How do I convert videos files into a .bik format? - video-conversion

I'm in need of some advice after several days of doing research on and off has brought me no answers.
I'm self-taught with coding and I want to create a program in C# with Microsoft Visual Studi (2017) that will convert video files into .bik videos. So I can take an mp3, wmv, etc, and turn them into .bik video files. The reason I state this, is because when I ask in the past, (here or on other sites) people have pointed me to online programs that convert .bik videos into more common file types.
RAD Tools is not an option, as once it's unzipped, it sets off my antivirus defender and I'm not risking my work computer. I've wanted to do this for a while, and now I'm determined to really knuckle down and do it.
So, with someone who has some experience in Unity game development, with C# as their main language of choice, what's the best way to go about learning video conversion to turn common video files into a .bik format?
Whether it's a tutorial, a scripting library, anything is helpful because there's not much information on this out there.

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ColdFusion - I'm not familiar with this application

My boss passed away suddenly, leaving behind little in notes and information and didn't share much with me while I worked with him. He'd been here for 29 years and so took a lot of information with him.
One of the items he had here is a ColdFusion server v9 and a lot of apps that he had written that our users rely on. He loved to write code, 5 different languages I've found so far, me not so much, I know a little. My question is......to keep his apps going ,until I can find replacements for them, is there a web content editing software to go with a ColdFusion server or am I just going to have to pull the plug on his apps when they break?
I found an Adobe Flex Builder 2 CD and an Adobe Creative Suite 3 Web Standard CD. Of any value to me? Looks like they are old versions. With 250 users and equipment, network, etc to take care of I'm a little busy. Any information on this is greatly appreciated.
CFML code (.cfm, and .cfc files) can be edited in any text editor including Notepad. Adobe has an official IDE called ColdFusion Builder. A lot of developers simply use Sublime Text or even Dreamweaver.
CFML is compiled by a just-in-time compiler so you just need to edit the code and then you can refresh the page. If you don't have a dev server, you can install CF locally with a copy of the code on your PC.
I would recommend your company hire someone (or another company) with experience in CF to help you manage the code.
I suggest brackets.io. It has a coldfusion plugin so does code hinting. this is extremely helpful if you don't have too much knowledge of the language.
I'm using Flash Builder 4.6 for Coldfusion 9,10 and Flex MX . If I'm not wrong, you will be needing it to develop Flex/Coldfusion solutions. So your Adobe Flex Builder 2 CD might be handy if you have to support those kind of applications.

Excel ODBC on 64-bit - again

I fear this has been beaten to death, but I'm still struggling with the problem of reading Excel files in my ASP.NET application that has recently been ported to Server 2008 and 64-bit.
Many posts I find point to the existence of 64-bit Microsoft drivers here:
here and here.
My concern is the warnings I'm also reading about these not intended "As a replacement for the Jet OLEDB Provider in server-side applications" possibly for thread-safe reasons? This IS a server-side application and while Excel uploads aren't hundreds-of-times-a-day ocurrances, they will be done by customers.
I know there are also commercial libraries available and while I'm opening to considering them I do worry about the 'revision chase' and not getting burned by them going belly-up (it has happened to us before).
So, IS there a thread-safe, server-safe way to read Excel files in 64 bits?
And before you suggest .CSV, I have a hard enough time getting customers to send me reasonably-formatted Excel files, let alone asking them to export to a .csv.
Oh, and to add yet-another-requirement, I really don't want to run the whole application 32-bit.
You may be able to hook into a Java library such as this:
http://jexcelapi.sourceforge.net/
I have no affiliation with these guys: SpreadsheetGear but their tool completely solved my problem. Wicked fast and server-wide formula evaluation. VERY cool.

Simulating a TWAIN Device

Our company is using some software that ONLY accepts input from an "Imaging Device" i.e. a TWAIN device (e.g. scanner).
The problem is that we are receiving our files digitally, so using an actual scanner would require us to print, scan, and shred documents that we already have on the computer, but not in the software.
I was curious if anybody has any idea of how we might be able to work around this problem in the meantime. My first thought was to find some way to trick the program into thinking we're using a scanner, via some new 'imaging device' that would just read in the file, and spit it out to the software, but I don't even know where to begin with that.
We put in a feature request, seeing as how this problem should obviously be addressed in the software itself, but the company is notorious for lagging pretty hard when it comes to updates.
The system used by scanners is called TWAIN, so you'd be looking for some sort of virtual twain driver.
A quick google search will produce several hits, I don't have any experience with the software myself so can't advise any further.
Two such providers I found via experts exchange:
http://www.twaintools.de
http://www.scanpoint-usa.com
OK, months late... but in case you are interested, I have a TWAIN driver framework/toolkit that might let you build this fairly easily, depending on just what your scanning app expects, and how hard it is to read images from your digital documents. It's a Microsoft Visual C++ project. No charge but you'd need our permission to redistribute a driver based on it: GenDS
The TWAIN Working Group also has a sample/skeleton driver, I think it's straight C - and used to have some rather bad bugs (Why I wrote mine ;-) but, it might have got better.
Look for the "sample data source and application" on their download page.
And of course I have a 'commercial' version of GenDS that I use to write TWAIN drivers on contract.

Mono(non-Windows) Report Writing?

we are making an application to run on both Mono and .Net. The application is web based, so it uses ASP.Net.
We are now trying to find some kind of reporting software. We would prefer if there was a designer that end users(non-programmers) would be able to use like Crystal Reports.
Currently, we are not finding anything that looks even barely capable. We will have shell access on the server that Mono is running from, so it doesn't matter if there is no true web-preview or something as long as it's capable of creating a PDF on the server in an automated way.
Has anyone seen any competent report writing software that runs on Mono? (Also, licensing doesn't matter as long as it's not GPL)
edit:
Really, even running something that isn't Mono such as PHP or something else light on dependencies would be ok as long as it would run on *nix systems. I just am having trouble finding anything for non-windows systems for the server and Windows systems for the designer(this is the justification for the linux tag)
We've finally found a reporting solution. It's not quite as pretty as Crystal or something like that, but it works, and that's what counts.
It is called FlexCel.Net http://www.tmssoftware.com/site/flexcelnet.asp
You basically design reports in Excel using special markup(actually, you can even design reports in OpenOffice cause thats what I had to do cause there is something wrong with Excel licensing for me)
It's pretty powerful and cheap, about $200 USD. I have already gotten a demo to run on Mono after about 5 hours of tinking and trying to understand how the demos worked. It's pretty neat though and well put together from what I've seen.. I'll come back and edit this answer if we later decide that this software is not good and we don't recommend it.
They commercially support running their software on Mono(except for the Winforms portions) and you also get full source code, so it really is a good deal. The range name = reporting band is a bit strange in the template, but it's still seeming better the more we use it.
Have a look at itextsharp
Your users can create PDF documents with fields, and then you can use the itextsharp library to populate it.
One thing I have been looking at recently is Jasper reports. Its just like Crystal Reports, and with JasperServer users can connect to it using the iReport editor. The hurdle I have is getting it to play nice with Mono See Running report on JasperServer from C#

How can i get thumbnails of autocad(dwg) files and show them into "asp:image" control?

I am trying to write a web base document management system(ASP.NET,C#),now i need to show thumbnails of recived files when users viewing them.Thanks for any solutions...
Try here for starters - http://through-the-interface.typepad.com/through_the_interface/2007/10/au-handouts-t-1.html
This is a good AutoCAD programming blog in general. FYI, DWG Trueview is free. I don't know if the COM interface is still accessible but it's worth a try.
You could try using the software available from the Open Design Alliance.
Open Design Alliance
The last time that I was trying to use the DWG TrueView program (connecting to the COM interface) it was pretty flaky, things might have improved.

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