Can't RDP? How to enable / disable virtual machine firewall for Azure VM

Oh no!  I accidentally blocked the RDP port on an Azure virtual machine which resulted in not being able to log into the VM anymore.  I did this recently because I was setting up Azure Bastion as there were a LOT of attempts to RDP into the public IP on the VM.

 The Bastion service installation automatically adds a VNET firewall rule to allow Azure to RDP into the VM.  I tested this and it worked gloriously, thus I removed the open RDP port on the VM.  That was the mistake!  Bastion still needs the RDP port open...on the VM itself.  My mistake was I should have blocked (or not allowed) the RDP port on the VNET firewall, not the VM itself.

If you find yourself in the same situation, unable to log back into a VM because the port is not open, you can log into the Azure portal, select your VM, then choose Run Command from the left-side.  This will prompt you for a command type, choose Powershell.

The command to fully disable the firewall, temporarily, is:

Run Command > RunPowershellScript and then run -

Set-NetFirewallProfile -Profile Domain,Public,Private -Enabled False 

Bingo, quickly RDP back into your VM (or now use Bastion since it can also access the VM now), open your RDP port. Once that is done, add a Deny rule to your VM's network; this should be done AFTER the priority rule for Bastion itself.  Finally, re-enable your VM's firewall.

Set-NetFirewallProfile -Profile Domain,Public,Private -Enabled True

I hope this helps if you find yourself in this unfortunate position.

[SOLVED] You'll need a new app to open this windowsdefender link

Recently when I tried to access :Virus & threat protection" on my Windows 10 computer, I would get the following:

This was fixed by:

1. Open Powershell in admin mode
2. Execute: Add-AppxPackage -Register -DisableDevelopmentMode "C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.SecHealthUI_cw5n1h2txyewy\AppXManifest.xml"
3. Reboot

Wired network missing on Ubuntu 20.04 with VMWare Workstation Pro 15

I don't think this really has to do with VMWare Workstation, but a fresh new Ubuntu 20.04 install was missing the wired network. This was fixed by:

Modify /etc/netplan/01-network-manager-all-yaml

network:
  version: 2
  renderer: networkd
  ethernets:
    ens33:
      dhcp4: true

Execute cmds:

$ sudo netplan generate

$ sudo netplan apply

$ sudo service network-manager restart

Powershell: Tail file

You can easily tail a file on Windows using PowerShell.

Get-Content myFileName -Wait

Visual Studio 2019 - Favorite Less-Known Keyboard Shortcuts

Some of the less well-known keyboard shortcuts in Visual Studio 2019 that I enjoy.

Ctrl Q => VS command search
Alt ~ => special context menu
Ctrl Shift V - clipboard history
Ctrl ; => search solution explorer
Ctrl Alt Click => set multi-caret edit locations
Ctrl Alt . => select next multi-caret edit location
Ctrl Alt ; => select all multi-caret edit locations
Ctrl Shift Backspace => go to last edit location
Ctrl - => go to last cursor location
Ctrl T => type r for recent files opened
Ctrl K Ctrl X => insert code snippet
Ctrl K Ctrl S => surround code with snippet
Shift Alt [ => go to containing block

There are many other ones demo'd in this Microsoft video.

SQL Server: List all tables in a specific schema

SELECT * 
FROM sys.objects 
WHERE schema_id = SCHEMA_ID('schemaName') and type='U'


'U' stands for User table.

Windows Explorer: Search for files/folders with exact name only

Once and a while I want to search a directory structure and find all the files or folders that only match a specific name only.  Here is the quick way to do this in the Windows Explorer search box (Ctrl-E):

File

name:=seachName

Folder

kind:=folder name:=searchName

Spectacularly simple and flexible jQuery drop-down plugin (Bootstrap 4)

Here is a very simple, yet flexible, custom drop-down selection control.  Very lightweight JavaScript and all the needed options.  You can also register to be notified of a selection and have it pass you a HTML "data-" tag value.  You'll need jQuery and Bootstrap.

Note: You write your use normal Bootstrap 4 drop-down menu code, then just create an instance of the plugin, and wah-lah!  Very nice.

Give it a whirl on on JsFiddle.

[Solved] Convert complex C#/JSON object to query string, ASPNET Core 2.0

I had to call an internal web page using HttpClient to get the HTML.  The Razor Page's OnGetAsync expected a C# complex object (nested types) as a parameter.  Here is a string extension, JsonAsQueryString, to convert a complex object into a query string for ASPNET Core 2.0.  I just converted the C# complex object to JSON using JsonConvert.Serialize, then use this extension method.

    public static class StringExtensions
    {
        public static string JsonAsQueryString(this string json)
        {
            return ParseJObject(json, string.Empty);
        }

        private static string ParseJObject(string json, string parentField = "")
        {
            var jo = (JObject)JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(json);
            var query = String.Join("&",
                jo.Children().Cast<JProperty>()
                .Select(jp => StringExtensions.ParseJProperty(jp, parentField)));

            return query;
        }

        private static string ParseJProperty(JProperty jp, string parentField)
        {
            var parentFormat = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(parentField) ? string.Empty : $"{parentField}.";

            if (jp.Value as JArray != null)
            {
                // this object is an array; repeat names
                var tokens = string.Join("&", jp.Value
                    .Select(t => $"{parentFormat}{jp.Name}={HttpUtility.UrlEncode(t.ToString())}"));

                return tokens;
            }
            else if (jp.Value.Type == JTokenType.Object)
            {
                // nested object; make a recursive call
                return StringExtensions.ParseJObject(jp.Value.ToString(), $"{parentFormat}{jp.Name}");
            }
            else
            {
                // normal member
                return $"{parentFormat}{jp.Name}={HttpUtility.UrlEncode(jp.Value.ToString())}";
            }
        }
    }

Vue 2.0 modal in Bootstrap 4, a confirmation modal example for everyone

I was a bit tired of looking for a suitable example of using a Bootstrap 4.0 modal within Vue.js.

Here is a Vue component to do just that.  I've included an example of how to use.  After the initial comments of the Example, everything else is your JavaScript component file.

I welcome comments if folks have improvements...but let's keep it simple for everyone else.

 // jQuery required as Bootstrap uses it, but if you use another non-jQuery  
 // modal framework, you can modify the show() function to remove jQuery modal 'show'  
 //  
 // Example:  
 //  
 // <div id="app">  
 //  <button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary" v-on:click="$refs.modal.show()">Modal</button>  
 //  <confirm-component ref="modal" v-bind:options="confirmOptions()" v-on:closeCancel="cancel" v-on:closeNo="no" v-on:closeYes="yes"></confirm-component>  
 // </div>  
 //  
 // <script>  
 // var vueApp = new Vue({  
 //  el: '#app',  
 //  ...  
 //  
 // confirmOptions() {  
 //  return {  
 //    title: '<i>Do you really want to do this?</i>',  
 //    message: 'Going to do something really <strong>major</strong>...continue?',  
 //  
 //    textCancel: 'CANCEL', // defaults to 'Cancel'  
 //    textNo: 'NO',     // defaults to 'No'  
 //    textYes: 'YES',    // defaults to 'Yes'  
 //  
 //    showNo: true,     // defaults to true  
 //    showNo: false,     // defaults to false  
 //    showYes: true     // defaults to true  
 //  };  
 // }  
 // cancel() {  
 //  alert('cancel');  
 // },  
 // no() {  
 //  alert('no');  
 // },  
 // yes() {  
 //  alert('yes');  
 // }  
 // });  
 // </script>  
   
   
 "use strict";  
 Vue.component('confirm-component', {  
    props: ['options'],  
    methods: {  
       show() {  
          $('#confirmModalComponent').modal('show');  
       }  
    },  
    computed: {  
       modalTitle() {  
          return this.options.title ? this.options.title : '';  
       },  
       modalMessage() {  
          return this.options.message ? this.options.message : '';  
       },  
       modalTextCancel() {  
          return this.options.textCancel ? this.options.textCancel : 'Cancel';  
       },  
       modalTextNo() {  
          return this.options.textNo ? this.options.textNo : 'No';  
       },  
       modalTextYes() {  
          return this.options.textYes ? this.options.textYes : 'Yes';  
       },  
       showCancel() {  
          return this.options.showCancel ? this.options.showCancel : true;  
       },  
       showNo() {  
          return this.options.showNo ? this.options.showNo : false;  
       },  
       showYes() {  
          return this.options.showYes ? this.options.showYes : true;  
       },  
       closeCancel() {  
          this.$emit('closeCancel');  
       },  
       closeNo() {  
          this.$emit('closeNo');  
       },  
       closeYes() {  
          this.$emit('closeYes');  
       }  
    },  
    template: `  
 <div class="modal fade" id="confirmModalComponent" tabindex="-1" role="dialog" aria-labelledby="confirmModalComponentLabel" aria-hidden="true">  
  <div class="modal-dialog" role="document">  
   <div class="modal-content">  
    <div class="modal-header">  
     <h5 class="modal-title" id="confirmModalComponentLabel" v-html="modalTitle"></h5>  
     <button type="button" class="close" data-dismiss="modal" aria-label="Close">  
      <span aria-hidden="true">&times;</span>  
     </button>  
    </div>  
    <div class="modal-body" v-html="modalMessage">  
    </div>  
    <div class="modal-footer justify-content-between">  
     <div>  
       <button v-if="showCancel" type="button" class="btn btn-primary" :click="closeCancel" data-dismiss="modal">{{modalTextCancel}}</button>  
     </div>  
     <div>  
       <button v-if="showNo" type="button" class="btn btn-primary" :click="closeNo" data-dismiss="modal">{{modalTextNo}}</button>  
       <button v-if="showYes" type="button" class="btn btn-success" :click="closeYes" data-dismiss="modal">{{modalTextYes}}</button>  
     </div>  
    </div>  
   </div>  
  </div>  
 </div>  
 `  
 });  

Easily convert JSON to C# strongly-typed classes

Check out this handy online tool to convert JSON to C# strongly-typed classes!

https://quicktype.io