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• Is there a way to fix the width of drop down list?

  - by Harry Pham

  Here is what I got: <select id="box1"> <option>ABCDEFG</option> </select> <select id="box2"> <option>ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO</option> </select> I have 2 different Drop Down lists. Since the width of a drop down list depends on the width of the longest text in the option, I end up with 2 drop down lists with 2 different widths. This makes my webpage look goofy. What I want is to set it so that both of my drop down lists will have the same width (I'd prefer the width to be very long, so that even the longest item won't be truncated).

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• complex thinking on simple java challenge, how can i fix it?

  - by Rachel

  Simple stuff but somehow not able to crack it, below piece of code is throwing unexpected token at try/catch and unhandled exception:java.io.FileNotFound String fileName = "C:\\GS.xlsx"; try{ CSVReader reader = new CSVReader(new FileReader(fileName)); }catch(Exception e){ } What is the possible issue in here, i know there is something really goofy that am doing in here... public class PositionParserGS { String fileName = "C:\\GS.xlsx"; try{ CSVReader reader = new CSVReader(new FileReader(fileName)); }catch(Exception e){ } } that's the complete code...

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• Limiting DOPs &ndash; Who rules over whom?

  - by jean-pierre.dijcks

  I've gotten a couple of questions from Dan Morgan and figured I start to answer them in this way. While Dan is running on a big system he is running with Database Resource Manager and he is trying to make sure the system doesn't go crazy (remember end user are never, ever crazy!) on very high DOPs. Q: How do I control statements with very high DOPs driven from user hints in queries? A: The best way to do this is to work with DBRM and impose limits on consumer groups. The Max DOP setting you can set in DBRM allows you to overwrite the hint. Now let's go into some more detail here. Assume my object (and for simplicity we assume there is a single object - and do remember that we always pick the highest DOP when in doubt and when conflicting DOPs are available in a query) has PARALLEL 64 as its setting. Assume that the query that selects something cool from that table lives in a consumer group with a max DOP of 32. Assume no goofy things (like running out of parallel_max_servers) are happening. A query selecting from this table will run at DOP 32 because DBRM caps the DOP. As of 11.2.0.1 we also use the DBRM cap to create the original plan (at compile time) and not just enforce the cap at runtime. Now, my user is smart and writes a query with a parallel hint requesting DOP 128. This query is still capped by DBRM and DBRM overrules the hint in the statement. The statement, despite the hint, runs at DOP 32. Note that in the hinted scenario we do compile the statement with DOP 128 (the optimizer obeys the hint). This is another reason to use table decoration rather than hints. Q: What happens if I set parallel_max_servers higher than processes (e.g. the max number of processes allowed to run on my machine)? A: Processes rules. It is important to understand that processes are fixed at startup time. If you increase parallel_max_servers above the number of processes in the processes parameter you should get a warning in the alert log stating it can not take effect. As a follow up, a hinted query requesting more parallel processes than either parallel_max_servers or processes will not be able to acquire the requested number. Parallel_max_processes will prevent this. And since parallel_max_servers should be lower than max processes you can never go over either...

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• Error opening hyperlinks in Excel 2003

  - by richardtallent

  When clicking to follow hyperlinks from Excel, I'm now getting this error: Unable to open http://blah... Cannot download the information you requested. The hyperlinks in the Excel file are created using the HYPERLINK() formula. I use Google Chrome as my default browser. The web site in question uses Basic Authentication, and I've entered correct credentials when prompted (the dialog looked like an IE auth box, not Chrome's, but it's always been that way, even when it was working properly). This hasn't been an issue until recently. I'm guessing our IT department made some lame change to IE's configuration that is causing Office to not be able to open the URLs, despite having Chrome as my browser. Things I've checked already: URLs are good, they work fine when pasted manually into Chrome, IE, or Firefox. IE is not set to Work Offline (already found that suggestion on Google). I checked Program Access and Defaults and verified that Chrome is selected. Nothing in the URL requires URLEncoding, so it's no goofy issue with encoding I've had reports from some other users now and then about the same problem, but this is the first time I've experienced it myself.

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• How to display escaped characters in tmux status bar

  - by walrus

  i am running tmux from a tty on an embedded linux device. (NOT a terminal emulator) because the screen is rather small, i want to add some "icons" to the tmux status bar. to achieve this, i have simply created a font with the appropriate glyphs for things like battery, or wifi. i can load the font, and display the characters with calls that use an escape to the line drawing characters like so: echo -e "\xe\234\xf" \xe escapes me into line drawing character mode, \234 is my created character, and \xf returns me to normal character mode so my terminal doesnt start getting goofy. this works perfectly if i enter the command at the terminal whether tmux is started or not. the issue arises if i then try to use it in my ~/.tmux.conf file for the status bar. i currently have a line like this: set -g status-right "#(echo -e "\xe\234\xf") #(/script/to/output/powerlevel) this simply outputs \xe\234\xf powerlevel this goes the same if i try printf over echo. this is the output i would expect to get on the terminal if i made the call without passing -e to echo, or without enclosing the statement with quotes. i then decided to wrap the calls to the echo or printf in a shell script. again, the script works when called from the terminal, but not in tmux's status bar. now i get the unprintable character "?" instead of my icon, like this: ? powerlevel this is what i would expect if i did not use the line drawing escapes previously mentioned above, or if i tried to copy and paste the character as text using tmux. in addition, the calling of these character scripts screws up the rest of my status-right, as the clock has about 6 digits for minutes when it is called (though it correctly only updates two of them). how can i make tmux respect the escape characters? any help or insight is greatly appreciated.

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• Apache Bench reports different result with same page

  - by Aspis

  I'm running into a little problem base-lining an Apache2/fcgi/php-fpm server I am setting up. 1) If I run: ab -n 15000 http://mysite.com/index.php. Apache Bench returns Time per request: 41ms but document length: 0 bytes and html transferred: 0 bytes. The Transfer rate: 7.9Kb/s. 2) If I run: ab -n 15000 http://mysite.com/ Apache Bench returns Time per request: 83ms along with the accurate document length and html transferred total. The APC cache status reports identical hit counts from both test. Also Apache Bench reports no errors in either case. Overall, no errors on any test sites and all logs are clean, etc. DocumentRoot is set to index.php so I would expect both of these test runs to produced a similar result. My 2 question(s) are: 1) why the discrepancy? 2) which is the correct result? I've seen plenty of results like test 1 posted (with out question) but frankly from my own experience and those of others, accurate testing is hard to come by. Even with out goofy issues like this.

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• Old School Wizardry Tip: Batch File Comments

  - by jkauffman

  Johnny, the Endangered Keyboard-Driven Windows User Some of my proudest, obscure Windows tricks are losing their relevance. I know I’m not alone. Keyboard shortcuts are going the way of the dodo. I used to induce fearful awe by slapping Ctrl+Shift+Esc in front of the lowly, pedestrian Windows users. No windows key on the keyboard? No problem: Ctrl+Esc. No menu key on the keyboard: Shift+F10. I am also firmly planted in the habit of closing windows with the Alt+Space menu (Alt+Space, C); and I harbor a brooding, slow=growing list of programs that fail to support this correctly (that means you, Paint.NET). Every time a new version of windows comes out, the support for some of these minor time-saving habits get pared out. Will I complain publicly? Nope, I know my old ways should be axed to conserve precious design energy. In fact, I disapprove of fierce un-intuitiveness for the sake of alleged productivity. Like vim, for example. If you approach a program after being away for 5 years, having to recall encyclopedic knowledge is a flaw. The RTFM disciples have lost. Anyway, some of the items in my arsenal of goofy time-saving tricks are still relevant today. I wanted to draw attention to one that’s stood the test of time. Remember Batch Files? Yes, it’s true, batch files are fading faster than the world of print. But they're not dead yet. I still run into some situations where I opt to use batch files. They are still relevant for build processes, or just various development workflow tools. Sure, there’s powershell, but there’s that stupid Set-ExecutionPolicy speed bump standing in your way; can you really spare the time to A) hunt down that setting on all machines affected and/or B) make futile efforts to convince your coworkers/boss that the hassle was worth it? When possible, I prefer the batch file wild card. And whenever I return to batch files, I end up researching some of the unintuitive aspects such as parameters, quote handling, and ERRORLEVEL. But I never have to remember to use “REM” for comment lines, because there’s a cleaner way to do them! Double Colon For Eye-Friendly Comments Here is a very simple batch file, with pretty much minimal content: @ECHO OFF SETLOCAL REM This is a comment ECHO This batch file doesn’t do much If you code on a daily basis, this may be more suitable to your eyes: @ECHO OFF SETLOCAL :: This is a comment ECHO This batch file doesn’t do much Works great! I imagine I find it preferable due to the similarity to comments in other situations: // or ;  or # I’ve often make visual pseudo-line breaks in my code, and this colon-based syntax works wonders: @ECHO OFF SETLOCAL :: Do stuff ECHO Doing Stuff :::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :: Do more stuff ECHO This batch file doesn’t do much Not only is it more readable, but there’s a slight performance benefit. The batch file engine sees this as an invalid line label and immediately reads the following line. Use that fact to your advantage if this trick leads you into heated nerd debate. Two Pitfalls to Avoid Be aware of that there are a couple situations where this hack will fail you. It most likely won’t be a problem unless you’re getting really sophisticated with your batch files. Pitfall #1: Inline comments @ECHO OFF SETLOCAL IF EXIST C:\SomeFile.txt GOTO END ::This will fail :END Unfortunately, this fails. You can only have whitespace to the left of your comments. Pitfall #2: Code Blocks @ECHO OFF SETLOCAL IF EXIST C:\SomeFile.txt (         :: This will fail         ECHO HELLO ) Code blocks, such as if statements and for loops, cannot contain these comments. This is ultimately due to the fact that entire code blocks are processed as a single line. I originally learned this from Rob van der Woude’s site. He goes into more depth about the behavior of the pitfalls as well, if you are interested in further details. I hope this trick earns you serious geek rep!

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• Allow selection of readonly files from SaveFileDialog?

  - by Andy Dent

  I'm using Microsoft.Win32.SaveFileDialog in an app where all files are saved as readonly but the user needs to be able to choose existing files. The existing files being replaced are renamed eg: blah.png becomes blah.png-0.bak, blah.png-1.bak and so on. Thus, the language for the OverwritePrompt is inappropriate - we are not allowing them to overwrite files - so I'm setting dlog.OverwritePrompt = false; The initial filenames for the dialog are generated based on document values so for them, it's easy - we rename the candidate file in advance and if the user cancels or chooses a different name, rename it back again. When I delivered the feature, testers swiftly complained because they wanted to repeatedly save files with names different from the agreed workflow (those goofy, playful guys!). I can't figure out a way to do this with the standard dialogs, in a way that will run safely on both XP (for now) and Windows 7. I was hoping to hook into the FileOK event but that is called after I get a warning dialog: |-----------------------------------------| | blah.png | | This file is set to read-only. | | Try again with a different file name. | |-----------------------------------------|

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• How to use symbols/punctuation characters in discriminated unions

  - by user343550

  I'm trying to create a discriminated union for part of speech tags and other labels returned by a natural language parser. It's common to use either strings or enums for these in C#/Java, but discriminated unions seem more appropriate in F# because these are distinct, read-only values. In the language reference, I found that this symbol ``...`` can be used to delimit keywords/reserved words. This works for type ArgumentType = | A0 // subject | A1 // indirect object | A2 // direct object | A3 // | A4 // | A5 // | AA // | ``AM-ADV`` However, the tags contain symbols like $, e.g. type PosTag = | CC // Coordinating conjunction | CD // Cardinal Number | DT // Determiner | EX // Existential there | FW // Foreign Word | IN // Preposision or subordinating conjunction | JJ // Adjective | JJR // Adjective, comparative | JJS // Adjective, superlative | LS // List Item Marker | MD // Modal | NN // Noun, singular or mass | NNP // Proper Noun, singular | NNPS // Proper Noun, plural | NNS // Noun, plural | PDT // Predeterminer | POS // Possessive Ending | PRP // Personal Pronoun | PRP$ //$ Possessive Pronoun | RB // Adverb | RBR // Adverb, comparative | RBS // Adverb, superlative | RP // Particle | SYM // Symbol | TO // to | UH // Interjection | VB // Verb, base form | VBD // Verb, past tense | VBG // Verb, gerund or persent participle | VBN // Verb, past participle | VBP // Verb, non-3rd person singular present | VBZ // Verb, 3rd person singular present | WDT // Wh-determiner | WP // Wh-pronoun | WP$ //$ Possessive wh-pronoun | WRB // Wh-adverb | ``#`` | ``$`` | ``''`` | ``(`` | ``)`` | ``,`` | ``.`` | ``:`` | `` //not sure how to escape/delimit this ``...`` isn't working for WP$ or symbols like ( Also, I have the interesting problem that the parser returns `` as a meaningful symbol, so I need to escape it as well. Is there some other way to do this, or is this just not possible with a discriminated union? Right now I'm getting errors like Invalid namespace, module, type or union case name Discriminated union cases and exception labels must be uppercase identifiers I suppose I could somehow override toString for these goofy cases and replace the symbols with some alphanumeric equivalent?

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• What is the best way to call a method right AFTER a form loads?

  - by Jordan S

  I have a C# windows forms application. The way I currently have it set up, when Form1_Load() runs it checks for recovered unsaved data and if it finds some it prompts the user if they want to open that data. When the program runs it works alright but the message box is shown right away and the main program form (Form1) does not show until after the user clicks yes or no. I would like the Form1 to pop up first and then the message box prompt. Now to get around this problem before I have created a timer in my Form, started the timer in the Form1_Load() method, and then performed the check and user prompt in the first Timer Tick Event. This technique solves the problem but is seems like there might be a better way. Do you guys have any better ideas? Edit: I think I have also used a background worker to do something similar. It just seems kinda goofy to go through all the trouble of invoking the method to back to the form thread and all that crap just to have it delayed a couple milliseconds!

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• How to properly use Object Contexts in Entity Framework using BackgroundWorker

  - by OffApps Cory

  Good day, I am developing using Entity Framework and WPF, and I am encountering some errors and I don't know why. When saving a record (using a BackgroundWorker), I set the entities change tracker to nothing (null), attach the record to a new disposable context, save it, detach, and dispose of the context. Saving a record fires and event in the MainViewModel of the program that the other ViewModels (including the one that is saving) need to refresh their entities to reflect changes. Private Sub _saveRecordWorker_DoWork(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.ComponentModel.DoWorkEventArgs) Handles _saveRecordWorker.DoWork Using MyContext As New RVShippingEntities Dim MyShipment = CType(ShipmentRecord, IEntityWithChangeTracker) MyShipment.SetChangeTracker(Nothing) MyContext.Attach(MyShipment) MyContext.Detach(ShipmentRecord) End Using End Sub The Refresh background worker is similar, but it has a Do While block to keep it from interfering with the save worker (which doesn't appear to be working; hence the post). When I save (and it subsequently refreshes) I get the following error: The calling thread cannot access this object because a different thread owns it. I thought that with the DoWhile block, it would wait (and when i step through it does) until the save thread finished, and all would be good. But it would seem that something (either the main thread or the save thread) is still doing something that is interfering. Is there a better way of doing this? Am I doing it is a goofy kludgey fashion? Any help would be appreciated. (Apparently Firefox recognized kludgey as a word. Interesting)

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• Validate a XDocument against schema without the ValidationEventHandler (for use in a HTTP handler)

  - by Vaibhav Garg

  Hi everyone, (I am new to Schema validation) Regarding the following method, System.Xml.Schema.Extensions.Validate( ByVal source As System.Xml.Linq.XDocument, ByVal schemas As System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaSet, ByVal validationEventHandler As System.Xml.Schema.ValidationEventHandler, ByVal addSchemaInfo As Boolean) I am using it as follows inside a IHttpHandler - Try Dim xsd As XmlReader = XmlReader.Create(context.Server.MapPath("~/App_Data/MySchema.xsd")) Dim schemas As New XmlSchemaSet() : schemas.Add("myNameSpace", xsd) : xsd.Close() myXDoxumentOdj.Validate(schemas, Function(s As Object, e As ValidationEventArgs) SchemaError(s, e, context), True) Catch ex1 As Threading.ThreadAbortException 'manage schema error' Return Catch ex As Exception 'manage other errors' End Try The handler- Function SchemaError(ByVal s As Object, ByVal e As ValidationEventArgs, ByVal c As HttpContext) As Object If c Is Nothing Then c = HttpContext.Current If c IsNot Nothing Then HttpContext.Current.Response.Write(e.Message) HttpContext.Current.Response.End() End If Return New Object() End Function This is working fine for me at present but looks very weak. I do get errors when I feed it bad XML. But i want to implement it in a more elegant way. This looks like it would break for large XML etc. Is there some way to validate without the handler so that I get the document validated in one go and then deal with errors? To me it looks Async such that the call to Validate() would pass and some non deterministic time later the handler would get called with the result/errors. Is that right? Thanks and sorry for any goofy mistakes :).

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• Amanda Todd&ndash;What Parents Can Learn From Her Story

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  Amanda Todd was a bullied teenager who committed suicide this week. Her story has become headline news due in part to her You Tube video she posted telling her story:   The story is heartbreaking for so many reasons, but I wanted to talk about what we as parents can learn from this. Being the dad to two girls, one that’s 10, I’m very aware of the dangers that the internet holds. When I saw her story, one thing jumped out at me – unmonitored internet access at an early age. My daughter (then 9) came home from a friends place once and asked if she could be in a YouTube video with her friend. Apparently this friend was allowed to do whatever she wanted on the internet, including posting goofy videos. This set off warning bells and we ensured our daughter realized the dangers and that she was not to ever post videos of herself. In looking at Amanda’s story, the access to unmonitored internet time along with just being a young girl and being flattered by an online predator were the key events that ultimately led to her suicide. Yes, the reaction of her classmates and “friends” was horrible as well, I’m not diluting that. But our youth don’t fully understand yet that what they do on the internet today will follow them potentially forever. And the people they meet online aren’t necessarily who they claim to be. So what can we as parents learn from Amanda’s story? Parents Shouldn’t Feel Bad About Being Internet Police Our job as parents is in part to protect our kids and keep them safe, even if they don’t like our measures. This includes monitoring, supervising, and restricting their internet activities. In our house we have a family computer in the living room that the kids can watch videos and surf the web. It’s in plain view of everyone, so you can’t hide what you’re looking at. If our daughter goes to a friend’s place, we ask about what they did and what they played. If the computer comes up, we ask about what they did on it. Luckily our daughter is very up front and honest in telling us things, so we have very open discussions. Parents Need to Be Honest About the Dangers of the Internet I’m sure every generation says that “kids grow up so fast these days”, but in our case the internet really does push our kids to be exposed to things they otherwise wouldn’t experience. One wrong word in a Google search, a click of a link in a spam email, or just general curiosity can expose a child to things they aren’t ready for or should never be exposed to (and I’m not just talking about adult material – have you seen some of the graphic pictures from war zones posted on news sites recently?). Our stance as parents has been to be open about discussing the dangers with our kids before they encounter any content – be proactive instead of reactionary. Part of this is alerting them to the monsters that lurk on the internet as well. As kids explore the world wide web, they’re eventually going to encounter some chat room or some Facebook friend invite or other personal connection with someone. More than ever kids need to be educated on the dangers of engaging with people online and sharing personal information. You can think of it as an evolved discussion that our parents had with us about using the phone: “Don’t say ‘I’m home alone’, don’t say when mom or dad get home, don’t tell them any information, etc.” Parents Need to Talk Self Worth at Home Katie makes the point better than I ever could (one bad word towards the end): Our children need to understand their value beyond what the latest issue of TigerBeat says, or the media who continues flaunting physical attributes over intelligence and character, or a society that puts focus on status and wealth. They also have to realize that just because someone pays you a compliment, that doesn’t mean you should ignore personal boundaries and limits. What does this have to do with the internet? Well, in days past if you wanted to be social you had to go out somewhere. Now you can video chat with any number of people from the comfort of wherever your laptop happens to be – and not just text but full HD video with sound! While innocent children head online in the hopes of meeting cool people, predators with bad intentions are heading online too. As much as we try to monitor their online activity and be honest about the dangers of the internet, the human side of our kids isn’t something we can control. But we can try to influence them to see themselves as not needing to search out the acceptance of complete strangers online. Way easier said than done, but ensuring self-worth is something discussed, encouraged, and celebrated is a step in the right direction. Parental Wake Up Call This post is not a critique of Amanda’s parents. The reality is that cyber bullying/abuse is happening every day, and there are millions of parents that have no clue its happening to their children. Amanda’s story is a wake up call that our children’s online activities may be putting them in danger. My heart goes out to the parents of this girl. As a father of daughters, I can’t imagine what I would do if I found my daughter having to hide in a ditch to avoid a mob or call 911 to report my daughter had attempted suicide by drinking bleach or deal with a child turning to drugs/alcohol/cutting to cope. It would be horrendous if we as parents didn’t re-evaluate our family internet policies in light of this event. And in the end, Amanda’s video was meant to bring attention to her plight and encourage others going through the same thing. We may not be kids, but we can still honour her memory by helping safeguard our children.

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• dynamiclly schedule a lead sales agent

  - by Josh

  I have a website that I'm trying to migrate from classic asp to asp.net. It had a lead schedule, where each sales agent would be featured for the current day, or part of the day.The next day a new agent would be scheduled. It was driven off a database table that had a row for each day in it. So to figure out if a sales agent would show on a day, it was easy, just find today's date in the table. Problem was it ran out rows, and you had to run a script to update the lead days 6 months at a time. Plus if there was ever any change to the schedule, you had to delete all the rows and re-run the script. So I'm trying to code it where sql server figures that out for me, and no script has to be ran. I have a table like so CREATE TABLE [dbo].[LeadSchedule]( [leadid] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL, [userid] [int] NOT NULL, [sunday] [bit] NOT NULL, [monday] [bit] NOT NULL, [tuesday] [bit] NOT NULL, [wednesday] [bit] NOT NULL, [thursday] [bit] NOT NULL, [friday] [bit] NOT NULL, [saturday] [bit] NOT NULL, [StartDate] [smalldatetime] NULL, [EndDate] [smalldatetime] NULL, [StartTime] [time](0) NULL, [EndTime] [time](0) NULL, [order] [int] NULL, So the user can schedule a sales agent depending on their work schedule. Also if they wanted to they could split certain days, or sales agents by time, So from Midnight to 4 it was one agent, from 4-midnight it was another. So far I've tried using a numbers table, row numbers, goofy date math, and I'm at a loss. Any suggestions on how to handle this purely from sql code? If it helps, the table should always be small, like less than 20 never over 100. update After a few hours all I've managed to come up with is the below. It doesn't handle filling in days not available or times, just rotates through all the sales agents with leadTable as ( select leadid,userid,[order],StartDate, case DATEPART(dw,getdate()) when 1 then sunday when 2 then monday when 3 then tuesday when 4 then wednesday when 5 then thursday when 6 then friday when 7 then saturday end as DayAvailable , ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY [order] ASC) AS ROWID from LeadSchedule where GETDATE()>=StartDate and (CONVERT(time(0),GETDATE())>= StartTime or StartTime is null) and (CONVERT(time(0),GETDATE())<= EndTime or EndTime is null) ) select userid, DATEADD(d,(number+ROWID-2)*totalUsers,startdate ) leadday from (select *, (select COUNT(1) from leadTable) totalUsers from leadTable inner join Numbers on 1=1 where DayAvailable =1 ) tb1 order by leadday asc

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• What's special about mouse capture and middle mouse button in WPF?

  - by Scott Bilas

  When I call CaptureMouse() in response to a MouseDown from the middle mouse button, it will capture and then release the mouse. Huh? I've tried using Preview events, setting Handled=true, doesn't make a difference. Am I not understanding mouse capture in WPF? Here's some minimal sample code that reproduces the problem. // TestListBox.cs using System.Diagnostics; using System.Windows.Controls; namespace Local { public class TestListBox : ListBox { public TestListBox() { MouseDown += (_, e) => { Debug.WriteLine("+MouseDown"); Debug.WriteLine(" Capture: " + CaptureMouse()); Debug.WriteLine("-MouseDown"); }; MouseUp += (_, e) => { Debug.WriteLine("+MouseUp"); ReleaseMouseCapture(); Debug.WriteLine("-MouseUp"); }; GotMouseCapture += (_, e) => Debug.WriteLine("GotMouseCapture"); LostMouseCapture += (_, e) => Debug.WriteLine("LostMouseCapture"); } } } Generating a default WPF app that has this for its main window will use the test class: <Window x:Class="Local.MainWindow" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" xmlns:local="clr-namespace:Local" Title="MainWindow" Height="350" Width="525"> <local:TestListBox> <ListBoxItem>1</ListBoxItem> <ListBoxItem>2</ListBoxItem> <ListBoxItem>3</ListBoxItem> <ListBoxItem>4</ListBoxItem> </local:TestListBox> </Window> Upon clicking the middle button down, I get this output: +MouseDown GotMouseCapture LostMouseCapture Capture: True -MouseDown So I'm calling CaptureMouse, which in turn grabs and then releases capture, yet returns true that capture was successfully acquired. What's going on here? Is it possible that this is something with my Logitech mouse driver doing something goofy, trying to initiate 'ultrascroll' or something?

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• How to Organize a Programming Language Club

  - by Ben Griswold

  I previously noted that we started a language club at work.  You know, I searched around but I couldn’t find a copy of the How to Organize a Programming Language Club Handbook. Maybe it’s sold out?  Yes, Stack Overflow has quite a bit of information on how to learn and teach new languages and there’s also a good number of online tutorials which provide language introductions but I was interested in group learning.  After   two months of meetings, I present to you the Unofficial How to Organize a Programming Language Club Handbook.  1. Gauge interest. Start by surveying prospects. “Excuse me, smart-developer-whom-I-work-with-and-I-think-might-be-interested-in-learning-a-new-coding-language-with-me. Are you interested in learning a new language with me?” If you’re lucky, you work with a bunch of really smart folks who aren’t shy about teaching/learning in a group setting and you’ll have a collective interest in no time.  Simply suggesting the idea is the only effort required.  If you don’t work in this type of environment, maybe you should consider a new place of employment.  2. Make it official. Send out a “Welcome to the Club” email: There’s been talk of folks itching to learn new languages – Python, Scala, F# and Haskell to name a few.  Rather than taking on new languages alone, let’s learn in the open.  That’s right.  Let’s start a languages club.  We’ll have everything a real club needs – secret handshake, goofy motto and a high-and-mighty sense that we’re better than everybody else. T-shirts?  Hell YES!  Anyway, I’ve thrown this idea around the office and no one has laughed at me yet so please consider this your very official invitation to be in THE club. [Insert your ideas about how the club might be run, solicit feedback and suggestions, ask what other folks would like to get out the club, comment about club hazing practices and talk up the T-shirts even more. Finally, call out the languages you are interested in learning and ask the group for their list.] 3.  Send out invitations to the first meeting.  Don’t skimp!  Hallmark greeting cards for everyone.  Personalized.  Hearts over the I’s and everything.  Oh, and be sure to include the list of suggested languages with vote count.  Here the list of languages we are interested in: Python 5 Ruby 4 Objective-C 3 F# 2 Haskell 2 Scala 2 Ada 1 Boo 1 C# 1 Clojure 1 Erlang 1 Go 1 Pi 1 Prolog 1 Qt 1 4.  At the first meeting, there must be cake.  Lots of cake. And you should tackle some very important questions: Which language should we start with?  You can immediately go with the top vote getter or you could do as we did and designate each person to provide a high-level review of each of the proposed languages over the next two weeks.  After all presentations are completed, vote on the language. Our high-level review consisted of answers to a series of questions. Decide how often and where the group will meet.  We, for example, meet for a brown bag lunch every Wednesday.  Decide how you’re going to learn.  We determined that the best way to learn is to just dive in and write code.  After choosing our first language (Python), we talked about building an application, or performing coding katas, but we ultimately choose to complete a series of Project Euler problems.  We kept it simple – each member works out the same two problems each week in preparation of a code review the following Wednesday. 5.  Code, Review, Learn.  Prior to the weekly meeting, everyone uploads their solutions to our internal wiki.  Each Project Euler problem has a dedicated page.  In the meeting, we use a really fancy HD projector to show off each member’s solution.  It is very important to use an HD projector.  Again, don’t skimp!  Each code author speaks to their solution, everyone else comments, applauds, points fingers and laughs, etc.  As much as I’ve learned from solving the problems on my own, I’ve learned at least twice as much at the group code review.  6.  Rinse. Lather. Repeat.  We’ve hosted the language club for 7 weeks now.  The first meeting just set the stage.  The next two meetings provided a review of the languages followed by a first language selection.  The remaining meetings focused on Python and Project Euler problems.  Today we took a vote as to whether or not we’re ready to switch to another language and/or another problem set.  Pretty much everyone wants to stay the course for a few more weeks at least.  Until then, we’ll continue to code the next two solutions, review and learn. Again, we’ve been having a good time with the programming language club.  I’m glad it got off the ground.  What do you think?  Would you be interested in a language club?  Any suggestions on what we might do better?

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• 3D Ball Physics Theory: collision response on ground and against walls?

  - by David

  I'm really struggling to get a strong grasp on how I should be handling collision response in a game engine I'm building around a 3D ball physics concept. Think Monkey Ball as an example of the type of gameplay. I am currently using sphere-to-sphere broad phase, then AABB to OBB testing (the final test I am using right now is one that checks if one of the 8 OBB points crosses the planes of the object it is testing against). This seems to work pretty well, and I am getting back: Plane that object is colliding against (with a point on the plane, the plane's normal, and the exact point of intersection. I've tried what feels like dozens of different high-level strategies for handling these collisions, without any real success. I think my biggest problem is understanding how to handle collisions against walls in the x-y axes (left/right, front/back), which I want to have elasticity, and the ground (z-axis) where I want an elastic reaction if the ball drops down, but then for it to eventually normalize and be kept "on the ground" (not go into the ground, but also not continue bouncing). Without kluging something together, I'm positive there is a good way to handle this, my theories just aren't getting me all the way there. For physics modeling and movement, I am trying to use a Euler based setup with each object maintaining a position (and destination position prior to collision detection), a velocity (which is added onto the position to determine the destination position), and an acceleration (which I use to store any player input being put on the ball, as well as gravity in the z coord). Starting from when I detect a collision, what is a good way to approach the response to get the expected behavior in all cases? Thanks in advance to anyone taking the time to assist... I am grateful for any pointers, and happy to post any additional info or code if it is useful. UPDATE Based on Steve H's and eBusiness' responses below, I have adapted my collision response to what makes a lot more sense now. It was close to right before, but I didn't have all the right pieces together at the right time! I have one problem left to solve, and that is what is causing the floor collision to hit every frame. Here's the collision response code I have now for the ball, then I'll describe the last bit I'm still struggling to understand. // if we are moving in the direction of the plane (against the normal)... if (m_velocity.dot(intersection.plane.normal) <= 0.0f) { float dampeningForce = 1.8f; // eventually create this value based on mass and acceleration // Calculate the projection velocity PVRTVec3 actingVelocity = m_velocity.project(intersection.plane.normal); m_velocity -= actingVelocity * dampeningForce; } // Clamp z-velocity to zero if we are within a certain threshold // -- NOTE: this was an experimental idea I had to solve the "jitter" bug I'll describe below float diff = 0.2f - abs(m_velocity.z); if (diff > 0.0f && diff <= 0.2f) { m_velocity.z = 0.0f; } // Take this object to its new destination position based on... // -- our pre-collision position + vector to the collision point + our new velocity after collision * time // -- remaining after the collision to finish the movement m_destPosition = m_position + intersection.diff + (m_velocity * intersection.tRemaining * GAMESTATE->dt); The above snippet is run after a collision is detected on the ball (collider) with a collidee (floor in this case). With a dampening force of 1.8f, the ball's reflected "upward" velocity will eventually be overcome by gravity, so the ball will essentially be stuck on the floor. THIS is the problem I have now... the collision code is running every frame (since the ball's z-velocity is constantly pushing it a collision with the floor below it). The ball is not technically stuck, I can move it around still, but the movement is really goofy because the velocity and position keep getting affected adversely by the above snippet. I was experimenting with an idea to clamp the z-velocity to zero if it was "close to zero", but this didn't do what I think... probably because the very next frame the ball gets a new gravity acceleration applied to its velocity regardless (which I think is good, right?). Collisions with walls are as they used to be and work very well. It's just this last bit of "stickiness" to deal with. The camera is constantly jittering up and down by extremely small fractions too when the ball is "at rest". I'll keep playing with it... I like puzzles like this, especially when I think I'm close. Any final ideas on what I could be doing wrong here? UPDATE 2 Good news - I discovered I should be subtracting the intersection.diff from the m_position (position prior to collision). The intersection.diff is my calculation of the difference in the vector of position to destPosition from the intersection point to the position. In this case, adding it was causing my ball to always go "up" just a little bit, causing the jitter. By subtracting it, and moving that clamper for the velocity.z when close to zero to being above the dot product (and changing the test from <= 0 to < 0), I now have the following: // Clamp z-velocity to zero if we are within a certain threshold float diff = 0.2f - abs(m_velocity.z); if (diff > 0.0f && diff <= 0.2f) { m_velocity.z = 0.0f; } // if we are moving in the direction of the plane (against the normal)... float dotprod = m_velocity.dot(intersection.plane.normal); if (dotprod < 0.0f) { float dampeningForce = 1.8f; // eventually create this value based on mass and acceleration? // Calculate the projection velocity PVRTVec3 actingVelocity = m_velocity.project(intersection.plane.normal); m_velocity -= actingVelocity * dampeningForce; } // Take this object to its new destination position based on... // -- our pre-collision position + vector to the collision point + our new velocity after collision * time // -- remaining after the collision to finish the movement m_destPosition = m_position - intersection.diff + (m_velocity * intersection.tRemaining * GAMESTATE->dt); UpdateWorldMatrix(m_destWorldMatrix, m_destOBB, m_destPosition, false); This is MUCH better. No jitter, and the ball now "rests" at the floor, while still bouncing off the floor and walls. The ONLY thing left is that the ball is now virtually "stuck". He can move but at a much slower rate, likely because the else of my dot product test is only letting the ball move at a rate multiplied against the tRemaining... I think this is a better solution than I had previously, but still somehow not the right idea. BTW, I'm trying to journal my progress through this problem for anyone else with a similar situation - hopefully it will serve as some help, as many similar posts have for me over the years.

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• Letter to Ballmer: Making Better Consumer Devices

  - by andrewbrust

  Last year, I wrote Steve Ballmer an email, and he was kind enough to write me back.  The email contained a scan of a column I wrote praising Microsoft’s BI strategy.  His reply contained three simple words: “Super nice  thanks.” Well, now I’d like to write to Steve again, in an open letter format, and this time the love may be a bit tougher.  But I’m still super earnest. The past two days have been eventful ones for Microsoft: The company announced the departure of company veterans Robbie Bach and J Allard and the market announced Apple is now besting Microsoft in market capitalization. Plus, announcements were made that make it plain that Ballmer will, in effect, be running Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices division himself. With that in mind, I’d like to offer my list of a dozen things I think Microsoft’s CEO should do to improve that division’s offerings and, hopefully, its bottom line. So here goes:   1. On Windows Phone 7, Stay the Course The press is teeming with headlines and reader comments proclaiming the death-before-arrival of Windows Phone 7.  That’s plain silly.  You’ve got the makings of a great and unique SmartPhone platform, and you’re the only company (even considering RIM) that can offer full fidelity Exchange integration, not to mention implementing Office on the device.  Let the existing team finish this puppy and ship it. And then have them pump out a few updates, over-the-air, quickly.  Show them that Google Android’s not the only product that can do good, rapid dot releases. And another thing: make sure your OEMs’ devices have flawless touch screens.  If they don’t, then you shouldn’t certify them for delivery to customers.  Period. Oh, and kill the Kin, quietly.  It was DOA, and you know it.   2. Move Media Center to the Xbox Platform Media Center is, at its core, a good product.  But delivering a media distribution and DVR platform on a sophisticated PC operating system like Windows 7 just creates too many moving parts.  Xbox already functions as the best Media Center extender device – it should actually be the hub as well. Media Center is mostly based on .NET code – and XNA is a .NET environment for Xbox – find a way to bridge that small gap and make Media Center a joy to work with instead of a frustration.  Beating Apple TV out of this sub-market is the lowest hanging fruit on the tree (goofy pun, but it’s true).   3. Integrate Media Center with Mediaroom, or Kill the Latter You have two media products with almost identical names.  One is for standalone DVRs and the other is for IPTV cable set tops with DVR capabilities.  Can we merge these please?  My previous request of putting Media Center on Xbox would seem to tie into this nicely, since you’ve announced plans to do that with Mediaroom already.   4. Fix the Red Ring of Death People love the Xbox, but they really don’t love sending their consoles back every 18-24 months, when they get a bunch of red lights flashing on power up.  You’ve handled this defect about as gracefully as possible, but it’s been around for a long time now and it doesn’t seem to be fixed yet.  You can do better.  In fact, you must do better, or you insult your customers.   5. Add Blu Ray to Xbox I know, streaming movies are the future; physical media is legacy technology.  So if that’s true, why did you back HD DVD so hard?  You know why: for now, the film studios won’t allow a large selection of new release, HD, surround sound content be distributed on any medium other than Blu Ray or cable pay per view/on-demand.  Don’t you want home theater buffs to see the Xbox as a fantastic device for their rigs?  Don’t you want to put PlayStation 3 out of its misery?  And if you follow my suggestions above (move Media Center to the Xbox and fix the Red Ring problem), you’d have it all sewn up.  Do I think Blu Ray functionality will move a lot of units?  No.  Do I think that it would move more units with desperately needed influential home theater consumers?  You bet.  And you might sell more ZunePass subscriptions in the process. But while you’re at it, make the fan quieter, please.   6. Make More of Windows Home Server Home Server is a fantastic product.  And for reasons unknown to me, it seems like you’re letting it languish.  Development of the add-in ecosystem seems underfunded.  WHS’ unparalleled ease of use and reliability for home PC backup (and emergency restores) goes unsung.  Product cycles are slow.  Support for your OEMs, who are doing great work, especially in the green space with Atom CPUs, seems lacking.  You’ve married a trophy girl and you keep her cloistered at home!  That’s cruel, unusual and, um, incredibly ill-advised.  Make use of this ace card, and while you’re at it, give it real integration with Media Center.  The integration thus far proof-of-concept quality.  You should go way past that – both products will benefit immeasurably.   7. Set Up a Partner Platform for Custom Installers There’s a whole sub-industry of companies that install, integrate and configure home theater, security and connected home products.  They have an industry group. They are influential in the high-end of the consumer electronics industry, and so are their customers.  They love Media Center and they love Windows Home Server.  But I have talked to several of them at the Consumer Electronics Show and they tell me you don’t love them.  They find it very difficult to do business with Microsoft, even though they want nothing more than to sell and evangelize your platform.  This is a travesty.  Please fix it.  Get Allison Watson and the Microsoft Partner Network on board and have her hire someone who knows how to run a channel program for consumer electronics companies.  Problem solved.  Markets expanded.   8. Make Your Own Hardware In other areas, I know you love your partners.  I help run one, so I appreciate that.  But when it came to Xbox and Zune you built them it yourself (albeit on a contract basis, which is fine).  Windows Phone 7 has a chance to work as an OEM play, but it would work better if you produced the devices.  At least consider building a reference device that sells alongside your OEMs’ offerings.  That’s what Google did with the Nexxus One.  And while that phone was not itself a big seller, it catalyzed two wonderful things : (1) a quality bar was set and (2) partners exceeded it.  Before the Nexxus One, the best Android handset out there was the Motorola Droid. The Nexxus One was better, and the HTC Droid Incredible and Evo 4G are now even better than Google’s phone, which is why Verizon and Sprint decided not to carry it.  Imagine if all Windows Phone 6.x devices were on par with the HTC HD2.  I tend to believe you’d have a lot bigger market share than you do now.   9. Continue with Your Retail Initiative From what I hear, it sounds like it’s going well.  And this goes right along with making your own hardware.  When you build it, they will come.  And then it makes the likes of Best Buy and Staples do better.   10. Make an Acquisition (or Two) TiVo and/or Moxi look ripe for the picking.  With their ability to build stuff people love and your ability to run a business, you might just have something.  But do a better job than you did when you bought Danger.  Buy the ideas, not just the customers, eh?   11. Make Beautiful Stuff You’ve heard this one before, I know.  But I have some head-shrinking advice on this one.  You know that Apple obsesses over its industrial design.  You know that appeals to consumers.  But it seems you think doing so is Apple’s game exclusively and so you shouldn’t even try.  Bull dinky.  Come to New York and visit the Museum of Modern Art’s Architecture and Design gallery.  You’ll see that lots of companies and product categories have had very high design value well before Apple existed.  You can do this, and the Zune HD was a great start.  Now run with that.  Find those negative voices in your head that are telling you that you can’t and shut them up.  For good.   12. Burst the Bubble Some of the products you’ve built seem like they were conceived in a bizarro world.  That would appear to be the result of groupthink.  You must do better.  And there’s lots of people willing to advise you.  This includes just about everyone in the Regional Director program, and probably a bunch of MVPs.  Heck, I bet the guys at Engadget could help out too.  Imagine if you let them see the Kin before it shipped.  Talk to high-end gear consumers.  Talk to Best Buy and CostCo customers too.   Signing Off I hope this was of value to you.  As I wrote this I kept telling myself how obvious, even trite, some of these pieces of advice were and then, because of that, doubting they’d really help.  But I decided that they must not be obvious to Microsoft.  Sometimes when you get wrapped up in stuff, it’s hard to clear your head.  I think my head’s pretty clear here though (I’m wrapped up in other stuff), so maybe my perspective can help.  If not, well, then, I guess they all can’t be super nice.

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