Author: Fred

Must love God to be CTO?

I just read a job ad for a CTO that listed the following as a requirement for the position:

“Must be committed to offering excellence to God in all you do”

I am not sure, but isn’t it illegal to discriminate based on religion when hiring?

Coming soon…MOSS Workflow Examples – Custom Task Forms (using InfoPath)

The next post in this series will be coming soon, I hope – maybe the end of April.

UPDATE: Still working on this – billable work is getting in the way 🙂 I am also working on doing the next one as a webcast rather than a long text tutorial. I am curious, what do you think is the best approach to this, text or video?

 

7 reasons to date a geek

 

CANOE – Lifewise Sex & Romance – Lovewise: 7 reasons to date a geek

 

Noticed this title when I was browsing around the Canoe.ca web site (I have no idea why I go there – every time I do I find something that offends me), and I had to look at it.

Am I the only person in the world who sees why this is grotesquely offensive? I mean, would they post and article on “7 reasons to date a cripple”?, or “7 reasons to date a black guy”?, or “7 reasons to date a bimbo”? 

Hardly.

(well, CANOE might)

 

Other terms used in this article:

  • super-geek
  • nerd
  • dork

Also mentioned is that you may never need to call tech support again, and that “dating a geek is a safe bet because the nerd needs you more than you need the nerd”

When will people see that terminology such as “geek” and “nerd”, and the idea of dating someone because you can use them and control them, is offensive and not acceptable? And that these attitudes are a big part of the reason why many kids in our culture do NOT go into scientific and technical fields.

(note that I am consciously using offensive terms above to make the point).

MOSS Workflow Examples – Custom Initiation/Instantiation Form (using InfoPath)

Previously, I posted a guide to creating and deploying a very simple custom Association form for a MOSS workflow. This time, I will walk through the steps to create a custom Initiation form, and also a bit of detail on consuming the data from the Initiation form from your workflow code. To reiterate what I said in the Association form walkthrough, what I am creating here is not a form you would use in a real workflow – the intent is to demonstrate the process with as much noise and detail stripped away as possible.
As I describe in my other post, the Association form is displayed when you connect your Workflow Template to a document/form library, list, or content type (the action known as creating an association). The Initiation form is displayed when the user actual starts or instantiates the workflow on an item in a list or document library. The intent is to collect startup information for the workflow. The information collected by the Instantiation form may be the same as on the Association form (allowing the user to override the defaults) or it may be completely different information. Have a look at  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms481192.aspx if you would like to see Microsoft’s definitions.
Before we start, have a look at my previous post describing my base environment for creating these examples.
1) Create a new site
I used a new web application, and a new site collection created using the Team Site template. I named my site InitiationFormDemo;
2) Create Form Library
On this new site, create a Form Library (which I named Workflow Form Library);
3) Create Task List
Also create a new Task List. I called mine Workflow Tasks. At this point, your site home page should look something like the picture below.
Initiation Form Demo Site
4) Create Workflow Project
Launch Visual Studio 2008. Create a new project. Expand the C# project tree, select Workflow, and select the SharePoint 2007 Sequential Workflow. Name the project “MyWorkflow”. The create project dialog should look like the picture below.
Create Workflow Project
5) Set the properties for the project as shown below
Workflow Project Settings 1
Workflow Project Settings 2
Workflow Project Settings 3
6) Finish Creating Workflow Project
Click finish. Normally, we would change the workflow name in the project, add some activities, some code, etc., but this is not necessary for this example. The project should look something like this.
Workflow Project
7) Create Custom Initiation Form in InfoPath
Now we will create the InfoPath Initiation Form. Launch InfoPath and select Design a Form Template. Select the settings as shown below (Form Template, Blank, Enable browser-compatible features only).
InfoPath 1
8 ) Design the Custom Initiation Form – Create Data Source for Submission
In the InfoPath Designer, select Tools | Data Connections… and click the Add button. Create the new data connection as shown in the following pictures.
InfoPath 2
InfoPath 3
InfoPath 4
Click Finish and Close to get back to the main InfoPath window.
9) Create a Custom Field for the Form
In the Task Pane, under Design Tasks, click on Data Source. Right click on myFields, and select Add to add a new field to the schema. Create a new field as shown below, and click Ok.
InfoPath 5
10) Add the Custom Field to the Form
Drag and drop the My Setting field onto the design surface, to create label and text box for it. Also add a Button control, and change its label to “Submit”. Your form should look something like the picture below.
InfoPath 6
11) Add Logic to the Submit Button
Double click on your Submit button to display the Button Properties dialog. Click on the Rules… button, and click Add and then Add Action. Select options as shown below, and click Ok.
InfoPath 7
Click Add Action again, and set the options as shown below, and click Ok.
InfoPath 8
You should now have two actions, as shown below.
InfoPath 9
12) Set Form Security Level
Finally, we must set the form trust to Domain. Select Tools | Form Options…, and select Security and Trust. Unselect the checkbox Automatically determine security level (recommended), and click the Domain radio button, as shown below, and click Ok.
InfoPath 10
13) Save the Form Template
Save the form to disk (File | Save). You can save it anywhere you want, as long as it is not your Visual Studio project folder. I just save mine to a Forms folder in My Documents. Name the form MyInitiationForm.xsn for this example (in practice you can name it whatever makes sense).
14) Publish the Form Template
Now we want to publish the form. This did not entirely make sense to me, but when you select File | Publish…, on the first page of the publish dialog we will select To a Network Location even though we will actually publish it to our Visual Studio workflow project folder.
Publish 1
Click Next, and then browse to the location where you will publish the form. In this case, we want to publish to your workflow project folder, as shown.
Publish 2
Type a name for your form (I used MyInitiationForm.xsn), click Ok, and Next. On the next form, clear the text box and click Next (this is important, the form will not work if you do not clear that text box!)
Publish 3
When you click Next, a warning will pop up, as shown below. Click Ok to continue.
Publish 4
Click Publish and Close, and then exit InfoPath.
15) Retrieve Form ID to Use in Workflow Project
In Windows Explorer, navigate to your workflow project folder, right click on the InfoPath form you just published there, and select Design. When the form opens in design mode, select File | Properties… to display the properties dialog shown below.
Get Form ID
Select the ID as shown, and copy it to the clipboard. Click Ok and exit InfoPath.
16) Modify Workflow Project to Reference Custom Initiation Form
Go back to Visual Studio 2008, and open you workflow project if it is not still open. Open the workflow.xml file. The default file looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

<!-- Customize the text in square brackets.
     Remove brackets when filling in, e.g.
     Name="[NAME]" ==> Name="MyWorkflow"
 -->

<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
   <Workflow Name="MyWorkflow"
             Description="My SharePoint Workflow"
             Id="0d94af3a-45e7-4035-b351-9a10fc41018d"
             CodeBesideClass="MyWorkflow.Workflow1"
             CodeBesideAssembly="MyWorkflow, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=96c40524715e44e9">

      <Categories/>
      <MetaData>
         <!-- Tags to specify InfoPath forms for the workflow; delete tags for forms that you do not have -->
         <!--<Association_FormURN>[URN FOR ASSOCIATION FORM]</Association_FormURN>
         <Instantiation_FormURN>[URN FOR INSTANTIATION FORM]</Instantiation_FormURN>
         <Task0_FormURN>[URN FOR TASK (type 0) FORM]</Task0_FormURN>
         <Task1_FormURN>[URN FOR TASK (type 1) FORM]</Task1_FormURN>-->
         <!-- Modification forms: create a unique guid for each modification form -->
         <!--
         <Modification_[UNIQUE GUID]_FormURN>[URN FOR MODIFICATION FORM]</Modification_[UNIQUE GUID]_FormURN>
         <Modification_[UNIQUE GUID]_Name>[NAME OF MODIFICATION TO BE DISPLAYED AS A LINK ON WORKFLOW STATUS PAGE</Modification_[UNIQUE GUID]_Name>
         -->
         <StatusPageUrl>_layouts/WrkStat.aspx</StatusPageUrl>
      </MetaData>
   </Workflow>
</Elements>
Paste the ID from your InfoPath form properties into the <Instantiation_FormURN> element, and uncomment the element (be careful that the other commented out elements stay that way – or delete the ones you are not using as I did):
<Instantiation_FormURN>urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:infopath:MyInitiationForm:-myXSD-2009-04-06T02-58-49</Instantiation_FormURN>
Of course, your actual URN will be different than mine.
Add the following new attribute to the <Workflow> element:
InstantiationUrl="_layouts/IniWrkflIP.aspx">
Your workflow.xml file should now look something like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<!-- Customize the text in square brackets.
     Remove brackets when filling in, e.g.
     Name="[NAME]" ==> Name="MyWorkflow"
-->
<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
   <Workflow Name="MyWorkflow"
             Description="My SharePoint Workflow"
             Id="0d94af3a-45e7-4035-b351-9a10fc41018d"
             CodeBesideClass="MyWorkflow.Workflow1"
             CodeBesideAssembly="MyWorkflow, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=96c40524715e44e9"
             InstantiationUrl="_layouts/IniWrkflIP.aspx">
      <Categories/>
      <MetaData>
         <!-- Tags to specify InfoPath forms for the workflow; delete tags for forms that you do not have -->
         <Instantiation_FormURN>urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:infopath:MyInitiationForm:-myXSD-2009-04-06T02-58-49</Instantiation_FormURN>
         <StatusPageUrl>_layouts/WrkStat.aspx</StatusPageUrl>
      </MetaData>
   </Workflow>
</Elements>
Save the file and close it.
17) Make Sure the Custom Initiation Form will get Copied With the Workflow Feature
Next, open the feature.xml file. It will look something like
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Feature Id="15fdd97f-db32-44c1-96cc-cab49acecd36"
         Title="MyWorkflow feature"
         Description="My SharePoint Workflow Feature"
         Version="12.0.0.0"
         Scope="Site"
         ReceiverAssembly="Microsoft.Office.Workflow.Feature, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c"
         ReceiverClass="Microsoft.Office.Workflow.Feature.WorkflowFeatureReceiver"
         xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
   <ElementManifests>
      <ElementManifest Location="workflow.xml" />
   </ElementManifests>
   <Properties>
      <Property Key="GloballyAvailable" Value="true" />
      <!-- Value for RegisterForms key indicates the path to the forms relative to feature file location -->
      <!-- if you don't have forms, use *.xsn -->
      <Property Key="RegisterForms" Value="*.xsn" />
   </Properties>
</Feature>
Find the <ElementManifests> tag, and under that, add a new <ElementFile> element inside it as shown:
<ElementManifests>
   <ElementManifest Location="workflow.xml" />
   <ElementFile Location="MyInitiationForm.xsn"/>
</ElementManifests>
Save the file and close it.
18 ) Rebuild your workflow solution, and deploy it.
19) Test it Out
Back in IE, navigate to your form library. Since I’ve not created a custom association form in this example, you can create the association using the default form (if you have set up your project to auto-associate, you will not need to do this manually).
Since we want to initiate a workflow, first we need to add a document to the library. I just clicked upload and selected a random file from my desktop. Hover over the file you uploaded and left-click to bring up the context menu. Select Workflow from the menu. Then click on MyWorkflow to start the workflow. This should bring up your custom instantiation form as shown below.
Start Workflow
Enter some text, and click Submit. You will see an animation showing that MOSS is working, and then you will be brought back to the Form Library page. The status of your workflow should show as complete, since the workflow does not actually do anything.
20) Accessing the Initiation Form data in your workflow
I will now quickly show how to access your initiation data from your workflow. We will simple pull out the string entered and log it.
Open your workflow project in Visual Studio, and open your workflow in design view. Add a new logToHistoryListActivity as shown below, and set the HistoryDescription property as shown (set it to a String Field named HistoryDescription in your workflow).
Add LogToHistoryList LogToHistoryList Properties
Right click your logToHistoryListActivity and select Generate Handlers. In the event handler, add code as show below:
public String HistoryDescription;
private void logToHistoryListActivity1_MethodInvoking(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
      String MySettingValue = workflowProperties.InitiationData;
      HistoryDescription = "Initiation String Entered: " + MySettingValue;
}
Rebuild and deploy your workflow, and execute it as in Step 19. Click on the Completed link as shown below.
In the Workflow Status you will now see a history event as shown below, and the initiation string is shown as an XML string, with a <MySetting> element and the string I entered. To use this data in a workflow, you would parse the XML and go from there (or generate a class from the schema and load the XML into that).
Workflow Status
Well, there it is. A custom Initiation form using InfoPath.
Next time – custom Task forms!

Some Thoughts on Political Correctness and Offending People

As almost everyone probably knows, President Obama appeared on The Tonight Show last week. Many people seem to have thought this was a bad idea right from the start, but I do not see anything wrong with it. Then we (in Canada) have seen our leaders (yeah, well, sort of) appear on shows such as Royal Canadian Air Farce before, and nothing too seriously bad came out of it.

President Obama made a bit of a faux pas when he compared his bowling to being in the Special Olympics. The crowd seemed to be amused, and not terribly offended. I thought it was a funny if not-well-thought-through quip, and was not particularly offended by it – then I am not handicapped/special/differently-abled.

Or am I?

This is not a very PC thing to say, I know. The fact is, I am and have been differently-abled for most of my life. I have always been a good deal smarter than most of the people around me. This is not bragging or conceit, it is just a fact. I grew up reading encyclopaedias, doing math, physics, and astronomy, and reading philosophy – all just because I wanted to and because I found it fun. So, that made me differently-abled than most of those around me. It also meant that I had a great deal of trouble fitting in socially. I was teased, I was bullied. I was beaten up. I was avoided. I was a geek, a dork, a dweeb, a nerd. And those are the names my friends called me.

My troubles may not have been the same as someone normally covered by the term differently-abled, but there are definite problems associated.

It has become very politically incorrect to make fun of someone who is mentally challenged, or has a physical disability, or is short, or is female, or is overweight, or comes from a different ethnic background. The funny (or not so funny) thing is that it still seems to be perfectly acceptable to make fun of people who are smart, who love to learn, who love science and philosophy, and who have a hard time interacting with “normals” simply because we do not think the same way.

How many shows have been on the air (from that show with Steve Urkel to Revenge of the Nerds to Big Bang Theory) that are based almost entirely upon ridiculing this segment of the population? If Steve Urkel had been mentally challenged, would the premise of this show have been deemed acceptable? Of course not. If he had been in a wheel chair? No. Then why is it acceptable to make fun of him because he is smart but socially challenged.

This may seem petty, but take it from some one who has lived through it. It is serious. And not just for the individual. It colours the way our society sees and values people. It drives one of the problems facing our society, which is the low value we place on scientists, researchers, and educators. It influences smart young people to hide from who they are for fear of ridicule and not fitting in. It causes young people who might have an interest or talent in scientific and technical fields to be pushed away from these fields at an early age.

It no longer really offends me. Almost nothing offends me anymore, as I have developed a pretty thick skin, and I am too much an egomaniac to really care what anyone else thinks (just kidding!). But think about it the next time you watch TV, or a movie, or read something – notice how deeply engrained this is, and think about what it means in our society.

Some Thoughts on the Economy

The economy is in trouble – or at least it seems to be. This is hardly a shocking statement for anyone who has not been under a rock for the last year. I sit and I wonder (as I am sure many people do) just how we ended up where we are. I am not an economist or politician or any of the people who are presumed to have an understanding of the dynamics of national and global economies. I am just a poor dumb physicist/mathematician/software developer/business person, making a few observations.

1) Is the state of our economy driven largely by media? I have noticed during my lifetime that at all times, there are certain people in the press, on TV, publishing books, etc. with “end of the world” stories about the coming economic crises. It seems to me that at certain points, mass media starts giving these doomsayers much more attention than they deserve, and further that a year or so after that happens, our economy tanks. I wonder at times if it is not at least partially a self-fulfilling prophecy – if the mass media tells us for long enough that things are bad, then our resultant behaviours cause things to get bad.

It is kind of like a (not serious) theory I have about airplanes. What if heavier-than-air flight is really impossible? Maybe airplanes really only work because the people on board believe that they work? At any given time, there will be some people who do not believe, but as long as enough believe, the everything is great. But what happens when suddenly a critical number of people on the plane start thinking “Hey, this can’t work”? Poof, the plane crashes.

Maybe the economy is something like that.

2) Big banks, Wall Street, rich people, major corporations. Everybody’s favourite targets. Have they done a lot to contribute to the current problems? Of course. Are they and they alone to blame? Hardly. Our economy got where it is because pretty much everyone involved drove it here. The real estate industry predicated on constantly rising home prices. The mortgage bankers finding new and creative ways to allow people to afford the ridiculously expensive houses they really could not afford. Consumers expecting that they should be able to afford these houses. Consumers digging themselves huge debt loads buying things they could not afford. You. Me. Everybody. We are in this mess because we all created it. Maybe to greater or lesser extents, but we all played along (except maybe for the segment of the population who never had the opportunity to play, because they have been in an economic crisis the whole time.)

People are talking a lot about this psychology of entitlement, mostly referring to executives at banks and on Wall Street. I think the problem goes much deeper than that. Our whole society has a feeling of entitlement. We work hard, so we deserve that bigger house, that newer car, that big vacation – who cares if the numbers don’t work out, we deserve it, dammit. It is the whole “American Dream” (or in my case, “Canadian Dream”) concept. It is just that, however. Just because you have worked hard and you deserve it, does not mean it will happen.

3) Values. Not religious or moral values, but the values we place on things. Who are the highest paid people in our society? Corporate wheelers and dealers. Professional athletes. Movie stars. TV stars. Musicians – at least the popular ones. I know and understand the economics of why these individuals are paid such ridiculously huge amounts of money relative to their contribution to society. I understand that what they get paid is an investment by someone, and they get huge amounts because those paying them expect to get much, much greater amounts in return for their investment. The athlete gets huge sums of money because he/she puts butts in seats at stadiums, and sells merchandise.

The problem is with the people who buy into this crap. The people who pay silly amounts just to see a sports game, or a movie, or a concert. The societal value system that says these people are worth paying to see.

It is also silly that in our society, these people are valued at such a level, when the people who really have the power to solve the worlds problems – researchers in science and engineering and medicine and throughout our universities have to fight tooth and nail to get enough money just to keep the research going. Not to mention the value we place on our educators and the infrastructure around them. Education and fundamental research should be getting the big pay checks, not people playing games, playing make-believe on a movie screen, or pumping out music.

This inversion of value is endemic in our society, and we will not truly break out of the current cycle of economic crises until our values change. Period.

Just my thoughts – but they are, of course, correct. 🙂

SketchFlow – Sketching and Prototyping in Expression Blend

I have just been reading SketchFlow – Sketching and Prototyping in Expression Blend. This looks really cool, and I can hardly wait to get a copy. It has been a long time since I saw a new tool that looks like it is made to use on my Tablet PC. There is also a good writeup on SketchFlow by Loren Heiny here.

Right now, I do design in OneNote – but of course there is no connection to any other tools used in the implementation of the design.