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• Michael Crump&rsquo;s notes for 70-563 PRO &ndash; Designing and Developing Windows Applications usi

  - by mbcrump

  TIME TO GO PRO! This is my notes for 70-563 PRO – Designing and Developing Windows Applications using .NET Framework 3.5 I created it using several resources (various certification web sites, msdn, official ms 70-548 book). The reason that I created this review is because a) I am taking the exam. b) MS did not create a book for this exam. Use the(MS 70-548)book. c) To make sure I am familiar with each before the exam. I hope that it provides a good start for your own notes. I hope that someone finds this useful. At least, it will give you a starting point of what to expect to know on the PRO exam. Also, for those wondering, the PRO exam does contains very little code. It is basically all theory. 1. Validation Controls – How to prevent users from entering invalid data on forms. (MaskedTextBox control and RegEx) 2. ServiceController – used to start and control the behavior of existing services. 3. User Feedback (know winforms Status Bar, Tool Tips, Color, Error Provider, Context-Sensitive and Accessibility) 4. Specific (derived) exceptions must be handled before general (base class) exceptions. By moving the exception handling for the base type Exception to after exception handling of ArgumentNullException, all ArgumentNullException thrown by the Helper method will be caught and logged correctly. 5. A heartbeat method is a method exposed by a Web service that allows external applications to check on the status of the service. 6. New users must master key tasks quickly. Giving these tasks context and appropriate detail will help. However, advanced users will demand quicker paths. Shortcuts, accelerators, or toolbar buttons will speed things along for the advanced user. 7. MSBuild uses project files to instruct the build engine what to build and how to build it. MSBuild project files are XML files that adhere to the MSBuild XML schema. The MSBuild project files contain complete file, build action, and dependency information for each individual projects. 8. Evaluating whether or not to fix a bug involves a triage process. You must identify the bug's impact, set the priority, categorize it, and assign a developer. Many times the person doing the triage work will assign the bug to a developer for further investigation. In fact, the workflow for the bug work item inside of Team System supports this step. Developers are often asked to assess the impact of a given bug. This assessment helps the person doing the triage make a decision on how to proceed. When assessing the impact of a bug, you should consider time and resources to fix it, bug risk, and impacts of the bug. 9. In large projects it is generally impossible and unfeasible to fix all bugs because of the impact on schedule and budget. 10. Code reviews should be conducted by a technical lead or a technical peer. 11. Testing Applications 12. WCF Services – application state 13. SQL Server 2005 / 2008 Express Edition – reliable storage of data / Microsoft SQL Server 3.5 Compact Database– used for client computers to retrieve and save data from a shared location. 14. SQL Server 2008 Compact Edition – used for minimum possible memory and can synchronize data with a corporate SQL Server 2008 Database. Supports offline user and minimum dependency on external components. 15. MDI and SDI Forms (specifically IsMDIContainer) 16. GUID – in the case of data warehousing, it is important to define unique keys. 17. Encrypting / Security Data 18. Understanding of Isolated Storage/Proper location to store items 19. LINQ to SQL 20. Multithreaded access 21. ADO.NET Entity Framework model 22. Marshal.ReleaseComObject 23. Common User Interface Layout (ComboBox, ListBox, Listview, MaskedTextBox, TextBox, RichTextBox, SplitContainer, TableLayoutPanel, TabControl) 24. DataSets Class - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.data.dataset%28VS.71%29.aspx 25. SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services (SSRS) 26. SystemIcons.Shield (Vista UAC) 27. Leverging stored procedures to perform data manipulation for a database schema that can change. 28. DataContext 29. Microsoft Windows Installer Packages, ClickOnce(bootstrapping features), XCopy. 30. Client Application Services – will authenticate users by using the same data source as a ASP.NET web application. 31. SQL Server 2008 Caching 32. StringBuilder 33. Accessibility Guidelines for Windows Applications http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms228004.aspx 34. Logging erros 35. Testing performance related issues. 36. Role Based Security, GenericIdentity and GenericPrincipal 37. System.Net.CookieContainer will store session data for webapps (see isolated storage for winforms) 38. .NET CLR Profiler tool will identify objects that cause performance issues. 39. ADO.NET Synchronization (SyncGroup) 40. Globalization - CultureInfo 41. IDisposable Interface- reports on several questions relating to this. 42. Adding timestamps to determine whether data has changed or not. 43. Converting applications to .NET Framework 3.5 44. MicrosoftReportViewer 45. Composite Controls 46. Windows Vista KNOWN folders. 47. Microsoft Sync Framework 48. TypeConverter -Provides a unified way of converting types of values to other types, as well as for accessing standard values and sub properties. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.componentmodel.typeconverter.aspx 49. Concurrency control mechanisms The main categories of concurrency control mechanisms are: Optimistic - Delay the checking of whether a transaction meets the isolation rules (e.g., serializability and recoverability) until its end, without blocking any of its (read, write) operations, and then abort a transaction, if the desired rules are violated. Pessimistic - Block operations of a transaction, if they may cause violation of the rules. Semi-optimistic - Block operations in some situations, and do not block in other situations, while delaying rules checking to transaction's end, as done with optimistic. 50. AutoResetEvent 51. Microsoft Messaging Queue (MSMQ) 4.0 52. Bulk imports 53. KeyDown event of controls 54. WPF UI components 55. UI process layer 56. GAC (installing, removing and queuing) 57. Use a local database cache to reduce the network bandwidth used by applications. 58. Sound can easily be annoying and distracting to users, so use it judiciously. Always give users the option to turn sound off. Because a user might have sound off, never convey important information through sound alone.

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• Rob Blackwell on interoperability and Azure

  - by Eric Nelson

  At QCon in March we had a sample Azure application implemented in both Java and Ruby to demonstrate that the Windows Azure Platform is not just about .NET. The following is an interesting interview with Rob Blackwell, the R&D director of the partner who implemented the application. UK Interoperability Team Interviews Rob Blackwell, R&D Director at Active Web Solutions. Is Microsoft taking interoperability seriously? Yes. In the past, I think Microsoft has, quite rightly come in for criticism, but architects and developers should look at this again. The Interoperability Bridges site (http://www.interoperabilitybridges.com/ ) shows a wide range of projects that allow interoperability from Java, Ruby and PHP for example. The Windows Azure platform has been architected with interoperable APIs in mind. It's straightforward to access the various storage facilities from just about any language or platform. Azure compute is capable of running more than just C# applications! Why is interoperability important to you? My company provides consultancy and bespoke development services. We're a Microsoft Gold Partner, but we live in the real world where companies have a mix of technologies provided by a variety of vendors. When developing an enterprise software solution, you rarely have a completely blank canvas. We often see integration scenarios where we need to exchange data with legacy systems. It's not unusual to see modern Silverlight applications being built on top of Java or Mainframe based back ends. Could you give us some examples of where interoperability has been important for your projects? We developed an innovative Sea Safety system for the RNLI Lifeboats here in the UK. Commercial Fishing is one of the most dangerous professions and we helped developed the MOB Guardian System which uses satellite technology and man overboard devices to raise the alarm when a fisherman gets into trouble. The solution is implemented in .NET running on Windows, but without interoperable standards, it would have been impossible to communicate with the satellite gateway technology. For more information, please see the case study: http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Case_Study_Detail.aspx?CaseStudyID=4000005892 More recently, we were asked to build a web site to accompany the QCon 2010 conference in London to help demonstrate and promote interoperability. We built the site using Java and Restlet and hosted it in Windows Azure Compute. The site accepts feedback from visitors and all the data is stored in Windows Azure Storage. We also ported the application to Ruby on Rails for demonstration purposes. Visitors to the stand were surprised that this was even possible. Why should Java developers be interested in Windows Azure? Windows Azure Storage consists of Blobs, Queues and Tables. The storage is scalable, durable, secure and cost-effective. Using the WindowsAzure4j library, it's easy to use, and takes just a few lines of code. If you are writing an application with large data storage requirements, or you want an offsite backup, it makes a lot of sense. Running Java applications in Azure Compute is straightforward with tools like the Tomcat Solution Accelerator (http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/winazuretomcat )and AzureRunMe (http://azurerunme.codeplex.com/ ). The Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus can also be used to connect heterogeneous systems running on different networks and in different data centres. How can The Service Bus be considered an interoperability solution? I think that the Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus is one of Microsoft’s best kept secrets. Think of it as “a globally scalable application plumbing kit in the sky”. If you have used Enterprise Service Buses before, you’ll be familiar with the concept. Applications can connect to the service bus to securely exchange data – these can be point to point or multicast links. With the AppFabric Service Bus, the applications can exist anywhere that has access to the Internet and the connections can traverse firewalls. This makes it easy to extend or scale your application or reach out to other networks and technologies. For example, let’s say you have a SQL Server database running on premises and you want to expose the data to a Java application running in the cloud. You could set up a point to point Service Bus connection and use JDBC. Traditionally this would have been difficult or impossible without punching holes in firewalls and compromising security. Rob Blackwell is R&D Director at Active Web Solutions, www.aws.net , a Microsoft Gold Partner specialising in leading edge software solutions. He is an occasional writer and conference speaker and blogs at www.robblackwell.org.uk Related Links: UK Azure Online Community – join today. UK Windows Azure Site Start working with Windows Azure

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• Preserving Permalinks

  - by Daniel Moth

  One of the things that gets me on a rant is websites that break permalinks. If you have posted something somewhere and there is a public URL pointing to it, that URL should never ever return a 404. You are breaking all websites that ever linked to you and you are breaking all search engine links to your content (that others will try and follow). It is a pet peeve of mine. So when I had to move my blog, obviously I would preserve the root URL (www.danielmoth.com/Blog/), but I also wanted to preserve every URL my blog has generated over the years. To be clear, our focus here is on the URL formatting, not the content migration which I'll talk about in my next post. In this post, I'll describe my solution first and then what it solves. 1. The IIS7 Rewrite Module and web.config There are a few ways you can map an old URL to a new one (so when requests to the old URL come in, they get redirected to the new one). The new blog engine I use (dasBlog) has built-in functionality to do that (Scott refers to it here). Instead, the way I chose to address the issue was to use the IIS7 rewrite module. The IIS7 rewrite module allows redirecting URLs based on pattern matching, regular expressions and, of course, hardcoded full URLs for things that don't fall into any pattern. You can configure it visually from IIS Manager using a handy dialog that allows testing patterns against input URLs. Here is what mine looked like after configuring a few rules: To learn more about this technology check out this video, the reference page and this overview blog post; all 3 pages have a collection of related resources at the bottom worth checking out too. All the visual configuration ends up in a web.config file at the root folder of your website. If you are on a shared hosting service, probably the only way you can use the Rewrite Module is by directly editing the web.config file. Next, I'll describe the URLs I had to map and how that manifested itself in the web.config file. What I did was create the rules locally using the GUI, and then took the generated web.config file and uploaded it to my live site. You can view my web.config here. 2. Monthly Archives Observe the difference between the way the two blog engines generate this type of URL Blogger: /Blog/2004_07_01_mothblog_archive.html dasBlog: /Blog/default,month,2004-07.aspx In my web.config file, the rule that deals with this is the one named "monthlyarchive_redirect". 3. Categories Observe the difference between the way the two blog engines generate this type of URL Blogger: /Blog/labels/Personal.html dasBlog: /Blog/CategoryView,category,Personal.aspx In my web.config file the rule that deals with this is the one named "category_redirect". 4. Posts Observe the difference between the way the two blog engines generate this type of URL Blogger: /Blog/2004/07/hello-world.html dasBlog: /Blog/Hello-World.aspx In my web.config file the rule that deals with this is the one named "post_redirect". Note: The decision is taken to use dasBlog URLs that do not include the date info (see the description of my Appearance settings). If we included the date info then it would have to include the day part, which blogger did not generate. This makes it impossible to redirect correctly and to have a single permalink for blog posts moving forward. An implication of this decision, is that no two blog posts can have the same title. The tool I will describe in my next post (inelegantly) deals with duplicates, but not with triplicates or higher. 5. Unhandled by a generic rule Unfortunately, the two blog engines use different rules for generating URLs for blog posts. Most of the time the conversion is as simple as the example of the previous section where a post titled "Hello World" generates a URL with the words separated by a hyphen. Some times that is not the case, for example: /Blog/2006/05/medc-wrap-up.html /Blog/MEDC-Wrapup.aspx or /Blog/2005/01/best-of-moth-2004.html /Blog/Best-Of-The-Moth-2004.aspx or /Blog/2004/11/more-windows-mobile-2005-details.html /Blog/More-Windows-Mobile-2005-Details-Emerge.aspx In short, blogger does not add words to the title beyond ~39 characters, it drops some words from the title generation (e.g. a, an, on, the), and it preserve hyphens that appear in the title. For this reason, we need to detect these and explicitly list them for redirects (no regular expression can help here because the full set of rules is not listed anywhere). In my web.config file the rule that deals with this is the one named "Redirect rule1 for FullRedirects" combined with the rewriteMap named "StaticRedirects". Note: The tool I describe in my next post will detect all the URLs that need to be explicitly redirected and will list them in a file ready for you to copy them to your web.config rewriteMap. 6. C# code doing the same as the web.config I wrote some naive code that does the same thing as the web.config: given a string it will return a new string converted according to the 3 rules above. It does not take into account the 4th case where an explicit hard-coded conversion is needed (the tool I present in the next post does take that into account). static string REGEX_post_redirect = "[0-9]{4}/[0-9]{2}/([0-9a-z-]+).html"; static string REGEX_category_redirect = "labels/([_0-9a-z-% ]+).html"; static string REGEX_monthlyarchive_redirect = "([0-9]{4})_([0-9]{2})_[0-9]{2}_mothblog_archive.html"; static string Redirect(string oldUrl) { GroupCollection g; if (RunRegExOnIt(oldUrl, REGEX_post_redirect, 2, out g)) return string.Concat(g[1].Value, ".aspx"); if (RunRegExOnIt(oldUrl, REGEX_category_redirect, 2, out g)) return string.Concat("CategoryView,category,", g[1].Value, ".aspx"); if (RunRegExOnIt(oldUrl, REGEX_monthlyarchive_redirect, 3, out g)) return string.Concat("default,month,", g[1].Value, "-", g[2], ".aspx"); return string.Empty; } static bool RunRegExOnIt(string toRegEx, string pattern, int groupCount, out GroupCollection g) { if (pattern.Length == 0) { g = null; return false; } g = new Regex(pattern, RegexOptions.IgnoreCase | RegexOptions.Compiled).Match(toRegEx).Groups; return (g.Count == groupCount); } Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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• System locking up with suspicious messages about hard disk

  - by Chris Conway

  My system has started behaving strangely, intermittently locking up. I see messages like the following in syslog: Nov 18 22:22:00 claypool kernel: [ 3428.078156] ata3.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x0 Nov 18 22:22:00 claypool kernel: [ 3428.078163] ata3.00: irq_stat 0x40000000 Nov 18 22:22:00 claypool kernel: [ 3428.078167] sr 2:0:0:0: CDB: Test Unit Ready: 00 00 00 00 00 00 Nov 18 22:22:00 claypool kernel: [ 3428.078182] ata3.00: cmd a0/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/a0 tag 0 Nov 18 22:22:00 claypool kernel: [ 3428.078184] res 50/00:03:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/a0 Emask 0x1 (device error) Nov 18 22:22:00 claypool kernel: [ 3428.078188] ata3.00: status: { DRDY } Nov 18 22:22:00 claypool kernel: [ 3428.080887] ata3.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x0 Nov 18 22:22:00 claypool kernel: [ 3428.080890] ata3.00: irq_stat 0x40000000 Nov 18 22:22:00 claypool kernel: [ 3428.080893] sr 2:0:0:0: CDB: Test Unit Ready: 00 00 00 00 00 00 Nov 18 22:22:00 claypool kernel: [ 3428.080905] ata3.00: cmd a0/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/a0 tag 0 Nov 18 22:22:00 claypool kernel: [ 3428.080906] res 50/00:03:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/a0 Emask 0x1 (device error) Nov 18 22:22:00 claypool kernel: [ 3428.080910] ata3.00: status: { DRDY } And then this: Nov 18 23:13:56 claypool kernel: [ 6544.000798] ata1.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x6 frozen Nov 18 23:13:56 claypool kernel: [ 6544.000804] ata1.00: failed command: FLUSH CACHE EXT Nov 18 23:13:56 claypool kernel: [ 6544.000814] ata1.00: cmd ea/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/a0 tag 0 Nov 18 23:13:56 claypool kernel: [ 6544.000815] res 40/00:00:00:4f:c2/00:00:00:00:00/40 Emask 0x4 (timeout) Nov 18 23:13:56 claypool kernel: [ 6544.000819] ata1.00: status: { DRDY } Nov 18 23:13:56 claypool kernel: [ 6544.000825] ata1: hard resetting link Nov 18 23:14:01 claypool kernel: [ 6549.360324] ata1: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0) Nov 18 23:14:06 claypool kernel: [ 6554.008091] ata1: COMRESET failed (errno=-16) Nov 18 23:14:06 claypool kernel: [ 6554.008103] ata1: hard resetting link Nov 18 23:14:11 claypool kernel: [ 6559.372246] ata1: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0) Nov 18 23:14:16 claypool kernel: [ 6564.020228] ata1: COMRESET failed (errno=-16) Nov 18 23:14:16 claypool kernel: [ 6564.020235] ata1: hard resetting link Nov 18 23:14:21 claypool kernel: [ 6569.380109] ata1: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0) Nov 18 23:14:31 claypool kernel: [ 6579.460243] ata1: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300) Nov 18 23:14:31 claypool kernel: [ 6579.486595] ata1.00: configured for UDMA/133 Nov 18 23:14:31 claypool kernel: [ 6579.486601] ata1.00: retrying FLUSH 0xea Emask 0x4 Nov 18 23:14:31 claypool kernel: [ 6579.486939] ata1.00: device reported invalid CHS sector 0 Nov 18 23:14:31 claypool kernel: [ 6579.486952] ata1: EH complete Nov 18 23:17:01 claypool CRON[3910]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly) Nov 18 23:17:01 claypool CRON[3908]: (CRON) error (grandchild #3910 failed with exit status 1) Nov 18 23:17:01 claypool postfix/sendmail[3925]: fatal: open /etc/postfix/main.cf: No such file or directory Nov 18 23:17:01 claypool CRON[3908]: (root) MAIL (mailed 1 byte of output; but got status 0x004b, #012) Nov 18 23:39:01 claypool CRON[4200]: (root) CMD ( [ -x /usr/lib/php5/maxlifetime ] && [ -d /var/lib/php5 ] && find /var/lib/php5/ -type f -cmin +$(/usr/lib/php5/maxlifetime) -print0 | xargs -n 200 -r -0 rm) There are no messages marked after 23:39. When I next tried to use the machine, it would not return from the screensaver (blank screen), nor switch to another terminal, and I had to hard reboot it. [UPDATE] The output of smartctl is here. I had trouble getting this, because / is being mounted read-only (?!), which prevents most applications from running. Also, it may not be related, but I have the following worrying messages in dmesg: [ 10.084596] k8temp 0000:00:18.3: Temperature readouts might be wrong - check erratum #141 [ 10.098477] i2c i2c-0: nForce2 SMBus adapter at 0x600 [ 10.098483] ACPI: resource nForce2_smbus [io 0x0700-0x073f] conflicts with ACPI region SM00 [??? 0x00000700-0x0000073f flags 0x30] [ 10.098486] ACPI: This conflict may cause random problems and system instability [ 10.098487] ACPI: If an ACPI driver is available for this device, you should use it instead of the native driver [ 10.098509] i2c i2c-1: nForce2 SMBus adapter at 0x700 [ 10.112570] Linux agpgart interface v0.103 [ 10.155329] atk: Resources not safely usable due to acpi_enforce_resources kernel parameter [ 10.161506] it87: Found IT8712F chip at 0x290, revision 8 [ 10.161517] it87: VID is disabled (pins used for GPIO) [ 10.161527] it87: in3 is VCC (+5V) [ 10.161528] it87: in7 is VCCH (+5V Stand-By) [ 10.161560] ACPI: resource it87 [io 0x0295-0x0296] conflicts with ACPI region ECRE [??? 0x00000290-0x000002af flags 0x45] [ 10.161562] ACPI: This conflict may cause random problems and system instability [ 10.161564] ACPI: If an ACPI driver is available for this device, you should use it instead of the native driver [UPDATE 2] I swapped in a new SATA cable, per Phil's suggestion. The current output of smartctl is here, if it helps. [UPDATE 3] I don't think the cable fixed it. The system hasn't locked up yet, but my media player crashed a few minutes ago and I have the following in the syslog: Nov 20 16:07:17 claypool kernel: [ 2294.400033] ata1: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0) Nov 20 16:07:47 claypool kernel: [ 2324.084581] ata1: COMRESET failed (errno=-16) Nov 20 16:07:47 claypool kernel: [ 2324.084588] ata1: limiting SATA link speed to 1.5 Gbps Nov 20 16:07:47 claypool kernel: [ 2324.084592] ata1: hard resetting link I get the following response from smartctl: $ sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda [sudo] password for chris: sudo: Can't open /var/lib/sudo/chris/0: Read-only file system smartctl 5.40 2010-03-16 r3077 [i686-pc-linux-gnu] (local build) Copyright (C) 2002-10 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net Device: /0:0:0:0 Version: scsiModePageOffset: response length too short, resp_len=47 offset=50 bd_len=46 >> Terminate command early due to bad response to IEC mode page A mandatory SMART command failed: exiting. To continue, add one or more '-T permissive' options.

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• Logical Domain Modeling Made Simple

  - by Knut Vatsendvik

  How can logical domain modeling be made simple and collaborative? Many non-technical end-users, managers and business domain experts find it difficult to understand the visual models offered by many UML tools. This creates trouble in capturing and verifying the information that goes into a logical domain model. The tools are also too advanced and complex for a non-technical user to learn and use. We have therefore, in our current project, ended up with using Confluence as tool for designing the logical domain model with the help of a few very useful plugins. Big thanks to Ole Nymoen and Per Spilling for their expertise in this field that made this posting possible. Confluence Plugins Here is a list of Confluence plugins used in this solution. Install these before trying out the macros used below. Plugin Description Copy Space Allows a space administrator to copy a space, including the pages within the space Metadata Supports adding metadata to Wiki pages Label Manages labeling of pages Linking Contains macros for linking to templates, the dashboard and other Table Enhances the table capability in Confluence Creating a Confluence Space First we need to create a new confluence space for the domain model. Click the link Create a Space located below the list of spaces on the Dashboard. Please contact your Confluence administrator is you do not have permissions to do this.   For illustrative purpose all attributes and entities in this posting are based on my imaginary project manager domain model. When a logical domain model is good enough for being implemented, do a copy of the Confluence Space (see Copy Space plugin). In this way you create a stable version of the logical domain model while further design can continue with the new copied space. Typical will the implementation phase result in a database design and/or a XSD schema design. Add Space Templates Go to the Home page of your Confluence Space. Navigate to the Browse drop-down menu and click on Advanced. Then click the Templates option in the left navigation panel. Click Add New Space Template to add the following three templates. Name: attribute {metadata-list} || Name | | || Type | | || Format | | || Description | | {metadata-list} {add-label:attribute} Name: primary-type {metadata-list} || Name | || || Type | || || Format | || || Description | || {metadata-list} {add-label:primary-type} Name: complex-type {metadata-list} || Name | || || Description |  || {metadata-list} h3. Attributes || Name || Type || Format || Description || | [name] | {metadata-from:name|Type} | {metadata-from:name|Format} | {metadata-from:name|Description} | {add-label:complex-type,entity} The metadata-list macro (see Metadata plugin) will save a list of metadata values to the page. The add-label macro (see Label plugin) will automatically label the page. Primary Types Page Our first page to add will act as container for our primary types. Switch to Wiki markup when adding the following content to the page. | (+) {add-page:template=primary-type|parent=@self}Add new primary type{add-page} | {metadata-report:Name,Type,Format,Description|sort=Name|root=@self|pages=@descendents} Once the page is created, click the Add new primary type (create-page macro) to start creating a new pages. Here is an example of input to the LocalDate page. Embrace the LocalDate with square brackets [] to make the page linkable. Again switch to Wiki markup before editing. {metadata-list} || Name | [LocalDate] || || Type | Date || || Format | YYYY-MM-DD || || Description | Date in local time zone. YYYY = year, MM = month and DD = day || {metadata-list} {add-label:primary-type} The metadata-report macro will show a tabular report of all child pages.   Attributes Page The next page will act as container for all of our attributes. | (+) {add-page:template=attribute|parent=@self|title=attribute}Add new attribute{add-page} | {metadata-report:Name,Type,Format,Description|sort=Name|pages=@descendants} Here is an example of input to the startDate page. {metadata-list} || Name | [startDate] || || Type | [LocalDate] || || Format | {metadata-from:LocalDate|Format} || || Description | The projects start date || {metadata-list} {add-label:attribute} Using the metadata-from macro we fetch the text from the previously created LocalDate page. Complex Types Page The last page in this example shows how attributes can be combined together to form more complex types.   h3. Intro Overview of complex types in the domain model. | (+) {add-page:template=complex-type|parent=@self}Add a new complex type{add-page}\\ | {metadata-report:Name,Description|sort=Name|root=@self|pages=@descendents} Here is an example of input to the ProjectType page. {metadata-list} || Name | [ProjectType] || || Description | Represents a project || {metadata-list} h3. Attributes || Name || Type || Format || Description || | [projectId] | {metadata-from:projectId|Type} | {metadata-from:projectId|Format} | {metadata-from:projectId|Description} | | [name] | {metadata-from:name|Type} | {metadata-from:name|Format} | {metadata-from:name|Description} | | [description] | {metadata-from:description|Type} | {metadata-from:description|Format} | {metadata-from:description|Description} | | [startDate] | {metadata-from:startDate|Type} | {metadata-from:startDate|Format} | {metadata-from:startDate|Description} | {add-label:complex-type,entity} Gives us this Conclusion Using a web-based corporate Wiki like Confluence to create a logical domain model increases the collaboration between people with different roles in the enterprise. It’s my believe that this helps the domain model to be more accurate, and better documented. In our real project we have more pages than illustrated here to complete the documentation. We do also still use UML tools to create different types of diagrams that Confluence do not support. As a last tip, an ImageMap plugin can make those diagrams clickable when used in pages. Enjoy!

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• .NET 3.5 Installation Problems in Windows 8

  - by Rick Strahl

  Windows 8 installs with .NET 4.5. A default installation of Windows 8 doesn't seem to include .NET 3.0 or 3.5, although .NET 2.0 does seem to be available by default (presumably because Windows has app dependencies on that). I ran into some pretty nasty compatibility issues regarding .NET 3.5 which I'll describe in this post. I'll preface this by saying that depending on how you install Windows 8 you may not run into these issues. In fact, it's probably a special case, but one that might be common with developer folks reading my blog. Specifically it's the install order that screwed things up for me -  installing Visual Studio before explicitly installing .NET 3.5 from Windows Features - in particular. If you install Visual Studio 2010 I highly recommend you install .NET 3.5 from Windows features BEFORE you install Visual Studio 2010 and save yourself the trouble I went through. So when I installed Windows 8, and then looked at the Windows Features to install after the fact in the Windows Feature dialog, I thought - .NET 3.5 - who needs it. I'd be happy to not have to install .NET 3.5, but unfortunately I found out quite a while after initial installation that one of my applications/tools (DevExpress's awesome CodeRush) depends on it and won't install without it. Enabling .NET 3.5 in Windows 8 If you want to run .NET 3.5 on Windows 8, don't download an installer - those installers don't work on Windows 8, and you don't need to do this because you can use the Windows Features dialog to enable .NET 3.5: And that *should* do the trick. If you do this before you install other apps that require .NET 3.5 and install a non-SP1 one version of it, you are going to have no problems. Unfortunately for me, even after I've installed the above, when I run the CodeRush installer I still get this lovely dialog: Now I double checked to see if .NET 3.5 is installed - it is, both for 32 bit and 64 bit. I went as far as creating a small .NET Console app and running it to verify that it actually runs. And it does… So naturally I thought the CodeRush installer is a little whacky. After some back and forth Alex Skorkin on Twitter pointed me in the right direction: He asked me to look in the registry for exact info on which version of .NET 3.5 is installed here: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP where I found that .NET 3.5 SP1 was installed. This is the 64 bit key which looks all correct. However, when I looked under the 32 bit node I found: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v3.5 Notice that the service pack number is set to 0, rather than 1 (which it was for the 64 bit install), which is what the installer requires. So to summarize: the 64 bit version is installed with SP1, the 32 bit version is not. Uhm, Ok… thanks for that! Easy to fix, you say - just install SP1. Nope, not so easy because the standalone installer doesn't work on Windows 8. I can't get either .NET 3.5 installer or the SP 1 installer to even launch. They simply start and hang (or exit immediately) without messages. I also tried to get Windows to update .NET 3.5 by checking for Windows Updates, which should pick up on the dated version of .NET 3.5 and pull down SP1, but that's also no go. Check for Updates doesn't bring down any updates for me yet. I'm sure at some random point in the future Windows will deem it necessary to update .NET 3.5 to SP1, but at this point it's not letting me coerce it to do it explicitly. How did this happen I'm not sure exactly whether this is the cause and effect, but I suspect the story goes like this: Installed Windows 8 without support for .NET 3.5 Installed Visual Studio 2010 which installs .NET 3.5 (no SP) I now had .NET 3.5 installed but without SP1. I then: Tried to install CodeRush - Error: .NET 3.5 SP1 required Enabled .NET 3.5 in Windows Features I figured enabling the .NET 3.5 Windows Features would do the trick. But still no go. Now I suspect Visual Studio installed the 32 bit version of .NET 3.5 on my machine and Windows Features detected the previous install and didn't reinstall it. This left the 32 bit install at least with no SP1 installed. How to Fix it My final solution was to completely uninstall .NET 3.5 *and* to reboot: Go to Windows Features Uncheck the .NET Framework 3.5 Restart Windows Go to Windows Features Check .NET Framework 3.5 and voila, I now have a proper installation of .NET 3.5. I tried this before but without the reboot step in between which did not work. Make sure you reboot between uninstalling and reinstalling .NET 3.5! More Problems The above fixed me right up, but in looking for a solution it seems that a lot of people are also having problems with .NET 3.5 installing properly from the Windows Features dialog. The problem there is that the feature wasn't properly loading from the installer disks or not downloading the proper components for updates. It turns out you can explicitly install Windows features using the DISM tool in Windows.dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:NetFX3 /Source:f:\sources\sxs You can try this without the /Source flag first - which uses the hidden Windows installer files if you kept those. Otherwise insert the DVD or ISO and point at the path \sources\sxs path where the installer lives. This also gives you a little more information if something does go wrong.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in Windows  .NET   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• Edit ePub eBooks with Your Favorite HTML Editor

  - by Matthew Guay

  ePub eBooks are increasingly popular today, but often they’ve been made by converting other file formats. Here’s how you can edit ePub books to remove irregularities and make them better for reading on your devices. ePub’s are actually a zip file containing images, XHTML files with your text, and more with the .epub extension. You can make them better by editing the XHTML files directly.  Code gurus can edit the code directly, but even if you’ve never edited HTML, you can still quickly make changes with a WYSIWYG editor. Extract the Files from your ePub eBook As mentioned before, ePub files are actually renamed zip files.  So first let’s get all of the files in your ePub eBook accessible.  Find an eBook you want to edit and then change the file extension to .zip. If you don’t see the file extensions, click Organize in the menu bar and select Folder and search options. Select the View tab, and then uncheck the box beside Hide extensions for known file types.  Click Ok, and then change the file type as above. Windows will warn you about changing the file type; click Yes to proceed. Now you can browse the files of the ePub file.  Notice that it contains mostly HTML or XHTML files and images.  Click Extract all files to save them all in a folder so you can easily edit them. Alternately, you can open the ePub file directly in your favorite file archival program such as 7-zip.  Browse to the location of your ePub file, double-click it, and it’ll automatically open even if you don’t change the file extension to zip.  Now you can extract the folder, or extract individual files as before.   Edit Your eBook in KompoZer The actual ebook contents are stored in HTML or XHTML files.  These may be stored on the top folder of you ePub file’s directory, or they may be stored in \OEBPS\text in the file. To change the contents of your eBook, you’ll want to edit these files.  Often there may be separate files for each chapter, so you may have to use trial and error to find the one you need to edit.  You could edit them by hand in Windows using Notepad if you don’t have an HTML editor installed. A better option would be to use an HTML editor.  Here we’ll use the free KompoZer program to edit the files just like we’d edit a document in Word. Download KompoZer (link below), and unzip the files.  Then open the new folder and launch kompozer.exe; you don’t even need to install it.  In fact, you could even store KompoZer on a flash drive so you could edit HTML files from any computer. In KompoZer, open the HTML or XHTML file from your eBook that you want to edit. Now you can edit the file just like you would edit a document in Word.  Remove extra and unneeded text, make titles stand out, correct misspellings … anything you want!  This is especially helpful if your ePub file was created by converting a PDF as these often have many small errors. Or, if you’d rather edit the code itself, select the Source tab and edit as you wish. When you’re done making the changes, make sure to save the file in the same location with the same file name. Recreate Your Edited ePub eBook Once you’ve made all the changes you wanted, it’s time to turn this folder of files back into ePub.  Make sure you change the name of the folder if it still has the same name as the original ePub or zip file so you don’t mix them up or have trouble with overwriting the old files. Zip the folder using Windows Explorer or your favorite archival utility.  If you are using another archival program, make sure to compress it as a zip folder; other compression methods will render the ePub unreadable by your eReader app. Now change the file extension again, this time back to .epub. Now you can read your eBook with your changes in your favorite reader program or app on your mobile device. Conclusion Whether you need to remove an odd, misplaced character or need to do fine editing, using an HTML editor is a great way to make your ePub eBooks look just like you want.  Also, with an editor like KompoZer it’s not even difficult. Download KompoZer Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Change the Default Editor From Nano on Ubuntu LinuxConvert a PDF eBook to ePub Format for Your iPad, iPhone, or eReaderRead Mobi eBooks on Kindle for PCEdit Your Firefox Bookmarks Easier with Flat Bookmark EditorChange the Default Editor for Batch Files in Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server XPS file format & XPS Viewer Explained Microsoft Office Web Apps Guide Know if Someone Accessed Your Facebook Account Shop for Music with Windows Media Player 12 Access Free Documentaries at BBC Documentaries Rent Cameras In Bulk At CameraRenter

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• Installing XULrunner, adding mozilla daily ppa doesn't help

  - by Lester Peabody

  I need to install xulrunner so I can use Redcar, but am unable to do so. I followed the steps in this question verbatim Install XULRunner 2.0. Here's the output from adding the Mozilla PPA: lpeabody@ubuntu:/var/www/drupal-7.8$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa You are about to add the following PPA to your system: Official PPA for Firefox and Thunderbird daily builds daily (or even multiple builds per day) for various mozilla projects and branches. For questions and bugs with software in this archive, please contact <email address hidden> or visit #ubuntu-mozillateam on freenode. More info: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-mozilla-daily/+archive/ppa Press [ENTER] to continue or ctrl-c to cancel adding it Executing: gpg --ignore-time-conflict --no-options --no-default-keyring --secret-keyring /tmp/tmp.n2JGd679HN --trustdb-name /etc/apt/trustdb.gpg --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg --primary-keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80/ --recv B34505EA326FEAEA07E3618DEF4186FE247510BE gpg: requesting key 247510BE from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com gpg: key 247510BE: "Launchpad PPA for Ubuntu Mozilla Daily Build Team" not changed gpg: Total number processed: 1 gpg: unchanged: 1 lpeabody@ubuntu:/var/www/drupal-7.8$ sudo apt-get update Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric InRelease Ign http://extras.ubuntu.com oneiric InRelease Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-updates InRelease Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-backports InRelease Get:1 http://extras.ubuntu.com oneiric Release.gpg [72 B] Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric Release.gpg Hit http://extras.ubuntu.com oneiric Release Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-updates Release.gpg Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-backports Release.gpg Hit http://extras.ubuntu.com oneiric/main Sources Hit http://extras.ubuntu.com oneiric/main i386 Packages Ign http://extras.ubuntu.com oneiric/main TranslationIndex Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric Release Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-updates Release Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-backports Release Ign http://extras.ubuntu.com oneiric/main Translation-en_US Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric/main Sources Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric/restricted Sources Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric/universe Sources Ign http://extras.ubuntu.com oneiric/main Translation-en Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric/multiverse Sources Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric/main i386 Packages Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric/restricted i386 Packages Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric/universe i386 Packages Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric/multiverse i386 Packages Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric/main TranslationIndex Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric/multiverse TranslationIndex Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric/restricted TranslationIndex Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric/universe TranslationIndex Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-updates/main Sources Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-updates/restricted Sources Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-updates/universe Sources Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-updates/multiverse Sources Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-updates/main i386 Packages Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-updates/restricted i386 Packages Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-updates/universe i386 Packages Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-updates/multiverse i386 Packages Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-updates/main TranslationIndex Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-updates/multiverse TranslationIndex Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-updates/restricted TranslationIndex Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-updates/universe TranslationIndex Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-backports/main Sources Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-backports/restricted Sources Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-backports/universe Sources Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-backports/multiverse Sources Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-backports/main i386 Packages Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-backports/restricted i386 Packages Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-backports/universe i386 Packages Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-backports/multiverse i386 Packages Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-backports/main TranslationIndex Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-backports/multiverse TranslationIndex Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-backports/restricted TranslationIndex Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-backports/universe TranslationIndex Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric/main Translation-en Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric/multiverse Translation-en Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric/restricted Translation-en Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric/universe Translation-en Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-updates/main Translation-en Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-updates/multiverse Translation-en Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-updates/restricted Translation-en Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-updates/universe Translation-en Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-backports/main Translation-en Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-backports/multiverse Translation-en Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-backports/restricted Translation-en Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-backports/universe Translation-en Ign http://security.ubuntu.com oneiric-security InRelease Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net oneiric InRelease Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net oneiric InRelease Hit http://security.ubuntu.com oneiric-security Release.gpg Hit http://ppa.launchpad.net oneiric Release.gpg Hit http://security.ubuntu.com oneiric-security Release Get:2 http://ppa.launchpad.net oneiric Release.gpg [316 B] Hit http://ppa.launchpad.net oneiric Release Hit http://security.ubuntu.com oneiric-security/main Sources Get:3 http://ppa.launchpad.net oneiric Release [9,788 B] Hit http://security.ubuntu.com oneiric-security/restricted Sources Hit http://security.ubuntu.com oneiric-security/universe Sources Hit http://security.ubuntu.com oneiric-security/multiverse Sources Hit http://security.ubuntu.com oneiric-security/main i386 Packages Hit http://security.ubuntu.com oneiric-security/restricted i386 Packages Hit http://security.ubuntu.com oneiric-security/universe i386 Packages Hit http://security.ubuntu.com oneiric-security/multiverse i386 Packages Hit http://security.ubuntu.com oneiric-security/main TranslationIndex Hit http://security.ubuntu.com oneiric-security/multiverse TranslationIndex Hit http://security.ubuntu.com oneiric-security/restricted TranslationIndex Hit http://security.ubuntu.com oneiric-security/universe TranslationIndex Hit http://ppa.launchpad.net oneiric/main Sources Hit http://ppa.launchpad.net oneiric/main i386 Packages Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net oneiric/main TranslationIndex Hit http://security.ubuntu.com oneiric-security/main Translation-en Get:4 http://ppa.launchpad.net oneiric/main Sources [1,650 B] Get:5 http://ppa.launchpad.net oneiric/main i386 Packages [12.6 kB] Hit http://security.ubuntu.com oneiric-security/multiverse Translation-en Hit http://security.ubuntu.com oneiric-security/restricted Translation-en Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net oneiric/main TranslationIndex Hit http://security.ubuntu.com oneiric-security/universe Translation-en Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net oneiric/main Translation-en_US Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net oneiric/main Translation-en Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net oneiric/main Translation-en_US Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net oneiric/main Translation-en Fetched 24.5 kB in 5s (4,853 B/s) Reading package lists... Done After running the update, I attempted to install xulrunner, but get the following back: lpeabody@ubuntu:/var/www/drupal-7.8$ sudo apt-get install xulrunner-2.0 xulrunner-2.0-dev xulrunner-2.0-gnome-support xulrunner-dev Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Package xulrunner-2.0-dev is not available, but is referred to by another package. This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or is only available from another source Package xulrunner-2.0 is not available, but is referred to by another package. This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or is only available from another source E: Package 'xulrunner-2.0' has no installation candidate E: Package 'xulrunner-2.0-dev' has no installation candidate E: Unable to locate package xulrunner-2.0-gnome-support E: Couldn't find any package by regex 'xulrunner-2.0-gnome-support' E: Unable to locate package xulrunner-dev If you need to know anything else please specify, I will be prompt with my answers if asked during the next 2 hours... so 2am EDT.

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• Record and Play your WebLogic Console Tasks Like a DVR

  - by james.bayer

  Automation using WebLogic Scripting Tool Today on the Oracle internal mailing list for WebLogic Server questions someone asked how to automate the configuration of the thread model for WebLogic Server and they were having trouble with the jython scripting syntax.  I’ve previously written about this feature called Work Managers and the associated constraints.  However, I did not show how to automate the process of configuring this without the console using WebLogic Scripting Tool – the jython scripting automation environment abbreviated as WLST.  I’ve written some very basic introductions to WLST before and there is also an Oracle By Example on the subject, but this is a bit more advanced.  Fear not because there is a really easy-to-use feature of the WLS console that lets you “Record” user actions just like a DVR.  Using these recordings of the web-based console, you can easily create a script even if you are unfamiliar with the WLST syntax and API.  I’m a big fan of both DVR’s and automation as can be evidenced with this old Halloween picture taken during simpler times.  Obviously the Cast Away and The Big Labowski references show some age.  I was a big Tivo fan-boy back in the day and I still think it’s the best DVR. I strongly believe that WebLogic Scripting Tool (WLST) is an absolutely essential tool for automating administration tasks in anything beyond a development environment.  Even in development environments you can make a case that it makes sense to start the automation for environments downstream.  I promise you that once you start using it for any tasks that you do even semi-regularly, you won’t go back to clicking through the console.  It’s simply so much more efficient and less error-prone to run a script. Let’s say you need to create a Work Manager and MaxThreadsConstraint – the easy way to do it is configure it in the WLS console first while capturing the commands with a recording.  See the images for the simple steps – click to enlarge. Record Console Configurations to a File Review the Recordings and Make Slight Modifications In order to make the recorded .py file directly callable as a stand-alone script I added calls to the connect() and edit() functions at the beginning and calls to disconnect() and exit() at the end – otherwise the main section of the script was provided by the console recording.  Below is the resulting file I saved as d:/temp/wm.py connect('weblogic','welcome1', 't3://localhost:7001') edit() startEdit()   cd('/SelfTuning/wl_server') cmo.createMaxThreadsConstraint('MaxThreadsConstraint-0')   cd('/SelfTuning/wl_server/MaxThreadsConstraints/MaxThreadsConstraint-0') set('Targets',jarray.array([ObjectName('com.bea:Name=examplesServer,Type=Server')], ObjectName)) cmo.setCount(5) cmo.unSet('ConnectionPoolName')   cd('/SelfTuning/wl_server') cmo.createWorkManager('WorkManager-0') cd('/SelfTuning/wl_server/WorkManagers/WorkManager-0') set('Targets',jarray.array([ObjectName('com.bea:Name=examplesServer,Type=Server')], ObjectName))   cmo.setMaxThreadsConstraint(getMBean('/SelfTuning/wl_server/MaxThreadsConstraints/MaxThreadsConstraint-0')) cmo.setIgnoreStuckThreads(false)   activate() disconnect() exit() Run the Script If you want to test it be sure to delete the Work Manager and MaxThreadConstraint that you had previously created in the console.  Do something like the following - set up the environment and tell WLST to execute the script which happens in the first 2 lines, the rest doesn’t require any user input: D:\Oracle\wls11g\wlserver_10.3\samples\domains\wl_server\bin>setDomainEnv.cmd D:\Oracle\wls11g\wlserver_10.3\samples\domains\wl_server>java weblogic.WLST d:\temp\wm.py   Initializing WebLogic Scripting Tool (WLST) ...   Welcome to WebLogic Server Administration Scripting Shell   Type help() for help on available commands   Connecting to t3://localhost:7001 with userid weblogic ... Successfully connected to Admin Server 'examplesServer' that belongs to domain 'wl_server'.   Warning: An insecure protocol was used to connect to the server. To ensure on-the-wire security, the SSL port or Admin port should be used instead.   Location changed to edit tree. This is a writable tree with DomainMBean as the root. To make changes you will need to start an edit session via startEdit().   For more help, use help(edit)   Starting an edit session ... Started edit session, please be sure to save and activate your changes once you are done. Activating all your changes, this may take a while ... The edit lock associated with this edit session is released once the activation is completed. Activation completed Disconnected from weblogic server: examplesServer     Exiting WebLogic Scripting Tool.   Now if you go back and look in the console the changes have been made and we now have a compete script.  Of course there is a full MBean reference and you can learn the nuances of jython and WLST, but why not the WLS console do most of the work for you!  Happy scripting.

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• How to get sound on macbook pro 4,1

  - by Thomas

  I have just installed Xubuntu 12.04.2. My soundcard is detected: thomas@thomas-pc:~$ sudo aplay -l **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices **** Home directory /home/thomas not ours. card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC889A Analog [ALC889A Analog] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 1: ALC889A Digital [ALC889A Digital] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 Everything is put to max in alsamixer and nothing is muted (all the sliders are on OO. My speakers do not work, but when I plug in a headphone I hear it very soft. When I connect my stereo and put the sound VERY loud (3-blocks-of-complaining-neighbours loud) I hear it on a normal level but crackling. I added options snd-hda-intel model=mbp5 amixer set IEC958 off to at the end of /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf. When it's still not working I tried everything here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SoundTroubleshooting 1 >>> list-sinks 1 sink(s) available. * index: 0 name: <alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo> driver: <module-alsa-card.c> flags: HARDWARE HW_MUTE_CTRL HW_VOLUME_CTRL DECIBEL_VOLUME LATENCY DYNAMIC_LATENCY state: SUSPENDED suspend cause: IDLE priority: 9959 volume: 0: 100% 1: 100% 0: 0.00 dB 1: 0.00 dB balance 0.00 base volume: 100% 0.00 dB volume steps: 65537 muted: no current latency: 0.00 ms max request: 0 KiB max rewind: 0 KiB monitor source: 0 sample spec: s16le 2ch 44100Hz channel map: front-left,front-right Stereo used by: 0 linked by: 0 configured latency: 0.00 ms; range is 0.50 .. 371.52 ms card: 0 <alsa_card.pci-0000_00_1b.0> module: 4 properties: alsa.resolution_bits = "16" device.api = "alsa" device.class = "sound" alsa.class = "generic" alsa.subclass = "generic-mix" alsa.name = "ALC889A Analog" alsa.id = "ALC889A Analog" alsa.subdevice = "0" alsa.subdevice_name = "subdevice #0" alsa.device = "0" alsa.card = "0" alsa.card_name = "HDA Intel" alsa.long_card_name = "HDA Intel at 0x9b500000 irq 46" alsa.driver_name = "snd_hda_intel" device.bus_path = "pci-0000:00:1b.0" sysfs.path = "/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card0" device.bus = "pci" device.vendor.id = "8086" device.vendor.name = "Intel Corporation" device.product.name = "82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller" device.form_factor = "internal" device.string = "front:0" device.buffering.buffer_size = "65536" device.buffering.fragment_size = "32768" device.access_mode = "mmap+timer" device.profile.name = "analog-stereo" device.profile.description = "Analog Stereo" device.description = "Built-in Audio Analog Stereo" alsa.mixer_name = "Realtek ALC889A" alsa.components = "HDA:10ec0885,106b3a00,00100103" module-udev-detect.discovered = "1" device.icon_name = "audio-card-pci" ports: analog-output-speaker: Speakers (priority 10000, available: unknown) properties: analog-output-headphones: Headphones (priority 9000, available: no) properties: active port: <analog-output-speaker> 2 and 3: Doesn't seem an permission issue, the sound is very far away (See opening paragraph). 4 thomas@thomas-pc:~$ sudo aplay -l **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices **** Home directory /home/thomas not ours. card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC889A Analog [ALC889A Analog] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 1: ALC889A Digital [ALC889A Digital] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 5 thomas@thomas-pc:~$ find /lib/modules/`uname -r` | grep snd /lib/modules/3.2.0-48-generic/kernel/sound/core/snd-hwdep.ko /lib/modules/3.2.0-48-generic/kernel/sound/core/snd-pcm.ko [.. huge lists continues ..] /lib/modules/3.2.0-48-generic/kernel/sound/pcmcia/pdaudiocf/snd-pdaudiocf.ko /lib/modules/3.2.0-48-generic/kernel/sound/pcmcia/vx/snd-vxpocket.ko thomas@thomas-pc:~$ 6 thomas@thomas-pc:~$ lspci -v | grep -A7 -i "audio" 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03) Subsystem: Apple Inc. Device 00a4 Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 46 Memory at 9b500000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel 7 I guess it's supported. Linux mint and Xubuntu 13.04 had no trouble with sounds. Everything worked out of the box Thanks in advance Edit: alsa-info.sh output: WARNING: /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf line 45: ignoring bad line starting with 'amixer' ALSA Information Script v 0.4.62 -------------------------------- This script visits the following commands/files to collect diagnostic information about your ALSA installation and sound related hardware. dmesg lspci lsmod aplay amixer alsactl /proc/asound/ /sys/class/sound/ ~/.asoundrc (etc.) See './alsa-info.sh --help' for command line options. WARNING: /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf line 45: ignoring bad line starting with 'amixer' Automatically upload ALSA information to www.alsa-project.org? [y/N] : y Uploading information to www.alsa-project.org ... Done! Your ALSA information is located at http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=6cffc584284d4c0b266eb53249824ef83d6c4e3e Please inform the person helping you. thomas@thomas-pc:~$

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• Class Loading Deadlocks

  - by tomas.nilsson

  Mattis follows up on his previous post with one more expose on Class Loading Deadlocks As I wrote in a previous post, the class loading mechanism in Java is very powerful. There are many advanced techniques you can use, and when used wrongly you can get into all sorts of trouble. But one of the sneakiest deadlocks you can run into when it comes to class loading doesn't require any home made class loaders or anything. All you need is classes depending on each other, and some bad luck. First of all, here are some basic facts about class loading: 1) If a thread needs to use a class that is not yet loaded, it will try to load that class 2) If another thread is already loading the class, the first thread will wait for the other thread to finish the loading 3) During the loading of a class, one thing that happens is that the <clinit method of a class is being run 4) The <clinit method initializes all static fields, and runs any static blocks in the class. Take the following class for example: class Foo { static Bar bar = new Bar(); static { System.out.println("Loading Foo"); } } The first time a thread needs to use the Foo class, the class will be initialized. The <clinit method will run, creating a new Bar object and printing "Loading Foo" But what happens if the Bar object has never been used before either? Well, then we will need to load that class as well, calling the Bar <clinit method as we go. Can you start to see the potential problem here? A hint is in fact #2 above. What if another thread is currently loading class Bar? The thread loading class Foo will have to wait for that thread to finish loading. But what happens if the <clinit method of class Bar tries to initialize a Foo object? That thread will have to wait for the first thread, and there we have the deadlock. Thread one is waiting for thread two to initialize class Bar, thread two is waiting for thread one to initialize class Foo. All that is needed for a class loading deadlock is static cross dependencies between two classes (and a multi threaded environment): class Foo { static Bar b = new Bar(); } class Bar { static Foo f = new Foo(); } If two threads cause these classes to be loaded at exactly the same time, we will have a deadlock. So, how do you avoid this? Well, one way is of course to not have these circular (static) dependencies. On the other hand, it can be very hard to detect these, and sometimes your design may depend on it. What you can do in that case is to make sure that the classes are first loaded single threadedly, for example during an initialization phase of your application. The following program shows this kind of deadlock. To help bad luck on the way, I added a one second sleep in the static block of the classes to trigger the unlucky timing. Notice that if you uncomment the "//Foo f = new Foo();" line in the main method, the class will be loaded single threadedly, and the program will terminate as it should. public class ClassLoadingDeadlock { // Start two threads. The first will instansiate a Foo object, // the second one will instansiate a Bar object. public static void main(String[] arg) { // Uncomment next line to stop the deadlock // Foo f = new Foo(); new Thread(new FooUser()).start(); new Thread(new BarUser()).start(); } } class FooUser implements Runnable { public void run() { System.out.println("FooUser causing class Foo to be loaded"); Foo f = new Foo(); System.out.println("FooUser done"); } } class BarUser implements Runnable { public void run() { System.out.println("BarUser causing class Bar to be loaded"); Bar b = new Bar(); System.out.println("BarUser done"); } } class Foo { static { // We are deadlock prone even without this sleep... // The sleep just makes us more deterministic try { Thread.sleep(1000); } catch(InterruptedException e) {} } static Bar b = new Bar(); } class Bar { static { try { Thread.sleep(1000); } catch(InterruptedException e) {} } static Foo f = new Foo(); }

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• Passing the CAML thru the EY of the NEEDL

  - by PointsToShare

  © 2011 By: Dov Trietsch. All rights reserved Passing the CAML thru the EY of the NEEDL Definitions: CAML (Collaborative Application Markup Language) is an XML based markup language used in Microsoft SharePoint technologies  Anonymous: A camel is a horse designed by committee  Dov Trietsch: A CAML is a HORS designed by Microsoft  I was advised against putting any Camel and Sphinx rhymes in here. Look it up in Google!  _____ Now that we have dispensed with the dromedary jokes (BTW, I have many more, but they are not fit to print!), here is an interesting problem and its solution.  We have built a list where the title must be kept unique so I needed to verify the existence (or absence) of a list item with a particular title. Two methods came to mind:  1: Span the list until the title is found (result = found) or until the list ends (result = not found). This is an algorithm of complexity O(N) and for long lists it is a performance sucker. 2: Use a CAML query instead. Here, for short list we’ll encounter some overhead, but because the query results in an SQL query on the content database, it is of complexity O(LogN), which is significantly better and scales perfectly. Obviously I decided to go with the latter and this is where the CAML s--t hit the fan.   A CAML query returns a SPListItemCollection and I simply checked its Count. If it was 0, the item did not already exist and it was safe to add a new item with the given title. Otherwise I cancelled the operation and warned the user. The trouble was that I always got a positive. Most of the time a false positive. The count was greater than 0 regardles of the title I checked (except when the list was empty, which happens only once). This was very disturbing indeed. To solve my immediate problem which was speedy delivery, I reverted to the “Span the list” approach, but the problem bugged me, so I wrote a little console app by which I tested and tweaked and tested, time and again, until I found the solution. Yes, one can pass the proverbial CAML thru the ey of the needle (e’s missing on purpose).  So here are my conclusions:  CAML that does not work:  Note: QT is my quote:  char QT = Convert.ToChar((int)34); string titleQuery = "<Query>><Where><Eq>"; titleQuery += "<FieldRef Name=" + QT + "Title" + QT + "/>"; titleQuery += "<Value Type=" + QT + "Text" + QT + ">" + uniqueID + "</Value></Eq></Where></Query>"; titleQuery += "<ViewFields><FieldRef Name=" + QT + "Title" + QT + "/></ViewFields>";  Why? Even though U2U generates it, the <Query> and </Query> tags do not belong in the query that you pass. Start your query with the <Where> clause.  Also the <ViewFiels> clause does not belong. I used this clause to limit the returned collection to a single column, and I still wish to do it. I’ll show how this is done a bit later.   When you use the <Query> </Query> tags in you query, it’s as if you did not specify the query at all. What you get is the all inclusive default query for the list. It returns evey column and every item. It is expensive for both server and network because it does all the extra processing and eats plenty of bandwidth.   Now, here is the CAML that works  string titleQuery = "<Where><Eq>"; titleQuery += "<FieldRef Name=" + QT + "Title" + QT + "/>"; titleQuery += "<Value Type=" + QT + "Text" + QT + ">" + uniqueID + "</Value></Eq></Where>";  You’ll also notice that inside the unusable <ViewFields> clause above, we have a <FieldRef> clause. This is what we pass to the SPQuery object. Here is how:  SPQuery query = new SPQuery(); query.Query = titleQuery; query.ViewFields = "<FieldRef Name=" + QT + "Title" + QT + "/>"; query.RowLimit = 1; SPListItemCollection col = masterList.GetItems(query);  Two thing to note: we enter the view fields into the SPQuery object and we also limited the number of rows that the query returns. The latter is not always done, but in an existence test, there is no point in returning hundreds of rows. The query will now return one item or none, which is all we need in order to verify the existence (or non-existence) of items. Limiting the number of columns and the number of rows is a great performance enhancer. That’s all folks!!

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• Analysing and measuring the performance of a .NET application (survey results)

  - by Laila

  Back in December last year, I asked myself: could it be that .NET developers think that you need three days and a PhD to do performance profiling on their code? What if developers are shunning profilers because they perceive them as too complex to use? If so, then what method do they use to measure and analyse the performance of their .NET applications? Do they even care about performance? So, a few weeks ago, I decided to get a 1-minute survey up and running in the hopes that some good, hard data would clear the matter up once and for all. I posted the survey on Simple Talk and got help from a few people to promote it. The survey consisted of 3 simple questions: Amazingly, 533 developers took the time to respond - which means I had enough data to get representative results! So before I go any further, I would like to thank all of you who contributed, because I now have some pretty good answers to the troubling questions I was asking myself. To thank you properly, I thought I would share some of the results with you. First of all, application performance is indeed important to most of you. In fact, performance is an intrinsic part of the development cycle for a good 40% of you, which is much higher than I had anticipated, I have to admit. (I know, "Have a little faith Laila!") When asked what tool you use to measure and analyse application performance, I found that nearly half of the respondents use logging statements, a third use performance counters, and 70% of respondents use a profiler of some sort (a 3rd party performance profilers, the CLR profiler or the Visual Studio profiler). The importance attributed to logging statements did surprise me a little. I am still not sure why somebody would go to the trouble of manually instrumenting code in order to measure its performance, instead of just using a profiler. I personally find the process of annotating code, calculating times from log files, and relating it all back to your source terrifyingly laborious. Not to mention that you then need to remember to turn it all off later! Even when you have logging in place throughout all your code anyway, you still have a fair amount of potentially error-prone calculation to sift through the results; in addition, you'll only get method-level rather than line-level timings, and you won't get timings from any framework or library methods you don't have source for. To top it all, we all know that bottlenecks are rarely where you would expect them to be, so you could be wasting time looking for a performance problem in the wrong place. On the other hand, profilers do all the work for you: they automatically collect the CPU and wall-clock timings, and present the results from method timing all the way down to individual lines of code. Maybe I'm missing a trick. I would love to know about the types of scenarios where you actively prefer to use logging statements. Finally, while a third of the respondents didn't have a strong opinion about code performance profilers, those who had an opinion thought that they were mainly complex to use and time consuming. Three respondents in particular summarised this perfectly: "sometimes, they are rather complex to use, adding an additional time-sink to the process of trying to resolve the existing problem". "they are simple to use, but the results are hard to understand" "Complex to find the more advanced things, easy to find some low hanging fruit". These results confirmed my suspicions: Profilers are seen to be designed for more advanced users who can use them effectively and make sense of the results. I found yet more interesting information when I started comparing samples of "developers for whom performance is an important part of the dev cycle", with those "to whom performance is only looked at in times of crisis", and "developers to whom performance is not important, as long as the app works". See the three graphs below. Sample of developers to whom performance is an important part of the dev cycle: Sample of developers to whom performance is important only in times of crisis: Sample of developers to whom performance is not important, as long as the app works: As you can see, there is a strong correlation between the usage of a profiler and the importance attributed to performance: indeed, the more important performance is to a development team, the more likely they are to use a profiler. In addition, developers to whom performance is an important part of the dev cycle have a higher tendency to use a much wider range of methods for performance measurement and analysis. And, unsurprisingly, the less important performance is, the less varied the methods of measurement are. So all in all, to come back to my random questions: .NET developers do care about performance. Those who care the most use a wider range of performance measurement methods than those who care less. But overall, logging statements, performance counters and third party performance profilers are the performance measurement methods of choice for most developers. Finally, although most of you find code profilers complex to use, those of you who care the most about performance tend to use profilers more than those of you to whom performance is not so important.

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• SQL SERVER – The Story of a Lesser Known Startup Parameter in SQL Server – Guest Post by Balmukund Lakhani

  - by Pinal Dave

  This is a fantastic blog post from my dear friend Balmukund ( blog | twitter | facebook ). He had presented a fantastic session in our last UG and there were lots of requests from attendees that he blogs about it. Well, here is the blog post about the same very popular UG session. Let us read the entire blog post in the voice of the Balmukund himself. During my last session in SQL Bangalore User Group (Facebook) meeting, I was lucky enough to deliver a session on SQL Server Startup issue. The name of the session was “SQL Engine Starting Trouble – How to start?” From the feedback, I realized that one of the “not well known” startup parameter is “-m”. Okay, you might say “I know that this is used to start the SQL in single user mode”. But what you might not know is that you can pass a string with -m which has special meaning and use. I have used this parameter in my blog here but looks like not many of you have seen that. It happens most of the time when we want to start SQL Server in single user mode, someone else makes connection before you can. The only choice you have is to repeat same process again till you succeed. Some smart DBAs may disable the remote network protocols (TCP/IP and Named Pipes) of SQL Instance and allow only local connections to SQL. Once the activity is complete, our dear smart DBA has to remember to re-enable network protocols. Sometimes, it may be a local service or application getting connection to SQL before we can. There is a better way to deal with it. Yes, you have guessed it correctly: -m parameter which a string. Since I work with SQL Product Support team, I may know little more undocumented commands and parameters, but this is not an undocumented stuff. It’s already documented in books online. So in this blog, I am going to show a demo of its usage. As documentation shows, “Do not use this option as a security feature.” So please read this blog as knowledge enhancer and troubleshooting issues not security feature. In my laptop, I have a default instance of SQL Server 2012 and here is what we would in the configuration manager. Now, I would go ahead and stop SQL Service by selecting SQL Server (MSSQLServer) > Right Click > Stop. There are multiple ways to start SQL with startup parameter. 1) Use Net Start Command from command prompt Net Start MSSQLServer /mSQLCMD The above command is the simplest way to add startup parameter to SQL. This parameter would be cleared once we stop and start SQL. 2) Add Startup Parameter via configuration manager. Step is already listed here. We need to add -mSQLCMD If we compare 1 and 2, it’s clear that unless we modify startup parameter and remove -m, it would be in effect. 3) Start SQL Service via command line SQLServr.exe –mSQLCMD –s<InstanceName> Wait, what does SQLCMD mean with /m? It’s the instruction to SQL that start SQL Server in Single User Mode and allow only the application which is SQLCMD. Any other application would fail with Login Failed for User Error message. It would be important to note that string is case sensitive. This value should be picked up from application_name column from sys.dm_exec_sessions. I have made a connection using SQLCMD and as we can see it comes as upper case “SQLCMD”. If we want only management studio query windows to connect then we need to give -m” Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio – Query” as startup parameter. In below example, I have given it as SQLCMd (lower case d at the end) and we would notice that we would not be able to connect to SQL Instance. Above proves that parameter works as expected and it’s case sensitive. Error Log would show below information. How to get error log location? I have already blogged about it. Hope you have learned something new. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Atmospheric Scattering

  - by Lawrence Kok

  I'm trying to implement atmospheric scattering based on Sean O`Neil algorithm that was published in GPU Gems 2. But I have some trouble getting the shader to work. My latest attempts resulted in: http://img253.imageshack.us/g/scattering01.png/ I've downloaded sample code of O`Neil from: http://http.download.nvidia.com/developer/GPU_Gems_2/CD/Index.html. Made minor adjustments to the shader 'SkyFromAtmosphere' that would allow it to run in AMD RenderMonkey. In the images it is see-able a form of banding occurs, getting an blueish tone. However it is only applied to one half of the sphere, the other half is completely black. Also the banding appears to occur at Zenith instead of Horizon, and for a reason I managed to get pac-man shape. I would appreciate it if somebody could show me what I'm doing wrong. Vertex Shader: uniform mat4 matView; uniform vec4 view_position; uniform vec3 v3LightPos; const int nSamples = 3; const float fSamples = 3.0; const vec3 Wavelength = vec3(0.650,0.570,0.475); const vec3 v3InvWavelength = 1.0f / vec3( Wavelength.x * Wavelength.x * Wavelength.x * Wavelength.x, Wavelength.y * Wavelength.y * Wavelength.y * Wavelength.y, Wavelength.z * Wavelength.z * Wavelength.z * Wavelength.z); const float fInnerRadius = 10; const float fOuterRadius = fInnerRadius * 1.025; const float fInnerRadius2 = fInnerRadius * fInnerRadius; const float fOuterRadius2 = fOuterRadius * fOuterRadius; const float fScale = 1.0 / (fOuterRadius - fInnerRadius); const float fScaleDepth = 0.25; const float fScaleOverScaleDepth = fScale / fScaleDepth; const vec3 v3CameraPos = vec3(0.0, fInnerRadius * 1.015, 0.0); const float fCameraHeight = length(v3CameraPos); const float fCameraHeight2 = fCameraHeight * fCameraHeight; const float fm_ESun = 150.0; const float fm_Kr = 0.0025; const float fm_Km = 0.0010; const float fKrESun = fm_Kr * fm_ESun; const float fKmESun = fm_Km * fm_ESun; const float fKr4PI = fm_Kr * 4 * 3.141592653; const float fKm4PI = fm_Km * 4 * 3.141592653; varying vec3 v3Direction; varying vec4 c0, c1; float scale(float fCos) { float x = 1.0 - fCos; return fScaleDepth * exp(-0.00287 + x*(0.459 + x*(3.83 + x*(-6.80 + x*5.25)))); } void main( void ) { // Get the ray from the camera to the vertex, and its length (which is the far point of the ray passing through the atmosphere) vec3 v3FrontColor = vec3(0.0, 0.0, 0.0); vec3 v3Pos = normalize(gl_Vertex.xyz) * fOuterRadius; vec3 v3Ray = v3CameraPos - v3Pos; float fFar = length(v3Ray); v3Ray = normalize(v3Ray); // Calculate the ray's starting position, then calculate its scattering offset vec3 v3Start = v3CameraPos; float fHeight = length(v3Start); float fDepth = exp(fScaleOverScaleDepth * (fInnerRadius - fCameraHeight)); float fStartAngle = dot(v3Ray, v3Start) / fHeight; float fStartOffset = fDepth*scale(fStartAngle); // Initialize the scattering loop variables float fSampleLength = fFar / fSamples; float fScaledLength = fSampleLength * fScale; vec3 v3SampleRay = v3Ray * fSampleLength; vec3 v3SamplePoint = v3Start + v3SampleRay * 0.5; // Now loop through the sample rays for(int i=0; i<nSamples; i++) { float fHeight = length(v3SamplePoint); float fDepth = exp(fScaleOverScaleDepth * (fInnerRadius - fHeight)); float fLightAngle = dot(normalize(v3LightPos), v3SamplePoint) / fHeight; float fCameraAngle = dot(normalize(v3Ray), v3SamplePoint) / fHeight; float fScatter = (-fStartOffset + fDepth*( scale(fLightAngle) - scale(fCameraAngle)))/* 0.25f*/; vec3 v3Attenuate = exp(-fScatter * (v3InvWavelength * fKr4PI + fKm4PI)); v3FrontColor += v3Attenuate * (fDepth * fScaledLength); v3SamplePoint += v3SampleRay; } // Finally, scale the Mie and Rayleigh colors and set up the varying variables for the pixel shader vec4 newPos = vec4( (gl_Vertex.xyz + view_position.xyz), 1.0); gl_Position = gl_ModelViewProjectionMatrix * vec4(newPos.xyz, 1.0); gl_Position.z = gl_Position.w * 0.99999; c1 = vec4(v3FrontColor * fKmESun, 1.0); c0 = vec4(v3FrontColor * (v3InvWavelength * fKrESun), 1.0); v3Direction = v3CameraPos - v3Pos; } Fragment Shader: uniform vec3 v3LightPos; varying vec3 v3Direction; varying vec4 c0; varying vec4 c1; const float g =-0.90f; const float g2 = g * g; const float Exposure =2; void main(void){ float fCos = dot(normalize(v3LightPos), v3Direction) / length(v3Direction); float fMiePhase = 1.5 * ((1.0 - g2) / (2.0 + g2)) * (1.0 + fCos*fCos) / pow(1.0 + g2 - 2.0*g*fCos, 1.5); gl_FragColor = c0 + fMiePhase * c1; gl_FragColor.a = 1.0; }

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• Why lock-free data structures just aren't lock-free enough

  - by Alex.Davies

  Today's post will explore why the current ways to communicate between threads don't scale, and show you a possible way to build scalable parallel programming on top of shared memory. The problem with shared memory Soon, we will have dozens, hundreds and then millions of cores in our computers. It's inevitable, because individual cores just can't get much faster. At some point, that's going to mean that we have to rethink our architecture entirely, as millions of cores can't all access a shared memory space efficiently. But millions of cores are still a long way off, and in the meantime we'll see machines with dozens of cores, struggling with shared memory. Alex's tip: The best way for an application to make use of that increasing parallel power is to use a concurrency model like actors, that deals with synchronisation issues for you. Then, the maintainer of the actors framework can find the most efficient way to coordinate access to shared memory to allow your actors to pass messages to each other efficiently. At the moment, NAct uses the .NET thread pool and a few locks to marshal messages. It works well on dual and quad core machines, but it won't scale to more cores. Every time we use a lock, our core performs an atomic memory operation (eg. CAS) on a cell of memory representing the lock, so it's sure that no other core can possibly have that lock. This is very fast when the lock isn't contended, but we need to notify all the other cores, in case they held the cell of memory in a cache. As the number of cores increases, the total cost of a lock increases linearly. A lot of work has been done on "lock-free" data structures, which avoid locks by using atomic memory operations directly. These give fairly dramatic performance improvements, particularly on systems with a few (2 to 4) cores. The .NET 4 concurrent collections in System.Collections.Concurrent are mostly lock-free. However, lock-free data structures still don't scale indefinitely, because any use of an atomic memory operation still involves every core in the system. A sync-free data structure Some concurrent data structures are possible to write in a completely synchronization-free way, without using any atomic memory operations. One useful example is a single producer, single consumer (SPSC) queue. It's easy to write a sync-free fixed size SPSC queue using a circular buffer*. Slightly trickier is a queue that grows as needed. You can use a linked list to represent the queue, but if you leave the nodes to be garbage collected once you're done with them, the GC will need to involve all the cores in collecting the finished nodes. Instead, I've implemented a proof of concept inspired by this intel article which reuses the nodes by putting them in a second queue to send back to the producer. * In all these cases, you need to use memory barriers correctly, but these are local to a core, so don't have the same scalability problems as atomic memory operations. Performance tests I tried benchmarking my SPSC queue against the .NET ConcurrentQueue, and against a standard Queue protected by locks. In some ways, this isn't a fair comparison, because both of these support multiple producers and multiple consumers, but I'll come to that later. I started on my dual-core laptop, running a simple test that had one thread producing 64 bit integers, and another consuming them, to measure the pure overhead of the queue. So, nothing very interesting here. Both concurrent collections perform better than the lock-based one as expected, but there's not a lot to choose between the ConcurrentQueue and my SPSC queue. I was a little disappointed, but then, the .NET Framework team spent a lot longer optimising it than I did. So I dug out a more powerful machine that Red Gate's DBA tools team had been using for testing. It is a 6 core Intel i7 machine with hyperthreading, adding up to 12 logical cores. Now the results get more interesting. As I increased the number of producer-consumer pairs to 6 (to saturate all 12 logical cores), the locking approach was slow, and got even slower, as you'd expect. What I didn't expect to be so clear was the drop-off in performance of the lock-free ConcurrentQueue. I could see the machine only using about 20% of available CPU cycles when it should have been saturated. My interpretation is that as all the cores used atomic memory operations to safely access the queue, they ended up spending most of the time notifying each other about cache lines that need invalidating. The sync-free approach scaled perfectly, despite still working via shared memory, which after all, should still be a bottleneck. I can't quite believe that the results are so clear, so if you can think of any other effects that might cause them, please comment! Obviously, this benchmark isn't realistic because we're only measuring the overhead of the queue. Any real workload, even on a machine with 12 cores, would dwarf the overhead, and there'd be no point worrying about this effect. But would that be true on a machine with 100 cores? Still to be solved. The trouble is, you can't build many concurrent algorithms using only an SPSC queue to communicate. In particular, I can't see a way to build something as general purpose as actors on top of just SPSC queues. Fundamentally, an actor needs to be able to receive messages from multiple other actors, which seems to need an MPSC queue. I've been thinking about ways to build a sync-free MPSC queue out of multiple SPSC queues and some kind of sign-up mechanism. Hopefully I'll have something to tell you about soon, but leave a comment if you have any ideas.

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• How do I prove or disprove "god" objects are wrong?

  - by honestduane

  Problem Summary: Long story short, I inherited a code base and an development team I am not allowed to replace and the use of God Objects is a big issue. Going forward, I want to have us re-factor things but I am getting push-back from the teams who want to do everything with God Objects "because its easier" and this means I would not be allowed to re-factor. I pushed back citing my years of dev experience, that I'm the new boss who was hired to know these things, etc, and so did the third party offshore companies account sales rep, and this is now at the executive level and my meeting is tomorrow and I want to go in with a lot of technical ammo to advocate best practices because I feel it will be cheaper in the long run (And I personally feel that is what the third party is worried about) for the company. My issue is from a technical level, I know its good long term but I'm having trouble with the ultra short term and 6 months term, and while its something I "know" I cant prove it with references and cited resources outside of one person (Robert C. Martin, aka Uncle Bob), as that is what I am being asked to do as I have been told having data from one person and only one person (Robert C Martin) is not good enough of an argument. Question: What are some resources I can cite directly (Title, year published, page number, quote) by well known experts in the field that explicitly say this use of "God" Objects/Classes/Systems is bad (or good, since we are looking for the most technically valid solution)? Research I have already done: I have a number of books here and I have searched their indexes for the use of the words "god object" and "god class". I found that oddly its almost never used and the copy of the GoF book I have for example, never uses it (At least according to the index in front of me) but I have found it in 2 books per the below, but I want more I can use. I checked the Wikipedia page for "God Object" and its currently a stub with little reference links so although I personally agree with that it says, It doesn't have much I can use in an environment where personal experience is not considered valid. The book cited is also considered too old to be valid by the people I am debating these technical points with as the argument they are making is that "it was once thought to be bad but nobody could prove it, and now modern software says "god" objects are good to use". I personally believe that this statement is incorrect, but I want to prove the truth, whatever it is. In Robert C Martin's "Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C#" (ISBN: 0-13-185725-8, hardcover) where on page 266 it states "Everybody knows that god classes are a bad idea. We don't want to concentrate all the intelligence of a system into a single object or a single function. One of the goals of OOD is the partitioning and distribution of behavior into many classes and many function." -- And then goes on to say sometimes its better to use God Classes anyway sometimes (Citing micro-controllers as an example). In Robert C Martin's "Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship" page 136 (And only this page) talks about the "God class" and calls it out as a prime example of a violation of the "classes should be small" rule he uses to promote the Single Responsibility Principle" starting on on page 138. The problem I have is all my references and citations come from the same person (Robert C. Martin), and am from the same single person/source. I am being told that because he is just one guy, my desire to not use "God Classes" is invalid and not accepted as a standard best practice in the software industry. Is this true? Am I doing things wrong from a technical perspective by trying to keep to the teaching of Uncle Bob? God Objects and Object Oriented Programming and Design: The more I think of this the more I think this is more something you learn when you study OOP and its never explicitly called out; Its implicit to good design is my thinking (Feel free to correct me, please, as I want to learn), The problem is I "know" this, but but not everybody does, so in this case its not considered a valid argument because I am effectively calling it out as universal truth when in fact most people are statistically ignorant of it since statistically most people are not programmers. Conclusion: I am at a loss on what to search for to get the best additional results to cite, since they are making a technical claim and I want to know the truth and be able to prove it with citations like a real engineer/scientist, even if I am biased against god objects due to my personal experience with code that used them. Any assistance or citations would be deeply appreciated.

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• DBCC CHECKDB (BatmanDb, REPAIR_ALLOW_DATA_LOSS) &ndash; Are you Feeling Lucky?

  - by David Totzke

  I’m currently working for a client on a PowerBuilder to WPF migration.  It’s one of those “I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you” kind of clients and the quick-lime pits are currently occupied by the EMC tech…but I’ve said too much already. At approximately 3 or 4 pm that day users of the Batman[1] application here in Gotham[1] started to experience problems accessing the application.  Batman[2] is a document management system here that also integrates with the ERP system.  Very little goes on here that doesn’t involve Batman in some way.  The errors being received seemed to point to network issues (TCP protocol error, connection forcibly closed by the remote host etc…) but the real issue was much more insidious. Connecting to the database via SSMS and performing selects on certain tables underlying the application areas that were having problems started to reveal the issue.  You couldn’t do a SELECT * FROM MyTable without it bombing and giving the same error noted above.  A run of DBCC CHECKDB revealed 14 tables with corruption.  One of the tables with issues was the Document table.  Pretty central to a “document management” system.  Information was obtained from IT that a single drive in the SAN went bad in the night.  A new drive was in place and was working fine.  The partition that held the Batman database is configured for RAID Level 5 so a single drive failure shouldn’t have caused any trouble and yet, the database is corrupted.  They do hourly incremental backups here so the first thing done was to try a restore.  A restore of the most recent backup failed so they worked backwards until they hit a good point.  This successful restore was for a backup at 3AM – a full day behind.  This time also roughly corresponds with the time the SAN started to report the drive failure.  The plot thickens… I got my hands on the output from DBCC CHECKDB and noticed a pattern.  What’s sad is that nobody that should have noticed the pattern in the DBCC output did notice.  There was a rush to do things to try and recover the data before anybody really understood what was wrong with it in the first place.  Cooler heads must prevail in these circumstances and some investigation should be done and a plan of action laid out or you could end up making things worse[3].  DBCC CHECKDB also told us that: repair_allow_data_loss is the minimum repair level for the errors found by DBCC CHECKDB Yikes.  That means that the database is so messed up that you’re definitely going to lose some stuff when you repair it to get it back to a consistent state.  All the more reason to do a little more investigation into the problem.  Rescuing this database is preferable to having to export all of the data possible from this database into a new one.  This is a fifteen year old application with about seven hundred tables.  There are TRIGGERS everywhere not to mention the referential integrity constraints to deal with.  Only fourteen of the tables have an issue.  We have a good backup that is missing the last 24 hours of business which means we could have a “do-over” of yesterday but that’s not a very palatable option either. All of the affected tables had TEXT columns and all of the errors were about LOB data types and orphaned off-row data which basically means TEXT, IMAGE or NTEXT columns.  If we did a SELECT on an affected table and excluded those columns, we got all of the rows.  We exported that data into a separate database.  Things are looking up.  Working on a copy of the production database we then ran DBCC CHECKDB with REPAIR_ALLOW_DATA_LOSS and that “fixed” everything up.   The allow data loss option will delete the bad rows.  This isn’t too horrible as we have all of those rows minus the text fields from out earlier export.  Now I could LEFT JOIN to the exported data to find the missing rows and INSERT them minus the TEXT column data. We had the restored data from the good 3AM backup that we could now JOIN to and, with fingers crossed, recover the missing TEXT column information.  We got lucky in that all of the affected rows were old and in the end we didn’t lose anything.  :O  All of the row counts along the way worked out and it looks like we dodged a major bullet here. We’ve heard back from EMC and it turns out the SAN firmware that they were running here is apparently buggy.  This thing is only a couple of months old.  Grrr…. They dispatched a technician that night to come and update it .  That explains why RAID didn’t save us. All-in-all this could have been a lot worse.  Given the root cause here, they basically won the lottery in not losing anything. Here are a few links to some helpful posts on the SQL Server Engine blog.  I love the title of the first one: Which part of 'REPAIR_ALLOW_DATA_LOSS' isn't clear? CHECKDB (Part 8): Can repair fix everything? (in fact, read the whole series) Ta da! Emergency mode repair (we didn’t have to resort to this one thank goodness)   Dave Just because I can…   [1] Names have been changed to protect the guilty. [2] I'm Batman. [3] And if I'm the coolest head in the room, you've got even bigger problems...

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• Using SQL Source Control with Fortress or Vault &ndash; Part 1

  - by AjarnMark

  I am fanatical when it comes to managing the source code for my company.  Everything that we build (in source form) gets put into our source control management system.  And I’m not just talking about the UI and middle-tier code written in C# and ASP.NET, but also the back-end database stuff, which at times has been a pain.  We even script out our Scheduled Jobs and keep a copy of those under source control. The UI and middle-tier stuff has long been easy to manage as we mostly use Visual Studio which has integration with source control systems built in.  But the SQL code has been a little harder to deal with.  I have been doing this for many years, well before Microsoft came up with Data Dude, so I had already established a methodology that, while not as smooth as VS, nonetheless let me keep things well controlled, and allowed doing my database development in my tool of choice, Query Analyzer in days gone by, and now SQL Server Management Studio.  It just makes sense to me that if I’m going to do database development, let’s use the database tool set.  (Although, I have to admit I was pretty impressed with the demo of Juneau that Don Box did at the PASS Summit this year.)  So as I was saying, I had developed a methodology that worked well for us (and I’ll probably outline in a future post) but it could use some improvement. When Solutions and Projects were first introduced in SQL Management Studio, I thought we were finally going to get our same experience that we have in Visual Studio.  Well, let’s say I was underwhelmed by Version 1 in SQL 2005, and apparently so were enough other people that by the time SQL 2008 came out, Microsoft decided that Solutions and Projects would be deprecated and completely removed from a future version.  So much for that idea. Then I came across SQL Source Control from Red-Gate.  I have used several tools from Red-Gate in the past, including my favorites SQL Compare, SQL Prompt, and SQL Refactor.  SQL Prompt is worth its weight in gold, and the others are great, too.  Earlier this year, we upgraded from our earlier product bundles to the new Developer Bundle, and in the process added SQL Source Control to our collection.  I thought this might really be the golden ticket I was looking for.  But my hopes were quickly dashed when I discovered that it only integrated with Microsoft Team Foundation Server and Subversion as the source code repositories.  We have been using SourceGear’s Vault and Fortress products for years, and I wholeheartedly endorse them.  So I was out of luck for the time being, although there were a number of people voting for Vault/Fortress support on their feedback forum (as did I) so I had hope that maybe next year I could look at it again. But just a couple of weeks ago, I was pleasantly surprised to receive notice in my email that Red-Gate had an Early Access version of SQL Source Control that worked with Vault and Fortress, so I quickly downloaded it and have been putting it through its paces.  So far, I really like what I see, and I have been quite impressed with Red-Gate’s responsiveness when I have contacted them with any issues or concerns that I have had.  I have had several communications with Gyorgy Pocsi at Red-Gate and he has been immensely helpful and responsive. I must say that development with SQL Source Control is very different from what I have been used to.  This post is getting long enough, so I’ll save some of the details for a separate write-up, but the short story is that in my regular mode, it’s all about the script files.  Script files are King and you dare not make a change to the database other than by way of a script file, or you are in deep trouble.  With SQL Source Control, you make your changes to your development database however you like.  I still prefer writing most of my changes in T-SQL, but you can also use any of the GUI functionality of SSMS to make your changes, and SQL Source Control “manages” the script for you.  Basically, when you first link your database to source control, the tool generates scripts for every primary object (tables and their indexes are together in one script, not broken out into separate scripts like DB Projects do) and those scripts are checked into your source control.  So, if you needed to, you could still do a GET from your source control repository and build the database from scratch.  But for the day-to-day work, SQL Source Control uses the same technique as SQL Compare to determine what changes have been made to your development database and how to represent those in your repository scripts.  I think that once I retrain myself to just work in the database and quit worrying about having to find and open the right script file, that this will actually make us more efficient. And for deployment purposes, SQL Source Control integrates with the full SQL Compare utility to produce a synchronization script (or do a live sync).  This is similar in concept to Microsoft’s DACPAC, if you’re familiar with that. If you are not currently keeping your database development efforts under source control, definitely examine this tool.  If you already have a methodology that is working for you, then I still think this is worth a review and comparison to your current approach.  You may find it more efficient.  But remember that the version which integrates with Vault/Fortress is still in pre-release mode, so treat it with a little caution.  I have found it to be fairly stable, but there was one bug that I found which had inconvenient side-effects and could have really been frustrating if I had been running this on my normal active development machine.  However, I can verify that that bug has been fixed in a more recent build version (did I mention Red-Gate’s responsiveness?).

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• Cant get lm-sensors to load ATI Radeon temp or fan

  - by woody

  New to Linux and having minor issues :/ . I followed this guide initially but did not recieve the proper output and did not show my ATI Radeon HD 5000 temp or fan speed. Then used this guide, same problems exhibited. No issues installing and no errors. I think its not reading i2c for some reason. The proprietary driver is installed and functioning correctly according fglrxinfo. I can use aticonfig commands and view both temp and fan. Any ideas on how to get it working under 'sensors'? When i run 'sudo sensors-detect' this is my ouput # sensors-detect revision 5984 (2011-07-10 21:22:53 +0200) # System: LENOVO IdeaPad Y560 (laptop) # Board: Lenovo KL3 This program will help you determine which kernel modules you need to load to use lm_sensors most effectively. It is generally safe and recommended to accept the default answers to all questions, unless you know what you're doing. Some south bridges, CPUs or memory controllers contain embedded sensors. Do you want to scan for them? This is totally safe. (YES/no): y Silicon Integrated Systems SIS5595... No VIA VT82C686 Integrated Sensors... No VIA VT8231 Integrated Sensors... No AMD K8 thermal sensors... No AMD Family 10h thermal sensors... No AMD Family 11h thermal sensors... No AMD Family 12h and 14h thermal sensors... No AMD Family 15h thermal sensors... No AMD Family 15h power sensors... No Intel digital thermal sensor... Success! (driver `coretemp') Intel AMB FB-DIMM thermal sensor... No VIA C7 thermal sensor... No VIA Nano thermal sensor... No Some Super I/O chips contain embedded sensors. We have to write to standard I/O ports to probe them. This is usually safe. Do you want to scan for Super I/O sensors? (YES/no): y Probing for Super-I/O at 0x2e/0x2f Trying family `National Semiconductor/ITE'... Yes Found unknown chip with ID 0x8502 Probing for Super-I/O at 0x4e/0x4f Trying family `National Semiconductor/ITE'... No Trying family `SMSC'... No Trying family `VIA/Winbond/Nuvoton/Fintek'... No Trying family `ITE'... No Some hardware monitoring chips are accessible through the ISA I/O ports. We have to write to arbitrary I/O ports to probe them. This is usually safe though. Yes, you do have ISA I/O ports even if you do not have any ISA slots! Do you want to scan the ISA I/O ports? (YES/no): y Probing for `National Semiconductor LM78' at 0x290... No Probing for `National Semiconductor LM79' at 0x290... No Probing for `Winbond W83781D' at 0x290... No Probing for `Winbond W83782D' at 0x290... No Lastly, we can probe the I2C/SMBus adapters for connected hardware monitoring devices. This is the most risky part, and while it works reasonably well on most systems, it has been reported to cause trouble on some systems. Do you want to probe the I2C/SMBus adapters now? (YES/no): y Using driver `i2c-i801' for device 0000:00:1f.3: Intel 3400/5 Series (PCH) Now follows a summary of the probes I have just done. Just press ENTER to continue: Driver `coretemp': * Chip `Intel digital thermal sensor' (confidence: 9) To load everything that is needed, add this to /etc/modules: #----cut here---- # Chip drivers coretemp #----cut here---- If you have some drivers built into your kernel, the list above will contain too many modules. Skip the appropriate ones! Do you want to add these lines automatically to /etc/modules? (yes/NO) My output for 'sensors' is: acpitz-virtual-0 Adapter: Virtual device temp1: +58.0°C (crit = +100.0°C) coretemp-isa-0000 Adapter: ISA adapter Core 0: +56.0°C (high = +84.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) Core 1: +57.0°C (high = +84.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) Core 2: +58.0°C (high = +84.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) Core 3: +57.0°C (high = +84.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) and my '/etc/modules' is: # /etc/modules: kernel modules to load at boot time. # # This file contains the names of kernel modules that should be loaded # at boot time, one per line. Lines beginning with "#" are ignored. lp rtc # Generated by sensors-detect on Fri Nov 30 23:24:31 2012 # Chip drivers coretemp

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• Bring Office 2003 Menus Back to 2010 with UBitMenu

  - by Matthew Guay

  Are you having trouble getting used to the Ribbon interface in Office 2010?  Here’s how you can roll back the clock a bit and bring back the familiar menus and toolbars from 2003. The Office 2007 Ribbon was both praised and criticized.  While many users felt they were more productive with the new interface, others felt frustrated searching for commands they had memorized in older versions of Office.  Now, with Office 2010, the ribbon interface has been brought to every app in the Office suite, and is integrated into many newer programs from Microsoft. If you’re moving from Office 2003, using UBitMenu allows you to add the old familiar menus back along with the new Ribbon interface for an easier learning curve. Also, with the customizability of Office 2010, we can strip away the extra Ribbon tabs to make it more like 2003. Get the 2003 Menus and Toolbars Back in Office 2010 Download UBitMenu (link below), and install as normal.  Make sure all of your Office programs are closed during the installation.  This handy utility is very small, and installed amazingly quick. Open Word, Excel, or PowerPoint and there’s now a new Menu tab beside Home in the Ribbon.  Now you can access all of your favorite old Office commands in the familiar menus, and access many of the newer Office features such as SmartArt.   Here’s a close-up of the toolbar.  Notice that the layout is very similar to that of Word 2003. You can access all of the new Transitions in PowerPoint 2010 from the menu bar.   The menu in Excel even included support for the new PivotTable and PivotCharts Wizard. One problem we noticed was that the toolbars were condensed to a drop-down menu if the Office window was less than 870px wide.  This may be a frustration to users with low-resolution displays, and you might want to use the Office Apps maximized. Get Rid of the Ribbon Now that you’ve got the old menus back, you can get rid of the extra ribbon tabs if you’d like.  Office 2010 lets you customize your ribbon and remove tabs, so let’s get rid of all the other tabs except for our new Menu tab.  In our example we’re using Word, but you can do it in Excel or PowerPoint the same way. Click the File tab and select Options. Alternately, in the Menu tab, select Tools and then Word Options. Select Customize Ribbon on the left sidebar, then uncheck the boxes beside all the ribbon tabs you want to hide on the right.  Click Ok when you’re finished. While you’re at it, you can change the default color scheme as well. Note: The color change will automatically change the color scheme in all of the Office apps, so you’ll only need to do that once. Now the ribbon only has 2 tabs…the File tab for the new Backstage View, and the UBitMenu tab we just installed.  It almost has the appearance Word 2003, but with the new features of Word 2010!  You’ll need to repeat these steps in Excel and PowerPoint if you want to customize their ribbon the same.   Conclusion If you’ve been having a hard time getting used to Office 2010, UBitMenu is a great way to get familiar with the new interface, or simply stay productive with your old tricks.  We do wish it supported the other Office applications like OneNote and Outlook. That doesn’t make it a deal breaker though, it can make the learning curve easier in Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. UBitMenu is free for personal use, and available at a very reasonable price for businesses. If you’re using Office 2007 and not a fan of the Ribbon, UBitMenu works for it as well. Download UBitMenu Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips How To Bring Back the Old Menus in Office 2007Upgrade Office 2003 to 2010 on XP or Run them Side by SideHow to Find Office 2003 Commands in Office 2010Make Word 2007 Always Save in Word 2003 FormatMake Excel 2007 Always Save in Excel 2003 Format TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Speed Up Windows With ReadyBoost Awesome World Cup Soccer Calendar Nice Websites To Watch TV Shows Online 24 Million Sites Windows Media Player Glass Icons (icons we like) How to Forecast Weather, without Gadgets

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• texture mapping with lib3ds and SOIL help

  - by Adam West

  I'm having trouble with my project for loading a texture map onto a model. Any insight into what is going wrong with my code is fantastic. Right now the code only renders a teapot which I have assinged after creating it in 3DS Max. 3dsloader.cpp #include "3dsloader.h" Object::Object(std:: string filename) { m_TotalFaces = 0; m_model = lib3ds_file_load(filename.c_str()); // If loading the model failed, we throw an exception if(!m_model) { throw strcat("Unable to load ", filename.c_str()); } // set properties of texture coordinate generation for both x and y coordinates glTexGeni(GL_S, GL_TEXTURE_GEN_MODE, GL_EYE_LINEAR); glTexGeni(GL_T, GL_TEXTURE_GEN_MODE, GL_EYE_LINEAR); // if not already enabled, enable texture generation if(! glIsEnabled(GL_TEXTURE_GEN_S)) glEnable(GL_TEXTURE_GEN_S); if(! glIsEnabled(GL_TEXTURE_GEN_T)) glEnable(GL_TEXTURE_GEN_T); } Object::~Object() { if(m_model) // if the file isn't freed yet lib3ds_file_free(m_model); //free up memory glDisable(GL_TEXTURE_GEN_S); glDisable(GL_TEXTURE_GEN_T); } void Object::GetFaces() { m_TotalFaces = 0; Lib3dsMesh * mesh; // Loop through every mesh. for(mesh = m_model->meshes;mesh != NULL;mesh = mesh->next) { // Add the number of faces this mesh has to the total number of faces. m_TotalFaces += mesh->faces; } } void Object::CreateVBO() { assert(m_model != NULL); // Calculate the number of faces we have in total GetFaces(); // Allocate memory for our vertices and normals Lib3dsVector * vertices = new Lib3dsVector[m_TotalFaces * 3]; Lib3dsVector * normals = new Lib3dsVector[m_TotalFaces * 3]; Lib3dsTexel* texCoords = new Lib3dsTexel[m_TotalFaces * 3]; Lib3dsMesh * mesh; unsigned int FinishedFaces = 0; // Loop through all the meshes for(mesh = m_model->meshes;mesh != NULL;mesh = mesh->next) { lib3ds_mesh_calculate_normals(mesh, &normals[FinishedFaces*3]); // Loop through every face for(unsigned int cur_face = 0; cur_face < mesh->faces;cur_face++) { Lib3dsFace * face = &mesh->faceL[cur_face]; for(unsigned int i = 0;i < 3;i++) { memcpy(&texCoords[FinishedFaces*3 + i], mesh->texelL[face->points[ i ]], sizeof(Lib3dsTexel)); memcpy(&vertices[FinishedFaces*3 + i], mesh->pointL[face->points[ i ]].pos, sizeof(Lib3dsVector)); } FinishedFaces++; } } // Generate a Vertex Buffer Object and store it with our vertices glGenBuffers(1, &m_VertexVBO); glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, m_VertexVBO); glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, sizeof(Lib3dsVector) * 3 * m_TotalFaces, vertices, GL_STATIC_DRAW); // Generate another Vertex Buffer Object and store the normals in it glGenBuffers(1, &m_NormalVBO); glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, m_NormalVBO); glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, sizeof(Lib3dsVector) * 3 * m_TotalFaces, normals, GL_STATIC_DRAW); // Generate a third VBO and store the texture coordinates in it. glGenBuffers(1, &m_TexCoordVBO); glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, m_TexCoordVBO); glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, sizeof(Lib3dsTexel) * 3 * m_TotalFaces, texCoords, GL_STATIC_DRAW); // Clean up our allocated memory delete vertices; delete normals; delete texCoords; // We no longer need lib3ds lib3ds_file_free(m_model); m_model = NULL; } void Object::applyTexture(const char*texfilename) { float imageWidth; float imageHeight; glGenTextures(1, & textureObject); // allocate memory for one texture textureObject = SOIL_load_OGL_texture(texfilename,SOIL_LOAD_AUTO,SOIL_CREATE_NEW_ID,SOIL_FLAG_MIPMAPS); glPixelStorei(GL_UNPACK_ALIGNMENT,1); glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, textureObject); // use our newest texture glGetTexLevelParameterfv(GL_TEXTURE_2D,0,GL_TEXTURE_WIDTH,&imageWidth); glGetTexLevelParameterfv(GL_TEXTURE_2D,0,GL_TEXTURE_HEIGHT,&imageHeight); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, GL_LINEAR); // give the best result for texture magnification glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, GL_LINEAR); //give the best result for texture minification glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_S, GL_CLAMP); // don't repeat texture glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_T, GL_CLAMP); // don't repeat textureglTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_T, GL_CLAMP); // don't repeat texture glTexEnvf(GL_TEXTURE_ENV, GL_TEXTURE_ENV_MODE,GL_MODULATE); glTexImage2D(GL_TEXTURE_2D,0,GL_RGB,imageWidth,imageHeight,0,GL_RGB,GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE,& textureObject); } void Object::Draw() const { // Enable vertex, normal and texture-coordinate arrays. glEnableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); glEnableClientState(GL_NORMAL_ARRAY); glEnableClientState(GL_TEXTURE_COORD_ARRAY); // Bind the VBO with the normals. glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, m_NormalVBO); // The pointer for the normals is NULL which means that OpenGL will use the currently bound VBO. glNormalPointer(GL_FLOAT, 0, NULL); glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, m_TexCoordVBO); glTexCoordPointer(2, GL_FLOAT, 0, NULL); glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, m_VertexVBO); glVertexPointer(3, GL_FLOAT, 0, NULL); // Render the triangles. glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLES, 0, m_TotalFaces * 3); glDisableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); glDisableClientState(GL_NORMAL_ARRAY); glDisableClientState(GL_TEXTURE_COORD_ARRAY); } 3dsloader.h #include "main.h" #include "lib3ds/file.h" #include "lib3ds/mesh.h" #include "lib3ds/material.h" class Object { public: Object(std:: string filename); virtual ~Object(); virtual void Draw() const; virtual void CreateVBO(); void applyTexture(const char*texfilename); protected: void GetFaces(); unsigned int m_TotalFaces; Lib3dsFile * m_model; Lib3dsMesh* Mesh; GLuint textureObject; GLuint m_VertexVBO, m_NormalVBO, m_TexCoordVBO; }; Called in the main cpp file with: VBO,apply texture and draw (pretty simple, how ironic) and thats it, please help me forum :)

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• using isight camera in macbookpro(8,2) on ubuntu 12.04 virtualbox VM

  - by Kurt Spindler

  I'm having a lot of trouble using the built-in isight camera on my macbookpro8,2 (early 2011) from an ubuntu 12.04 virtual machine, run inside VirtualBox. The following is the log I get when I try to run guvcview ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ guvcview guvcview 1.5.3 ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.rear ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.center_lfe ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.side ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.surround71 ALSA lib setup.c:565:(add_elem) Cannot obtain info for CTL elem (MIXER,'IEC958 Playback Default',0,0,0): No such file or directory ALSA lib setup.c:565:(add_elem) Cannot obtain info for CTL elem (MIXER,'IEC958 Playback Default',0,0,0): No such file or directory ALSA lib setup.c:565:(add_elem) Cannot obtain info for CTL elem (MIXER,'IEC958 Playback Default',0,0,0): No such file or directory ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.hdmi ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.hdmi ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.modem ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.modem ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.phoneline ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.phoneline ALSA lib audio/pcm_bluetooth.c:1614:(audioservice_expect) BT_GET_CAPABILITIES failed : Input/output error(5) ALSA lib audio/pcm_bluetooth.c:1614:(audioservice_expect) BT_GET_CAPABILITIES failed : Input/output error(5) ALSA lib audio/pcm_bluetooth.c:1614:(audioservice_expect) BT_GET_CAPABILITIES failed : Input/output error(5) ALSA lib audio/pcm_bluetooth.c:1614:(audioservice_expect) BT_GET_CAPABILITIES failed : Input/output error(5) ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:957:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) The dmix plugin supports only playback stream Cannot connect to server socket err = No such file or directory Cannot connect to server socket jack server is not running or cannot be started video device: /dev/video0 Init. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in) (location: usb-0000:00:0b.0-1) { pixelformat = 'YUYV', description = 'YUV 4:2:2 (YUYV)' } { discrete: width = 160, height = 120 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 176, height = 144 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 320, height = 240 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 352, height = 288 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 640, height = 480 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 1280, height = 720 } Time interval between frame: 1/10, { pixelformat = 'MJPG', description = 'MJPEG' } { discrete: width = 960, height = 540 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 1024, height = 576 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 1280, height = 720 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { pixelformat = 'RGB3', description = 'RGB3' } { discrete: width = 160, height = 120 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 176, height = 144 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 320, height = 240 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 352, height = 288 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 640, height = 480 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 1280, height = 720 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 960, height = 540 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 1024, height = 576 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { pixelformat = 'BGR3', description = 'BGR3' } { discrete: width = 160, height = 120 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 176, height = 144 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 320, height = 240 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 352, height = 288 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 640, height = 480 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 1280, height = 720 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 960, height = 540 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 1024, height = 576 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { pixelformat = 'YU12', description = 'YU12' } { discrete: width = 160, height = 120 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 176, height = 144 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 320, height = 240 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 352, height = 288 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 640, height = 480 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 1280, height = 720 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 960, height = 540 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 1024, height = 576 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { pixelformat = 'YV12', description = 'YV12' } { discrete: width = 160, height = 120 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 176, height = 144 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 320, height = 240 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 352, height = 288 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 640, height = 480 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 1280, height = 720 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 960, height = 540 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, { discrete: width = 1024, height = 576 } Time interval between frame: 100/2997, 1/25, 1/24, 1/15, vid:05ac pid:8509 driver:uvcvideo checking format: 1196444237 VIDIOC_G_COMP:: Invalid argument compression control not supported fps is set to 1/25 drawing controls no codec detected for H264 no codec detected for MP3 - (lavc) Checking video mode 960x540@32bpp : OK Could not grab image (select timeout): Resource temporarily unavailable Could not grab image (select timeout): Resource temporarily unavailable Could not grab image (select timeout): Resource temporarily unavailable Could not grab image (select timeout): Resource temporarily unavailable Could not grab image (select timeout): Resource temporarily unavailable Could not grab image (select timeout): Resource temporarily unavailable Could not grab image (select timeout): Resource temporarily unavailable Could not grab image (select timeout): Resource temporarily unavailable Could not grab image (select timeout): Resource temporarily unavailable write /home/ubuntu/.guvcviewrc OK free controls cleaned allocations - 100% Closing portaudio ...OK Closing GTK... OK ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ Any help would be greatly appreciated. Only clue I have is that I initially was having problems, tried using the old method of fixing isights (involving installing isight-firmware-tools) before realizing that I just hadn't turned on the VM setting to allow the VM to access the webcam. :) Anyway, I wonder if installing that messed something up. However, I think this is a red herring because I've: shut down and turned back on the Mac, restarted the VM, tried a different VM (for which I never installed isight-firmware-tools, and created an entirely new ubuntu vm. All instances have had this problem. Similarly, other viewers, such as cheese, avplay, avconv have had all various kinds of errors.

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• What Counts For a DBA: Simplicity

  - by Louis Davidson

  Too many computer processes do an apparently simple task in a bizarrely complex way. They remind me of this strip by one of my favorite artists: Rube Goldberg. In order to keep the boss from knowing one was late, a process is devised whereby the cuckoo clock kisses a live cuckoo bird, who then pulls a string, which triggers a hat flinging, which in turn lands on a rod that removes a typewriter cover…and so on. We rely on creating automated processes to keep on top of tasks. DBAs have a lot of tasks to perform: backups, performance tuning, data movement, system monitoring, and of course, avoiding being noticed.  Every day, there are many steps to perform to maintain the database infrastructure, including: checking physical structures, re-indexing tables where needed, backing up the databases, checking those backups, running the ETL, and preparing the daily reports and yes, all of these processes have to complete before you can call it a day, and probably before many others have started that same day. Some of these tasks are just naturally complicated on their own. Other tasks become complicated because the database architecture is excessively rigid, and we often discover during “production testing” that certain processes need to be changed because the written requirements barely resembled the actual customer requirements.   Then, with no time to change that rigid structure, we are forced to heap layer upon layer of code onto the problematic processes. Instead of a slight table change and a new index, we end up with 4 new ETL processes, 20 temp tables, 30 extra queries, and 1000 lines of SQL code.  Report writers then need to build reports and make magical numbers appear from those toxic data structures that are overly complex and probably filled with inconsistent data. What starts out as a collection of fairly simple tasks turns into a Goldbergian nightmare of daily processes that are likely to cause your dinner to be interrupted by the smartphone doing the vibration dance that signifies trouble at the mill. So what to do? Well, if it is at all possible, simplify the problem by either going into the code and refactoring the complex code to simple, or taking all of the processes and simplifying them into small, independent, easily-tested steps.  The former approach usually requires an agreement on changing underlying structures that requires countless mind-numbing meetings; while the latter can generally be done to any complex process without the same frustration or anger, though it will still leave you with lots of steps to complete, the ability to test each step independently will definitely increase the quality of the overall process (and with each step reporting status back, finding an actual problem within the process will be definitely less unpleasant.) We all know the principle behind simplifying a sequence of processes because we learned it in math classes in our early years of attending school, starting with elementary school. In my 4 years (ok, 9 years) of undergraduate work, I remember pretty much one thing from my many math classes that I apply daily to my career as a data architect, data programmer, and as an occasional indentured DBA: “show your work”. This process of showing your work was my first lesson in simplification. Each step in the process was in fact, far simpler than the entire process.  When you were working an equation that took both sides of 4 sheets of paper, showing your work was important because the teacher could see every step, judge it, and mark it accordingly.  So often I would make an error in the first few lines of a problem which meant that the rest of the work was actually moving me closer to a very wrong answer, no matter how correct the math was in the subsequent steps. Yet, when I got my grade back, I would sometimes be pleasantly surprised. I passed, yet missed every problem on the test. But why? While I got the fact that 1+1=2 wrong in every problem, the teacher could see that I was using the right process. In a computer process, the process is very similar. We take complex processes, show our work by storing intermediate values, and test each step independently. When a process has 100 steps, each step becomes a simple step that is tested and verified, such that there will be 100 places where data is stored, validated, and can be checked off as complete. If you get step 1 of 100 wrong, you can fix it and be confident (that if you did your job of testing the other steps better than the one you had to repair,) that the rest of the process works. If you have 100 steps, and store the state of the process exactly once, the resulting testable chunk of code will be far more complex and finding the error will require checking all 100 steps as one, and usually it would be easier to find a specific needle in a stack of similarly shaped needles.  The goal is to strive for simplicity either in the solution, or at least by simplifying every process down to as many, independent, testable, simple tasks as possible.  For the tasks that really can’t be done completely independently, minimally take those tasks and break them down into simpler steps that can be tested independently.  Like working out division problems longhand, have each step of the larger problem verified and tested.

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• Justifiable Perks.

  - by Phil Factor

      I was once the director of a start-up IT Company, and had the task of recruiting a proportion of the management team. As my background was in IT management, I was rather more familiar with recruiting Geeks for technology jobs, but here, one of my early tasks was interviewing a Marketing Director.  The small group of financiers had suggested a rather strange Irishman called  Halleran.  From my background in City of London dealing-rooms, I was slightly unprepared for the experience of interviewing anyone wearing a pink suit. Many of my older City colleagues would have required resuscitation after seeing his white leather shoes. However, nobody will accuse me of prejudging an interviewee. After all, many Linux experts who I’ve come to rely on have appeared for interview dressed as hobbits. In fact, the interview went well, and we had even settled his salary.  I was somewhat unprepared for the coda.    ‘And I will need to be provided with a Ferrari  by the company.’    ‘Hmm. That seems reasonable.’    Initially, he looked startled, and then a slow smile of victory spread across his face.    ‘What colour would you like?’ I asked genially.    ‘It has to be red.’ He looked very earnest on this point.    ‘Fine. I have to go past Hamleys on the way home this evening, so I’ll pick one up then for you.’    ‘Er.. Hamley’s is a toyshop, not a Ferrari Dealership.’    I stared at him in bafflement for a few seconds. ‘You’re not seriously asking for a real Ferrari are you?’     ‘Well, yes. Not for my own sake, you understand. I’d much prefer a simple run-about, but my position demands it. How could I maintain the necessary status in the office without one? How could I do my job in marketing when my grey Datsun was all too visible in the car Park? It is a tool of the job.’    ‘Excuse me a moment, but I must confer with the MD’    I popped out to see Chris, the MD. ‘Chris, I’m interviewing a lunatic in a pink suit who is trying to demand that a Ferrari is a precondition of his employment. I tried the ‘misunderstanding trick’ but it didn’t faze him.’     ‘Sorry, Phil, but we’ve got to hire him. The VCs insist on it. You’ve got to think of something that doesn’t involve committing to the purchase of a Ferrari. Current funding barely covers the rent for the building.’    ‘OK boss. Leave it to me.’    On return, I slapped O’Halleran’s file on the table with a genial, paternalistic smile. ‘Of course you should have a Ferrari. The only trouble is that it will require a justification document that can be presented to the board. I’m sure you’ll have no problem in preparing this document in the required format.’ The initial look of despair was quickly followed by a bland look of acquiescence. He had, earlier in the interview, argued with great eloquence his skill in preparing the tiresome documents that underpin the essential corporate and government deals that were vital to the success of this new enterprise. The justification of a Ferrari should be a doddle.     After the interview, Chris nervously asked how I’d fared.     ‘I think it is all solved.’    ‘… without promising a Ferrari, I hope.’    ‘Well, I did actually; on condition he justified it in writing.’    Chris issued a stream of invective. The strain of juggling the resources in an underfunded startup was beginning to show.    ‘Don’t worry. In the unlikely event of him coming back with the required document, I’ll give him mine.’    ‘Yours?’ He strode over to the window to stare down at the car park.    He needn’t have worried: I knew that his breed of marketing man could more easily lay an ostrich egg than to prepare a decent justification document. My Ferrari is still there at the back of my garage. Few know of the Ferrari cultivator, a simple inexpensive motorized device designed for the subsistence farmers of southern Italy. It is the very devil to start, but it creates a perfect tilth for the seedbed.

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