Archive for July, 2008
A random list of recommended software utilities
I’ve found this random list of software to be really useful for tasks from working with images to improving Internet Explorer to developing FaceBook applications.
1. IrfanView (www.irfanview.com) – great for basic image editing (resizing, cropping, creating thumbnails, etc.) and screen capturing.
2. WinRAR (www.rarlabs.com) – great for working with zip and other compressed files. Also great [...]
Converting SQL Server newline character to HTML break <br/>
A common scenario (at least for me) is the following:
1. Accept text input into a web form that includes multiline text boxes. The text often includes line breaks.
2. The text is stored in a database such as SQL Server 2005. SQL Server 2005 has no problem storing the line breaks.
3. I then display the data [...]
Using the CSS vertical-align property
Trying to vertically align content on a web page using CSS can be difficult. For example, you often want to align text and other content in the middle of a div tag. The difficulty is often caused by developers not understanding how vertical-align works. I found this great page on the problems with vertical-align and [...]
Changing the location of your My Documents folder
You can change the location of my documents to any folder that you like. For example, if you are a LCB student or faculty member, you might want to point your My Documents folder to your I: Drive so that it is accessible from any computer at work or home. Here are the steps:
1. Right [...]
Email merge in Microsoft Word
Many programs, including MS Word, allow you to send personalized e-mails to any number of people. So instead of having to send a general e-mail to (for example) “Dear customer” you can send it to “Dear John Smith” and “Dear Jane Jones”.
The basic steps are:
1. Create a normal Word document that contains your standard e-mail [...]
Configuring SQL Server 2005 for database-driven web pages
SQL Server 2005 has enhanced security that prevents it initially from serving data for web pages. Here are the configuration settings to check before trying to create database driven web pages in Visual Studio, Dreamweaver, or any other web design application. Note that some of these settings reduce the security level of SQL Server 2005.
SURFACE [...]
Using Microsoft Outlook to consolidate your email
1. uoregon email
The UO IT department has a great page with instructions for viewing your uoregon e-mail through Outlook and other e-mail programs:
http://it.uoregon.edu/help/email/setup.shtml
2. Hotmail
Use the Microsoft Outlook connector available at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7aad7e6a-931e-438a-950c-5e9ea66322d4&displaylang=en
3. Gmail
Follow the instructions at http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=86374 (POP) or http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=77689&topic=12814 (IMAP)
Basic error handling for ASP.NET web sites
To avoid displaying the complicated error messages displayed by the .NET framework, you can direct users to a more user-friendly page by inserting the following tags into your web.config file:
<customErrors mode=”RemoteOnly” defaultRedirect=”errors/error.aspx”> <error statusCode=”404″ redirect=”errors/error404.aspx”/></customErrors>
Using this method of error handling also has the added benefit of not displaying sensitive server information to the user (or [...]
Connecting to your LCB network folder (I: Drive) from your laptop or home desktop
If you want to connect to your LCB network drive (I: drive) from home, here are the steps:
1. If you connect to the Internet via a service provider other than the UO (e.g. Comcast, QWest), then you need to download and install the VPN (virtual private network) software available from http://micro.uoregon.edu/getconnected/ or obtain a duckware [...]
Using the ASP.NET calendar control to display event information
The calendar control is useful for displaying event dates that users can then click on for more information. Here are the steps for setting up the calendar control to display event information from database.
1. Place a calendar control on the required page (for example, default.aspx)
2. Create a second page called calendar.aspx for displaying the event [...]