Fred Mastropasqua

Original Post Here

Dreamscene was a feature introduced in Windows Vista that allowed users to have video wallpapers in the background. Microsoft seems to have replaced the Dreamscene feature from Vista with automatic changing wallpapers in Windows 7.  However by adding the Dreamscene files and making a few registry changes, Dreamscene can once again be enabled. Don’t worry if that sounded intimidating, we do have a file that does all for you [if you're on 32-bit.]

Note: I was unsuccessful in getting this to work on 64-bit Windows 7 Build 7048.

Installing Dreamscene:

1) First, you need to have Aero enabled. You’ll know Aero is enabled if you’re able to preview windows in your taskbar, use Aero Peek, or see the animation effects of windows minimizing. If you think Aero isn’t enabled, open the Start menu, and type in Aero.

Click on Find and fix problems with transparency and other visual effects and go through the wizard. The wizard will determine whether your computer is capable of having Aero on.

2) If you’re on 32-bit Windows 7, download the Windows 7 Dreamscene patch here

If you’re on 64-bit Windows 7, download this patch and follow the instructions in Important Readme.txt
Then skip Step 3.

3) Run the patch and let it do it’s thing. When it’s finished, explorer.exe will restart.
If it doesn’t restart, press Ctrl + Alt + Delete and click on Task Manager. Right click on explorer.exe and click on End Task. Then click on File, New Task, type in explorer.exe and press OK.

Setting video clips as your desktop background

4) Before you start adding videos, you need to make sure that your videos are in .wmv or .mpg format. If they are not one of those formats, you can download a free video converter here.

Converting a video is simple. Choose Add Video at the top left corner and choose your video of choice. The drop down-menu in the right side-bar will allow you to choose your codec. On my computer, .wmv videos worked properly while .mpg videos would not work with Dreamscene.

The bottom portion of the sidebar will allow you to change the video size or bitrate. If you are not sure what those options do, the only one you should worry about is video sizesince some videos may end up being too large and get cut off the screen.

When the video is finished converting, a new window will pop up. Right click your video and choose Open Destination File Location to locate the video. You can also access your converted videos at this directory:
C:\users\%username%\Documents\Any Video Converter\

Once you have converted the file, just right-click and select Set as Desktop Background and Dreamscene will begin to work.

Should you want to revert back to a stationery wallpaper, sometimes the stopped video will stay frozen as your wallpaper. To fix this, press Ctrl + Alt + Delete and click on Task Manager. Right click on explorer.exe and click on End Task. Then click on File, New Task, type in explorer.exe and press OK.

Note: Desktop icon text will become transparent sometimes. This is a bug that has yet to be fixed.

Operating Systems Windows7, Dreamscene

Disclaimer: This is not my opinion, this is just funny, it had to be shared. 

Original:

http://www.geekologie.com/2010/04/thats_real_life_right_there_wh.php

You ever wonder what really happens after you rescue the princess at the end of a video game?

Funny

This is usually an encodnig issues. Invalid characters in the string going into the xml. Remedy this by converting your string data into UTF8 when assining the data to your XML element.

Example:

XRecordDetail = New XElement(Header, System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(OriginalDataString))

Or

XMLData = XMLSystem.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(OriginalDataString)

VB.NET XML

Great site that shows you HTML5 and some of the features in action.

http://apirocks.com/html5/html5.html#slide46

HTML5 HTML5

This one is so useful and helpful that I think it deserved a replicated post.

Found it here and original is here.

1. Pin variables when debugging

At debugging when hovering over variables the “Pin variable” option appears. Clicking on this makes the variable stick next to the source code until removed (and the pin stays there between debugging sessions). It is a really hand utility eliminating having to add variables to the Watch window one by one or search through the Locals window to find the variable one’s looking for. Definitely one of the top 3 new features I use on a day to day basis!

2. Box selection

While holding down the Alt key box selection can be made on the screen. At first glance this feature doesn’t seem to useful. However when typing anything in the selection the same text appears in all lines. So this selection is extremely useful for mass renaming of e.g. visibilities or anything else that involves changing the same thing in all lines.

3. Search on-the-fly

When pressing Crtl and , (comma) the new Navigate To window appears. This is a real-time search window offering basically the same functionality as the Find and Replace window (opened by Crtl + Shift + F) but doing it on-the fly, without having to wait seconds for search results. So the list of results updates the moment you type the next letter in your search expression. Scott said that the search database used by this window is built continously in the background by Visual Studio.

4. Zooming

There’s a small zoom drop down box on the left bottom of the application. It’s barely noticeable but is really useful when showing your code to someone else or doing presentations. Not a function you’ll use too often but comes handy every once in a while!

(Note: zooming can also be used with Crtl + mouse scroll)

5. View Call Hierarchy

Exploring code has been made much easier with the new View Call Hierarchy command in the context menu when right clicking a method. The Call Hierarchy window shows calls from the method, calls to the method and overrides of the method (if any). This little add-on makes exploring someone else’s code so much easier.

6. Sequence Diagrams

The professional and above versions of Visual Studio 2010 come with built-in sequence diagram generation functionality. Simply right click on the method and select Generate Sequence Diagram to get a nifty call sequence diagram.

7. Dependency Graphs

The professional and above versions of Visual Studio 2010 come with a built-in dependency graph generator that generates an interactive, browsable dependency graph. When there is a large number of object this graph can get overwhelmingly large. However the fact that it can track dependencies at assembly, namespace and class level as well make it a useful tool for getting an idea for the project dependencies.

8. IntelliTrace and Dump Debugging

Ever had clients submitting bug reports that you were unable to reproduce and made you wish you could just debug right on their machine? IntelliTrace brings this to reality. When running an application with IntelliTrace enabled it records the series of events happening within it and lets the developer play these back. Note however that IntelliTrace collects less information than one might need at debugging and also has a slight performance overhead when turned on. IntelliTrace is only available in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate. For more information on Intellitrace see MSDN.

Dump Debugging is the feature that enables to open dump files from production machines and debug those. This is a great feature to use for debugging crashes happening on a production machine. See a video on how to use this feature on Channel 9.

9. Multi-monitor support

Few people knew that Visual Studio 2008 actually had multi-monitor support. You just had to launch an instance on each monitor! Aside from this joke, this feature was one that was really wanted. Now windows can be positioned across monitors making developing and debugging a much better overview on dual screens.

10. Intellisense – lots of small improvements

Intellisense has gone through lots of small improvements. The most important ones are:

• When selecting any variable all instances of it are highlighted – a well needed improvement that has been around for in lots of text editors
• Search is not limited to prefixes any more, it is done within strings. So when typing time for example, DateTime will be offered as well (previously only names starting with time were)
• Intellisense can search just knowing the capital letters of a class. When searching e.g. for HttpCachePolicy it’s enough to type HCP - nice!
• Javascript intellisense is extensive: all major Javascript libraries are supported (JQuery, Ext.JS, Prototype). Expressions are also evaluated on the fly and Intellisense is offered accordingly.

Visual Studio visual studio 2010

Finding how you go to that deep class method that failed…

IntelliTrace cool 2010 feature, if you are debugging the app and it fails on its own, it will show you everything that was called up until that point. Even but button’s you clicked on the website.

Pretty cool. Can’t attach to a process, have to actually run debug.  It’s window on the right or you can open it via, Debug/Windows/IntelliEvents.

It’s shows more usefulness if the app fails a few classes deep.

Note: Only works if you run Debugger

IntelliTrace Events Only Option Gives You This:

IntelliTrace Events and Call Information Give You This:

You can see how I got to the error now, which methods call which other methods.

Visual Studio IntelliTrace

I was having problems trying to download XPMode because the website tries to validate your Windows 7 operation system.  Even though I activated successfully and I ran the MGA Diagnostic Tool locally and it said Genuine. It still failed the online check.

I even called Microsoft to see if they could figure it out. No luck. They tried the obvious stuff, re-entering my product key, re-activating.  They couldn’t figure it out. Even gave me a new product key and still no luck.  Then I told them I had to go.

Found the answer on my own..

I was getting Event Errors in my Application Log.

Source: CAPI2
Event ID: 257
The Cryptographic Services service failed to initialize the Catalog Database. The ESENT error was: -1011.

Then I caught online something on bypassing XP Genuine has to do with the Cryptographic services. Putting two and two together, I figured this error was the source of my problem.

After a little digging I found this article which gave me steps to wipe out my System Catalog Database. 

This fixed my error and allowed me to validate my windows online.

1. Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Services.
2. Right-click Cryptographic Services, and then click Stop.
3. Click Start, and then click Computer.
4. Navigate to %systemroot%\System32.

   By default, %systemroot% is located at C:\Windows.

5. Rename the catroot2 folder to catroot2.old.
6. In the Services snap-in console, right-click Cryptographic Services, and then click Start.

Operating Systems, Troubleshooting MGA, Genuine Advantage, Windows7

Great blog post on Information Architecture.

Complete Beginner’s Guide to Information Architecture

Information architecture is an often misunderstood job title. Are they Designers? Developers? Managers? All of the above? In this article we’ll discuss what information architecture is, why it’s related to usability, and what are the common tools/programs used in information architecture.

Information architecture encompasses a wide range of problems. But regardless of the specific context or objectives of a given information architecture project, our concern is always with creating structures to facilitate effective communication. This notion is the core of our discipline.

Jessie James Garrett

What does an Information Architect do?  What tools do they use?

Read More..

Information Architecture Information Architecture

Was reading a post that Office Easter eggs no longer exist due to the government regulating that every software feature has to be documented.   I was developing a silverlight app and wanted to place in my own Easter egg.

Basically holding down Shift-Ctrl-Windows Key and clicking on the Logo, brings up my face :)

Funny, SilverLight funny, easter egg, silverlight

Fiddler2 Best program out there I think for debugging WCF errors in silverlight when you get “NotFound” error messages.

Example. I had a Silverlight application where I had to enable it work over https and change the host headers. As many of you may know, WCF on .NET 3.5 you can not bind to website with multiple headers. You have to hardcode the WCF Address in the web.config. (I’ve read that .Net 4.0 will allow this but still not for ssl).

All my setting from what I can tell in my web.config and my clientConfig were correct, and the app worked fine in http mode only, however I would get the most generic message ever.

This is my custom error window I use to have users send the errors to the server.  As you can see the error is “The remote server returned an error: NotFound.”  this is basically the equivalent of the old server error message “An Unexpected Error Occurred”.  Basically who knows. Something’s wrong.  The WCF service is not responding. Could be your firewall, your IIS, your service is erroring out or 100 other things. 

Download and install Fiddler2 and let the magic begin.  I did try WebDevHelper which is like FireBug for FireFox but it works in IE.  It’s pretty good, but like FireBug, doesn’t give you that WCF error.

Loading up Fiddler, I can inspect the traffic and actually see the .Net error. It even highlights it in red for me.  (Had to block out the app names).

From this I was able to expand the information like below to see the real error message.

“Cannot be process at the receiver, due to an AddressFilter mismatch at the EndpointDispatcher.  Check that the sender and receiver’s EndPointAddresses agree”

After I realized what the problem was I was able to fix my service by adding the attribute AddressFilterMode:=AddressFilterMode.Any to my WCF class.

Problem Solved.

WCF logging:

You can also log all your WCF Traffic to a Log file on your server.

Other useful posts..

Silverlight and WCF – WCF Logs and Debugging

Service Trace Viewer Tool (SvcTraceViewer.exe)

Silverlight & WCF - HTTPS

WCF, SilverLight, Troubleshooting wcf, silverlight, https, debug, fiddler