Quick Console App to Ping a Server

This is based mostly off of something in the Microsoft documentation. It's just a quick hack to let me know when a remote server comes back up.

static void Main(string[] args)
{
  Ping pingSender = new Ping();
  PingOptions options = new PingOptions();
  // Create a buffer of 32 bytes of data to be transmitted.
  string data = "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa";
  byte[] buffer = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(data);
  int timeout = 120;
  //PingReply reply = pingSender.Send(args[0], timeout, buffer, options);
  PingReply reply = pingSender.Send("server.domain.com", timeout, buffer, options);
  for (; ; )
  {
   if (reply.Status == IPStatus.Success)
   {
    Console.WriteLine("Address: {0}", reply.Address.ToString());
    for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) Console.WriteLine("\a");
    // Or System.Media.SystemSounds.Beep.Play();
    // Or Console.Beep();
    break;                    
   }
   else
   {
    Console.WriteLine("Failed " + System.DateTime.Now);
    Thread.Sleep(30000);
   }
  }
 Console.ReadKey();
}

Center the Effing Div

.image {
  margin-left: auto;
  margin-right: auto;
  width: 415px; /* fix the width while we're at it */
  text-align: center; /* and we'll center the caption as well */
}

Backup / Export Your Google Site

Judging from this thread, the inability to easily backup/export a Google Site has been a problem for awhile. Thankfully there's a tool on Google Code you can use to grab a local copy. The tool is pretty simple, but the documentation is not entirely clear. Here's what I did for my simple site, which is private:

• Host: sites.google.com
• Domain: [leave blank]
• Webspace: [the last part of domain name path; if the domain name is http://sites.google.com/site/mysite123, this value would be just mysite123]
• Import/Export Revisions: [I left this unchecked]
• Username: [my Google account, with @gmail.com at the end]
• Password: [the obvious]
• Choose Target Directory: [the obvious]

Here's Google's blog post that talks about the issue a bit more.

MVC Storefront Collected Links

There are videos and posts out there about the MVC Storefront sample application for ASP.NET MVC 1.0, but they're scattered around a bit.

This list will mix the original posts from Rob Conery's blog, Weke Road, and the ASP.NET MVC video collection and some Rob's related posts.

1. ASP.NET MVC: Introducing The MVC Storefront Series [video]
2. ASP.NET MVC: MVC Storefront, Part 2 – Repository Pattern [video]
3. ASP.NET MVC: MVC Storefront, Part 3 – Pipes and Filters [video]
4. ASP.NET MVC: MVC Storefront, Part 4 – Linq To Sql Spike [video]
5. ASP.NET MVC: MVC Storefront, Part 5 – Globalization [video]
6. MVC Storefront, Part 6: Catalog Completion and Initial UI [video]
7. MVC Storefront, Part 7: Helpers and Routing [video]
8. MVC Storefront, Part 8: Testing Controllers, Iteration 1 [video]
9. MVC Storefront, Part 9: The Shopping Cart [video]
10. MVC Storefront, Part 10: Shopping Cart Refactoring and Membership [video]
    MVC Storefront: Brainbender Intermission
    MVC Storefront: Intermission’s Over, Made Some Changes
11. MVC Storefront, Part 11: Hooking Up The Shopping Cart And Components [video]
12. MVC Storefront, Part 12: Mocking [video]
13. MVC Storefront: Dependency Injection [video]
14. MVC Storefront Part 14: Ajax With Shawn Burke [video]
    ASP.NET MVC: Script Registration Helper
    ASP.NET MVC: List Helper Extension Method
    
15. MVC Storefront, Part 15: Code Review With Ayende [video]
16. MVC Storefront Part 16: Membership Redo With OpenID [video]
17. MVC Storefront Part 17: Checkout With Jeff Atwood [video]
    ASP.NET MVC: Avoiding Tag Soup
    Lazy Loading With The LazyList
    
18. MVC Storefront Part 18: Creating An Experience [video]
19. MVC Storefront Part 19: Processing Orders With Windows Workflow [video]
    
MVC Storefront Part 19a: Windows Workflow Followup
[video]
20. MVC Storefront Part 20: Logging [video]
21. MVC Storefront Part 21: Order Manager and Personalization [video]
22. MVC Storefront Part 22: Restructuring, Rerouting, and PayPal [video]
23. ASP.NET MVC Storefront Part 23: WebForms and Dynamic Data [no video]
    MVC Storefront Preview 1 Available
24. (Episode 24 was cut)
25. MVC Storefront Part 25: Getting Started With Domain-Driven Design [video]
26. MVC Storefront Part 26: Finis [video]

The source code is out on Codeplex.

Unique Attribute Values Across Multiple Documents using XQuery

It's a little slow, but here's one way to get a list of all the unique attribute values across multiple XML documents using XQuery.

let $raw-values := 
  for $book in collection("abc")/(gbook|set)[@type='oeb']
  return 
    element { "book" } 
    { 
      for $value in distinct-values($book//node()/@class)
      return element { "class" } { $value }
    }
for $item in distinct-values($raw-values//class)
order by $item
return element { "uniques" } { $item }