How to Reference an Outlook Message (Mail Item) from the hard disk

this article demonstrates a quick code in VB.Net to reference an outlook mail item from the hard disk.

to run the code, first you need to open your MS Outlook, select a message in your inbox, then save it in your hard disk in the c:\ drive, and name it "Test", so the full path of the message item file is "c:\test.msg"

the following code will allow you to reference the message item using Outlook Object Library:


Dim oApp As New outlook.Application
Dim oItem As outlook.MailItem
oItem  = oApp.CreateItemFromTemplate("C:\test.msg")
MessageBox.Show(oItem .Body.ToString)


Note: do not forget to import "Microsoft.Office.Interop" Library

How to Install Android Market application on your Galaxy S mobile in case not found!

If you have installed a new Android ROM (Operating System) and you discovered that you do not have the Android Market application, here is the procedure to intall it:

1- Open DIal Pad and dial *#06#
2- The IMEI Code appear, write it down.
3- Dial *#272*IMEI code#


the Phone will be rebooted and OS will be initialized with the new Market application installed.

How to Fix "Word experienced an error trying to open the file." error

if you are experiencing a problem in opening MS Office documents with this error:"Word experienced an error trying to open the file" or "Word has encountered a problem" while opening a document from your hard disk or Ms Outlook:

and if you have tried to open and repair the document but the error is still there, you will have to check the  "Protected view" settings in MS Office 2010 application..

Below are the steps..

1. Run one of the Office 2010 application (e.g. Word 2010).
2. Click on File menu, and select Options.
3. In the “Options” dialog, select Trust Center in the left pane.
4. Click on Trust Center Settings in the right pane.
5. Select Protected View in the left pane of “Trust Center” dialog.
6. Disable any of all of the protected view options as below by unticking the check boxes:
• Enable Protected View for files that fail validation
• Enable Protected View for files originating from the Internet
• Enable Protected View for files located in potentially unsafe locations
• Enable Protected View for Outlook attachments

Ref :
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/12/29/how-to-disable-read-only-protected-view-in-office-2010/

How to Change Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Default Character Set

While Setting Up Microsoft SQL Server 2008, you may find out that you have missed setting up the SQL Server Instance Character Set. this is so common as the SQL Server Setup procedure may not highlight the area of changing the character set the way you expected, so you will end up using the default character set, which is "Latin1_General_CI_AS".

So if you are in the situation where you want to change the character set immediately after the setup completion, the only 2 options you have are:

1- Uninstall/Reinstall the SQL Server Software, and select the desired character set during the setup.

2- run a command line script to change the character set at the SQL server instance level.

in this article, we will use option 2 above, which is running the command that allows you to change the character set, as follows:

Determine which character set you need to set:

Open SQL Server Management Studio --> New Query and run the following command against the master database: 

select * from fn_helpcollations()

the above query will list all the available character sets, so you need to choose one of them, in this example, I am going to choose "Arabic_CI_AI". 

Execute the command that changes the character set

open command prompt, go to the directory where you have the SQL Server 2008 setup files, you will need to choose the directory that contains "Setup.exe"

then, type in the following command:  

setup.exe /q /ACTION=RebuildDatabase /INSTANCENAME=MSSQLSERVER /SAPWD="password"

/SQLSYSADMINACCOUNTS="BUILTIN\ADMINISTRATORS" /SqlCollation=Arabic_CI_AI

Note: the above line should be a straight line with no carriage returns. You need to change the values in green with values that represents your SQL environment, mainly you need to change the Instance Name, "sa" account password and the SQL Collation Name (that you have chosen in the previous step)

execute the command, wait until it finishes executing, then , if there is no errors or validation notes, the character set will be changed as desired.

Important Note: the above procedure is for changing the collation/character set at a fresh installation of SQL Server 2008. if you already have created some custom databases and that these databases contains data, then you will have to run through a very detailed/complex procedure to change the collation.

the following article is very useful for such a case:

http://www.db-staff.com/index.php/microsoft-sql-server/69-change-collation

Setting up blackberry phone device as your external internet modem.

I have been asking ZAIN Kuwait help desk of how to setup my blackberry device as an external internet modem to allow making connection to the internet using my laptop, I heard different answers of "You cannot do it" or "it is easy as 123, just create a modem and you are done" ...etc, but never got a straight forward answer of how exactly to set it up.

This is not an easy task, since it requires following some procedure to establish the connection. I had to do lots of research to know how to set it up, Finally, here are the steps to do it:

1. Make sure that your Blackberry Desktop Manager software is installed on your laptop.
2. Launch Blackberry Desktop Manager, Connect your Blackberry phone to the computer using a USB connection.   Important Note: you need to keep your blackberry device connected to the Desktop Manager software through the USB connection to proceed with the next steps.
3. Make sure that the blackberry modem driver in running OK, go to Device Manager --> Modems --> standard Modem, then go to properties, click on "Diagnostics" Tab, then click on “Query Modem” button. It should give you the result that points to your blackberry information.

Note: do not continue to the next step of you do not see the modem information or if you have any issue in connecting to the modem.

4-   Now coming to the secret part (that part that took me some time to know as the ZAIN help desk refrain from giving this information), click on the “Advanced”  tab and make sure that you enter the following string in the “Extra Initialization Command” Field:

at+cgdcont=1,"IP","pps"

 (if you have a different mobile network, then you will need to enter the string reflecting your network, please contact your network provider).

5- You have now to setup a  new internet modem connection, with the following settings:

• Phone Number: *99#
• User Name: pps
• Password: pps

6- Dial the New Internet Connection – congrats., You’re  done and you are connected to the internet through your blackberry device.

About Advanced Case Management

a very nice introductory about Advanced Case Management from Gartner.

Advanced Case Management is all about automating your organization's business processes in a way that allows collaboration, connectivity and decision making easier than a click of a button!

the technology gathers a set of tools like Forms Design and Management, Business Process Management, Service Oriented Architecture, Content Management and Compliance/Records Management to form a solid framework that helps organizations achieve the maximum levels of agility and responsiveness to customers/consumers services and requests.


Enjoy the Video...

Fixing an Outlook Data File (.pst)

I have been experiencing a severe hard disk crash for the past 2 weeks now which made my life so miserable, I managed to restore my 4.5 GB Outlook Data File and I was so happy trying to open it in windows 2010, and instead of celebrating this victory, I was hit with an error that stated:

"the file is not an outlook data file (.pst)" !!!

I started googling the error and I found the following KB article from Microsoft:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/272227

it was talking about using a Microsoft Office built in utility called "Microsoft Outlook Inbox Repair Tool" (scanpst.exe). I opened it, browsed for my pst file, and hit the "start" button, had to wait for sometime to scan the file and wait again to fix it by the utility (my data file was big in size)
and at the end: BINGO!!!! the File is repaired and I was able to open it in my outlook 2010.