iPhone or Android

ASP.NET GridRow - Get Cell when you don't know the index - using HeaderText, DataField, SortExpression etc.

Sometimes you want to reference a cell in a gridview row, but you don't know its ordinal index, so Row.Cells[x] is no good for you. In this circumstance it would be nice to say something like "just get me the cell from the column with the HeaderText value 'Price'".

Voila:

       public static int GetCellIndexByFieldHandle(this GridView grid, string fieldHandle)
        {
            int iCellIndex = -1;

            for (int iColIndex = 0; iColIndex < grid.Columns.Count; iColIndex++)
            {
                if (grid.Columns[iColIndex] is DataControlField)
                {
                    DataControlField col = (DataControlField)grid.Columns[iColIndex];
                    if ((col is BoundField && string.Compare(((BoundField)col).DataField, fieldHandle, true) == 0)
                        || string.Compare(col.SortExpression, fieldHandle, true) == 0
                        || col.HeaderText.Contains(fieldHandle))
                    {
                        iCellIndex = iColIndex;
                        break;
                    }
                }
            }
            return iCellIndex;
        }

Usage:

   void myGrid_RowDataBound(object sender, GridViewRowEventArgs e)
    {
        if (e.Row.RowType == DataControlRowType.DataRow)
        {
             TableCell cellPrice = e.Row.Cells[e.Row.GetCellIndexByFieldHandle('Price')];
        }
    }

The method works for column HeaderText, DataField and SortExpression, so you should always have a way to grab hold of that cell. One caveat - it can't reference AutoGenerated columns. They have to be defined in the GridView template a la:

<Columns>
     <asp:BoundField DataField="Price" />
</Columns>

or

<Columns>
    <asp:TemplateField HeaderText="Price">
    <ItemTemplate>
        <asp:Label ID="lblPrice" runat="server" />
    </ItemTemplate>
    </asp:TemplateField>  
</Columns>

A JQuery function to set the value of all input controls which have an ID containing a given string

        function setAll(idFilter, value) {

            $('input[id*=' + idFilter + ']').each(function() {
                $(this).val(value);
            });
        }

JQuery has some superduper wildcard attribute selectors like *= (contains), ^= (begins with) and $= (ends with). More here.

iPhone on Orange - Cellular Data Network problem

I have an iPhone 3GS on the Orange UK network. It stopped being able to access the internet by any means other than wifi. 3G, Edge, GPRS - none of it worked.

I phoned Orange support - they said that a Carrier Settings update had screwed up the configuration. Normally, you can manually configure your phone in the Settings > General > Network > Cellular Data Network menu, but the Orange carrier settings update restricts your access to this.

To sort the problem, I had to do a full restore, allow the iPhone to reconnect with Orange via iTunes, but then deny the requests to update the Carrier Settings. By doing this, the Cellular Data Network menu was restored and I was able to set the APN correctly to orangeinternet (no user/pass required). Now internet could be accessed by the cellular data network again.

After a few days I did another sync with iTunes and this time when the carrier settings prompt appeared, I allowed it to update. Again, the Cellular Data Network menu was removed and although the phone continued to be able to access the internet without WIFI, I was annoyed to discover that the phone seemed to have had its MMS settings removed - it had even removed the option to send a photo as an MMS.

Before I resorted to doing another restore, I tried turning the phone off and on again - hey presto, MMS came back and all was okay again. Phew!

Addictive Drums + Reaper + Roland TD3 VDrums + MIDI UM-1G USB

Maybe you're a daft sod like me that doesn't read the instructions, but I had a few hurdles setting up this combo. So here's some tips.

1. Attach the UM-1G unit MIDI OUT cable to the MIDI OUT socket on the TD-3.
2. Install the UM-1G drivers in Windows and then attach the UM-1G USB cable.
3. Download ASIO4ALL v2 and install.
4. Install Addictive Drums.
5. Fire up Reaper.
6. In Preferences > Audio > MIDI Devices, Enable the UM-1G.
7. In Preferences > Audio > Device, Select Audio System : ASIO and choose Asio4All as the Driver.
8. Create a new track and arm it. Turn record monitoring on. Select MIDI > UM-1G > All Channels as the Input source. Enter FX, add the Addictive Drums VSTi.

At this point you should be getting sound out of your drums.

If you can't find the Addictive Drums instrument, maybe you should locate the vst file and place in the Reaper VST path?

If the MIDI map is wrong for your kit, go into the AD VST and click the "?" button - open the Map Window. Under Map Preset, choose Roland > TD-3. You can do further custom mapping by creating a Reaper JS file in the Program Files / Reaper / Effects folder. I found a couple of useful ready-made ones here.

I now realise that ASIO4ALL grabs the sound device and stops other apps like Windows Media Player from using it - annoying when you want to jam. I don't know a way round it, can anyone shed some light? At the moment it's okay cos I've hooked up my GuitarPort and am using it's ASIO driver instead of ASIO4ALL.

Comments / Questions appreciated!

LogiTech S530 Keyboard + Mouse For Mac - On Windows

Quick one - if like me you're using a Mac with Bootcamp and wondered if your Logitech S530 keyboard/mouse combo would work okay with Windows (and Win 7 in my case) - the answer is yes. It works fine out of the box.

Even better news is it works with the S510 drivers (SetPoint suite) if you download them off the Logitech site here.

When you do that all the cool shortcut buttons work as intended - volume control, quicklaunch etc.

Hope that helps someone!