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• Flashing your Windows Phone Dummies

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  The rate at which vendors release new updates for the HD2 is ridiculously slow. You have to wait for Microsoft to release the new OS, then you wait for HTC to build it into a ROM, and then you have to wait up to 6 months for your operator to badly customise it for their network. Once Windows Phone 7 is released this problem should go away as Microsoft is likely to be able to update the phone over the air, but what do we do until then? I want Windows Mobile 6.5.5 now!   I’m an early adopter. If there is a new version of something then that’s the version I want. As long as you accept that you are using something on a “let the early adopter beware” and accept that there may be bugs, sometimes serious crippling bugs the go for it. Note that I won't be responsible if you end up bricking your phone, unlocking or flashing your radio or ROM can be risky. If you follow the instructions then you should be fine, I've flashed my phones (SPV, M300, M1000, M2000, M3100, TyTN, TyTN 2, HD2) hundreds of times without any problems! I have been using Windows Mobile 6.5.5 before it was called 6.5.5 and for long enough that I don’t even remember when I first started using it. I was using it on my HTC TyTN 2 before I got an HD2 a couple of months before Christmas, and the first custom ROM’s for the HD2 were a couple of months after that. I always update to the latest ROM that I like, and occasionally I go back to the stock ROM’s to have a look see, but I am always disappointed. Terms: Soft Reset: Same as pulling out the battery, but is like a reboot for your phone Hard Reset: Reinstalls the Operating system from the Image that is stored on it ROM: This is Image that is loaded onto your phone and it is used to reinstall your phone whenever you do a “hard reset”. Stock ROM: A ROM from the original vendor… So HTC Cook a ROM: Referring to Cooking a ROM is the process a ROM developer goes through to take all of the parts (OS, Drivers and Applications) that make up a running phone and compiling them into a ROM. ROM Kitchen: A place where you get an SDK and all the component parts of the phone: OD, Drivers and Application. There are usually lots of Tools for making it easier to compile and build the image. Flashing: The process of updating one of the layers of your phone with a new layer Bricked: This is what happens when flashing goes wrong. Your phone is now good for only one thing… stopping paper blowing away in a windy place. You can “cook” you own ROM using one of the many good “ROM Kitchens” or you can use a ROM built and tested by someone else. I have cooked my own ROM before, and while the tutorials are good, it is a lot of hassle. You can only Flash new ROM’s that are specifically for your phone only so find a ROM for your phone and XDA Developers is the best place to look. It has a forum based structure and you can find your phone quite easily. XDA Developer Forum Installing a new ROM does have its risks. In the past there have been stories about phones being “bricked” but I have not heard of a bricked phone for quite some years. if you follow the instructions carefully you should not have any problems. note: Most of the tools are written by people for whom English is not their first language to you will need concentrate hard to understand some of the instructions. Have you ever read a manual that was just literally translated from another language? Enough said… There are a number of layers on your phone that you will need to know about: SPL: This is the lowest level, like a BIOS on a PC and is the Operating Systems gateway to the hardware Radio: I think of this as the hardware drivers, and you will need a different Radio for CDMA than GSM networks ROM: This is like your Windows CD, but it is stored internally to the Phone. Flashing your phone consists of replacing one Image with another and then wiping your phone and automatically reinstall from the Image. Sometimes when you download an Image wither it is for a Radio or for ROM you only get a file called *.nbh. What do you do with this? Well you need an RUU application to push that Image to your phone. The RUU’s are different per phone, but there is a CustomRUU for the HD2 that will update your phone with any *.nbh placed in the same directory. Download and Instructions for CustomRUU #1 Flash HardSPL An SPL is kind of like a BIOS, and the default one has checks to make sure that you are only installing a signed ROM. This would prevent you from installing one that comes from any other source but the vendor. NOTE: Installing a HARD SPL invalidates your warranty so remember to Flash your phone with a “stock” vendor ROM before trying to send your phone in for repairs. Is the warranty reinstated when you go back to a stock ROM? I don’t know… Updating your SPL to a HardSPL effectively unlocks your phone so you can install anything you like. I would recommend the HardSPL2. Download and Instructions for HardSPL2 #2 Task29 One of the problems that has been seen on the HD2 when flashing new ROM’s is that things are left over from the old ROM. For a while the recommendation was to Flash a stock ROM first, but some clever cookies have come up with “Task29” which formats your phone first. After running this your phone will be blank and will only boot to the white HTC logo and no further. You should follow the instructions and reboot (remove battery) and hold down the “volume down” button while turning you HD2 on to enter the bootloader. From here you can run CustomRUU once the USB message appears. Download and Instructions for Task29 #2 Flash Radio You may need to play around with this one, there is no good and bad version and the latest is not always the best. You know that annoying thing when you hit “end call” on your phone and nothing happens? Well that's down to the Radio. Get this version right for you and you may even be able to make calls. From a Windows Mobile as well Download There are no instructions here, but they are the same as th ROM, but you use this *.nbh file. #3 Flash ROM If you have gotten this far then you are probably a pro by now Just download the latest ROM below and Flash to your phone. I have been really impressed by the Artemis line of ROM’s but it is no way the only choice. I like this one as the developer builds them as close to the stock ROM as possible while updating to the latest of everything. Download and Instructions for  Artemis HD2 vXX Conclusion While updating your ROM is not for the faint hearted it provides more options than the Stock ROM’s and quicker feature updates than waiting… Technorati Tags: WM6

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• How would i down-sample a .wav file then reconstruct it using nyquist? - in matlab [closed]

  - by martin

  This is all done in MatLab 2010 My objective is to show the results of: undersampling, nyquist rate/ oversampling First i need to downsample the .wav file to get an incomplete/ or impartial data stream that i can then reconstuct. Heres the flow chart of what im going to be doing So the flow is analog signal - sampling analog filter - ADC - resample down - resample up - DAC - reconstruction analog filter what needs to be achieved: F= Frequency F(Hz=1/s) E.x. 100Hz = 1000 (Cyc/sec) F(s)= 1/(2f) Example problem: 1000 hz = Highest frequency 1/2(1000hz) = 1/2000 = 5x10(-3) sec/cyc or a sampling rate of 5ms This is my first signal processing project using matlab. what i have so far. % Fs = frequency sampled (44100hz or the sampling frequency of a cd) [test,fs]=wavread('test.wav'); % loads the .wav file left=test(:,1); % Plot of the .wav signal time vs. strength time=(1/44100)*length(left); t=linspace(0,time,length(left)); plot(t,left) xlabel('time (sec)'); ylabel('relative signal strength') **%this is were i would need to sample it at the different frequecys (both above and below and at) nyquist frequency.*I think.*** soundsc(left,fs) % shows the resaultant audio file , which is the same as original ( only at or above nyquist frequency however) Can anyone tell me how to make it better, and how to do the various sampling at different frequencies?

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• How to sync with iPod Nano 6G?

  - by Martin

  I'm having no luck at all with this iPod Nano. I've tried the following software: Banshee - The iPod shows up and files seem to be copied, but they don't show up on the iPod. Rythmbox - Same as Banshee. Claims to sync but no files available on the iPod gPodder - At first it wouldn't even recognize the device even though I set the mount point and device type. After syncing one file to the iPod from iTunes on my mac it now behaves as Banshee and Rythmbox. gtkpod - Again: Copies the files but they are inacessible on the iPod. Hipo - Doesn't even recognize the iPod Amarok - What is this, I don't even... So to summarize: After some fiddling I can get most of these apps to recognize the iPod and copy files to it, but they are not accessible on the iPod which sort of defeats the whole purpose. Help me out here. My continued harmonic love life depends on it. (Yes, it's the girlfriends iPod and laptop)

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• Professional Scrum Developer (.NET) Training in London

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  On the 26th - 30th July in Microsoft’s offices in London Adam Cogan from SSW will be presenting the first Professional Scrum Developer course in the UK. I will be teaching this course along side Adam and it is a fantastic experience. You are split into teams and go head-to-head to deliver units of potentially shippable work in four two hour sprints. The Professional Scrum Developer course is the only course endorsed by both Microsoft and Ken Schwaber and they have worked together very effectively in brining this course to fruition. This course is the brain child of Richard Hundhausen, a Microsoft Regional Director, and both Adam and I attending the Trainer Prep in Sydney when he was there earlier this year. He is a fantastic trainer and no matter where you do this course you can be safe in the knowledge that he has trained and vetted all of the teachers. A tools version of Ken if you will Find a course and register Download this syllabus Download the Scrum Guide What is the Professional Scrum Developer course all about? Professional Scrum Developer course is a unique and intensive five-day experience for software developers. The course guides teams on how to turn product requirements into potentially shippable increments of software using the Scrum framework, Visual Studio 2010, and modern software engineering practices. Attendees will work in self-organizing, self-managing teams using a common instance of Team Foundation Server 2010. Who should attend this course? This course is suitable for any member of a software development team – architect, programmer, database developer, tester, etc. Entire teams are encouraged to attend and experience the course together, but individuals are welcome too. Attendees will self-organize to form cross-functional Scrum teams. These teams require an aggregate of skills specific to the selected case study. Please see the last page of this document for specific details. Product Owners, ScrumMasters, and other stakeholders are welcome too, but keep in mind that everyone who attends will be expected to commit to work and pull their weight on a Scrum team. What should you know by the end of the course? Scrum will be experienced through a combination of lecture, demonstration, discussion, and hands-on exercises. Attendees will learn how to do Scrum correctly while being coached and critiqued by the instructor, in the following topic areas: Form effective teams Explore and understand legacy “Brownfield” architecture Define quality attributes, acceptance criteria, and “done” Create automated builds How to handle software hotfixes Verify that bugs are identified and eliminated Plan releases and sprints Estimate product backlog items Create and manage a sprint backlog Hold an effective sprint review Improve your process by using retrospectives Use emergent architecture to avoid technical debt Use Test Driven Development as a design tool Setup and leverage continuous integration Use Test Impact Analysis to decrease testing times Manage SQL Server development in an Agile way Use .NET and T-SQL refactoring effectively Build, deploy, and test SQL Server databases Create and manage test plans and cases Create, run, record, and play back manual tests Setup a branching strategy and branch code Write more maintainable code Identify and eliminate people and process dysfunctions Inspect and improve your team’s software development process What does the week look like? This course is a mix of lecture, demonstration, group discussion, simulation, and hands-on software development. The bulk of the course will be spent working as a team on a case study application delivering increments of new functionality in mini-sprints. Here is the week at a glance: Monday morning and most of the day Friday will be spent with the computers powered off, so you can focus on sharpening your game of Scrum and avoiding the common pitfalls when implementing it. The Sprints Timeboxing is a critical concept in Scrum as well as in this course. We expect each team and student to understand and obey all of the timeboxes. The timebox duration will always be clearly displayed during each activity. Expect the instructor to enforce it. Each of the ½ day sprints will roughly follow this schedule: Component Description Minutes Instruction Presentation and demonstration of new and relevant tools & practices 60 Sprint planning meeting Product owner presents backlog; each team commits to delivering functionality 10 Sprint planning meeting Each team determines how to build the functionality 10 The Sprint The team self-organizes and self-manages to complete their tasks 120 Sprint Review meeting Each team will present their increment of functionality to the other teams = 30 Sprint Retrospective A group retrospective meeting will be held to inspect and adapt 10 Each team is expected to self-organize and manage their own work during the sprint. Pairing is highly encouraged. The instructor/product owner will be available if there are questions or impediments, but will be hands-off by default. You should be prepared to communicate and work with your team members in order to achieve your sprint goal. If you have development-related questions or get stuck, your partner or team should be your first level of support. Module 1: INTRODUCTION This module provides a chance for the attendees to get to know the instructors as well as each other. The Professional Scrum Developer program, as well as the day by day agenda, will be explained. Finally, the Scrum team will be selected and assembled so that the forming, storming, norming, and performing can begin. Trainer and student introductions Professional Scrum Developer program Agenda Logistics Team formation Retrospective Module 2: SCRUMDAMENTALS This module provides a level-setting understanding of the Scrum framework including the roles, timeboxes, and artifacts. The team will then experience Scrum firsthand by simulating a multi-day sprint of product development, including planning, review, and retrospective meetings. Scrum overview Scrum roles Scrum timeboxes (ceremonies) Scrum artifacts Simulation Retrospective It’s required that you read Ken Schwaber’s Scrum Guide in preparation for this module and course. MODULE 3: IMPLEMENTING SCRUM IN VISUAL STUDIO 2010 This module demonstrates how to implement Scrum in Visual Studio 2010 using a Scrum process template*. The team will learn the mapping between the Scrum concepts and how they are implemented in the tool. After connecting to the shared Team Foundation Server, the team members will then return to the simulation – this time using Visual Studio to manage their product development. Mapping Scrum to Visual Studio 2010 User Story work items Task work items Bug work items Demonstration Simulation Retrospective Module 4: THE CASE STUDY In this module the team is introduced to their problem domain for the week. A kickoff meeting by the Product Owner (the instructor) will set the stage for the why and what that will take during the upcoming sprints. The team will then define the quality attributes of the project and their definition of “done.” The legacy application code will be downloaded, built, and explored, so that any bugs can be discovered and reported. Introduction to the case study Download the source code, build, and explore the application Define the quality attributes for the project Define “done” How to file effective bugs in Visual Studio 2010 Retrospective Module 5: HOTFIX This module drops the team directly into a Brownfield (legacy) experience by forcing them to analyze the existing application’s architecture and code in order to locate and fix the Product Owner’s high-priority bug(s). The team will learn best practices around finding, testing, fixing, validating, and closing a bug. How to use Architecture Explorer to visualize and explore Create a unit test to validate the existence of a bug Find and fix the bug Validate and close the bug Retrospective Module 6: PLANNING This short module introduces the team to release and sprint planning within Visual Studio 2010. The team will define and capture their goals as well as other important planning information. Release vs. Sprint planning Release planning and the Product Backlog Product Backlog prioritization Acceptance criteria and tests Sprint planning and the Sprint Backlog Creating and linking Sprint tasks Retrospective At this point the team will have the knowledge of Scrum, Visual Studio 2010, and the case study application to begin developing increments of potentially shippable functionality that meet their definition of done. Module 7: EMERGENT ARCHITECTURE This module introduces the architectural practices and tools a team can use to develop a valid design on which to develop new functionality. The teams will learn how Scrum supports good architecture and design practices. After the discussion, the teams will be presented with the product owner’s prioritized backlog so that they may select and commit to the functionality they can deliver in this sprint. Architecture and Scrum Emergent architecture Principles, patterns, and practices Visual Studio 2010 modeling tools UML and layer diagrams SPRINT 1 Retrospective Module 8: TEST DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT This module introduces Test Driven Development as a design tool and how to implement it using Visual Studio 2010. To maximize productivity and quality, a Scrum team should setup Continuous Integration to regularly build every team member’s code changes and run regression tests. Refactoring will also be defined and demonstrated in combination with Visual Studio’s Test Impact Analysis to efficiently re-run just those tests which were impacted by refactoring. Continuous integration Team Foundation Build Test Driven Development (TDD) Refactoring Test Impact Analysis SPRINT 2 Retrospective Module 9: AGILE DATABASE DEVELOPMENT This module lets the SQL Server database developers in on a little secret – they can be agile too. By using the database projects in Visual Studio 2010, the database developers can join the rest of the team. The students will see how to apply Agile database techniques within Visual Studio to support the SQL Server 2005/2008/2008R2 development lifecycle. Agile database development Visual Studio database projects Importing schema and scripts Building and deploying Generating data Unit testing SPRINT 3 Retrospective Module 10: SHIP IT Teams need to know that just because they like the functionality doesn’t mean the Product Owner will. This module revisits acceptance criteria as it pertains to acceptance testing. By refining acceptance criteria into manual test steps, team members can execute the tests, recording the results and reporting bugs in a number of ways. Manual tests will be defined and executed using the Microsoft Test Manager tool. As the Sprint completes and an increment of functionality is delivered, the team will also learn why and when they should create a branch of the codeline. Acceptance criteria Testing in Visual Studio 2010 Microsoft Test Manager Writing and running manual tests Branching SPRINT 4 Retrospective Module 11: OVERCOMING DYSFUNCTION This module introduces the many types of people, process, and tool dysfunctions that teams face in the real world. Many dysfunctions and scenarios will be identified, along with ideas and discussion for how a team might mitigate them. This module will enable you and your team to move toward independence and improve your game of Scrum when you depart class. Scrum-butts and flaccid Scrum Best practices working as a team Team challenges ScrumMaster challenges Product Owner challenges Stakeholder challenges Course Retrospective What will be expected of you and you team? This is a unique course in that it’s technically-focused, team-based, and employs timeboxes. It demands that the members of the teams self-organize and self-manage their own work to collaboratively develop increments of software. All attendees must commit to: Pay attention to all lectures and demonstrations Participate in team and group discussions Work collaboratively with other team members Obey the timebox for each activity Commit to work and do your best to deliver All teams should have these skills: Understanding of Scrum Familiarity with Visual Studio 201 C#, .NET 4.0 & ASP.NET 4.0 experience*  SQL Server 2008 development experience Software testing experience * Check with the instructor ahead of time for the exact technologies Self-organising teams Another unique attribute of this course is that it’s a technical training class being delivered to teams of developers, not pairs, and not individuals. Ideally, your actual software development team will attend the training to ensure that all necessary skills are covered. However, if you wish to attend an open enrolment course alone or with just a couple of colleagues, realize that you may be placed on a team with other attendees. The instructor will do his or her best to ensure that each team is cross-functional to tackle the case study, but there are no guarantees. You may be required to try a new role, learn a new skill, or pair with somebody unfamiliar to you. This is just good Scrum! Who should NOT take this course? Because of the nature of this course, as explained above, certain types of people should probably not attend this course: Students requiring command and control style instruction – there are no prescriptive/step-by-step (think traditional Microsoft Learning) labs in this course Students who are unwilling to work within a timebox Students who are unwilling to work collaboratively on a team Students who don’t have any skill in any of the software development disciplines Students who are unable to commit fully to their team – not only will this diminish the student’s learning experience, but it will also impact their team’s learning experience Find a course and register Download this syllabus Download the Scrum Guide Technorati Tags: Scrum,SSW,Pro Scrum Dev

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• Rights Expiry Options in IRM 11g

  - by martin.abrahams

  Among the many enhancements in IRM 11g, we have introduced a couple of new rights expiry options that may be applied to any role. These options were supported in previous versions, but fell into the "advanced configuration" category. In 11g, the options can be applied simply by selecting a check-box in the properties of a role, as shown by the rather extreme example below, where the role allows access for just two minutes after they are sealed. The new options are: To define a role that expires automatically some period after it is assigned To define a role that evaluates expiry relative to the time that each document is sealed These options supplement the familiar options to allow open-ended access (limited by offline access and the ever-present option to revoke rights at any time) and the option to define time windows with specific start dates and end dates. The value of these options is easiest to illustrate with some publishing examples: You might define a role with a one year expiry to be assigned to users who purchase a one year subscription. For each individual user, the year would be calculated from the time that the role was assigned to them. You might define a role that allows documents to be accessed only for 24 hours from the time that they are published - perhaps as a preview mechanism designed to tempt users to sign up for a full subscription. Upon payment of a full fee, users can simply be reassigned a role that gives them greater access to exactly the same documents. In a corporate environment, you might use such roles for fixed term contractors or for workflows that involve information with a short lifespan, or perhaps as part of a compliance process that requires rights to be formally re-approved at intervals. Being role-based, the time constraints apply to any number of documents - including documents that have not yet been created. For example, a user with a one year subscription would have access to all documents published in the relevant classification during the year without any further configuration. Crucially, unlike other solutions, it is not the documents that expire, but the rights of particular users. Whereas some solutions make documents completely inaccessible for all users after expiry, Oracle IRM can allow some users to continue using documents while other users lose access. Equally crucially, a user whose rights have expired can always be granted fresh rights at any time - for example, because they renew their subscription or because a manager confirms that they still need the rights as part of a corporate compliance process. By applying expiry to rights rather than to documents, Oracle IRM avoids the risk of locking an organization out of its own information.

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• Content Encryption Options in Oracle IRM 11g

  - by martin.abrahams

  Another of the innovations in Oracle IRM 11g is a wider choice of encryption algorithms for protecting content. The choice is now as illustrated below. As you see, three of the choices are marked as FIPS options, where FIPS refers to the Federal Information Processing Standard Publication 140-2, a U.S. government security standard for accreditation of cryptographic modules.

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• Who broke the build?

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  I recently sent round a list of broken builds at SSW and asked for them to be fixed or deleted if they are not being used. My colleague Peter came back with a couple of questions which I love as it tells me that at least one person reads my email I think first we need to answer a couple of other questions related to builds in general.   Why do we want the build to pass? Any developer can pick up a project and build it Standards can be enforced Constant quality is maintained Problems in code are identified early What could a failed build signify? Developers have not built and tested their code properly before checking in. Something added depends on a local resource that is not under version control or does not exist on the target computer. Developers are not writing tests to cover common problems. There are not enough tests to cover problems. Now we know why, lets answer Peters questions: Where is this list? (can we see it somehow) You can normally only see the builds listed for each project. But, you have a little application called “Build Notifications” on your computer. It is installed when you install Visual Studio 2010. Figure: Staring the build notification application on Windows 7. Once you have it open (it may disappear into your system tray) you should click “Options” and select all the projects you are involved in. This application only lists projects that have builds, so don’t worry if it is not listed. This just means you are about to setup a build, right? I just selected ALL projects that have builds. Figure: All builds are listed here In addition to seeing the list you will also get toast notification of build failure’s. How can we get more info on what broke the build? (who is interesting too, to point the finger but more important is what) The only thing worse than breaking the build, is continuing to develop on a broken build! Figure: I have highlighted the users who either are bad for braking the build, or very bad for not fixing it. To find out what is wrong with a build you need to open the build definition. You can open a web version by double clicking the build in the image above, or you can open it from “Team Explorer”. Just connect to your project and open out the “Builds” tree. Then Open the build by double clicking on it. Figure: Opening a build is easy, but double click it and then open a build run from the list. Figure: Good example, the build and tests have passed Figure: Bad example, there are 133 errors preventing POK from being built on the build server. For identifying failures see: Solution: Getting Silverlight to build on Team Build 2010 RC Solution: Testing Web Services with MSTest on Team Build Finding the problem on a partially succeeded build So, Peter asked about blame, let’s have a look and see: Figure: The build has been broken for so long I have no idea when it was broken, but everyone on this list is to blame (I am there too) The rest of the history is lost in the sands of time, there is no way to tell when the build was originally broken, or by whom, or even if it ever worked in the first place. Build should be protected by the team that uses them and the only way to do that is to have them own them. It is fine for me to go in and setup a build, but the ownership for a build should always reside with the person who broke it last. Conclusion This is an example of a pointless build. Lets be honest, if you have a system like TFS in place and builds are constantly left broken, or not added to projects then your developers don’t yet understand the value. I have found that adding a Gated Check-in helps instil that understanding of value. If you prevent them from checking in without passing that basic quality gate of “your code builds on another computer” then it makes them look more closely at why they can’t check-in. I have had builds fail because one developer had a “d” drive, but the build server did not. That is what they are there to catch.   If you want to know what builds to create and why I wrote a post on “Do you know the minimum builds to create on any branch?”   Technorati Tags: TFS2010,Gated Check-in,Builds,Build Failure,Broken Build

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• Setting Up IRM Test Content

  - by martin.abrahams

  A feature of the 11g IRM Server that sometimes gets overlooked is the ability to set up some test content that any IRM user can access to verify that their IRM Desktop can reach the server, authenticate successfully, and render protected content successfully. Such test content is useful for new users, and in troubleshooting scenarios. Here's how to set up some test content... In the management console, go to IRM - Administration - Test Content, as shown. The console will display a list of test content - initially an empty list. Use the Add option to specify the URL of a document or image, and define one or more labels for the test content in whichever languages your users favour. Note that you do not need to seal the image or document in order to use it as test content. Nor do you need to set up any rights for the test content. The IRM Server will handle the sealing and rights assignment automatically such that all authenticated users are authorised to view the test content. Repeat this process for as many different types of content as you would like to offer for test purposes - perhaps a Word document, a PDF document, and an image. To keep things simple the first time I did this, I used the URL of one of the images in the IRM Server's UI - so there was no problem with the IRM Server being able to reach that image. Whatever content you want to use, the IRM Server needs to be able to reach it at the URL you specify. Using Test Content Open a browser and browse to the URL that the IRM Desktop normally uses to access the IRM Server, for example: http://irm11g.oracle.com/irm_desktop If you are not sure, you can find this URL in the Servers tab of the IRM Options dialog. Go to the Test tab, and you will see your test content listed. By opening one of the items, you can verify that your IRM Desktop is healthy and that you can authenticate to the IRM Server.

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• Granular Clipboard Control in Oracle IRM

  - by martin.abrahams

  One of the main leak prevention controls that customers are looking for is clipboard control. After all, there is little point in controlling access to a document if authorised users can simply make unprotected copies by use of the cut and paste mechanism. Oddly, for such a fundamental requirement, many solutions only offer very simplistic clipboard control - and require the customer to make an awkward choice between usability and security. In many cases, clipboard control is simply an ON-OFF option. By turning the clipboard OFF, you disable one of the most valuable edit functions known to man. Try working for any length of time without copying and pasting, and you'll soon appreciate how valuable that function is. Worse, some solutions disable the clipboard completely - not just for the protected document but for all of the various applications you have open at the time. Normal service is only resumed when you close the protected document. In this way, policy enforcement bleeds out of the particular assets you need to protect and interferes with the entire user experience. On the other hand, turning the clipboard ON satisfies a fundamental usability requirement - but also makes it really easy for users to create unprotected copies of sensitive information, maliciously or otherwise. All they need to do is paste into another document. If creating unprotected copies is this simple, you have to question how much you are really gaining by applying protection at all. You may not be allowed to edit, forward, or print the protected asset, but all you need to do is create a copy and work with that instead. And that activity would not be tracked in any way. So, a simple ON-OFF control creates a real tension between usability and security. If you are only using IRM on a small scale, perhaps security can outweigh usability - the business can put up with the restriction if it only applies to a handful of important documents. But try extending protection to large numbers of documents and large user communities, and the restriction rapidly becomes really unwelcome. I am aware of one solution that takes a different tack. Rather than disable the clipboard, pasting is always permitted, but protection is automatically applied to any document that you paste into. At first glance, this sounds great - protection travels with the content. However, at any scale this model may not be so appealing once you've had to deal with support calls from users who have accidentally applied protection to documents that really don't need it - which would be all too easily done. This may help control leakage, but it also pollutes the system with documents that have policies applied with no obvious rhyme or reason, and it can seriously inconvenience the business by making non-sensitive documents difficult to access. And what policy applies if you paste some protected content into an already protected document? Which policy applies? There are no prizes for guessing that Oracle IRM takes a rather different approach. The Oracle IRM Approach Oracle IRM offers a spectrum of clipboard controls between the extremes of ON and OFF, and it leverages the classification-based rights model to give granular control that satisfies both security and usability needs. Firstly, we take it for granted that if you have EDIT rights, of course you can use the clipboard within a given document. Why would we force you to retype a piece of content that you want to move from HERE... to HERE...? If the pasted content remains in the same document, it is equally well protected whether it be at the beginning, middle, or end - or all three. So, the first point is that Oracle IRM always enables the clipboard if you have the right to edit the file. Secondly, whether we enable or disable the clipboard, we only affect the protected document. That is, you can continue to use the clipboard in the usual way for unprotected documents and applications regardless of whether the clipboard is enabled or disabled for the protected document(s). And if you have multiple protected documents open, each may have the clipboard enabled or disabled independently, according to whether you have Edit rights for each. So, even for the simplest cases - the ON-OFF cases - Oracle IRM adds value by containing the effect to the protected documents rather than to the whole desktop environment. Now to the granular options between ON and OFF. Thanks to our classification model, we can define rights that enable pasting between documents in the same classification - ie. between documents that are protected by the same policy. So, if you are working on this month's financial report and you want to pull some data from last month's report, you can simply cut and paste between the two documents. The two documents are classified the same way, subject to the same policy, so the content is equally safe in both documents. However, if you try to paste the same data into an unprotected document or a document in a different classification, you can be prevented. Thus, the control balances legitimate user requirements to allow pasting with legitimate information security concerns to keep data protected. We can take this further. You may have the right to paste between related classifications of document. So, the CFO might want to copy some financial data into a board document, where the two documents are sealed to different classifications. The CFO's rights may well allow this, as it is a reasonable thing for a CFO to want to do. But policy might prevent the CFO from copying the same data into a classification that is accessible to external parties. The above option, to copy between classifications, may be for specific classifications or open-ended. That is, your rights might enable you to go from A to B but not to C, or you might be allowed to paste to any classification subject to your EDIT rights. As for so many features of Oracle IRM, our classification-based rights model makes this type of granular control really easy to manage - you simply define that pasting is permitted between classifications A and B, but omit C. Or you might define that pasting is permitted between all classifications, but not to unprotected locations. The classification model enables millions of documents to be controlled by a few such rules. Finally, you MIGHT have the option to paste anywhere - such that unprotected copies may be created. This is rare, but a legitimate configuration for some users, some use cases, and some classifications - but not something that you have to permit simply because the alternative is too restrictive. As always, these rights are defined in user roles - so different users are subject to different clipboard controls as required in different classifications. So, where most solutions offer just two clipboard options - ON-OFF or ON-but-encrypt-everything-you-touch - Oracle IRM offers real granularity that leverages our classification model. Indeed, I believe it is the lack of a classification model that makes such granularity impractical for other IRM solutions, because the matrix of rules for controlling pasting would be impossible to manage - there are so many documents to consider, and more are being created all the time.

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• Combining Scrum, TFS2010 and Email to keep everyone in the loop

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  Often you will receive rich information from your Product Owner (Customer) about tasks. That information can be in the form of Word documents, HTML Emails and Pictures, but you generally receive them in the context of an Email. You need to keep these so your Team can refer to it later, and so you can send a “done” when the task has been completed. This preserves the “history” of the task and allows you to keep relevant partied included in any future conversation. At SSW we keep the original email so that we can reply Done and delete the email. But keeping it in your email does not help other members of the team if they complete the task and need to send the “done”. Worse yet, the description field in Team Foundation Server 2010 (TFS 2010) does not support HTML and images, nor does the default task template support an “interested parties” or CC field. You can attach this content manually, but it can be time consuming. Figure: Description only supports plain text, and History supports HTML with no images   What should we do? At SSW we always follow the rules, and it just so happened that we have rules to both achieve this, and to make it easier. You should follow the existing Rules to Better Project Management  and attach the email to your task so you can refer to and reply to it later when you close the task: Do you know what Outlook add-ins you need? Describe the work item request in an email Use Outlook Add-in to move the email to a TFS Work Item When replying to an email with “done” you should follow: Do you update Team Companion template, so the email "subject" doesn't change? Do you update Team Companion template, so you can generate a proper "done" mail? Following these simple rules will help your Product Owner understand you better, and allow your team to more effectively collaborate with each other. An added bonus is that as we are keeping the email history in sync with TFS. When you “reply all” to the email all of the interested partied to the Task are also included. This notified those that may have been blocked by your task to keep up to date with its status. This has been published as Do you know to ensure that relevant emails are attached to tasks in our Rules to Better Scrum using TFS. What could we do better? I would like to see this process automated so that we capture the information correctly in the task without the need to use email. This would require a change to the process template in Team Foundation Server to add an “Interested Parties” field. Each reply to the email would need to be automatically processed into a Work Item. This could be done by adding a task identifier as the first item in the “Relates to” email header, and copying in an email address that you watch. This would then parse out the relevant information and add the new message to the history, update the “Interested parties” field and attach the Images. Upon reflection, it may even be possible, but more difficult to do this using ONLY the History field and including some of the header information in there to the build a done email with history. This would not currently deal with email “forks” well, but I think it would be adequate for our needs. It would be nice if we could find time to implement this, but currently it is but a pipe dream. Maybe Microsoft could implement something in the next version of Team Foundation Server, and in the mean time we have a process that works well. Technorati Tags: Scrum,SSW Rules,TFS 2010,TFS 2008

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• What are the options for simple Ajax calls for a Java webapp?

  - by Cedric Martin

  I've got a very simple need and I don't know what are the options available. If I simplify, users see webpage like this server by a Java webapp server: [-] red [x] green [-] blue [-] yellow The selected color is green And then I want the user to be able to select the yellow color and have the part of the page containing the relevant text change to: [-] red [-] green [-] blue [x] yellow The selected color is yellow Basically I want something a bit more user friendly than simply using HTTP GET all the time. There shall be a lot of options the user can select from and this shall affect an (HTML formatted) text displayed on the page. And I want the user to see his change as soon as possible, without having the page to fully reload and without being redirected to another page. There shall be a client/server round-trip (the information to display depending on the options selected ain't available on the client-side so I cannot do it all in JavaScript in the browser). I'd like to use Ajax requests but I don't know which way to go: jQuery GWT something else What are my options and what would be the pros and cons of the various approach? P.S: I'm very familiar with Java (SCP since the last century and basically being a Java programmer for the last 12 years or so) but not familiar at all with JavaScript (though I did hack a few Ajaxy-calls years ago, way before great libraries existed).

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• What micro web-framework has the lowest overhead but includes templating

  - by Simon Martin

  I want to rewrite a simple small (10 page) website and besides a contact form it could be written in pure html. It is currently built with classic asp and Dreamweaver templates. The reason I'm not simply writing 10 html pages is that I want to keep the layout all in 1 place so would need either includes or a masterpage. I don't want to use Dreamweaver templates, or batch processing (like org-mode) because I want to be able to edit using notepad (or Visual Studio) because occasionally I might need to edit a file on the server (Go Daddy's IIS admin interface will let me edit text). I don't want to use ASP.NET MVC or WebForms (which I use in my day job) because I don't need all the overhead they bring with them when essentially I'm serving up 9 static files, 1 contact form and 1 list of clubs (that I aim to use jQuery to filter). The shared hosting package I have on Go Daddy seems to take a long time to spin up when serving aspx files. Currently the clubs page is driven from an MS SQL database that I try to keep up to date by manually checking the dojo locator on the main HQ pages and editing the entries myself, this is again way over the top. I aim to get a text file with the club details (probably in JSON or xml format) and use that as the source for the clubs page. There will need to be a bit of programming for this as the HQ site is unable to provide an extract / feed so something will have to scrape the site periodically to update my clubs persistence file. I'd like that to be automated - but I'm happy to have that triggered on a visit to the clubs page so I don't need to worry about scheduling a job. I would probably have a separate process that updates the persistence that has nothing to do with the rest of the site. Ideally I'd like to use Mercurial (or git) to publish, I know Bitbucket (and github) both serve static page sites so they wouldn't work in this scenario (dynamic pages and a contact form) but that's the model I'd like to use if there is such a thing. My requirements are: Simple templating system, 1 place to define header, footers, menu etc., that can be edited using just notepad. Very minimal / lightweight framework. I don't need a monster for 10 pages Must run either on IIS7 (shared Go Daddy Windows hosting) or other free host

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• Ghost team foundation build controllers

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  Quite often after an upgrade there are things left over. Most of the time they are easy to delete, but sometimes it takes a little effort. Even rarer are those times when something just will not go away no matter how much you try. We have had a ghost team build controller hanging around for a while now, and it had defeated my best efforts to get rid of it. The build controller was from our old TFS server from before our TFS 2010 beta 2 upgrade and was really starting to annoy me. Every time I try to delete it I get the message: Controller cannot be deleted because there are build in progress -Manage Build Controller dialog   Figure: Deleting a ghost controller does not always work. I ended up checking all of our 172 Team Projects for the build that was queued, but did not find anything. Jim Lamb pointed me to the “tbl_BuildQueue” table in the team Project Collection database and sure enough there was the nasty little beggar. Figure: The ghost build was easily spotted Adam Cogan asked me: “Why did you suspect this one?” Well, there are a number of things that led me to suspect it: QueueId is very low: Look at the other items, they are in the thousands not single digits ControllerId: I know there is only one legitimate controller, and I am assuming that 6 relates to “zzUnicorn” DefinitionId: This is a very low number and I looked it up in “tbl_BuildDefinition” and it did not exist QueueTime: As we did not upgrade to TFS 2010 until late 2009 a date of 2008 for a queued build is very suspect Status: A status of 2 means that it is still queued This build must have been queued long ago when we were using TFS 2008, probably a beta, and it never got cleaned up. As controllers are new in TFS 2010 it would have created the “zzUnicorn” controller to handle any build servers that already exist. I had previously deleted the Agent, but leaving the controller just looks untidy. Now that the ghost build has been identified there are two options: Delete the row I would not recommend ever deleting anything from the database to achieve something in TFS. It is really not supported. Set the Status to cancelled (Recommended) This is the best option as TFS will then clean it up itself So I set the Status of this build to 2 (cancelled) and sure enough it disappeared after a couple of minutes and I was then able to then delete the “zzUnicorn” controller. Figure: Almost completely clean Now all I have to do is get rid of that untidy “zzBunyip” agent, but that will require rewriting one of our build scripts which will have to wait for now.   Technorati Tags: ALM,TFBS,TFS 2010

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• Hancon / Hanwang Graphics Tablet not recognised

  - by Martin Kyle

  I'm totally lost. I've just built a new system and installed Ubuntu 12.04. It's my first time with Linux and getting into the terminal / command line for the first time since IBMDOS 5 and Windows 3.1 has been a steep learning curve. However, the interface works beautifully apart from it doesn't recognize my Hanvon Artmaster AM1209. I have sent diagnostics to Digimend and Favux was kind enough to advise that the tablet should be using the Wacom X driver as the Hanvon is actually a Hanwang and these should be supported. lsusb reports: ID 0b57:8501 Beijing HanwangTechnology Co., Ltd xinput list reports: ? Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)] ? ? Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)] ? ? PS/2+USB Mouse id=8 [slave pointer (2)] ? Virtual core keyboard id=3 [master keyboard (2)] ? Virtual core XTEST keyboard id=5 [slave keyboard (3)] ? Power Button id=6 [slave keyboard (3)] ? Power Button id=7 [slave keyboard (3)] ? Eee PC WMI hotkeys id=9 [slave keyboard (3)] ? AT Translated Set 2 keyboard id=10 [slave keyboard (3)] Favux suggested inspecting /var/log/Xorg.0.log for the tablet but I cannot see any mention of it, and that is as far as I have got. I've tried researching the problem but I am struggling with all the new terminology and the fact that I want the PC to be a means to an end and not the end in itself where I spend the rest of my days tweaking and testing rather than just using it. Hope there is some help out there.

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• Are project managers useful in Scrum?

  - by Martin Wickman

  There are three roles defined in Scrum: Team, Product Owner and Scrum Master. There is no project manager, instead the project manager job is spread across the three roles. For instance: The Scrum Master: Responsible for the process. Removes impediments. The Product Owner: Manages and prioritizes the list of work to be done to maximize ROI. Represents all interested parties (customers, stakeholders). The Team: Self manage its work by estimating and distributing it among themselves. Responsible for meeting their own commitments. So in Scrum, there is no longer a single person responsible for project success. There is no command-and-control structure in place. That seems to baffle a lot of people, specifically those not used to agile methods, and of course, PM's. I'm really interested in this and what your experiences are, as I think this is one of the things that can make or break a Scrum implementation. Do you agree with Scrum that a project manager is not needed? Do you think such a role is still required? Why?

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• Display a JSON-string as a table

  - by Martin Aleksander

  I'm totally new to JSON, and have a json-string I need to display as a user-friendly table. I have this file, http://ish.tek.no/json_top_content.php?project_id=11&period=week, witch is showing ID-numbers for products (title) and the number of views. The Title-ID should be connected to this file; http://api.prisguide.no/export/product.php?id=158200 so I can get a table like this: ID | Product Name | Views 158200 | Samsung Galaxy SIII | 21049 How can I do this?

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• Amazon SOA: database as a Service

  - by Martin Lee

  There is an interesting interview with Werner Vogels which is partly about how Amazon does Service Oriented Architecture: For us service orientation means encapsulating the data with the business logic that operates on the data, with the only access through a published service interface. No direct database access is allowed from outside the service, and there’s no data sharing among the services. I do not understand that. Why do they need to 'wrap' a database into some layer if it already can be consumed as a service by other service through database adaptors? Does Amazon do that just because they need to expose the database to third parties or because of anything else? Why "no direct database access is allowed"? What are the advantages of such an architectural decision?

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• Calendario iSeminars Febrero-Mayo 2010

  - by [email protected]

  calendario iSeminars_Feb-May 2010.html

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• Windows expand over 2 monitors in quad-monitor setup

  - by Martin

  i just installed ubuntu 11.10 with my previous hardware setup: 4 monitors and 2 identical nvidia graphic cards. draging windows around all 4 monitors works nice, but when i maximize a window it expand always over 2 screens. (2x twinview). i had an workaround for this in 11.04 but cant remember what it was... may one of you guys have quad monitors up and running with window maximizing on only one screen my xorg.conf looks like this: # nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings # nvidia-settings: version 280.13 (buildd@allspice) Thu Aug 11 20:54:45 UTC 2011 # nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig # nvidia-xconfig: version 280.13 ([email protected]) Wed Jul 27 17:15:58 PDT 2011 Section "ServerLayout" # Removed Option "Xinerama" "1" # Removed Option "Xinerama" "0" Identifier "Layout0" Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0 Screen 1 "Screen1" 0 1080 InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard" InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer" Option "Xinerama" "1" EndSection Section "Files" EndSection Section "InputDevice" # generated from default Identifier "Mouse0" Driver "mouse" Option "Protocol" "auto" Option "Device" "/dev/psaux" Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no" Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5" EndSection Section "InputDevice" # generated from default Identifier "Keyboard0" Driver "kbd" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Monitor0" VendorName "Unknown" ModelName "Samsung SMB2220N" HorizSync 31.0 - 80.0 VertRefresh 56.0 - 75.0 Option "DPMS" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Monitor1" VendorName "Unknown" ModelName "Samsung SMB2220N" HorizSync 31.0 - 80.0 VertRefresh 56.0 - 75.0 Option "DPMS" EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Device0" Driver "nvidia" VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation" BoardName "GeForce GTX 550 Ti" BusID "PCI:2:0:0" EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Device1" Driver "nvidia" VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation" BoardName "GeForce GTX 550 Ti" BusID "PCI:3:0:0" EndSection Section "Screen" # Removed Option "TwinView" "True" # Removed Option "MetaModes" "nvidia-auto-select, nvidia-auto-select" # Removed Option "metamodes" "CRT-0: nvidia-auto-select 1920x1080 +0+0, CRT-1: nvidia-auto-select 1920x1080 +1920+0" Identifier "Screen0" Device "Device0" Monitor "Monitor0" DefaultDepth 24 Option "TwinView" "1" Option "TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder" "CRT-0" Option "metamodes" "CRT-0: nvidia-auto-select +0+0, CRT-1: nvidia-auto-select +1920+0" SubSection "Display" Depth 24 EndSubSection EndSection Section "Screen" # Removed Option "TwinView" "True" # Removed Option "MetaModes" "nvidia-auto-select, nvidia-auto-select" # Removed Option "metamodes" "CRT-0: nvidia-auto-select 1920x1080 +0+0, CRT-1: nvidia-auto-select 1920x1080 +1920+0" Identifier "Screen1" Device "Device1" Monitor "Monitor1" DefaultDepth 24 Option "TwinView" "1" Option "TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder" "CRT-0" Option "metamodes" "CRT-0: nvidia-auto-select +0+0, CRT-1: nvidia-auto-select +1920+0" SubSection "Display" Depth 24 EndSubSection EndSection Section "Extensions" Option "Composite" "Disable" EndSection

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• How can architects work with self-organizing Scrum teams?

  - by Martin Wickman

  An organization with a number of agile Scrum teams also has a small group of people appointed as "enterprise architects". The EA group acts as control and gatekeeper for quality and adherence to decisions. This leads to overlaps between the team decision and EA decisions. For instance, the team might want to use library X or want to use REST instead of SOAP, but the EA does not approve of that. Now, this can lead to frustration when team decisions are overruled. Taken far enough, it can potentially lead to a situation where the EA people "grabs" all power and the team ends up feeling demotivated and not very agile at all. The Scrum guides has this to say about it: Self-organizing: No one (not even the Scrum Master) tells the Development Team how to turn Product Backlog into Increments of potentially releasable functionality. Is that reasonable? Should the EA team be disbanded? Should the teams refuse or simply comply?

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• What have we lost from computers 20 years ago

  - by Martin Beckett

  Following the theme of - I can't believe computers used floppy disks and did you have debuggers 20 years ago - questions (and because even putting my age in hex I don't look young anymore). What have we lost from computers 20years ago? VMS versioning file system. Make a mistake, no problem myprog.cpp;5 is still there. Home computers that powered up to give you a wordprocessor or a basic prompt in <0.5sec User ports, serial ports and ADCs that you could control things with - without an arduino APIs that actually did what they said (even DOS interrupts), without having to guess and experiment your way through layers of frameworks.

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• Why you need to tag your build servers in TFS

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  At SSW we use gated check-in for all of our projects. The benefits are based on the number of developers you have working on your project. Lets say you have 30 developers and each developer breaks the build once per month. That could mean that you have a broken build every day! Gated check-ins help, but they have a down side that manifests as queued builds and moaning developers. The way to combat this is to have more build servers, but with that comes complexity. Inevitably you will need to install components that you would expect to be installed on target computers, but how do you keep track of which build servers have which bits? What about a geographically diverse team? If you have a centrally controlled infrastructure you might have build servers in multiple regions and you don’t want teams in Sydney copying files from Beijing and vice a versa on a regular basis. So, what is the answer. Its Tags. You can add a set of Tags to your agents and then set which tags to look for in the build definition. Figure: Open up your Build Controller Manager Select “Build | Manage Build Controllers…” to get a list of all of your controllers and he build agents that are associated with them. Figure: the list of build agents and their controllers Each of these Agents might be subtly different. For example only one of these agents has FTP software installed. This software is required for only one of the many builds we have set up. My ethos for build servers is to keep them as clean as possible and not to install anything that is not absolutely necessary. For me that means anything that does not add a *.target file is suspect, and should really be under version control and called via the command line from there. So, some of the things you may install are: Silverlight 4 SDK Visual Studio 2010 Visual Studio 2008 WIX etc You should not install things that will not end up on the target users computer. For a website that means something different to a client than to a server, but I am sure you get the idea. One thing you can do to make things easier is to create a tag for each of the things that you install. that way developers can find the things they need. We may change to using a more generic tagging structure (Like “Web Application” or “WinForms Application”) if this gets too unwieldy, but for now the list of tags is limited. Figure: Tags associated with one of our build agents Once you have your Build Agents all tagged up ALL your builds will start to fail This is because the default setting for a build is to look for an Agent that exactly matches the tags for the build, and we have not added any yet. The quick way to fix this is to change the “Tag Comparison Operator” from “ExactMatch” to “MatchAtLease” to get your build immediately working. Figure: Tag Comparison Operator changes to MatchAtLeast to get builds to run. The next thing to do is look for specific tags. You just select from the list of available tags and the controller will make sure you get to a build agent that uses them. Figure: I want Silverlight, VS2010 and WIX, but do not care about Location. And there you go, you can now have build agents for different purposes and regions within the same environment. You can also use name filtering, so if you have a good Agent naming convention you can filter by that for regions. For example, your Agents might be “SYDVMAPTFSBP01” and “SYDVMAPTFSBP02” so a name filter of “SYD*” would target all of the Sydney build agents. Figure: Agent names can be used for filtering as well This flexibility will allow you to build better software by reducing the likelihood of not having a certain dependency on the target machines. Figure: Setting the name filter based on server location  Used in combination there is a lot of power here to coordinate tens of build servers for multiple projects across multiple regions so your developers get the most out of your environment. Technorati Tags: ALM,TFBS,TFS 2010,TFS Admin

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• Creating a branch for every Sprint

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  There are a lot of developers using version control these days, but a feature of version control called branching is very poorly understood and remains unused by most developers in favour of Labels. Most developers think that branching is hard and complicated. Its not! What is hard and complicated is a bad branching strategy. Just like a bad software architecture a bad branch architecture, or one that is not adhered to can prove fatal to a project. We I was at Aggreko we had a fairly successful Feature branching strategy (although the developers hated it) that meant that we could have multiple feature teams working at the same time without impacting each other. Now, this had to be carefully orchestrated as it was a Business Intelligence team and many of the BI artefacts do not lend themselves to merging. Today at SSW I am working on a Scrum team delivering a product that will be used by many hundreds of developers. SSW SQL Deploy takes much of the pain out of upgrading production databases when you are not using the Database projects in Visual Studio. With Scrum each Scrum Team works for a fixed period of time on a single sprint. You can have one or more Scrum Teams involved in delivering a product, but all the work must be merged and tested, ready to be shown to the Product Owner at the the Sprint Review meeting at the end of the current Sprint. So, what does this mean for a branching strategy? We have been using a “Main” (sometimes called “Trunk”) line and doing a branch for each sprint. It’s like Feature Branching, but with only ONE feature in operation at any one time, so no conflicts Figure: DEV folder containing the Development branches.   I know that some folks advocate applying a Label at the start of each Sprint and then rolling back if you need to, but I have always preferred the security of a branch. Like: being able to create a release from Main that has Sprint3 code even while Sprint4 is being worked on. being sure I can always create a stable build on request. Being able to guarantee a version (labels are not auditable) Be able to abandon the sprint without having to delete the code (rare I know, but would be a mess if it happened) Being able to see the flow of change sets through to a safe release It helps you find invalid dependencies when merging to Main as there may be some file that is in everyone’s Sprint branch, but never got checked in. (We had this at the merge of Sprint2) If you are always operating in this way as a standard it makes it easier to then add more scrum teams in the future. Muscle memory of this way of working. Don’t Like: Additional DB space for the branches Baseless merging between sprint branches when changes are directly ported Note: I do not think we will ever attempt this! Maybe a bit tougher to see the history between sprint branches since the changes go up through Main and down to another sprint branch Note: What you would have to do is see which Sprint the changes were made in and then check the history he same file in that Sprint. A little bit of added complexity that you would have to do anyway with multiple teams. Over time, you can end up with a lot of old unused sprint branches. Perhaps destroy with /keephistory can help in this case. Note: We ALWAYS delete the Sprint branch after it has been merged into Main. That is the theory anyway, and as you can see from the images Sprint2 has already been deleted. Why take the chance of having a problem rolling back or wanting to keep some of the code, when you can just abandon a branch and start a new one? It just seems easier and less painful to use a branch to me! What do you think?   Technorati Tags: TFS,TFS2010,Software Development,ALM,Branching

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• Fastest pathfinding for static node matrix

  - by Sean Martin

  I'm programming a route finding routine in VB.NET for an online game I play, and I'm searching for the fastest route finding algorithm for my map type. The game takes place in space, with thousands of solar systems connected by jump gates. The game devs have provided a DB dump containing a list of every system and the systems it can jump to. The map isn't quite a node tree, since some branches can jump to other branches - more of a matrix. What I need is a fast pathfinding algorithm. I have already implemented an A* routine and a Dijkstra's, both find the best path but are too slow for my purposes - a search that considers about 5000 nodes takes over 20 seconds to compute. A similar program on a website can do the same search in less than a second. This website claims to use D*, which I have looked into. That algorithm seems more appropriate for dynamic maps rather than one that does not change - unless I misunderstand it's premise. So is there something faster I can use for a map that is not your typical tile/polygon base? GBFS? Perhaps a DFS? Or have I likely got some problem with my A* - maybe poorly chosen heuristics or movement cost? Currently my movement cost is the length of the jump (the DB dump has solar system coordinates as well), and the heuristic is a quick euclidean calculation from the node to the goal. In case anyone has some optimizations for my A*, here is the routine that consumes about 60% of my processing time, according to my profiler. The coordinateData table contains a list of every system's coordinates, and neighborNode.distance is the distance of the jump. Private Function findDistance(ByVal startSystem As Integer, ByVal endSystem As Integer) As Integer 'hCount += 1 'If hCount Mod 0 = 0 Then 'Return hCache 'End If 'Initialize variables to be filled Dim x1, x2, y1, y2, z1, z2 As Integer 'LINQ queries for solar system data Dim systemFromData = From result In jumpDataDB.coordinateDatas Where result.systemId = startSystem Select result.x, result.y, result.z Dim systemToData = From result In jumpDataDB.coordinateDatas Where result.systemId = endSystem Select result.x, result.y, result.z 'LINQ execute 'Fill variables with solar system data for from and to system For Each solarSystem In systemFromData x1 = (solarSystem.x) y1 = (solarSystem.y) z1 = (solarSystem.z) Next For Each solarSystem In systemToData x2 = (solarSystem.x) y2 = (solarSystem.y) z2 = (solarSystem.z) Next Dim x3 = Math.Abs(x1 - x2) Dim y3 = Math.Abs(y1 - y2) Dim z3 = Math.Abs(z1 - z2) 'Calculate distance and round 'Dim distance = Math.Round(Math.Sqrt(Math.Abs((x1 - x2) ^ 2) + Math.Abs((y1 - y2) ^ 2) + Math.Abs((z1 - z2) ^ 2))) Dim distance = firstConstant * Math.Min(secondConstant * (x3 + y3 + z3), Math.Max(x3, Math.Max(y3, z3))) 'Dim distance = Math.Abs(x1 - x2) + Math.Abs(z1 - z2) + Math.Abs(y1 - y2) 'hCache = distance Return distance End Function And the main loop, the other 30% 'Begin search While openList.Count() != 0 'Set current system and move node to closed currentNode = lowestF() move(currentNode.id) For Each neighborNode In neighborNodes If Not onList(neighborNode.toSystem, 0) Then If Not onList(neighborNode.toSystem, 1) Then Dim newNode As New nodeData() newNode.id = neighborNode.toSystem newNode.parent = currentNode.id newNode.g = currentNode.g + neighborNode.distance newNode.h = findDistance(newNode.id, endSystem) newNode.f = newNode.g + newNode.h newNode.security = neighborNode.security openList.Add(newNode) shortOpenList(OLindex) = newNode.id OLindex += 1 Else Dim proposedG As Integer = currentNode.g + neighborNode.distance If proposedG < gValue(neighborNode.toSystem) Then changeParent(neighborNode.toSystem, currentNode.id, proposedG) End If End If End If Next 'Check to see if done If currentNode.id = endSystem Then Exit While End If End While If clarification is needed on my spaghetti code, I'll try to explain.

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• Scrum with Team Foundation Server 2010 Done

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  Since I have joined SSW as a Solution Architect its Chief Architect, Adam Cogan, has been mentoring me and pushing me to do better. One of the things that I have been wanting to do since the first DDD Scotland was to present a session. For DDD Scotland 2010 Adam suggested that I submit he double session on “Better project Management with Team Foundation Server 2010”. So, with some apprehension I submitted two session as Part A and Part B. Download DDD Scotland -  Scrum with Team Foundation Server 2010 How surprised was I that after the attendees had finished casting their votes that both sessions would be in the top 20 one in the top 5. I an effort to promote diversity in sessions the DDD committee try to make sure that each presenter only have one session. I would have to compress SSW’s presentation into 1 hour. Around this time SSW embarked on it continuing adventures with scrum an Microsoft started heavily investing in Scrum for its internal use. I decided to do a slightly different session, but one that would still meet the agenda and goal of the billed session to provide “Better project management with Team Foundation Server 2010”. And so Scrum with Team Foundation Server 2010 was born. At this stage I really have to thank Aaron Bjork who provided me with many of the slides and animations as I really can’t work Power Point. On the 27th of April I presented the session for the Aberdeen Partner Group and then on 8th May I presented at DDD Scotland. Figure: Some of the presenters and organisers of DDD Scotland I mentioned quite a few of SSW’s Rules to better Scrum Using TFS and I have uploaded my presentation to Skydrive.   Download DDD Scotland -  Scrum with Team Foundation Server 2010 Technorati Tags: DDD Scot,Scrum,TFS 2010,SSW

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