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• USB connection is unstable with Nexus S 2.3.4 on AMD 64 running 64-bit Windows 7, but works with 32-bit Windows Vista

  - by Mike

  The USB connection is unstable with Nexus S (Android 2.3.4) on AMD 64 running 64-bit Windows 7, but it works with 32-bit Windows Vista. Problem Description: On the 64-bit Windows 7 machine my Nexus S appears to connect, but then it disconnects moments later. Neither accessing USB storage or loading an Android application package file (APK) using the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) work. On 32-bit Windows Vista using the same USB cable, USB storage works. I haven't tried the ADB on 32-bit Windows Vista. Reproduction steps for USB storage: (I have provided the reproduction steps for USB storage and not ADB, because if one isn't working, then the other isn't working either and the USB storage reproduction steps are shorter to document.) Connect the USB cable to the Nexus S and my Windows 7 machine. Effect: The "USB Mass Storage, USB Connected" dialog appears with the button "Turn on USB storage." Click "Turn on USB Storage" Effect: The "working circle" appears. A dialog briefly appears saying "USB storage in use," then it either returns me to Step 1 (now that I am running 2.3.4) or is replaced with the Nexus S's application homepage (while I was running 2.3.3). I'm not sure if the version matters, but I mention it for completeness. On the 32-bit Windows Vista machine the connection is stable. I am able to navigate through the Nexus S file system create, read, update, and delete files, etc. I haven't tried connecting with the ADB. Troubleshooting summary: Tried and failed: Uninstalling and reinstalling the Android USB drivers including removing the files. Uninstalling my custom software Pulling the Nexus S's battery Restarting the Nexus S Restarting 64-bit Windows 7 Changing USB ports on the 64-bit Windows 7 box Compared the dates and file size on the DLLs in my google-usb_driver\amd64 directory and the windows\System32 directory. They match. The sizes for the google-usb_driver\i386 directory do not match (expected). Turning off Debugging mode on the Nexus S does not resolve the problem. Searching Google. Tried and succeeded: Connecting to another machine (Windows Vista) using the same USB cable and Nexus S phone. Troubleshooting observations: I notice that uninstalling the device drivers and deleting the files, then reinstalling the drivers, then rebooting 64-bit Windows 7 then unplugging the Nexus S, then plugging it back in occasionally helps for a short amount of time (minutes to hours, not days). When it is working, I can both access the Nexus S's drive and load/test applications using the ADB. I have observed some wonky behavior in the Device Manager that I haven't tracked down. Sometimes the black Nexus S image appears in the list of devices. Sometimes the image displays as a computer with a green ISA card. Sometimes it neither appears on the top level of devices nor under “other devices,” but it does appear under "disk drives" as "Android UMS Composite USB Device." System configuration: The Nexus S is running Android OS 2.3.4's "Settings\about phone\System updates" indicates that it is up to date as of May 21st 2011. Both 32-bit Windows Vista and 64-bit Windows 7 are up to date. The Windows Vista system is running on an Intel 32-bit processor. Windows 7 is running on an AMD 64-bit processor. I have done Android development on both systems, but I usually develop on the 64-bit Windows 7 machine.

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• dns server bind is not work [closed]

  - by user1742080

  I just installed bind on RHEL 6 and point a domain to that server. but actually when i ping domain it returns error 1214: Here is my named.conf: // // named.conf // // Provided by Red Hat bind package to configure the ISC BIND named(8) DNS // server as a caching only nameserver (as a localhost DNS resolver only). // // See /usr/share/doc/bind*/sample/ for example named configuration files. // options { listen-on port 53 { any; }; listen-on-v6 port 53 { ::1; }; directory "/var/named"; dump-file "/var/named/data/cache_dump.db"; statistics-file "/var/named/data/named_stats.txt"; memstatistics-file "/var/named/data/named_mem_stats.txt"; allow-query { any; }; recursion yes; dnssec-enable yes; dnssec-validation yes; dnssec-lookaside auto; /* Path to ISC DLV key */ bindkeys-file "/etc/named.iscdlv.key"; managed-keys-directory "/var/named/dynamic"; }; logging { channel default_debug { file "data/named.run"; severity dynamic; }; }; zone "." IN { type hint; file "named.ca"; }; include "/etc/named.rfc1912.zones"; include "/etc/named.root.key"; zone "mydomain.com"{ type master; file "/var/named/data/named.mydomain.com"; allow-update { none; }; }; AND The content of "/var/named/data/named.mydomain.com": 1 $TTL 38400 2 3 mydomain.com. IN SOA ns1.mydomain.com. milad.yahoo.com. ( 4 2012101201 ; serial number YYMMDDNN 5 28800 ; Refresh 6 7200 ; Retry 7 864000 ; Expire 8 38400 ; Min TTL 9 ) 10 11 mydomain.com. IN A 1.2.3.4 12 www IN A 1.2.3.4 13 ns1.mydomain.com. IN A 1.2.3.4 14 ns2.mydomain.com. IN A 1.2.3.4 15 mydomain.com. IN NS ns1.mydomain.com. 16 mydomain.com. IN NS ns2.mydomain.com. AND i'm sure the named service is running: [root@server ~]# service named status version: 9.8.2rc1-RedHat-9.8.2-0.10.rc1.el6_3.3 CPUs found: 8 worker threads: 8 number of zones: 20 debug level: 0 xfers running: 0 xfers deferred: 0 soa queries in progress: 0 query logging is OFF recursive clients: 0/0/1000 tcp clients: 0/100 server is up and running named (pid 26299) is running...

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• why is my centos, nginx, php,mysql server using so much memory

  - by kb2tfa

  i'm not sure where the problem lies. I have: centos 6 mysql php php-fpm wordpress (1 site). this is a dedicated server i'm learning on. as soon as i ran the web url the memory slammed to 125% of a 512k server, i had to upgrade to 1gig, so i'm not sure where the problem lies. I thought by switching to nginx from apache i would have more memory free, but i'm still stuck with the problem. before launching the site with nginx and mysqld running the site was about 5% memory. I reanamed my "my-small.cnf" to my.cnf and put in my /etc folder where the original was, but that seems not to have done it. after looking at my TOP results, i'm starting to think it may be php-fpm eating my memory, but not sure. is php-fpm the preferend way or is there something better to use. I read about possible memory leaks in php-fpm. here is what i have: php-fpm.conf ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; FPM Configuration ; ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; All relative paths in this configuration file are relative to PHP's install ; prefix. ; Include one or more files. If glob(3) exists, it is used to include a bunch of ; files from a glob(3) pattern. This directive can be used everywhere in the ; file. include=/etc/php-fpm.d/*.conf ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; Global Options ; ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; [global] ; Pid file ; Default Value: none pid = /var/run/php-fpm/php-fpm.pid ; Error log file ; Default Value: /var/log/php-fpm.log error_log = /var/log/php-fpm/error.log ; Log level ; Possible Values: alert, error, warning, notice, debug ; Default Value: notice ;log_level = notice ; If this number of child processes exit with SIGSEGV or SIGBUS within the time ; interval set by emergency_restart_interval then FPM will restart. A value ; of '0' means 'Off'. ; Default Value: 0 ;emergency_restart_threshold = 0 ; Interval of time used by emergency_restart_interval to determine when ; a graceful restart will be initiated. This can be useful to work around ; accidental corruptions in an accelerator's shared memory. ; Available Units: s(econds), m(inutes), h(ours), or d(ays) ; Default Unit: seconds ; Default Value: 0 ;emergency_restart_interval = 0 ; Time limit for child processes to wait for a reaction on signals from master. ; Available units: s(econds), m(inutes), h(ours), or d(ays) ; Default Unit: seconds ; Default Value: 0 ;process_control_timeout = 0 ; Send FPM to background. Set to 'no' to keep FPM in foreground for debugging. ; Default Value: yes ;daemonize = yes ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; Pool Definitions ; ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; See /etc/php-fpm.d/*.conf end php-fpm.conf

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• "ID 046d:c50e Logitech, Inc. Cordless Mouse Receiver" wheel-click is wrong

  - by sputnick

  I use this mouse under archlinux x86_64 with 3.2.8-1-ARCH kernel. I have some problems to select and then paste with the wheel-click in some applications like konversation, not in a terminal nor an editor. I don't know if it's a hardware problem or a software one. $ lsusb -v Bus 002 Device 110: ID 046d:c50e Logitech, Inc. Cordless Mouse Receiver Device Descriptor: bLength 18 bDescriptorType 1 bcdUSB 1.10 bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level) bDeviceSubClass 0 bDeviceProtocol 0 bMaxPacketSize0 8 idVendor 0x046d Logitech, Inc. idProduct 0xc50e Cordless Mouse Receiver bcdDevice 25.10 iManufacturer 1 Logitech iProduct 2 USB RECEIVER iSerial 0 bNumConfigurations 1 Configuration Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 2 wTotalLength 34 bNumInterfaces 1 bConfigurationValue 1 iConfiguration 0 bmAttributes 0xa0 (Bus Powered) Remote Wakeup MaxPower 70mA Interface Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 4 bInterfaceNumber 0 bAlternateSetting 0 bNumEndpoints 1 bInterfaceClass 3 Human Interface Device bInterfaceSubClass 1 Boot Interface Subclass bInterfaceProtocol 2 Mouse iInterface 0 HID Device Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 33 bcdHID 1.11 bCountryCode 0 Not supported bNumDescriptors 1 bDescriptorType 34 Report wDescriptorLength 95 Report Descriptors: ** UNAVAILABLE ** Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x81 EP 1 IN bmAttributes 3 Transfer Type Interrupt Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0008 1x 8 bytes bInterval 10 Device Status: 0x0000 (Bus Powered) When I see what's happens in xev, the output is different compared to another mouse My buggy Logitech mouse : ButtonPress event, serial 40, synthetic NO, window 0x4400001, root 0x15a, subw 0x4400002, time 170350700, (48,52), root:(1491,75), state 0x10, button 11, same_screen YES EnterNotify event, serial 40, synthetic NO, window 0x4400001, root 0x15a, subw 0x0, time 170350700, (48,52), root:(1491,75), mode NotifyGrab, detail NotifyInferior, same_screen YES, focus YES, state 16 KeymapNotify event, serial 40, synthetic NO, window 0x0, keys: 90 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ButtonPress event, serial 40, synthetic NO, window 0x4400001, root 0x15a, subw 0x4400002, time 170350716, (48,52), root:(1491,75), state 0x10, button 6, same_screen YES ButtonRelease event, serial 40, synthetic NO, window 0x4400001, root 0x15a, subw 0x4400002, time 170350716, (48,52), root:(1491,75), state 0x10, button 6, same_screen YES ButtonRelease event, serial 40, synthetic NO, window 0x4400001, root 0x15a, subw 0x4400002, time 170350988, (48,52), root:(1491,75), state 0x10, button 11, same_screen YES LeaveNotify event, serial 40, synthetic NO, window 0x4400001, root 0x15a, subw 0x0, time 170350988, (48,52), root:(1491,75), mode NotifyUngrab, detail NotifyInferior, same_screen YES, focus YES, state 16 a working mouse (dell) : ButtonPress event, serial 40, synthetic NO, window 0x4400001, root 0x15a, subw 0x4400002, time 170245131, (46,32), root:(1489,55), state 0x10, button 2, same_screen YES EnterNotify event, serial 40, synthetic NO, window 0x4400001, root 0x15a, subw 0x0, time 170245131, (46,32), root:(1489,55), mode NotifyGrab, detail NotifyInferior, same_screen YES, focus YES, state 528 KeymapNotify event, serial 40, synthetic NO, window 0x0, keys: 90 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ButtonRelease event, serial 40, synthetic NO, window 0x4400001, root 0x15a, subw 0x4400002, time 170245411, (46,32), root:(1489,55), state 0x210, button 2, same_screen YES LeaveNotify event, serial 40, synthetic NO, window 0x4400001, root 0x15a, subw 0x0, time 170245411, (46,32), root:(1489,55), mode NotifyUngrab, detail NotifyInferior, same_screen YES, focus YES, state 16 A demo of the problem when I use konversation (IRC) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhmr92M7NCc I tried to modify the button map with xmodmap like this with no success (one at a time) : xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 0 3" xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 1 3" xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 2 3" xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 3 3" xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 4 3" xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 5 3" xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 6 3" xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 7 3" xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 8 3" xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 9 3" xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 10 3" xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 11 3" xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 12 3" xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 13 3" xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 14 3" xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 15 3" xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 16 3" xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 17 3" xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 18 3" xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 19 3" xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 20 3" xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 21 3" xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 22 3" xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 23 3" xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 24 3" xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 25 3" Any clue ? I would like to avoid buying a new mouse just for a paste problem.

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• Log transport and aggregation at scale

  - by markdrayton

  How're you analysing log files from UNIX/Linux machines? We run several hundred servers which all generate their own log files, either directly or through syslog. I'm looking for a decent solution to aggregate these and pick out important events. This problem breaks down into 3 components: 1) Message transport The classic way is to use syslog to log messages to a remote host. This works fine for applications that log into syslog but less useful for apps that write to a local file. Solutions for this might include having the application log into a FIFO connected to a program to send the message using syslog, or by writing something that will grep the local files and send the output to the central syslog host. However, if we go to the trouble of writing tools to get messages into syslog would we be better replacing the whole lot with something like Facebook's Scribe which offers more flexibility and reliability than syslog? 2) Message aggregation Log entries seem to fall into one of two types: per-host and per-service. Per-host messages are those which occur on one machine; think disk failures or suspicious logins. Per-service messages occur on most or all of the hosts running a service. For instance, we want to know when Apache finds an SSI error but we don't want the same error from 100 machines. In all cases we only want to see one of each type of message: we don't want 10 messages saying the same disk has failed, and we don't want a message each time a broken SSI is hit. One approach to solving this is to aggregate multiple messages of the same type into one on each host, send the messages to a central server and then aggregate messages of the same kind into one overall event. SER can do this but it's awkward to use. Even after a couple of days of fiddling I had only rudimentary aggregations working and had to constantly look up the logic SER uses to correlate events. It's powerful but tricky stuff: I need something which my colleagues can pick up and use in the shortest possible time. SER rules don't meet that requirement. 3) Generating alerts How do we tell our admins when something interesting happens? Mail the group inbox? Inject into Nagios? So, how're you solving this problem? I don't expect an answer on a plate; I can work out the details myself but some high-level discussion on what is surely a common problem would be great. At the moment we're using a mishmash of cron jobs, syslog and who knows what else to find events. This isn't extensible, maintainable or flexible and as such we miss a lot of stuff we shouldn't. Updated: we're already using Nagios for monitoring which is great for detected down hosts/testing services/etc but less useful for scraping log files. I know there are log plugins for Nagios but I'm interested in something more scalable and hierarchical than per-host alerts.

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• How to install Delorme StreetAtlas (any version) + GPS inside VirtualBox VM?

  - by hotei

  When I try to run the install program I get a popup message that says the installer program is not a valid executable. Background: I want a GPS with maps on my laptop running Ubuntu 10.4LTS. Unfortunately I can't find a decent native Linux GPS solution with 50 state US street level coverage. I have VirtualBox VMs available for WinXP and Win7 (among others). The VMs work fine with MicroSoft Streets and Trips (2010) and MapNGo 5 (a very! old Delorme product), but while both these products support GPS, they don't support the Earthmate LT-40 USB GPS I already have. I've got pretty much every Delorme Street Atlas they've released in the last decade and none of them will install in a VM. Any help would be much appreciated. Clarification: I've installed the Delorme products from these CDs before and the disks are fine - as long as installation is done on a "physical" machine. Added: I've tried install from an iso as well as the real CD. No difference in result (setup.exe is not a valid executable) The WinXP is SP-2 (held back on purpose at this point - I'll snapshot and fork a later SP to test). The Win2K is SP-6a. Win7(32) VM is whatever updates came out last week. The USB setup is working at least to the point where the GPS device is active in the device list (has an x in the box). At this point its not relevant because the program that needs to read it can't even be installed. Added 9-19: Added wine as harrymc suggested. Initial result was no change. Here's wines error message. The file '/media/Disk1/setup.exe' is not marked as executable. If this was downloaded or copied form an untrusted source, it may be dangerous to run. For more details, read about the executable bit. At first I thought the execute bit was the problem, but looking at several other windows CDs I see that the execute bit is not set on their exe files (which install to VM without error). Still it was worth a shot so I copied the StreetAtlas 9 DVD to my hard disk, changed the on-disk exe files to have the execute bit set and tried to install again. This time the install via wine got me through the installation process. When I start the program it bombs immediately, so we haven't made much real progress so far. I very much prefer the VM solution to wine, so I'm going back to that for now. To recap the VM situation, using an updated XP with SP3 and all recommended hotfixes: StreetAtlas 2009 USA fails with "not marked as executable". StreetAtlas 2007 USA fails with "not marked as executable". StreetAtlas 9 (copyright 2001) fails with "not marked as executable". SteeetAtlas (copyright 1991) fails with "not marked as executable" Delorme Topo 4 (copyright 2002) fails with "not marked as executable". Just about ready to give up. So I switched from XP VM to Win7 VM and tried StreetAtlas 2009 again. This time it installs. Earthmate USB GPS works. WTH? I feel like the monkey who just wrote a line of Shakespear. I'm smiling because it worked, but I have no clue why. I'm awarding the bounty to harrymc because wine did give some useful insight into the problem and a +1 to goyiux as thanks for helping.

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• Backup, Migrate or Clone Failing CentOS 4 (LVM)

  - by Hegelworm

  I've been running a BlueQuartz CentOS 4 system (Nuonce.net distro) for a few years now and although the hard drive (Deskstar) has always been a bit noisy, on a few recent occasions I've heard it having trouble spinning up. Basically, I want to clone this drive to a similar sized one (80 Gig). I've spent many hours reading upon dd, dd_rescue, rsync, clonezilla and LVM mirroring yet the sheer number of options and nightmarish accounts has left me frozen - unable to make an informed decision as to how to start. I've made a few attempts. dd failed after about 2 hours, as, although the drives appeared to be identical on the surface (ATA Seagate Barracudas, Thai not Chinese), the destination drive is slightly smaller. My most recent attempt involved using a Debian CD to format the new drive and then rsync-ing everything over and editing the new drive's grub and fstab to reflect the changes. No joy here either as I hadn't chosen LVM when partitioning the destination drive and it wouldn't boot. As you can probably tell, I'm out of my depth here and a panic-invoking mixture of caution and frustration has prompted me to sign up here. The server itself, although not strictly a production environment, has a very specific installation of Festival, LAME and ffMpeg and provides the back-end for a Text-to-Speech jQuery plugin that I've built over the last 2 years. I'm also planning to rebuild the whole TTS system on Debian as the existing CentOS system still has PHP4 etc. For now though, I'd really like to just shift everything over to a new drive. As this is my first post, please feel free to lay any house rules on me that I might've overlooked; I've been hovering around StackOverflow for a while now but have only just signed up. Many thanks. Update: Thanks for your responses so far - it's much appreciated and makes me feel a little more confident when I can double-check things here. I had the idea of doing a fresh install of CentOS (from the original disk) on the new drive so the partitions and LVM were all set up correctly (after disconnecting my source drive to prevent painful mistakes). I then booted into rescue mode from the same CD, and, to avoid a conflicting label, changed the /boot partition's label using e2label to /bootnew. I then changed the VolGroup name using lvm vgrename from VolGroup00 to VolGroup001. I could then boot with both drives in. After mounting the new drive (via its VolGroup001 alias) into /newhd, I rsync-ed over everything I could to the new drive, using -avr switches and backslashes. Like mentioned here. I then disconnected my original source drive again, booted from the liveCD again, changed back the boot partition label from /bootnew to /boot using e2label and then renamed the VolGroup back to VolGroup00. I then rebooted and it went through the familiar start-up routine only to not find a host of files in proc, usr, lib, var etc. The boot did complete but there were lots of red 'FAILS'. I could log in with my existing creds, but the network was kaput, I couldn't startX (desktop GUI) and there were also a few (a lot) of error messages pertaining to iptables. Back to square one. I naively thought I'd nailed it. Shall I just buy a bigger hard drive and attempt the dd route? I've read that this can mess with LVM setups and there's the added risk of working on two unmounted drives at once with a low-level tool. Thanks again.

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• My 3D Games crashing in these scenarios

  - by desaivv

  I have a situation here which I am unable to solve. I bought a PC last year March, here are my specs: Intel Core i3 550 @ 3GHz 4 GB RAM @400 MHz XFX GeForce 9500 GT graphics card 1GB @550MHz 500 GB HDD Lately as soon as I load my save game of Skyrim, it crashes. I have been playing Skyrim since I joined Gaming.SE site. Crashes as in the entire scene gets red lines. I can not ALT + TAB back or even CTRL + ALT + DEL either. My only recourse is a hard reset via the power button. Can not take a screen shot either. I have the latest Forceware 296.10 drivers also. This has been happening since the last 2 weeks. I always use Driver Sweeper to clean my old drivers, since that is what XFXForce recommends before installing new drivers. I installed MSI Afterburner lately to see my GPU temperature. My GPU is default, never over-clocked it. In MSI's Afterburner, I can not adjust fan speed. It is greyed out. Also in settings there is no fan tab. With normal Internet browsing it stays at 51 C. Ran Memtest86 over night with level 11. Took about 13 hours, but no errors in my RAM. I even re-installed my OS, with just the 296 drivers. The fan for the GPU does come on. I can play Diablo 2. I can not get past Warcraft 3's menu selection. There WAS some dust in my machine, but I always try and keep everything clean, since in my home town dust is an issue. Always keep cool my entire PC cabinet. My friend came with his functioning graphics card, we bought our PCs at the same time with exact same specifications. His card did not work either. Same problem with the scene freezing with red lines. I did do my research before posting here. That is how I was able to learn about MSI Afterburner, Driver Sweeper, SpeedFan etc. I followed posts on Tom's Hardware too regarding people that had similar problems. One person suggested and was followed by worked as well the suggestion to "Bake the card in an oven". Since I bought it, played Diablo 2 for months, Starcraft 2 campaign for months and Skyrim recently for months. Bought ME3 also. I am at my wits end. I do not know what else to do. I can go out and buy a card, but my friend's card did not work either. I can use the machine for Eclipse or VS2010 development just fine. Just not with 3D gaming. I originally posted this question on Gaming.SE But I was directed here. I have browsed the SU database for my problem and found this, this, and this. But none of these cover my question. My machine is only one year old. Can some experienced superuser(s) shed some light on this scenario? Is it a 3D graphics card problem? Will a brand new card work? What else can I try to pin point the problem? Can it be the Motherboard? Thanks.

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• SQL Server Log File Won't Shrink due cause "log are pending replication" on non replicated DB?

  - by user796466

  I have a non Mission Critial DB 9am-5pm SQL Server database that I have set up to do nightly full backups and log backups every 30 minutes during business hours. The database is in full recovery and normally I have no reason to truncate/shrink logs unless I do some heavy maintenance. Log backups manage the size with no issue. However I have not been at this client for several weeks and upon inspection I noticed that the log had grown to about 10 times the size of the .mdf file. I poked around backups had been running and I had not gotten any severity error alerts (SQL mail). I attempted to put DB in simple recovery and shrink the log, this was no good. I precede to try a log backup and I got: The log was not truncated because records at the beginning of the log are pending replication or Change Data Capture. Ensure the Log Reader Agent or capture job is running or use sp_repldone to mark transactions as distributed or captured. Restart SQL Server rinse repeat same thing ... I said ??? Replication is not nor ever has been set up on this DB or database /server ??? So the log backups have not been flushing the .ldf. So I did a couple hours of research and I found: http://www.sqlmonster.com/Uwe/Forum.aspx/sql-server/5445/Log-file-is-not-truncated-inspite-of-regular-log-backup http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/30708322/the-log-was-not-truncated-because-records-at-the-beginning-of-the-log-are-pending-replication.aspx seems to be some kind of poorly documented bug ?? The solution seems to have been to run exec sp_repldone, more precisley EXEC sp_repldone @xactid = NULL, @xact_segno = NULL, @numtrans = 0, @time= 0, @reset = 1 This procedure can be used in emergency situations to allow truncation of the transaction log when transactions pending replication are present. Using this procedure prevents Microsoft SQL Server 2000 from replicating the database until the database is unpublished and republished. ~ MSDN When I do that I get the following Msg 18757, Level 16, State 1, Procedure sp_repldone, Line 1 Unable to execute procedure. The database is not published. Execute the procedure in a database that is published for replication. Which makes sense Because the DB has never been published for replication. I have several questions: A) First and foremost is, WTF is going on ? What is causeing this, I am interested in knowing the why here ? Is this genuinley a bug or is there some aspect of the backup that is not functioning properly that cause's the DB to mimick a replicated state ? Someone please edify me on this. B) Second ... Do I really have to publish / replicate this DB to exec this SP to fix this ??? Sounds crazy or is there some T-SQL that I can put it in a published state exec the proc and be on my way ... C) Third, if I do indeed have to publish this database to exec the SP to release this unneeded mis replicated/intended log , to get my .ldf file and backup back on track. How do I publish the database without an online host that it is asking for ??? I don't generally do this kind of database administration and need some guidance. Sorry if this is too verbose but just voicing the question helps me clarify it ... Thank you in advance for your help

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• How does the Cloud compare to Colocation? And development too

  - by David

  Currently I/we run a SaaS web application where each subscriber has their own physical instance of the application in addition to their own database. The setup has each web application instance deployed on two different IIS boxes both for load-balancing and redundancy (the machines have their Windows Update install times 12 hours apart, for example). Databases are mirrored on two different SQL Server 2012 machines with AlwaysOn for uptime. I don't make use of SQL Server clustering (as it doesn't provide storage-level failover: we don't have a shared storage box). Because it's a Windows setup it means there are two Domain Controllers (we cheat: they're both Mac Minis, 17W each, which keeps our colo power costs low). Finally there's also an Exchange server (Mailbox, Hub Transport and Client Access). One of the SQL Servers also doubles-up as an Exchange Hub Transport. Running costs are about $700 a month for our quarter-rack colocation (which includes power and peering/transfer), then there's about $150 a month for SPLA licensing, so $850 a month in total. Then there's the hard-to-quantify cost of administration, but I reckon I spend a couple of hours a week checking-in on the servers: reviewing event logs, etc. I keep getting bombarded by ads and manufactured news stories about how great "the cloud" is. Back in 2008 when the cloud was taking off I was reading up about the proper "cloud" services like Google AppEngine, where you write in Python against Google's API and that's how they scale your application across servers and also use their database provider for scaling storage. Simple enough to understand. Then came along Amazon, and I understand how Amazon Storage works, but I'm not sure how Amazon Compute works: web application pages don't take much CPU time to compute, how do you even quantify usage anyway? Finally, RackSpace gets in the act and now I'm really confused. RackSpace advertise "Cloud" SQL Server 2012 available for about "$0.70 per hour", going by how they advertise it I thought the "hour" meant the sum of CPU time, IO blocking time, maybe time spent transferring data, so for a low-intensity application that works out pretty cheap then? Nope. I went on to a Sales Chat window and spoke to one of their advisors. They told me the $0.70/hour was actually for every hour the SQL Server is running... but who wants a SQL Server for only a few hours? You're going to need it available 24 hours a day for months on end. $0.70 * 24 * 31 works out at $520 a month, which is rediculously expensive for SQL Server. An SPLA license for SQL Server is only $50 a month or so. That $520 a month does not include "fanatical support", and you also need to stack on top the costs of the host Windows server instance too. From what I can tell, Rackspace's "Cloud" products seem like like an cynical rebranding of an overpriced VPS service, but priced by the hour. I have the same confusion about Windows Azure which uses similar terms to describe the products available, but I think that's because Azure offers both traditional shared webhosting in addition to their own APIs you can target for scalable applications.

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• ASP.NET MVC 3 Hosting :: New Features in ASP.NET MVC 3

  - by mbridge

  Razor View Engine The Razor view engine is a new view engine option for ASP.NET MVC that supports the Razor templating syntax. The Razor syntax is a streamlined approach to HTML templating designed with the goal of being a code driven minimalist templating approach that builds on existing C#, VB.NET and HTML knowledge. The result of this approach is that Razor views are very lean and do not contain unnecessary constructs that get in the way of you and your code. ASP.NET MVC 3 Preview 1 only supports C# Razor views which use the .cshtml file extension. VB.NET support will be enabled in later releases of ASP.NET MVC 3. For more information and examples, see Introducing “Razor” – a new view engine for ASP.NET on Scott Guthrie’s blog. Dynamic View and ViewModel Properties A new dynamic View property is available in views, which provides access to the ViewData object using a simpler syntax. For example, imagine two items are added to the ViewData dictionary in the Index controller action using code like the following: public ActionResult Index() {          ViewData["Title"] = "The Title";          ViewData["Message"] = "Hello World!"; } Those properties can be accessed in the Index view using code like this: <h2>View.Title</h2> <p>View.Message</p> There is also a new dynamic ViewModel property in the Controller class that lets you add items to the ViewData dictionary using a simpler syntax. Using the previous controller example, the two values added to the ViewData dictionary can be rewritten using the following code: public ActionResult Index() {     ViewModel.Title = "The Title";     ViewModel.Message = "Hello World!"; } “Add View” Dialog Box Supports Multiple View Engines The Add View dialog box in Visual Studio includes extensibility hooks that allow it to support multiple view engines, as shown in the following figure: Service Location and Dependency Injection Support ASP.NET MVC 3 introduces improved support for applying Dependency Injection (DI) via Inversion of Control (IoC) containers. ASP.NET MVC 3 Preview 1 provides the following hooks for locating services and injecting dependencies: - Creating controller factories. - Creating controllers and setting dependencies. - Setting dependencies on view pages for both the Web Form view engine and the Razor view engine (for types that derive from ViewPage, ViewUserControl, ViewMasterPage, WebViewPage). - Setting dependencies on action filters. Using a Dependency Injection container is not required in order for ASP.NET MVC 3 to function properly. Global Filters ASP.NET MVC 3 allows you to register filters that apply globally to all controller action methods. Adding a filter to the global filters collection ensures that the filter runs for all controller requests. To register an action filter globally, you can make the following call in the Application_Start method in the Global.asax file: GlobalFilters.Filters.Add(new MyActionFilter()); The source of global action filters is abstracted by the new IFilterProvider interface, which can be registered manually or by using Dependency Injection. This allows you to provide your own source of action filters and choose at run time whether to apply a filter to an action in a particular request. New JsonValueProviderFactory Class The new JsonValueProviderFactory class allows action methods to receive JSON-encoded data and model-bind it to an action-method parameter. This is useful in scenarios such as client templating. Client templates enable you to format and display a single data item or set of data items by using a fragment of HTML. ASP.NET MVC 3 lets you connect client templates easily with an action method that both returns and receives JSON data. Support for .NET Framework 4 Validation Attributes and IvalidatableObject The ValidationAttribute class was improved in the .NET Framework 4 to enable richer support for validation. When you write a custom validation attribute, you can use a new IsValid overload that provides a ValidationContext instance. This instance provides information about the current validation context, such as what object is being validated. This change enables scenarios such as validating the current value based on another property of the model. The following example shows a sample custom attribute that ensures that the value of PropertyOne is always larger than the value of PropertyTwo: public class CompareValidationAttribute : ValidationAttribute {     protected override ValidationResult IsValid(object value,              ValidationContext validationContext) {         var model = validationContext.ObjectInstance as SomeModel;         if (model.PropertyOne > model.PropertyTwo) {            return ValidationResult.Success;         }         return new ValidationResult("PropertyOne must be larger than PropertyTwo");     } } Validation in ASP.NET MVC also supports the .NET Framework 4 IValidatableObject interface. This interface allows your model to perform model-level validation, as in the following example: public class SomeModel : IValidatableObject {     public int PropertyOne { get; set; }     public int PropertyTwo { get; set; }     public IEnumerable<ValidationResult> Validate(ValidationContext validationContext) {         if (PropertyOne <= PropertyTwo) {            yield return new ValidationResult(                "PropertyOne must be larger than PropertyTwo");         }     } } New IClientValidatable Interface The new IClientValidatable interface allows the validation framework to discover at run time whether a validator has support for client validation. This interface is designed to be independent of the underlying implementation; therefore, where you implement the interface depends on the validation framework in use. For example, for the default data annotations-based validator, the interface would be applied on the validation attribute. Support for .NET Framework 4 Metadata Attributes ASP.NET MVC 3 now supports .NET Framework 4 metadata attributes such as DisplayAttribute. New IMetadataAware Interface The new IMetadataAware interface allows you to write attributes that simplify how you can contribute to the ModelMetadata creation process. Before this interface was available, you needed to write a custom metadata provider in order to have an attribute provide extra metadata. This interface is consumed by the AssociatedMetadataProvider class, so support for the IMetadataAware interface is automatically inherited by all classes that derive from that class (notably, the DataAnnotationsModelMetadataProvider class). New Action Result Types In ASP.NET MVC 3, the Controller class includes two new action result types and corresponding helper methods. HttpNotFoundResult Action The new HttpNotFoundResult action result is used to indicate that a resource requested by the current URL was not found. The status code is 404. This class derives from HttpStatusCodeResult. The Controller class includes an HttpNotFound method that returns an instance of this action result type, as shown in the following example: public ActionResult List(int id) {     if (id < 0) {                 return HttpNotFound();     }     return View(); } HttpStatusCodeResult Action The new HttpStatusCodeResult action result is used to set the response status code and description. Permanent Redirect The HttpRedirectResult class has a new Boolean Permanent property that is used to indicate whether a permanent redirect should occur. A permanent redirect uses the HTTP 301 status code. Corresponding to this change, the Controller class now has several methods for performing permanent redirects: - RedirectPermanent - RedirectToRoutePermanent - RedirectToActionPermanent These methods return an instance of HttpRedirectResult with the Permanent property set to true. Breaking Changes The order of execution for exception filters has changed for exception filters that have the same Order value. In ASP.NET MVC 2 and earlier, exception filters on the controller with the same Order as those on an action method were executed before the exception filters on the action method. This would typically be the case when exception filters were applied without a specified order Order value. In MVC 3, this order has been reversed in order to allow the most specific exception handler to execute first. As in earlier versions, if the Order property is explicitly specified, the filters are run in the specified order. Known Issues When you are editing a Razor view (CSHTML file), the Go To Controller menu item in Visual Studio will not be available, and there are no code snippets.

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• WiX 3 Tutorial: Generating file/directory fragments with Heat.exe

  - by Mladen Prajdic

  In previous posts I’ve shown you our SuperForm test application solution structure and how the main wxs and wxi include file look like. In this post I’ll show you how to automate inclusion of files to install into your build process. For our SuperForm application we have a single exe to install. But in the real world we have 10s or 100s of different files from dll’s to resource files like pictures. It all depends on what kind of application you’re building. Writing a directory structure for so many files by hand is out of the question. What we need is an automated way to create this structure. Enter Heat.exe. Heat is a command line utility to harvest a file, directory, Visual Studio project, IIS website or performance counters. You might ask what harvesting means? Harvesting is converting a source (file, directory, …) into a component structure saved in a WiX fragment (a wxs) file. There are 2 options you can use: Create a static wxs fragment with Heat and include it in your project. The pro of this is that you can add or remove components by hand. The con is that you have to do the pro part by hand. Automation always beats manual labor. Run heat command line utility in a pre-build event of your WiX project. I prefer this way. By always recreating the whole fragment you don’t have to worry about missing any new files you add. The con of this is that you’ll include files that you otherwise might not want to. There is no perfect solution so pick one and deal with it. I prefer using the second way. A neat way of overcoming the con of the second option is to have a post-build event on your main application project (SuperForm.MainApp in our case) to copy the files needed to be installed in a special location and have the Heat.exe read them from there. I haven’t set this up for this tutorial and I’m simply including all files from the default SuperForm.MainApp \bin directory. Remember how we created a System Environment variable called SuperFormFilesDir? This is where we’ll use it for the first time. The command line text that you have to put into the pre-build event of your WiX project looks like this: "$(WIX)bin\heat.exe" dir "$(SuperFormFilesDir)" -cg SuperFormFiles -gg -scom -sreg -sfrag -srd -dr INSTALLLOCATION -var env.SuperFormFilesDir -out "$(ProjectDir)Fragments\FilesFragment.wxs" After you install WiX you’ll get the WIX environment variable. In the pre/post-build events environment variables are referenced like this: $(WIX). By using this you don’t have to think about the installation path of the WiX. Remember: for 32 bit applications Program files folder is named differently between 32 and 64 bit systems. $(ProjectDir) is obviously the path to your project and is a Visual Studio built in variable. You can view all Heat.exe options by running it without parameters but I’ll explain some that stick out the most. dir "$(SuperFormFilesDir)": tell Heat to harvest the whole directory at the set location. That is the location we’ve set in our System Environment variable. –cg SuperFormFiles: the name of the Component group that will be created. This name is included in out Feature tag as is seen in the previous post. -dr INSTALLLOCATION: the directory reference this fragment will fall under. You can see the top level directory structure in the previous post. -var env.SuperFormFilesDir: the name of the variable that will replace the SourceDir text that would otherwise appear in the fragment file. -out "$(ProjectDir)Fragments\FilesFragment.wxs": the full path and name under which the fragment file will be saved. If you have source control you have to include the FilesFragment.wxs into your project but remove its source control binding. The auto generated FilesFragment.wxs for our test app looks like this: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><Wix xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi"> <Fragment> <ComponentGroup Id="SuperFormFiles"> <ComponentRef Id="cmp5BB40DB822CAA7C5295227894A07502E" /> <ComponentRef Id="cmpCFD331F5E0E471FC42A1334A1098E144" /> <ComponentRef Id="cmp4614DD03D8974B7C1FC39E7B82F19574" /> <ComponentRef Id="cmpDF166522884E2454382277128BD866EC" /> </ComponentGroup> </Fragment> <Fragment> <DirectoryRef Id="INSTALLLOCATION"> <Component Id="cmp5BB40DB822CAA7C5295227894A07502E" Guid="{117E3352-2F0C-4E19-AD96-03D354751B8D}"> <File Id="filDCA561ABF8964292B6BC0D0726E8EFAD" KeyPath="yes" Source="$(env.SuperFormFilesDir)\SuperForm.MainApp.exe" /> </Component> <Component Id="cmpCFD331F5E0E471FC42A1334A1098E144" Guid="{369A2347-97DD-45CA-A4D1-62BB706EA329}"> <File Id="filA9BE65B2AB60F3CE41105364EDE33D27" KeyPath="yes" Source="$(env.SuperFormFilesDir)\SuperForm.MainApp.pdb" /> </Component> <Component Id="cmp4614DD03D8974B7C1FC39E7B82F19574" Guid="{3443EBE2-168F-4380-BC41-26D71A0DB1C7}"> <File Id="fil5102E75B91F3DAFA6F70DA57F4C126ED" KeyPath="yes" Source="$(env.SuperFormFilesDir)\SuperForm.MainApp.vshost.exe" /> </Component> <Component Id="cmpDF166522884E2454382277128BD866EC" Guid="{0C0F3D18-56EB-41FE-B0BD-FD2C131572DB}"> <File Id="filF7CA5083B4997E1DEC435554423E675C" KeyPath="yes" Source="$(env.SuperFormFilesDir)\SuperForm.MainApp.vshost.exe.manifest" /> </Component> </DirectoryRef> </Fragment></Wix> The $(env.SuperFormFilesDir) will be replaced at build time with the directory where the files to be installed are located. There is nothing too complicated about this. In the end it turns out that this sort of automation is great! There are a few other ways that Heat.exe can compose the wxs file but this is the one I prefer. It just seems the clearest. Play with its options to see what can it do. It’s one awesome little tool.   WiX 3 tutorial by Mladen Prajdic navigation WiX 3 Tutorial: Solution/Project structure and Dev resources WiX 3 Tutorial: Understanding main wxs and wxi file WiX 3 Tutorial: Generating file/directory fragments with Heat.exe

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• Mobile enabled web apps with ASP.NET MVC 3 and jQuery Mobile

  - by shiju

  In my previous blog posts, I have demonstrated a simple web app using ASP.NET MVC 3 and EF Code First. In this post, I will be focus on making this application for mobile devices. A single web site will be used for both mobile browsers and desktop browsers. If users are accessing the web app from mobile browsers, users will be redirect to mobile specific pages and will get normal pages if users are accessing from desktop browsers. In this demo app, the mobile specific pages are maintained in an ASP.NET MVC Area named Mobile and mobile users will be redirect to MVC Area Mobile. Let’s add a new area named Mobile to the ASP.NET MVC app. For adding Area, right click the ASP.NET MVC project and  select Area from Add option. Our mobile specific pages using jQuery Mobile will be maintained in the Mobile Area. ASP.NET MVC Global filter for redirecting mobile visitors to Mobile area Let’s add an ASP.NET MVC Global filter for redirecting mobile visitors to Mobile area. The below Global filter is taken from the sample app http://aspnetmobilesamples.codeplex.com/ created by the ASP.NET team. The below filer will redirect the Mobile visitors to an ASP.NET MVC Area Mobile. public class RedirectMobileDevicesToMobileAreaAttribute : AuthorizeAttribute     {         protected override bool AuthorizeCore(System.Web.HttpContextBase httpContext)         {             // Only redirect on the first request in a session             if (!httpContext.Session.IsNewSession)                 return true;               // Don't redirect non-mobile browsers             if (!httpContext.Request.Browser.IsMobileDevice)                 return true;               // Don't redirect requests for the Mobile area             if (Regex.IsMatch(httpContext.Request.Url.PathAndQuery, "/Mobile($|/)"))                 return true;               return false;         }           protected override void HandleUnauthorizedRequest(AuthorizationContext filterContext)         {             var redirectionRouteValues = GetRedirectionRouteValues(filterContext.RequestContext);             filterContext.Result = new RedirectToRouteResult(redirectionRouteValues);         }           // Override this method if you want to customize the controller/action/parameters to which         // mobile users would be redirected. This lets you redirect users to the mobile equivalent         // of whatever resource they originally requested.         protected virtual RouteValueDictionary GetRedirectionRouteValues(RequestContext requestContext)         {             return new RouteValueDictionary(new { area = "Mobile", controller = "Home", action = "Index" });         }     } Let’s add the global filer RedirectMobileDevicesToMobileAreaAttribute to the global filter collection in the Application_Start() of Global.asax.cs file   GlobalFilters.Filters.Add(new RedirectMobileDevicesToMobileAreaAttribute(), 1); Now your mobile visitors will be redirect to the Mobile area. But the browser detection logic in the RedirectMobileDevicesToMobileAreaAttribute filter will not be working in some modern browsers and some conditions. But the good news is that ASP.NET’s browser detection feature is extensible and will be greatly working with the open source framework 51Degrees.mobi. 51Degrees.mobi is a Browser Capabilities Provider that will be working with ASP.NET’s Request.Browser and will provide more accurate and detailed information. For more details visit the documentation page at http://51degrees.codeplex.com/documentation. Let’s add a reference to 51Degrees.mobi library using NuGet We can easily add the 51Degrees.mobi from NuGet and this will update the web.config for necessary configuartions. Mobile Web App using jQuery Mobile Framework jQuery Mobile Framework is built on top of jQuery that provides top-of-the-line JavaScript in a unified User Interface that works across the most-used smartphone web browsers and tablet form factors. It provides an easy way to develop user interfaces for mobile web apps. The current version of the framework is jQuery Mobile Alpha 3. We need to include the following files to use jQuery Mobile. The jQuery Mobile CSS file (jquery.mobile-1.0a3.min.css) The jQuery library (jquery-1.5.min.js) The jQuery Mobile library (jquery.mobile-1.0a3.min.js) Let’s add the required jQuery files directly from jQuery CDN . You can download the files and host them on your own server. jQuery Mobile page structure The basic jQuery Mobile page structure is given below <!DOCTYPE html> <html>   <head>   <title>Page Title</title>   <link rel="stylesheet" href="http://code.jquery.com/mobile/1.0a3/jquery.mobile-1.0a1.min.css" />   <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.5.min.js"></script>   <script src="http://code.jquery.com/mobile/1.0a3/jquery.mobile-1.0a3.min.js"></script> </head> <body> <div data-role="page">   <div data-role="header">     <h1>Page Title</h1>   </div>   <div data-role="content">     <p>Page content goes here.</p>      </div>   <div data-role="footer">     <h4>Page Footer</h4>   </div> </div> </body> </html> The data- attributes are the new feature of HTML5 so that jQuery Mobile will be working on browsers that supporting HTML 5. You can get a detailed browser support details from http://jquerymobile.com/gbs/ . In the Head section we have included the Core jQuery javascript file and jQuery Mobile Library and the core CSS Library for the UI Element Styling. These jQuery files are minified versions and will improve the performance of page load on Mobile Devices. The jQuery Mobile pages are identified with an element with the data-role="page" attribute inside the <body> tag. <div data-role="page"> </div> Within the "page" container, any valid HTML markup can be used, but for typical pages in jQuery Mobile, the immediate children of a "page" are div element with data-roles of "header", "content", and "footer". <div data-role="page">     <div data-role="header">...</div>     <div data-role="content">...</div>     <div data-role="footer">...</div> </div> The div data-role="content" holds the main content of the HTML page and will be used for making user interaction elements. The div data-role="header" is header part of the page and div data-role="footer" is the footer part of the page. Creating Mobile specific pages in the Mobile Area Let’s create Layout page for our Mobile area <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head>     <title>@ViewBag.Title</title>     <link rel="stylesheet" href="http://code.jquery.com/mobile/1.0a3/jquery.mobile-1.0a3.min.css" />     <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.5.min.js"></script>     <script src="http://code.jquery.com/mobile/1.0a3/jquery.mobile-1.0a3.min.js"></script>     </head>      <body> @RenderBody()    </body> </html> In the Layout page, I have given reference to jQuery Mobile JavaScript files and the CSS file. Let’s add an Index view page Index.chtml @{     ViewBag.Title = "Index"; } <div data-role="page"> <div data-role="header">      <h1>Expense Tracker Mobile</h1> </div> <div data-role="content">   <ul data-role="listview">     <li>@Html.Partial("_LogOnPartial")</li>      <li>@Html.ActionLink("Home", "Index", "Home")</li>      <li>@Html.ActionLink("Category", "Index", "Category")</li>                          <li>@Html.ActionLink("Expense", "Index", "Expense")</li> </ul> </div> <div data-role="footer">           Shiju Varghese | <a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/shijuvarghese">Blog     </a> | <a href="http://twitter.com/shijucv">Twitter</a>   </div> </div>   In the Index page, we have used data-role “listview” for showing our content as List View Let’s create a data entry screen create.cshtml @model MyFinance.Domain.Category @{     ViewBag.Title = "Create Category"; }   <div data-role="page"> <div data-role="header">      <h1>Create Category</h1>             @Html.ActionLink("Home", "Index","Home",null, new { @class = "ui-btn-right" })      </div>       <div data-role="content">     @using (Html.BeginForm("Create","Category",FormMethod.Post))     {       <div data-role="fieldcontain">        @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Name)        @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Name)        <div>           @Html.ValidationMessageFor(m => m.Name)        </div>         </div>         <div data-role="fieldcontain">         @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Description)         @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Description)                   </div>                    <div class="ui-body ui-body-b">         <button type="submit" data-role="button" data-theme="b">Save</button>       </div>     }        </div> </div>   In jQuery Mobile, the form elements should be placed inside the data-role="fieldcontain" The below screen shots show the pages rendered in mobile browser Index Page Create Page Source Code You can download the source code from http://efmvc.codeplex.com   Summary We have created a single  web app for desktop browsers and mobile browsers. If a user access the site from desktop browsers, users will get normal web pages and get mobile specific pages if users access from mobile browsers. If users are accessing the website from mobile devices, we will redirect to a ASP.NET MVC area Mobile. For redirecting to the Mobile area, we have used a Global filer for the redirection logic and used open source framework 51Degrees.mobi for the better support for mobile browser detection. In the Mobile area, we have created the pages using jQuery Mobile and users will get mobile friendly web pages. We can create great mobile web apps using ASP.NET MVC  and jQuery Mobile Framework.

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• Configuring UCM cache to check for external Content Server changes

  - by Martin Deh

  Recently, I was involved in a customer scenario where they were modifying the Content Server's contributor data files directly through Content Server.  This operation of course is completely supported.  However, since the contributor data file was modified through the "backdoor", a running WebCenter Spaces page, which also used the same data file, would not get the updates immediately.  This was due to two reasons.  The first reason is that the Spaces page was using Content Presenter to display the contents of the data file. The second reason is that the Spaces application was using the "cached" version of the data file.  Fortunately, there is a way to configure cache so backdoor changes can be picked up more quickly and automatically. First a brief overview of Content Presenter.  The Content Presenter task flow enables WebCenter Spaces users with Page-Edit permissions to precisely customize the selection and presentation of content in a WebCenter Spaces application.  With Content Presenter, you can select a single item of content, contents under a folder, a list of items, or query for content, and then select a Content Presenter based template to render the content on a page in a Spaces application.  In addition to displaying the folders and the files in a Content Server, Content Presenter integrates with Oracle Site Studio to allow you to create, access, edit, and display Site Studio contributor data files (Content Server Document) in either a Site Studio region template or in a custom Content Presenter display template.  More information about creating Content Presenter Display Template can be found in the OFM Developers Guide for WebCenter Portal. The easiest way to configure the cache is to modify the WebCenter Spaces Content Server service connection setting through Enterprise Manager.  From here, under the Cache Details, there is a section to set the Cache Invalidation Interval.  Basically, this enables the cache to be monitored by the cache "sweeper" utility.  The cache sweeper queries for changes in the Content Server, and then "marks" the object in cache as "dirty".  This causes the application in turn to get a new copy of the document from the Content Server that replaces the cached version.  By default the initial value for the Cache Invalidation Interval is set to 0 (minutes).  This basically means that the sweeper is OFF.  To turn the sweeper ON, just set a value (in minutes).  The mininal value that can be set is 2 (minutes): Just a note.  In some instances, once the value of the Cache Invalidation Interval has been set (and saved) in the Enterprise Manager UI, it becomes "sticky" and the interval value cannot be set back to 0.  The good news is that this value can also be updated throught a WLST command.   The WLST command to run is as follows: setJCRContentServerConnection(appName, name, [socketType, url, serverHost, serverPort, keystoreLocation, keystorePassword, privateKeyAlias, privateKeyPassword, webContextRoot, clientSecurityPolicy, cacheInvalidationInterval, binaryCacheMaxEntrySize, adminUsername, adminPassword, extAppId, timeout, isPrimary, server, applicationVersion]) One way to get the required information for executing the command is to use the listJCRContentServerConnections('webcenter',verbose=true) command.  For example, this is the sample output from the execution: ------------------ UCM ------------------ Connection Name: UCM Connection Type: JCR External Appliction ID: Timeout: (not set) CIS Socket Type: socket CIS Server Hostname: webcenter.oracle.local CIS Server Port: 4444 CIS Keystore Location: CIS Private Key Alias: CIS Web URL: Web Server Context Root: /cs Client Security Policy: Admin User Name: sysadmin Cache Invalidation Interval: 2 Binary Cache Maximum Entry Size: 1024 The Documents primary connection is "UCM" From this information, the completed  setJCRContentServerConnection would be: setJCRContentServerConnection(appName='webcenter',name='UCM', socketType='socket', serverHost='webcenter.oracle.local', serverPort='4444', webContextRoot='/cs', cacheInvalidationInterval='0', binaryCacheMaxEntrySize='1024',adminUsername='sysadmin',isPrimary=1) Note: The Spaces managed server must be restarted for the change to take effect. More information about using WLST for WebCenter can be found here. Once the sweeper is turned ON, only cache objects that have been changed will be invalidated.  To test this out, I will go through a simple scenario.  The first thing to do is configure the Content Server so it can monitor and report on events.  Log into the Content Server console application, and under the Administration menu item, select System Audit Information.  Note: If your console is using the left menu display option, the Administration link will be located there. Under the Tracing Sections Information, add in only "system" and "requestaudit" in the Active Sections.  Check Full Verbose Tracing, check Save, then click the Update button.  Once this is done, select the View Server Output menu option.  This will change the browser view to display the log.  This is all that is needed to configure the Content Server. For example, the following is the View Server Output with the cache invalidation interval set to 2(minutes) Note the time stamp: requestaudit/6 08.30 09:52:26.001  IdcServer-68    GET_FOLDER_HISTORY_REPORT [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.016933999955654144(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 09:52:26.010  IdcServer-69    GET_FOLDER_HISTORY_REPORT [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.006134999915957451(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 09:52:26.014  IdcServer-70    GET_DOCUMENT_HISTORY_REPORT [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.004271999932825565(secs) ... other trace info ... requestaudit/6 08.30 09:54:26.002  IdcServer-71    GET_FOLDER_HISTORY_REPORT [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.020323999226093292(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 09:54:26.011  IdcServer-72    GET_FOLDER_HISTORY_REPORT [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.017928000539541245(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 09:54:26.017  IdcServer-73    GET_DOCUMENT_HISTORY_REPORT [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.010185999795794487(secs) Now that the tracing logs are reporting correctly, the next step is set up the Spaces app to test the sweeper. I will use 2 different pages that will use Content Presenter task flows.  Each task flow will use a different custom Content Presenter display template, and will be assign 2 different contributor data files (document that will be in the cache).  The pages at run time appear as follows: Initially, when the Space pages containing the content is loaded in the browser for the first time, you can see the tracing information in the Content Server output viewer. requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:12.030 IdcServer-129 CLEAR_SERVER_OUTPUT [dUser=weblogic] 0.029171999543905258(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:12.101 IdcServer-130 GET_SERVER_OUTPUT [dUser=weblogic] 0.025721000507473946(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:26.592 IdcServer-131 VCR_GET_DOCUMENT_BY_NAME [dID=919][dDocName=DF_UCMCACHETESTER][dDocTitle=DF_UCMCacheTester][dUser=weblogic][RevisionSelectionMethod=LatestReleased][IsJava=1] 0.21525299549102783(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:27.117 IdcServer-132 VCR_GET_CONTENT_TYPES [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.5059549808502197(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:27.146 IdcServer-133 VCR_GET_CONTENT_TYPE [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.03360399976372719(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:27.169 IdcServer-134 VCR_GET_CONTENT_TYPE [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.008806000463664532(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:27.204 IdcServer-135 VCR_GET_CONTENT_TYPE [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.013265999965369701(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:27.384 IdcServer-136 VCR_GET_CONTENT_TYPE [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.18119299411773682(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:27.533 IdcServer-137 VCR_GET_CONTENT_TYPE [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.1519480049610138(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:27.634 IdcServer-138 VCR_GET_CONTENT_TYPE [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.10827399790287018(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:27.687 IdcServer-139 VCR_GET_CONTENT_TYPE [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.059702999889850616(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:28.271 IdcServer-140 GET_USER_PERMISSIONS [dUser=weblogic][IsJava=1] 0.006703000050038099(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:28.285 IdcServer-141 GET_ENVIRONMENT [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.010893999598920345(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:30.433 IdcServer-142 GET_SERVER_OUTPUT [dUser=weblogic] 0.017318999394774437(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:41.837 IdcServer-143 VCR_GET_DOCUMENT_BY_NAME [dID=508][dDocName=113_ES][dDocTitle=Landing Home][dUser=weblogic][RevisionSelectionMethod=LatestReleased][IsJava=1] 0.15937699377536774(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:51:42.781 IdcServer-144 GET_FILE [dID=326][dDocName=WEBCENTERORACL000315][dDocTitle=Duke][dUser=anonymous][RevisionSelectionMethod=LatestReleased][dSecurityGroup=Public][xCollectionID=0] 0.16288499534130096(secs) The highlighted sections show where the 2 data files DF_UCMCACHETESTER (P1 page) and 113_ES (P2 page) were called by the (Spaces) VCR connection to the Content Server. The most important line to notice is the VCR_GET_DOCUMENT_BY_NAME invocation.  On subsequent refreshes of these 2 pages, you will notice (after you refresh the Content Server's View Server Output) that there are no further traces of the same VCR_GET_DOCUMENT_BY_NAME invocations.  This is because the pages are getting the documents from the cache. The next step is to go through the "backdoor" and change one of the documents through the Content Server console.  This operation can be done by first locating the data file document, and from the Content Information page, select Edit Data File menu option.   This invokes the Site Studio Contributor, where the modifications can be made. Refreshing the Content Server View Server Output, the tracing displays the operations perform on the document.  requestaudit/6 08.30 11:56:59.972 IdcServer-255 SS_CHECKOUT_BY_NAME [dID=922][dDocName=DF_UCMCACHETESTER][dUser=weblogic][dSecurityGroup=Public] 0.05558200180530548(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:57:00.065 IdcServer-256 SS_GET_CONTRIBUTOR_CONFIG [dID=922][dDocName=DF_UCMCACHETESTER][dDocTitle=DF_UCMCacheTester][dUser=weblogic][dSecurityGroup=Public][xCollectionID=0] 0.08632399886846542(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:57:00.470 IdcServer-259 DOC_INFO_BY_NAME [dID=922][dDocName=DF_UCMCACHETESTER][dDocTitle=DF_UCMCacheTester][dUser=weblogic][dSecurityGroup=Public][xCollectionID=0] 0.02268899977207184(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:57:10.177 IdcServer-264 GET_FOLDER_HISTORY_REPORT [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.007652000058442354(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:57:10.181 IdcServer-263 GET_FOLDER_HISTORY_REPORT [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.01868399977684021(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:57:10.187 IdcServer-265 GET_DOCUMENT_HISTORY_REPORT [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.009367000311613083(secs) (internal)/6 08.30 11:57:26.118 IdcServer-266 File to be removed: /oracle/app/admin/domains/webcenter/ucm/cs/vault/~temp/703253295.xml (internal)/6 08.30 11:57:26.121 IdcServer-266 File to be removed: /oracle/app/admin/domains/webcenter/ucm/cs/vault/~temp/703253295.xml requestaudit/6 08.30 11:57:26.122 IdcServer-266 SS_SET_ELEMENT_DATA [dID=923][dDocName=DF_UCMCACHETESTER][dDocTitle=DF_UCMCacheTester][dUser=weblogic][dSecurityGroup=Public][xCollectionID=0][StatusCode=0][StatusMessage=Successfully checked in content item 'DF_UCMCACHETESTER'.] 0.3765290081501007(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:57:30.710 IdcServer-267 DOC_INFO_BY_NAME [dID=923][dDocName=DF_UCMCACHETESTER][dDocTitle=DF_UCMCacheTester][dUser=weblogic][dSecurityGroup=Public][xCollectionID=0] 0.07942699640989304(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:57:30.733 IdcServer-268 SS_GET_CONTRIBUTOR_STRINGS [dUser=weblogic] 0.0044570001773536205(secs) After a few moments and refreshing the P1 page, the updates has been applied. Note: The refresh time may very, since the Cache Invalidation Interval (set to 2 minutes) is not determined by when changes happened.  The sweeper just runs every 2 minutes. Refreshing the Content Server View Server Output, the tracing displays the important information. requestaudit/6 08.30 11:59:10.171 IdcServer-270 GET_FOLDER_HISTORY_REPORT [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.00952600035816431(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:59:10.179 IdcServer-271 GET_FOLDER_HISTORY_REPORT [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.011118999682366848(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:59:10.182 IdcServer-272 GET_DOCUMENT_HISTORY_REPORT [dUser=sysadmin][IsJava=1] 0.007447000127285719(secs) requestaudit/6 08.30 11:59:16.885 IdcServer-273 VCR_GET_DOCUMENT_BY_NAME [dID=923][dDocName=DF_UCMCACHETESTER][dDocTitle=DF_UCMCacheTester][dUser=weblogic][RevisionSelectionMethod=LatestReleased][IsJava=1] 0.0786449983716011(secs) After the specifed interval time the sweeper is invoked, which is noted by the GET_ ... calls.  Since the history has noted the change, the next call is to the VCR_GET_DOCUMENT_BY_NAME to retrieve the new version of the (modifed) data file.  Navigating back to the P2 page, and viewing the server output, there are no further VCR_GET_DOCUMENT_BY_NAME to retrieve the data file.  This simply means that this data file was just retrieved from the cache.   Upon further review of the server output, we can see that there was only 1 request for the VCR_GET_DOCUMENT_BY_NAME: requestaudit/6 08.30 12:08:00.021 Audit Request Monitor Request Audit Report over the last 120 Seconds for server webcenteroraclelocal16200****  requestaudit/6 08.30 12:08:00.021 Audit Request Monitor -Num Requests 8 Errors 0 Reqs/sec. 0.06666944175958633 Avg. Latency (secs) 0.02762500010430813 Max Thread Count 2  requestaudit/6 08.30 12:08:00.021 Audit Request Monitor 1 Service VCR_GET_DOCUMENT_BY_NAME Total Elapsed Time (secs) 0.09200000017881393 Num requests 1 Num errors 0 Avg. Latency (secs) 0.09200000017881393  requestaudit/6 08.30 12:08:00.021 Audit Request Monitor 2 Service GET_PERSONALIZED_JAVASCRIPT Total Elapsed Time (secs) 0.054999999701976776 Num requests 1 Num errors 0 Avg. Latency (secs) 0.054999999701976776  requestaudit/6 08.30 12:08:00.021 Audit Request Monitor 3 Service GET_FOLDER_HISTORY_REPORT Total Elapsed Time (secs) 0.028999999165534973 Num requests 2 Num errors 0 Avg. Latency (secs) 0.014499999582767487  requestaudit/6 08.30 12:08:00.021 Audit Request Monitor 4 Service GET_SERVER_OUTPUT Total Elapsed Time (secs) 0.017999999225139618 Num requests 1 Num errors 0 Avg. Latency (secs) 0.017999999225139618  requestaudit/6 08.30 12:08:00.021 Audit Request Monitor 5 Service GET_FILE Total Elapsed Time (secs) 0.013000000268220901 Num requests 1 Num errors 0 Avg. Latency (secs) 0.013000000268220901  requestaudit/6 08.30 12:08:00.021 Audit Request Monitor ****End Audit Report*****  

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• Our Look at Opera 10.50 Web Browser

  - by Asian Angel

  Everyone has been talking about the newest version of Opera recently but perhaps you have not looked at it too closely yet. Today we will take a look at 10.50 and let you see what this “new browser” is all about. The New Engines Carakan JavaScript Engine: Runs web applications up to 7 times faster than its predecessor Futhark Vega Graphics Library: Enables super fast and smooth graphics on everything from tab switching to webpage animation Presto 2.5: Provides support for HTML5, CSS2.1 and the latest CSS3 standards A Look at the Features Available If you have installed or used older versions of Opera before then the default look after a clean install will probably seem rather different. The main differences in appearance are mainly located within the “glass border” areas of the browser. The “Speed Dial” setup looks and works just as well as in previous versions. You can set a favorite wallpaper or image as your background and choose the number of “dials” using the “Configure Speed Dial Command”. One of the “standout” differences is the “O Button”. All of the menus have been condensed into this single access point but it only takes a few moments to find what you are looking for. If you have used the style before in earlier versions of Opera some of the items have been moved around. For those who prefer the “Menu Bar” that can be easily restored using the “Show Menu Bar Command”. If desired you can actually “extend” the “Tab Bar” downwards to display thumbnails of your open tabs. Just use your mouse to grab the bottom of the “Tab Bar” and adjust it to suit your personal needs. The only problem with this feature is that it will quickly use up a good sized portion of your available UI and browser window space. The “Password Manager” is ready to access when needed…the background for the button will turn a shiny metallic blue when you open a webpage that you have “Login Information” saved for. One of the new features is a small “Recycle Bin Button” in the upper right corner. Clicking on this will display a list of recently closed tabs letting you have easy access to any tabs that you may have accidentally closed. This is definitely a great feature to have as an easy access button. For those who were used to how the “Zoom Feature” looked before it has a new “look” to it. Instead of the pop-up menu-type listing of “view sizes” present before you now have a slider button that you can use to adjust the zooming level. For our default setup here the “Sidebar Panels” available were: “Bookmarks, Widgets, Unite, Notes, Downloads, History, & Panels”. Additional panels such as “Links, Windows, Search, Info, etc.” are available if you want and/or need them (accessible using the “Panels Plus Sign Button”). The “Opera Link Button” makes it easy for you to synchronize your “Speed Dial, Bookmarks, Personal Bar, Custom Searches, History & Notes”. Note: “Opera Link” requires an account and can be signed up for using the link provided below. Want to share files with your family and friends? “Unite” allows you to do that and more. With “Unite” you can: “Stream Music, Show Photo Galleries, Share Files and/or Folders, & host webpages directly from your browser”. We have a more in-depth look at “Unite” in our article here. Note: Use of “Unite” requires an Opera account. Got a slow internet connection? “Opera Turbo” can help with that by running the web traffic through their “compression servers” to speed up your web browsing. Keep in mind that “Opera Turbo” will not engage if you are accessing a secure website (i.e. your bank’s website) thus preserving your security. Note: “Opera Turbo” can be set up to automatically detect slow internet connections (i.e. crowded Wi-Fi in a cafe). Opera has a built-in “Private Browsing Mode” now for those who prefer anonymous browsing and want to keep the “history records clean” on their computer. To access it go to “Tabs and windows” and select “New private tab” or “New private window” as desired. When you open your new “Private Tab or Window” you will see the following message with details on how Opera will handle browsing information and a large “door hanger symbol”. Notice that the one tab is locked into “Private Browsing Mode” while the others are still working in “Regular Browsing Mode”. Very nice! A miniature version of the “door hanger symbol” will be present on any tab that is locked into “Private Browsing Mode”. If you are using Windows 7 then you will love how things look from your “Taskbar”. Here you can see four very nice looking thumbnails for the tabs that we had open. All that you have to do is click on the desired thumbnail… The “Context Menu” looks just as lovely as the thumbnails and definitely has some terrific functionality built into it. Add Enhanced Aero Capability If you love “Aero” and want more for your new Opera install then we have the perfect theme for you. The theme’s name is Z1-AV69 and once you have downloaded it you will need to place it in the “Skins Subfolder” in Opera’s “Program Files Folder”. Note: For our example we used version 1.10 but version 2.00 is now available (link provided below). Once you have restarted Opera, go to the “O Menu” and select “Appearance”. When the “Appearance Window” opens click on “Z1-Glass Skin” and then click “OK”. All of a sudden you will have more “Aero Goodness” to enjoy. Compare this screenshot with the one at the top of this article…the only part that is not transparent now is the browser window area itself. Want even more “Aero Goodness”? Right click on the “Tab Bar” and set “Tab Bar Placement” to “Left”. Note: You can achieve the same effect by setting the “Tab Bar Placement” to “Right”. With the “Speed Dial” visible you will be able to see your wallpaper with ease. While this is obviously not for everyone it does make for a great visual trick. Portable Versions Perhaps you need this wonderful new version of Opera to go with you wherever you do during the day. Not a problem…just visit the Opera USB website to choose a version that works best for you. You can select from “Zip or Exe” setup files and if needed update an older portable version using a “Zipped Update Files Package”. If you are updating an older version keep in mind that you will need to delete the old “OperaUSB.exe. File” due to changes with the new setup files. During our tests updating older portable versions went well for the most part but we did experience a few “odd UI quirks” here and there…so we recommend setting up a clean install if possible. Conclusion The new 10.50 release is a pleasure to use and is a recommended install for your system. Whether you are considering trying Opera for the first time or have been using it for a bit we think that you will pleased with everything that the 10.50 release has to offer. For those who would like to add User Scripts to Opera be certain to look at our how-to article here. Links Download Opera 10.50 for your location (Windows) Get the latest Snapshot versions for Linux & Mac Sign up for an Opera Link account View In-Depth detail on Opera 10.50’s features Download the Z1-AV69 Aero Theme Download Portable Opera 10.50 Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Set the Speed Dial as the Opera Startup PageSet Up User Scripts in Opera BrowserScan Files for Viruses Before You Download With Dr.WebTurn Your Computer into a File, Music, and Web Server with Opera UniteSet the Default Browser on Ubuntu From the Command Line TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Make your Joomla & Drupal Sites Mobile with OSMOBI Integrate Twitter and Delicious and Make Life Easier Design Your Web Pages Using the Golden Ratio Worldwide Growth of the Internet How to Find Your Mac Address Use My TextTools to Edit and Organize Text

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• Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite Now Available

  - by chung.wu

  Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite is now available. The management suite combines features that were available in the standalone Application Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite and Application Change Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite with Oracle's market leading real user monitoring and configuration management capabilities to provide the most complete solution for managing E-Business Suite applications. The features that were available in the standalone management packs are now packaged into Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in 4.0, which is now fully certified with Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Grid Control. This latest plug-in extends Grid Control with E-Business Suite specific management capabilities and features enhanced change management support. In addition, this latest release of Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite also includes numerous real user monitoring improvements. General Enhancements This new release of Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite offers the following key capabilities: Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Grid Control Support: All components of the management suite are certified with Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Grid Control. Built-in Diagnostic Ability: This release has numerous major enhancements that provide the necessary intelligence to determine if the product has been installed and configured correctly. There are diagnostics for Discovery, Cloning, and User Monitoring that will validate if the appropriate patches, privileges, setups, and profile options have been configured. This feature improves the setup and configuration time to be up and operational. Lifecycle Automation Enhancements Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite provides a centralized view to monitor and orchestrate changes (both functional and technical) across multiple Oracle E-Business Suite systems. In this latest release, it provides even more control and flexibility in managing Oracle E-Business Suite changes.Change Management: Built-in Diagnostic Ability: This latest release has numerous major enhancements that provide the necessary intelligence to determine if the product has been installed and configured correctly. There are diagnostics for Customization Manager, Patch Manager, and Setup Manager that will validate if the appropriate patches, privileges, setups, and profile options have been configured. Enhancing the setup time and configuration time to be up and operational. Customization Manager: Multi-Node Custom Application Registration: This feature automates the process of registering and validating custom products/applications on every node in a multi-node EBS system. Public/Private File Source Mappings and E-Business Suite Mappings: File Source Mappings & E-Business Suite Mappings can be created and marked as public or private. Only the creator/owner can define/edit his/her own mappings. Users can use public mappings, but cannot edit or change settings. Test Checkout Command for Versions: This feature allows you to test/verify checkout commands at the version level within the File Source Mapping page. Prerequisite Patch Validation: You can specify prerequisite patches for Customization packages and for Release 12 Oracle E-Business Suite packages. Destination Path Population: You can now automatically populate the Destination Path for common file types during package construction. OAF File Type Support: Ability to package Oracle Application Framework (OAF) customizations and deploy them across multiple Oracle E-Business Suite instances. Extended PLL Support: Ability to distinguish between different types of PLLs (that is, Report and Forms PLL files). Providing better granularity when managing PLL objects. Enhanced Standard Checker: Provides greater and more comprehensive list of coding standards that are verified during the package build process (for example, File Driver exceptions, Java checks, XML checks, SQL checks, etc.) HTML Package Readme: The package Readme is in HTML format and includes the file listing. Advanced Package Search Capabilities: The ability to utilize more criteria within the advanced search package (that is, Public, Last Updated by, Files Source Mapping, and E-Business Suite Mapping). Enhanced Package Build Notifications: More detailed information on the results of a package build process. Better, more detailed troubleshooting guidance in the event of build failures. Patch Manager:Staged Patches: Ability to run Patch Manager with no external internet access. Customer can download Oracle E-Business Suite patches into a shared location for Patch Manager to access and apply. Supports highly secured production environments that prohibit external internet connections. Support for Superseded Patches: Automatic check for superseded patches. Allows users to easily add superseded patches into the Patch Run. More comprehensive and correct Patch Runs. Removes many manual and laborious tasks, frees up Apps DBAs for higher value-added tasks. Automatic Primary Node Identification: Users can now specify which is the "primary node" (that is, which node hosts the Shared APPL_TOP) during the Patch Run interview process, available for Release 12 only. Setup Manager:Preview Extract Results: Ability to execute an extract in "proof mode", and examine the query results, to determine accuracy. Used in conjunction with the "where" clause in Advanced Filtering. This feature can provide better and more accurate fine tuning of extracts. Use Uploaded Extracts in New Projects: Ability to incorporate uploaded extracts in new projects via new LOV fields in package construction. Leverages the Setup Manager repository to access extracts that have been uploaded. Allows customer to reuse uploaded extracts to provision new instances. Re-use Existing (that is, historical) Extracts in New Projects: Ability to incorporate existing extracts in new projects via new LOV fields in package construction. Leverages the Setup Manager repository to access point-in-time extracts (snapshots) of configuration data. Allows customer to reuse existing extracts to provision new instances. Allows comparative historical reporting of identical APIs, executed at different times. Support for BR100 formats: Setup Manager can now automatically produce reports in the BR100 format. Native support for industry standard formats. Concurrent Manager API Support: General Foundation now provides an API for management of "Concurrent Manager" configuration data. Ability to migrate Concurrent Managers from one instance to another. Complete the setup once and never again; no need to redefine the Concurrent Managers. User Experience Management Enhancements Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite includes comprehensive capabilities for user experience management, supporting both real user and synthetic transaction based user monitoring techniques. This latest release of the management suite include numerous improvements in real user monitoring support. KPI Reporting: Configurable decimal precision for reporting of KPI and SLA values. By default, this is two decimal places. KPI numerator and denominator information. It is now possible to view KPI numerator and denominator information, and to have it available for export. Content Messages Processing: The application content message facility has been extended to distinguish between notifications and errors. In addition, it is now possible to specify matching rules that can be used to refine a selected content message specification. Note this is only available for XPath-based (not literal) message contents. Data Export: The Enriched data export facility has been significantly enhanced to provide improved performance and accessibility. Data is no longer stored within XML-based files, but is now stored within the Reporter database. However, it is possible to configure an alternative database for its storage. Access to the export data is through SQL. With this enhancement, it is now more easy than ever to use tools such as Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition to analyze correlated data collected from real user monitoring and business data sources. SNMP Traps for System Events: Previously, the SNMP notification facility was only available for KPI alerting. It has now been extended to support the generation of SNMP traps for system events, to provide external health monitoring of the RUEI system processes. Performance Improvements: Enhanced dashboard performance. The dashboard facility has been enhanced to support the parallel loading of items. In the case of dashboards containing large numbers of items, this can result in a significant performance improvement. Initial period selection within Data Browser and reports. The User Preferences facility has been extended to allow you to specify the initial period selection when first entering the Data Browser or reports facility. The default is the last hour. Performance improvement when querying the all sessions group. Technical Prerequisites, Download and Installation Instructions The Linux version of the plug-in is available for immediate download from Oracle Technology Network or Oracle eDelivery. For specific information regarding technical prerequisites, product download and installation, please refer to My Oracle Support note 1224313.1. The following certifications are in progress: * Oracle Solaris on SPARC (64-bit) (9, 10) * HP-UX Itanium (11.23, 11.31) * HP-UX PA-RISC (64-bit) (11.23, 11.31) * IBM AIX on Power Systems (64-bit) (5.3, 6.1)

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• Displaying an image on a LED matrix with a Netduino

  - by Bertrand Le Roy

  In the previous post, we’ve been flipping bits manually on three ports of the Netduino to simulate the data, clock and latch pins that a shift register expected. We did all that in order to control one line of a LED matrix and create a simple Knight Rider effect. It was rightly pointed out in the comments that the Netduino has built-in knowledge of the sort of serial protocol that this shift register understands through a feature called SPI. That will of course make our code a whole lot simpler, but it will also make it a whole lot faster: writing to the Netduino ports is actually not that fast, whereas SPI is very, very fast. Unfortunately, the Netduino documentation for SPI is severely lacking. Instead, we’ve been reliably using the documentation for the Fez, another .NET microcontroller. To send data through SPI, we’ll just need  to move a few wires around and update the code. SPI uses pin D11 for writing, pin D12 for reading (which we won’t do) and pin D13 for the clock. The latch pin is a parameter that can be set by the user. This is very close to the wiring we had before (data on D11, clock on D12 and latch on D13). We just have to move the latch from D13 to D10, and the clock from D12 to D13. The code that controls the shift register has slimmed down considerably with that change. Here is the new version, which I invite you to compare with what we had before: public class ShiftRegister74HC595 { protected SPI Spi; public ShiftRegister74HC595(Cpu.Pin latchPin) : this(latchPin, SPI.SPI_module.SPI1) { } public ShiftRegister74HC595(Cpu.Pin latchPin, SPI.SPI_module spiModule) { var spiConfig = new SPI.Configuration( SPI_mod: spiModule, ChipSelect_Port: latchPin, ChipSelect_ActiveState: false, ChipSelect_SetupTime: 0, ChipSelect_HoldTime: 0, Clock_IdleState: false, Clock_Edge: true, Clock_RateKHz: 1000 ); Spi = new SPI(spiConfig); } public void Write(byte buffer) { Spi.Write(new[] {buffer}); } } All we have to do here is configure SPI. The write method couldn’t be any simpler. Everything is now handled in hardware by the Netduino. We set the frequency to 1MHz, which is largely sufficient for what we’ll be doing, but it could potentially go much higher. The shift register addresses the columns of the matrix. The rows are directly wired to ports D0 to D7 of the Netduino. The code writes to only one of those eight lines at a time, which will make it fast enough. The way an image is displayed is that we light the lines one after the other so fast that persistence of vision will give the illusion of a stable image: foreach (var bitmap in matrix.MatrixBitmap) { matrix.OnRow(row, bitmap, true); matrix.OnRow(row, bitmap, false); row++; } Now there is a twist here: we need to run this code as fast as possible in order to display the image with as little flicker as possible, but we’ll eventually have other things to do. In other words, we need the code driving the display to run in the background, except when we want to change what’s being displayed. Fortunately, the .NET Micro Framework supports multithreading. In our implementation, we’ve added an Initialize method that spins a new thread that is tied to the specific instance of the matrix it’s being called on. public LedMatrix Initialize() { DisplayThread = new Thread(() => DoDisplay(this)); DisplayThread.Start(); return this; } I quite like this way to spin a thread. As you may know, there is another, built-in way to contextualize a thread by passing an object into the Start method. For the method to work, the thread must have been constructed with a ParameterizedThreadStart delegate, which takes one parameter of type object. I like to use object as little as possible, so instead I’m constructing a closure with a Lambda, currying it with the current instance. This way, everything remains strongly-typed and there’s no casting to do. Note that this method would extend perfectly to several parameters. Of note as well is the return value of Initialize, a common technique to add some fluency to the API and enabling the matrix to be instantiated and initialized in a single line: using (var matrix = new LedMS88SR74HC595().Initialize()) The “using” in the previous line is because we have implemented IDisposable so that the matrix kills the thread and clears the display when the user code is done with it: public void Dispose() { Clear(); DisplayThread.Abort(); } Thanks to the multi-threaded version of the matrix driver class, we can treat the display as a simple bitmap with a very synchronous programming model: matrix.Set(someimage); while (button.Read()) { Thread.Sleep(10); } Here, the call into Set returns immediately and from the moment the bitmap is set, the background display thread will constantly continue refreshing no matter what happens in the main thread. That enables us to wait or read a button’s port on the main thread knowing that the current image will continue displaying unperturbed and without requiring manual refreshing. We’ve effectively hidden the implementation of the display behind a convenient, synchronous-looking API. Pretty neat, eh? Before I wrap up this post, I want to talk about one small caveat of using SPI rather than driving the shift register directly: when we got to the point where we could actually display images, we noticed that they were a mirror image of what we were sending in. Oh noes! Well, the reason for it is that SPI is sending the bits in a big-endian fashion, in other words backwards. Now sure you could fix that in software by writing some bit-level code to reverse the bits we’re sending in, but there is a far more efficient solution than that. We are doing hardware here, so we can simply reverse the order in which the outputs of the shift register are connected to the columns of the matrix. That’s switching 8 wires around once, as compared to doing bit operations every time we send a line to display. All right, so bringing it all together, here is the code we need to write to display two images in succession, separated by a press on the board’s button: var button = new InputPort(Pins.ONBOARD_SW1, false, Port.ResistorMode.Disabled); using (var matrix = new LedMS88SR74HC595().Initialize()) { // Oh, prototype is so sad! var sad = new byte[] { 0x66, 0x24, 0x00, 0x18, 0x00, 0x3C, 0x42, 0x81 }; DisplayAndWait(sad, matrix, button); // Let's make it smile! var smile = new byte[] { 0x42, 0x18, 0x18, 0x81, 0x7E, 0x3C, 0x18, 0x00 }; DisplayAndWait(smile, matrix, button); } And here is a video of the prototype running: The prototype in action I’ve added an artificial delay between the display of each row of the matrix to clearly show what’s otherwise happening very fast. This way, you can clearly see each of the two images being displayed line by line. Next time, we’ll do no hardware changes, focusing instead on building a nice programming model for the matrix, with sprites, text and hardware scrolling. Fun stuff. By the way, can any of my reader guess where we’re going with all that? The code for this prototype can be downloaded here: http://weblogs.asp.net/blogs/bleroy/Samples/NetduinoLedMatrixDriver.zip

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• Introducing Oracle VM Server for SPARC

  - by Honglin Su

  As you are watching Oracle's Virtualization Strategy Webcast and exploring the great virtualization offerings of Oracle VM product line, I'd like to introduce Oracle VM Server for SPARC --  highly efficient, enterprise-class virtualization solution for Sun SPARC Enterprise Systems with Chip Multithreading (CMT) technology. Oracle VM Server for SPARC, previously called Sun Logical Domains, leverages the built-in SPARC hypervisor to subdivide supported platforms' resources (CPUs, memory, network, and storage) by creating partitions called logical (or virtual) domains. Each logical domain can run an independent operating system. Oracle VM Server for SPARC provides the flexibility to deploy multiple Oracle Solaris operating systems simultaneously on a single platform. Oracle VM Server also allows you to create up to 128 virtual servers on one system to take advantage of the massive thread scale offered by the CMT architecture. Oracle VM Server for SPARC integrates both the industry-leading CMT capability of the UltraSPARC T1, T2 and T2 Plus processors and the Oracle Solaris operating system. This combination helps to increase flexibility, isolate workload processing, and improve the potential for maximum server utilization. Oracle VM Server for SPARC delivers the following: Leading Price/Performance - The low-overhead architecture provides scalable performance under increasing workloads without additional license cost. This enables you to meet the most aggressive price/performance requirement Advanced RAS - Each logical domain is an entirely independent virtual machine with its own OS. It supports virtual disk mutipathing and failover as well as faster network failover with link-based IP multipathing (IPMP) support. Moreover, it's fully integrated with Solaris FMA (Fault Management Architecture), which enables predictive self healing. CPU Dynamic Resource Management (DRM) - Enable your resource management policy and domain workload to trigger the automatic addition and removal of CPUs. This ability helps you to better align with your IT and business priorities. Enhanced Domain Migrations - Perform domain migrations interactively and non-interactively to bring more flexibility to the management of your virtualized environment. Improve active domain migration performance by compressing memory transfers and taking advantage of cryptographic acceleration hardware. These methods provide faster migration for load balancing, power saving, and planned maintenance. Dynamic Crypto Control - Dynamically add and remove cryptographic units (aka MAU) to and from active domains. Also, migrate active domains that have cryptographic units. Physical-to-virtual (P2V) Conversion - Quickly convert an existing SPARC server running the Oracle Solaris 8, 9 or 10 OS into a virtualized Oracle Solaris 10 image. Use this image to facilitate OS migration into the virtualized environment. Virtual I/O Dynamic Reconfiguration (DR) - Add and remove virtual I/O services and devices without needing to reboot the system. CPU Power Management - Implement power saving by disabling each core on a Sun UltraSPARC T2 or T2 Plus processor that has all of its CPU threads idle. Advanced Network Configuration - Configure the following network features to obtain more flexible network configurations, higher performance, and scalability: Jumbo frames, VLANs, virtual switches for link aggregations, and network interface unit (NIU) hybrid I/O. Official Certification Based On Real-World Testing - Use Oracle VM Server for SPARC with the most sophisticated enterprise workloads under real-world conditions, including Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC). Affordable, Full-Stack Enterprise Class Support - Obtain worldwide support from Oracle for the entire virtualization environment and workloads together. The support covers hardware, firmware, OS, virtualization, and the software stack. SPARC Server Virtualization Oracle offers a full portfolio of virtualization solutions to address your needs. SPARC is the leading platform to have the hard partitioning capability that provides the physical isolation needed to run independent operating systems. Many customers have already used Oracle Solaris Containers for application isolation. Oracle VM Server for SPARC provides another important feature with OS isolation. This gives you the flexibility to deploy multiple operating systems simultaneously on a single Sun SPARC T-Series server with finer granularity for computing resources.  For SPARC CMT processors, the natural level of granularity is an execution thread, not a time-sliced microsecond of execution resources. Each CPU thread can be treated as an independent virtual processor. The scheduler is naturally built into the CPU for lower overhead and higher performance. Your organizations can couple Oracle Solaris Containers and Oracle VM Server for SPARC with the breakthrough space and energy savings afforded by Sun SPARC Enterprise systems with CMT technology to deliver a more agile, responsive, and low-cost environment. Management with Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center The Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center Virtualization Management Pack provides full lifecycle management of virtual guests, including Oracle VM Server for SPARC and Oracle Solaris Containers. It helps you streamline operations and reduce downtime. Together, the Virtualization Management Pack and the Ops Center Provisioning and Patch Automation Pack provide an end-to-end management solution for physical and virtual systems through a single web-based console. This solution automates the lifecycle management of physical and virtual systems and is the most effective systems management solution for Oracle's Sun infrastructure. Ease of Deployment with Configuration Assistant The Oracle VM Server for SPARC Configuration Assistant can help you easily create logical domains. After gathering the configuration data, the Configuration Assistant determines the best way to create a deployment to suit your requirements. The Configuration Assistant is available as both a graphical user interface (GUI) and terminal-based tool. Oracle Solaris Cluster HA Support The Oracle Solaris Cluster HA for Oracle VM Server for SPARC data service provides a mechanism for orderly startup and shutdown, fault monitoring and automatic failover of the Oracle VM Server guest domain service. In addition, applications that run on a logical domain, as well as its resources and dependencies can be controlled and managed independently. These are managed as if they were running in a classical Solaris Cluster hardware node. Supported Systems Oracle VM Server for SPARC is supported on all Sun SPARC Enterprise Systems with CMT technology. UltraSPARC T2 Plus Systems ·   Sun SPARC Enterprise T5140 Server ·   Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 Server ·   Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 Server ·   Sun Netra T5440 Server ·   Sun Blade T6340 Server Module ·   Sun Netra T6340 Server Module UltraSPARC T2 Systems ·   Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 Server ·   Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220 Server ·   Sun Netra T5220 Server ·   Sun Blade T6320 Server Module ·   Sun Netra CP3260 ATCA Blade Server Note that UltraSPARC T1 systems are supported on earlier versions of the software.Sun SPARC Enterprise Systems with CMT technology come with the right to use (RTU) of Oracle VM Server, and the software is pre-installed. If you have the systems under warranty or with support, you can download the software and system firmware as well as their updates. Oracle Premier Support for Systems provides fully-integrated support for your server hardware, firmware, OS, and virtualization software. Visit oracle.com/support for information about Oracle's support offerings for Sun systems. For more information about Oracle's virtualization offerings, visit oracle.com/virtualization.

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• Database users in the Oracle Utilities Application Framework

  - by Anthony Shorten

  I mentioned the product database users fleetingly in the last blog post and they deserve a better mention. This applies to all versions of the Oracle Utilities Application Framework. The Oracle Utilities Application Framework uses up to three users initially as part of the base operations of the product. The type of database supported (the framework supports Oracle, IBM DB2 and Microsoft SQL Server) dictates the number of users used and their permissions. For publishing brevity I will outline what is available for the Oracle database and, in summary, mention where it differs for the other database supported. For Oracle database customers we ship three distinct database users: Administration User (SPLADM or CISADM by default) - This is the database user that actually owns the schema. This user is not used by the product to do any DML (Data Manipulation Language) SQL other than that is necessary for maintenance of the database. This database user performs all the DCL (Data Control Language) and DDL (Data Definition Language) against the database. It is typically reserved for Database Administration use only. Product Read Write User (SPLUSER or CISUSER by default) - This is the database user used by the product itself to execute DML (Data Manipulation Language) statements against the schema owned by the Administration user. This user has the appropriate read and write permission to objects within the schema owned by the Administration user. For databases such as DB2 and SQL Server we may not create this user but use other DCL (Data Control Language) statements and facilities to simulate this user. Product Read User (SPLREAD or CISREAD by default) - This is the database that has read only permission to the schema owned by the Administration user. It is used for reporting or any part of the product or interface that requires read permissions to the database (for example, products that have ConfigLab and Archiving use this user for remote access). For databases such as DB2 and SQL Server we may not create this user but use other DCL (Data Control Language) statements and facilities to simulate this user. You may notice the words by default in the list above. The values supplied with the installer are the default and can be changed to what the site standard or implementation wants to use (as long as they conform to the standards supported by the underlying database). You can even create multiples of each within the same database and pointing to same schema. To manage the permissions for the users, there is a utility provided with the installation (oragensec (Oracle), db2gensec (DB2) or msqlgensec (SQL Server)) that generates the security definitions for the above users. That can be executed a number of times for each schema to give users appropriate permissions. For example, it is possible to define more than one read/write User to access the database. This is a common technique used by implementations to have a different user per access mode (to separate online and batch). In fact you can also allocate additional security (such as resource profiles in Oracle) to limit the impact of specific users at the database. To facilitate users and permissions, in Oracle for example, we create a CISREAD role (read only role) and a CISUSER role (read write role) that can be allocated to the appropriate database user. When the security permissions utility, oragensec in this case, is executed it uses the role to determine the permissions. To give you a case study, my underpowered laptop has multiple installations on it of multiple products but I have one database. I create a different schema for each product and each version (with my own naming convention to help me manage the databases). I create individual users on each schema and run oragensec to maintain the permissions for each appropriately. It works fine as long I have setup the userids appropriately. This means: Creating the users with the appropriate roles. I use the common CISUSER and CISREAD role across versions and across Oracle Utilities Application Framework products. Just remember to associate the CISUSER role with the database user you want to use for read/write operations and the CISREAD role with the user you wish to use for the read only operations. The role is treated as a tag to indicate the oragensec utility which appropriate permissions to assign to the user. The utilities for the other database types essentially do the same, obviously using the technology available within those databases. Run oragensec against the read write user and read only user against the appropriate administration user (I will abbreviate the user to ADM user). This ensures the right permissions are allocated to the right users for the right products. To help me there, I use the same prefix on the user name for the same product. For example, my Oracle Utilities Application Framework V4 environment has the administration user set to FW4ADM and the associated FW4USER and FW4READ as the users for the product to use. For my MWM environment I used MWMADM for the administration user and MWMUSER and MWMREAD for my associated users. You get the picture. When I run oragensec (once for each ADM user), I know what other users to associate with it. Remember to rerun oragensec against the users if I run upgrades, service packs or database based single fixes. This assures that the users are in synchronization with the ADM user. As a side note, for those who do not understand the difference between DML, DCL and DDL: DDL (Data Definition Language) - These are SQL statements that define the database schema and the structures within. SQL Statements such as CREATE and DROP are examples of DDL SQL statements. DCL (Data Control Language) - These are the SQL statements that define the database level permissions to DDL maintained objects within the database. SQL Statements such as GRANT and REVOKE are examples of DCL SQL statements. DML (Database Manipulation Language) - These are SQL statements that alter the data within the tables. SQL Statements such as SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE are examples of DML SQL statements. Hope this has clarified the database user support. Remember in Oracle Utilities Application Framework V4 we enhanced this by also supporting CLIENT_IDENTIFIER to allow the database to still use the administration user for the main processing but make the database session more traceable.

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• Soapi.CS : A fully relational fluent .NET Stack Exchange API client library

  - by Sky Sanders

  Soapi.CS for .Net / Silverlight / Windows Phone 7 / Mono as easy as breathing...: var context = new ApiContext(apiKey).Initialize(false); Question thisPost = context.Official .StackApps .Questions.ById(386) .WithComments(true) .First(); Console.WriteLine(thisPost.Title); thisPost .Owner .Questions .PageSize(5) .Sort(PostSort.Votes) .ToList() .ForEach(q=> { Console.WriteLine("\t" + q.Score + "\t" + q.Title); q.Timeline.ToList().ForEach(t=> Console.WriteLine("\t\t" + t.TimelineType + "\t" + t.Owner.DisplayName)); Console.WriteLine(); }); // if you can think it, you can get it. Output Soapi.CS : A fully relational fluent .NET Stack Exchange API client library 21 Soapi.CS : A fully relational fluent .NET Stack Exchange API client library Revision code poet Revision code poet Votes code poet Votes code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Votes code poet Votes code poet Votes code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Votes code poet Comment code poet Revision code poet Votes code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Answer code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet 14 SOAPI-WATCH: A realtime service that notifies subscribers via twitter when the API changes in any way. Votes code poet Revision code poet Votes code poet Comment code poet Comment code poet Comment code poet Votes lfoust Votes code poet Comment code poet Comment code poet Comment code poet Comment code poet Revision code poet Comment lfoust Votes code poet Revision code poet Votes code poet Votes lfoust Votes code poet Revision code poet Comment Dave DeLong Revision code poet Revision code poet Votes code poet Comment lfoust Comment Dave DeLong Comment lfoust Comment lfoust Comment Dave DeLong Revision code poet 11 SOAPI-EXPLORE: Self-updating single page JavaSript API test harness Votes code poet Votes code poet Votes code poet Votes code poet Votes code poet Comment code poet Revision code poet Votes code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Comment code poet Revision code poet Votes code poet Comment code poet Question code poet Votes code poet 11 Soapi.JS V1.0: fluent JavaScript wrapper for the StackOverflow API Comment George Edison Comment George Edison Comment George Edison Comment George Edison Comment George Edison Comment George Edison Answer George Edison Votes code poet Votes code poet Votes code poet Votes code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Answer code poet Comment code poet Revision code poet Comment code poet Comment code poet Comment code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Votes code poet Votes code poet Votes code poet Votes code poet Comment code poet Comment code poet Comment code poet Comment code poet Comment code poet 9 SOAPI-DIFF: Your app broke? Check SOAPI-DIFF to find out what changed in the API Votes code poet Revision code poet Comment Dennis Williamson Answer Dennis Williamson Votes code poet Votes Dennis Williamson Comment code poet Question code poet Votes code poet About A robust, fully relational, easy to use, strongly typed, end-to-end StackOverflow API Client Library. Out of the box, Soapi provides you with a robust client library that abstracts away most all of the messy details of consuming the API and lets you concentrate on implementing your ideas. A few features include: A fully relational model of the API data set exposed via a fully 'dot navigable' IEnumerable (LINQ) implementation. Simply tell Soapi what you want and it will get it for you. e.g. "On my first question, from the author of the first comment, get the first page of comments by that person on any post" my.Questions.First().Comments.First().Owner.Comments.ToList(); (yes this is a real expression that returns the data as expressed!) Full coverage of the API, all routes and all parameters with an intuitive syntax. Strongly typed Domain Data Objects for all API data structures. Eager and Lazy Loading of 'stub' objects. Eager\Lazy loading may be disabled. When finer grained control of requests is desired, the core RouteMap objects may be leveraged to request data from any of the API paths using all available parameters as documented on the help pages. A rich Asynchronous implementation. A configurable request cache to reduce unnecessary network traffic and to simplify your usage logic. There is no need to go out of your way to be frugal. You may set a distinct cache duration for any particular route. A configurable request throttle to ensure compliance with the api terms of usage and to simplify your code in that you do not have to worry about and respond to 50X errors. The RequestCache and Throttled Queue are thread-safe, so can make as many requests as you like from as many threads as you like as fast as you like and not worry about abusing the api or having to write reams of management/compensation code. Configurable retry threshold that will, by default, make up to 3 attempts to retrieve a request before failing. Every request made by Soapi is properly formed and directed so most any http error will be the result of a timeout or other network infrastructure. A retry buffer provides a level of fault tolerance that you can rely on. An almost identical javascript library, Soapi.JS, and it's full figured big brother, Soapi.JS2, that will enable you to leverage your server cycles and bandwidth for only those tasks that require it and offload things like status updates to the client's browser. License Licensed GPL Version 2 license. Why is Soapi.CS GPL? Can I get an LGPL license for Soapi.CS? (hint: probably) Platforms .NET 3.5 .NET 4.0 Silverlight 3 Silverlight 4 Windows Phone 7 Mono Download Source code lives @ http://soapics.codeplex.com. Binary releases are forthcoming. codeplex is acting up again. get the source and binaries @ http://bitbucket.org/bitpusher/soapi.cs/downloads The source is C# 3.5. and includes projects and solutions for the following IDEs Visual Studio 2008 Visual Studio 2010 ModoDevelop 2.4 Documentation Full documentation is available at http://soapi.info/help/cs/index.aspx Sample Code / Usage Examples Sample code and usage examples will be added as answers to this question. Full API Coverage all API routes are covered Full Parameter Parity If the API exposes it, Soapi giftwraps it for you. Building a simple app with Soapi.CS - a simple app that gathers all traces of a user in the whole stackiverse. Fluent Configuration - Setting up a Soapi.ApiContext could not be easier Bulk Data Import - A tiny app that quickly loads a SQLite data file with all users in the stackiverse. Paged Results - Soapi.CS transparently handles multi-page operations. Asynchronous Requests - Soapi.CS provides a rich asynchronous model that is especially useful when writing api apps in Silverlight or Windows Phone 7. Caching and Throttling - how and why Apps that use Soapi.CS Soapi.FindUser - .net utility for locating a user anywhere in the stackiverse Soapi.Explore - The entire API at your command Soapi.LastSeen - List users by last access time Add your app/site here - I know you are out there ;-) if you are not comfortable editing this post, simply add a comment and I will add it. The CS/SL/WP7/MONO libraries all compile the same code and with the exception of environmental considerations of Silverlight, the code samples are valid for all libraries. You may also find guidance in the test suites. More information on the SOAPI eco-system. Contact This library is currently the effort of me, Sky Sanders (code poet) and can be reached at gmail - sky.sanders Any who are interested in improving this library are welcome. Support Soapi You can help support this project by voting for Soapi's Open Source Ad post For more information about the origins of Soapi.CS and the rest of the Soapi eco-system see What is Soapi and why should I care?

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• Working with PivotTables in Excel

  - by Mark Virtue

  PivotTables are one of the most powerful features of Microsoft Excel.  They allow large amounts of data to be analyzed and summarized in just a few mouse clicks. In this article, we explore PivotTables, understand what they are, and learn how to create and customize them. Note:  This article is written using Excel 2010 (Beta).  The concept of a PivotTable has changed little over the years, but the method of creating one has changed in nearly every iteration of Excel.  If you are using a version of Excel that is not 2010, expect different screens from the ones you see in this article. A Little History In the early days of spreadsheet programs, Lotus 1-2-3 ruled the roost.  Its dominance was so complete that people thought it was a waste of time for Microsoft to bother developing their own spreadsheet software (Excel) to compete with Lotus.  Flash-forward to 2010, and Excel’s dominance of the spreadsheet market is greater than Lotus’s ever was, while the number of users still running Lotus 1-2-3 is approaching zero.  How did this happen?  What caused such a dramatic reversal of fortunes? Industry analysts put it down to two factors:  Firstly, Lotus decided that this fancy new GUI platform called “Windows” was a passing fad that would never take off.  They declined to create a Windows version of Lotus 1-2-3 (for a few years, anyway), predicting that their DOS version of the software was all anyone would ever need.  Microsoft, naturally, developed Excel exclusively for Windows.  Secondly, Microsoft developed a feature for Excel that Lotus didn’t provide in 1-2-3, namely PivotTables.  The PivotTables feature, exclusive to Excel, was deemed so staggeringly useful that people were willing to learn an entire new software package (Excel) rather than stick with a program (1-2-3) that didn’t have it.  This one feature, along with the misjudgment of the success of Windows, was the death-knell for Lotus 1-2-3, and the beginning of the success of Microsoft Excel. Understanding PivotTables So what is a PivotTable, exactly? Put simply, a PivotTable is a summary of some data, created to allow easy analysis of said data.  But unlike a manually created summary, Excel PivotTables are interactive.  Once you have created one, you can easily change it if it doesn’t offer the exact insights into your data that you were hoping for.  In a couple of clicks the summary can be “pivoted” – rotated in such a way that the column headings become row headings, and vice versa.  There’s a lot more that can be done, too.  Rather than try to describe all the features of PivotTables, we’ll simply demonstrate them… The data that you analyze using a PivotTable can’t be just any data – it has to be raw data, previously unprocessed (unsummarized) – typically a list of some sort.  An example of this might be the list of sales transactions in a company for the past six months. Examine the data shown below: Notice that this is not raw data.  In fact, it is already a summary of some sort.  In cell B3 we can see $30,000, which apparently is the total of James Cook’s sales for the month of January.  So where is the raw data?  How did we arrive at the figure of $30,000?  Where is the original list of sales transactions that this figure was generated from?  It’s clear that somewhere, someone must have gone to the trouble of collating all of the sales transactions for the past six months into the summary we see above.  How long do you suppose this took?  An hour?  Ten?  Probably. If we were to track down the original list of sales transactions, it might look something like this: You may be surprised to learn that, using the PivotTable feature of Excel, we can create a monthly sales summary similar to the one above in a few seconds, with only a few mouse clicks.  We can do this – and a lot more too! How to Create a PivotTable First, ensure that you have some raw data in a worksheet in Excel.  A list of financial transactions is typical, but it can be a list of just about anything:  Employee contact details, your CD collection, or fuel consumption figures for your company’s fleet of cars. So we start Excel… …and we load such a list… Once we have the list open in Excel, we’re ready to start creating the PivotTable. Click on any one single cell within the list: Then, from the Insert tab, click the PivotTable icon: The Create PivotTable box appears, asking you two questions:  What data should your new PivotTable be based on, and where should it be created?  Because we already clicked on a cell within the list (in the step above), the entire list surrounding that cell is already selected for us ($A$1:$G$88 on the Payments sheet, in this example).  Note that we could select a list in any other region of any other worksheet, or even some external data source, such as an Access database table, or even a MS-SQL Server database table.  We also need to select whether we want our new PivotTable to be created on a new worksheet, or on an existing one.  In this example we will select a new one: The new worksheet is created for us, and a blank PivotTable is created on that worksheet: Another box also appears:  The PivotTable Field List.  This field list will be shown whenever we click on any cell within the PivotTable (above): The list of fields in the top part of the box is actually the collection of column headings from the original raw data worksheet.  The four blank boxes in the lower part of the screen allow us to choose the way we would like our PivotTable to summarize the raw data.  So far, there is nothing in those boxes, so the PivotTable is blank.  All we need to do is drag fields down from the list above and drop them in the lower boxes.  A PivotTable is then automatically created to match our instructions.  If we get it wrong, we only need to drag the fields back to where they came from and/or drag new fields down to replace them. The Values box is arguably the most important of the four.  The field that is dragged into this box represents the data that needs to be summarized in some way (by summing, averaging, finding the maximum, minimum, etc).  It is almost always numerical data.  A perfect candidate for this box in our sample data is the “Amount” field/column.  Let’s drag that field into the Values box: Notice that (a) the “Amount” field in the list of fields is now ticked, and “Sum of Amount” has been added to the Values box, indicating that the amount column has been summed. If we examine the PivotTable itself, we indeed find the sum of all the “Amount” values from the raw data worksheet: We’ve created our first PivotTable!  Handy, but not particularly impressive.  It’s likely that we need a little more insight into our data than that. Referring to our sample data, we need to identify one or more column headings that we could conceivably use to split this total.  For example, we may decide that we would like to see a summary of our data where we have a row heading for each of the different salespersons in our company, and a total for each.  To achieve this, all we need to do is to drag the “Salesperson” field into the Row Labels box: Now, finally, things start to get interesting!  Our PivotTable starts to take shape….   With a couple of clicks we have created a table that would have taken a long time to do manually. So what else can we do?  Well, in one sense our PivotTable is complete.  We’ve created a useful summary of our source data.  The important stuff is already learned!  For the rest of the article, we will examine some ways that more complex PivotTables can be created, and ways that those PivotTables can be customized. First, we can create a two-dimensional table.  Let’s do that by using “Payment Method” as a column heading.  Simply drag the “Payment Method” heading to the Column Labels box: Which looks like this: Starting to get very cool! Let’s make it a three-dimensional table.  What could such a table possibly look like?  Well, let’s see… Drag the “Package” column/heading to the Report Filter box: Notice where it ends up…. This allows us to filter our report based on which “holiday package” was being purchased.  For example, we can see the breakdown of salesperson vs payment method for all packages, or, with a couple of clicks, change it to show the same breakdown for the “Sunseekers” package: And so, if you think about it the right way, our PivotTable is now three-dimensional.  Let’s keep customizing… If it turns out, say, that we only want to see cheque and credit card transactions (i.e. no cash transactions), then we can deselect the “Cash” item from the column headings.  Click the drop-down arrow next to Column Labels, and untick “Cash”: Let’s see what that looks like…As you can see, “Cash” is gone. Formatting This is obviously a very powerful system, but so far the results look very plain and boring.  For a start, the numbers that we’re summing do not look like dollar amounts – just plain old numbers.  Let’s rectify that. A temptation might be to do what we’re used to doing in such circumstances and simply select the whole table (or the whole worksheet) and use the standard number formatting buttons on the toolbar to complete the formatting.  The problem with that approach is that if you ever change the structure of the PivotTable in the future (which is 99% likely), then those number formats will be lost.  We need a way that will make them (semi-)permanent. First, we locate the “Sum of Amount” entry in the Values box, and click on it.  A menu appears.  We select Value Field Settings… from the menu: The Value Field Settings box appears. Click the Number Format button, and the standard Format Cells box appears: From the Category list, select (say) Accounting, and drop the number of decimal places to 0.  Click OK a few times to get back to the PivotTable… As you can see, the numbers have been correctly formatted as dollar amounts. While we’re on the subject of formatting, let’s format the entire PivotTable.  There are a few ways to do this.  Let’s use a simple one… Click the PivotTable Tools/Design tab: Then drop down the arrow in the bottom-right of the PivotTable Styles list to see a vast collection of built-in styles: Choose any one that appeals, and look at the result in your PivotTable:   Other Options We can work with dates as well.  Now usually, there are many, many dates in a transaction list such as the one we started with.  But Excel provides the option to group data items together by day, week, month, year, etc.  Let’s see how this is done. First, let’s remove the “Payment Method” column from the Column Labels box (simply drag it back up to the field list), and replace it with the “Date Booked” column: As you can see, this makes our PivotTable instantly useless, giving us one column for each date that a transaction occurred on – a very wide table! To fix this, right-click on any date and select Group… from the context-menu: The grouping box appears.  We select Months and click OK: Voila!  A much more useful table: (Incidentally, this table is virtually identical to the one shown at the beginning of this article – the original sales summary that was created manually.) Another cool thing to be aware of is that you can have more than one set of row headings (or column headings): …which looks like this…. You can do a similar thing with column headings (or even report filters). Keeping things simple again, let’s see how to plot averaged values, rather than summed values. First, click on “Sum of Amount”, and select Value Field Settings… from the context-menu that appears: In the Summarize value field by list in the Value Field Settings box, select Average: While we’re here, let’s change the Custom Name, from “Average of Amount” to something a little more concise.  Type in something like “Avg”: Click OK, and see what it looks like.  Notice that all the values change from summed totals to averages, and the table title (top-left cell) has changed to “Avg”: If we like, we can even have sums, averages and counts (counts = how many sales there were) all on the same PivotTable! Here are the steps to get something like that in place (starting from a blank PivotTable): Drag “Salesperson” into the Column Labels Drag “Amount” field down into the Values box three times For the first “Amount” field, change its custom name to “Total” and it’s number format to Accounting (0 decimal places) For the second “Amount” field, change its custom name to “Average”, its function to Average and it’s number format to Accounting (0 decimal places) For the third “Amount” field, change its name to “Count” and its function to Count Drag the automatically created field from Column Labels to Row Labels Here’s what we end up with: Total, average and count on the same PivotTable! Conclusion There are many, many more features and options for PivotTables created by Microsoft Excel – far too many to list in an article like this.  To fully cover the potential of PivotTables, a small book (or a large website) would be required.  Brave and/or geeky readers can explore PivotTables further quite easily:  Simply right-click on just about everything, and see what options become available to you.  There are also the two ribbon-tabs: PivotTable Tools/Options and Design.  It doesn’t matter if you make a mistake – it’s easy to delete the PivotTable and start again – a possibility old DOS users of Lotus 1-2-3 never had. We’ve included an Excel that should work with most versions of Excel, so you can download to practice your PivotTable skills. Download Our Practice Excel File Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Magnify Selected Cells In Excel 2007Share Access Data with Excel in Office 2010Make Excel 2007 Print Gridlines In Workbook FileMake Excel 2007 Always Save in Excel 2003 FormatConvert Older Excel Documents to Excel 2007 Format TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Ben & Jerry’s Free Cone Day, 3/23/10 New Stinger from McAfee Helps Remove ‘FakeAlert’ Threats Google Apps Marketplace: Tools & Services For Google Apps Users Get News Quick and Precise With Newser Scan for Viruses in Ubuntu using ClamAV Replace Your Windows Task Manager With System Explorer

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• Cloud MBaaS : The Next Big Thing in Enterprise Mobility

  - by shiju

  In this blog post, I will take a look at Cloud Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS) and how we can leverage Cloud based Mobile Backend as a Service for building enterprise mobile apps. Today, mobile apps are incredibly significant in both consumer and enterprise space and the demand for the mobile apps is unbelievably increasing in day to day business. An enterprise can’t survive in business without a proper mobility strategy. A better mobility strategy and faster delivery of your mobile apps will give you an extra mileage for your business and IT strategy. So organizations and mobile developers are looking for different strategy for meeting this demand and adopting different development strategy for their mobile apps. Some developers are adopting hybrid mobile app development platforms, for delivering their products for multiple platforms, for fast time-to-market. Others are adopting a Mobile enterprise application platform (MEAP) such as Kony for their enterprise mobile apps for fast time-to-market and better business integration. The Challenges of Enterprise Mobility The real challenge of enterprise mobile apps, is not about creating the front-end environment or developing front-end for multiple platforms. The most important thing of enterprise mobile apps is to expose your enterprise data to mobile devices where the real pain is your business data might be residing in lot of different systems including legacy systems, ERP systems etc., and these systems will be deployed with lot of security restrictions. Exposing your data from the on-premises servers, is not a easy thing for most of the business organizations. Many organizations are spending too much time for their front-end development strategy, but they are really lacking for building a strategy on their back-end for exposing the business data to mobile apps. So building a REST services layer and mobile back-end services, on the top of legacy systems and existing middleware systems, is the key part of most of the enterprise mobile apps, where multiple mobile platforms can easily consume these REST services and other mobile back-end services for building mobile apps. For some mobile apps, we can’t predict its user base, especially for products where customers can gradually increase at any time. And for today’s mobile apps, faster time-to-market is very critical so that spending too much time for mobile app’s scalability, will not be worth. The real power of Cloud is the agility and on-demand scalability, where we can scale-up and scale-down our applications very easily. It would be great if we could use the power of Cloud to mobile apps. So using Cloud for mobile apps is a natural fit, where we can use Cloud as the storage for mobile apps and hosting mechanism for mobile back-end services, where we can enjoy the full power of Cloud with greater level of on-demand scalability and operational agility. So Cloud based Mobile Backend as a Service is great choice for building enterprise mobile apps, where enterprises can enjoy the massive scalability power of their mobile apps, provided by public cloud vendors such as Microsoft Windows Azure. Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS) We have discussed the key challenges of enterprise mobile apps and how we can leverage Cloud for hosting mobile backend services. MBaaS is a set of cloud-based, server-side mobile services for multiple mobile platforms and HTML5 platform, which can be used as a backend for your mobile apps with the scalability power of Cloud. The information below provides the key features of a typical MBaaS platform: Cloud based storage for your application data. Automatic REST API services on the application data, for CRUD operations. Native push notification services with massive scalability power. User management services for authenticate users. User authentication via Social accounts such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter. Scheduler services for periodically sending data to mobile devices. Native SDKs for multiple mobile platforms such as Windows Phone and Windows Store, Android, Apple iOS, and HTML5, for easily accessing the mobile services from mobile apps, with better security.  Typically, a MBaaS platform will provide native SDKs for multiple mobile platforms so that we can easily consume the server-side mobile services. MBaaS based REST APIs can use for integrating to enterprise backend systems. We can use the same mobile services for multiple platform so hat we can reuse the application logic to multiple mobile platforms. Public cloud vendors are building the mobile services on the top of their PaaS offerings. Windows Azure Mobile Services is a great platform for a MBaaS offering that is leveraging Windows Azure Cloud platform’s PaaS capabilities. Hybrid mobile development platform Titanium provides their own MBaaS services. LoopBack is a new MBaaS service provided by Node.js consulting firm StrongLoop, which can be hosted on multiple cloud platforms and also for on-premises servers. The Challenges of MBaaS Solutions If you are building your mobile apps with a new data storage, it will be very easy, since there is not any integration challenges you have to face. But most of the use cases, you have to extract your application data in which stored in on-premises servers which might be under VPNs and firewalls. So exposing these data to your MBaaS solution with a proper security would be a big challenge. The capability of your MBaaS vendor is very important as you have to interact with your legacy systems for many enterprise mobile apps. So you should be very careful about choosing for MBaaS vendor. At the same time, you should have a proper strategy for mobilizing your application data which stored in on-premises legacy systems, where your solution architecture and strategy is more important than platforms and tools.  Windows Azure Mobile Services Windows Azure Mobile Services is an MBaaS offerings from Windows Azure cloud platform. IMHO, Microsoft Windows Azure is the best PaaS platform in the Cloud space. Windows Azure Mobile Services extends the PaaS capabilities of Windows Azure, to mobile devices, which can be used as a cloud backend for your mobile apps, which will provide global availability and reach for your mobile apps. Windows Azure Mobile Services provides storage services, user management with social network integration, push notification services and scheduler services and provides native SDKs for all major mobile platforms and HTML5. In Windows Azure Mobile Services, you can write server-side scripts in Node.js where you can enjoy the full power of Node.js including the use of NPM modules for your server-side scripts. In the previous section, we had discussed some challenges of MBaaS solutions. You can leverage Windows Azure Cloud platform for solving many challenges regarding with enterprise mobility. The entire Windows Azure platform can play a key role for working as the backend for your mobile apps where you can leverage the entire Windows Azure platform for your mobile apps. With Windows Azure, you can easily connect to your on-premises systems which is a key thing for mobile backend solutions. Another key point is that Windows Azure provides better integration with services like Active Directory, which makes Windows Azure as the de facto platform for enterprise mobility, for enterprises, who have been leveraging Microsoft ecosystem for their application and IT infrastructure. Windows Azure Mobile Services  is going to next evolution where you can expect some exciting features in near future. One area, where Windows Azure Mobile Services should definitely need an improvement, is about the default storage mechanism in which currently it is depends on SQL Server. IMHO, developers should be able to choose multiple default storage option when creating a new mobile service instance. Let’s say, there should be a different storage providers such as SQL Server storage provider and Table storage provider where developers should be able to choose their choice of storage provider when creating a new mobile services project. I have been used Windows Azure and Windows Azure Mobile Services as the backend for production apps for mobile, where it performed very well. MBaaS Over MEAP Recently, many larger enterprises has been adopted Mobile enterprise application platform (MEAP) for their mobile apps. I haven’t worked on any production MEAP solution, but I heard that developers are really struggling with MEAP in different way. The learning curve for a proprietary MEAP platform is very high. I am completely against for using larger proprietary ecosystem for mobile apps. For enterprise mobile apps, I highly recommend to use native iOS/Android/Windows Phone or HTML5  for front-end with a cloud hosted MBaaS solution as the middleware. A MBaaS service can be consumed from multiple mobile apps where REST APIs are using to integrating with enterprise backend systems. Enterprise mobility should start with exposing REST APIs on the enterprise backend systems and these REST APIs can host on Cloud where we can enjoy the power of Cloud for our services. If you are having REST APIs for your enterprise data, then you can easily build mobile frontends for multiple platforms.   You can follow me on Twitter @shijucv

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• Getting Started with Media Browser for Windows Media Center

  - by DigitalGeekery

  If you are a Windows Media Center user, you’ll really want to check out Media Browser. The Media Browser plug-in for Windows Media Center takes your digital media files and displays them in a visually appealing, user friendly interface, complete with images and metadata. Requirements Windows 7 or Vista Microsoft .Net 3.5 Framework  Preparing your Media Files For Media Browser to be able to automatically download images and metadata for your media libraries, your files will have to be correctly named. For example, if you have an mp4 file of the movie Batman Begins, it needs to be named Batman Begins.mp4. It cannot be Batmanbegins.mp4 or Batman-begins.mp4. Otherwise, it’s unlikely that Media Browser will display images and metadata. If you find some of your files aren’t pulling cover art or metadata, double-check the official title of the media on a site like IMBD.com. TV Show files TV show files are handled a bit differently. Every TV series in your collection must have a main folder with the show’s name and individual subfolders for each season. Here is an example of folder structure and supported naming conventions. TV Shows\South Park\Season 1\s01e01 – episode 1.mp4 TV Shows\South Park\Season 1\South Park 1×01 – episode 1.mp4 TV Shows\South Park\Season 1\101 – episode 1.mp4  Note: You need to always have a Season 1 folder even if the show only has only one season. If you have several seasons of a particular show, but don’t happen to have Season 1, simply create a blank season 1 folder. Without a season 1 folder, other seasons will not display properly. Installation and Configuration Download and run the latest Media Browser .msi file by taking the defaults. (Download link below) When you reach the final window, leave the “Configure initial settings” box checked, and click “Finish.” You may get a pop up window informing you that folder permissions are not set correctly for Media Browser. Click “Yes.” Adding Your Media The Browser Configuration Tool should have opened automatically. If not, you can open it by going to Start > All Programs > Media Browser > Media Browser Configuration Wizard. To begin adding media files, click “Add.” Browse for a folder that contains media files and click “OK.” Here we are adding a folder with a group of movie files. You can add multiple folders to each media library. For example, if you have movie files stored in 4 or 5 different folders, you can add them all under a single library in Media Browser.  To add additional folders, click the “Add” button on the right side under your currently added folder. The “Add” button to the left will add an additional Media Library, such as one for TV Shows. When you are finished, close out of the Media Browser Configuration Tool. Open Windows Media Center. You will see Media Browser tile on the main interface. Click to open it. When you initially open Media Browser, you will be prompted to run the initial configuration. Click “OK.” You will see a few general configuration options. The important option is the Metadata. Leave this option checked (it is by default) if you wish to pull images & other metadata for your media. When finished, click “Continue,” and then “OK” to restart Media Browser. When you re-enter Media Browser you’ll see your Media Categories listed below, and recently added files in the main display. Click on a Media Library to view the files.   Click “View” at the top to check out some of the different display options to choose from. Below you see can “Detail.” This presents your videos in a list to the left. When you hover over a title, the synopsis and cover art is displayed to the right. “Cover Flow” displays your titles in a right to left format with mirror cover art. “Thumb Strip” displays your titles in a strip along the bottom with a synopsis, image, and movie data above. Configurations Settings and options can be changed through the Media Browser Configuration Tool, or directly in Media Browser by clicking on the “Wrench” at the bottom right of the main Media Browser page. Certain settings may only be available in one location or the other. Some will be available in both places.   Plug-ins and Themes Media Browser features a variety of Plug-ins and Themes that can add optional customization and slick visual appeal. To install plug-ins or themes, open the Media Browser Configuration Tool. Click on the “plug-ins” tab, and then the “More Plug-ins…” button. Note: Clicking on “Advanced” at the top will reveal several additional configuration tabs. Browse the list of plug-ins on the left. When you find want you like, select it and then click “Install.” When the install is complete, you’ll see them listed under “Installed Plug-ins.” To activate any installed theme, click on the “Display” tab. Select it from the Visual Theme drop down list. Close out of the Media Browser Configuration Tool when finished. Some themes, such as the “Diamond” theme shown below, include optional views and settings which can be accessed through a configuration button at the top of the screen. Clicking on the movie gives you additional images and information such as a synopsis, runtime, IMDB rating…   … and even actors and character names.   All that’s left is to hit “Play” when you’re ready to watch.   Conclusion Media Browser is a fantastic plug-in that brings an entirely different level of media management and aesthetics to Windows Media Center. There are numerous additional customizations and configurations we have not covered here such as adding film trailers, music support, and integrating Recorded TV. Media Browser will run on both Windows 7 and Vista. Extenders are also supported but may require additional configuration. Download Media Browser Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Using Netflix Watchnow in Windows Vista Media Center (Gmedia)Schedule Updates for Windows Media CenterIntegrate Hulu Desktop and Windows Media Center in Windows 7Add Color Coding to Windows 7 Media Center Program GuideIntegrate Boxee with Media Center in Windows 7 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 If it were only this easy SyncToy syncs Files and Folders across Computers on a Network (or partitions on the same drive) Classic Cinema Online offers 100’s of OnDemand Movies OutSync will Sync Photos of your Friends on Facebook and Outlook Windows 7 Easter Theme YoWindoW, a real time weather screensaver

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• BNF – how to read syntax?

  - by Piotr Rodak

  A few days ago I read post of Jen McCown (blog) about her idea of blogging about random articles from Books Online. I think this is a great idea, even if Jen says that it’s not exciting or sexy. I noticed that many of the questions that appear on forums and other media arise from pure fact that people asking questions didn’t bother to read and understand the manual – Books Online. Jen came up with a brilliant, concise acronym that describes very well the category of posts about Books Online – RTFM365. I take liberty of tagging this post with the same acronym. I often come across questions of type – ‘Hey, i am trying to create a table, but I am getting an error’. The error often says that the syntax is invalid. 1 CREATE TABLE dbo.Employees 2 (guid uniqueidentifier CONSTRAINT DEFAULT Guid_Default NEWSEQUENTIALID() ROWGUIDCOL, 3 Employee_Name varchar(60) 4 CONSTRAINT Guid_PK PRIMARY KEY (guid) ); 5 The answer is usually(1), ‘Ok, let me check it out.. Ah yes – you have to put name of the DEFAULT constraint before the type of constraint: 1 CREATE TABLE dbo.Employees 2 (guid uniqueidentifier CONSTRAINT Guid_Default DEFAULT NEWSEQUENTIALID() ROWGUIDCOL, 3 Employee_Name varchar(60) 4 CONSTRAINT Guid_PK PRIMARY KEY (guid) ); Why many people stumble on syntax errors? Is the syntax poorly documented? No, the issue is, that correct syntax of the CREATE TABLE statement is documented very well in Books Online and is.. intimidating. Many people can be taken aback by the rather complex block of code that describes all intricacies of the statement. However, I don’t know better way of defining syntax of the statement or command. The notation that is used to describe syntax in Books Online is a form of Backus-Naur notatiion, called BNF for short sometimes. This is a notation that was invented around 50 years ago, and some say that even earlier, around 400 BC – would you believe? Originally it was used to define syntax of, rather ancient now, ALGOL programming language (in 1950’s, not in ancient India). If you look closer at the definition of the BNF, it turns out that the principles of this syntax are pretty simple. Here are a few bullet points: italic_text is a placeholder for your identifier <italic_text_in_angle_brackets> is a definition which is described further. [everything in square brackets] is optional {everything in curly brackets} is obligatory everything | separated | by | operator is an alternative ::= “assigns” definition to an identifier Yes, it looks like these six simple points give you the key to understand even the most complicated syntax definitions in Books Online. Books Online contain an article about syntax conventions – have you ever read it? Let’s have a look at fragment of the CREATE TABLE statement: 1 CREATE TABLE 2 [ database_name . [ schema_name ] . | schema_name . ] table_name 3 ( { <column_definition> | <computed_column_definition> 4 | <column_set_definition> } 5 [ <table_constraint> ] [ ,...n ] ) 6 [ ON { partition_scheme_name ( partition_column_name ) | filegroup 7 | "default" } ] 8 [ { TEXTIMAGE_ON { filegroup | "default" } ] 9 [ FILESTREAM_ON { partition_scheme_name | filegroup 10 | "default" } ] 11 [ WITH ( <table_option> [ ,...n ] ) ] 12 [ ; ] Let’s look at line 2 of the above snippet: This line uses rules 3 and 5 from the list. So you know that you can create table which has specified one of the following. just name – table will be created in default user schema schema name and table name – table will be created in specified schema database name, schema name and table name – table will be created in specified database, in specified schema database name, .., table name – table will be created in specified database, in default schema of the user. Note that this single line of the notation describes each of the naming schemes in deterministic way. The ‘optionality’ of the schema_name element is nested within database_name.. section. You can use either database_name and optional schema name, or just schema name – this is specified by the pipe character ‘|’. The error that user gets with execution of the first script fragment in this post is as follows: Msg 156, Level 15, State 1, Line 2 Incorrect syntax near the keyword 'DEFAULT'. Ok, let’s have a look how to find out the correct syntax. Line number 3 of the BNF fragment above contains reference to <column_definition>. Since column_definition is in angle brackets, we know that this is a reference to notion described further in the code. And indeed, the very next fragment of BNF contains syntax of the column definition. 1 <column_definition> ::= 2 column_name <data_type> 3 [ FILESTREAM ] 4 [ COLLATE collation_name ] 5 [ NULL | NOT NULL ] 6 [ 7 [ CONSTRAINT constraint_name ] DEFAULT constant_expression ] 8 | [ IDENTITY [ ( seed ,increment ) ] [ NOT FOR REPLICATION ] 9 ] 10 [ ROWGUIDCOL ] [ <column_constraint> [ ...n ] ] 11 [ SPARSE ] Look at line 7 in the above fragment. It says, that the column can have a DEFAULT constraint which, if you want to name it, has to be prepended with [CONSTRAINT constraint_name] sequence. The name of the constraint is optional, but I strongly recommend you to make the effort of coming up with some meaningful name yourself. So the correct syntax of the CREATE TABLE statement from the beginning of the article is like this: 1 CREATE TABLE dbo.Employees 2 (guid uniqueidentifier CONSTRAINT Guid_Default DEFAULT NEWSEQUENTIALID() ROWGUIDCOL, 3 Employee_Name varchar(60) 4 CONSTRAINT Guid_PK PRIMARY KEY (guid) ); That is practically everything you should know about BNF. I encourage you to study the syntax definitions for various statements and commands in Books Online, you can find really interesting things hidden there. Technorati Tags: SQL Server,t-sql,BNF,syntax   (1) No, my answer usually is a question – ‘What error message? What does it say?’. You’d be surprised to know how many people think I can go through time and space and look at their screen at the moment they received the error.

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• Bye Bye Year of the Dragon, Hello BPM

  - by Ajay Khanna

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} As 2012 fades and we usher in a New Year, let’s look back at some of the hottest BPM trends and those we’ll be seeing more of in the coming months. BPM is as much about people as it is about technology. As people adopt new ways of engagement, new channels of communications and new devices to interact , the changes are reflected in BPM practices. As Social and Mobile have become an integral part of our personal and professional lives, we’ll see tighter integration of social and mobile with BPM, and more use cases emerging for smarter process management in 2013. And with products and services becoming less differentiated, organizations will strive to differentiate on Customer Experience. Concepts like Pace Layered Architecture and Dynamic Case Management will provide more flexibility and agility to IT groups and knowledge workers. Take a look at some of these capabilities we showcased (see video) at Oracle OpenWorld 2012. Some of these trends that will continue to gain momentum in 2013: Social networks and social media have provided a new way for businesses to engage with customers. A prospect is likely to reach out to their social network before making any purchase. Companies are increasingly engaging with customers in social networks to influence their purchasing decisions, as well as listening to customers via tools like sentiment analysis to see what customers think about a particular product or process. These insights are valuable as companies look to improve their processes. Inside organizations, workers are using social tools to engage with each other to design new products and processes. Social collaboration tools are being used to resolve issues where an employee needs consultation to reach a decision. Oracle BPM Suite includes social interaction as an integral part of its process design and work management to empower today’s business users. Ubiquitous smart mobile devices are trending as a tool of choice for many workers. Many companies are adopting the policy of “Bring Your Own Device,” and the device of choice is a tablet. Devices like smart phones and tablets not only provide mobility to workers and customers, but they also provide additional important information – the context. By integrating the mobile context (location, photos, and preferences) into your processes, organizations can make much more informed decisions, as well as offer more personalized service to customers. Using Oracle ADF Mobile, you can easily create user interfaces for mobile devices and also capture location data for process execution. Customer experience was at the forefront of trending topics in 2012. Organizations are trying to understand their customers better and offer them more personalized and differentiated services. Customer experience is paramount when companies design sales and support processes. Companies are looking to BPM to consistently and efficiently orchestrate customer facing processes across disparate systems, departments and channels of communication. Oracle BPM Suite provides just the right capabilities for organizations to design and deliver an excellent customer experience. Pace Layered Architecture strategy is gaining traction as a way to maximize agility and minimize disruption in organizations. It provides a framework to manage the evolution of your information system when different pieces of it are changing at different rates and need to be updated independent of one another. Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle BPM Suite are designed with this in mind. The database layer, integration layer, application layer, and process layer should not be required to change at the same time. Most of the business changes to policy or process can be done at the process layer without disrupting the whole infrastructure. By understanding the type of change needed at a particular level, organizations can become much more agile and efficient. Adaptive Case Management proposes more flexibility to manage processes or cases that do not follow a structured process flow. In such situations, the knowledge worker managing the case needs to evaluate what step should occur next because the sequence of steps can’t be predetermined. Another characteristic is that it requires much more collaboration than straight-through process. As simple processes become automated, and customers adopt more and more self-service, cases that reach the case workers are much more complex and need more investigation. Oracle BPM suite includes comprehensive adaptive case management capability to manage such unstructured and complex processes. Smart BPM or making your BPM intelligent has been the holy grail for BPM practitioners who imagined that one day BPM would become one with Business Intelligence, Business Activity Monitoring and Complex Event Processing, making it much more responsive and helpful in organizational decision making. In 2013, organizations will begin to deploy these intelligent BPM solutions. Oracle offers an integrated solution that brings together the powerful functionality of BI, BAM, event processing, and Real Time Decisions to help organizations create smart process based solutions. In order to help customers reach their BPM goals faster and remove risks associated with BPM initiatives, Oracle has introduced Oracle Process Accelerators, pre-built best practices applications built on Oracle BPM Suite that are fully production grade and ready to deploy. These are exiting times for BPM practitioners and there is so much to look forward to in 2013. We wish you a very happy and prosperous New Year 2013. Happy BPMing!

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