Posts by savedlema

rproffitt, Thank you! I understand what you are saying but, my settings a quite different; the users (secondary school students in East Africa) are not so technically literate to easily outsmart such a system, or, I would say, it will take them a long time.

And, I don't need a system that will cause data loss, I just want a way to reinforce time limits as in say, a student is only given 45 mins of computer time, and when this time elapses, he/she has to leave the computer for somebody else. One software, Time Watcher, only blinds the screen but doesn't touch the data.

You may be familiar with apps such as Time Watcher. I'm looking forward to creating an application to be used on students' computers to control the amount of time one can be on a computer. When a student is given a computer, she will be allocated say 30 mins, a timer should start counting down while showing the time remaining. When time elapses, the computer should be locked and probably throw a black screen all over with a dialog for entering the passcode and minutes to be allocated for the new session. The app would have "taken control" of the computer (or at least its inputs) for the moment.

I will appreciate any leads.

PS: Technically, I just need to know "how" to take over the computer's controls & screen with VB.NET, I can manage the rest of the timer settings, passcode, etc.

Peace be with you!
I have been developing apps with VB.NET (old fashion??), upon deployment, all my apps connect to a mysql database server by also installing a mysql database server and of course, mysql db connector to other computers together with the app. But, I can see there a lots of other software that do not require a separate installation of a database server, software like QuickBooks..they seem to have their databases embeded in the application. This removes the hassle of having to make a separate install of mysql server to the client who doesn't even know what is. How is this accomplished? Is it possible with VB.NET + Mysql?
Thank you.

Greetings!
I got a mysql database "backup" that someone made and I have to use it, trying to get a website back online. Its a Joomla web database. The person gave me a file "database.txt" (not database.sql) which opens with Notepad. Trying to "import" in phpmyadmin does not work and just gives out errors like

" Ending quote ' was expected. (near "" at position 4438), and " 42 values were expected, but found 21. (near "(" at position 3967)

I'm attaching 2 screeshots here so that you guys can see the contents of this file,somewhere it says mysql dumping, making me feel that the file was created by mysqldump, but I wonder why it shows up as .txt and not .sql file.

Is there a way I can still get this database into my server (offline or online)? I will appreciate a guide or an online tutorial on how to accomplish this. I really do need the database.

Thanks.

Peace be with you all,

So, I would like to set up a website with the following:

1. Job listing where companies can list job openings and people can apply
2. Business directory where organizations can list themselves and their main activities
3. Ads component where people can put advertisements for a particular time frame

I'm looking for an advice on the best way to accomplish this. I know that there are some Joomla extensions that can do this (does Wordpress have this also?), but also I see there are specially designed scripts/web applications that does this which have been there even before the coming of Joomla.

Can you guys advice what would the best option/path for me to take?

Thanks.

The report to be produced is a student academic report that shows student's scores for a particular semester. As an example, one student may be taking (science, math, english) while another takes (science, arts, french) I can pull their scores from the database to a dataset but then, the report form for student one has to show Labels & TextBoxes like

  science:
  math:
  english:

While the other student's report form has to show only the textboxes from his courses, that's

 science:
  arts:
  french:

So here, the challenge is to decide which textboxs (and labels) to show on the form, and then I will put values from the dataset in them.

I was thinking; If I put Label1,Label2,Label3...........Label10 in the form and hide them. Is there a way then after I get the set of courses a student takes, say (science,math,english) to kinda loop through them and do like Label1.Text =science, Label2.text = "math", label3.text = "english" after I un-hide them?

Hi!
So, I have a dataset which is filled with data after a mysql SELECT Statement, I'll call the dataset dsResults.Tables("Results")

Inside the dataset is data that I want to be filled into their respective text boxes. The columns in the dataset are expected to vary, for example, sometimes it may include the month Oct,Nov,Dec and sometimes I will include other months (just an example. Now each "month" in the dataset goes to respective textbox in the form. I will put all textboxes in the form and then hide all of them. After the Select statement executes and fill the dataset with data, I will then unhide the textboxes which their columns exists in the dataset and fill them with respective data from the dataset, while leaving other textboxes hidden.

I think may be it may be possible to do this with a loop? A loop that can read contents of the dataset and then unhide the respective textboxes (this is what I don't know how to do) and fill these textboxes with the data from their dataset.

Any idea please?
Thanks.

Shark_1,
I'm so glad I got it to also find the grade using CASE WHEN.
Thank you for all your help.

My next challenge is to grade the values returned as "total" in the code above to various grades, such as:
90-100 = A
80-90 = B
70-80 = C

I know we can use SELECT...CASE WHEN inside a mysql statement right? any idea please again?

Thanks Shark_1,
That now works perfectly. I took a challenge and added another line to find Average. This is the part that computes the avg

            sqlavg &= "((A." & xsql(i) & "+B." & xsql(i) & ")/3)" & IIf(i < 2, "+", "") ' WORKS WELL

        Next
        sqlstr &= sqlsum & " As Total" & "," & sqlavg & "As Average"

Thank you so much.

Hi Shark_1,
Your post has been SO HELPFUL, Thanks a lot. It has worked perfectly.

Just two more questions, first, did you mean to use this line in your code? You declared the variable but it has never been used.

        `Dim courses As String = "jan,mar"`

But I have decided I can use it to specify what goes into xsql() variable, shouldn't be a problem I think.

And,to get more from tables, I also need to find & add another column for totals. This will hold calculated totals of values returned by the SELECT querry we have just constructed. That is, the SUM of all rows per each id.
To do that, I need to concatenate the SUM() querry to the querry we just made.

This is the code I want concatenated:

,SUM((A.jan+B.jan)+ (A.feb+B.feb) + (A.mar+B.mar)) As Total

I tried this:

            sqlstr &= "(A." & xsql(i) & "+B." & xsql(i) & ") As " & xsql(i) & If(i < 2, ",", "" & " ,SUM((A." & xsql(i) & "+B." & xsql(i) & If(i < 2, ",", "" & "))  As Total"))

But its only concatenating the last month, it does not do the same for other months in the array like the first part of the code. That's, the only thing that shows in the SUM section is SUM((A.mar+B.mar)) As Total

How can I concatenate this successully?

Thanks again.

Hi Shark_1,

I tried this

ConnectionSettings()

        con.Open()
        Dim courses As String = "jan,mar"

        Dim cmd As New MySqlCommand
        cmd.CommandText = "Select A.sid, (A." & LCase((courses)) & "+B." & LCase((courses)) &
                            ") As " & courses & " From first A Inner Join second B On A.id=B.sid Order By A.id"
        cmd.Connection = con
        Dim rd As MySqlDataReader = cmd.ExecuteReader()

        If rd.HasRows() Then
            Dim x As String
            Do While rd.Read()
                x &= String.Format("{0}  {1}", rd("id"), rd(ComboBox2.SelectedItem)) & vbCrLf
            Loop
            MessageBox.Show(x)
        End If
        rd.Close()
        cmd.Dispose()
        con.Dispose()

I changed the user selection input from ComboBox1 to a string value (courses) containing the user selections, but this does not work, it says "the field mar is ambigous"
I first tried to put these values in a ListBox, and changed "ComboBox1" to "ListBox1" in a SELECT statement but also to no avail.
I know I must be missing something here.

Any idea please?

Hey Shark_1!
Thanks again for taking your time to assist with that useful code.
The code does work but sorry, the above code will only bring a total of one selected month, say "Jan" after a user select the month in the ComboBox1. But I would like to be able to pull several months altogether, something like the sample in my OP, like this:

    Table: total
    id   jan  feb   apr
    -----------------------
    2    130  160   150

It looks to me that, the ComboBox won't be helpful here since I will always have to select more than one columns (in fact, it will range from 3 - 10 columns in actual table).

Let me make it clear again that, the columns to be selected (whether they be 3, 4, 9 or whatever) will available in VB.NET as a string variable containing values in the form (jan, feb, apr......), I was wondering, for example, is it possible to Loop though this variable contents?

Thank you.

Hi Shark_1, that code works, but, do you have any idea how I can make the months inside the SELECT to be varying according to the users choice at run time?
For example, sometimes the user will have to leave out both March values. How can I have the program change the SELECT statement at runtime?

The values to be SELECTed will always be specified and in the form (jan,mar,apr) or (feb,mar,apr), now how can take these varrying values into the SELECT statement AT RUNTIME?

Thank you.

Hi!
I have two tables, I will call them first-half and second-half (of the year)

Table: first
id   jan  feb  mar  apr
-----------------------
2     80   90  70    60
3     50   40  60    30

Table: second
id   jan  feb  mar  apr
-----------------------
2     50   70  60    90
3     80   60  50    40

I want to do a SELECT that will bring a total of each individual values (jan, feb, mar, apr) from these tables. Fetch by id. I want something like this:

Table: total
id   jan  feb  mar  apr
-----------------------
2    130  160  130   150

How can I make this possible?
ALSO, I will be so thankful if, in that SELECT statement, I can specify the columns I want as comma separated values, that is, I will not always have to pull values of all columns (jan,feb,mar,apr) but I will choose which values I want (say jan,mar,apr) and this is specified as a result of another SELECT statement which will bring required columns, separated by commas (like: jan,mar,apr)

The goal then, is to generate a report (from VB.NET) that shows all this information from table first, second and total
Thank you.

Hi all!
As of recent, I have been attempting to change a startup form using normal procedures (Project --> Properties -->Application --> Startup form) to no avail. The old startup form (login) still continues to work as a startup one.

I tried:

1. Rebuilding the solution
2. Rebuilding [project name]
3. Saving all forms (of course)
4. Try various setting various forms as startup forms
5. Closing and re-open the project
6. Restarted my computer (problem has persisted for days, so computer restarts happens every now and then)

All this to no avail. I don't know why this is happening and how to resolve. Can someone please help?
Thanks

Hi rproffitt,
Thank you for followup on that thread! For that app I developed (the one for that thread) I had to create too many tables, for instance, I created a table for every school Subject that students take. Then I also created a class table (say Grade 1) then students grades, say Physics was kept in its Phyisisc table and also in the Grade 1 table (for report generation)

For this new project, I want to reduce number of tables and use a single page to contain all students' scores, see ER diagrams attached here

After data entry (marks recording), the table may look like the second attachment
As it can be seen, this table will keep scores/marks for the entire school. I then find it difficult to fetch the marks of a single student (sID) and also compare him with the TOTAL marks of other students in his class to tell his rank in class.

May be this is not a good database design?
Thanks.

I'm not sure whether this is a good question for this forum but, I'm struggling to set up a database to use in my school academic system that is supposed to record all student's scores and then be able to prepare a report that shows students ranks.

The hardest part is, if I have many students and many courses/subjects, and students take 2 tests every semester, how do I set up db tables to record these in such a way that I can later use sql SELECT statements to figure out student's total scores as well as ranks?

I currently have tables for demographic,courses,classes & scores as seen in the attached photo

Back to "Enter ID to search" world!

rproffitt...
As per my post, I'm not needing it for verification, I need it for identification. Currently when patients arrive at the hospital, they are required to give out their IDs, these are entered to the system to search and bring up that patient's information. I would like to make finger print option available, where, instead of a patient having to remember and bring his/her ID number, they can just scan his/her finger and the system would search the database for that patient using captured fingerprint (by matching it with other fingerprints in the database therefore 1:Many)

And, yes, that was an obvious link thanks.

rproffitt...thank you!

Yes, they have free SDKs. But for SecuSearch (which is the one that does 1:Many matching) they also say this:

There are two types of SecuSearch keys that you can create, temporary and permanent. Temporary keys (for product demos and your own internal use) are always free and last for 30 days. One license is created automatically when you install the SDK. Permanent keys cost $200 and can be obtained from me directly

That was the message from their sales person. And that is my problem, I don't want to buy a license after I buy the device. How does this sounds?

Hi everyone!
Long story short; I got a Secugen Hamster IV finger print device. I want to use it in my hospital application to be used in identification of patients at the hosptl. However, I do not find this device to be useful in that they they dont' have current SDKs and they sell you a license which will limit the number of templates you can store. You will also have to buy the license again if you change the HDD for any reasons. I have spent many many hours on this device but nothing good.

Can anyone please advice me of a good device that;

1. Provide current SDKs with sample codes (VB.NET....) and easy to program.
2. No extra costs (like licenses for limited templates number)
3. Cheap (yeah!)

Thank you.

LoaxLoafer,

The SDK included some sample code. However, the codes can only match fingerprints in two created templates, that is, scan a fingerprint and create a 1st template, and then scan a fingerprint and create another 2nd template, and then match 1st and 2nd template. This is easy as it does not involve pulling anything from the database and you are only dealing with comparing a fingerprint against just ONE fingerprint, contrary to like comparing 1 fingerprint to 1000 fingerprints stored in a database.

Thank you.

rproffitt,

Thank you. What's the best way please?

hericles, thank you very much. I was missing the point by assuming that the device will get the fingerprint image that is exaclty the same as the first recorded one. But I realize this is just not possible.

So please, what must I do to match a person fingerprint and give him access?

ryantroop, thanks for your response.
No, data coming in is never the same. My problem is when I want to search for a certain user in the database, and I want to now use fingerprint rather than traditional search by ID or username, I can't search by using the fingerprint scanned at the time of searching. I can save the fingerprint template to the database pretty well, but when I want to search for one particular template/person, the simple normal SELECT FROM WHERE fingerprint = @fingerprint (type byte) returns 0 rows while a fingerprint to match exist.
So, it appears to me as if I need something more than just a normal SELECT FROM statement if I want to match. It seems there is a special case with fingerprint templates??

Advanced Installer

Greetings Daniweb!

Just recently, I was able to integrate a Fingerprint device to my application. Can now scan fingerprints and save them to database using the INSERT TO syntax.

But I can't get my application to match scanned fingerprint to one already stored in the database, so that I could use fingerprint verification instead of the traditional ID Searching.
How it now works:
- After scanning the the fingerprint, the image is stored as fp_image of type byte()
- a normal INSERT TO code inserts the fp_image to the mysql table.
- in the mysql table, the image is stored in column 'fin_pr' of data type LONGBLOB.

What I tried:

• Since a normal INSERT TO did the saving to the database, I assumed that, after scanning the fingerprint from the user, I could then use the normal SELECT FROM syntax to compare the scanned fingerprint and match it to the one that is already in the table. So I did this code:

  SqlRetrieve = "SELECT * FROM demographic WHERE fin_pr = @finger"
  cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@finger", fp_image)
  cmd.Connection = con
  cmd.CommandText = SqlRetrieve

But this does not return any rows, (meaning like, the fingerprint is not found) while I know there is such a fingerprint in the table. Seems like I need to do more?

Can someone here please shed some light on this?

• The device is Secugen's Hamster IV
• I have their SDK and I'm using it.
• I'm on VB.NET + mysql
• I can …

Greetings!
I have been using the code below to restore backups of mysql database taken utilizing the mysql dump for a few years, but suddenly, this does not restore database backups anymore. Is there any change within mysql?
code:

Dim myProcess As New Process()
            myProcess.StartInfo.FileName = "cmd.exe"
            myProcess.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = False
            myProcess.StartInfo.CreateNoWindow = True
            myProcess.StartInfo.WorkingDirectory = "C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.6\bin\"
            myProcess.StartInfo.RedirectStandardInput = True
            myProcess.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = True
            myProcess.Start()
            Dim myStreamWriter As StreamWriter = myProcess.StandardInput
            Dim mystreamreader As StreamReader = myProcess.StandardOutput

            myStreamWriter.WriteLine("mysql -u " & dbuser & " -p" & dbpassword & " " & dbname & " < " & locationOfBackup & "")
            myStreamWriter.Close()
            myProcess.WaitForExit()
            myProcess.Close()

Please note that the "& locationOfBackup" is a varialbe containing the location and the sql file name to be restore, no problem with this.
As I have pointed out, I have been able to restore backups with this until a few months ago. It now says backup restore was completed but there is actually nothing restored.

Server version: 5.6.22-log - MySQL Community Server (GPL)

Any help please?
Thanks!

Hi all!

I made my application and never worried about the Target CPU thing, it is set to AnyCPU. The application writes and reads value from registry (HKLM/Software/MyAppName) and it has been workin find on my Windows 7, 64-bit.

But, today I deployed the applicaiton to Windows 10, also 64-bit and the app could not write to the registry but it was instead, writing the registry values to that Wow6432Node registy entry. Somebody suggested that I change the TargetCPU to x86, I did and the software works well in Windows 10 64-bit, but now it is not working (I mean it can't access the registry) on Windows 7 64-bit, my own development machine when I debug (F5) from VS 2013.

What should I do? How should I set my application so that it will work well on 32-bit and 64-bit? Do I need to make two different installers, one for 32 and another for 64?

Thank you!

Whatever it could be you reason of wanting this, Yahoo (and any other service) would never allow you to do that. Better follow the normal conduct.

You could use a module to send data to both datagridviews

From your explanations, it appears that you have a column with the data type of TIME. I would suggest that you review the table structure (of that column) and specifically, check the default value for that column. Does that column have to be inserted with a record everytime? It seems to me that you are trying to read information in which nothing was stored in that "TIME" column.
As I said, check the default value.

Mr.M, Yes, VB.NET for Windows environment, I agree.

Thank you Mr.M! I will definitely try this & your code and come back here for feedback.
Thanks again.

Thanks Mr.MM, I have one additional question, when taking a backup, instead of specifying a filename as something.sql, can I trick into giving it an extension that is unreadable by sql/text editor (say .gov), then when restoring the backup, rip off the .gov extension and put .sql and then restore the backup??

I think, it depends on your needs. What kind of software do you want to make. If you want to make web-based applications, one would learn php, if you are making software to be installed on individual computers, I use VB.NET for this.

I make my applications with VB.NET and I like it, I have been able to make what I need. I will be doing php in the near future too, for the sake of web-based apps.

Others will give their views.
Good luck!

Sorry, I don't use your way but, did you try setting the image source to "mstream", it appears to me like you have declared "mstream" to hold the image source?

-You didn't say what error do you get from that code.
-You can store your images somewhere in a folder and only store the path to that folder in your database.

Greetings everyone!

I have some codes in my application which makes a backup of mysql database and save the backup .sql file to a location on the hard disk. I made the code in like 2013/early 2014, I think I was then using a now older version of mysql, it worked perfectly.

But now, when I use this, it takes the backup as usual, no problem with the backup itself, the problem, when that code runs, it brings up a black command promp window which shows the used mysql user-name and the password used PLAINLY. After all the hard work I have done to ecrypt the password, this code simple prints out the real password and username just PLAINLY.

I am asking if anyone can suggest to me a better way of taking my backup and restoring them from VB.NET

I'm pasting the backup code here below, but please note that ALL the variables that you see have been well declared before being used and there is no problem with them at all. I decided to leave the declarations code away so as not to post a lengthy unneccessary code here. I'm posting the actual line where backup takes place, thanks.

Code:

Process.Start("" & dumpPath & "", " -u " & dbuser & " -p" & dbpassword & " " & dbname & " -r " & locationOfBackup & "")
**This uses the mysqldump to create backups/dumps, the variable "dumpPath" above is the location of the dump file in …

Hi all!

I have developed my application in VB.NET that uses a mysql database. From my application, I can make mysql backups and restore them. When i take a backup, the result is a .sql file which is saved somewhere. But as usual, one can open that sql file with a text editor (like notepad++) and see everything, database structure (tables) and data stored in tables. One can also make changes to the data in this sql file and restore it to the mysql server and thereby, be able to change the database contents of a live mysql server.

Due to the nature of some of the information contained in the tables of this database, I would't like to give the normal user an opportunity to even discover what's on my database.

How can I achieve this? Is there a way of producing a file of other extension/type rather than .sql that can't be opened by text editors, but at the same time reserve the ability to restore the database?

Thanks for any input.

Thanks ryan...I have been confused with people online who says encryption will not be good its not safe....and others telling me the opposite. Thanks for the link, I'm reading the article.

Hi all!
I'm asking this after reading so many articles on the internet about hashing & salting, and the entire theme of securing database connection settings.

I'm making an application that uses mysql database. Currently, the connection settings are stored as plain text in the Win Registry. Since this is easy to read, I am looking for a way of protecting this password so that even if some bad guy will be able to read it in the registry, he still won't be able to get into my mysql database.

Lots of threads says I should use password hashing with salting. Can someone experienced help me with this?
-Let's say my db password is "yesican", how do I generate the hash&salt
-How do I use the value I saved in the registry, match it with some key to decided where login information is ok or wrong.

I will surely appreciate a guide in this.

Thanks,
Frank.

Thank you, I was able to solve this by considering djjeavons comment and changing "ListBox1.Items" to "item"

Question solved.

Thanks Reverend and djjeavons
I'm sorry, when I was posting the question I had to strip some code off so as to be straight to the questions and unfortunately removed the "VALUES" keyword. My sql statement is like this:

sqlSaveAdd = "INSERT INTO lab_req (req_test) VALUES (@req_test)" 
                cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@req_test", ListBox1.Items)

As I said, no problem with this part, the problem I think is with reading the items and adding them to the database. I still haven't found out. Can someone help please.

Thanks.

Hi all!

I have a form with a combobox, a listbox and 2 command buttons.(see photo and neglect the blank listview)

I select items from the combobox and add items to my listbox after clicking the button.(no problem with this)

Then, I need to save each item of the ListView to my database. There can be more than one item in the Listbox,depending on how many were added by the user. I was thinking of a way to loop through the items and add each one, and stop adding when all have been saved to a database.

I tried this,

For x = 0 To ListBox1.Items.Count - 1
            'For Each item As String In ListBox1.Items

            cmd.Parameters.Clear()
            sqlSaveAdd = "INSERT INTO lab_req ( @req_test)"        
            cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@req_test", ListBox1.Items)

            cmd.CommandText = sqlSaveAdd
            cmd.ExecuteNonQuery()
        Next

Upon running this, it will say data is added but when I check the db, this is what I find "System.Windows.Forms.ListBox+ObjectCollection" saved there.

I also had triend looping with

For Each item As String In ListBox1.Items

                'For Each item As String In ListBox1.Items

                cmd.Parameters.Clear()
                sqlSaveAdd = "INSERT INTO lab_req ( @req_test)"        
                cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@req_test", ListBox1.Items)

                cmd.CommandText = sqlSaveAdd
                cmd.ExecuteNonQuery()
            Next

With the same result; "System.Windows.Forms.ListBox+ObjectCollection" is posted to the db instead of the items.

*I have ommited some codes (like connection settings, no problem with it, also some other items which are saved together with listiview items in other columns)

I will appreciate any help please.
Thanks and peace to you.

Hi all!

I have just developed an application on VB.NET with mysql. I then need to deploy this to clients workstations. The plan is to install mysql server on one computer and have all other clients connect to this. What do I need to install on the server and what do I need on client computers? I have had to ask because this is what I have done so far which I expect should work;

1. Installed mysql server, using mysql community installer, this one has some options to choose (Developer default, server only....), what do I have to install here?
2. I have installed myql connector for VB.NET on clients.

But I keep getting that error "can not load assembly mysql data version=6.5.4.0......" whenever I try to connect to mysql from the application.

Everything works perfectly on my development machine.

So, what exactly is needed on the client computers? Can someone make this clear plese, I seem to be missing something.

Thanks..Peace to the world!

Hallow everyone!
I'm developing an application that features a bunch of reports and I have been using DataGridView as a way of displaying my reports, which come from the database (programmatically). When I want to print, I have been using a function that prints the datagridview like you are taking a screeshot. This is not good as it can only print what is currently seen in the screen, if I have a long list, then only the part that is on the screen will be printed, until I scroll down and print again.

So I am looking for a way to be able to print reports even if they contain 100+ pages. And as I said, my reports are normally on the DataGridView control.

So I'm wondering, should I be printing from the datagridview or switch to VS 2013 Report Viewer? (I can't afford Crystal Reports -400++USD).

What's your opinion friends, I'm finding it really difficult to print contents of a datagridview, but I also don't know functionalities offered by VS report viewer.

Thank you all.

Thanks xrj, sorry, I can't see any attachment, did you forget to attach?

Thanks for the insight OtepTheThird.
I once started working with CrystalReports but I somehow lost interest and decided to just do things in DataGridView.
But I think you can get along with Crystal just well, and if stuck somewhere, you can always come to Daniweb for help.
I'll share good tutorials when I do my self-teach.