Trent Jones

I really like the Sonos system but it’s expensive. At least 300 dollars a pop for every zone (room) you want to have. I think what it offers i will some day jump to. But in the meantime i have found a way to achieve the same thing with stuff I already had.

First, download Logitech Media Server. Yes, this requires a computer. I happened to have an old laptop. This works perfectly as the server.

Next, you need a player. Something that will connect to the server to access local media, or run through it to run apps like spotify, pandora, etc.

Logitech makes a number of network appliances that can connect to the server (think Sonos and dollars).

If you don’t want to shell out the cash, you can download SqueezePlay (beta). This is free and is a software based player. You can run this on the same computer as the server. My server happens to be in the closet with receiver so i have a 3.5mm -> Stereo RCA cord plugging into it. This is zone 1.

To move beyond the living room I am using an old android phone running Squeeze Player. I said this was mostly free right. This program will turn your phone into a player the server will recognize. This zone connects to the auxiliary input of an ipod system that includes an additonal speaker. This is in the kitchen and the remote speaker is in the office. This is cool because i can take the remote speaker outside when it’s nice.

I also have an android tablet. Another zone. Sometimes i connect this in the bedroom. No restrictions on what device you can download the player to.
I also have another android phone… yet another zone.

I’ve seen someone say that iPenquin (?) works as zone on iphone but i can’t verify that.

To control all this, Logitech makes an app for both android and iPhone called Logitech Squeezebox Controller.

From this app, you can join any zone to another or to all zones. OR play different things in different zones. The server also supports video and will show up as a DLNA player on XBox and other capable systems.

Yes, sometimes it’s not quite in sync. other times it works flawlessly. Oh ya, when i turn the microwave on i lose music too. For the 5 bucks I spent plus reusing old hardware i think this is a small price to pay.

To use Pandora you have to have a paid subscription. Same with Spotify. I have a subscription to spotify and it’s great to use this way.

THere are a number of other third-party apps you can download. I think i use an alternative spotify app available there. Can’t remember why i switched from the default.

Good luck!

I recently started getting an issue opening any XAML file in the designer in visual studio. Visual studio would crash immediately. This then started to bleed over to crashing when trying to open the solution. I tried everything included reinstalling VS altogether. Didn’t work. When reapplying the Service Pack it downloads the Silverlight Developer tools from the internet. This version is 4.0.60531 which appears to be the culprit. Colleagues have an older version and have no issue. The error in Windows Event Viewer was fault in module agcore.dll. After a quick google i found this post with others having the same issue. The solution was to unregister System.Windows from the GAC. Presto. Works.

We are using tt templates to generate configurations for different environments. we choose this route for one file to maintain settings. However, everytime i added a new “config” like web.INT.config it wouldn’t be in the output directory of the build (using TFS2010). Found that I have to choose “Copy Always” from the file properties in Visual Studio to do the trick.

I kept reading online how you could split TFS Collections in Visual Studio Team System 2010 in 2 but really couldn’t find any information on how to do it so i went upon trying this myself.  For instance, you may have a collection with projects A,B,C,D and you want to collections: one with A,B and another with C,D. 

1. Detach the collection from TFS Admin Tool.
2. backing up the corresponding collection db via SQL Management Studio.  (there is one db in sql per collection)
3. Copy and Paste the back-up and Rename it
4. “Restore Database” in Management Studio. Use new name with “TFS_<YOURNAME>”
5. Use TFS admin tool to identify existing collection to attach
6. Use TFS Admin tool to attach new collection db.\
7. Use VS Explorer to drop out projects not necessary in new collection

SharePoint connectivity is a whole other issue/post

Any TFS Gurus out there have more information please let me know and I will update this post.  I kinda thought there would be a command line tool to do this.

Attempting to either run a unit test or open the Test Results pane in Visual Studio 2008 generates the following error on my machine:

“Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation”

Following these instructions i have gotten around the issue. Sometimes I had to shut down a couple times and potentially be on the Team Explorer pane.

1. Close all the instances of Visual Studio
2. Open a VS (Without opening the solution).
3. Go to Test -> Windows -> Test Results.
4. Now open the solution and vsmdi.
5. Tests would run as usual

/via http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/vstsprofiler/thread/8bd8da75-76d2-4257-aeee-d040e6167bf9

In Windows 2008 Server removing the DynamicIpRestrictionModule will allow the page to work.

In .NET 4.0 there is a new option when adding controls to a page or user control: ClientIDMode.  This property offers you four choices: Legacy, Static, Predictable, Inherit.  Previously it was almost impossible to find the id of a control in a normal matter such as jQuery.  Using

Choosing Legacy will continue to issue an ID in the same manner they were generated in previous version of ASP.NET, by concatenating the ID values of each parent naming container with the ID of the control.  Setting the property to Static will use the exact value of the ID property of the server control.  Predictable is used for controls that are data-bound controls such as repeater and also makes use of a ClientIDRowSuffix property.  Using Inherit makes the control ID property use the setting of its parent control.

In the example below, two lists are created inside the ContentPlaceHolder of a page using the same DataSource. The first is using the default and the second uses the new property with Static set as the value.

<asp:Content ID="Content2" ContentPlaceHolderID="ContentPlaceHolder1" runat="server">
    <asp:XmlDataSource ID="LinkData" runat="server" XPath="Colors/Color">
        <Data>
            <Colors>
                <Color Name="Red"/>
                <Color Name="Blue"/>
                <Color Name="Yellow"/>
                <Color Name="Green" />
            </Colors>
        </Data>
    </asp:XmlDataSource>
    <asp:BulletedList ID="uxList" DataSourceID="LinkData" runat="server" DataTextField="Name" />
    <asp:BulletedList ID="uxListStatic" ClientIDMode="Static" DataSourceID="LinkData" runat="server" DataTextField="Name" />

    <script type="text/javascript">
        $(function() {
            $("#uxList").append("<li>Red</li>");
            $("#uxListStatic").append("<li>Brown</li>");
        });
    </script>
</asp:Content>

Here is the output of the page in HTML

<div>
    <ul id="ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_uxList">
        <li>Red</li><li>Blue</li><li>Yellow</li><li>Green</li>
    </ul>
    <ul id="uxListStatic">
        <li>Red</li><li>Blue</li><li>Yellow</li><li>Green</li>
    </ul>

    <script type="text/javascript">
    $(function() {
        $("#uxListStatic").append("<li>Brown</li>");
    });
    </script>
</div>

And the corresponding view in the browser

•    Red
•    Blue
•    Yellow
•    Green

•    Red
•    Blue
•    Yellow
•    Green
•    Brown

Because of the generated tag on the first list jQuery can’t find the control to append to.

Link to a bunch of articles on upcoming features in .NET 4.0 and VS 2010

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2009/08/25/vs-2010-and-net-4-series.aspx

Scott Guthrie has an article up on his website discussing the new auto-start feature of web applications that will be available in IIS7.5 with ASP.NET 4.0.  I just learned about this last week at the Southern Fried Road Show.

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2009/09/15/auto-start-asp-net-applications-vs-2010-and-net-4-0-series.aspx

I am going to try and enlist the 960 Grid System on a website I am working on.

“The 960 Grid System is an effort to streamline web development workflow by providing commonly used dimensions, based on a width of 960 pixels. There are two variants: 12 and 16 columns, which can be used separately or in tandem.”

http://960.gs/