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Blog posts on .NET, Azure, and more.
How to implement text to speech in WP7 using BING API
July 19, 2013 by Anuraj
.Net Windows Forms Windows Phone
In WP8, Microsoft introduced libraries for both Text to Speech and Speech to Text without an active internet connection. But this feature is not available in WP7. I found some article implementing Text to Speech using BING API, but seems it is no more working. Here is one implementation using BING REST API, which helps to integrate text to speech in in you WP7 applications.
"The file you are trying to open, [filename], is in a different format than specified by the file extension" error opening Excel file
July 01, 2013 by Anuraj
.Net .Net 3.0 / 3.5 .Net 4.0 Windows Forms
Today I got another problem with Excel file opening. One of the my colleague wrote code to generate XLS / XLSX file using OleDb object. And it was working perfectly. Only problem, while opening the XLS / XLSX file, MS Excel was displaying an error like this.
Registry.LocalMachine.OpenSubKey() returns null
July 01, 2013 by Anuraj
.Net .Net 3.0 / 3.5 .Net 4.0
To verify excel installed on my local system; initially I tried using OpenSubKey() method. But it was always returning null, even though I can see the registry key using regedit.exe. I was using a Windows 8, x64 bit OS and the application was developed in VS 2008, Winforms, x86 platform. Later I found the reason - A 32-bit application on a 64-bit OS will be looking at the HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node node by default. To read the 64-bit version of the key, you’ll need to specify the RegistryView enumeration using OpenBaseKey() method.(This API is added in .Net 4.0.) And if you are using .Net 3.5 or below, either you need to build the application using Any CPU or x64 platform target.
How to detect MS Excel installed on the system
July 01, 2013 by Anuraj
.Net .Net 3.0 / 3.5 .Net 4.0
Today I faced an issue, I want to open an excel file from a Windows application; before opening the file, I want to verify that MS Excel installed on the system. I found a solution using registry from MSDN.
How to generate and read QR code in asp.net
June 24, 2013 by Anuraj
.Net ASP.Net Visual Studio Windows Forms Windows Phone
QR code (abbreviated from Quick Response Code) is the trademark for a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional barcode) first designed for the automotive industry in Japan; a barcode is an optically machine-readable label that is attached to an item and that records information related to that item: The information encoded by a QR code may be made up of four standardized types (“modes”) of data (numeric, alphanumeric, byte / binary, Kanji) or, through supported extensions, virtually any type of data. - Wikipedia.
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