Search Results

Search found 42465 results on 1699 pages for 'xml simple'.

Page 339/1699 | < Previous Page | 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346  | Next Page >

• Setting up NCover for NUnit in FinalBuilder

  - by Lasse V. Karlsen

  I am attempting to set up NCover for usage in my FinalBuilder project, for a .NET 4.0 C# project, but my final coverage output file contains no coverage data. I am using: NCover 3.3.2 NUnit 2.5.4 FinalBuilder 6.3.0.2004 All tools are the latest official as of today. I've finally managed to coax FB into running my unit tests under NCover for the .NET 4.0 project, so I get Tests run: 184, ..., which is correct. However, the final Coverage.xml file output from NCover is almost empty, and looks like this: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <!-- saved from NCover 3.0 Export url='http://www.ncover.com/' --> <coverage profilerVersion="3.3.2.6211" driverVersion="3.3.2" exportversion="3" viewdisplayname="" startTime="2010-04-22T08:55:33.7471316Z" measureTime="2010-04-22T08:55:35.3462915Z" projectName="" buildid="27c78ffa-c636-4002-a901-3211a0850b99" coveragenodeid="0" failed="false" satisfactorybranchthreshold="95" satisfactorycoveragethreshold="95" satisfactorycyclomaticcomplexitythreshold="20" satisfactoryfunctionthreshold="80" satisfactoryunvisitedsequencepoints="10" uiviewtype="TreeView" viewguid="C:\Dev\VS.NET\LVK.IoC\LVK.IoC.Tests\bin\Debug\Coverage.xml" viewfilterstyle="None" viewreportstyle="SequencePointCoveragePercentage" viewsortstyle="Name"> <rebasedpaths /> <filters /> <documents> <doc id="0" excluded="false" url="None" cs="" csa="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000" om="0" nid="0" /> </documents> </coverage> The output in FB log is: ... ***************** End Program Output ***************** Execution Time: 1,5992 s Coverage Xml: C:\Dev\VS.NET\LVK.IoC\LVK.IoC.Tests\bin\Debug\Coverage.xml NCover Success My configuration of the FB step for NCover: NCover what?: NUnit test coverage Command: C:\Program Files (x86)\NUnit 2.5.4\bin\net-2.0\nunit-console.exe Command arguments: LVK.IoC.Tests.dll /noshadow /framework:4.0.30319 /process=single /nothread Note: I've tried with and without the /process and /nothread options Working directory: %FBPROJECTDIR%\LVK.IoC.Tests\bin\Debug List of assemblies to profile: %FBPROJECTDIR%\LVK.IoC.Tests\bin\Debug\LVK.IoC.dll Note: I've tried just listing the name of the assembly, both with and without the extension. The documentation for the FB step doesn't help, as it only lists minor sentences for each property, and fails to give examples or troubleshooting hints. Since I want to pull the coverage results into NDepend to run build-time analysis, I want that file to contain the information I need. I am also using TestDriven, and if I right-click the solution file and select "Test with NCover", NCover-explorer opens up with coverage data, and if I ask it to show me the folder with coverage files, in there is an .xml file with the same structure as the one above, just with all the data that should be there, so the tools I have is certainly capable of producing it. Has anyone an idea of what I've configured wrong here?

  Read the article

• Brad's Sure DBA Checklist

  Sometimes, all a DBA needs, to help with day-to-day work, is a checklist of best-practices and dos and don’ts. It provides a handy reminder. Brad has come up with a new update to his famous checklist

  Read the article

• MSBuild Include Remote File 2008?

  - by ScSub

  TFS 2008, VS 2008. I have a tfsbuild.proj and tfsbuild.msp file in $/MyStuff/TeamBuildTypes/Dev folder. I have a targets file at $/MyStuff/TeamBuildTypes/IncludeFiles/Common/test.xml. test.xml contains an XML fragment that overrides the BeforeGet task. I tried to get the file into my tfsbuild.proj file like this: <Import Project="$/MyStuff/TeamBuildTypes/IncludeFiles/Common/test.xml" /> The build fails because it tries to get the file from a relative path that is way off. How can I specify external/include files from an explicit TFS "remote" path? Thanks.

  Read the article

• WebHttpBinding: Log all errors to service logfile

  - by W van Noort

  I have a self-hosted WCF service that uses a WebHttpBinding. In the implementation of the service, all exceptions are caught and a appropriate message is returned to the caller. All exceptions are also logged to the service logfile. catch (Exception ex) { _log.Error("Error posting message", ex); WebOperationContext.Current.OutgoingResponse.StatusCode = HttpStatusCode.InternalServerError; return string.Format("{0}:error={1}", (int)HttpStatusCode.InternalServerError, ex.Message); } However, some situations are intercepted by the WCF framework. e.g.: when the client sends a message that exceeds the configured quotum, i never get an entry in my log file. In fact, i only found this, by adding this to the config file, and inspecting the generated trace file. <system.diagnostics> <sources> <source name="System.ServiceModel" switchValue="Information, ActivityTracing" propagateActivity="true"> <listeners> <add name="xml" /> </listeners> </source> <source name="CardSpace"> <listeners> <add name="xml" /> </listeners> </source> <source name="System.IO.Log"> <listeners> <add name="xml" /> </listeners> </source> <source name="System.Runtime.Serialization"> <listeners> <add name="xml" /> </listeners> </source> <source name="System.IdentityModel"> <listeners> <add name="xml" /> </listeners> </source> </sources> <sharedListeners> <add name="xml" type="System.Diagnostics.XmlWriterTraceListener" initializeData="c:\test\Traces.svclog" /> </sharedListeners> Is there a way to get these kind of errors visible in my own logfile?

  Read the article

• High Performance Storage Systems for SQL Server

  Rod Colledge turns his pessimistic mindset to storage systems, and describes the best way to configure the storage systems of SQL Servers for both performance and reliability. Even Rod gets a glint in his eye when he then goes on to describe the dazzling speed of solid-state storage, though he is quick to identify the risks.

  Read the article

• Write TSQL, win a Kindle.

  - by Fatherjack

  So recently Red Gate launched sqlmonitormetrics.red-gate.com and showed the world how to embed your own scripts harmoniously in a third party tool to get the details that you want about your SQL Server performance. The site has a way to submit your own metrics and take a copy of the ones that other people have submitted to build a library of code to keep track of key metrics of your servers performance. There have been several submissions already but they have now launched a competition to provide an incentive for you to get creative and show us what you can do with a bit of TSQL and the SQL Monitor framework*. What’s it worth? Well, if you are one of the 3 winners then you get to choose either a Kindle Fire or $199. How do you win? Simply write the T-SQL for a SQL Monitor custom metric and the relevant description and introduction for it and submit it via  sqlmonitormetrics.red-gate.com before 14th Sept 2012 and then sit back and wait while the judges review your code and your aims in writing the metric. Who are the judges and how will they judge the metrics? There are two judges for this competition, Steve Jones (Microsoft SQL Server MVP, co-founder of SQLServerCentral.com, author, blogger etc) and Jonathan Allen (um, yeah, Steve has done all the good stuff, I’m here by good fortune). We will be looking to rate the metrics on each of 3 criteria: how the metric can help with performance tuning SQL Server. how having the metric running enables DBA’s to meet best practice. how interesting /original the idea for the metric is. Our combined decision will be final etc etc **  What happens to my metric? Any metrics submitted to the competition will be automatically entered into the site library and become available for sharing once the competition is over. You’ll get full credit for metrics you submit regardless of the competition results. You can enter as many metrics as you like. How long does it take? Honestly? Once you have the T-SQL sorted then so long as you can type your name and your email address you are done : http://sqlmonitormetrics.red-gate.com/share-a-metric/ What can I monitor? If you really really want a Kindle or $199 (and let’s face it, who doesn’t? ) and are momentarily stuck for inspiration, take a look at these example custom metrics that have been written by Stuart Ainsworth, Fabiano Amorim, TJay Belt, Louis Davidson, Grant Fritchey, Brad McGehee and me  to start the library off. There are some great pieces of TSQL in those metrics gathering important stats about how SQL Server is performing.   * – framework may not be the best word here but I was under pressure and couldnt think of a better one. If you prefer try ‘engine’, or ‘application’? I don’t know, pick something that makes sense to you. ** – for the full (legal) version of the rules check the details on sqlmonitormetrics.red-gate.com or send us an email if you want any point clarified. Disclaimer – Jonathan is a Friend of Red Gate and as such, whenever they are discussed, will have a generally positive disposition towards Red Gate tools. Other tools are often available and you should always try others before you come back and buy the Red Gate ones. All code in this blog is provided “as is” and no guarantee, warranty or accuracy is applicable or inferred, run the code on a test server and be sure to understand it before you run it on a server that means a lot to you or your manager.

  Read the article

• Exitus Acta Probat: The Post-Processing Module

  - by Phil Factor

  Sometimes, one has to make certain ethical compromises to ensure the success of a corporate IT project. Exitus Acta Probat (literally 'the result validates the deeds' meaning that the ends justify the means)It was a while back, whilst working as a Technical Architect for a well-known international company, that I was given the task of designing the architecture of a rather specialized accounting system. We'd tried an off-the-shelf (OTS) Windows-based solution which crashed with dispiriting regularity, and didn't quite do what the business required. After a great deal of research and planning, we commissioned a Unux-based system that used X-terminals for the desktops of  the participating staff. X terminals are now obsolete, but were then hot stuff; stripped-down Unix workstations that provided client GUIs for networked applications long before the days of AJAX, Flash, Air and DHTML. I've never known a project go so smoothly: I'd been initially rather nervous about going the Unix route, believing then that  Unix programmers were excitable creatures who were prone to  indulge in role-play enactments of elves and wizards at the weekend, but the programmers I met from the company that did the work seemed to be rather donnish, earnest, people who quickly grasped our requirements and were faultlessly professional in their work.After thinking lofty thoughts for a while, there was considerable pummeling of keyboards by our suppliers, and a beautiful robust application was delivered to us ahead of dates.Soon, the department who had commissioned the work received shiny new X Terminals to replace their rather depressing lavatory-beige PCs. I modestly hung around as the application was commissioned and deployed to the department in order to receive the plaudits. They didn't come. Something was very wrong with the project. I couldn't put my finger on the problem, and the users weren't doing any more than desperately and futilely searching the application to find a fault with it.Many times in my life, I've come up against a predicament like this: The roll-out of an application goes wrong and you are hearing nothing that helps you to discern the cause but nit-*** noise. There is a limit to the emotional heat you can pack into a complaint about text being in the wrong font, or an input form being slightly cramped, but they tried their best. The answer is, of course, one that every IT executive should have tattooed prominently where they can read it in emergencies: In Vino Veritas (literally, 'in wine the truth', alcohol loosens the tongue. A roman proverb) It was time to slap the wallet and get the department down the pub with the tab in my name. It was an eye-watering investment, but hedged with an over-confident IT director who relished my discomfort. To cut a long story short, The real reason gushed out with the third round. We had deprived them of their PCs, which had been good for very little from the pure business perspective, but had provided them with many hours of happiness playing computer-based minesweeper and solitaire. There is no more agreeable way of passing away the interminable hours of wage-slavery than minesweeper or solitaire, and the employees had applauded the munificence of their employer who had provided them with the means to play it. I had, unthinkingly, deprived them of it.I held an emergency meeting with our suppliers the following day. I came over big with the notion that it was in their interests to provide a solution. They played it cool, probably knowing that it was my head on the block, not theirs. In the end, they came up with a compromise. they would temporarily descend from their lofty, cerebral stamping grounds  in order to write a server-based Minesweeper and Solitaire game for X Terminals, and install it in a concealed place within the system. We'd have to pay for it, though. I groaned. How could we do that? "Could we call it a 'post-processing module?" suggested their account executive.And so it came to pass. The application was a resounding success. Every now and then, the staff were able to indulge in some 'post-processing', with what turned out to be a very fine implementation of both minesweeper and solitaire. There were several refinements: A single click in a 'boss' button turned the games into what looked just like a financial spreadsheet.  They even threw in a multi-user version of Battleships. The extra payment for the post-processing module went through the change-control process without anyone untoward noticing, and peace once more descended. Only one thing niggles. Those games were good. Do they still survive, somewhere in a Linux library? If so, I'd like to claim a small part in their production.

  Read the article

• Spolskism or Twitterism: A Doctor writes...

  - by Phil Factor

  "I never realized I had a problem. I just 'twittered' because it was a social thing to do. All my mates were doing it. It made me feel good to have 'followers'; it bolstered my self-esteem. Of course, you don't think of the long-term effects on your work and on the way you think. There's no denying that it impairs your judgment…" Yes, this story is typical. Hundreds of people are waking up to the long term effects of twittering, and seeking help. Dave, who wishes to remain anonymous, told our reporter… "I started using Twitter at work. Just a few minutes now and then, throughout the day. A lot of my colleagues were doing it and I thought 'Well, that's cool; it must be part of what I should be doing at work'. Soon, I was avidly reading every twitter that came my way, and counting the minutes between my own twitters. I tried to kid myself that it was all about professional development and getting other people to help you with work-related problems, but in truth I had become addicted to the buzz of the social network. The worse thing was that it made me seem busy even when I was really just frittering my time away. Inevitably, I started to get behind with my real work." Experts have identified the syndrome and given it a name: 'Twitterism', sometimes referred to as 'Spolskism', after the person who first drew attention to the pernicious damage to well-being that the practice caused, and who had the courage to take the pledge of rejecting it. According to one expert… "The occasional Twitter does little harm to the participant, and can be an adaptive way of dealing with stress. Unfortunately, it rarely stops there. The addictive qualities of the practice have put a strain on the caring professions who are faced with a flood of people making that first bold step to seeking help". Dave is one of those now seeking help for his addiction… "I had lost touch with reality. Even though I twittered my work colleagues constantly, I found I actually spoke to them less and less. Even when out socializing, I would frequently disengage from the conversation, in order to twitter. I stopped blogging. I stopped responding to emails; the only way to reach me was through the world of Twitter. Unfortunately, my denial about the harm that twittering was doing to me, my friends, and my work-colleagues was so strong that I truly couldn't see that I had a problem." Like other addictions, the help and support of others who are 'taking the cure' is important. There is a common bond between those who have 'been through hell and back' and are once more able to experience the joys of actually conversing and socializing, rather than the false comfort of solitary 'twittering'. Complete abstinence is essential to the cure. Most of those who risk even an occasional twitter face a headlong slide back into 'binge' twittering. Tom, another twitterer who has managed to kick the habit explains… "My twittering addiction now seems more like a bad dream. You get to work, and switch on the PC. You say to yourself, just open up the browser, just for a minute, just to see what people are saying on Twitter. The next thing you know, half the day has gone by. The worst thing is that when you're addicted, you get good at covering up the habit; I spent so much time looking at the screen and typing on the keyboard, people just assumed I was working hard.I know that I must never forget what it was like then, and what it's like now that I've kicked the habit. I now have more time for productive work and a real social life." Like many addictions, Spolskism has its most detrimental effects on family, friends and workmates, rather than the addict. So often nowadays, we hear the sad stories of Twitter-Widows; tales of long lonely evenings spent whilst their partners are engrossed in their twittering into their 'mobiles' or indulging in their solitary spolskistic habits in privacy, under cover of 'having to do work at home'. Workmates suffer too, when the addicts even take their laptops or mobiles into meetings in order to 'twitter' with their fellow obsessives, even stooping to complain to their followers how boring the meeting is. No; The best advice is to leave twittering to the birds. You know it makes sense.

  Read the article

• .NET Reflector 7.2 Early Access Build 1 Released

  - by Bart Read

  I've just posted up full details of this release on the .NET Reflector blog at http://www.reflector.net/2011/05/life-is-a-journey-not-a-destination-net-reflector-7-2-ea-1-has-been-released/ and, breaking with previous tradition, this includes a fairly extensive changelog. You can download this EA build from the .NET Reflector homepage at http://www.reflector.net/. Enjoy! (And please don't forget to tell us what you think on the forum, http://forums.reflector.net/, using the tags #7.2 and #eap.)...(read more)

  Read the article

• Music before bells and whistles

  - by Tony Davis

  Why is it that Windows has so much difficulty in finding content on its file system? This is not an insurmountable technical problem; on my laptop, I have a database within which I can instantly find text or names within millions of records, within 300 milliseconds. I have a copy of Google Desktop that can find phrases within emails or documents, almost as quickly. It is an important, though mundane, part of an operating system to be able to find files. The first thing I notice within Windows is that the facility to find files or text within files is called 'search' rather than 'find'. Hmm. This doesn’t bode well. What’s this? It does a brute-force search for file names? Here we are in an age when we can breed mice that glow in the dark, and manufacture computers that fit in our shirt pockets, and we find an operating system that is still entirely innocent of managing and indexing content in hierarchical data. I can actually read the files of my PC into a database, mimic the directory/folder hierarchies and then find files in a flash; but when I do the same with Windows Vista, we are suddenly back in a 1960s time warp. Finding files based on their name is bad enough, but finding files based on the content that they contain is more or less asking for an opportunity to wait 20 minutes in order to see a "file not found" message. Sadly, with Windows 7, Microsoft seems to have fallen into the familiar trap of adding bells and whistles before finishing the song. It's certainly true that Microsoft has added new features and a certain polish to Windows Search 4.0, the latest incarnation. It works more like a web search and offers a new search syntax, called Advanced Query Syntax, which allows you to search on file author, file size, date ranges (e.g. date:=7/4/09still does not work reliably. I've experienced first-hand its stubborn refusal, despite a full index, to acknowledge the existence of a file I know exists, based on a search for a specific term within that file that I know is in there somewhere; a file that Google Desktop search, or old wingrep, finds in seconds. When users hark back to the halcyon days of Windows XP search, you know something is seriously amiss. Shouldn't applications get the functionality right before applying animated menus and Teletubby graphics, or is advancing age making me grumpy? I’d be pleased to hear your views, as always. Cheers, Tony.

  Read the article

• Going Metro

  - by Tony Davis

  When it was announced, I confess was somewhat surprised by the striking new "Metro" User Interface for Windows 8, based on Swiss typography, Bauhaus design, tiles, touches and gestures, and the new Windows Runtime (WinRT) API on which Metro apps were to be built. It all seemed to have come out of nowhere, like field mushrooms in the night and seemed quite out-of-character for a company like Microsoft, which has hung on determinedly for over twenty years to its quaint Windowing system. Many were initially puzzled by the lack of support for plug-ins in the "Metro" version of IE10, which ships with Win8, and the apparent demise of Silverlight, Microsoft's previous 'radical new framework'. Win8 signals the end of the road for Silverlight apps in the browser, but then its importance here has been waning for some time, anyway, now that HTML5 has usurped its most compelling use case, streaming video. As Shawn Wildermuth and others have noted, if you're doing enterprise, desktop development with Silverlight then nothing much changes immediately, though it seems clear that ultimately Silverlight will die off in favor of a single WPF/XAML framework that supports those technologies that were pioneered on the phones and tablets. There is a mystery here. Is Silverlight dead, or merely repurposed? The more you look at Metro, the more it seems to resemble Silverlight. A lot of the philosophies underpinning Silverlight applications, such as the fundamentally asynchronous nature of the design, have moved wholesale into Metro, along with most the Microsoft Silverlight dev team. As Simon Cooper points out, "Silverlight developers, already used to all the principles of sandboxing and separation, will have a much easier time writing Metro apps than desktop developers". Metro certainly has given the framework formerly known as Silverlight a new purpose. It has enabled Microsoft to bestow on Windows 8 a new "duality", as both a traditional desktop OS supporting 'legacy' Windows applications, and an OS that supports a new breed of application that can share functionality such as search, that understands, and can react to, the full range of gestures and screen-sizes, and has location-awareness. It's clear that Win8 is developed in the knowledge that the 'desktop computer' will soon be a very large, tilted, touch-screen monitor. Windows owes its new-found versatility to the lessons learned from Windows Phone, but it's developed for the big screen, and with full support for familiar .NET desktop apps as well as the new Metro apps. But the old mouse-driven Windows applications will soon look very passé, just as MSDOS character-mode applications did in the nineties. Cheers, Tony.

  Read the article

• Progress bar in a Flash MP3 Player

  - by Deryck

  Hi I have coded a simple XML driven MP3 player. I have used Sound and SoundChannel objects and method but I can´t find a way of make a progress bar. I don´t need a loading progress I need a song progress status bar. Canbd anybody help me? Thanks. UPDATE: Theres is the code. var musicReq: URLRequest; var thumbReq: URLRequest; var music:Sound = new Sound(); var sndC:SoundChannel; var currentSnd:Sound = music; var position:Number; var currentIndex:Number = 0; var songPaused:Boolean; var songStopped:Boolean; var lineClr:uint; var changeClr:Boolean; var xml:XML; var songList:XMLList; var loader:URLLoader = new URLLoader(); loader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, Loaded); loader.load(new URLRequest("musiclist.xml")); var thumbHd:MovieClip = new MovieClip(); thumbHd.x = 50; thumbHd.y = 70; addChild(thumbHd); function Loaded(e:Event):void{ xml = new XML(e.target.data); songList = xml.song; musicReq = new URLRequest(songList[0].url); thumbReq = new URLRequest(songList[0].thumb); music.load(musicReq); sndC = music.play(); title_txt.text = songList[0].title + " - " + songList[0].artist; loadThumb(); sndC.addEventListener(Event.SOUND_COMPLETE, nextSong); } function loadThumb():void{ var thumbLoader:Loader = new Loader(); thumbReq = new URLRequest(songList[currentIndex].thumb); thumbLoader.load(thumbReq); thumbLoader.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, thumbLoaded); } function thumbLoaded(e:Event):void { var thumb:Bitmap = (Bitmap)(e.target.content); var holder:MovieClip = thumbHd; holder.addChild(thumb); } prevBtn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, prevSong); nextBtn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, nextSong); playBtn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, playSong); function prevSong(e:Event):void{ if(currentIndex 0){ currentIndex--; } else{ currentIndex = songList.length() - 1; } var prevReq:URLRequest = new URLRequest(songList[currentIndex].url); var prevPlay:Sound = new Sound(prevReq); sndC.stop(); title_txt.text = songList[currentIndex].title + " - " + songList[currentIndex].artist; sndC = prevPlay.play(); currentSnd = prevPlay; songPaused = false; loadThumb(); sndC.addEventListener(Event.SOUND_COMPLETE, nextSong); } function nextSong(e:Event):void { if(currentIndex And here the code for the lenght and position. It´s inside a MovieClip. That´s why I use absolute path for find the Sound object. this.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, moveSpeaker); var initWidth:Number = this.SpkCone.width; var initHeight:Number = this.SpkCone.height; var rootObj:Object = root; function moveSpeaker(eventArgs:Event) { var average:Number = ((rootObj.audioPlayer_mc.sndC.leftPeak + rootObj.audioPlayer_mc.sndC.rightPeak) / 2) * 10; // trace(average); // trace(initWidth + ":" + initHeight); trace(rootObj.audioPlayer_mc.sndC.position + "/" + rootObj.audioPlayer_mc.music.length); this.SpkCone.width = initWidth + average; this.SpkCone.height = initHeight + average; }

  Read the article

• Understanding each other in web development

  - by Pete Hotchkin

  During my career I have been lucky enough to work in several different roles within web development with many extremely talented people, from incredible designers who were passionate about the placement of every pixel right through to server administrators and DBAs who were always measuring the improvements they were making to their queries in the smallest possible unit. The problem I always faced was that more often than not I was stuck in the middle trying to mediate between these different functions and enable each side to understand the other’s point of view. The main areas of contention that there have always been between these functional groups in my experience have been at 2 key points: during the build phase and then when there is a problem post-build. During both of these times it is often easier for someone to pass the buck onto someone else than spend the time to understand the other person’s perspective. Below is a quick look at two upcoming tools that will not only speed up the build phase for each function, but  also help when it comes to the issues faced once a site has been pushed live. In my experience a web project goes through several phases of development. The first of these is design, generally handled as Photoshop files which are then passed onto a front-end developer. This is the first point at which heated discussions can arise. One problem I’ve seen several times is that the designer doesn’t fully understand the platform constraints that need to be considered, and as a result has designed something that does not translate very well or is simply not possible. Working at Red Gate, I am lucky enough to be able to meet some amazing people and this happened just the other day when I was introduced to Neil Kinnish and Pete Nelson, the creators of what I believe could be a great asset in this designer-developer relationship, Mixture. Mixture allows the front end developer to quickly prototype a web page with built-in frameworks such as bootstrap. It’s not an IDE however, it just sits there in the background and monitors the project files in the background so every time you save a file from your favorite IDE, it will compile things like LESS, compact your JavaScript and the automatically refresh your test browser so you can see the changes instantly. I think one of the best parts of this however is a single button that pushes the changed files up to the web so the designer can instantly see how far the developer has got and the problem that he is facing at that time without the need to spend time setting up a remote server. I can see this being a real asset to remote teams where there needs to be a compromise between the designer and the front-end developer, or just to allow the designer to see how the build is progressing and suggest small alterations. Once the design has been built into the front end the designer’s job is generally done and there are no other points of contention between the designer and the other functions involved in building these web projects. As the project moves into the stage of integrating it into the back end and deploying it to the production server other functions start to be pulled in and other issues arise such as the back-end developer understanding the frameworks that they are using such as the routes that are in place in an MVC application or the number of database calls that the ORM layer is actually making. There are many tools out there that can actually help with these problems such as mini profiler that gives you a quick snapshot of what is going on directly in the browser. For a slightly more in-depth look at what is happening and to gain a deeper understanding of an application you may be working on though, you may want to consider Glimpse. Created by Nik and Anthony, it is an application that sits at the bottom of your browser (installed via NuGet) which can show you information about how your application is pieced together and how the information on screen is being delivered as it happens. With a wealth of community-built plugins such as one for nHibernate and linq2SQL (full list of plugins on NuGet). It can be customized directly to your own setup to truly delve into the code to see what is happening, and can help to reduce the number of confusing moments about whether it is your code that is going wrong or whether there is something more sinister happening directly on the server. All the tools that I have mentioned in this post help to do one thing above all, and that is to ease the barrier of understanding between the different functions that are involved in building and maintaining a web application. In my experience it is very easy to say “Well, that’s not my problem”, simply because the two functions involved don’t truly understand the other’s point of view. Software should not only be seen as a way to streamline our own working process or as a debugging tool but also a communication aid to improve the entire lifecycle of a web project. Glimpse is actually the project that I am the designer on and I would love to get your feedback if you do decide to try it out or if you would like to share your own experiences of working on web projects please fill in your details at https://www.surveymk.com/s/joinGlimpse  or add a comment below and I will get in touch with you.

  Read the article

• CSharpCodeProvider 'cannot find metadata file' Compiling Plugin Code With Mono

  - by Jason Champion

  I have some code in an XML file that I load and compile at runtime in an application. This works fine on Windows, but under Mono I get assembly reference errors. Here's the examine code in question: public static bool CompileSpell(Spell spell) { CSharpCodeProvider prov = new CSharpCodeProvider(); CompilerParameters cp = new CompilerParameters(); cp.GenerateExecutable = true; cp.GenerateInMemory = true; cp.ReferencedAssemblies.Add("system.dll"); cp.ReferencedAssemblies.Add("system.xml.dll"); cp.ReferencedAssemblies.Add("BasternaeMud.dll"); cp.ReferencedAssemblies.Add("ZoneData.dll"); Log.Trace("Compiling spell '" + spell.Name + "'."); StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); int idx = spell.FileName.IndexOf('.'); string file = spell.FileName; if (idx > 0) { file = spell.FileName.Substring(0, idx); } int lines = GenerateWithMain(sb, spell.Code, "BasternaeMud"); CompilerResults cr = prov.CompileAssemblyFromSource(cp,sb.ToString()); .... The specific errors I get in the compiler results are: cannot find metadata file 'system.dll' at line 0 column 0. cannot find metadata file 'system.xml.dll' at line 0 column 0. Mono obviously doesn't like the way I add referenced assemblies to the code I'm compiling for system.xml and system.xml.dll. The other two assemblies add fine, which is no surprise because they're the code that the compiler is actually executing from and exist in the executable directory. Any clue what I need to do to fix this? Maybe I could just drop those DLLs in the executable directory, but that feels like a dumb idea.

  Read the article

• java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: javax.persistence.OneToMany.orphanRemoval()Z

  - by Panayiotis Karabassis

  I am getting this error: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: javax.persistence.OneToMany.orphanRemoval()Z These are the jars in my classpath: com.sun.faces/jsf-api/jars/jsf-api-2.0.0.jar com.sun.faces/jsf-impl/jars/jsf-impl-2.0.0.jar org.apache.myfaces.orchestra/myfaces-orchestra-core20/jars/myfaces-orchestra-core20-1.5-SNAPSHOT.jar commons-lang/commons-lang/jars/commons-lang-2.1.jar commons-logging/commons-logging/jars/commons-logging-1.1.1.jar org.springframework/spring/jars/spring-2.5.6.jar commons-el/commons-el/jars/commons-el-1.0.jar org.richfaces.ui/richfaces-ui/jars/richfaces-ui-3.3.3.Final.jar org.richfaces.framework/richfaces-api/jars/richfaces-api-3.3.3.Final.jar commons-collections/commons-collections/jars/commons-collections-3.2.jar commons-beanutils/commons-beanutils/jars/commons-beanutils-1.8.0.jar org.richfaces.framework/richfaces-impl-jsf2/jars/richfaces-impl-jsf2-3.3.3.Final.jar com.sun.facelets/jsf-facelets/jars/jsf-facelets-1.1.14.jar org.hibernate/hibernate-core/jars/hibernate-core-3.6.0.Final.jar antlr/antlr/jars/antlr-2.7.6.jar dom4j/dom4j/jars/dom4j-1.6.1.jar org.hibernate/hibernate-commons-annotations/jars/hibernate-commons-annotations-3.2.0.Final.jar org.slf4j/slf4j-api/jars/slf4j-api-1.6.1.jar org.hibernate.javax.persistence/hibernate-jpa-2.0-api/jars/hibernate-jpa-2.0-api-1.0.0.Final.jar javax.transaction/jta/jars/jta-1.1.jar org.hibernate/hibernate-c3p0/jars/hibernate-c3p0-3.6.0.Final.jar c3p0/c3p0/jars/c3p0-0.9.1.jar org.hibernate/hibernate-entitymanager/jars/hibernate-entitymanager-3.6.0.Final.jar cglib/cglib/jars/cglib-2.2.jar asm/asm/jars/asm-3.1.jar javassist/javassist/jars/javassist-3.12.0.GA.jar org.hibernate/hibernate-search/jars/hibernate-search-3.3.0.Final.jar org.hibernate/hibernate-search-analyzers/jars/hibernate-search-analyzers-3.3.0.Final.jar org.apache.lucene/lucene-core/jars/lucene-core-3.0.3.jar org.apache.lucene/lucene-analyzers/jars/lucene-analyzers-3.0.3.jar mysql/mysql-connector-java/jars/mysql-connector-java-5.1.13.jar com.ocpsoft/prettyfaces-jsf2/jars/prettyfaces-jsf2-3.0.1.jar commons-digester/commons-digester/jars/commons-digester-2.0.jar org.slf4j/slf4j-log4j12/jars/slf4j-log4j12-1.6.1.jar log4j/log4j/bundles/log4j-1.2.16.jar xom/xom/jars/xom-1.2.5.jar xml-apis/xml-apis/jars/xml-apis-1.3.03.jar xerces/xercesImpl/jars/xercesImpl-2.8.0.jar xalan/xalan/jars/xalan-2.7.0.jar org.jboss.jsfunit/jboss-jsfunit-core/jars/jboss-jsfunit-core-1.3.0.Final.jar net.sourceforge.htmlunit/htmlunit/jars/htmlunit-2.8.jar xalan/xalan/jars/xalan-2.7.1.jar xalan/serializer/jars/serializer-2.7.1.jar xml-apis/xml-apis/jars/xml-apis-1.3.04.jar commons-collections/commons-collections/jars/commons-collections-3.2.1.jar commons-lang/commons-lang/jars/commons-lang-2.4.jar org.apache.httpcomponents/httpclient/jars/httpclient-4.0.1.jar org.apache.httpcomponents/httpcore/jars/httpcore-4.0.1.jar commons-codec/commons-codec/jars/commons-codec-1.4.jar org.apache.httpcomponents/httpmime/jars/httpmime-4.0.1.jar org.apache.james/apache-mime4j/jars/apache-mime4j-0.6.jar net.sourceforge.htmlunit/htmlunit-core-js/jars/htmlunit-core-js-2.8.jar xerces/xercesImpl/jars/xercesImpl-2.9.1.jar net.sourceforge.nekohtml/nekohtml/jars/nekohtml-1.9.14.jar net.sourceforge.cssparser/cssparser/jars/cssparser-0.9.5.jar org.w3c.css/sac/jars/sac-1.3.jar commons-io/commons-io/jars/commons-io-1.4.jar cactus/cactus/jars/cactus-13-1.7.1.jar cactus/cactus-ant/jars/cactus-ant-13-1.7.1.jar commons-httpclient/commons-httpclient/jars/commons-httpclient-2.0.2.jar junit/junit/jars/junit-3.8.1.jar aspectj/aspectjrt/jars/aspectjrt-1.2.1.jar cargo/cargo/jars/cargo-0.5.jar ant/ant/jars/ant-1.5.4.jar and this is my ivy.xml: <dependencies> <!-- JSF 2.0 RI --> <dependency org="com.sun.faces" name="jsf-api" rev="2.0.0"/> <dependency org="com.sun.faces" name="jsf-impl" rev="2.0.0"/> <!-- MyFaces Orchestra --> <dependency org="org.apache.myfaces.orchestra" name="myfaces-orchestra-core20" rev="1.5-SNAPSHOT"/> <dependency org="org.springframework" name="spring" rev="2.5.6"/> <dependency org="commons-el" name="commons-el" rev="1.0"/> <!-- RichFaces --> <dependency org="org.richfaces.ui" name="richfaces-ui" rev="3.3.3.Final"/> <dependency org="org.richfaces.framework" name="richfaces-impl-jsf2" rev="3.3.3.Final"/> <dependency org="com.sun.facelets" name="jsf-facelets" rev="1.1.14"/> <!-- Hibernate --> <dependency org="org.hibernate" name="hibernate-core" rev="3.6.0.Final"/> <dependency org="org.hibernate" name="hibernate-c3p0" rev="3.6.0.Final"/> <dependency org="org.hibernate" name="hibernate-entitymanager" rev="3.6.0.Final"/> <dependency org="org.hibernate" name="hibernate-search" rev="3.3.0.Final"/> <dependency org="mysql" name="mysql-connector-java" rev="5.1.13"/> <!-- PrettyFaces --> <dependency org="com.ocpsoft" name="prettyfaces-jsf2" rev="3.0.1"/> <!-- SLF4J --> <dependency org="org.slf4j" name="slf4j-api" rev="1.6.1"/> <dependency org="org.slf4j" name="slf4j-log4j12" rev="1.6.1"/> <!-- XOM --> <dependency org="xom" name="xom" rev="1.2.5"/> <!-- JSF Unit --> <dependency org="org.jboss.jsfunit" name="jboss-jsfunit-core" rev="1.3.0.Final" conf="development"/> </dependencies> I am deploying to tomcat 6.0 Update After the answer below, I solved this by adding the following dependency to my ivy.xml: <dependency org="org.hibernate.javax.persistence" name="hibernate-jpa-2.0-api" rev="1.0.0.Final"/> then putting this jar above everything else under Eclipse's build order tab. I was using JRE/JDK 6.

  Read the article

• Inside Red Gate - Ricky Leeks

  - by Simon Cooper

  So, one of our profilers has a problem. Red Gate produces two .NET profilers - ANTS Performance Profiler (APP) and ANTS Memory Profiler (AMP). Both products help .NET developers solve problems they are virtually guaranteed to encounter at some point in their careers - slow code, and high memory usage, respectively. Everyone understands slow code - the symptoms are very obvious (an operation takes 2 hours when it should take 10 seconds), you know when you've solved it (the same operation now takes 15 seconds), and everyone understands how you can use a profiler like APP to help solve your particular problem. High memory usage is a much more subtle and misunderstood concept. How can .NET have memory leaks? The garbage collector, and how the CLR uses and frees memory, is one of the most misunderstood concepts in .NET. There's hundreds of blog posts out there covering various aspects of the GC and .NET memory, some of them helpful, some of them confusing, and some of them are just plain wrong. There's a lot of misconceptions out there. And, if you have got an application that uses far too much memory, it can be hard to wade through all the contradictory information available to even get an idea as to what's going on, let alone trying to solve it. That's where a memory profiler, like AMP, comes into play. Unfortunately, that's not the end of the issue. .NET memory management is a large, complicated, and misunderstood problem. Even armed with a profiler, you need to understand what .NET is doing with your objects, how it processes them, and how it frees them, to be able to use the profiler effectively to solve your particular problem. And that's what's wrong with AMP - even with all the thought, designs, UX sessions, and research we've put into AMP itself, some users simply don't have the knowledge required to be able to understand what AMP is telling them about how their application uses memory, and so they have problems understanding & solving their memory problem. Ricky Leeks This is where Ricky Leeks comes in. Created by one of the many...colourful...people in Red Gate, he headlines and promotes several tutorials, pages, and articles all with information on how .NET memory management actually works, with the goal to help educate developers on .NET memory management. And educating us all on how far you can push various vegetable-based puns. This, in turn, not only helps them understand and solve any memory issues they may be having, but helps them proactively code against such memory issues in their existing code. Ricky's latest outing is an interview on .NET Rocks, providing information on the Top 5 .NET Memory Management Gotchas, along with information on a free ebook on .NET Memory Management. Don't worry, there's loads more vegetable-based jokes where those came from...

  Read the article

• IT Admin for Thrill Seekers

  - by Tony Davis

  A developer suggested to me recently that the life of the DBA was, surely, a dull one. My first reaction was indignation, but quickly followed by the thought that for many people excitement isn't necessarily the most desirable aspect of their job. It's true that some aspects of the DBA role seem guaranteed to quieten the pulse; in the days of tape backups, time must have slowed to eternity for the person whose job it was to oversee this process, placing tapes into secure containers, ensuring correct labeling, and.sorry, I drifted off there for a second. On the other hand, if you follow the adventures of the likes of Brent Ozar or Tom LaRock, you'd be forgiven for thinking that much of a database guy's time is spent, metaphorically, diving through plate glass windows in tight fitting underwear in order to extract grateful occupants from burning database applications. Alas it isn't true of the majority, but it isn't as dull as some people imagine, and is a helter-skelter ride compared with some other IT roles. Every IT department has people who toil away in shadowy corners doing quiet but mysterious tasks. When you ask them to explain what they do, you almost immediately want them to stop, but you hear enough to appreciate that these tasks are often absolutely vital to the smooth functioning of an IT organization. Compared with them, the DBAs are prima donnas. Here are a few nominations: Installation engineer - install all of the company's laptops and workstations, and software, deal with licensing, shipping and data entry.many organizations, especially those subject to tight regulation, would simply grind to a halt without their efforts. Localization engineer - Not quite software engineering, not quite translation, the job is to rebuild a product in a different language and make sure everything still works. QA Tester - firstly, I should say that the testers at Red Gate seem to me some of the most-fulfilled in the company. I refer here to the QA Tester whose job is more-or-less entirely to read a script, click some buttons and make sure the actual and expected values match. Configuration manager - for example, someone whose main job is to configure build environments so that devs can access their source code; assuredly necessary for the smooth functioning and productivity of the team, and hopefully well-paid. So what other sort of job in IT should one choose if the work of a DBA proves to be too exciting? Or are these roles secretly more exciting than many imagine? I invite you all to put forward your own suggestions. Cheers, Tony.

  Read the article

• A quick look at: sys.dm_os_buffer_descriptors

  - by Jonathan Allen

  SQL Server places data into cache as it reads it from disk so as to speed up future queries. This dmv lets you see how much data is cached at any given time and knowing how this changes over time can help you ensure your servers run smoothly and are adequately resourced to run your systems. This dmv gives the number of cached pages in the buffer pool along with the database id that they relate to: USE [tempdb] GO SELECT COUNT(*) AS cached_pages_count , CASE database_id WHEN 32767 THEN 'ResourceDb' ELSE DB_NAME(database_id) END AS Database_name FROM sys.dm_os_buffer_descriptors GROUP BY DB_NAME(database_id) , database_id ORDER BY cached_pages_count DESC; This gives you results which are quite useful, but if you add a new column with the code: …to convert the pages value to show a MB value then they become more relevant and meaningful. To see how your server reacts to queries, start up SSMS and connect to a test server and database – mine is called AdventureWorks2008. Make sure you start from a know position by running: -- Only run this on a test server otherwise your production server's-- performance may drop off a cliff and your phone will start ringing. DBCC DROPCLEANBUFFERS GO Now we can run a query that would normally turn a DBA’s hair white: USE [AdventureWorks2008] go SELECT * FROM [Sales].[SalesOrderDetail] AS sod INNER JOIN [Sales].[SalesOrderHeader] AS soh ON [sod].[SalesOrderID] = [soh].[SalesOrderID] …and then check our cache situation: A nice low figure – not! Almost 2000 pages of data in cache equating to approximately 15MB. Luckily these tables are quite narrow; if this had been on a table with more columns then this could be even more dramatic. So, let’s make our query more efficient. After resetting the cache with the DROPCLEANBUFFERS and FREEPROCCACHE code above, we’ll only select the columns we want and implement a WHERE predicate to limit the rows to a specific customer. SELECT [sod].[OrderQty] , [sod].[ProductID] , [soh].[OrderDate] , [soh].[CustomerID] FROM [Sales].[SalesOrderDetail] AS sod INNER JOIN [Sales].[SalesOrderHeader] AS soh ON [sod].[SalesOrderID] = [soh].[SalesOrderID] WHERE [soh].[CustomerID] = 29722 …and check our effect cache: Now that is more sympathetic to our server and the other systems sharing its resources. I can hear you asking: “What has this got to do with logging, Jonathan?” Well, a smart DBA will keep an eye on this metric on their servers so they know how their hardware is coping and be ready to investigate anomalies so that no ‘disruptive’ code starts to unsettle things. Capturing this information over a period of time can lead you to build a picture of how a database relies on the cache and how it interacts with other databases. This might allow you to decide on appropriate schedules for over night jobs or otherwise balance the work of your server. You could schedule this job to run with a SQL Agent job and store the data in your DBA’s database by creating a table with: IF OBJECT_ID('CachedPages') IS NOT NULL DROP TABLE CachedPages CREATE TABLE CachedPages ( cached_pages_count INT , MB INT , Database_Name VARCHAR(256) , CollectedOn DATETIME DEFAULT GETDATE() ) …and then filling it with: INSERT INTO [dbo].[CachedPages] ( [cached_pages_count] , [MB] , [Database_Name] ) SELECT COUNT(*) AS cached_pages_count , ( COUNT(*) * 8.0 ) / 1024 AS MB , CASE database_id WHEN 32767 THEN 'ResourceDb' ELSE DB_NAME(database_id) END AS Database_name FROM sys.dm_os_buffer_descriptors GROUP BY database_id After this has been left logging your system metrics for a while you can easily see how your databases use the cache over time and may see some spikes that warrant your attention. This sort of logging can be applied to all sorts of server statistics so that you can gather information that will give you baseline data on how your servers are performing. This means that when you get a problem you can see what statistics are out of their normal range and target you efforts to resolve the issue more rapidly.

  Read the article

• Antenna Aligner Part 10: Updates and emails…

  - by Chris George

  Since my last post back in July, I’ve not done huge amounts of work on my app for two reasons. Firstly, no time! Secondly, I wanted to leave it out in the wild for a while and see what happened. Well, what happened?  over 1,300 users, that’s what’s happened!  This uptake is beyond my wildest expectations, and apart from a couple of issues that I’ll mention in a minute, most of the feedback has been very positive indeed! I’ve had several emails giving me feedback and reporting issues, all of which I have made a point of replying to immediately. This act alone has met with favourable replies! One of the main issues was with iPad. So it turns out that my app is only accurate in portrait mode. Turning it into landscape will offset the direction by +-90degrees! Whoops! I think I’ve fixed this by disabling the orientation switching, but I have not yet had an iPad to test this on. I had several emails from iPod Touch users claiming the app did not work for them. Specifically, the compass view did not work. On investigation, it turns out that the iPod Touch does not have the compass hardware required to do this. Unfortunately there is no way to exclude iPod Touch’s from the list of supported devices, so I’ve just had to make it very clear in the itunes description that the device is not fully supported.  You can still get the list of transmitters, but you then have to use a real compass to get the bearing. But that’s not the end of the world. Several customers have requested the aerial polarisation to be displayed in the app. I was already working on this, and the data was already there, it was just a case of displaying this in the UI. I have a solution now, and this will be in the next release. Of course, with the Digital switchover in full swing across the UK, there have been one set of data updates (in 1.0.3), and another is due shortly. This reflects the transmitters as they switch over the digital fully and their power output increased. So all in all I’m very pleased with the feedback I’ve had, and I’m looking to get the next release out there by early December (allowing for the 2-3 week Apple approval lag!)  

  Read the article

• Step Away From That Computer! You’re Not Qualified to Use It!

  - by Michael Sorens

  Most things tend to come with warnings and careful instructions these days, but sadly not one of the most ubiquitous appliances of all, your computer. If a chainsaw is missing its instructions, you’re well advised not to use it, even though you probably know roughly how it’s supposed to work. I confess, there are days when I feel the same way about computers. Long ago, during the renaissance of the computer age, it was possible to know everything about computers. But today, it is challenging to be fully knowledgeable even in one small area, and most people aren’t as savvy as they like to think. And, if I may borrow from Edwin Abbott Abbott’s classic Flatland, that includes me. And you. Need an example of what I mean? Take a look at almost any recent month’s batch of Windows updates. Just two quick questions for you: Do you need all of those updates? Is it safe to install all of those updates? I do software design and development for a living on Windows and the .NET platform, but I will be quite candid: I often have little clue what the heck some of those updates are going to do or why they are needed. So, if you do not know why they are needed or what they do, how do you know if they are safe? Of course, one can sidestep both questions by accepting Microsoft’s recommended Windows Update setting of “install updates automatically”. That leads you to infer that you need all of them (which is not always the case) and, more significantly, that they are safe. Quite safe. Ah, lest reality intrude upon such a pretty picture! Sadly, there is no such thing as risk-free software installation, and payloads from Windows Update are no exception. Earlier this year, a Windows Secrets Patch Watch article touted this headline: Keep this troublesome kernel update on hold. It discusses KB 2862330, a security update originally published more than 4 months earlier, and yet the article still recommends not installing it! Most people simply do not have the time, resources, or interest, to go about figuring out which updates to install or postpone or skip for safety reasons. Windows Secrets Patch Watch is the best service I have encountered for getting advice, but it is still no panacea and using the service effectively requires a degree of computer literacy that I still think is beyond a good number of people. Which brings us full circle: Step Away From That Computer! You’re Not Qualified to Use It!

  Read the article

• Tuning Red Gate: #3 of Lots

  - by Grant Fritchey

  I'm drilling down into the metrics about SQL Server itself available to me in the Analysis tab of SQL Monitor to see what's up with our two problematic servers. In the previous post I'd noticed that rg-sql01 had quite a few CPU spikes. So one of the first things I want to check there is how much CPU is getting used by SQL Server itself. It's possible we're looking at some other process using up all the CPU Nope, It's SQL Server. I compared this to the rg-sql02 server: You can see that there is a more, consistently low set of CPU counters there. I clearly need to look at rg-sql01 and capture more specific data around the queries running on it to identify which ones are causing these CPU spikes. I always like to look at the Batch Requests/sec on a server, not because it's an indication of a problem, but because it gives you some idea of the load. Just how much is this server getting hit? Here are rg-sql01 and rg-sql02: Of the two, clearly rg-sql01 has a lot of activity. Remember though, that's all this is a measure of, activity. It doesn't suggest anything other than what it says, the number of requests coming in. But it's the kind of thing you want to know in order to understand how the system is used. Are you seeing a correlation between the number of requests and the CPU usage, or a reverse correlation, the number of requests drops as the CPU spikes? See, it's useful. Some of the details you can look at are Compilations/sec, Compilations/Batch and Recompilations/sec. These give you some idea of how the cache is getting used within the system. None of these showed anything interesting on either server. One metric that I like (even though I know it can be controversial) is the Page Life Expectancy. On the average server I expect see a series of mountains as the PLE climbs then drops due to a data load or something along those lines. That's not the case here: Those spikes back in January suggest that the servers weren't really being used much. The PLE on the rg-sql01 seems to be somewhat consistent growing to 3 hours or so then dropping, but the rg-sql02 PLE looks like it might be all over the map. Instead of continuing to look at this high level gathering data view, I'm going to drill down on rg-sql02 and see what it's done for the last week: And now we begin to see where we might have an issue. Memory on this system is getting flushed every 1/2 hour or so. I'm going to check another metric, scans: Whoa! I'm going back to the system real quick to look at some disk information again for rg-sql02. Here is the average disk queue length on the server: and the transfers Right, I think I have a guess as to what's up here. We're seeing memory get flushed constantly and we're seeing lots of scans. The disks are queuing, especially that F drive, and there are lots of requests that correspond to the scans and the memory flushes. In short, we've got queries that are scanning the data, a lot, so we either have bad queries or bad indexes. I'm going back to the server overview for rg-sql02 and check the Top 10 expensive queries. I'm modifying it to show me the last 3 days and the totals, so I'm not looking at some maintenance routine that ran 10 minutes ago and is skewing the results: OK. I need to look into these queries that are getting executed this much. They're generating a lot of reads, but which queries are generating the most reads: Ow, all still going against the same database. This is where I'm going to temporarily leave SQL Monitor. What I want to do is connect up to the server, validate that the Warehouse database is using the F:\ drive (which I'll put money down it is) and then start seeing what's up with these queries. Part 1 of the Series Part 2 of the Series

  Read the article

• Red Gate does Byte Night 2012

  - by red(at)work

  On the 5th of October 2012, a team of nine plucky Red Gaters braved the howling wind and the driving rain to sleep outside. No tents or mattresses were allowed – all we took for protection were sleeping bags, groundsheets, plastic sacks and Colin’s enormous fishing umbrella (a godsend in umbrella-y disguise). Why would we do such a thing? For Byte Night, an annual tech sector sleepout in support of Action for Children, who tackle the causes as well as the consequences of youth homelessness. Byte Night encourages technology professionals to do for one night a year what thousands of young people have to do every night – sleep rough.  We signed up for Byte Night in the warm, heady midst of the British summer, thinking it couldn’t possibly be all that bad. Even on the night itself – before the rain began to fall, sat in the comfort and warmth of a company canteen, drinking wine and eating chill and preparing to win the pub quiz – we were excited and optimistic about the night that lay ahead of us. All of that changed as soon as we stepped out into one of the worst rainstorms of the year. Brian, the team’s birthday boy, describes it best: Picture the scene: it’s 3 am on a Friday. I’m lying outside, fully clothed in a sleeping bag, wearing a raincoat, trussed up inside a large plastic pocket, on a ground sheet beneath a giant umbrella, wedged so tightly between two of my colleagues that I can’t move my arms. I’m wide awake, staring up at the grey sky beyond the edge of the umbrella; a limp, flickering white glow hints at a moon somewhere behind the drifting clouds. I haven’t slept since we first moved outside at 11 pm. Outside. Did I mention we were outside? I’m hung over. I need the loo. But there is no way on earth that I’m getting out of this sleeping bag. It’s cold. It’s raining. Not just raining, but chucking it down. It’s been doing this non-stop since 10pm. The rain sounds like a hyperactive drummer on the fishing umbrella, and the noise is loud and relentless. Puddles of water are forming all over the groundsheet, and, despite being ensconced inside the plastic pouch, I am wet. The fishing umbrella is protecting me from the worst of the driving rain, but not all of me is under it, and five hours of rain is no match for it. Everything is wet. My left side has become horribly damp. My trainers, which I placed next to my sleeping bag, are now completely soaked through. Mmm. That’ll be fun in the morning. My head is next to Colin’s head on one side, and a multi-pack of McCoy’s cheddar and onion crisps on the other. Don’t ask about the tub of hummus. That’s somewhere down by my ankles, abandoned to the night. Jess, who is lying next to me, rolls over onto her side. A mini waterfall cascades from her rain-pouch onto my face. Bah. I continue to stare into the heavens, willing the dawn to hurry up. Something lands on my face. It’s a mosquito. Great. Midnight, when this still seemed like fun – when we opened some champagne and my colleagues presented me with a caterpillar birthday cake, when everyone was drunk and jolly and full of stoic resolve – feels like a long time ago. Did I mention that today is my birthday? The remains of the caterpillar cake endure the same fate as the hummus, left out in the rain like a metaphor for sadness. It’s getting colder. I can see my breath. Silence has descended on the group, apart from the rustle of plastic. And the rain, obviously. Someone snores, and I envy whoever it is the sweet escape of sleep. I try to wriggle a bit further down inside my sleeping bag, but it doesn’t want to be wriggled into. Only 3 hours till dawn. 180 minutes. I begin to count them off, one at a time.  All nine of us got to go home in the morning, but thousands of children across the UK don’t have that luxury. If you’d like to sponsor the Red Gate Byte Night team, our JustGiving page can be found here.   Chris, before the outside bit actually happened. More photos from Byte Night Cambridge 2012 can be found here.

  Read the article

• Replace this Hex chars from string in PHP

  - by Guillermo

  I'm generating an XML from data that comes from database (and some JSON feeds). I'm having some problems with some texts that contains some hex chars that are breaking my XML. For example, see this screenshot of the error I get from Chrome: I identified the hex characters that are giving me problems (I believe they're called control characters). And these are: 0x03 0x05 0x16 0x0E How can I replace those characters with PHP before printing them on my XML output? Thanks!

  Read the article

• When done is not done

  - by Tony Davis

  Most developers and DBAs will know what it’s like to be asked to do "a quick tidy up" on a project that, on closer inspection, turns out to be a barely working prototype: as the cynical programmer says, "when you’re told that a project is 90% done, prepare for the next 90%". It is easy to convince a layperson that an application is complete just by using test data, and sticking to the workflow that the development team has implemented and tested. The application is ‘done’ only in the sense that the anticipated paths through the software features, using known data, are fully supported. Reality often strikes only when testers reveal its strange and erratic behavior in response to behavior from the end user that strays from the "ideal". The problem is this: how do we measure progress, accurately and objectively? Development methods such as Scrum or Kanban, when implemented rigorously, can mitigate these problems for developers, to some extent. They force a team to progress one small, but complete feature at a time, to find out how long it really takes for this feature to be "done done"; in other words done to the point where its performance and scalability is understood, it is tested for all conceivable edge cases and doesn’t break…it is ready for prime time. At that point, the team has a much more realistic idea of how long it will take them to really complete all the remaining features, and so how far away the end is. However, it is when software crosses team boundaries that we feel the limitations of such techniques. No matter how well drilled the development team is, problems will still arise if they don’t deploy frequently to a production environment. If they work feverishly for months on end before finally tossing the finished piece of software over the fence for the DBA to deploy to the "real world" then once again will dawn the realization that "done done" is still out of reach, as the DBA uncovers poorly code transactions, un-scalable queries, inefficient caching, and so on. By deploying regularly, end users will also have a much earlier opportunity to tell you how far what you implemented strayed from what they wanted. If you have a tale to tell, anonymized of course, of a "quick polish" project that turned out to be anything but, and what the major problems were, please do share it. Cheers, Tony.

  Read the article

• Intercept a request to read a particular file and instead generate the apparent output of that file

  - by Mike Atkinson

  Sorry for the long and yet still somehow vague title! A friend of mine has a Flash Action script running on a LAMP server that currently reads an xml config file. He's asked me if it's possible to remove the xml file, and replace it somehow with a system (lets call it an 'auto xml generator') that intercepts the request to read that file and generates an output, so it appears to all intents and purposes as if the file still exists and contains the contents that has actually been returned from our auto xml generator Hours of Googling has failed to come up with any promising leads, can anyone offer any advice? Thanks very much! Mike

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346  | Next Page >