Recently, In one of the mailing list I came across a question that is very commonly asked by many enterprise customers:
Now that we have SharePoint deployed, How do I train my users?
These users can be Business end users, Helpdesk staff, IT teams etc.
Here are the three links that I think would act as a Starting Point for any good training. They are an excellent resource for Beginners and Novice users alike:
- Introduction to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
- Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
- Roadmap of using SharePoint Server 2007
I had been looking for a light weight charting library that I could use with my ASP.NET application for a while now. There are a number of charting libraries with jQuery but I found the jQuery wrapper for Google Charts by Massimiliano Balestrieri to be efficient and simple to use.
In this tutorial I will show you how to integrate jQuery Google Charts 1.0 with your ASP.NET application.
Let us start by downloading the libraries required for this to work. We need two JavaScript files to be downloaded:
- jQuery 1.3.2 Minified Version
- jgcharts Library
Next is to create or open an existing ASP.NET web page that will display the chart, and include these libraries in the HEAD section of the page.
<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="Chart.aspx.cs" Inherits="Chart" %>
<head runat="server">
<title>jQuery Google Chart Demo</title>
<script src="jquery-1.3.2.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="jgcharts.pack.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
</head>
<body>
<form id="dform" runat="server">
<div></div>
</form>
</body>
</html>
Within the BODY tags of this page, Let us create two DIV’s, one to display the chart (bar_chart) and another one to display the data (bar_chart_data). A Hidden field is also defined that will hold the JavaScript Array of the GridView data. This will be used by the Charting Library on the client side to display the Bar Chart.
<body>
<form id="dform" runat="server">
<h4>Income and Expense Overview</h4>
<div id="bar_chart"></div>
<div id="bar_chart_data">
<asp:HiddenField ID="hidChartData" runat="server" />
<asp:GridView ID="grvIncomeExp" runat="server">
<Columns>
<asp:BoundField DataField="Month" HeaderText="Month" DataFormatString="{0:c}" />
<asp:BoundField DataField="Income" HeaderText="Income" DataFormatString="{0:c}" />
<asp:BoundField DataField="Expense" HeaderText="Expense" DataFormatString="{0:c}" />
</Columns>
</asp:GridView>
</div>
</form>
</body>
Within the HEAD tag of this page, you will need to create a jQuery call to initiate the Charting api’s and create graph based on data available in “hidChartData” hidden field.
<head runat="server">
<title>jQuery Google Chart Demo</title>
<script src="JQuery/jquery-1.3.2.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="JQuery/jgcharts.pack.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function()
{
var api = new jGCharts.Api();
var opt =
{
data : eval($("[id$='hidChartData']").val()),
axis_labels : ['01','02','03','04','05','06','07','08','09','10','11','12'],
legend : ['Income', 'Expense'],
size : '600x335',
bar_width : 15
};
jQuery('<img>').attr('src', api.make(opt)).appendTo("#bar_chart");
});
</script>
</head>
f you now look at the page in the browser – you should see a blank bar chart without any data in it. This is because we have not bound the data to the Hidden Field (hidChartData) and the GridView.
Lets now look add a Page_Load function in the code behind. This event handler will bind data to the GridView and assign the value to the HiddenField with a JavaScript array of data.
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
DataTable dTable = GetSampleData();
grvIncomeExp.DataSource = dTable;
grvIncomeExp.DataBind();
ArrayList chartData = new ArrayList();
foreach (DataRow dr in dTable.Rows)
{
chartData.Add(String.Format("[{0}, {1}]", dr[1], dr[2].ToString().Replace("-", "")));
}
//Convert .NET Array to JS Array
string ReturnValue = String.Empty;
for (int i = 0; i < chartData.Count; i++)
{
ReturnValue += chartData[i];
if (i != chartData.Count - 1)
ReturnValue += ",";
}
//Data is returned in the following format:
//[[1000, 3003.55],[1000, 72.65],[1000, 760.89],[1000, 354.55],[1000, 180.52],[1000, 408.54],[0, 0],[0, 0],[0, 0],[0, 0],[0, 0],[0, 0]]
hidChartData.Value = String.Format("[{0}]", ReturnValue);
}
This will create the chart displayed in the first Image. NOTE: I have removed all CSS styles to make the code more readable.
Update: Microsoft has released a very useful open source tool to create USB flash drive for installation. Have a look at Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool at CodePlex. – 01/01/2010.
I recently bought an Acer One Netbook which comes with Windows XP preloaded. Since these Netbooks come without built in DVD drives, upgrading to another OS is a challenge. With the high storage capacity USB drives becoming cheaper by the day it is a perfect medium to installing Windows. Although this tutorial is for Windows 7, you can use these steps to install Windows Vista as well.
Pre-Requisites
- A Computer or Netbook that can boot from USB Drive. Check your BIOS for boot options, It should have an option to boot from USB disk or Removable drive.
- A computer with an OS and/or software that can mount an ISO file.
On Windows, I prefer using Slysoft Virtual Clone Drive to mount ISO. It supports both x86 and x64 bit platforms and is free. - USB Flash Drive with 3 GB or more space.
- Windows 7 ISO (or Windows Vista ISO)
Microsoft has published Windows 7 RC for everyone to download and test. This version can be used for 1 year. You can download Windows 7 from Microsoft Technet Website.
Prepare your USB Flash Drive
In order to boot from USB Flash Drive – you will need to mark the USB flash drive partition as Primary and format it in FAT 32 mode. Please be careful as while performing these steps. An incorrect step can render your current installation useless.
Step 1 – Open Command Prompt
Open command prompt in Administrator mode. (Click on) Start Button –> (Click on) All Programs –> (Click on) Accessories –> (Right Click on) Command Prompt –> (Click on) Select Run as Administrator –> (Click) Continue. You should a command prompt start “Administrator: “ in the title like below.
Step 2 – Setup USB Drive as Bootable
These following steps are very straight forward, but be careful with these steps, make sure you select the right drive. Read these steps and look at the screenshot before you start entering these commands.
- Enter command diskpart
- Enter command list disk – this will list drives on your computer. Check the size column and note the Disk ### for your USB drive
- Enter command select disk #, here replace # with the number of your USB drive.
- Enter command clean
- Enter command create partition primary
- Enter command select partition 1
- Enter command format fs=fat32 quick
- Enter command exit
.png "command window")
Copy Windows 7 Installation files
Mount the ISO that you have downloaded from Microsoft Website and copy all the files to the root of your USB Flash Drive
.png "file explorer")
Reboot your computer & set the option in BIOS to boot from USB or Removable Drive
Nice and Easy. Now wait and see how fast Windows 7 installs.
It has been possible to update your Facebook Status from Twitter using the official twitter application on Facebook. But if you don’t want your friends to go crazy and comment on every tweet you publish, there is another Facebook application – Selective Twitter.
Here is what you do in 4 easy steps:
Step 1: (Optional) If you have Twitter application already installed on your Facebook profile – remove or disable it
Step 2: Search and install Selective Twitter Application
_1.png "Selective Twitter Application")
Step 3: Authorize this application and provide your twitter username
Step 4: Go to Twitter and post a tweet. If you want to update your Facebook Status with a tweet – end it with #fb
And YES – the application removes “#fb” before updating Facebook status.
Recently I had to re-format my work laptop and I decided to fix one of the most annoying thing that I dealt with everyday but I was too lazy to research.
My company has a group policy setup for UAC. We need to have it enabled at all times but the pain of entering the username (domain\username) and password every time I wanted to start visual studio or IIS console was very unproductive and tedious.
Turns out a simple command at CMD prompt can do the trick:
net localgroup Administrators /add domain\username
Behold – no more password – one click and we are elevated. Oh the joys of Windows Vista.
Update: This works for Windows 7 as well. – 8th June 2009