Tools on Marko Apfel

Synology DS215j update results in read only access

Sun, 17 May 2015 20:40:00 +0200

Saturday morning I received a mail from my parents NAS (Synology DS215j) about a reboot after a system update. A few hours later my father called me, mentioning that he cannot write to the NAS anymore. All files are accessible in read only mode. All write operations under windows raises an error.

Activating RDP access for Windows 10

Thu, 08 Jan 2015 18:56:00 +0100

Today I’ve installed the Technology Preview of Windows 10 onto my Xen Server. With the XenCenter program under an existing Windows 8.1 installation it was an easy task. But this Win 8.1 runs virtualized via Parallels and Bootcamp on my MacBook. That creates a double windowing – first the virtualized window of Win 8.1 with XenCenter and inside XenCenter the windows of the XenServer hosted Windows 10. This is not nice.

Comparison of Syntax-Highlighter-Plugins for Windows Live Writer

Mon, 08 Dec 2014 19:22:00 +0100

After a longer period of blogging abstinence I had again to search the right plugin for Windows Live Writer (WLW) to get a pretty printed source code.

I remembered ones in the past which made me really happy. That one I couldn’t find anymore. So I write this article to have a guideline in the future and maybe to collect some advices from you reader, helping me to find that one I initially searched for…

Shortcut for indention decreasing and increasing in list styles

Mon, 27 May 2013 07:28:00 +0200

Context

Using the CTRL +

image

shortcuts to move between different heading levels works perfect. But if you use list styles it doesn’t switch the other defined types than headings. That’s because these shortcuts are the OutlinePromote and OutlineDemote shortcuts.

Productive work environments for F# development (under windows)

Sat, 04 May 2013 07:30:00 +0200

IDEs, Editors, ..

Here are my favorites in descend order

Visual Studio Express 2012 for Web yes! - it allows you free F# development, notably for libraries
LINQPad again and again a wonderful tool!
SharpDevelop sometimes a little bit idiosyncratic
Online Scratchpad on TryFSharp.org the fastest start …

Additional resources

Maybe the following packages are necessary or in minimum useful:

Sublime Text 2 – Package installation not possible, no package listed

Wed, 01 May 2013 06:18:00 +0200

Problem

I tried to add the Emmet (fka Zen Coding) package to Sublime Text 2. But by running this “Install Package” (CTRL + SHIFT + p) command

image

no packages were displayed.

SharpDevelop, F#, missing “Send to F# Interactive” context menu

Wed, 01 May 2013 05:15:00 +0200

Situation, Problem

During playing a little bit with these WPF MVC F# projects inside SharpDevelop I stumbled over the situation, that I could not send F# snippets to the interactive window. The menu was not available.

SharpDevelop, F#, “Please ensure that the F# compiler is installed on your computer.”

Wed, 01 May 2013 04:18:00 +0200

Situation

My private machine has Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop. This Visual Studio edition doesn’t allow to develop with F#. So I installed additionally SharpDevelop.

But it took longer as expected to get F# projects running in this environment.

Installing redcar under Linux

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 17:45:00 +0200

Installing redcar with

sudo gem install redcar

ends up in this error

Building native extensions. This could take a while...

ERROR: Error installing redcar:

 ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

I installed these additional packages:

Fast deletion of folders

Sat, 05 Jan 2013 20:08:00 +0100

Problem

If you try to delete large folders with explorer it could run for several minutes. Also when you try to suppress the moving to recycle bin via SHIFT + DEL.

Solution

From all variants to do this, rmdir in command prompt is my favorite

Accessing GAC-files in Explorer without registry hacks

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 21:56:00 +0100

Problem

If you go in Explorer to the GAC folder (%windir%\Assembly) a shell extension gives you a special view of the content there:

In this view you couldn’t copy the DLLs to somewhere else.

Synchronizing BlackBerry contacts to other phone (e.g. Android)

Sat, 29 Dec 2012 17:56:00 +0100

Install App “Kontacts” via BlackBerry App world

Run Kontacts and Export to csv

Start “BlackBerry Desktop Software”

Choose File

Press BlackBerry Icon in address line

Choose Device > home > user > documents > Kontacts

Productive Toolset for C# Developer

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 09:28:00 +0200

Programming

Visual Studio
ReSharper
Agent Johnson
Agent Smith
StyleCop for ReSharper
Keymaps
SettingsManager
Git Source Control Provider
Gist
NuGet Package Manager
NDepend
Productivity Power Tools
PowerCommands for Visual Studio
PostSharp
Indent Guides

Outlook hangs during startup by step “loading profile”

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 07:29:00 +0200

Problem

Starting Outlook shows only the splash screen with comment “loading profile”. I could cancel the startup but restarting shows the same. I verified with Task Manager that no hidden outlook process is bother me.

Entity Framework: Connecting to a mdf user database file via localDB during script execution

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 12:35:00 +0200

Problem

If you run the “Generate database from model” wizard and execute the generated script the destination database could be the wrong one (for instance master of the SQL Server).

Solution

To use an own mdf attachable user database some connection information must specified during script execution.

Be careful when Git suppresses bin Folders

Fri, 05 Oct 2012 08:12:00 +0200

Initial situation

Often for Visual Studio projects the typical content of a .gitignore file contains this line

bin or
[B|b]in

It is used to avoid that Git tries to track compile outputs as repository relevant data.

Find out the URL of a RSS feed in Outlook

Sat, 25 Aug 2012 03:42:00 +0200

Challenge

In the past I added some RSS feeds to outlook. For one of these feeds now I would like to know the original URL. But this is not very intuitive to eliminate.

Converting Creole to HTML, PDF, DOCX, ..

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 13:14:00 +0200

Challenge

We documented a project on Github with the Wiki there. For most articles we used Creole as markup language. Now we have to deliver a lot of the content to our client in an usual format like PDF or DOCX.

Wise settings for Git

Thu, 31 May 2012 11:46:00 +0200

These settings reflecting my Git-environment. It a result of reading and trying several ideas of input from others.

Must-Haves

Aliases

[alias]

	ci = commit

	st = status

	co = checkout

	oneline = log --pretty=oneline

	br = branch

	la = log --pretty=\"format:%ad %h (%an): %s\" --date=short

	df = diff

	dc = diff --cached

	lg = log -p

	lol = log --graph --decorate --pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit

	lola = log --graph --decorate --pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit --all

	ls = ls-files

	ign = ls-files -o -i --exclude-standard

Colors

[color]

	ui = auto

[color "branch"]

	current = yellow reverse

	local = yellow

	remote = green

[color "diff"]

	meta = yellow bold

	frag = magenta bold

	old = red bold

	new = green bold

	whitespace = red reverse

[color "status"]

	added = green

	changed = red

	untracked = cyan

Core

[core]

	autocrlf = true

	excludesfile = c:/Users/<user>/.gitignore

	editor = 'C:/Program Files (x86)/Notepad++/notepad++.exe' -multiInst -notabbar -nosession –noPlugin

Nice to have

Merge and Diff

[merge]

	tool = kdiff3

[mergetool "kdiff3"]

	path = c:/Program Files (x86)/KDiff3/kdiff3.exe

[mergetool "p4merge"]

	path = c:/Program Files (x86)/Perforce Merge/p4merge.exe

	cmd = p4merge \"$BASE\" \"$LOCAL\" \"$REMOTE\" \"$MERGED\"

	keepTemporaries = false

	trustExitCode = false

	keepBackup = false

[diff]

	guitool = kdiff3

[difftool "kdiff3"]

	path = c:/Program Files (x86)/KDiff3/kdiff3.exe

[difftool "p4merge"]

	path = C:/Users/<user>/My Applications/Perforce Merge/p4merge.exe

	cmd = \"p4merge.exe $LOCAL $REMOTE\"

@Microsoft: please provide universal and professional concepts

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 11:35:00 +0100

Why such constructs are included in the csproj-Files?

<CodeAnalysisRuleSetDirectories>;c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Team Tools\Static Analysis Tools\\Rule Sets</CodeAnalysisRuleSetDirectories>

<CodeAnalysisRuleDirectories>;c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Team Tools\Static Analysis Tools\FxCop\\Rules</CodeAnalysisRuleDirectories>

So it every projects needs some manual steps to clean the project file so the solution could be build on a continuous integration server. That annoying!

Toolset agnostic build server and Silverlight projects

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 22:42:00 +0100

Problem

Normally I try to have my continuous integration as most a possible toolset free to ensure that no local stuff could have an impact to my build.

My Silverlight app references a special compile target in a folder outside my developer tree:

Setup license stuff for PostSharp 2.1

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 20:03:00 +0100

Problem

Normally PostSharp runs fine on unattended build servers. So on our global Jenkins continuous integration server PostSharp does the job.

But on my local TeamCity continuous integration server I got the following error:

MSB4067: The element beneath element is unrecognized.

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 11:32:00 +0100

Problem

Our global Jenkins continuous integration server throws this error during compile step. My local TeamCity continuous integration server runs fine. What is the difference.

Background

I integrate some static code analysis steps via MSBuild-targets in the csproj files.

Running StyleCop without an installation to empower continuous integration

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 22:32:00 +0100

Problem

A continuous integration server should only have a minimal toolset installed. This ensures that no unwanted libraries could affect the build and other steps.

Clearly that with this slogan also StyleCop should not be installed to the CI server. But we wanna have this analysis as an part of the whole build.

xUnit runner eats system diagnostic output

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 13:28:00 +0100

Problem

When using xUnit and constructs like Debug.WriteLine the DbgView-tool does not show the written output anymore.

Solution

Add a new Listener – for example:

Debug.Listeners.Add(new DefaultTraceListener());

NuGet: Update to an older version of a package

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 10:52:00 +0100

Problem

I must go back to an older package version (from 1.1.0.0 to 1.0.0.0) but the Package Manager Console does not allow this.

With the command

Update-Package EsriDE.Commons.System.Utils -Version 1.0.0.0

I got the error:

Review SmartAssembly from Red Gate

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 14:34:00 +0100

As an GWB-influencer I had the chance to review SmartAssembly.

Because obfuscation is an important part in protecting intellectual property this review chance was a good start for this. The first few clicks show that not only obfuscation could be made with SmartAssembly but also some other very interesting things.

Modify properties of “Git Bash Here” shortcut in Explorer and Console Enhancement Project

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 06:10:00 +0200

Essentials

Run the bash for this as administrator. The shortcut is located in the Git installation folder. “%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Git”.

Good Setting for the layout are:

Screnn buffer size
Width: 160
Height: 3000
Windows size

Be carefully by using PostSharp regarding license choice

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 11:25:00 +0200

Initial situation

If you download and install PostSharp you run the professional edition in trial mode if you don’t configure additional things – also if you want to run the community edition.

Using NuGet in a MSBuild-target to have the packages at the last stand

Wed, 06 Jul 2011 18:15:00 +0200

Motivation

Encouraged from the article “Using NuGet without committing packages to source control” I decided to wrap the NuGet-call in a MSBuild target instead of using a pre-build event.

Because we also trigger FxCop and StyleCop via targets this fits better in our project management.

Note to self: Visual Studio makros for build events

Wed, 06 Jul 2011 10:01:00 +0200

Let ReSharper and xUnit work together

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 13:41:00 +0200

Getting the ressources

First at all download

xUnit http://xunit.codeplex.com/releases/
xUnit Contrib ReSharper http://xunitcontrib.codeplex.com/releases/ This gives you a bridge between ReSharper functionality and your XUnit coding.

Installation und Configuration

Unzip both archives.

xUnit part

Configure the code to use xUnit

Normally I prefer a single checkout point for my developing solution – this whole bundle I name DevTree. One of the top folders in the hierarchy of this DevTree is a lib-Folder. Beneath this folder all of the 3rd party libs which I use in my solution are located – all of them in an own folder. So I copy xunit.dll to a folder <DevTree-TopPoint>\lib\xUnit.

Code Contracts: For unit test a manual rebuild is needed for toggeling “runtime checking”

Sat, 04 Jun 2011 01:19:00 +0200

Toggeling the checkbox “Perform Runtime Contract Checking” lets run the next application start with the new set option. But for unit test an explicit new build will apply the option for the next run.

Suppressing Add-in-registration task during build process

Mon, 16 May 2011 07:17:00 +0200

If you develop ArcGIS Add-ins with Visual Studio under limited permissions you get during the build process an error, that the stuff could not be registered.

Normally its enough to run one times this build as an admin. Then all needed information are set and also taken for users with limited access.

Get Keymaps for ReSharper running

Thu, 12 May 2011 06:27:00 +0200

Keymaps for ReSharper is a nice tool and allows the user easily to learn short cuts of ReSharper.

Unfortunally the last update is from january 2010. So the installation folder of the installing script (Install.Keymaps.for.ReSharper.cmd) is not up to date. If you run it no expected new menu item “Show Keymap” under the ReSharper-menu is listed.

Mercurial behind a proxy

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 17:57:00 +0100

For getting data with using a proxy simply modify the command with included –-config-parameter with proxy-information.

So the original:

hg clone https://ralfwscratchpad.googlecode.com/hg/ ralfwscratchpad

transforms to:

hg --config http_proxy.host=proxy:8080 clone https://ralfwscratchpad.googlecode.com/hg/ ralfwscratchpad

Running CopySourceAsHtml Add-in under Visual Studio 2010

Sun, 02 Jan 2011 10:41:00 +0100

Until now CopySourceAsHtml only supports Visual Studio 2008 out of the box.

But it is no problem to pimp up the config-file for supporting Visual Studio 2010.

Copy all three files to “%userprofile%\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Addins”
Open CopySourceAsHtml.AddIn in a text editor and change both lines with <Version>9.0</Version> to <Version>10.0</Version>
Run Visual Studio 2010 and CopySourceAsHtml works fine

Differences by pasting formatted text in Word and OneNote

Sun, 02 Jan 2011 08:54:00 +0100

By pasting formatted text in Word and OneNote both applications act a little bit different. Meanwhile Word supports RTF-formatting OneNote does not.

OneNote could only handle HTML-formatting.

In combination with presenting source code for Visual Studio the Add-in CopySourceAsHtml is available.

Installation experiences with NDepend under Win7/64 with restricted user permissions

Mon, 27 Dec 2010 19:10:00 +0100

Today Patrick gives me a new license for his static code analysis tool NDepend for my fresh machine with Win7/64. This platform is new for me, so some things are different to Win XP. Maybe that till yet some of these things are not well enough understandanded from me. So i stepped in some traps.

Hudson error: could not delete ..config.xml

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 16:44:00 +0200

Today we updated our Hudson CI-server. After changig job-configuration Hudson throws an error, that the config.xml could not be deleted.

But the new entries are correct saved.

Nevertheless such behaviour bothers.

The trick was to update also the plugins. After that all works fine again.

Searching the new FxCop-Release (10.0)

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 14:45:00 +0200

Today my FxCop-GUI stated, that a new release is available – but the link to this release is broken.

After googling a little bit i realized, that the new release of FxCop ist actually only included in “Windows SDK for Windows 7.1”.

My own set of SuppressMessage-lines

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 10:35:00 +0200

StyleCop issues

inheritedoc-comment

Using <inheritdoc />-comment is not recognized by StyleCop. So this needs a suppression:

// <inheritdoc /> [SuppressMessage( “Microsoft.StyleCop.CSharp.DocumentationRules”, “SA1604:ElementDocumentationMustHaveSummary”, Justification = “InheritDoc”)]

FxCop issues

Too few namespaces

[module: SuppressMessage( “Microsoft.Design”, “CA1020:AvoidNamespacesWithFewTypes”, Scope = “namespace”, Target = “EsriDE.Core.Service.Logging”, Justification = “We want to have this namespace, but do not have enough classes to go in it right now to satisfy the rule.”)]

Specify a project-specific custom dictionary for FxCop build tasks and Visual Studio Team System static code analysis

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 11:27:00 +0200

Using a project-specific custom disctionary for FxCop and FxCop build tasks is very simple. The FxCopCmd call in the FxCop-target offers the parameter /dictionary:<DictionaryName> for that.

But for Visual Studio a little bit more steps are needed. And these steps musst me gone for all projects.

Global SVN Ignore Patterns und Zeitstempel-Optionen

Mon, 31 May 2010 09:13:00 +0200

Globale Konfiguration

Die setzt man unter den globalen SVN-Einstellungen. Diese öffnet man per kontextsensitiven Menü im Explorer:

Global Ignores

Standard

*.o *.lo *.la *.al .libs *.so *.so.[0-9]* *.a *.pyc *.pyo *.rej *~ #*# .#* .*.swp .DS_Store

sinnvoll sind für .NET-Entwicklungen und Visual Studio und ReSharper folgende Ergänzungen

*.suo *.csproj.user */_ReSharper.* *.ReSharper.user */bin */obj *.cache *.gpState

Der oft genannte Vorschlag *bin und *obj ist keine gute Idee da auch Dateien die mit bin enden unterdrückt werden (Something.bin oder Taschendiebin).

MSBuild Exec task: using quotes in WorkingDirectory does not work

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 10:01:00 +0100

For a general applicability i tried to specify the WorkingDirectory attribute in a qotted manner:





<WorkingDir>&quot;$(SolutionRoot)\EsriDE.Commons\tools\EsriDE\&quot;</WorkingDir>





<DoubleQuotes>%22</DoubleQuotes>

<WorkingDir>$(DoubleQuotes)$(SolutionRoot)\EsriDE.Commons\tools\EsriDE\$(DoubleQuotes)</WorkingDir>

The Exec task self is

Installing StyleCop for ReSharper

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:58:00 +0100

Installing StyleCop for ReSharper under an administrative account does not activate this ReSharper plugin under my developer account.

A system analysis show, that this plugin is installed under

%userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data\JetBrains\ReSharper\v4.5\vs9.0\Plugins\Microsoft StyleCop for ReSharper

AgentSmith: suppressing spell checking warnings

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:42:00 +0100

If AgentSmith throws a warning that some term is not spelled correctly for this term the spell checking could be suppressed with:

//agentsmith spellcheck disable

...

//agentsmith spellcheck enable

Working with Microsoft FxCop

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:06:00 +0100

Run FxCop as a post build event

Since FxCop 1.36 it is possible to include FxCop in a post-build event.

So FxCop runs after compiling in Visual Studio and allows you directly jumping to the warned line.

ReSharper is not available

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:23:00 +0100

Today a colleague ask me to help.

On his system all ReSharper menus are grayed out. Also the Visual Studio Add-In Manager does not show this add-in.

He tried:

a new installation: without success,
running with administrative privilegeg: without success,
looking in event- and application-logs: no entries.

After searching a little bit with old buddy google we found this message: Wild World of Visual Studio – Mysterious Component

Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 compatibility with ReSharper

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:57:00 +0200

In our team we have developers with Visual Studio 2005 and 2008. Often we have projects which must be coded by a mixed team.

Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 compatibility for project-files

Normally this is no problem because adding projects in Visual Studio 2005 and manually introducing the ToolsVersion=“2.0” attribut in the new csproj-file allows an coexisting working when using two sln-files for Visual Studio 2005 and 2008.

Nice tools for I18N

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 06:43:00 +0200

Resource Refactoring Tool

a nice tool under Visual Studio 2005 - but with Visual Studio 2008 a lot of peoples (including me) have troubles :-(

Multi-Language Add-In for Visual Studio

must be evaluated - looks fine

Sandcastle Help File Builder: Content Editor opens without functionality

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 10:52:00 +0200

If the content editor of SHFB opens without any functionality then the configuration file is corrupt.

This is repairable through deleting the config-files under C:\Documents and Settings[YOUR_USER_ID]\Local Settings\Application Data\Eric_Woodruff...

Sometimes an error occured during opening content editor next time. In this case you must study the message. Offen you have created a not XML-wellformed content file. Open your last used files with an other XML-editor and look for the place which is described in the message. After fixing the prob you must close SHFB, delete the config-file again and reopen your SHFB-project.

HTML Help Compiler Error HHC3004

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:28:00 +0100

Today i had an error by building my sandcastle documentation project.

After compiling during opening the output instead my chm-file in the help viewer the internet explorer pops up with an error message that the destination could not be found. So i took a look in the log of the compile process and there was some warnings of the following type listed:

Using images and cursors in resources

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 12:30:00 +0100

Often i see code-constructs like

 1: try

 2: {

 3: string bitmapResourceName = GetType().Name + ".bmp";

 4: Bitmap bitmap = new Bitmap(GetType(), bitmapResourceName);

 5: }

 6: catch (Exception ex)

 7: {

 8: System.Diagnostics.Trace.WriteLine("Invalid bitmap.");

 9: }

The corresponding codetree has the structure:

Using ILMerge in a post build step

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 11:47:00 +0100

Offen also a simple application references some other assemblies. In those cases for a deployment all of these assemblies are needed. Instead giving the customer a bunch of all, with ILMerge you can bundle all assemblies in one.

das SDK-Tool fuslogvw

Thu, 04 May 2006 15:45:00 +0200

Im Zusammenhang mit der Entwicklung eines eigenen BizTalk Adapters trat immer wieder das Problem auf, dass nicht klar war ob ein Assembly geladen wurde oder nicht. Und gerade im Nichtladefall was der Grund dafür war.