Infinite Loop Development Ltd

Handwriting recognition

September 27, 2009 Infinite Loop Development Ltd Leave a comment

Just got a Wacom tablet at the weekend, and then started looking for some practical application….
Not quite practical, but I was presently surprised with some Handwriting recognition by
ritePen.

I tried getting Microsoft INK to work, but I think it requires a tablet PC.

Categories: Uncategorized

Using Webservices with Flex

September 21, 2009 Infinite Loop Development Ltd Leave a comment

I was working on a larger Flex example this morning: Sending SMS via a webservice in Flex
But due to the Flash sandbox, there is a hurdle you have to jump, security wise, to access a webservice from Flash,
and it first shows it’s ugly head with this exception:

[RPC Fault faultString="Security error accessing url" faultCode="Channel.Security.Error" faultDetail="Unable to load WSDL. If currently online, please verify the URI and/or format of the WSDL (http://www.freebiesms.co.uk/sendSMS.asmx?wsdl)"%5D
    at mx.rpc.wsdl::WSDLLoader/faultHandler()[C:autobuild3.2.0frameworksprojectsrpcsrcmxrpcwsdlWSDLLoader.as:98]
    at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEventFunction()
    at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEvent()
    at mx.rpc::AbstractInvoker/http://www.adobe.com/2006/flex/mx/internal::dispatchRpcEvent()[C:autobuild3.2.0frameworksprojectsrpcsrcmxrpcAbstractInvoker.as:170]
    at mx.rpc::AbstractInvoker/http://www.adobe.com/2006/flex/mx/internal::faultHandler()[C:autobuild3.2.0frameworksprojectsrpcsrcmxrpcAbstractInvoker.as:225]
    at mx.rpc::Responder/fault()[C:autobuild3.2.0frameworksprojectsrpcsrcmxrpcResponder.as:53]
    at mx.rpc::AsyncRequest/fault()[C:autobuild3.2.0frameworksprojectsrpcsrcmxrpcAsyncRequest.as:103]
    at DirectHTTPMessageResponder/securityErrorHandler()[C:autobuild3.2.0frameworksprojectsrpcsrcmxmessagingchannelsDirectHTTPChannel.as:389]
    at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEventFunction()
    at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEvent()
    at flash.net::URLLoader/redirectEvent()

Which, after hunting on the Net, showed me that I needed a crossdomain.xml file thus:

<cross-domain-policy>
<allow-access-from domain="*"/>
<allow-http-request-headers-from domain="*" headers="SOAPAction"/>
</cross-domain-policy>

– Oh, and I also found out that Webservice method names are case-sensitive, when I got this error:

[RPC Fault faultString="Couldn’t find method ‘sendSms’ in service." faultCode="Client.NoSuchMethod" faultDetail="null"]
    at mx.rpc.soap::Operation/createFaultEvent()[C:autobuild3.2.0frameworksprojectsrpcsrcmxrpcsoapOperation.as:978]
    at mx.rpc.soap::Operation/http://www.adobe.com/2006/flex/mx/internal::invokePendingCall()[C:autobuild3.2.0frameworksprojectsrpcsrcmxrpcsoapOperation.as:763]
    at mx.rpc.soap::Operation/send()[C:autobuild3.2.0frameworksprojectsrpcsrcmxrpcsoapOperation.as:693]
    at Function/http://adobe.com/AS3/2006/builtin::apply()
    at mx.rpc.soap.mxml::Operation/send()[C:autobuild3.2.0frameworksprojectsrpcsrcmxrpcsoapmxmlOperation.as:170]
    at Function/http://adobe.com/AS3/2006/builtin::apply()
    at mx.rpc::AbstractService/http://www.adobe.com/2006/actionscript/flash/proxy::callProperty()[C:autobuild3.2.0frameworksprojectsrpcsrcmxrpcAbstractService.as:290]
    at FreebieSMS/click()[C:Documents and SettingsAdminMy DocumentsVisual Studio 2008ProjectsFreebieSMSFlexFreebieSMSFlexsrcFreebieSMS.as:31]
    at FreebieSMSFlex/___FreebieSMSFlex_Button1_click()[C:Documents and SettingsAdminMy DocumentsVisual Studio 2008ProjectsFreebieSMSFlexFreebieSMSFlexsrcFreebieSMSFlex.mxml:4]

Categories: Uncategorized

Using Code-behind with Flex

September 20, 2009 Infinite Loop Development Ltd Leave a comment

This is a few steps on how to use Code-behind with Flex & Visual Studio 2008.

Installed Ensemble Tofino (With SDK)

This was my MXML file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<mx:Application
    xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
    layout="absolute">
    <mx:Button x="45" y="33" label="Say Hello!" click="HelloWorld.click(event)"/>
</mx:Application>

And the .AS file was:

package
{
    import flash.events.Event;
    import flash.events.MouseEvent;
    import mx.controls.Alert;

    public class HelloWorld
    {
        public static function click(event:MouseEvent)
        {
            Alert.show("This responded to an event from code-behind");
        }
    }
}

Ideally, The Application Class should inherit from HelloWorld, so that the click event could be protected rather than
static; so it should be modified as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<my:HelloWorld xmlns:my="*"
    xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
    layout="absolute">
    <mx:Button x="45" y="33" label="Say Hello!" click="click(event)"/>
</my:HelloWorld>

and the AS file thus:

package
{
    import flash.events.Event;
    import flash.events.MouseEvent;
    import mx.controls.Alert;
    import mx.core.Application;

    public class HelloWorld extends Application
    {
        protected function click(event:MouseEvent)
        {
            Alert.show("This responded to an event from code-behind");
        }
    }
}

Categories: Uncategorized

Facebook App development

September 20, 2009 Infinite Loop Development Ltd Leave a comment

Freebie SMS Facebook App

Download link: Download Facebook App with source code in C#
Facebook link: Free SMS Facebook App

This is a Facebook App for sending free SMS messages to UK mobile phones,
It was created with the asp.net starter kit for C# 3.5. and can be downloaded from the links above
with full source code.

The only real departure from a standard asp.net page, is that it gets the ‘from name’ from the Facebook profile, like this:

       protected string GetUserName()
        {
            try
            {
                facebook.Schema.user userinfo = Master.API.users.getInfo(Master.API.uid);
                return userinfo.first_name;
            }
            catch
            {
                return "Someone";
            }
        }

Note, that the exception can be thrown on first load, before the user has accepted access to their own profile, hense
the try/catch

Categories: Uncategorized

Setting up SQL server Azure

September 6, 2009 Infinite Loop Development Ltd Leave a comment

This is my experience with setting up SQL server Azure (2008), pretty difficult, and very buggy, to be honest,
my feeling is to stay away from the CTP, but here’s my ‘walkthrough’

I got this email a few days ago:

Welcome to the SQL Azure CTP! We are excited to have you join us. Below are
some steps to get you started, as well as links to helpful resources.

Getting Started

1) Visit https://sql.azure.com

2) Sign in with a valid Windows LiveID

3) Enter your invitation code

Your invitation code is:
d329171f-c1fd-4060-862e-1a7f613ea8ce

4) Create your SQL Azure Server (and
databases)

So I stepped through the process, and set up an Azure database, then I found that I needed SQL server 2008 to connect to it,

I downloaded SQLManagementStudio_x86_ENU.exe from
http://www.microsoft.com/DownLoads/details.aspx?familyid=08E52AC2-1D62-45F6-9A4A-4B76A8564A2B&displaylang=en

During Install, said that I needed to reboot… when I had, so a work around was:

# Open Regedit
# Find the key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession Manager"
# Rename the "PendingFileRenameOperations" value to "PendingFileRenameOperations2"
# Re-Run the checks

Downloaded powershell:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=90&p=&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=6ccb7e0d-8f1d-4b97-a397-47bcc8ba3806&u=http%3a%2f%2fdownload.microsoft.com%2fdownload%2f7%2f3%2f4%2f7345bb7d-0b07-40e8-9480-5b8c55b9c8b7%2fWindowsXP-KB926139-v2-x86-ENU.exe

Uninstalled SQL server management studio express

Uninstalled Visual studio 2008

It then crashed with this error:

TITLE: SQL Server Setup failure.
——————————

SQL Server Setup has encountered the following error:

Unable to generate a temporary class (result=1).
error CS0006: Metadata file ‘C:WINDOWSassemblyGAC_MSILMSClusterLib1.0.0.0__89845dcd8080cc91MSClusterLib.dll’ could not be found

Error code 0x84B10001.

——————————
BUTTONS:

OK
——————————

Rebooted…

Deleted the PendingFileOperations Registry Key

Installed!

Tried to Connect:

ADO.NET:
Server=tcp:yitwxb6n0v.ctp.database.windows.net;Database=master;User ID=fiach;Password=myPassword;Trusted_Connection=False; Server=tcp:yitwxb6n0v.ctp.database.windows.net;Database=;User ID=fiach;Password=myPassword;Trusted_Connection=False; Copy to clipboard
ODBC:
Driver={SQL Server};Server=tcp:yitwxb6n0v.ctp.database.windows.net;Database=master;Uid=fiach;Pwd=myPassword; Driver={SQL Server};Server=tcp:yitwxb6n0v.ctp.database.windows.net;Database=;Uid=fiach;Pwd=myPassword; Copy to clipboard
OLE DB:
Provider=SQLNCLI10;Server=tcp:yitwxb6n0v.ctp.database.windows.net;Database=master;Uid=fiach;Pwd=myPasswor

TITLE: Connect to Server
——————————

Cannot connect to yitwxb6n0v.ctp.database.windows.net.

——————————
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

An exception occurred while executing a Transact-SQL statement or batch. (Microsoft.SqlServer.ConnectionInfo)

——————————

Invalid object name ‘sys.configurations’. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 208)

For help, click: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?ProdName=Microsoft+SQL+Server&ProdVer=10.00.9006&EvtSrc=MSSQLServer&EvtID=208&LinkId=20476

——————————
BUTTONS:

OK
——————————

Fixed using this post:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/ssdsgetstarted/thread/9e5b6854-9e5a-4e7d-b771-313aa5683b72

1. cancel out of the first connection dialog that pops up.
2. click on the New Query button from the toolbar (upper left)
3. entered
Server name: full servername
Login: just the username (no @…)
4. Under Options, Connect to Database, (type your database here)
5. Hit connect.

And I got in… after an hour.

Now to figure out how to copy the databases!

Categories: Uncategorized

Changing the TTL value of a DNS record in Windows

July 16, 2009 Infinite Loop Development Ltd Leave a comment

I noticed that going to who.is/dns/<website>, the DNS TTL records for a domain were all set to 0, which meant that

every DNS request would require a new DNS lookup.

In the DnsMgmt MSC snap in it was impossible to change the TTL for individual records, until I saw you can press View>Advanced, to access the TTLs

Categories: Uncategorized

Creating a virtual directory on Apache for Windows

June 29, 2009 Infinite Loop Development Ltd Leave a comment

I wanted to allow database downloads from my D: drive, but I got this 403 error, this is how I solved it in my Httpd.conf

Alias /db "D:sqldatabackups"

<Directory "D:sqldatabackups">

Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews

AllowOverride all

Order Deny,Allow

Deny from localhost

Allow from all

</Directory>

Hope this helps

Categories: Uncategorized

Migrating a classic ASP site from Windows to Linux

June 27, 2009 Infinite Loop Development Ltd Leave a comment

I recently moved javatiger.com from a Windows server to a Linux server, basically, to move some smaller sites off the main Windows server, and
I had spare VPS server that I could use for the purpose.

First step to set up Apache on the Linux server,

Use WinSCP to create files in
/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/omadataobjects.com.conf

<VirtualHost *>
ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
ServerAlias www.omadataobjects.com
DocumentRoot
/var/www/omadataobjects.com
</VirtualHost>

Use Putty to restart Apache /etc/init.d/apache2
reload

The site was in ASP, was indexed in Google, with Page Rank, so I didn’t want to change the URLs, so I wanted to use mod_rewrite,
which I installed using Putty:

root@vps ~ # a2enmod rewrite
Module rewrite installed; run /etc/init.d/apache2 force-reload to enable.
root@vps ~ # /etc/init.d/apache2 force-reload
Forcing reload of web server (apache2)… waiting .

I then created a .htaccess file in the website root

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.*).asp$ /$1.php [L,NC,R=301]
</IfModule>

Which rewrites all .asp requests to .php

I then changed the extension of all .asp files to .php,
and changed
<!–#include file="header.asp"–> to <?php include("header.php"); ?>

Oh, and I had a few glitches with case-sensitivity, which Windows is less strict about.