Fast Tips: CSS Colouring

I hope you got the idea with that title. Anyway, there’s a bunch things to share actually in my mind, but sometimes, I really have to dig it out from my mind. Do you know on how to colouring CSS with number? See at this screenshot below (red rectangle) to get the idea.

Where do we get this numbers? Actually it’s representing the colour number in hexadecimals between 0 – FF (or just say 0 – 255 in decimals), so we can cut it out and put like this table below.

#	80	80	80
	RED	GREEN	BLUE

Just think this parts as a slider, so we can put the number we like. For instance, in Blue colour, if we want add more blue, just add it more or pull it to a max value, and otherwise. If we want a yellow, just put #FFFF00 as a colour. If we want it blue, just put #0000FF, means that give it 0 for Red, give it 0 for Green, and give it max (FF or 255) for Blue. If we want it grey, just put #AAAAAA, all colours in the same value, and vice versa.

I don’t know whether my post helps you out, but a comment will help me improve my writing skills. Thanks .

Forefront Identity Manager - Understand How it Works

I’m getting nervous to write this, as this software is outside my experience as a .NET Developer and specifically as a SharePoint Developer. But I done one project with this so far, so worth to share to you guys, as this software really challenging and actually really easy to do if you got at least little or medium level knowledge in Windows Active Directory.

Alright, I’ll go with the short brief. Forefront Identity Manager is a software / system which could handles and combine an attributes of entity from a different other sources, and then put it on any other destination sources. What I’m talking about the sources is such as Active Directory, SQL Server Database, SAP, Oracle, or any other data sources.

See that diagram above to make it easier to understand, I took it from TechNet Microsoft. What we got now in the example above is there are 5 data sources, Active Directory, Lotus Notes, HR SQL Database, Vendor Database, and Telephone Text File. In Active Directory, there’s a bunch of attributes such as Logon data (computer user name, any other data related to the system). In Lotus Notes (if the company intend to use Lotus Notes rather than Exchange), we got E-mail, Department, Manager, Location, and so on. Different configuration might affect the diagram also, such as if you use Exchange Server rather than Lotus Notes, then we don’t need to use another connector / data sources to Exchange, as it’s already integrated with Active Directory. There’s a bunch of attributes also inside HR SQL Database and Vendor Database, and any other data sources. It pulls the attributes from data sources with some conditional or just barely pull it, put it on some temporary space named as connector space, then will do some attributes combining based on rules. Then it’ll become a full complete identity data, and then push it to another data sources we want to put. Just as simple as that, as long as there’s a such primary key, or Microsoft called it Anchor, which shared across multiple data sources. No Anchor, no combining / joining. With Anchor, everyone happy, all data sync’d.

From this concept, we knew that this software is all about data synchronization, especially identity synchronization between those data sources. I’ll try to write on my understanding, so it’ll be easier to read (or might harder?).

Metaverse

Metaverse is specifically a storage or space that holds an aggregated information from multiple data sources. This is the main internal storage for FIM to work. Those attributes pulled from multiple data sources, will be saved in here.

Management Agents

Management Agents is a such configuration for specific data source. One Management Agent represent one data source, and it holds a lot of settings related to the data source, especially on how we want to push and pull the data into the Metaverse. The best part of this, if we can’t find the Management Agent (MA) which fit to our scenarios, we can create one.

Processes

Process should be simple, as in my mind, there’s a 3 big processes, Import, Sync, Export. But from those we can get more little specific like Full Import, Delta Import, etc. Import, is importing the data from data source to connector space.  Sync, is a process to committing the imported data from connector space to metaverse, and then do a join and vice versa between data sources. Export, is a process when we push the sync’d data to the data sources.

Diagrams

Of course, diagrams is suddenly very important here, when we are planning to deploy solutions with this kind of software. Before you go through, always write diagram on how we want to push and pull the data. Based on the knowledge above, actually we can draw a sync line between those data sources.

Update: Internet Sharing (Tethering) on Nokia Lumia 710

I’m pretty much disappointed with Nokia Lumia 710 I bought from SingTel, no Internet Sharing! But this afternoon, suddenly I got the update for it.

For information, after an hour updating my phone via Zune, this is the latest update I got:

• Phone Software OS updated to 7.10.8773.98
• Firmware revised to 1600.3031.8773.12121

I don’t know with you guys, it seems Nokia made the update release faster than announced on it’s website, at end of July 2012. Just take it connected to your PC and update as soon as possible!

Here’s some of my phone’s screenshot after update.

Introduction: Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager (FIM) 2010

Guys, there’s something that I want to share to all of you. I wrote this with my style, and hope you enjoy the entire article. I’ll write on next couple posts about Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager (FIM) 2010 from developers perspective. I’m a .NET developer, remember? Of course I will write this from my point of view.

Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager is a new name for Identity Lifecycle Manager which was officially named as Identity Lifecycle Manager (ILM) 2007. It’s a software specialized for exporting / importing a data from one to another data source. More specific, an attribute to another attribute. If you imagine on a big company that has a couple data source for employees identity, such as Active Directory and Exchange for email and logins, HR systems as employee data, maybe a site portal with such kind of different user data, or plus with telephony system which holds all the extension number of all employees. And they want to put and combine all data from data sources, and deploy to another data source such as Active Directory, they may need this software and you may use this (and sell services) for them. I don’t know exactly the cost for this software, but at next articles, again, I just want to share from .NET developers perspective, not another.

In 2010 version, there’s a big change since Identity Lifecycle Manager in 2007 version. Now, we can export import to a new Management Agent (MA) named FIM Portal. This portal also works as the UI for FIM. We can specify attribute imports and exports, defining rules, creating attributes, change some security so users can also create an identity by accessing this portal. But for FIM Portal, I won’t discuss further, as I still need some exploration on this. Actually it’s pretty “friendly” compared to the console application which is not good for inexperience user like me. But if you missed a configuration, your FIM Portal sync won’t work even you’re already make a good configuration. And there’s a performance consideration using FIM Portal, when you try to sync users more than 5000. It’ll sync an additional object called Detected Rule Entry (DRE) and Expected Rule Entry (ERE) which always will consist more than one per user! But if you use only the console, you won’t get a GUI, not much as friendly as the portal, no expanded functionality, but it’s really easy to configure and to code.

Here’s the list of next article, and it’ll changed to link if I’ve published an article for that title:

• Forefront Identity Manager - Understand How it Works

• Forefront Identity Manager - Sync Methods

• Forefront Identity Manager - Management Agent Configurations

• Forefront Identity Manager - Creating Custom Management Agent

• Forefront Identity Manager - Creating Custom Rule Extension

• Forefront Identity Manager - Creating Custom Password Sync Rule

Guys, at last I’m pretty confident to write this article, and really appreciate your comments. Again, I’m not a system engineer, nor a FIM expert, just a .NET app developer. So sorry if any mistakes on next couple articles, and please do comments for this, so I can make a quick changes if necessary. I also intend to get some quote from some sites including Microsoft.com, and I’ll give it to you at the end of articles.

Change Text to Proper Case in C#

This is a flash blog , real fast. Wonder how to change a text to Proper Case? If you don’t know what is Proper Case (or in another words is Title Case), here it is the quote from Wikipedia.

“Some computer programming languages offer facilities for converting text to a form in which all words are first-letter capitalized.” from Wikipedia.

Proper Case Code

1. string Input = "pIetER wALSh";
2. string Output = System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture.TextInfo.ToTitleCase(Input);
3. /*
4. * The result for Output = "Pieter Walsh"
5. */

Hope it helps….

Issue for Download File Prompt in SharePoint 2010

OK, so you have the SharePoint 2010, and now you got HTML or HTM file, but when you tried to open the URL to that file, you got a Download File dialog box.

Follow these steps to fix.

Open the SharePoint 2010 Central Administration and then go to Application Management and click Manage web applications.

Highlight the web application you want to fix, and click General Settings.

Change this to Permissive and click OK.

Set Maximum Upload File Size in SharePoint

Simple question, how to set maximum upload file size in SharePoint? Here’s how….

‘File Not Found’ Error after SmartPart Installed on SharePoint 2007

Guys, I think want to share something from today’s work. Some colleague found a problem with our SharePoint 2007 and been installed with SmartPart. I don’t know what version which causing the problem. But seems that this is a common problem. When you look at the Web Part gallery, and there’s a new button to create a new *.dwp file. Tried to click it, and you’ll got the error, File Not Found.

Before I wrote this, I have no idea what SmartPart is, to be honest. But, once again, always put your hope on search engine, and it’ll work (well, not always).

Please, enjoy the solutions at this address, http://smartpart.codeplex.com/workitem/2708. The method call involving registering an assembly. And as I thought, it only just an assembly file problem, not pointing to a correct version. SmartPart is using System.Web.Extensions the old version (1.0.61025.0) while in the whole SharePoint web context is using another newer version. That’s why it throws an error.

It says that you need to add (or modify if it does exist) the entry in dependentAssembly in web.config. Check and re-check the XML before applying.

Web.Config change

1. <dependentAssembly>
2.     <assemblyIdentity name="System.Web.Extensions" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" culture="neutral" />
3.     <bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.0.61025.0" newVersion="3.5.0.0" />
4. </dependentAssembly>

Hope it helps you out.

Change Virtual HD (VHD) UUID in Oracle VirtualBox without Clone

This tips really helped me out when I want to copy a VHD and add a new virtual machine to my Oracle VirtualBox. I really liked VirtualBox, working fine until now, liked the integration between host and guest OS, really manageable but still have Cons on file Copy and Paste between host and guest OS. But when you tried to copy VHD to another location, and just add it to a new virtual machine, this thing came out!

Last time, I must clone that VHD which will create a new VHD/VDI with a new UUID, which was took very long time if your VHD more than a Gigs. Now, not anymore! Just ran this command, and in seconds, the UUID changed without clone the HD! And you can start creating your brand new virtual machine.

vboxmanage internalcommands sethduuid <the VHD path>

So sorry if my language screwed up ….

Automatic IIS Configuration Script for SharePoint 2010

Just found out this batch script from Microsoft. Maybe you ever found this solution, but better to share piece by piece than just share the link from Microsoft.

Forefront Identity Manager Service Failed to Start in SharePoint 2010

Did you ever got this when restarting your SharePoint 2010 machine?

Too bad that this thing is always happening every time you restart your SharePoint 2010 machine. Got the answer from a buddy in internet (thanks Michael Hanes, this is really helping me a lot!). I got to tell you, this thing happens after I’ve upgraded my SharePoint development box to Service Pack 1.

This is the simple fix, I hope you’ll find this thing helpful to you by looking at the series of images below. Please ask me anything if it not clear to you. Thanks!

Simple Scheduled SSIS Package for Import Data

Well, next week will be a brand new workplace for me. This week means rest for me, and I’m happy with it. Anyway, I’ll share to you how to make a simple SQL Server Integration Service package to be scheduled every time. You don’t have to do a code, if your import job is very simple. I’ll show you more on next paragraph.

Windows Live Writer is the Best Blog Writer!

You guys actually have your favorite blog writer application, or even don’t use it (only use the web version of Blogspot or Wordpress or whatever blog you’ve used). I have one my favorite, Windows Live Writer. My client installed with Windows Live Writer 2011.

So, what’s the feature so far? Let’s take a look!

Problems in SharePoint 2010, “The service was unable to start because the version of the database does not match the version of the product.”

Lately, I’ve updated my SharePoint 2010 development engine to SharePoint 2010 Service Pack 1, and after updating SharePoint 2010 to Service Pack 1, and starting all services, there’s one service won’t run, Forefront Identity Manager Synchronization Service. When looked at the Event Viewer log, it says The service was unable to start because the version of the database does not match the version of the product.

How to Query SharePoint Web Analytics Reports from SQL Server

This time, I want to show you on how you can query the SharePoint Web Analytics Reports from your SharePoint 2010. It seems that some people still confused because on my previous post, I didn’t give any examples or anything to proof this. I need to apologize, and in this post, I’ll write about how to Query it first, so you can get what I ‘m trying to explain.