security testing - Page 815

How to Increase the VMWare Boot Screen Delay

- by Trevor Bekolay

If you’ve wanted to try out a bootable CD or USB flash drive in a virtual machine environment, you’ve probably noticed that VMWare’s offerings make it difficult to change the boot device. We’ll show you how to change these options. You can do this either for one boot, or permanently for a particular virtual machine. Even experienced users of VMWare Player or Workstation may not recognize the screen above – it’s the virtual machine’s BIOS, which in most cases flashes by in the blink of an eye. If you want to boot up the virtual machine with a CD or USB key instead of the hard drive, then you’ll need more than an eye’s-blink to press Escape and bring up the Boot Menu. Fortunately, there is a way to introduce a boot delay that isn’t exposed in VMWare’s graphical interface – you have to edit the virtual machine’s settings file (a .vmx file) manually. Editing the Virtual Machine’s .vmx Find the .vmx file that contains the settings for your virtual machine. You chose a location for this when you created the virtual machine – in Windows, the default location is a folder called My Virtual Machines in your My Documents folder. In VMWare Workstation, the location of the .vmx file is listed on the virtual machine’s tab. If in doubt, search your hard drive for .vmx files. If you don’t want to use Windows default search, an awesome utility that locates files instantly is Everything. Open the .vmx file with any text editor. Somewhere in this file, enter in the following line… save the file, then close out of the text editor: bios.bootdelay = 20000 This will introduce a 20 second delay when the virtual machine loads up, giving you plenty of time to press the Escape button and access the boot menu. The number in this line is just a value in milliseconds, so for a five second boot delay, enter 5000, and so on. Change Boot Options Temporarily Now, when you boot up your virtual machine, you’ll have plenty of time to enter one of the keystrokes listed at the bottom of the BIOS screen on boot-up. Press Escape to bring up the Boot Menu. This allows you to select a different device to boot from – like a CD drive. Your selection will be forgotten the next time you boot up this virtual machine. Change Boot Options Permanently When the BIOS screen comes up, press F2 to enter the BIOS Setup menu. Switch to the Boot tab, and change the ordering of the items by pressing the “+” key to move items up on the list, and the “-” key to move items down the list. We’ve switched the order so that the CD-ROM Drive boots first. Once you make this change permanent, you may want to re-edit the .vmx file to remove the boot delay. Boot from a USB Flash Drive One thing that is noticeably missing from the list of boot options is a USB device. VMWare’s BIOS just does not allow this, but we can get around that limitation using the PLoP Boot Manager that we’ve previously written about. And as a bonus, since everything is virtual anyway, there’s no need to actually burn PLoP to a CD. Open the settings for the virtual machine you want to boot with a USB drive. Click on Add… at the bottom of the settings screen, and select CD/DVD Drive. Click Next. Click the Use ISO Image radio button, and click Next. Browse to find plpbt.iso or plpbtnoemul.iso from the PLoP zip file. Ensure that Connect at power on is checked, and then click Finish. Click OK on the main Virtual Machine Settings page. Now, if you use the steps above to boot using that CD/DVD drive, PLoP will load, allowing you to boot from a USB drive! Conclusion We’re big fans of VMWare Player and Workstation, as they let us try out a ton of geeky things without worrying about harming our systems. By introducing a boot delay, we can add bootable CDs and USB drives to the list of geeky things we can try out. Download PLoP Boot Manager Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips How To Switch to Console Mode for Ubuntu VMware GuestHack: Turn Off Debug Mode in VMWare Workstation 6 BetaStart Your Computer More Quickly by Delaying the Startup of a Service in VistaEnable Hidden BootScreen in Windows VistaEnable Copy and Paste from Ubuntu VMware Guest TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 OutlookStatView Scans and Displays General Usage Statistics How to Add Exceptions to the Windows Firewall Office 2010 reviewed in depth by Ed Bott FoxClocks adds World Times in your Statusbar (Firefox) Have Fun Editing Photo Editing with Citrify Outlook Connector Upgrade Error

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Building InstallShield based Installers using Team Build 2010

- by jehan

Last few weeks, I have been working on Application Packaging stuff using all the widely used tools like InstallShield, WISE, WiX and Visual Studio Installer. So, I thought it would be good to post about how to Build the Installers developed using these tools with Team Build 2010. This post will focus on how to build the InstallShield generated packages using Team Build 2010. For the release of VS2010, Microsoft has partnered with Flexera who are the makers of InstallShield to create InstallShield Limited Edition, especially for the customers of Visual Studio. First Microsoft planned to release WiX (Windows Installer Xml) with VS2010, but later Microsoft dropped WiX from VS2010 due to reasons which are best known to them and partnered with InstallShield for Limited Edition. It disappointed lot of people because InstallShield Limited Edition provides only few features of InstallShield and it may not feasable to build complex installer packages using this and it also requires License, where as WiX is an open source with no license costs and it has proved efficient in building most complex packages. Only the last three features are available in InstallShield Limited Edition from the total features offered by InstallShield as shown in below list. Feature Limited Edition for Visual Studio 2010 Standalone Build System Maintain a clean build machine by using only the part of InstallShield that compiles the installations. InstallShield Best Practices Validation Suite Avoid common installation issues. Try and Die Functionality RCreate a fully functional trial version of your product. InstallShield Repackager Create Windows Installer setups from any legacy installation. Multilingual Support Present installation text in up to 35 languages. Microsoft App-V™ Support Deploy your applications as App-V virtual packages that run without conflict. Industry-Standard InstallScript Achieve maximum flexibility in your installations. Dialog Editor Modify the layout of existing end-user dialogs, create new custom dialogs, and more. Patch Creation Build updates and patches for your products. Setup Prerequisite Editor Easily control prerequisite restart behavior and source locations. String Editor View Control the localizable text strings displayed at run time with this spreadsheet-like table. Text File Changes View Configure search-and-replace actions for content in text files to be modified at run time. Virtual Machine Detection Block your installations from running on virtual machines. Unicode Support Improve multi-language installation development. Support for 64-Bit COM Extraction Extract COM data from a 64-bit COM server. Windows Installer Installation Chaining Add MSI packages to your main installation and chain them together. XML Support Save time by quickly testing XML configuration changes to installation projects. Billboard Support for Custom Branding Display Adobe Flash billboards and other graphic files during the install process. SaaS Support (IIS 7 and SSL Technologies) Easily deploy Windows-based Web applications. Project Assistant Jumpstart a project by using a simplified set of views. Support for Digital Signatures Save time by digitally signing all your files at build time. Easily Run Custom Actions Schedule a custom action to run at precisely the right moment in your installation. Installation Prerequisites Check for and install prerequisites before your installation is executed. To create a InstallShield project in Visual Studio and Build it using Team Build 2010, first you have to add the InstallShield Project template to your Solution file. If you want to use InstallShield Limited edition you can add it from FileàNewà project àother Project Types àSetup and Deploymentà InstallShield LE and if you are using other versions of InstallShield, then you have to add it from from FileàNewà project àInstallShield Projects. Here, I’m using InstallShield 2011 Premier edition as I already have it Installed. I have created a simple package for TailSpin Application which has a Feature called Web, few components and a IIS Web Site for TailSpin application. Before started working on this, I thought I may need to build the package by calling invoke process activity in build process template or have to create a new custom activity. But, it got build without any changes to build process template. But, it was failing with below error message. C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\InstallShield\2011\InstallShield.targets (68): The "InstallShield.Tasks.InstallShield" task could not be loaded from the assembly C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\InstallShield\2010Limited\InstallShield.Tasks.dll. Could not load file or assembly 'file:///C:\Program Files(x86)\MSBuild\InstallShield\2011\InstallShield.Tasks.dll' or one of its dependencies. An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format. Confirm that the <UsingTask> declaration is correct, that the assembly and all its dependencies are available, and that the task contains a public class that implements Microsoft.Build.Framework.ITask. This error is due to 64-bit build machine which I’m using. This issue will be replicable if you are queuing a build on a 64-bit build machine. To avoid this you have to ensure that you configured the build definition for your InstallShield project to load the InstallShield.Tasks.dll file (which is a 32-bit file); otherwise, you will encounter this build error informing you that the InstallShield.Tasks.dll file could not be loaded. To select the 32-bit version of MSBuild, click the Process tab of your build definition in Team Explorer. Then, under the Advanced node, find the MSBuild Platform setting, and select x86. Note that if you are using a 32-bit build machine, you can select either Auto or x86 for the MSBuild Platform setting. Once I did above changes, the build got successful.

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The Year 2010, The Year of Change

As I look back on the year of 2010, I could have never predicted the wonderful changes that have occurred for my wife and me. The beginning of this year started out as the 9th year that we lived in South Florida, and my fourth year working for DentalPlans.com as a software engineer/network admin. About 3 months in to the year I was given an excellent opportunity to work for MovieTickets.com in the software engineering department. This opportunity allowed me to gain experience with jQuery due to one of my projects was to reengineering MovieTickets.com existing Marketing Panel System. About 3 months after working at MovieTickets.com, my wife and I were offered an opportunity of a life time. I was offered a Job in a large background\information security company located in Nashville, TN as software engineer II. I must note that after living in South Florida for 9 years, my wife and I really had a strong distaste for the South Florida life style and the general attitude/culture of the area. Even though we shared a strong dislike for the area in which we lived I must admit that it was a tough decision to leave MovieTickets.com because I was really doing well and I made some great new friends like Chris Catto, and Tyson Nero. In fact, they introduced me to Local Microsoft User Groups, and software development podcast like DotNetRocks.com and Hanselminutes.com. In addition, we also went to my first Microsoft launch down in Miami for Visual Studios 2010. I must admit it was a cool experience. I truly hope to keep in touch with them to see how their careers grow, and I know they will. I must admit I was nervous and excited to start the next chapter in our live as I started up the 26 foot U-Haul truck and got on the road for Nashville from Boca Raton. I knew that the change was going to lead to new adventures and new opportunities that I could never imagine. As we pulled in to the long driveway of our rental house, we knew that this was the right place for my wife and I. Natalie, my wife had actually come up to Nashville and within one week of my job offer had set up a nice rental home for us to restart our lives in TN. I must admit that the wonderful southern hospitality took a bit to get use to due to the type of people we were used to dealing with on a regular basis. Our first 2 months seemed like we were living a dream because of our new area and the wonderful people we live around. So far my new job is going really well and I really like the people on my team and department. In fact after 6 months I am now in charge of all application builds for our new deployment process. I am also leading up a push for setting up of continuous integration within our new build process. In addition to starting my new job, I was also offered a position as an adjust instructor at ITT Tech teaching course like VB.net, Java Script, Ajax, and database development. So far I have really like teaching at the college level. Information technology has really been great for my life so I am really glad to be able to give back. That is actually why I started DotNetBlocks. This site allows me to document things I have learned as I work with technology, and allows others to borrow from my experiences. I hope that this site can help others as others have helped me get where I am. Finally, I am glade to report that I only have 4 classes left for my master’s degree at Capella University. I am proud to announce that I am still on track to graduate with 3.91 GPA. This last class was really a test because I had a crazy idea that I could work full time as a software engineer, teach two college courses as a first time teacher and also take an advanced masters class in application architecture. I have no idea how I actually survived, but I am really surprised how well I actually did. I was invited back to reach again at ITT Tech, and I passed my masters class with an “A”. I have decided to take this next term off from my master’s program so that I do not get burned out. Also, so that my new current employer will pay for more of my education, tuition reimbursement is an awesome benefit. This was my year 2010, how was yours?

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Anti-Forgery Request in ASP.NET MVC and AJAX

- by Dixin

Background To secure websites from cross-site request forgery (CSRF, or XSRF) attack, ASP.NET MVC provides an excellent mechanism: The server prints tokens to cookie and inside the form; When the form is submitted to server, token in cookie and token inside the form are sent by the HTTP request; Server validates the tokens. To print tokens to browser, just invoke HtmlHelper.AntiForgeryToken():<% using (Html.BeginForm()) { %> <%: this.Html.AntiForgeryToken(Constants.AntiForgeryTokenSalt)%> <%-- Other fields. --%> <input type="submit" value="Submit" /> <% } %> which writes to token to the form:<form action="..." method="post"> <input name="__RequestVerificationToken" type="hidden" value="J56khgCvbE3bVcsCSZkNVuH9Cclm9SSIT/ywruFsXEgmV8CL2eW5C/gGsQUf/YuP" />  <input type="submit" value="Submit" /> </form> and the cookie: __RequestVerificationToken_Lw__=J56khgCvbE3bVcsCSZkNVuH9Cclm9SSIT/ywruFsXEgmV8CL2eW5C/gGsQUf/YuP When the above form is submitted, they are both sent to server. [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] attribute is used to specify the controllers or actions to validate them:[HttpPost] [ValidateAntiForgeryToken(Salt = Constants.AntiForgeryTokenSalt)] public ActionResult Action(/* ... */) { // ... } This is very productive for form scenarios. But recently, when resolving security vulnerabilities for Web products, I encountered 2 problems: It is expected to add [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] to each controller, but actually I have to add it for each POST actions, which is a little crazy; After anti-forgery validation is turned on for server side, AJAX POST requests will consistently fail. Specify validation on controller (not on each action) Problem For the first problem, usually a controller contains actions for both HTTP GET and HTTP POST requests, and usually validations are expected for HTTP POST requests. So, if the [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] is declared on the controller, the HTTP GET requests become always invalid:[ValidateAntiForgeryToken(Salt = Constants.AntiForgeryTokenSalt)] public class SomeController : Controller { [HttpGet] public ActionResult Index() // Index page cannot work at all. { // ... } [HttpPost] public ActionResult PostAction1(/* ... */) { // ... } [HttpPost] public ActionResult PostAction2(/* ... */) { // ... } // ... } If user sends a HTTP GET request from a link: http://Site/Some/Index, validation definitely fails, because no token is provided. So the result is, [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] attribute must be distributed to each HTTP POST action in the application:public class SomeController : Controller { [HttpGet] public ActionResult Index() // Works. { // ... } [HttpPost] [ValidateAntiForgeryToken(Salt = Constants.AntiForgeryTokenSalt)] public ActionResult PostAction1(/* ... */) { // ... } [HttpPost] [ValidateAntiForgeryToken(Salt = Constants.AntiForgeryTokenSalt)] public ActionResult PostAction2(/* ... */) { // ... } // ... } Solution To avoid a large number of [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] attributes (one attribute for one HTTP POST action), I created a wrapper class of ValidateAntiForgeryTokenAttribute, where HTTP verbs can be specified:[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Class | AttributeTargets.Method, AllowMultiple = false, Inherited = true)] public class ValidateAntiForgeryTokenWrapperAttribute : FilterAttribute, IAuthorizationFilter { private readonly ValidateAntiForgeryTokenAttribute _validator; private readonly AcceptVerbsAttribute _verbs; public ValidateAntiForgeryTokenWrapperAttribute(HttpVerbs verbs) : this(verbs, null) { } public ValidateAntiForgeryTokenWrapperAttribute(HttpVerbs verbs, string salt) { this._verbs = new AcceptVerbsAttribute(verbs); this._validator = new ValidateAntiForgeryTokenAttribute() { Salt = salt }; } public void OnAuthorization(AuthorizationContext filterContext) { string httpMethodOverride = filterContext.HttpContext.Request.GetHttpMethodOverride(); if (this._verbs.Verbs.Contains(httpMethodOverride, StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase)) { this._validator.OnAuthorization(filterContext); } } } When this attribute is declared on controller, only HTTP requests with the specified verbs are validated:[ValidateAntiForgeryTokenWrapper(HttpVerbs.Post, Constants.AntiForgeryTokenSalt)] public class SomeController : Controller { // Actions for HTTP GET requests are not affected. // Only HTTP POST requests are validated. } Now one single attribute on controller turns on validation for all HTTP POST actions. Submit token via AJAX Problem For AJAX scenarios, when request is sent by JavaScript instead of form:$.post(url, { productName: "Tofu", categoryId: 1 // Token is not posted. }, callback); This kind of AJAX POST requests will always be invalid, because server side code cannot see the token in the posted data. Solution The token must be printed to browser then submitted back to server. So first of all, HtmlHelper.AntiForgeryToken() must be called in the page where the AJAX POST will be sent. Then jQuery must find the printed token in the page, and post it:$.post(url, { productName: "Tofu", categoryId: 1, __RequestVerificationToken: getToken() // Token is posted. }, callback); To be reusable, this can be encapsulated in a tiny jQuery plugin:(function ($) { $.getAntiForgeryToken = function () { // HtmlHelper.AntiForgeryToken() must be invoked to print the token. return $("input[type='hidden'][name='__RequestVerificationToken']").val(); }; var addToken = function (data) { // Converts data if not already a string. if (data && typeof data !== "string") { data = $.param(data); } data = data ? data + "&" : ""; return data + "__RequestVerificationToken=" + encodeURIComponent($.getAntiForgeryToken()); }; $.postAntiForgery = function (url, data, callback, type) { return $.post(url, addToken(data), callback, type); }; $.ajaxAntiForgery = function (settings) { settings.data = addToken(settings.data); return $.ajax(settings); }; })(jQuery); Then in the application just replace $.post() invocation with $.postAntiForgery(), and replace $.ajax() instead of $.ajaxAntiForgery():$.postAntiForgery(url, { productName: "Tofu", categoryId: 1 }, callback); // Token is posted. This solution looks hard coded and stupid. If you have more elegant solution, please do tell me.

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Connection Pooling is Busted

- by MightyZot

A few weeks ago we started getting complaints about performance in an application that has performed very well for many years. The application is a n-tier application that uses ADODB with the SQLOLEDB provider to talk to a SQL Server database. Our object model is written in such a way that each public method validates security before performing requested actions, so there is a significant number of queries executed to get information about file cabinets, retrieve images, create workflows, etc. (PaperWise is a document management and workflow system.) A common factor for these customers is that they have remote offices connected via MPLS networks. Naturally, the first thing we looked at was the query performance in SQL Profiler. All of the queries were executing within expected timeframes, most of them were so fast that the duration in SQL Profiler was zero. After getting nowhere with SQL Profiler, the situation was escalated to me. I decided to take a peek with Process Monitor. Procmon revealed some “gaps” in the TCP/IP traffic. There were notable delays between send and receive pairs. The send and receive pairs themselves were quite snappy, but quite often there was a notable delay between a receive and the next send. You might expect some delay because, presumably, the application is doing some thinking in-between the pairs. But, comparing the procmon data at the remote locations with the procmon data for workstations on the local network showed that the remote workstations were significantly delayed. Procmon also showed a high number of disconnects. Wireshark traces showed that connections to the database were taking between 75ms and 150ms. Not only that, but connections to a file share containing images were taking 2 seconds! So, I asked about a trust. Sure enough there was a trust between two domains and the file share was on the second domain. Joining a remote workstation to the domain hosting the share containing images alleviated the time delay in accessing the file share. Removing the trust had no affect on the connections to the database. Microsoft Network Monitor includes filters that parse TDS packets. TDS is the protocol that SQL Server uses to communicate. There is a certificate exchange and some SSL that occurs during authentication. All of this was evident in the network traffic. After staring at the network traffic for a while, and examining packets, I decided to call it a night. On the way home that night, something about the traffic kept nagging at me. Then it dawned on me…at the beginning of the dance of packets between the client and the server all was well. Connection pooling was working and I could see multiple queries getting executed on the same connection and ethereal port. After a particular query, connecting to two different servers, I noticed that ADODB and SQLOLEDB started making repeated connections to the database on different ethereal ports. SQL Server would execute a single query and respond on a port, then open a new port and execute the next query. Connection pooling appeared to be broken. The next morning I wrote a test to confirm my hypothesis. Turns out that the sequence causing the connection nastiness goes something like this: Make a connection to the database. Open a result set that returns enough records to require multiple roundtrips to the server. For each result, query for some other data in the database (this will open a new implicit connection.) Close the inner result set and repeat for every item in the original result set. Close the original connection. Provided that the first result set returns enough data to require multiple roundtrips to the server, ADODB and SQLOLEDB will start making new connections to the database for each query executed in the loop. Originally, I thought this might be due to Microsoft’s denial of service (ddos) attack protection. After turning those features off to no avail, I eventually thought to switch my queries to client-side cursors instead of server-side cursors. Server-side cursors are the default, by the way. Voila! After switching to client-side cursors, the disconnects were gone and the above sequence yielded two connections as expected. While the real problem is the amount of time it takes to make connections over these MPLS networks (100ms on average), switching to client-side cursors made the problem go away. Believe it or not, this is actually documented by Microsoft, and rather difficult to find. (At least it was while we were trying to troubleshoot the problem!) So, if you’re noticing performance issues on slower networks, or networks with slower switching, take a look at the traffic in a tool like Microsoft Network Monitor. If you notice a high number of disconnects, and you’re using fire-hose or server-side cursors, then try switching to client-side cursors and you may see the problem go away. Most likely, Microsoft believes this to be appropriate behavior, because ADODB can’t guarantee that all of the data has been retrieved when you execute the inner queries. I’m not convinced, though, because the problem remains even after replacing all of the implicit connections with explicit connections and closing those connections in-between each of the inner queries. In that case, there doesn’t seem to be a reason why ADODB can’t use a single connection from the connection pool to make the additional queries, bringing the total number of connections to two. Instead ADO appears to make an assumption about the state of the connection. I’ve reported the behavior to Microsoft and am awaiting to hear from the appropriate team, so that I can demonstrate the problem. Maybe they can explain to us why this is appropriate behavior. :)

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TDD and WCF behavior

- by Frederic Hautecoeur

Some weeks ago I wanted to develop a WCF behavior using TDD. I have lost some time trying to use mocks. After a while i decided to just use a host and a client. I don’t like this approach but so far I haven’t found a good and fast solution to use Unit Test for testing a WCF behavior. To Implement my solution I had to : Create a Dummy Service Definition; Create the Dummy Service Implementation; Create a host; Create a client in my test; Create and Add the behavior; Dummy Service Definition This is just a simple service, composed of an Interface and a simple implementation. The structure is aimed to be easily customizable for my future needs. Using Clauses : 1: using System.Runtime.Serialization; 2: using System.ServiceModel; 3: using System.ServiceModel.Channels; The DataContract: 1: [DataContract()] 2: public class MyMessage 3: { 4: [DataMember()] 5: public string MessageString; 6: } The request MessageContract: 1: [MessageContract()] 2: public class RequestMessage 3: { 4: [MessageHeader(Name = "MyHeader", Namespace = "http://dummyservice/header", Relay = true)] 5: public string myHeader; 6: 7: [MessageBodyMember()] 8: public MyMessage myRequest; 9: } The response MessageContract: 1: [MessageContract()] 2: public class ResponseMessage 3: { 4: [MessageHeader(Name = "MyHeader", Namespace = "http://dummyservice/header", Relay = true)] 5: public string myHeader; 6: 7: [MessageBodyMember()] 8: public MyMessage myResponse; 9: } The ServiceContract: 1: [ServiceContract(Name="DummyService", Namespace="http://dummyservice",SessionMode=SessionMode.Allowed )] 2: interface IDummyService 3: { 4: [OperationContract(Action="Perform", IsOneWay=false, ProtectionLevel=System.Net.Security.ProtectionLevel.None )] 5: ResponseMessage DoThis(RequestMessage request); 6: } Dummy Service Implementation 1: public class DummyService:IDummyService 2: { 3: #region IDummyService Members 4: public ResponseMessage DoThis(RequestMessage request) 5: { 6: ResponseMessage response = new ResponseMessage(); 7: response.myHeader = "Response"; 8: response.myResponse = new MyMessage(); 9: response.myResponse.MessageString = 10: string.Format("Header:<{0}> and Request was <{1}>", 11: request.myHeader, request.myRequest.MessageString); 12: return response; 13: } 14: #endregion 15: } Host Creation The most simple host implementation using a Named Pipe binding. The GetBinding method will create a binding for the host and can be used to create the same binding for the client. 1: public static class TestHost 2: { 3: 4: internal static string hostUri = "net.pipe://localhost/dummy"; 5: 6: // Create Host method. 7: internal static ServiceHost CreateHost() 8: { 9: ServiceHost host = new ServiceHost(typeof(DummyService)); 10: 11: // Creating Endpoint 12: Uri namedPipeAddress = new Uri(hostUri); 13: host.AddServiceEndpoint(typeof(IDummyService), GetBinding(), namedPipeAddress); 14: 15: return host; 16: } 17: 18: // Binding Creation method. 19: internal static Binding GetBinding() 20: { 21: NamedPipeTransportBindingElement namedPipeTransport = new NamedPipeTransportBindingElement(); 22: TextMessageEncodingBindingElement textEncoding = new TextMessageEncodingBindingElement(); 23: 24: return new CustomBinding(textEncoding, namedPipeTransport); 25: } 26: 27: // Close Method. 28: internal static void Close(ServiceHost host) 29: { 30: if (null != host) 31: { 32: host.Close(); 33: host = null; 34: } 35: } 36: } Checking the service A simple test tool check the plumbing. 1: [TestMethod] 2: public void TestService() 3: { 4: using (ServiceHost host = TestHost.CreateHost()) 5: { 6: host.Open(); 7: 8: using (ChannelFactory<IDummyService> channel = 9: new ChannelFactory<IDummyService>(TestHost.GetBinding() 10: , new EndpointAddress(TestHost.hostUri))) 11: { 12: IDummyService svc = channel.CreateChannel(); 13: try 14: { 15: RequestMessage request = new RequestMessage(); 16: request.myHeader = Guid.NewGuid().ToString(); 17: request.myRequest = new MyMessage(); 18: request.myRequest.MessageString = "I want some beer."; 19: 20: ResponseMessage response = svc.DoThis(request); 21: } 22: catch (Exception ex) 23: { 24: Assert.Fail(ex.Message); 25: } 26: } 27: host.Close(); 28: } 29: } Running the service should show that the client and the host are running fine. So far so good. Adding the Behavior Add a reference to the Behavior project and add the using entry in the test class. We just need to add the behavior to the service host : 1: [TestMethod] 2: public void TestService() 3: { 4: using (ServiceHost host = TestHost.CreateHost()) 5: { 6: host.Description.Behaviors.Add(new MyBehavior()); 7: host.Open();¨ 8: … If you set a breakpoint in your behavior and run the test in debug mode, you will hit the breakpoint. In this case I used a ServiceBehavior. To add an Endpoint behavior you have to add it to the endpoints. 1: host.Description.Endpoints[0].Behaviors.Add(new MyEndpointBehavior()) To add a contract or an operation behavior a custom attribute should work on the service contract definition. I haven’t tried that yet. All the code provided in this blog and in the following files are for sample use. Improvements I don’t like to instantiate a client and a service to test my behaviors. But so far I have' not found an easy way to do it. Today I am passing a type of endpoint to the host creator and it creates the right binding type. This allows me to easily switch between bindings at will. I have used the same approach to test Mex Endpoints, another post should come later for this. Enjoy !

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ASP.NET Web API and Simple Value Parameters from POSTed data

- by Rick Strahl

In testing out various features of Web API I've found a few oddities in the way that the serialization is handled. These are probably not super common but they may throw you for a loop. Here's what I found. Simple Parameters from Xml or JSON Content Web API makes it very easy to create action methods that accept parameters that are automatically parsed from XML or JSON request bodies. For example, you can send a JavaScript JSON object to the server and Web API happily deserializes it for you. This works just fine:public string ReturnAlbumInfo(Album album) { return album.AlbumName + " (" + album.YearReleased.ToString() + ")"; } However, if you have methods that accept simple parameter types like strings, dates, number etc., those methods don't receive their parameters from XML or JSON body by default and you may end up with failures. Take the following two very simple methods:public string ReturnString(string message) { return message; } public HttpResponseMessage ReturnDateTime(DateTime time) { return Request.CreateResponse<DateTime>(HttpStatusCode.OK, time); } The first one accepts a string and if called with a JSON string from the client like this:var client = new HttpClient(); var result = client.PostAsJsonAsync<string>(http://rasxps/AspNetWebApi/albums/rpc/ReturnString, "Hello World").Result; which results in a trace like this: POST http://rasxps/AspNetWebApi/albums/rpc/ReturnString HTTP/1.1Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8Host: rasxpsContent-Length: 13Expect: 100-continueConnection: Keep-Alive "Hello World" produces… wait for it: null. Sending a date in the same fashion:var client = new HttpClient(); var result = client.PostAsJsonAsync<DateTime>(http://rasxps/AspNetWebApi/albums/rpc/ReturnDateTime, new DateTime(2012, 1, 1)).Result; results in this trace: POST http://rasxps/AspNetWebApi/albums/rpc/ReturnDateTime HTTP/1.1Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8Host: rasxpsContent-Length: 30Expect: 100-continueConnection: Keep-Alive "\/Date(1325412000000-1000)\/" (yes still the ugly MS AJAX date, yuk! This will supposedly change by RTM with Json.net used for client serialization) produces an error response: The parameters dictionary contains a null entry for parameter 'time' of non-nullable type 'System.DateTime' for method 'System.Net.Http.HttpResponseMessage ReturnDateTime(System.DateTime)' in 'AspNetWebApi.Controllers.AlbumApiController'. An optional parameter must be a reference type, a nullable type, or be declared as an optional parameter. Basically any simple parameters are not parsed properly resulting in null being sent to the method. For the string the call doesn't fail, but for the non-nullable date it produces an error because the method can't handle a null value. This behavior is a bit unexpected to say the least, but there's a simple solution to make this work using an explicit [FromBody] attribute:public string ReturnString([FromBody] string message) andpublic HttpResponseMessage ReturnDateTime([FromBody] DateTime time) which explicitly instructs Web API to read the value from the body. UrlEncoded Form Variable Parsing Another similar issue I ran into is with POST Form Variable binding. Web API can retrieve parameters from the QueryString and Route Values but it doesn't explicitly map parameters from POST values either. Taking our same ReturnString function from earlier and posting a message POST variable like this:var formVars = new Dictionary<string,string>(); formVars.Add("message", "Some Value"); var content = new FormUrlEncodedContent(formVars); var client = new HttpClient(); var result = client.PostAsync(http://rasxps/AspNetWebApi/albums/rpc/ReturnString, content).Result; which produces this trace: POST http://rasxps/AspNetWebApi/albums/rpc/ReturnString HTTP/1.1Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencodedHost: rasxpsContent-Length: 18Expect: 100-continue message=Some+Value When calling ReturnString:public string ReturnString(string message) { return message; } unfortunately it does not map the message value to the message parameter. This sort of mapping unfortunately is not available in Web API. Web API does support binding to form variables but only as part of model binding, which binds object properties to the POST variables. Sending the same message as in the previous example you can use the following code to pick up POST variable data:public string ReturnMessageModel(MessageModel model) { return model.Message; } public class MessageModel { public string Message { get; set; }} Note that the model is bound and the message form variable is mapped to the Message property as would other variables to properties if there were more. This works but it's not very dynamic. There's no real easy way to retrieve form variables (or query string values for that matter) in Web API's Request object as far as I can discern. Well only if you consider this easy:public string ReturnString() { var formData = Request.Content.ReadAsAsync<FormDataCollection>().Result; return formData.Get("message"); } Oddly FormDataCollection does not allow for indexers to work so you have to use the .Get() method which is rather odd. If you're running under IIS/Cassini you can always resort to the old and trusty HttpContext access for request data:public string ReturnString() { return HttpContext.Current.Request.Form["message"]; } which works fine and is easier. It's kind of a bummer that HttpRequestMessage doesn't expose some sort of raw Request object that has access to dynamic data - given that it's meant to serve as a generic REST/HTTP API that seems like a crucial missing piece. I don't see any way to read query string values either. To me personally HttpContext works, since I don't see myself using self-hosted code much.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in Web Api Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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SQLAuthority News – Storing Data and Files in Cloud – Dropbox – Personal Technology Tip

- by pinaldave

I thought long and hard about doing a Personal Technology Tips series for this blog. I have so many tips I’d like to share. I am on my computer almost all day, every day, so I have a treasure trove of interesting tidbits I like to share if given the chance. The only thing holding me back – which tip to share first? The first tip obviously has the weight of seeming like the most important. But this would mean choosing amongst my favorite tricks and shortcuts. This is a hard task. Source: Dropbox.com My Dropbox I have finally decided, though, and have determined that the first Personal Technology Tip may not be the most secret or even trickier to master – in fact, it is probably the easiest. My today’s Personal Technology Tip is Dropbox. I hope that all of you are nodding along in recognition right now. If you do not use Dropbox, or have not even heard of it before, get on the internet and find their site. You won’t be disappointed. A quick recap for those in the dark: Dropbox is an online storage site with a lot of additional syncing and cloud-computing capabilities. Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s explore some of my favorite options in Dropbox. Collaborate with All The first thing I love about Dropbox is the ability it gives you to collaborate with others. You can share files easily with other Dropbox users, and they can alter them, share them with you, all while keeping track of different versions in on easy place. I’d like to see anyone try to accomplish that key idea – “easily” – using e-mail versions and multiple computers. It’s even difficult to accomplish using a shared network. Afraid that this kind of ease looks too good to be true? Afraid that maybe there isn’t enough storage space, or the user interface is confusing? Think again. There is plenty of space – you can get 2 GB with just a free account, and upgrades are inexpensive and go up to 100 GB of storage. And the user interface is so easy that anyone can learn to use it. What I use Dropbox for I love Dropbox because I give a lot of presentations and often they are far from home. I can keep my presentations on Dropbox and have easy access to them anywhere, without needing to have my whole computer with me. This is just one small way that you can use Dropbox. You can sync your entire hard drive, or hard drives if you have multiple computers (home, work, office, shared), and you can set Dropbox to automatically sync files on a certain timeline, or whenever Dropbox notices that they’ve been changed. Why I love Dropbox Dropbox has plenty of storage, but 2 GB still has a hard time competing with the average desktop’s storage space. So what if you want to sync most of your files, but only the ones you use the most and share between work and home, and not all your files (especially large files like pictures and videos)? You can use selective sync to choose which files to sync. Above all, my favorite feature is LanSync. Dropbox will search your Local Area Network (LAN) for new files and sync them to Dropbox, as well as downloading the new version to all the shared files across the network. That means that if move around on different computers at work or at home, you will have the same version of the file every time. Or, other users on the LAN will have access to the new version, which makes collaboration extremely easy. Ref: rzfeeser.com Dropbox has so many other features that I feel like I could create a Personal Technology Tips series devoted entirely to Dropbox. I’m going to create a bullet list here to make things shorter, but I strongly encourage you to look further into these into options if it sounds like something you would use. Theft Recover Home Security File Hosting and Sharing Portable Dropbox Sync your iCal calendar Password Storage What is your favorite tool and why? I could go on and on, but I will end here. In summary – I strongly encourage everyone to investigate Dropbox to see if it’s something they would find useful. If you use Dropbox and know of a great feature I failed to mention, please share it with me, I’d love to hear how everyone uses this program. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Personal Technology

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Super Joybox 5 HID 0925:8884 not recognized as joystick in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

- by Tim Evans

Problem: When using the "Super JoyBox 5" 4 port playstation 2 to USB adapter, the device is not recognized as a joystick. there is no js0 created, but instead another input eventX and mouseX are created in /dev/input. When using the directional buttons (up down left right) on a Playstation 1 controller attached to the device, the mouse cursor moves to the top, bottom, left, and right edges of the screen respectively. Buttons are unresponsive. The joypads attached to the device cannot be used in any games or other programs. Attempted remedies: Creating a symlink from the eventX to js0 does not solve the problem. Addl Info: joydev is loaded and running peroperly according to LSMOD. evtest can be run on the created eventX (sudo evtest /dev/input/event14 in my case) and the buttons and axes all register inputs. Here is a paste of EVTEST's diagnostic and the first couple button events. [code] sudo evtest /dev/input/event14 Input driver version is 1.0.1 Input device ID: bus 0x3 vendor 0x925 product 0x8884 version 0x100 Input device name: "HID 0925:8884" Supported events: Event type 0 (EV_SYN) Event type 1 (EV_KEY) Event code 288 (BTN_TRIGGER) Event code 289 (BTN_THUMB) Event code 290 (BTN_THUMB2) Event code 291 (BTN_TOP) Event code 292 (BTN_TOP2) Event code 293 (BTN_PINKIE) Event code 294 (BTN_BASE) Event code 295 (BTN_BASE2) Event code 296 (BTN_BASE3) Event code 297 (BTN_BASE4) Event code 298 (BTN_BASE5) Event code 299 (BTN_BASE6) Event code 300 (?) Event code 301 (?) Event code 302 (?) Event code 303 (BTN_DEAD) Event code 304 (BTN_A) Event code 305 (BTN_B) Event code 306 (BTN_C) Event code 307 (BTN_X) Event code 308 (BTN_Y) Event code 309 (BTN_Z) Event code 310 (BTN_TL) Event code 311 (BTN_TR) Event code 312 (BTN_TL2) Event code 313 (BTN_TR2) Event code 314 (BTN_SELECT) Event code 315 (BTN_START) Event code 316 (BTN_MODE) Event code 317 (BTN_THUMBL) Event code 318 (BTN_THUMBR) Event code 319 (?) Event code 320 (BTN_TOOL_PEN) Event code 321 (BTN_TOOL_RUBBER) Event code 322 (BTN_TOOL_BRUSH) Event code 323 (BTN_TOOL_PENCIL) Event code 324 (BTN_TOOL_AIRBRUSH) Event code 325 (BTN_TOOL_FINGER) Event code 326 (BTN_TOOL_MOUSE) Event code 327 (BTN_TOOL_LENS) Event code 328 (?) Event code 329 (?) Event code 330 (BTN_TOUCH) Event code 331 (BTN_STYLUS) Event code 332 (BTN_STYLUS2) Event code 333 (BTN_TOOL_DOUBLETAP) Event code 334 (BTN_TOOL_TRIPLETAP) Event code 335 (BTN_TOOL_QUADTAP) Event type 3 (EV_ABS) Event code 0 (ABS_X) Value 127 Min 0 Max 255 Flat 15 Event code 1 (ABS_Y) Value 127 Min 0 Max 255 Flat 15 Event code 2 (ABS_Z) Value 127 Min 0 Max 255 Flat 15 Event code 3 (ABS_RX) Value 127 Min 0 Max 255 Flat 15 Event code 4 (ABS_RY) Value 127 Min 0 Max 255 Flat 15 Event code 5 (ABS_RZ) Value 127 Min 0 Max 255 Flat 15 Event code 6 (ABS_THROTTLE) Value 127 Min 0 Max 255 Flat 15 Event code 7 (ABS_RUDDER) Value 127 Min 0 Max 255 Flat 15 Event code 8 (ABS_WHEEL) Value 127 Min 0 Max 255 Flat 15 Event code 9 (ABS_GAS) Value 127 Min 0 Max 255 Flat 15 Event code 10 (ABS_BRAKE) Value 127 Min 0 Max 255 Flat 15 Event code 11 (?) Value 127 Min 0 Max 255 Flat 15 Event code 12 (?) Value 127 Min 0 Max 255 Flat 15 Event code 13 (?) Value 127 Min 0 Max 255 Flat 15 Event code 14 (?) Value 127 Min 0 Max 255 Flat 15 Event code 15 (?) Value 127 Min 0 Max 255 Flat 15 Event code 16 (ABS_HAT0X) Value 0 Min -1 Max 1 Event code 17 (ABS_HAT0Y) Value 0 Min -1 Max 1 Event code 18 (ABS_HAT1X) Value 0 Min -1 Max 1 Event code 19 (ABS_HAT1Y) Value 0 Min -1 Max 1 Event code 20 (ABS_HAT2X) Value 0 Min -1 Max 1 Event code 21 (ABS_HAT2Y) Value 0 Min -1 Max 1 Event code 22 (ABS_HAT3X) Value 0 Min -1 Max 1 Event code 23 (ABS_HAT3Y) Value 0 Min -1 Max 1 Event type 4 (EV_MSC) Event code 4 (MSC_SCAN) Testing ... (interrupt to exit) Event: time 1351223176.126127, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value 90001 Event: time 1351223176.126130, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 288 (BTN_TRIGGER), value 1 Event: time 1351223176.126166, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------ Event: time 1351223178.238127, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value 90001 Event: time 1351223178.238130, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 288 (BTN_TRIGGER), value 0 Event: time 1351223178.238167, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------ Event: time 1351223180.422127, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value 90002 Event: time 1351223180.422129, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 289 (BTN_THUMB), value 1 Event: time 1351223180.422163, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------ Event: time 1351223181.558099, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value 90002 Event: time 1351223181.558102, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 289 (BTN_THUMB), value 0 Event: time 1351223181.558137, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------ Event: time 1351223182.486137, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value 90003 Event: time 1351223182.486140, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 290 (BTN_THUMB2), value 1 Event: time 1351223182.486172, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------ Event: time 1351223183.302130, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value 90003 Event: time 1351223183.302132, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 290 (BTN_THUMB2), value 0 Event: time 1351223183.302165, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------ Event: time 1351223184.030133, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value 90004 Event: time 1351223184.030136, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 291 (BTN_TOP), value 1 Event: time 1351223184.030166, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------ Event: time 1351223184.558135, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value 90004 Event: time 1351223184.558138, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 291 (BTN_TOP), value 0 Event: time 1351223184.558168, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------ [/code] The directional buttons on the pad are being identified as HAT0Y and HAT0X axes, thats zero, not the letter O. Aparently, this device used to work flawlessly on kernel 2.4.x systems, and even as late as ubunto 10.04. Perhaps the Joydev rules for identifying joypads has changed? Currently, this kind of bug is affecting a few different type of controller adapters, but since this is the one that i PERSONALLY have (and has been driving me my own special brand of crazy), its the one im documenting. What i think should be happening instead: The device should be registering js0 through js3, one for each port, or JS0 that will handle all of the connected devices with different numbered axes for each connected joypad. Either way, it should work as a joystick and stop controlling the mouse cursor. Please help!

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Getting Started with Prism (aka Composite Application Guidance for WPF and Silverlight)

- by dotneteer

Overview Prism is a framework from the Microsoft Patterns and Practice team that allow you to create WPF and Silverlight in a modular way. It is especially valuable for larger projects in which a large number of developers can develop in parallel. Prism achieves its goal by supplying several services: · Dependency Injection (DI) and Inversion of control (IoC): By using DI, Prism takes away the responsibility of instantiating and managing the life time of dependency objects from individual components to a container. Prism relies on containers to discover, manage and compose large number of objects. By varying the configuration, the container can also inject mock objects for unit testing. Out of the box, Prism supports Unity and MEF as container although it is possible to use other containers by subclassing the Bootstrapper class. · Modularity and Region: Prism supplies the framework to split application into modules from the application shell. Each module is a library project that contains both UI and code and is responsible to initialize itself when loaded by the shell. Each window can be further divided into regions. A region is a user control with associated model. · Model, view and view-model (MVVM) pattern: Prism promotes the user MVVM. The use of DI container makes it much easier to inject model into view. WPF already has excellent data binding and commanding mechanism. To be productive with Prism, it is important to understand WPF data binding and commanding well. · Event-aggregation: Prism promotes loosely coupled components. Prism discourages for components from different modules to communicate each other, thus leading to dependency. Instead, Prism supplies an event-aggregation mechanism that allows components to publish and subscribe events without knowing each other. Architecture In the following, I will go into a little more detail on the services provided by Prism. Bootstrapper In a typical WPF application, application start-up is controls by App.xaml and its code behind. The main window of the application is typically specified in the App.xaml file. In a Prism application, we start a bootstrapper in the App class and delegate the duty of main window to the bootstrapper. The bootstrapper will start a dependency-injection container so all future object instantiations are managed by the container. Out of box, Prism provides the UnityBootstrapper and MefUnityBootstrapper abstract classes. All application needs to either provide a concrete implementation of one of these bootstrappers, or alternatively, subclass the Bootstrapper class with another DI container. A concrete bootstrapper class must implement the CreateShell method. Its responsibility is to resolve and create the Shell object through the DI container to serve as the main window for the application. The other important method to override is ConfigureModuleCatalog. The bootstrapper can register modules for the application. In a more advance scenario, an application does not have to know all its modules at compile time. Modules can be discovered at run time. Readers to refer to one of the Open Modularity Quick Starts for more information. Modules Once modules are registered with or discovered by Prism, they are instantiated by the DI container and their Initialize method is called. The DI container can inject into a module a region registry that implements IRegionViewRegistry interface. The module, in its Initialize method, can then call RegisterViewWithRegion method of the registry to register its regions. Regions Regions, once registered, are managed by the RegionManager. The shell can then load regions either through the RegionManager.RegionName attached property or dynamically through code. When a view is created by the region manager, the DI container can inject view model and other services into the view. The view then has a reference to the view model through which it can interact with backend services. Service locator Although it is possible to inject services into dependent classes through a DI container, an alternative way is to use the ServiceLocator to retrieve a service on demard. Prism supplies a service locator implementation and it is possible to get an instance of the service by calling: ServiceLocator.Current.GetInstance<IServiceType>() Event aggregator Prism supplies an IEventAggregator interface and implementation that can be injected into any class that needs to communicate with each other in a loosely-coupled fashion. The event aggregator uses a publisher/subscriber model. A class can publishes an event by calling eventAggregator.GetEvent<EventType>().Publish(parameter) to raise an event. Other classes can subscribe the event by calling eventAggregator.GetEvent<EventType>().Subscribe(EventHandler, other options). Getting started The easiest way to get started with Prism is to go through the Prism Hands-On labs and look at the Hello World QuickStart. The Hello World QuickStart shows how bootstrapper, modules and region works. Next, I would recommend you to look at the Stock Trader Reference Implementation. It is a more in depth example that resemble we want to set up an application. Several other QuickStarts cover individual Prism services. Some scenarios, such as dynamic module discovery, are more advanced. Apart from the official prism document, you can get an overview by reading Glen Block’s MSDN Magazine article. I have found the best free training material is from the Boise Code Camp. To be effective with Prism, it is important to understands key concepts of WPF well first, such as the DependencyProperty system, data binding, resource, theme and ICommand. It is also important to know your DI container of choice well. I will try to explorer these subjects in depth in the future. Testimony Recently, I worked on a desktop WPF application using Prism. I had a wonderful experience with Prism. The Prism is flexible enough even in the presence of third party controls such as Telerik WPF controls. We have never encountered any significant obstacle.

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Create a Slide Show in Windows 7 Media Center

- by DigitalGeekery

Are you looking for a nice way to create and display a slide show from your photo collection? Today we’ll show you how to create a slide show, how to add music to it, and watch it from the comfort of your couch in Windows 7 Media Center. Create Slide Show Launch Windows 7 Media Center and click on the Picture Library tile found under Pictures and Videos. In the Pictures Library, scroll across to slide shows and click on Create Slide show. Enter a name for the slide show and click Next. If you are using a Windows Media Center remote, click on the OK button to bring up the onscreen keyboard. Use the directional buttons to navigate across the keyboard and press OK to select each letter. Click Done when finished. Select Picture Library and click Next. Select the pictures to include in your slide show. If using a remote, navigate through the images and press OK to select. If you are using a mouse, simply click on the selections. When you are finished, click Next. Now, we can review and edit the slide show. Click the up or down pointing arrows to move pictures up and down in the order. (more intuitive titles would be helpful in this case as opposed to the randomly generated titles in the example below) If you are finished, click Create. You can also choose to go back and add music to your slide show. (or even more pictures) We’ll take a look at adding some music in our example. Click on the Add More button. Add Music to Your Slide Show Here we’ll select Music Library to add a song. Click Next. You’ll now be able to browse your Music Library to select songs for your slide show. Select your songs and click Next. When you are finished adding Music and Pictures click Create. Once your slide show is saved, you can play it any time by going to clicking on slide shows in the Picture Library, then selecting the slide show title. Select play slide show when you’re ready to enjoy your new production. If you ever want to edit or delete the slide show, select it in the Picture Library, and scroll to Actions. You’ll see those option under additional commands. You have the option to Edit Slide Show, Burn a CD/DVD, or Delete. Editing Slide Show Settings Within Media Center, go to Tasks… Click on Pictures… Then choose Slide Shows. From the Slide Show settings you have the option to Show pictures in random order, Show picture information, Show song information, and Use Pan and zoom effect. You can also adjust the length of time to display each picture, and change the background color. Be sure to click Save to apply and changes before exiting. If you choose to show picture information, the picture title, date, and star rating will be displayed in the top right. If your slide show is accompanied by music and you choose to show song information, you will get a translucent overlay for a few seconds at the beginning of each song to indicate the song, album, and artist. One of the really cool things about creating a slide show in Windows 7 Media Center is you can complete the entire process using just a Media Center remote. Can’t get enough slide shows? Check out how to turn your desktop into a picture slide show in Windows 7. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Using Netflix Watchnow in Windows Vista Media Center (Gmedia)Add Color Coding to Windows 7 Media Center Program GuideIntegrate Boxee with Media Center in Windows 7Schedule Updates for Windows Media CenterTurn Your Desktop into a Picture Slideshow in Windows 7 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Case Study – How to Optimize Popular Wordpress Sites Restore Hidden Updates in Windows 7 & Vista Iceland an Insurance Job? Find Downloads and Add-ins for Outlook Recycle ! Find That Elusive Icon with FindIcons

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Task-It Webinar - Source Code

Last week I presented a webinar called "Building a real-world application with RadControls for Silverlight 4". For those that didn't get to see the webinar, you can view it here: Building a read-world application with RadControls for Silverlight 4 Since the webinar I've received several requests asking if I could post the source code for the simple application I showed demonstrating some of the techniques used in the development of Task-It, such as MVVM, Commands and Internationalization. This source code is now available for downloadhere. After downloading the source: Extract it to the location of your choice on your hard-drive Open the solution Right-click ModuleProject.Web and selecte 'Set as StartUp Project'. Right-click ProjectTestPage.aspx and selected 'Set as Start Page' Create a database in SQL Server called WebinarProject. Navigate to the Database folder under the WebinarProject directory and run the .sql script against your WebinarProject database. The last two steps are necessary only for the Tasks page to work properly (using WCF RIA Services). Now some notes about each page: Code-behind This is not the way I recommend coding a line-of-business application in Silverlight, but simply wanted to show how the code-behind approach would look. Command This page introduces MVVM and Commands. You'll notice in the XAML that the Command property of theRadMenuItem and the Button are both bound to a SaveCommand. That comes from the view model. If you look in the code- behind of the user control you'll see that an instance of a CommandViewModel is instantiated and set as the DataContext of the UserControl.There is also a listener for the view model's SaveCompleted event. When this is fired, it tells the view (UserControl) to display the MessageBox. Internationalization This sample is similar to the previous one, but instead of using hard-coded strings in the UI, the strings are obtained via binding toview model properties. The view model gets the strings from the .resx files (Strings.resx or Strings.de.resx) under Assets/Resources. If you uncomment the call to ShowGerman() in App.xaml.cs's Application_Startup method and re-run the application, you will see the UI in German. Note that this code, which sets the CurrentCulture and CurrentUICulture on the current thread to "de" (German) is for testing purposes only. RadWindow Once again, very similar to the previous example.The difference is that we are now using a RadWindow to display the 'Saved' message instead of a MessageBox. The advantage here is that we do not have to hold on to a reference to the view model in our code behind so that we can get the 'Saved' message from it. The RadWindow's DataContext is now also bound to the view model, so within its XAML we can bind directly to properties in the view model. Much nicer, and cleaner. One other thing I introduced in this example is the use of spacer Rectangles. Rather than setting a width and/or height on the rectangles for spacing, I am now referencing a style in my ResourceDictionary called StandardSpacerStyle. I like doing this better than using margins or padding because now I have a reusable way to create space between elements, the Rectangle does not show (because I have not set its Fill color), and I can change my spacing throughout the user interface in one place if I'd like. Tasks This page is quite a bit different than the other four. It is a very simple, stripped-down version of the Tasks page in the Task-It application. The Tasks.xaml UserControl has a ContentControl, and the Content of that control is set based on whether we are looking at the list of tasks or editing a task. So it displays one of two child UserControls, which are called List and Details. List has the RadGridView, Details has the form. In the code-behind of the Tasks UserControl I am once again setting its DataContext to a view model class. The nice thing is, whichever child UserControl is being displayed (List or Details) inherits its DataContext from its parent control (Tasks), so I do not have to explicitly set it. The List UserControl simply displays a RadGridView whose ItemsSource is bound to a property in the view model called Tasks, and its SelectedItem property is bound to a property in the view model called SelectedItem. The SelectedItem binding must be TwoWay so that the view is notified when the SelectedItem changes in the view model, and the view model is notified when something changes in the view (like when a user changes the Name and/or DueDate in the form). You'll also notice that the form's TextBox and RadDatePicker are also TwoWay bound to the SelectedItem property in the view model. You can experiment with the binding by removing TwoWay and see how changes in the form do not show up in the RadGridView. So here we have an example of two different views (List and Details) that are both bound to the same view model...and actually, so is the Tasks UserControl, so it is really three views. WCF RIA Services By the way, I am using WCF RIA Services to retrieve data for the RadGridView and save the data when the user clicks the Save button in the form. I created a really simple ADO.NET Entity Data Model in WebinarProject.Web called DataModel.edmx. I also created a simple Domain Data Service called DataService that has methods for retrieving data, inserting, updating and deleting. However I am only using the retrieval and update methods in this sample. Note that I do not currently have any validation in place on the form, as I wanted to keep the sample as simple as possible. Wrap up Technically, I should move the calls to WCF RIA Services out of the view model and put them into a separate layer, but this works for now, and that is a topic for another day! Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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Dynamic Data Connections

- by Tim Dexter

I have had a long running email thread running between Dan and David over at Valspar and myself. They have built some impressive connectivity between their in house apps and BIP using web services. The crux of their problem has been that they have multiple databases that need the same report executed against them. Not such an unusual request as I have spoken to two customers in the last month with the same situation. Of course, you could create a report against each data connection and just run or call the appropriate report. Not too bad if you have two or three data connections but more than that and it becomes a maintenance nightmare having to update queries or layouts. Ideally you want to have just a single report definition on the BIP server and to dynamically set the connection to be used at runtime based on the user or system that the user is in. A quick bit of digging and help from Shinji on the development team and I had an answer. Rather embarassingly, the solution has been around since the Oct 2010 rollup patch last year. Still, I grabbed the latest Jan 2011 patch - check out Note 797057.1 for the latest available patches. Once installed, I used the best web service testing tool I have yet to come across - SoapUI. Just point it at the WSDL and you can check out the available services and their parameters and then test them too. The XML packet has a new dynamic data source entry. You can set you own custom JDBC connection or just specify an existing data source name thats defined on the server. <pub:runReport> <pub:reportRequest> <pub:attributeFormat>xml</pub:attributeFormat> <pub:attributeTemplate>0</pub:attributeTemplate> <pub:byPassCache>true</pub:byPassCache> <pub:dynamicDataSource> <pub:JDBCDataSource> <pub:JDBCDriverClass></pub:JDBCDriverClass> <pub:JDBCDriverType></pub:JDBCDriverType> <pub:JDBCPassword></pub:JDBCPassword> <pub:JDBCURL></pub:JDBCURL> <pub:JDBCUserName></pub:JDBCUserName> <pub:dataSourceName>Conn1</pub:dataSourceName> </pub:JDBCDataSource> </pub:dynamicDataSource> <pub:reportAbsolutePath>/Test/Employee Report/Employee Report.xdo</pub:reportAbsolutePath> </pub:reportRequest> <pub:userID>Administrator</pub:userID> <pub:password>Administrator</pub:password> </pub:runReport> So I have Conn1 and Conn2 defined that are connections to different databases. I can just flip the name, make the WS call and get the appropriate dataset in my report. Just as an example, here's my web service call java code. Just a case of bringing in the BIP java libs to my java project. publicReportServiceService = new PublicReportServiceService(); PublicReportService publicReportService = publicReportServiceService.getPublicReportService_v11(); String userID = "Administrator"; String password = "Administrator"; ReportRequest rr = new ReportRequest(); rr.setAttributeFormat("xml"); rr.setAttributeTemplate("1"); rr.setByPassCache(true); rr.setReportAbsolutePath("/Test/Employee Report/Employee Report.xdo"); rr.setReportOutputPath("c:\\temp\\output.xml"); BIPDataSource bipds = new BIPDataSource(); JDBCDataSource jds = new JDBCDataSource(); jds.setDataSourceName("Conn1"); bipds.setJDBCDataSource(jds); rr.setDynamicDataSource(bipds); try { publicReportService.runReport(rr, userID, password); } catch (InvalidParametersException e) { e.printStackTrace(); } catch (AccessDeniedException e) { e.printStackTrace(); } catch (OperationFailedException e) { e.printStackTrace(); } } Note, Im no java whiz kid or whizzy old bloke, at least not unless Ive had a coffee. JDeveloper has a nice feature where you point it at the WSDL and it creates everything to support your calling code for you. Couple of things to remember: 1. When you call the service, remember to set the bypass the cache option. Forget it and much scratching of your head and taking my name in vain will ensue. 2. My demo actually hit the same database but used two users, one accessed the base tables another views with the same name. For far too long I thought the connection swapping was not working. I was getting the same results for both users until I realized I was specifying the schema name for the table/view in my query e.g. select * from EMP.EMPLOYEES. So remember to have a generic query that will depend entirely on the connection. Its a neat feature if you want to be able to switch connections and only define a single report and call it remotely. Now if you want the connection to be set dynamically based on the user and the report run via the user interface, thats going to be more tricky ... need to think about that one!

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A new SQL, a new Analysis Services, a new Workshop! #ssas #sql2012

- by Marco Russo (SQLBI)

One week ago Microsoft SQL Server 2012 finally debuted with a virtual launch event and you can find many intro sessions there (20 minutes each). There is a lot of new content available if you want to learn more about SQL 2012 and in this blog post I’d like to provide a few link to sessions, documents, bits and courses that are available now or very soon. First of all, the release of Analysis Services 2012 has finally released PowerPivot 2012 (many of us called it PowerPivot v2 before this official name) and also the new Data Mining Add-in for Microsoft Office 2010, now available also for Excel 64bit! And, of course, don’t miss the Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Feature Pack, there are a lot of upgrades for both DBAs and developers. I just discovered there is a new LocalDB version of SQL Express that can run in user mode without any setup. Is this the end of SQL CE? But now, back to Analysis Services: if you want some tutorial on Tabular, the Microsoft Virtual Academy has a whole track dedicated to Analysis Services 2012 but you will probably be interested also in the one about Reporting Services 2012. If you think that virtual is good but it’s not enough, there are plenty of conferences in the coming months – these are just those where I and Alberto will deliver some SSAS Tabular presentations: SQLBits X, London, March 29-31, 2012: if you are in London or want a good reason to go, this is the most important SQL Server event in Europe this year, no doubts about it. And not only because of the high number of attendees, but also because there is an impressive number of speakers (excluding me, of course) coming from all over the world. This is an event second only to PASS Summit in Seattle so there are no good reasons to not attend it. Microsoft SQL Server & Business Intelligence Conference 2012, Milan, March 28-29, 2012: this is an Italian conference so the language might be a barrier, but many of us also speak English and the food is good! Just a few seats still available. TechEd North America, Orlando, June 11-14, 2012: you know, this is a big event and it contains everything – if you want to spend a whole day learning the SSAS Tabular model with me and Alberto, don’t miss our pre-conference day “Using BISM Tabular in Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services 2012” (be careful, it is on June 10, a nice study-Sunday!). TechEd Europe, Amsterdam, June 26-29, 2012: the European version of TechEd provides almost the same content and you don’t have to go overseas. We also run the same pre-conference day “Using BISM Tabular in Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services 2012” (in this case, it is on June 25, that’s a regular Monday). I and Alberto will also speak at some user group meeting around Europe during… well, we’re going to travel a lot in the next months. In fact, if you want to get a complete training on SSAS Tabular, you should spend two days with us in one of our SSAS Tabular Workshop! We prepared a 2-day seminar, a very intense one, that start from the simple tabular modeling and cover architecture, DAX, query, advanced modeling, security, deployment, optimization, monitoring, relationships with PowerPivot and Multidimensional… Really, there are a lot of stuffs here! We announced the first dates in Europe and also an online edition optimized for America’s time zone: Apr 16-17, 2012 – Amsterdam, Netherlands Apr 26-27, 2012 – Copenhagen, Denmark May 7-8, 2012 – Online for America’s time zone May 14-15, 2012 – Brussels, Belgium May 21-22, 2012 – Oslo, Norway May 24-25, 2012 – Stockholm, Sweden May 28-29, 2012 – London, United Kingdom May 31-Jun 1, 2012 – Milan, Italy (Italian language) Also Chris Webb will join us in this workshop and in every date you can find who is the speaker on the web site. The course is based on our upcoming book, almost 600 pages (!) about SSAS Tabular, an incredible effort that will be available very soon in a preview (rough cuts from O’Reilly) and will be on the shelf in May. I will provide a link to order it as soon as we have one! And if you think that this is not enough… you’re right! Do you know what is the only thing you can do to optimize your Tabular model? Optimize your DAX code. Learning DAX is easy, mastering DAX requires some knowledge… and our DAX Advanced Workshop will provide exactly the required content. Public classes will be available later this year, by now we just deliver it on demand.

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Improve the Quality of ePub eBooks with Sigil

- by Matthew Guay

Would you like to correct errors in your ePub formatted eBooks, or even split them into chapters and create a Table of Contents? Here’s how you can with the free program Sigil. eBooks are increasingly popular with the rise of eBook readers and reading apps on mobile devices. We recently showed you how to convert a PDF eBook to ePub format, but as you may have noticed, sometimes the converted file had some glitches or odd formatting. Additionally, many of the many free ePub books available online from sources like the Project Guttenberg do not include a table of contents. Sigil is a free application for Windows, OS X, and Linux that lets you edit ePub files, so let’s look at how you can use it to improve your eBooks. Note: Sigil took several moments to open files in our tests, and froze momentarily when we maximized the window. Sigil is currently pre-release software in active development, so we would expect the bugs to be worked out in future versions. As usual, only install if you’re comfortable testing pre-release software. Getting Started Download Sigil (link below), making sure to select the correct version for your computer. Run the installer, and select your preferred setup language when prompted. After a moment the installer will appear; setup as normal. Launch Sigil when it’s finished installing. It opens with a default blank ePub file, so you could actually start writing an eBook from scratch right here. Edit Your ePub eBooks Now you’re ready to edit your ePub books. Click Open and browse to the file you want to edit. Now you can double-click any of the HTML or XHTML files on the left sidebar and edit them just like you would in Word. Or you can choose to view it in Code View and edit the actual HTML directly. The sidebar also gives you access to the other parts of the ePub file, such as Images and CSS styles. If your ePub file has a Table of Contents, you can edit it with Sigil as well. Click Tools in the menu bar, and then select TOC Editor. Strangely there is no way to create a new table of contents, but you can remove entries from existing one. Convert TXT Files to ePub Many free eBooks online, especially older, out of copyright titles, are available in plain text format. One problem with these files is that they usually use hard returns at the end of lines, so they don’t reflow to fill your screen efficiently. Sigil can easily convert these files to the more useful ePub format. Open the text file in Sigil, and it will automatically reflow the text and convert it ePub. As you can see in the screenshot below, the text in the eBook does not have hard line-breaks at the end of each line, and will be much more readable on mobile devices. Note that Sigil may take several moments opening the book, and may even become unresponsive while analyzing it. Now you can edit your eBook, split it into chapters, or just save it as is. Either way, make sure to select Save as to save your book as ePub format. Conclusion As mentioned before, Sigil seems to run slow at times, especially when editing large eBooks. But it’s still a nice solution to edit and extend your ePub eBooks, and even convert plain text eBooks to the nicer ePub format. Now you can make your eBooks work just like you want, and read them on your favorite device! If you feel comfortable editing HTML files, check out our article on how to edit ePub eBooks with your favorite HTML editor. Link Download Sigil from Google Code Download free ePub eBooks from Project Guttenberg Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Edit ePub eBooks with Your Favorite HTML EditorConvert a PDF eBook to ePub Format for Your iPad, iPhone, or eReaderRead Mobi eBooks on Kindle for PCFriday Fun: Watch HD Video Content with MeevidPreview and Purchase Ebooks with Kindle for PC 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 HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Get Your Team’s World Cup Schedule In Google Calendar Backup Drivers With Driver Magician TubeSort: YouTube Playlist Organizer XPS file format & XPS Viewer Explained Microsoft Office Web Apps Guide Know if Someone Accessed Your Facebook Account

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WebLogic Server JMS WLST Script – Who is Connected To My Server

- by james.bayer

Ever want to know who was connected to your WebLogic Server instance for troubleshooting? An email exchange about this topic and JMS came up this week, and I’ve heard it come up once or twice before too. Sometimes it’s interesting or helpful to know the list of JMS clients (IP Addresses, JMS Destinations, message counts) that are connected to a particular JMS server. This can be helpful for troubleshooting. Tom Barnes from the WebLogic Server JMS team provided some helpful advice: The JMS connection runtime mbean has “getHostAddress”, which returns the host address of the connecting client JVM as a string. A connection runtime can contain session runtimes, which in turn can contain consumer runtimes. The consumer runtime, in turn has a “getDestinationName” and “getMemberDestinationName”. I think that this means you could write a WLST script, for example, to dump all consumers, their destinations, plus their parent session’s parent connection’s host addresses. Note that the client runtime mbeans (connection, session, and consumer) won’t necessarily be hosted on the same JVM as a destination that’s in the same cluster (client messages route from their connection host to their ultimate destination in the same cluster). Writing the Script So armed with this information, I decided to take the challenge and see if I could write a WLST script to do this. It’s always helpful to have the WebLogic Server MBean Reference handy for activities like this. This one is focused on JMS Consumers and I only took a subset of the information available, but it could be modified easily to do Producers. I haven’t tried this on a more complex environment, but it works in my simple sandbox case, so it should give you the general idea. # Better to use Secure Config File approach for login as shown here http://buttso.blogspot.com/2011/02/using-secure-config-files-with-weblogic.html connect('weblogic','welcome1','t3://localhost:7001') # Navigate to the Server Runtime and get the Server Name serverRuntime() serverName = cmo.getName() # Multiple JMS Servers could be hosted by a single WLS server cd('JMSRuntime/' + serverName + '.jms' ) jmsServers=cmo.getJMSServers() # Find the list of all JMSServers for this server namesOfJMSServers = '' for jmsServer in jmsServers: namesOfJMSServers = jmsServer.getName() + ' ' # Count the number of connections jmsConnections=cmo.getConnections() print str(len(jmsConnections)) + ' JMS Connections found for ' + serverName + ' with JMSServers ' + namesOfJMSServers # Recurse the MBean tree for each connection and pull out some information about consumers for jmsConnection in jmsConnections: try: print 'JMS Connection:' print ' Host Address = ' + jmsConnection.getHostAddress() print ' ClientID = ' + str( jmsConnection.getClientID() ) print ' Sessions Current = ' + str( jmsConnection.getSessionsCurrentCount() ) jmsSessions = jmsConnection.getSessions() for jmsSession in jmsSessions: jmsConsumers = jmsSession.getConsumers() for jmsConsumer in jmsConsumers: print ' Consumer:' print ' Name = ' + jmsConsumer.getName() print ' Messages Received = ' + str(jmsConsumer.getMessagesReceivedCount()) print ' Member Destination Name = ' + jmsConsumer.getMemberDestinationName() except: print 'Error retrieving JMS Consumer Information' dumpStack() # Cleanup disconnect() exit() Example Output I expect the output to look something like this and loop through all the connections, this is just the first one: 1 JMS Connections found for AdminServer with JMSServers myJMSServer JMS Connection: Host Address = 127.0.0.1 ClientID = None Sessions Current = 16 Consumer: Name = consumer40 Messages Received = 1 Member Destination Name = myJMSModule!myQueue Notice that it has the IP Address of the client. There are 16 Sessions open because I’m using an MDB, which defaults to 16 connections, so this matches what I expect. Let’s see what the full output actually looks like: D:\Oracle\fmw11gr1ps3\user_projects\domains\offline_domain>java weblogic.WLST d:\temp\jms.py Initializing WebLogic Scripting Tool (WLST) ... Welcome to WebLogic Server Administration Scripting Shell Type help() for help on available commands Connecting to t3://localhost:7001 with userid weblogic ... Successfully connected to Admin Server 'AdminServer' that belongs to domain 'offline_domain'. Warning: An insecure protocol was used to connect to the server. To ensure on-the-wire security, the SSL port or Admin port should be used instead. Location changed to serverRuntime tree. This is a read-only tree with ServerRuntimeMBean as the root. For more help, use help(serverRuntime) 1 JMS Connections found for AdminServer with JMSServers myJMSServer JMS Connection: Host Address = 127.0.0.1 ClientID = None Sessions Current = 16 Consumer: Name = consumer40 Messages Received = 2 Member Destination Name = myJMSModule!myQueue Consumer: Name = consumer34 Messages Received = 2 Member Destination Name = myJMSModule!myQueue Consumer: Name = consumer37 Messages Received = 2 Member Destination Name = myJMSModule!myQueue Consumer: Name = consumer16 Messages Received = 2 Member Destination Name = myJMSModule!myQueue Consumer: Name = consumer46 Messages Received = 2 Member Destination Name = myJMSModule!myQueue Consumer: Name = consumer49 Messages Received = 2 Member Destination Name = myJMSModule!myQueue Consumer: Name = consumer43 Messages Received = 1 Member Destination Name = myJMSModule!myQueue Consumer: Name = consumer55 Messages Received = 1 Member Destination Name = myJMSModule!myQueue Consumer: Name = consumer25 Messages Received = 1 Member Destination Name = myJMSModule!myQueue Consumer: Name = consumer22 Messages Received = 1 Member Destination Name = myJMSModule!myQueue Consumer: Name = consumer19 Messages Received = 1 Member Destination Name = myJMSModule!myQueue Consumer: Name = consumer52 Messages Received = 1 Member Destination Name = myJMSModule!myQueue Consumer: Name = consumer31 Messages Received = 1 Member Destination Name = myJMSModule!myQueue Consumer: Name = consumer58 Messages Received = 1 Member Destination Name = myJMSModule!myQueue Consumer: Name = consumer28 Messages Received = 1 Member Destination Name = myJMSModule!myQueue Consumer: Name = consumer61 Messages Received = 1 Member Destination Name = myJMSModule!myQueue Disconnected from weblogic server: AdminServer Exiting WebLogic Scripting Tool. Thanks to Tom Barnes for the hints and the inspiration to write this up. Image of telephone switchboard courtesy of http://www.JoeTourist.net/ JoeTourist InfoSystems

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Preview and Purchase Ebooks with Kindle for PC

- by Matthew Guay

Want to look over a new book, or buy it immediately in ebook format? Here’s how you can preview and purchase most new books from your PC the easy way. Most new books, including almost all New York Times Bestsellers, are available in ebook format from Amazon’s Kindle store. The Kindle store also includes numerous free ebooks, including out-of-print classics and a surprising amount of recent books. With the free Kindle for PC reader, you can read any of these ebooks without having to purchase a Kindle device. Preview Ebooks Before you Purchase Sometimes, it can be hard to know if you want to purchase a new book without reading some of it first. With Kindle for PC, however, you can download a sample of any ebook available for free. The sample usually includes the table of contents, forward or introduction, and often part or all of the first chapter. To get an ebook sample, find the book you want in the Kindle store (link below). Now, under the Try it free box, select the correct computer or device to send the sample to, and click Send Sample now. Amazon will thank you for your order, even though this is only a free preview. Click the Go to Kindle for PC button to open Kindle and read your ebook preview. Or, if Kindle is already running, press the Refresh button in the top right corner to check for new ebooks and previews. Kindle will synchronize and download the previews you selected. The most recently downloaded items show up on the top left. All sample books have a red “Sample” bar on the bottom of their cover, and they also include links to Buy or view more info about it on it’s cover. Double-click your sample to start reading it. Your ebook sample will usually open at the introduction or beginning of the first chapter, but you can also view the index, cover, and more. When you reach the end of the sample book, you can click a link to buy the book or view more details about it. Strangely, both of these links currently take you to the ebook’s page on Amazon.com, but perhaps in the future the Buy link will directly let you purchase the book. Or, you can also click Buy Now on a sample book directly from your Kindle library. If you clicked one of these links, you will be returned to the ebook’s page on Amazon. Choose the PC or Kindle you want the book delivered to, and this time, select Buy Now with 1-Click. Add your payment info if you’re not already setup for 1-Click Shopping, and then you’ll be shown the same Thank you page as before. Refresh Kindle for PC, and your new ebook will automatically download. Strangely, the sample ebook is not automatically removed, so you can right-click on the sample and select Delete this Book. Additionally, your last-read page in the sample is not synced to the purchased book, so you may have to find your place again. Now, enjoy your full ebook! Download Free Books for Kindle The Kindle Store has an amazing amount of free ebooks. Some free books may only be free for a limited time as a promotion, while others, such as old classics, may always be free. Either which way, once you download it, you can keep it forever. When you find a free ebook you want, select the Kindle or PC you want to download it to and click “Buy now with 1-Click”. Notice that this book shows it’s price is $0.00, but the button still says Buy now. Rest assured, if the book’s price show up as $0.00, you will not be charged anything for downloading it. Your ebook will download as usual after your next refresh. Note that you can still download the sample first if you want, but since the book is free, just download the whole thing and delete it if you don’t want it. Redownload your Purchased or Free Books If you install Kindle on a new PC or delete a book from your library, you can always re-download it from your Amazon account. Browse to the Manage your Kindle page on Amazon (link below) sign in with your Amazon account, and scroll down to the list of your purchased content. Select the book you wish to download, then choose the Kindle or PC you want to download it to and press Go. Note: There is a “Delete this title” button right below this. If you press the Delete button, you will not ever be able to re-download it. Or, you can download the book directly from the Archived Items tab in Kindle on your other PC. And, if you have your Kindle content on multiple computers, your reading will be synced via Whispersync. You can start reading on your desktop, and then resume where you left off from your laptop. Conclusion With these tips and tricks, it is much easier to preview and purchase new books, find and download free ebooks, and re-download any you’ve deleted from your PC. Have fun filling up your digital library! Links Manage your Kindle account Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Read Mobi eBooks on Kindle for PCRead Kindle Books On Your Computer with Kindle for PCHow to See Where a TinyUrl Is Really Linking ToEdit Microsoft Word 2007 Documents in Print PreviewWhy Can’t I Turn the Details/Preview Panes On or Off in Windows Vista Explorer? TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Whoa ! Use Printflush to Solve Printing Problems Icelandic Volcano Webcams Open Multiple Links At One Go NachoFoto Searches Images in Real-time Office 2010 Product Guides

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Oracle Fusion Applications User Experience Design Patterns: Feeling the Love after Launch

- by mvaughan

By Misha Vaughan, Oracle Applications User ExperienceIn the first video by the Oracle Applications User Experience team on the Oracle Partner Network, Vice President Jeremy Ashley said that Oracle is looking to expand the ecosystem of support for Oracle’s applications customers as they begin to assess their investment and adoption of Oracle Fusion Applications. Oracle has made a massive investment to maintain the benefits of the Fusion Applications User Experience. This summer, the Applications User Experience team released the Oracle Fusion Applications user experience design patterns.Design patterns help create consistent experiences across devices.The launch has been very well received:Angelo Santagata, Senior Principal Technologist and Fusion Middleware evangelist for Oracle, wrote this to the system integrator community: “The web site is the result of many years of Oracle R&D into user interface design for Fusion Applications and features a really cool web app which allows you to visualise the UI components in action.” Grant Ronald, Director of Product Management, Application Development Framework (ADF) said: “It’s a science I don't understand, but now I don't have to ... Now you can learn from the UX experience of Fusion Applications.”Frank Nimphius, Senior Principal Product Manager, Oracle (ADF) wrote about the launch of the design patterns for the ADF Code Corner, and Jürgen Kress, Senior Manager EMEA Alliances & Channels for Fusion MiddleWare and Service Oriented Architecture, (SOA), shared the news with his Partner Community. Oracle Twitter followers also helped spread the message about the design patterns launch: ?@bex – Brian Huff, founder and Chief Software Architect for Bezzotech, and Oracle ACE Director:“Nifty! The Oracle Fusion UX team just released new ADF design patterns.”@maiko_rocha, Maiko Rocha, Oracle Consulting Solutions Architect and Oracle FMW engineer: “Haven't seen any other vendor offer such comprehensive UX Design Patterns catalog for free!”@zirous_chad, Chad Thompson, Senior Solutions Architect for Zirous, Inc. and ADF Developer:Wow - @ultan and company did a great job with the Fusion UX PatternsWhat is a user experience design pattern?A user experience design pattern is a re-usable, usability tested functional blueprint for a particular user experience. Some examples are guided processes, shopping carts, and search and search results. Ultan O’Broin discusses the top design patterns every developer should know.The patterns that were just released are based on thousands of hours of end-user field studies, state-of-the-art user interface assessments, and usability testing. To be clear, these are functional design patterns, not technical design patterns that developers may be used to working with. Because we know there is a gap, we are putting together some training that will help close that gap.Who should care?This is an offering targeted primarily at Application Development Framework (ADF) developers. If you are faced with the following questions regarding Fusion Applications, you will want to know and learn more:• How do I build something that looks like Fusion Applications?• How do I build a next-generation application?• How do I extend a Fusion Application and maintain the user experience?• I don’t want to re-invent the wheel on the user interface, so where do I start?• I need to build something that will eventually co-exist with Fusion Applications. How do I do that?These questions are relevant to partners with an ADF competency, individual practitioners, or small consultancies with an ADF specialization, and customers who are trying to shift their IT staff over to supporting Fusion Applications.Where you can find out more?OnlineOur Fusion User Experience design patterns maven is Ultan O’Broin. The Oracle Partner Network is helping our team bring this first e-seminar to you in order to go into a more detail on what this means and how to take advantage of it:? Webinar: Build a Better User Experience with Oracle: Oracle Fusion Applications Functional Design PatternsSept 20, 2012 , 10:30am-11:30am PacificDial-In: 1. 877-664-9137 / Passcode 102546?International: 706-634-9619 http://www.intercall.com/national/oracleuniversity/gdnam.htmlAccess the Live Event Or Via Webconference Access http://ouweb.webex.com ?and enter this session number: 598036234At a Usergroup eventThe Fusion User Experience Advocates (FXA) are also going to be getting some deep-dive training on this content and can share it with local user groups.At OpenWorld Ultan O’Broin Chris MuirIf you will be at OpenWorld this year, our own Ultan O’Broin will be visiting the ADF demopod to say hello, thanks to Shay Shmeltzer, Senior Group Manager for ADF outbound communication and at the OTN lounge: Monday 10-10:45, Tuesday 2:15-2:45, Wednesday 2:15-3:30 ? Oracle JDeveloper and Oracle ADF, Moscone South, Right - S-207? “ADF Meet and Greett”, OTN Lounge, Wednesday 4:30 And I cannot talk about OpenWorld and ADF without mentioning Chris Muir’s ADF EMG event: the Year After the Year Of the ADF Developer – Sunday, Sept 30 of OpenWorld. Chris has played host to Ultan and the Applications user experience message for his online community and is now a seasoned UX expert.Expect to see additional announcements about expanded and training on similar topics in the future.

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ASP.NET Web API - Screencast series Part 4: Paging and Querying

- by Jon Galloway

We're continuing a six part series on ASP.NET Web API that accompanies the getting started screencast series. This is an introductory screencast series that walks through from File / New Project to some more advanced scenarios like Custom Validation and Authorization. The screencast videos are all short (3-5 minutes) and the sample code for the series is both available for download and browsable online. I did the screencasts, but the samples were written by the ASP.NET Web API team. In Part 1 we looked at what ASP.NET Web API is, why you'd care, did the File / New Project thing, and did some basic HTTP testing using browser F12 developer tools. In Part 2 we started to build up a sample that returns data from a repository in JSON format via GET methods. In Part 3, we modified data on the server using DELETE and POST methods. In Part 4, we'll extend on our simple querying methods form Part 2, adding in support for paging and querying. This part shows two approaches to querying data (paging really just being a specific querying case) - you can do it yourself using parameters passed in via querystring (as well as headers, other route parameters, cookies, etc.). You're welcome to do that if you'd like. What I think is more interesting here is that Web API actions that return IQueryable automatically support OData query syntax, making it really easy to support some common query use cases like paging and filtering. A few important things to note: This is just support for OData query syntax - you're not getting back data in OData format. The screencast demonstrates this by showing the GET methods are continuing to return the same JSON they did previously. So you don't have to "buy in" to the whole OData thing, you're just able to use the query syntax if you'd like. This isn't full OData query support - full OData query syntax includes a lot of operations and features - but it is a pretty good subset: filter, orderby, skip, and top. All you have to do to enable this OData query syntax is return an IQueryable rather than an IEnumerable. Often, that could be as simple as using the AsQueryable() extension method on your IEnumerable. Query composition support lets you layer queries intelligently. If, for instance, you had an action that showed products by category using a query in your repository, you could also support paging on top of that. The result is an expression tree that's evaluated on-demand and includes both the Web API query and the underlying query. So with all those bullet points and big words, you'd think this would be hard to hook up. Nope, all I did was change the return type from IEnumerable<Comment> to IQueryable<Comment> and convert the Get() method's IEnumerable result using the .AsQueryable() extension method. public IQueryable<Comment> GetComments() { return repository.Get().AsQueryable(); } You still need to build up the query to provide the $top and $skip on the client, but you'd need to do that regardless. Here's how that looks: $(function () { //--------------------------------------------------------- // Using Queryable to page //--------------------------------------------------------- $("#getCommentsQueryable").click(function () { viewModel.comments([]); var pageSize = $('#pageSize').val(); var pageIndex = $('#pageIndex').val(); var url = "/api/comments?$top=" + pageSize + '&$skip=' + (pageIndex * pageSize); $.getJSON(url, function (data) { // Update the Knockout model (and thus the UI) with the comments received back // from the Web API call. viewModel.comments(data); }); return false; }); }); And the neat thing is that - without any modification to our server-side code - we can modify the above jQuery call to request the comments be sorted by author: $(function () { //--------------------------------------------------------- // Using Queryable to page //--------------------------------------------------------- $("#getCommentsQueryable").click(function () { viewModel.comments([]); var pageSize = $('#pageSize').val(); var pageIndex = $('#pageIndex').val(); var url = "/api/comments?$top=" + pageSize + '&$skip=' + (pageIndex * pageSize) + '&$orderby=Author'; $.getJSON(url, function (data) { // Update the Knockout model (and thus the UI) with the comments received back // from the Web API call. viewModel.comments(data); }); return false; }); }); So if you want to make use of OData query syntax, you can. If you don't like it, you're free to hook up your filtering and paging however you think is best. Neat. In Part 5, we'll add on support for Data Annotation based validation using an Action Filter.

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Selling Visual Studio ALM

- by Tarun Arora

Introduction As a consultant I have been selling Application Lifecycle Management services using Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server. I’ve been contacted various times by friends working in organization telling me that ALM processes in their company were benchmarked when dinosaurs walked the earth. Most of these individuals already know the great features Microsoft ALM tools offer and are keen to start a conversation with the CIO but don’t exactly know where to start. It is very important how you engage in your first conversation, if you start the conversation with ‘There is this great tooling from Microsoft which offers amazing features to boost developer productivity, … ‘ from experience I can tell you the reply from your CIO would be ‘I already know! Our existing landscape has a combination of bleeding edge open source and cutting edge licensed tools which already cover these features quite well, more over Microsoft products have a high licensing cost associated to them.’ You will always find it harder to sell by feature, the trick is to highlight the gap in the existing processes & tools and then highlight the impact of these gaps to the overall development processes, by now you would have captured enough attention to show off how the ALM tooling offered by Microsoft not only fills those gaps but offers great value adds to take their development practices to the next level. Rangers ALM Assessment Guide Image 1 – Welcome! First look at the Rangers ALM assessment guide Most organization already have some processes in place to cover aspects of ALM. How do you go about proving that there isn’t enough cover in place? This is where Visual Studio ALM Rangers ALM Assessment guide can help. The ALM assessment guide is really a tool that helps you gather information about Development practices and processes within a customer's environment. Several questionnaires are used to identify the current state of individual development lifecycle areas and decide on a desired state for those processes. It also presents guidance and roll-up summaries to help with recommendations moving forward. The ALM Rangers assessment guide can be downloaded from here. Image 2 – ALM Assessment guide divided into different functions of SDLC The assessment guide is divided into different functions of Software Development Lifecycle (listed below), this gives you the ability to access how mature the company is in different areas of SDLC. Architecture & Design Requirement Engineering & UX Development Software Configuration Management Governance Deployment & Operations Testing & Quality Assurance Project Planning & Management Each section has a set of questions, fill in the assessment by selecting “Never/Sometimes/Always” from the Answer column in the question sheets. Each answer has weightage to the overall score. Each question has a link next to it, clicking the link takes you to the Reference sheet which gives you more details about the question along with a reason for “why you need to ask this question?”, “other ways to phrase the question” and “what to expect as an answer from the customer”. The trick is to engage the customer in a discussion. You need to probe a lot, listen to the customer and have a discussion with several team members, preferably without management to ensure that you receive candid feedback. This reminds me of a funny incident when during an ALM review a customer told me that they have a sophisticated semi-automated application deployment process, further discussions revealed that deployment actually involved 72 manual configuration steps per production node. Such observations can be recorded in the Issue Brainstorming worksheet for further consideration later. It is also worth mentioning the different levels of ALM maturity to the customer. By default the desired state of ALM maturity is set to Standard, it is possible to set a desired state by area, you should strive for Advanced or Dynamic, it always helps by explaining the classification and advantages. Image 3 – ALM levels by description The ALM assessment guide helps you arrive at a quantitative measure of the company’s ALM maturity. The resultant graph plotted on a spider’s web shows you the company’s current state of ALM maturity and the desired state of ALM maturity. Further since the results are classified by area you can immediately spot the areas where the customer needs immediate help. Image 4 – The spiders web! The red cross icons are areas shouting out for immediate attention, the yellow exclamation icons are areas that need improvement. These icons are calculated on the difference between the Current State of ALM maturity VS the Desired state of ALM maturity. Image 5 – Results by area Conclusion To conclude the Rangers ALM assessment guide gives you the ability to, Measure the customer’s current ALM maturity level Understand the ALM maturity level the customer desires to achieve Capture a healthy list of issues the customer wants to brainstorm further Now What’s next…? Download and get started with the Rangers ALM Assessment Guide. If you have successfully captured the above listed three pieces of information you are in a great state to make recommendations on the identified areas highlighting the benefits that Visual Studio ALM tools would offer. In the next post I will be covering how to take the ALM assessment results as the base to actually convert your recommendation into a sell. Remember to subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/TarunArora. I would love to hear your feedback! If you have any recommendations on things that I should consider or any questions or feedback, feel free to leave a comment. *** A special thanks goes out to fellow ranges Willy, Ethem and Philip for reviewing the blog post and providing valuable feedback. ***

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doubleTwist is an iTunes Alternative that Supports Several Devices

- by Mysticgeek

There are a lot of iTunes users out there, but unfortunately you can’t use it with all of your portable devices. Today we take a look at doubleTwist, which allows you to sync your media with a multitude of portable devices and easily share it as well. Note: You can run doubleTwist on Windows or Mac, and here we take a look at the Windows version. Install & Setup doubleTwist Download and install doubleTwist using the defaults in the wizard… Installation takes several moments and you’ll see the progress while it finishes up. After installation is complete, sign up for an account if you don’t already have one. If you do have an account you can login right away. Enter in your username, email address, and password then click Sign Up. You’ll get an confirmation email and need to activate the account before you can sign in. Once you’re all signed up, launch doubleTwist and you’ll be ready to start using it. doubleTwist Music The default music store is Amazon MP3 store which might appeal to those of you who are tired of the iTunes music store. A lot of times the music is cheaper and available at higher bit rates. You can start searching for music in the Amazon Music Store and previewing songs. To purchase anything though you will need to sign into your Amazon account. Under Playlists it allows you to import your playlists from iTunes and Windows Media Player, which is a handy feature if you don’t want to set them up again. Of course you can play your songs through the music player on your desktop. Devices One of the coolest things about doubleTwist is that it supports a lot of different portable media devices including iPod, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Android, PSP, Smartphones, and much more. Unfortunately for Zune users…there isn’t any support for the Zune of Zune HD yet. Here we have a Creative Zen attached and can sync songs, pictures, and podcasts. An HTC-S620 Smartphone running Windows Mobile… Even a simple USB drive will be recognized and you can transfer your media to it as well. Podcasts Finding your favorite audio and video podcasts is easy with the search feature. You can easily manage and subscribe to podcasts in the subscriptions section. You can watch the video podcasts directly in doubleTwist. Sharing Media Also you can share digital media with your friends or add it to Flickr and YouTube. You can send any pictures, videos, or music in your library to other people by dragging it over. You can email users individually… Or access contacts from your Gmail and Yahoo accounts. There is a limit to how much you can send of video podcasts… only the first 10 minutes. The person you send it to will get a link in their email that points to your My Feed page on the doubleTwist site. There they can access the media you sent…in this example it’s a video podcast but you can share any media. Other Features Under My Profile you can change your avatar and personal information. In Preferences you can choose where media is stored, its startup actions, podcast subscriptions, and manage device syncing. Conclusion It’s still in beta stage so expect some bugs, but overall doubleTwist is a solid media player that is easy to use with a clean interface. It’s simple and doesn’t try to do too much so is fairly easy on system resources. The main annoyance is it tries to catalog all of your media out of the box. Which may be alright for some users with smaller media collections, but very irritating to advanced users with large collections. Also there is currently no support for the Zune, but according to their forums, it’s on the way. At the time of this writing it’s in public beta and can be downloaded for XP, Vista, Windows 7 (32 & 64 bit), and Mac OSX. If you’re looking for an iTunes alternative that works with several different portable devices, you might want to give DoubleTwist a try. Download DoubleTwist Public Beta See If Your Media Device is Supported by doubleTwist Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips MusicBee is a Fast and Powerful Music ManagerAvoid the Apple QuickTime Bloat with QT LiteBeginner Geek: Set Default Programs in Windows 7 and VistaBeginner Geeks: OpenOffice is a Free Cross Platform Alternative to MS OfficeManage Devices the Easy Way with Device Stage in Windows 7 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Play Music in Chrome by Simply Dragging a File 15 Great Illustrations by Chow Hon Lam Easily Sync Files & Folders with Friends & Family Amazon Free Kindle for PC Download Stretch popurls.com with a Stylish Script (Firefox) OldTvShows.org – Find episodes of Hitchcock, Soaps, Game Shows and more

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2012 Oracle Fusion Innovation Awards - Part 2

- by Michelle Kimihira

Author: Moazzam Chaudry Continuing from Friday's blog on 2012 Oracle Fusion Innovation Awards, this blog (Part 2) will provide more details around the customers. It was a tremendous honor to be in single room of winners. We only wish we could have had more time to share stories from all the winners. We received great insight from all the innovative solutions that our customers deploy and would like to share them broadly, so that others can benefit from best practices. There was a customer panel session joined by Ingersoll Rand, Nike and Motability and here is what was discussed: Barry Bonar, Enterprise Architect from Ingersoll Rand shared details around their solution, comprised of Oracle Exalogic, Oracle WebLogic Server and Oracle SOA Suite. This combined solutoin enabled their business transformation to increase decision-making, speed and efficiency, resulting in 40% reduced IT spend, 41X Faster response time and huge cost savings. Ashok Balakrishnan, Architect from Nike shared how they leveraged Oracle Coherence to analyze their digital "footprint" of activities. This helps them compete, collaborate and compare athletic data over time. Lastly, Ashley Doodly, Head of IT from Motability shared details around their solution compromised of Oracle SOA Suite, Service Bus, ADF, Coherence, BO and E-Business Suite. This solution helped Motability achieve 100% ROI within the first few months, performance in seconds vs. 10's of minutes and tremendous improvement in throughput that increased up to 50%. This year's winners by category are: Oracle Exalogic Customer Results using Fusion Middleware Netshoes ATG on Exalogic: 6X Reduced H/W foot print, 6.2X increased throughput and 3 weeks time to market Claro Part of America Movil, running mission critical Java Application on Exalogic with 35X Faster Java response time, 5X Throughput Underwriters Laboratories Exalogic as an Apps Consolidation platform to power tremendous growth Ingersoll Rand EBS on Exalogic: Up to 40% Reduction in overall IT budget, 3x reduced foot print Oracle Cloud Application Foundation Customer Results using Fusion Middleware Mazda Motor Corporation Tuxedo ART Batch runtime environment to migrate their batch apps on new open environment and reduce main frame cost. HOTELBEDS Technology Open Source to WebLogic transformation Globalia Corporation Introduced Oracle Coherence to fully reengineer DTH system and provide multiple business and technical benefits Nike Nike+, digital sports platform, has 8M users and is expecting an 5X increase in users, many of who will carry multiple devices that frequently sync data with the Digital Sport platform Comcast Corporation The solution is expected to increase availability, continuity, performance, and simplify and make the code at the application layer more flexible. Oracle SOA and Oracle BPM Customer Results using Fusion Middleware NTT Docomo Network traffic solution based on Oracle event processing and coherence - massive in scale: 12M users (50M in future) - 800,000 events/sec. Schneider National, Inc. SOA/B2B/ADF/Data Integration to orchestrate key order processes across Siebel, OTM & EBS. Platform runs 60M trans/day and 50 million composite SOA instances per day across 10G and 11G Amadeus Oracle BPM solution: Business Rules and processes vary across local (80), regional (~10) and corporate approval process. Up to 10 levels of approval. Plans to deploy across 20+ markets Navitar SOA solution integrates a fully non-Oracle legacy application/ERP environment using Oracle’s SOA Suite and Oracle AIA Foundation Pack. Motability Uses SOA Suite to synchronize data across the systems and to manage the vehicle remarketing process Oracle WebCenter Customer Results using Fusion Middleware News Limited Single platform running websites for 50% of Australia's newspapers University of Louisville “Facebook for Medicine”: Oracle Webcenter platform and Oracle BIEE to analyze patient test data and uncover potential health issues. Expecting annualized ROI of 277% China Mobile Jiangsu Company portal (25k users) to drive collaboration & productivity Life Technologies Portal for remotely monitoring & repairing biotech instruments LA Dept. of Water & Power Oracle WebCenter Portal to power ladwp.com on desktop and mobile for 1.6million users Oracle Identity Management Customer Results using Fusion Middleware Education Testing Service Identity Management platform for provisioning & SSO of 6 million GRE, GMAT, TOEFL customers Avea Oracle Identity Manager allowing call center personnel to quickly change Identity Profile to handle varying call loads based on a user self service interface. Decreased Admin Cost by 30% Oracle Data Integration Customer Results using Fusion Middleware Raymond James Near real-time integration for improved systems (throughput & performance) and enhanced operational flexibility in a 24 X 7 environment Wm Morrison Supermarkets Electronic Point of Sale integration handling over 80 million transactions a day in near real time (15 min intervals) Oracle Application Development Framework and Oracle Fusion Development Customer Results using Fusion Middleware Qualcomm Incorporated Solution providing immediate business value enabling a self-service model necessary for growing the new customer base, an increase in customer satisfaction, reduced “time-to-deliver” Micros Systems, Inc. ADF, SOA Suite, WebCenter enables services that include managing distribution of hotel rooms availability and rates to channels such as Hotel Web-site, Expedia, etc. Marfin Egnatia Bank A new web 2.0 UI provides a much richer experience through the ADF solution with the end result being one of boosting end-user productivity Business Analytics (Oracle BI, Oracle EPM, Oracle Exalytics) Customer Results using Fusion Middleware INC Research Self-service customer portal delivering 5–10% of the overall revenue - expected to grow fast with the BI solution Experian Reduction in Time to Complete the Financial Close Process Hologic Inc Solution, saving months of decision-making uncertainty! We look forward to seeing many more innovative nominations. The nominatation process for 2013 begins in April 2013. Additional Information: Blog: Oracle WebCenter Award Winners Blog: Oracle Identity Management Winners Blog: Oracle Exalogic Winners Blog: SOA, BPM and Data Integration will be will feature award winners in its respective areas this week Subscribe to our regular Fusion Middleware Newsletter Follow us on Twitter and Facebook

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A Quick Primer on SharePoint Customization

- by PeterBrunone

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} This one goes out to all the people who have been asked to change the way a SharePoint site looks. Management wants to know how long it will take, and you can whip that out by tomorrow, right? If you don't have time to prepare a treatise on what's involved, or if you just want to lend some extra weight to your case by quoting a blogger who was an MVP for seven years, then dive right in; this post is for you. There are three main components of SharePoint visual customization: 1) Theme – A theme encompasses all the standardized text formatting and coloring (borders, fonts, etc), including the background images of various sections. All told, there could be around 50 images involved, and a few hundred CSS (style) classes. Installing a theme once it’s been created is no great feat. Given the number of pieces, of course, creating a new theme could take anywhere from a day to a week… once decisions have been made about the desired appearance. 2) Master Page – A master page provides the framework for page layout. This includes all the top and side menus, where content shows up, et cetera. Master pages have been around for a long time in ASP.NET (Microsoft’s web development platform), and they do require some .NET programming knowledge. Beyond that, in SharePoint, there are a few dozen controls which the system expects find on a given page. They’re not all used at once, but if they’re not there when they’re needed, chaos ensues. Estimating a custom master page is difficult, as it depends on the level of customization. I’ve been on projects where I was brought in simply to fix some problems and add a few finishing touches, and it took 2-3 weeks. Master page customization requires a large amount of testing time to make sure that the HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and control placement all work well together. 3) Individual page layout – Each page (ideally) uses a master page for its template, but within the content areas defined by the master page, web parts can be added, removed, and configured from within the browser. The wireframe that Brent provided could most likely be completed simply by manipulating the content on the home page in this fashion, and we had allowed about a day of effort for the task. If needed, further functionality can be provided by an experienced ASP.NET developer; custom forms are a common example. This of course is a bit more in-depth than simple content manipulation and could take several days per page (or more; there’s really no way to quantify this without a set of requirements). That’s basically it. To recap: Fonts and coloring are done with themes, and can take anywhere from a day to a week to create (not counting creative time); required technical skills include HTML, CSS, and image manipulation. Templated layout is done with master pages, and generally requires a developer familiar with both ASP.NET and SharePoint in particular; it can have far-reaching consequences depending on the complexity of the changes, and could add weeks or months to a project. Page layout can be as simple as content manipulation in the web browser, taking a few hours per page, or it can involve more detail, like custom forms, and can require programming expertise and significantly more development time.

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A new SQL, a new Analysis Services, a new Workshop! #ssas #sql2012

- by Marco Russo (SQLBI)

One week ago Microsoft SQL Server 2012 finally debuted with a virtual launch event and you can find many intro sessions there (20 minutes each). There is a lot of new content available if you want to learn more about SQL 2012 and in this blog post I’d like to provide a few link to sessions, documents, bits and courses that are available now or very soon. First of all, the release of Analysis Services 2012 has finally released PowerPivot 2012 (many of us called it PowerPivot v2 before this official name) and also the new Data Mining Add-in for Microsoft Office 2010, now available also for Excel 64bit! And, of course, don’t miss the Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Feature Pack, there are a lot of upgrades for both DBAs and developers. I just discovered there is a new LocalDB version of SQL Express that can run in user mode without any setup. Is this the end of SQL CE? But now, back to Analysis Services: if you want some tutorial on Tabular, the Microsoft Virtual Academy has a whole track dedicated to Analysis Services 2012 but you will probably be interested also in the one about Reporting Services 2012. If you think that virtual is good but it’s not enough, there are plenty of conferences in the coming months – these are just those where I and Alberto will deliver some SSAS Tabular presentations: SQLBits X, London, March 29-31, 2012: if you are in London or want a good reason to go, this is the most important SQL Server event in Europe this year, no doubts about it. And not only because of the high number of attendees, but also because there is an impressive number of speakers (excluding me, of course) coming from all over the world. This is an event second only to PASS Summit in Seattle so there are no good reasons to not attend it. Microsoft SQL Server & Business Intelligence Conference 2012, Milan, March 28-29, 2012: this is an Italian conference so the language might be a barrier, but many of us also speak English and the food is good! Just a few seats still available. TechEd North America, Orlando, June 11-14, 2012: you know, this is a big event and it contains everything – if you want to spend a whole day learning the SSAS Tabular model with me and Alberto, don’t miss our pre-conference day “Using BISM Tabular in Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services 2012” (be careful, it is on June 10, a nice study-Sunday!). TechEd Europe, Amsterdam, June 26-29, 2012: the European version of TechEd provides almost the same content and you don’t have to go overseas. We also run the same pre-conference day “Using BISM Tabular in Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services 2012” (in this case, it is on June 25, that’s a regular Monday). I and Alberto will also speak at some user group meeting around Europe during… well, we’re going to travel a lot in the next months. In fact, if you want to get a complete training on SSAS Tabular, you should spend two days with us in one of our SSAS Tabular Workshop! We prepared a 2-day seminar, a very intense one, that start from the simple tabular modeling and cover architecture, DAX, query, advanced modeling, security, deployment, optimization, monitoring, relationships with PowerPivot and Multidimensional… Really, there are a lot of stuffs here! We announced the first dates in Europe and also an online edition optimized for America’s time zone: Apr 16-17, 2012 – Amsterdam, Netherlands Apr 26-27, 2012 – Copenhagen, Denmark May 7-8, 2012 – Online for America’s time zone May 14-15, 2012 – Brussels, Belgium May 21-22, 2012 – Oslo, Norway May 24-25, 2012 – Stockholm, Sweden May 28-29, 2012 – London, United Kingdom May 31-Jun 1, 2012 – Milan, Italy (Italian language) Also Chris Webb will join us in this workshop and in every date you can find who is the speaker on the web site. The course is based on our upcoming book, almost 600 pages (!) about SSAS Tabular, an incredible effort that will be available very soon in a preview (rough cuts from O’Reilly) and will be on the shelf in May. I will provide a link to order it as soon as we have one! And if you think that this is not enough… you’re right! Do you know what is the only thing you can do to optimize your Tabular model? Optimize your DAX code. Learning DAX is easy, mastering DAX requires some knowledge… and our DAX Advanced Workshop will provide exactly the required content. Public classes will be available later this year, by now we just deliver it on demand.

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Change the Default Font Size in Word

- by Matthew Guay

Are you frustrated by always having to change the font size before you create a document it Word? Here’s how you can end that frustration and set your favorite default font size for once and for all! Microsoft changed the default font font to 11 point Calibri in Word 2007 after years of 12 point Times New Roman being the default. Although it can be easily overlooked, there are ways in Word to change the default settings to anything you want. Whether you want to change your default to 12 point Calibri or to 48 point Comic Sans…here’s how to change your default font settings in Word 2007 and 2010. Changing Default Fonts in Word To change the default font settings, click the small box with an arrow in the right left corner of the Font section of the Home tab in the Ribbon. In the Font dialog box, choose the default font settings you want. Notice in the Font box it says “+Body”; this means that the font will be chosen by the document style you choose, and you are only selecting the default font style and size. So, if your style uses Calibri, then your font will be Calibri at the size and style you chose. If you’d prefer to choose a specific font to be the default, just select one from the drop-down box and this selection will override the font selection in your document style. Here we left all the default settings, except we selected 12 point font in the Latin text box (this is your standard body text; users of Asian languages such as Chinese may see a box for Asian languages). When you’ve made your selections, click the “Set as Default” button in the bottom left corner of the dialog. You will be asked to confirm that you want these settings to be made default. In Word 2010, you will be given the option to set these settings for this document only or for all documents. Click the bullet beside “All documents based on the Normal.dotm template?”, and then click Ok. In Word 2007, simply click Ok to save these settings as default. Now, whenever you open Word or create a new document, your default font settings should be set exactly to what you want. And simply repeat these steps to change your default font settings again if you want. Editing your default template file Another way to change your default font settings is to edit your Normal.dotm file. This file is what Word uses to create new documents; it basically copies the formatting in this document each time you make a new document. To edit your Normal.dotm file, enter the following in the address bar in Explorer or in the Run prompt: %appdata%\Microsoft\Templates This will open your Office Templates folder. Right-click on the Normal.dotm file, and click Open to edit it. Note: Do not double-click on the file, as this will only create a new document based on Normal.dotm and any edits you make will not be saved in this file. Now, change any font settings as you normally would. Remember: anything you change or enter in this document will appear in any new document you create using Word. If you want to revert to your default settings, simply delete your Normal.dotm file. Word will recreate it with the standard default settings the next time you open Word. Please Note: Changing your default font size will not change the font size in existing documents, so these will still show the settings you used when these documents were created. Also, some addins can affect your Normal.dotm template. If Word does not seem to remember your font settings, try disabling Word addins to see if this helps. Conclusion Sometimes it’s the small things that can be the most frustrating. Getting your default font settings the way you want is a great way to take away a frustration and make you more productive. And here’s a quick question: Do you prefer the new default 11 point Calibri, or do you prefer 12 point Times New Roman or some other combination? Sound off in the comments, and let the world know your favorite font settings. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Change the Default Font in Excel 2007Add Emphasis to Paragraphs with Drop Caps in Word 2007Keep Websites From Using Tiny Fonts in SafariMake Word 2007 Always Save in Word 2003 FormatStupid Geek Tricks: Enable More Fonts for the Windows Command Prompt TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Spyware Blaster v4.3 Yes, it’s Patch Tuesday Generate Stunning Tag Clouds With Tagxedo Install, Remove and HIDE Fonts in Windows 7 Need Help with Your Home Network? Awesome Lyrics Finder for Winamp & Windows Media Player

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