The Windows registry is something like a central database used by the Windows operating system and most applications for storing all sorts of information that can be easily retrieved.  It is organized into tree like structures with keys and values.  It’s important to understand how the registry is organized so you can make an informed decision on where you want to create your keys.  It’s also a real easy way of fouling up your operating system, so BE CAREFUL!

In this example, I wished to store a string value in a key that can be retrieved every time the application starts and a means of allowing the user to update the value at any time.  I accomplished these using two methods in the main class of the application.  For step is to include the appropriate namespace for the Registry classes are located; the namespace is Microsoft.Win32.

using Microsoft.Win32;

Now for the methods:

/// <summary>

/// Check the registry key for the string value.

/// </summary>

/// <returns>string</returns>

private string GetRegistryKey()

{

RegistryKey key Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey("Software\\cSpotInterWorks\\SubkeyName");

if (key == null)

{

key = Registry.CurrentUser.CreateSubKey("Software\\cSpotInterWorks\\SubkeyName");

key.SetValue("ValueName", String.Empty);

}

string myString = key.GetValue("ValueName").ToString();

key.Close();

return myString;

}

/// <summary>

/// Set the registry key with the value string.

/// </summary>

/// <param name="myString">string: A string value.</param>

private void SetRegistryKey(string myString)

{

RegistryKey key = Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey("Software\\cSpotInterWorks\\SubkeyName", true);

if (myString.Length != 0)
 {
 key.SetValue("ValueName", myString);
 }
 key.Close();
}

My application calls GetRegistryKey() in the constructor of the main application class.  The OpenSubKey method is called to open the key at the specified location.  In this case, I used the Software tree with our company name, and the sub-key name.  If the sub- key hasn’t been located the type “key” will be null.  So I check for the null and create the sub-key using the CreateSubKey method.  After the sub-key has been created I populate it with an empty value for use later.

Many code examples do not include the CreateSubKey method.  If you do not include it, a null object reference exception will be thrown.   So be sure to create the sub-key if it doesn’t exist when you open it.

The second method SetRegistryKey(string myString) is used to change the value of the sub-key.  Once again, declare a type that references the sub-key you wish to access.  Use the SetValue method with the value name and the string to be stored.  I didn’t bother checking to see if the sub-key exists as I handled that in the GetRegistryKey() method and never call the SetRegistryKey method first.  That’s entirely up to you.

There’s plenty of written material on the subtleties of the registry.  I hope at least this will get you pointed in the right direction!

Here are the steps I used to complete the upgrade in less than 5 minutes.  Beginning in the directory where you downloaded the Icinga tarball:

$ sudo cp icinga-1.0-RC1.tar.gz /usr/src/
$ cd /usr/src
$ sudo tar xvfz icinga-1.0-RC1.tar.gz
$ cd icinga-1.0-RC1/
$ sudo ./configure
$ sudo make all
$ sudo make install
$ sudo /etc/init.d/icinga restart

This procedure assumes you already have a running installation of Icinga.  Basically you only need to compile the new version and install the binaries, CGI scripts, and HTML files.  Restart Icinga and you’re done!

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Now for the technical specs.  I first installed VirtualBox (providing the necessary virtualization software to install Linux) on a Windows Vista system and then installed Ubuntu Desktop 8.04 LTS.   This was a default installation using GNOME.

Installing LAMP Stack

For this particular situation, I am going to be developing a prototype that requires Apache, PHP, and MySQL.  Fortunately, the stack can be installed quite easily under Ubuntu.  To do so enter the  following command and follow the instructions:

sudo tasksel install lamp-server

You might also want to consider installing Webmin to make life a little easier managing Apache and MySQL.

Installing Ruby

The first step is to install Ruby.  This is quite easy to do with Ubuntu.  Open a terminal window and type the following command:

sudo apt-get install ruby-full build-essential

After Ruby has been installed, you can verify that it is installed by typing:

ruby -v

Now you must install Gems, which is required for installing and managing all the various Ruby components down the line.  Download RubyGems and install it with the following commands:

cd
wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/45905/rubygems-1.3.1.tgz
tar xzvf rubygems-1.3.1.tgz
cd rubygems-1.3.1
sudo ruby setup.rb

Now create a symbolic link to the Gem program and run an update:

sudo ln -s /usr/bin/gem1.8 /usr/bin/gem
sudo gem update –system (two dashes)

After Gem has been updated, it’s time to install Ruby on Rails.  This should install the latest version (2.2.2 or greater), which is needed by the Rhodes microframework.

sudo gem install rails
sudo gem list

You should now see a list of available gems that have been installed.  Before downloading the Rhodes development environment, you will need to install Git.

sudo apt-get install git-core

Now you should be ready to install the Rhodes microframework for developing your mobile applications.  Read the tutorial on the Rhomobile wiki for instructions on installing the Rhosync server and building Rhodes apps.  For my project here are the steps I followed beginning with getting the Rhosync server project:

sudo gem install rspec-rails rake
cd
git clone git://github.com/rhomobile/rhosync.git

After you’ve cloned the Rhosync project, additional software needs to be installed.

sudo apt-get install libmysqlclient15-dev libxml2-dev
sudo gem install mysql

And now we need to finish setting up our Rhosync project and connect it to the database server.

cd rhosync
mkdir -p log
touch log/development.log
sudo chmod 0666 log/development.log
sudo rake gems:install

Edit the database.yml file and use your desired database adapter and configure the development, test, and production database host information.

pico config/database.yml

Now we can initialize the databases and load the adapters that come with the Rhosync server.

rake db:bootstrap

The Ruby installs with WEBrick as the default server.  If you want, you can install Mongrel instead:

sudo gem install mongrel

Now you’re ready to start everything up!

script/server

Test your Rhosyn installation by opening your web browser to:  http://localhost:3000/.  And finally, you should download the Rhodes software for building apps:

cd
git clone git://github.com/rhomobile/rhodes.git rhodes

Check out Rhomobile’s wiki for more detailed instructions on building applications.  They’ve also provided some sample apps to look at.