Upside down house built in Germany

People have so much free time that someone thought of building an upside down house and built it!

News: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080905/lf_nm_life/germany_house_dc;_ylt=Al25ZrTdzB4JXx9Pz0NorTMDW7oF

Image Gallery: http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Upside-down-house-built-Germany-upside-down-house-seen-Trassenheide-Germany-Thursday-Sept-4-2008/ss/events/lf/091108upsidedownhous/s:/nm/20080905/lf_nm_life/germany_house_dc/im:/080905/481/fbef9fb1c5474a59ac74dd6b15afebf6/;_ylt=ApnypfX8gnWvKPJiS2L4zbOGWo14#photoViewer=/080905/481/fbef9fb1c5474a59ac74dd6b15afebf6

SPTraceView - Lightweight Tool for Monitoring the SharePoint Diagnostic Logging in Real-Time

Very small application, only 65kb zip, great tool for SharePoint diagnostic tracing

Quote:

SPTraceView moniors in real time all SharePoint diagnostic tracing (also called ULS tracing) and can notify you using a balloon-style messages in the tray bar when any information of particular interest to you is sent (traced) by any of the MOSS services and components.

Link: http://hristopavlov.wordpress.com/2008/06/19/sptraceview-lightweight-tool-for-monitoring-the-sharepoint-diagnostic-logging-in-real-time/

CoreFtp - Free Excellent ftp application

Used to have problems with FileZilla uploading files, it would upload files with 0 bytes. Found this new program, works great and lite weight. A must have for ftp users

Quote:

This free, secure FTP client gives you a fast, easy, reliable way to update and maintain your website via FTP. It also provides a secure method (via SSL, TLS, or SFTP) to upload / download files to and from FTP servers. Check out the list of features and you'll find almost every feature you need, all in a free ftp program. There are no popup ads, advertising or spyware and you're never asked or reminded to register.

Site Link: http://www.coreftp.com/

Download Link: http://www.download.com/Core-FTP-LE/3000-2160_4-10195752.html

Play with spider

Link: http://www.onemotion.com/flash/spider/

OLE DB Connection string issue using Excel

Issue:
I came across two issues while trying to load a excel file in asp.net. I'll explain both of them separately.

1). Exception: The Microsoft Jet database engine could not find the object
This exception happens when the path is not fully qualified to the excel file used in the oledb connection string. Without path, its not going to through an exception while creating connection.

Before: Dim dsn As String = "provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;data source='MyFile.xls'; Extended Properties=""Excel 8.0;HDR=NO;"""

After: Dim dsn As String = "provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;data source='" & Server.MapPath("MyFile.xls") & "'; Extended Properties=""Excel 8.0;HDR=NO;"""

Solution: use Server.MaptPath to get fully qualified path to a file to avoid this exception.

2). Exception: Could not find installable ISAM.
When using extended properties be careful with the syntax

Before: Dim dsn As String = "provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;data source='MyFile.xls'; Extended Properties=Excel 8.0;HDR=NO;"

After: Dim dsn As String = "provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;data source='" & Server.MapPath("MyFile.xls") & "'; Extended Properties=""Excel 8.0;HDR=NO;"""

Solution: use quotes around the value of extended properties. If the syntax is wrong, it tries to look for another driver.

Virtual Clone Drive - Great tool for ISO mapping as a drive

Quote:

Virtual CloneDrive works and behaves just like a physical CD/DVD drive, however it exists only virtually. Image files generated with CloneDVD or CloneCD can be mounted onto a virtual drive from your hard-disk or from a network drive and used in the same manner as inserting them into a normal CD/DVD drive.

Probably the best virtual drive software, Virtual CloneDrive allows you to enjoy the freedom of a virtual drive and is completely free.

Link: http://www.slysoft.com/en/virtual-clonedrive.html

Google browser is here, today!

Long awaited, there had been rumors for about 2 years that google is coming up with their browser. Initially I thought it'll be some sort of firefox extension or built on top of it but apparently its not. It'll be interesting to see what Microsoft reaction will be on this. Seriously, I'm tired and sick of IE, it sucks real bad as compared to firefox. It is still trying to barely catch up with firefox and here comes the new rival! I'll update this post to add the link to the site since its not there yet. Hoping to see it in next few hours. News Link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/google_browser;_ylt=AvYgJ5cZ5H.Sui7LU4Cx7TUDW7oF Official Site: http://www.google.com/chrome