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• It was a figure of speech!

  - by Ratman21

  Yesterday I posted the following as attention getter / advertisement (as well as my feelings). In the groups, (I am in) on the social networking site, LinkedIn and boy did I get responses.    I am fighting mad about (a figure of speech, really) not having a job! Look just because I am over 55 and have gray hair. It does not mean, my brain is dead or I can no longer trouble shoot a router or circuit or LAN issue. Or that I can do “IT” work at all. And I could prove this if; some one would give me at job. Come on try me for 90 days at min. wage. I know you will end up keeping me (hope fully at normal pay) around. Is any one hearing me…come on take up the challenge!     This was the responses I got.   I hear you. We just need to retrain and get our skills up to speed is all. That is what I am doing. I have not given up. Just got to stay on top of the game. Experience is on our side if we have the credentials and we are reasonable about our salaries this should not be an issue.   Already on it, going back to school and have got three certifications (CompTIA A+, Security+ and Network+. I am now studying for my CISCO CCNA certification. As to my salary, I am willing to work at very reasonable rate.   You need to re-brand yourself like a product, market and sell yourself. You need to smarten up, look and feel a million dollars, re-energize yourself, regain your confidents. Either start your own business, or re-write your CV so it stands out from the rest, get the template off the internet. Contact every recruitment agent in your town, state, country and overseas, and on the web. Apply to every job you think you could do, you may not get it but you will make a contact for your network, which may lead to a job at the end of the tunnel. Get in touch with everyone you know from past jobs. Do charity work. I maintain the IT Network, stage electrical and the Telecom equipment in my church,   Again already on it. I have email the world is seems with my resume and cover letters. So far, I have rewritten or had it rewrote, my resume and cover letters; over seven times so far. Re-energize? I never lost my energy level or my self-confidents in my work (now if could get some HR personal to see the same). I also volunteer at my church, I created and maintain the church web sit.   I share your frustration. Sucks being over 50 and looking for work. Please don't sell yourself short at min wage because the employer will think that’s your worth. Keep trying!!   I never stop trying and min wage is only for 90 days. If some one takes up the challenge. Some post asked if I am keeping up technology.   Do you keep up with the latest technology and can speak the language fluidly?   Yep to that and as to speaking it also a yep! I am a geek you know. I heard from others over the 50 year mark and younger too.   I'm with you! I keep getting told that I don't have enough experience because I just recently completed a Masters level course in Microsoft SQL Server, which gave me a project-intensive equivalent of between 2 and 3 years of experience. On top of that training, I have 19 years as an applications programmer and database administrator. I can normalize rings around experienced DBAs and churn out effective code with the best of them. But my 19 years is worthless as far as most recruiters and HR people are concerned because it is not the specific experience for which they're looking. HR AND RECRUITERS TAKE NOTE: Experience, whatever the language, translates across platforms and technology! By the way, I'm also over 55 and still have "got it"!   I never lost it and I also can work rings round younger techs.   I'm 52 and female and seem to be having the same issues. I have over 10 years experience in tech support (with a BS in CIS) and can't get hired either.   Ow, I only have an AS in computer science along with my certifications.   Keep the faith, I have been unemployed since August of 2008. I agree with you...I am willing to return to the beginning of my retail career and work myself back through the ranks, if someone will look past the grey and realize the knowledge I would bring to the table.   I also would like some one to look past the gray.   Interesting approach, volunteering to work for minimum wage for 90 days. I'm in the same situation as you, being 55 & balding w/white hair, so I know where you're coming from. I've been out of work now for a year. I'm in Michigan, where the unemployment rate is estimated to be 15% (the worst in the nation) & even though I've got 30+ years of IT experience ranging from mainframe to PC desktop support, it's difficult to even get a face-to-face interview. I had one prospective employer tell me flat out that I "didn't have the energy required for this position". Mostly I never get any feedback. All I can say is good luck & try to remain optimistic.   He said WHAT! Yes remaining optimistic is key. Along with faith in God. Then there was this (for lack of better word) jerk.   Give it up already. You were too old to work in high tech 10 years ago. Scratch that, 20 years ago! Try selling hot dogs in front of Fry's Electronics. At least you would get a chance to eat lunch with your previous colleagues....   You know funny thing on this person is that I checked out his profile. He is older than I am.

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• BizTalk: Suspend shape and Convoy

  - by Leonid Ganeline

  Part 1: BizTalk: Instance Subscription and Convoys: Details This is a Part 2. I am discussing the Suspend shape together with Convoys and going to show that using them together is undesirable. In previous article we investigated the Instance Subscriptions and how they could create situation with dangerous zones in processing.  Let' start with Suspend shape. [See the BizTalk Help] "You can use the Suspend shape to make an orchestration instance stop running until an administrator explicitly intervenes, perhaps to reflect an error condition that requires attention beyond the scope of the orchestration. All of the state information for the orchestration instance is saved, and will be reinstated when the administrator resumes the orchestration instance. When an orchestration instance is suspended, an error is raised. You can specify a message string to accompany the error to help the administrator diagnose the situation."   On the Suspend shape the orchestration is stopped in the Suspended (Resumable) state. Next we have two choices, one is to resume and the second is to terminate the orchestration. Is the orchestration is stopped or unenlisted? You don't find a note about it anywhere. The fact is the Orchestration is stopped and still enlisted. It is very important. So again, the suspended orchestration can be resumed or terminated. The moment when the operator or the operation script resumes or terminates can be far away. It is also important too. Let's go back to the case from previous article. Make sure you notice the convoy and the dangerous zone after the last Receive shape.     Now we have a Suspend shape inside the orchestration. The first orchestration instance is suspended. Next messages start new orchestration instance and have been consumed by this orchestration, right? Wrong! The orchestration is stopped on the Suspend shape but still enlisted. Now the dangerous zone, the "zombie zone" is expanded to the interval between the last receive and the moment of termination or end of the orchestration. The new orchestration instance for this convoy will not start till this moment. How fast operator finds out this suspended orchestration? Maybe hours or days. All this time orchestration is still enlisted and gathering the convoy messages. We can resume the orchestration but we cannot resume these messages together with orchestration. Seems the name Suspended of the orchestration is misleading. The orchestration can be in the Started (and Enlisted)/Stopped (and Enlisted)/Unenlisted state. The Suspend shape switches orchestration exactly to the Stopped state. The Stop name would describe the shape clearly and unambiguously and the Stopped state would describe the orchestration. Imagine we can change the BizTalk. The Orchestration editor can search these situations and returns the compile error. In similar case the Orchestration Editor forces us to use only ordered delivery port with convoys. The run-time core can force the orchestration with convoy be suspended in Unresumable state, that means the run-time unenlists the orchestration instance subscriptions. The Suspend shape name should be changed. The "Suspend" name is misleading. The "Stop" name is clear and unambiguous. The same for the orchestration state, it should be “Stopped” not “Suspended (Resumable)”.   Conclusion:  It is not recommended using a Suspend shape together with the convoy orchestrations.

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• Send Multiple InMemory Attachments Using FileUpload Controls

  - by bullpit

  I wanted to give users an ability to send multiple attachments from the web application. I did not want anything fancy, just a few FileUpload controls on the page and then send the email. So I dropped five FileUpload controls on the web page and created a function to send email with multiple attachments. Here’s the code: public static void SendMail(string fromAddress, string toAddress, string subject, string body, HttpFileCollection fileCollection)     {         // CREATE THE MailMessage OBJECT         MailMessage mail = new MailMessage();           // SET ADDRESSES         mail.From = new MailAddress(fromAddress);         mail.To.Add(toAddress);           // SET CONTENT         mail.Subject = subject;         mail.Body = body;         mail.IsBodyHtml = false;                        // ATTACH FILES FROM HttpFileCollection         for (int i = 0; i < fileCollection.Count; i++)         {             HttpPostedFile file = fileCollection[i];             if (file.ContentLength > 0)             {                 Attachment attachment = new Attachment(file.InputStream, Path.GetFileName(file.FileName));                 mail.Attachments.Add(attachment);             }         }           // SEND MESSAGE         SmtpClient smtp = new SmtpClient("127.0.0.1");         smtp.Send(mail);     } And here’s how you call the method: protected void uxSendMail_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)     {         HttpFileCollection fileCollection = Request.Files;         string fromAddress = "[email protected]";         string toAddress = "[email protected]";         string subject = "Multiple Mail Attachment Test";         string body = "Mail Attachments Included";         HelperClass.SendMail(fromAddress, toAddress, subject, body, fileCollection);            }

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• Find an element in a JavaScript array

  - by Aligned

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/Aligned/archive/2014/08/22/find-an-element-in-a-javascript-array.aspxI needed a C# Dictionary like data structure in JavaScript and then a way to find that object by a key. I had forgotten how to do this, so did some searching and talked to a colleague and came up with this JsFiddle. See the code in my jsFiddle or below: var processingProgressTimeoutIds = []; var file = { name: 'test', timeId: 1 }; var file2 = { name: 'test2', timeId: 2 }; var file3 = { name: 'test3', timeId: 3 }; processingProgressTimeoutIds.push({ name: file.name, timerId: file.id }); processingProgressTimeoutIds.push({ name: file2.name, timerId: file2.id }); processingProgressTimeoutIds.push({ name: file3.name, timerId: file3.id }); console.log(JSON.stringify(processingProgressTimeoutIds)); var keyName = 'test'; var match = processingProgressTimeoutIds.filter(function (item) { return item.name === keyName; })[0]; console.log(JSON.stringify(match)); // optimization var match2 = processingProgressTimeoutIds.some(function (element, index, array) { return element.name === keyName; }); console.log(JSON.stringify(match2)); // if you have the full object var match3 = processingProgressTimeoutIds.indexOf(file); console.log(JSON.stringify(match3)); // http://jsperf.com/array-find-equal – from Dave // indexOf is faster, but I need to find it by the key, so I can’t use it here //ES6 will rock though, array comprehension! – also from Dave // var ys = [x of xs if x == 3]; // var y = ys[0]; Here’s a good blog post on Array comprehension.

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• Migrating to SharePoint to BPOS - SharePoint Online

  - by Harish Pavithran

  Check out this blog post by Danny Burlage talking about migratio to online BPOS based solutions. Worth a watch.. http://www.bposrocks.com/2010/01/migrating-to-sharepoint-online.html

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• Basic WCF Unit Testing

  - by Brian

  Coming from someone who loves the KISS method, I was surprised to find that I was making something entirely too complicated. I know, shocker right? Now I'm no unit testing ninja, and not really a WCF ninja either, but had a desire to test service calls without a) going to a database, or b) making sure that the entire WCF infrastructure was tip top. Who does? It's not the environment I want to test, just the logic I’ve written to ensure there aren't any side effects. So, for the K.I.S.S. method: Assuming that you're using a WCF service library (you are using service libraries correct?), it's really as easy as referencing the service library, then building out some stubs for bunking up data. The service contract We’ll use a very basic service contract, just for getting and updating an entity. I’ve used the default “CompositeType” that is in the template, handy only for examples like this. I’ve added an Id property and overridden ToString and Equals. [ServiceContract] public interface IMyService { [OperationContract] CompositeType GetCompositeType(int id); [OperationContract] CompositeType SaveCompositeType(CompositeType item); [OperationContract] CompositeTypeCollection GetAllCompositeTypes(); } The implementation When I implement the service, I want to be able to send known data into it so I don’t have to fuss around with database access or the like. To do this, I first have to create an interface for my data access: public interface IMyServiceDataManager { CompositeType GetCompositeType(int id); CompositeType SaveCompositeType(CompositeType item); CompositeTypeCollection GetAllCompositeTypes(); } For the purposes of this we can ignore our implementation of the IMyServiceDataManager interface inside of the service. Pretend it uses LINQ to Entities to map its data, or maybe it goes old school and uses EntLib to talk to SQL. Maybe it talks to a tape spool on a mainframe on the third floor. It really doesn’t matter. That’s the point. So here’s what our service looks like in its most basic form: public CompositeType GetCompositeType(int id) { //sanity checks if (id == 0) throw new ArgumentException("id cannot be zero."); return _dataManager.GetCompositeType(id); } public CompositeType SaveCompositeType(CompositeType item) { return _dataManager.SaveCompositeType(item); } public CompositeTypeCollection GetAllCompositeTypes() { return _dataManager.GetAllCompositeTypes(); } But what about the datamanager? The constructor takes care of that. I don’t want to expose any testing ability in release (or the ability for someone to swap out my datamanager) so this is what we get: IMyServiceDataManager _dataManager; public MyService() { _dataManager = new MyServiceDataManager(); } #if DEBUG public MyService(IMyServiceDataManager dataManager) { _dataManager = dataManager; } #endif The Stub Now it’s time for the rubber to meet the road… Like most guys that ever talk about unit testing here’s a sample that is painting in *very* broad strokes. The important part however is that within the test project, I’ve created a bunk (unit testing purists would say stub I believe) object that implements my IMyServiceDataManager so that I can deal with known data. Here it is: internal class FakeMyServiceDataManager : IMyServiceDataManager { internal FakeMyServiceDataManager() { Collection = new CompositeTypeCollection(); Collection.AddRange(new CompositeTypeCollection { new CompositeType { Id = 1, BoolValue = true, StringValue = "foo 1", }, new CompositeType { Id = 2, BoolValue = false, StringValue = "foo 2", }, new CompositeType { Id = 3, BoolValue = true, StringValue = "foo 3", }, }); } CompositeTypeCollection Collection { get; set; } #region IMyServiceDataManager Members public CompositeType GetCompositeType(int id) { if (id <= 0) return null; return Collection.SingleOrDefault(m => m.Id == id); } public CompositeType SaveCompositeType(CompositeType item) { var existing = Collection.SingleOrDefault(m => m.Id == item.Id); if (null != existing) { Collection.Remove(existing); } if (item.Id == 0) { item.Id = Collection.Count > 0 ? Collection.Max(m => m.Id) + 1 : 1; } Collection.Add(item); return item; } public CompositeTypeCollection GetAllCompositeTypes() { return Collection; } #endregion } So it’s tough to see in this example why any of this is necessary, but in a real world application you would/should/could be applying much more logic within your service implementation. This all serves to ensure that between refactorings etc, that it doesn’t send sparking cogs all about or let the blue smoke out. Here’s a simple test that brings it all home, remember, broad strokes: [TestMethod] public void MyService_GetCompositeType_ExpectedValues() { FakeMyServiceDataManager fake = new FakeMyServiceDataManager(); MyService service = new MyService(fake); CompositeType expected = fake.GetCompositeType(1); CompositeType actual = service.GetCompositeType(2); Assert.AreEqual<CompositeType>(expected, actual, "Objects are not equal. Expected: {0}; Actual: {1};", expected, actual); } Summary That’s really all there is to it. You could use software x or framework y to do the exact same thing, but in my case I just didn’t really feel like it. This speaks volumes to my not yet ninja unit testing prowess.

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• An unexpected pleasure from Windows 8

  - by eddraper

  This post is certainly on the more nuanced side of all the goodness that is Windows 8, but it’s about something that’s really changed my PC usage experience for the better. Besides being a geek and the enjoying all the techno-thrills and chills that go along with sitting in front of a keyboard all day, I really love the forest.  Trees have always been special to me.  The feeling of being in the forest with all the sounds and ambiance, the broken light, the fragrance of the air… it’s paradise to me. As I can’t get there often, due to work, and quite often the heat here in Texas, I’ve found something that can at least partially fill the gap…  When you install Windows 8, you’ll have an app called “Naturespace” from http://www.naturespace.com/ .  It boasts a number of predefined loops in what they call “holographic audio.”  They’re essentially high-tech 3D sound fields recorded in natural environments. After checking them out, I really liked the sound of the “Daybreak” selection: A great benefit is that you don’t have to be in Metro/Modern/Windows App Store mode, in order to keep the sound playing.  To start the day, I click on Daybreak, start it, then go back to the desktop and fire up VS, Chrome, etc. As I work and play, I’m surrounded by this delightful background ambiance which relaxes me and puts my mind at ease. Give it a try.  I think you’ll like it.  And no, you don’t need ear buds or headphones to get the benefit.

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• Thank you South Florida for a successful SPSouthFLA

  - by Leonard Mwangi

  I wanted to officially thank the organizers, speakers, volunteers and the attendees of SharePoint Saturday South Florida. Being the first event in South Florida the reception was phenomenon and the group of speakers from keynote by Joel Oleson to session’s speakers from well renowned speakers like John Holliday, Randy Disgrill, Richard Harbridge, Ameet Phadnis, Fabian Williams, Chris McNulty, Jaime Velez to organizers like Michael Hinckley amongst others. With my Business Intelligence (BI) presentation being on the last track of the day, I spent very quality time networking with these great guys and getting the insider scope on International SharePoint Community from Joel and his son which was mesmerizing. I had a very active audience to a point where we couldn’t accommodate all the contents within the 1hr allocated time because they were very engaged and wanted a deep dive session on news features like PowerPivot, enhancements on PerformancePoint, Excel Services amongst others in order to understand the business value and how SharePoint 2010 is making the self-service BI become a reality. These community events allows the attendees experience technology first hand and network with MVPs, authors, experts providing high quality educational sessions usually for free which is a reason to attend. I have made the slides for my session available for download for those interested http://goo.gl/VaH5x

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• BizTalk and SQL: Alternatives to the SQL receive adapter. Using Msmq to receive SQL data

  - by Leonid Ganeline

  If we have to get data from the SQL database, the standard way is to use a receive port with SQL adapter. SQL receive adapter is a solicit-response adapter. It periodically polls the SQL database with queries. That’s only way it can work. Sometimes it is undesirable. With new WCF-SQL adapter we can use the lightweight approach but still with the same principle, the WCF-SQL adapter periodically solicits the database with queries to check for the new records. Imagine the situation when the new records can appear in very broad time limits, some - in a second interval, others - in the several minutes interval. Our requirement is to process the new records ASAP. That means the polling interval should be near the shortest interval between the new records, a second interval. As a result the most of the poll queries would return nothing and would load the database without good reason. If the database is working under heavy payload, it is very undesirable. Do we have other choices? Sure. We can change the polling to the “eventing”. The good news is the SQL server could issue the event in case of new records with triggers. Got a new record –the trigger event is fired. No new records – no the trigger events – no excessive load to the database. The bad news is the SQL Server doesn’t have intrinsic methods to send the event data outside. For example, we would rather use the adapters that do listen for the data and do not solicit. There are several such adapters-listeners as File, Ftp, SOAP, WCF, and Msmq. But the SQL Server doesn’t have methods to create and save files, to consume the Web-services, to create and send messages in the queue, does it? Can we use the File, FTP, Msmq, WCF adapters to get data from SQL code? Yes, we can. The SQL Server 2005 and 2008 have the possibility to use .NET code inside SQL code. See the SQL Integration. How it works for the Msmq, for example: ·         New record is created, trigger is fired ·         Trigger calls the CLR stored procedure and passes the message parameters to it ·         The CLR stored procedure creates message and sends it to the outgoing queue in the SQL Server computer. ·         Msmq service transfers message to the queue in the BizTalk Server computer. ·         WCF-NetMsmq adapter receives the message from this queue. For the File adapter the idea is the same, the CLR stored procedure creates and stores the file with message, and then the File adapter picks up this file. Using WCF-NetMsmq adapter to get data from SQL I am describing the full set of the deployment and development steps for the case with the WCF-NetMsmq adapter. Development: 1.       Create the .NET code: project, class and method to create and send the message to the MSMQ queue. 2.       Create the SQL code in triggers to call the .NET code. Installation and Deployment: 1.       SQL Server: a.       Register the CLR assembly with .NET (CLR) code b.      Install the MSMQ Services 2.       BizTalk Server: a.       Install the MSMQ Services b.      Create the MSMQ queue c.       Create the WCF-NetMsmq receive port. The detailed description is below. Code .NET code … using System.Xml; using System.Xml.Linq; using System.Xml.Serialization;   //namespace MyCompany.MySolution.MyProject – doesn’t work. The assembly name is MyCompany.MySolution.MyProject // I gave up with the compound namespace. Seems the CLR Integration cannot work with it L. Maybe I’m wrong.     public class Event     {         static public XElement CreateMsg(int par1, int par2, int par3)         {             XNamespace ns = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/Sql/2008/05/TypedPolling/my_storedProc";             XElement xdoc =                 new XElement(ns + "TypedPolling",                     new XElement(ns + "TypedPollingResultSet0",                         new XElement(ns + "TypedPollingResultSet0",                             new XElement(ns + "par1", par1),                             new XElement(ns + "par2", par2),                             new XElement(ns + "par3", par3),                         )                     )                 );             return xdoc;         }     }   //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// … using System.ServiceModel; using System.ServiceModel.Channels; using System.Transactions; using System.Data; using System.Data.Sql; using System.Data.SqlTypes;   public class MsmqHelper {     [Microsoft.SqlServer.Server.SqlProcedure]     // msmqAddress as "net.msmq://localhost/private/myapp.myqueue";     public static void SendMsg(string msmqAddress, string action, int par1, int par2, int par3)     {         using (TransactionScope scope = new TransactionScope(TransactionScopeOption.Suppress))         {             NetMsmqBinding binding = new NetMsmqBinding(NetMsmqSecurityMode.None);             binding.ExactlyOnce = true;             EndpointAddress address = new EndpointAddress(msmqAddress);               using (ChannelFactory<IOutputChannel> factory = new ChannelFactory<IOutputChannel>(binding, address))             {                 IOutputChannel channel = factory.CreateChannel();                 try                 {                     XElement xe = Event.CreateMsg(par1, par2, par3);                     XmlReader xr = xe.CreateReader();                     Message msg = Message.CreateMessage(MessageVersion.Default, action, xr);                     channel.Send(msg);                     //SqlContext.Pipe.Send(…); // to test                 }                 catch (Exception ex)                 { …                 }             }             scope.Complete();         }     }   SQL code in triggers   -- sp_SendMsg was registered as a name of the MsmqHelper.SendMsg() EXEC sp_SendMsg'net.msmq://biztalk_server_name/private/myapp.myqueue', 'Create', @par1, @par2, @par3   Installation and Deployment On the SQL Server Registering the CLR assembly 1.       Prerequisites: .NET 3.5 SP1 Framework. It could be the issue for the production SQL Server! 2.       For more information, please, see the link http://nielsb.wordpress.com/sqlclrwcf/ 3.       Copy files: >copy “\Windows\Microsoft.net\Framework\v3.0\Windows Communication Foundation\Microsoft.Transactions.Bridge.dll” “\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\v3.0 \Microsoft.Transactions.Bridge.dll” If your machine is a 64-bit, run two commands: >copy “\Windows\Microsoft.net\Framework\v3.0\Windows Communication Foundation\Microsoft.Transactions.Bridge.dll” “\Program Files (x86)\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\v3.0 \Microsoft.Transactions.Bridge.dll” >copy “\Windows\Microsoft.net\Framework64\v3.0\Windows Communication Foundation\Microsoft.Transactions.Bridge.dll” “\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\v3.0 \Microsoft.Transactions.Bridge.dll” 4.       Execute the SQL code to register the .NET assemblies: -- For x64 OS: CREATE ASSEMBLY SMdiagnostics AUTHORIZATION dbo FROM 'C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.0\Windows Communication Foundation\SMdiagnostics.dll' WITH permission_set = unsafe CREATE ASSEMBLY [System.Web] AUTHORIZATION dbo FROM 'C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\System.Web.dll' WITH permission_set = unsafe CREATE ASSEMBLY [System.Messaging] AUTHORIZATION dbo FROM 'C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\System.Messaging.dll' WITH permission_set = unsafe CREATE ASSEMBLY [System.ServiceModel] AUTHORIZATION dbo FROM 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\v3.0\System.ServiceModel.dll' WITH permission_set = unsafe CREATE ASSEMBLY [System.Xml.Linq] AUTHORIZATION dbo FROM 'C:\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\v3.5\System.Xml.Linq.dll' WITH permission_set = unsafe   -- For x32 OS: --CREATE ASSEMBLY SMdiagnostics AUTHORIZATION dbo FROM 'C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.0\Windows Communication Foundation\SMdiagnostics.dll' WITH permission_set = unsafe --CREATE ASSEMBLY [System.Web] AUTHORIZATION dbo FROM 'C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\System.Web.dll' WITH permission_set = unsafe --CREATE ASSEMBLY [System.Messaging] AUTHORIZATION dbo FROM 'C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\System.Messaging.dll' WITH permission_set = unsafe --CREATE ASSEMBLY [System.ServiceModel] AUTHORIZATION dbo FROM 'C:\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\v3.0\System.ServiceModel.dll' WITH permission_set = unsafe 5.       Register the assembly with the external stored procedure: CREATE ASSEMBLY [HelperClass] AUTHORIZATION dbo FROM ’<FilePath>MyCompany.MySolution.MyProject.dll' WITH permission_set = unsafe where the <FilePath> - the path of the file on this machine! 6. Create the external stored procedure CREATE PROCEDURE sp_SendMsg (        @msmqAddress nvarchar(100),        @Action NVARCHAR(50),        @par1 int,        @par2 int,        @par3 int ) AS EXTERNAL NAME HelperClear.MsmqHelper.SendMsg   Installing the MSMQ Services 1.       Check if the MSMQ service is NOT installed. To check:  Start / Administrative Tools / Computer Management, on the left pane open the “Services and Applications”, search to the “Message Queuing”. If you cannot see it, follow next steps. 2.       Start / Control Panel / Programs and Features 3.       Click “Turn Windows Features on or off” 4.       Click Features, click “Add Features” 5.       Scroll down the feature list; open the “Message Queuing” / “Message Queuing Services”; and check the “Message Queuing Server” option  6.       Click Next; Click Install; wait to the successful finish of the installation Creating the MSMQ queue We don’t need to create the queue on the “sender” side. On the BizTalk Server Installing the MSMQ Services The same is as for the SQL Server. Creating the MSMQ queue 1.       Start / Administrative Tools / Computer Management, on the left pane open the “Services and Applications”, open the “Message Queuing”, and open the “Private Queues”. 2.       Right-click the “Private Queues”; choose New; choose “Private Queue”. 3.       Type the Queue name as ’myapp.myqueue'; check the “Transactional” option. Creating the WCF-NetMsmq receive port I will not go through this step in all details. It is straightforward. URI for this receive location should be 'net.msmq://localhost/private/myapp.myqueue'. Notes ·         The biggest problem is usually on the step the “Registering the CLR assembly”. It is hard to predict where are the assemblies from the assembly list, what version should be used, x86 or x64. It is pity of such “rude” integration of the SQL with .NET. ·         In couple cases the new WCF-NetMsmq port was not able to work with the queue. Try to replace the WCF- NetMsmq port with the WCF-Custom port with netMsmqBinding. It was working fine for me. ·         To test how messages go through the queue you can turn on the Journal /Enabled option for the queue. I used the QueueExplorer utility to look to the messages in Journal. The Computer Management can also show the messages but it shows only small part of the message body and in the weird format. The QueueExplorer can do the better job; it shows the whole body and Xml messages are in good color format.

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• Associating your MentionNotifier subscriptions with OAuth

  - by Tim Hibbard

  We recently added OAuth to MentionNotifier so that users can quickly view and edit their subscriptions without needed an additional login.  This is enabled by default for new users, but existing users will need to do the following steps to associate their subscriptions with OAuth: 1)  Go to http://software.engraph.com/ManageMentionNotifier 2)  Click “Sign in with Twitter” 3)  Verify that your twittername and email are correct 4)  Click "Associate with OAuth" This will also allow you to reply to notification emails and MentionNotifier will tweet on your behalf.  This is made possible by @sidePop written by @ferventcoder Note that the reply by email is new and buggy, so make sure that what was tweeted is correct and as expected. If you run into any issues, sent me a reply to @timhibbard. You can also join the MentionNotifier fan page on facebook, or follow @MentionNotifier on twitter.

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• Combining Shared Secret and Username Token – Azure Service Bus

  - by Michael Stephenson

  As discussed in the introduction article this walkthrough will explain how you can implement WCF security with the Windows Azure Service Bus to ensure that you can protect your endpoint in the cloud with a shared secret but also flow through a username token so that in your listening WCF service you will be able to identify who sent the message. This could either be in the form of an application or a user depending on how you want to use your token. Prerequisites Before going into the walk through I want to explain a few assumptions about the scenario we are implementing but to keep the article shorter I am not going to walk through all of the steps in how to setup some of this. In the solution we have a simple console application which will represent the client application. There is also the services WCF application which contains the WCF service we will expose via the Windows Azure Service Bus. The WCF Service application in this example was hosted in IIS 7 on Windows 2008 R2 with AppFabric Server installed and configured to auto-start the WCF listening services. I am not going to go through significant detail around the IIS setup because it should not matter in relation to this article however if you want to understand more about how to configure WCF and IIS for such a scenario please refer to the following paper which goes into a lot of detail about how to configure this. The link is: http://tinyurl.com/8s5nwrz   The Service Component To begin with let's look at the service component and how it can be configured to listen to the service bus using a shared secret but to also accept a username token from the client. In the sample the service component is called Acme.Azure.ServiceBus.Poc.UN.Services. It has a single service which is the Visual Studio template for a WCF service when you add a new WCF Service Application so we have a service called Service1 with its Echo method. Nothing special so far!.... The next step is to look at the web.config file to see how we have configured the WCF service. In the services section of the WCF configuration you can see I have created my service and I have created a local endpoint which I simply used to do a little bit of diagnostics and to check it was working, but more importantly there is the Windows Azure endpoint which is using the ws2007HttpRelayBinding (note that this should also work just the same if your using netTcpRelayBinding). The key points to note on the above picture are the service behavior called MyServiceBehaviour and the service bus endpoints behavior called MyEndpointBehaviour. We will go into these in more detail later.   The Relay Binding The relay binding for the service has been configured to use the TransportWithMessageCredential security mode. This is the important bit where the transport security really relates to the interaction between the service and listening to the Azure Service Bus and the message credential is where we will use our username token like we have specified in the message/clientCrentialType attribute. Note also that we have left the relayClientAuthenticationType set to RelayAccessToken. This means that authentication will be made against ACS for accessing the service bus and messages will not be accepted from any sender who has not been authenticated by ACS.   The Endpoint Behaviour In the below picture you can see the endpoint behavior which is configured to use the shared secret client credential for accessing the service bus and also for diagnostic purposes I have included the service registry element. Hopefully if you are familiar with using Windows Azure Service Bus relay feature the above is very familiar to you and this is a very common setup for this section. There is nothing specific to the username token implementation here. The Service Behaviour Now we come to the bit with most of the username token bits in it. When you configure the service behavior I have included the serviceCredentials element and then setup to use userNameAuthentication and you can see that I have created my own custom username token validator.   This setup means that WCF will hand off to my class for validating the username token details. I have also added the serviceSecurityAudit element to give me a simple auditing of access capability. My UsernamePassword Validator The below picture shows you the details of the username password validator class I have implemented. WCF will hand off to this class when validating the token and give me a nice way to check the token credentials against an on-premise store. You have all of the validation features with a non-service bus WCF implementation available such as validating the username password against active directory or ASP.net membership features or as in my case above something much simpler.   The Client Now let's take a look at the client side of this solution and how we can configure the client to authenticate against ACS but also send a username token over to the service component so it can implement additional security checks on-premise. I have a console application and in the program class I want to use the proxy generated with Add Service Reference to send a message via the Azure Service Bus. You can see in my WCF client configuration below I have setup my details for the azure service bus url and am using the ws2007HttpRelayBinding. Next is my configuration for the relay binding. You can see below I have configured security to use TransportWithMessageCredential so we will flow the username token with the message and also the RelayAccessToken relayClientAuthenticationType which means the component will validate against ACS before being allowed to access the relay endpoint to send a message.     After the binding we need to configure the endpoint behavior like in the below picture. This is the normal configuration to use a shared secret for accessing a Service Bus endpoint.   Finally below we have the code of the client in the console application which will call the service bus. You can see that we have created our proxy and then made a normal call to a WCF service but this time we have also set the ClientCredentials to use the appropriate username and password which will be flown through the service bus and to our service which will validate them.     Conclusion As you can see from the above walkthrough it is not too difficult to configure a service to use both a shared secret and username token at the same time. This gives you the power and protection offered by the access control service in the cloud but also the ability to flow additional tokens to the on-premise component for additional security features to be implemented. Sample The sample used in this post is available at the following location: https://s3.amazonaws.com/CSCBlogSamples/Acme.Azure.ServiceBus.Poc.UN.zip

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• Find related field in Dynamics AX

  - by DAXShekhar

  static void findRelatedFieldId(Args _args) {     SysDictTable    dictTable = new SysDictTable(tablenum(InventTrans));     int             i,j;     SysDictRelation dictRelation;     TableId         externId = tablenum(SalesLine);     IndexId         indexId;     ; // Search the explicit relations     for (i = 1; i <= dictTable.relationCnt(); ++i)     {         dictRelation = new SysDictRelation(dictTable.id());         dictRelation.loadNameRelation(dictTable.relation(i)); // If it is a 'relation' then you use externTable(), but for extended data types you use table() (see next block).         if (SysDictRelation::externId(dictRelation) == externId)         {             for (j =1; j <= dictRelation.lines(); j++)             {                 info(strfmt("%1", dictRelation.lineExternTableValue(j)));                 info(fieldid2name(dictRelation.externTable(),dictRelation.lineExternTableValue(j)));             }         }     }     info(strfmt("%1", dictRelation.loadFieldRelation(fieldnum(InventTrans, InventTransId)))); }

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• PublishingWeb.ExcludeFromNavigation Missing

  - by Michael Van Cleave

  So recently I have had to make the transition from the SharePoint 2007 codebase to SharePoint 2010 codebase. Needless to say there hasn't been much difficulty in the changeover. However in a set of code that I was playing around with and transitioning I did find one change that might cause some pain to others out there that have been programming against the PublishingWeb object in the Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing namespace. The 2007 snippet of code that work just fine in 2007 looks like: using (SPSite site = new SPSite(url)) using (SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb()) {      PublishingWeb publishingWeb = PublishingWeb.GetPublishingWeb(web);     publishingWeb.ExcludeFromNavigation(true, itemID);     publishingWeb.Update(); } The 2010 update to the code looks like: using (SPSite site = new SPSite(url)) using (SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb()) {     PublishingWeb publishingWeb = PublishingWeb.GetPublishingWeb(web);     publishingWeb.Navigation.ExcludeFromNavigation(true, itemID); //--Had to reference the Navigation object.     publishingWeb.Update(); } The purpose of the code is to keep a page from showing up on the global or current navigation when it is added to the pages library. However you see that the update to the 2010 codebase actually makes more "object" sense. It specifies that you are technically affecting the Navigation of the Publishing Web, instead of the Publishing Web itself. I know that this isn't a difficult problem to fix, but I thought it would be something quick to help out the general public. Michael

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• FREE Windows Azure Boot camp &ndash; Raleigh Wednesday June 23, 2010

  - by Jim Duffy

  Just want to be sure you don’t miss out on an opportunity to take advantage of some free Windows Azure training. Microsoft Developer Evangelist Brian Hitney and I will be presenting a one-day Windows Azure boot camp on June 23rd in Raleigh, NC at the Microsoft RTP offices. For more information on content, what to bring, directions, etc. just click here to go to the information and registration page for the Raleigh event. To find other dates and locations for the Windows Azure boot camps  head over to the Windows Azure Boot Camp page. Brian and I hope to see you there! Have a day. :-|

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• Expression Studio 4 Community Launch Event

  - by Timmy Kokke

  Event On June 7th Expression Studio 4 will be launched at the Internet Week in New York. One day later, on June 8th, the Dutch Silverlight and Expression User Group SIXIN organizes the Dutch Community Launch in collaboration with Microsoft and Centric at Centric's office in IJsselstein. To celebrate the 4 Expression release we have two interesting speakers. In addition, we give three packages Expression Studio and more great gifts away.   Program The preliminary program for the evening is as follows: 5:45 p.m. - Food, drinks and networking 6:45 p.m. - Reception and Introduction by Koen Zwikstra, co-founder of SIXIN and Silverlight MVP 7:00 p.m. - Phone 7 Building a Windows application using the new features of Expression Blend by Loek van den Ouweland, founder and web designer for Magic Studio 8:00 p.m. - Break 8:30 p.m. - Tour Encoder and Expression Web by Antoni Dol, senior designer at Macaw 9:30 p.m. - Networking while enjoying a drink   Ask your question to one of the speakers If you have a question to one of the speakers, then you can by email ([email protected]) or thru Twitter. Send an email with subject # expression4 or send a tweet @ sixinUG and use it to hashtag # expression4.   Register To register for this event or to get more information you can go to the SIXIN meetings page here.   Special thanks to our sponsors:

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• Multiline Replacement With Visual Studio

  - by Alois Kraus

  I had to remove some file headers in a bigger project which were all of the form #region File Header /*[ Compilation unit ----------------------------------------------------------       Name            : Class1.cs       Language        : C#     Creation Date   :      Description     : -----------------------------------------------------------------------------*/ /*] END */ #endregion I know that would be a cool thing to write a simple C# program use a recursive file search, read all lines skip the first n lines and write the files back to disc. But I wanted to test things first before I ruin my source files with one little typo. There comes the Visual Studio Search and Replace in Files dialog into the game. I can test my regular expression to do a multiline match with the Find button before actually breaking anything. And if something goes wrong I have the Undo button.   There is a nice blog post from Paulo Morgado online who deals with Multiline Regular expressions. The Visual Studio Regular expressions are non standard so you have to adapt your usual Regex know how to the other patterns. The pattern I cam finally up with is \#region File Header:b*(.*\n)@\#endregion The Regular expression can be read as \#region File Header Match “#region File Header” \# Escapes the # character since it is a quantifier. :b* After this none or more spaces or tabs can follow (:b stands for space or tab) (.*\n)@ Match anything across lines in a non greedy way (the @ character makes it non greedy) to prevent matching too much until the #endregion somewhere in our source file. \#endregion Match everything until “#endregion” is found I had always knew that Visual Studio can do it but I never bothered to learn the non standard Regex syntax. This is powerful and it is inside Visual Studio since 2005!

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• Computer Networks UNISA - Chap 14 &ndash; Insuring Integrity &amp; Availability

  - by MarkPearl

  After reading this section you should be able to Identify the characteristics of a network that keep data safe from loss or damage Protect an enterprise-wide network from viruses Explain network and system level fault tolerance techniques Discuss issues related to network backup and recovery strategies Describe the components of a useful disaster recovery plan and the options for disaster contingencies What are integrity and availability? Integrity – the soundness of a networks programs, data, services, devices, and connections Availability – How consistently and reliably a file or system can be accessed by authorized personnel A number of phenomena can compromise both integrity and availability including… security breaches natural disasters malicious intruders power flaws human error users etc Although you cannot predict every type of vulnerability, you can take measures to guard against the most damaging events. The following are some guidelines… Allow only network administrators to create or modify NOS and application system users. Monitor the network for unauthorized access or changes Record authorized system changes in a change management system’ Install redundant components Perform regular health checks on the network Check system performance, error logs, and the system log book regularly Keep backups Implement and enforce security and disaster recovery policies These are just some of the basics… Malware Malware refers to any program or piece of code designed to intrude upon or harm a system or its resources. Types of Malware… Boot sector viruses Macro viruses File infector viruses Worms Trojan Horse Network Viruses Bots Malware characteristics Some common characteristics of Malware include… Encryption Stealth Polymorphism Time dependence Malware Protection There are various tools available to protect you from malware called anti-malware software. These monitor your system for indications that a program is performing potential malware operations. A number of techniques are used to detect malware including… Signature Scanning Integrity Checking Monitoring unexpected file changes or virus like behaviours It is important to decide where anti-malware tools will be installed and find a balance between performance and protection. There are several general purpose malware policies that can be implemented to protect your network including… Every compute in an organization should be equipped with malware detection and cleaning software that regularly runs Users should not be allowed to alter or disable the anti-malware software Users should know what to do in case the anti-malware program detects a malware virus Users should be prohibited from installing any unauthorized software on their systems System wide alerts should be issued to network users notifying them if a serious malware virus has been detected. Fault Tolerance Besides guarding against malware, another key factor in maintaining the availability and integrity of data is fault tolerance. Fault tolerance is the ability for a system to continue performing despite an unexpected hardware or software malfunction. Fault tolerance can be realized in varying degrees, the optimal level of fault tolerance for a system depends on how critical its services and files are to productivity. Generally the more fault tolerant the system, the more expensive it is. The following describe some of the areas that need to be considered for fault tolerance. Environment (Temperature and humidity) Power Topology and Connectivity Servers Storage Power Typical power flaws include Surges – a brief increase in voltage due to lightening strikes, solar flares or some idiot at City Power Noise – Fluctuation in voltage levels caused by other devices on the network or electromagnetic interference Brownout – A sag in voltage for just a moment Blackout – A complete power loss The are various alternate power sources to consider including UPS’s and Generators. UPS’s are found in two categories… Standby UPS – provides continuous power when mains goes down (brief period of switching over) Online UPS – is online all the time and the device receives power from the UPS all the time (the UPS is charged continuously) Servers There are various techniques for fault tolerance with servers. Server mirroring is an option where one device or component duplicates the activities of another. It is generally an expensive process. Clustering is a fault tolerance technique that links multiple servers together to appear as a single server. They share processing and storage responsibilities and if one unit in the cluster goes down, another unit can be brought in to replace it. Storage There are various techniques available including the following… RAID Arrays NAS (Storage (Network Attached Storage) SANs (Storage Area Networks) Data Backup A backup is a copy of data or program files created for archiving or safekeeping. Many different options for backups exist with various media including… These vary in cost and speed. Optical Media Tape Backup External Disk Drives Network Backups Backup Strategy After selecting the appropriate tool for performing your servers backup, devise a backup strategy to guide you through performing reliable backups that provide maximum data protection. Questions that should be answered include… What data must be backed up At what time of day or night will the backups occur How will you verify the accuracy of the backups Where and for how long will backup media be stored Who will take responsibility for ensuring that backups occurred How long will you save backups Where will backup and recovery documentation be stored Different backup methods provide varying levels of certainty and corresponding labour cost. There are also different ways to determine which files should be backed up including… Full backup – all data on all servers is copied to storage media Incremental backup – Only data that has changed since the last full or incremental backup is copied to a storage medium Differential backup – Only data that has changed since the last backup is coped to a storage medium Disaster Recovery Disaster recovery is the process of restoring your critical functionality and data after an enterprise wide outage has occurred. A disaster recovery plan is for extreme scenarios (i.e. fire, line fault, etc). A cold site is a place were the computers, devices, and connectivity necessary to rebuild a network exist but they are not appropriately configured. A warm site is a place where the computers, devices, and connectivity necessary to rebuild a network exists with some appropriately configured devices. A hot site is a place where the computers, devices, and connectivity necessary to rebuild a network exists and all are appropriately configured.

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• SCCM 2007 Collections per OU

  - by VirtualizeIT

  Recently I wanted to create our SCCM collections setup as our Active Directory structure. I finally figured out how to create collections per OU of the domain. I decided to create a simple tutorial that may help other IT professionals the steps to complete this task.   1. Open the ConfigMgr and navigation to the collections. To navigate to the collections go to Site Database>Computer Management>Collections. 2. In the ‘Collections’ right-click and select New Collections. Then it will pop up a Wizards so you can enter the name of the collection and any notes that you may want to add that is associated with the collection.                       3. Next, select the database icon. In the ‘Name’ textbox enter the name of the query. I named mine ‘Query’ just for simplicity sake. After you enter the name select ‘Edit Query Statement…’ 4. Select the ‘Criteria’ tab 5. Select the icon that looks like a sun. 6. At this point you should see a dialog box like this…                     7. Next, click the ‘select’ button. 8. Under the ‘Attribute class’ scroll through until you see ’System Resource’ and for the ‘Attribute"’ scroll through you see ‘System OU Name’. It should look something like this…                 9. After that select OK. 10. In the ‘Value’ textbox enter the string that is associated with the OU in your domain. NOTE: If you don’t know your string name for your OU you can simply go to “Active Directory Users and Computers” and right-click on the OU and select properties. In the ‘object’ tab you should see the string under the ‘Canonical name of object”. That is the string that you put in the ‘Value’ text box. 11. After you enter the OU string name press OK>OK>OK>NEXT>NEXT>FINISH.   That’s it!   I hope this tutorial has help you understand how to create a collection through your OU structure.

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• How Estimates Became Quotes

  - by Lee Brandt

  It’s our fault. Well, not completely, but we haven’t helped the situation any. All of what follows comes from my own experiences which, from talking to lots of other developers about it, seems to be pretty much par for the course. Where We Started When we first started estimating, we estimated pretty clearly. We would try to imagine something we’d done that was similar to the project being estimated and we’d toss it about in our heads a bit and see how much bigger or smaller we thought this new thing was, and add or subtract accordingly. We wouldn’t spend too much time on it, because we wanted to get to writing the software. Eventually, we’d come across some huge problem that there was now way we could’ve known about ahead of time. Either we didn’t see this thing or, we didn’t realize that this particular version of a problem would be so… problematic. We usually call this “not knowing what we don’t know”. It’s unavoidable. We just can’t know. Until we wade in and start putting some code together, there are just some things we won’t know… and some things we don’t even know that we don’t know. Y’know? So what happens? We go over budget. Project managers scream and dance the dance of the stressed-out project manager, and there is nothing we can do (or could’ve done) about it. We didn’t know. We thought about it for a bit and we didn’t see this herculean task sitting in the middle of our nice quiet project, and it has bitten us in the rear end. We now know how to handle this in the future, though. We will take some more time to pick around the requirements and discover all those things we don’t know. We’ll do some prototyping, we’ll read some blogs about similar projects, we’ll really grill the customer with questions during the requirements gathering phase. We’ll keeping asking “what else?” until the shove us down the stairs. We’ll take our time and uncover it all. We Learned, But Good The next time comes, and you know what happens? We do it. We grill the customer for weeks and prototype and read and research and we estimate everything down to the last button on the last form. Know what that gets us? It gets us three months of wasted time, and our estimate will still be off. Possibly off by a factor of four. WTF, mate? No way we could be surprised by something! We uncovered every particle. We turned every stone. How is it we still came across unknowns? Because we STILL didn’t know what we didn’t know. How could we? We didn’t know to ask. The worst part is, we’ve now convinced the product that this is NOT an estimate. It is a solid number based on massive research and an endless number of questions that they answered. There is absolutely now way you don’t know everything there is to know about this project now. No way there is anything you haven’t uncovered. And their faith in that “Esti-Quote” goes through the roof. When the project goes over this time, they might even begin to question whether or not you know what you’re doing. Who could blame them? You drilled them for weeks about every little thing, and when they complained about all the questions, you told them you wanted to uncover everything so there would be no surprises. SO we set them up to faile Guess, Then Plan We had a chance. At the beginning we could have just said, “That’s just a gut-feeling estimate, based on my past experience with similar projects. There could still be surprises.” If we spend SOME time doing SOME discovery and then bounce that against our own past experiences, we can come up with a fairly healthy estimate. We can then help the product owner understand that an estimate is a guess. Sure, it’s an educated guess, but it is still a guess. If we get it right it will be almost completely luck. Then, we help them to plan the development by taking that guess (yes, they still need the guess for planning purposes) and start measuring early and often to see if we still think we are right. We should adjust the estimate and alert the product owner as soon as we see problems (bad news does not age well) and we should be able to see any problems immediately if we are constantly measuring our pace. In lean software, we start with that guess and begin measuring cycle times immediately. Then we can make projections based on those cycle times and compare them to our estimate. This constant feedback is the best way to ensure that there are no surprises at the END of the project. There sill still be surprises, but we’ll see them sooner and have a better understanding of how they will affect our overall timeline. What do you think?

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• How to: Add an HTTPS Endpoint to a Windows Azure Cloud Service

  - by kaleidoscope

  Technorati Tags: Ritesh,Windows Azure,Endpoints,https The process to add an HTTPS endpoint is a 3 step process. Configure the endpoint Upload the certificate to the Cloud Configure the SSL certificate (and then point the endpoint to that certificate) Reference – http://blogs.msdn.com/jnak/archive/2009/12/01/how-to-add-an-https-endpoint-to-a-windows-azure-cloud-service.aspx - Ritesh, D

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• AJI Report #20 | Devin Rader On Usability and REST

  - by Jeff Julian

  Devin is one of our great friends from days of ole'. Devin was a great community leader in St. Louis .NET space. The then moved to New Jersey to work at Infragistics where he was a huge asset for the .NET and Usability communities. He is now at Twilio as an evangelist and you will see him pretty much at every cool conference promoting Twilio and educating the masses. In this show, we talk about what Usability is and how developers can understanding what the how to solve problems with usability and some of the patterns we can use. Devin really wants to bring the focus back to the beginning of knowing who your users are and we talk about how to produce personas of the users of our products. We dive into REST for the second piece of this podcast. Devin helps us understand more about REST and what goes into a RESTful application or service. Listen to the Show Twilio Site: http://www.twilio.com Twitter: @DevinRader LinkedIn: Profile Link

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• Book Review: Brownfield Application Development in .NET

  - by DotNetBlues

  I recently finished reading the book Brownfield Application Development in .NET by Kyle Baley and Donald Belcham.  The book is available from Manning.  First off, let me say that I'm a huge fan of Manning as a publisher.  I've found their books to be top-quality, over all.  As a Kindle owner, I also appreciate getting an ebook copy along with the dead tree copy.  I find ebooks to be much more convenient to read, but hard-copies are easier to reference. The book covers, surprisingly enough, working with brownfield applications.  Which is well and good, if that term has meaning to you.  It didn't for me.  Without retreading a chunk of the first chapter, the authors break code bases into three broad categories: greenfield, brownfield, and legacy.  Greenfield is, essentially, new development that hasn't had time to rust and is (hopefully) being approached with some discipline.  Legacy applications are those that are more or less stable and functional, that do not expect to see a lot of work done to them, and are more likely to be replaced than reworked. Brownfield code is the gray (brown?) area between the two and the authors argue, quite effectively, that it is the most likely state for an application to be in.  Brownfield code has, in some way, been allowed to tarnish around the edges and can be difficult to work with.  Although I hadn't realized it, most of the code I've worked on has been brownfield.  Sometimes, there's talk of scrapping and starting over.  Sometimes, the team dismisses increased discipline as ivory tower nonsense.  And, sometimes, I've been the ignorant culprit vexing my future self. The book is broken into two major sections, plus an introduction chapter and an appendix.  The first section covers what the authors refer to as "The Ecosystem" which consists of version control, build and integration, testing, metrics, and defect management.  The second section is on actually writing code for brownfield applications and discusses object-oriented principles, architecture, external dependencies, and, of course, how to deal with these when coming into an existing code base. The ecosystem section is just shy of 140 pages long and brings some real meat to the matter.  The focus on "pain points" immediately sets the tone as problem-solution, rather than academic.  The authors also approach some of the topics from a different angle than some essays I've read on similar topics.  For example, the chapter on automated testing is on just that -- automated testing.  It's all well and good to criticize a project as conflating integration tests with unit tests, but it really doesn't make anyone's life better.  The discussion on testing is more focused on the "right" level of testing for existing projects.  Sometimes, an integration test is the best you can do without gutting a section of functional code.  Even if you can sell other developers and/or management on doing so, it doesn't actually provide benefit to your customers to rewrite code that works.  This isn't to say the authors encourage sloppy coding.  Far from it.  Just that they point out the wisdom of ignoring the sleeping bear until after you deal with the snarling wolf. The other sections take a similarly real-world, workable approach to the pain points they address.  As the section moves from technical solutions like version control and continuous integration (CI) to the softer, process issues of metrics and defect tracking, the authors begin to gently suggest moving toward a zero defect count.  While that really sounds like an unreasonable goal for a lot of ongoing projects, it's quite apparent that the authors have first-hand experience with taming some gruesome projects.  The suggestions are grounded and workable, and the difficulty of some situations is explicitly acknowledged. I have to admit that I started getting bored by the end of the ecosystem section.  No matter how valuable I think a good project manager or business analyst is to a successful ALM, at the end of the day, I'm a gear-head.  Also, while I agreed with a lot of the ecosystem ideas, in theory, I didn't necessarily feel that a lot of the single-developer projects that I'm often involved in really needed that level of rigor.  It's only after reading the sidebars and commentary in the coding section that I had the context for the arguments made in favor of a strong ecosystem supporting the development process.  That isn't to say that I didn't support good product management -- indeed, I've probably pushed too hard, on occasion, for a strong ALM outside of just development.  This book gave me deeper insight into why some corners shouldn't be cut and how damaging certain sins of omission can be. The code section, though, kept me engaged for its entirety.  Many technical books can be used as reference material from day one.  The authors were clear, however, that this book is not one of these.  The first chapter of the section (chapter seven, over all) addresses object oriented (OO) practices.  I've read any number of definitions, discussions, and treatises on OO.  None of the chapter was new to me, but it was a good review, and I'm of the opinion that it's good to review the foundations of what you do, from time to time, so I didn't mind. The remainder of the book is really just about how to apply OOP to existing code -- and, just because all your code exists in classes does not mean that it's object oriented.  That topic has the potential to be extremely condescending, but the authors miraculously managed to never once make me feel like a dolt or that they were wagging their finger at me for my prior sins.  Instead, they continue the "pain points" and problem-solution presentation to give concrete examples of how to apply some pretty academic-sounding ideas.  That's a point worth emphasizing, as my experience with most OO discussions is that they stay in the academic realm.  This book gives some very, very good explanations of why things like the Liskov Substitution Principle exist and why a corporate programmer should even care.  Even if you know, with absolute certainty, that you'll never have to work on an existing code-base, I would recommend this book just for the clarity it provides on OOP. This book goes beyond just theory, or even real-world application.  It presents some methods for fixing problems that any developer can, and probably will, encounter in the wild.  First, the authors address refactoring application layers and internal dependencies.  Then, they take you through those layers from the UI to the data access layer and external dependencies.  Finally, they come full circle to tie it all back to the overall process.  By the time the book is done, you're left with a lot of ideas, but also a reasonable plan to begin to improve an existing project structure. Throughout the book, it's apparent that the authors have their own preferred methodology (TDD and domain-driven design), as well as some preferred tools.  The "Our .NET Toolbox" is something of a neon sign pointing to that latter point.  They do not beat the reader over the head with anything resembling a "One True Way" mentality.  Even for the most emphatic points, the tone is quite congenial and helpful.  With some of the near-theological divides that exist within the tech community, I found this to be one of the more remarkable characteristics of the book.  Although the authors favor tools that might be considered Alt.NET, there is no reason the advice and techniques given couldn't be quite successful in a pure Microsoft shop with Team Foundation Server.  For that matter, even though the book specifically addresses .NET, it could be applied to a Java and Oracle shop, as well.

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• Visual Studio 2010 Keyboard Shortcut Posters Available

  - by Jim Duffy

  I’m a firm believer in the productivity gains you experience when using keyboard shortcuts in Visual Studio. If you’re not using keyboard shortcuts while coding then your productivity is suffering. Some of my favorites (omitting the obvious ones like F5 to start debugging) as are: Ctrl+K, C – Comment section of code Ctrl+K, U – Uncomment section of code Ctrl+K, D – Format the current document (indentation, etc.) Shift+Alt+C – Add new class to a project Shift+Alt+A – Add existing item to a project Ctrl+Shift+A – Add new item to a project The good news is all of these and a TON of others are all documented in the Visual Studio Keyboard Shortcut Posters (available as PDFs). The only problem is there are so many you need a printer capable of printing on larger paper because while you can read them all on 8 1/2 x 11 paper in landscape mode, for them to be a valuable quick reference on your cubicle wall you’re going to need to print them on large paper. If you don’t have a printer capable of producing large sized printouts head down to Office Depot, Staples, FedEx Office, or your favorite print shop and have them print one for you. Oh and one last thing, I’d really like Microsoft to take those people’s picture off them. Really? Do we need to look at these people when trying to improve our productivity? Have a day. :-|

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• Login screen appears even if logged in

  - by Prasenjit

  HEHE it's a stupid problem, for those who care place the following on the load event of the master page or default             Response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "no-cache"); //HTTP 1.1             Response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "private"); // HTTP 1.1             Response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "no-store"); // HTTP 1.1             Response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "must-revalidate"); // HTTP 1.1             Response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "max-stale=0"); // HTTP 1.1              Response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "post-check=0"); // HTTP 1.1              Response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "pre-check=0"); // HTTP 1.1              Response.AppendHeader("Pragma", "no-cache"); // HTTP 1.1              Response.AppendHeader("Keep-Alive", "timeout=3, max=993"); // HTTP 1.1              Response.AppendHeader("Expires", "Mon, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT"); // HTTP 1.1   It finally worked for me:)

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• Taking a screenshot from within a Silverlight #WP7 application

  - by Laurent Bugnion

  Often times, you want to take a screenshot of an application’s page. There can be multiple reasons. For instance, you can use this to provide an easy feedback method to beta testers. I find this super invaluable when working on integration of design in an app, and the user can take quick screenshots, attach them to an email and send them to me directly from the Windows Phone device. However, the same mechanism can also be used to provide screenshots are a feature of the app, for example if the user wants to save the current status of his application, etc. Caveats Note the following: The code requires an XNA library to save the picture to the media library. To have this, follow the steps: In your application (or class library), add a reference to Microsoft.Xna.Framework. In your code, add a “using” statement to Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Media. In the Properties folder, open WMAppManifest.xml and add the following capability: ID_CAP_MEDIALIB. The method call will fail with an exception if the device is connected to the Zune application on the PC. To avoid this, either disconnect the device when testing, or end the Zune application on the PC. While the method call will not fail on the emulator, there is no way to access the media library, so it is pretty much useless on this platform. This method only prints Silverlight elements to the output image. Other elements (such as a WebBrowser control’s content for instance) will output a black rectangle. The code public static void SaveToMediaLibrary( FrameworkElement element, string title) { try { var bmp = new WriteableBitmap(element, null); var ms = new MemoryStream(); bmp.SaveJpeg( ms, (int)element.ActualWidth, (int)element.ActualHeight, 0, 100); ms.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin); var lib = new MediaLibrary(); var filePath = string.Format(title + ".jpg"); lib.SavePicture(filePath, ms); MessageBox.Show( "Saved in your media library!", "Done", MessageBoxButton.OK); } catch { MessageBox.Show( "There was an error. Please disconnect your phone from the computer before saving.", "Cannot save", MessageBoxButton.OK); } } This method can save any FrameworkElement. Typically I use it to save a whole page, but you can pass any other element to it. On line 7, we create a new WriteableBitmap. This excellent class can render a visual tree into a bitmap. Note that for even more features, you can use the great WriteableBitmapEx class library (which is open source). On lines 9 to 16, we save the WriteableBitmap to a MemoryStream. The only format supported by default is JPEG, however it is possible to convert to other formats with the ImageTools library (also open source). Lines 18 to 20 save the picture to the Windows Phone device’s media library. Using the image To retrieve the image, simply launch the Pictures library on the phone. The image will be in Saved Pictures. From here, you can share the image (by email, for instance), or synchronize it with the PC using the Zune software. Saving to other platforms It is of course possible to save to other platforms than the media library. For example, you can send the image to a web service, or save it to the isolated storage on the device. To do this, instead of using a MemoryStream, you can use any other stream (such as a web request stream, or a file stream) and save to that instead. Hopefully this code will be helpful to you! Happy coding, Laurent   Laurent Bugnion (GalaSoft) Subscribe | Twitter | Facebook | Flickr | LinkedIn

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