Blog type analyzer

by eliasen 20. December 2009 10:25

Hi all

I just threw my blog through http://typealyzer.com to see what type my blog is, and it turns out my blog is an “ESTP - The Doers”. Description of that:


The active and playful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities.
The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time.


The graph show is this one:

image

I am not going to comment on the accuracy of this description other than well… pretty accurate :-)

What blog type is your blog?

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eliasen

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Some more notes on demotion

by eliasen 15. December 2009 20:50

Hi all

I had a discussion with Randal van Splunteren (http://biztalkmessages.vansplunteren.net/) today about demotion. Randal has been so kind as to review the first chapter I am writing for the book (http://blog.eliasen.dk/2009/09/18/BizTalkServer2009Unleashed.aspx) and we started chatting about demotion. Specifically we discussed whether existing values in XML would be overwritten when demotion occurs.

As it turns out, it depends.

I did a small sample with two schemas and a map. I used a receive port to receive a message, mapped it to the second schema (which just created empty nodes in the destination schema) and output the result through a send port. The receive location used XMLReceive and the send port used the XMLTransmit pipeline. What happened was, that the output had the correct demoted values in them, since the XML assembler had empty elements to map into. Now, if I changed the map to put a value into the fields, then the mapped values were also output and not the demoted values. This means, that demotion does NOT overwrite existing values.

Randal, however, had a sample, where the existing values WERE overwritten. His solution was leveraging an orchestration, however, which seems to be the big difference. As I have blogged about here: http://blog.eliasen.dk/2009/10/16/DemotionDoesNotWorkForAttributesOrDoesIt.aspx orchestrations can demote into attributes, which normal demotion cannot. So apparently there is another difference, which is, that demotion in an orchestration, actually overwrites existing values.

 

But now for the funny (weird?) part. I setup a solution where I had an XML instance as input and used the passthrough receive pipeline. So no message type was promoted. Even without an orchestration, the XML assembler actually does demotion, which is cool. BUT, it overwrites existing values… Go figure. If the message type is present, existing values are not overwritten, but if it is not present, existing values are overwritten.

Weird!

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Eliasen

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Removing an InfoPath template part from the controls section

by eliasen 22. November 2009 20:35

Hi all

The other day I was given the task of updating an InfoPath template part that was in use on a laptop, because a newer version of this template part was available.

Upon opening the InfoPath client, I saw this:

image

There were two template parts, and in this case they are named “TemplateGroup1” and “TemplateGroup2”. I had a new version for the “TemplateGroup1” template part. I clicked on “Add or Remove Custom Controls” and got this screen:

image

As you can see, the “TemplateGroup1” does not show up, which I thought was weird. So, I tried clicking on “Add” to just add the new version of the “TemplateGroup1”, but that gave me this error:

The custom control, <TemplateGroup1> (urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:infopath:templategroup1:-myxsd-2009-11-22t19-43-32), is already installed. Remove the existing custom control, and then try installing again.

So, I was at a loss… I couldn’t remove the existing version, and I couldn’t upload a new version.

Finally, I discovered what had happened. The user has an entry in the registry like this:

image

The key “IPCustomControlsFolder” is placed in the “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\InfoPath\Designer” path of the registry. All template parts you put into this folder are automatically added to the controls of InfoPath.

So I found that path, and deleted the “TemplateGroup1” template part, and everything was fine.

So, what I now know is, that there are two ways of adding new template parts to be used by InfoPath:

  1. Add them manually inside the InfoPath client (or the toolbox in VS.NET)
  2. Add the right registry key to the registry, so you have a repository of template parts. This is especially useful for a repository on a shared network folder that can be used for all employees.

So if you ever have trouble removing a template parts from the custom controls section, look for the registry key.

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eliasen

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Sean O’Driscoll about the MVP program

by eliasen 17. November 2009 18:16

Hi all

I KNOW it is old, but I have just today finally taken the time to listen to an interview on Channel 9 with Sean O’Driscoll, who is the general manager for community support and the MVP program. You can find it here.

Sean talks a lot about what the MVP program is, and I’d like to just take a couple of really important points from his talk and list here

  1. The MVP award is a “Thank you” for your PAST efforts in the communities. There are NO expectations to an MVP about what to do the next 12 months or the next day, even.
  2. The MVP award lasts 12 months. After that you will have to be reevaluated to see if your past 12 months of contributions to the community have been good enough to warrant a reaward.
  3. A true MVP gets the award not because he wants the award but because he wants to help people. A true MVP would do exactly the same effort in communities even if there was no MVP award.

Especially the third point is important to me. I mean.. the first time I was awarded the MVP title, I got an email from MS stating that I had been nominated, and I had to go search on the internet to find out what the MVP award was, because I had NO idea…

Anyway, it’s a good video – go watch it! :)

Edit: Only 15 minutes after I posted it: Sean is no longer GM of community support. Toby Richards is that now. Big thanks to my very fast MVP lead Gerard Verbrugge for setting me straight! :)

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eliasen

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Logica is the Danish Microsoft partner of the year

by eliasen 14. November 2009 13:59

Hi all

Here at Logica in Denmark, we have just been told that we have been chose as the Danish Microsoft Partner of the year. We are naturally quite proud of this, and one of the reasons for choosing us is, that despite the financial crisis we have gained market shares.

You can read Microsofts press release (only in Danish, I am afraid) here: http://www.logica.dk/file/18133

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eliasen

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New blog about XNA programming

by eliasen 30. October 2009 18:44

Hi all

Just a quick note to let you all know that my friend and colleague Jakob Lund Krarup has started a new blog about writing games using Microsofts XNA framework.

So if this interests you, do follow it :-)

 

Edit (2009-11-04): The link to the blog is http://www.xnafan.net – which I seem to have missed just before…

 

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eliasen

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Testing a map when using the “Fixed” property on an element in your schema

by eliasen 25. October 2009 20:33

Hi all

Today I tried playing with the “Fixed” property that can be set on an element or an attribute in your schema. According to the documentation, this is then a value that MUST be present in the element.

image

So the mapper is actually quite down with this – you cannot map anything to the field that has a value in the “Fixed” property. And when expecting the XSLT that is generated by the mapper you will find, that the mapper simply inserts the correct and hard coded value into the field.

image

Great.

Now, I created some links in the map just to test it, and chose that the mapper should validate the input for my map, but not the output, since I hadn’t bothered dragging all the necessary links.

To my surprise I got this error:

   1:  Output validation error: The value of the 'MiddleNames' element does not equal its fixed value.

An error validating the output of the map… but this surely must be a mistake, because I turned validation of the output from the map off and besides; the value in “MiddleNames” cannot be wrong, because the mapper has put it there it self, taken from the schema. Very weird indeed.

Only after quite a search, did I discover that the error was in validation of the INPUT to the map and not the output. I had used the same schema as both input and output, and my input instance did not have the correct value since it was an old test instance.

But really… Microsoft… that error message could be better! :-)

Hope this helps someone.

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eliasen

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Keyboard Shortcut to insert a cross reference in Word 2007

by eliasen 25. October 2009 14:34

Hi all

As many have noticed, I am co-authoring a book and right now I am writing all my stuff in Word 2007.

As you might have guessed, I have lots of sections, subsections, figures, tables and other numbered items in my text, and naturally, they are there because I need to reference them in my text.

In order to insert a cross reference from some text to a given numbered item, I found two options:

  1. Go to the “References” tab and click on “Cross-reference” in the “Captions” section.
  2. Go to the “Insert” tab and click on “Cross-reference” in the “Links” section.

Both will give me this window:

image

This is all very fine, but I need a quicker access point, since it appears that I most often need both clicks to get to the dialog box, since I am usually not on either the “Insert” or the “References” tab.

So I discovered the “Quick Access Toolbar” by chance. This happened when I accidentally right-clicked on the “Cross-reference” in stead of clicking on it. Here I could add the functionality to the “Quick Access Toolbar” and also choose to show the “Quick Access Toolbar”, as seen here:

image

The arrow points to the “Quick Access Toolbar” and the red square is around the “Cross-reference” functionality. So now I always only need one click, which made me happy… for a while :-)

Because once I could do it with just one click, I started wondering about a keyboard shortcut for it. I couldn’t find one, and I searched and searched… and finally just after posting my question to a newsgroup, I found how to do it:

Go to “Word Options”, which is a button at the lower right when clicking on the Start button at the upper left of Word:

image

This will open up the Word Options. Go to “Customize” and click on “Customize…” as seen in the image below:

image

After this you get a screen where you can change short cuts, as seen here:

image

Choose “Insert Tab” and then “InsertCrossReference” and click in the “Press new shortcut key:” box. Now enter the shortcut you want (I entered Alt+Ctrl+Shift+C). Word will tell you if the shortcut you have chosen is all ready assigned to another function (Mine is “Unassigned” as you can see) and then you can click on “Assign” to complete the task.

So now, every time I need to insert a cross reference, I just pres Ctrl+Alt+Shift+C and the dialog box comes up.

All that is left now is to get the “Only Label and number” as the default value for the drop down that decides what to insert instead of “Entire Caption”, but a Word MVP wrote in a post I found that this was not possible. Bummer. Keeping my fingers crossed for Office 2010! :-)

I hope this helps someone.

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eliasen

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Error using unit test of schemas

by eliasen 24. October 2009 19:51

Hi all

If you are also receiving this error when unit testing your schemas:

TOMTreeGenerator.GetElementAbsoluteType: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

then I can inform you that the reason is, that the built-in unit test framework does not support schemas that include or import other schemas.

To partially overcome this, take a look at the seventh issue of the BizTalk Hotrod at http://biztalkhotrod.com/default.aspx, where it is explained how to write a small helper class that will allow you to do unit testing on schemas that include and/or import other schemas.

Unfortunately this does not cover native file formats, but one can hope that Microsoft will improve the unit testing features in future versions of BizTalk.

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delebarn.dk

by eliasen 18. October 2009 17:46

Hi all

My apologies for writing something that is only relevant for the Danish audience.

Anyway, my friend and former colleague Jesper Petersen and his wife, Helle Petersen have started a new web site at http://www.delebarn.dk. The web site is a tool for parents that are divorced and need a some way of communicating about their children. There are lots of features that a free and you can buy a VIP membership quite cheap.

The site is only in Danish.

So if you are divorced and need some way of handling information about your children, like; How did it go at the doctor? When is football practice? And lots, lots and lots other stuff, then take a look at http://www.delebarn.dk.

Thanks

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eliasen

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About the author

Jan Eliasen is 37 years old, divorced and has 2 sons, Andreas (July 2004) and Emil (July 2006).

Jan has a masters degree in computer science and is currently employed at Logica Denmark as an IT architect.

Jan is a 6 times Microsoft MVP in BizTalk Server (not currently an MVP) and proud co-author of the BizTalk 2010 Unleashed book.

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6 times: July 2004, July 2008, July 2009, July 2010, July 2011, and July 2012. Not currently an MVP.

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