Develop a software with smile

How to extract our stored procedure code/text definition on MS SQL Server

2011-04-24T18:15:00.001-07:00

I had a very interesting situation last week when visited one of my customer. Situation was they host their application on a server at their US headquarter and it run a SQL Server 2005, while all developer engine at Jakarta using SQL 2008. We got an issue on application which resulted on wrong calculation, after some time analyze I found we need to investigate the stored procedure in used. But, big concern was none of developer have latest version of the stored procedure. Thus, we need to extract it from US Server. It got weird when we able to connect to US Server but unable to iterate SQL Server 2005 entity though we logged in as database owner. Due to limited time, so I asked the developer to run an ad-hoc command to extract stored procedure definition from US Server. Response I got was “how to do so ?”

For some developer who already spoiled by luxury of Microsoft Tools, most of the time, ad-hoc command become a history, thus how SQL Server works and how to manage it on console mode become another legend.

On every SQL Server Database, system will create system table called sysobjects to store all objects within respective database, this table will store information about objectid, object name, object type, etc. Respective to that object, there is syscomments table to maintain comment or text definition of specific object, it was referenced to sysobject through … yes, objectid field.

Now how to get code definition of a stored procedure:

Traditionally we can use below command

select text 
from syscomments c
inner join sysobjects o on c.id=o.id
where o.name like 'your_sp_name'

But when it gave a big text, result will be truncated so it would be difficult for us to read it. Nah, there is a ad-hoc command already prepared by SQL Server to perform such task, it was called sp_helptext

So what we need to, is just type below command on console

sp_helptext 'your_sp_name'

And voilla, all the magic to extract code/text definition of stored procedure will be taken care with easy.

What is CAPTCHA ?

2011-04-15T12:02:00.000-07:00

As a Website owner you may find you're getting spam in your registration forms, blog and forum comment areas or in your email inbox. And although sometimes it may feel like you spend a lot of your time dealing with these annoyances, there are tools to help minimize or eliminate spambot issues. Many business are adding CAPTCHA codes to their sites in order to help combat this kind of spam.

A CAPTCHA is a program that protects against bots by generating and grading tests that humans can pass but current computer programs cannot. The term CAPTCHA is an acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart," trademarked in 2000 by Luis von Ahn, Manuel Blum, Nicholas Hopper and John Langford of Carnegie Mellon University, who developed the first CAPTCHA.

A common type of CAPTCHA requires the user to type the letters of a distorted image, sometimes with the addition of an obscured sequence of letters or digits that appears on the screen. This is a simple problem for humans, but a very hard problem for computers that have to use character recognition.

CAPTCHA can be used to monitor and solve many spam-related problems like preventing comment spam in blogs, protecting Web site registration, protecting email addresses from Web scrapers looking to add to spamming lists, ensuring that only humans can vote in online polls, preventing dictionary attacks in password systems as well as stopping search engine bots from crawling unindexed sites.

On the official CAPTCHA Web site (captcha.net) you can download and install a free CAPTCHA code provided by the reCAPTCHA Project that can help with decreasing spam-related issues and enable you to focus on other aspects of your business. ReCAPTCHA also enables you install an audio component to the test, making it user-friendly for the visually-impaired as well.

Some advantages to this code is that is a Web service, which means that all the images are generated and graded by reCAPTCHA's servers and can automatically update whenever a security vulnerability is found. ReCAPTCHA also has an IP address filtering and detection system that flags down IP addreses that solve too many CAPTCHAs in a certain period of time.

Easy-to-install plugins are available for WordPress, MediaWiki, PHP, Perl, Python and other environments. The CAPTCHA code is free for personal as well as commercial Web sites, but if you wish to install a non-branded code, you can purchase it for $160 per year

Resource:
Official CAPTCHA Website
Google ReCAPTCHA Project
http://www.thewhir.com/article-central/Working_With_CAPTCHA

Best android tablet on market

2011-04-14T19:43:00.001-07:00

If you looking for a table but non an Apple-Fans or perhaps with a very tight budget on hand, then Android is the way to go. For a year back, many manufacturer decided to be contender on Android war, either on phone device or on table device. This competition is good for us as customer where we have much option to evaluate on, but also little bit maze for person who don’t want to spend some of their time to review, wrong information may lead them to wrong purchase of Android tablet. Well, lucky for them if they read this post because here we would like to show them best android tablet available on market.

So which tablets are the most tempting ? let’s find out

This review is taken from TechRadar website

Motorola Xoom - £499 (£599 for 3G version)

On sale: Now in US, soon in UK

One of the most interesting Android tablets won't be cheap: online prices are currently hovering around the £720 mark. For your cash you'll get a dual-core Tegra 2 and a 10.1", 1280x800 display; you can also play full HD via HDMI. The Xoom has 1GB of RAM, 32GB of storage (plus an SD card slot), twin cameras, Wi-Fi and optional 3G. Motorola claims 10 hours of video-watching power.

Read: Motorola Xoom review

Samsung Galaxy Tab - £359 (Wi-Fi) / £499 (3G)

On sale: Now

Samsung's tablet becomes much more attractive thanks to heavy discounting: the first price above is from Tesco Direct, although the 3G model is still a good bit more expensive. It's a decent bit of kit let down by sluggish web browsing, and we're not convinced 7-inch tablets work as phones.

Read: Samsung Galaxy Tab review

Viewsonic Viewpad 7 - £300 to 400

On sale: Now

The Viewsonic Viewpad 7 is exactly the same, albeit slightly more expensive than the Linx Commtiva N700 - and confusingly, Viewsonic is marketing it as a smartphone. It's a terrible smartphone but it's a fairly competent 7-inch Android tablet: its 600MHz processor isn't really fast enough for Flash though, not to mention recent Android releases.

Read: Viewsonic ViewPad 7 review

Advent Vega - £249.99

On sale: Now

The Vega offers a lot of power for very little cash: a ten-inch, 1024x600 touchscreen, a dual-core 1GHz Tegra 2 processor and a 6.5 hours of video playback isn't bad for just under £250. Storage is tight, though - you get a half-gig of flash storage, supplemented by a 4GB microSD card) - and the OS is Android 2.2. Flash Player has been pulled due to certification issues, but an update should fix that later in the year.

Read: Advent Vega review

Dell Streak 5 / 7 / 10 - £399 / £TBC / £TBC

The eminently capable and exceptionally small Dell Streak 5 has been around for a while, but it's about to be joined by the more powerful Dell Streak 7 (7-inch) and Dell Streak 10 (10-inch) versions. Where the Dell Streak 5 runs a Snapdragon processor, its bigger siblings will be packing dual-core Tegra processors. All models boast Gorilla Glass, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and Flash 10.1 support.

Read: Dell Streak review

Asus Eee Pad Transformer / Slider / Memo - £tbc

On sale: TBC

Asus has not one, not two, but three interesting Android tablets. The Eee Pad Transformer has a full-sized keyboard dock, the Eee Pad Slider has a slide-out keyboard, and the Eee Pad Memo has no keyboard at all. Bigger Eee Pads have Tegra 2s inside, while the Memo has a 1.2GHz Snapdragon.

Read: Hands on - Asus Eee Pad Transformer review

LG Optimus Pad - £tbc

On sale: TBC

Could the LG Optimus Pad have a 3D display? That's what the rumours say, although they also predict a £250 price tag. One or the other is possible, but not both. 3D or no 3D there's a dual-core Tegra 2 and an 8.9" display.

Read: Hands on - LG Optimus Pad review

Creative Ziio - £249.99

On sale: Now (10-inch TBC)

Take one fairly standard Android tablet and add a dash of Creative's famous audio flair. The result? Something with "pure Android audio", which offers high quality wireless audio via Bluetooth and pretty nifty sound when you use headphones. It's an older tablet, however, which means Android 2.1.

Read: Creative Ziio review

Viewsonic Viewpad 10s - £tbc

On sale: TBC

We called the original Viewpad 10 a stinker, so what about its successor? It runs Android 2.2 with its own Tap overlay, there's a 1GHz processor inside, and there's a very useful option to give each family member their own account. We wish the iPad had that. The 10s is a vast improvement over its predecessor, although we'll reserve final judgement until we know the price.

Read: Viewsonic Viewpad 10s review

HTC Flyer

On sale: TBC

HTC has decided to release the tablet running on Android Gingerbread, which will upset some purists that only believe these tablets should run on Honeycomb. However, the HTC Sense overlay deals with that, offering a new range of widgets and content to mask the fact it's running older versions of the OS (although a Honeycomb update is imminent). The new tablet has a 7-inch LCD screen, and comes with an aluminium unibody shell that feels very nice in the hand.

Read: Hands on: HTC Flyer review

Notion Ink Adam - £tbc

On sale: TBC

A UK release date still hasn't been confirmed, but some overseas customers are getting their pre-ordered Adams this week. The Adam promises a "revolutionary" 10.1-inch display offering 1,024x600 with a sunlight-friendly e-paper mode, and the innards are pretty decent too: the processor is a dual-core 1GHz Tegra, there's 1GB of RAM and you can choose from 16GB or 32GB of storage, expandable via MicroSD. Claimed battery life is 6 to 16 hours.

Read: Notion Ink Adam - everything you need to know

Lenovo Ideapad U1/LePad - £tbc

On sale: TBC

Lenovo makes nice laptops, so it's not a surprise that its LePad sounds... nice. There's a 10.1", 1280x800 capacitive touchscreen, a 1.3GHz Snapdragon, Wi-Fi, 3G and the ubiquitous Flash player. There's also a QWERTY-toting dock that turns it into a laptop. Which is nice.

Read: Lenovo LePad graces CES - again

Panasonic Viera Tablet - £tbc

On sale: TBC

Are you planning on buying one of Panasonic's 2011 TVs? If not then Panasonic's 4, 7 and 10-inch tablets aren't worth getting excited about. If you are though, things get more interesting: the tablets can control the TV or stream video from it, and you'll be able to watch replays on the tablet while the action continues on the big screen.

Read: Hands on - Panasonic Viera tablet review

Toshiba Mystery Tablet - £tbc

On sale: TBC

Toshiba's teasing us with a video for its new, unnamed tablet: we can see twin cameras, HDMI, mini USB and normal USB, an SD card slot and a swappable battery. So it'll probably weigh a ton. Here's hoping it doesn't suffer from the problems that plagued its predecessor, the Folio 100.

Read: Hands on - Toshiba Tablet review

Acer Iconia 7 and 10 - £tbc

On sale: April 2011

Acer has a multitude of tablets coming out. The first is the Iconia Tab W500 which runs Windows 7 and has an optional docking keyboard to make it more of a tablet/netbook hybrid. Other Windows tablets are expected as well, along with Android 3.0 equivalents!

There is no foreach in JavaScript, use for … in instead

2011-01-24T18:13:00.001-08:00

Programmer should be familiar with command foreach, which function is to iterate item within array or collection. This command normally available on most language, vb, php, c, java. Unfortunately, there is no foreach on JavaScript, and I just notice that until few minutes writing this post. After some research and reading over the javascript manual, I found that for … in is replacement for foreach

for … in
This command basically will iterate any object within an array, but instead refer to it’s collection object this command would pass only the key for collection object.

Syntax:

for (variable in object)
statement

Example

Please pay more attention on bolded italic text


child_cities=states[selected_state];
for(var cityid in child_cities)
{
ddl_city.options.length++;
ddl_city.options[ddl_city.options.length-1].text=
child_cities[cityid].description;
ddl_city.options[ddl_city.options.length-1].value=
child_cities[cityid].cityid;
}

How to opt-in our autoresponder subscriber and run other code simultaneously

2011-01-17T07:27:00.001-08:00

To support one of my internet business I decided to use autoresponder service, unfortunately I was not dare enough to invest lots money for Aweber or GetResponse, 2 names listed as top leader on autoresponder business. So I decide to use cheap one, and money does matter. This cheap one didn’t give capability to do opt-in other than using their form, which is bad, because I also need to capture user information on my own database.

So, what I did:

1. Record my user information into database

2. Pass this information into HTML forms that mimic opt-in form
3. Auto submit the form

It work fine for me.

The code itself is very simple as below, I use PHP and I assume we all already know how to insert into database, redirect and pass information to another form.

I use “display:none” to hide opt-in form, so forwarding process become seamless

   1:  <div style="display:none">

   2:  <form class='subscription_form' id='subscription_form' name="subscription_form" method='POST' action='####FORM_POST_URL####'>

   3:  <div align='center'><center>

   4:  <p>Full name<br><input type='text' name='full_name' size='20' value='<?php echo $name; ?>'></p>

   5:  </center></div>

   6:  <div align='center'><center>

   7:  <p>E-mail address<br><input type='text' name='email' size='20' value='<?php echo $email; ?>'></p>

   8:  </center></div>

   9:  <div align='center'><center>

  10:  <p>Phone #1<br><input type='text' name='phone1' size='20' value='<?php echo $phone; ?>'></p>

  11:  </center></div>

  12:  <input type='hidden' name='capitals' value='1'>

  13:  <input type='hidden' name='subscription_type' value='E'><div align='center'><center>

  14:  <p><input type='submit' value='Go »'></p>

  15:  </center></div>

  16:  <input type='hidden' name='id' value='5250'>

  17:  <input type='hidden' name='full_name_man' value='1'>

  18:  <input type='hidden' name='phone1_man' value='1'>

  19:  </form>

  20:  <div>

21:

  22:  </div>

23:

  24:  <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

25:

  26:  function init_form()

  27:  {

  28:      document.forms["subscription_form"].submit();

  29:  }

30:

  31:  window.onload=init_form;

32:

  33:  </script>

K2, a workflow and business process management on Microsoft Platform

2011-01-05T23:26:00.001-08:00

Few weeks back, I was lucky to experienced training for K2, a business process management software released by SourceCode Inc. There were 3 classes I attended, K2 Fundamental, K2 Integration and K2 API Programming.

K2 offers product to help increase business efficiency and simplify work. It basically synergize both technical and non-technical by converting business process to software programming through a visual block diagram. K2 Visual Tools allow people to automate process and streamline operations

Good things I like about this BPM is its capability to deal with many data resource and populate them all into one single virtual storage called as SmartObject. It also provide seamless integration with Sharepoint, which is good, especially for a corporate who already invest much on Microsoft Platform.

Copy code as HTML on Visual Studio, easy way to copy code on blogspot

2009-06-09T21:21:00.000-07:00

I just notice that blogspot has limited capability on doing blog for programming code. Copy and paste from word also won't work properly as blogspot will not tolerate some whitespace character generated by Word. Luckily, on the net I found something that can address this issue.

Guy Burstein, provide a link to Microsoft Visual Studio AddIns that will allow us to copy any code that we highlight within Visual Studio and paste it automatically as HTML code. This will be helpfull lot on writing a code blog on blogspot, eventough we have to use manual HTML code still and it's exclusively to Visual Studio :)

So, here are steps to doing this:

1. Obtain AddIns here

2. Extract it to your Visual Studio AddIns folder, it's should be under MyDocuments\Visual Studio 2008\Addins, if you couldn't find AddIns folder, then create new one

3. Open Visual Studio, click on Tools -> AddIn Manager

4. AddIn manager dialog will be opened, select to activate "Copy as HTML" AddIn

5. Now, you can select any code and when do right click, "Copy as HTML" will be shown

Below is the result :)

  195 Public ReadOnly Property Email() As String

  196             Get

  197                 Dim daUser As New UserTableAdapter

  198                 Dim ret As String = ""

  199                 Dim users() As String = {}

  200                 Dim i As Integer = 0

  201 

  202                 For Each row As SecurityApprovalRow In Me.Rows

  203                     If Array.IndexOf(users, row.UserId) < 0 Then

  204                         Array.Resize(users, i + 1)

  205                         users(i) = row.User.Email

  206                         i += 1

  207                     End If

  208                 Next

  209                 Return IIf(users.Length = 0, "", String.Join(";", users))

  210             End Get

  211         End Property

Nice isn't ? Try it, code with smile :)

Flip your windows screen permanently

2009-05-30T05:11:00.001-07:00

This one maybe not related with programming, but it may a funny trick that we could use to punk someone with. Okay, from Windows operating system (I use Windows XP SP2) on working mode, means it's not locked state, pres Ctrl+Alt+[Any arrow], and your screen direction will follow arrow you are pressed, for instance to flip your screen 180 degree, press Ctrl+Alt+[down arrow] :)

So, say, you have someone that you crush on him/her, you can silently flip his/her screen, and then when he/she notice that something wrong with his/her monitor and get stuck on how to make it like it used to be, you may appear as hero who save the day ... code with smile.

How to do check and uncheck all record on ASP.Net GridView using JavaScript and ASP.Net

2009-05-28T20:01:00.000-07:00

When we accessing common webmail site like Gmail, Yahoo!mail or Hotmail, we will see a feature that allow us to select all message listed with a single click, either on a link says "Check All" or a checkbox that will trigger same action somewhere on its header, for the same if want to uncheck them. To do such feature above on ASP.Net Application, I would say impossible with just using standard control, ASP.Net GridView for instance, you would need to get enhanced control or else programmatically coding it in your application :)

On every application that was built by our team, we try to as much as possible not to do it on server side, as it will increase data round trip which as we all know will reduce application performance. So, combination of ASP.Net, Ajax and JavaScript come as a solution.

First we need to have to add TemplateField on GridView to show CheckBox, in our approach we also use a CheckBox on this column header to trigger Check/UnCheck operation by bind a JavaScript function on this CheckBox's OnChange event.

Next, we will need to write down JavaScript function that will be used to perform Check/UnCheck operation, our code is as follow:

var checkMes = new Array();

function addCheckMe(checkMe_CtlId)
{
checkMes.length++;
checkMes[checkMes.length-1]=checkMe_CtlId;
}

function doCheckUncheckAll()
{
var tmpCheckMe;
var checkAll=$get("CheckAll");

for(i=0;i { tmpCheckMe=$get(checkMes[i]); tmpCheckMe.checked=checkAll.checked; }
}

You may see, we have one array to store list of checkbox, a function to fill that array and another function to trigger Check/Uncheck operation.

Okay with done with defining checkbox and JavaScript thing, next we need to call addCheckMe function within our ASP.Net code as GridView will define checkbox dynamically, so ... we add a function to handle GridView's RowDataBound event

protected void grd_RowDataBound(object sender, GridViewRowEventArgs e)
{

string addCheckMeScript = "";
CheckBox CheckMe = (CheckBox)e.Row.FindControl("CheckMe");
if (CheckMe != null)
{
ScriptManager.RegisterStartupScript(this.Page, this.Page.GetType(), String.Format("OnGrdCheckMeRegister_{0}", e.Row.RowIndex), String.Format("addCheckMe('{0}');", CheckMe.UniqueID.Replace("$","_")), true);
}
}

And voilla we get as we have expected ... code with smile :)

How to make an ASP.Net application offline within second

2009-05-26T23:37:00.000-07:00

Sometime it neccesary to make an application offline, it may possible due to code upgrade process or essential data upload. Before ASP.Net framework 2.0 era, normally we will place a code on global.asa or global.asax to set a application variable to indicate offline status to true, then programatically read this status and redirect to specific page to inform if an application is offline.

There is an approach to make it simple for a developer to make its application offline on ASP.Net 2.0, by using app_offline.htm. Simply just design a page using standard HTML editor and named it as app_offline.htm then place this file on root of application that you would offline it.

Validate text to match specific date pattern on JavaScript

2009-05-26T19:03:00.000-07:00

My team got requirement to standarize date appearance to dd-MMM-yyyy, thanks to ASP.Net Ajax who has CalendarExtender tools so we may manipulate the way date format returned.

Unfortunately, we also allow user to free type value of date on any datetime control we have provided, which causing us a problem on how to restrict it to expected format. CustomValidator come in handy as its has capability to validate thru JavaScript, so next problem is how to build a javascript code to validate its format to be dd-MMM-yyyy, as we need a handy script and fight with deadline, so below code is written:

function isDate(sDate) {
var datePat = /^(\d{1,2})(\/|-)(\w{3})(\/|-)(\d{4})$/;
var matchArray = sDate.match(datePat); // is the format ok?

if(matchArray==null) return false;

return true;
}

Above code only validated date written format as per expected pattern, it won't check validity of data value entered, for instance if you type: 45-Apr-2009, script will return true, so that problem stil a homework for our team :)

Hello World

2009-05-25T07:41:00.000-07:00

Hi, thanks for visiting this weblog, uhm ... like its name, the purpose of having this blog is to share my experience on software & web development :)

Okay, have nice reading (I mean when there would be enough post to be read) and looking forward for your next visit :)