Google InBox Invite Winner #2

I’ve received even more entries for a Google InBox Invite.  I’ve selected the second invite winner now, who filled out this form to get entered:

Google InBox Invite

…you’ll have a better chance at winning if you share a link to that page and post YOUR link of your share on the invite form.  To get the link to your post, if you’re on the desktop browser, right-click the timestamp on your post and copy the link, then paste THAT into the web form.  To get the link from your phone or tablet, OPEN your post where you shared mine, open the menu, and choose “Link”, which will copy it to your clipboard.  Then paste it into the web form in your mobile browser.  Our 1st and 2nd winners did that.  And here’s our winner’s sob story:

[GARD]

“I am writing an email application in C# which will look pretty good. With inbox invite, I’ll get an idea of how it is and will try to make mine pretty cool(not exactly inbox clone). Also I need inbox invite because CSHARPNERS Rule (and I like McDonalds)!!!!!!!! “

How can I not spread a little love to an aspiring programmer?

Congratulations to Abhinav Jhanwar!  For his sob story AND for sharing the link to my invite form, he has just won an invite to InBox!

Abhinav Jhanwar

 

The competition is NOT over and if you’ve already entered and didn’t win this one, you’re STILL in the running and could win the next one!

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Google InBox Invite Winner #1

I’ve received quite a few good entries, and to be honest, it was hard to choose the best one.  As I mentioned on the invite request page here…

Google InBox Invite

…you’ll have a better chance at winning if you share a link to that page and post YOUR link of your share on the invite form.  Our 1st winner did that.  And here’s our winner’s sob story:

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“My Grandfather is dying  Yesterday,He said ”I wish to have look at Inbox by gmail “   Oh!please God bless for my grandfather!!!”

Congratulations to yu ichi!  For his sob story AND for sharing the link to my invite form, he has just won an invite to InBox!  And for having such a cool name too, that’s not just a name, but also a question! 😉yu ichi

 

The competition is NOT over and if you’ve already entered and didn’t win this one, you’re STILL in the running and could win the next one!

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Want an Invite to Google’s new InBox service?

How to win an invite?

I’m giving away invites to Google’s new InBox service.  Follow these simple, quick steps:

  1. Click here
  2. Enter your E-Mail address (I HAVE to have that in order to send you the invite!)
  3. Enter an amusing sob story of WHY you need an invite.  Make it short and funny.  You do NOT have to be truthful… at all!
  4. Click the Google+1 button (please) on that form.
  5. Optionally, if you share the page on Google plus, post the link to your share in the last field.  You don’t have to do that last step, but it’ll increase your chances of winning! 🙂

[GARD]

InBoxWhat IS Google’s “InBox”?

“InBox” is Google’s new e-mail user interface for GMail.  You use it with your existing G-Mail service.  It’s a greatly simplified user interface.  Similar e-mail is presented in a “group” and you can mark the whole group as “done”, at which point, it’ll archive it.  It makes handling all your e-mail much easier.  There’s actually more to it than what I described, but in the simplest terms, that what it does.

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SQL Server Error: The ‘DbProviderFactories’ section can only appear once per file.

You ever get the error:

The ‘DbProviderFactories’ section can only appear once per file.

…after a fresh install of Microsoft SQL Server Express?

DbProviderFactores error

When trying to do something like create a new table with SQL Server Management Studio?

New Table

I don’t know why, but one (or more) of the many maching.config files on your computer does, indeed, have TWO DbProviderFactories sections in it.  TWO of my machine.config files were like that, but the one causing this error was the one located here:

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\Config\machine.config

TWO DbProviderFactores

[GARD]

I recommend doing a system wide search for all machine.config files that have <DbProviderFactories/> in them.  Open each one to see if it additionally has another DbProviderFactories section and delete the blank one.  Deleting it from the file mentioned above solved this problem for me.

NOTE!  You’ll have to open your text editor as Administrator or you’ll be forbidden from saving changes to the file(s)!

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Subversion 403 forbidden error

Are you getting a “403 forbidden” error when trying to create a folder or check code into subversion, but you can browse the repo?

[GARD]

There are many causes for this, but one of them that’s very difficult to find is caused by the casing of the URL.  When you check out from subversion, you can use any casing.  When you check IN, you’d better be using the ExAcT casing.  And don’t think that just because you’re using a GUI like TortoiseSVN that it does it for you.  IT DOES NOT!

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RegAsm.exe “failed to load” “because it is not a valid .net assembly”

Problem

Ever get this error when trying to register a .Net DLL as an ActiveX component using RegAsm.exe?

“failed to load MyAssembly.dll because it is not a valid .net assembly”

I’ll bet you’re using a version of .Net higher than 2.0, aren’t you?  Turns out, each version of .Net you have installed has it’s own, version specific version of RegAsm.exe and when you run the RegAsm.exe command for your .Net 4.0 or so DLL, it’s running the .Net 2.0 version of RegAsm.exe.

Windows Registry Forensics
Windows Registry Forensics

Why make an ActiveX control if you’re using .Net?  Sometimes you just have to for many reasons which are outside the scope of this article.

Solution

[GARD]

There are a couple of ways to resolve this.

Specify Specific Version

If you want to specifically state which version to run, make a batch file for each version and name the batch file appropriately, and have that batch file have the hard path to the right RegAsm.exe.  For example, for the .Net 4.0 version of RegAsm, I created a batch file called RegAsm_4_0.bat and put it in the same folder with the RegAsm.exe file for .Net 4.0 here:

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319

The contents of my RegAsm_4_0.bat file looks like this:

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\regasm.exe %1 %2

Now, from any Visual Studio command prompt (regardless of what folder I’m in), I type RegAsm_4_0 (plus my parameters) and it’ll run it.

Override default version

If, on the other hand, you want to continue using the command RegAsm, you can create a batch file named RegAsm.bat and put it in each of the framework folders.  All copies of those batch files should run the same, explicit version of RegAsm.exe you want.

Unfortunately, you can’t simply rename the RegAsm.exe files without messing around with security settings.  But that’s an option too which I’m not getting into here.

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An error occurred while signing: SignTool.exe not found.

Ever get either of these two errors while trying to deploy a .Net app?  Specifically, while trying to publish a Click-Once deployed app (it can happen in other cases too)?

I’ve got a freshly built PC with Visual Studio 2013 installed and one of the first apps I created was a simple WinForms app with Click-Once deployment and I got this error.

After much frustrated Googling, I found no answers, so I figured this one out myself.

Here’s why this error happens

[GARD]

The signtool.exe file is actually missing.  But, that doesn’t mean you don’t have it on your PC.  There are multiple SDK versions likely installed on your machine, but the signtool.exe isn’t in all of them and where ever Visual Studio is looking for it is NOT one of the locations that has it.

Solution

I searched my hard drive for signtool.exe and found it here:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.1A\Bin

Then I noticed that in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows

there were multiple version folders.  I placed a copy of signtool.exe in each one of them inside their bin folder.  If they didn’t have a bin folder, I created one.

Turns out, the v7.0A\bin folder is where it needed to be (at least, on MY machine).  After placing a copy of signtool.exe there, it solved the problem.

[GARD]

 

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Review: Samsung Ultra HD 4K UD590 28 inch monitor

3840x2160 Desktop

Having been spoiled by 2, large $1,000 each 32” Dell 2560×1600 resolution monitors with my work-from-home job over the last 3 years, when I switched jobs with a new company, I was left monitor-less after I returned the company owned hardware.  I opted for a one monitor, but higher res, and cheaper solution.  I first ordered a Dell 4K monitor, which was a disaster.

[GARD]

imageWhile I was waiting for that monitor to arrive from Amazon during my 1 week vacation between jobs, I went to the local BestBuy to buy another to tied me over until the Dell arrived.  I bought the Samsung 4K UD590 28 inch monitor.  I ended up keeping the Samsung monitor and returning the Dell because the Dell monitor (see link above for why I ditched the Dell).

What I like

  • Picture Quality
    • Compared to the Dell monitor, the picture is brighter, has more vibrant colors, and a higher contrast.
  • Screen resolution
    • The screen resolution is a whopping 3840×2160 pixels.

image

      • See that screen shot at the top of the article?  That’s my desktop at the full resolution.  Those two little windows in the middle and lower left are 1024×768 desktops in 2 separate virtual machines.  One is running Mac OSX, the other is running Windows XP.  That should give you a sense of the huge desktop real estate you get with all those pixels.
    • Response time
      • 1ms response time means the mouse is not delayed.  Video is not delayed.  Audio from your speakers is not ahead, in time, from the video displaying on the monitor.  This is HUGELY important.
    • Simplicity
      • 1 DisplayPort, 2 HDMI ports.
    • Screen Size
      • 28 inches large.  This provides a lot of screen real estate for your high-end computing needs such as software development, CAD, Graphics, etc…
    • PIP (Picture in picture)

[GARD]

What I don’t like

  • Price
    • While ~$600 is lower than it was when it first came out and lower than the $1,000 Dell monitors with lower resolutions that I had before, it’s still a painful pill to swallow.
  • Ghost effects
    • I honestly don’t know if this is a problem with the monitor or the video card I bought, but it’s annoying as hell.  Here’s what I’m talking about:  When I move the mouse or scroll a window with a light background and dark text, there’s a ghost image left behind for a few milliseconds of where the mouse used to be or where the dark text used to be that is BRIGHTER than the white background.  It’s a poor user experience.
  • Lack of DVI and VGA ports
    • While I listed the 3 simple ports as a positive, it’s also a huge negative as it meant I couldn’t use my existing video card.  It was a high end card a few years ago, but lacks DisplayPort and HDMI.  It (my old video card) does, however, have 2 DVI ports and a VGA port and supports multiple monitors.  So, that meant I had to go buy a new video card.  I opted for the EVGA GeForce GTX 760 with 4GB of RAM.  Sadly, after I plugged that into my motherboard, I discovered that my power supply lacked the appropriate plugs to power this new video card, so I had to go purchase a new 600w power supply too…. all this just to run a new monitor!
  • Screen Size
    • Yes, I’m putting screen size in as both a positive and a negative.  While I’m used to a 32” screen, this one is a 28” screen.  I obviously do NOT blame Samsung for that.  It’s a 28” monitor… PERIOD!  But, when running the monitor at full resolution, the icons and text are so incredibly tiny, it’s ridiculous.  You really need a physically larger screen to run your desktop that this native resolution.  As a fix, I up’d the Windows DPI 150%.  That’s a feature that Windows has had for more than 20 years and this is the first time I’ve actually needed it.  This brought almost everything up to a large enough size that I can actually see it.  It also makes the text really crisp.  Think of it like a high-res display on your tablet… how it improves the text quality.  Same thing there.  If you want to run your desktop at 100% DPI with the full, native resolution of 4K, I strongly recommend getting a larger size than 28”.  I’d say 32” would be the bare minimum.  BUT, just crank up the DPI in your OS and you should be good to go.  MOST things scale up properly these days.  In the past, playing with DPI just hosed many apps.  Not true today.
  • Tilt
    • This monitor lacks usable tilt features.  You CANNOT tilt it forward.  So, if you place this monitor a little high, then you CANNOT tilt it down.  You CAN, however, tilt it UP, a little bit.  My computer desk has a shelf about 6 or 7 inches above the desk where I place my monitor.  The monitor stand holds the monitor about another 4 or 5 inches above that.  I’d prefer to have the monitor tilt down a little, but I can’t do that, so I have a cable running underneath the back edge of the monitor stand to tilt the whole thing forward just a little.
  • Raise/Lower
    • You CANNOT raise or lower the height of the monitor.  It is what it is as far as height goes.

Conclusion

[GARD]

For the most part, I’m satisfied and happy with this monitor, but the ghosting and tilting are problems I’ll have to live with.

Have you had any experience with any 4K monitors yet?  Tell us about it in the comments below.

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