Justin myJustin = new Justin( Expriences.Current );

Blog Moved to Microsoft.co.il

myemail@myemail.com (Your DisplayName here!) — Sat, 20 May 2006 15:30:48 GMT

Hey everyone,

This blog has moved to http://blogs.Microsoft.co.il/blogs/JustinAngel.

Please update your RSS Feeds.

The new blog will have mixed hebrew and english content but is primerly english.

How To manually uninstall Sequel server Express (Sql Server 2005 express)

myemail@myemail.com (Your DisplayName here!) — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 15:26:17 GMT

Hey Everyone,

I recently had the following error trying to install Sequel server 2005 express:

SQL Server Setup could not connect to the database service for server configuration. The error was: {Microsoft}{SQL Native Client}Encryption not supported on the client. Refer to server error logs and setup logs for more information. For details on how to view setup logs, see "How to View Setup Log Files" in SQL Server Books Online.

No matter what I did nothing worked (and I worked on it for three straight hours).
I had 18 (!) installation attempts that failed on me. (Logs will be available on request if anyone wants them)

And then I remembered Justin's first rule of DB installations
"If first you don't succeed - manually uninstall".

This is what I did step-by-step. Hope you find it'll be useful for someone else.
Off course, I take no responsibility if your computer happens to catch fire or explodes/implodes during one or any of these actions.

How To manually uninstall Sequel server Express (Sql Server 2005 Express)

Part 1 - Cleaning up the registry

Backed up my current registry to a file (start --> run --> regedit --> Export registry file --> "All" and file name --> ok)
Downloaded "regseeker" (http://www.snapfiles.com/download/dlregseeker.html)
Searched term "Microsoft SQL Server\90" in regseeker.
Selected all found items, exported to file (right click "export to file")
Deleted all found values (521 for "Microsoft SQL Server\90").
Repeated steps 3-5 for term "MSSQL.1".
Only deleted registry keys containing "MSSQL.1" from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE (63 values).

Part 2 - Cleaning up the file system

Cut&Pasted "MSSQL.1" to "c:\mySqlBackUp"
Tried to Cut&Paste "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL server\90" to "c:\mySqlBackUp"
Got error that "sqlmgmprovider" is a shared app while trying to move "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL server\90".
Opened "PrcView" (http://www.prcview.com) to kill "sqlmgmprovider.dll".
Clicked "Show Module usage" in PrcView.
navigated to "sqlmgmprovider.dll"
Killed WinMngmnt.exe (right click on process --> kill).
Cut&Pasted "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL server\90" to "c:\mySqlBackUp" successed.
Cut&Pasted "C:\WINNT\system32\SQLServerManager.msc" to "c:\mySqlBackUp"

Part 3 - Reinstall, Get error, uninstall, Pray & Reinstall

Attempted to reinstall Sql Server express 2005 from a file i downloaded at microsoft.com
Got this error while Reinstalling:
An installation package for the product Microsoft SQL Server Native Client cannot be found. Try the installation again using a valid copy of the installation package 'sqlncli.msi'.
Uninstalled "Microsoft SQL Server Native Client" from Add/Remove programs.
Reinstalled Sql Server express 2005.
Prayed.
Ka ching! Everything works.

I'm an MVP! + various pictures

myemail@myemail.com (Your DisplayName here!) — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 21:44:20 GMT

Hey everyone,

I got an email yesterday from Microsoft Israel telling me I'm a Microsoft .Net MVP starting April 1st.

Very nice.

Later that day I want to the Israeli agile user group where I met with Roy and Miki took this picture of us: (don't ask me why I tilted my head)
>

This was the Israeli agile user group first anniversary so we raffled out six (!) agile books from Microsoft press. To celebrate the occasion Microsoft Israel supplied us with TONS of quality/junk food. There were something like 20 HUGH pizzas with every possible topping i know off and 3 delicious chocolate cakes from Roladin (a well known Israeli bakery). I managed to take a picture of one of cakes:

And here's a picture of people eating the cakes between the lectures:

Ohhh... and besides the food - professor Orit Hazan gave a very good introductory talk to agile methodologies as a whole and Extreme programming specifically. It was nice to see an academic point of view on practical issues.

I've got some more unrelated pictures. Here's one of me from my Refactoring 101 lecture at January 5th '06:

(taken by Roy)

And here's a couple of pictures from the first advanced Test-Driven development workshop from February '06:

It was very good and insightful. You can see that everyone is smiling!

Got my MCSD in the mail

myemail@myemail.com (Your DisplayName here!) — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 20:44:04 GMT

Hey everyone,

I finally got my MCSD certifcate & card & pin in the mail today.

Hosting Visual team foundation server - does anybody want my money?

myemail@myemail.com (Your DisplayName here!) — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 20:28:12 GMT

I'd like to experiment with Team system at the comforts of my own home.

Our internal team foundation server isn't accessible through the Internet. So, I’m wondering why has NO hosting company comes up and says "you can have your own user & your own team on our team foundation server for xx$/monthly". I know there's good business potential there because I’m willing to pay for this kind of service. The business potential goes beyond over-excited-developers-who-have-dreams-about-VSTS but has real world usages. Small ISVs, freelancers and small teams who can't afford VSTS but could really benefit from it would probably love to have the option to do so.

There's a large customer base on which to build this possiable hosting solution. And foundation server will be free for another couple of months (until the RTM is released and the beta 3 is over) so all the hosting company would actully have to do is install it, open it up to the internet and setup accounts.

Bottom line, offering a team in Team foundation server over the Internet as a monthly service can make for a good hosting solution. Any hosting company willing to pick up the gauntlet?

Stopping Visual Studio .Net 2005 from regenerating my Webservice proxy

myemail@myemail.com (Your DisplayName here!) — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 17:01:15 GMT

We write custom proxies for our webservices. What we do is take the originally generated webservice proxy and make small and subtle changes that make the proxy work like we want it to.

For instance, we'd like our Client Apps to use our Business Classes from the same assembly the Server Apps reference. But the default webservice proxy makes local copies of all relevant business classes. This is OK behavior if we were exposing this Webservice as a commercial app. But we're using it to transmit data to our smart clients. This is a pretty small and basic change - removing all business classes from the proxy. Ok, done. Five minutes later we have too change something in the Webservice itself. And then it happens - our Visual studio 2005 regenerates the proxy and we need to rewrite the entire proxy again, and again, and again.

Well, here is how to make Visual studio 2005 to not regenerate your webservice proxies:

First, Copy the Reference.cs (normally found at: "myProject/Web References/myWebservice/Reference.cs") to the project folder itself (or anywhere besides the original directory). Open your solution and scroll to the appropriate webservice. Right click on the Reference.map file and choose "Properties". Under "custom tool" remove "MSDiscoCodeGenerator" and leave it blank.

If you look into the "myProject/Web References/myWebservice/" directory you would see the "Reference.cs" is no longer there. That's because it was deleted. Next, load the "Reference.cs" File from the project directory to your project as you would any other class.

If you need to regenerate your proxy, Add "MSDiscoCodeGenerator" to your custom tool Reference.map properties. Copy the "Reference.cs" file from the "myProject/Web References/myWebservice/" directory to the project directory and set custom tool to blank.

Props go to Devi & Oren for working with a regenerating proxy for two-weeks and keeping sane.

Word non-autorecovery Not .Net related

myemail@myemail.com (Your DisplayName here!) — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 23:32:53 GMT

For the last week of my life I’ve been trying to fill a Word based document. Until now I’ve wasted more then 8 hours of my life working on it with no actual result. Why "no actual result" you ask?

I type a lot of math equations on my computer. Word's equation editor just doesn't cut it for those big math calculations. So I use a word add-on called "Mathtype" and it's the only piece of software I truly regret ever seeing. Seriously folks, I prefer MS blaster over mathtype. If Mathtype was less stable it would... wait, it can't be more unstable. It randomly freezes my word, which forces to kill the winword.exe process and thus lose my information. I've grown accustomed to mathtype ruining / destroying my good health and sanity.

So MS office Word has two choices for backup: random and none. Random is also known as "Always create backup copy" and none is known as "Enable Quick save". If I choose the no backup option then whenever word crushes I’ve got no backup to the document I’ve been working on. But if I choose the random option then my wonderful mathtype add-on crushes my word app after an hour or so. Truly, the worst piece of junk/software ever written. So my Word app always uses the no backup option. And lucky me, when it crushes I’ve got no backup.

My laptop had two crushes so far this week (me playing with the virtual page file and all). The document I was trying to write and had put my heart & soul into was lost. Twice. Naturally, I want to hart the people who caused me to lose 8 hours of my life.

Bottom line, If you're considering buying / using / evaluating Mathtype - don't. It's a piece of junk. And as soon as I find a good replacement I’ll be quick to move to it.

Update: Sorry everyone for using this blog as a means to vent stream and ram Mathtype. I'll shortly remove everything besides the bottom line and maybe the whole post.

Blue screen of death when starting Visual studio 2005

myemail@myemail.com (Your DisplayName here!) — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 00:45:46 GMT

This is a real weird one.

Two months back I bought a new 2Gb RAM card for my personal laptop. Previously I had 512mb ram and 1.5gb page file. After installing the new 2Gb RAM card I thought to myself "self, you should really minimize the space the page file is taking up". Well, I did just that. I changed the page file to 60mb, which was the lowest windows 2000 Pro was willing to let me set it.

For the past two months after every reboot (which happens roughly twice a week) I get a strange error message from windows saying "blah blah blah virtual memory low yada yada yada". And I just figured that having 2Gb of RAM would suffice so every time I clicked OK and thought nothing of it.

Since yesterday I’ve been getting the Blue screen of death when loading Visual studio 2005. First I wanted to blame Microsoft for making a buggy product. Second, I remembered that as a developer myself that the customer is always the guilty party in things like this. So I racked my brain long and hard and decided to set the page file to 512Mb. Since then it's been smooth sailing.

Though this is completely my fault - someone should really mention that a sizeable page file is required in the "Software requirements" of Visual studio 2005.

Refactoring 101 Presentation in .Net / C# / Java

myemail@myemail.com (Your DisplayName here!) — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 21:12:20 GMT

Hey Everyone,

Last Thursday i gave a talk in the Agile Usergroup about Refactoring 101.

It want pretty well.I got very good feedback so I'm pleased.

Here's the presentation from that night:
http:\\www.justinangel.net\files\refactoring101.ppt

Please ignore the occasional misspells. I tried to make some names extremely long and spelling mistake were the unfortunate outcome.

Free Visual studio 2005 Add-Ons DVD

myemail@myemail.com (Your DisplayName here!) — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 20:09:14 GMT

Hey everyone,

Just though i'd share this exciting offer from good old microsoft.
Apperently they're shipping a DVD with 'bout 50 productivity improving tools as part of the VS2005 launch.

Get yours today. hack, get two :)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/extend/partnerdvd/

How to manually uninstall Sql server 2000 and Oracle 10g

myemail@myemail.com (Your DisplayName here!) — Sun, 25 Dec 2005 17:23:00 GMT

Hello everyone,

I recently joined our system team while installing a development server from scratch. I've learned how to manually uninstall a both a bad Oracle installation and a bad sequel installation.

A quick comment about oracle universal installer - it universally doesn't work on any platform.
Seriously - I’ve seen 'bout 30-50 different oracle installations by now and the only time I’ve known oracle to install properly on the first try was on Solaris OS. Oracle doing a proper installation from 1% to 100% is almost unheard of.

So from my experience the best thing to know while installing DBs is how to manually uninstall them.

Before doing any of the following actions you should remember that I take no responsibility if your server happens to catch fire or explode/implode.

How To manually uninstall oracle 10g on a windows OS:

Restart windows to safe mode.
Open an explorer window.
Shift+Delete (permanent deletion) the c:\program files\Oracle directory.
Shift+Delete the c:\oracle directory (or whichever folder you installed the oracle home at)
Open the registry editor. (start--> run --> regedit)
Delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/ORACLE node completely.
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Services/ node.
Delete any & all nodes with the word "oracle" in the begining.
Open the environment variables editor. (Right click on my computer --> properties --> advanced --> Environment variables)
Edit the path variable (in the system variables pane) so it won't include any references to c:\oracle (or whichever folder you installed the oracle home at)
Go to your windows temporary dir (default at c:\windows\temp) and make sure there are no oracle installation files there. If your not sure - empty it out.
Reboot and pray to your household computer god.

How To manually uninstall Sequel server (Sql Server 2000):

Restart windows to safe mode.
Open an explorer window.
Shift+delete the sequel server directory (default at c:\program files\Microsoft Sql server)
Open the registry editor. (start--> run --> regedit)
Delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\MSSQLServer node completely.
Delete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\Microsoft Sql server" node completely.
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Services/ node.
Delete any & all nodes with the words "MSSQL" or "SqlServer" in the beginning.
Reboot (no need to pray to your household computer god after rebooting)

Empty string comperison

myemail@myemail.com (Your DisplayName here!) — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 20:34:22 GMT

Hi everyone,

Oren eini published a c# code comperison regerding a talk we had. first, i'd like to mention that we did not argue. Developers do not argue - We discuss. I'm not sure how we got to talk 'bout that but we started talking 'bout FxCop. Oren said something bad 'bout it and i said something good. Then i sought out an simple example why FxCop is good. I remmembered the " Test for empty strings using string length " rule so this was my simple example for why FxCop is needed. the rule basicly says "do not use myStr == "" rather use myStr.Length == 0".

Two years back Brenden tompkins did the first comperison i ever saw between the diffrent ways to check if a string is empty and myStr.Length==0 was the most efficent way. The Excel graph with the results is missing, but it basicly said that over 1,000 iterations String.Length==0 has the best preformance. I've emailed brenden to add the excel graph.

I'm glad to see that the good folks at microsoft fixed this so the diffrence between the diffrent ways of checking is a string is empty only show up after a billion iterations. It's still a diffrence, but a slightly more tolerable one.

The point is that using coding standerds such as this one is allways good and will eventully make for programs with better preformance and better scalability.

Generic Dictionary through a Webservice

myemail@myemail.com (Your DisplayName here!) — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 12:34:07 GMT

Hello everyone,

I've recently had a project that required sending a Generic Dictionary class throughg a webservice. Though the Dictionary Generic class implements the ISerializable it just doesn't want to go through a webservice. well, i thought to myself "self, something MUST be done about that misbehaving class!". I decided to try deep Serialization for the Dictionary Generic. For those of you unfamilier with the term "deep Serialization" it means that we tell the seriliazer exactly how to serialize our class.

I implemented the IXmlSerializable interface which lets us specify how the class is written to Xml and how it's readen. the IXmlSerializable interface has two interesting methods: WriteXml & ReadXml. The WriteXml method lets us specify exactly how to the seriliazer how the class is transformed into Xml. We get an XmlWriter and WE decide how to write the Serialization Xml. The ReadXml method gives us complete control over the deseriliazer. We get an XmlReader and we have to read the Xml and decide how to transform it from Xml into a .Net class.

After the Generic Dictionary worked worked as required i decided that for futare useage it'll be best if i write a CodeSmith template. So now we can implement a Generic dictionary by the click of the button. The CodeSmith Template is available here.

Here is an example code using the default generation parameters of the template:

using System;
using System.Data;
using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Data;
using System.Runtime.Serialization;
using System.Xml;
using Serialization;

namespace BL
{
/// <summary>
/// Summary description for myDictionaryClass.
/// </summary>
[Serializable]
publicclass myDictionaryClass: Dictionary<string, myValueClass>, IXmlSerializable
{
#region IXmlSerizable methods
privateconststring NS ="http://http://www.myCompany.Com";
void IXmlSerializable.WriteXml(XmlWriter w)
{
XmlSerializer keySer =new XmlSerializer(typeof(string));
XmlSerializer valueSer =new XmlSerializer(typeof(myValueClass));
w.WriteStartElement("list", NS);
foreach (object key inthis.Keys)
{
w.WriteStartElement("item", NS);
w.WriteStartElement("key", NS);
keySer.Serialize(w, key);
w.WriteEndElement();
w.WriteStartElement("value", NS);
object value =this[key.ToString()];
valueSer.Serialize(w, value);
w.WriteEndElement();
w.WriteEndElement();
}
w.WriteEndElement();
}
void IXmlSerializable.ReadXml(XmlReader r)
{
XmlSerializer keySer =new XmlSerializer(typeof(string));
XmlSerializer valueSer =new XmlSerializer(typeof(myValueClass));
r.Read();
r.ReadStartElement("list", NS);
while (r.NodeType != XmlNodeType.EndElement)
{
r.ReadStartElement("item", NS);
r.ReadStartElement("key", NS);
object key = keySer.Deserialize(r);
r.ReadEndElement();
r.ReadStartElement("value", NS);
object value = valueSer.Deserialize(r);
r.ReadEndElement();
this.Add((string)key, (myValueClass)value);
r.ReadEndElement();
r.MoveToContent();
}
r.ReadEndElement();
r.ReadEndElement();
}
XmlSchema IXmlSerializable.GetSchema()
{
returnnull;
}
#endregion

}
}

Justin myJustin = new Justin( Expriences.Current );

Blog Moved to Microsoft.co.il

How To manually uninstall Sequel server Express (Sql Server 2005 express)

I'm an MVP! + various pictures

Got my MCSD in the mail

Hosting Visual team foundation server - does anybody want my money?

Stopping Visual Studio .Net 2005 from regenerating my Webservice proxy

Word non-autorecovery *Not .Net related*

Blue screen of death when starting Visual studio 2005

Refactoring 101 Presentation in .Net / C# / Java

Free Visual studio 2005 Add-Ons DVD

How to manually uninstall Sql server 2000 and Oracle 10g

Empty string comperison

Generic Dictionary through a Webservice

Word non-autorecovery Not .Net related