Check a URL exist or not using C#

static bool CheckURL(String url)
{
if(String.IsNullOrEmpty(url))
return false;

WebRequest request = WebRequest.Create(url);

try
{
HttpWebResponse res = request.GetResponse() as HttpWebResponse;

if (res.StatusDescription == "OK")
return true;
}
catch
{
}

return false;
}

Creating a zip file using C#

Using the System.IO.Compression namespace in Codeplex a classlibrary project is going on name DotNetZip

The class library has a ZipFile class. Using this, you can create zip files using the below code

ZipFile zip= new ZipFile("MyNewZip.zip");

zip.AddDirectory("My Pictures", true); // AddDirectory recurses subdirectories

zip.Save();

Encyption/Decryption in C# and Java

C# Code


string Decrypt(string textToDecrypt, string key)
{
RijndaelManaged rijndaelCipher = new RijndaelManaged();
rijndaelCipher.Mode = CipherMode.CBC;
rijndaelCipher.Padding = PaddingMode.PKCS7;

rijndaelCipher.KeySize = 0x80;
rijndaelCipher.BlockSize = 0x80;
byte[] encryptedData = Convert.FromBase64String(textToDecrypt);
byte[] pwdBytes = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(key);
byte[] keyBytes = new byte[0x10];
int len = pwdBytes.Length;
if (len > keyBytes.Length)
{
len = keyBytes.Length;
}
Array.Copy(pwdBytes, keyBytes, len);
rijndaelCipher.Key = keyBytes;
rijndaelCipher.IV = keyBytes;
byte[] plainText = rijndaelCipher.CreateDecryptor().TransformFinalBlock(encryptedData, 0, encryptedData.Length);
return Encoding.UTF8.GetString(plainText);
}

string Encrypt(string textToEncrypt, string key)
{
RijndaelManaged rijndaelCipher = new RijndaelManaged();
rijndaelCipher.Mode = CipherMode.CBC;
rijndaelCipher.Padding = PaddingMode.PKCS7;

rijndaelCipher.KeySize = 0x80;
rijndaelCipher.BlockSize = 0x80;
byte[] pwdBytes = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(key);
byte[] keyBytes = new byte[0x10];
int len = pwdBytes.Length;
if (len > keyBytes.Length)
{
len = keyBytes.Length;
}
Array.Copy(pwdBytes, keyBytes, len);
rijndaelCipher.Key = keyBytes;
rijndaelCipher.IV = keyBytes;
ICryptoTransform transform = rijndaelCipher.CreateEncryptor();
byte[] plainText = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(textToEncrypt);
return Convert.ToBase64String(transform.TransformFinalBlock(plainText, 0, plainText.Length));
}


Java Code

String Decrypt(String text, String key) throws Exception{
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5Padding");
byte[] keyBytes= new byte[16];
byte[] b= key.getBytes("UTF-8");
int len= b.length;
if (len > keyBytes.length) len = keyBytes.length;
System.arraycopy(b, 0, keyBytes, 0, len);
SecretKeySpec keySpec = new SecretKeySpec(keyBytes, "AES");
IvParameterSpec ivSpec = new IvParameterSpec(keyBytes);
cipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE,keySpec,ivSpec);

BASE64Decoder decoder = new BASE64Decoder();
byte [] results = cipher.doFinal(decoder.decodeBuffer(text));
return new String(results,"UTF-8");
}

String Encrypt(String text, String key)
throws Exception {
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5Padding");
byte[] keyBytes= new byte[16];
byte[] b= key.getBytes("UTF-8");
int len= b.length;
if (len > keyBytes.length) len = keyBytes.length;
System.arraycopy(b, 0, keyBytes, 0, len);
SecretKeySpec keySpec = new SecretKeySpec(keyBytes, "AES");
IvParameterSpec ivSpec = new IvParameterSpec(keyBytes);
cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE,keySpec,ivSpec);

byte[] results = cipher.doFinal(text.getBytes("UTF-8"));
BASE64Encoder encoder = new BASE64Encoder();
return encoder.encode(results);
}

Convert time from one timezone to another in .Net

DateTime dlocal = DateTime.Now;

DateTime dNonLocal = TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTime(dlocal, TimeZoneInfo.FindSystemTimeZoneById("US Mountain Standard Time"));

Comma delimted String from List of String using C#

When you have a list of strings like IList of IEnumerable and you want to convert it to for example a comma separated list you can easily do that with the String.Join method.

List<string> list = new List<string>() { "A" , "B", "C", "D", "E" };

string commaSeparated = String.Join(",", list.ToArray());

The output will be like this:

A,B,C,D,E

This is an easy and clean way to create a delimiter separeated list of strings.

Getting calling method name in C# using Reflection

The name of the calling method can be extracted from the stack. Since the method on top of the stack is the method that is currently being executed, the calling method will be right below it. Thus, by instantiating StackTrace and getting the frame with index 1 will result in getting a StackFrame that corresponds to the call from the calling method. Finally, reflection can be used to get method name.

using System.Diagnostics;
 
void Log(string eventMessage)
{
   Console.WriteLine("Event logged by " + (new StackTrace()).GetFrame(1).GetMethod().Name);
   Console.WriteLine("Event: " + eventMessage);

}

Enabling Aero and Glass Effects on Vista Home Basic

For enabling Aero you can do the following steps

Regedit:

HKCU/Software/Microsoft/Windows/DWM/

Composition = 1
CompositionPolicy = 2

Right click Command Prompt and run as admin:

net stop uxsms
net start uxsms

For enabling glass there is no hacks till found, one workaround is to use the free utility Glass2K from the below link

http://chimetv.com/tv/products/glass2k/Glass2k.exe