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How to begin? Windows 8 Development

- by Dennis Vroegop

Ok. I convinced you in my last post to do some Win8 development. You want a piece of that cake, or whatever your reasons may be. Good! Welcome to the club! Now let me ask you a question: what are you going to write? Ah. That’s the big one, isn’t it? What indeed? If you have been creating applications for computers before you’re in for quite a shock. The way people perceive apps on a tablet is quite different from what we know as applications. There’s a reason we call them apps instead of applications! Yes, technically they are applications but we don’t call them apps only because it sounds cool. The abbreviated form of the word applications itself is a pointer. Apps are small. Apps are focused. Apps are more lightweight. Apps do one thing but they do that one thing extremely good. In the ‘old’ days we wrote huge systems. We build ecosystems of services, screens, databases and more to create a system that provides value for the user. Think about it: what application do you use most at work? Can you in one sentence describe what it is, or what it does and yet still distinctively describe its purpose? I doubt you can. Let’s have a look at Outlouk. We all know it and we all love or hate it. But what is it? A mail program? No, there’s so much more there: calendar, contacts, RSS feeds and so on. Some call it a ‘collaboration’ application but that’s not really true as well. After all, why should a collaboration application give me my schedule for the day? I think the best way to describe Outlook is “client for Exchange” although that isn’t accurate either. Anyway: Outlook is a great application but it’s not an ‘app’ and therefor not very suitable for WinRT. Ok. Disclaimer here: yes, you can write big applications for WinRT. Some will. But that’s not what 99.9% of the developers will do. So I am stating here that big applications are not meant for WinRT. If 0.01% of the developers think that this is nonsense then they are welcome to go ahead but for the majority here this is not what we’re talking about. So: Apps are small, lightweight and good at what they do but only at that. If you’re a Phone developer you already know that: Phone apps on any platform fit the description I have above. If you’ve ever worked in a large cooperation before you might have seen one of these before: the Mission Statement. It’s supposed to be a oneliner that sums up what the company is supposed to do. Funny enough: although this doesn’t work for large companies it does work for defining your app. A mission statement for an app describes what it does. If it doesn’t fit in the mission statement then your app is going to get to big and will fail. A statement like this should be in the following style “<your app name> is the best app to <describe single task>” Fill in the blanks, write it and go! Mmm.. not really. There are some things there we need to think about. But the statement is a very, very important one. If you cannot fit your app in that line you’re preparing to fail. Your app will become to big, its purpose will be unclear and it will be hard to use. People won’t download it and those who do will give it a bad rating therefor preventing that huge success you’ve been dreaming about. Stick to the statement! Ok, let’s give it a try: “PlanesAreCool” is the best app to do planespotting in the field. You might have seen these people along runways of airports: taking photographs of airplanes and noting down their numbers and arrival- and departure times. We are going to help them out with our great app! If you look at the statement, can you guess what it does? I bet you can. If you find out it isn’t clear enough of if it’s too broad, refine it. This is probably the most important step in the development of your app so give it enough time! So. We’ve got the statement. Print it out, stick it to the wall and look at it. What does it tell you? If you see this, what do you think the app does? Write that down. Sit down with some friends and talk about it. What do they expect from an app like this? Write that down as well. Brainstorm. Make a list of features. This is mine: Note planes Look up aircraft carriers Add pictures of that plane Look up airfields Notify friends of new spots Look up details of a type of plane Plot a graph with arrival and departure times Share new spots on social media Look up history of a particular aircraft Compare your spots with friends Write down arrival times Write down departure times Write down wind conditions Write down the runway they take Look up weather conditions for next spotting day Invite friends to join you for a day of spotting. Now, I must make it clear that I am not a planespotter nor do I know what one does. So if the above list makes no sense, I apologize. There is a lesson: write apps for stuff you know about…. First of all, let’s look at our statement and then go through the list of features. Remove everything that has nothing to do with that statement! If you end up with an empty list, try again with both steps. Note planes Look up aircraft carriers Add pictures of that plane Look up airfields Notify friends of new spots Look up details of a type of plane Plot a graph with arrival and departure times Share new spots on social media Look up history of a particular aircraft Compare your spots with friends Write down arrival times Write down departure times Write down wind conditions Write down the runway they take Look up weather conditions for next spotting day Invite friends to join you for a day of spotting. That's better. The things I removed could be pretty useful to a plane spotter and could be fun to write. But do they match the statement? I said that the app is for spotting in the field, so “look up airfields” doesn’t belong there: I know where I am so why look it up? And the same goes for inviting friends or looking up the weather conditions for tomorrow. I am at the airfield right now, looking through my binoculars at the planes. I know the weather now and I don’t care about tomorrow. If you feel the items you’ve crossed out are valuable, then why not write another app? One that says “SpotNoter” is the best app for preparing a day of spotting with my friends. That’s a different app! Remember: Win8 apps are small and very good at doing ONE thing, and one thing only! If you have made that list, it’s time to prepare the navigation of your app. The navigation is how users see your app and how they use it. We’ll do that next time!

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Why JSF Matters (to You)

- by reza_rahman

"Those who have knowledge, don’t predict. Those who predict, don’t have knowledge." – Lao Tzu You may have noticed Thoughtworks recently crowned the likes AngularJS, etc imminent successors to server-side web frameworks. They apparently also deemed it necessary to single out JSF for righteous scorn. I have to say as I was reading the analysis I couldn't help but remember they also promptly jumped on the Ruby, Rails, Clojure, etc bandwagon a good few years ago seemingly similarly crowing these dynamic languages imminent successors to Java. I remember thinking then as I do now whether the folks at Thoughtworks are really that much smarter than me or if they are simply more prone to the Hipster buzz of the day. I'll let you make the final call on that one. I also noticed mention of "J2EE" in the context of JSF and had to wonder how up-to-date or knowledgeable the person writing the analysis actually was given that the term was basically retired almost a decade ago. There's one thing that I am absolutely sure about though - as a long time pretty happy user of JSF, I had no choice but to speak up on what I believe JSF offers. If you feel the same way, I would encourage you to support the team behind JSF whose hard work you may have benefited from over the years. True to his outspoken character PrimeFaces lead Cagatay Civici certainly did not mince words making the case for the JSF ecosystem - his excellent write-up is well worth a read. He specifically pointed out the practical problems in going whole hog with bare metal JavaScript, CSS, HTML for many development teams. I'll admit I had to smile when I read his closing sentence as well as the rather cheerful comments to the post from actual current JSF/PrimeFaces users that are apparently supposed to be on a gloomy death march. In a similar vein, OmniFaces developer Arjan Tijms did a great job pointing out the fact that despite the extremely competitive server-side Java Web UI space, JSF seems to manage to always consistently come out in either the number one or number two spot over many years and many data sources - do give his well-written message in the JAX-RS user forum a careful read. I don't think it's really reasonable to expect this to be the case for so many years if JSF was not at least a capable if not outstanding technology. If fact if you've ever wondered, Oracle itself is one of the largest JSF users on the planet. As Oracle's Shay Shmeltzer explains in a recent JSF Central interview, many of Oracle's strategic products such as ADF, ADF Mobile and Fusion Applications itself is built on JSF. There are well over 3,000 active developers working on these codebases. I don't think anyone can think of a more compelling reason to make sure that a technology is as effective as possible for practical development under real world conditions. Standing on the shoulders of the above giants, I feel like I can be pretty brief in making my own case for JSF: JSF is a powerful abstraction that brings the original Smalltalk MVC pattern to web development. This means cutting down boilerplate code to the bare minimum such that you really can think of just writing your view markup and then simply wire up some properties and event handlers on a POJO. The best way to see what this really means is to compare JSF code for a pretty small case to other approaches. You should then multiply the additional work for the typical enterprise project to try to understand what the productivity trade-offs are. This is reason alone for me to personally never take any other approach seriously as my primary web UI solution unless it can match the sheer productivity of JSF. Thanks to JSF's focus on components from the ground-up JSF has an extremely strong ecosystem that includes projects like PrimeFaces, RichFaces, OmniFaces, ICEFaces and of course ADF Faces/Mobile. These component libraries taken together constitute perhaps the largest widget set ever developed and optimized for a single web UI technology. To begin to grasp what this really means, just briefly browse the excellent PrimeFaces showcase and think about the fact that you can readily use the widgets on that showcase by just using some simple markup and knowing near to nothing about AJAX, JavaScript or CSS. JSF has the fair and legitimate advantage of being an open vendor neutral standard. This means that no single company, individual or insular clique controls JSF - openness, transparency, accountability, plurality, collaboration and inclusiveness is virtually guaranteed by the standards process itself. You have the option to choose between compatible implementations, escape any form of lock-in or even create your own compatible implementation! As you might gather from the quote at the top of the post, I am not a fan of crystal ball gazing and certainly don't want to engage in it myself. Who knows? However far-fetched it may seem maybe AngularJS is the only future we all have after all. If that is the case, so be it. Unlike what you might have been told, Java EE is about choice at heart and it can certainly work extremely well as a back-end for AngularJS. Likewise, you are also most certainly not limited to just JSF for working with Java EE - you have a rich set of choices like Struts 2, Vaadin, Errai, VRaptor 4, Wicket or perhaps even the new action-oriented web framework being considered for Java EE 8 based on the work in Jersey MVC... Please note that any views expressed here are my own only and certainly does not reflect the position of Oracle as a company.

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REST to Objects in C#

RESTful interfaces for web services are all the rage for many Web 2.0 sites. If you want to consume these in a very simple fashion, LINQ to XML can do the job pretty easily in C#. If you go searching for help on this, youll find a lot of incomplete solutions and fairly large toolkits and frameworks (guess how I know this) this quick article is meant to be a no fluff just stuff approach to making this work. POCO Objects Lets assume you have a Model that you want to suck data into from a RESTful web service. Ideally this is a Plain Old CLR Object, meaning it isnt infected with any persistence or serialization goop. It might look something like this: public class Entry { public int Id; public int UserId; public DateTime Date; public float Hours; public string Notes; public bool Billable; public override string ToString() { return String.Format("[{0}] User: {1} Date: {2} Hours: {3} Notes: {4} Billable {5}", Id, UserId, Date, Hours, Notes, Billable); } } Not that this isnt a completely trivial object. Lets look at the API for the service. RESTful HTTP Service In this case, its TickSpots API, with the following sample output: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <entries type="array"> <entry> <id type="integer">24</id> <task_id type="integer">14</task_id> <user_id type="integer">3</user_id> <date type="date">2008-03-08</date> <hours type="float">1.00</hours> <notes>Had trouble with tribbles.</notes> <billable>true</billable> # Billable is an attribute inherited from the task <billed>true</billed> # Billed is an attribute to track whether the entry has been invoiced <created_at type="datetime">Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:46:16 -0400</created_at> <updated_at type="datetime">Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:46:16 -0400</updated_at> # The following attributes are derived and provided for informational purposes: <user_email>[email protected]</user_email> <task_name>Remove converter assembly</task_name> <sum_hours type="float">2.00</sum_hours> <budget type="float">10.00</budget> <project_name>Realign dilithium crystals</project_name> <client_name>Starfleet Command</client_name> </entry> </entries> Im assuming in this case that I dont necessarily care about all of the data fields the service is returning I just need some of them for my applications purposes. Thus, you can see there are more elements in the <entry> XML than I have in my Entry class. Get The XML with C# The next step is to get the XML. The following snippet does the heavy lifting once you pass it the appropriate URL: protected XElement GetResponse(string uri) { var request = WebRequest.Create(uri) as HttpWebRequest; request.UserAgent = ".NET Sample"; request.KeepAlive = false; request.Timeout = 15 * 1000; var response = request.GetResponse() as HttpWebResponse; if (request.HaveResponse == true && response != null) { var reader = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream()); return XElement.Parse(reader.ReadToEnd()); } throw new Exception("Error fetching data."); } This is adapted from the Yahoo Developer article on Web Service REST calls. Once you have the XML, the last step is to get the data back as your POCO. Use LINQ-To-XML to Deserialize POCOs from XML This is done via the following code: public IEnumerable<Entry> List(DateTime startDate, DateTime endDate) { string additionalParameters = String.Format("start_date={0}&end_date={1}", startDate.ToShortDateString(), endDate.ToShortDateString()); string uri = BuildUrl("entries", additionalParameters); XElement elements = GetResponse(uri); var entries = from e in elements.Elements() where e.Name.LocalName == "entry" select new Entry { Id = int.Parse(e.Element("id").Value), UserId = int.Parse(e.Element("user_id").Value), Date = DateTime.Parse(e.Element("date").Value), Hours = float.Parse(e.Element("hours").Value), Notes = e.Element("notes").Value, Billable = bool.Parse(e.Element("billable").Value) }; return entries; } For completeness, heres the BuildUrl method for my TickSpot API wrapper: // Change these to your settings protected const string projectDomain = "DOMAIN.tickspot.com"; private const string authParams = "[email protected]&password=MyTickSpotPassword"; protected string BuildUrl(string apiMethod, string additionalParams) { if (projectDomain.Contains("DOMAIN")) { throw new ApplicationException("You must update your domain in ProjectRepository.cs."); } if (authParams.Contains("MyTickSpotPassword")) { throw new ApplicationException("You must update your email and password in ProjectRepository.cs."); } return string.Format("https://{0}/api/{1}?{2}&{3}", projectDomain, apiMethod, authParams, additionalParams); } Thats it! Now go forth and consume XML and map it to classes you actually want to work with. Have fun! 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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At times, you need to hire a professional.

- by Phil Factor

After months of increasingly demanding toil, the development team I belonged to was told that the project was to be canned and the whole team would be fired. I’d been brought into the team as an expert in the data implications of a business re-engineering of a major financial institution. Nowadays, you’d call me a data architect, I suppose. I’d spent a happy year being paid consultancy fees solving a succession of interesting problems until the point when the company lost is nerve, and closed the entire initiative. The IT industry was in one of its characteristic mood-swings downwards. After the announcement, we met in the canteen. A few developers had scented the smell of death around the project already hand had been applying unsuccessfully for jobs. There was a sense of doom in the mass of dishevelled and bleary-eyed developers. After giving vent to anger and despair, talk turned to getting new employment. It was then that I perked up. I’m not an obvious choice to give advice on getting, or passing, IT interviews. I reckon I’ve failed most of the job interviews I’ve ever attended. I once even failed an interview for a job I’d already been doing perfectly well for a year. The jobs I’ve got have mostly been from personal recommendation. Paradoxically though, from years as a manager trying to recruit good staff, I know a lot about what IT managers are looking for. I gave an impassioned speech outlining the important factors in getting to an interview. The most important thing, certainly in my time at work is the quality of the résumé or CV. I can’t even guess the huge number of CVs (résumés) I’ve read through, scanning for candidates worth interviewing. Many IT Developers find it impossible to describe their career succinctly on two sides of paper. They leave chunks of their life out (were they in prison?), get immersed in detail, put in irrelevancies, describe what was going on at work rather than what they themselves did, exaggerate their importance, criticize their previous employers, aren’t aware of the important aspects of a role to a potential employer, suffer from shyness and modesty, and lack any sort of organized perspective of their work. There are many ways of failing to write a decent CV. Many developers suffer from the delusion that their worth can be recognized purely from the code that they write, and shy away from anything that seems like self-aggrandizement. No. A resume must make a good impression, which means presenting the facts about yourself in a clear and positive way. You can’t do it yourself. Why not have your resume professionally written? A good professional CV Writer will know the qualities being looked for in a CV and interrogate you to winkle them out. Their job is to make order and sense out of a confused career, to summarize in one page a mass of detail that presents to any recruiter the information that’s wanted. To stand back and describe an accurate summary of your skills, and work-experiences dispassionately, without rancor, pity or modesty. You are no more capable of producing an objective documentation of your career than you are of taking your own appendix out. My next recommendation was more controversial. This is to have a professional image overhaul, or makeover, followed by a professionally-taken photo portrait. I discovered this by accident. It is normal for IT professionals to face impossible deadlines and long working hours by looking more and more like something that had recently blocked a sink. Whilst working in IT, and in a state of personal dishevelment, I’d been offered the role in a high-powered amateur production of an old ex- Broadway show, purely for my singing voice. I was supposed to be the presentable star. When the production team saw me, the air was thick with tension and despair. I was dragged kicking and protesting through a succession of desperate grooming, scrubbing, dressing, dieting. I emerged feeling like “That jewelled mass of millinery, That oiled and curled Assyrian bull, Smelling of musk and of insolence.” (Tennyson Maud; A Monodrama (1855) Section v1 stanza 6) I was then photographed by a professional stage photographer. When the photographs were delivered, I was amazed. It wasn’t me, but it looked somehow respectable, confident, trustworthy. A while later, when the show had ended, I took the photos, and used them for work. They went with the CV to job applications. It did the trick better than I could ever imagine. My views went down big with the developers. Old rivalries were put immediately to one side. We voted, with a show of hands, to devote our energies for the entire notice period to getting employable. We had a team sourcing the CV Writer, a team organising the make-overs and photographer, and a third team arranging mock interviews. A fourth team determined the best websites and agencies for recruitment, with the help of friends in the trade. Because there were around thirty developers, we were in a good negotiating position. Of the three CV Writers we found who lived locally, one proved exceptional. She was an ex-journalist with an eye to detail, and years of experience in manipulating language. We tried her skills out on a developer who seemed a hopeless case, and he was called to interview within a week. I was surprised, too, how many companies were experts at image makeovers. Within the month, we all looked like those weird slick people in the ‘Office-tagged’ stock photographs who stare keenly and interestedly at PowerPoint slides in sleek chromium-plated high-rise offices. The portraits we used still adorn the entries of many of my ex-colleagues in LinkedIn. After a months’ worth of mock interviews, and technical Q&A, our stutters, hesitations, evasions and periphrastic circumlocutions were all gone. There is little more to relate. With the résumés or CVs, mugshots, and schooling in how to pass interviews, we’d all got new and better-paid jobs well before our month’s notice was ended. Whilst normally, an IT team under the axe is a sad and depressed place to belong to, this wonderful group of people had proved the power of organized group action in turning the experience to advantage. It left us feeling slightly guilty that we were somehow cheating, but I guess we were merely leveling the playing-field.

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How to Plug a Small Hole in NetBeans JSF (Join Table) Code Generation

- by MarkH

I was asked recently to provide an assist with designing and building a small-but-vital application that had at its heart some basic CRUD (Create, Read, Update, & Delete) functionality, built upon an Oracle database, to be accessible from various locations. Working from the stated requirements, I fleshed out the basic application and database designs and, once validated, set out to complete the first iteration for review. Using SQL Developer, I created the requisite tables, indices, and sequences for our first run. One of the tables was a many-to-many join table with three fields: one a primary key for that table, the other two being primary keys for the other tables, represented as foreign keys in the join table. Here is a simplified example of the trio of tables: Once the database was in decent shape, I fired up NetBeans to let it have first shot at the code. NetBeans does a great job of generating a mountain of essential code, saving developers what must be millions of hours of effort each year by building a basic foundation with a few clicks and keystrokes. Lest you think it (or any tool) can do everything for you, however, occasionally something tosses a paper clip into the delicate machinery and makes you open things up to fix them. Join tables apparently qualify. :-) In the case above, the entity class generated for the join table (New Entity Classes from Database) included an embedded object consisting solely of the two foreign key fields as attributes, in addition to an object referencing each one of the "component" tables. The Create page generated (New JSF Pages from Entity Classes) worked well to a point, but when trying to save, we were greeted with an error: Transaction aborted. Hmm. A quick debugger session later and I'd identified the issue: when trying to persist the new join-table object, the embedded "foreign-keys-only" object still had null values for its two (required value) attributes...even though the embedded table objects had populated key attributes. Here's the simple fix: In the join-table controller class, find the public String create() method. It will look something like this: public String create() { try { getFacade().create(current); JsfUtil.addSuccessMessage(ResourceBundle.getBundle("/Bundle").getString("JoinEntityCreated")); return prepareCreate(); } catch (Exception e) { JsfUtil.addErrorMessage(e, ResourceBundle.getBundle("/Bundle").getString("PersistenceErrorOccured")); return null; } } To restore balance to the force, modify the create() method as follows (changes in red): public String create() { try { // Add the next two lines to resolve: current.getJoinEntityPK().setTbl1id(current.getTbl1().getId().toBigInteger()); current.getJoinEntityPK().setTbl2id(current.getTbl2().getId().toBigInteger()); getFacade().create(current); JsfUtil.addSuccessMessage(ResourceBundle.getBundle("/Bundle").getString("JoinEntityCreated")); return prepareCreate(); } catch (Exception e) { JsfUtil.addErrorMessage(e, ResourceBundle.getBundle("/Bundle").getString("PersistenceErrorOccured")); return null; } } I'll be refactoring this code shortly, but for now, it works. Iteration one is complete and being reviewed, and we've met the milestone. Here's to happy endings (and customers)! All the best,Mark

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Are you reporting Visual Studio 2012 issues to Microsoft correctly?

- by Tarun Arora

Issues you may run into while using Visual Studio need to be reported to the Microsoft Product Team via the Microsoft connect site. The Microsoft team then tries to reproduce the issue using the details provided by you. If the information you provide isn’t sufficient to reproduce the issue the team tries to contact you for specifics, this not only increases the cycle time to resolution but the lack of communication also results in issues not being resolved. So, when I report an issue one part of me tells me to include as much detail about the issue as I can clubbing screen shots, repo steps, system information, visual studio version information,… the other half tells me this is so time consuming, leave it for now and come back to fill all these details later. Reporting a bug but not including the supporting information is an invitation to excuses like … Microsoft has absolutely changed this experience for VS 2012. The Microsoft Visual Studio Feedback tool is designed to simplify the process of providing feedback and reporting issues to Microsoft that you may encounter while using Microsoft Visual Studio 2012. Note – The Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 Feedback client currently only works for VS 2012 and not any other versions of Visual Studio. Setting up the Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 Feedback client Open Visual Studio, from the Tools menu select Extension and Updates. In the Extension and Updates window, click Online from the left pane and search using the text ‘feedback’, download and Install Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 Feedback Tool by following the instructions from the wizard. Note - Restarting Visual Studio after the install is a must! How to report a bug for Visual Studio 2012? Click on the Help menu and choose Report a Bug You should see an icon Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 Feedback Tool come up in the system tray icon area You’ll need to accept the Privacy statement. You have the option of reporting the feedback as private or public. Microsoft works with several Partners, MVP’s and Vendors who get access to early bits of Microsoft products for valuation. This is where it becomes essential to report the feedback privately. I would choose the Public option otherwise. After all if it’s out there in the public, others can discover and add to it easily. You now have the option to report a new issue or add to an existing issue. Should you choose to add to an existing issue you should have the feedback ID of the issue available. This can be obtained from the Microsoft Connect site. For now I am going to focus on reporting a new feedback privately. Filling out the feedback details You will notice that VsInfo.xml and DxDiagOutput.txt are automatically attached as you enter this screen (more on that later). Feedback Type Choose the feedback type from (Performance, Hang, Crash, Other) Note – The record button will only be enabled once you have enabled once you have chosen the feedback type, Bug-repro recording is not available for Windows Server 2008. Effective Title and Description Enter a title that helps us differentiate the bug when it appears in a list, so that we can group it with any related bugs, assign it to a developer more effectively, and resolve it more quickly. Example: Imagine that you are submitting a bug because you tried to install Service Pack 1 and got a message that Visual Studio is not installed even though it is. Helpful: Installed Visual Studio version not detected during Service Pack 1 setup. Not helpful: Service Pack 1 problem. Tip: Write the problem description first, and then distil it to create a title. Example Description: Helpful: When I run Service Pack 1 Setup, I get the message "No Visual Studio version is detected" even though I have Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate and Visual C++ 2010 Express installed on my machine. Even though I uninstalled both editions, and then first reinstalled Ultimate and then Express, I still get the message. Record: Becoming a first class citizen Often a repro report is invaluable to describe and decipher the issue. Please use this feature to send actionable feedback. The record repro feature works differently depending on the feedback type you selected. Please find below details for each recording option. You can start recording simply by selecting a feedback type, and clicking on the “Record” button. When "Performance" is the bug type: When the Microsoft Visual Studio trace recorder starts, perform the actions that show the performance problem you want to report and then click on the "Stop Recording" button as soon as you experience the performance problem. Because the tool optimizes trace collection, you can run it for as long as it takes to show the problem, up to two hours. Note that, you need to stop recording as soon as the performance issue occurs, because the tool captures only the last couple minutes of your actions to optimize the trace collection. After you stop the recording, the tool takes up to two minutes to assemble the data and attach an ETLTrace.zip file to your bug report. The data includes information about Windows events and the Visual Studio code path. Note that, running the Microsoft Visual Studio trace recorder requires elevated user privilege. When "Crash" is the bug type: When the dialog box appears, select the running Visual Studio instance for which you want to show the steps that cause a crash. When the crash occurs, click on the "Stop Record" button. After you do this, two files are attached to your bug report - an AutomaticCrashDump.zip file that contains information about the crash and a ReproSteps.zip file that shows the repro steps. Repro steps are captured by Windows Problem Steps Recorder. Note that, you can pause the recording, and resume later, or for a specific step, you can add additional comments. When "Hang" is the bug type: The process for recording the steps that cause a hang resembles the one for crashes. The difference is, you can even collect a dump file after the VS hangs; start the VSFT either from the system tray or by starting a new instance of VS, select "Hang" as feedback type and click on the "Record" button. You will be prompted which VS to collect dump about, select the VS instance that hanged. VSFT collects a dump file regarding the hang, called MiniDump.zip, and attaches to your bug report. When "Other" is the bug type: When the problem step recorder starts, perform the actions that show the issue you want to report and then choose the "Stop” button. You can pause the recording, and resume later, or for a specific step, you can add additional comments. Once you’re done, ReproSteps.zip is added to your bug report. Pre-attached files It is essential for Microsoft to know what version of the the product are you currently using and what is the current configuration of your system. Note – The total size of all attachments in a bug report cannot exceed 2 GB, and every uncompressed attachment must be smaller than 512 MB. We recommend that you assemble all of your attachments, compress them together into a .zip file, and then attach the .zip file. Taking a screenshot Associate a screen shot by clicking the Take screenshot button, choose either the entire desktop, the specific monitor (useful if you are working in a multi monitor configuration) or the specific window in question. And finally … click Submit If you need further help, more details can be found here. You can view your feedback online by using the following URL “">https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/SearchResults.aspx?SearchQuery=<feedbackId>” Happy bug logging

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Can't get the L2TP IPSEC up and running

- by Maciej Swic

i have an Ubuntu 11.10 (oneiric) server running on a ReadyNAS. Im planning to use this to accept ipsec+l2tp connections through a router. However, the connection is failing somewhere half through. Using Openswan IPsec U2.6.28/K3.0.0-12-generic and trying to connect with an iOS 5 iPhone 4S. This is how far i can get: auth.log: Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: added connection description "PSK" Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: added connection description "L2TP-PSK-NAT" Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: added connection description "L2TP-PSK-noNAT" Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: added connection description "passthrough-for-non-l2tp" Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: listening for IKE messages Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: NAT-Traversal: Trying new style NAT-T Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: NAT-Traversal: ESPINUDP(1) setup failed for new style NAT-T family IPv4 (errno=19) Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: NAT-Traversal: Trying old style NAT-T Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: adding interface eth0/eth0 192.168.19.99:500 Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: adding interface eth0/eth0 192.168.19.99:4500 Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: adding interface lo/lo 127.0.0.1:500 Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: adding interface lo/lo 127.0.0.1:4500 Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: adding interface lo/lo ::1:500 Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: adding interface eth0/eth0 2001:470:28:81:a00:27ff:* Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: loading secrets from "/etc/ipsec.secrets" Jan 19 13:54:11 ubuntu pluto[1990]: loading secrets from "/var/lib/openswan/ipsec.secrets.inc" Jan 19 14:04:31 ubuntu pluto[1990]: packet from 95.*.*.233:500: received Vendor ID payload [RFC 3947] method set to=109 Jan 19 14:04:31 ubuntu pluto[1990]: packet from 95.*.*.233:500: received Vendor ID payload [draft-ietf-ipsec-nat-t-ike] method set to=110 Jan 19 14:04:31 ubuntu pluto[1990]: packet from 95.*.*.233:500: ignoring unknown Vendor ID payload [8f8d83826d246b6fc7a8a6a428c11de8] Jan 19 14:04:31 ubuntu pluto[1990]: packet from 95.*.*.233:500: ignoring unknown Vendor ID payload [439b59f8ba676c4c7737ae22eab8f582] Jan 19 14:04:31 ubuntu pluto[1990]: packet from 95.*.*.233:500: ignoring unknown Vendor ID payload [4d1e0e136deafa34c4f3ea9f02ec7285] Jan 19 14:04:31 ubuntu pluto[1990]: packet from 95.*.*.233:500: ignoring unknown Vendor ID payload [80d0bb3def54565ee84645d4c85ce3ee] Jan 19 14:04:31 ubuntu pluto[1990]: packet from 95.*.*.233:500: ignoring unknown Vendor ID payload [9909b64eed937c6573de52ace952fa6b] Jan 19 14:04:31 ubuntu pluto[1990]: packet from 95.*.*.233:500: received Vendor ID payload [draft-ietf-ipsec-nat-t-ike-03] meth=108, but already using method 110 Jan 19 14:04:31 ubuntu pluto[1990]: packet from 95.*.*.233:500: received Vendor ID payload [draft-ietf-ipsec-nat-t-ike-02] meth=107, but already using method 110 Jan 19 14:04:31 ubuntu pluto[1990]: packet from 95.*.*.233:500: received Vendor ID payload [draft-ietf-ipsec-nat-t-ike-02_n] meth=106, but already using method 110 Jan 19 14:04:31 ubuntu pluto[1990]: packet from 95.*.*.233:500: received Vendor ID payload [Dead Peer Detection] Jan 19 14:04:31 ubuntu pluto[1990]: "PSK"[1] 95.*.*.233 #1: responding to Main Mode from unknown peer 95.*.*.233 Jan 19 14:04:31 ubuntu pluto[1990]: "PSK"[1] 95.*.*.233 #1: transition from state STATE_MAIN_R0 to state STATE_MAIN_R1 Jan 19 14:04:31 ubuntu pluto[1990]: "PSK"[1] 95.*.*.233 #1: STATE_MAIN_R1: sent MR1, expecting MI2 Jan 19 14:04:33 ubuntu pluto[1990]: "PSK"[1] 95.*.*.233 #1: NAT-Traversal: Result using draft-ietf-ipsec-nat-t-ike (MacOS X): both are NATed Jan 19 14:04:33 ubuntu pluto[1990]: "PSK"[1] 95.*.*.233 #1: transition from state STATE_MAIN_R1 to state STATE_MAIN_R2 Jan 19 14:04:33 ubuntu pluto[1990]: "PSK"[1] 95.*.*.233 #1: STATE_MAIN_R2: sent MR2, expecting MI3 Jan 19 14:05:03 ubuntu pluto[1990]: ERROR: asynchronous network error report on eth0 (sport=500) for message to 95.*.*.233 port 500, complainant 95.*.*.233: Connection refused [errno 111, origin ICMP type 3 code 3 (not authenticated)] Router config UDP 500, 1701 and 4500 forwarded to 192.168.19.99 (Ubuntu server for ipsec). Ipsec passthrough enabled. /etc/ipsec.conf # /etc/ipsec.conf - Openswan IPsec configuration file # This file: /usr/share/doc/openswan/ipsec.conf-sample # # Manual: ipsec.conf.5 version 2.0 # conforms to second version of ipsec.conf specification config setup nat_traversal=yes #charonstart=yes #plutostart=yes protostack=netkey conn PSK authby=secret forceencaps=yes pfs=no auto=add keyingtries=3 dpdtimeout=60 dpdaction=clear rekey=no left=192.168.19.99 leftnexthop=192.168.19.1 leftprotoport=17/1701 right=%any rightprotoport=17/%any rightsubnet=vhost:%priv,%no dpddelay=10 #dpdtimeout=10 #dpdaction=clear include /etc/ipsec.d/l2tp-psk.conf /etc/ipsec.d/l2tp-psk.conf conn L2TP-PSK-NAT rightsubnet=vhost:%priv also=L2TP-PSK-noNAT conn L2TP-PSK-noNAT # # PreSharedSecret needs to be specified in /etc/ipsec.secrets as # YourIPAddress %any: "sharedsecret" authby=secret pfs=no auto=add keyingtries=3 # we cannot rekey for %any, let client rekey rekey=no # Set ikelifetime and keylife to same defaults windows has ikelifetime=8h keylife=1h # l2tp-over-ipsec is transport mode type=transport # left=192.168.19.99 # # For updated Windows 2000/XP clients, # to support old clients as well, use leftprotoport=17/%any leftprotoport=17/1701 # # The remote user. # right=%any # Using the magic port of "0" means "any one single port". This is # a work around required for Apple OSX clients that use a randomly # high port, but propose "0" instead of their port. rightprotoport=17/%any dpddelay=10 dpdtimeout=10 dpdaction=clear conn passthrough-for-non-l2tp type=passthrough left=192.168.19.99 leftnexthop=192.168.19.1 right=0.0.0.0 rightsubnet=0.0.0.0/0 auto=route /etc/ipsec.secrets include /var/lib/openswan/ipsec.secrets.inc %any %any: PSK "my-key" 192.168.19.99 %any: PSK "my-key" /etc/xl2tpd/xl2tpd.conf [global] debug network = yes debug tunnel = yes ipsec saref = no listen-addr = 192.168.19.99 [lns default] ip range = 192.168.19.201-192.168.19.220 local ip = 192.168.19.99 require chap = yes refuse chap = no refuse pap = no require authentication = no ppp debug = yes pppoptfile = /etc/ppp/options.xl2tpd length bit = yes /etc/ppp/options.xl2tpd pcp-accept-local ipcp-accept-remote noccp auth crtscts idle 1800 mtu 1410 mru 1410 defaultroute debug lock proxyarp connect-delay 5000 ipcp-accept-local /etc/ppp/chap-secrets # Secrets for authentication using CHAP # client server secret IP addresses maciekish * my-secret * * maciekish my-secret * I can't seem to find the problem. Other ipsec connections to other hosts work from the network im currently at.

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Howto WCF Service HTTPS Binding and Endpoint Configuration in IIS with Load Balancer?

- by Mike G

We have a WCF service that is being hosted on a set of 12 machines. There is a load balancer that is a gateway to these machines. Now the site is setup as SSL; as in a user accesses it through using an URL with https. I know this much, the URL that addresses the site is https, but none of the servers has a https binding or is setup to require SSL. This leads me to believe that the load balancer handles the https and the connection from the balancer to the servers are unencrypted (this takes place behind the firewall so no biggie there). The problem we're having is that when a Silverlight client tries to access a WCF service it is getting a "Not Found" error. I've set up a test site along with our developer machines and have made sure that the bindings and endpoints in the web.config work with the client. It seems to be the case in the production environment that we get this error. Is there anything wrong with the following web.config? Should we be setting up how https is handled in a different manner? We're at a loss on this currently since I've tried every programmatic solution with endpoints and bindings. None of the solutions I have found deal with a load balancer in the manner we're dealing. Web.config service model info: <system.serviceModel> <behaviors> <serviceBehaviors> <behavior name="TradePMR.OMS.Framework.Services.CRM.CRMServiceBehavior"> <serviceMetadata httpsGetEnabled="true" /> <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="false" /> </behavior> <behavior name="TradePMR.OMS.Framework.Services.AccountAggregation.AccountAggregationBehavior"> <serviceMetadata httpsGetEnabled="true" /> <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="false" /> </behavior> </serviceBehaviors> </behaviors> <bindings> <customBinding> <binding name="SecureCRMCustomBinding"> <binaryMessageEncoding /> <httpsTransport /> </binding> <binding name="SecureAACustomBinding"> <binaryMessageEncoding /> <httpsTransport /> </binding> </customBinding> <mexHttpsBinding> <binding name="SecureMex" /> </mexHttpsBinding> </bindings> <serviceHostingEnvironment aspNetCompatibilityEnabled="true" />  <services> <service behaviorConfiguration="TradePMR.OMS.Framework.Services.CRM.CRMServiceBehavior" name="TradePMR.OMS.Framework.Services.CRM.CRMService"> <endpoint address="" binding="customBinding" bindingConfiguration="SecureCRMCustomBinding" contract="TradePMR.OMS.Framework.Services.CRM.CRMService" name="SecureCRMEndpoint" />  <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange" /> </service> <service behaviorConfiguration="TradePMR.OMS.Framework.Services.AccountAggregation.AccountAggregationBehavior" name="TradePMR.OMS.Framework.Services.AccountAggregation.AccountAggregation"> <endpoint address="" binding="customBinding" bindingConfiguration="SecureAACustomBinding" contract="TradePMR.OMS.Framework.Services.AccountAggregation.AccountAggregation" name="SecureAAEndpoint" />  <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange" /> </service> </services> </system.serviceModel> </configuration> The ServiceReferences.ClientConfig looks like this: <configuration> <system.serviceModel> <bindings> <customBinding> <binding name="StandardAAEndpoint"> <binaryMessageEncoding /> <httpTransport maxReceivedMessageSize="2147483647" maxBufferSize="2147483647" /> </binding> <binding name="SecureAAEndpoint"> <binaryMessageEncoding /> <httpsTransport maxReceivedMessageSize="2147483647" maxBufferSize="2147483647" /> </binding> <binding name="StandardCRMEndpoint"> <binaryMessageEncoding /> <httpTransport maxReceivedMessageSize="2147483647" maxBufferSize="2147483647" /> </binding> <binding name="SecureCRMEndpoint"> <binaryMessageEncoding /> <httpsTransport maxReceivedMessageSize="2147483647" maxBufferSize="2147483647" /> </binding> </customBinding> </bindings> <client> <endpoint address="https://Service2.svc" binding="customBinding" bindingConfiguration="SecureAAEndpoint" contract="AccountAggregationService.AccountAggregation" name="SecureAAEndpoint" /> <endpoint address="https://Service1.svc" binding="customBinding" bindingConfiguration="SecureCRMEndpoint" contract="CRMService.CRMService" name="SecureCRMEndpoint" /> </client> </system.serviceModel> </configuration> (The addresses are of no consequence since those are dynamically built so that they will point to a dev's machine or to the production server)

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Create user in Oracle 11g with same priviledges as in Oracle 10g XE

- by Álvaro G. Vicario

I'm a PHP developer (not a DBA) and I've been working with Oracle 10g XE for a while. I'm used to XE's simplified user management: Go to Administration/ Users/ Create user Assign user name and password Roles: leave the default ones (connect and resource) Privileges: click on "Enable all" to select the 11 possible ones Create This way I get a user that has full access to its data and no access to everything else. This is fine since I only need it to develop my app. When the app is to be deployed, the client's DBAs configure the environment. Now I have to create users in a full Oracle 11g server and I'm completely lost. I have a new concept (profiles) and there're like 20 roles and hundreds of privileges in various categories. What steps do I need to complete in Oracle Enterprise Manager in order to obtain a user with the same privileges I used to assign in XE? ==== UPDATE ==== I think I'd better provide a detailed explanation so I make myself clearer. This is how I create a user in 10g XE: Roles: [X] CONNECT [X] RESOURCE [ ] DBA Direct Asignment System Privileges: [ ] CREATE DATABASE LINK [ ] CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW [ ] CREATE PROCEDURE [ ] CREATE PUBLIC SYNONYM [ ] CREATE ROLE [ ] CREATE SEQUENCE [ ] CREATE SYNONYM [ ] CREATE TABLE [ ] CREATE TRIGGER [ ] CREATE TYPE [ ] CREATE VIEW I click on Enable All and I'm done. This is what I'm asked when doing the same in 11g: Profile: (*) DEFAULT ( ) WKSYS_PROF ( ) MONITORING_PROFILE Roles: CONNECT: [ ] Admin option [X] Default value Edit List: AQ_ADMINISTRATOR_ROLE AQ_USER_ROLE AUTHENTICATEDUSER CSW_USR_ROLE CTXAPP CWM_USER DATAPUMP_EXP_FULL_DATABASE DATAPUMP_IMP_FULL_DATABASE DBA DELETE_CATALOG_ROLE EJBCLIENT EXECUTE_CATALOG_ROLE EXP_FULL_DATABASE GATHER_SYSTEM_STATISTICS GLOBAL_AQ_USER_ROLE HS_ADMIN_ROLE IMP_FULL_DATABASE JAVADEBUGPRIV JAVAIDPRIV JAVASYSPRIV JAVAUSERPRIV JAVA_ADMIN JAVA_DEPLOY JMXSERVER LOGSTDBY_ADMINISTRATOR MGMT_USER OEM_ADVISOR OEM_MONITOR OLAPI_TRACE_USER OLAP_DBA OLAP_USER OLAP_XS_ADMIN ORDADMIN OWB$CLIENT OWB_DESIGNCENTER_VIEW OWB_USER RECOVERY_CATALOG_OWNER RESOURCE SCHEDULER_ADMIN SELECT_CATALOG_ROLE SPATIAL_CSW_ADMIN SPATIAL_WFS_ADMIN WFS_USR_ROLE WKUSER WM_ADMIN_ROLE XDBADMIN XDB_SET_INVOKER XDB_WEBSERVICES XDB_WEBSERVICES_OVER_HTTP XDB_WEBSERVICES_WITH_PUBLIC System Privileges: <Empty> Edit List: ACCESS_ANY_WORKSPACE ADMINISTER ANY SQL TUNING SET ADMINISTER DATABASE TRIGGER ADMINISTER RESOURCE MANAGER ADMINISTER SQL MANAGEMENT OBJECT ADMINISTER SQL TUNING SET ADVISOR ALTER ANY ASSEMBLY ALTER ANY CLUSTER ALTER ANY CUBE ALTER ANY CUBE DIMENSION ALTER ANY DIMENSION ALTER ANY EDITION ALTER ANY EVALUATION CONTEXT ALTER ANY INDEX ALTER ANY INDEXTYPE ALTER ANY LIBRARY ALTER ANY MATERIALIZED VIEW ALTER ANY MINING MODEL ALTER ANY OPERATOR ALTER ANY OUTLINE ALTER ANY PROCEDURE ALTER ANY ROLE ALTER ANY RULE ALTER ANY RULE SET ALTER ANY SEQUENCE ALTER ANY SQL PROFILE ALTER ANY TABLE ALTER ANY TRIGGER ALTER ANY TYPE ALTER DATABASE ALTER PROFILE ALTER RESOURCE COST ALTER ROLLBACK SEGMENT ALTER SESSION ALTER SYSTEM ALTER TABLESPACE ALTER USER ANALYZE ANY ANALYZE ANY DICTIONARY AUDIT ANY AUDIT SYSTEM BACKUP ANY TABLE BECOME USER CHANGE NOTIFICATION COMMENT ANY MINING MODEL COMMENT ANY TABLE CREATE ANY ASSEMBLY CREATE ANY CLUSTER CREATE ANY CONTEXT CREATE ANY CUBE CREATE ANY CUBE BUILD PROCESS CREATE ANY CUBE DIMENSION CREATE ANY DIMENSION CREATE ANY DIRECTORY CREATE ANY EDITION CREATE ANY EVALUATION CONTEXT CREATE ANY INDEX CREATE ANY INDEXTYPE CREATE ANY JOB CREATE ANY LIBRARY CREATE ANY MATERIALIZED VIEW CREATE ANY MEASURE FOLDER CREATE ANY MINING MODEL CREATE ANY OPERATOR CREATE ANY OUTLINE CREATE ANY PROCEDURE CREATE ANY RULE CREATE ANY RULE SET CREATE ANY SEQUENCE CREATE ANY SQL PROFILE CREATE ANY SYNONYM CREATE ANY TABLE CREATE ANY TRIGGER CREATE ANY TYPE CREATE ANY VIEW CREATE ASSEMBLY CREATE CLUSTER CREATE CUBE CREATE CUBE BUILD PROCESS CREATE CUBE DIMENSION CREATE DATABASE LINK CREATE DIMENSION CREATE EVALUATION CONTEXT CREATE EXTERNAL JOB CREATE INDEXTYPE CREATE JOB CREATE LIBRARY CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW CREATE MEASURE FOLDER CREATE MINING MODEL CREATE OPERATOR CREATE PROCEDURE CREATE PROFILE CREATE PUBLIC DATABASE LINK CREATE PUBLIC SYNONYM CREATE ROLE CREATE ROLLBACK SEGMENT CREATE RULE CREATE RULE SET CREATE SEQUENCE CREATE SESSION CREATE SYNONYM CREATE TABLE CREATE TABLESPACE CREATE TRIGGER CREATE TYPE CREATE USER CREATE VIEW CREATE_ANY_WORKSPACE DEBUG ANY PROCEDURE DEBUG CONNECT SESSION DELETE ANY CUBE DIMENSION DELETE ANY MEASURE FOLDER DELETE ANY TABLE DEQUEUE ANY QUEUE DROP ANY ASSEMBLY DROP ANY CLUSTER DROP ANY CONTEXT DROP ANY CUBE DROP ANY CUBE BUILD PROCESS DROP ANY CUBE DIMENSION DROP ANY DIMENSION DROP ANY DIRECTORY DROP ANY EDITION DROP ANY EVALUATION CONTEXT DROP ANY INDEX DROP ANY INDEXTYPE DROP ANY LIBRARY DROP ANY MATERIALIZED VIEW DROP ANY MEASURE FOLDER DROP ANY MINING MODEL DROP ANY OPERATOR DROP ANY OUTLINE DROP ANY PROCEDURE DROP ANY ROLE DROP ANY RULE DROP ANY RULE SET DROP ANY SEQUENCE DROP ANY SQL PROFILE DROP ANY SYNONYM DROP ANY TABLE DROP ANY TRIGGER DROP ANY TYPE DROP ANY VIEW DROP PROFILE DROP PUBLIC DATABASE LINK DROP PUBLIC SYNONYM DROP ROLLBACK SEGMENT DROP TABLESPACE DROP USER ENQUEUE ANY QUEUE EXECUTE ANY ASSEMBLY EXECUTE ANY CLASS EXECUTE ANY EVALUATION CONTEXT EXECUTE ANY INDEXTYPE EXECUTE ANY LIBRARY EXECUTE ANY OPERATOR EXECUTE ANY PROCEDURE EXECUTE ANY PROGRAM EXECUTE ANY RULE EXECUTE ANY RULE SET EXECUTE ANY TYPE EXECUTE ASSEMBLY EXPORT FULL DATABASE FLASHBACK ANY TABLE FLASHBACK ARCHIVE ADMINISTER FORCE ANY TRANSACTION FORCE TRANSACTION FREEZE_ANY_WORKSPACE GLOBAL QUERY REWRITE GRANT ANY OBJECT PRIVILEGE GRANT ANY PRIVILEGE GRANT ANY ROLE IMPORT FULL DATABASE INSERT ANY CUBE DIMENSION INSERT ANY MEASURE FOLDER INSERT ANY TABLE LOCK ANY TABLE MANAGE ANY FILE GROUP MANAGE ANY QUEUE MANAGE FILE GROUP MANAGE SCHEDULER MANAGE TABLESPACE MERGE ANY VIEW MERGE_ANY_WORKSPACE ON COMMIT REFRESH QUERY REWRITE READ ANY FILE GROUP REMOVE_ANY_WORKSPACE RESTRICTED SESSION RESUMABLE ROLLBACK_ANY_WORKSPACE SELECT ANY CUBE SELECT ANY CUBE DIMENSION SELECT ANY DICTIONARY SELECT ANY MINING MODEL SELECT ANY SEQUENCE SELECT ANY TABLE SELECT ANY TRANSACTION UNDER ANY TABLE UNDER ANY TYPE UNDER ANY VIEW UNLIMITED TABLESPACE UPDATE ANY CUBE UPDATE ANY CUBE BUILD PROCESS UPDATE ANY CUBE DIMENSION UPDATE ANY TABLE Object Privileges: <Empty> Add: Clase Java Clases de Trabajos Cola Columna de Tabla Columna de Vista Espacio de Trabajo Función Instantánea Origen Java Paquete Planificaciones Procedimiento Programas Secuencia Sinónimo Tabla Tipos Trabajos Vista Consumer Group Privileges: <Empty> Default Consumer Group: (*) None Edit List: AUTO_TASK_CONSUMER_GROUP BATCH_GROUP DEFAULT_CONSUMER_GROUP INTERACTIVE_GROUP LOW_GROUP ORA$AUTOTASK_HEALTH_GROUP ORA$AUTOTASK_MEDIUM_GROUP ORA$AUTOTASK_SPACE_GROUP ORA$AUTOTASK_SQL_GROUP ORA$AUTOTASK_STATS_GROUP ORA$AUTOTASK_URGENT_GROUP ORA$DIAGNOSTICS SYS_GROUP And, of course, I wonder what options I should pick.

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How to disable Mac OS X from using swap when there still is "Inactive" memory?

- by Motin

A common phenomena in my day to day usage (and several other's according to various posts throughout the internet) of OS X, the system seems to become slow whenever there is no more "Free" memory available. Supposedly, this is due to swapping, since heavy disk activity is apparent and that vm_stat reports many pageouts. (Correct me from wrong) However, the amount of "Inactive" ram is typically around 12.5%-25% of all available memory (^1.) when swapping starts/occurs/ends. According to http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1342 : Inactive memory This information in memory is not actively being used, but was recently used. For example, if you've been using Mail and then quit it, the RAM that Mail was using is marked as Inactive memory. This Inactive memory is available for use by another application, just like Free memory. However, if you open Mail before its Inactive memory is used by a different application, Mail will open quicker because its Inactive memory is converted to Active memory, instead of loading Mail from the slower hard disk. And according to http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Performance/Conceptual/ManagingMemory/Articles/AboutMemory.html : The inactive list contains pages that are currently resident in physical memory but have not been accessed recently. These pages contain valid data but may be released from memory at any time. So, basically: When a program has quit, it's memory becomes marked as Inactive and should be claimable at any time. Still, OS X will prefer to start swapping out memory to the Swap file instead of just claiming this memory, whenever the "Free" memory gets to low. Why? What is the advantage of this behavior over, say, instantly releasing Inactive memory and not even touch the swap file? Some sources (^2.) indicate that OS X would page out the "Inactive" memory to swap before releasing it, but that doesn't make sense now does it if the memory may be released from memory at any time? Swapping is expensive, releasing is cheap, right? Can this behavior be changed using some preference or known hack? (Preferably one that doesn't include disabling swap/dynamic_pager altogether and restarting...) I do appreciate the purge command, as well as the concept of Repairing disk permissions to force some Free memory, but those are ways to painfully force more Free memory than to actually fixing the swap/release decision logic... Btw a similar question was asked here: http://forums.macnn.com/90/mac-os-x/434650/why-does-os-x-swap-when/ and here: http://hintsforums.macworld.com/showthread.php?t=87688 but even though the OPs re-asked the core question, none of the replies addresses an answer to it... ^1. UPDATE 17-mar-2012 Since I first posted this question, I have gone from 4gb to 8gb of installed ram, and the problem remains. The amount of "Inactive" ram was 0.5gb-1.0gb before and is now typically around 1.0-2.0GB when swapping starts/occurs/ends, ie it seems that around 12.5%-25% of the ram is preserved as Inactive by osx kernel logic. ^2. For instance http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/4288/what-does-it-mean-if-i-have-lots-of-inactive-memory-at-the-end-of-a-work-day : Once all your memory is used (free memory is 0), the OS will write out inactive memory to the swapfile to make more room in active memory. UPDATE 17-mar-2012 Here is a round-up of the methods that have been suggested to help so far: The purge command "Used to approximate initial boot conditions with a cold disk buffer cache for performance analysis. It does not affect anonymous memory that has been allocated through malloc, vm_allocate, etc". This is useful to prevent osx to swap-out the disk cache (which is ridiculous that osx actually does so in the first place), but with the downside that the disk cache is released, meaning that if the disk cache was not about to be swapped out, one would simply end up with a cold disk buffer cache, probably affecting performance negatively. The FreeMemory app and/or Repairing disk permissions to force some Free memory Doesn't help releasing any memory, only moving some gigabytes of memory contents from ram to the hd. In the end, this causes lots of swap-ins when I attempt to use the applications that were open while freeing memory, as a lot of its vm is now on swap. Speeding up swap-allocation using dynamicpagerwrapper Seems a good thing to do in order to speed up swap-usage, but does not address the problem of osx swapping in the first place while there is still inactive memory. Disabling swap by disabling dynamicpager and restarting This will force osx not to use swap to the price of the system hanging when all memory is used. Not a viable alternative... Disabling swap using a hacked dynamicpager Similar to disabling dynamicpager above, some excerpts from the comments to the blog post indicate that this is not a viable solution: "The Inactive Memory is high as usual". "when your system is running out of memory, the whole os hangs...", "if you consume the whole amount of memory of the mac, the machine will likely hang" To sum up, I am still unaware of a way of disabling Mac OS X from using swap when there still is "Inactive" memory. If it isn't possible, maybe at least there is an explanation somewhere of why osx prefers to swap out memory that may be released from memory at any time?

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Why does Process Explorer cause highly targeted failure of some applications / basic UI functions in a high-power EC2 Windows instance?

- by Dan Nissenbaum

Update: I have determined that Process Explorer itself - the program I am using to debug a performance issue - seems to be the cause of the issue. See note, with updated question, at end. I am running a high-power (cc2.8xlarge) Amazon AWS EC2 Windows instance off of a boot EBS volume, provisioned at 2500 PIOPS, which was created from a snapshot of a previous boot volume. My purpose with the instance is to use it as a development workstation with many developer tools installed, such as Visual Studio, a local XAMPP stack, etc. I have upwards of 40 programs installed on the machine. The usability of the instance as a development machine often works quite well. The RDP lag is adequately small. I have used it for hours on end without problems for some of my most intense development tasks. As a result, I have just purchased a reserved instance, and I opted to rebuild my development machine starting from scratch with a Windows Server 2012 AMI. After having installed all of my desired/required applications for development over this past week, again the machine seems to often work well and I have worked for up to an hour at a time without problems doing heavy development work. However, I continue to run into catastrophic OS usability issues that may prevent me from being able to rely on this machine as a development machine. I would like to track down the source of the problem, if there is an easily identifiable source. (Update: I have tracked down the source to be Process Explorer, the very program I was using to debug the problem. See update at end.) The issues are as follows. (These are some primary examples) Some applications, after a period of adequate responsiveness, suddenly begin to respond very, very slowly to basic user interface actions such as clicking on menus and pressing Ctrl-Tab to switch between open documents. Two examples are UltraEdit and PhpEd. It typically takes ~2 seconds for a menu to appear, and ~4 seconds to switch between open documents. Additionally, insertion point motion in the editor is lagged by upwards of ~2 seconds. Process Explorer, which I am using to help debug the problem, seems to run acceptably for a couple of minutes, but on multiple occasions Process Explorer itself hangs completely. It hangs at the same time as the problems noted above. When it hangs, it is 100% unresponsive. Clicking on its taskbar icon neither causes it to come to the top or go behind, and its viewable area is filled with nothing but a region partially containing pure white and partially containing incomplete windows widgets that are unreadable, and that never change. Waiting 10 minutes does not clear the problem. Attempting to force-quit Process Explorer by right-clicking on its taskbar icon and choosing "Close Window" takes about 5 full minutes to exit (Process Explorer itself can't be used to exit Process Explorer, and it is registered as a Task Manager substitute). Other programs work just fine during this time. For example, Chrome tabs flip very quickly back and forth, menus pop open instantly, web pages load quickly, and typing in forms/web applications inside the browser works promptly. Another example of an application that works crisply is Filemaker - its menus open instantly, and switching views in this application occurs promptly. Other applications also work without issue. Also, switching between applications occurs promptly as well. It is only a handful of applications that exhibit the problem, with some primary examples given above. At first I thought that EBS IOPS might be a problem. Therefore, I ran Performance Monitor, and watched the "Disk Transfers/sec" monitor in real time. At no point did this measure come anywhere close to hitting the 2500 PIOPS provisioned for the EBS volume. The RAM was also well under the limit (~10 GB used out of 60 GB). I did notice that one CPU core (out of 32 logical cores) was fully thrashing at 100% (i.e., ~3.1%) during the problematic periods. This seems to indicate that a single CPU core is handling the menus / flipping between open documents (for some applications only) / managing the Process Explorer user interface, and that this single core was hosed for some reason during the problematic periods. Also note that I have a desktop workstation (Windows 7) that I also use as a development machine, via a remote connection, with a nearly identical set of programs installed, and this desktop workstation does not exhibit any of the problems I've discussed above. I have been using it heavily for well over a year now. Any suggestions regarding either the source of the problem, or steps I might take to investigate the source of the problem, would be appreciated. Thanks. Note: After extensive testing & investigation, I have noticed that when I quit Process Explorer, the problem vanishes and the system performance returns to normal, and then reappears quickly when I run Process Explorer again (note: again, the performance problems only appear for a subset of applications - other applications work perfectly fine during the same period). My question is therefore (thankfully) more specific: Why does Process Explorer cause highly targeted failure of some applications (including itself) and basic UI functions, in a high-power EC2 Windows instance?

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What is Causing this IIS 7 Web Service Sporadic Connectivity Error?

- by dpalau

On sporadic occasions we receive the following error when attempting to call an .asmx web service from a .Net client application: "The underlying connection was closed: A connection that was expected to be kept alive was closed by the server. Unable to read data from the transport connection: An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host." By sporadic I mean that it might occur zero, once every few days, or a half-dozen times a day for some users. It will never occur for the first web service call of a user. And the subsequent (usually the same) call will always work immediately after the failure. The failures happen across a variety of methods in the service and usually happens between 15-20 seconds (according to the log) from the time of the request. Looking in the IIS site log for the particular call will show one or the other of the following windows error codes: 121: The semaphore timeout period has elapsed. 1236: The network connection was aborted by the local system. Some additional environment details: Running on internal network web farm consisting of two servers running IIS7 on Windows Server 2008 OS. These problems did not occur when running in an older IIS6 web farm of three servers running on Windows Server 2003 (and we use a single IIS6/2003 instance for our development and staging environments with no issues). EDIT: Also, all of these server instances are VMWare virtual machines, not sure if that is a surprise anymore or not. The web service is a .Net 2.0/3.5 compiled .asmx web service that has its own application pool (.Net 2.0, integrated pipeline). Only has Windows Authentication enabled. We have another web service on the farm that uses the same physical path as the primary service, the only difference being that Basic Authentication is enabled. This is used for a portion of our ERP system. Have tried using the same and different application pool - no effect on the error. This site isn't hit as often as the primary site and has never had an error. As mentioned, the error will only happen when called from the .Net client - not from other applications. The client application is always creating a new web service object for each request and setting the service credentials to System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials. The application is either deployed locally to a client or run in a Citrix server session. Those users running in Citrix doesn't seem to experience the issue, only locally deployed clients. The Citrix servers and the web farm are located in the same physical location and are located in the same IP range (10.67.xx.xx). Locally deployed clients experiencing the error are located elsewhere (10.105.xx.xx, 10.31.xx.xx). I've checked the OS logs to see if I can see any problems but nothing really sticks out. EDIT: Actually, I myself just ran into the error a little bit ago. I decided to check out the logs again and saw that there was a Security log entry of "Audit Failure" at the 'same' time (IIS log entry at 1:39:59, event log entry at 1:39:50). Not sure if this is a coincidence or not, I'll have to check out the logs of previous errors. I'm probably grasping for straws but the details: Log Name: Security Source: Microsoft-Windows-Security-Auditing Date: 7/8/2009 1:39:50 PM Event ID: 5159 Task Category: Filtering Platform Connection Level: Information Keywords: Audit Failure User: N/A Computer: is071019.<**.net Description: The Windows Filtering Platform has blocked a bind to a local port. Application Information: Process ID: 1260 Application Name: \device\harddiskvolume1\windows\system32\svchost.exe Network Information: Source Address: 0.0.0.0 Source Port: 54802 Protocol: 17 Filter Information: Filter Run-Time ID: 0 Layer Name: Resource Assignment Layer Run-Time ID: 36 I've also tried to use Failed Request Tracing in IIS7 but the service call never actually gets to where FRT can capture it (even though the failure is logged in the web service log). The network infrastructure group said they checked out the DNS and any NIC settings are correct so there is no 'flapping'. Everything pans out. I'm not sure that they checked out any domain controller servers though to see if that could be an issue. Any ideas? Or any other debugging strategies to get to the bottom of this? I'm just the developer in charge of the software and don't really have the knowledge on what to investigate from the networking side of things - although it does sound like a networking issue to me based on what is happening. Thanks in advance for any help.

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Wireless internet connection connects but internet does not work (no packets received). Wired does.

- by Rodney

When I connect my PC via ethernet cable to my ADSL router it works fine. When I connect via Wireless it connects and the internet will work for a random amount of time and then stop working. It stays connected with a strong signal but no packets are received. My laptop/iphone are right next to it and wireless works fine. If I open the Wireless USB status, it says it is connected to my SSID with full strength (54 mps - I am 3 meteres away from my router) and the activty shows as Packets 594 SENT and 105 RECEIVED (this goes up VERY slowly) I have tried the following: Turned off anitvirus and firewall completely. Tested the wifi signal- I am writing this on my laptop which is next to my PC and also has full wifi strength. Tried a different wireless adapter - I dug out an old PCI wireless card - it does the exact same thing. Compared all wireless settings to my laptop. I can ping google.com and it replies (sometimes with packet loss) When I reboot the PC it will connect for a minute or two (random time) and then just stops again. I tried Firefox, IE etc. no joy I have updated all latest versions (Netgear WG111v2) and drivers Checked Event Log - nothing unusual Ping the router (and even connect as admin for the few minutes when the internet does work) Changed the MTU down to 1200 using DrTCP Checked Device Manager for conflicts - none. I ping the router from the PC (192.168.0.10 - 192.168.0.1) and it replies with 4 packets. BUT, on my router admin page (which I access via http on my laptop wirelessly) - if I ping 192.168.0.10 all packets timeout (pinging my laptop 192.168.0.12 works fine) My router admin page shows the leased IP address for 192.168.0.10 (ie it is definitely talking to the router initially) Now I am out of ideas - please help. I think it is an OS/Software issue as I have tried 2 different wireless adapaters (PCI and USB) with the same result but all other wireless devices work fine around mine). It's not the firewall. It is getting assigned an IP address correctly (my PC gets 192.168.0.10, my laptop is .12) It is assigned by DHCP. As soon as I plug in the ethernet cable it all works fine. Repairing the adapter sometimes helps but it will always stop working after a random time. The wireless adapter always shows as connected with Excellent signal but the internet does not work. I am running Windows XP SP3 and have tried a Netgear WG111v2 USB adapter. Thanks in advance! UPDATE: The internet seems to be working, it is just either sending packets too small or slow to work (some small pages load bits of them very slowly but then hang). XP seems to have a networking diagnostic app - here is the output: Last diagnostic run time: 08/30/10 08:16:38 IP Configuration Diagnostic Invalid IP address info Valid IP address detected: 192.168.0.10 IP Layer Diagnostic Corrupted IP routing table info The default route is valid info The loopback route is valid info The local host route is valid info The local subnet route is valid Invalid ARP cache entries action The ARP cache has been flushed Gateway Diagnostic Gateway info The following proxy configuration is being used by IE: Automatically Detect Settings:Disabled Automatic Configuration Script: Proxy Server: Proxy Bypass list: info This computer has the following default gateway entry(ies): 192.168.0.1 info This computer has the following IP address(es): 192.168.0.10 info The default gateway is in the same subnet as this computer info The default gateway entry is a valid unicast address info The default gateway address was resolved via ARP in 1 try(ies) info The default gateway was reached via ICMP Ping in 1 try(ies) info TCP port 80 on host 65.55.12.249 was successfully reached info The Internet host www.microsoft.com was successfully reached info The default gateway is OK DNS Client Diagnostic DNS - Not a home user scenario info Using Web Proxy: no info Resolving name ok for (www.microsoft.com): yes No DNS servers DNS failure HTTP, HTTPS, FTP Diagnostic HTTP, HTTPS, FTP connectivity info FTP (Passive): Successfully connected to ftp.microsoft.com. info HTTP: Successfully connected to www.microsoft.com. warn HTTPS: Error 12002 connecting to www.microsoft.com: The operation timed out warn HTTPS: Error 12002 connecting to www.passport.net: The operation timed out error Could not make an HTTPS connection. info Redirecting user to support call WinSock Diagnostic WinSock status info All base service provider entries are present in the Winsock catalog. info The Winsock Service provider chains are valid. info Provider entry MSAFD Tcpip [TCP/IP] passed the loopback communication test. info Provider entry MSAFD Tcpip [UDP/IP] passed the loopback communication test. info Provider entry RSVP UDP Service Provider passed the loopback communication test. info Provider entry RSVP TCP Service Provider passed the loopback communication test. info Connectivity is valid for all Winsock service providers. Wireless Diagnostic Wireless - Service disabled Wireless - User SSID action User input required: Specify network name or SSID Wireless - First time setup info The Wireless Network name (SSID) to which the user would like to connect = RodSof Wifi. Wireless - Radio off info Valid IP address detected: 192.168.0.10 Wireless - Out of range Wireless - Hardware issue Wireless - Novice user Wireless - Ad-hoc network Wireless - Less preferred Wireless - 802.1x enabled Wireless - Configuration mismatch Wireless - Low SNR Network Adapter Diagnostic Network location detection info Using home Internet connection Network adapter identification info Network connection: Name=Local Area Connection 2, Device=Realtek RTL8168C(P)/8111C(P) PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC, MediaType=LAN, SubMediaType=LAN info Network connection: Name=Wireless USB, Device=NETGEAR WG111v2 54Mbps Wireless USB 2.0 Adapter, MediaType=LAN, SubMediaType=WIRELESS info Both Ethernet and Wireless connections available, prompting user for selection action User input required: Select network connection info Wireless connection selected Network adapter status info Network connection status: Connected HTTP, HTTPS, FTP Diagnostic HTTP, HTTPS, FTP connectivity info FTP (Active): Successfully connected to ftp.microsoft.com. warn HTTP: Error 12007 connecting to www.microsoft.com: The server name or address could not be resolved warn HTTP: Error 12002 connecting to www.hotmail.com: The operation timed out warn HTTPS: Error 12002 connecting to www.passport.net: The operation timed out warn HTTPS: Error 12002 connecting to www.microsoft.com: The operation timed out error Could not make an HTTP connection. error Could not make an HTTPS connection.

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OSX Server 3, Mac clients binding to OD and Profile Manager failing

- by dbf

I've made a setup containing a Mac Mini with OSX Server 3 (Mavericks 10.9.2) using Open Directory and Profile Manager (Mail, etc all set up and working). Now the thing is, internally on the local network, everything works great. Clients can bind to the OD and the users are able to login. I can install trust and settings profiles (either custom or group profiles) and all services in the profiles mentioned are being configured correctly. I can log in and out, hump around and do it a 100 times on different macs with different users, it works. My goal is to make this service publicly. The domain is with a FQDN which I own, for simplicity let's say server.domain.com. Now the only way for me to bind the clients to the OD is using LDAP mapping RCF2307 (without SSL) and a DN suffix of dc=server,dc=domain,dc=com using the Directory Utility. The options from server, or open directory will throw several errors like Connection failed to node '/LDAPv3/server.domain.com (2100). First of all I don't really understand the problem why clients can't bind to the OD like it does locally, with and without SSL (all ports are open, literally all ports are open, not just 389,636 and 1640, wasn't sure if I was missing any). When the clients are using LDAP mapping RFC2307 to bind (without SSL only), clients are able to authenticate, login and even load the Trust profile. But every Settings profile will fail with a Debug Message: Unable to find GUID in user record OD or fail to install saying missing user identification. Is there any way to get this to work without RFC2307? Because there is quite some stuff missing when using RFC2307 and not pull the mapping from the server or use open directory. Is this setup even possible? Or should I use VPN to authenticate with the OD? The network setup is a Modem/Router (DHCP off) with WAN NATted to an Airport Extreme (Using DHCP+NAT). The AE does notify with a double NAT message but I haven't had any problems with it on any other service. So WAN - 192.168.2.220 (static), AE - 10.0.1.* (dhcp) Output of DIG from the outside using dig server.domain.com ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;server.domain.com. IN A ;; ANSWER SECTION: server.domain.com. 77 IN A 91.50.*.* (valid WAN IP) ;; SERVER 172.*.*.1#53(172.*.*.1) (iPhone) DIG locally from a client and server (same output) ;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 0 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;server.domain.com. IN A ;; ANSWER SECTION: server.domain.com. 10800 IN A 10.0.1.11 ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: server.domain.com. 10800 IN NS domain.com. (used for email send in relay) server.domain.com. 10800 IN NS server.domain.com. ;; SERVER 10.0.1.11#53(10.0.1.11) Are there any things I should check? Only have OSX. -- double NAT issue, plugged in the server directly on the Modem/Router with a static IP and issue remains. Guess that rules out the double NAT thing. -- changeip -checkhostname comes with There is nothing to change, e.g. success. Primary address = 10.0.1.11 Current HostName = server.domain.com DNS HostName = server.domain.com For now, I've made a workaround by using an admin account that forces a permanent VPN connection on boot. That means before it comes to the login, a connection is already made or underway. I will continue this post when I have more time, also locating all the necessary .log files of each application involved. I have some suspicions but have to debug a bit more when I have more time on my hands .. Unless, of course, I get sidetracked with having a life. Which is arguably not very likely. krypted.com

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Why are my USB 2.0 devices hanging Windows XP?

- by BenAlabaster

Background on the machine I'm having a problem with: The machine was inherited and appears to be circa 2003 (there's a date stamp on the power supply which leads me to this conclusion). I've got it set up as a Skype terminal for my 2 year old to keep in touch with her grandparents and other members of the family - which everyone loves. It has a DFI CM33-TL/G ATX (identified using SiSoft Sandra) motherboard hosting an Intel Celeron 1.3GHz CPU, 768Mb PC133 SDRAM, a D-LINK WDA-2320 54G Wi-Fi network card and a generic USB 2.0 expansion board based on the NEC uPD720102 chipset containing 3 external and 1 internal USB sockets. It's also hosting a 1.44Mb floppy drive on FDD0, a new 80Gb Western Digital hard drive running as master on IDE0 and a Panasonic DVD+/-RW running as master on IDE1. All this is sitting in a slimline case running off a Macron Power MPT-135 135W Flex power supply. The motherboard is running a version of Award BIOS 05/24/2002-601T-686B-6A6LID4AC-00. Could this be updated? If so, from where? I've raked through the manufacturer's website but can't find any hint of downloads for either drivers or BIOS updates. The hard disk is freshly formatted and built with Windows XP Professional/Service Pack 3 and is up to date with all current patches. In addition to Windows XP, the only other software it's running is Skype 4.1 (4.2 hangs the whole machine as soon as it starts up, requiring a hard boot to recover). It's got a Daytek MV150 15" touch screen hooked up to the on board VGA and COM1 sockets with the most current drivers from the Daytek website and the most current version of ELO-Touchsystems drivers for the touch component. The webcam is a Logitech Webcam C200 with the latest drivers from the Logitech website. The problem: If I hook any devices to the USB 2.0 sockets, it hangs the whole machine and I have to hard boot it to get it back up. If I have any devices attached to the USB 2.0 sockets when I boot up, it hangs before Windows gets to the login prompt and I have to hard boot it to recover. Workarounds found: I can plug the same devices into the on board USB 1.0 sockets and everything works fine, albeit at reduced performance. I've tried 3 different kinds of USB thumb drives, 3 different makes/models of webcams and my iPhone all with the same effect. They're recognized and don't hang the machine when I hook them to the USB 1.0 but if I hook them to the USB 2.0 ports, the machine hangs within a couple of seconds of recognizing the devices were connected. Attempted solutions: I've seen suggestions that this could be a power problem - that the PSU just doesn't have the wattage to drive these ports. While I'm doubtful this is the problem [after all the motherboard has the same standard connector regardless of the PSU wattage], I tried disabling all the on board devices that I'm not using - on board LAN, the second COM port, the AGP connector etc. through the BIOS in what I'm sure is a futile attempt to reduce the power consumption... I also modified the ACPI and power management settings. It didn't have any noticeable affect, although it didn't do any harm either. Could the wattage of the PSU really cause this problem? If it can, is there anything I need to be aware of when replacing it or do I just need to make sure it's got a higher wattage than the current one? My interpretation was that the wattage only affected the number of drives you could hook up to the power connectors, is that right? I've installed the USB card in another machine and it works without issue, so it's not a problem with the USB card itself, and Windows says the card is installed and working correctly... right up until I connect a device to it. The only thing I haven't done which I only just thought of while writing this essay is trying the USB 2.0 card in a different PCI slot, or re-ordering the wi-fi and USB cards in the slots... although I'm not sure if this will make any difference - does anyone have any experience that would suggest this might work? Other thoughts/questions: Perhaps this is an incompatibility between the USB 2.0 card and the BIOS, would re-flashing the BIOS with a newer version help? Do I need to be able to identify the manufacturer of the motherboard in order to be able to find a BIOS edition specific for this motherboard or will any version of Award BIOS function in its place? Question: Does anyone have any ideas that could help me get my USB 2.0 devices hooked up to this machine?

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How to open a server port outside of an OpenVPN tunnel with a pf firewall on OSX (BSD)

- by Timbo

I have a Mac mini that I use as a media server running XBMC and serves media from my NAS to my stereo and TV (which has been color calibrated with a Spyder3Express, happy). The Mac runs OSX 10.8.2 and the internet connection is tunneled for general privacy over OpenVPN through Tunnelblick. I believe my anonymous VPN provider pushes "redirect_gateway" to OpenVPN/Tunnelblick because when on it effectively tunnels all non-LAN traffic in- and outbound. As an unwanted side effect that also opens the boxes server ports unprotected to the outside world and bypasses my firewall-router (Netgear SRX5308). I have run nmap from outside the LAN on the VPN IP and the server ports on the mini are clearly visible and connectable. The mini has the following ports open: ssh/22, ARD/5900 and 8080+9090 for the XBMC iOS client Constellation. I also have Synology NAS which apart from LAN file serving over AFP and WebDAV only serves up an OpenVPN/1194 and a PPTP/1732 server. When outside of the LAN I connect to this from my laptop over OpenVPN and over PPTP from my iPhone. I only want to connect through AFP/548 from the mini to the NAS. The border firewall (SRX5308) just works excellently, stable and with a very high throughput when streaming from various VOD services. My connection is a 100/10 with a close to theoretical max throughput. The ruleset is as follows Inbound: PPTP/1723 Allow always to 10.0.0.40 (NAS/VPN server) from a restricted IP range >corresponding to possible cell provider range OpenVPN/1194 Allow always to 10.0.0.40 (NAS/VPN server) from any Outbound: Default outbound policy: Allow Always OpenVPN/1194 TCP Allow always from 10.0.0.40 (NAS) to a.b.8.1-a.b.8.254 (VPN provider) OpenVPN/1194 UDP Allow always to 10.0.0.40 (NAS) to a.b.8.1-a.b.8.254 (VPN provider) Block always from NAS to any On the Mini I have disabled the OSX Application Level Firewall because it throws popups which don't remember my choices from one time to another and that's annoying on a media server. Instead I run Little Snitch which controls outgoing connections nicely on an application level. I have configured the excellent OSX builtin firewall pf (from BSD) as follows pf.conf (Apple App firewall tie-ins removed) (# replaced with % to avoid formatting errors) ### macro name for external interface. eth_if = "en0" vpn_if = "tap0" ### wifi_if = "en1" ### %usb_if = "en3" ext_if = $eth_if LAN="{10.0.0.0/24}" ### General housekeeping rules ### ### Drop all blocked packets silently set block-policy drop ### all incoming traffic on external interface is normalized and fragmented ### packets are reassembled. scrub in on $ext_if all fragment reassemble scrub in on $vpn_if all fragment reassemble scrub out all ### exercise antispoofing on the external interface, but add the local ### loopback interface as an exception, to prevent services utilizing the ### local loop from being blocked accidentally. ### set skip on lo0 antispoof for $ext_if inet antispoof for $vpn_if inet ### spoofing protection for all interfaces block in quick from urpf-failed ############################# block all ### Access to the mini server over ssh/22 and remote desktop/5900 from LAN/en0 only pass in on $eth_if proto tcp from $LAN to any port {22, 5900, 8080, 9090} ### Allow all udp and icmp also, necessary for Constellation. Could be tightened. pass on $eth_if proto {udp, icmp} from $LAN to any ### Allow AFP to 10.0.0.40 (NAS) pass out on $eth_if proto tcp from any to 10.0.0.40 port 548 ### Allow OpenVPN tunnel setup over unprotected link (en0) only to VPN provider IPs ### and port ranges pass on $eth_if proto tcp from any to a.b.8.0/24 port 1194:1201 ### OpenVPN Tunnel rules. All traffic allowed out, only in to ports 4100-4110 ### Outgoing pings ok pass in on $vpn_if proto {tcp, udp} from any to any port 4100:4110 pass out on $vpn_if proto {tcp, udp, icmp} from any to any So what are my goals and what does the above setup achieve? (until you tell me otherwise :) 1) Full LAN access to the above ports on the mini/media server (including through my own VPN server) 2) All internet traffic from the mini/media server is anonymized and tunneled over VPN 3) If OpenVPN/Tunnelblick on the mini drops the connection, nothing is leaked both because of pf and the router outgoing ruleset. It can't even do a DNS lookup through the router. So what do I have to hide with all this? Nothing much really, I just got carried away trying to stop port scans through the VPN tunnel :) In any case this setup works perfectly and it is very stable. The Problem at last! I want to run a minecraft server and I installed that on a separate user account on the mini server (user=mc) to keep things partitioned. I don't want this server accessible through the anonymized VPN tunnel because there are lots more port scans and hacking attempts through that than over my regular IP and I don't trust java in general. So I added the following pf rule on the mini: ### Allow Minecraft public through user mc pass in on $eth_if proto {tcp,udp} from any to any port 24983 user mc pass out on $eth_if proto {tcp, udp} from any to any user mc And these additions on the border firewall: Inbound: Allow always TCP/UDP from any to 10.0.0.40 (NAS) Outbound: Allow always TCP port 80 from 10.0.0.40 to any (needed for online account checkups) This works fine but only when the OpenVPN/Tunnelblick tunnel is down. When up no connection is possbile to the minecraft server from outside of LAN. inside LAN is always OK. Everything else functions as intended. I believe the redirect_gateway push is close to the root of the problem, but I want to keep that specific VPN provider because of the fantastic throughput, price and service. The Solution? How can I open up the minecraft server port outside of the tunnel so it's only available over en0 not the VPN tunnel? Should I a static route? But I don't know which IPs will be connecting...stumbles How secure would to estimate this setup to be and do you have other improvements to share? I've searched extensively in the last few days to no avail...If you've read this far I bet you know the answer :)

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Why are my USB 2.0 devices crashing Windows XP?

- by BenAlabaster

Background on the machine I'm having a problem with: The machine was inherited and appears to be circa 2003 (there's a date stamp on the power supply which leads me to this conclusion). I've got it set up as a Skype terminal for my 2 year old to keep in touch with her grandparents and other members of the family - which everyone loves. It has a generic ATX motherboard with no identifying markings other than one stamp that says "Rev.B". CPU-Z identifies the motherboard model as VT8601 but doesn't provide me with any manufacturer name. On board it has 1 x 10/100 LAN, 2 x USB 1.0, VGA, PS/2 for KB and mouse, parallel port, 2 x serial ports, 2 x IDE, 1 x floppy, 2 x SDRAM slots, 1 x CPU housing that is seating a 1.3GHz Intel Celeron CPU, 3 x PCI, 1 x AGP - although you can only use 2 of the PCI slots if you use the AGP slot due to the physical layout of the board. It's got 768Mb PC133 SDRAM - 1 x 512Mb & 1 x 256Mb installed as well as a D-LINK WDA-2320 54G Wi-Fi network card and a generic USB 2.0 expansion board containing 3 x external + 1 x internal USB connectors. It has a DVD+/-RW running as master on IDE1 and a 1.44Mb 3.5" floppy drive connected to the floppy connector. It has an 80Gb Western Digital hard drive running as master on IDE0. All this is sitting in a slimline case. I don't know the wattage of the PSU, but can post this later if this proves to be helpful. The motherboard is running a version of Award BIOS for which I don't have the version number to hand but can again post this later if it would be helpful. The hard disk is freshly formatted and built with Windows XP Professional/Service Pack 3 and is up to date with all current patches. In addition to Windows XP, the only other software it's running is Skype 4.1 (4.2 hangs the whole machine as soon as it starts up, requiring a hard boot to recover). It's got a Daytek MV150 15" touch screen hooked up to the on board VGA and COM1 sockets with the most current drivers from the Daytek website and the most current version of ELO-Touchsystems drivers for the touch component. The webcam is a Logitech Webcam C200 with the latest drivers from the Logitech website. The problem: If I hook any devices to the USB 2.0 sockets, it hangs the whole machine and I have to hard boot it to get it back up. If I have any devices attached to the USB 2.0 sockets when I boot up, it hangs before Windows gets to the login prompt and I have to hard boot it to recover. Workarounds found: I can plug the same devices into the on board USB 1.0 sockets and everything works fine, albeit at reduced performance. I've tried 3 different kinds of USB thumb drives, 3 different makes/models of webcams and my iPhone all with the same effect. They're recognized and don't hang the machine when I hook them to the USB 1.0 but if I hook them to the USB 2.0 ports, the machine hangs within a couple of seconds of recognizing the devices were connected. Attempted solutions: I've seen suggestions that this could be a power problem - that the PSU just doesn't have the wattage to drive these ports. While I'm doubtful this is the problem [after all the motherboard has the same standard connector regardless of the PSU wattage], I tried disabling all the on board devices that I'm not using - on board LAN, the second COM port, the AGP connector etc. through the BIOS in what I'm sure is a futile attempt to reduce the power consumption... I also modified the ACPI and power management settings. It didn't have any noticeable affect, although it didn't do any harm either. Could the wattage of the PSU really cause this problem? If it can, is there anything I need to be aware of when replacing it or do I just need to make sure it's got a higher wattage than the current one? My interpretation was that the wattage only affected the number of drives you could hook up to the power connectors, is that right? I've installed the USB card in another machine and it works without issue, so it's not a problem with the USB card itself, and Windows says the card is installed and working correctly... right up until I connect a device to it. The only thing I haven't done which I only just thought of while writing this essay is trying the USB 2.0 card in a different PCI slot, or re-ordering the wi-fi and USB cards in the slots... although I'm not sure if this will make any difference - does anyone have any experience that would suggest this might work? Other thoughts/questions: Perhaps this is an incompatibility between the USB 2.0 card and the BIOS, would re-flashing the BIOS with a newer version help? Do I need to be able to identify the manufacturer of the motherboard in order to be able to find a BIOS edition specific for this motherboard or will any version of Award BIOS function in its place? Question: Does anyone have any ideas that could help me get my USB 2.0 devices hooked up to this machine?

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System user authentication via web interface [closed]

- by donodarazao

Background: We have one pretty slow and expensive satellite Internet connection that is shared in a network with 5-50 users. To limit traffic, users shall pay a certain sum of money per hour. Routing and traffic accounting on user basis is done by a opensuse 10.3 server. Login is done via pppoe, and for each connection, username, bytes_sent, bytes_rcvd, start_time, end_time,etc are written into a mysql database. Now it was decided that we want to change from time-based to volume-based pricing. As the original developer who installed the system a couple of years ago isn't available, I'm trying to do the changes. Although I'm absolutely new to all this, there is some progress. However, there's one point I'm absolutely stuck. Up to now, only administrators can access connection details and billing information via a web interface. But as volume-based prices are less transparent to users than time-based prices, it is essential that users themselves can check their connections and how much they cost via the web interface. For this, we need some kind of user authentication. Actual question: How to develop such a user authentication? Every user has a linux system user account. With this user name and password, connection to the pppoe-server is made by the client machines. I thought about two possibles ways to authenticate users: First possibility: Users type username and password in a form. This is then somehow checked. We already have to possibilities to change passwords via the web interface. Here are parts of the code: Part of the Perl script the homepage is linked to: #!/usr/bin/perl use CGI; use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser); use lib '../lib'; use own_perl_module; my @error; my $data; $query = new CGI; $username = $query->param('username') || ''; $oldpasswd = $query->param('oldpasswd') || ''; $passwd = $query->param('passwd') || ''; $passwd2 = $query->param('passwd2') || ''; own_perl_module::connect(); if ($query->param('submit')) { my $benutzer = own_perl_module::select_benutzer(username => $username) or push @error, "user not exists"; push @error, "your password?!?" unless $passwd; unless (@error) { own_perl_module::update_benutzer($benutzer->{id}, { oldpasswd => $oldpasswd, passwd => $passwd, passwd2 => $passwd2 }, error => \@error) and push @error, "Password changed."; } } Here's part of the sub update_benutzer in the own_perl_module: if ($dat-{passwd} ne '') { my $username = $dat-{username} || $select-{username}; my $system = "./chpasswd.pl '$username' '$dat-{passwd}'" . (defined($dat-{oldpasswd}) ? " '$dat-{oldpasswd}'" : undef); my $answer = $system; if ($? != 0) { chomp($answer); push @$error, $answer || "error changing password ($?)"; Here's chpasswd.pl: #!/usr/bin/perl use FileHandle; use IPC::Open3; local $username = shift; local $passwd = shift; local $oldpasswd = shift; local $chat = { 'Old Password: $' => sub { print POUT "$oldpasswd\n"; }, 'New password: $' => sub { print POUT "$passwd\n"; }, 'Re-enter new password: $' => sub { print POUT "$passwd\n"; }, '(.*)\n$' => sub { print "$1\n"; exit 1; } }; local $/ = \1; my $command; if (defined($oldpasswd)) { $command = "sudo -u '$username' /usr/bin/passwd"; } else { $command = "sudo /usr/bin/passwd '$username'"; } $pid = open3(\*POUT, \*PIN, \*PERR, $command) or die; my $buffer; LOOP: while($_ = <PERR>) { $buffer .= $_; foreach (keys(%$chat)) { if ($buffer =~ /$_/i) { $buffer = undef; &{$chat->{$_}}; } } } exit; Could this somehow be adjusted to verify users, but not changing user passwords? The second possibility I see: all pppoe connections are logged in the mysql database. If I could somehow retrieve the username (or uid) of the user connected by pppoe, this could be used to authenticate users. Users could only check their internet connections and costs when they are online (and thus paying money), but this could be tolerated. Here's a line of the script that inserts connections into the database: my $username = $ENV{PEERNAME}; I thought it would be easy to use this variable, but $username seems to be always empty in test-scripts (print $username). Any idea how to retrieve the user connected to the pppoe server? Sorry for the long question! Any help would be very much appreciated. :)

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Why are my USB 2.0 devices hanging Windows XP?

- by BenAlabaster

Background on the machine I'm having a problem with: The machine was inherited and appears to be circa 2003 (there's a date stamp on the power supply which leads me to this conclusion). I've got it set up as a Skype terminal for my 2 year old to keep in touch with her grandparents and other members of the family - which everyone loves. It has a generic ATX motherboard with no identifying markings other than one stamp that says "Rev.B". CPU-Z identifies the motherboard model as VT8601 but doesn't provide me with any manufacturer name. On board it has 1 x 10/100 LAN, 2 x USB 1.0, VGA, PS/2 for KB and mouse, parallel port, 2 x serial ports, 2 x IDE, 1 x floppy, 2 x SDRAM slots, 1 x CPU housing that is seating a 1.3GHz Intel Celeron CPU, 3 x PCI, 1 x AGP - although you can only use 2 of the PCI slots if you use the AGP slot due to the physical layout of the board. It's got 768Mb PC133 SDRAM - 1 x 512Mb & 1 x 256Mb installed as well as a D-LINK WDA-2320 54G Wi-Fi network card and a generic USB 2.0 expansion board containing 3 x external + 1 x internal USB connectors - it has a NEC uPD720102 chipset. It has a DVD+/-RW running as master on IDE1 and a 1.44Mb 3.5" floppy drive connected to the floppy connector. It has an 80Gb Western Digital hard drive running as master on IDE0. All this is sitting in a slimline case. I don't know the wattage of the PSU, but can post this later if this proves to be helpful. The motherboard is running a version of Award BIOS for which I don't have the version number to hand but can again post this later if it would be helpful. The hard disk is freshly formatted and built with Windows XP Professional/Service Pack 3 and is up to date with all current patches. In addition to Windows XP, the only other software it's running is Skype 4.1 (4.2 hangs the whole machine as soon as it starts up, requiring a hard boot to recover). It's got a Daytek MV150 15" touch screen hooked up to the on board VGA and COM1 sockets with the most current drivers from the Daytek website and the most current version of ELO-Touchsystems drivers for the touch component. The webcam is a Logitech Webcam C200 with the latest drivers from the Logitech website. The problem: If I hook any devices to the USB 2.0 sockets, it hangs the whole machine and I have to hard boot it to get it back up. If I have any devices attached to the USB 2.0 sockets when I boot up, it hangs before Windows gets to the login prompt and I have to hard boot it to recover. Workarounds found: I can plug the same devices into the on board USB 1.0 sockets and everything works fine, albeit at reduced performance. I've tried 3 different kinds of USB thumb drives, 3 different makes/models of webcams and my iPhone all with the same effect. They're recognized and don't hang the machine when I hook them to the USB 1.0 but if I hook them to the USB 2.0 ports, the machine hangs within a couple of seconds of recognizing the devices were connected. Attempted solutions: I've seen suggestions that this could be a power problem - that the PSU just doesn't have the wattage to drive these ports. While I'm doubtful this is the problem [after all the motherboard has the same standard connector regardless of the PSU wattage], I tried disabling all the on board devices that I'm not using - on board LAN, the second COM port, the AGP connector etc. through the BIOS in what I'm sure is a futile attempt to reduce the power consumption... I also modified the ACPI and power management settings. It didn't have any noticeable affect, although it didn't do any harm either. Could the wattage of the PSU really cause this problem? If it can, is there anything I need to be aware of when replacing it or do I just need to make sure it's got a higher wattage than the current one? My interpretation was that the wattage only affected the number of drives you could hook up to the power connectors, is that right? I've installed the USB card in another machine and it works without issue, so it's not a problem with the USB card itself, and Windows says the card is installed and working correctly... right up until I connect a device to it. The only thing I haven't done which I only just thought of while writing this essay is trying the USB 2.0 card in a different PCI slot, or re-ordering the wi-fi and USB cards in the slots... although I'm not sure if this will make any difference - does anyone have any experience that would suggest this might work? Other thoughts/questions: Perhaps this is an incompatibility between the USB 2.0 card and the BIOS, would re-flashing the BIOS with a newer version help? Do I need to be able to identify the manufacturer of the motherboard in order to be able to find a BIOS edition specific for this motherboard or will any version of Award BIOS function in its place? Question: Does anyone have any ideas that could help me get my USB 2.0 devices hooked up to this machine? Edit: Updated the USB 2.0 info with reference to actual card - http://www.xpcgear.com/lpnec4u.html

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The model item passed into the dictionary is of type ‘mvc.Models.ModelA’ but this dictionary require

- by Malcolm Frexner

I have this annoying mistake in some of my builds. There is no error in the project, because if I build again, then the problem disappears. The message only appears, when the site is deployed to a Windows 2008 Server. I first thought that it might be an issue with temporary files, but thats not the case. I deployed the build to a different web and the error still appears. The error appears on random actions of the site. Most of the time builds are ok, but each 3rd or 4th build produces runtime errors. I build using a WebdeploymentProject in release mode. Views are precompiled. It's not http://stackoverflow.com/questions/178194/in-asp-net-mvc-i-encounter-an-incorrect-type-error-when-rendering-a-page-with-the, because views have totally different names. How I can debug this problem or how I can get help for this? Here is my WebDeploymentProject  <Project ToolsVersion="3.5" DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003"> <PropertyGroup> <Configuration Condition=" '$(Configuration)' == '' ">Debug</Configuration> <Platform Condition=" '$(Platform)' == '' ">AnyCPU</Platform> <ProductVersion>9.0.21022</ProductVersion> <SchemaVersion>2.0</SchemaVersion> <ProjectGuid>{E5E14CEB-0BCD-4203-9A5A-34ABA9C717EA}</ProjectGuid> <SourceWebPhysicalPath>..\B2CWeb</SourceWebPhysicalPath> <SourceWebProject>{3E632DB6-6DB3-4BD0-8CCA-12DE67165B48}|B2CWeb\B2CWeb.csproj</SourceWebProject> <SourceWebVirtualPath>/B2CWeb.csproj</SourceWebVirtualPath> <TargetFrameworkVersion>v3.5</TargetFrameworkVersion> </PropertyGroup> <PropertyGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Debug|AnyCPU' "> <DebugSymbols>true</DebugSymbols> <OutputPath>.\Debug</OutputPath> <EnableUpdateable>false</EnableUpdateable> <UseMerge>true</UseMerge> <SingleAssemblyName>B2CWeb_Build</SingleAssemblyName> </PropertyGroup> <PropertyGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Release|AnyCPU' "> <DebugSymbols>false</DebugSymbols> <OutputPath>..\B2CWeb_Deploy\</OutputPath> <EnableUpdateable>false</EnableUpdateable> <UseMerge>true</UseMerge> <SingleAssemblyName>B2C_Web</SingleAssemblyName> <ContentAssemblyName> </ContentAssemblyName> <DeleteAppCodeCompiledFiles>false</DeleteAppCodeCompiledFiles> </PropertyGroup> <ItemGroup> </ItemGroup> <Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\WebDeployment\v9.0\Microsoft.WebDeployment.targets" />  </Project>

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Delphi Speech recognition delphi

- by XBasic3000

I need create a programatic equivalent using delphi language... or could someone post a link on how to do grammars in peech recogniton using the delphi. sorry for my english... XML Grammar Sample(s): <GRAMMAR>  <RULE NAME="HelloWorld" TOPLEVEL="ACTIVE"> hello world </RULE>  <RULE NAME="HelloWorld_Disp" TOPLEVEL="ACTIVE"> hello world </RULE>  <RULE NAME="Question_Pron" TOPLEVEL="ACTIVE"> what </RULE>   <RULE NAME="NurseryRhyme" TOPLEVEL="ACTIVE"> hey diddle </RULE>   <RULE NAME="UseWeights" TOPLEVEL="ACTIVE"> <LIST>  recognize speech wreck a nice beach </LIST> </RULE>   <RULE NAME="UseProps" TOPLEVEL="ACTIVE">  one  two  three </RULE> </GRAMMAR> **Programmatic Equivalent:** To add a phrase to a rule, SAPI provides an API called ISpGrammarBuilder::AddWordTransition. The application developer can add the sentences as follows: SPSTATEHANDLE hsHelloWorld; // Create new top-level rule called "HelloWorld" hr = cpRecoGrammar->GetRule(L"HelloWorld", NULL, SPRAF_TopLevel | SPRAF_Active, TRUE, &hsHelloWorld); // Check hr // Add the command words "hello world" // Note that the lexical delimiter is " ", a space character. // By using a space delimiter, the entire phrase can be added // in one method call hr = cpRecoGrammar->AddWordTransition(hsHelloWorld, NULL, L"hello world", L" ", SPWT_LEXICAL, NULL, NULL); // Check hr // Add the command words "hiya there" // Note that the lexical delimiter is "|", a pipe character. // By using a pipe delimiter, the entire phrase can be added // in one method call hr = cpRecoGrammar->AddWordTransition(hsHelloWorld, NULL, L"hiya|there", L"|", SPWT_LEXICAL, NULL, NULL); // Check hr // save/commit changes hr = cpRecoGrammar->Commit(NULL); // Check hr

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Bluetooth RFCOMM / SDP connection to a RS232 adapter in android

- by ThePosey

Hello All, I am trying to use the Bluetooth Chat sample API app that google provides to connect to a bluetooth RS232 adapter hooked up to another device. Here is the app for reference: http://developer.android.com/resources/samples/BluetoothChat/index.html And here is the spec sheet for the RS232 connector just for reference: http://serialio.com/download/Docs/BlueSnap-guide-4.77_Commands.pdf Well the problem is that when I go to connect to the device with: mmSocket.connect(); (BluetoothSocket::connect()) I always get an IOException error thrown by the connect() method. When I do a toString on the exception I get "Service discovery failed". My question is mostly what are the cases that would cause an IOException to get thrown in the connect method? I know those are in the source somewhere but I don't know exactly how the java layer that you write apps in and the C/C++ layer that contains the actual stacks interface. I know that it uses the bluez bluetooth stack which is written in C/C++ but not sure how that ties into the java layer which is what I would think is throwing the exception. Any help on pointing me to where I can try to dissect this issue would be incredible. Also just to note I am able to pair with the RS232 adapter just fine but I am never able to actually connect. Here is the logcat output for more reference: I/ActivityManager( 1018): Displayed activity com.example.android.BluetoothChat/.DeviceListActivity: 326 ms (total 326 ms) E/BluetoothService.cpp( 1018): stopDiscoveryNative: D-Bus error in StopDiscovery: org.bluez.Error.Failed (Invalid discovery session) D/BluetoothChat( 1729): onActivityResult -1 D/BluetoothChatService( 1729): connect to: 00:06:66:03:0C:51 D/BluetoothChatService( 1729): setState() STATE_LISTEN - STATE_CONNECTING E/BluetoothChat( 1729): + ON RESUME + I/BluetoothChat( 1729): MESSAGE_STATE_CHANGE: STATE_CONNECTING I/BluetoothChatService( 1729): BEGIN mConnectThread E/BluetoothService.cpp( 1018): stopDiscoveryNative: D-Bus error in StopDiscovery: org.bluez.Error.Failed (Invalid discovery session) E/BluetoothEventLoop.cpp( 1018): event_filter: Received signal org.bluez.Device:PropertyChanged from /org/bluez/1498/hci0/dev_00_06_66_03_0C_51 I/BluetoothChatService( 1729): CONNECTION FAIL TOSTRING: java.io.IOException: Service discovery failed D/BluetoothChatService( 1729): setState() STATE_CONNECTING - STATE_LISTEN D/BluetoothChatService( 1729): start D/BluetoothChatService( 1729): setState() STATE_LISTEN - STATE_LISTEN I/BluetoothChat( 1729): MESSAGE_STATE_CHANGE: STATE_LISTEN V/BluetoothEventRedirector( 1080): Received android.bleutooth.device.action.UUID I/NotificationService( 1018): enqueueToast pkg=com.example.android.BluetoothChat callback=android.app.ITransientNotification$Stub$Proxy@446327c8 duration=0 I/BluetoothChat( 1729): MESSAGE_STATE_CHANGE: STATE_LISTEN E/BluetoothEventLoop.cpp( 1018): event_filter: Received signal org.bluez.Device:PropertyChanged from /org/bluez/1498/hci0/dev_00_06_66_03_0C_51 V/BluetoothEventRedirector( 1080): Received android.bleutooth.device.action.UUID The device I'm trying to connect to is the 00:06:66:03:0C:51 which I can scan for and apparently pair with just fine. The below is merged from a similar question which was successfully resolved by the selected answer here: How can one connect to an rfcomm device other than another phone in Android? The Android API provides examples of using listenUsingRfcommWithServiceRecord() to set up a socket and createRfcommSocketToServiceRecord() to connect to that socket. I'm trying to connect to an embedded device with a BlueSMiRF Gold chip. My working Python code (using the PyBluez library), which I'd like to port to Android, is as follows: sock = bluetooth.BluetoothSocket(proto=bluetooth.RFCOMM) sock.connect((device_addr, 1)) return sock.makefile() ...so the service to connect to is simply defined as channel 1, without any SDP lookup. As the only documented mechanism I see in the Android API does SDP lookup of a UUID, I'm slightly at a loss. Using "sdptool browse" from my Linux host comes up empty, so I surmise that the chip in question simply lacks SDP support.

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Animating the offset of the scrollView in a UICollectionView/UITableView causes prematurely disappearing cells

- by radutzan

We have a UICollectionView with a custom layout very similar to UITableView (it scrolls vertically). The UICollectionView displays only 3 cells simultaneously, with one of them being the currently active cell: [ 1 ] [*2*] [ 3 ] (The active cell here is #2.) The cells are roughly 280 points high, so only the active cell is fully visible on the screen. The user doesn't directly scroll the view to navigate, instead, she swipes the active cell horizontally to advance to the next cell. We then do some fancy animations and scroll the UICollectionView so the next cell is in the "active" position, thus making it the active one, moving the old one away and bringing up the next cell in the queue: [ 2 ] [*3*] [ 4 ] The problem here is setting the UICollectionView's offset. We currently set it in a UIView animation block (self.collectionView.contentOffset = targetOffset;) along with three other animating properties, which mostly works great, but causes the first cell (the previously active one, in the latter case, #2) to vanish as soon as the animation starts running, even before the delay interval completes. This is definitely not ideal. I've thought of some solutions, but can't figure out the best one: Absurdly enlarge the UICollectionView's frame to fit five cells instead of three, thus forcing it to keep the cells in memory even if they are offscreen. I've tried this and it works, but it sounds like an awfully dirty hack. Take a snapshot of the rendered content of the vanishing cell, put it in a UIImageView, add the UIImageView as a subview of the scrollView just before the cell goes away in the exact same position of the old cell, removing it once the animation ends. Sounds less sucky than the previous option (memory-wise, at least), but still kinda hacky. I also don't know the best way to accomplish this, please point me in the right direction. Switch to UIScrollView's setContentOffset:animated:. We actually used to have this, and it fixed the disappearing cell issue, but running this in parallel with the other UIView animations apparently competes for the attention of the main thread, thus creating a terribly choppy animation on single-core devices (iPhone 3GS/4). It also doesn't allow us to change the duration or easing of the animation, so it feels out of sync with the rest. Still an option if we can find a way to make it work in harmony with the UIView block animations. Switch to UICollectionView's scrollToItemAtIndexPath:atScrollPosition:animated:. Haven't tried this, but it has a big downside: it only takes 3 possible constants (that apply to this case, at least) for the target scroll position: UICollectionViewScrollPositionTop, UICollectionViewScrollPositionCenteredVertically and UICollectionViewScrollPositionBottom. The active cell could vary its height, but it always has to be 35 points from the top of the window, and these options don't provide enough control to accomplish the design. It could also potentially be just as problematic as 3.1. Still an option because there might be a way to go around the scroll position thing that I don't know of, and it might not have the same issue with the main thread, which seems unlikely. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Please ask if you need clarification. Thanks a lot!

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NLP with greatly contrained input and abilities

- by Mike F

Hat in hand here. I'm a seasoned developer and I would be grateful for a bit of help. I don't have time to read or digest long intricate discussions on theoretical concepts around NLP (or go get my PHD). That said, I have read a few and it's a damn interesting field. The problem is I need real world solutions, for real world products, in real world time frames. The problem I'm having is right now I'm not sure what the right questions are to ask to get started implementing. I believe this is mostly related to vocabulary. I'll read somewhere, a blog post, a forum post, a whitepaper, and it says, I'm doing flooping with the blargy blarg method, and I go google flooping and blargy blarg, and I get references to more obscurity. It seemingly never ends. So, my question is multiphased. First, more generally, how do I become passingly educated on this quickly? Just in time educated. I only need to know what I need to know to take the next step. I've spent 20 years writing code. Explain quick. I'll get it. (I mean provide a reference to something that explains quickly of course). I'm happy to read the right book, but I don't want to read a book where I read the chapter introduction that explains what floopy floop is and then skip over the rest of the chapter with examples of floopy flooping (because now I get what it is). I also don't want to read a book that goes into too much detail with theoretical underpinnings or history. For example, the Jurafsky book seems like way more than I need: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0131873210. But I will read it if this is the right book to read. (It's also dang expensive!) I need the root node of the expedited learning tree here, if you will. Point me in the right direction and I'll be quite grateful. I'm expecting quite a lot of firehose drinking - I just need the right firehose. Second, what I need to do is take a single sentence, with a very reduced vocabulary, and get a grammar tree (sorry if this is the wrong terminology) that I can do something with. I know I could easily write this command line input style in c in a more conventional manner, but I need it to be way better than that. But I don't need a chatterbot either. What I'm doing needs to live in a constrained environment. I can't use Python (unfortunately). I can't ship with gigabytes of corpuses. I need any libraries I use to be in c/c++. If I have to write this myself, I will. Hopefully, it will be achievable considering the reduced problem set. Maybe, probably, that's just naive. If so, let me know. :-) Thanks in advance - Mike

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Getting NoClassdef on HMAC_SHA1 in Webpshere

- by defjab

We have WAS 6.0 (I know) .2.43 ND running in multiple regions. Our Dev-B region runs fine, but Dev-C throws a java exception when we make web-calls (at least this is what the developer tells me)...Same code in both regions and I checked the obvious suspects (Global security, SSL ciphers etc) and they all seem to match. Here's the stack trace from SystemErr: [8/1/12 4:02:31:758 EDT] 0000005c ServletWrappe E SRVE0068E: Could not invoke the service() method on servlet action. Exception thrown : java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError at javax.crypto.Mac.getInstance(DashoA12275) at net.oauth.signature.HMAC_SHA1.computeSignature(HMAC_SHA1.java:73) at net.oauth.signature.HMAC_SHA1.getSignature(HMAC_SHA1.java:39) at net.oauth.signature.OAuthSignatureMethod.getSignature(OAuthSignatureMethod.java:83) at net.oauth.signature.OAuthSignatureMethod.sign(OAuthSignatureMethod.java:54) at com.harcourt.hsp.utils.LTIUtil.generateSignature(LTIUtil.java:62) at com.harcourt.hsp.web.struts.lti.action.BaseLTIAction.generateSignature(BaseLTIAction.java:238) at com.harcourt.hsp.web.struts.lti.action.BaseLTIAction.execute(BaseLTIAction.java:96) at org.springframework.web.struts.DelegatingActionProxy.execute(DelegatingActionProxy.java:106) at org.apache.struts.action.RequestProcessor.processActionPerform(RequestProcessor.java:419) at org.apache.struts.action.RequestProcessor.process(RequestProcessor.java:224) at org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet.process(ActionServlet.java:1194) at org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet.doGet(ActionServlet.java:414) at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:743) at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:856) at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.ServletWrapper.service(ServletWrapper.java:1796) at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.ServletWrapper.handleRequest(ServletWrapper.java:887) at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.CacheServletWrapper.handleRequest(CacheServletWrapper.java:90) at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.WebContainer.handleRequest(WebContainer.java:1937) at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.channel.WCChannelLink.ready(WCChannelLink.java:130) at com.ibm.ws.http.channel.inbound.impl.HttpInboundLink.handleDiscrimination(HttpInboundLink.java:434) at com.ibm.ws.http.channel.inbound.impl.HttpInboundLink.handleNewInformation(HttpInboundLink.java:373) at com.ibm.ws.http.channel.inbound.impl.HttpInboundLink.ready(HttpInboundLink.java:253) at com.ibm.ws.tcp.channel.impl.NewConnectionInitialReadCallback.sendToDiscriminaters(NewConnectionInitialReadCallback.java:207) at com.ibm.ws.tcp.channel.impl.NewConnectionInitialReadCallback.complete(NewConnectionInitialReadCallback.java:109) at com.ibm.ws.tcp.channel.impl.WorkQueueManager.requestComplete(WorkQueueManager.java:566) at com.ibm.ws.tcp.channel.impl.WorkQueueManager.attemptIO(WorkQueueManager.java:619) at com.ibm.ws.tcp.channel.impl.WorkQueueManager.workerRun(WorkQueueManager.java:952) at com.ibm.ws.tcp.channel.impl.WorkQueueManager$Worker.run(WorkQueueManager.java:1039) at com.ibm.ws.util.ThreadPool$Worker.run(ThreadPool.java:1498) at javax.crypto.Mac.getInstance(DashoA12275) at net.oauth.signature.HMAC_SHA1.computeSignature(HMAC_SHA1.java:73) at net.oauth.signature.HMAC_SHA1.getSignature(HMAC_SHA1.java:39) at net.oauth.signature.OAuthSignatureMethod.getSignature(OAuthSignatureMethod.java:83) at net.oauth.signature.OAuthSignatureMethod.sign(OAuthSignatureMethod.java:54) at com.harcourt.hsp.utils.LTIUtil.generateSignature(LTIUtil.java:62) at com.harcourt.hsp.web.struts.lti.action.BaseLTIAction.generateSignature(BaseLTIAction.java:238) at com.harcourt.hsp.web.struts.lti.action.BaseLTIAction.execute(BaseLTIAction.java:96) at org.springframework.web.struts.DelegatingActionProxy.execute(DelegatingActionProxy.java:106) at org.apache.struts.action.RequestProcessor.processActionPerform(RequestProcessor.java:419) at org.apache.struts.action.RequestProcessor.process(RequestProcessor.java:224) at org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet.process(ActionServlet.java:1194) at org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet.doGet(ActionServlet.java:414) at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:743) at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:856) at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.ServletWrapper.service(ServletWrapper.java:1796) at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.ServletWrapper.handleRequest(ServletWrapper.java:887) at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.CacheServletWrapper.handleRequest(CacheServletWrapper.java:90) at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.WebContainer.handleRequest(WebContainer.java:1937) at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.channel.WCChannelLink.ready(WCChannelLink.java:130) at com.ibm.ws.http.channel.inbound.impl.HttpInboundLink.handleDiscrimination(HttpInboundLink.java:434) at com.ibm.ws.http.channel.inbound.impl.HttpInboundLink.handleNewInformation(HttpInboundLink.java:373) at com.ibm.ws.http.channel.inbound.impl.HttpInboundLink.ready(HttpInboundLink.java:253) at com.ibm.ws.tcp.channel.impl.NewConnectionInitialReadCallback.sendToDiscriminaters(NewConnectionInitialReadCallback.java:207) at com.ibm.ws.tcp.channel.impl.NewConnectionInitialReadCallback.complete(NewConnectionInitialReadCallback.java:109) at com.ibm.ws.tcp.channel.impl.WorkQueueManager.requestComplete(WorkQueueManager.java:566) at com.ibm.ws.tcp.channel.impl.WorkQueueManager.attemptIO(WorkQueueManager.java:619) at com.ibm.ws.tcp.channel.impl.WorkQueueManager.workerRun(WorkQueueManager.java:952) at com.ibm.ws.tcp.channel.impl.WorkQueueManager$Worker.run(WorkQueueManager.java:1039) at com.ibm.ws.util.ThreadPool$Worker.run(ThreadPool.java:1498) Thanks for your help. I'm sure it's a config that I'm missing.

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