Ultimate solutions from IT Expert

Common tips for a freelancer

2008-11-13T00:33:00.000-08:00

Freelance contractors have become more commonplace than ever before. This article explores five simple ways to protect yourself as a freelance contractor.

1. Never pay someone to give you a freelance contract: A legitimate freelance contract will not require you to pay money to the employer in order to provide a job or freelance contract. While some internet sites require users to purchase a membership to bid on freelance jobs, the person who awards the freelance job should never charge a fee in order to gain the freelance contract.

2. Create a division between work and home. It’s helpful to have a designated work space — ideally, an office or studio space outside of your home. If this isn’t possible, a home office with a door you can close is your next best option. Don’t have a room to set aside for an office? Go to your local Pier 1, buy a Chinese screen and section off a corner of a room. Voilà: instant office.

3. Get to work on time. You’ve cut out the commute, which means you’ve bought yourself a little time. So go ahead and have that extra cup of coffee; but it’s nice for your family, friends, clients and personal sanity if you keep at least relatively normal business hours.

4. Don’t watch TV in the middle of the day. Or go to the movies or do your laundry. You’re working, so work. However, occasional naps are perfectly acceptable and a great way to remind yourself that while you might not have technical support or a supply closet, your life is still pretty awesome.

5. Do not give employers personal information.Go to this IRS website and apply for an employer identification number (EIN). This will prevent you from having to provide the freelance employer your social security number. After you have this number, you need not provide the employer with any other information besides your business name and EIN.

All The Best for your freelancing career.

Outsourcing Information Technology

2008-11-03T23:44:00.000-08:00

The information technology industry has truly transformed the way the world looks at India. Rapidly capturing global imagination, the success of its IT industry has placed India at the forefront of the emerging global knowledge economy. According to the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), the apex body for software services in India, the revenue of the information technology sector has grown from 1.2 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in FY 1998 to an estimated 5.5 per cent in FY 2008. The net value added by this sector, to the economy, is estimated to be 3.3 to 3.9 per cent for FY 2008.

India's IT growth in the world is primarily dominated by IT software and services such as Custom Application Development and Maintenance (CADM), System Integration, IT Consulting, Application Management, Infrastructure Management Services, Software testing, Service-oriented architecture and Web services.

The government expects the exports turnover to touch US$ 80 billion by 2011, growing at an annual rate of 30 per cent per annum, from the earlier few million dollars worth exports in early 1990s.

As per NASSCOM's latest findings:

* Indian IT-BPO sector grew by 33 per cent in FY 2008 to reach US$ 64 billion in aggregate revenue (including hardware). Of this, the software and services segment accounted for US$ 52 billion, growing by 28 per cent over FY 2007.
* Software and services exports (including exports of IT services, BPO, engineering services and R&D and software products) reached US$ 40.4 billion, contributing nearly 63 per cent to the overall IT-BPO revenue aggregate.
* IT-BPO exports (including hardware exports) grew by 28 per cent from US$ 31.8 billion in FY 2007 to US$ 40.9 billion in FY 2008.
* While the US (61 per cent) and the UK (18 per cent) remained the largest IT-BPO export markets in FY 2007, the industry is now making a mark in other countries as well - with exports to Continental Europe in particular, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 55 per cent over FY 2004-2007.
* Domestic IT market (including hardware) reached US$ 23.1 billion in FY 2008 as against US$ 16.2 billion in FY 2007, a growth of 43 per cent. Hardware remained the largest segment of the domestic market with a growth rate of 44 per cent in FY 2008. Software and services spending grew by over 41 per cent during the year.
* The industry's vertical market exposure was well diversified across several mature and emerging sectors. Banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) remained the largest vertical market for Indian IT-BPO exports, followed by high-technology and telecom. These sectors together accounted for nearly 60 per cent of the Indian IT-BPO exports in FY 2007.
* Manufacturing, retail, media, healthcare, airlines and transportation, and utilities were the other key segments.

Moreover, according to a study by Springboard Research, the Indian IT services market is estimated to remain the fastest growing in the Asia-Pacific region with a CAGR of 18.6 per cent.

Outsourcing

A research by Gartner forecasts India as the undisputed leader in the outsourcing space in the year 2008. The Outsourcing Service Provider Performance Study 2007, undertaken by sourcing advisory firm Equa Terra, reported that the majority of UK businesses offshore all or parts of their IT functions to India and plan to continue with this strategy as India continued to be the favourite outsourcing destination for businesses in UK in terms of satisfaction.

India's most prized resource is its readily available technical work force. India has the second largest English-speaking scientific professionals in the world, second only to the US. It is estimated that India has over 4 million technical workers, over 1,832 educational institutions and polytechnics, which train more than 67,785 computer software professionals every year. The enormous base of skilled manpower is a major draw for global customers. According to a Gartner study, India remains the undisputed leader in offshore services and tops the list of 30 countries on criteria's such as language, government support, labour pool, infrastructure, educational system, cost, political and economic environment, cultural compatibility, global and legal maturity, and data and intellectual property, security and privacy.

Twenty-nine India-based companies including Tata Consultancy Services, HCL Technologies, Genpact, and WNS Global Services amongst others, have been listed among the best 100 IT service providers in a new survey carried out with a view to assist business heads of major outsourcers identify reliable, innovative and tech-savvy partners.

Reference: IBEF

Serialization in Asp.Net

2008-10-04T00:35:00.000-07:00

Serialization, as implemented in the System.Runtime.Serialization namespace, is the process of serializing and deserializing objects so that they can be stored or transferred and then later recreated. Serializing is the process of converting an object into the linear seqence of bytes that can be stored or transferred.Deserializing is the process of converting a previously serialized sequence of bytes into an object.Basically if you want to store an object in a file for later retrieval, you store the output of serialization.The next time you want to read the objects, you call the deserialization methods, and your object is recreated exactly as it had been previosly.

How to serialize an Object:

At a high level, the steps for serializing an object are as follows:

1.Create a stream object to hold a serializing output.

2. Create a BinaryFormatter object(located in System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary).

3. Call the BinaryFormatter.Serialize method to serialize the object, and output the result of the stream.

// C#

string data=”This must be stored in a file.”;

// Create file to save the data to

FileStream fs= new FileStream(”SerializedString.Data”,FileMode.Create);

// Create a BinaryFormatter object to perform the serialization

BinaryFormatter bf=new BinaryFormatter();

// Use the BinaryFormatter object to serialized the data to the file

bf.Serialize(fs, data);

// Close the file

fs.close();

Crystal report in Asp.net

2008-10-03T04:46:00.000-07:00

Basic steps needed to display a simple report in crystal

Step1: Create a web application project.

Step2: Add new item and select crystal report from the template. This adds a new RPT file in your solution explorer.

Step3: Double click on the RPT file click on Crystal reports field explorer. You should see the field explorer toolbar.

Step4: Right click on 'Database field’s on the field explorer ->then click on database expert ->Expand create new connection -> Expand OLE DB ADO -> Select Microsoft OLEDB provider for SQL Server (this depends on what kind of data you want to connect) -> Give the server credentials and Click finish and done.

Step5: Right click on 'Database fields' on the field explorer -> then click on the database expert -> Expand the server, database and select table which you want to add to the report.

Step6: Expand database fields -> table. Now you can drag and drop the fields on the report.

Step7: We now need to display the report on the ASPX page. For that we need the 'CrysalReportViewer' control. So we expand the crystal reports section of the toolbar and drag the component on the ASPX page.

Step8: Now we need to go to code behind and specify the report source. That's it now compile and run the project and you can see your report live in action.

Understanding Cookies

2008-09-24T03:26:00.000-07:00

Cookies

A Cookie is a small text file that the browser creates and stores on the hard drive of your machine. Cookie is just one or more pieces of information stored as text strings. A Web server sends you a cookie and the browser stores it. The browser then returns the cookie to the server the next time the page is referenced. The most common use of a cookie is to store information about the user and preferences the user makes. For example, assume you like DVD's and register with Ebay to participate in online auctions. You are required to fill out a form with your name, credit card details and address. Ebay assigns you an ID, stores your information with that ID in its database on the server, and sends the ID to your browser as a cookie. Your browser stores the ID on your hard disk. The next time you go to Ebay, the ID is sent back to the server. The server looks you up by your ID and customizes the Web page it sends back to you. The page might say, "Cheap rates on your favorite DVD's".

Creating cookies with ASP.NET is simple and straight forward. The System.Web namespace offers a class called HttpCookie to create cookies. The following code demonstrates the creation of cookies. The code assumes that you have a TextBox, two Buttons and a RadioButtonList control with some items in it on a Web Forms page. Check the live code demo at the bottom of this page for more.

Private Sub Select_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As_

System.EventArgs) Handles Select.Click

Dim newCookie As HttpCookie = New HttpCookie("Books")

newCookie.Values.Add("Name", TextBox1.Text)

newCookie.Values.Add("FavBook", RadioButtonList1.SelectedItem.Text)

newCookie.Expires = #12/31/2008#

Response.Cookies.Add(newCookie)

Label3.Text = "Cookie Created"

Select.Visible = False

TextBox1.Visible = False

Label1.Visible = False

Label2.Visible = False

RadioButtonList1.Visible = False

End Sub

Understanding the Code

First, we created a variable called newCookie and an HttpCookie object is instantiated. This object enables us to pass a string when we create it to identify the name that the browser will use to store the cookie. We called it Books.

After we created the object, we added information to it using the Values property and the Add method.

To ensure that the cookie stays on the user's hard drive for a while we set it's date using the HttpCookie object's Expires property.

To get this cookie sent back to the browser and stored on the hard drive we used the Response object.

The code listing above creates and stores the cookie on the user's hard drive which is fine. To retrieve them at a later date, what should be done?

Retriving the cookie

The code below demonstrates how to retrieve a cookie and display information to the user based on his preferences.

Private Sub Retrieve_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As_

System.EventArgs) Handles Retrieve.Click

Label3.visible=False

Label4.Text = "Hello" &" "& Request.Cookies("Books")("Name") & "."&_

"We have a new book for you:"

If Request.Cookies("Books")("FavBook") = "VB" Then

Label5.text="XYZ VB Book"

ElseIf Request.Cookies("Books")("FavBook") = "C#" Then

Label5.text="ABC C# Book"

Else

Label5.text="Ultimate Solution "

End If

End Sub

Understanding the Code

First, we used the Request object to retrieve the cookie and display a message to the user.

Based on the user's selection first time he accessed the page, we display a new book to him using If..Then..Else conditional.

The path to the location on the hard drive where cookies are stored is

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Cookies.

Enumeration in Asp.net

2008-09-22T23:03:00.000-07:00

How to get Enum values:

First of all i will tell you what is Enum in asp.net?

An Enum is a named constant whose underlying type is any integral type except Char. If no underlying type is explicitly declared, Int32 is used. Programming languages typically provide syntax to declare an enumeration that consists of a set of named constants and their values.

Class Enum is derived from class ValueType; that is, Enum is itself a reference type, not a value type.

Enum provides methods to compare instances of this class, convert the value of an instance to its string representation, convert the string representation of a number to an instance of this class, and create an instance of a specified enumeration and value.

How to declare Enum?

// Declare the Enumeration

public enum MessageSize {

Small = 0,

Medium = 1,

Large = 2

}

// Create a Field or Property

public MessageSize msgsize;

// Assign to the property using the Enumeration values

msgsize = Small;

How to Use Enum Using MemberInfo?

do remember to include System.Reflection;

Here is the Example to get the enum values through memberInfo :

MemberInfo[] memberInfos = typeof(MessageSize).GetMembers(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Static);

for (int i = 0; i < memberInfos.Length; i++)

{

ddProperty.Items.Add(new ListItem(memberInfos[i].Name, memberInfos[i].GetType().Name));

}

in the above example i m adding the Values of enum to a DropDown list-ddlProperty.

i hope its enough to get the values of enum using MemberInfo(Thanks to Reflection)

ASP.Net 2.0: Export GridView to Excel + c#

2008-09-09T19:44:00.000-07:00

I faced a problem yesterday where I have to export a gridview content to excel. The problem was as follows :

User is genearating some reports –those reports are displaying in grdviews and he also wants to download these reports into a xls file. So here is the solution-

I cerated a class GridViewExportToExcel,there is a method: Export which will perform the necessary task. GridViewExportToExcel’s code is given below :-

using System;

using System.Data;

using System.Configuration;

using System.IO;

using System.Web;

using System.Web.Security;

using System.Web.UI;

using System.Web.UI.WebControls;

using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;

using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls;

public class GridViewExportToExcel

{

public static void Export(string fileName, GridView gv)

{

HttpContext.Current.Response.Clear();

//Export will take two parameter first one the name of Excel File, and second one for gridview to be exported
HttpContext.Current.Response.AddHeader(

"content-disposition", string.Format("attachment; filename={0}", fileName));

HttpContext.Current.Response.ContentType = "application/octet-stream";

using (StringWriter strWriter = new StringWriter())

{

using (HtmlTextWriter htmlWriter = new HtmlTextWriter(strWriter))

{

// Create a form to contain the grid

Table table = new Table();

// add the header row to the table

if (gv.HeaderRow != null)

{

GridViewExportToExcel.ExportControl(gv.HeaderRow);

table.Rows.Add(gv.HeaderRow);

}

// add each of the data rows to the table

foreach (GridViewRow row in gv.Rows)

{

GridViewExportToExcel.ExportControl(row);

table.Rows.Add(row);

}

// add the footer row to the table

if (gv.FooterRow != null)

{

GridViewExportToExcel.ExportControl(gv.FooterRow);

table.Rows.Add(gv.FooterRow);

}

// render the table into the htmlwriter

table.RenderControl(htmlWriter);

// render the htmlwriter into the response

HttpContext.Current.Response.Write(strWriter.ToString());

HttpContext.Current.Response.End();

}

/// Replace controls with literals

private static void ExportControl(Control control)

{

for (int i = 0; i < control.Controls.Count; i++)

{

Control current = control.Controls[i];

if (current is LinkButton)

{