VismiT

Windows desktop Search : Add-in for Lotus Notes

2009-12-09T10:47:00.001-05:00

Isn't it cool?

The Windows Desktop Search Add-in for Lotus Notes is a protocol handler that allows you to index the content of Lotus Notes e-mail, contacts, calendar items, and journal items stored on your computer.
Once you have installed this Add-in, Windows Desktop Search (WDS) will index the content of your locally stored Lotus Notes databases. Indexing will occur when your PC is idle, or when you tell WDS to ‘Index Now’. Once the index is updated you can immediately search your Lotus Notes content.

Download it from here... Microsoft Download Site

Baware though, it caused problems for me, I was continuously getting these.

Error: 'Windows cannot find 'Notes:///8525666600461713' occurs when attempting to open bookmarks in Notes
When users click local bookmarks on the left sidebar in Notes® 8 Standard Configuration, an error message displays indicating an operating system error and that "Windows cannot find" the file. This does not occur when using Notes 8 Basic Configuration.

Solution: Uninstall the plug-in and install it with latest version of Windows Search.

Good Luck!!

Weird ways to save our planet

2009-12-02T13:10:00.009-05:00

I agree that there is growing need to save our planet. Global Warming is another major trouble next generation will face. But reading these weird ways to save our earth is just weirdest things I have ever heard.

8 weird ways to save the Earth

Geoengineering, or deliberately tinkering with the earth's climate, could help if global warming proves disastrous for mankind, but the ideas are untested and the risks unknown.
via: cnn.com

Every idea evolution starts with some weirdness in the beginning. Nobody ever thought about reality in Wireless Electricity (WiTricity) to illuminate a room without any wiring, guess what? it is coming to market hopefully next year. So I am amazed with thinking the scientist have put together to gather alternate ways for saving our planet.

There are several ways to reduce the green house effect, viz, "Reducing emission of green house gas", "Plant trees", "Conserve Energy and Water", and on and on... There is no alternatives to these everyday solutions, but they require a lot of awareness especially in developing and underdeveloped countries like India and China which are achieving their GDP growth at the cost of our planet. Till the awareness and their growth is achieved, it will be futile to get the everyday solutions are implemented and addressed. So these alternatives will boost the plan for saving the planet. Agreed, they are weird solutions, but they are not implemented yet, it will be a while before the real one strikes and get the venture capitalists lock on it. This is just the beginning, there will be a lot more such ideas to come.

I saw the MasterCard Advertisement about "Helping your dad to be a better man"... priceless. The target audience for awareness is changing now, there are more kids who are climate change aware than before. The environmentalists are finding newer ways to make people aware.

Being a father I hate this advertisement, but this is the most innovative way I have seen to make people aware. I guess they are the ones who are going to face it, I will be long gone before that, but I just don't want them to curse us for what we have done... or how we did not do anything to save this beautiful planet...

CICS Web Services Assistant for Windows

2009-04-17T15:02:00.004-05:00

As we know, web services are reached to mainframes also. The best way to enable any CICS program (except assembler) via web services is to use Rational Application Developer for System Z. I would say that is the best and also the most expensive way to create WS on mainframe. You can use CICS Web Services Assistant to do that. Usually the license of RAD4Z is very expensive, so if you only need to create webservices artifacts, use CICS WS assistant.

You need to first download the CICS WS A from here, importantly check the documentation that it comes with. Apart from that you need to download Java Record I/O for OS/390. You can both these from your CICS/USS installation on mainframe. Later I found out that, DFHLWS2WS batch program invokes the java classes one after the other to create Web services. Using JRIO, you can read the VSAM datasets (KSDS), system catalogs, I am still not sure why do we need this for running the Windows assistant. I would suggest reading this overview for more details.

Using the assistant you can create both approaches

Top down approach - WSDL to CICS program - WS2LS
Bottom up approach - CICS program to WSDL - LS2WS

First things first

I created a utility class which will read from a properties file with the string/constant values that are needed.
I downloaded the copybook for the CICS program that needs to be enabled via Web services.
You may want to separate the input and output as two different copybooks.
Read thru the sample code for more documentation.

Initialize

  1:     // Decide your defaults.
  2:     // Here is the target program name
  3:     public final String PARAM_PROGRAM_NAME = Utility.getProperty("PARAM_PROGRAM_NAME", "FIRSTCICS");
  4:     // Is the target program looking for perticular container name in
  5:     // default channel? Default container name is "DFHWS-DATA"
  6:     public final String PARAM_CONTAINER_NAME = Utility.getProperty("PARAM_CONTAINER_NAME", "DFHWS-DATA");
  7:     /*
  8:          * You need to provide Cobol mapping level that is used in copybooks.
  9:          * This is important because some mappings are not supported by certain
 10:          * version of CICS WS.
 11:          */
 12:     public final String PARAM_MAPPING_LEVEL = Utility.getProperty("PARAM_MAPPING_LEVEL", "2.0");
 13:     /*
 14:          * If you have preference for namespaces for the WSDL, you can specify
 15:          * that here. Usually, the auto generated Java/C# classes has reveresed
 16:          * package/namespace hierarchy. Like when you say com.test.myCo the
 17:          * namespace in Java will look like myCo.test.com. This is the reason I
 18:          * wrote it reversed. This helps if you plan to import the generated
 19:          * WSDL into JAX-WS or Axis based tool. Specify namespaces for request
 20:          * and response.
 21:          * 
 22:          */
 23:     public String PARAM_REQUEST_NAMESPACE_MF = Utility.getProperty("PARAM_REQUEST_NAMESPACE_MF", "myCo.test.com");
 24:     public String PARAM_RESPONSE_NAMESPACE_MF = Utility.getProperty("PARAM_RESPONSE_NAMESPACE_MF", "myCo.test.com");
 25:     // You must specify the programmming language for target program.
 26:     // 0 = COBOL.
 27:     public final int PARAM_LANGUAGE = Integer.parseInt(Utility.getProperty("PARAM_LANGUAGE", "0"));
 28:     // What is the target program need COMMAREA or CHANNELS/Containers.
 29:     public final int PARAM_PROGRAM_INTERFACE = Integer.parseInt(Utility.getProperty("PARAM_PROGRAM_INTERFACE", "1"));
 30:     // Name of default channel?
 31:     public final String PARAM_CHANNEL_NAME = Utility.getProperty("PARAM_CHANNEL_NAME", "CHANNEL");
 32:     // Define codepage for the PDS that will be used as input or output.
 33:     // I used default as IBM-037
 34:     public final String PARAM_PDS_CODEPAGE = Utility.getProperty("PARAM_PDS_CODEPAGE", "IBM-037");
 35:   
 36:     public String PARAM_SERVICE_INTERFACE = "";
 37:     //Location of generated WSDL (LS2WS) or WSDL to be used to generate (WS2LS)
 38:     public String WSDL_LOCATION = "";
 39:     
 40:     //Name of the PDS file names on local machine.
 41:     public String PARAM_REQUEST_CBMEMBER_MF = "";
 42:     public String PARAM_RESPONSE_CBMEMBER_MF = "";
 43:     /*
 44:      * This is the name of interface that wsbind file will use to create a web service.
 45:      * This will also be used at http://server:port/PARAM_SERVICE_INTERFACE
 46:      */ 
 47:     public String PARAM_INTERFACE_ID = "";
 48:     public String PARAM_DIRECTORY_PDS_LIB = "";
 49:     public String PARAM_DIRECTORY_ARTIFACTS_WSDL = "";
 50:     public String PARAM_DIRECTORY_ARTIFACTS_WSBIND = "";
 51:     public String PARAM_DIRECTORY_ARTIFACTS_LOG = "";
 52:     public final String PARAM_EXTENTION_WSBIND = Utility.getProperty("PARAM_EXTENTION_WSBIND", ".wsbind");
 53:     public final String PARAM_EXTENTION_WSDL = Utility.getProperty("PARAM_EXTENTION_WSDL", ".wsdl");
 54:     public final String PARAM_EXTENTION_LOG = Utility.getProperty("PARAM_EXTENTION_LOG", ".log");

Setup the parameters:

1: private IAssistantParameters setParams(String type) {
2: IAssistantParameters params = Factory.createAssistantParameters();
3: /*
4: * You can create both LS2WS and WS2LS from CICS WS Assistant. Both use
5: * different parameters. this program is written to handle both
6: * scenarios.
7: */
8: if (type.equals("LS2WS")) {
9: //Copybook to web services approach
10: params.setParamLANG(PARAM_LANGUAGE);
11: params.setParamPDSCP(PARAM_PDS_CODEPAGE);
12: params.setParamMAPPING_LEVEL(PARAM_MAPPING_LEVEL);
13: params.setParamPGMNAME(PARAM_PROGRAM_NAME);
14: params.setParamREQMEM(PARAM_REQUEST_CBMEMBER_MF);
15: params.setParamRESPMEM(PARAM_RESPONSE_CBMEMBER_MF);
16: params.setParamPGMINT(PARAM_PROGRAM_INTERFACE);
17: params.setParamPGMINT(PARAM_CHANNEL_NAME);
18: params.setParamCONTID(PARAM_CONTAINER_NAME);
19: params.setParamPDSLIB(PARAM_DIRECTORY_PDS_LIB);
20: params.setParamURI(PARAM_INTERFACE_ID);
21: params.setParamREQUEST_NAMESPACE(PARAM_REQUEST_NAMESPACE_MF);
22: params.setParamRESPONSE_NAMESPACE(PARAM_RESPONSE_NAMESPACE_MF);
23: params.setParamWSBIND(PARAM_DIRECTORY_ARTIFACTS_WSBIND + PARAM_INTERFACE_ID + PARAM_EXTENTION_WSBIND);
24: params.setParamLOGFILE(PARAM_DIRECTORY_ARTIFACTS_LOG + PARAM_INTERFACE_ID + PARAM_EXTENTION_LOG);
25: params.setParamWSDL(WSDL_LOCATION);
26: } else {
27: //WSDL to Cobol copybook/program approach
28: params.setParamLANG(PARAM_LANGUAGE);
29: params.setParamPDSCP(PARAM_PDS_CODEPAGE);
30: params.setParamMAPPING_LEVEL(PARAM_MAPPING_LEVEL);
31: params.setParamPGMNAME(PARAM_PROGRAM_NAME);
32: params.setParamREQMEM(PARAM_REQUEST_CBMEMBER_MF);
33: params.setParamRESPMEM(PARAM_RESPONSE_CBMEMBER_MF);
34: params.setParamPGMINT(PARAM_PROGRAM_INTERFACE);
35: params.setParamPGMINT(PARAM_CHANNEL_NAME);
36: params.setParamCONTID(PARAM_CONTAINER_NAME);
37: params.setParamPDSLIB(PARAM_DIRECTORY_PDS_LIB);
38: params.setParamURI(PARAM_INTERFACE_ID);
39: params.setParamCHAR_VARYING("NO");
40: /*
41: * No need to specify namespaces here, because they come from specified WSDL.
42: */
43: // params.setParamREQUEST_NAMESPACE(PARAM_REQUEST_NAMESPACE_MF);
44: // params.setParamRESPONSE_NAMESPACE(PARAM_RESPONSE_NAMESPACE_MF);
45: params.setParamWSBIND(PARAM_DIRECTORY_ARTIFACTS_WSBIND + PARAM_INTERFACE_ID + PARAM_EXTENTION_WSBIND);
46: params.setParamLOGFILE(PARAM_DIRECTORY_ARTIFACTS_LOG + PARAM_INTERFACE_ID + PARAM_EXTENTION_LOG);
47: params.setParamWSDL(WSDL_LOCATION);
48: }
49: return params;
50: }

Part I: Create Copybook to Web service (LS2WS)

  1:  public String CreateWSArtifactsLS2WS() {
  2:  try {
  3:      /*
  4:       * Create the paths where you want your WS artifacts will be crated.
  5:       */
  6:      PARAM_REQUEST_NAMESPACE_MF = this.PARAM_SERVICE_INTERFACE + "." + PARAM_REQUEST_NAMESPACE_MF;
  7:      PARAM_RESPONSE_NAMESPACE_MF = this.PARAM_SERVICE_INTERFACE + "." + PARAM_RESPONSE_NAMESPACE_MF;
  8:      WSDL_LOCATION = PARAM_DIRECTORY_ARTIFACTS_WSDL + PARAM_INTERFACE_ID + PARAM_EXTENTION_WSDL;
  9:      
 10:      /*
 11:       * Setup parameters
 12:       */
 13:      IAssistantParameters params = this.setParams("LS2WS");
 14:      /*
 15:       * Create assistant
 16:       */
 17:      ICICSWebServicesAssistant cwsa = Factory.createCICSWebServicesAssistant();
 18:      /*
 19:       * Make the run
 20:       */
 21:      IAssistantResponse ar = cwsa.DFHLS2WS(params);
 22:      /*
 23:       * Check the output.
 24:       */
 25:      int retCode = ar.getReturnCode();
 26:      String retMessages = "";
 27:      /*
 28:       * There are list of messages.
 29:       */
 30:      String[] msgs = ar.getAllMessages();
 31:      for (int i = 0; i < msgs.length; i++) {
 32:   retMessages += msgs[i] + "\n";
 33:   Utility.PrintLine(msgs[i]);
 34:      }
 35:      Utility.PrintLine("DFHLS2WS:AssistantResponse.getReturnCode():" + retCode);
 36:      if (retCode == IAssistantResponse.RC_ERROR) {
 37:   Utility.PrintLine("Error while creating the WSDL\n" + retMessages);
 38:   throw new Exception("WSDL Creation Error : " + retMessages);
 39:      }
 40:  } catch (Exception e) {
 41:      Utility.PrintError(e);
 42:  }
 43:  
 44:  return WSDL_LOCATION;
 45:     }
 46:

Part II: Create Web service to Cobol(WS2LS)

  1:     public String CreateWSArtifactsWS2LS() {
  2:  try {
  3:      /*
  4:       * Create the paths where you want your WS artifacts will be crated.
  5:       */
  6:      PARAM_REQUEST_NAMESPACE_MF = this.PARAM_SERVICE_INTERFACE + "." + PARAM_REQUEST_NAMESPACE_MF;
  7:      PARAM_RESPONSE_NAMESPACE_MF = this.PARAM_SERVICE_INTERFACE + "." + PARAM_RESPONSE_NAMESPACE_MF;
  8:      WSDL_LOCATION = PARAM_DIRECTORY_ARTIFACTS_WSDL + PARAM_INTERFACE_ID + PARAM_EXTENTION_WSDL;
  9:      /*
 10:       * You have to provide the names of the PDS which it will generate the the Copybooks.
 11:       */
 12:      PARAM_REQUEST_CBMEMBER_MF = "WBSXI";
 13:      PARAM_RESPONSE_CBMEMBER_MF = "WBSXO";
 14:      IAssistantParameters params = this.setParams("WS2LS");
 15:      ICICSWebServicesAssistant cwsa = Factory.createCICSWebServicesAssistant();
 16:      IAssistantResponse ar = cwsa.DFHWS2LS(params);
 17:      int retCode = ar.getReturnCode();
 18:      String retMessages = "";
 19:      String[] msgs = ar.getAllMessages();
 20:      for (int i = 0; i < msgs.length; i++) {
 21:   retMessages += msgs[i] + "\n";
 22:   Utility.PrintLine(msgs[i]);
 23:      }
 24:      Utility.PrintLine("DFHLS2WS:AssistantResponse.getReturnCode():" + retCode);
 25:      if (retCode == IAssistantResponse.RC_ERROR) {
 26:   Utility.PrintLine("Error while creating the WSDL\n" + retMessages);
 27:   throw new Exception("WSDL Creation Error : " + retMessages);
 28:      }
 29:  } catch (Exception e) {
 30:      Utility.PrintError(e);
 31:  }
 32:  return WSDL_LOCATION;
 33:     }

Glue it togather:

  1: String WSDL_LOCATION ="";
  2: CICSCreateWSDL createWSDL = new CICSCreateWSDL();
  3: 
  4: createWSDL.PARAM_INTERFACE_ID="GetCustomerAddress";
  5: createWSDL.PARAM_REQUEST_CBMEMBER_MF = "CUSTADDR.cpy";
  6: createWSDL.PARAM_RESPONSE_CBMEMBER_MF = "CUSTADDR.cpy";
  7: createWSDL.PARAM_DIRECTORY_PDS_LIB = Utility.BASE_ARTIFACT_FOLDER + "1.Interfaces\\";
  8: createWSDL.PARAM_DIRECTORY_ARTIFACTS_WSDL = Utility.BASE_ARTIFACT_FOLDER + "2.WSDLs\\";
  9: createWSDL.PARAM_DIRECTORY_ARTIFACTS_WSBIND = Utility.BASE_ARTIFACT_FOLDER +  "3.WSBINDs\\";
 10: createWSDL.PARAM_DIRECTORY_ARTIFACTS_LOG = Utility.BASE_ARTIFACT_FOLDER + "4.LOGs\\";
 11: createWSDL.PARAM_SERVICE_INTERFACE=PARAM_NAMESPACE;
 12: WSDL_LOCATION= createWSDL.CreateWSArtifactsLS2WS();

Read my book review from Amazon : Visual Basic.NET and XML

2009-04-06T08:26:00.001-05:00

Few years back, somebody approached me to review a new emerging book on Visual Basic .Net and XML. The book is focused only on XML related processing in VB.Net.

Recently I had been searching for pages related to my website and I can see my review is sold on Amazon along with the book for $5.95.

Feels good to see...

Citation Details
Title: Visual Basic.NET and XML: Harness the Power of XML in VB.NET Applications.(Book Reviews)
Author: Vishal Khapre
Publication: Technical Communication (Refereed)
Date: February 1, 2004
Publisher: Society for Technical Communication
Volume: 51 Issue: 1 Page: 123(2)

Add Command prompt to explorer context menu

2009-01-21T22:45:00.000-05:00

Its been always a long process to reach to desired folder using "cd" command on Command Prompt. It was easier to have a context menu for any folder in Windows Explorer as "Start command here". I had been using it for such a long time, so don't know who told me how to do this, but recently a friend asked me so thought it is easier to post a blog and point him to the post.

Open Windows explorer
Go to Tools menu -> Folder Options -> File Types. You can probably reach this place via control panel also.
Select "Folder" remember not to select "File Folder" and click on "Advanced". I already have created "command" as my context menu so you will see that here too.
Click New and put Action as "Start command here" and Application used as absolute path to cmd.exe usually it is in your system32 directory.
Click "Ok" and then "Close" to get back to Windows Explorer.
Right click on any folder in Windows Explorer to see the context menu added.

Good luck!!

JAX-WS and Custom SOAP Header

2008-08-20T22:00:00.003-05:00

Recently, during my transition to JAX-WS, a work in hand made me use Custom Soap headers in design in a JAX-WS implementation. Pertaining same, my recent conversations with friend, we need a quick sample how to use custom headers with JAX-WS.

JAX-WS by Sun’s specifications support custom soap headers. It is as easier as .Net or webMethods. It supports the WSDL with SOAP header information also.

https://jax-ws.dev.java.net/jax-ws-ea3/docs/annotations.html

As per W3C, “The Representation header block is designed to allow applications to carry a representation of a Web resource in a SOAP message”.

Ref:http://www.w3.org/TR/soap12-rep/

It is not limited or only used by system processing, applications can use it for several reasons which include the access restriction, avoiding payload browse, and also overhead (accessing headers is faster than body). So it is perfectly allowed to use SOAP custom headers, philosophy being soap:body should contain only the payload, all routing headers should be used as soap:headers.

Here is how you do it.

Change your soapbinding annotation to DOCUMENT, by default it is DOCUMENT but I made it explicit because it was giving some error.

@WebService(name = "GoodbyeWorldWS", 
           targetNamespace="http://webservice_producer/goodbyeworld")
@SOAPBinding(style = SOAPBinding.Style.DOCUMENT)

Add new @WebParam with header=true. You can also set the Mode to INOUT so that header value is returned to consumer too. You can access the headers via the WebParam name specified in the name attribute.

@WebMethod
public String sayGoodbye(
   @WebParam(name="message") String message,
   /*Add header element */
   @WebParam(name="header",mode=Mode.IN, header=true) String headerElement) 
   {
      System.out.println("SOAP HEADER VALUE" + headerElement);
      return ".Goodbye.";
   }

Here is how the WSDL looks like, it has the soap:header added.

<input>
<soap:body parts="sayGoodbye" use="literal" />
<soap:header message="tns:GoodbyeWorldWS_sayGoodbye" part="header" use="literal" />
</input>

Here is the C# code to invoke it.

GoodbyeWorldWSService.GoodbyeWorldWSService ws = 
      new ConsoleApplication2.GoodbyeWorldWSService.GoodbyeWorldWSService();
            
GoodbyeWorldWSService.sayGoodbye input = 
     new ConsoleApplication2.GoodbyeWorldWSService.sayGoodbye();
            
input.message = "JAX WS support Body";
ws.header = new ConsoleApplication2.GoodbyeWorldWSService.@string();
ws.header.Text = new String[] { "JAX WS Supports Headers" };
            
GoodbyeWorldWSService.sayGoodbyeResponse output = ws.sayGoodbye(input);
Console.WriteLine(output.@return);

Here is how the SOAP message looks like in server log

22:07:21,187 INFO [STDOUT]
[
<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap=http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/
   xmlns:xsi=http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance
   xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<soap:Header>
<header xmlns="http://webservice_producer/goodbyeworld">
      JAX WS Supports Headers
</header>
</soap:Header>
<soap:Body>
<sayGoodbye xmlns="http://webservice_producer/goodbyeworld">
     <message xmlns="">JAX WS support Body</message>
   </sayGoodbye>
</soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>
].

Windows Live Writer

2008-07-04T23:46:00.002-05:00

My laptop changed, so wanted to get back to the setup I had before, been through enough trouble to get Windows Live Writer to be installed on my machine. You wish it is a MS baby, single installable, double click and boom!! Everything is installed completely.

Otherwise Windows Live Installer uses Windows Installer, Automatic Updates and all underlying component. Not sure why?

It uses so many components and piece in background to make it work. Basically, the installable can install any or a lot more components on your machine than required. Found garmahis.com (Thanks to Michael Garmahis) where I could get a standalone installable. There is another one if you like ... here.

Disable drag and Text selection in Firefox

2007-07-06T23:16:00.000-05:00

Firefox is known to support most of the W3C Dom standards and IE is usually to support most non standard or I would say "IE Standard". Anyways, I still like IE because my website is viewed by mostly IE users, almost over 85%.

I had seen some people copying text from website, so I wanted to implement no drag and copy text from my website. Here is what I added to the body tag of each HTML rendered page on my site. (I know there are other ways to copy. :( )

onmousedown="javascript:clickTrap();" ondragstart="return false" ondblclick="return false" onselectstart="return false"

This stopped drag and text selection for every IE visitor on my site. Easy and simple technique allowed me to achieve what I wanted. Still there were about 15% "Standard Browser" based non standard users. They could drag and select text from my site. Searching paid off after a long time. Mozilla based browsers need to you to create a javascript event handler routine to stop the drop or use this non-standard, browser specific tags. Here is what I did. You can leave them in your CSS file because IE just ignores them and Firefox will block the drag.

<style>
    .protectedText 
    {    
        -moz-user-focus: ignore;    
        -moz-user-input: disabled;    
        -moz-user-select: none;
     }
</style>
<input class="protectedText" type="text" value="Change this"> 
<span class="protectedText">sdaf</span>

Find other such tags, that mught be useful for you.
http://www.xulplanet.com/references/elemref/ref_StyleProperties.html

Windows zip folder association

2007-05-07T07:53:00.001-05:00

Windows has built in zip files added as folders in Windows Explorer. This feature is default support by a Windows standard install. This makes it completely difficult when there are more than on file in the folder or even if there is only one large file with a lot of files and folders inside it.

Here is the solution, run following on Windows /DOS command prompt.

"regsvr31 /u zipfldr"
(offcourse with out quotes)

If you want to register it back then

"regsvr31 zipfldr"
(offcourse with out quotes)

Chow!!

A National Security violation

2006-09-05T09:11:00.000-05:00

Check out this Google Maps Api based Flight Simulator. You can fly over Washington DC. You can fly over Capitol, White House. Be careful, if you cannot maintain your altitude, it can crash into anything you want.
This is a National Threat flight simulator :)... just kidding.

Python on the .NET Framework

2006-08-24T08:39:00.000-05:00

One of the least talked language on web is IronPython when it became available in Microsoft CLR.
Dynamic runtime languages were previously thought to run very poorly on the .NET Framework, but IronPython dismisses that idea. Microsoft is backing IronPython because it exemplifies just how well the .NET Framework can handle dynamic runtime languages. Supposedly, IronPython runs as fast as the C-based implementation of Python-2.4, if not faster. The company claims that IronPython can run 1.8x faster than Python-2.4 right now. Besides being speedy, it also allows developers to access all of the standard C Python libraries, not to mention and create their own subclasses deriving from the .NET framework.

IronPython is the codename for a new implementation of the Python programming language on the .NET Framework. It is fast - up to 1.8x faster than Python-2.4 on the standard pystone benchmark. It supports an interactive interpreter with fully dynamic compilation as well as static compilation to produce pre-compiled executables. It's well integrated with the rest of the Framework and makes all of the .NET libraries easily available to Python programmers. In this episode Jim Hugunin introduces IronPython with demos showing interactive exploration and GUI building from a command prompt as well as simple embedding as a scripting language in an existing Windows Presentation Foundation application. Via Overview at Microsft's Download website

Still, when I read this old news, I was surprised to see Microsoft's backing on Python where they will not be investing that much of money to see a dynamic language work. Anyways, as part of research found a very interesting comparision of Ruby, Java and C++ with Python by dmh2000. This comparision is just awesome.

conclusion
Java is more productive than C/C++. Use C/C++ only when speed or bare metal access is called for. Python/Ruby is more productive than Java and more pleasant to code in. There is a big question on static vs. dynamic typing. I contend that static typing has to be better for the purposes of program correctness, but the required cruft reduces productivity. If actual practice in large systems shows that in fact runtime typing errors don't occur often and are worth the productivity tradeoff, then I will bow to dynamic typing. I can't come up with a definitive answer to Python vs. Ruby. They seem very equivalent. Would choose based on practicality in a given situation. My general feeling was that Python annoyed me in ways that Ruby didn't, but I think those annoyances would disappear if I was using Python all the time.

log_reuse_wait_desc column in sys.databases

2006-08-23T21:29:00.001-05:00

Having these words in your SQL Server error in SQL Server 2005 seems a little unbearable.

The transaction log for database '%.*ls' is full. To find out why space in the log cannot be reused, see the log_reuse_wait_desc column in sys.databases

There are various reason to get the error. Transaction log expansion may occur because of the following reasons or scenarios: The linked MS Technet article does not help but confuses you.
• Uncommitted Transactions
• Extremely Large Transactions
• Operations: DBCC DBREINDEX and CREATE INDEX
• While Restoring from Transaction Log Backups
• Client Applications Do Not Process All Results
• Queries Time Out Before a Transaction Log Completes the Expansion and You Receive False 'Log Full' Error Messages
• Unreplicated Transactions
Check this FORUM POST out, excellent suggestion, set transaction recovery mode to "Simple". Try that once through database properties panel, it does not work for first time. few times it definitley works. Try changing the "Auto Shrink" and "Auto Close" properties to "True"

Create a Thumbnail Image of web page

2006-08-22T10:51:00.000-05:00

How do I create cached image of a webpage. I just wanted to create a thumbnail of a webpage based on URL. There is no way, you would find the right stuff to do so. I found Alan Dean's page on Generate an image of a web page. He has explained the technique very well. Described his search for such code. He wrote on his own. There are a very few people got it working. So here is the code, took me a lot of time to get it working. Read through the sample I added here very carefully before you copy the code as is. I tried my best to write all comments to make it easy readable.
Tried it in all possible ways to make it successful the way I wanted. This code works awesome but I wanted to use System.drawing very well to make it work. There is no way I could find to do this without using Win32 Api. Apart from that, I need to add the axWebBrowser control and it needs to be visible on form in order to find the image of the web page. Then how do I do it on the fly on my website. There must be a way to create a thumbnail from webpage with out adding ActiveX controls....
Good Luck!! Let me know if this works for you.

'*************************************************************************
'This is main form Class where you will add the basic functions.
'*************************************************************************

Imports SHDocVw ' Import the shdocvw.dll from Widnows\System32 folder.

Imports mshtml ' Import the mshtml.dll from Widnows\System32 folder.

Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices ' Need this as we added above two as Interop

Imports System.Windows.Forms

Public Class Form1

Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load

'Add the axWebBrowser control from SHDocVw library to your form name it as axWebBrowser
'Add the Event Handler as DocumentComplete, because we need to capture screen image when document is completely loaded.
AddHandler axWebBrowser.DocumentComplete, AddressOf Me.OnDocumentComplete

End Sub

Private Sub OnDocumentComplete(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As AxSHDocVw.DWebBrowserEvents2_DocumentCompleteEvent)

Dim document As IHTMLDocument2 = CType(Me.axWebBrowser.Document, IHTMLDocument2)

If Not (document Is Nothing) Then

Dim element As IHTMLElement = CType(document.body, IHTMLElement)

If Not (element Is Nothing) Then

Dim render As IHTMLElementRender = CType(element, IHTMLElementRender)

If Not (render Is Nothing) Then

' Using

Dim graphics As Graphics = Me.pictureBox.CreateGraphics

Try

Dim hdcDestination As IntPtr = graphics.GetHdc

render.DrawToDC(hdcDestination)

Dim hdcMemory As IntPtr = gdi32.CreateCompatibleDC(hdcDestination)

Dim bitmap As IntPtr = gdi32.CreateCompatibleBitmap(hdcDestination, Me.axWebBrowser.ClientRectangle.Width, Me.axWebBrowser.ClientRectangle.Height)

If Not (bitmap = IntPtr.Zero) Then

Dim hOld As IntPtr = CType(gdi32.SelectObject(hdcMemory, bitmap), IntPtr)

gdi32.BitBlt(hdcMemory, 0, 0, Me.axWebBrowser.ClientRectangle.Width, Me.axWebBrowser.ClientRectangle.Height, hdcDestination, 0, 0, CType(gdi32.TernaryRasterOperations.SRCCOPY, Integer))

gdi32.SelectObject(hdcMemory, hOld)

gdi32.DeleteDC(hdcMemory)

graphics.ReleaseHdc(hdcDestination)

'Add a PictureBox control to your form, named pictureBox. This way you can
'see the image immediately after it is generated. You can save to FS using Bitmap.Save method.

Me.pictureBox.Image = Image.FromHbitmap(bitmap)

End If

Finally

'You must dispose Graphics Object for better use.

CType(graphics, IDisposable).Dispose()

End Try

End If

End Sub

Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click

' Add a button to you form named Button1.
' This way we can control when we want to start Browsing.
' Select the URI to be browsed here.

Me.axWebBrowser.Navigate(New Uri("http://www.khapre.org"))

End Sub

End Class

'*************************************************************************
'This class for dummy for calling GDI Functions from Win32 Api.
'So that you can encapsulate whole GDI work outside.
'*************************************************************************

Public Class gdi32

' I copied all the signatures in this class from http://www.pinvoke.net

Public Declare Function DeleteDC Lib "gdi32.dll" (ByVal hdc As IntPtr) As Boolean

Public Declare Function SelectObject Lib "gdi32.dll" (ByVal hdc As IntPtr, ByVal hgdiobj As IntPtr) As IntPtr

Public Declare Function CreateCompatibleDC Lib "gdi32" (ByVal hDC As IntPtr) As IntPtr

Public Declare Function CreateCompatibleBitmap Lib "gdi32" (ByVal hDC As IntPtr, ByVal nWidth As Integer, ByVal nHeight As Integer) As IntPtr

Public Declare Function BitBlt Lib "gdi32" (ByVal hDestDC As IntPtr, ByVal x As Integer, ByVal y As Integer, ByVal nWidth As Integer, ByVal nHeight As Integer, ByVal hSrcDC As IntPtr, ByVal xSrc As Integer, ByVal ySrc As Integer, ByVal dwRop As Integer) As Integer

Enum TernaryRasterOperations As Integer

SRCCOPY = 13369376 'dest = source

SRCPAINT = 15597702 'dest = source OR dest

SRCAND = 8913094 'dest = source AND dest

SRCINVERT = 6684742 'dest = source XOR dest

SRCERASE = 4457256 'dest = source AND (NOT dest )

NOTSRCCOPY = 3342344 'dest = (NOT source)

NOTSRCERASE = 1114278 'dest = (NOT src) AND (NOT dest)

MERGECOPY = 12583114 'dest = (source AND pattern)

MERGEPAINT = 12255782 'dest = (NOT source) OR dest

PATCOPY = 15728673 'dest = pattern

PATPAINT = 16452105 'dest = DPSnoo

PATINVERT = 5898313 'dest = pattern XOR dest

DSTINVERT = 5570569 'dest = (NOT dest)

BLACKNESS = 66 'dest = BLACK

WHITENESS = 16711778 'dest = WHITE

End Enum

End Class

'Check out Alan Dean's explaination, because I don;t get it. He is smarter than me, so I just believed that it works.
<Guid("3050f669-98b5-11cf-bb82-00aa00bdce0b"), System.Runtime.InteropServices.InterfaceTypeAttribute(System.Runtime.InteropServices.ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsIUnknown), System.Runtime.InteropServices.ComVisible(True), System.Runtime.InteropServices.ComImport()> _

Interface IHTMLElementRender

Sub DrawToDC(<System.Runtime.InteropServices.In()> ByVal hDC As IntPtr)

Sub SetDocumentPrinter(<System.Runtime.InteropServices.In(), System.Runtime.InteropServices.MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)> ByVal bstrPrinterName As String, <System.Runtime.InteropServices.In()> ByVal hDC As IntPtr)

End Interface

Marathi Blog Viewer

2006-08-07T11:59:00.000-05:00

Always thought about my own website scrapign continuously on readable content. So wrote something simple to get blog contents from all who write good. You can read it here or view it on writers website. Everything is using ATOM and RSS Content Feeds.
Still code is in BETA mode. Check this out Marathi Blog Viewer
The development speed is very slow. So it might be a month before it can be completed.

Shri Satyanarayan Pooja Katha and Photograph

2006-08-05T20:55:00.000-05:00

Every year, in the month of Shravan as per India calendar, me and my wife decided to arrange Satyanarayan Pooja. Last year was the most pleasure, this year we are doing with same spirit and devotion on August 12, 2006.
I had been searching for Katha in Marathi, expectation was atleast told and made as I heard since my childhood.

Everywhere I could see Maharashtrians posting requests to send one or where do you get it. It is really difficult in US to have that fantacy unless there is somebody who is scanning and emailing that. This year decided to spread the pleasure by providing a copy to all. Check this page for Satyanarayan Pooja. Completely in Marathi.
There is also a photograph for your use.
Let me know what you think, post a comment here if you need anything else. Allow me sometime before I can make it available, but your comments are more valuable.

Competition - MSN - Google - We sing Kajara re

2006-07-27T08:47:00.000-05:00

About 8 months back I uploaded whole Diwali Party on Google video. Thought it was awesome. Then here it is MSN Video a product of competition. I am so happy to see this. This competition has given us Windows Live, a next generation of web accessories from MS. Though these Live tools are a long way from beating Google's Froogle, Spreadsheet, Notebook, Reader. Both of these competitors are more or less in BETA mode, but their products are very usable. I personally use them. Yahoo!! is also not away from competition, try Yahoo's Farechase. I really dont care who wins, I know, whoever wins will be the best product. There is so much of population, so nobody will be out of business, unless they are bought by other.
Try out the new Notebook from Google. I requested Google to provide RSS feed for the Public notebooks. Then I can read other feeds and make notes on MSN Live pages or Google Reader. This competition has also given us the 2 GB Email space. Gmail started this trend and now anyone who is less than 2 GB is out of business. Gmail provides an edge over as it is ever growing space. MSN Live Beta has also started a trial for Hotmail with 2 GB. You have to sign up for that.
The best thing out of competition is handshake betweeen Yahoo Messager and MSN Messenger. The Windows Live Messager Beta can talk to Yahoo Messenger with Voice and vice versa. Read this MS Note and Yahoo Note. In Hindi, "Dushman ka dushman, dost hota hai!!", means "Enemy's enemy becomes your friend". Bottom line, this competition is giving us great tools online, some slick web programming from giants. We all sing "Kajara re!!".

Brazil .... la la la

2006-06-20T09:37:00.000-05:00

AMAZING NUMEROLOGY TO PREDICT THE FIFA WORLD CUP WINNER

Brazil won the world cup in 1994. Before that, he had won this title for the last time in 1970.

If you add up: 1970 + 1994 = 3964

Argentina won the world cup for the last time in 1986. Before that only in 1978.

And 1978 + 1986 = 3964

Germany, though, won the world cup in 1990. Before that, Germany won in 1974.

Look: 1990 + 1974 = 3964

This could lead us to guess the winner of the World Cup in 2002, since it should be the winner of the 1962 World Cup.

In fact 3964 - 2002 = 1962).

And Brazil won the world cup in 1962! (And, in fact, Brazil won the 2002 WC)
This numerology seems to work... and now, who would be the winner of the 2006 world cup?

Let's see, 3964 - 2006 = 1958

And who won in 1958?.... Oh, Brazil did!!!
The logic is not perfect, coz what about other world cups? But I still wanna believe and sing ...

brazil brazil na na na na na na na nanananananannananaaaa' nanananannanananananaaaaaa brazil brazil laallalalalalaa lalalaaaaaaaaa lalalalaaaaa brazil

RSS or Atom Reader for your site

2006-06-14T18:15:00.000-05:00

Everybody wants to have RSS or atom feeds displayed on their site. This is with the fact that not everybody can write code to extract the feeds. Sometimes your blog is just HTML based or there can be some other difficulties.
You need an easy way to include the feed links on your website. Try using following javascript include in your HTML page.

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="http://www.khapre.org/content/rssLinkGenerator.aspx?showDate=false&showNewWindow=true&type=rss&url=http%3a%2f%2fnews.google.com%2fnews%3fhl%3den%26q%3dIndia%26ie%3dUTF-8%26output%3drss%26ned%3d%3aePkh8BM9EwLbwanF6pmXkplowAm3KQ9iEyvQTgMWuF2pQgwoVhoJhPHNedwQz7lXTWvruzZp_b0AB3kQng"></script>

It displays like this....

How to use it?

Try this Include Generation page. Feel free to generate on your own also.
Here is the Syntax
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="http://www.khapre.org/content/rssLinkGenerator.aspx?showDate=< DISPLAY_DATE_OPTION >&showNewWindow=< NEW_WINDOW_OPTION >&type=< FEED_TYPE >&url=< YOUR_FEED_URL >"></script>

< DISPLAY_DATE_OPTION > = true|false (Default:false) : Switch for publish date of the Item.
< NEW_WINDOW_OPTION > = true|false (Default:false) : Switch for opening links in new window (_blank).
< FEED_TYPE > = rss|atom : Swith to tell program that what is the feed format.
< YOUR_FEED_URL > = Feed URL that you need to include. Make sure that it is working. Usually if the url has any special characters it needs Encoded URL format. Simlar to it is displayed in the example above.

rssLinkGenerator.aspx on {khapre.org} will create the HTML Table with all the URLS you need. The page writes table CSS classs as kRSSTable, kRSSTr and kRSSTd classes for table and respective HTML tags. So these can gel into your site theme very easily.
Leave a comment here, if you face any problems.

Diwali 2005

2006-01-20T08:22:00.000-05:00

We celebrated last Diwali in USA, here are some videos from the party. Me and Rohini also played parts in cultural activities, they are at

SecondCut Clip - 09:10 Mins - Me and Rohini at Fashion show
SecondCut Clip - 20:10 Mins - Rohini and her friends at Fusion Dance
SecondCut Clip - 34:30 Mins - Me in the Skit of vacation

http://www.khapre.org/content/diwali2005.aspx

India Vs Pakistan Cricket Series.

2006-01-19T12:49:00.000-05:00

Indians and Pakis always fight on two issues all the time on two issues Kashmir and most importantly Cricket. Here is clip from the recent India-Pakistan Allianz series. I hope you have seen this, I have not!! so all I can see is the clips from Google Video
Here is the link for all related videos.

Remembering 4 Years of blogging

2006-01-10T09:42:00.000-05:00

I just cant believe I completed 4 years of blogging. Happy Birthday VismiT!!!

Enterprise RSS

2005-12-30T10:24:00.000-05:00

Enterprise RSS still is in idea stage but will evolve over the time to be one of the safest ways to share information amongst the trusted domains. RSS has been a great hit for all bloggers around the world. It is very important to see how the enterprises will adopt this technology. Here is something more to read over. No doubt it will take years to make this as a usable technology in enterprise. Most of the enterprises are not SOA enabled as yet, this Enterprise RSS may be late stage in that SOA revolution. And some more.... here.

Changing Middleware Requirements and ESB

2005-12-27T12:57:00.000-05:00

Rise of ESB, when I read the title, I rememebred the "Rise of the Machines" The Terminator sequel, a bigtime flop. I am not sure if it made any business but I could see that is was a worst sequel ever. Hope this does not happen to ESB.
Anyways, changes are always forbidden, nobody likes the change, but when customer demands and competition gets tough, everybody changes. So is middleware now, there are so many changes are demanded. Middleware is no more the same, it is treated as an integral part of the big time weapon called "Business Process Management". People are considering to use the BAM products, BPM (I love to use BPM for Business Process Management than Business Process Modeling) and trying to fit that in some context or other near to the Middleware.
Ideally, Middleware WAS not to have anything to do with Business processes. It used to be totally independent of all the activities in intefracing world. Although due to its central position, it is becoming the key for the all sorts of such fancy ideas for improving business processes. I am still not sure, if somebody has ever explored a possibiliy of improving iterfacing systems for all those things than clubbing (jamming) those in Middleware. It is just a thought.
Every thought is around the cost, scalabilty and solution complexity. All major vendors are trying to resolve those but what if these new technologies are going to make middleware more complex. I agree with David Kelly here as

"Simpler products to address the same complex problems" - In most integration cases it’s really not that possible to eliminate complexity out of the picture—the complexity is there in real world and it has to be addressed. However, the products that address it should be standards-based, easy-to-use, intuitive, and productive. That is where EAI solutions have typically failed - the complexity of the problem was all too apparent in the product and organizations had to invest huge sums in proprietary skills to solve it. Scale as you grow architecture – Organizations are looking for an integration solution that starts out letting them tackle the less complex, more straightforward integration problems with a lightweight integration solution while having the architecture and capacity to scale to very large, sophisticated, and transaction-intensive requirements. Reduced training, resource, and investment costs—The harder it is for an organization to buy into an integration solution and start deploying successful integration solutions, the less likely it will fit today’s requirements.

Resigning first time is leaving your first love

2005-11-25T09:07:00.000-05:00

Somebody told me long back that leaving your first company is like leaving your first love and living through it. Today is my last day in Tata Infotech Ltd. The company has given me so much in challenges, ideas, new perspective. All of that constitutes you for being a professional.
This company made my first move towards being settled in life. I met so many amazing and awesomely technical people while I worked for her several clients. They made me feel tiny, and taught me to be polite throughout my career. They made me prepared for my next career step.
Though I feel prepared for career ahead, there is still a feeling left somewhere in my heart that she was the one. I know change is always aweful, company switch always leaves people anxious, new starts always make eveybody to loose all your "rapo" go away. Still Tata Infotech taught me how to tackle all these changes.
I shall always be greatful for so much it offered me over last 6 years. - ~~VishaL KHAPRE~~

Earth - I stay here.

2005-09-17T02:17:00.000-05:00

MSN can locate you based on your IP address. Though it does not pin point the location due to IP addresses are based on the ISP. Here is where I live @ Here More details, if you don't know about VirtualEarth. I looked at Google Earth also, but it requires you to install a huge application on your machine. On other side MSN Earth requires a small installation if you want to use "Locate Me" via IP address.