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Resolving RDLC error: “The report definition is not valid” in Visual Studio 2012
I recently inherited a large number of RDLC reports from a colleague with the task to fix any issues before we go live. One of the first things I did was to write a quick “RDLC runner” console application to allow me to test the reports locally. The console program is a very simple .net 4.5 [...]
Removing the dbo_ prefix from imported tables in MS Access
When importing data from SQL Server using the ODBC connector in MS Access, your tables will end up prefixed with their corresponding schema. In most cases this will be the “dbo” schema. If you need to remove the prefix, these are the steps you need to follow: 1. Open your MS Access file (mdb or [...]
Windows Azure Review
Windows Azure has been a godsend for developers. I have been using Windows Azure over the past few weeks and I have to say that the overall experience is amazing. I’ve used Amazon’s Web Services in the past and one thing that always marred the experience was the convoluted and often confusing website. What Windows [...]
Accessing local data files using Html and Chrome
During the development and testing stages of a new website, there are time when you may need to access Json or xml data stored in a local file. The test site can be running under Visual Studio, IIS Express or even IIS. I recently had to quickly test some javascript code that interacted with Json [...]
Fixing virtual disk errors in VMware
As a developer, I tend to use VMs extensively to test new features and deploy software that I wouldn’t like running on my main machine. VMware is brilliant in that it offers a free tool to create and run VMs – VMware Player. As handy and great VMs are, they are also quite volatile and [...]
Configuring multiple websites in IIS on a Windows Azure Virtual Machine using EndPoints
Windows Azure is a great environment for developers and companies alike due to the fact that it gives so much for so little. Apart from the 10 free websites, you get a free* Virtual Machine and a large number of other services like storage, SQL Server etc. I’m currently using the VM option to deploy [...]
Deleting a project from Hosted TFS
I added a project to the wrong TFS collection! Now what? Removed all the bindings from my solution but the TFS service now points to an orphaned entry. Unfortunately, up to this day, the TFS team have not been kind enough to supply us with a GUI tool that can delete a project from the [...]
XML Validation Failure Due To Invincible White Space
After spending 3 hours of my life trying to resolve the following error message: The element cannot contain white space. Content model is empty I decided to share my solution in hope that this will help somebody else. The xml file that was failing validation is:
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ComponentSet Default="Create Data Set"> <Procedures> <Procedure Name="Create Data Set"> <MainFlow> <CreateDataSetVersion Name="run create data set version task" Description="this the description" CollectionId="collection" DataProviderId="dataprovider" DataSetDescription="datasetDescription" DataSetName="datasetName" DataSetSchemaCode="schemaCode" DataSetVersionCode="datasetCode"> </CreateDataSetVersion> </MainFlow> </Procedure> </Procedures> </ComponentSet> |
And the xsd part responsible for the validation [...]
Tidy up your forms with horizontal sliding divs using JQuery UI
Many websites still make use of lengthy scrollable forms or numerous page post backs when requesting input from their users, e.g shopping cart check outs etc. jQuery and jQueryUI give developers the opportunity to significantly improve the overall UI experience. In this tutorial, we will look into creating sliding panels/divs that respond to user input [...]
Checking if a generic collection is empty with Linq and C#
This is a common issue for many developers. How do you quickly and efficiently determine whether a given non-null collection contains any valid non-empty elements . The string class is cool because you can use the string.IsNullOrEmpty(yourstring); to test for null and/or empty. Unfortunately, generic collections don’t implement a similar method. There are two ways [...]
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