Keyfinder.

Magic Jelly Bean Keyfinder

It works on Windows 95, 98, ME, NT4, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Windows Vista, Office 97, Office XP, and Office 2003.

Basically it works on everything BUT Microsoft Office 2007.

There is plenty of software that will find your software key for a fee, but that's no fun. After a lot of searching and hunting I did find the following:

ProduKey v1.07 - Recover lost product keys for Windows/MS-Office/SQL Server

Download Here

[The screen above comes from the NirSoft company's Web site. Take a closer look, and notice the proof they give that the product must actually work. ]

Files & Disc Images for Self-installation

If you prefer to install the software yourself, you can download separate disc images for the following products:

• Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 Express Editions
• Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 Standard Edition
• Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 Professional Edition
• Visual Studio Team System 2008 Beta 2 Team Suite
• Visual Studio Team System 2008 Beta 2 Team Foundation Server
• Visual Studio Team System 2008 Beta 2 Test Load Agent
• MSDN Library for Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2

Virtual PC Images with Pre-installed Software

If you prefer the convenience of evaluating prerelease software in a virtual machine environment, you can download VPC images for the following products that include pre-installed instances of the prerelease software indicated, including any required prerequisite software. You will need Virtual PC or Virtual Server to run this image. Depending on your hardware, the download files make take between 30-60 minutes to decompress these self-extracting files.

• Visual Studio Team System 2008 Beta 2 Team Suite VPC
• Visual Studio Team System 2008 Beta 2 Team Suite & Team Foundation Server VPC
• These downloads are differencing disks. To use them, you must also download Visual Studio Code Name Orcas Base Image contains the OS and is a one-time download for all the Virtual PC images that lay on top of it.

Zoom, Zoom

Microsoft Secure Content Downloader

Microsoft Secure Content Downloader (MSCD), based on the Avalanche peer-to-peer (P2P) research project from Microsoft Research Cambridge’s Incubation team, will be trialed beginning July 27th for distribution of Beta 2 of Visual Studio 2008, augmenting the traditional, Web-based distribution channel. This trial is scheduled to end on November 30th.

If you got to have it, and you got to have it NOW, then MSCD is the way to go. It cuts the time down into hours, instead of days. But I didn't see where they had the Virtual PC images available, and those were what I was really after.

So two days after I do a post on How to Add Search to Google Reader, what happens? Google adds Search to Google Reader! Ha, you're welcome. Anything else I can do for you while I'm at it?

Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Topic: Visual Studio .NET Tips and Tricks - Part II

Tuesday, September 11, 2007, is our next meeting of  Pee Dee Area .NET User's Group.

Chris Craft, from ACS Technologies, will be presenting Visual Studio .NET Tips and Tricks - Part II.

Material from Part I will be recovered for any of those who may have missed it, and new tips and tricks will be presented.

Visual Studio .NET is filled with thousands of features and capabilities that make our lives as developers more efficient. The number of features that Visual Studio .NET contains is immense. The Visual Studio .NET Tips and Tricks presentation is a compilation of my favorite, and most popular, tips and tricks for this great IDE. Developers who are unaware of these timesaving features miss out on opportunities to increase their programming productivity and effectiveness. This Visual Studio .NET Tips and Tricks presentation is meant to explain how to use Visual Studio .NET more effectively.

See you there!

Here is the tentative schedule:
6:00 PM - 6:20 PM Socializing / Dinner
6:20 PM - 6:30 PM Introduction, Sponsor Time, and News.
6:30 PM - 7:45 PM Presentation
7:45 PM - 8:00 PM Drawing and Wrap Up
Please subscribe to the PDANUG Upcoming Events and News Feed here.

Sure it's a snap to create Line and Shape controls of your own. But ever since I left Visual Basic 6.0, for the greener pastures of .NET I missed having the Line and Shape controls out of the box.

Back by popular demand, we have the Line and Shape controls included in the Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 Power Packs 2.0.

Please remember, these can be used in C# applications as well.

The new and improved shape controls now come with a full set of events, and a decent feature set of their own including most basic features users will need.

You can download them from here.

Will this be the end of the 1 pixel tall panel being used as a horizontal line ruler?  I don't know, only time will tell.

Good News : Free Games . Bad News : Ad Supported. They just show up in menus and load screens, not during actual game play, so I think it will be okay.

More Bad News : You will have to get an account to FilePlanet.com, but it can be the free one. Just create an account don't choose a membership.

Far Cry Full Game [Free Game - Ad Supported] Details

Step into the role of John Carver as he escapes a brutal kidnapping and finds himself on a tropical island full of mercenaries. Rely on firepower, strategy, and stealth as you assault each open-ended area on your own terms!

This free game is supported by in-game advertising.

Download Here

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time Full Game [Free Game - Ad Supported] Details

The Prince returns in this stunning action adventure game with a unique time-manipulation mechanic and intense combat.

This free game is supported by in-game advertising.

Download Here

Rayman Raving Rabbids [Free Game - Ad Supported] Details

Rayman Raving Rabbids marks the return of the iconic video-game hero, Rayman, in his funniest and zaniest adventure ever. When the world of Rayman is threatened by a devastating invasion of crazed, out-of-control bunnies Rayman must rise up against his furry foes to foil their wicked plans.

This free game is supported by in-game advertising.

Download Here

I've been using Google Reader for a long time now, in no small part due to the large doses of peer pressure applied by Chris Reeder and Page Brooks. I'd like to tell you how long I've been using Google Reader, but that is exactly the problem: Google Reader doesn't have a built in search feature. Huh? Oh, the humanity!

"Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

But not so much when it comes to your subscribed feeds in Google Reeder. In the place of a search feature, Google Reader provides you with the ability to tag it, maybe with a little star if you like, after that you're on your own.

Before converting to Google Reader, I was a loyal fan of RSS Bandit, which I adored. It has a few places where the usability is a little rough, search is one. Also, it takes a while synchronize remote storage of feed data. But for the most part other than that it was a dream. But I wanted perfect, and couldn't settle for good enough, especially after my feed data file got corrupted and I lost all of my saved feed history.

First thing I tried was reverting back to the previous version of Google Reader:

Almost fooled me at first until I noticed where it said, "Search for new content". No, don't search for new content, I have what I want already I just need to find it again, please.

There does appear to be a way to accomplish this in Firefox at least.

I found the original instruction guide through LifeHacker.com here.

First, you will need to export you feed list in to an OPML file. You can do that here: http://www.google.com/reader/subscriptions/export.

Now you will need to create a Google Custom Search Engine, that will be wired up to search any feed in your OPML file next.

You can create a generic dummy search engine to start off with and just point it to your blog at first.

Then you will need to open your custom search engine's control panel.

From there it is a straight forward matter of uploading your OPML file. At this point you have a search engine helper if you will that can search your feed list.

Now we just need to wire it back up to Google Reeder in Firefox using Greasemonkey using this user script.

To do this you'll need to access your custom search engine and search for something like the word test. Take the URL that produce and remove the &q=test section and replace into the user script.

The instructions are provided in the user script itself. But here's a more step by step set of instructions just in case:

Google Operating System: Script for Google Reader Search

Sometimes, I've found it advantageous to run Vista with User Account Control off. I'm not sure if it is the right choice, actually for most users, in most situations it's a big mistake, kind of like driving without your headlights on.

For better or worse here's how to do it.

Enter "User Accounts" in the Vista search / launch prompt.

Now choose "User Accounts" at the top of the Vista launch menu.

You can also get there by opening the Control Panel and searching for "User Accounts".

Now you'll need to find the Turn User Account Control on or off option.

Simply enable or disable the checkbox to match your preference and your are set.

By the way, you can enable and disable the User Account Control from a command prompt if you so desire:

Disable User Account Control

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /k %windir%\System32\reg.exe ADD HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v EnableLUA /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

Enable User Account Control

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /k %windir%\System32\reg.exe ADD HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v EnableLUA /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

Now you have done it. You've gone and upset the Windows Security Center.

Here's how to appease it, and grant yourself a reprieve.

You could disable ALL Security Center notifications, but I think that is a bad idea, by following this guide.

Or you could modify your registry and just disable the User Account Control warning message, by following these instructions.

Today I was greeted by the following dialog box:

I immediately thought, "Hmm, that's strange. Why is my C:\ drive not trusted all of a sudden? It's works fine for all my other existing projects. What's special about this new one?"

I had the answer, but I didn't realize it at the time. After reading Scott Hanselman's Sharpen the Saw for Developers article, I had wanted to check out the source code for DotNetKicks. So I had downloaded the source code, and extracted it to my C:\Projects\ folder.

I started to search for more information about this "The project location is not trusted" error message I was getting, and I found out the following:

First, I found this on MSDN

The Project Location is Not Trusted Dialog Box

This dialog box appears if you attempt to open or create a client project on a Universal Naming Convention (UNC) path. By default, a UNC path is not a trusted location for a project. Your project might not run correctly when you attempt to debug or run from this location.

 That is definitely the dialog box I was getting. Now I was concerned. One thing I am sure of, is that if my computer thinks my C:\ driver is an untrusted UNC path, I was going to be in a world of hurt, if I didn't find and fix the fundamental issue.

This information also concerned me because I was using a Virtual PC to try and open this project with. And I started to wondering if this was somehow playing a part in the issue.

Next, I found the same issue on Dave's Tech Shop

Dave didn't have the answer to my problem, but he did discuss how to give FullTrust permission to a UNC path.

Finally, I discovered Stephen Cawood's Geek Literature blog, and his article .Net project location is not trusted.

Stephen explains that there is a new security feature that applies to downloaded zip files. What I learned completely surprised me, since I've downloaded countless projects before and had never seen nor heard of this before.

Here's what I had to do to unblock the project I had extracted from a zip I had downloaded off the Internet.

 

Right-click the Zip file, choose Properties, click Unblock, click Apply and then unzip.

Why does it have to be so hard to simply install SQL Server 2005? Why can't I simply load a DVD into my computer, see a well designed and thought out install dashboard, make a few choices and click install?

The installation adventure for SQL Server 2005 is some kind of man versus machine epic battle. In one corner you have some poor soul who would like to get some work done today, in the other corner you have Legion. Legion is comprised of many souls including but most certainly not limited to the following: SQL Server Itanium, SQL Server x64, SQL Server x86, 32 bit, 64 bit, Developer Edition, SP1, and so on. Individually all of these things are great. Once you manage to extract the piece you are seeking all is good in the world.  But as long as they are combined into one mindless mob and you have trouble.

Why did the SQL Server 2005 setup application have to be written as a Web application? Was this the best choice for a setup application that runs off of a DVD? Were there any pros to a pseudo Web deployment package? Well, here are some cons:

Scary dialog, that warns me about potential security and privacy issues I should be aware of and avoid.

See, if this wasn't a Web page it could probably detect what Platform I was on and everything.

I'll go ahead and help it out, and choose SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition (English). Too bad I can't give any extra point for getting language right, since English was the only language on the DVD.

Now what should I do? Hmm, autorun.inf says run the HTML application "splash.hta", but this is Web application isn't it? so shouldn't I choose the HTML Document "default.htm"?
Is this background information I know fair to expect of all users? What about new developers? Does this create an artificial learning curve up front? Nobody can use it, until they figure out how to install it.

If you choose default.htm, which I still maintain is a reasonable choice, you will see the above, which reminds me of seeing "You Have Died of Dysentery" message in the old Oregon Trail game you may have played as a kid. At this point you can once again click and "Allow Blocked Content...". Well forcing me to confirm twice is okay because it is just Microsoft left hand watching out for Microsoft's right hand. I can understand that.

Hey where do you think you are going? Don't you know about allowing active content? Are you sure you want to let this file run active content?

Oh, you are. Well, too bad because you have an "Error on page." and nothing is going to happen. So ha. See what I mean about dying of dysentery? Sucks doesn't it?

Alright, some how or another you manage to recover from your dysentery, and make it back to the earlier step and choose "splash.hta". After realizing, that it followed that something named splash must be the installation executable.
Oh look, it needs us to tell it what Platform we are using, AGAIN. Not only can it not determine this on it own, which I'll admit maybe I do want to install the 32-bit (x86) version on my 64-bit OS, but at least remember once I tell you.

Oh boy, looks like we are getting close now. One problem I have with this screen is that nothing is selected by default. I would have one option, probably the "Install Server components, tools, Books Online, and samples" already selected in some manner, even if the text were only marked as bold.
Keep in mind all of the dialogs and forms are building up on our desktop. We now have at least three or four different active dialogs open right now.
If we were to choose an item in the above dialog it would open yet another dialog. One final usability treat is that once you pick a main option of this dialog, it will close itself and only itself. So if you wanted to do more than one thing it has listed, which it looks like it is encouraging then you can either sort through all the open dialogs you have already, or even more fun if you closed any of them, start all over again.
One more thing to note is this screen is labeled as SQL Server 2005 (Disc 1 of 2) is there another dialog for SQL Server (Disc 2 of 2)? One can only wonder considering this DVD is Disc 1 of 1.

Oh yeah! We are about half way through our adventure at this point, but the worst is behind us. From here most hardy adventurers make it to the promised land of our forefathers, and I have confidence you will too.

Take note, that it is after this point that Microsoft ask for your permission to log errors and issues, and track usage to help them improve Microsoft SQL Server, maybe it should be at the beginning of the setup application and not the end?