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  • Doing a DELETE request from <a> tag without constructing forms?

    - by Mike Trpcic
    Is there any way to force an <a href> to do a delete request when clicked instead of a regular GET? The "Rails" way is to dynamically generate a <form> tag that adds the appropriate params so that it gets routed to the right place, however I'm not too fond of that much DOM manipulation for such a simple task. I thought about going the route of something like: $("a.delete").click(function(){ var do_refresh = false; $.ajax({ type: "DELETE", url: "my/path/to/delete", success: function(){ do_refresh = true; }, failure: function(){ alert("There is an error"); } }); return do_return; //If this is false, no refresh would happen. If it //is true, it will do a page refresh. }); I'm not sure if the above AJAX stuff will work, as it's just theoretical. Is there any way to go about this? Note: Please don't recommend that I use the rails :method => :delete on link_to, as I'm trying to get away from using the rails helpers in many senses as they pollute your DOM with obtrusive javascript. I'd like this solution to be put in an external JS file and be included as needed.

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  • How do I access static variables in an enum class without a class instance?

    - by krick
    I have some code that processes fixed length data records. I've defined the record structures using java enums. I've boiled it down the the simplest example possible to illustrate the hoops that I currently have to jump through to get access to a static variable inside the enum. Is there a better way to get at this variable that I'm overlooking? If you compile and run the code, it just prints out "3". Note: the "code" tag doesn't seem to want to format this properly, but it should compile. class EnumTest { private interface RecordLayout { public int length(); } private enum RecordType1 implements RecordLayout { FIELD1 (2), FIELD2 (1), ; private int length; private RecordType1(int length) { this.length = length; } public int length() { return length; } public static int LEN = 3; } private static <E extends Enum<E> & RecordLayout> String parse(String data, Class<E> record) { // ugly hack to get at LEN... try { int len = record.getField("LEN").getInt(record); System.out.println(len); } catch (Exception e) { System.out.println(e); } String results = ""; for (E field: record.getEnumConstants()) { // do some stuff with the fields } return results; } public static void main(String args[]) { parse("ABC", RecordType1.class); } }

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  • Creating a function within a loop (pointers?)

    - by user352151
    Im trying to create a simple loop that creates 50 buttons, adds them to screen and then when a button is pressed, it traces out that number. I can get it to work by doing stuff I consider hacky (such as using the buttons X/Y location to determine its value), but I'd rather just be able to hold a single value in the function. The code itself is: for (var a:int = 0; a < 5; a++) { for (var b:int = 0; b < 10; b++) { var n = (a * 10) + b + 1; var btt:SimpleButton = new BasicGameButton(); btt.x = 20 + b * 50; btt.y = 50 + a * 80; addChild(btt); btt.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, function f() { trace(n); } ); } } At the moment, whenever a button is pressed, it simply outputs "50". Is there a way of "freezing" the value of n when the function is created, for that function? (BasicGameButton is just a square button, created in the flash library) Many thanks.

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  • way to change value of h2 on div hover

    - by user3624298
    So basically making some concept logic for a project I am working on. Basically it's a portfolio and each box will be a picture and I want to be able to change the value of a h2 to some type of description. Right now it's just a black box so 'square1, square2, square3...etc' will work for now. I looked up some stuff on jquery and found this link from an SO answer. Basically what I need but he is only shifting through one piece of information instead of many in my case. Wondering how I can achieve that via jquery. I imagine I would need to make an array with all the descriptions I need, and (this is where I am lost) somehow attach the value of array to the square and then from there change text of h2 to the array value. Thanks for any help in advance here's what I have so far (not much just did some foundation work). Not sure if this matters but if there is no hover I want the h2 to say nothing. HTML (makes me post code if I have jsfiddle) <div class="squares"> <div class="square1"></div> <div class="square2"></div> <div class="square3"></div> <div class="square4"></div> <div class="square5"></div> <h2 class="squareIdent"> </h2> </div>

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  • SQL SERVER – Disable Clustered Index and Data Insert

    - by pinaldave
    Earlier today I received following email. “Dear Pinal, [Removed unrelated content] We looked at your script and found out that in your script of disabling indexes, you have only included non-clustered index during the bulk insert and missed to disabled all the clustered index. Our DBA[name removed] has changed your script a bit and included all the clustered indexes. Since our application is not working. When DBA [name removed] tried to enable clustered indexes again he is facing error incorrect syntax error. We are in deep problem [word replaced] [Removed Identity of organization and few unrelated stuff ]“ I have replied to my client and helped them fixed the problem. What really came to my attention is the concept of disabling clustered index. Let us try to learn a lesson from this experience. In this case, there was no need to disable clustered index at all. I had done necessary work when I was called in to work on tuning project. I had removed unused indexes, created few optimal indexes and wrote a script to disable few selected high cost indexes when bulk insert (and similar) operations are performed. There was another script which rebuild all the indexes as well. The solution worked till they included clustered index in disabling the script. Clustered indexes are in fact original table (or heap) physically ordered (any more things – not scope of this article) according to one or more keys(columns). When clustered index is disabled data rows of the disabled clustered index cannot be accessed. This means there will be no insert possible. When non clustered indexes are disabled all the data related to physically deleted but the definition of the index is kept in the system. Due to the same reason even reorganization of the index is not possible till the clustered index (which was disabled) is rebuild. Now let us come to the second part of the question, regarding receiving the error when clustered index is ‘enabled’. This is very common question I receive on the blog. (The following statement is written keeping the syntax of T-SQL in mind) Clustered indexes can be disabled but can not be enabled, they have to rebuild. It is intuitive to think that something which we have ‘disabled’ can be ‘enabled’ but the syntax for the same is ‘rebuild’. This issue has been explained here: SQL SERVER – How to Enable Index – How to Disable Index – Incorrect syntax near ‘ENABLE’. Let us go over this example where inserting the data is not possible when clustered index is disabled. USE AdventureWorks GO -- Create Table CREATE TABLE [dbo].[TableName]( [ID] [int] NOT NULL, [FirstCol] [varchar](50) NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK_TableName] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ([ID] ASC) ) GO -- Create Nonclustered Index CREATE UNIQUE NONCLUSTERED INDEX [IX_NonClustered_TableName] ON [dbo].[TableName] ([FirstCol] ASC) GO -- Populate Table INSERT INTO [dbo].[TableName] SELECT 1, 'First' UNION ALL SELECT 2, 'Second' UNION ALL SELECT 3, 'Third' GO -- Disable Nonclustered Index ALTER INDEX [IX_NonClustered_TableName] ON [dbo].[TableName] DISABLE GO -- Insert Data should work fine INSERT INTO [dbo].[TableName] SELECT 4, 'Fourth' UNION ALL SELECT 5, 'Fifth' GO -- Disable Clustered Index ALTER INDEX [PK_TableName] ON [dbo].[TableName] DISABLE GO -- Insert Data will fail INSERT INTO [dbo].[TableName] SELECT 6, 'Sixth' UNION ALL SELECT 7, 'Seventh' GO /* Error: Msg 8655, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 The query processor is unable to produce a plan because the index 'PK_TableName' on table or view 'TableName' is disabled. */ -- Reorganizing Index will also throw an error ALTER INDEX [PK_TableName] ON [dbo].[TableName] REORGANIZE GO /* Error: Msg 1973, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 Cannot perform the specified operation on disabled index 'PK_TableName' on table 'dbo.TableName'. */ -- Rebuliding should work fine ALTER INDEX [PK_TableName] ON [dbo].[TableName] REBUILD GO -- Insert Data should work fine INSERT INTO [dbo].[TableName] SELECT 6, 'Sixth' UNION ALL SELECT 7, 'Seventh' GO -- Clean Up DROP TABLE [dbo].[TableName] GO I hope this example is clear enough. There were few additional posts I had written years ago, I am listing them here. SQL SERVER – Enable and Disable Index Non Clustered Indexes Using T-SQL SQL SERVER – Enabling Clustered and Non-Clustered Indexes – Interesting Fact Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Constraint and Keys, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQLAuthority News – SQL Server Technology Evangelists and Evangelism

    - by pinaldave
    This is the exact conversation that I had with three people during the recent SQL Server Public Training. Person 1: “Are you an SQL Server Evangelist?” Pinal : “No, but Vinod Kumar is.” Person 1: “Who are you?” Person 2: “He is Pinal, haha!” Person 1: “I know that, but don’t you evangelize SQL Server Technology?” Pinal : “Hmm… I do that…” Person 1: “In that case, why don’t you call yourself an Evangelist?” Pinal : “…! …” Person 2: “Good Question! Who are you Pinal?” Pinal : “I think you are asking my title, is that correct?” Person 1: “Maybe.” Pinal : “I am a Mentor, and I work for Solid Quality Mentors.” Person 2: “I have seen you listing yourself as the Founder of SQLAuthority.com… so…” Pinal : “Yeah that’s true.” Person 3: “Let me summarize what these people are asking. What they are asking is that you can have multiple titles, so is being an evangelist one of your titles or not?” Pinal : “Well, I am an SQL Server MVP and lots of people say that we are also evangelists of technology. In fact,  we are all evangelists of technology, aren’t we?” Person 1: “So let me come back to my original topic: If you are an SQL Server Evangelist, then what is this evangelism?” Person 2: “And who is Vinod Kumar – I have heard about him a lot.” Pinal : “Oh okay. Now I got it. Let me explain …” The answer was quite long but since this conversation, I have been thinking about the words “evangelist” and “evangelism.” I think being an evangelist is one of the most respected jobs in the world and to do this job one must bear lots of responsibilities. There were two questions asked to me, so let me answer both one by one. Who is Vinod Kumar? Vinod Kumar is a Technology Evangelist for Microsoft and one of the most respected persons in the SQL Server Community in India. Let me copy-paste my note from the previous TechEd India 2010 article. “I attended 2 sessions of Vinod Kumar. Vinod is a natural storyteller so there was no doubt that his sessions would be jam-packed. People attended his sessions simply because Vinod was the best speaker in the event. He did not have a single time that disappointed audience; he is truly a good speaker. He knows his stuff very well. I personally do not think that in India he can be compared to anyone for SQL.” Pinal Dave and Vinod Kumar What is Technology Evangelism? Here I am listing three posts written by Vinod Kumar, wherein he talks about Technology Evangelism and Technology Evangelist in an in-depth manner. They are highly-regarded articles in the Community. Evangelism beyond boundaries with an Evangelists !!! Technology Evangelism Demystified New face of Online Technology Evangelism I strongly recommend reading them all. These are wonderful blog posts. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, MVP, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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  • How To Disable Control Panel in Windows 7

    - by Mysticgeek
    If you have a shared computer that your family and friends can access, you might not want them to mess around in the Control Panel, and luckily with a simple tweak you can disable it. Disable Control Panel with Group Policy Note: This process uses Local Group Policy Editor which is not available in Home versions of Windows 7. Skip down below for the registry hack version that works on Home editions as well. First type gpedit.msc into the Search box in the Start menu and hit Enter. When Local Group Policy Editor opens, navigate to User Configuration \ Administrative Templates then select Control Panel in the left Column. In the right column double-click on Prohibit access to the Control Panel. In the next window, select Enable, click OK, then close out of Local Group Policy Editor. After the Control Panel is disabled, you’ll notice it’s no longer listed in the Start Menu. If the user tries to type Control Panel into the Search box in the Start menu, they will get the following message indicating it’s restricted. Disable Control Panel with a Registry Tweak You can also tweak the Registry to disable Control Panel. This will work with all versions of Windows 7, Vista, and XP. Making changes in the Registry is not recommended for beginners and you should create a Restore Point, or backup the Registry before making any changes. Type regedit into the Search box in the Start menu and hit Enter. In Registry Editor navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer. Then right-click in the right pane and create a new DWORD (32-bit) Value. Name the value NoControlPanel. Then right-click on the new Value and click Modify…   In the Value data field change the value to “1” then click OK. Close out of Registry Editor and restart the machine to complete the process. When you get back from reboot, you’ll notice Control Panel is no longer listed in the Start menu. If a user tries to access it by typing Control Panel into the Search box in the Start menu… They will get the following message indicating it is restricted, just like if you were to disable it via Group Policy. If you want to re-enable the Control Panel, go back into the Registry and change the NoControlPanel value back to “0” then reboot the computer. This comes in handy if you have inexperienced users working on your machine and don’t want them messing with Control Panel settings. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Disable User Account Control (UAC) the Easy Way on Win 7 or VistaStill Useful in Vista: Startup Control PanelRestore Missing Items in Windows Vista Control PanelHow To Manage Action Center in Windows 7New Vista Syntax for Opening Control Panel Items from the Command-line 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 DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Home Networks – How do they look like & the problems they cause Check Your IMAP Mail Offline In Thunderbird Follow Finder Finds You Twitter Users To Follow Combine MP3 Files Easily QuicklyCode Provides Cheatsheets & Other Programming Stuff Download Free MP3s from Amazon

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  • Windows Phone 7 Prototype 001: Speech Recognition on WP7

    At some point in the future it will be awesome when you can just tell your computer what to do and it does it - without typing to help those of us with a blistering 11 WPM hunk and peck technique. Siri, a mobile digital assistant using speech recognition was voted best tech at SXSW. I dont know about that one. Although, I'm sure it will get better when Apple rebuilds it and  bundles on iPhone 5. So how would you do that on WP7? There have been some videos floating around showing Bing with some voice control so obviously the phone has speech recognition. So what options are there: System.Speech? Not included in WP7/SL Nuance software like Siri? No WP7/SL version yet. Invoking the SAPI dlls on the phone? No automation factory in WP7 SL. Web services using System.Speech and mic on the phone? YES! The last one was my least favorite but that works for now. I built a quick sample app to show how to do text-to-speech and speech recognition on WP7.   @eklimczak will not be happy with the developer designed UI. In this sample there is web service with provides access to the system.speech APIs in .NET. Basically its just passing around byte arrays. On the phone its using the XNA audio frameworks to play the text-to-speech stream and to record using the microphone. The code is pretty simple and you can download from the link at the end of this post. The only things to note are adjusting the WCF config to handle larger byte uploads and the Microphone API is a little weird with that 1 second buffer. It would be nice if you could just to mic.start and mic.end which would return an array of bytes instead of managing your own stream inside the buffer ready callback. Couple of downsides to this approach: Recoding from the phone has some static. Could be my code or the my mic is bad / not calibrated right. Having to make web service calls instead of local access is not ideal (Microsoft, please add an API for the SAPI dlls) Although in the context of an app like Siri its not so bad since you need to do web service lookups to get data back Speech recognition quality really depends on either a) a limited grammar set like that pizza grammar in the sample or b) training the recognizer. For the latter it would be annoying to have users train the system. Using the System.Speech stuff youd have to have a profile for each user. So until Microsoft adds some speech client APIs on the phone or Nuance releases a wp7 product, this is a decent workaround. In the future Id like to build something similar to Siri. I shall call it Iris in homage. Im a big fan of mobile speech apps because frankly its just not safe to Google while driving. Since some of my designer co-workers have been posting UI sketches for WP7, Id like to start posting some code prototypes for things I try out on the phone. That will probably last 2 weeks, but for the moment I have like 10 posts in the queue. Sample Code 100% guaranteed to work on my emulatorDid you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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  • Screen Scraping Twitter

    - by BRADINO
    I got an email today asking for help to scrape Twitter. In particular, to be able to login. So I am going to show everyone, NOT to encourage anyone to violate Twitters terms of use but as an educational blog post about how PHP and cURL can be used to post variables and store cookies. Again, I am using the cScrape class I wrote, which you can download. Step 1 First go to twitter.com and look at the source code of the login to get the form field names and the form post location. You will see that the form posts to https://twitter.com/session and the username and password fields are session[username_or_email] and session[password] respectively. Step 2 Now you are ready to login. So using the fetch function in the Scrape class you create an associative array to contain the form values you want to post. The other thing you will need to do is uncomment the lines for CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE and CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR. Cookies will be required to stay logged in and scrape around. The paths to the cookie files need to be writable by your app. Also you will need to uncomment the line about CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION. $data = array('session[username_or_email]' => "bradino", 'session[password]' => "secret"); $scrape->fetch('https://twitter.com/sessions',$data); Step 1.5 Oops that didn't work. All I got back was 403 Forbidden: The server understood the request, but is refusing to fulfill it. Ahhh I see another variable called authenticity_token I bet Twitter was looking for that. So let's back up and first hit twitter.com to get the authenticity_token variable, and then make the login post request with that variable included in our array of parameters. $scrape->fetch('https://twitter.com'); $data = array('session[username_or_email]' => "bradino", 'session[password]' => "secret"); $data['authenticity_token'] = $scrape->fetchBetween('name="authenticity_token" type="hidden" value="','"',$scrape->result); $scrape->fetch('https://twitter.com/sessions',$data); echo $scrape->result; So that's basically it. Now you are logged in and can scrape around and request other pages as you normally would. Sorry it wasn't a longer post. I really do enjoy this kind of stuff so if anyone has a request, hit me up. Errors? 1) Make sure that you are properly parsing the token variable 2) Make sure that you uncommented the lines about CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE and CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, those options need to be enabled and be sure the path set is writable by your application 3) Make sure that the path to the cookie file is writable and that it is getting data written to it 4) If you get a message about being redirected you need to uncomment the line about CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, that option needs to be enabled true

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  • Microsoft silverlight 5.0 features for developers

    - by Jalpesh P. Vadgama
    Recently on Silverlight 5.0 firestarter event ScottGu has announced road map for Silverlight 5.0. There will be lots of features that will be there in silverlight 5.0 but here are few glimpses of Silverlight 5.0 Features. Improved Data binding support and Better support for MVVM: One of the greatest strength of Silverlight is its data binding. Microsoft is going to enhanced data binding by providing more ability to debug it. Developer will able to debug the binding expression and other stuff in Siverlight 5.0. Its also going to provide Ancestor Relative source binding which will allow property to bind with container control. MVVM pattern support will also be enhanced. Performance and Speed Enhancement: Now silverlight 5.0 will have support for 64bit browser support. So now you can use that silverlight application on 64 bit platform also. There is no need to take extra care for it.It will also have faster startup time and greater support for hardware acceleration. It will also provide end to end support for hard acceleration features of IE 9. More support for Out Of Browser Application: With Siverlight 4.0 Microsoft has announced new features called out of browser application and it has amazed lots of developer because now possibilities are unlimited with it. Now in silverlight 5.0 Out Of Browser application will have ability to Create Manage child windows just like windows forms or WPF Application. So you can fill power of desktop application with your out of browser application. Testing Support with Visual Studio 2010: Microsoft is going to add automated UI Testing support with Visual Studio 2010 with silverlight 5.0. So now we can test UI of Silverlight much faster. Better Support for RIA Services: RIA Services allows us to create N-tier application with silverlight via creating proxy classes on client and server both side. Now it will more features like complex type support, Custom type support for MVVM(Model View View Model) pattern. WCF Enhancements: There are lots of enhancement with WCF but key enhancement will WSTrust support. Text and Printing Support: Silverlight 5.0 will support vector base graphics. It will also support multicolumn text flow and linked text containers. It will full open type support,Postscript vector enhancement. Improved Power Enhancement: This will prevent screensaver from activating while you are watching videos on silverlight. Silverlight 5.0 is going add that smartness so it can determine while you are going to watch video and while you are not going watch videos. Better support for graphics: Silverlight 5.0 will provide in-depth support for 3D API. Now 3D rendering support is more enhancement in silverlight and 3D graphics can be rendered easily. You can find more details on following links and also don’t forgot to view silverlight firestarter keynot video of scottgu. http://www.silverlight.net/news/events/firestarter-labs/ http://blogs.msdn.com/b/katriend/archive/2010/12/06/silverlight-5-features-firestarter-keynote-and-sessions-resources.aspx http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/12/02/announcing-silverlight-5.aspx http://www.silverlight.net/news/events/firestarter/ http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/future/ Hope this will help you. Stay tuned!!!.

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  • Required Skill Sets Of A Software Architect

    The question has been asked as to what is the required skill sets of a software architect. The answer to this is that it truly depends. When I state that it depend, it depends on the organization, industry, and skill sets available on the open market and internally within a company. With open ended skill sets even Napoleon Dynamite could be an architect. Napoleon Dynamite’s Skills Pedro: Have you asked anybody yet? Napoleon Dynamite: No, but who would? I don't even have any good skills. Pedro: What do you mean? Napoleon Dynamite: You know, like nunchuck skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills... Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills. Pedro: Aren't you pretty good at drawing, like animals and warriors and stuff? This example might be a little off base but it does illustrate a point. What are the real required skills of a software architect? In my opinion, an architect needs to demonstrate the knowledge of the following three main skill set categories so that they are successful. General Skill Sets of an Architect Basic Engineering Skills Organizational  Skills Interpersonal Skills Basic Engineering Skills are a very large part of what a software architect deal with on a daily bases when designing or updating systems. Think about it, how good would a lead mechanic be if they did not know how to fix or repair cars? They would not be, and that is my point that architects need to have at least some basic skills regarding engineering. The skills listed below are generic in nature because they change from job to job, so in this discussion I am trying to focus more on generalities so that anyone can apply this information to their individual situation. Common Basic Engineering Skills Data Modeling Code Creation Configuration Testing Deployment/Publishing System and Environment Knowledge Organizational Skills If an Architect works for or with an origination then they will need strong organization skills to survive. An architect is no use to a project if the project is missed managed. Additionally, budgets and timelines can really affect a company and their products when established deadlines are repeated not meet. By not meeting these timelines a company is forced to cancel the project and waste all the money and time spent or spend more money until it is completed, if it is ever completed. Common Organizational Skills Project Management Estimation (Cost and Time) Creation and Maintenance of Accepted Standards Interpersonal Skills For me personally Interpersonal skill ranks above the other types of skill sets because an architect can quickly pick up the other two skill sets by communicating with other team/project members so that they are quickly up to speed on a project. Additionally, in order for an architect to manage a project or even derive rough estimates they will more than likely have to consult with others actually working on the code (Programmers/Software Engineers) to get there estimates since they will be the ones actually working on the changes to be implemented. Common Interpersonal Skills Good Communicator Focus on projects success over personal Honors roles within a team Reference: Taylor, R. N., Medvidovic, N., & Dashofy, E. M. (2009). Software architecture: Foundations, theory, and practice Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons

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  • Windows Presentation Foundation 4.5 Cookbook Review

    - by Ricardo Peres
    As promised, here’s my review of Windows Presentation Foundation 4.5 Cookbook, that Packt Publishing kindly made available to me. It is an introductory book, targeted at WPF newcomers or users with few experience, following the typical recipes or cookbook style. Like all Packt Publishing books on development, each recipe comes with sample code that is self-sufficient for understanding the concepts it tries to illustrate. It starts on chapter 1 by introducing the most important concepts, the XAML language itself, what can be declared in XAML and how to do it, what are dependency and attached properties as well as markup extensions and events, which should give readers a most required introduction to how WPF works and how to do basic stuff. It moves on to resources on chapter 2, which also makes since, since it’s such an important concept in WPF. Next, chapter 3, come the panels used for laying controls on the screen, all of the out of the box panels are described with typical use cases. Controls come next in chapter 4; the difference between elements and controls is introduced, as well as content controls, headered controls and items controls, and all standard controls are introduced. The book shows how to change the way they look by using templates. The next chapter, 5, talks about top level windows and the WPF application object: how to access startup arguments, how to set the main window, using standard dialogs and there’s even a sample on how to have a irregularly-shaped window. This is one of the most important concepts in WPF: data binding, which is the theme for the following chapter, 6. All common scenarios are introduced, the binding modes, directions, triggers, etc. It talks about the INotifyPropertyChanged interface and how to use it for notifying data binding subscribers of changes in data sources. Data templates and selectors are also covered, as are value converters and data triggers. Examples include master-detail and sorting, grouping and filtering collections and binding trees and grids. Last it covers validation rules and error templates. Chapter 7 talks about the current trend in WPF development, the Model View View-Model (MVVM) framework. This is a well known pattern for connecting things interface to actions, and it is explained competently. A typical implementation is presented which also presents the command pattern used throughout WPF. A complete application using MVVM is presented from start to finish, including typical features such as undo. Style and layout is covered on chapter 8. Why/how to use styles, applying them automatically,  using the many types of triggers to change styles automatically, using Expression Blend behaviors and templates are all covered. Next chapter, 9, is about graphics and animations programming. It explains how to create shapes, transform common UI elements, apply special effects and perform simple animations. The following chapter, 10, is about creating custom controls, either by deriving from UserControl or from an existing control or framework element class, applying custom templates for changing the way the control looks. One useful example is a custom layout panel that arranges its children along a circumference. The final chapter, 11, is about multi-threading programming and how one can integrate it with WPF. Includes how to invoke methods and properties on WPF classes from threads other than the main UI, using background tasks and timers and even using the new C# 5.0 asynchronous operations. It’s an interesting book, like I said, mostly for newcomers. It provides a competent introduction to WPF, with examples that cover the most common scenarios and also give directions to more complex ones. I recommend it to everyone wishing to learn WPF.

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  • JustMock and Moles – A short overview for TDD alpha geeks

    - by RoyOsherove
    People have been lurking near my house, asking me to write something about Moles and JustMock, so I’ll try to be as objective as possible, taking in the fact that I work at Typemock. If I were NOT working at Typemock I’d write: JustMock JustMock tries to be Typemock at so many levels it’s not even funny. Technically they work the same and the API almost looks like it’s a search and replace work based on the Isolator API (awesome compliment!), but JustMock still has too many growing pains and bugs to be usable. Also, JustMock is missing alot of the legacy abilities such as Non public faking, faking all types and various other things that are really needed in real legacy code. Biggest thing (in terms of isolation integration) is that it does not integrate with other profilers such as coverage, NCover etc.) When JustMock comes out of beta, I feel that it should cost about half as Isolator costs, as it currently provides about half the abilities. Moles Moles is an addon of Pex and was originally only intended to work within the Pex environment. It started as a research project and now it’s a power-tool for VS (so it’s a separate install) Now it’s it’s own little stubbing framework. It’s not really an Isolation framework in the classic sense, because it does not provide any kind of API built in to verify object interactions. You have to use manual flags all on your own to do that. It generates two types of classes per assembly: Manual Stubs(just like you’d hand code them) and Mole classes. Each Mole class is a special API to change and break the behavior that the corresponding type. so MDateTime is how you change behavior for DateTime. In that sense the API is al over the place, and it can become highly unreadable and unmentionable over time in your test. Also, the Moles API isn’t really designed to deal with real Legacy code. It only deals with public types and methods. anything internal or private is ignored and you can’t change its behavior. You also can’t control static constructors. That takes about 95% of legacy scenarios out of the picture if that’s what you’re trying to use it for. Personally, I found it hard to get used to the idea of two parallel APIs for different abilities, and when to choose which. and I know this stuff. I would expect more usability from the API to make it more widely used. I don’t think that Moles in planning to go that route. Publishing it as an Isolation framework is really an afterthought of a tool that was design with a specific task in mind, and generic Isolation isn’t it. it’s only hope is DEQ – a simple code example that shows a simple Isolation API built on the Moles generic engine. Moles can and should be used for very simple cases of detouring functionality such a simple static methods or interfaces and virtual functions (like rhinomock and MOQ do).   Oh, Wait. Ah, good thing I work at Typemock. I won’t write all that. I’ll just write: JustMock and Moles are great tools that enlarge the market space for isolation related technologies, and they prove that the idea of productivity and unit testing can go hand in hand and get people hooked. I look forward to compete with them at this growing market.

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  • FluentPath: a fluent wrapper around System.IO

    - by Bertrand Le Roy
    .NET is now more than eight years old, and some of its APIs got old with more grace than others. System.IO in particular has always been a little awkward. It’s mostly static method calls (Path.*, Directory.*, etc.) and some stateful classes (DirectoryInfo, FileInfo). In these APIs, paths are plain strings. Since .NET v1, lots of good things happened to C#: lambda expressions, extension methods, optional parameters to name just a few. Outside of .NET, other interesting things happened as well. For example, you might have heard about this JavaScript library that had some success introducing a fluent API to handle the hierarchical structure of the HTML DOM. You know? jQuery. Knowing all that, every time I need to use the stuff in System.IO, I cringe. So I thought I’d just build a more modern wrapper around it. I used a fluent API based on an essentially immutable Path type and an enumeration of such path objects. To achieve the fluent style, a healthy dose of lambda expressions is being used to act on the objects. Without further ado, here’s an example of what you can do with the new API. In that example, I’m using a Media Center extension that wants all video files to be in their own folder. For that, I need a small tool that creates directories for each video file and moves the files in there. Here’s the code for it: Path.Get(args[0]) .Select(p => p.Extension == ".avi" || p.Extension == ".m4v" || p.Extension == ".wmv" || p.Extension == ".mp4" || p.Extension == ".dvr-ms" || p.Extension == ".mpg" || p.Extension == ".mkv") .CreateDirectory(p => p.Parent .Combine(p.FileNameWithoutExtension)) .Previous() .Move(p => p.Parent .Combine(p.FileNameWithoutExtension) .Combine(p.FileName)); This code creates a Path object pointing at the path pointed to by the first command line argument of my executable. It then selects all video files. After that, it creates directories that have the same names as each of the files, but without their extension. The result of that operation is the set of created directories. We can now get back to the previous set using the Previous method, and finally we can move each of the files in the set to the corresponding freshly created directory, whose name is the combination of the parent directory and the filename without extension. The new fluent path library covers a fair part of what’s in System.IO in a single, convenient API. Check it out, I hope you’ll enjoy it. Suggestions are more than welcome. For example, should I make this its own project on CodePlex or is this informal style just OK? Anything missing that you’d like to see? Is there a specific example you’d like to see expressed with the new API? Bugs? The code can be downloaded from here (this is under a new BSD license): http://weblogs.asp.net/blogs/bleroy/Samples/FluentPath.zip

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  • Take,Skip and Reverse Operator in Linq

    - by Jalpesh P. Vadgama
    I have found three more new operators in Linq which is use full in day to day programming stuff. Take,Skip and Reverse. Here are explanation of operators how it works. Take Operator: Take operator will return first N number of element from entities. Skip Operator: Skip operator will skip N number of element from entities and then return remaining elements as a result. Reverse Operator: As name suggest it will reverse order of elements of entities. Here is the examples of operators where i have taken simple string array to demonstrate that. C#, using GeSHi 1.0.8.6 using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text;     namespace ConsoleApplication1 {     class Program     {         static void Main(string[] args)         {             string[] a = { "a", "b", "c", "d" };                           Console.WriteLine("Take Example");             var TkResult = a.Take(2);             foreach (string s in TkResult)             {                 Console.WriteLine(s);             }               Console.WriteLine("Skip Example");             var SkResult = a.Skip(2);             foreach (string s in SkResult)             {                 Console.WriteLine(s);             }               Console.WriteLine("Reverse Example");             var RvResult = a.Reverse();             foreach (string s in RvResult)             {                 Console.WriteLine(s);             }                       }     } } Parsed in 0.020 seconds at 44.65 KB/s Here is the output as expected. hope this will help you.. Technorati Tags: Linq,Linq-To-Sql,ASP.NET,C#.NET

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  • SQL SERVER – Vacation, Travel and Study – A New Concept

    - by pinaldave
    Quite often when developers go to training sessions they either find it very boring because of study or great because they treat it as a vacation. There should be a perfect balance between study and extra activities. Studying is Boring Studying is very hard. Nobody likes to study, very few people are going to list “studying” as one of their favorite hobbies.  Already my young daughter knows she doesn’t want to study, and I don’t want to either.  If you read my blog regularly you know that I am always saying that we need to be students for life.  However, all philosophy aside, if you are put in a room with an instructor to study for eight hours a day, you are going to feel bored, uncomfortable, and unhappy.  I was a trainer myself, and I understand that all-day study sessions are no fun – even for the trainer.  I always tried to be entertaining, but even eight hours of jokes and laughter is tiresome.  Eight hours at a comedy club would be boring after a little while – and if we can’t even enjoy fun stuff for eight hours straight, how can we expect to study for eight hours straight? Studying for Career or Certification Even those who have advanced degrees and went to college for years, or even decades, find studying hard.  There is a difference between studying for a career and studying for a certification.  At least to get a degree there is a variety of subjects, with labs, exams, and practice problems to make things more interesting.  You can also choose your major and what you want to spend your time studying.  For certification you do not have this luxury.  You have to learn and memorize specific parts, and there is no option to change your major if you don’t like it.  Your option is to gain your certification, or fail.  Many people will find that last option unacceptable. Studying at Vacation We have established: eight hours of uninterrupted study is boring.  That is why I am so excited about what my very good friend is doing with Koenig Solutions.  His whole goal was to make classes that are intensive but not in a traditional format.  He adds in aspects of the vacation.  It is true that you will study and sit with instructors for six or eight hours a day, but in the mornings and evenings you can go out and see the sights in exotic locations.  He has chosen the locations for his training courses for their proximity to tourist attractions like the Himalayas, the Taj Mahal, and Goa, India’s most popular resort town.  Every location has access to great experiences like river rafting, safari tours, or meditation.  There are five locations to choose from: Dehli, Dehradun, Shimla (close to the Himalayas), Goa Beach, and Dubai.  After a day of classes and hours of sight-seeing, you will be more than ready to return to campus tired and ready to study.  This is the kind of study I can do! My friend’s point is that studying and fun can still go hand-in-hand.  How many times have we heard a professor say this?  But this time it is true.  There is great fun in learning in exotic locations.  If you want to travel in India and are interested in also taking the opportunity to learn something, let Koenig Solutions know. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • OWB 11gR2 &ndash; OLAP and Simba

    - by David Allan
    Oracle Warehouse Builder was the first ETL product to provide a single integrated and complete environment for managing enterprise data warehouse solutions that also incorporate multi-dimensional schemas. The OWB 11gR2 release provides Oracle OLAP 11g deployment for multi-dimensional models (in addition to support for prior releases of OLAP). This means users can easily utilize Simba's MDX Provider for Oracle OLAP (see here for details and cost) which allows you to use the powerful and popular ad hoc query and analysis capabilities of Microsoft Excel PivotTables® and PivotCharts® with your Oracle OLAP business intelligence data. The extensions to the dimensional modeling capabilities have been built on established relational concepts, with the option to seamlessly move from a relational deployment model to a multi-dimensional model at the click of a button. This now means that ETL designers can logically model a complete data warehouse solution using one single tool and control the physical implementation of a logical model at deployment time. As a result data warehouse projects that need to provide a multi-dimensional model as part of the overall solution can be designed and implemented faster and more efficiently. Wizards for dimensions and cubes let you quickly build dimensional models and realize either relationally or as an Oracle database OLAP implementation, both 10g and 11g formats are supported based on a configuration option. The wizard provides a good first cut definition and the objects can be further refined in the editor. Both wizards let you choose the implementation, to deploy to OLAP in the database select MOLAP: multidimensional storage. You will then be asked what levels and attributes are to be defined, by default the wizard creates a level bases hierarchy, parent child hierarchies can be defined in the editor. Once the dimension or cube has been designed there are special mapping operators that make it easy to load data into the objects, below we load a constant value for the total level and the other levels from a source table.   Again when the cube is defined using the wizard we can edit the cube and define a number of analytic calculations by using the 'generate calculated measures' option on the measures panel. This lets you very easily add a lot of rich analytic measures to your cube. For example one of the measures is the percentage difference from a year ago which we can see in detail below. You can also add your own custom calculations to leverage the capabilities of the Oracle OLAP option, either by selecting existing template types such as moving averages to defining true custom expressions. The 11g OLAP option now supports percentage based summarization (the amount of data to precompute and store), this is available from the option 'cost based aggregation' in the cube's configuration. Ensure all measure-dimensions level based aggregation is switched off (on the cube-dimension panel) - previously level based aggregation was the only option. The 11g generated code now uses the new unified API as you see below, to generate the code, OWB needs a valid connection to a real schema, this was not needed before 11gR2 and is a new requirement since the OLAP API which OWB uses is not an offline one. Once all of the objects are deployed and the maps executed then we get to the fun stuff! How can we analyze the data? One option which is powerful and at many users' fingertips is using Microsoft Excel PivotTables® and PivotCharts®, which can be used with your Oracle OLAP business intelligence data by utilizing Simba's MDX Provider for Oracle OLAP (see Simba site for details of cost). I'll leave the exotic reporting illustrations to the experts (see Bud's demonstration here), but with Simba's MDX Provider for Oracle OLAP its very simple to easily access the analytics stored in the database (all built and loaded via the OWB 11gR2 release) and get the regular features of Excel at your fingertips such as using the conditional formatting features for example. That's a very quick run through of the OWB 11gR2 with respect to Oracle 11g OLAP integration and the reporting using Simba's MDX Provider for Oracle OLAP. Not a deep-dive in any way but a quick overview to illustrate the design capabilities and integrations possible.

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  • Extracting the Date from a DateTime in Entity Framework 4 and LINQ

    - by Ken Cox [MVP]
    In my current ASP.NET 4 project, I’m displaying dates in a GridDateTimeColumn of Telerik’s ASP.NET Radgrid control. I don’t care about the time stuff, so my DataFormatString shows only the date bits: <telerik:GridDateTimeColumn FilterControlWidth="100px"   DataField="DateCreated" HeaderText="Created"    SortExpression="DateCreated" ReadOnly="True"    UniqueName="DateCreated" PickerType="DatePicker"    DataFormatString="{0:dd MMM yy}"> My problem was that I couldn’t get the built-in column filtering (it uses Telerik’s DatePicker control) to behave.  The DatePicker assumes that the time is 00:00:00 but the data would have times like 09:22:21. So, when you select a date and apply the EqualTo filter, you get no results. You would get results if all the time portions were 00:00:00. In essence, I wanted my Entity Framework query to give the DatePicker what it wanted… a Date without the Time portion. Fortunately, EF4 provides the TruncateTime  function. After you include Imports System.Data.Objects.EntityFunctions You’ll find that your EF queries will accept the TruncateTime function. Here’s my routine: Protected Sub RadGrid1_NeedDataSource _     (ByVal source As Object, _      ByVal e As Telerik.Web.UI.GridNeedDataSourceEventArgs) _     Handles RadGrid1.NeedDataSource     Dim ent As New OfficeBookDBEntities1     Dim TopBOMs = From t In ent.TopBom, i In ent.Items _                   Where t.BusActivityID = busActivityID _       And i.BusActivityID And t.ItemID = i.RecordID _       Order By t.DateUpdated Descending _       Select New With {.TopBomID = t.TopBomID, .ItemID = t.ItemID, _                        .PartNumber = i.PartNumber, _                        .Description = i.Description, .Notes = t.Notes, _                        .DateCreated = TruncateTime(t.DateCreated), _                        .DateUpdated = TruncateTime(t.DateUpdated)}     RadGrid1.DataSource = TopBOMs End Sub Now when I select March 14, 2011 on the DatePicker, the filter doesn’t stumble on time values that don’t make sense. Full Disclosure: Telerik gives me (and other developer MVPs) free copies of their suite.

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  • Amazon Product Advertising API SOAP Namespace Changes

    - by Rick Strahl
    About two months ago (twowards the end of February 2012 I think) Amazon decided to change the namespace of the Product Advertising API. The error that would come up was: <ItemSearchResponse > was not expected. If you've used the Amazon Product Advertising API you probably know that Amazon has made it a habit to break the services every few years or so and I guess last month was about the time for another one. Basically the service namespace of the document has been changed and responses from the service just failed outright even though the rest of the schema looks fine. Now I looked around for a while trying to find a recent update to the Product Advertising API - something semi-official looking but everything is dated around 2009. Really??? And it's not just .NET - the newest thing on the sample/APIs is dated early 2011 and a handful of 2010 samples. There are newer full APIs for the 'cloud' offerings, but the Product Advertising API apparently isn't part of that. After searching for quite a bit trying to trace this down myself and trying some of the newer samples (which also failed) I found an obscure forum post that describes the solution of getting past the namespace issue. FWIW, I've been using an old version of the Product Advertising API using the old Microsoft WSE3 services (pre-WCF), which provides some of the WS* security features required by the Amazon service. The fix for this code is to explicitly override the namespace declaration on each of the imported service method signatures. The old service namespace (at least on my build) was: http://webservices.amazon.com/AWSECommerceService/2009-03-31 and it should be changed to: http://webservices.amazon.com/AWSECommerceService/2011-08-01 Change it on the class header:[Microsoft.Web.Services3.Messaging.SoapService("http://webservices.amazon.com/AWSECommerceService/2011-08-01")] [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIncludeAttribute(typeof(Property[]))] [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIncludeAttribute(typeof(BrowseNode[]))] [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIncludeAttribute(typeof(TransactionItem[]))] public partial class AWSECommerceService : Microsoft.Web.Services3.Messaging.SoapClient { and on all method signatures:[Microsoft.Web.Services3.Messaging.SoapMethodAttribute("http://soap.amazon.com/ItemSearch")] [return: System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute("ItemSearchResponse", Namespace="http://webservices.amazon.com/AWSECommerceService/2011-08-01")] public ItemSearchResponse ItemSearch(ItemSearch ItemSearch1) { Microsoft.Web.Services3.SoapEnvelope results = base.SendRequestResponse("ItemSearch", ItemSearch1); return ((ItemSearchResponse)(results.GetBodyObject(typeof(ItemSearchResponse), this.SoapServiceAttribute.TargetNamespace))); } It's easy to do with a Search and Replace on the above strings. Amazon Services <rant> FWIW, I've not been impressed by Amazon's service offerings. While the services work well, their documentation and tool support is absolutely horrendous. I was recently working with a customer on an old AWS application and their old API had been completely removed with a new API that wasn't even a close match. One old API call resulted in requiring three different APIs to perform the same functionality. We had to re-write the entire piece from scratch essentially. The documentation was downright wrong, and incomplete and so scattered it was next to impossible to follow. The examples weren't examples at all - they're mockups of real service calls with fake data that didn't even provide everything that was required to make same service calls work. Additionally there appears to be just about no public support from Amazon, only peer support which is sparse at best - and getting a hold of somebody at Amazon, even for pay seems to be mythical task. It's a terrible business model they have going. I can't see why anybody would put themselves through this sort of customer and development experience. Sad really, but an experience we see more and more these days. Nobody puts in the time to document anything anymore, leaving it to devs to figure this stuff out over and over again… </rant>© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in CSharp  Web Services   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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  • NServiceBus Generic Host and mqsvc.exe high CPU

    - by Michael Stephenson
    We have been doing some work with NServiceBus recently and observed some unusual behaviour which was caused by our mistake and seemed worthy of a small post.   The Scenario In our solution we were doing some standard NServiceBus stuff by pushing a message to a queue using NServiceBus.  We had a direct send/receive scenario rather than a publish/subscribe one.   The background process which was meant to collect the message and then process it was a normal NServiceBus message handler.  We would run the NServiceBus.Host.exe which would find the handler and then do the usual NServiceBus magic.   The Problem In this solution we were creating some automated tests around this module of the integration process to ensure that it would work well.  We had two tests.   Test 1 This test would start NServiceBus.Host.exe using the Process object, then seed a message to the queue via our web service façade sitting above the queue which wrapped NServiceBus.  The background process would then process the message and the test would check the message had been processed fine.   If all was well then the NServiceBus.Host.exe process was stopped.   Test 2 In test 2 we would do a very similar thing except that instead of starting the process the test would install NServiceBus.Host.exe as a windows service and then start the service before the test and once the test was executed it would stop the test.   The Results of the Tests Test 1 worked really well, however in test 2 we found that it didn’t really work at all, instead of doing the background process we were finding that between mqsvc.exe and NServiceBus.Host.exe the CPU on the machine was maxed and nothing was really happening.   The Solution After trying a few things we found it was the permissions on the queue were not set correctly.  Once this was resolved it all worked fine and CPU was not excessive and ran just like the console application.   I think the couple of take aways from this are:   Make sure you set the windows service for NserviceBus Generic Host to the right credentials When you install the generic host as a windows service then by default it will use the default windows credentials.  For any production like scenario you should be using a domain account to run the process as via the windows service. Make sure you have the queue set with the right permissions For the credentials you have used to configure the generic host as a windows service you should ensure that this user has the appropriate permissions for any queues it will interact with. Make sure you turn on the right logging configuration in NServiceBus When this wasnt working correctly we didnt know there was an issue, we were just experiencing the high CPU condition.  I am a little surprised that there wasnt something logged and that the process didnt crash.  I guess this could be by design bearing in mind that the process could be monitoring many queues.  In this point Im just saying that originally we didnt have all of the log4net logging which is available from NServiceBus turned on.  Its probably a good idea to have this turned on and configured until you are happy your solution is working fine.   Thanks to Ahmed Hashmi on my team who got this working in the end.

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  • SQL SERVER – Top 10 “Ease of Use” Features of expressor Studio

    - by pinaldave
    expressor Studio is new data integration platform that is being marketed as the most easy to use tool of its kind.  But “easy to use” can be a relative term – an expert can find a very complex system easy, but a beginner might be stumped.  A recent article online discussed exactly what makes expressor Studio so easy use, and here is my view on this subject. Simple Installation There is one pop-up for one .exe file, and nothing more.  You can’t get much simpler than this.  It is also in the familiar Windows design, so there should be no surprises. No 3rd party software dependency Have you ever tried to download software, only to be slowed down by the need to download a compatible system to run the program, and another to read the user manual, and so on?  expressor Studio was designed specifically to avoid this problem. Microsoft Office Like Ribbon Bar and Menus As mentioned before, everything is in the familiar Windows design, from the pop up windows to the tool bars and menus.  There should be no learning curve for using this program, or even simply trying to navigate around a new system. General Development Design Interface This software has been designed to be simple and straightforward.  Projects can be arranged in a simple “tree” design, that is totally collapsible and can easy be added to or “trimmed” with a click of a button.  It was meant to be logical and easy to follow. Integrated Contextual Help This is a fancy way of saying that you can practically yell “help!” if you do get stuck on something.  Solving a problem is as simple as highlighting and hitting F1 for contextual help. Visual Indicators and Messages Wouldn’t it be nice to know exactly where something has gone wrong before trying to complete a project.  expressor Studio has a built in system to catch mistakes and highlight them in a bright color, flash a warning message, and even disable functions before you can continue – and possibly lose hours of work. Property Inputs and Selectors Every operator will have a list of requirements that need to be filled in.  But don’t worry; you won’t have to make stuff up to fill in the boxes.  Each one will have a drop-down menu with options to choose from – but not too many as to be confusing. Connection Wizards Configuring connections can be the hardest part of a project.  But not with the expressor Studioconnection wizard.  A familiar, Windows-style menu will walk you through connections so quickly you’ll forget what trouble it used to be. Templates With large, complex projects, a majority of your time is often spent simply setting up the files and inputting data.  But expressor Studio allows you to create one file and then save it as a template, saving you hours of boring data input. Extension Manager Let’s say that you need a little more functionality or some new features on your program. A lot of software requires you to download complex plug-ins that need to be decompressed and installed.  However, expressor Studio has extended its system to an Extension Manager, which allows for quick and easy installation of the functionality you need, without the need to download and decompress. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Utility, T SQL, Technology

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  • Observations From The Corner of a Starbucks

    - by Chris Williams
    I’ve spent the last 3 days sitting in a Starbucks for 4-8 hours at a time. As a result, I’ve observed a lot of interesting behavior and people (most of whom were uninteresting themselves.) One of the things I’ve noticed is that most people don’t sit down. They come in, get their drink and go. The ones that do sit down, stay much longer than it takes to consume their drink. The drink is just an incidental purchase. Certainly not the reason they are here. Most of the people who sit also have laptops. Probably around 75%. Only a few have kids (with them) but the ones that do, have very small kids. Toddlers or younger. Of all the “campers” only a small percentage are wearing headphone, presumably because A) external noise doesn’t bother them or B) they aren’t working on anything important. My buddy George falls into category A, but he grew up in a house full of people. Silence freaks him out far more than noise. My brother and I, on the other hand, were both only children and don’t handle noisy distractions well. He needs it quiet (like a tomb) and I need music. Go figure… I can listen to Britney Spears mixed with Apoptygma Berzerk and Anthrax and crank out 30 pages, but if your toddler is banging his spoon on the table, you’re getting a dirty look… unless I have music, then all is right with the world. Anyway, enough about me. Most of the people who come in as a group are smiling when they enter. Half as many are smiling when they leave. People who come in alone typically aren’t smiling at all. The average age, over the last three days seems to be early 30s… with a couple of senior citizens and teenagers at either end of the curve. The teenagers almost never stay. They have better stuff to do on a nice day. The senior citizens are split nearly evenly between campers and in&outs. Most of the non-solo campers have 1 person with a laptop, while the other reads the paper or a book. Some campers bring multiple laptops… but only really look at one of them. This Starbucks has a drive through. The line is almost never more than 2-3 cars long but apparently a lot of the in&out people would rather come in and stand in line behind (up to) 5 people. The music in here sucks. My musical tastes can best be described as eclectic to bad, but I can still get work done (see above.) I find the music in this particular Starbucks to be discordant and jarring. At this Starbucks, the coffee lingo is apparently something that is meant to occur between employees only. The nice lady at the counter can handle orders in plain English and translate them to Baristaspeak (Baristese?) quite efficiently. If you order in Baristaspeak however, she will look confused and repeat your order back to you in plain English to confirm you actually meant what you said. Then she will say it in Baristaspeak to the lady making your drink. Nobody in this Starbucks (other than the Baristas) makes eye-contact… at least not with me. Of course that may be indicative of a separate issue. ;)

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  • Silverlight Recruiting Application Part 5 - Jobs Module / View

    Now we starting getting into a more code-heavy portion of this series, thankfully though this means the groundwork is all set for the most part and after adding the modules we will have a complete application that can be provided with full source. The Jobs module will have two concerns- adding and maintaining jobs that can then be broadcast out to the website. How they are displayed on the site will be handled by our admin system (which will just poll from this common database), so we aren't too concerned with that, but rather with getting the information into the system and allowing the backend administration/HR users to keep things up to date. Since there is a fair bit of information that we want to display, we're going to move editing to a separate view so we can get all that information in an easy-to-use spot. With all the files created for this module, the project looks something like this: And now... on to the code. XAML for the Job Posting View All we really need for the Job Posting View is a RadGridView and a few buttons. This will let us both show off records and perform operations on the records without much hassle. That XAML is going to look something like this: 01.<Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" 02.Background="White"> 03.<Grid.RowDefinitions> 04.<RowDefinition Height="30" /> 05.<RowDefinition /> 06.</Grid.RowDefinitions> 07.<StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal"> 08.<Button x:Name="xAddRecordButton" 09.Content="Add Job" 10.Width="120" 11.cal:Click.Command="{Binding AddRecord}" 12.telerik:StyleManager.Theme="Windows7" /> 13.<Button x:Name="xEditRecordButton" 14.Content="Edit Job" 15.Width="120" 16.cal:Click.Command="{Binding EditRecord}" 17.telerik:StyleManager.Theme="Windows7" /> 18.</StackPanel> 19.<telerikGrid:RadGridView x:Name="xJobsGrid" 20.Grid.Row="1" 21.IsReadOnly="True" 22.AutoGenerateColumns="False" 23.ColumnWidth="*" 24.RowDetailsVisibilityMode="VisibleWhenSelected" 25.ItemsSource="{Binding MyJobs}" 26.SelectedItem="{Binding SelectedJob, Mode=TwoWay}" 27.command:SelectedItemChangedEventClass.Command="{Binding SelectedItemChanged}"> 28.<telerikGrid:RadGridView.Columns> 29.<telerikGrid:GridViewDataColumn Header="Job Title" 30.DataMemberBinding="{Binding JobTitle}" 31.UniqueName="JobTitle" /> 32.<telerikGrid:GridViewDataColumn Header="Location" 33.DataMemberBinding="{Binding Location}" 34.UniqueName="Location" /> 35.<telerikGrid:GridViewDataColumn Header="Resume Required" 36.DataMemberBinding="{Binding NeedsResume}" 37.UniqueName="NeedsResume" /> 38.<telerikGrid:GridViewDataColumn Header="CV Required" 39.DataMemberBinding="{Binding NeedsCV}" 40.UniqueName="NeedsCV" /> 41.<telerikGrid:GridViewDataColumn Header="Overview Required" 42.DataMemberBinding="{Binding NeedsOverview}" 43.UniqueName="NeedsOverview" /> 44.<telerikGrid:GridViewDataColumn Header="Active" 45.DataMemberBinding="{Binding IsActive}" 46.UniqueName="IsActive" /> 47.</telerikGrid:RadGridView.Columns> 48.</telerikGrid:RadGridView> 49.</Grid> I'll explain what's happening here by line numbers: Lines 11 and 16: Using the same type of click commands as we saw in the Menu module, we tie the button clicks to delegate commands in the viewmodel. Line 25: The source for the jobs will be a collection in the viewmodel. Line 26: We also bind the selected item to a public property from the viewmodel for use in code. Line 27: We've turned the event into a command so we can handle it via code in the viewmodel. So those first three probably make sense to you as far as Silverlight/WPF binding magic is concerned, but for line 27... This actually comes from something I read onDamien Schenkelman's blog back in the day for creating an attached behavior from any event. So, any time you see me using command:Whatever.Command, the backing for it is actually something like this: SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior.cs: 01.public class SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior : CommandBehaviorBase<Telerik.Windows.Controls.DataControl> 02.{ 03.public SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior(DataControl element) 04.: base(element) 05.{ 06.element.SelectionChanged += new EventHandler<SelectionChangeEventArgs>(element_SelectionChanged); 07.} 08.void element_SelectionChanged(object sender, SelectionChangeEventArgs e) 09.{ 10.// We'll only ever allow single selection, so will only need item index 0 11.base.CommandParameter = e.AddedItems[0]; 12.base.ExecuteCommand(); 13.} 14.} SelectedItemChangedEventClass.cs: 01.public class SelectedItemChangedEventClass 02.{ 03.#region The Command Stuff 04.public static ICommand GetCommand(DependencyObject obj) 05.{ 06.return (ICommand)obj.GetValue(CommandProperty); 07.} 08.public static void SetCommand(DependencyObject obj, ICommand value) 09.{ 10.obj.SetValue(CommandProperty, value); 11.} 12.public static readonly DependencyProperty CommandProperty = 13.DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached("Command", typeof(ICommand), 14.typeof(SelectedItemChangedEventClass), new PropertyMetadata(OnSetCommandCallback)); 15.public static void OnSetCommandCallback(DependencyObject dependencyObject, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e) 16.{ 17.DataControl element = dependencyObject as DataControl; 18.if (element != null) 19.{ 20.SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior behavior = GetOrCreateBehavior(element); 21.behavior.Command = e.NewValue as ICommand; 22.} 23.} 24.#endregion 25.public static SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior GetOrCreateBehavior(DataControl element) 26.{ 27.SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior behavior = element.GetValue(SelectedItemChangedEventBehaviorProperty) as SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior; 28.if (behavior == null) 29.{ 30.behavior = new SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior(element); 31.element.SetValue(SelectedItemChangedEventBehaviorProperty, behavior); 32.} 33.return behavior; 34.} 35.public static SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior GetSelectedItemChangedEventBehavior(DependencyObject obj) 36.{ 37.return (SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior)obj.GetValue(SelectedItemChangedEventBehaviorProperty); 38.} 39.public static void SetSelectedItemChangedEventBehavior(DependencyObject obj, SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior value) 40.{ 41.obj.SetValue(SelectedItemChangedEventBehaviorProperty, value); 42.} 43.public static readonly DependencyProperty SelectedItemChangedEventBehaviorProperty = 44.DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached("SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior", 45.typeof(SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior), typeof(SelectedItemChangedEventClass), null); 46.} These end up looking very similar from command to command, but in a nutshell you create a command based on any event, determine what the parameter for it will be, then execute. It attaches via XAML and ties to a DelegateCommand in the viewmodel, so you get the full event experience (since some controls get a bit event-rich for added functionality). Simple enough, right? Viewmodel for the Job Posting View The Viewmodel is going to need to handle all events going back and forth, maintaining interactions with the data we are using, and both publishing and subscribing to events. Rather than breaking this into tons of little pieces, I'll give you a nice view of the entire viewmodel and then hit up the important points line-by-line: 001.public class JobPostingViewModel : ViewModelBase 002.{ 003.private readonly IEventAggregator eventAggregator; 004.private readonly IRegionManager regionManager; 005.public DelegateCommand<object> AddRecord { get; set; } 006.public DelegateCommand<object> EditRecord { get; set; } 007.public DelegateCommand<object> SelectedItemChanged { get; set; } 008.public RecruitingContext context; 009.private QueryableCollectionView _myJobs; 010.public QueryableCollectionView MyJobs 011.{ 012.get { return _myJobs; } 013.} 014.private QueryableCollectionView _selectionJobActionHistory; 015.public QueryableCollectionView SelectedJobActionHistory 016.{ 017.get { return _selectionJobActionHistory; } 018.} 019.private JobPosting _selectedJob; 020.public JobPosting SelectedJob 021.{ 022.get { return _selectedJob; } 023.set 024.{ 025.if (value != _selectedJob) 026.{ 027._selectedJob = value; 028.NotifyChanged("SelectedJob"); 029.} 030.} 031.} 032.public SubscriptionToken editToken = new SubscriptionToken(); 033.public SubscriptionToken addToken = new SubscriptionToken(); 034.public JobPostingViewModel(IEventAggregator eventAgg, IRegionManager regionmanager) 035.{ 036.// set Unity items 037.this.eventAggregator = eventAgg; 038.this.regionManager = regionmanager; 039.// load our context 040.context = new RecruitingContext(); 041.this._myJobs = new QueryableCollectionView(context.JobPostings); 042.context.Load(context.GetJobPostingsQuery()); 043.// set command events 044.this.AddRecord = new DelegateCommand<object>(this.AddNewRecord); 045.this.EditRecord = new DelegateCommand<object>(this.EditExistingRecord); 046.this.SelectedItemChanged = new DelegateCommand<object>(this.SelectedRecordChanged); 047.SetSubscriptions(); 048.} 049.#region DelegateCommands from View 050.public void AddNewRecord(object obj) 051.{ 052.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddJobEvent>().Publish(true); 053.} 054.public void EditExistingRecord(object obj) 055.{ 056.if (_selectedJob == null) 057.{ 058.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<NotifyUserEvent>().Publish("No job selected."); 059.} 060.else 061.{ 062.this._myJobs.EditItem(this._selectedJob); 063.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<EditJobEvent>().Publish(this._selectedJob); 064.} 065.} 066.public void SelectedRecordChanged(object obj) 067.{ 068.if (obj.GetType() == typeof(ActionHistory)) 069.{ 070.// event bubbles up so we don't catch items from the ActionHistory grid 071.} 072.else 073.{ 074.JobPosting job = obj as JobPosting; 075.GrabHistory(job.PostingID); 076.} 077.} 078.#endregion 079.#region Subscription Declaration and Events 080.public void SetSubscriptions() 081.{ 082.EditJobCompleteEvent editComplete = eventAggregator.GetEvent<EditJobCompleteEvent>(); 083.if (editToken != null) 084.editComplete.Unsubscribe(editToken); 085.editToken = editComplete.Subscribe(this.EditCompleteEventHandler); 086.AddJobCompleteEvent addComplete = eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddJobCompleteEvent>(); 087.if (addToken != null) 088.addComplete.Unsubscribe(addToken); 089.addToken = addComplete.Subscribe(this.AddCompleteEventHandler); 090.} 091.public void EditCompleteEventHandler(bool complete) 092.{ 093.if (complete) 094.{ 095.JobPosting thisJob = _myJobs.CurrentEditItem as JobPosting; 096.this._myJobs.CommitEdit(); 097.this.context.SubmitChanges((s) => 098.{ 099.ActionHistory myAction = new ActionHistory(); 100.myAction.PostingID = thisJob.PostingID; 101.myAction.Description = String.Format("Job '{0}' has been edited by {1}", thisJob.JobTitle, "default user"); 102.myAction.TimeStamp = DateTime.Now; 103.eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddActionEvent>().Publish(myAction); 104.} 105., null); 106.} 107.else 108.{ 109.this._myJobs.CancelEdit(); 110.} 111.this.MakeMeActive(this.regionManager, "MainRegion", "JobPostingsView"); 112.} 113.public void AddCompleteEventHandler(JobPosting job) 114.{ 115.if (job == null) 116.{ 117.// do nothing, new job add cancelled 118.} 119.else 120.{ 121.this.context.JobPostings.Add(job); 122.this.context.SubmitChanges((s) => 123.{ 124.ActionHistory myAction = new ActionHistory(); 125.myAction.PostingID = job.PostingID; 126.myAction.Description = String.Format("Job '{0}' has been added by {1}", job.JobTitle, "default user"); 127.myAction.TimeStamp = DateTime.Now; 128.eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddActionEvent>().Publish(myAction); 129.} 130., null); 131.} 132.this.MakeMeActive(this.regionManager, "MainRegion", "JobPostingsView"); 133.} 134.#endregion 135.public void GrabHistory(int postID) 136.{ 137.context.ActionHistories.Clear(); 138._selectionJobActionHistory = new QueryableCollectionView(context.ActionHistories); 139.context.Load(context.GetHistoryForJobQuery(postID)); 140.} Taking it from the top, we're injecting an Event Aggregator and Region Manager for use down the road and also have the public DelegateCommands (just like in the Menu module). We also grab a reference to our context, which we'll obviously need for data, then set up a few fields with public properties tied to them. We're also setting subscription tokens, which we have not yet seen but I will get into below. The AddNewRecord (50) and EditExistingRecord (54) methods should speak for themselves for functionality, the one thing of note is we're sending events off to the Event Aggregator which some module, somewhere will take care of. Since these aren't entirely relying on one another, the Jobs View doesn't care if anyone is listening, but it will publish AddJobEvent (52), NotifyUserEvent (58) and EditJobEvent (63)regardless. Don't mind the GrabHistory() method so much, that is just grabbing history items (visibly being created in the SubmitChanges callbacks), and adding them to the database. Every action will trigger a history event, so we'll know who modified what and when, just in case. ;) So where are we at? Well, if we click to Add a job, we publish an event, if we edit a job, we publish an event with the selected record (attained through the magic of binding). Where is this all going though? To the Viewmodel, of course! XAML for the AddEditJobView This is pretty straightforward except for one thing, noted below: 001.<Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" 002.Background="White"> 003.<Grid x:Name="xEditGrid" 004.Margin="10" 005.validationHelper:ValidationScope.Errors="{Binding Errors}"> 006.<Grid.Background> 007.<LinearGradientBrush EndPoint="0.5,1" 008.StartPoint="0.5,0"> 009.<GradientStop Color="#FFC7C7C7" 010.Offset="0" /> 011.<GradientStop Color="#FFF6F3F3" 012.Offset="1" /> 013.</LinearGradientBrush> 014.</Grid.Background> 015.<Grid.RowDefinitions> 016.<RowDefinition Height="40" /> 017.<RowDefinition Height="40" /> 018.<RowDefinition Height="40" /> 019.<RowDefinition Height="100" /> 020.<RowDefinition Height="100" /> 021.<RowDefinition Height="100" /> 022.<RowDefinition Height="40" /> 023.<RowDefinition Height="40" /> 024.<RowDefinition Height="40" /> 025.</Grid.RowDefinitions> 026.<Grid.ColumnDefinitions> 027.<ColumnDefinition Width="150" /> 028.<ColumnDefinition Width="150" /> 029.<ColumnDefinition Width="300" /> 030.<ColumnDefinition Width="100" /> 031.</Grid.ColumnDefinitions> 032.<!-- Title --> 033.<TextBlock Margin="8" 034.Text="{Binding AddEditString}" 035.TextWrapping="Wrap" 036.Grid.Column="1" 037.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" 038.FontSize="16" /> 039.<!-- Data entry area--> 040. 041.<TextBlock Margin="8,0,0,0" 042.Style="{StaticResource LabelTxb}" 043.Grid.Row="1" 044.Text="Job Title" 045.VerticalAlignment="Center" /> 046.<TextBox x:Name="xJobTitleTB" 047.Margin="0,8" 048.Grid.Column="1" 049.Grid.Row="1" 050.Text="{Binding activeJob.JobTitle, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}" 051.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" /> 052.<TextBlock Margin="8,0,0,0" 053.Grid.Row="2" 054.Text="Location" 055.d:LayoutOverrides="Height" 056.VerticalAlignment="Center" /> 057.<TextBox x:Name="xLocationTB" 058.Margin="0,8" 059.Grid.Column="1" 060.Grid.Row="2" 061.Text="{Binding activeJob.Location, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}" 062.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" /> 063. 064.<TextBlock Margin="8,11,8,0" 065.Grid.Row="3" 066.Text="Description" 067.TextWrapping="Wrap" 068.VerticalAlignment="Top" /> 069. 070.<TextBox x:Name="xDescriptionTB" 071.Height="84" 072.TextWrapping="Wrap" 073.ScrollViewer.VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto" 074.Grid.Column="1" 075.Grid.Row="3" 076.Text="{Binding activeJob.Description, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}" 077.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" /> 078.<TextBlock Margin="8,11,8,0" 079.Grid.Row="4" 080.Text="Requirements" 081.TextWrapping="Wrap" 082.VerticalAlignment="Top" /> 083. 084.<TextBox x:Name="xRequirementsTB" 085.Height="84" 086.TextWrapping="Wrap" 087.ScrollViewer.VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto" 088.Grid.Column="1" 089.Grid.Row="4" 090.Text="{Binding activeJob.Requirements, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}" 091.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" /> 092.<TextBlock Margin="8,11,8,0" 093.Grid.Row="5" 094.Text="Qualifications" 095.TextWrapping="Wrap" 096.VerticalAlignment="Top" /> 097. 098.<TextBox x:Name="xQualificationsTB" 099.Height="84" 100.TextWrapping="Wrap" 101.ScrollViewer.VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto" 102.Grid.Column="1" 103.Grid.Row="5" 104.Text="{Binding activeJob.Qualifications, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}" 105.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" /> 106.<!-- Requirements Checkboxes--> 107. 108.<CheckBox x:Name="xResumeRequiredCB" Margin="8,8,8,15" 109.Content="Resume Required" 110.Grid.Row="6" 111.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" 112.IsChecked="{Binding activeJob.NeedsResume, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}"/> 113. 114.<CheckBox x:Name="xCoverletterRequiredCB" Margin="8,8,8,15" 115.Content="Cover Letter Required" 116.Grid.Column="2" 117.Grid.Row="6" 118.IsChecked="{Binding activeJob.NeedsCV, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}"/> 119. 120.<CheckBox x:Name="xOverviewRequiredCB" Margin="8,8,8,15" 121.Content="Overview Required" 122.Grid.Row="7" 123.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" 124.IsChecked="{Binding activeJob.NeedsOverview, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}"/> 125. 126.<CheckBox x:Name="xJobActiveCB" Margin="8,8,8,15" 127.Content="Job is Active" 128.Grid.Column="2" 129.Grid.Row="7" 130.IsChecked="{Binding activeJob.IsActive, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}"/> 131. 132.<!-- Buttons --> 133. 134.<Button x:Name="xAddEditButton" Margin="8,8,0,10" 135.Content="{Binding AddEditButtonString}" 136.cal:Click.Command="{Binding AddEditCommand}" 137.Grid.Column="2" 138.Grid.Row="8" 139.HorizontalAlignment="Left" 140.Width="125" 141.telerik:StyleManager.Theme="Windows7" /> 142. 143.<Button x:Name="xCancelButton" HorizontalAlignment="Right" 144.Content="Cancel" 145.cal:Click.Command="{Binding CancelCommand}" 146.Margin="0,8,8,10" 147.Width="125" 148.Grid.Column="2" 149.Grid.Row="8" 150.telerik:StyleManager.Theme="Windows7" /> 151.</Grid> 152.</Grid> The 'validationHelper:ValidationScope' line may seem odd. This is a handy little trick for catching current and would-be validation errors when working in this whole setup. This all comes from an approach found on theJoy Of Code blog, although it looks like the story for this will be changing slightly with new advances in SL4/WCF RIA Services, so this section can definitely get an overhaul a little down the road. The code is the fun part of all this, so let us see what's happening under the hood. Viewmodel for the AddEditJobView We are going to see some of the same things happening here, so I'll skip over the repeat info and get right to the good stuff: 001.public class AddEditJobViewModel : ViewModelBase 002.{ 003.private readonly IEventAggregator eventAggregator; 004.private readonly IRegionManager regionManager; 005. 006.public RecruitingContext context; 007. 008.private JobPosting _activeJob; 009.public JobPosting activeJob 010.{ 011.get { return _activeJob; } 012.set 013.{ 014.if (_activeJob != value) 015.{ 016._activeJob = value; 017.NotifyChanged("activeJob"); 018.} 019.} 020.} 021. 022.public bool isNewJob; 023. 024.private string _addEditString; 025.public string AddEditString 026.{ 027.get { return _addEditString; } 028.set 029.{ 030.if (_addEditString != value) 031.{ 032._addEditString = value; 033.NotifyChanged("AddEditString"); 034.} 035.} 036.} 037. 038.private string _addEditButtonString; 039.public string AddEditButtonString 040.{ 041.get { return _addEditButtonString; } 042.set 043.{ 044.if (_addEditButtonString != value) 045.{ 046._addEditButtonString = value; 047.NotifyChanged("AddEditButtonString"); 048.} 049.} 050.} 051. 052.public SubscriptionToken addJobToken = new SubscriptionToken(); 053.public SubscriptionToken editJobToken = new SubscriptionToken(); 054. 055.public DelegateCommand<object> AddEditCommand { get; set; } 056.public DelegateCommand<object> CancelCommand { get; set; } 057. 058.private ObservableCollection<ValidationError> _errors = new ObservableCollection<ValidationError>(); 059.public ObservableCollection<ValidationError> Errors 060.{ 061.get { return _errors; } 062.} 063. 064.private ObservableCollection<ValidationResult> _valResults = new ObservableCollection<ValidationResult>(); 065.public ObservableCollection<ValidationResult> ValResults 066.{ 067.get { return this._valResults; } 068.} 069. 070.public AddEditJobViewModel(IEventAggregator eventAgg, IRegionManager regionmanager) 071.{ 072.// set Unity items 073.this.eventAggregator = eventAgg; 074.this.regionManager = regionmanager; 075. 076.context = new RecruitingContext(); 077. 078.AddEditCommand = new DelegateCommand<object>(this.AddEditJobCommand); 079.CancelCommand = new DelegateCommand<object>(this.CancelAddEditCommand); 080. 081.SetSubscriptions(); 082.} 083. 084.#region Subscription Declaration and Events 085. 086.public void SetSubscriptions() 087.{ 088.AddJobEvent addJob = this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddJobEvent>(); 089. 090.if (addJobToken != null) 091.addJob.Unsubscribe(addJobToken); 092. 093.addJobToken = addJob.Subscribe(this.AddJobEventHandler); 094. 095.EditJobEvent editJob = this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<EditJobEvent>(); 096. 097.if (editJobToken != null) 098.editJob.Unsubscribe(editJobToken); 099. 100.editJobToken = editJob.Subscribe(this.EditJobEventHandler); 101.} 102. 103.public void AddJobEventHandler(bool isNew) 104.{ 105.this.activeJob = null; 106.this.activeJob = new JobPosting(); 107.this.activeJob.IsActive = true; // We assume that we want a new job to go up immediately 108.this.isNewJob = true; 109.this.AddEditString = "Add New Job Posting"; 110.this.AddEditButtonString = "Add Job"; 111. 112.MakeMeActive(this.regionManager, "MainRegion", "AddEditJobView"); 113.} 114. 115.public void EditJobEventHandler(JobPosting editJob) 116.{ 117.this.activeJob = null; 118.this.activeJob = editJob; 119.this.isNewJob = false; 120.this.AddEditString = "Edit Job Posting"; 121.this.AddEditButtonString = "Edit Job"; 122. 123.MakeMeActive(this.regionManager, "MainRegion", "AddEditJobView"); 124.} 125. 126.#endregion 127. 128.#region DelegateCommands from View 129. 130.public void AddEditJobCommand(object obj) 131.{ 132.if (this.Errors.Count > 0) 133.{ 134.List<string> errorMessages = new List<string>(); 135. 136.foreach (var valR in this.Errors) 137.{ 138.errorMessages.Add(valR.Exception.Message); 139.} 140. 141.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<DisplayValidationErrorsEvent>().Publish(errorMessages); 142. 143.} 144.else if (!Validator.TryValidateObject(this.activeJob, new ValidationContext(this.activeJob, null, null), _valResults, true)) 145.{ 146.List<string> errorMessages = new List<string>(); 147. 148.foreach (var valR in this._valResults) 149.{ 150.errorMessages.Add(valR.ErrorMessage); 151.} 152. 153.this._valResults.Clear(); 154. 155.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<DisplayValidationErrorsEvent>().Publish(errorMessages); 156.} 157.else 158.{ 159.if (this.isNewJob) 160.{ 161.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddJobCompleteEvent>().Publish(this.activeJob); 162.} 163.else 164.{ 165.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<EditJobCompleteEvent>().Publish(true); 166.} 167.} 168.} 169. 170.public void CancelAddEditCommand(object obj) 171.{ 172.if (this.isNewJob) 173.{ 174.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddJobCompleteEvent>().Publish(null); 175.} 176.else 177.{ 178.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<EditJobCompleteEvent>().Publish(false); 179.} 180.} 181. 182.#endregion 183.} 184.} We start seeing something new on line 103- the AddJobEventHandler will create a new job and set that to the activeJob item on the ViewModel. When this is all set, the view calls that familiar MakeMeActive method to activate itself. I made a bit of a management call on making views self-activate like this, but I figured it works for one reason. As I create this application, views may not exist that I have in mind, so after a view receives its 'ping' from being subscribed to an event, it prepares whatever it needs to do and then goes active. This way if I don't have 'edit' hooked up, I can click as the day is long on the main view and won't get lost in an empty region. Total personal preference here. :) Everything else should again be pretty straightforward, although I do a bit of validation checking in the AddEditJobCommand, which can either fire off an event back to the main view/viewmodel if everything is a success or sent a list of errors to our notification module, which pops open a RadWindow with the alerts if any exist. As a bonus side note, here's what my WCF RIA Services metadata looks like for handling all of the validation: private JobPostingMetadata() { } [StringLength(2500, ErrorMessage = "Description should be more than one and less than 2500 characters.", MinimumLength = 1)] [Required(ErrorMessage = "Description is required.")] public string Description; [Required(ErrorMessage="Active Status is Required")] public bool IsActive; [StringLength(100, ErrorMessage = "Posting title must be more than 3 but less than 100 characters.", MinimumLength = 3)] [Required(ErrorMessage = "Job Title is required.")] public bool JobTitle; [Required] public string Location; public bool NeedsCV; public bool NeedsOverview; public bool NeedsResume; public int PostingID; [Required(ErrorMessage="Qualifications are required.")] [StringLength(2500, ErrorMessage="Qualifications should be more than one and less than 2500 characters.", MinimumLength=1)] public string Qualifications; [StringLength(2500, ErrorMessage = "Requirements should be more than one and less than 2500 characters.", MinimumLength = 1)] [Required(ErrorMessage="Requirements are required.")] public string Requirements;   The RecruitCB Alternative See all that Xaml I pasted above? Those are now two pieces sitting in the JobsView.xaml file now. The only real difference is that the xEditGrid now sits in the same place as xJobsGrid, with visibility swapping out between the two for a quick switch. I also took out all the cal: and command: command references and replaced Button events with clicks and the Grid selection command replaced with a SelectedItemChanged event. Also, at the bottom of the xEditGrid after the last button, I add a ValidationSummary (with Visibility=Collapsed) to catch any errors that are popping up. Simple as can be, and leads to this being the single code-behind file: 001.public partial class JobsView : UserControl 002.{ 003.public RecruitingContext context; 004.public JobPosting activeJob; 005.public bool isNew; 006.private ObservableCollection<ValidationResult> _valResults = new ObservableCollection<ValidationResult>(); 007.public ObservableCollection<ValidationResult> ValResults 008.{ 009.get { return this._valResults; } 010.} 011.public JobsView() 012.{ 013.InitializeComponent(); 014.this.Loaded += new RoutedEventHandler(JobsView_Loaded); 015.} 016.void JobsView_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 017.{ 018.context = new RecruitingContext(); 019.xJobsGrid.ItemsSource = context.JobPostings; 020.context.Load(context.GetJobPostingsQuery()); 021.} 022.private void xAddRecordButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 023.{ 024.activeJob = new JobPosting(); 025.isNew = true; 026.xAddEditTitle.Text = "Add a Job Posting"; 027.xAddEditButton.Content = "Add"; 028.xEditGrid.DataContext = activeJob; 029.HideJobsGrid(); 030.} 031.private void xEditRecordButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 032.{ 033.activeJob = xJobsGrid.SelectedItem as JobPosting; 034.isNew = false; 035.xAddEditTitle.Text = "Edit a Job Posting"; 036.xAddEditButton.Content = "Edit"; 037.xEditGrid.DataContext = activeJob; 038.HideJobsGrid(); 039.} 040.private void xAddEditButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 041.{ 042.if (!Validator.TryValidateObject(this.activeJob, new ValidationContext(this.activeJob, null, null), _valResults, true)) 043.{ 044.List<string> errorMessages = new List<string>(); 045.foreach (var valR in this._valResults) 046.{ 047.errorMessages.Add(valR.ErrorMessage); 048.} 049.this._valResults.Clear(); 050.ShowErrors(errorMessages); 051.} 052.else if (xSummary.Errors.Count > 0) 053.{ 054.List<string> errorMessages = new List<string>(); 055.foreach (var err in xSummary.Errors) 056.{ 057.errorMessages.Add(err.Message); 058.} 059.ShowErrors(errorMessages); 060.} 061.else 062.{ 063.if (this.isNew) 064.{ 065.context.JobPostings.Add(activeJob); 066.context.SubmitChanges((s) => 067.{ 068.ActionHistory thisAction = new ActionHistory(); 069.thisAction.PostingID = activeJob.PostingID; 070.thisAction.Description = String.Format("Job '{0}' has been edited by {1}", activeJob.JobTitle, "default user"); 071.thisAction.TimeStamp = DateTime.Now; 072.context.ActionHistories.Add(thisAction); 073.context.SubmitChanges(); 074.}, null); 075.} 076.else 077.{ 078.context.SubmitChanges((s) => 079.{ 080.ActionHistory thisAction = new ActionHistory(); 081.thisAction.PostingID = activeJob.PostingID; 082.thisAction.Description = String.Format("Job '{0}' has been added by {1}", activeJob.JobTitle, "default user"); 083.thisAction.TimeStamp = DateTime.Now; 084.context.ActionHistories.Add(thisAction); 085.context.SubmitChanges(); 086.}, null); 087.} 088.ShowJobsGrid(); 089.} 090.} 091.private void xCancelButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 092.{ 093.ShowJobsGrid(); 094.} 095.private void ShowJobsGrid() 096.{ 097.xAddEditRecordButtonPanel.Visibility = Visibility.Visible; 098.xEditGrid.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed; 099.xJobsGrid.Visibility = Visibility.Visible; 100.} 101.private void HideJobsGrid() 102.{ 103.xAddEditRecordButtonPanel.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed; 104.xJobsGrid.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed; 105.xEditGrid.Visibility = Visibility.Visible; 106.} 107.private void ShowErrors(List<string> errorList) 108.{ 109.string nm = "Errors received: \n"; 110.foreach (string anerror in errorList) 111.nm += anerror + "\n"; 112.RadWindow.Alert(nm); 113.} 114.} The first 39 lines should be pretty familiar, not doing anything too unorthodox to get this up and running. Once we hit the xAddEditButton_Click on line 40, we're still doing pretty much the same things except instead of checking the ValidationHelper errors, we both run a check on the current activeJob object as well as check the ValidationSummary errors list. Once that is set, we again use the callback of context.SubmitChanges (lines 68 and 78) to create an ActionHistory which we will use to track these items down the line. That's all? Essentially... yes. If you look back through this post, most of the code and adventures we have taken were just to get things working in the MVVM/Prism setup. Since I have the whole 'module' self-contained in a single JobView+code-behind setup, I don't have to worry about things like sending events off into space for someone to pick up, communicating through an Infrastructure project, or even re-inventing events to be used with attached behaviors. Everything just kinda works, and again with much less code. Here's a picture of the MVVM and Code-behind versions on the Jobs and AddEdit views, but since the functionality is the same in both apps you still cannot tell them apart (for two-strike): Looking ahead, the Applicants module is effectively the same thing as the Jobs module, so most of the code is being cut-and-pasted back and forth with minor tweaks here and there. So that one is being taken care of by me behind the scenes. Next time, we get into a new world of fun- the interview scheduling module, which will pull from available jobs and applicants for each interview being scheduled, tying everything together with RadScheduler to the rescue. Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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  • How to use caching to increase render performance?

    - by Christian Ivicevic
    First of all I am going to cover the basic design of my 2d tile-based engine written with SDL in C++, then I will point out what I am up to and where I need some hints. Concept of my engine My engine uses the concept of GameScreens which are stored on a stack in the main game class. The main methods of a screen are usually LoadContent, Render, Update and InitMultithreading. (I use the last one because I am using v8 as a JavaScript bridge to the engine. The main game loop then renders the top screen on the stack (if there is one; otherwise, it exits the game) - actually it calls the render methods, but stores all items to be rendered in a list. After gathering all this information the methods like SDL_BlitSurface are called by my GameUIRenderer which draws the enqueued content and then draws some overlay. The code looks like this: while(Game is running) { Handle input if(Screens on stack == 0) exit Update timer etc. Clear the screen Peek the screen on the stack and collect information on what to render Actually render the enqueue screen stuff and some overlay etc. Flip the screen } The GameUIRenderer uses as hinted a std::vector<std::shared_ptr<ImageToRender>> to hold all necessary information described by this class: class ImageToRender { private: SDL_Surface* image; int x, y, w, h, xOffset, yOffset; }; This bunch of attributes is usually needed if I have a texture atlas with all tiles in one SDL_Surface and then the engine should crop one specific area and draw this to the screen. The GameUIRenderer::Render() method then just iterates over all elements and renders them something like this: std::for_each( this->m_vImageVector.begin(), this->m_vImageVector.end(), [this](std::shared_ptr<ImageToRender> pCurrentImage) { SDL_Rect rc = { pCurrentImage->x, pCurrentImage->y, 0, 0 }; // For the sake of simplicity ignore offsets... SDL_Rect srcRect = { 0, 0, pCurrentImage->w, pCurrentImage->h }; SDL_BlitSurface(pCurrentImage->pImage, &srcRect, g_pFramework->GetScreen(), &rc); } ); this->m_vImageVector.clear(); Current ideas which need to be reviewed The specified approach works really good and IMHO it is really has a good structure, however the performance could be definitely increased. I would like to know what do you suggest, how to implement efficient caching of surfaces etc so that there is no need to redraw the same scene over and over again? The map itself would be almost static, only when the player moves, we would need to move the map. Furthermore animated entities would either require updates of the whole map or updates of only the specific areas the entities are currently moving in. My first approaches were to include a flag IsTainted which should be used by the GameUIRenderer to decide whether to redraw everything or use cached version (or to not render anything so that we do not have to Clear the screen and let the last frame persist). However this seems to be quite messy if I have to manually handle in my Render method of the screen class if something has changed or not.

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  • BizTalk Server Monitoring &ndash; SharePoint Web Part

    - by SURESH GIRIRAJAN
    I have been worked with customers using BizTalk as shared infrastructure in the enterprise, where we have two or more BizTalk apps running on it for different Business groups. Also these customers are not using BizTalk ESB portal even though they are using BizTalk ESB exception framework. So main issue with all these Business groups are they don’t have visibility into the BizTalk apps running in prod, even though they are using SCOM and other monitoring stuff in place. So I am trying to address few issues I am going to list below and how I try to mitigate them, first one on the list is how to get visibility into prod, how to provision those access to the BizTalk resources with minimal activity and how can we take advantage of the resources we have today. So I was working on creating REST data services for BizTalk RFID a year ago and available on codeplex. I thought to extend that idea to take advantage of BizTalk Data Services available in codeplex. I extended the BizTalk data services I will upload the updated service soon. So let me start thru how my solution works, so first step I am using the BizTalk data service (REST service) which expose most of the BizTalk artifacts as resources such as Applications, Orchestrations, Send ports, Receive ports, Host instances and In process instances etc. BizTalk Server Monitoring – SharePoint Web Part I am hosting the BizTalk data service in IIS with application pool configured to run under BizTalk administrator credentials. So with this setup I am making the service to make accessible anonymous. Next step of this solution I have created a SharePoint Visual web part which consumes the BizTalk data service and display all the BizTalk Application and Platform settings in read only mode. Even though BizTalk data services offers to browse resources as well perform actions like starting, stopping Orchestrations, Send ports, Receive locations, Host instances etc. Host Instances BizTalk Applications BizTalk Running / Suspended Instances So having this BizTalk Monitoring SharePoint web part, will be added to the SharePoint. This eliminates the need for granting access to the BizTalk users explicitly, so when you have BizTalk contractor or BizTalk application user need to have access to the BizTalk environment all the need is have access to the SharePoint website. You can configure the web part point to different end point based on your environment. I am making this as read only as part of this to make easier for the users and in terms of provisioning. This removes the dependency of BizTalk admin at least for viewing the BizTalk application status and errors etc. If we need to make any changes to the BizTalk application then its application owner responsibility to co-ordinate with BizTalk admins. There are options like BizTalk ESB portal, BizTalk 360 etc… but this one of the approach to reduce number of steps required to give access to BizTalk application users and also to maximize the resource we have in enterprise today. Also you can expose this data service thru Azure Service Bus and access from other apps like mobile devices or create a web site hosted in Azure etc. One last thing I have tested only with BizTalk Server 2010 on x64 VM only, but it should work on other version. I will try to upload the code shortly with instructions how to setup etc.… I welcome thoughts and suggestions… Hope this helps….

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