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Altova Xmlspy – the de facto XML tool of choice

When it comes time to work with XML the first company that comes to mind is Altova. The Missionkit suite is to XML what Visual Studio is to C#. At the core of this suite: the hands down (imho) best XML IDE Altova’s XMLSpy. I’ve been planning this blog entry for some time now and the reason that I kept putting it off was because I honestly didn’t know where to start. I was going to list my favorite features, one by one, but when I was organizing my thoughts I had a list and didn’t seem to end… So in order to to prevent this from becoming like one of Holden Caulfield’s rants I will cut this short and simply make this statement: If you are working with XML, in any facet, you should be using XmlSpy, if you’re not, your wasting time.

Cross-Posted from brianreisman.com

Instapaper

A very useful web 2.0 application/service that allows you to mark pages you’ve surfed past to read at a later time. This way from your mobile device or as your browser’s home page you can read the detailed content of the original page right from the instapaper.com page.

By clicking on the text button it will load the content of the page without leaving instapaper.com’s site… in addition you can subscribe to your list using any RSS reader.

Cross-Posted from brianreisman.com

Customizing the Command Prompt

prompt
%userdomain%\%username%$son$s%COMPUTERNAME%$s@$s$t$_[$p]$s$m$_$g$s

You can create your own using the syntax defined here and make it always the use your prompt be defining an autorun command or script for your command prompt for any user who uses this computer or for the current user only by replacing HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE with HKEY_CURRENT_USER:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Command Processor]
"AutoRun"="prompt %userdomain%\\%username%$son$s%COMPUTERNAME%$s@$s$t$_[$p]$s$m$_$g$s"

You can save the text above into a text file and save it with the .reg extension and then you can apply it by double clicking on the file.

Cross Posted from http://brianreisman.com/

QuizoApps: QTTabBar

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a tool junky. That being said I've decided that I'm going to try to list the new or updated tools that I use often. The first tool is freeware, which is my favorite price, and is called QTTabBar and it adds useful tabs and other options to the explorer shell. Please note that the Shell team strongly advises against using managed shell extensions but I personally have had good success with this cool utility.

Check it out.

QuizoApps: QTTabBar

Direct Access: for the productive slacker in all of us.

This gem of a utility from Nagarsoft is one of the few tools out there that can be used by any type of worker... I'm coder and we have several command line driven scripts for automation and build and Direct Access has been nothing short of wonderful. At its surface it is similar to other macro-ish programs, but this one is less intrusive and seems to work with the greatest number of other products. It isn't free, currently weighing in at $39.95*.  I dragged cmd.exe onto the Direct Access widget and assign the abbreviation "cmd"... Now just type it and and voilà. Now this is a remedial example... but its quicker than start-search or start run... Check out their web site to see the video tutorials and screen shots...

*They do offer a 15% competitive discount if you are considering switching from a "competing product".

UltraMon: Updating to Windows Vista requires more than just drivers to be updated.

I am a tool junky. I use tools, like shell extensions in Windows and addins in Visual Studio so extensively that I depend on them as much as I depend on Windows itself. It's been a long time now since I adopted the multiple monitor as a minimum requirement and as a result need a utility that makes the additional monitor(s) transparent to my Windows experience. I think that most people would agree that UltraMon (TM) by Realtime Soft. has become, arguably, the most common utility for enhancing Windows to provide better support for multiple monitors. Specifically it adds the option to add a taskbar to each monitor containing only the applications that are displayed on the that monitor, it supports plugins, custom scripts, title bar buttons, and the list truly does go on.

I, like many of you, get very, we'll say... passionate when software that I've come to rely on is slow to update to be compatible with the latest versions of Windows. I mean let's be honest, how long has the beta, release candidate, etc been available? Don't get me wrong, I completely understand that difficulties that go into getting an application to be compatible with an operating system as complex and especially as secure as Windows Vista.

Christian Studer, the author of UltraMon, almost immediately released an update that fixed an initial compatibility problem with Vista and his flagship utility, which I found impressive... But then the most incredible thing happened... he, in the support forums for UltraMon, basically promised that the beta of a Vista supported version of UltraMon (Version 3.0) would be available before the end of March 2007... and here it is April 1st 2007 and guess what... I've already downloaded and installed the beta. It is obvious that this is only an initial release as there is much activity in the beta issues forum, but I couldn't be happier in his product, his support of it and his customers and in his transparency... All I can say is that I am now a lifelong customer of Realtime Soft. and will continue to praise Christian and UltraMon... Great Work!

So for the "review" part of this rant, it's simple... if you use multiple monitors on Windows you must buy this program. You can try it out for free by installing the trial or purchase the full version for the bargain price of $39.95...

Configuring Visual Studio® Team Foundation Server to install/run on a multi-homed server

Cohosting other web sites on the same server as the application tier of Visual Studio® Team Foundation Server (TFS) is a common request and while it is not our typical scenario it is fairly easy to configure with IIS 6. Once you configure the IIS settings you will be able to install other web applications on the same IIS server and using the same TCP port (e.g. port 80). This is accomplished by configuring the host headers in IIS so that IIS will point Team Explorer and sharepoint requests to the correct web site.

Caution: If you are going through these steps before installing TFS; Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) service pack 2 should be installed before making these changes.

Launch Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager from the Administrative Tools and expand the Web Sites node.  If TFS is already installed you will have a Team Foundation Server node not shown in the figure below.

Now we need to remove the “(All Unassigned)” value from the sites and hardcode the values individually. 

1. Right click Default Web Site and select Properties.



2. Click the drop down arrow to the right of the IP address combo box and select the desired address from the list and click advanced.




3. From the Advanced Web Site Identification dialog click Edit because we need to add the Host Header value for when this web site is requested. You will need to repeat this process for all “names” that the TFS site will be requested by (e.g. InternalHostName, tfs.MyFQDN.com, etc.)




4. Add the following Web Site Identification:
• IP address: 127.0.0.1
• TCP port: 80
• Host Header value: LocalHost

 

5. Now repeat the process for the SharePoint Central Administration Site keeping the port number that was assigned when SharePoint was installed.

The following step must be completed after Visual Studio® Team Foundation Server has been installed successfully.

6. Repeat the process again, this time using the Visual Studio® Team Foundation Server port (8080).

That's all there is to it... Now you can go ahead and create a new site on this server and give it a unique host header and it can even use port 80. Make sure that your organization's name resolution infrastructure is configured properly (DNS, WINS, HOSTS, LMHOSTS) so that requests for a web site will pass the correct header to IIS. If for example I wanted to host a custom web application on the same server I could add a CNAME DNS entry that points www.mywebsite.com to 192.168.1.218 and I would add an additional Web Site to IIS and configure it with port 80 and a host header value of 'www.mywebsite.com'.

Let me know if you have any questions using the comments on this blog; while this is an "unsupported scenario" I will do my best to assist you.

-bR
SDE/T | Team Foundation Deployment Techology Group (TFS-DTG)

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

My new favorite component company!

Sky Software just keeps creating all of the shell enhancements that you could want.. all at a reasonable price and taking the complexities out of Shell programming from .NET. Their latest component suite, which just entered Beta, and is expected to release in mid-March is called EZNamespaceExtensions.NET and even their sample application is compelling and worth the price of admission. Within 5 minutes of installing the free demo I had the ability to browse and edit the registry right from Windows Explorer.

My list of gripes about this company is tiny and admittedly trivial... The samples are written with .NET 1.1, while the upgrade wizard works perfectly, I would like to see a .NET 2.0 version, written using the best practices .NET 2.0. I would also like them to include a sample installer that will automatically gac and register the appropriate assemblies and optionally restart windows explorer. I am almost finished with this one on my own... maybe a forum for customers and potential customers to get together and compare notes and share code? In any case, this company has swiftly hit the top of my A-List (I love modifying the shell and they make it no different than any other managed application).

Great work!

Exciting new shell components from Sky Software.

The latest version of Sky Software’s Shell MegaPack.Net is a suite of components that gives you easy and efficient access to the windows shell by exposing the following controls: FolderView, FileView, ShComboBox, ShellObjects. Keeps the existing functionality while allowing you to customize the behavior. Adding this functionality to your applications will allow for seamless and often enhanced windows shell access.

If you combine the MegaPack with the EZShellExtensions.Net components you have complete control of the Windows Shell, here you can add Taskbar and IE toolbars, make them auto hide while docked to the top of your desktop. The possibilities are limitless… There are some pretty awesome samples of what you can do here. Bottom line, you can easily add your own shell extensions, toolbars, etc for your custom application and file types.

Both the Shell MegaPack .NET and EZShellExtensions.NET are supported in Visual Studio 2002 (CLR 1.0), 2003 (CLR 1.1), and even the recently released 2005 (CLR 2.0). I have some pretty cool ideas, which I won’t share just yet, but check back and I’ll share.

The prices are very reasonable and there are no runtime or fees or royalties for distribution. (Check with Sky Software for current licensing requirements and pricing.)

If you have any components, add-ins, or tools that you can’t live without let me know.

bR

Tools, Components, and Addins... Oh My!