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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, March 23, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, March 23, 2010New Projects.NET StarCraft II Replay Parser: A .NET 3.5 Library used to parse StarCraft II replays. Developed in C# 3.5.BackToBasics "B2B" Chat: With technology and software getting more and more complicated, why not get back to basics with BackToBasicsChat. B2B allows you to chat over a ser...Dark Neuron Game Engine: Dark Neuron allows you to easily create fun and interesting games with no need of developing basic game components. This engine is developed for C#...DeepZoom Pivot Constructor: Library to make building DeepZoom images and Pivot displays simpler.ePaper reader: The project is aimed at creating a tool which helps in reading electronic editions of news papers(pdf/flash)FSharpPageProvider for EPiServer CMS 6: This project starts as the port of EPiServer XmlPageProvider to F# programming language. Hammock for REST: Hammock is a REST library for .NET that greatly simplifies consuming and wrapping RESTful services.Kirill Osenkov: Various small projects, tools, utilities and samples by Kirill OsenkovliveDB: liveDB - web client for sql serverLucilla Framework: lucilla frameworkMVC Foolproof Validation: MVC Foolproof Validation aims to extend the Data Annotation validation provided in ASP.NET MVC. Initial efforts are focused on adding contingent va...MVC2Forums: MVC2Forums is simply a forum system based upon MVC2.Mvvm Foundation Silverlight: Mvvm Foundation Silverlight is a library of classes that are helpful when building Silverlight applications based in the MVVM pattern. This librar...MyPersonalWebsite: This is my personal web site developed using ASP.NET MVC 2Planner: Planner makes it easier for all peoples to plan your tasks. It's developed in Delphi.Prose: Prose is an playground for an experimental JavaScript like language compiler. Eventually it will implement 0-CFA, CFA2, and a Tracing JITQuestTracker: QuestTracker is a todo list presented in the format of a quest tracking list such as the one in World of Warcraft.SevenZipLib: SevenZipLib is a C# interface to the 7-zip library.SimpleGeo .Net: .Net Client library for the SimpleGeo.com serviceNew ReleasesAutenticar no OpenLDAP utilizando pGIna: DLL LDAPAuth Plus: New Group: No LoginBMap.NET: BMap.NET 2: This is the 2nd version of BMap.NET. It has included these tags: Bing Maps, and "About BMap.NET".Cronos: Version 2.04: This is primarily a bug-fix release. Several numerical issues have been resolved, and a resource leak (of MS Windows graphics objects) has been fi...EV Dashboard: v1.0: This release includes support for an App.config file and Auto Connect, which will connect to the specified BMS at startup. Note: You still have to ...GKO Libraries: GKO Libraries 0.1 Beta: 0.1 Beta Added More utilities and functions RefactoringsGLB Virtual Player Builder: 0.4.2 Beta: Beta build that includes a new player creator.HKGolden Express: HKGoldenExpress (Build 201003222215): New features: (None) Bug fix: Fixed bugs of unable to parse XML file stream returned from HKGolden API, as the encoding of XML file stream chang...jQuery Web Controls ASP.Net: jQueryWebControls 1.1.1.2: En esta versión se han corregido problemas existentes en la ejecución de los scripts de jquery cuando se utilizaban MasterPage y/o Ajax Control Too...LightKit: Version 0.2.2: Fixed: fixed bug when CollectionItemsEditor ditermines IsChanged property incorrectly fixed ObjectEditor`a thisstring propertyName method wrong l...LINQ to Twitter: LINQ to Twitter Beta v2.0.8: New items added since v1.1 include: Support for OAuth (via DotNetOpenAuth), secure communication via https, VB language support, serialization of ...MapWindow6: MapWindow 6.0 msi (March 22): This version fixes the icons for the desktop installer and changes the install directory to Program Files\MapWindow instead of Program Files\ISU.Math.NET Numerics: 2010.3.22.1334 Build: Latest alpha buildMiniCalendar Web Part: MiniCalendar Web Part 1.8: A small web part to display links to events stored in a list (or document library) in a mini calendar (in month view mode). It shows tooltips for t...OCInject: Release Two: This release brings some missing features such as Singleton support, Func<T> factories and child containers. It, also, has an updated constructor ...Phalanger - The PHP Language Compiler for the .NET Framework: 2.0 (March 2010): Installer of the latest binaries of Phalanger 2.0 (March 2010) and its integration into Visual Studio 2008. Easy installer with automatic IIS int...Planner: Planner: firstQuestTracker: QuestTracker 0.1: This is the preliminary release of QuestTracker. There's not much documentation or many features yet, but it is functional. Any feedback would be a...QuestTracker: QuestTracker 0.1.1: Bugfix for QuestTracker 0.1QuestTracker: QuestTracker 0.1.2: Fixes an issue with saving the quest list.Rawr: Rawr 2.3.13: We're pleased to announce that, after long last, Rawr3 has entered public beta. You're still welcome to continue using Rawr2 (that's what you're re...Single Web Session: Alpha Model Plugin: !How to use Single Web Session add following line into your web config <httpModules> <add name="SingleSession" type="SingleWebSession.Model.W...SMIL - SharePoint Map Integration Layer: SMIL 1.0: Custom data field Extracts Lat/Lon from EXIF from images being uploaded. Map Web Part Filter with SharePoint views Filter by connecting to...sTASKedit: sTASKedit 42532 (Developer Alpha): This release is only to verify the currently decoded task structure... Supported files: tasks.data (v1.3.6 client)VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30322.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVisual Studio DSite: Advanced Notepad (Visual C++ 2008): An notepad written in c that can save in a rich text file format.Wallpaper Rotator: Wallpaper Rotator 0.5: Wallpaper Rotator 0.5 This version includes the following improvements: Saving the choice of "Random Order (Shuffle Mode)" Updating the configu...Most Popular ProjectsMetaSharpRawrWBFS ManagerSilverlight ToolkitASP.NET Ajax LibraryMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseAJAX Control ToolkitLiveUpload to FacebookWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)ASP.NETMost Active ProjectsRawrjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesBlogEngine.NETLINQ to TwitterPHPExcelFarseer Physics EngineFacebook Developer ToolkitNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog Modulepatterns & practices: Composite WPF and SilverlightN2 CMS

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• How to Export Multiple Contacts in Outlook 2013 to Multiple vCards or a Single vCard

  - by Lori Kaufman

  We’ve shown you how to export a contact to and import a contact from a vCard (.vcf) file. However, what if you want to export multiple contacts at the same time to multiple vCard files or even a single vCard file? Outlook doesn’t allow you to directly export all your contacts as vCard files or as a single vCard file, but there is a way to accomplish both tasks. Export Multiple Contacts to Multiple vCard Files Outlook allows you to forward contact information as a vCard. You can also select multiple contacts and forward them all at once. This feature allows you to indirectly export multiple contacts at once to multiple vCard files. Click the People tab to access your contacts. Select all the contacts you want to export using the Shift and Ctrl keys as needed. Select Contacts the same way you would select files in Windows Explorer. Click Forward Contact in the Share section on the Home tab and select As a Business Card from the drop-down menu. The selected contacts attached to a new email message as .vcf files. To select all the attached .vcf files, right-click in the Attached box and select Select All from the popup menu. Make sure the folder to which you want to export the contacts is open in Windows Explorer. Drag the selected attached .vcf files from the new email message to the open folder in Windows Explorer. A .vcf file is created for each contact you selected and dragged to the folder. You can close the Message window by clicking on the X in the upper, right corner of the window. NOTE: You can also close the Message window by clicking the File tab. Then, click the Close option on the left. Because you already have your .vcf files, you don’t need to save or send the message, so click No when asked if you want to save your changes. If it turns out that a draft of your message was saved, the following message displays. Click No to delete the draft. Export Multiple Contacts to a Single vCard (.vcf) File If you would rather export your contacts to a single vCard (.vcf) File, there is a way to do this using Gmail. We’ll export the contacts from Outlook as a .csv file and then use Gmail to convert the .csv file to a .vcf file. Select the contacts you want to export on the People page and click the File tab. On the Account Information screen, click Open & Export in the list on the left. On the Open screen, click Import/Export. The Import and Export Wizard displays. Select Export to a file from the Choose an action to perform list and click Next. In the Create a file of type box, select Comma Separated Values. Click Next. Contacts should be already selected in the Select folder to export from box. If not, select it. Click Next. Click Browse to the right of the Save exported file as box. Navigate to the folder to which you want to export the .csv file. Enter a name for the file in the File name edit box, keeping the .csv extension. The path you selected is entered into the Save exported file as edit box. Click Next. The final screen of the Export to a File dialog box displays listing the action to be performed. Click Finish to begin the export process. Once the export process is finished, you will see the .csv file in the folder in Windows Explorer. Now, we will import the .csv file into Gmail. Go to Gmail and sign in to your account. Click Gmal in the upper, left corner of the main page and select Contacts from the drop-down menu. On the Contacts page, click More above your list of contacts and select Import from the drop-down menu. Click Browse on the Import contacts dialog box that displays. Navigate to the folder in which you saved the .csv file and select the file. Click Open. Click Import on the Import contacts dialog box. A screen displays listing the contacts you imported, but not yet merged into your main Gmail contacts list. Select the contacts you imported. NOTE: The contacts you imported may be the only contacts in this list. If that’s the case, they all should be automatically selected. Click More and select Export from the drop-down menu. On the Export contacts dialog box, select Selected contacts to indicate which contacts you want to export. NOTE: We could have selected The group Imported 10/10/13 because that contains the same two contacts as the Selected contacts. Select vCard format for the export format. Click Export. Gmail creates a contacts.vcf file containing the selected contacts and asks you whether you want to open the file with Outlook or save the file. To save the file, select the Save File option and click OK. Navigate to the folder in which you want to save the contacts.vcf file, change the name of the file in the File name edit box, if desired, and click Save. The .vcf file is saved to the selected directory and contains all the contacts you exported from Outlook. This could be used as a way to backup your contacts in one file. You could also backup the .csv file. However, if you have a lot of contacts you will probably find that the .vcf file is smaller. We only exported two contacts, and our .csv file was 2 KB, while the .vcf file was 1 KB. We will be showing you how to import multiple contacts from a single .vcf file into Outlook soon.     

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• Share and Deliver BI Publisher Reports in Multiple Languages

  - by kanichiro.nishida

  When you share your reports with someone who speak and read in different languages you want your reports to be shown in their language, right ? Well, translating reports with BI Publisher is not only easy but also reduces the maintenance cost a lot. Many of us in the BI Publisher product development team used to work in Globalization and Multi Lingual support, which enables Oracle products and applications to be used in many different languages and countries and territories.  And we have a lot of experience in this area. In fact, being a strategic reporting platform for Oracle EBS, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, Siebel, and many other Oracle application products, our customers from all over the world are generating thousands of thousands of reports, including out-of-the-box pre-developed reports from Oracle and customer created or customized reports, in their own local language everyday as they operate and manage their business. Today, I’m going to talk about this very topic, how to translate my reports with BI Publisher 11G. Translation Grows, not the Numbers of the Reports Most of the reporting tools, regardless if it’s traditional or new, always take this translation on the back burner. They require their users to copy an original report and translate the whole thing. So when you want to support additional10 languages you will need to have 10 copies of the original. Imagine when you have 50 reports then you will end up having 500 reports (50 x 10) ! Now you need to maintain these 500 reports, whenever you need to make a change in a report you need to apply the same change to the other 10 reports. And as you imagine this is not only a nightmare for IT managements but not acceptable especially for the applications like Oracle EBS that supports over 30 languages. So first thing we did was, very simple, we separated the translation out of the report and marry it to the report only at the report generation. This means, regardless of how many languages you need to support you need to have only one report and translation files for the 10 languages, which would contain the translated letters and words. So let’s say you have 50 reports and need to support 10 languages for those reports you still have only 50 reports and each report now has 10 language translation files. Yes, translation is the one should grow as you add more languages to support, not the report itself! And second, we provide the translation files in XLIFF format, which is an international standard XML based format to exchange and maintain translation strings. So once you generate the XLIFF files for your reports with BI Publisher then you can work with any translation vendors in the world to make a mass translation or you can translate the XML files by yourself by manually updating the translatable strings presented in this text file. Lastly, we made it easier to manage the translation process starting from generating the XLIFF files to uploading the translated XLIFF files back to the BI Publisher server. You can generate, download, upload the XLIFF files from the BI Publisher’s Web interface with your browser and you can see the translated reports right away without needing to shutdown or restart your server. While the translated reports are displayed based on your language preference setting you can also specify a different language when you schedule or deliver the reports so that they can be generated in your customer’s preferred language. What Can I Translate? When it comes to translation there are three things. First, report content translation. When you receive a report you like to see the content like report title, section title, comments, annotation, table column header, and anything that are static and embedded in the report. in your preferred language. We call this Reports Content translation. Second, when you open a report online you might want to see not only the report content being translated but also the report UI, such as report name, parameter name, layout name, and anything that would help you to navigate around the reports, to be translated in your language. We call this Reports UI translation. And this separation of the Reports Content and Reports UI translation makes it very useful especially when you want to navigate through the reports in your preferred language UI but want to generate the reports in your customer’s preferred language. Imagine you are English native speaker and need to generate and send a report to your customers in China. You like to see the report name, parameter name in English so that you can comfortably navigate to the report and generate the report output, but like to see the report generated in Chinese so that the your customers in China can understand the report when they receive it. And lastly, you might want to see even the data presented in the report to be translated. For example, you might want to see product names in an Order Status report to be translated based on the report viewer’s language preference. We call this Reporting Data translation. Since this Reporting Data translation is maintained at the data source level such as Database tables along with the main data, you need to prepare the translation at the data source level first. Then, you want to make sure that your query is switched accordingly based on the language preference setting so that the translated data will be retrieved. How to Translate BI Publisher Reports? Now when it comes to ‘how to translate BI Publisher reports?’ the main focus here is about the translation for the Report Content and Report UI. And I just created this video to show you how to create and manage the translation with BI Publisher 11G. Please take a look at the clip below.   In today’s business world, customers and suppliers are from all over the world regardless of the size of the company or organization. Supporting multiple languages for your reports is no longer something ‘nice to have’, it’s mandatory. BI Publisher is designed to support multi lingual reports from the beginning without any extra hidden cost of license or configuration like other reporting tools such as Crystal Reports. You can support additional languages translation at any time with the very simple steps shown in the video above. Happy translation! Please share your translation experience with us! 

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• Establishing WebLogic Server HTTPS Trust of IIS Using a Microsoft Local Certificate Authority

  - by user647124

  Everyone agrees that self-signed and demo certificates for SSL and HTTPS should never be used in production and preferred not to be used elsewhere. Most self-signed and demo certificates are provided by vendors with the intention that they are used only to integrate within the same environment. In a vendor’s perfect world all application servers in a given enterprise are from the same vendor, which makes this lack of interoperability in a non-production environment an advantage. For us working in the real world, where not only do we not use a single vendor everywhere but have to make do with self-signed certificates for all but production, testing HTTPS between an IIS ASP.NET service provider and a WebLogic J2EE consumer application can be very frustrating to set up. It was for me, especially having found many blogs and discussion threads where various solutions were described but did not quite work and were all mostly similar but just a little bit different. To save both you and my future (who always seems to forget the hardest-won lessons) all of the pain and suffering, I am recording the steps that finally worked here for reference and sanity. How You Know You Need This The first cold clutches of dread that tells you it is going to be a long day is when you attempt to a WSDL published by IIS in WebLogic over HTTPS and you see the following: <Jul 30, 2012 2:51:31 PM EDT> <Warning> <Security> <BEA-090477> <Certificate chain received from myserver.mydomain.com - 10.555.55.123 was not trusted causing SSL handshake failure.> weblogic.wsee.wsdl.WsdlException: Failed to read wsdl file from url due to -- javax.net.ssl.SSLKeyException: [Security:090477]Certificate chain received from myserver02.mydomain.com - 10.555.55.123 was not trusted causing SSL handshake failure. The above is what started a three day sojourn into searching for a solution. Even people who had solved it before would tell me how they did, and then shrug when I demonstrated that the steps did not end in the success they claimed I would experience. Rather than torture you with the details of everything I did that did not work, here is what finally did work. Export the Certificates from IE First, take the offending WSDL URL and paste it into IE (if you have an internal Microsoft CA, you have IE, even if you don’t use it in favor of some other browser). To state the semi-obvious, if you received the error above there is a certificate configured for the IIS host of the service and the SSL port has been configured properly. Otherwise there would be a different error, usually about the site not found or connection failed. Once the WSDL loads, to the right of the address bar there will be a lock icon. Click the lock and then click View Certificates in the resulting dialog (if you do not have a lock icon but do have a Certificate Error message, see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931850 for steps to install the certificate then you can continue from the point of finding the lock icon). Figure 1: View Certificates in IE Next, select the Details tab in the resulting dialog Figure 2: Use Certificate Details to Export Certificate Click Copy to File, then Next, then select the Base-64 encoded option for the format Figure 3: Select the Base-64 encoded option for the format For the sake of simplicity, I choose to save this to the root of the WebLogic domain. It will work from anywhere, but later you will need to type in the full path rather than just the certificate name if you save it elsewhere. Figure 4: Browse to Save Location Figure 5: Save the Certificate to the Domain Root for Convenience This is the point where I ran into some confusion. Some articles mentioned exporting the entire chain of certificates. This supposedly works for some types of certificates, or if you have a few other tools and the time to learn them. For the SSL experts out there, they already have these tools, know how to use them well, and should not be wasting their time reading this article meant for folks who just want to get things wired up and back to unit testing and development. For the rest of us, the easiest way to make sure things will work is to just export all the links in the chain individually and let WebLogic Server worry about re-assembling them into a chain (which it does quite nicely). While perhaps not the most elegant solution, the multi-step process is easy to repeat and uses only tools that are immediately available and require no learning curve. So… Next, go to Tools then Internet Options then the Content tab and click Certificates. Go to the Trust Root Certificate Authorities tab and find the certificate root for your Microsoft CA cert (look for the Issuer of the certificate you exported earlier). Figure 6: Trusted Root Certification Authorities Tab Export this one the same way as before, with a different name Figure 7: Use a Unique Name for Each Certificate Repeat this once more for the Intermediate Certificate tab. Import the Certificates to the WebLogic Domain Now, open an command prompt, navigate to [WEBLOGIC_DOMAIN_ROOT]\bin and execute setDomainEnv. You should then be in the root of the domain. If not, CD to the domain root. Assuming you saved the certificate in the domain root, execute the following: keytool -importcert -alias [ALIAS-1] -trustcacerts -file [FULL PATH TO .CER 1] -keystore truststore.jks -storepass [PASSWORD] An example with the variables filled in is: keytool -importcert -alias IIS-1 -trustcacerts -file microsftcert.cer -keystore truststore.jks -storepass password After several lines out output you will be prompted with: Trust this certificate? [no]: The correct answer is ‘yes’ (minus the quotes, of course). You’ll you know you were successful if the response is: Certificate was added to keystore If not, check your typing, as that is generally the source of an error at this point. Repeat this for all three of the certificates you exported, changing the [ALIAS-1] and [FULL PATH TO .CER 1] value each time. For example: keytool -importcert -alias IIS-1 -trustcacerts -file microsftcert.cer -keystore truststore.jks -storepass password keytool -importcert -alias IIS-2 -trustcacerts -file microsftcertRoot.cer -keystore truststore.jks -storepass password keytool -importcert -alias IIS-3 -trustcacerts -file microsftcertIntermediate.cer -keystore truststore.jks -storepass password In the above we created a new JKS key store. You can re-use an existing one by changing the name of the JKS file to one you already have and change the password to the one that matches that JKS file. For the DemoTrust.jks  that is included with WebLogic the password is DemoTrustKeyStorePassPhrase. An example here would be: keytool -importcert -alias IIS-1 -trustcacerts -file microsoft.cer -keystore DemoTrust.jks -storepass DemoTrustKeyStorePassPhrase keytool -importcert -alias IIS-2 -trustcacerts -file microsoftRoot.cer -keystore DemoTrust.jks -storepass DemoTrustKeyStorePassPhrase keytool -importcert -alias IIS-2 -trustcacerts -file microsoftInter.cer -keystore DemoTrust.jks -storepass DemoTrustKeyStorePassPhrase Whichever keystore you use, you can check your work with: keytool -list -keystore truststore.jks -storepass password Where “truststore.jks” and “password” can be replaced appropriately if necessary. The output will look something like this: Figure 8: Output from keytool -list -keystore Update the WebLogic Keystore Configuration If you used an existing keystore rather than creating a new one, you can restart your WebLogic Server and skip the rest of this section. For those of us who created a new one because that is the instructions we found online… Next, we need to tell WebLogic to use the JKS file (truststore.jks) we just created. Log in to the WebLogic Server Administration Console and navigate to Servers > AdminServer > Configuration > Keystores. Scroll down to “Custom Trust Keystore:” and change the value to “truststore.jks” and the value of “Custom Trust Keystore Passphrase:” and “Confirm Custom Trust Keystore Passphrase:” to the password you used when earlier, then save your changes. You will get a nice message similar to the following: Figure 9: To Be Safe, Restart Anyways The “No restarts are necessary” is somewhat of an exaggeration. If you want to be able to use the keystore you may need restart the server(s). To save myself aggravation, I always do. Your mileage may vary. Conclusion That should get you there. If there are some erroneous steps included for your situation in particular, I will offer up a semi-apology as the process described above does not take long at all and if there is one step that could be dropped from it, is still much faster than trying to figure this out from other sources.

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• How can I improve this collision detection logic?

  - by Dan

  I’m trying to make an android game and I’m having a bit of trouble getting the collision detection to work. It works sometimes but my conditions aren’t specific enough and my program gets it wrong. How could I improve the following if conditions? public boolean checkColisionWithPlayer( Player player ) { // Top Left // Top Right // Bottom Right // Bottom Left // int[][] PP = { { player.x, player.y }, { player.x + player.width, player.y }, {player.x + player.height, player.y + player.width }, { player.x, player.y + player.height } }; // TOP LEFT - PLAYER // if( ( PP[0][0] > x && PP[0][0] < x + width ) && ( PP[0][1] > y && PP[0][1] < y + height ) && ( (x - player.x) < 0 ) ) { player.isColided = true; //player.isSpinning = false; // Collision On Right if( PP[0][0] > ( x + width/2 ) && ( PP[0][1] - y < ( x + width ) - PP[0][0] ) ) { Log.i("Colision", "Top Left - Right Side"); player.x = ( x + width ) + 1; player.Vh = player.phy.getVelsoityWallColision(player.Vh, player.Cr); } // Collision On Bottom else if( PP[0][1] > ( y + height/2 ) ) { Log.i("Colision", "Top Left - Bottom Side"); player.y = ( y + height ) + 1; if( player.Vv > 0 ) player.Vv = 0; } return true; } // TOP RIGHT - PLAYER // else if( ( PP[1][0] > x && PP[1][0] < x + width ) && ( PP[1][1] > y && PP[1][1] < y + height ) && ( (x - player.x) > 0 ) ) { player.isColided = true; //player.isSpinning = false; // Collision On Left if( PP[1][0] < ( x + width/2 ) && ( PP[1][0] - x < PP[1][1] - y ) ) { Log.i("Colision", "Top Right - Left Side"); player.x = ( x ) + 1; player.Vh = player.phy.getVelsoityWallColision(player.Vh, player.Cr); } // Collision On Bottom else if( PP[1][1] > ( y + height/2 ) ) { Log.i("Colision", "Top Right - Bottom Side"); player.y = ( y + height ) + 1; if( player.Vv > 0 ) player.Vv = 0; } return true; } // BOTTOM RIGHT - PLAYER // else if( ( PP[2][0] > x && PP[2][0] < x + width ) && ( PP[2][1] > y && PP[2][1] < y + height ) ) { player.isColided = true; //player.isSpinning = false; // Collision On Left if( PP[2][0] < ( x + width/2 ) && ( PP[2][0] - x < PP[2][1] - y ) ) { Log.i("Colision", "Bottom Right - Left Side"); player.x = ( x ) + 1; player.Vh = player.phy.getVelsoityWallColision(player.Vh, player.Cr); } // Collision On Top else if( PP[2][1] < ( y + height/2 ) ) { Log.i("Colision", "Bottom Right - Top Side"); player.y = y - player.height; player.Vv = player.phy.getVelsoityWallColision(player.Vv, player.Cr); //player.Vh = -1 * ( player.phy.getVelsoityWallColision(player.Vv, player.Cr) ); int rs = x - player.x; Log.i("RS", String.format("%d", rs)); if( rs > 0 ) { player.direction = -1; player.isSpinning = true; player.Vh = -0.5 * ( player.phy.getVelsoityWallColision(player.Vv, player.Cr) ); } if( rs < 0 ) { player.direction = 1; player.isSpinning = true; player.Vh = 0.5 * ( player.phy.getVelsoityWallColision(player.Vv, player.Cr) ); } player.rotateSpeed = 1 * rs; } return true; } // BOTTOM LEFT - PLAYER // else if( ( PP[3][0] > x && PP[3][0] < x + width ) && ( PP[3][1] > y && PP[3][1] < y + height ) )//&& ( (x - player.x) > 0 ) ) { player.isColided = true; //player.isSpinning = false; // Collision On Right if( PP[3][0] > ( x + width/2 ) && ( PP[3][1] - y < ( x + width ) - PP[3][0] ) ) { Log.i("Colision", "Bottom Left - Right Side"); player.x = ( x + width ) + 1; player.Vh = player.phy.getVelsoityWallColision(player.Vh, player.Cr); } // Collision On Top else if( PP[3][1] < ( y + height/2 ) ) { Log.i("Colision", "Bottom Left - Top Side"); player.y = y - player.height; player.Vv = player.phy.getVelsoityWallColision(player.Vv, player.Cr); //player.Vh = -1 * ( player.phy.getVelsoityWallColision(player.Vv, player.Cr) ); int rs = x - player.x; //Log.i("RS", String.format("%d", rs)); //player.direction = -1; //player.isSpinning = true; if( rs > 0 ) { player.direction = -1; player.isSpinning = true; player.Vh = -1 * ( player.phy.getVelsoityWallColision(player.Vv, player.Cr) ); } if( rs < 0 ) { player.direction = 1; player.isSpinning = true; player.Vh = 1 * ( player.phy.getVelsoityWallColision(player.Vv, player.Cr) ); } player.rotateSpeed = 1 * rs; } //try { Thread.sleep(1000, 0); } //catch (InterruptedException e) {} return true; } else { player.isColided = false; player.isSpinning = true; } return false; }

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• Why Is Faulty Behaviour In The .NET Framework Not Fixed?

  - by Alois Kraus

  Here is the scenario: You have a Windows Form Application that calls a method via Invoke or BeginInvoke which throws exceptions. Now you want to find out where the error did occur and how the method has been called. Here is the output we do get when we call Begin/EndInvoke or simply Invoke The actual code that was executed was like this:         private void cInvoke_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)         {             InvokingFunction(CallMode.Invoke);         }            [MethodImpl(MethodImplOptions.NoInlining)]         void InvokingFunction(CallMode mode)         {             switch (mode)             {                 case CallMode.Invoke:                     this.Invoke(new MethodInvoker(GenerateError));   The faulting method is called GenerateError which does throw a NotImplementedException exception and wraps it in a NotSupportedException.           [MethodImpl(MethodImplOptions.NoInlining)]         void GenerateError()         {             F1();         }           private void F1()         {             try             {                 F2();             }             catch (Exception ex)             {                 throw new NotSupportedException("Outer Exception", ex);             }         }           private void F2()         {            throw new NotImplementedException("Inner Exception");         } It is clear that the method F2 and F1 did actually throw these exceptions but we do not see them in the call stack. If we directly call the InvokingFunction and catch and print the exception we can find out very easily how we did get into this situation. We see methods F1,F2,GenerateError and InvokingFunction directly in the stack trace and we see that actually two exceptions did occur. Here is for comparison what we get from Invoke/EndInvoke System.NotImplementedException: Inner Exception     StackTrace:    at System.Windows.Forms.Control.MarshaledInvoke(Control caller, Delegate method, Object[] args, Boolean synchronous)     at System.Windows.Forms.Control.Invoke(Delegate method, Object[] args)     at WindowsFormsApplication1.AppForm.InvokingFunction(CallMode mode)     at WindowsFormsApplication1.AppForm.cInvoke_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)     at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnClick(EventArgs e)     at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e) The exception message is kept but the stack starts running from our Invoke call and not from the faulting method F2. We have therefore no clue where this exception did occur! The stack starts running at the method MarshaledInvoke because the exception is rethrown with the throw catchedException which resets the stack trace. That is bad but things are even worse because if previously lets say 5 exceptions did occur .NET will return only the first (innermost) exception. That does mean that we do not only loose the original call stack but all other exceptions and all data contained therein as well. It is a pity that MS does know about this and simply closes this issue as not important. Programmers will play a lot more around with threads than before thanks to TPL, PLINQ that do come with .NET 4. Multithreading is hyped quit a lot in the press and everybody wants to use threads. But if the .NET Framework makes it nearly impossible to track down the easiest UI multithreading issue I have a problem with that. The problem has been reported but obviously not been solved. .NET 4 Beta 2 did not have changed that dreaded GetBaseException call in MarshaledInvoke to return only the innermost exception of the complete exception stack. It is really time to fix this. WPF on the other hand does the right thing and wraps the exceptions inside a TargetInvocationException which makes much more sense. But Not everybody uses WPF for its daily work and Windows forms applications will still be used for a long time. Below is the code to repro the issues shown and how the exceptions can be rendered in a meaningful way. The default Exception.ToString implementation generates a hard to interpret stack if several nested exceptions did occur. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.ComponentModel; using System.Data; using System.Drawing; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.Windows.Forms; using System.Threading; using System.Globalization; using System.Runtime.CompilerServices;   namespace WindowsFormsApplication1 {     public partial class AppForm : Form     {         enum CallMode         {             Direct = 0,             BeginInvoke = 1,             Invoke = 2         };           public AppForm()         {             InitializeComponent();             Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = CultureInfo.InvariantCulture;             Application.ThreadException += new System.Threading.ThreadExceptionEventHandler(Application_ThreadException);         }           void Application_ThreadException(object sender, System.Threading.ThreadExceptionEventArgs e)         {             cOutput.Text = PrintException(e.Exception, 0, null).ToString();         }           private void cDirectUnhandled_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)         {             InvokingFunction(CallMode.Direct);         }           private void cDirectCall_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)         {             try             {                 InvokingFunction(CallMode.Direct);             }             catch (Exception ex)             {                 cOutput.Text = PrintException(ex, 0, null).ToString();             }         }           private void cInvoke_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)         {             InvokingFunction(CallMode.Invoke);         }           private void cBeginInvokeCall_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)         {             InvokingFunction(CallMode.BeginInvoke);         }           [MethodImpl(MethodImplOptions.NoInlining)]         void InvokingFunction(CallMode mode)         {             switch (mode)             {                 case CallMode.Direct:                     GenerateError();                     break;                 case CallMode.Invoke:                     this.Invoke(new MethodInvoker(GenerateError));                     break;                 case CallMode.BeginInvoke:                     IAsyncResult res = this.BeginInvoke(new MethodInvoker(GenerateError));                     this.EndInvoke(res);                     break;             }         }           [MethodImpl(MethodImplOptions.NoInlining)]         void GenerateError()         {             F1();         }           private void F1()         {             try             {                 F2();             }             catch (Exception ex)             {                 throw new NotSupportedException("Outer Exception", ex);             }         }           private void F2()         {            throw new NotImplementedException("Inner Exception");         }           StringBuilder PrintException(Exception ex, int identLevel, StringBuilder sb)         {             StringBuilder builtStr = sb;             if( builtStr == null )                 builtStr = new StringBuilder();               if( ex == null )                 return builtStr;                 WriteLine(builtStr, String.Format("{0}: {1}", ex.GetType().FullName, ex.Message), identLevel);             WriteLine(builtStr, String.Format("StackTrace: {0}", ShortenStack(ex.StackTrace)), identLevel + 1);             builtStr.AppendLine();               return PrintException(ex.InnerException, ++identLevel, builtStr);         }               void WriteLine(StringBuilder sb, string msg, int identLevel)         {             foreach (string trimmedLine in SplitToLines(msg)                                            .Select( (line) => line.Trim()) )             {                 for (int i = 0; i < identLevel; i++)                     sb.Append('\t');                 sb.Append(trimmedLine);                 sb.AppendLine();             }         }           string ShortenStack(string stack)         {             int nonAppFrames = 0;             // Skip stack frames not part of our app but include two foreign frames and skip the rest             // If our stack frame is encountered reset counter to 0             return SplitToLines(stack)                               .Where((line) =>                               {                                   nonAppFrames = line.Contains("WindowsFormsApplication1") ? 0 : nonAppFrames + 1;                                   return nonAppFrames < 3;                               })                              .Select((line) => line)                              .Aggregate("", (current, line) => current + line + Environment.NewLine);         }           static char[] NewLines = Environment.NewLine.ToCharArray();         string[] SplitToLines(string str)         {             return str.Split(NewLines, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);         }     } }

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• SSAO Distortion

  - by Robert Xu

  I'm currently (attempting) to add SSAO to my engine, except it's...not really work, to say the least. I use a deferred renderer to render my scene. I have four render targets: Albedo, Light, Normal, and Depth. Here are the parameters for all of them (Surface Format, Depth Format): Albedo: 32-bit ARGB, Depth24Stencil8 Light: 32-bit ARGB, None Normal: 32-bit ARGB, None Depth: 8-bit R (Single), Depth24Stencil8 To generate my random noise map for the SSAO, I do the following for each pixel in the noise map: Vector3 v3 = Vector3.Zero; double z = rand.NextDouble() * 2.0 - 1.0; double r = Math.Sqrt(1.0 - z * z); double angle = rand.NextDouble() * MathHelper.TwoPi; v3.X = (float)(r * Math.Cos(angle)); v3.Y = (float)(r * Math.Sin(angle)); v3.Z = (float)z; v3 += offset; v3 *= 0.5f; result[i] = new Color(v3); This is my GBuffer rendering effect: PixelInput RenderGBufferColorVertexShader(VertexInput input) { PixelInput pi = ( PixelInput ) 0; pi.Position = mul(input.Position, WorldViewProjection); pi.Normal = mul(input.Normal, WorldInverseTranspose); pi.Color = input.Color; pi.TPosition = pi.Position; pi.WPosition = input.Position; return pi; } GBufferTarget RenderGBufferColorPixelShader(PixelInput input) { GBufferTarget output = ( GBufferTarget ) 0; float3 position = input.TPosition.xyz / input.TPosition.w; output.Albedo = lerp(float4(1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f), input.Color, ColorFactor); output.Normal = EncodeNormal(input.Normal); output.Depth = position.z; return output; } And here is the SSAO effect: float4 EncodeNormal(float3 normal) { return float4((normal.xyz * 0.5f) + 0.5f, 0.0f); } float3 DecodeNormal(float4 encoded) { return encoded * 2.0 - 1.0f; } float Intensity; float Size; float2 NoiseOffset; float4x4 ViewProjection; float4x4 ViewProjectionInverse; texture DepthMap; texture NormalMap; texture RandomMap; const float3 samples[16] = { float3(0.01537562, 0.01389096, 0.02276565), float3(-0.0332658, -0.2151698, -0.0660736), float3(-0.06420016, -0.1919067, 0.5329634), float3(-0.05896204, -0.04509097, -0.03611697), float3(-0.1302175, 0.01034653, 0.01543675), float3(0.3168565, -0.182557, -0.01421785), float3(-0.02134448, -0.1056605, 0.00576055), float3(-0.3502164, 0.281433, -0.2245609), float3(-0.00123525, 0.00151868, 0.02614773), float3(0.1814744, 0.05798516, -0.02362876), float3(0.07945167, -0.08302628, 0.4423518), float3(0.321987, -0.05670302, -0.05418307), float3(-0.00165138, -0.00410309, 0.00537362), float3(0.01687791, 0.03189049, -0.04060405), float3(-0.04335613, -0.00530749, 0.06443053), float3(0.8474263, -0.3590308, -0.02318038), }; sampler DepthSampler = sampler_state { Texture = DepthMap; MipFilter = Point; MinFilter = Point; MagFilter = Point; AddressU = Clamp; AddressV = Clamp; AddressW = Clamp; }; sampler NormalSampler = sampler_state { Texture = NormalMap; MipFilter = Linear; MinFilter = Linear; MagFilter = Linear; AddressU = Clamp; AddressV = Clamp; AddressW = Clamp; }; sampler RandomSampler = sampler_state { Texture = RandomMap; MipFilter = Linear; MinFilter = Linear; MagFilter = Linear; }; struct VertexInput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float2 TextureCoordinates : TEXCOORD0; }; struct PixelInput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float2 TextureCoordinates : TEXCOORD0; }; PixelInput SSAOVertexShader(VertexInput input) { PixelInput pi = ( PixelInput ) 0; pi.Position = input.Position; pi.TextureCoordinates = input.TextureCoordinates; return pi; } float3 GetXYZ(float2 uv) { float depth = tex2D(DepthSampler, uv); float2 xy = uv * 2.0f - 1.0f; xy.y *= -1; float4 p = float4(xy, depth, 1); float4 q = mul(p, ViewProjectionInverse); return q.xyz / q.w; } float3 GetNormal(float2 uv) { return DecodeNormal(tex2D(NormalSampler, uv)); } float4 SSAOPixelShader(PixelInput input) : COLOR0 { float depth = tex2D(DepthSampler, input.TextureCoordinates); float3 position = GetXYZ(input.TextureCoordinates); float3 normal = GetNormal(input.TextureCoordinates); float occlusion = 1.0f; float3 reflectionRay = DecodeNormal(tex2D(RandomSampler, input.TextureCoordinates + NoiseOffset)); for (int i = 0; i < 16; i++) { float3 sampleXYZ = position + reflect(samples[i], reflectionRay) * Size; float4 screenXYZW = mul(float4(sampleXYZ, 1.0f), ViewProjection); float3 screenXYZ = screenXYZW.xyz / screenXYZW.w; float2 sampleUV = float2(screenXYZ.x * 0.5f + 0.5f, 1.0f - (screenXYZ.y * 0.5f + 0.5f)); float frontMostDepthAtSample = tex2D(DepthSampler, sampleUV); if (frontMostDepthAtSample < screenXYZ.z) { occlusion -= 1.0f / 16.0f; } } return float4(occlusion * Intensity * float3(1.0, 1.0, 1.0), 1.0); } technique SSAO { pass Pass0 { VertexShader = compile vs_3_0 SSAOVertexShader(); PixelShader = compile ps_3_0 SSAOPixelShader(); } } However, when I use the effect, I get some pretty bad distortion: Here's the light map that goes with it -- is the static-like effect supposed to be like that? I've noticed that even if I'm looking at nothing, I still get the static-like effect. (you can see it in the screenshot; the top half doesn't have any geometry yet it still has the static-like effect) Also, does anyone have any advice on how to effectively debug shaders?

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• PostSharp, Obfuscation, and IL

  - by Simon Cooper

  Aspect-oriented programming (AOP) is a relatively new programming paradigm. Originating at Xerox PARC in 1994, the paradigm was first made available for general-purpose development as an extension to Java in 2001. From there, it has quickly been adapted for use in all the common languages used today. In the .NET world, one of the primary AOP toolkits is PostSharp. Attributes and AOP Normally, attributes in .NET are entirely a metadata construct. Apart from a few special attributes in the .NET framework, they have no effect whatsoever on how a class or method executes within the CLR. Only by using reflection at runtime can you access any attributes declared on a type or type member. PostSharp changes this. By declaring a custom attribute that derives from PostSharp.Aspects.Aspect, applying it to types and type members, and running the resulting assembly through the PostSharp postprocessor, you can essentially declare 'clever' attributes that change the behaviour of whatever the aspect has been applied to at runtime. A simple example of this is logging. By declaring a TraceAttribute that derives from OnMethodBoundaryAspect, you can automatically log when a method has been executed: public class TraceAttribute : PostSharp.Aspects.OnMethodBoundaryAspect { public override void OnEntry(MethodExecutionArgs args) { MethodBase method = args.Method; System.Diagnostics.Trace.WriteLine( String.Format( "Entering {0}.{1}.", method.DeclaringType.FullName, method.Name)); } public override void OnExit(MethodExecutionArgs args) { MethodBase method = args.Method; System.Diagnostics.Trace.WriteLine( String.Format( "Leaving {0}.{1}.", method.DeclaringType.FullName, method.Name)); } } [Trace] public void MethodToLog() { ... } Now, whenever MethodToLog is executed, the aspect will automatically log entry and exit, without having to add the logging code to MethodToLog itself. PostSharp Performance Now this does introduce a performance overhead - as you can see, the aspect allows access to the MethodBase of the method the aspect has been applied to. If you were limited to C#, you would be forced to retrieve each MethodBase instance using Type.GetMethod(), matching on the method name and signature. This is slow. Fortunately, PostSharp is not limited to C#. It can use any instruction available in IL. And in IL, you can do some very neat things. Ldtoken C# allows you to get the Type object corresponding to a specific type name using the typeof operator: Type t = typeof(Random); The C# compiler compiles this operator to the following IL: ldtoken [mscorlib]System.Random call class [mscorlib]System.Type [mscorlib]System.Type::GetTypeFromHandle( valuetype [mscorlib]System.RuntimeTypeHandle) The ldtoken instruction obtains a special handle to a type called a RuntimeTypeHandle, and from that, the Type object can be obtained using GetTypeFromHandle. These are both relatively fast operations - no string lookup is required, only direct assembly and CLR constructs are used. However, a little-known feature is that ldtoken is not just limited to types; it can also get information on methods and fields, encapsulated in a RuntimeMethodHandle or RuntimeFieldHandle: // get a MethodBase for String.EndsWith(string) ldtoken method instance bool [mscorlib]System.String::EndsWith(string) call class [mscorlib]System.Reflection.MethodBase [mscorlib]System.Reflection.MethodBase::GetMethodFromHandle( valuetype [mscorlib]System.RuntimeMethodHandle) // get a FieldInfo for the String.Empty field ldtoken field string [mscorlib]System.String::Empty call class [mscorlib]System.Reflection.FieldInfo [mscorlib]System.Reflection.FieldInfo::GetFieldFromHandle( valuetype [mscorlib]System.RuntimeFieldHandle) These usages of ldtoken aren't usable from C# or VB, and aren't likely to be added anytime soon (Eric Lippert's done a blog post on the possibility of adding infoof, methodof or fieldof operators to C#). However, PostSharp deals directly with IL, and so can use ldtoken to get MethodBase objects quickly and cheaply, without having to resort to string lookups. The kicker However, there are problems. Because ldtoken for methods or fields isn't accessible from C# or VB, it hasn't been as well-tested as ldtoken for types. This has resulted in various obscure bugs in most versions of the CLR when dealing with ldtoken and methods, and specifically, generic methods and methods of generic types. This means that PostSharp was behaving incorrectly, or just plain crashing, when aspects were applied to methods that were generic in some way. So, PostSharp has to work around this. Without using the metadata tokens directly, the only way to get the MethodBase of generic methods is to use reflection: Type.GetMethod(), passing in the method name as a string along with information on the signature. Now, this works fine. It's slower than using ldtoken directly, but it works, and this only has to be done for generic methods. Unfortunately, this poses problems when the assembly is obfuscated. PostSharp and Obfuscation When using ldtoken, obfuscators don't affect how PostSharp operates. Because the ldtoken instruction directly references the type, method or field within the assembly, it is unaffected if the name of the object is changed by an obfuscator. However, the indirect loading used for generic methods was breaking, because that uses the name of the method when the assembly is put through the PostSharp postprocessor to lookup the MethodBase at runtime. If the name then changes, PostSharp can't find it anymore, and the assembly breaks. So, PostSharp needs to know about any changes an obfuscator does to an assembly. The way PostSharp does this is by adding another layer of indirection. When PostSharp obfuscation support is enabled, it includes an extra 'name table' resource in the assembly, consisting of a series of method & type names. When PostSharp needs to lookup a method using reflection, instead of encoding the method name directly, it looks up the method name at a fixed offset inside that name table: MethodBase genericMethod = typeof(ContainingClass).GetMethod(GetNameAtIndex(22)); PostSharp.NameTable resource: ... 20: get_Prop1 21: set_Prop1 22: DoFoo 23: GetWibble When the assembly is later processed by an obfuscator, the obfuscator can replace all the method and type names within the name table with their new name. That way, the reflection lookups performed by PostSharp will now use the new names, and everything will work as expected: MethodBase genericMethod = typeof(#kGy).GetMethod(GetNameAtIndex(22)); PostSharp.NameTable resource: ... 20: #kkA 21: #zAb 22: #EF5a 23: #2tg As you can see, this requires direct support by an obfuscator in order to perform these rewrites. Dotfuscator supports it, and now, starting with SmartAssembly 6.6.4, SmartAssembly does too. So, a relatively simple solution to a tricky problem, with some CLR bugs thrown in for good measure. You don't see those every day!

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• Oracle Tutor: Top 10 to Implement Sustainable Policies and Procedures

  - by emily.chorba(at)oracle.com

  Overview Your organization (executives, managers, and employees) understands the value of having written business process documents (process maps, procedures, instructions, reference documents, and form abstracts). Policies and procedures should be documented because they help to reduce the range of individual decisions and encourage management by exception: the manager only needs to give special attention to unusual problems, not covered by a specific policy or procedure. As more and more procedures are written to cover recurring situations, managers will begin to make decisions which will be consistent from one functional area to the next.Companies should take a project management approach when implementing an environment for a sustainable documentation program and do the following:1. Identify an Executive Champion2. Put together a winning team3. Assign ownership4. Centralize publishing5. Establish the Document Maintenance Process Up Front6. Document critical activities only7. Document actual practice8. Minimize documentation9. Support continuous improvement10. Keep it simple 1. Identify an Executive ChampionAppoint a top down driver. Select one key individual to be a mentor for the procedure planning team. The individual should be a senior manager, such as your company president, CIO, CFO, the vice-president of quality, manufacturing, or engineering. Written policies and procedures can be important supportive aids when known to express the thinking for the chief executive officer and / or the president and to have his or her full support. 2. Put Together a Winning TeamChoose a strong Project Management Leader and staff the procedure planning team with management members from cross functional groups. Make sure team members have the responsibility - and the authority - to make things happen.The winning team should consist of the Documentation Project Manager, Document Owners (one for each functional area), a Document Controller, and Document Specialists (as needed). The Tutor Implementation Guide has complete job descriptions for these roles. 3. Assign Ownership It is virtually impossible to keep process documentation simple and meaningful if employees who are far removed from the activity itself create it. It is impossible to keep documentation up-to-date when responsibility for the document is not clearly understood.Key to the Tutor methodology, therefore, is the concept of ownership. Each document has a single owner, who is responsible for ensuring that the document is necessary and that it reflects actual practice. The owner must be a person who is knowledgeable about the activity and who has the authority to build consensus among the persons who participate in the activity as well as the authority to define or change the way an activity is performed. The owner must be an advocate of the performers and negotiate, not dictate practices.In the Tutor environment, a document's owner is the only person with the authority to approve an update to that document. 4. Centralize Publishing Although it is tempting (especially in a networked environment and with document management software solutions) to decentralize the control of all documents -- with each owner updating and distributing his own -- Tutor promotes centralized publishing by assigning the Document Administrator (gate keeper) to manage the updates and distribution of the procedures library. 5. Establish a Document Maintenance Process Up Front (and stick to it) Everyone in your organization should know they are invited to suggest changes to procedures and should understand exactly what steps to take to do so. Tutor provides a set of procedures to help your company set up a healthy document control system. There are many document management products available to automate some of the document change and maintenance steps. Depending on the size of your organization, a simple document management system can reduce the effort it takes to track and distribute document changes and updates. Whether your company decides to store the written policies and procedures on a file server or in a database, the essential tasks for maintaining documents are the same, though some tasks are automated. 6. Document Critical Activities Only The best way to keep your documentation simple is to reduce the number of process documents to a bare minimum and to include in those documents only as much detail as is absolutely necessary. The first step to reducing process documentation is to document only those activities that are deemed critical. Not all activities require documentation. In fact, some critical activities cannot and should not be standardized. Others may be sufficiently documented with an instruction or a checklist and may not require a procedure. A document should only be created when it enhances the performance of the employee performing the activity. If it does not help the employee, then there is no reason to maintain the document. Activities that represent little risk (such as project status), activities that cannot be defined in terms of specific tasks (such as product research), and activities that can be performed in a variety of ways (such as advertising) often do not require documentation. Sometimes, an activity will evolve to the point where documentation is necessary. For example, an activity performed by single employee may be straightforward and uncomplicated -- that is, until the activity is performed by multiple employees. Sometimes, it is the interaction between co-workers that necessitates documentation; sometimes, it is the complexity or the diversity of the activity.7. Document Actual Practices The only reason to maintain process documentation is to enhance the performance of the employee performing the activity. And documentation can only enhance performance if it reflects reality -- that is, current best practice. Documentation that reflects an unattainable ideal or outdated practices will end up on the shelf, unused and forgotten.Documenting actual practice means (1) auditing the activity to understand how the work is really performed, (2) identifying best practices with employees who are involved in the activity, (3) building consensus so that everyone agrees on a common method, and (4) recording that consensus.8. Minimize Documentation One way to keep it simple is to document at the highest level possible. That is, include in your documents only as much detail as is absolutely necessary.When writing a document, you should ask yourself, What is the purpose of this document? That is, what problem will it solve?By focusing on this question, you can target the critical information.• What questions are the end users likely to have?• What level of detail is required?• Is any of this information extraneous to the document's purpose? Short, concise documents are user friendly and they are easier to keep up to date. 9. Support Continuous Improvement Employees who perform an activity are often in the best position to identify improvements to the process. In other words, continuous improvement is a natural byproduct of the work itself -- but only if the improvements are communicated to all employees who are involved in the process, and only if there is consensus among those employees.Traditionally, process documentation has been used to dictate performance, to limit employees' actions. In the Tutor environment, process documents are used to communicate improvements identified by employees. How does this work? The Tutor methodology requires a process document to reflect actual practice, so the owner of a document must routinely audit its content -- does the document match what the employees are doing? If it doesn't, the owner has the responsibility to evaluate the process, to build consensus among the employees, to identify "best practices," and to communicate these improvements via a document update. Continuous improvement can also be an outgrowth of corrective action -- but only if the solutions to problems are communicated effectively. The goal should be to solve a problem once and only once, which means not only identifying the solution, but ensuring that the solution becomes part of the process. The Tutor system provides the method through which improvements and solutions are documented and communicated to all affected employees in a cost-effective, timely manner; it ensures that improvements are not lost or confined to a single employee. 10. Keep it Simple Process documents don't have to be complex and unfriendly. In fact, the simpler the format and organization, the more likely the documents will be used. And the simpler the method of maintenance, the more likely the documents will be kept up-to-date. Keep it simply by:• Minimizing skills and training required• Following the established Tutor document format and layout• Avoiding technology just for technology's sake No other rule has as major an impact on the success of your internal documentation as -- keep it simple. Learn More For more information about Tutor, visit Oracle.Com or the Tutor Blog. Post your questions at the Tutor Forum.   Emily Chorba Principle Product Manager Oracle Tutor & BPM 

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• How to use ULS in SharePoint 2010 for Custom Code Exception Logging?

  - by venkatx5

  What is ULS in SharePoint 2010? ULS stands for Unified Logging Service which captures and writes Exceptions/Logs in Log File(A Plain Text File with .log extension). SharePoint logs Each and every exceptions with ULS. SharePoint Administrators should know ULS and it's very useful when anything goes wrong. but when you ask any SharePoint 2007 Administrator to check log file then most of them will Kill you. Because read and understand the log file is not so easy. Imagine open a plain text file of 20 MB in NotePad and go thru line by line. Now Microsoft developed a tool "ULS Viewer" to view those Log files in easily readable format. This tools also helps to filter events based on exception priority. You can read on this blog to know in details about ULS Viewer . Where to get ULS Viewer? ULS Viewer is developed by Microsoft and available to download for free. URL : http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/ULSViewer/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=3308 Note: Eventhought this tool developed by Microsoft, it's not supported by Microsoft. Means you can't support for this tool from Microsoft and use it on your own Risk. By the way what's the risk in viewing Log Files?! How to use ULS in SharePoint 2010 Custom Code? ULS can be extended to use in user solutions to log exceptions. In Detail, Developer can use ULS to log his own application errors and exceptions on SharePoint Log files. So now all in Single Place (That's why it's called "Unified Logging"). Well in this article I am going to use Waldek's Code (Reference Link). However the article is core and am writing container for that (Basically how to implement the code in Detail). Let's see the steps. Open Visual Studio 2010 -> File -> New Project -> Visual C# -> Windows -> Class Library -> Name : ULSLogger (Make sure you've selected .net Framework 3.5)   In Solution Explorer Panel, Rename the Class1.cs to LoggingService.cs   Right Click on References -> Add Reference -> Under .Net tab select "Microsoft.SharePoint"   Right Click on the Project -> Properties. Select "Signing" Tab -> Check "Sign the Assembly".   In the below drop down select <New> and enter "ULSLogger", uncheck the "Protect my key with a Password" option.   Now copy the below code and paste. (Or Just refer.. :-) ) using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.SharePoint; using Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration; using System.Runtime.InteropServices; namespace ULSLogger { public class LoggingService : SPDiagnosticsServiceBase { public static string vsDiagnosticAreaName = "Venkats SharePoint Logging Service"; public static string CategoryName = "vsProject"; public static uint uintEventID = 700; // Event ID private static LoggingService _Current; public static LoggingService Current {  get   {    if (_Current == null)     {       _Current = new LoggingService();     }    return _Current;   } }private LoggingService() : base("Venkats SharePoint Logging Service", SPFarm.Local) {}protected override IEnumerable<SPDiagnosticsArea> ProvideAreas() { List<SPDiagnosticsArea> areas = new List<SPDiagnosticsArea>  {   new SPDiagnosticsArea(vsDiagnosticAreaName, new List<SPDiagnosticsCategory>    {     new SPDiagnosticsCategory(CategoryName, TraceSeverity.Medium, EventSeverity.Error)    })   }; return areas; }public static string LogErrorInULS(string errorMessage) { string strExecutionResult = "Message Not Logged in ULS. "; try  {   SPDiagnosticsCategory category = LoggingService.Current.Areas[vsDiagnosticAreaName].Categories[CategoryName];   LoggingService.Current.WriteTrace(uintEventID, category, TraceSeverity.Unexpected, errorMessage);   strExecutionResult = "Message Logged"; } catch (Exception ex) {  strExecutionResult += ex.Message; } return strExecutionResult; }public static string LogErrorInULS(string errorMessage, TraceSeverity tsSeverity) { string strExecutionResult = "Message Not Logged in ULS. "; try  {  SPDiagnosticsCategory category = LoggingService.Current.Areas[vsDiagnosticAreaName].Categories[CategoryName];  LoggingService.Current.WriteTrace(uintEventID, category, tsSeverity, errorMessage);  strExecutionResult = "Message Logged";  } catch (Exception ex)  {   strExecutionResult += ex.Message;   } return strExecutionResult;  } } }   Just build the solution and it's ready to use now. This ULS solution can be used in SharePoint Webparts or Console Application. Lets see how to use it in a Console Application. SharePoint Server 2010 must be installed in the same Server or the application must be hosted in SharPoint Server 2010 environment. The console application must be set to "x64" Platform target.   Create a New Console Application. (Visual Studio -> File -> New Project -> C# -> Windows -> Console Application) Right Click on References -> Add Reference -> Under .Net tab select "Microsoft.SharePoint" Open Program.cs add "using Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration;" Right Click on References -> Add Reference -> Under "Browse" tab select the "ULSLogger.dll" which we created first. (Path : ULSLogger\ULSLogger\bin\Debug\) Right Click on Project -> Properties -> Select "Build" Tab -> Under "Platform Target" option select "x64". Open the Program.cs and paste the below code. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration; using ULSLogger; namespace ULSLoggerClient {  class Program   {   static void Main(string[] args)     {     Console.WriteLine("ULS Logging Started.");     string strResult = LoggingService.LogErrorInULS("My Application is Working Fine.");      Console.WriteLine("ULS Logging Info. Result : " + strResult);     string strResult = LoggingService.LogErrorInULS("My Application got an Exception.", TraceSeverity.High);     Console.WriteLine("ULS Logging Waring Result : " + strResult);      Console.WriteLine("ULS Logging Completed.");      Console.ReadLine();     }   } } Just build the solution and execute. It'll log the message on the log file. Make sure you are using Farm Administrator User ID. You can play with Message and TraceSeverity as required. Now Open ULS Viewer -> File -> Open From -> ULS -> Select First Option to open the default ULS Log. It's Uls RealTime and will show all log entries in readable table format. Right Click on a row and select "Filter By This Item". Select "Event ID" and enter value "700" that we used in the application. Click Ok and now you'll see the Exceptions/Logs which logged by our application.   If you want to see High Priority Messages only then Click Icons except Red Cross Icon on the Toolbar. The tooltip will tell what's the icons used for.

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• Using SSIS to send a HTML E-Mail Message with built-in table of Counts.

  - by Kevin Shyr

  For the record, this can be just as easily done with a .NET class with a DLL call.  The two major reasons for this ending up as a SSIS package are: There are a lot of SQL resources for maintenance, but not as many .NET developers. There is an existing automated process that links up SQL Jobs (more on that in the next post), and this is part of that process.   To start, this is what the SSIS looks like: The first part of the control flow is just for the override scenario.   In the Execute SQL Task, it calls a stored procedure, which already formats the result into XML by using "FOR XML PATH('Row'), ROOT(N'FieldingCounts')".  The result XML string looks like this: <FieldingCounts>   <Row>     <CellId>M COD</CellId>     <Mailed>64</Mailed>     <ReMailed>210</ReMailed>     <TotalMail>274</TotalMail>     <EMailed>233</EMailed>     <TotalSent>297</TotalSent>   </Row>   <Row>     <CellId>M National</CellId>     <Mailed>11</Mailed>     <ReMailed>59</ReMailed>     <TotalMail>70</TotalMail>     <EMailed>90</EMailed>     <TotalSent>101</TotalSent>   </Row>   <Row>     <CellId>U COD</CellId>     <Mailed>91</Mailed>     <ReMailed>238</ReMailed>     <TotalMail>329</TotalMail>     <EMailed>291</EMailed>     <TotalSent>382</TotalSent>   </Row>   <Row>     <CellId>U National</CellId>     <Mailed>63</Mailed>     <ReMailed>286</ReMailed>     <TotalMail>349</TotalMail>     <EMailed>374</EMailed>     <TotalSent>437</TotalSent>   </Row> </FieldingCounts>  This result is saved into an internal SSIS variable with the following settings on the General tab and the Result Set tab:   Now comes the trickier part.  We need to use the XML Task to format the XML string result into an HTML table, and I used Direct input XSLT And here is the code of XSLT: <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"> <xsl:output method="html" indent="yes"/>   <xsl:template match="/ROOT">         <table border="1" cellpadding="6">           <tr>             <td></td>             <td>Mailed</td>             <td>Re-mailed</td>             <td>Total Mail (Mailed, Re-mailed)</td>             <td>E-mailed</td>             <td>Total Sent (Mailed, E-mailed)</td>           </tr>           <xsl:for-each select="FieldingCounts/Row">             <tr>               <xsl:for-each select="./*">                 <td>                   <xsl:value-of select="." />                 </td>               </xsl:for-each>             </tr>           </xsl:for-each>         </table>   </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet>    Then a script task is used to send out an HTML email (as we are all painfully aware that SSIS Send Mail Task only sends plain text) Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 using System; using System.Data; using Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime; using System.Windows.Forms; using System.Net.Mail; using System.Net;   namespace ST_b829a2615e714bcfb55db0ce97be3901.csproj {     [System.AddIn.AddIn("ScriptMain", Version = "1.0", Publisher = "", Description = "")]     public partial class ScriptMain : Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Tasks.ScriptTask.VSTARTScriptObjectModelBase     {           #region VSTA generated code         enum ScriptResults         {             Success = Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime.DTSExecResult.Success,             Failure = Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime.DTSExecResult.Failure         };         #endregion           public void Main()         {             String EmailMsgBody = String.Format("<HTML><BODY><P>{0}</P><P>{1}</P></BODY></HTML>"                                                 , Dts.Variables["Config_SMTP_MessageSourceText"].Value.ToString()                                                 , Dts.Variables["InternalStr_CountResultAfterXSLT"].Value.ToString());             MailMessage EmailCountMsg = new MailMessage(Dts.Variables["Config_SMTP_From"].Value.ToString().Replace(";", ",")                                                         , Dts.Variables["Config_SMTP_Success_To"].Value.ToString().Replace(";", ",")                                                         , Dts.Variables["Config_SMTP_SubjectLinePrefix"].Value.ToString() + " " + Dts.Variables["InternalStr_FieldingDate"].Value.ToString()                                                         , EmailMsgBody);             //EmailCountMsg.From.             EmailCountMsg.CC.Add(Dts.Variables["Config_SMTP_Success_CC"].Value.ToString().Replace(";", ","));             EmailCountMsg.IsBodyHtml = true;               SmtpClient SMTPForCount = new SmtpClient(Dts.Variables["Config_SMTP_ServerAddress"].Value.ToString());             SMTPForCount.Credentials = CredentialCache.DefaultNetworkCredentials;               SMTPForCount.Send(EmailCountMsg);               Dts.TaskResult = (int)ScriptResults.Success;         }     } } Note on this code: notice the email list has Replace(";", ",").  This is only here because the list is configurable in the SQL Job Step at Set Values, which does not react well with colons as email separator, but system.Net.Mail only handles comma as email separator, hence the extra replace in the string. The result is a nicely formatted email message with count information:

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• Pixel Shader Giving Black output

  - by Yashwinder

  I am coding in C# using Windows Forms and the SlimDX API to show the effect of a pixel shader. When I am setting the pixel shader, I am getting a black output screen but if I am not using the pixel shader then I am getting my image rendered on the screen. I have the following C# code using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Windows.Forms; using System.Runtime.InteropServices; using SlimDX.Direct3D9; using SlimDX; using SlimDX.Windows; using System.Drawing; using System.Threading; namespace WindowsFormsApplication1 { // Vertex structure. [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)] struct Vertex { public Vector3 Position; public float Tu; public float Tv; public static int SizeBytes { get { return Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(Vertex)); } } public static VertexFormat Format { get { return VertexFormat.Position | VertexFormat.Texture1; } } } static class Program { public static Device D3DDevice; // Direct3D device. public static VertexBuffer Vertices; // Vertex buffer object used to hold vertices. public static Texture Image; // Texture object to hold the image loaded from a file. public static int time; // Used for rotation caculations. public static float angle; // Angle of rottaion. public static Form1 Window =new Form1(); public static string filepath; static VertexShader vertexShader = null; static ConstantTable constantTable = null; static ImageInformation info; [STAThread] static void Main() { filepath = "C:\\Users\\Public\\Pictures\\Sample Pictures\\Garden.jpg"; info = new ImageInformation(); info = ImageInformation.FromFile(filepath); PresentParameters presentParams = new PresentParameters(); // Below are the required bare mininum, needed to initialize the D3D device. presentParams.BackBufferHeight = info.Height; // BackBufferHeight, set to the Window's height. presentParams.BackBufferWidth = info.Width+200; // BackBufferWidth, set to the Window's width. presentParams.Windowed =true; presentParams.DeviceWindowHandle = Window.panel2 .Handle; // DeviceWindowHandle, set to the Window's handle. // Create the device. D3DDevice = new Device(new Direct3D (), 0, DeviceType.Hardware, Window.Handle, CreateFlags.HardwareVertexProcessing, presentParams); // Create the vertex buffer and fill with the triangle vertices. (Non-indexed) // Remember 3 vetices for a triangle, 2 tris per quad = 6. Vertices = new VertexBuffer(D3DDevice, 6 * Vertex.SizeBytes, Usage.WriteOnly, VertexFormat.None, Pool.Managed); DataStream stream = Vertices.Lock(0, 0, LockFlags.None); stream.WriteRange(BuildVertexData()); Vertices.Unlock(); // Create the texture. Image = Texture.FromFile(D3DDevice,filepath ); // Turn off culling, so we see the front and back of the triangle D3DDevice.SetRenderState(RenderState.CullMode, Cull.None); // Turn off lighting D3DDevice.SetRenderState(RenderState.Lighting, false); ShaderBytecode sbcv = ShaderBytecode.CompileFromFile("C:\\Users\\yashwinder singh\\Desktop\\vertexShader.vs", "vs_main", "vs_1_1", ShaderFlags.None); constantTable = sbcv.ConstantTable; vertexShader = new VertexShader(D3DDevice, sbcv); ShaderBytecode sbc = ShaderBytecode.CompileFromFile("C:\\Users\\yashwinder singh\\Desktop\\pixelShader.txt", "ps_main", "ps_3_0", ShaderFlags.None); PixelShader ps = new PixelShader(D3DDevice, sbc); VertexDeclaration vertexDecl = new VertexDeclaration(D3DDevice, new[] { new VertexElement(0, 0, DeclarationType.Float3, DeclarationMethod.Default, DeclarationUsage.PositionTransformed, 0), new VertexElement(0, 12, DeclarationType.Float2 , DeclarationMethod.Default, DeclarationUsage.TextureCoordinate , 0), VertexElement.VertexDeclarationEnd }); Application.EnableVisualStyles(); MessagePump.Run(Window, () => { // Clear the backbuffer to a black color. D3DDevice.Clear(ClearFlags.Target | ClearFlags.ZBuffer, Color.Black, 1.0f, 0); // Begin the scene. D3DDevice.BeginScene(); // Setup the world, view and projection matrices. //D3DDevice.VertexShader = vertexShader; //D3DDevice.PixelShader = ps; // Render the vertex buffer. D3DDevice.SetStreamSource(0, Vertices, 0, Vertex.SizeBytes); D3DDevice.VertexFormat = Vertex.Format; // Setup our texture. Using Textures introduces the texture stage states, // which govern how Textures get blended together (in the case of multiple // Textures) and lighting information. D3DDevice.SetTexture(0, Image); // Now drawing 2 triangles, for a quad. D3DDevice.DrawPrimitives(PrimitiveType.TriangleList , 0, 2); // End the scene. D3DDevice.EndScene(); // Present the backbuffer contents to the screen. D3DDevice.Present(); }); if (Image != null) Image.Dispose(); if (Vertices != null) Vertices.Dispose(); if (D3DDevice != null) D3DDevice.Dispose(); } private static Vertex[] BuildVertexData() { Vertex[] vertexData = new Vertex[6]; vertexData[0].Position = new Vector3(-1.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f); vertexData[0].Tu = 0.0f; vertexData[0].Tv = 0.0f; vertexData[1].Position = new Vector3(-1.0f, -1.0f, 0.0f); vertexData[1].Tu = 0.0f; vertexData[1].Tv = 1.0f; vertexData[2].Position = new Vector3(1.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f); vertexData[2].Tu = 1.0f; vertexData[2].Tv = 0.0f; vertexData[3].Position = new Vector3(-1.0f, -1.0f, 0.0f); vertexData[3].Tu = 0.0f; vertexData[3].Tv = 1.0f; vertexData[4].Position = new Vector3(1.0f, -1.0f, 0.0f); vertexData[4].Tu = 1.0f; vertexData[4].Tv = 1.0f; vertexData[5].Position = new Vector3(1.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f); vertexData[5].Tu = 1.0f; vertexData[5].Tv = 0.0f; return vertexData; } } } And my pixel shader and vertex shader code are as following // Pixel shader input structure struct PS_INPUT { float4 Position : POSITION; float2 Texture : TEXCOORD0; }; // Pixel shader output structure struct PS_OUTPUT { float4 Color : COLOR0; }; // Global variables sampler2D Tex0; // Name: Simple Pixel Shader // Type: Pixel shader // Desc: Fetch texture and blend with constant color // PS_OUTPUT ps_main( in PS_INPUT In ) { PS_OUTPUT Out; //create an output pixel Out.Color = tex2D(Tex0, In.Texture); //do a texture lookup Out.Color *= float4(0.9f, 0.8f, 0.0f, 1); //do a simple effect return Out; //return output pixel } // Vertex shader input structure struct VS_INPUT { float4 Position : POSITION; float2 Texture : TEXCOORD0; }; // Vertex shader output structure struct VS_OUTPUT { float4 Position : POSITION; float2 Texture : TEXCOORD0; }; // Global variables float4x4 WorldViewProj; // Name: Simple Vertex Shader // Type: Vertex shader // Desc: Vertex transformation and texture coord pass-through // VS_OUTPUT vs_main( in VS_INPUT In ) { VS_OUTPUT Out; //create an output vertex Out.Position = mul(In.Position, WorldViewProj); //apply vertex transformation Out.Texture = In.Texture; //copy original texcoords return Out; //return output vertex }

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• Get your TFS 2012 task board demo ready in under 1 minute

  - by Tarun Arora

  Release Notes – http://tfsdemosetup.codeplex.com/  | Download | Source Code | Report a Bug | Ideas In this blog post, I’ll show you how to use the ‘TfsDemoSetup’ application to configure and setup the TFS 2012 task board for a demo in well less than 1 minute Step 1 – Note what you get with a newly created Team Project Create a new Team Project on TFS Preview         2. Click Create Project         3. The project creation has completed        4. Open the team web access and have a look at the home page Note – Since I created the project I am the only Team Member       A default Team by the name AdventureWorks Team has been created       A few sprints have been assigned to the default team but no dates for sprint start and end have been specified        A default Area Path for the team is missing       Step 2. Download the TFS Demo Setup Console application from Codeplex 1. Navigate to the TFS Demo Setup project on codeplex https://tfsdemosetup.codeplex.com/       2. Download Instructions and TFSDemo_<version>      3. Follow the steps in the Instructions.txt file      4. Unzip TFSDemo_<version> and open the target folder. Two important files in this folder, DemoDictionary.xml – This file contains the settings using which the demo environment will be setup SetupTfsDemo.exe – This will run the TFS demo environment setup application       Step 3 – Configure the setup (i.e. team name, members, sprint dates, etc) 1. Open up DemoDictionary.xml      2. Walkthrough DemoDictionary.xml             a. Basic Team Details         <Name> – Specify the name of the team         <Description> – Specify a description to go with the team         <SetAsDefaultTeam> – This accepts a value “true/false” when set to true, the newly created team will be set as the default team in the project         <BacklogIterationPath> – Specify a backlog iteration path for the team     b. Iterations – The iterations you specify here will be set as the Teams iterations        <Iterations> – Accepts multiple <Iteration> nodes.        <Iteration> – This is the most granular level of an Iteration        <Path> – The path to the sprint, sample values, Release 1\Sprint 1 or Release 2\Sprint 2        <StartDate> – The sprint start date, this accepts the format yyyy-MM-dd        <FinishDate> – The sprint finish date, this accepts the format yyyy-MM-dd     c. Team Members – Team Members that need to be added to the newly created team will be added under this section         <TeamMembers> – Accepts multiple <TeamMember> nodes.         <TeamMember> – This is the most granular level of a Team Member         <User> – This accepts the username, if you are running this against TFSPreview then the live id of the user will need to be passed. If you are running this against TFS Server then the user id i.e. Domain\UserName will need to be passed          <Team> – Specify the name of the team that you want the user to be assigned to.     d. WorkItems – This section will allow you to add work items (product backlog Items and linked tasks) to the current sprint of the team         <WorkItems> – Accepts multiple <WorkItem> nodes.         <WorkItem> – Accepts one <ProductBacklogItem> and multiple <Task> nodes         <ProductBacklogItem> – Used to create a Product Backlog Item type work item               <Title> – The title of the Product Backlog Item               <Description> – The description of the Product Backlog Type Work Item               <AssignedTo> – Used to assign the work item to a team member. The team member name or email address can be passed.               <Effort> – The total effort required to complete the Product Backlog Item         <Task> – Used to create a linked task to the Product Backlog type work item               <Title> – The title of the task type work item               <Description> – The description of the Task Type Work Item               <AssignedTo> – Used to assign the work item to a team member. The team member name or email address can be passed.               <RemainingWork> – The remaining effort to complete the task type work item Step 4 – Setup the demo environment against the newly created Team Project 1. Run SetupTfsDemo.exe    2. Enter Y or y on the prompt to continue setting up TFS Demo setup.     3. Select the newly created Team project, for this blogpost I had created the Team Project – AdventureWorks, so that is what I’ll select in the Connect to TFS Server pop up    3. Click Connect and follow the messages that are written to the console application       Step 5 – Validate that the Demo environment is set up as per the configuration 1. The team web access is all lit up You have a Sprint, a burn down chart, team members…    2. The team Demo has been added and has been set up as the default team    3. The Sprint Backlog Iteration path, Sprints and Sprint start and finish dates have been set    4. The default area path has been setup    5. Taskboard – Backlog items view    6. Taskboard – Team members view      Step 6 – Exception Handling! 1. This solution has been tested against TFS 2012 Service/Server for the Scrum 2.1 process template. 2. You are likely to run into an exception if you mess up the config file 3. If the team already exists and you run the console app to set up the team (with the same name) you will run into exceptions. Please remember this is just an alpha release, if you have any feedback please leave a comment! Didn’t I say that it would just take 1 minute, Enjoy!

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• Integration Patterns with Azure Service Bus Relay, Part 3: Anonymous partial-trust consumer

  - by Elton Stoneman

  This is the third in the IPASBR series, see also: Integration Patterns with Azure Service Bus Relay, Part 1: Exposing the on-premise service Integration Patterns with Azure Service Bus Relay, Part 2: Anonymous full-trust .NET consumer As the patterns get further from the simple .NET full-trust consumer, all that changes is the communication protocol and the authentication mechanism. In Part 3 the scenario is that we still have a secure .NET environment consuming our service, so we can store shared keys securely, but the runtime environment is locked down so we can't use Microsoft.ServiceBus to get the nice WCF relay bindings. To support this we will expose a RESTful endpoint through the Azure Service Bus, and require the consumer to send a security token with each HTTP service request. Pattern applicability This is a good fit for scenarios where: the runtime environment is secure enough to keep shared secrets the consumer can execute custom code, including building HTTP requests with custom headers the consumer cannot use the Azure SDK assemblies the service may need to know who is consuming it the service does not need to know who the end-user is Note there isn't actually a .NET requirement here. By exposing the service in a REST endpoint, anything that can talk HTTP can be a consumer. We'll authenticate through ACS which also gives us REST endpoints, so the service is still accessed securely. Our real-world example would be a hosted cloud app, where we we have enough room in the app's customisation to keep the shared secret somewhere safe and to hook in some HTTP calls. We will be flowing an identity through to the on-premise service now, but it will be the service identity given to the consuming app - the end user's identity isn't flown through yet. In this post, we’ll consume the service from Part 1 in ASP.NET using the WebHttpRelayBinding. The code for Part 3 (+ Part 1) is on GitHub here: IPASBR Part 3. Authenticating and authorizing with ACS We'll follow the previous examples and add a new service identity for the namespace in ACS, so we can separate permissions for different consumers (see walkthrough in Part 1). I've named the identity partialTrustConsumer. We’ll be authenticating against ACS with an explicit HTTP call, so we need a password credential rather than a symmetric key – for a nice secure option, generate a symmetric key, copy to the clipboard, then change type to password and paste in the key: We then need to do the same as in Part 2 , add a rule to map the incoming identity claim to an outgoing authorization claim that allows the identity to send messages to Service Bus: Issuer: Access Control Service Input claim type: http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/nameidentifier Input claim value: partialTrustConsumer Output claim type: net.windows.servicebus.action Output claim value: Send As with Part 2, this sets up a service identity which can send messages into Service Bus, but cannot register itself as a listener, or manage the namespace. RESTfully exposing the on-premise service through Azure Service Bus Relay The part 3 sample code is ready to go, just put your Azure details into Solution Items\AzureConnectionDetails.xml and “Run Custom Tool” on the .tt files.  But to do it yourself is very simple. We already have a WebGet attribute in the service for locally making REST calls, so we are just going to add a new endpoint which uses the WebHttpRelayBinding to relay that service through Azure. It's as easy as adding this endpoint to Web.config for the service:         <endpoint address="https://sixeyed-ipasbr.servicebus.windows.net/rest"                   binding="webHttpRelayBinding"                    contract="Sixeyed.Ipasbr.Services.IFormatService"                   behaviorConfiguration="SharedSecret">         </endpoint> - and adding the webHttp attribute in your endpoint behavior:           <behavior name="SharedSecret">             <webHttp/>             <transportClientEndpointBehavior credentialType="SharedSecret">               <clientCredentials>                 <sharedSecret issuerName="serviceProvider"                               issuerSecret="gl0xaVmlebKKJUAnpripKhr8YnLf9Neaf6LR53N8uGs="/>               </clientCredentials>             </transportClientEndpointBehavior>           </behavior> Where's my WSDL? The metadata story for REST is a bit less automated. In our local webHttp endpoint we've enabled WCF's built-in help, so if you navigate to: http://localhost/Sixeyed.Ipasbr.Services/FormatService.svc/rest/help - you'll see the uri format for making a GET request to the service. The format is the same over Azure, so this is where you'll be connecting: https://[your-namespace].servicebus.windows.net/rest/reverse?string=abc123 Build the service with the new endpoint, open that in a browser and you'll get an XML version of an HTTP status code - a 401 with an error message stating that you haven’t provided an authorization header: <?xml version="1.0"?><Error><Code>401</Code><Detail>MissingToken: The request contains no authorization header..TrackingId:4cb53408-646b-4163-87b9-bc2b20cdfb75_5,TimeStamp:10/3/2012 8:34:07 PM</Detail></Error> By default, the setup of your Service Bus endpoint as a relying party in ACS expects a Simple Web Token to be presented with each service request, and in the browser we're not passing one, so we can't access the service. Note that this request doesn't get anywhere near your on-premise service, Service Bus only relays requests once they've got the necessary approval from ACS. Why didn't the consumer need to get ACS authorization in Part 2? It did, but it was all done behind the scenes in the NetTcpRelayBinding. By specifying our Shared Secret credentials in the consumer, the service call is preceded by a check on ACS to see that the identity provided is a) valid, and b) allowed access to our Service Bus endpoint. By making manual HTTP requests, we need to take care of that ACS check ourselves now. We do that with a simple WebClient call to the ACS endpoint of our service; passing the shared secret credentials, we will get back an SWT: var values = new System.Collections.Specialized.NameValueCollection(); values.Add("wrap_name", "partialTrustConsumer"); //service identity name values.Add("wrap_password", "suCei7AzdXY9toVH+S47C4TVyXO/UUFzu0zZiSCp64Y="); //service identity password values.Add("wrap_scope", "http://sixeyed-ipasbr.servicebus.windows.net/"); //this is the realm of the RP in ACS var acsClient = new WebClient(); var responseBytes = acsClient.UploadValues("https://sixeyed-ipasbr-sb.accesscontrol.windows.net/WRAPv0.9/", "POST", values); rawToken = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetString(responseBytes); With a little manipulation, we then attach the SWT to subsequent REST calls in the authorization header; the token contains the Send claim returned from ACS, so we will be authorized to send messages into Service Bus. Running the sample Navigate to http://localhost:2028/Sixeyed.Ipasbr.WebHttpClient/Default.cshtml, enter a string and hit Go! - your string will be reversed by your on-premise service, routed through Azure: Using shared secret client credentials in this way means ACS is the identity provider for your service, and the claim which allows Send access to Service Bus is consumed by Service Bus. None of the authentication details make it through to your service, so your service is not aware who the consumer is (MSDN calls this "anonymous authentication").

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• PostSharp, Obfuscation, and IL

  - by Simon Cooper

  Aspect-oriented programming (AOP) is a relatively new programming paradigm. Originating at Xerox PARC in 1994, the paradigm was first made available for general-purpose development as an extension to Java in 2001. From there, it has quickly been adapted for use in all the common languages used today. In the .NET world, one of the primary AOP toolkits is PostSharp. Attributes and AOP Normally, attributes in .NET are entirely a metadata construct. Apart from a few special attributes in the .NET framework, they have no effect whatsoever on how a class or method executes within the CLR. Only by using reflection at runtime can you access any attributes declared on a type or type member. PostSharp changes this. By declaring a custom attribute that derives from PostSharp.Aspects.Aspect, applying it to types and type members, and running the resulting assembly through the PostSharp postprocessor, you can essentially declare 'clever' attributes that change the behaviour of whatever the aspect has been applied to at runtime. A simple example of this is logging. By declaring a TraceAttribute that derives from OnMethodBoundaryAspect, you can automatically log when a method has been executed: public class TraceAttribute : PostSharp.Aspects.OnMethodBoundaryAspect { public override void OnEntry(MethodExecutionArgs args) { MethodBase method = args.Method; System.Diagnostics.Trace.WriteLine( String.Format( "Entering {0}.{1}.", method.DeclaringType.FullName, method.Name)); } public override void OnExit(MethodExecutionArgs args) { MethodBase method = args.Method; System.Diagnostics.Trace.WriteLine( String.Format( "Leaving {0}.{1}.", method.DeclaringType.FullName, method.Name)); } } [Trace] public void MethodToLog() { ... } Now, whenever MethodToLog is executed, the aspect will automatically log entry and exit, without having to add the logging code to MethodToLog itself. PostSharp Performance Now this does introduce a performance overhead - as you can see, the aspect allows access to the MethodBase of the method the aspect has been applied to. If you were limited to C#, you would be forced to retrieve each MethodBase instance using Type.GetMethod(), matching on the method name and signature. This is slow. Fortunately, PostSharp is not limited to C#. It can use any instruction available in IL. And in IL, you can do some very neat things. Ldtoken C# allows you to get the Type object corresponding to a specific type name using the typeof operator: Type t = typeof(Random); The C# compiler compiles this operator to the following IL: ldtoken [mscorlib]System.Random call class [mscorlib]System.Type [mscorlib]System.Type::GetTypeFromHandle( valuetype [mscorlib]System.RuntimeTypeHandle) The ldtoken instruction obtains a special handle to a type called a RuntimeTypeHandle, and from that, the Type object can be obtained using GetTypeFromHandle. These are both relatively fast operations - no string lookup is required, only direct assembly and CLR constructs are used. However, a little-known feature is that ldtoken is not just limited to types; it can also get information on methods and fields, encapsulated in a RuntimeMethodHandle or RuntimeFieldHandle: // get a MethodBase for String.EndsWith(string) ldtoken method instance bool [mscorlib]System.String::EndsWith(string) call class [mscorlib]System.Reflection.MethodBase [mscorlib]System.Reflection.MethodBase::GetMethodFromHandle( valuetype [mscorlib]System.RuntimeMethodHandle) // get a FieldInfo for the String.Empty field ldtoken field string [mscorlib]System.String::Empty call class [mscorlib]System.Reflection.FieldInfo [mscorlib]System.Reflection.FieldInfo::GetFieldFromHandle( valuetype [mscorlib]System.RuntimeFieldHandle) These usages of ldtoken aren't usable from C# or VB, and aren't likely to be added anytime soon (Eric Lippert's done a blog post on the possibility of adding infoof, methodof or fieldof operators to C#). However, PostSharp deals directly with IL, and so can use ldtoken to get MethodBase objects quickly and cheaply, without having to resort to string lookups. The kicker However, there are problems. Because ldtoken for methods or fields isn't accessible from C# or VB, it hasn't been as well-tested as ldtoken for types. This has resulted in various obscure bugs in most versions of the CLR when dealing with ldtoken and methods, and specifically, generic methods and methods of generic types. This means that PostSharp was behaving incorrectly, or just plain crashing, when aspects were applied to methods that were generic in some way. So, PostSharp has to work around this. Without using the metadata tokens directly, the only way to get the MethodBase of generic methods is to use reflection: Type.GetMethod(), passing in the method name as a string along with information on the signature. Now, this works fine. It's slower than using ldtoken directly, but it works, and this only has to be done for generic methods. Unfortunately, this poses problems when the assembly is obfuscated. PostSharp and Obfuscation When using ldtoken, obfuscators don't affect how PostSharp operates. Because the ldtoken instruction directly references the type, method or field within the assembly, it is unaffected if the name of the object is changed by an obfuscator. However, the indirect loading used for generic methods was breaking, because that uses the name of the method when the assembly is put through the PostSharp postprocessor to lookup the MethodBase at runtime. If the name then changes, PostSharp can't find it anymore, and the assembly breaks. So, PostSharp needs to know about any changes an obfuscator does to an assembly. The way PostSharp does this is by adding another layer of indirection. When PostSharp obfuscation support is enabled, it includes an extra 'name table' resource in the assembly, consisting of a series of method & type names. When PostSharp needs to lookup a method using reflection, instead of encoding the method name directly, it looks up the method name at a fixed offset inside that name table: MethodBase genericMethod = typeof(ContainingClass).GetMethod(GetNameAtIndex(22)); PostSharp.NameTable resource: ... 20: get_Prop1 21: set_Prop1 22: DoFoo 23: GetWibble When the assembly is later processed by an obfuscator, the obfuscator can replace all the method and type names within the name table with their new name. That way, the reflection lookups performed by PostSharp will now use the new names, and everything will work as expected: MethodBase genericMethod = typeof(#kGy).GetMethod(GetNameAtIndex(22)); PostSharp.NameTable resource: ... 20: #kkA 21: #zAb 22: #EF5a 23: #2tg As you can see, this requires direct support by an obfuscator in order to perform these rewrites. Dotfuscator supports it, and now, starting with SmartAssembly 6.6.4, SmartAssembly does too. So, a relatively simple solution to a tricky problem, with some CLR bugs thrown in for good measure. You don't see those every day!

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• Checking who is connected to your server, with PowerShell.

  - by Fatherjack

  There are many occasions when, as a DBA, you want to see who is connected to your SQL Server, along with how they are connecting and what sort of activities they are carrying out. I’m going to look at a couple of ways of getting this information and compare the effort required and the results achieved of each. SQL Server comes with a couple of stored procedures to help with this sort of task – sp_who and its undocumented counterpart sp_who2. There is also the pumped up version of these called sp_whoisactive, written by Adam Machanic which does way more than these procedures. I wholly recommend you try it out if you don’t already know how it works. When it comes to serious interrogation of your SQL Server activity then it is absolutely indispensable. Anyway, back to the point of this blog, we are going to look at getting the information from sp_who2 for a remote server. I wrote this Powershell script a week or so ago and was quietly happy with it for a while. I’m relatively new to Powershell so forgive both my rather low threshold for entertainment and the fact that something so simple is a moderate achievement for me. $Server = 'SERVERNAME' $SMOServer = New-Object Microsoft.SQLServer.Management.SMO.Server $Server # connection and query stuff         $ConnectionStr = "Server=$Server;Database=Master;Integrated Security=True" $Query = "EXEC sp_who2" $Connection = new-object system.Data.SQLClient.SQLConnection $Table = new-object "System.Data.DataTable" $Connection.connectionstring = $ConnectionStr try{ $Connection.open() $Command = $Connection.CreateCommand() $Command.commandtext = $Query $result = $Command.ExecuteReader() $Table.Load($result) } catch{ # Show error $error[0] | format-list -Force } $Title = "Data access processes (" + $Table.Rows.Count + ")" $Table | Out-GridView -Title $Title $Connection.close() So this is pretty straightforward, create an SMO object that represents our chosen server, define a connection to the database and a table object for the results when we get them, execute our query over the connection, load the results into our table object and then, if everything is error free display these results to the PowerShell grid viewer. The query simply gets the results of ‘EXEC sp_who2′ for us. Depending on how many connections there are will influence how long the query runs. The grid viewer lets me sort and search the results so it can be a pretty handy way to locate troublesome connections. Like I say, I was quite pleased with this, it seems a pretty simple script and was working well for me, I have added a few parameters to control the output and give me more specific details but then I see a script that uses the $SMOServer object itself to provide the process information and saves having to define the connection object and query specifications. $Server = 'SERVERNAME' $SMOServer = New-Object Microsoft.SQLServer.Management.SMO.Server $Server $Processes = $SMOServer.EnumProcesses() $Title = "SMO processes (" + $Processes.Rows.Count + ")" $Processes | Out-GridView -Title $Title Create the SMO object of our server and then call the EnumProcesses method to get all the process information from the server. Staggeringly simple! The results are a little different though. Some columns are the same and we can see the same basic information so my first thought was to which runs faster – so that I can get my results more quickly and also so that I place less stress on my server(s). PowerShell comes with a great way of testing this – the Measure-Command function. All you have to do is wrap your piece of code in Measure-Command {[your code here]} and it will spit out the time taken to execute the code. So, I placed both of the above methods of getting SQL Server process connections in two Measure-Command wrappers and pressed F5! The Powershell console goes blank for a while as the code is executed internally when Measure-Command is used but the grid viewer windows appear and the console shows this. You can take the output from Measure-Command and format it for easier reading but in a simple comparison like this we can simply cross refer the TotalMilliseconds values from the two result sets to see how the two methods performed. The query execution method (running EXEC sp_who2 ) is the first set of timings and the SMO EnumProcesses is the second. I have run these on a variety of servers and while the results vary from execution to execution I have never seen the SMO version slower than the other. The difference has varied and the time for both has ranged from sub-second as we see above to almost 5 seconds on other systems. This difference, I would suggest is partly due to the cost overhead of having to construct the data connection and so on where as the SMO EnumProcesses method has the connection to the server already in place and just needs to call back the process information. There is also the difference in the data sets to consider. Let’s take a look at what we get and where the two methods differ Query execution method (sp_who2) SMO EnumProcesses Description - Urn What looks like an XML or JSON representation of the server name and the process ID SPID Spid The process ID Status Status The status of the process Login Login The login name of the user executing the command HostName Host The name of the computer where the  process originated BlkBy BlockingSpid The SPID of a process that is blocking this one DBName Database The database that this process is connected to Command Command The type of command that is executing CPUTime Cpu The CPU activity related to this process DiskIO - The Disk IO activity related to this process LastBatch - The time the last batch was executed from this process. ProgramName Program The application that is facilitating the process connection to the SQL Server. SPID1 - In my experience this is always the same value as SPID. REQUESTID - In my experience this is always 0 - Name In my experience this is always the same value as SPID and so could be seen as analogous to SPID1 from sp_who2 - MemUsage An indication of the memory used by this process but I don’t know what it is measured in (bytes, Kb, Mb…) - IsSystem True or False depending on whether the process is internal to the SQL Server instance or has been created by an external connection requesting data. - ExecutionContextID In my experience this is always 0 so could be analogous to REQUESTID from sp_who2. Please note, these are my own very brief descriptions of these columns, detail can be found from MSDN for columns in the sp_who results here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-GB/library/ms174313.aspx. Where the columns are common then I would use that description, in other cases then the information returned is purely for interpretation by the reader. Rather annoyingly both result sets have useful information that the other doesn’t. sp_who2 returns Disk IO and LastBatch information which is really useful but the SMO processes method give you IsSystem and MemUsage which have their place in fault diagnosis methods too. So which is better? On reflection I think I prefer to use the sp_who2 method primarily but knowing that the SMO Enumprocesses method is there when I need it is really useful and I’m sure I’ll use it regularly. I’m OK with the fact that it is the slower method because Measure-Command has shown me how close it is to the other option and that it really isn’t a large enough margin to matter.

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• Translating Your Customizations

  - by Richard Bingham

  This blog post explains the basics of translating the customizations you can make to Fusion Applications products, with the inclusion of information for both composer-based customizations and the generic design-time customizations done via JDeveloper. Introduction Like most Oracle Applications, Fusion Applications installs on-premise with a US-English base language that is, in Release 7, supported by the option to add up to a total of 22 additional language packs (In Oracle Cloud production environments languages are pre-installed already). As such many organizations offer their users the option of working with their local language, and logically that should also apply for any customizations as well. Composer-based UI Customizations Customizations made in Page Composer take into consideration the session LOCALE, as set in the user preferences screen, during all customization work, and stores the customization in the MDS repository accordingly. As such the actual new or changed values used will only apply for the same language under which the customization was made, and text for any other languages requires a separate upload. See the Resource Bundles section below, which incidentally also applies to custom UI changes done in JDeveloper. You may have noticed this when you select the “Select Text Resource” menu option when editing the text on a page. Using this ensures that the resource bundles are used, whereas if you define a static value in Expression Builder it will never be available for translation. Notice in the screenshot below the “What’s New” custom value I have already defined using the ‘Select Text Resource’ feature is internally using the adfBundle groovy function to pull the custom value for my key (RT_S_1) from the ComposerOverrideBundle. Figure 1 – Page Composer showing the override bundle being used. Business Objects Customizing the Business Objects available in the Applications Composer tool for the CRM products, such as adding additional fields, also operates using the session language. Translating these additional values for these fields into other installed languages requires loading additional resource bundles, again as described below. Reports and Analytics Most customizations to Reports and BI Analytics are just essentially reorganizations and visualizations of existing number and text data from the system, and as such will use the appropriate values based on the users session language. Where a translated value or string exists for that session language, it will be used without the need for additional work. Extending through the addition of brand new reports and analytics requires another method of loading the translated strings, as part of what is known as ‘Localizing’ the BI Catalog and Metadata. This time it is via an export/import of XML data through the BI Administrators console, and is described in the OBIEE Admin Guide. Fusion Applications reports based on BI Publisher are already defined in template-per-locale, and in addition provide an extra process for getting the data for translation and reloading. This again uses the standard resource bundle format. Loading a custom report is illustrated in this video from our YouTube channel which shows the screen for both setting the template local and running an export for translation. Fusion Applications Menus Whilst the seeded Navigator and Global Menu values are fully translated when the additional language is installed, if they are customized then the change or new menu item will apply universally, not currently per language. This is set to change in a future release with the new UI Text Editor feature described below. More on Resource Bundles As mentioned above, to provide translations for most of your customizations you need to add values to a resource bundle. This is an industry open standard (OASIS) format XML file with the extension .xliff, and store translated values for the strings used by ADF at run-time. The general process is that these values are exported from the MDS repository, manually edited, and then imported back in again.This needs to be done by an administrator, via either WLST commands or through Enterprise Manager as per the screenshot below. This is detailed out in the Fusion Applications Extensibility Guide. For SaaS environments the Cloud Operations team can assist. Figure 2 – Enterprise Manager’s MDS export used getting resource bundles for manual translation and re-imported on the same screen. All customized strings are stored in an override bundle (xliff file) for each locale, suffixed with the language initials, with English ones being saved to the default. As such each language bundle can be easily identified and updated. Similarly if you used JDeveloper to create your own applications as extensions to Fusion Applications you would use the native support for resource bundles, and add them into the faces-config.xml file for inclusion in your application. An example is this ADF customization video from our YouTube channel. JDeveloper also supports automatic synchronization between your underlying resource bundles and any translatable strings you add – very handy. For more information see chapters on “Using Automatic Resource Bundle Integration in JDeveloper” and “Manually Defining Resource Bundles and Locales” in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Web User Interface Developer’s Guide for Oracle Application Development Framework. FND Messages and Look-ups FND Messages, as defined here, are not used for UI labels (they are known as ‘strings’), but are the responses back to users as a result of an action, such as from a page submit. Each ‘message’ is defined and stored in the related database table (FND_MESSAGES_B), with another (FND_MESSAGES_TL) holding any language-specific values. These come seeded with the additional language installs, however if you customize the messages via the “Manage Messages” task in Functional Setup Manager, or add new ones, then currently (in Release 7) you’ll need to repeat it for each language. Figure 3 – An FND Message defined in an English user session. Similarly Look-ups are stored in a translation table (FND_LOOKUP_VALUES_TL) where appropriate, and can be customized by setting the users session language and making the change  in the Setup and Maintenance task entitled “Manage [Standard|Common] Look-ups”. Online Help Yes, in fact all the seeded help is applied as part of each language pack install as part of the post-install provisioning process. If you are editing or adding custom online help then the Create Help screen provides a drop-down of which language your help customization will apply to. This is shown in the video below from our YouTube channel, and obviously you’ll need to it for each language in use. What is Coming for Translations? Currently planned for Release 8 is something called the User Interface (UI) Text Editor. This tool will allow the editing of all the text shown on the pages and forms of Fusion Application. This will provide a search based on a particular term or word, say “Worker”, and will allow it to be adjusted, say to “Employee”, which then updates all the Resource Bundles that contain it. In the case of multi-language environments, it will use the users session language (locale) to know which Resource Bundles to apply the change to. This capability will also support customization sandboxes, to help ensure changes can be tested and approved.  It is also interesting to note that the design currently allows any page-specific customizations done using Page Composer or Application Composer to over-write the global changes done via the UI Text Editor, allowing for special context-sensitive values to still be used. Further Reading and Resources The following short list provides the mains resources for digging into more detail on translation support for both Composer and JDeveloper customization projects. There is a dedicated chapter entitled “Translating Custom Text” in the Fusion Applications Extensibility Guide. This has good examples and steps for many tasks, especially administering resource bundles. Using localization formatting (numbers, dates etc) for design-time changes is well documented in the Fusion Applications Developer Guide. For more guidelines on general design-time globalization, see either the ‘Internationalizing and Localizing Pages’ chapter in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Web User Interface Developer’s Guide for Oracle Application Development Framework (Oracle Fusion Applications Edition) or the general Oracle Database Globalization Support Guide. The Oracle Architecture ‘A-Team’ provided a recent post on customizing the user session timeout popup, using design-time changes to resource bundles. It has detailed step-by-step examples which can be a useful illustration.

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• PostSharp, Obfuscation, and IL

  - by simonc

  Aspect-oriented programming (AOP) is a relatively new programming paradigm. Originating at Xerox PARC in 1994, the paradigm was first made available for general-purpose development as an extension to Java in 2001. From there, it has quickly been adapted for use in all the common languages used today. In the .NET world, one of the primary AOP toolkits is PostSharp. Attributes and AOP Normally, attributes in .NET are entirely a metadata construct. Apart from a few special attributes in the .NET framework, they have no effect whatsoever on how a class or method executes within the CLR. Only by using reflection at runtime can you access any attributes declared on a type or type member. PostSharp changes this. By declaring a custom attribute that derives from PostSharp.Aspects.Aspect, applying it to types and type members, and running the resulting assembly through the PostSharp postprocessor, you can essentially declare 'clever' attributes that change the behaviour of whatever the aspect has been applied to at runtime. A simple example of this is logging. By declaring a TraceAttribute that derives from OnMethodBoundaryAspect, you can automatically log when a method has been executed: public class TraceAttribute : PostSharp.Aspects.OnMethodBoundaryAspect { public override void OnEntry(MethodExecutionArgs args) { MethodBase method = args.Method; System.Diagnostics.Trace.WriteLine( String.Format( "Entering {0}.{1}.", method.DeclaringType.FullName, method.Name)); } public override void OnExit(MethodExecutionArgs args) { MethodBase method = args.Method; System.Diagnostics.Trace.WriteLine( String.Format( "Leaving {0}.{1}.", method.DeclaringType.FullName, method.Name)); } } [Trace] public void MethodToLog() { ... } Now, whenever MethodToLog is executed, the aspect will automatically log entry and exit, without having to add the logging code to MethodToLog itself. PostSharp Performance Now this does introduce a performance overhead - as you can see, the aspect allows access to the MethodBase of the method the aspect has been applied to. If you were limited to C#, you would be forced to retrieve each MethodBase instance using Type.GetMethod(), matching on the method name and signature. This is slow. Fortunately, PostSharp is not limited to C#. It can use any instruction available in IL. And in IL, you can do some very neat things. Ldtoken C# allows you to get the Type object corresponding to a specific type name using the typeof operator: Type t = typeof(Random); The C# compiler compiles this operator to the following IL: ldtoken [mscorlib]System.Random call class [mscorlib]System.Type [mscorlib]System.Type::GetTypeFromHandle( valuetype [mscorlib]System.RuntimeTypeHandle) The ldtoken instruction obtains a special handle to a type called a RuntimeTypeHandle, and from that, the Type object can be obtained using GetTypeFromHandle. These are both relatively fast operations - no string lookup is required, only direct assembly and CLR constructs are used. However, a little-known feature is that ldtoken is not just limited to types; it can also get information on methods and fields, encapsulated in a RuntimeMethodHandle or RuntimeFieldHandle: // get a MethodBase for String.EndsWith(string) ldtoken method instance bool [mscorlib]System.String::EndsWith(string) call class [mscorlib]System.Reflection.MethodBase [mscorlib]System.Reflection.MethodBase::GetMethodFromHandle( valuetype [mscorlib]System.RuntimeMethodHandle) // get a FieldInfo for the String.Empty field ldtoken field string [mscorlib]System.String::Empty call class [mscorlib]System.Reflection.FieldInfo [mscorlib]System.Reflection.FieldInfo::GetFieldFromHandle( valuetype [mscorlib]System.RuntimeFieldHandle) These usages of ldtoken aren't usable from C# or VB, and aren't likely to be added anytime soon (Eric Lippert's done a blog post on the possibility of adding infoof, methodof or fieldof operators to C#). However, PostSharp deals directly with IL, and so can use ldtoken to get MethodBase objects quickly and cheaply, without having to resort to string lookups. The kicker However, there are problems. Because ldtoken for methods or fields isn't accessible from C# or VB, it hasn't been as well-tested as ldtoken for types. This has resulted in various obscure bugs in most versions of the CLR when dealing with ldtoken and methods, and specifically, generic methods and methods of generic types. This means that PostSharp was behaving incorrectly, or just plain crashing, when aspects were applied to methods that were generic in some way. So, PostSharp has to work around this. Without using the metadata tokens directly, the only way to get the MethodBase of generic methods is to use reflection: Type.GetMethod(), passing in the method name as a string along with information on the signature. Now, this works fine. It's slower than using ldtoken directly, but it works, and this only has to be done for generic methods. Unfortunately, this poses problems when the assembly is obfuscated. PostSharp and Obfuscation When using ldtoken, obfuscators don't affect how PostSharp operates. Because the ldtoken instruction directly references the type, method or field within the assembly, it is unaffected if the name of the object is changed by an obfuscator. However, the indirect loading used for generic methods was breaking, because that uses the name of the method when the assembly is put through the PostSharp postprocessor to lookup the MethodBase at runtime. If the name then changes, PostSharp can't find it anymore, and the assembly breaks. So, PostSharp needs to know about any changes an obfuscator does to an assembly. The way PostSharp does this is by adding another layer of indirection. When PostSharp obfuscation support is enabled, it includes an extra 'name table' resource in the assembly, consisting of a series of method & type names. When PostSharp needs to lookup a method using reflection, instead of encoding the method name directly, it looks up the method name at a fixed offset inside that name table: MethodBase genericMethod = typeof(ContainingClass).GetMethod(GetNameAtIndex(22)); PostSharp.NameTable resource: ... 20: get_Prop1 21: set_Prop1 22: DoFoo 23: GetWibble When the assembly is later processed by an obfuscator, the obfuscator can replace all the method and type names within the name table with their new name. That way, the reflection lookups performed by PostSharp will now use the new names, and everything will work as expected: MethodBase genericMethod = typeof(#kGy).GetMethod(GetNameAtIndex(22)); PostSharp.NameTable resource: ... 20: #kkA 21: #zAb 22: #EF5a 23: #2tg As you can see, this requires direct support by an obfuscator in order to perform these rewrites. Dotfuscator supports it, and now, starting with SmartAssembly 6.6.4, SmartAssembly does too. So, a relatively simple solution to a tricky problem, with some CLR bugs thrown in for good measure. You don't see those every day! Cross posted from Simple Talk.

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• I Clobbered a Leopard with a Window Last Night

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  I’ve had my 15” Mac Book Pro for a little over a year now, and its hands-down the best laptop I’ve ever owned…hardware wise. And I tried, I really really tried, to like OSX. I even bought Parallels so I could run Windows 7 and all my development tools while still trying to live in an OSX world. But in the end, I missed Windows too much. There were just too many shortcomings with OSX that kept me from being productive. For one thing, Office for Mac is *not* Office for Windows. The applications are written by different teams, and Excel on the Mac is just different enough to be painful. The VM experience was adequate, but my MBP would heat up like crazy when running it and the experience trying to get Windows apps to interact with an OSX file system was awkward. And I found I was in the VM more than I thought I’d be. iMovie is not as easy to use for doing simple movie editing as Windows Movie Maker. There’s no free blog editing software for OSX that’s on par with Windows Live Writer. And really, all I was using OSX for was Twitter (which I can use a Windows client for) and web browsing (also something Windows can provide obviously). So I had to ask myself – why am I forcing myself to use an operating system I don’t like, on a laptop that can support Windows 7? And so I paved my MBP and am happily running Windows 7 on it…and its fantastic! All the good stuff with the hardware is still there with the goodness of Win 7. Happy happy. I did run into some snags doing this though, and that’s really what this blog post is about – things to be aware of if you want to install Win 7 directly on your MBP metal. First, Ensure You Have Your Original Mac Install Disk This was a warning my buddy Dylan, who’s been running Win 7 on his MBP for a while now, gave me early on. The reason you need that original disk is that the hardware drivers you need are all located there. Apparently you can’t easily download them, so make sure you have them ahead of time. Second, Forget BootCamp The only reason you need BootCamp is if you still want the option to boot into OSX. If you don’t, then you don’t need BootCamp. In fact, you don’t even need BootCamp to install Win 7. What you *will* need though is a DVD with Win 7 burnt on it. Apple doesn’t support bootable USB drives. Well, actually they do for Mac Book Airs which don’t come with optical drives…but to get it working you’ll need to edit a system file of BootCamp so your make of MBP is included in an XML document, and even then you *still* are using BootCamp meaning you’ll be making an OSX partition. So don’t worry about BootCamp, just burn a Windows 7 disc, put it into the DVD drive, and restart your MBP. Third, Know The Secret Commands So after putting in the Windows 7 DVD and restarting your MBP, you’ll want to hold down the ‘C’ key during boot up. This tells the MBP that it should boot from the DVD drive instead of the hard drive. Interestingly, it appears you don’t have to do this if its the Mac OSX install disc (more on that in a second), but regardless – hold down C and Windows will start the install process. Next up is the partition process. You’ll notice that there’s a partition called ETI or something like that. This has to do with the drive format that Apple uses and how they partition their system drives. What I did – I blew it away! At first I didn’t, but I was told I couldn’t install Windows on the remaining space due to the different drive format. Blowing away the ETI partition (and all other partitions) allowed me to continue the Windows install. *REMEMBER –  No warranty is provided or implied, just telling you what I did and how I got it to work. Ok, so now Windows is installed and I’m rebooting. Everything looks good, but I need drivers! So I put in the OSX install DVD and run the BootCamp assistant which installs all the Windows drivers I need. Fantastic! Oh, I need to restart – no problem. OH NO, PROBLEM! I left the OSX install DVD in the drive and now the MBP wants to boot from the drive and install OSX! I’m not holding down the C key, what the heck?! Ok, well there must be a way to eject this disk…hmm…no physical button on the side…the eject button doesn’t seem to work on the keyboard…no little pin hole to insert something to force the disc out…well what the…?! It turns out, if you want to eject a disc at boot up, you need (and I kid you not) to plug a mouse into the laptop and hold down the right-click button while its booting. This ejected the disc for me. Seriously. Finally, Things You Should Be Aware Of Once you have Windows up and running there’s a few things you need to be aware of, mainly new keyboard shortcuts. For instance, on the Mac keyboard there is no Home, End, PageUp or PageDown. There’s also no obvious way to do something like select large amounts of text (like you would by holding Shift-Home at the end of a line of text for instance). So here’s some shortcuts you need to know: Home – fn + left arrow End – fn + right arrow Select a line of text as you would with the Home key – Shift + fn + left arrow Select a line of text as you would with the End key – Shift + fn + right arrow Page Up – fn + up arrow Page Down – fn + down arrow Also, you’ll notice that the awesome Mac track pad doesn’t respond to taps as clicks. No fear, this is just a setting that needs to be altered in the BootCamp control panel (that controls the Mac Hardware-specific settings within Windows, you can access it easily from the system tray icon) One other thing, battery life seems a bit lower than with OSX, but then again I’m also doing more than Twitter or web browsing on this thing now. Conclusion My laptop runs awesome now that I have Windows 7 on there. It’s obviously up to individual taste, but for me I just didn’t see benefits to living in an OSX world when everything I needed lived in Windows. And also, I finally am back to an operating system that doesn’t require me to eject a USB drive before physically removing it! It’s 2012 folks, how has this not been fixed?! D

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• How can I render multiple windows with DirectX 9 in C++?

  - by Friso1990

  I'm trying to render multiple windows, using DirectX 9 and swap chains, but even though I create 2 windows, I only see the first one that I've created. My RendererDX9 header is this: #include <d3d9.h> #include <Windows.h> #include <vector> #include "RAT_Renderer.h" namespace RAT_ENGINE { class RAT_RendererDX9 : public RAT_Renderer { public: RAT_RendererDX9(); ~RAT_RendererDX9(); void Init(RAT_WindowManager* argWMan); void CleanUp(); void ShowWin(); private: LPDIRECT3D9 renderInterface; // Used to create the D3DDevice LPDIRECT3DDEVICE9 renderDevice; // Our rendering device LPDIRECT3DSWAPCHAIN9* swapChain; // Swapchain to make multi-window rendering possible WNDCLASSEX wc; std::vector<HWND> hwindows; void Render(int argI); }; } And my .cpp file is this: #include "RAT_RendererDX9.h" static LRESULT CALLBACK MsgProc( HWND hWnd, UINT msg, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam ); namespace RAT_ENGINE { RAT_RendererDX9::RAT_RendererDX9() : renderInterface(NULL), renderDevice(NULL) { } RAT_RendererDX9::~RAT_RendererDX9() { } void RAT_RendererDX9::Init(RAT_WindowManager* argWMan) { wMan = argWMan; // Register the window class WNDCLASSEX windowClass = { sizeof( WNDCLASSEX ), CS_CLASSDC, MsgProc, 0, 0, GetModuleHandle( NULL ), NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL, "foo", NULL }; wc = windowClass; RegisterClassEx( &wc ); for (int i = 0; i< wMan->getWindows().size(); ++i) { HWND hWnd = CreateWindow( "foo", argWMan->getWindow(i)->getName().c_str(), WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW, argWMan->getWindow(i)->getX(), argWMan->getWindow(i)->getY(), argWMan->getWindow(i)->getWidth(), argWMan->getWindow(i)->getHeight(), NULL, NULL, wc.hInstance, NULL ); hwindows.push_back(hWnd); } // Create the D3D object, which is needed to create the D3DDevice. renderInterface = (LPDIRECT3D9)Direct3DCreate9( D3D_SDK_VERSION ); // Set up the structure used to create the D3DDevice. Most parameters are // zeroed out. We set Windowed to TRUE, since we want to do D3D in a // window, and then set the SwapEffect to "discard", which is the most // efficient method of presenting the back buffer to the display. And // we request a back buffer format that matches the current desktop display // format. D3DPRESENT_PARAMETERS deviceConfig; ZeroMemory( &deviceConfig, sizeof( deviceConfig ) ); deviceConfig.Windowed = TRUE; deviceConfig.SwapEffect = D3DSWAPEFFECT_DISCARD; deviceConfig.BackBufferFormat = D3DFMT_UNKNOWN; deviceConfig.BackBufferHeight = 1024; deviceConfig.BackBufferWidth = 768; deviceConfig.EnableAutoDepthStencil = TRUE; deviceConfig.AutoDepthStencilFormat = D3DFMT_D16; // Create the Direct3D device. Here we are using the default adapter (most // systems only have one, unless they have multiple graphics hardware cards // installed) and requesting the HAL (which is saying we want the hardware // device rather than a software one). Software vertex processing is // specified since we know it will work on all cards. On cards that support // hardware vertex processing, though, we would see a big performance gain // by specifying hardware vertex processing. renderInterface->CreateDevice( D3DADAPTER_DEFAULT, D3DDEVTYPE_HAL, hwindows[0], D3DCREATE_SOFTWARE_VERTEXPROCESSING, &deviceConfig, &renderDevice ); this->swapChain = new LPDIRECT3DSWAPCHAIN9[wMan->getWindows().size()]; this->renderDevice->GetSwapChain(0, &swapChain[0]); for (int i = 0; i < wMan->getWindows().size(); ++i) { renderDevice->CreateAdditionalSwapChain(&deviceConfig, &swapChain[i]); } renderDevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_CULLMODE, D3DCULL_CCW); // Set cullmode to counterclockwise culling to save resources renderDevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_AMBIENT, 0xffffffff); // Turn on ambient lighting renderDevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_ZENABLE, TRUE); // Turn on the zbuffer } void RAT_RendererDX9::CleanUp() { renderDevice->Release(); renderInterface->Release(); } void RAT_RendererDX9::Render(int argI) { // Clear the backbuffer to a blue color renderDevice->Clear( 0, NULL, D3DCLEAR_TARGET, D3DCOLOR_XRGB( 0, 0, 255 ), 1.0f, 0 ); LPDIRECT3DSURFACE9 backBuffer = NULL; // Set draw target this->swapChain[argI]->GetBackBuffer(0, D3DBACKBUFFER_TYPE_MONO, &backBuffer); this->renderDevice->SetRenderTarget(0, backBuffer); // Begin the scene renderDevice->BeginScene(); // End the scene renderDevice->EndScene(); swapChain[argI]->Present(NULL, NULL, hwindows[argI], NULL, 0); } void RAT_RendererDX9::ShowWin() { for (int i = 0; i < wMan->getWindows().size(); ++i) { ShowWindow( hwindows[i], SW_SHOWDEFAULT ); UpdateWindow( hwindows[i] ); // Enter the message loop MSG msg; while( GetMessage( &msg, NULL, 0, 0 ) ) { if (PeekMessage( &msg, NULL, 0U, 0U, PM_REMOVE ) ) { TranslateMessage( &msg ); DispatchMessage( &msg ); } else { Render(i); } } } } } LRESULT CALLBACK MsgProc( HWND hWnd, UINT msg, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam ) { switch( msg ) { case WM_DESTROY: //CleanUp(); PostQuitMessage( 0 ); return 0; case WM_PAINT: //Render(); ValidateRect( hWnd, NULL ); return 0; } return DefWindowProc( hWnd, msg, wParam, lParam ); } I've made a sample function to make multiple windows: void RunSample1() { //Create the window manager. RAT_ENGINE::RAT_WindowManager* wMan = new RAT_ENGINE::RAT_WindowManager(); //Create the render manager. RAT_ENGINE::RAT_RenderManager* rMan = new RAT_ENGINE::RAT_RenderManager(); //Create a window. //This is currently needed to initialize the render manager and create a renderer. wMan->CreateRATWindow("Sample 1 - 1", 10, 20, 640, 480); wMan->CreateRATWindow("Sample 1 - 2", 150, 100, 480, 640); //Initialize the render manager. rMan->Init(wMan); //Show the window. rMan->getRenderer()->ShowWin(); } How do I get the multiple windows to work?

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• Using Unity – Part 5

  - by nmarun

  In the previous article of the series, I talked about constructor and property (setter) injection. I wanted to write about how to work with arrays and generics in Unity in this blog, after seeing how lengthy this one got, I’ve decided to write about generics in the next one. This one will only concentrate on arrays. My Product4 class has the following definition: 1: public interface IProduct 2: { 3: string WriteProductDetails(); 4: } 5:  6: public class Product4 : IProduct 7: { 8: public string Name { get; set; } 9: public ILogger[] Loggers { get; set; } 10:  11: public Product4(string productName, ILogger[] loggers) 12: { 13: Name = productName; 14: Loggers = loggers; 15: } 16:  17: public string WriteProductDetails() 18: { 19: StringBuilder productDetails = new StringBuilder(); 20: productDetails.AppendFormat("{0}<br/>", Name); 21: for (int i = 0; i < Loggers.Count(); i++) 22: { 23: productDetails.AppendFormat("{0}<br/>", Loggers[i].WriteLog()); 24: } 25: 26: return productDetails.ToString(); 27: } 28: } The key parts are line 4 where we declare an array of ILogger and line 5 where-in the constructor passes an instance of an array of ILogger objects. I’ve created another class – FakeLogger: 1: public class FakeLogger : ILogger 2: { 3: public string WriteLog() 4: { 5: return string.Format("Type: {0}", GetType()); 6: } 7: } It’s implementation is the same as what we had for the FileLogger class. Coming to the web.config file, first add the following aliases. The alias for FakeLogger should make sense right away. ILoggerArray defines an array of ILogger objects. I’ll tell why we need an alias for System.String data type. 1: <typeAlias alias="string" type="System.String, mscorlib" /> 2: <typeAlias alias="ILoggerArray" type="ProductModel.ILogger[], ProductModel" /> 3: <typeAlias alias="FakeLogger" type="ProductModel.FakeLogger, ProductModel"/> Next is to create mappings for the FileLogger and FakeLogger classes: 1: <type type="ILogger" mapTo="FileLogger" name="logger1"> 2: <lifetime type="singleton" /> 3: </type> 4: <type type="ILogger" mapTo="FakeLogger" name="logger2"> 5: <lifetime type="singleton" /> 6: </type> Finally, for the real deal: 1: <type type="IProduct" mapTo="Product4" name="ArrayProduct"> 2: <typeConfig extensionType="Microsoft.Practices.Unity.Configuration.TypeInjectionElement,Microsoft.Practices.Unity.Configuration, Version=1.2.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"> 3: <constructor> 4: <param name="productName" parameterType="string" > 5: <value value="Product name from config file" type="string"/> 6: </param> 7: <param name="loggers" parameterType="ILoggerArray"> 8: <array> 9: <dependency name="logger2" /> 10: <dependency name="logger1" /> 11: </array> 12: </param> 13: </constructor> 14: </typeConfig> 15: </type> Here’s where I’m saying, that if a type of IProduct is requested to be resolved, map it to type Product4. Furthermore, the Product4 has two constructor parameters – a string and an array of type ILogger. You might have observed the first parameter of the constructor is named ‘productName’ and that matches the value in the name attribute of the param element. The parameterType of ‘string’ maps to ‘System.String, mscorlib’ and is defined in the type alias above. The set up is similar for the second constructor parameter. The name matches the name of the parameter (loggers) and is of type ILoggerArray, which maps to an array of ILogger objects. We’ve also decided to add two elements to this array when unity resolves it – an instance of FileLogger and one of FakeLogger. The click event of the button does the following: 1: //unityContainer.RegisterType<IProduct, Product4>(); 2: //IProduct product4 = unityContainer.Resolve<IProduct>(); 3: IProduct product4 = unityContainer.Resolve<IProduct>("ArrayConstructor"); 4: productDetailsLabel.Text = product4.WriteProductDetails(); It’s worth mentioning here about the change in the format of resolving the IProduct to create an instance of Product4. You cannot use the regular way (the commented lines) to get an instance of Product4. The reason is due to the behavior of Unity which Alex Ermakov has brilliantly explained here. The corresponding output of the action is: You have a couple of options when it comes to adding dependency elements in the array node. You can: - leave it empty (no dependency elements declared): This will only create an empty array of loggers. This way you can check for non-null condition, in your mock classes. - add multiple dependency elements with the same name 1: <param name="loggers" parameterType="ILoggerArray"> 2: <array> 3: <dependency name="logger2" /> 4: <dependency name="logger2" /> 5: </array> 6: </param> With this you’ll see two instances of FakeLogger in the output. This article shows how Unity allows you to instantiate objects with arrays. Find the code here.

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• Slowdowns when reading from an urlconnection's inputstream (even with byte[] and buffers)

  - by user342677

  Ok so after spending two days trying to figure out the problem, and reading about dizillion articles, i finally decided to man up and ask to for some advice(my first time here). Now to the issue at hand - I am writing a program which will parse api data from a game, namely battle logs. There will be A LOT of entries in the database(20+ million) and so the parsing speed for each battle log page matters quite a bit. The pages to be parsed look like this: http://api.erepublik.com/v1/feeds/battle_logs/10000/0. (see source code if using chrome, it doesnt display the page right). It has 1000 hit entries, followed by a little battle info(lastpage will have <1000 obviously). On average, a page contains 175000 characters, UTF-8 encoding, xml format(v 1.0). Program will run locally on a good PC, memory is virtually unlimited(so that creating byte[250000] is quite ok). The format never changes, which is quite convenient. Now, I started off as usual: //global vars,class declaration skipped public WebObject(String url_string, int connection_timeout, int read_timeout, boolean redirects_allowed, String user_agent) throws java.net.MalformedURLException, java.io.IOException { // Open a URL connection java.net.URL url = new java.net.URL(url_string); java.net.URLConnection uconn = url.openConnection(); if (!(uconn instanceof java.net.HttpURLConnection)) { throw new java.lang.IllegalArgumentException("URL protocol must be HTTP"); } conn = (java.net.HttpURLConnection) uconn; conn.setConnectTimeout(connection_timeout); conn.setReadTimeout(read_timeout); conn.setInstanceFollowRedirects(redirects_allowed); conn.setRequestProperty("User-agent", user_agent); } public void executeConnection() throws IOException { try { is = conn.getInputStream(); //global var l = conn.getContentLength(); //global var } catch (Exception e) { //handling code skipped } } //getContentStream and getLength methods which just return'is' and 'l' are skipped Here is where the fun part began. I ran some profiling (using System.currentTimeMillis()) to find out what takes long ,and what doesnt. The call to this method takes only 200ms on avg public InputStream getWebPageAsStream(int battle_id, int page) throws Exception { String url = "http://api.erepublik.com/v1/feeds/battle_logs/" + battle_id + "/" + page; WebObject wobj = new WebObject(url, 10000, 10000, true, "Mozilla/5.0 " + "(Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3 ( .NET CLR 3.5.30729)"); wobj.executeConnection(); l = wobj.getContentLength(); // global variable return wobj.getContentStream(); //returns 'is' stream } 200ms is quite expected from a network operation, and i am fine with it. BUT when i parse the inputStream in any way(read it into string/use java XML parser/read it into another ByteArrayStream) the process takes over 1000ms! for example, this code takes 1000ms IF i pass the stream i got('is') above from getContentStream() directly to this method: public static Document convertToXML(InputStream is) throws ParserConfigurationException, IOException, SAXException { DocumentBuilderFactory dbf = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance(); DocumentBuilder db = dbf.newDocumentBuilder(); Document doc = db.parse(is); doc.getDocumentElement().normalize(); return doc; } this code too, takes around 920ms IF the initial InputStream 'is' is passed in(dont read into the code itself - it just extracts the data i need by directly counting the characters, which can be done thanks to the rigid api feed format): public static parsedBattlePage convertBattleToXMLWithoutDOM(InputStream is) throws IOException { // Point A BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is)); LinkedList ll = new LinkedList(); String str = br.readLine(); while (str != null) { ll.add(str); str = br.readLine(); } if (((String) ll.get(1)).indexOf("error") != -1) { return new parsedBattlePage(null, null, true, -1); } //Point B Iterator it = ll.iterator(); it.next(); it.next(); it.next(); it.next(); String[][] hits_arr = new String[1000][4]; String t_str = (String) it.next(); String tmp = null; int j = 0; for (int i = 0; t_str.indexOf("time") != -1; i++) { hits_arr[i][0] = t_str.substring(12, t_str.length() - 11); tmp = (String) it.next(); hits_arr[i][1] = tmp.substring(14, tmp.length() - 9); tmp = (String) it.next(); hits_arr[i][2] = tmp.substring(15, tmp.length() - 10); tmp = (String) it.next(); hits_arr[i][3] = tmp.substring(18, tmp.length() - 13); it.next(); it.next(); t_str = (String) it.next(); j++; } String[] b_info_arr = new String[9]; int[] space_nums = {13, 10, 13, 11, 11, 12, 5, 10, 13}; for (int i = 0; i < space_nums.length; i++) { tmp = (String) it.next(); b_info_arr[i] = tmp.substring(space_nums[i] + 4, tmp.length() - space_nums[i] - 1); } //Point C return new parsedBattlePage(hits_arr, b_info_arr, false, j); } I have tried replacing the default BufferedReader with BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is), 250000); This didnt change much. My second try was to replace the code between A and B with: Iterator it = IOUtils.lineIterator(is, "UTF-8"); Same result, except this time A-B was 0ms, and B-C was 1000ms, so then every call to it.next() must have been consuming some significant time.(IOUtils is from apache-commons-io library). And here is the culprit - the time taken to parse the stream to string, be it by an iterator or BufferedReader in ALL cases was about 1000ms, while the rest of the code took 0ms(e.g. irrelevant). This means that parsing the stream to LinkedList, or iterating over it, for some reason was eating up a lot of my system resources. question was - why? Is it just the way java is made...no...thats just stupid, so I did another experiment. In my main method I added after the getWebPageAsStream(): //Point A ba = new byte[l]; // 'l' comes from wobj.getContentLength above bytesRead = is.read(ba); //'is' is our URLConnection original InputStream offset = bytesRead; while (bytesRead != -1) { bytesRead = is.read(ba, offset - 1, l - offset); offset += bytesRead; } //Point B InputStream is2 = new ByteArrayInputStream(ba); //Now just working with 'is2' - the "copied" stream The InputStream-byte[] conversion took again 1000ms - this is the way many ppl suggested to read an InputStream, and stil it is slow. And guess what - the 2 parser methods above (convertToXML() and convertBattlePagetoXMLWithoutDOM(), when passed 'is2' instead of 'is' took, in all 4 cases, under 50ms to complete. I read a suggestion that the stream waits for connection to close before unblocking, so i tried using HttpComponentsClient 4.0 (http://hc.apache.org/httpcomponents-client/index.html) instead, but the initial InputStream took just as long to parse. e.g. this code: public InputStream getWebPageAsStream2(int battle_id, int page) throws Exception { String url = "http://api.erepublik.com/v1/feeds/battle_logs/" + battle_id + "/" + page; HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient(); HttpGet httpget = new HttpGet(url); HttpParams p = new BasicHttpParams(); HttpConnectionParams.setSocketBufferSize(p, 250000); HttpConnectionParams.setStaleCheckingEnabled(p, false); HttpConnectionParams.setConnectionTimeout(p, 5000); httpget.setParams(p); HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httpget); HttpEntity entity = response.getEntity(); l = (int) entity.getContentLength(); return entity.getContent(); } took even longer to process(50ms more for just the network) and the stream parsing times remained the same. Obviously it can be instantiated so as to not create HttpClient and properties every time(faster network time), but the stream issue wont be affected by that. So we come to the center problem - why does the initial URLConnection InputStream(or HttpClient InputStream) take so long to process, while any stream of same size and content created locally is orders of magnitude faster? I mean, the initial response is already somewhere in RAM, and I cant see any good reasong why it is processed so slowly compared to when a same stream is just created from a byte[]. Considering I have to parse million of entries and thousands of pages like that, a total processing time of almost 1.5s/page seems WAY WAY too long. Any ideas? P.S. Please ask in any more code is required - the only thing I do after parsing is make a PreparedStatement and put the entries into JavaDB in packs of 1000+, and the perfomance is ok ~ 200ms/1000entries, prb could be optimized with more cache but I didnt look into it much.

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• Asp.net Custom user control button. How to stop multiple clicks by user.

  - by Laurence Burke

  I am trying to modify an open source Forum called YetAnotherForum.net in the project they have a custom user control called Yaf:ThemeButton. Now its rendered as an anchor with an onclick method in this code ThemeButton.cs using System; using System.Web.UI; using System.Web.UI.WebControls; namespace YAF.Controls { /// <summary> /// The theme button. /// </summary> public class ThemeButton : BaseControl, IPostBackEventHandler { /// <summary> /// The _click event. /// </summary> protected static object _clickEvent = new object(); /// <summary> /// The _command event. /// </summary> protected static object _commandEvent = new object(); /// <summary> /// The _attribute collection. /// </summary> protected AttributeCollection _attributeCollection; /// <summary> /// The _localized label. /// </summary> protected LocalizedLabel _localizedLabel = new LocalizedLabel(); /// <summary> /// The _theme image. /// </summary> protected ThemeImage _themeImage = new ThemeImage(); /// <summary> /// Initializes a new instance of the <see cref="ThemeButton"/> class. /// </summary> public ThemeButton() : base() { Load += new EventHandler(ThemeButton_Load); this._attributeCollection = new AttributeCollection(ViewState); } /// <summary> /// ThemePage for the optional button image /// </summary> public string ImageThemePage { get { return this._themeImage.ThemePage; } set { this._themeImage.ThemePage = value; } } /// <summary> /// ThemeTag for the optional button image /// </summary> public string ImageThemeTag { get { return this._themeImage.ThemeTag; } set { this._themeImage.ThemeTag = value; } } /// <summary> /// Localized Page for the optional button text /// </summary> public string TextLocalizedPage { get { return this._localizedLabel.LocalizedPage; } set { this._localizedLabel.LocalizedPage = value; } } /// <summary> /// Localized Tag for the optional button text /// </summary> public string TextLocalizedTag { get { return this._localizedLabel.LocalizedTag; } set { this._localizedLabel.LocalizedTag = value; } } /// <summary> /// Defaults to "yafcssbutton" /// </summary> public string CssClass { get { return (ViewState["CssClass"] != null) ? ViewState["CssClass"] as string : "yafcssbutton"; } set { ViewState["CssClass"] = value; } } /// <summary> /// Setting the link property will make this control non-postback. /// </summary> public string NavigateUrl { get { return (ViewState["NavigateUrl"] != null) ? ViewState["NavigateUrl"] as string : string.Empty; } set { ViewState["NavigateUrl"] = value; } } /// <summary> /// Localized Page for the optional link description (title) /// </summary> public string TitleLocalizedPage { get { return (ViewState["TitleLocalizedPage"] != null) ? ViewState["TitleLocalizedPage"] as string : "BUTTON"; } set { ViewState["TitleLocalizedPage"] = value; } } /// <summary> /// Localized Tag for the optional link description (title) /// </summary> public string TitleLocalizedTag { get { return (ViewState["TitleLocalizedTag"] != null) ? ViewState["TitleLocalizedTag"] as string : string.Empty; } set { ViewState["TitleLocalizedTag"] = value; } } /// <summary> /// Non-localized Title for optional link description /// </summary> public string TitleNonLocalized { get { return (ViewState["TitleNonLocalized"] != null) ? ViewState["TitleNonLocalized"] as string : string.Empty; } set { ViewState["TitleNonLocalized"] = value; } } /// <summary> /// Gets Attributes. /// </summary> public AttributeCollection Attributes { get { return this._attributeCollection; } } /// <summary> /// Gets or sets CommandName. /// </summary> public string CommandName { get { if (ViewState["commandName"] != null) { return ViewState["commandName"].ToString(); } return null; } set { ViewState["commandName"] = value; } } /// <summary> /// Gets or sets CommandArgument. /// </summary> public string CommandArgument { get { if (ViewState["commandArgument"] != null) { return ViewState["commandArgument"].ToString(); } return null; } set { ViewState["commandArgument"] = value; } } #region IPostBackEventHandler Members /// <summary> /// The i post back event handler. raise post back event. /// </summary> /// <param name="eventArgument"> /// The event argument. /// </param> void IPostBackEventHandler.RaisePostBackEvent(string eventArgument) { OnCommand(new CommandEventArgs(CommandName, CommandArgument)); OnClick(EventArgs.Empty); } #endregion /// <summary> /// Setup the controls before render /// </summary> /// <param name="sender"> /// </param> /// <param name="e"> /// </param> private void ThemeButton_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(this._themeImage.ThemeTag)) { // add the theme image... Controls.Add(this._themeImage); } // render the text if available if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(this._localizedLabel.LocalizedTag)) { Controls.Add(this._localizedLabel); } } /// <summary> /// The render. /// </summary> /// <param name="output"> /// The output. /// </param> protected override void Render(HtmlTextWriter output) { // get the title... string title = GetLocalizedTitle(); output.BeginRender(); output.WriteBeginTag("a"); output.WriteAttribute("id", ClientID); if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(CssClass)) { output.WriteAttribute("class", CssClass); } if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(title)) { output.WriteAttribute("title", title); } else if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(TitleNonLocalized)) { output.WriteAttribute("title", TitleNonLocalized); } if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(NavigateUrl)) { output.WriteAttribute("href", NavigateUrl.Replace("&", "&amp;")); } else { // string.Format("javascript:__doPostBack('{0}','{1}')",this.ClientID,"")); output.WriteAttribute("href", Page.ClientScript.GetPostBackClientHyperlink(this, string.Empty)); } bool wroteOnClick = false; // handle additional attributes (if any) if (this._attributeCollection.Count > 0) { // add attributes... foreach (string key in this._attributeCollection.Keys) { // get the attribute and write it... if (key.ToLower() == "onclick") { // special handling... add to it... output.WriteAttribute(key, string.Format("{0};{1}", this._attributeCollection[key], "this.blur();this.display='none';")); wroteOnClick = true; } else if (key.ToLower().StartsWith("on") || key.ToLower() == "rel" || key.ToLower() == "target") { // only write javascript attributes -- and a few other attributes... output.WriteAttribute(key, this._attributeCollection[key]); } } } // IE fix if (!wroteOnClick) { output.WriteAttribute("onclick", "this.blur();this.style.display='none';"); } output.Write(HtmlTextWriter.TagRightChar); output.WriteBeginTag("span"); output.Write(HtmlTextWriter.TagRightChar); // render the optional controls (if any) base.Render(output); output.WriteEndTag("span"); output.WriteEndTag("a"); output.EndRender(); } /// <summary> /// The get localized title. /// </summary> /// <returns> /// The get localized title. /// </returns> protected string GetLocalizedTitle() { if (Site != null && Site.DesignMode == true && !String.IsNullOrEmpty(TitleLocalizedTag)) { return String.Format("[TITLE:{0}]", TitleLocalizedTag); } else if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(TitleLocalizedPage) && !String.IsNullOrEmpty(TitleLocalizedTag)) { return PageContext.Localization.GetText(TitleLocalizedPage, TitleLocalizedTag); } else if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(TitleLocalizedTag)) { return PageContext.Localization.GetText(TitleLocalizedTag); } return null; } /// <summary> /// The on click. /// </summary> /// <param name="e"> /// The e. /// </param> protected virtual void OnClick(EventArgs e) { var handler = (EventHandler) Events[_clickEvent]; if (handler != null) { handler(this, e); } } /// <summary> /// The on command. /// </summary> /// <param name="e"> /// The e. /// </param> protected virtual void OnCommand(CommandEventArgs e) { var handler = (CommandEventHandler) Events[_commandEvent]; if (handler != null) { handler(this, e); } RaiseBubbleEvent(this, e); } /// <summary> /// The click. /// </summary> public event EventHandler Click { add { Events.AddHandler(_clickEvent, value); } remove { Events.RemoveHandler(_clickEvent, value); } } /// <summary> /// The command. /// </summary> public event CommandEventHandler Command { add { Events.AddHandler(_commandEvent, value); } remove { Events.RemoveHandler(_commandEvent, value); } } } } now that is just cs file its handled like this in the .ascx page of the actual website <YAF:ThemeButton ID="Save" runat="server" CssClass="yafcssbigbutton leftItem" TextLocalizedTag="SAVE" OnClick="Save_Click" /> now it is given an OnClick codebehind function that does some serverside function like this protected void Save_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { //some serverside code here } now I have a problem with the user being able to click multiple times and firing that serverside function multiple times. I have added in the code as of right now an extra onclick="this.style.display='none'" in the .cs code but that is a ugly fix I was wondering if anyone would have a better idea of disabling the ThemeButton clientside?? pls any feedback if I need to give more examples or further explain the question thanks.

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• Java threads, wait time always 00:00:00-Producer/Consumer

  - by user3742254

  I am currently doing a producer consumer problem with a number of threads and have had to set priorities and waits to them to ensure that one thread, the security thread, runs last. I have managed to do this and I have managed to get the buffer working. The last thing that I am required to do is to show the wait time of threads that are too large for the buffer and to calculate the average wait time. I have included code to do so, but everything I run the program, the wait time is always returned as 00:00:00, and by extension, the average is returned as the same. I was speaking to one of my colleagues who said that it is not a matter of the code but rather a matter of the computer needing to work off of one processor, which can be adjusted in the task manager settings. He has an HP like myself but his program prints the wait time 180 times, whereas mine prints usually about 3-7 times and is only 00:00:01 on one instance before finishing when I have made the processor adjustments. My other colleague has an iMac and hers puts out an average of 42:00:34(42 minutes??) I am very confused about this because I can see no difference between our codes and like my colleague said, I was wondering is it a computer issue. I am obviously concerned as I wanted to make sure that my code correctly calculated an average wait time, but that is impossible to tell when the wait times always show as 00:00:00. To calculate the thread duration, including the time it entered and exited the buffer was done by using a timestamp import, and then subtracting start time from end time. Is my code correct for this issue or is there something which is missing? I would be very grateful for any solutions. Below is my code: My buffer class package com.Com813cw; import java.text.DateFormat; import java.text.SimpleDateFormat; /** * Created by Rory on 10/08/2014. */ class Buffer { private int contents, count = 0, process = 200; private int totalRam = 1000; private boolean available = false; private long start, end, wait, request = 0; private DateFormat time = new SimpleDateFormat("ss:SSS"); public int avWaitTime =0; public void average(){ System.out.println("Average Application Request wait time: "+ time.format(request/count)); } public synchronized int get() { while (process <= 500) { try { wait(); } catch (InterruptedException e) { } } process -= 200; System.out.println("CPU After Process " + process); notifyAll(); return contents; } public synchronized void put(int value) { if (process <= 500) { process += value; } else { start = System.currentTimeMillis(); try { wait(); } catch (InterruptedException e) { } end = System.currentTimeMillis(); wait = end - start; count++; request += wait; System.out.println("Application Request Wait Time: " + time.format(wait)); process += value; contents = value; calcWait(wait, count); } notifyAll(); } public void calcWait(long wait, int count){ this.avWaitTime = (int) (wait/count); } public void printWait(){ System.out.println("Wait time is " + time.format(this.avWaitTime)); } } My spotify class package com.Com813cw; import java.sql.Timestamp; /** * Created by Rory on 11/08/2014. */ class Spotify extends Thread { private Buffer buffer; private int number; private int bytes = 250; public Spotify(Buffer c, int number) { buffer = c; this.number = number; } long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); public void run() { for (int i = 0; i < 20; i++) { buffer.put(bytes); System.out.println(getName() + this.number + " put: " + bytes + " bytes "); try { sleep(1000); } catch (InterruptedException e) { } } long endTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); long timeTaken = endTime - startTime; java.util.Date date = new java.util.Date(); System.out.println("-----------------------------"); System.out.println("Spotify has finished executing."); System.out.println("Time taken to execute was " + timeTaken + " milliseconds"); System.out.println("Time that Spotify thread exited Buffer was " + new Timestamp(date.getTime())); System.out.println("-----------------------------"); } } My BubbleWitch class package com.Com813cw; import java.lang.*; import java.lang.System; import java.sql.Timestamp; /** * Created by Rory on 10/08/2014. */ class BubbleWitch2 extends Thread { private Buffer buffer; private int number; private int bytes = 100; public BubbleWitch2(Buffer c, int number) { buffer = c; this.number=number ; } long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); public void run() { for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) { buffer.put(bytes); System.out.println(getName() + this.number + " put: " + bytes + " bytes "); try { sleep(1000); } catch (InterruptedException e) { } } long endTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); long timeTaken = endTime - startTime; java.util.Date date = new java.util.Date(); System.out.println("-----------------------------"); System.out.println("BubbleWitch2 has finished executing."); System.out.println("Time taken to execute was " +timeTaken+ " milliseconds"); System.out.println("Time Bubblewitch2 thread exited Buffer was " + new Timestamp(date.getTime())); System.out.println("-----------------------------"); } } My Test class package com.Com813cw; /** * Created by Rory on 10/08/2014. */ public class ProducerConsumerTest { public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException { Buffer c = new Buffer(); BubbleWitch2 p1 = new BubbleWitch2(c,1); Processor c1 = new Processor(c, 1); Spotify p2 = new Spotify(c, 2); SystemManagement p3 = new SystemManagement(c, 3); SecurityUpdate p4 = new SecurityUpdate(c, 4, p1, p2, p3); p1.setName("BubbleWitch2 "); p2.setName("Spotify "); p3.setName("System Management "); p4.setName("Security Update "); p1.setPriority(10); p2.setPriority(10); p3.setPriority(10); p4.setPriority(5); c1.start(); p1.start(); p2.start(); p3.start(); p4.start(); p2.join(); p3.join(); p4.join(); c.average(); System.exit(0); } } My security update package com.Com813cw; import java.lang.*; import java.lang.System; import java.sql.Timestamp; /** * Created by Rory on 11/08/2014. */ class SecurityUpdate extends Thread { private Buffer buffer; private int number; private int bytes = 150; private int process = 0; public SecurityUpdate(Buffer c, int number, BubbleWitch2 bubbleWitch2, Spotify spotify, SystemManagement systemManagement) throws InterruptedException { buffer = c; this.number = number; bubbleWitch2.join(); spotify.join(); systemManagement.join(); } long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); public void run() { for (int i = 0; i < 15; i++) { buffer.put(bytes); System.out.println(getName() + this.number + " put: " + bytes + " bytes"); try { sleep(1500); } catch (InterruptedException e) { } } long endTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); long timeTaken = endTime - startTime; java.util.Date date = new java.util.Date(); System.out.println("-----------------------------"); System.out.println("Security Update has finished executing."); System.out.println("Time taken to execute was " + timeTaken + " milliseconds"); System.out.println("Time that SecurityUpdate thread exited Buffer was " + new Timestamp(date.getTime())); System.out.println("------------------------------"); } } I'd be grateful as I said for any help as this is the last and most frustrating obstacle.

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• How to change the BIOS splash screen on HP Pavilion G4 1303AU?

  - by avirk

  My cousin got (legally) a laptop model HP Pavilion G4 1303AU from the government of my state. The laptop dual-boots Ubuntu and Windows 7. Everything is great except the BIOS logo at boot which I would like to change but don't know how to. I tried to flash a new BIOS firmware, but this didn't change the logo. I found this link for the same model and the same problem, but no success there either. Also I saw this blog post which wasn't helpful, except for this comment that mentioned an image in .ROM format. Not wishing to decompile and recompile the BIOS, can someone help me out with a step by step guide ?

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