I have been working on a small script to build, sign, and deploy a metro app into the Metro UI environment.  Below is what I have come up with so far. (Powershell 3.0).

If you try to click them all at once, Reddit tends to freeze. This method allows a one second pause between each additional load.

Paste the following in your address bar while on the page, and watch them load:

And, if it is of any use, here is the compressed version:

I wanted to be able to use conditional formatting on each cell to indicate how one day compared with the previous. Green for if the remainder was reduced, red if it increased, yellow it stayed the same, and blue if it was zero. The most difficult part was figuring out how to reference the previous cell / cell to the left of the current cell that was being formatted.

Resulting Output

Example of using conditional formatting with cell comparrison

Referencing adjacent / previous / left / cell formula

=OFFSET(INDIRECT(ADDRESS(ROW(), COLUMN())),0,-1)

How To

1. Select ‘Conditional Formatting‘ -> ‘Manage Rules’
2. Show formatting rules for: ‘This Worksheet‘
3. Select ‘New Rule‘
4. Format only cells that contain:
   • First dropdown: Select ‘Cell Value‘
   • Second dropdown: Select ‘Greater than‘
   • Third input: enter: ‘=OFFSET(INDIRECT(ADDRESS(ROW(), COLUMN())),0,-1)‘
   • Select ‘Format…‘
   • Indicate your format. In my case, a red color since the value increased (negative progress).
     
5. Repeat for each type of comparison. I ended up doing five, including one so that if the cell is blank it does nothing.
   • ‘Conditional Formatting‘ -> Manage Rules
   • Show formatting rules for: ‘This Worksheet‘
   • Select ‘New Rule‘
   • Format only cells that contain:
     • First dropdown: ‘Blanks‘
     • Make sure the format is normal/empty
     • Press Okay

     

   • At the Rules Manager, ensure the view is for ‘This Worksheet‘
   • Move your blank/normal rule to the top
   • Check ‘Stop If True‘ so that the formatter does not continue to other rules when blank.

   

If you open up Device Manager (‘My Computer’ -> Right Click -> ‘Properties’ -> ‘Device Manager’) and expand the ‘Universal Serial Bus Controllers’ branch, hopefully you will see some items with warning icons. Right click on each one, click disable, and then enable. Keep going until your USB ports start to work, usually I have to do each one.

Below is an example for MediaPlayerTemplate.xap with a Smooth Streaming video file. If you haven’t read about Smooth Streaming, look it up! It is the technology that Netflix uses to stream movies at different quality levels. While undocumented, if you are using Smooth Streaming technology you must have the SmoothStreaming.xap file in the same location as MediaPlayerTemplate.xap as it will reference it.

Example Embed Object Markup

I was able to rid myself of this message by granting full control to NETWORK SERVICE on C:\Windows\Temp.

1. Right click on C:\Windows\Temp
2. Security tab
3. NETWORK SERVICE
4. Edit
5. Full Control
6. Apply/Save/Okay

The error page was something along the lines of:

Compilation Error
Description: An error occurred during the compilation of a resource required to service this request. Please review the following specific error details and modify your source code appropriately.

Compiler Error Message: CS0016: Could not write to output file ‘c:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root\029384098\029384089\App_Web_foo.aspx.lkajlj.lksjdflkj.dll’ — ‘Access is denied. ‘

Source Error:
[No relevant source lines]
Source File: Line: 0

Show Detailed Compiler Output:
c:\windows\system32\inetsrv> “C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.xxxx\csc.exe” /t:library /utf8output [... Serveral DLL files ...]

Microsoft (R) Visual C# 2005 Compiler version 8.00.50727.3053
for Microsoft (R) Windows (R) 2005 Framework version 2.0.50727
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 2001-2005. All rights reserved.

error CS0016: Could not write to output file ‘c:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root\799cd6a3\81d0d718\App_Web_foo.aspx.cdcab7d2.uqpderdl.dll’ — ‘Access is denied. ‘

]]> http://studioshorts.com/blog/2010/09/iis-asp-net-error-cs0016-could-not-write-to-output-file/feed/ 1 http://studioshorts.com/blog/2010/08/visual-studio-slow-to-remove-delete-files-from-solution/ http://studioshorts.com/blog/2010/08/visual-studio-slow-to-remove-delete-files-from-solution/#comments Tue, 31 Aug 2010 04:48:49 +0000 Jason Grimme http://studioshorts.com/blog/?p=419 At work I have been noticing an increase in time it takes to remove a file from a solution. Several weeks ago it took about ten seconds, but recently it has been taking a few minutes.
The other day while waiting for a file to be deleted I decided to figure out what was causing the problem. I was able to do some research, find the problem, and fix the problem while Visual Studio was trying to remove a file Once I fixed the problem the file finished deleting.

The Fix

It’s a simple fix, really. Empty your recycle bin. I had about two gigabytes of files and after removing them, the deletion process took less than a second. It’s unusual to be happy when you get what should have received in the first place. Then again, it’s a Microsoft product. Maybe I should be happy it works most of the time .

]]> http://studioshorts.com/blog/2010/08/visual-studio-slow-to-remove-delete-files-from-solution/feed/ 0 http://studioshorts.com/blog/2010/07/stsadm-exe-copy-and-paste-command-line-error/ http://studioshorts.com/blog/2010/07/stsadm-exe-copy-and-paste-command-line-error/#comments Thu, 29 Jul 2010 01:44:38 +0000 Jason Grimme http://studioshorts.com/blog/?p=237 stsadm.exe is a command driven application that I use very often to administrate a SharePoint server via command line.  More specifically, it is very heavily in a PowerShell script I wrote that deploys multiple solutions to SharePoint.

The general syntax for stsadm is stsadm -o createsiteinnewdb -url http://sharepointserver

More than often I will run into a problem where when I copy and paste these commands, stsadm says that it is invalid “Command line error“.  This can be very frustrating because the command looks correct in every sense.  Sometimes I even copy and paste from a known good command and I still get rejected.  If I type in the command, it works just fine.
So eventually I had enough and converted the copied and pasted string and the manually typed  string to binary to compare.

stsadm –o createsiteinnewdb

011100110111010001110011011000010110010001101101001000001001011001101111
001000000110001101110010011001010110000101110100011001010111001101101001
011101000110010101101001011011100110111001100101011101110110010001100010

stsadm -o createsiteinnewdb

011100110111010001110011011000010110010001101101001000000010110101101111
001000000110001101110010011001010110000101110100011001010111001101101001
011101000110010101101001011011100110111001100101011101110110010001100010

I highlighted the octet that is different in the two strings.  These bits represent the dash in the -o flag.  In the rejected string, the dash turned out to be an en-dash (&#8211) while in the accepted string, the dash is a hyphen (&#x2d).  In the text-editors I use, the en-dash and hyphen have no visual diference.  In most font-faces used by text editors (Courier-New) for example, the two are visually identical. Somewhere along the line, hypens are being converted to en-dashes.  I know word processors will do this automatically, but I am obviously not using a word processor.

I know this all sounds silly, but if you do some Googling you will find quite a few people who have experienced this problem specifically with stsadm.  So if stsadm rejects you like an ambitious nerd trying to pick up girls at the bar, check your dashes!

]]> http://studioshorts.com/blog/2010/07/stsadm-exe-copy-and-paste-command-line-error/feed/ 0 http://studioshorts.com/blog/2010/07/renew-ip-reconnect-for-att-2701hg-b-2wire-jdownloader/ http://studioshorts.com/blog/2010/07/renew-ip-reconnect-for-att-2701hg-b-2wire-jdownloader/#comments Wed, 14 Jul 2010 01:16:25 +0000 Jason Grimme http://studioshorts.com/blog/?p=207 Update: Somehow this is a relatively popular post.  It was originally intended only for documenting how to renew your IP by scripting, but I have received a few request for simply documenting how to do it manually.  Instructions for this are at the end of the article.

I’ve been a pretty big fan of the open sourced Java program JDownloader, which basically allows you to paste in links to files anywhere on the web and it will download them. This is very useful for downloading files one at a time, throttling, and many other great reasons.

Many hosts will limit the amount of data a certain user may download in a certain period of time by IP address. I recently found out that JD has a feature that will log into your modem and perform a reconnect which results in a new IP address. I was able to get this to work with my Linksys router, but not on my piece of junk AT&T 2701HG-B 2Wire Wireless Gateway DSL Router Modem.

JDownloader has a preset for this modem, but it did not work for me. It has the ability to create a macro of you performing the reset, but that didn’t seem to work either.  In fact, it resulted in JD crashing or freezing each time.  I took the time to study how the piece of junk (The modem, not JD) works and understand the HSRC HTTP macro format, or whatever it is.

The modem uses one main ‘index’ page, if you will, that accepts a page parameter which tells it which action to perform.  I assume it uses XSLT (based on the urls) to format the output of each action.  In addition to the PAGE parameter, it also passes around the THISPAGE and NEXTPAGE variables.  Some of the pages use GET while some use POST.  In most cases I was able to use GET instead of POST.  The forms duplicate parameters out the Ying-Yang which is one thing thatI think ma yhave caused the freezing.

A given page url might look like: http://192.168.1.254/xslt?PAGE=B01&THISPAGE=A06&NEXTPAGE=B01

Some of the primary page actions are:
A01 System Summary
A08 Restart System
A07 Gateway View details
B01 Connection Summary
C01 Network Summary

So anyways, I put together the HSRC macro script which has worked great so far (1 hour!)  Here it is:

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[[[HSRC]]] [[[STEP]]] [[[REQUEST]]] GET / HTTP/1.1 Host: %%%routerip%%% [[[/REQUEST]]] [[[/STEP]]] [[[STEP]]] [[[REQUEST]]] GET /xslt?PAGE=A08&THISPAGE=A07&NEXTPAGE=A08 HTTP/1.1 Host: %%%routerip%%% [[[/REQUEST]]] [[[/STEP]]] [[[STEP]]] [[[REQUEST]]] POST /xslt HTTP/1.1 Host: %%%routerip%%% PAGE=A02_POST&THISPAGE=A07&NEXTPAGE=A08&PASSWORD=%%%pass%%% [[[/REQUEST]]] [[[/STEP]]] [[[STEP]]] [[[REQUEST]]] POST /xslt HTTP/1.1 Host: %%%routerip%%% PAGE=A08_POST&THISPAGE=A08&NEXTPAGE=A08_POST [[[/REQUEST]]] [[[/STEP]]] [[[STEP]]] [[[REQUEST]]] GET / HTTP/1.1 Host: %%%routerip%%% [[[/REQUEST]]] [[[/STEP]]] [[[/HSRC]]]

I’ll have to do about three thousand automatic reconnects for this to have resulted in in a positive time expense. Hopefully if you can use this it will count for something! Please let me know

Manually Renewing Your IP Address on the AT&T 2701HG-B 2Wire

For the beginners.

1. In your web browser (Hopefully Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, or Opera) enter in either the address http://192.168.1.254 or http://gateway.2wire.net.
2. In the ‘Network at a Glance‘ box, select ‘View Details‘ for your gateway.
3. Select ‘Restart the System‘.
4. You will (most likely) be asked to enter in your password.  This password is probably not the same as the password to use your wireless network, but could be.  It is possible it is blank if you have never set it, in which case you really need to.  If you do not know the password, you can hold the reset button on the router for 30 seconds and do a full reset.
5. Once your password has been verified, confirm that you want to restart.
   Note: You along with everybody else on your network will be disconnected from the Internet for about two minutes.
6. After about two minutes, your computer should reconnect automatically.  If it does not, try either toggling your wireless if you know how or simply restart your computer.

]]> http://studioshorts.com/blog/2010/07/renew-ip-reconnect-for-att-2701hg-b-2wire-jdownloader/feed/ 4 http://studioshorts.com/blog/2010/06/powershell-copy-directory-with-progress-meter/ http://studioshorts.com/blog/2010/06/powershell-copy-directory-with-progress-meter/#comments Wed, 23 Jun 2010 04:51:57 +0000 Jason Grimme http://studioshorts.com/blog/?p=196 Earlier today I thought it would be nice to display a progress meter while copying a directory. After thinking about it for a while I realized that I would need to do something asynchronous, like creating a new thread.  Much to my dismay I found no such thing which was quite a shock considering how impressed I have been with PowerShell.

A few hours later it was still bothering me so I did some more research and found the Start-Job cmdlet which seemed to do what I wanted.  Two hours later and I had the function below.

I won’t say that it is the best function in the world, or even that it is that great because it isn’t.  But it does seem to work.  I’m still quite new to PowerShell, so forgive any foolish mistakes.
If you set -DisplayMeter $True, the built in progress meter (Write-Progress) meter will be displayed.

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function Copy-Progress {     # Jason Grimme - StudioShorts.com     # Copies a Source directory to Destination, while displaying progress.     param(         [string] $Source = $(throw "Source parameter required."),         [string] $destination = $(throw "Destination parameter required."),         [boolean] $Verbose = $true,         [boolean] $Overwrite = $true,         [boolean] $DisplayMeter = $false     )     # Setup temporary environment variables that will passed between the jobs     #[boolean] $ENV:Copy_Progress_Finished = $false;     [string] $ENV:Copy_Progress_Source = $Source;     [string] $ENV:Copy_Progress_Desttination = $destination;            # Unless we aren't overwriting, remove the future directory     if( ($Overwrite) -and (Test-path $dest) )     {         remove-item $dest -Recurse -Force;     }     # Create our job or 'thread'     $job = Start-Job { copy-item $ENV:Copy_Progress_Source $ENV:Copy_Progress_Desttination -recurse -force };     #[string] $eventName = "Copy-Progress_JobStateChanged1";        #Register-ObjectEvent $job -EventName StateChanged -SourceIdentifier $eventName -Action { $ENV:Copy_Progress_Finished = $true;  if( [string]$($Sender.JobStateInfo) -ne "Completed"){ Write-Host "Did not complete: Job $($Sender.Id) $($Sender.JobStateInfo)"; }        } | out-null     # Get the size of the source directory     $SourceSize = (Get-ChildItem $source | Measure-Object -property length -sum).sum;     [double] $DestinationSize = 0;         # Do/While the size of the destination directory is less than the source     do     {         # Once the destination directory has been created by Copy-Item         if(Test-path $dest)         {             # Calculate the current size and the percent complete             [double] $DestinationSize = (Get-ChildItem $dest | Measure-Object -property length -sum).sum             [int] $percentComplete = (($DestinationSize / $SourceSize)* 100);                         if($Verbose)             {                 Write-Output "Current Size: $DestinationSize bytes.  Percent Complete: $percentComplete%";             }                         if($DisplayMeter)             {                 Write-Progress -Activity "Performing Copy..." -PercentComplete $percentComplete -CurrentOperation "$percentComplete% complete"  -Status "Please wait."                  }         }         start-sleep -Milliseconds 500;     }     while($SourceSize -gt $DestinationSize);     #while($ENV:Copy_Progress_Finished -ne $true);         if($Verbose)     {         write-Host "= Copy-Progress $percentComplete% Complete"         Write-Host "= Source: '$Source', Destination: '$destination'";         Write-Host "= Source Size: $SourceSize bytes.  Destination Size: $DestinationSize bytes";           }     # Unset the variables that we don't want to hang around     $ENV:Copy_Progress_Finished = $null;     $ENV:Copy_Progress_Source = $null;     $ENV:Copy_Progress_Desttination = $null;     #Unregister-Event $eventName;       } #Example Usage Copy-Progress -Source "C:\scripts\msc\" -Destination "C:\scripts\temp\" -Verbose $true -Overwrite $true -DisplayMeter $True;

Because of how PowerShell reads file sizes, this function does not work with copying individual files.  It must be a directory.  If anybody can find a way to read a file while it is being copied to and grab  the true file size at that moment in time, I would be very interested.  I am also looking for a better way to pass variables from the main scope into the Start-Job scriptblock, using $env: variables isn’t very professional.

An example of the output with Verbose on and the Display meter off would be something like this:

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PS C:\scripts> Copy-Progress -Source "C:\scripts\Dino\" -Destination "C:\scripts\Saur\" -Verbose $true-Overwrite $true -DisplayMeter $false; Current Size: 3639974 bytes.  Percent Complete: 1% Current Size: 27120693 bytes.  Percent Complete: 5% Current Size: 50755136 bytes.  Percent Complete: 9% Current Size: 67796400 bytes.  Percent Complete: 11% Current Size: 84230737 bytes.  Percent Complete: 14% Current Size: 106248435 bytes.  Percent Complete: 18% Current Size: 217981590 bytes.  Percent Complete: 37% Current Size: 318419162 bytes.  Percent Complete: 54% Current Size: 397551370 bytes.  Percent Complete: 67% Current Size: 413262946 bytes.  Percent Complete: 70% Current Size: 431720922 bytes.  Percent Complete: 73% Current Size: 446876222 bytes.  Percent Complete: 75% Current Size: 466876615 bytes.  Percent Complete: 79% Current Size: 483184623 bytes.  Percent Complete: 81% Current Size: 505980571 bytes.  Percent Complete: 85% Current Size: 521798269 bytes.  Percent Complete: 88% Current Size: 536622872 bytes.  Percent Complete: 90% Current Size: 552066196 bytes.  Percent Complete: 93% Current Size: 574065976 bytes.  Percent Complete: 97% Current Size: 593613675 bytes.  Percent Complete: 100% = Copy-Progress 100% Complete = Source: 'C:\scripts\Dino\', Destination: 'C:\scripts\Saur\' = Source Size: 593613675 bytes.  Destination Size: 593613675 bytes

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