Technorati Tags: microsft, dreamspark, xna, visual studio, windows, sql server, c#, adobe

Even though the scans are not the best, there are some features that just work well. Just like Google Maps, where you can send a link to a map (with a set size, address, etc), with Google Books you can send a link to a specific page in a certain book with specific words highlighted. Google also has handy links such as the table of contents, popular passages, and where to buy the book (perhaps in a better quality PDF format).

All the books listed here have a ‘limited preview’, meaning that some pages are not available for viewing but for the most part you can browse through most the the book. Google Books does indicate the pages that are not available.

Java
The Java Language Specification
Effective Java Programming language
Java: The complete Reference
Java In A Nutshell
Head First Java

C/C++
Practical C++ Programming
C++ The Core Language
The Concurrent C Programming Language
C++ Primer Plus

.Net/C#
The C# Programming Language
The Visual Basic .NET Programming Language
Pro C# 2005 and the .NET 2.0 Platform
Learning Visual Basic .NET
VB.NET Language in a Nutshell

Python
Python in a Nutshell
Learning Python
Visual Quickstart Guide: Python
Python Pocket Reference
Python Cookbook

JavaScript/DOM
JavaScript: The Definitive Guide
Beginning JavaScript with DOM Scripting and AJAX
The Book of JavaScript
The Complete Reference JavaScript
JavaScript Bible
DOM Scripting

Ruby/Rails
Ruby in a Nutshell
The Ruby Way
Beginning Ruby
Ruby on Rails: Up and Running
Rails Solutions: Ruby on Rails Made Easy
Beginning Ruby on Rails E-Commerce

PHP
PHP in a Nutshell
Programming PHP
PHP Cookbook
Learning PHP and MySQL
Learning PHP 5

Database
Visual Quickstart Guide: MySQL
MySQL Cookbook
MySQL in a Nutshell
MySQL Tutorial
Programming SQL Server 2005
SQL Server 2005: Developer’s Guide
SQL Server 2005: A Beginner’s Guide
Beginning SQL Server 2005 Express

Technorati Tags: java, php, database, programming, language, .net, ruby, rails, google, book search, dom, javascript, python, vb

As most script kiddies know, with a little Visual Basic code you can write scripts to open, write, and send emails, generate excel documents, print word documents, and so much more. Fore example, here is a little bit of vbs code to automate the send button (now if you can automate running the script):

Set objOutlook = CreateObject(“Outlook.Application”)
Set objNamespace = objOutlook.GetNamespace(“MAPI”)

‘ Need to have open a new email window for the following
Set objInspector = objOutlook.ActiveInspector
Set objMailItem = objInspector.CurrentItem

‘ Send the email, after the user presses the okay
‘ button on the confirmation dialog
objMailItem.Send

Now, if you want to pop up a message dialog with the subject of the last email you received, just run the following lines of code:

Const olFolderInbox = 6
Const olFolderSentMail = 5

Set objOutlook = CreateObject(“Outlook.Application”)
Set objNamespace = objOutlook.GetNamespace(“MAPI”)

Set objFolder = objNamespace.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderSentMail)
MsgBox “Subject: ” & objFolder.Items.GetLast.Subject

I have a few more example of Visual Basic code manipulating Microsoft Office products here. If you want to run similar COM code but in Java you can do so using Groovy and Scriptom. I have already mentioned Scriptom before so I will refer you to that post.

Technorati Tags: scriptom, groovy, java, com, visual basic, outlook, scripts, visual basic script

import org.codehaus.groovy.scriptom.ActiveXProxy

def outlook = new ActiveXProxy("Outlook.Application");
def message = outlook.CreateItem(0);
def emails = "user1@domain1.com;user2@domain2.com";
def rec = message.Recipients.add(emails);
rec.Type = 1 // To = 1, CC = 2, BCC = 3
message.Display(true);

You can run this code from the groovyConsole once you have Scriptom configured.

Technorati Tags: groovy, java, gdk, scriptom, activex, com

As a demo, the Project Simplice imported the Visual Basic code for a calculator example written by Microsoft with the original copyright. Once imported they hit the build button to launch a program originally original written for the Windows platform but now running on JVM power. Wow. Now that is some impressive compiler magic. In NetBeans, you can edit the UI in the UI Builder and update the code and have the same context help, color highlighting, and language support that you come to expect from NetBeans.

What was hard to believe was that an exe fractal application written in Visual Basic for the Windows platform ran considerably slower than when that same code was compiled and ran in the JVM. There was general disbelief and awe when that Windows version ran over 10 times slower.

It seems that Project Simplice, or marketing eventually names it, is intended a language that can be used to teach programming to beginners.

Technorati Tags: javaone, java, visual basic, jvm, project simplice, netbeans

For those not familiar to Groovy. Groovy is a object-oriented dynamic language that runs on the JVM. In Groovy, static typing and semicolons are optional. Groovy has a lot of built-in features missing in Java, such as regular expressions. A great feature of groovy is that it compiles to a class file which can be used in a Java application. According to Rob, “your boss can’t tell if you are using Groovy.”

The one feature of Groovy that I was not at all familiar with was the Scriptom. Scriptom gives you access to COM objects, in a fashion that is similar to VBScript developers. Rob shows demoed Scriptom, he opened Microsoft Excel added values, created a chart, saved the chart to the file system, created a JFrame with a button that use the chart as an icon. More amazing is that he did this without restarting or closing or rebuilding anything.

I am seriously thinking of replacing all our VBscript dependencies from our application. We use VBScript to open and print Word and Excel documents. With Groovy and Scriptom I could do this in the JVM.

Technorati Tags: javaone, java, groovy, closures, scriptom, vbscript

PDFCreator does not provide a nice command line interface but that is easy to get past that limitation with some simple Visual Basic. You can write some simple Visual Basic script code that opens a Word document, sets the default printer to PDFCreator, and ‘prints’ out document allowing PDFCreator to create a PDF for you. You might want to edit the PDFCreator’s auto-save options otherwise you will be prompted where to save the new PDF. Here is some sample Visual Basic code that does just what I described above.

Set word = CreateObject("Word.Application")
Set docs = wdo.Documents

' Remember current active printer
Set sPrevPrinter = wdo.ActivePrinter

' Select the PDFCreator as your printer
word.ActivePrinter = "PDFCreator"

' Open the Word document
Set document = docs.Open(sMyDocumentFile)

' Print the document file to the PDFCreator
word.ActiveDocument.PrintOut

document.Close WdDoNotSaveChanges
word.ActivePrinter = sPrevPrinter
word.Quit WdDoNotSaveChanges

For completeness sakes let me mention how to create a PDF document using the Apache POI project. You can of course convert a Word document to PDF using the Apache POI API. Using POI you can create a XSL-FO version of your document which can be transformed into a PDF using Apache FOP. It has been my experience that the results generated by POI are not perfect but here is some code for you go get started. The POI scratch pad jar contains a WordDocument class that will create a XSL-FO version of the Word document. The WordDocment might have been intended to be just a command line application because it throws a NullPointerException if you try to use it in your code so you will have to modify this class. Once you fix the exception you can code the following two lines to produce an XSL-FO for a given Word document:

WordDocument file = new WordDocument(wordDocumentPath);
file.closeDoc();

Of course once you have the XSL-FO version of your document you can transform it to a PDF using Apache FOP. One word of warning, the WordDocument class is in the scratch pad jar and might not be as stable as you might think.

TechknowZenze: First Post – How it all started.
Import Script/CSS/PHP
Page Redirect – PHP, HTML, and JavaScript code to redirect an HTML page to another.
MySQL Admin – Quick tutorial for MySQL administrative tasks.
Put JavaScript To Sleep – Tutorial describing how to set JavaScript functions to timeout.
Word Mail Merge – Visual Basic Script code to manipulate Word’s Mail Merge functionality
JavaScript FX – JavaScript code to hide/show HTML elements.
Style and Class – Working with style attributes on HTML tags using JavaScript.
Search Engine Optimization
The Word is POI – Java library for working with MS Office documents.

Seasons Greetings

Technorati Tags: java, mail merge, word, poi, seo, visual basic, vbs, mysql, sql, javascript, html, programming, css

' Kills a program given its process id.
Function ProgKill(strProcessId)
   ' Declare used variables
   Dim strWQL
   Dim objProcess
   Dim objResult
   Dim intReturnCode
   Dim wmi

   Set wmi = GetObject("winmgmts:")
   ' Get Process by WMI
   strWQL = _
      "select * from win32_process where ProcessId='" _
      & strProcessId & "'"
   Set objResult = wmi.ExecQuery(strWQL)

   ' Kill all found process
   For Each objProcess in objResult
      ' Try to kill the process
      intReturnCode = objProcess.Terminate(0)
   Next
End Function

You can use code like this to kill a process started in your script after a given event or set time.

Sub PrintHtml(fileName)
    Dim objIE
    Set objIE = WScript.CreateObject( _
        "InternetExplorer.Application", "ie_")
    objIE.Visible = True
    objIE.Navigate filename
    do until objIE.readystate = 4 : wscript.sleep 20 : loop
    print_done=false
    ' 6 = PRINT, 2 = NO USER PROMPT
    objIE.ExecWB 6, 2
    ' Wait until printing id done.
    do while not print_done : wscript.sleep 50 : loop
    objIE.Quit
End Sub

' Listen to ie print events
sub ie_PrintTemplateTeardown(pDisp)
    wscript.sleep 200
    print_done=true
end sub