IIS Express – HTTP Error 400. The request hostname is invalid.

The following is the fix for the error “HTTP Error 400. The request hostname is invalid” when trying to browse an IIS Express site using a different host name or IP address.

1. Exit the IIS Express instant currently running.

2. Open IIS Express’s applicationhost.config located at the following path C:\Users\<user>\Documents\IISExpress\config\applicationhost.config

3. Find the entry for a particular site (e.g “Test” running in port 6306) which you are developing.

e.g.

<site name="FlickrTest" id="10">
    <application path="/" applicationPool="Clr4IntegratedAppPool">
        <virtualDirectory path="/" physicalPath="E:\Projects\BB Apps\FlickrTest" />
    </application>
    <bindings>
        <binding protocol="http" bindingInformation="*:6306:localhost" />
    </bindings>
</site>

4. Replace the following

bindingInformation=”*:6306:localhost” with bindingInformation=”*:6306:*

5. Save the file.

6. Start a command prompt in administrator mode and run the following command.

netsh http add urlacl url=http://*:6306/ user=Everyone

7. Now debug the site again and you should be able to access the url using IP address or host name.

Typing Indian Rupee Symbol in Windows Keyboard.

Microsoft on 18 May 2011, released an update KB2496898 to Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 operating systems to include support for the new Indian rupee symbol (₹). This update included font support, locale changes and keyboard support. With the Windows update, it is now possible to use alt code text entry to obtain the Indian Rupee symbol – Alt 8377.

Alt + 8377

Source: Wikipedia

Format FAT32 drives beyond 32GB limit

Recently I was planning to format my 64GB USB Drive with FAT32 format as my Car Player doesn’t support another format and Windows 8 or Mac OS X had the only option being NTFS or exFAT.

So after little bit of googling found out that there is an utility available called fat32format here http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?guiformat.htm.

If you want to know the default allocation sizes, check out the link http://support.microsoft.com/kb/140365

Copy list of files or folders as text from Windows Explorer

Ever wanted to copy a list of files as text from Windows Explorer?

The following has been tested in Windows 8 Pro.

  1. Select files/folder for which you would like to create a list
  2. Once selected, press Shift key and right click mouse on one of the selected files or folders
  3. You will get a menu “Copy as path”, click it
  4. That’s it, now you have the list of selected files/folders in the clipboard
  5. Paste it in any compatible applications like notepad

Intellisense for AXML files doesn’t work in Visual Studio 2012

Most of the people who work with Xamarin’s Mono for Android in Visual Studio 2012 face a bug where Intellisense doesn’t work for AXML in source view.

One of the fix which worked for me is mentioned below.

  1. Launch Visual Studio 2012
  2. Open a solution with .AXML file in it
  3. Now XML main menu should be visible on top
  4. Open “Schemas…” menu
  5. Sort by “File Name” column and see if “android-layout-xml” and “schemas.android.com.apk.res.android” are there. If found, skip to step 13
  6. If not found, go to “Program Files” if 32-bit system or “Program Files (x86)” if 64-bit system.
  7. Then go to “\MSBuild\Novell” or “\MSBuild\Xamarin\Android”
  8. You should be able to see 2 files “android-layout-xml.xsd” and “schemas.android.com.apk.res.android.xsd”
  9. Copy these 2 files to “\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Xml\Schemas”
  10. Again open the “Schemas…” menu as mentioned in steps 3&4
  11. Now click “Add…” button and add these 2 files which should be located as mentioned in step 7 & 8
  12. Now restart visual studio and the XML editor for design layout should work fine with Intellisense
  13. From step 5….
  14. If above steps don’t work, then close the Visual Studio 2012.
  15. Now open “Developer command prompt for VS2012” under Windows programs menu.
  16. Type “Devenv /ResetSettings” without quotes.
  17. Launch Visual Studio 2012 and see if Intellisense works.
  18. If still not working, better go to Xamarin  forums and post there.

DPReview Studio Shot Camera Comparision Configurator

Yesterday I posted about the DPReview’s “Studio Shot Comparison Tool“. Today I am posting a user friendly configurator tool.

Features:

  1. Primary Camera selection
  2. Automatic selection of slots based on numbe.r of camera’s selected.
  3. Pure jQuery hence very fast.

View it at http://apps.binarybits.net/dprtool/

For any issues or feature requests go to http://contact.binarybits.net and choose the section “DPReview Studio Shot Comparison Tool Configurator”

Windows 8 Treasure Hunt – The Series

Windows 8 Pro has been like a treasure hunt to me. On regular use I find some interesting things which I didn’t knew they existed.

I am going to list the features I like most whenever I encounter them and list them here.

Note: Windows® is a trademark of the Microsoft group of companies