Dirk.Net

Vista-style cursors can be downloaded here (white pointer) and here (black pointer). Unzip anywhere on your hard drive, right-click the .inf files and select “Install…”. Then select the cursor at Start Button>Control Panel>Mouse>Pointers. One more reason NOT to upgrade to Vista. Still looking for a “red expanding circle at mouse-click location like in the Camtasia videos” which is (probably?!, I have no Mac) available for OS X but not for Windows. 

Visual Studio 2002 and 2003 created resx resource files for each and every ascx and aspx file. When upgrading to ASP.NET 2.0 these files are no longer needed as resource files are centrally stored in the resource folders and compiled.

So if after removing the resx files you get compilation errors such as the following

simply open the project file (.csproj or .vbproj) in Notepad and delete the entries that look like this:

<EmbeddedResource Include=”panorama\search.aspx.resx”>
     <DependentUpon>search.aspx.cs</DependentUpon>
   </EmbeddedResource>
   <EmbeddedResource Include=”panorama\tellafriend.aspx.resx”>
     <DependentUpon>tellafriend.aspx.cs</DependentUpon>
   </EmbeddedResource>
   <EmbeddedResource Include=”panorama\upload.aspx.resx”>
     <DependentUpon>upload.aspx.cs</DependentUpon>
   </EmbeddedResource>

 Then the project should build without problems. Hope it helps.

Transact-SQL doesn’t have arrays or nifty string functions like the C# System.String.Split () or java’s String.split() returning arrays in one swoop. Then again, SQL knows the SELECT … IN statement like

SELECT * FROM table1 WHERE id in (1,2,3,526) 

so why no looping through comma-delimited strings?

A “Table-valued User-defined Function” returning a table variable is a handy and versatile workaround letting you query and loop through the values with near array-like ease.

The code could look like this:

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[StringToTable]
(
@inputString nvarchar(max),
@separator char (1)
)
RETURNS @ResultTable TABLE ( [String] nvarchar(max) )
AS
BEGIN

    DECLARE @stringToInsert nvarchar (max) 

    WHILE LEN(@inputString) > 0
    BEGIN
        SET @StringToInsert      = LEFT(
                                @inputString,
                                ISNULL(NULLIF(CHARINDEX(@separator, @inputString) - 1, -1),
                                LEN(@inputString)
                                )
                                )
        SET @InputString = SUBSTRING(@InputString,

                                     ISNULL
                                     (NULLIF
                                     (CHARINDEX(@separator, @InputString),
                                     0),
                                     LEN(@InputString)) + 1,
                                     LEN(@InputString))

        INSERT INTO @ResultTable
        (
        [String]
        )
        VALUES
        (
        @StringToInsert
        )

        END

    RETURN
END

Again, the Transact-SQL string functions seem clumsy and inadequate compared with high-level languages. Short of using CLR functions in the database table-valued functions can put custom string operations at your immediate disposal.

Compiled HTML help for Perl is here, well written and easy to read. The very useful link contains much other stuff too.

Yes, Microsofts web site has some interesting content, such as this article. As I like to print stuff to PDF to read on my PDA, I will usually search all over for a “printer-friendly” link immediately. Alas, while MS pages have one in IE (Internet Explorer),

no such luck in Firefox:

nor the weirdo of browsers, Opera:

So, to print the page, simply add “?pf=true” to the end of the URL so http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/gps.mspx becomes http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/gps.mspx?pf=true
Beat MS at their own game. Hope it helps.