AspxPivotGrid – a mighty web control

OK – this might well be one of the “biggest” web control I ever used.

The application we’re building has a feature that let’s the user play around with columns and rows to their need. Much like the Pivot-features of Excel. When I first saw this (current application is developed in ASP.OLD mind you) I shivered a bit since it looked pretty messy.

But along came (well, a developer at the customer told me about it) the Aspx Pivot Grid from DevExpress.

It’s pretty amazing since is almost completely replicates the functionality from Excel with very little code. Also it comes with the possibility to export to PDF, Excel, HTML, CSV etc.

Here is a short example on how you use the pivot grid in a very crude fashion, in code rather than configuring it at design time. // In .Designer.cs…

Vasa Band does it again

As I wrote before we are very blessed right now in the Vasa Band. It seems like we really are used by the Lord and that the music we play is filled with his presence.

And the best part of it that it feels just right and like what we always wanted and has done.

Here is a recording of a concert (beware 45 mb!) we did Sunday night with Andreas Kratz conducting.

As always; I am so proud and happy to be a part of this great band and to be a Salvation Army bandsman. I have played with some great bands – but this is the greatest feeling, if nothing else.

Thank you guys – let’s continue on this path. And thank you Andreas Kratz for making us great!

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WebCasts on all things agile

I found a site that held a gold nugget. At first I didn’t see it but at the bottom of the page there was a list with some very interesting web cast on agile things; Kanban, Agile Design, TDD, Pair programming etc.

Here is one example; a webcast that promise to “Debug Pair Programming”. It’s shows some of the problems you might run into when introducing pair programming and how to solve them.

At the lower part of the page you’ll find many other pod and webcasts. For example:

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DropBox – your drive in the cloud

I am trying to live as I teach, and I think that I, in the near future, will talk to customers about storing stuff “in the cloud”.

To not be a complete hypocrite I have started to store more and more stuff in the cloud.

After email, contacts and calendar it’s now time for my files. DropBox is a really nice alternative. It also have the possibility to share certain folders with others, or go public altogether (here is some code for example). Finally it’ syncs to all my computers that have DropBox installed.

Nice, really nice. No more USB…

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Marcus and Mac my clumsy fingers

As readers of this blog might have noticed I have not only switched to Mac (Book Pro) but also have done so after a long while on the PC-side of things.

I am not sure that it has anything to do with this but the wonderful touch pad on my Mac Book and I don’t click (no pun intended). I may also have to do with lacking fine motorics…  but I hope not.

One of my most trusted Mac-source have supplied me with this video. Thanks Magnus.

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Import Outlook contacts to Mac Address Book – for free

OK – I know that a lot of stuff has been written on this. But most of these doesn’t really cut what I want. Mainly for two reasons:

  • Either you could export your contacts to CSV (comma separated text format). This causes loss of non-text data such as images etc.
  • There are some really good (I presume?) tools for this. But they all cost money… Some of the cost a lot. $49 for Outlook Contacts Exporter. My solution is free.

Don’t bother about that. Here is how you do it easily and absolutely free.

  1. Open Outlook (I’m using 2007) and go to Contacts.
  2. Mark them all, right-click and go “Send as Business Card”. This will attach all the marked contacts to a mail.
  3. Send the mail to a mailbox that your Mac can read.
  4. Open the mail and save all contacts (Save->All) to the hard...
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Getting to the root of all things bad

Last week on the Kanban course we brushed on Root-Cause analysis several times. It is really a great tool for getting to the “root of all evil” if you like, or in any case the problem.

Although the base concepts are quite easy to grasp some guidance and best practices is always a good way to get you started. Mr Kniberg has done it again and serves us a great article that introduces the subject, with a humorous twist.

Thanks Henrik!

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