David Gardiner - Software

Pasting Markdown into Confluence

2024-04-29T10:30:00.000+09:30

This is one of those blog posts which is mainly for my benefit 😀.

To paste Markdown text into Atlassian Confluence wiki:

Use Ctrl-Shift-V (to paste without formatting)
Click on the Paste Options menu in Confluence and select Use Markdown (the default is)

If you prepared your Markdown in Visual Studio Code (as I often do), then the 'paste without format' is important as by default VS Code copies text with a 'plain text/code' formatting flavour, and this means you don't get offered the paste options menu.

Choco list -localonly (Feb 2019 Edition)

2019-02-03T21:15:00.000+10:30

What software / applications am I using on my laptop (February 2019 Edition) according to Chocolatey? Here's an edited list of the output from choco list -localonly:

Package	Version	Comments
7zip	18.6
7zip.commandline	16.02.0.20170209
audacity	2.3.0	Audio editor
becyicongrabber	2.30.0.20161027	Icon extractor (for creating Chocolatey packages)
beyondcompare	4.2.9.23626	My favourite file comparison tool
beyondcompare-integration	1.0.1	Configure Beyond Compare for TortoiseGit/Svn
dellcommandupdate-uwp	3.0.0	Dell's driver update app
dns-benchmark	1.3.6668.0	Useful DNS checker
docker-for-windows	99.0.0.0
dotnetdeveloperbundle	2.3.0.2563	RedGate's .NET tools
dropbox	41.4.80
fiddler	5.0.20182.28034
FiraCode	1.206	Nice developer font
Firefox	57.0.4
git	2.20.1
GoogleChrome	63.0.3239.132
iTunes	12.9.3.3
keepass	2.41	Password manager
microsoft-teams	1.1.00.2251
mousewithoutborders	2.1.8.105	Share mouse across laptop and desktop PCs
msbuild-structured-log-viewer	2.0.61
nodejs	11.9.0
notepadplusplus	7.6.3	Using this less now compared to VS Code
nuget.commandline	4.9.2
obs-studio	22.0.2	Video / screen recording
OctopusTools	5.2.0
Office365ProPlus	2016.20170321
paint.net	4.1.5
PDFXchangeEditor	7.0.328.2	My favourite
Pester	4.4.1	PowerShell unit tests
pingplotter	5.8.10	Useful visual ping network status
powershell-core	6.1.2
procmon	3.50	SysInternals Process Monitor
resharper-clt.portable	2018.3.2	ReSharper's free command-line tools
resharper-ultimate-all	2018.3.2
screentogif	2.16	Handy screen recorder
skype	8.38.0.138
snagit	2019.1.0	Screen grabber
sql-server-2017	14.0.1000
sql-server-management-studio	14.0.17289.1
tailblazer	0.9.0.536	Text/log file viewer
tortoisegit	2.7.0.0
tortoisesvn	1.11.1.28492
ubiquiti-unifi-controller	5.9.29	Software for managing UniFi wireless access points
vagrant	2.2.3	Manage virtual machines
visualstudio2017enterprise	15.2.26430.20170605
visualstudiocode	1.19.3
vsts-cli	0.1.4.20190126	Command line tool for managing Azure DevOps
vswhere	2.6.7
wifiinfoview	2.42
windirstat	1.1.2.20161210	Where's all that disk space being used?
wireshark	2.6.5
x-lite	5.4.0.94388	VoIP client
yarn	1.13.0
zoomit	4.50.0.20160210	Great for presentations

This is also a good basis for refreshing my Boxstarter scripts.

P2P online backup

2009-07-27T21:58:00.001+09:30

Very rarely you see an online ad that is interesting.. Today I noticed one for CrashPlan.

They offer both a free and paid online backup solution. The interesting thing about the free version is that you back up your data on your friends' or family's computers (rather than a central remote server). Quite a novel approach. About the only downside is that the free version apparently is ad-supported. Not sure how annoying they would be.

I think all the computers would need to be online at the same time for backups to work properly. Presumably the same would apply if you needed to do a restore too. Something to take into consideration.

There is also a paid offering too (for orphans or people without any friends?)

Bringing Developers and Designers closer together (eventually, sort of)

2009-07-15T22:13:00.001+09:30

When Microsoft released their Expression suite of products, the marketing claim was that they could be used to edit the very same source files that the developers were working on.

BUT, while Visual Studio 2005 included TFS, the obvious integration with any of the Expression products was missing. So the marketing claim was a bit hollow. Yes, you technically "could" work on the same files, but it was going to be a clunky experience.

So it is ironic that yet again, a version 3 product finally appears to get it right. Note this announcement refers to Expression Blend, and it isn't clear whether Expression Web has similar capabilities.

The 3 Ps of successful application deployment

2008-12-05T15:12:00.001+10:30

Planning
Preparation
Proximity to a bakery

Have I missed any others?

Major upgrades with WiX

2008-10-16T13:57:00.001+10:30

I thought I was going crazy.. I’d built an installer using WiX and set the product version to 1.0.0.1. The plan was that installing a new version would automatically uninstall any old versions.

I then updated the version to 1.0.0.2 and installed the new version, only to end up with two installations.

Turns out that Windows Installer only looks at the first 3 digits of the ProductVersion (as the first Note mentions in the Windows Installer documentation on Major Upgrades) – so twiddling that 4th digit is not going to have any effect.

Here’s a sample .wxs file that works for me:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<Wix xmlns\="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi" xmlns:util\="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/UtilExtension"\>

  <?define version = "1.1.3.11" ?>

  <Product Id\="\*" Name\="WixUpgrading $(var.version)" Language\="1033" Version\="$(var.version)" Manufacturer\="WixUpgrading"

           UpgradeCode\="630aaa2d-a583-46db-85c4-eaf237590c61"\>

        <Package InstallerVersion\="200" Compressed\="yes" />

        <Media Id\="1" Cabinet\="WixUpgrading.cab" EmbedCab\="yes" />

        <Directory Id\="TARGETDIR" Name\="SourceDir"\>

            <Directory Id\="ProgramFilesFolder"\>

                <Directory Id\="INSTALLLOCATION" Name\="WixUpgrading"\>

                     <Component Id\="ProductComponent" Guid\="c768bc29-e2d6-4f1c-b711-2dcf91641fab"\>

             <File Id\="TextFile1.txt" Name\="TextFile1.txt" KeyPath\="yes" Source\="TextFile1.txt" />

           </Component\>

                </Directory\>

            </Directory\>

        </Directory\>

        <Feature Id\="ProductFeature" Title\="WixUpgrading" Level\="1"\>

            <ComponentRef Id\="ProductComponent" />

        </Feature\>

    <Property Id\="PREVIOUSVERSIONSINSTALLED" Secure\="yes" />

    <Property Id\="ALLUSERS" Value\="1" />

    <Upgrade Id\="630aaa2d-a583-46db-85c4-eaf237590c61"\>

      <UpgradeVersion Property\='PREVIOUSVERSIONSINSTALLED' OnlyDetect\="no" IncludeMinimum\='yes' Minimum\='0.0.0' IncludeMaximum\='no' Maximum\='$(var.version)' />

      <UpgradeVersion Minimum\="$(var.version)" IncludeMinimum\="no" OnlyDetect\="yes" Language\="1033" Property\="NEWERPRODUCTFOUND" />

    </Upgrade\>

    <InstallExecuteSequence\>

      <Custom Action\="PreventDowngrading" After\="FindRelatedProducts"\>NEWERPRODUCTFOUND AND NOT Installed</Custom\>

      <RemoveExistingProducts Before\='InstallInitialize' />

    </InstallExecuteSequence\>

    <CustomAction Id\="PreventDowngrading" Error\="Newer version already installed." />

    <CustomAction Id\="UIandAdvertised" Error\="Something about the UI."/>

    <InstallUISequence\>

      <Custom Action\="UIandAdvertised" Sequence\="3"\>ProductState=1</Custom\>

    </InstallUISequence\>

  </Product\>

</Wix\>

Security tools

2008-06-25T10:04:00.001+09:30

Microsoft have just released a couple of new security tools that might be useful, especially if you’re still running some legacy ASP applications.

Microsoft Source Code Analyzer for SQL Injection - a static code analysis tool for finding SQL Injection vulnerabilities in ASP code
Microsoft Urlscan Filter v3.0 Beta - a security tool that restricts the types of HTTP requests that Internet Information Services (IIS) will process. By blocking specific HTTP requests, UrlScan helps prevent potentially harmful requests from being processed by web applications on the server.

UrlScan has been around for quite a while, so I’ll be interested to see what new features are part of v3.

Internode hosting Sourceforge mirror

2008-06-17T20:44:00.001+09:30

I needed to download some files from SourceForge earlier this week, and what a pleasant surprise it was to see that Internode is now hosting the Australian mirror.

Even better, it is unmetered for Internode customers (such as myself), and means that the 4.7Tb of SourceForge files are available to download super-quick. Not that I want to download 4.7Tb all at once mind you!

"You are not running on a supported operating system"

2008-06-13T21:49:00.001+09:30

After attending Sasha's talk at the Adelaide SQL Server User Group yesterday, it inspired me to get the ball rolling in preparing for my own presentation, which is pencilled in for August.

Figuring it would be appropriate to try and use as many of the "2008" products as possible, I planned to install Windows Server 2008 and then plonk Visual Studio 2008 and the just-released SQL Server 2008 on top.

I downloaded Virtual PC 2007 SP1 (which was updated to support Server 2008) and then ran the installer.

To my surprise, a dialog appeared saying "You are not running on a supported operating system".

Hang on, I'm running Windows XP with SP3. Double check the system requirements, and yes, it does list XP SP3.

Now I used to run Virtual PC just fine before I reinstalled the OS a few months ago, so what's changed?

Ah ha! I was running Windows XP Professional before, and now I'm just running XP Home - that's what's different! While it doesn't explicitly mention "Professional" on the web page, it is more specific in the installed help file:

Windows Vista™ Business; Windows Vista™ Enterprise; Windows Vista™ Ultimate; Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition; Windows Server 2003, Standard x64 Edition; Windows XP Professional; Windows XP Professional x64 Edition; or Windows XP Tablet PC Edition

But having said that, when they say "not supported", at least they don't appear to mean "doesn't work".

SQL Server 2008 RC0 and other things

2008-06-11T07:53:00.001+09:30

Release candidate zero of SQL Server 2008 is now available.

Some other interesting things that have been released recently include:

I’ve also downloaded the latest technical preview of Windows Live Writer and am using it to write this post. So far, so good.