If you have to use orften contracts in Microsoft Communication Foundatation aka Indigo, sometimes you become really bored by implementing all the interfaces. Visual Studio 2005 helps you saving a lot of time by choosing the interface your class inherits from. Using the Implement Interface menu item you will get all the methodes required by the interface.

IIS is not willing to start anymore. At least in the Microsoft Knowledge Base [1] you can find a hint for this problem. So first, I thought it could be all the beta WinFX and Indigo stuff, I have installed on my machine. Finally I found the reason: Skype grabed port 80. After closing Skype I was able to restart the IIS.

[1] http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;816944

I'm getting really angry because of all the trackback spam I received during the last few days. I think I will write a small application that removes all the spam as soon as I have some time left. Until then I have to disable the trackback service.

Just some minutes ago my LG Studioworks monitor stopped working. Damn it.

The computer is mightier than the pen, the sword, and usually the programmer.

unknown

Today I spent some minutes to enhance my desktop. I installed AveDesk 1.2 [1] and the World Clock v0.2.0 docklet [2]. Just rename the dockelt's zip-file to .aveinst and double click it. Also ensure, that SysStats [3] is installed before that. After spending some more time with setting up the clocks, I got only one black clock without any map in it. It took a while to find out, whre the problem was. The problem is already known [4] and depends on the regional settings of your windows. Using the german settings the system expects some floats using a format like this xxx.xxx.xxx,xx while the US layout the docklet was written for, uses xxx,xxx,xxx.xx. Unlike in the article before [4] the World.vba there does not work, because the french settings use numbers with a format like xxx xxx xxx,xx.

This additional function and the two changes in MoveMap() should be enough for the german settings:

Function stringToFloat(strMeters)
    if isNull(strMeters) then
        stringToFloat = 0
        exit function
    end if

    'US xxx,xxx.xx to DE xxx.xxx,xx
    strMeters = replace(strMeters, ".", "foobar")
    strMeters = replace(strMeters, ",", ".")
    strMeters = replace(strMeters, "foobar", ",")

    stringToFloat = strMeters
End Function

Function MoveMap()
    centerX = SysStatsModel.Width/2
    centerY = SysStatsModel.Height/2
    
    latitude = stringToFloat(SysStatsModel.Meters("Latitude"))
    longitude = stringToFloat(SysStatsModel.Meters("Longitude"))
' ...

You can download the modified World.vbs [5] (as it is, without any warranty, usage on your own risk). Just copy the file to the folder Docklets\SysStats\scripts\world within your AveDesk directory. If you try to add more then one instances of the world clock on your desktop, copy the World.ini file from the Docklets\SysStats\configs directory for each clock and rename it. Assign to each clock its own .ini file. Otherwise all the docklets will be the same after the next start of AveDesk.

After spending this afternoon to find out how it works, it looks pretty nice:

[1] http://www.dockex.com/?pageId=docks
[2] http://www.dockex.com/index.php?pageId=docklets&dkview=81
[3] http://www.dockex.com/index.php?pageId=docklets&dkview=38
[4] http://www.aqua-soft.org/board/showthread.php?t=25989&highlight=world+clock
[5] http://www.aheil.de/files/World.vbs

Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.

Salvador Dalí

While e.g. German keyboards provide only the €-sign, the Office 2003 add-in International Character Toolbar provides an easy way to access different currency or language symbols. 

[1] microsoft.com/downloads

I found a overview of international system unit prefixes [1]:

Factor  Name  Symbol  Origin               Derivation 
2^10    kibi  Ki      kilobinary: (2^10)^1 kilo:  (10^3)^1
2^20    mebi  Mi      megabinary: (2^10)^2 mega: (10^3)^2
2^30    gibi  Gi      gigabinary: (2^10)^3 giga:  (10^3)^3
2^40    tebi  Ti      terabinary: (2^10)^4 tera:  (10^3)^4
2^50    pebi  Pi      petabinary: (2^10)^5 peta:  (10^3)^5
2^60    exbi  Ei      exabinary:  (2^10)^6 exa:   (10^3)^6 

Examples and comparisons with SI prefixes
one kibibit   1 Kibit = 2^10 bit = 1024 bit
one kilobit   1 kbit  = 10^3 bit = 1000 bit
one mebibyte  1 MiB   = 2^20 B   = 1 048 576 B
one megabyte  1 MB    = 10^6 B   = 1 000 000 B
one gibibyte  1 GiB   = 2^30 B   = 1 073 741 824 B
one gigabyte  1 GB    = 10^9 B   = 1 000 000 000 B

[1]  http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html

Trackbacks explained [1] in a non-technical way...

[1] http://www.movabletype.org/trackback/beginners/