.NET From India

Custom MSDN Library

Was checking out MSDN today and they have a new tool in codeplex called PackageThis. This tool allows you to choose parts of the MSDN library and then store it locally as help file.

This is god send, when you are learning a particular tool and you do not have a very good internet connection.

Also this is a nice code example for people who want to work with the MSDN Content Services, which is a set of web services that allows you to access MSDN content.

WPF/E is SilverLight

Looks like we now have a name for WPF/E - SilverLight.

I don't like the name much, but then MS does not ask me before they name their products though..:)

Excel and Number Format

This post was actually triggered by a mail from a co-MVP, Saurav Basu, on some peculiar behavior he was facing with the way Excel formats numbers. His problems was

 

According to MS KB articles, One may change the Office Excel 2003 thousand separator by changing the Window's regional settings,

Now here is my config, Windows XP SP2 (Installed from Integrated WinXP SP2 Disk), and Office 2003 SP (Installed from Integrated Office2k3 SP2 Disk)..

The problem is, I have changed the Regional Settings in Windows XP to make sure number system separators works like this, 12,34,56,789.00 (India), but I don't see the reflection and Office 2003, Excel. !! Excel 2003 is still placing the numbers, the format, 123,456,789.00.

Since I was running only Excel 2007 (on Vista), I decided to check this out with that.

Surprise, surprise, I change the number format in Advanced Customization and nothing happens in excel (value formatted as Number, with the show thousand separator option chosen). Just out of curiosity I went ahead and changed the settings for the currency format in Vista and Excel changed the number format at once (no close/reopen, looks like they were listening for system setting change events, which is a good thing).

So I guess Excel's number format is based on Vista's Currency format and not its actual Number Format. But do note, this is only for the number grouping style. For all other stuff like the decimal separator, it seems to be taking the settings in the actual Number Format section.

My guess, some programmer just read the wrong registry entry or parameter or there is some documentation in an obscure corner of the microsoft site on why it works this way, but I have been unable to find it:)

.NET from India Show

A lot of travel has made blogging a difficult thing in the last month or so. But I have also been working on a podcast based site called the .NET from India Show.

The aim of this is to have a series of podcasts, most of them in the format of interviews with other experts on topics related to .NET and other Microsoft technologies. The first episode of the show, where I discuss Project server 2007 with Madhu is now available.

Currently I only have a wma version. Will try and see if I can get a MP3 version uploaded later, if I get a free wma-to-mp3 convertor somewhere.