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  • Syntax of passing lambda

    - by Astara
    Right now, I'm working on refactoring a program that calls its parts by polling to a more event-driven structure. I've created sched and task classes with the sced to become a base class of the current main loop. The tasks will be created for each meter so they can be called off of that instead of polling. Each of the events main calls are a type of meter that gather info and display it. When the program is coming up, all enabled meters get 'constructed' by a main-sub. In that sub, I want to store off the "this" pointer associated with the meter, as well as the common name for the "action routine. void MeterMaker::Meter_n_Task (Meter * newmeter,) { push(newmeter); // handle non-timed draw events Task t = new Task(now() + 0.5L); t.period={0,1U}; t.work_meter = newmeter; t.work = [&newmeter](){newmeter.checkevent();};<<--attempt at lambda t.flags = T_Repeat; t.enable_task(); _xos->sched_insert(t); } A sample call to it: Meter_n_Task(new CPUMeter(_xos, "CPU ")); 've made the scheduler a base class of the main routine (that handles the loop), and I've tried serveral variations to get the task class to be a base of the meter class, but keep running into roadblocks. It's alot like "whack-a-mole" -- pound in something to fix something one place, and then a new probl pops out elsewhere. Part of the problem, is that the sched.h file that is trying to hold the Task Q, includes the Task header file. The task file Wants to refer to the most "base", Meter class. The meter class pulls in the main class of the parent as it passes a copy of the parent to the children so they can access the draw routines in the parent. Two references in the task file are for the 'this' pointer of the meter and the meter's update sub (to be called via this). void *this_data= NULL; void (*this_func)() = NULL; Note -- I didn't really want to store these in the class, as I wanted to use a lamdba in that meter&task routine above to store a routine+context to be used to call the meter's action routine. Couldn't figure out the syntax. But am running into other syntax problems trying to store the pointers...such as g++: COMPILE lsched.cc In file included from meter.h:13:0, from ltask.h:17, from lsched.h:13, from lsched.cc:13: xosview.h:30:47: error: expected class-name before ‘{’ token class XOSView : public XWin, public Scheduler { Like above where it asks for a class, where the classname "Scheduler" is. !?!? Huh? That IS a class name. I keep going in circles with things that don't make sense... Ideally I'd get the lamba to work right in the Meter_n_Task routine at the top. I wanted to only store 1 pointer in the 'Task' class that was a pointer to my lambda that would have already captured the "this" value ... but couldn't get that syntax to work at all when I tried to start it into a var in the 'Task' class. This project, FWIW, is my teething project on the new C++... (of course it's simple!.. ;-))... I've made quite a bit of progress in other areas in the code, but this lambda syntax has me stumped...its at times like thse that I appreciate the ease of this type of operation in perl. Sigh. Not sure the best way to ask for help here, as this isn't a simple question. But thought I'd try!... ;-) Too bad I can't attach files to this Q.

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  • Part 6: Extensions vs. Modifications

    - by volker.eckardt(at)oracle.com
    Customizations = Extensions + Modifications In the EBS terminology, a customization can be an extension or a modification. Extension means that you mainly create your own code from scratch. You may utilize existing views, packages and java classes, but your code is unique. Modifications are quite different, because here you take existing code and change or enhance certain areas to achieve a slightly different behavior. Important is that it doesn't matter if you place your code at the same or at another place – it is a modification. It is also not relevant if you leave the original code enabled or not! Why? Here is the answer: In case the original code piece you have taken as your base will get patched, you need to copy the source again and apply all your changes once more. If you don't do that, you may get different results or write different data compared to the standard – this causes a high risk! Here are some guidelines how to reduce the risk: Invest a bit longer when searching for objects to select data from. Rather choose a view than a table. In case Oracle development changes the underlying tables, the view will be more stable and is therefore a better choice. Choose rather public APIs over internal APIs. Same background as before: although internal structure might change, the public API is more stable. Use personalization and substitution rather than modification. Spend more time to check if the requirement can be covered with such techniques. Build a project code library, avoid that colleagues creating similar functionality multiple times. Otherwise you have to review lots of similar code to determine the need for correction. Use the technique of “flagged files”. Flagged files is a way to mark a standard deployment file. If you run the patch analyse (within Application Manager), the analyse result will list flagged standard files in case they will be patched. If you maintain a cross reference to your own CEMLIs, you can easily determine which CEMLIs have to be reviewed. Implement a code review process. This can be done by utilizing team internal or external persons. If you implement such a team internal process, your team members will come up with suggestions how to improve the code quality by themselves. Review heavy customizations regularly, to identify options to reduce complexity; let's say perform this every 6th month. You may not spend days for such a review, but a high level cross check if the customization can be reduced is suggested. De-install customizations which are no more required. Define a process for this. Add a section into the technical documentation how to uninstall and what are possible implications. Maintain a cross reference between CEMLIs and between CEMLIs, EBS modules and business processes. Keep this list up to date! Share this list! By following these guidelines, you are able to improve product stability. Although we might not be able to avoid modifications completely, we can give a much better advise to developers and to our test team. Summary: Extensions and Modifications have to be handled differently during their lifecycle. Modifications implicate a much higher risk and should therefore be reviewed more frequently. Good cross references allow you to give clear advise for the testing activities.

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  • Take Snapshots of Your Favorite Movie Scenes in VLC

    - by DigitalGeekery
    Have you ever wanted to grab a screenshot of your favorite TV or movie scene? Today we’ll show you how to do so with VLC Media Player. If you don’t have it already, download and install the latest version of VLC (link below). Start playing your movie, and to grab a snapshot, select Video from the menu and click Snapshot.   When you take a snapshot, by default a preview is displayed at the top left and the folder where the file is saved is briefly displayed on the screen. If you enable the Advanced Controls, you can take a snapshot with a click of a button, and advance the video frame by frame to get a more accurate shot. To enable the Advanced Controls, select View and Advanced Controls.   You’ll see the Advanced Controls buttons appear below the slider. Now just click on the Snapshot button to grab an image.   You can more easily control the frame you wish to grab by pressing the Frame by Frame button. You can pause the movie when it is near the perfect spot for your snapshot, and then press the Frame by Frame button to advance a single frame at a time. By default, the snapshots are saved as PNG files in your My Pictures folder in Windows. You can change those setting in the Preferences. First, you’ll need to select All under Show settings at the bottom. Then click on Video on the left. Scroll down a bit and you’ll see the Snapshot section. Here you can change the format from PNG to JPG, change the directory to which the snapshots are stored, turn on and off the preview, and change the filename prefix. Click Save when finished.   Now you have nice screenshots of your favorite movie to display as you wish…such as a Desktop Background!   VLC is an excellent media player that runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. In addition to playing almost any media file, it also makes grabbing screenshots of your videos a breeze. Want to know more about VLC? Check out some of our previous articles like how to rip DVDs and how to set a video as your desktop wallpaper. Download the Latest version of VLC Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Desktop Fun: Rural Scenes WallpapersAutomatically Mount and View ISO files in Windows 7 Media CenterHow to Make/Edit a movie with Windows Movie Maker in Windows VistaAdd Images and Metadata to Windows 7 Media Center Movie LibraryQuickly Find Movies to Watch at Hello Movies 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 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 tinysong gives a shortened URL for you to post on Twitter (or anywhere) 10 Superb Firefox Wallpapers OpenDNS Guide Google TV The iPod Revolution Ultimate Boot CD can help when disaster strikes

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  • Where Have All the Ugly Forms Gone? Users and ADF Took Care Of It

    - by ultan o'broin
    Sometimes I hear that our application demos are a bit too "cutsey" and that we never talk about with any user roles that have lots of data entry as a requirement. Some (no names) consider those old clunker forms, with the myriad rows of fields, to be super-productive for data clerks. We do have such roles covered in Oracle Fusion Applications for sure. But consider what is really the issue here: productivity. Check out how the Oracle Fusion Financials Applications User Experience team went about designing for productivity when receiving and entering invoice data, for example. See how Fusion Financials caters so well for input and control of data? Central to all this is knowing the users and how they work: what tasks do they need to perform, and when. Read more about Fusion Financials productivity in the white paper, Get It Done Fast, Get It Done Right: The Oracle Fusion Financials User Experience. Now and then, I see forms that weren't designed for end user activity at all. Instead, they were designed by developers or by the IT department around the database schema. Forms with literally dozens of fields on the same page, sometimes. Forms that give the impression there was only task involved, when there may have been several. At times, completing one of these huge forms accurately became so tedious that, under pressure, it made more sense for the user to complete it quickly as possible and then let somebody else check it for accuracy and fill in the gaps from data emailed along in spreadsheet form. Data accuracy is critical in our business. Not good. Not efficient. Not productive. So here are a few basics on forms design for data entry-type user roles. A great place for developers to start exploring what is possible with forms layout is the Rich Client User Experience (RCUX) guidance on Form Layout, using ADF components. User-Centered Forms Design Considerations The starting point--something you must always keep in mind with your own design--is design for the end user. Find a representative end user, and keep that user engaged throughout the design, deployment, and test process. Consider these points in user testing those forms: Are there automated or technical solutions to entering the data that avoid manual input in the first place? For example, imports, uploads, OCR, whatever. Some day we will be able to tell Siri to do it, but leave that for now. Design your form to reflect the task involved (i.e., the business process) and not the database schema. On the form, group like fields together, logically. Eliminate duplicate data entry or prepopulate from previous data entry. Allow users to complete fields in the order they wish (i.e., no interdependency). Allow for tabbing between fields (keyboard is faster than mouse), so know how the browser supports this (see that RCUX guideline). Allow for final validation at the page level not at field-level entry. Way better for heads-down users. For example, ADF messages allow you to see a list of all validation errors on a page on a final submit or navigation action and to easily navigate to the point of error. Better still, be error tolerant. Allow users to enter data in formats they comfortable with. Bind any relevant user preference setting to the input format allowed (for example, the locale date format). Explore what data entry conversion can do for you automatically too (see the ADF converter demos, convenience patterns can also be written). Only ask for data input when it's needed. Get rid of, or hide optional fields. Cut down on the number of mandatory fields, and mark them clearly (use a *). Clearly label the fields in plain language. I am sure you may have a few more tips on forms design for data entry users. Remember the user before finding the comments.

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  • Passed: Exam 70-480: Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3

    First off: Mission accomplished successfully. And it was fun! Using the resources listed in my previous article about Learning Content, I'd like to thank Microsoft Technical Evangelists Jeremy Foster and Michael Palermo for their excellent jump start videos on Channel 9, and the various authors at Pluralsight. Local Prometric testing centre Back in November I chose a local testing centre which was the easiest to access from my office despite the horrible traffic you might experience here on the island. Actually, it was not the closest one. But due to their website, their awards as Microsoft Learning Center, and my general curiosity about the premises, I gave FRCI my priority. Boy, how should I regret this decision this morning... The official Prometric exam guide asks any attendee to show up at least 30 minutes prior to the scheduled time of the test. Well, this should have been the easier part but unfortunately due to heavier traffic than usual I arrived only 20 minutes before time. Not too bad but more to come. The building called 'le Hub' is nicely renovated and provides the right environment for an IT group of companies like FRCI. I think they have currently 5 independent IT departments over there. Even the handling at the reception was straight forward, welcoming and at my ease. But then... first shock: "We don't have any exam registration for today." - Hm, that's nice... Here's my mail confirmation from Prometric. First attack successfully handled and the lady went off again to check their records. Next shock: A couple of minutes later, another guy tries to explain me that "the staff of the testing centre is already on vacation and the centre is officially closed." - Are you kidding me? Here's the official confirmation by Prometric, and I don't find it funny that I take a day off today only to hear this kind of blubbering nonsense. I thought that I'll be on the safe side choosing a company with a good reputation here on the island. Another 40 (!) minutes later, they finally come back to the waiting area with a pre-filled form about the test appointment. And finally, after an hour of waiting, discussing, restarting the testing PC, and lots of talk, I am allowed to sit down and take the exam. Exam details Well, you know the rules. Signing an NDA doesn't allow me to provide you any details about the questions or topics that have been covered. Please check out the official exam description, and you're on the right way. Sorry, guys... ;-) The result "Congratulations! You have passed this Microsoft Certification exam." - In general, I have to admit that the parts on HTML5 and CSS3 were the easiest after all, and that I have to get myself a little bit more familiar with certain Javascript features like class definitions, inheritance and data security. Anyway, exam passed - who cares about the details? Next goal Of course, the journey to Microsoft Certifications continues and my next goal is to pass exams 70-481 - Essentials of Developing Windows Store Apps using HTML5 and JavaScript and 70-482 - Advanced Windows Store App Development using HTML5 and JavaScript. This would allow me to achieve the certification of MCSD: Windows Store Apps using HTML5. I guess, during 2013 I'll be busy with various learning and teaching lessons.

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  • Parsing T-SQL – The easy way

    - by Dave Ballantyne
    Every once in a while, I hit an issue that would require me to interrogate/parse some T-SQL code.  Normally, I would shy away from this and attempt to solve the problem in some other way.  I have written parsers before in the the past using LEX and YACC, and as much fun and awesomeness that path is,  I couldnt justify the time it would take. However, this week I have been faced with just such an issue and at the back of my mind I can remember reading through the SQLServer 2012 feature pack and seeing something called “Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Transact-SQL Language Service “.  This is described there as : “The SQL Server Transact-SQL Language Service is a component based on the .NET Framework which provides parsing validation and IntelliSense services for Transact-SQL for SQL Server 2012, SQL Server 2008 R2, and SQL Server 2008. “ Sounds just what I was after.  Documentation is very scant on this so dont take what follows as best practice or best use, just a practice and a use. Knowing what I was sort of looking for something, I found the relevant assembly in the gac which is the simply named ,’Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.SqlParser’. Even knowing that you wont find much in terms of documentation if you do a web-search, but you will find the MSDN documentation that list the members and methods etc… The “scanner”  class sounded the most appropriate for my needs as that is described as “Scans Transact-SQL searching for individual units of code or tokens.”. After a bit of poking, around the code i ended up with was something like [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.SqlParser") | Out-Null $ParseOptions = New-Object Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.SqlParser.Parser.ParseOptions $ParseOptions.BatchSeparator = 'GO' $Parser = new-object Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.SqlParser.Parser.Scanner($ParseOptions) $Sql = "Create Procedure MyProc as Select top(10) * from dbo.Table" $Parser.SetSource($Sql,0) $Token=[Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.SqlParser.Parser.Tokens]::TOKEN_SET $Start =0 $End = 0 $State =0 $IsEndOfBatch = $false $IsMatched = $false $IsExecAutoParamHelp = $false while(($Token = $Parser.GetNext([ref]$State ,[ref]$Start, [ref]$End, [ref]$IsMatched, [ref]$IsExecAutoParamHelp ))-ne [Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.SqlParser.Parser.Tokens]::EOF) { try{ ($TokenPrs =[Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.SqlParser.Parser.Tokens]$Token) | Out-Null $TokenPrs $Sql.Substring($Start,($end-$Start)+1) }catch{ $TokenPrs = $null } } As you can see , the $Sql variable holds the sql to be parsed , that is pushed into the $Parser object using SetSource,  and then we will use GetNext until the EOF token is returned.  GetNext will also return the Start and End character positions within the source string of the parsed text. This script’s output is : TOKEN_CREATE Create TOKEN_PROCEDURE Procedure TOKEN_ID MyProc TOKEN_AS as TOKEN_SELECT Select TOKEN_TOP top TOKEN_INTEGER 10 TOKEN_FROM from TOKEN_ID dbo TOKEN_TABLE Table note that the ‘(‘, ‘)’  and ‘*’ characters have returned a token type that is not present in the Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.SqlParser.Parser.Tokens Enum that has caused an error which has been caught in the catch block.  Fun, Fun ,Fun , Simple T-SQL Parsing.  Hope this helps someone in the same position,  let me know how you get on.

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  • Numerically stable(ish) method of getting Y-intercept of mouse position?

    - by Fraser
    I'm trying to unproject the mouse position to get the position on the X-Z plane of a ray cast from the mouse. The camera is fully controllable by the user. Right now, the algorithm I'm using is... Unproject the mouse into the camera to get the ray: Vector3 p1 = Vector3.Unproject(new Vector3(x, y, 0), 0, 0, width, height, nearPlane, farPlane, viewProj; Vector3 p2 = Vector3.Unproject(new Vector3(x, y, 1), 0, 0, width, height, nearPlane, farPlane, viewProj); Vector3 dir = p2 - p1; dir.Normalize(); Ray ray = Ray(p1, dir); Then get the Y-intercept by using algebra: float t = -ray.Position.Y / ray.Direction.Y; Vector3 p = ray.Position + t * ray.Direction; The problem is that the projected position is "jumpy". As I make small adjustments to the mouse position, the projected point moves in strange ways. For example, if I move the mouse one pixel up, it will sometimes move the projected position down, but when I move it a second pixel, the project position will jump back to the mouse's location. The projected location is always close to where it should be, but it does not smoothly follow a moving mouse. The problem intensifies as I zoom the camera out. I believe the problem is caused by numeric instability. I can make minor improvements to this by doing some computations at double precision, and possibly abusing the fact that floating point calculations are done at 80-bit precision on x86, however before I start micro-optimizing this and getting deep into how the CLR handles floating point, I was wondering if there's an algorithmic change I can do to improve this? EDIT: A little snooping around in .NET Reflector on SlimDX.dll: public static Vector3 Unproject(Vector3 vector, float x, float y, float width, float height, float minZ, float maxZ, Matrix worldViewProjection) { Vector3 coordinate = new Vector3(); Matrix result = new Matrix(); Matrix.Invert(ref worldViewProjection, out result); coordinate.X = (float) ((((vector.X - x) / ((double) width)) * 2.0) - 1.0); coordinate.Y = (float) -((((vector.Y - y) / ((double) height)) * 2.0) - 1.0); coordinate.Z = (vector.Z - minZ) / (maxZ - minZ); TransformCoordinate(ref coordinate, ref result, out coordinate); return coordinate; } // ... public static void TransformCoordinate(ref Vector3 coordinate, ref Matrix transformation, out Vector3 result) { Vector3 vector; Vector4 vector2 = new Vector4 { X = (((coordinate.Y * transformation.M21) + (coordinate.X * transformation.M11)) + (coordinate.Z * transformation.M31)) + transformation.M41, Y = (((coordinate.Y * transformation.M22) + (coordinate.X * transformation.M12)) + (coordinate.Z * transformation.M32)) + transformation.M42, Z = (((coordinate.Y * transformation.M23) + (coordinate.X * transformation.M13)) + (coordinate.Z * transformation.M33)) + transformation.M43 }; float num = (float) (1.0 / ((((transformation.M24 * coordinate.Y) + (transformation.M14 * coordinate.X)) + (coordinate.Z * transformation.M34)) + transformation.M44)); vector2.W = num; vector.X = vector2.X * num; vector.Y = vector2.Y * num; vector.Z = vector2.Z * num; result = vector; } ...which seems to be a pretty standard method of unprojecting a point from a projection matrix, however this serves to introduce another point of possible instability. Still, I'd like to stick with the SlimDX Unproject routine rather than writing my own unless it's really necessary.

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  • Non use of persisted data

    - by Dave Ballantyne
    Working at a client site, that in itself is good to say, I ran into a set of circumstances that made me ponder, and appreciate, the optimizer engine a bit more. Working on optimizing a stored procedure, I found a piece of code similar to : select BillToAddressID, Rowguid, dbo.udfCleanGuid(rowguid) from sales.salesorderheaderwhere BillToAddressID = 985 A lovely scalar UDF was being used,  in actuality it was used as part of the WHERE clause but simplified here.  Normally I would use an inline table valued function here, but in this case it wasn't a good option. So this seemed like a pretty good case to use a persisted column to improve performance. The supporting index was already defined as create index idxBill on sales.salesorderheader(BillToAddressID) include (rowguid) and the function code is Create Function udfCleanGuid(@GUID uniqueidentifier)returns varchar(255)with schemabindingasbegin Declare @RetStr varchar(255) Select @RetStr=CAST(@Guid as varchar(255)) Select @RetStr=REPLACE(@Retstr,'-','') return @RetStrend Executing the Select statement produced a plan of : Nothing surprising, a seek to find the data and compute scalar to execute the UDF. Lets get optimizing and remove the UDF with a persisted column Alter table sales.salesorderheaderadd CleanedGuid as dbo.udfCleanGuid(rowguid)PERSISTED A subtle change to the SELECT statement… select BillToAddressID,CleanedGuid from sales.salesorderheaderwhere BillToAddressID = 985 and our new optimized plan looks like… Not a lot different from before!  We are using persisted data on our table, where is the lookup to fetch it ?  It didnt happen,  it was recalculated.  Looking at the properties of the relevant Compute Scalar would confirm this ,  but a more graphic example would be shown in the profiler SP:StatementCompleted event. Why did the lookup happen ? Remember the index definition,  it has included the original guid to avoid the lookup.  The optimizer knows this column will be passed into the UDF, run through its logic and decided that to recalculate is cheaper than the lookup.  That may or may not be the case in actuality,  the optimizer has no idea of the real cost of a scalar udf.  IMO the default cost of a scalar UDF should be seen as a lot higher than it is, since they are invariably higher. Knowing this, how do we avoid the function call?  Dropping the guid from the index is not an option, there may be other code reliant on it.   We are left with only one real option,  add the persisted column into the index. drop index Sales.SalesOrderHeader.idxBillgocreate index idxBill on sales.salesorderheader(BillToAddressID) include (rowguid,cleanedguid) Now if we repeat the statement select BillToAddressID,CleanedGuid from sales.salesorderheaderwhere BillToAddressID = 985 We still have a compute scalar operator, but this time it wasnt used to recalculate the persisted data.  This can be confirmed with profiler again. The takeaway here is,  just because you have persisted data dont automatically assumed that it is being used.

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  • Tetris Movement - Implementation

    - by James Brauman
    Hi gamedev, I'm developing a Tetris clone and working on the input at the moment. When I was prototyping, movement was triggered by releasing a directional key. However, in most Tetris games I've played the movement is a bit more complex. When a directional key is pressed, the shape moves one space in that direction. After a short interval, if the key is still held down, the shape starts moving in the direction continuously until the key is released. In the case of the down key being pressed, there is no pause between the initial movement and the subsequent continuous movement. I've come up with a solution, and it works well, but it's totally over-engineered. Hey, at least I can recognize when things are getting silly, right? :) public class TetrisMover { List registeredKeys; Dictionary continuousPressedTime; Dictionary totalPressedTime; Dictionary initialIntervals; Dictionary continousIntervals; Dictionary keyActions; Dictionary initialActionDone; KeyboardState currentKeyboardState; public TetrisMover() { *snip* } public void Update(GameTime gameTime) { currentKeyboardState = Keyboard.GetState(); foreach (Keys currentKey in registeredKeys) { if (currentKeyboardState.IsKeyUp(currentKey)) { continuousPressedTime[currentKey] = TimeSpan.Zero; totalPressedTime[currentKey] = TimeSpan.Zero; initialActionDone[currentKey] = false; } else { if (initialActionDone[currentKey] == false) { keyActions[currentKey](); initialActionDone[currentKey] = true; } totalPressedTime[currentKey] += gameTime.ElapsedGameTime; if (totalPressedTime[currentKey] = initialIntervals[currentKey]) { continuousPressedTime[currentKey] += gameTime.ElapsedGameTime; if (continuousPressedTime[currentKey] = continousIntervals[currentKey]) { keyActions[currentKey](); continuousPressedTime[currentKey] = TimeSpan.Zero; } } } } } public void RegisterKey(Keys key, TimeSpan initialInterval, TimeSpan continuousInterval, Action keyAction) { if (registeredKeys.Contains(key)) throw new InvalidOperationException( string.Format("The key %s is already registered.", key)); registeredKeys.Add(key); continuousPressedTime.Add(key, TimeSpan.Zero); totalPressedTime.Add(key, TimeSpan.Zero); initialIntervals.Add(key, initialInterval); continousIntervals.Add(key, continuousInterval); keyActions.Add(key, keyAction); initialActionDone.Add(key, false); } public void UnregisterKey(Keys key) { *snip* } } I'm updating it every frame, and this is how I'm registering keys for movement: tetrisMover.RegisterKey( Keys.Left, keyHoldStartSpecialInterval, keyHoldMovementInterval, () = { Move(Direction.Left); }); tetrisMover.RegisterKey( Keys.Right, keyHoldStartSpecialInterval, keyHoldMovementInterval, () = { Move(Direction.Right); }); tetrisMover.RegisterKey( Keys.Down, TimeSpan.Zero, keyHoldMovementInterval, () = { PerformGravity(); }); Issues that this doesn't address: If both left and right are held down, the shape moves back and forth really quick. If a directional key is held down and the turn finishes and the shape is replaced by a new one, the new one will move quickly in that direction instead of the little pause it is supposed to have. I could fix the issues, but I think it will make the solution even worse. How would you implement this?

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  • User password rejected on login screen but accepted on text console login

    - by MadsirR
    I had to force shutdown my Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit, after which I restarted and tried to log in as a normal user, which was rejected several times. I then logged in as guest and tty to my regular account with use of my normal password, which succeeded. (So the password is still valid.) How can I gain access again via the normal login procedure (welcome screen)? Update: When I tried to log on with my new password, it again was denied. When I deliberately tried to log on with a faulty password, an error message came back, saying: Access denied - wrong password. I suppose, the first time the password was not rejected, but the procedure was aborted for some reason. Some additional info after trying to find a solution: I am conviced it is a Compiz-issue. Why? before this happened, all sessions came to a grinding halt, regardless of being logged on in a 2D or 3d environment. I found a link saying that I should remove Compiz and proceed in a 2D environment, which initiall worked without a glitch, until my system went into a state of total obivium. Only after that, the above mentioned troubles appeared. In the meantime I have happened to find a thread with reference 17381, describing exactly what I have experienced. For now, I will try to cure this situation (later this week) and revert with the results, hopefully to close this post. In the meantime I cordially thank you all, even if you didn't kill the problem; you gave me the inspiration to look further and find a possible cure. Update2: After 15 hrs of trial-and-error I callled it quits (When I decided to tackle this problem, I've given myself 12 hrs, to avoid massive loss of time.) I decided to re-install Precise, since the "point 1" version has become availabe. Log-in is back to normal, as is the graphic environment. Response to mouse input is stil appalling, especially when I have a series of screens open as "children"of a "parent" screen. It still completely locks up. I have installed Enlightenment, Gnome classic, Gnome 3, Cinnamon and they all behave in a similar fashion. FOR THOSE WHO NEED A WAY-OUT IN SITUATIONS OF THE LIKE: Open a terminal with [Ctrl+Alt+F2]. Type [sudo killall Firefox] (or whatever application you wish to terminate). Key in your password. Return to your graphical screen with [Ctrl+Alt+F7], and Bob's your uncle. Just re-open Firefox like nothing happened. Next time you are stuck: [Ctrl+Alt+F2], upward arrow till you meet the command of your desire, [Ctrl+Alt+F7], etcetera. Hope this is of help. My next move will be to upgrade the kernel to 3.4 from the repositories for 12.10. However, since this entails a totally new situation, I will start a new thread on this site to avoid topic pollution I will keep you posted. Still.

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  • My 2D collision code does not work as expected. How do I fix it?

    - by farmdve
    I have a simple 2D game with a tile-based map. I am new to game development, I followed the LazyFoo tutorials on SDL. The tiles are in a bmp file, but each tile inside it corresponds to an internal number of the type of tile(color, or wall). The game is simple, but the code is a lot so I can only post snippets. // Player moved out of the map if((player.box.x < 0)) player.box.x += GetVelocity(player, 0); if((player.box.y < 0)) player.box.y += GetVelocity(player, 1); if((player.box.x > (LEVEL_WIDTH - DOT_WIDTH))) player.box.x -= GetVelocity(player, 0); if((player.box.y > (LEVEL_HEIGHT - DOT_HEIGHT))) player.box.y -= GetVelocity(player, 1); // Now that we are here, we check for collisions if(touches_wall(player.box)) { if(player.box.x < player.prev_x) { player.box.x += GetVelocity(player, 0); } if(player.box.x > player.prev_x) { player.box.x -= GetVelocity(player, 0); } if(player.box.y < player.prev_y) { player.box.y += GetVelocity(player, 1); } if(player.box.y > player.prev_y) { player.box.y -= GetVelocity(player, 1); } } player.prev_x = player.box.x; player.prev_y = player.box.y; Let me explain, player is a structure with the following contents typedef struct { Rectangle box; //Player position on a map(tile or whatever). int prev_x, prev_y; // Previous positions int key_press[3]; // Stores which key was pressed/released. Limited to three keys. E.g Left,right and perhaps jump if possible in 2D int velX, velY; // Velocity for X and Y coordinate. //Health int health; bool main_character; uint32_t jump_ticks; } Player; And Rectangle is just a typedef of SDL_Rect. GetVelocity is a function that according to the second argument, returns the velocity for the X or Y axis. This code I have basically works, however inside the if(touches_wall(player.box)) if statement, I have 4 more. These 4 if statements are responsible for detecting collision on all 4 sides(up,down,left,right). However, they also act as a block for any other movement. Example: I move down the object and collide with the wall, as I continue to move down and still collide with the wall, I wish to move left or right, which is indeed possible(not to mention in 3D games), but remember the 4 if statements? They are preventing me from moving anywhere. The original code on the LazyFoo Productions website has no problems, but it was written in C++, so I had to rewrite most of it to work, which is probably where the problem comes from. I also use a different method of moving, than the one in the examples. Of course, that was just an example. I wish to be able to move no matter at which wall I collide. Before this bit of code, I had another one that had more logic in there, but it was flawed.

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  • PowerShell Script To Find Where SharePoint 2007 Features Are Activated

    - by Brian T. Jackett
    Recently I posted a script to find where SharePoint 2010 Features Are Activated.  I built the original version to use SharePoint 2010 PowerShell commandlets as that saved me a number of steps for filtering and gathering features at each level.  If there was ever demand for a 2007 version I could modify the script to handle that by using the object model instead of commandlets.  Just the other week a fellow SharePoint PFE Jason Gallicchio had a customer asking about a version for SharePoint 2007.  With a little bit of work I was able to convert the script to work against SharePoint 2007.   Solution    Below is the converted script that works against a SharePoint 2007 farm.  Note: There appears to be a bug with the 2007 version that does not give accurate results against a SharePoint 2010 farm.  I ran the 2007 version against a 2010 farm and got fewer results than my 2010 version of the script.  Discussing with some fellow PFEs I think the discrepancy may be due to sandboxed features, a new concept in SharePoint 2010.  I have not had enough time to test or confirm.  For the time being only use the 2007 version script against SharePoint 2007 farms and the 2010 version against SharePoint 2010 farms.    Note: This script is not optimized for medium to large farms.  In my testing it took 1-3 minutes to recurse through my demo environment.  This script is provided as-is with no warranty.  Run this in a smaller dev / test environment first. 001 002 003 004 005 006 007 008 009 010 011 012 013 014 015 016 017 018 019 020 021 022 023 024 025 026 027 028 029 030 031 032 033 034 035 036 037 038 039 040 041 042 043 044 045 046 047 048 049 050 051 052 053 054 055 056 057 058 059 060 061 062 063 064 065 066 067 068 069 070 function Get-SPFeatureActivated { # see full script for help info, removed for formatting [CmdletBinding()] param(     [Parameter(position = 1, valueFromPipeline=$true)]     [string]     $Identity )#end param     Begin     {         # load SharePoint assembly to access object model         [void][System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SharePoint")             # declare empty array to hold results. Will add custom member for Url to show where activated at on objects returned from Get-SPFeature.         $results = @()                 $params = @{}     }     Process     {         if([string]::IsNullOrEmpty($Identity) -eq $false)         {             $params = @{Identity = $Identity}         }                 # create hashtable of farm features to lookup definition ids later         $farm = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPFarm]::Local                         # check farm features         $results += ($farm.FeatureDefinitions | Where-Object {$_.Scope -eq "Farm"} | Where-Object {[string]::IsNullOrEmpty($Identity) -or ($_.DisplayName -eq $Identity)} |                          % {Add-Member -InputObject $_ -MemberType noteproperty -Name Url -Value ([string]::Empty) -PassThru} |                          Select-Object -Property Scope, DisplayName, Id, Url)                 # check web application features         $contentWebAppServices = $farm.services | ? {$_.typename -like "Windows SharePoint Services Web Application"}                 foreach($webApp in $contentWebAppServices.WebApplications)         {             $results += ($webApp.Features | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Definition | Where-Object {[string]::IsNullOrEmpty($Identity) -or ($_.DisplayName -eq $Identity)} |                          % {Add-Member -InputObject $_ -MemberType noteproperty -Name Url -Value $webApp.GetResponseUri(0).AbsoluteUri -PassThru} |                          Select-Object -Property Scope, DisplayName, Id, Url)                         # check site collection features in current web app             foreach($site in ($webApp.Sites))             {                 $results += ($site.Features | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Definition | Where-Object {[string]::IsNullOrEmpty($Identity) -or ($_.DisplayName -eq $Identity)} |                                  % {Add-Member -InputObject $_ -MemberType noteproperty -Name Url -Value $site.Url -PassThru} |                                  Select-Object -Property Scope, DisplayName, Id, Url)                                 # check site features in current site collection                 foreach($web in ($site.AllWebs))                 {                     $results += ($web.Features | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Definition | Where-Object {[string]::IsNullOrEmpty($Identity) -or ($_.DisplayName -eq $Identity)} |                                      % {Add-Member -InputObject $_ -MemberType noteproperty -Name Url -Value $web.Url -PassThru} |                                      Select-Object -Property Scope, DisplayName, Id, Url)                                                        $web.Dispose()                 }                 $site.Dispose()             }         }     }     End     {         $results     } } #end Get-SPFeatureActivated Get-SPFeatureActivated   Conclusion    I have posted this script to the TechNet Script Repository (click here).  As always I appreciate any feedback on scripts.  If anyone is motivated to run this 2007 version script against a SharePoint 2010 to see if they find any differences in number of features reported versus what they get with the 2010 version script I’d love to hear from you.         -Frog Out

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  • Virtualized data centre&ndash;Part three: Architecture

    - by marc dekeyser
    Having the basics (like discussed in the previous articles) is all good and well, but how do we get started on this?! It can be quite daunting after all!   From my own point of view I can absolutely confirm your worries and concerns, but also tell you that it is not as hard as it seems! Deciding on what kind of motherboard to buy, processor and how much memory is an activity you will spend quite some time doing research on. And that is not even mentioning storage! All in all it comes down to setting you expectations and your budget. Probably adjusting your expectations according to your budget :). Processors As a rule of thumb you want VT-D (virtualization) technology built in to the processor allowing you to have 64 bit machines running on your host. Memory The more the better! If you are building a home lab don’t bother with ECC unless you are going to run machines that absolutely should be on all the time and your comfort depends on it! Motherboard Depends on what you are going to do with storage: If you are going the NAS way then the number of SATA port/RAID capabilities do not really matter. If you decide to have a single server with lots of dedicated storage it obviously matters how much SATA ports you will have, alternatively you could use a RAID controller (but these set you back a pretty penny if you want one. DELL 6i’s are usually available for a good bargain if you can find one!). Easiest is to get one with a built-in graphics card (on-board) as you are just adding more heat, power usage and possible points of failure. Networking Just like your choice of motherboard the networking side tends to depend on how you want to go. A single virtualization  host with local storage can usually get away with having a single network card, a cluster or server which uses iSCSI storage tends to have more than one teamed up :). Storage The dreaded beast from the dark! The horror which lives in the forest! The most difficult decision you are going to make in the building of your lab. Why you might ask? Simple my friend, having the right choice of storage can make or break your virtualization solution. The performance of you storage choice will have an important impact on the responsiveness of your virtual machines and the deployment of new machines. It also makes a run with your budget! If you decide to go the NAS route you will be dropping a lot more money than if you would be having just a bunch of disks sitting in a server and manually distributing the virtual machines over the disks. Platform I’m a Microsoftee so Hyper-V is a dead giveaway for me. If you are interested in using VMware I won’t stop you but the rest of my posts will be oriented on Server 2012 Hyper-V (aka 3.0)! What did I use? Before someone asks me this in the comments I’ll give you a quick run down of what I am using. - Intel 2.4 quad core processors (i something something) - 24 GB DDR3 Memory - Single disk in each server (might look at this as I move the servers to 2012) - Synology DS1812+ NAS - 3 network interfaces where possible - HP1800 procurve managed switch I decided to spring for the NAS as I will also be using it for backups and media storage (which is working out quite nicely with my Xbox 360 I must say). At the time of building my 2 boxes (over a year and a half ago) these set me back about 900 euros each so I can image you can build the same or better for a lower price. Next article will be diagramming what I want to achieve and starting a build on the Hyper V 3.0 cluster!

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  • Antenna Aligner Part 4: Role'ing in the deep

    - by Chris George
    Since last time I've been trying to sort out the general workflow of the app. It's fundamentally not hard, there is a list of transmitters, you select a transmitter and it shows the compass view. Having done quite a bit of ajax/asp.net/html in the past, I immediately started off by creating two divs within my 'page', one for the list, one for the compass. Then using the onClick event in the list, this will switch the display attribute on the divs. This seemed to work, but did lead to some dodgy transitional redrawing artefacts which I was not happy with. So after some Googling I realised I was doing it all wrong! JQuery mobile has the concept of giving an object in html a data-role. By giving a div the attribute data-role="page" it is then treated as a separate page on the mobile device. Within the code, this is referenced like a html anchor in the form #mypage. Using this system, page transitions such as fade or slide are automatically applied which adds to the whole authenticity of the app! Here is a simple example: . <a href="#'compasspage">compass</a> . <div data-role="page" id="compasspage" data-add-back-btn="true"> But I don't want just a static link, I want to dynamically create my list, and get each list elements to switch to the compass page with the right information. So here is the jquery that I used to dynamically inject new <li> rows into the <ul> block. $('ul').append($('<li/>', {    //here appendin `<li>`     'data-role': "list-divider" }).append($('<a/>', {    //here appending `<a>` into `<li>`     'href': '#compasspage',     'data-transition': 'none',     'onclick': 'selectTx(' + i + ')',     'html': buttonHtml }))); $('ul').listview('refresh'); This is called within a for loop so the first 5 appropriate transmitters are used. There are several things of interest to note here. Firstly, I could not find a more elegant way to tell the target page which transmitter I've clicked on, so I have used the onclick event as well as the href attribute. The onclick event fires 'selectTx' which simply sets a global member variable to the specific index number I've clicked on. Yes it's not nice, but it works. Secondly, the data-transition attribute is set to 'none'. I wanted the transition between the pages to be a whooshy slidey effect. However this worked going to the compass page, but returning to the list page gave some undesirable visual artefacts (flickering, redrawing etc.). So I decided to remove the transitions all together, which was a shame. Thirdly, rather than embedding loads of html into the append command, I removed this out into a variable 'buttonHtml'. Doing this really tidied up my code. Until next time!

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  • SPTI problem with Mode Select

    - by Bob Murphy
    I'm running into a problem in which an attempt to do a "Mode Select" SCSI command using SPTI is returning an error status of 0x02 ("Check Condition"), and hope someone here might have some tips or suggestions. The code in question is intended to work with at a custom SCSI device. I wrote the original support for it using ASPI under WinXP, and am converting it to work with SPTI under 64-bit Windows 7. Here's the problematic code - and what's happening is, sptwb.spt.ScsiStatus is 2, which is a "Check Condition" error. Unfortunately, the device in question doesn't return useful information when you do a "Request Sense" after this problem occurs, so that's no help. void MSSModeSelect(const ModeSelectRequestPacket& inRequest, StatusResponsePacket& outResponse) { IPC_LOG("MSSModeSelect(): PathID=%d, TargetID=%d, LUN=%d", inRequest.m_Device.m_PathId, inRequest.m_Device.m_TargetId, inRequest.m_Device.m_Lun); int adapterIndex = inRequest.m_Device.m_PathId; HANDLE adapterHandle = prvOpenScsiAdapter(inRequest.m_Device.m_PathId); if (adapterHandle == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE) { outResponse.m_Status = eScsiAdapterErr; return; } SCSI_PASS_THROUGH_WITH_BUFFERS sptwb; memset(&sptwb, 0, sizeof(sptwb)); #define MODESELECT_BUF_SIZE 32 sptwb.spt.Length = sizeof(SCSI_PASS_THROUGH); sptwb.spt.PathId = inRequest.m_Device.m_PathId; sptwb.spt.TargetId = inRequest.m_Device.m_TargetId; sptwb.spt.Lun = inRequest.m_Device.m_Lun; sptwb.spt.CdbLength = CDB6GENERIC_LENGTH; sptwb.spt.SenseInfoLength = 0; sptwb.spt.DataIn = SCSI_IOCTL_DATA_IN; sptwb.spt.DataTransferLength = MODESELECT_BUF_SIZE; sptwb.spt.TimeOutValue = 2; sptwb.spt.DataBufferOffset = offsetof(SCSI_PASS_THROUGH_WITH_BUFFERS,ucDataBuf); sptwb.spt.Cdb[0] = SCSIOP_MODE_SELECT; sptwb.spt.Cdb[4] = MODESELECT_BUF_SIZE; DWORD length = offsetof(SCSI_PASS_THROUGH_WITH_BUFFERS,ucDataBuf) + sptwb.spt.DataTransferLength; memset(sptwb.ucDataBuf, 0, sizeof(sptwb.ucDataBuf)); sptwb.ucDataBuf[2] = 0x10; sptwb.ucDataBuf[16] = (BYTE)0x01; ULONG bytesReturned = 0; BOOL okay = DeviceIoControl(adapterHandle, IOCTL_SCSI_PASS_THROUGH, &sptwb, sizeof(SCSI_PASS_THROUGH), &sptwb, length, &bytesReturned, FALSE); DWORD gle = GetLastError(); IPC_LOG(" DeviceIoControl() %s", okay ? "worked" : "failed"); if (okay) { outResponse.m_Status = (sptwb.spt.ScsiStatus == 0) ? eOk : ePrinterStatusErr; } else { outResponse.m_Status = eScsiPermissionsErr; } CloseHandle(adapterHandle); } A few more remarks, for what it's worth: This is derived from some old ASPI code that does the "Mode Select" flawlessly. This routine opens \\.\SCSI<whatever> at the beginning, via prvOpenScsiAdapter(), and closes the handle at the end. All the other routines for dealing with the device do the same thing, including the routine to do "Reserve Unit". Is this a good idea under SPTI, or should the call to "Reserve Unit" leave the handle open, so this routine and others in the sequence can use the same handle? This uses the IOCTL_SCSI_PASS_THROUGH. Should "Mode Select" use IOCTL_SCSI_PASS_THROUGH_DIRECT instead? Thanks in advance - any help will be greatly appreciated.

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  • C# 5 Async, Part 3: Preparing Existing code For Await

    - by Reed
    While the Visual Studio Async CTP provides a fantastic model for asynchronous programming, it requires code to be implemented in terms of Task and Task<T>.  The CTP adds support for Task-based asynchrony to the .NET Framework methods, and promises to have these implemented directly in the framework in the future.  However, existing code outside the framework will need to be converted to using the Task class prior to being usable via the CTP. Wrapping existing asynchronous code into a Task or Task<T> is, thankfully, fairly straightforward.  There are two main approaches to this. Code written using the Asynchronous Programming Model (APM) is very easy to convert to using Task<T>.  The TaskFactory class provides the tools to directly convert APM code into a method returning a Task<T>.  This is done via the FromAsync method.  This method takes the BeginOperation and EndOperation methods, as well as any parameters and state objects as arguments, and returns a Task<T> directly. For example, we could easily convert the WebRequest BeginGetResponse and EndGetResponse methods into a method which returns a Task<WebResponse> via: Task<WebResponse> task = Task.Factory .FromAsync<WebResponse>( request.BeginGetResponse, request.EndGetResponse, null); .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Event-based Asynchronous Pattern (EAP) code can also be wrapped into a Task<T>, though this requires a bit more effort than the one line of code above.  This is handled via the TaskCompletionSource<T> class.  MSDN provides a detailed example of using this to wrap an EAP operation into a method returning Task<T>.  It demonstrates handling cancellation and exception handling as well as the basic operation of the asynchronous method itself. The basic form of this operation is typically: Task<YourResult> GetResultAsync() { var tcs = new TaskCompletionSource<YourResult>(); // Handle the event, and setup the task results... this.GetResultCompleted += (o,e) => { if (e.Error != null) tcs.TrySetException(e.Error); else if (e.Cancelled) tcs.TrySetCanceled(); else tcs.TrySetResult(e.Result); }; // Call the asynchronous method this.GetResult(); // Return the task from the TaskCompletionSource return tcs.Task; } We can easily use these methods to wrap our own code into a method that returns a Task<T>.  Existing libraries which cannot be edited can be extended via Extension methods.  The CTP uses this technique to add appropriate methods throughout the framework. The suggested naming for these methods is to define these methods as “Task<YourResult> YourClass.YourOperationAsync(…)”.  However, this naming often conflicts with the default naming of the EAP.  If this is the case, the CTP has standardized on using “Task<YourResult> YourClass.YourOperationTaskAsync(…)”. Once we’ve wrapped all of our existing code into operations that return Task<T>, we can begin investigating how the Async CTP can be used with our own code.

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  • Oh no! My padding's invalid!

    - by Simon Cooper
    Recently, I've been doing some work involving cryptography, and encountered the standard .NET CryptographicException: 'Padding is invalid and cannot be removed.' Searching on StackOverflow produces 57 questions concerning this exception; it's a very common problem encountered. So I decided to have a closer look. To test this, I created a simple project that decrypts and encrypts a byte array: // create some random data byte[] data = new byte[100]; new Random().NextBytes(data); // use the Rijndael symmetric algorithm RijndaelManaged rij = new RijndaelManaged(); byte[] encrypted; // encrypt the data using a CryptoStream using (var encryptor = rij.CreateEncryptor()) using (MemoryStream encryptedStream = new MemoryStream()) using (CryptoStream crypto = new CryptoStream( encryptedStream, encryptor, CryptoStreamMode.Write)) { crypto.Write(data, 0, data.Length); encrypted = encryptedStream.ToArray(); } byte[] decrypted; // and decrypt it again using (var decryptor = rij.CreateDecryptor()) using (CryptoStream crypto = new CryptoStream( new MemoryStream(encrypted), decryptor, CryptoStreamMode.Read)) { byte[] decrypted = new byte[data.Length]; crypto.Read(decrypted, 0, decrypted.Length); } Sure enough, I got exactly the same CryptographicException when trying to decrypt the data even in this simple example. Well, I'm obviously missing something, if I can't even get this single method right! What does the exception message actually mean? What am I missing? Well, after playing around a bit, I discovered the problem was fixed by changing the encryption step to this: // encrypt the data using a CryptoStream using (var encryptor = rij.CreateEncryptor()) using (MemoryStream encryptedStream = new MemoryStream()) { using (CryptoStream crypto = new CryptoStream( encryptedStream, encryptor, CryptoStreamMode.Write)) { crypto.Write(data, 0, data.Length); } encrypted = encryptedStream.ToArray(); } Aaaah, so that's what the problem was. The CryptoStream wasn't flushing all it's data to the MemoryStream before it was being read, and closing the stream causes it to flush everything to the backing stream. But why does this cause an error in padding? Cryptographic padding All symmetric encryption algorithms (of which Rijndael is one) operates on fixed block sizes. For Rijndael, the default block size is 16 bytes. This means the input needs to be a multiple of 16 bytes long. If it isn't, then the input is padded to 16 bytes using one of the padding modes. This is only done to the final block of data to be encrypted. CryptoStream has a special method to flush this final block of data - FlushFinalBlock. Calling Stream.Flush() does not flush the final block, as you might expect. Only by closing the stream or explicitly calling FlushFinalBlock is the final block, with any padding, encrypted and written to the backing stream. Without this call, the encrypted data is 16 bytes shorter than it should be. If this final block wasn't written, then the decryption gets to the final 16 bytes of the encrypted data and tries to decrypt it as the final block with padding. The end bytes don't match the padding scheme it's been told to use, therefore it throws an exception stating what is wrong - what the decryptor expects to be padding actually isn't, and so can't be removed from the stream. So, as well as closing the stream before reading the result, an alternative fix to my encryption code is the following: // encrypt the data using a CryptoStream using (var encryptor = rij.CreateEncryptor()) using (MemoryStream encryptedStream = new MemoryStream()) using (CryptoStream crypto = new CryptoStream( encryptedStream, encryptor, CryptoStreamMode.Write)) { crypto.Write(data, 0, data.Length); // explicitly flush the final block of data crypto.FlushFinalBlock(); encrypted = encryptedStream.ToArray(); } Conclusion So, if your padding is invalid, make sure that you close or call FlushFinalBlock on any CryptoStream performing encryption before you access the encrypted data. Flush isn't enough. Only then will the final block be present in the encrypted data, allowing it to be decrypted successfully.

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  • Cloud Computing Pricing - It's like a Hotel

    - by BuckWoody
    I normally don't go into the economics or pricing side of Distributed Computing, but I've had a few friends that have been surprised by a bill lately and I wanted to quickly address at least one aspect of it. Most folks are used to buying software and owning it outright - like buying a car. We pay a lot for the car, and then we use it whenever we want. We think of the "cloud" services as a taxi - we'll just pay for the ride we take an no more. But it's not quite like that. It's actually more like a hotel. When you subscribe to Azure using a free offering like the MSDN subscription, you don't have to pay anything for the service. But when you create an instance of a Web or Compute Role, Storage, that sort of thing, you can think of the idea of checking into a hotel room. You get the key, you pay for the room. For Azure, using bandwidth, CPU and so on is billed just like it states in the Azure Portal. so in effect there is a cost for the service and then a cost to use it, like water or power or any other utility. Where this bit some folks is that they created an instance, played around with it, and then left it running. No one was using it, no one was on - so they thought they wouldn't be charged. But they were. It wasn't much, but it was a surprise.They had the hotel room key, but they weren't in the room, so to speak. To add to their frustration, they had to talk to someone on the phone to cancel the account. I understand the frustration. Although we have all this spelled out in the sign up area, not everyone has the time to read through all that. I get that. So why not make this easier? As an explanation, we bill for that time because the instance is still running, and we have to tie up resources to be available the second you want them, and that costs money. As far as being able to cancel from the portal, that's also something that needs to be clearer. You may not be aware that you can spin up instances using code - and so cancelling from the Portal would allow you to do the same thing. Since a mistake in code could erase all of your instances and the account, we make you call to make sure you're you and you really want to take it down. Not a perfect system by any means, but we'll evolve this as time goes on. For now, I wanted to make sure you're aware of what you should do. By the way, you don't have to cancel your whole account not to be billed. Just delete the instance from the portal and you won't be charged. You don't have to call anyone for that. And just FYI - you can download the SDK for Azure and never even hit the online version at all for learning and playing around. No sign-up, no credit card, PO, nothing like that. In fact, that's how I demo Azure all the time. Everything runs right on your laptop in an emulated environment.  

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  • Best approach to depth streaming via existing codec

    - by Kevin
    I'm working on a development system (and game) intended for games set mostly in static third-person views. We produce our scenery by CG and photographic techniques. Our background art is rendered off-line by a production-grade renderer. To allow the runtime imagery to properly interact with the background art, I wrote a program to convert from depth output by Mental Ray into a texture, and a pixel shader to draw a quad such that the Z data comes from the texture. This technique is working out very well, but now we've decided that some of the camera angle changes between scenes should be animated. The animation itself is straightforward to produce from our CG models. We intend to encode it to some HD video codec such as H.264. The problem is that in order to maintain our runtime imagery on the screen, the depth buffer will need to be loaded for each video frame. Due to the bandwidth, the video's depth data will need to be compressed efficiently. I've looked into methods for performing temporal compression of depth info and found an interesting research paper here: http://web4.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/j.kautz/publications/depth-streaming.pdf The method establishes a mapping between 16-bit depth values and YCbCr values. The mapping is tuned to the properties of existing video codecs in order to maximize precision of the decoded depths after the YCbCr has undergone video compression. It allows an existing, unmodified video codec to be used on the backend. I'm looking at how to pull this off with the least possible work. (This design change was unplanned.) Our game engine itself is native C++, presently for Win32 and DirectX, although we've worked hard to keep platform dependence segregated because we intend other ports. We don't have motion video facilities in the engine yet but will ultimately need that anyway for cinematics. I was planning on using some off-the-shelf motion video solution we can plug into our engine, and haven't chosen one yet. This new added requirement makes selecting one harder since, among other things, we'll now need to bypass colourspace conversion on one of the streams, and also will need to be playing two streams simultaneously in lockstep, on top of in some cases audio on one of them (for the cinematics). I'm also wondering if it's possible (or even useful) to do the conversion from YCbCr to depth in a pixel shader, or if it's better to just do it in CPU and separately load the resulting depth values into a locked tex. The conversion unfortunately does involve branching logic per-pixel. (There are more naive mappings that don't need branching, but they produce inferior results.) It could be reduced to a table lookup but the table would be 32MB. Programming is second-nature to me but I'm not that experienced with pix shaders and have zero knowledge of off-the-shelf video solutions. I'd therefore be interested in advice from others who may have dealt more with depth streaming, pixel shaders, and/or off-the-shelf codecs, regarding how feasible the proposed application is and what off-the-shelf video systems out there would best get along with this usage case.

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  • Looking for a real-world example illustrating that composition can be superior to inheritance

    - by Job
    I watched a bunch of lectures on Clojure and functional programming by Rich Hickey as well as some of the SICP lectures, and I am sold on many concepts of functional programming. I incorporated some of them into my C# code at a previous job, and luckily it was easy to write C# code in a more functional style. At my new job we use Python and multiple inheritance is all the rage. My co-workers are very smart but they have to produce code fast given the nature of the company. I am learning both the tools and the codebase, but the architecture itself slows me down as well. I have not written the existing class hierarchy (neither would I be able to remember everything about it), and so, when I started adding a fairly small feature, I realized that I had to read a lot of code in the process. At the surface the code is neatly organized and split into small functions/methods and not copy-paste-repetitive, but the flip side of being not repetitive is that there is some magic functionality hidden somewhere in the hierarchy chain that magically glues things together and does work on my behalf, but it is very hard to find and follow. I had to fire up a profiler and run it through several examples and plot the execution graph as well as step through a debugger a few times, search the code for some substring and just read pages at the time. I am pretty sure that once I am done, my resulting code will be short and neatly organized, and yet not very readable. What I write feels declarative, as if I was writing an XML file that drives some other magic engine, except that there is no clear documentation on what the XML should look like and what the engine does except for the existing examples that I can read as well as the source code for the 'engine'. There has got to be a better way. IMO using composition over inheritance can help quite a bit. That way the computation will be linear rather than jumping all over the hierarchy tree. Whenever the functionality does not quite fit into an inheritance model, it will need to be mangled to fit in, or the entire inheritance hierarchy will need to be refactored/rebalanced, sort of like an unbalanced binary tree needs reshuffling from time to time in order to improve the average seek time. As I mentioned before, my co-workers are very smart; they just have been doing things a certain way and probably have an ability to hold a lot of unrelated crap in their head at once. I want to convince them to give composition and functional as opposed to OOP approach a try. To do that, I need to find some very good material. I do not think that a SCIP lecture or one by Rich Hickey will do - I am afraid it will be flagged down as too academic. Then, simple examples of Dog and Frog and AddressBook classes do not really connivence one way or the other - they show how inheritance can be converted to composition but not why it is truly and objectively better. What I am looking for is some real-world example of code that has been written with a lot of inheritance, then hit a wall and re-written in a different style that uses composition. Perhaps there is a blog or a chapter. I am looking for something that can summarize and illustrate the sort of pain that I am going through. I already have been throwing the phrase "composition over inheritance" around, but it was not received as enthusiastically as I had hoped. I do not want to be perceived as a new guy who likes to complain and bash existing code while looking for a perfect approach while not contributing fast enough. At the same time, my gut is convinced that inheritance is often the instrument of evil and I want to show a better way in a near future. Have you stumbled upon any great resources that can help me?

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  • Questions to ask to ensure someone understands programming? (and iOS)

    - by Stephen J
    So, I've been tutoring my friend for 2 years. Most people learn programming on their own in 3-6 months, (sans algorithms). It's confusing 'cause he'll run anywhere I tell him to, understands how to read C and C++ honestly better than the average college student, and he'll modify and repeat anything I do... but for the love of god he doesn't move on to new things and he still has test anxiety. I've recently realized he's copied and toyed with existing, but not once gained an understanding of why. I was under the impression he was learning fast because he could write it, but when you say "Make a function that takes an NSString" and he says "How?" and I say "The same way you make ANY function that takes any parameter, NSString is just a type like int" and all I hear is "No, it's an NSString, it's a special thing." and we get into an arguing match 'cause I'm like "It's just a class like any other class, you've used them for months now" and blah... I've subconsciously avoided comprehension questions because of this. Anyway, if you have him copy a program and say "Just initialize it" "Where?" "I don't care, didLoad or initWithCoder or Awake from nib, anywhere it gets initialized" and "No, it has to be exactly where you had it!" "No it doesn't!" I'm sick of this, but he won't give up. So I'm done avoiding these yelling matches and becoming a sadist from now on. I would like some help in finding questions to ask him that force him to understand what he's doing. I'd like some help and any resources I can find. CQuestions looked like a good site, but now I need some iPhone stuff. For example: *What do properties do? How are they changed? How do you change the name of the getter? *Why are Booleans inefficent? What advantage does int have over a boolean and how does the bit-shift operator help? *What does Copy do to a string? *What's the difference between a view controller and a uiview? *Write a program from memory that displays blah on screen, and flashes each view one by one. From beginner up to intermediate, hobbyist with some algebra at most. I'm just looking for resources to work with. I left in backstory so you know to "twist" the questions so he doesn't know he's supposed to init a variable here or there, but has to figure it out, and learn why it goes "here" or that "anywhere is fine as long as it's". Sample programs, anything. I'm relatively open about this because, being a programmer, I seriously doubt he's the only one who has this issue. I'd like to know how others have overcome similar. What made things "click"? for you? Did you have a hard time finding answers on Google, and how did you learn a better way to find what you were looking for? (He's so exact, he'll search for how to write a checkers program with color X and Y inside a uiview, as his search string, instead of breaking it up into components, I need help with that too, and believe it is related). This type of problem has to remind one of us of someone they know. So, Exercises to force them to think? Ways we overcame this thing in the past? I greatly appreciate any help.

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  • Missing Fields and Default Values

    - by PointsToShare
    © 2011 By: Dov Trietsch. All rights reserved Dealing with Missing Fields and Default Values New fields and new default values are not propagated throughout the list. They only apply to new and updated items and not to items already entered. They are only prospective. We need to be able to deal with this issue. Here is a scenario. The user has an old list with old items and adds a new field. The field is not created for any of the old items. Trying to get its value raises an Argument Exception. Here is another: a default value is added to a field. All the old items, where the field was not assigned a value, do not get the new default value. The two can also happen in tandem – a new field is added with a default. The older items have neither. Even better, if the user changes the default value, the old items still carry the old defaults. Let’s go a bit further. You have already written code for the list, be it an event receiver, a feature receiver, a console app or a command extension, in which you span all the fields and run on selected items – some new (no problem) and some old (problems aplenty). Had you written defensive code, you would be able to handle the situation, including similar changes in the future. So, without further ado, here’s how. Instead of just getting the value of a field in an item – item[field].ToString() – use the function below. I use ItemValue(item, fieldname, “mud in your eye”) and if “mud in your eye” is what I get, I know that the item did not have the field.   /// <summary> /// Return the column value or a default value /// </summary> private static string ItemValue(SPItem item, string column, string defaultValue) {     try     {         return item[column].ToString();     }     catch (NullReferenceException ex)     {         return defaultValue;     }     catch (ArgumentException ex)     {         return defaultValue;     } } I also use a similar function to return the default and a funny default-default to ascertain that the default does not exist. Here it is:  /// <summary> /// return a fields default or the "default" default. /// </summary> public static string GetFieldDefault(SPField fld, string defValue) {     try     {         // -- Check if default exists.         return fld.DefaultValue.ToString();     }     catch (NullReferenceException ex)     {         return defValue;     }     catch (ArgumentException ex)     {         return defValue;     } } How is this defensive? You have trapped an expected error and dealt with it. Therefore the program did not stop cold in its track and the required code ran to its end. Now, take a further step - write to a log (See Logging – a log blog). Read your own log every now and then, and act accordingly. That’s all Folks!

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  • Access Master Page Controls II

    - by Bunch
    Here is another way to access master page controls. This way has a bit less coding then my previous post on the subject. The scenario would be that you have a master page with a few navigation buttons at the top for users to navigate the app. After a button is clicked the corresponding aspx page would load in the ContentPlaceHolder. To make it easier for the users to see what page they are on I wanted the clicked navigation button to change color. This would be a quick visual for the user and is useful when inevitably they are interrupted with something else and cannot get back to what they were doing for a little while. Anyway the code is something like this. Master page: <body>     <form id="form1" runat="server">     <div id="header">     <asp:Panel ID="Panel1" runat="server" CssClass="panelHeader" Width="100%">        <center>            <label style="font-size: large; color: White;">Test Application</label>        </center>       <asp:Button ID="btnPage1" runat="server" Text="Page1" PostBackUrl="~/Page1.aspx" CssClass="navButton"/>       <asp:Button ID="btnPage2" runat="server" Text="Page2" PostBackUrl="~/Page2.aspx" CssClass="navButton"/>       <br />     </asp:Panel>     <br />     </div>     <div>         <asp:scriptmanager ID="Scriptmanager1" runat="server"></asp:scriptmanager>         <asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="ContentPlaceHolder1" runat="server">         </asp:ContentPlaceHolder>     </div>     </form> </body> Page 1: VB Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load     Dim clickedButton As Button = Master.FindControl("btnPage1")     clickedButton.CssClass = "navButtonClicked" End Sub CSharp protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) {     Button clickedButton;     clickedButton = (Button)Master.FindControl("btnPage1");     clickedButton.CssClass = "navButtonClicked"; } CSS: .navButton {     background-color: White;     border: 1px #4e667d solid;     color: #2275a7;     display: inline;     line-height: 1.35em;     text-decoration: none;     white-space: nowrap;     width: 100px;     text-align: center;     margin-bottom: 10px;     margin-left: 5px;     height: 30px; } .navButtonClicked {     background-color:#FFFF86;     border: 1px #4e667d solid;     color: #2275a7;     display: inline;     line-height: 1.35em;     text-decoration: none;     white-space: nowrap;     width: 100px;     text-align: center;     margin-bottom: 10px;     margin-left: 5px;     height: 30px; } The idea is pretty simple, use FindControl for the master page in the page load of your aspx page. In the example I changed the CssClass for the aspx page's corresponding button to navButtonClicked which has a different background-color and makes the clicked button stand out. Technorati Tags: ASP.Net,CSS,CSharp,VB.Net

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  • Move over DFS and Robocopy, here is SyncToy!

    - by andywe
    Ever since Windows 2000, I have always had the need to replicate data to multiple endpoints with the same content. Until DFS was introduced, the method of thinking was to either manually copy the data location by location, or to batch script it with xcopy and schedule a task. Even though this worked (and still does today), it was cumbersome, and intensive on the network, especially when dealing with larger amounts of data. Then along came robocopy, as an internal tool written by an enterprising programmer at Microsoft. We used it quite a bit, especially when we could not use DFS in the early days. It was received so well, it made it into the public realm. At least now we could have the ability to determine what files had changed and only replicate those. Well, over time there has been evolution of this ideal. DFS is obviously the Windows enterprise class service to do this, along with BrancheCache..however you don’t always need or want the power of DFS, especially when it comes to small datacenter installations, or remote offices. I have specific data sets that are on closed or restricted networks, that either have a security need for this, or are in remote countries where bandwidth is a premium. FOr this, I use the latest evolution for one off replication names Synctoy. Synctoy is from Microsoft, seemingly released in 2009, that wraps a nice GUI around setting up a paired set of folders (remember the mobile briefcase from Windows 98?), and allowing you the choice of synchronization methods. 1 way, or 2 way. Simply create a paired set of folders on the source and destination, choose your options for content, exclude any file types you don’t want to replicate, and click run. Scheduling is even easier. MS has included a wrapper for doing just this so all you enter in your task schedule in the SynToyCMD.exe, a –R as an argument, and the time schedule. No more complicated command lines or scripts.   I find this especially useful when I use MS backup to back up a system volume, but only want subsets of backup information of a data share and ONLY when that dataset has changed. Not relying on full backups and incremental. An example of this is my application installation master share. I back this up with SyncToy because I do not need multiple backup copies..one copy elsewhere suffices to back it up. At home, very useful for your pictures, videos, music, ect..the backup is online and ready to access, not waiting for you to restore a backup file, and no need to institute a domain simply to have DFS.'   Do note there is a risk..if you accidently delete a file and do not catch this before the next sync, then depending on your SyncToy settings, you can indeed lose that file as the destination updates..so due diligence applies. I make it a rule to sync manly one way…I use my master share for making changes, and allow the schedule to follow suit. Any real important file I lock down as read only through file permissions so it cannot be deleted unless I intervene.   Check out the tool and have some fun! http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?DisplayLang=en&id=15155

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  • Seeking advice on tools and technology for my new game [closed]

    - by k.k. slider
    I'm a C# developer who has been programming a game in my spare time using XNA and Visual Studio. The game's logic is mostly done and I've completed a prototype that has most of the functionality of (what I envision to be) the final game. However, having heard about the uncertain future and (possibly) limited audience for XNA games, I'm looking to switch platforms... but I don't know what technology would best suit my needs. Below are some specifics about my game and what exactly I'm looking for, if you're interested: The game is a 2D turn-based tactical RPG (strategy game) for two players. It is a basic sprite and tile based game with animations and sound. 3D capabilities are not necessary. I'd like to allow players to compete with others online, and have a basic ranking/matchmaking system. I will probably need something that can interact with a server and a database (the game is turn-based and has no RNG, so cheating would be easy to detect even if most computation is done client-side and minimal data is sent to the server). Ideally, I would be able to release an early version of the game and have people give feedback as I develop additional features (similar to Minecraft). I'd prefer to have a way to release periodic updates to the game instead of releasing an absolute final product. To reach the widest possible audience, I'd prefer technology that allows me to release on PC, Android, iOS, and (maybe) Mac. This is a game with simple mouse inputs which can fit on a mobile touch screen. The game should be monetizable. If I find success with this game, then I may consider becoming a full-time indie game developer. I have several other game ideas and have learned quite a bit from my first attempt at game development. My first thought was an F2P/microtransaction model, but I'm open to other suggestions. Language isn't a primary concern of mine, since I have a decent amount of experience using several languages to program large projects. I'm willing to spend money (e.g. on a developer's license), but the more expensive it gets, the more hesitant I am to use it. I've looked into the following solutions... there are a LOT of tools out there... if anyone has experience with any of these and would like to recommend/reject any of them, it would be helpful. C#/.NET (XNA/MonoGame/SDL/SlimDX/Xamarin/ExEn/ANX?) HTML5/JS (AppMobi/PhoneGap/Marmalade/FlashCanvas/Cordova/libRocket?) Python (Pyglet/Pygame/Kivy?) Java (JavaFX/libGDX?) Unity/Construct 2/Cocos2D/NME/Corona/other game creation software? I'd like something that can do 2D and isn't limited by being too high-level. Other languages (Lua/LOVE? Moai?) Thanks for answering this rather long and tedious question...

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