Fi3ry

VB.NET Finding The Current Working Directory

Fi3ry — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:30:58 +0000

I’m sure there are plenty of different ways to find the current working directory using VB.NET. I’m using Environment.CurrentDirectory. Seems to work OK.
For testing purposes I used File.Exists() from System.IO
Imports System.IO ... MsgBox(File.Exists(Environment.CurrentDirectory & "\YourFileToInclude.rpt"))

Start of a New Sprint – Researching ArcEngine Programming

Fi3ry — Sat, 30 May 2009 13:05:28 +0000

Yesterday was the start of a new development sprint. For those who are unfamiliar with the term sprint, it is the defined number of working days (for us its 10 right now) we try to get stories and tasks done in. Anyway, there is a link below with information about agile scrum development.

The focus this sprint is to get familiar with programming ArcEngine and have it use a published MXD from our development ArcServer.

Agile Scrum Development

Persuasion in Oblivion

Fi3ry — Sat, 16 May 2009 22:30:06 +0000

I just started playing Oblivion, started late I know (right right i bow down to your over 30 level character…suck it). Anyway, I had a hard time figuring out persuading people so I turned to the internets. Below is what I found out. Hope it helps.

Explanation:

The mini-game is broken into quadrants:

Admire
Joke
Coerce
Boast

There are also four separate blocks in each quadrant, all of which are different sizes. When one of the blocks is clicked they will cycle in the clock-wise direction.

Once you start the game rotate into each of the quadrants and watch the character’s face. The face will change to a

Smile
Semi-smile
Semi-frown
Frown

How to get the maximum amount of points (seems obvious, but sometimes ya gotta just say cr@p):
Select the quadrant that gives a frown when the smallest block is in that quadrant
Select the quadrant that gives a smile when the largest block is in that quadrant

Each time you select a block it will be grayed out and not selectable again.

Tips and Tricks:
Quick and easily raise your speechcraft (Xbox 360 version). Talk to someone and persuade them. Start the cirlce minigame and just keep rotating the circle and keep pushing the A button. You will gain speechcraft semi-quick doing so and there is no limit how long you can do this. Also it does not matter what the n.p.c’s disposition is. You can just keep doing this and raise your speechcraft all the way up to expert level semi-quickly.
Submitted by: Nick Trick

MyBrute – Bring IT!!

Fi3ry — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 18:46:35 +0000

I’m just starting out in MyBrute.com, but I say, “BRING IT ON!!”
My Brute’s name is allYourBases.

Using the ArcGIS API for Microsoft Silverlight

Fi3ry — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 02:08:19 +0000

I just started to do some development using the ArcGIS API for Silverlight. So far so good. The layers provided by ESRI stream off the web pretty quick, and the examples are pretty easy to follow. Like most things ESRI though the object documentation sucks. As I figure things out I’ll post em up.

MySQL: Create a Table From a Query

Fi3ry — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 19:48:54 +0000

I had to create a backup of a table for a website that uses a MySQL 5.x database. Here is the structure used for creating a table from a query:


CREATE TABLE table_name
SELECT * FROM table_to_copy;

Linq to XML:Using Distinct and Where Clauses

Fi3ry — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 00:05:05 +0000

I recently decided to use Linq (Language Integrated Query) available in .NET 3.5 SP1 to an XML stream I had to retrieve some information from. So like every other copy and paste expert, I mean programmer I looked to my lady Googles. Here are some basic references:

MSDN .NET Language-Integrated Query for XML Data
A quick intro at blocks4.

This is what the XML stream outputs looks like. [Obviously the names have been changed to protect the innocent.]

I had to use Parse method in the XDocument object for the XML because the wrapper from the SOAP object returned a String of XML. Next was to get a Distinct listing of Assets from the stream.


xdocs = XDocument.Parse(report) 'report is the string of xml
Dim query = From AssetReport In xdocs.Descendants("ReportItem") _
                    Select Asset = AssetReport .Attribute("Asset").Value _
                    Distinct

If the XML is coming from a file or from an RSS feed use the Load function.

You’ll notice I used xdocs.Descendants(”ReportItem”) because I was only interested in the information in the ReportItem tags.

Also, for ease of use with the object returned in query I “mapped” Asset to equal the value of the Attribute named Asset in the XML stream.

Now that query contains a distinct listing of Assets, I’ll loop over each one pulling the information I want.


Dim AssetNum As String = String.Empty

For Each item In query

            AssetNum = item.ToString()

            Dim query2 = From DataReport In xdocs.Descendants("ReportItem") _
                    Where (DataReport.Attribute("Name").Value = "Ignition On" _
                    Or DataReport.Attribute("Name").Value = "Ignition Off" _
                    Or DataReport.Attribute("Name").Value = "Breadcrumb" _
                    Or DataReport.Attribute("Name").Value = "Host Synchronization" _
                    Or DataReport.Attribute("Name").Value = "Normal Speed Resumed" _
                    Or DataReport.Attribute("Name").Value = "Maximum Speed Exceeded") _
                    And DataReport.Attribute("Asset").Value = AssetNum _
                    Order By DataReport.Attribute("MessageTime").Value Ascending _
                    Select Asset = DataReport.Attribute("Asset").Value, _
                    Longitude = DataReport.Attribute("Longitude").Value, _
                    Latitude = DataReport.Attribute("Latitude").Value, _
                    MessageTime = DataReport.Attribute("MessageTime").Value, _
                    Speed = DataReport.Attribute("Speed").Value, _
                    Name = DataReport.Attribute("Name").Value, _
                    GMTOffset = DataReport.Attribute("MessageTimeZoneGMTOffset").Value

            For Each item2 In query2
                Try
                    Console.WriteLine("Asset Number: " & item2.Asset & _
                                             ", time: " & item2.MessageTime & _
                                             ", Lat: " & item2.Latitude & _
                                              ", Long: " & item2.Longitude)
                Catch ex As Exception
                    Debug.WriteLine(ex.Message)
                End Try

            Next
            query2 = Nothing
        Next

A variable AssetNum was declared to hold the asset number because you cannot use item.ToString() directly in query2.

For part of the Where clause I was only interested in retrieving the ReportItems with latitudes and longitudes in them. Through some trial and error I found that the ReportItems with Names equaling "Ignition On", "Ignition Off", "Breadcrumb", "Host Synchronization", "Normal Speed Resumed" and "Maximum Speed Exceeded" fit the bill.

The final part of the Where clause is the And where the XML is filtered using the AssetNum variable that contains the current Asset identifier from the distinct list of Assets.

You'll notice the dot notation is used for the Console output. This is because the attribute values are associated in the Linq query. This was not necessary in the distinct query because there was only one Select item returned.

Ready Go!

admin — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 00:24:41 +0000

Ready steady go!

I don’t have plans of anything special. We’ll see what becomes of this. I don’t care that the name is Fi3ry but has a blue background.