Is I wrote recently, I worked to get RSS Bandit running as a portable application. Now it is time to test it: you can download the ShadowCat Beta 2 release installer, then read how you get it done.

I read about portable apps (applications, that are running from a stick without any further installation) in my favourite magazine and it just took a hour to set the sources to get RSS Bandit running from a stick:

There is at least one issue left: the .NET framework must be installed at the machine running the portable Bandit...

Tomorrow I will walk to different machines to get it more tested.

Just because requesting the Handle (IntPtr, see remarks section) will create the handle internally in case it is IntPtr.Zero and may cause issues on disposing or closing! How to get around? Just use the this.IsHandleCreated property...

I really like the two Sudoku games (one easy, one heavy) ever saturday in our local newspaper -  there are yet only three heavy games I could not solved over the last months and it is really fun. So maybe they are not really "heavy" - who knows.

But now I read this post about how to solve every Sudoku using XSLT (another variant), using SQL and regular expression. Ouch - where is the fun? If you know the algorithm to solve one, it can be expressed by every language poeple like to program. I would more like the algorithm to generate new Sudoku games...

Today I could track down an annoying issue: on some installations of the newer version of RSS Bandit (starting with the first betas of 1.5.0.x) it starts using 100% CPU time on a thread. As we started also to use lucene.NET with this new release I guessed it was a related issue, I was right. But as we run into multiple issues with lucene it was not obvious as a separate problem. So here it is:

We used a slightly modified version of lucene.NET to include the available language dependent analyzers and stopword filters. Before we released, I already fixed some obvious issues I got with e.g. french stemmer. Now we got more with the CJK (Japanese/Korean, bug report) and possibly Chinese analyzers. It looks like it get into a state it never returns. The attached debug callstack was very helpful to got the direction to search for! I found this: TextReader.Read(char[], int, int) was called and the return value checked against -1 only, not against 0 (zero). So I run over all analyzers to find all the places I have to change that code and here it is: the modified lucene.net.dll (zipped, 142K).

To all users that run into the problem: can you test the modification, please? Just download, unzip into the installation folder, restart Bandit. Please report here (or as comments to the bug reports mentioned above) if it help - so we can refresh the installer for the major public.

Today I stumbled over a wired issue in both VS.IDE 2003 and VS.IDE 2005: they did not compiled my project anymore! Error was:

Compiler Error CS1583 (CSC583.tmp is not a valid Win32 resource ...

I just refreshed the french resources, so my first thought was it also caused that error, but I'm wrong. Just before this change I fixed a issue with our Vista Icon - added more ico image resolutions - and also a 256x256 Vista compressed image. What I forgot: I did not compiled after the icon change! All the google'd answers did not matched my case. I simply removed the 256x256 icon image - then it compiled successfully!

So my question is: how do I compile a .NET application with a Vista compressed icon? Do I have to compile under Vista? But how about VS 2003?

Recently we migrated our software dev. to use CLR 2.0. One part of the migration was to rework the usage of XslTransform class to the new XslCompiledTransform class. Reading the "Migrating From the XslTransform class" MSDN paper, it was not much work, just minutes. But then I got this strange exception:

Cannot transform XML using stylesheet 'transform.xslt.'
Exception: Extension function parameters or return values which have Clr type 'ConcatString' are not supported.

This really took me a half day to track it down! First, I did the usual things like reading more carefully the MSDN docs (my wrong direction: security issues), google'd for it and found at least one topic about. This was the right direction to solve it, but I tried various other things to get around - inclusive a complete redesign of the transformation code not using any stylesheet scripts. At last I was more confused (introduced other errors) than as I started, so I reverted the most unrelated changes. After reading the more interesting post "Introducing XslCompiledTransform" and IM'ed with a OS project coworker it gets more clear to me what happens: the System.Xml.Xsl.Runtime.XmlQueryRuntime.ChangeTypeXsltResult(XmlQueryType xmlType, Object value) visible in the call stack try to make my <msxsl:script language="JScript" ...> functions to return strong types - but: only the top level functions called from XSL element! Here is the non-working stylesheet code sample:

<msxsl:script language="JScript" implements-prefix="local"><![CDATA[
    
    function fmtDate(val, fmtmask)
    {

      var s = "" + val; 
      ...
      return formatDate(new Date(s.substring(0,4),s.substring(4,6)-1,s.substring(6,8)), fmtmask);
    }

    function formatDate(varDate, bstrFormat)
    {
       ...
       return "" + formattedDate;
    }
]]></msxsl:script>

And this is the working one:

<msxsl:script language="JScript" implements-prefix="local"><![CDATA[
    
    function fmtDate(val, fmtmask)
    {

      var s = "" + val; 
      ...
      return "" + formatDate(new Date(s.substring(0,4),s.substring(4,6)-1,s.substring(6,8)), fmtmask);
    }

    function formatDate(varDate, bstrFormat)
    {
       ...
       return "" + formattedDate;
    }
]]></msxsl:script>

You notice the small but important difference? Now the stylesheet compiler consider my return value correctly as a string. Whoa...

On Saturday 11/25/2006 11:00PM PST, my hosting company perform urgent operating system patch on all servers. All webserver and email server will be affected - and so also the feed. You'll notice a downtime of 10 mins to 45 mins depending on the patch type.

YESSS! Unbelievable: at Friday last week I got a parcel - I'm the winner of a drawing by lots happened at the recent BASTA! So equipped with my experiences with the older XBox I started yesterday to get it work (the XBox 360 Core Set) - and my frustration growed over the time. Plugging all the cable was not an issue as I had help from my child's . But then: turning on - the usual configuration screens are displayed: create a profile, connect to XBox Live etc. - crap, switch over to just gaming!

Me: "Oh, it's loud. OK, Laura - can you provide your favorite game CD? Yes, just put it in - it is as easy as it was with the old one..."
Me (a half minute later waiting that something happened): "Laura, you don't flipped the sides of the CD?"
Laura: "No - the cover is at top."
Me: "Mhm, seems the old Cd's are not working..." (I guessed that before, because the older controller's did not match the new hardware)
Maike, Laura: "Oooah. We cannot play with the dancing pad anymore? And all the cool games we just played...?" - "No multiple players anymore? There is now again just one controller...".
Me: "Yes, sorry. Looks like you are right... BUT: let's start try the other new cool features..."
Maike, Laura: "But we want to start gaming...!"
Me: "... like Video and Audio streaming!"
Maike (the younger): "What's that?"
Me: "Listen: ..." (longer talk here, cut).
Me, meanwhile trying to create a profile we needed: "Crap. Looks like I cannot create a profile without the memory unit. But look: there is a USB slot - let's get a memory stick and put it in - then we can go on successfully." I was totally wrong: it does not accept any USB stick as a memory unit replacement! And the best: there is no memory unit in the core package! I really have to bye a memory unit for around 34€ (64 MB) to successfully start anything on that crappy new console! The same amount of money I need to bye a memory stick of 1GByte!
Laura: "It's boring..."
Me: "OK, wait. I will get my Laptop, plug in the network cable - and then we can start doing all the new cool things..." As the laptop starts up, I navigated to the network configuration dialogs on the XBox - "Look, there is a web address we can look at how to get it work!"
Maike: "Dad, can you read what's there?"
Me: "Yes, it is English. But no problem: I can read it...  Ah, we have to install streaming software... named Zune. We have to download the file." (I just saw the small "international" green on gray link today, where I can switch the language, but not at the time I installed)
Laura: "It's boring, how long it will take?"
Me: "Mhm, around 5MB - two minutes only."
Maike: "How long it will take?"
Me: "Look at this progress bar, if it is at 100 percent, it's done."
Maike: "Oh, such a long time -- and then we can start gaming?"
Me: "No, but we should be able to listen to music and videos that are on my PC!"
Maike: "Why? We can just start them there with the Media Player..."
Me: "For gaming Mom has to bye a game branded for this new XBox."
Laura: "It's boring. Can you call, if we can play something?" (both went up to start playing with their Barbies)

Summery: without a memory unit, without a starting game, without a (wired) Internet connection, without a PC running at least Windows XP or Media Center, without a men /woman able to read English - the core package is just a dead piece of hardware useful for nothing really new - play a CD (we already own a CD player) is the only (untested) feature you can use immediately! I was so excited - now I'm really frustrated. Mostly about that required (and expensive) memory unit! If there is a USB port: why I cannot use the USB memory sticks I already own? Maybe I should really start reading the f****** manual - maybe I can? But it was easier to just bye the unit (and a game) yesterday evening - at least: now we are "in".

I'm now again at BASTA! 2006, Mainz - Germany. Had alreda some interesting discussions here with some of the speakers, also the SOA architecture day yesterday was very interesting. Lesson learned: SOA is not really new, and it is not a technology. Just a idea to live.

Most interesting session today was about advanced debugging, by Ingo Rammer. He introduced some tools I never heard of and pointed out how to catch the most often issues debugging is used for, such as memory leaks in Windows Forms applications, or how to debug a CLR windows service. We had look inside WinDbg - what a cryptic tool, just remembered my time using the vi/unix years ago...

Most impressive was the keynote by Jason Zanders the "father of .NET Framework 3.0" today: about .NET Framework 3.0 and Vista. Live programming on Vista (RC) in Python using CLR 3.0, WPF and speech support (build in in CLR 3.0). Just one issue: the presentation machine with the slides just stopped working and required a (live) reboot. Lesson to learn: don't use beta software to just show slides