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• Windows Update and IE fail to connect, but Chrome fine?

  - by I Gottlieb

  Out of ideas on this one. (Running Windows Vista.) I have a program that accesses the internet to retrieve financial market data. One day it tells me that it can't log in -- timeout error. I check the documentation and it says must have a working copy of IE browser installed. I check IE (have IE9) and sure enough -- it just spins. No error message, not timeout, no 'try later' -- just spins -- as far as I can tell, indefinitely. Any page, any address. Even access to a localhost site just spins. Chrome works fine. So does another program I have that fetches market data. Windows 'diagnose and repair' says my internet connection is working fine. I tried uninstall/re-install of IE. Same spinning. I tried to install Windows Updates, and guess what? I can't. I comes up with error 80072efd; checked documentation for the error and it says I should check firewall blockage. Thing is, the only firewall I have is Windows Firewall, and obviously it wouldn't be blocking Windows Update. In contrast, Windows 'Help' in all programs has no problem accessing the Internet. I had a filter on the internet connection, and this was updated just prior to first appearance of the problem. But I uninstalled the filter entirely (official, with passwd from the company's service rep) -- and no difference. I'm guessing that a high level Windows network service file is corrupted -- used only by MS programs and their ilk, but how do I find it? I'd like to avoid having to do a clean install of Windows. Much obliged for any insight. IG Ramhound -- Thanks for reply. I'm familiar with virtual machines as in e.g. JVM or an emulator for an alternative architecture or (theoretical) Turing Machine equivalence. But I'm not familiar with the way you're using the term. Please clarify -- what one needs for this VM 'test' and why you expect it will provide an advantage of insight into the problem. And what sort of 'configuration issue' are you referring to? IG

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• This task is currently locked by a running workflow and cannot be edited. Limitation to both Nintex and SPD workflow

  - by ybbest

  Note, this post is from Nintex Forum here. These limitations apply to both SharePoint designer Workflow and Nintex Workflow as Nintex using the SharePoint workflow engine. The common cause that I experience is that ‘parent’ workflow is generating more than one task at once. This is common as you can have multiple approvers for certain approval process. You could also have workflow running when the task is created, one of the common scenario is you would like to set a custom column value in your approval task. For me this is huge limitation, as Nintex lover I really hope Nintex could solve this problem with Microsoft going forward. Introduction “This task is currently locked by a running workflow and cannot be edited” is a common message that is seen when an error occurs while the SharePoint workflow engine is processing a task item associated with a workflow. When a workflow processes a task normally, the following sequence of events is expected to occur: 1.       The process begins. 2.       The workflow places a ‘lock’ on the task so nothing else can change the values while the workflow is processing. 3.       The workflow processes the task. 4.       The lock is released when the task processing is finished. When the message is encountered, it usually indicates that an error occurred between step 2 and 4. As a result, the lock is never released. Therefore, the ‘task locked’ message is not an error itself, rather a symptom of another error – the ‘task locked’ message does not indicate what went wrong. In most cases, once this message is encountered, the workflow cannot be made to continue and must be terminated and started again. The following is a guide that can help troubleshoot the cause of these messages.  Some initial observations to narrow down the potential causes are: Is the error consistent or intermittent? When the error is consistent, it will happen every time the workflow is run. When it is intermittent, it may happen regularly, but not every time. Does the error occur the first time the user tries to respond to a task, or do they respond and notice the workflow does not continue, and when they respond again the error occurs? If the message is present when the user first responds to the task, the issue would have occurred when the task was created. Otherwise, it would have occurred when the user attempted to respond to the task. Causes Modifying the task list A cause of this error appearing consistently the first time a user tries to respond to a task is a modification to the default task list schema. For example, changing the ‘Assigned to’ field in a task list to be a multiple selection will cause the behaviour. Deleting the workflow task then restoring it from the Recycle bin If you start a workflow, delete the workflow task then restore it from the Recycle Bin in SharePoint, the workflow will fail with the ‘task locked’ error.  This is confirmed behaviour whether using a SharePoint Designer or a Nintex workflow.  You will need to terminate the workflow and start it again. Parallel simultaneous responses A cause of this error appearing inconsistently is multiple users responding to tasks in parallel at the same time. In this scenario, one task will complete correctly and the other will not process. When the user tries again, the ‘task locked’ message will display. Nintex included a workaround for this issue in build 11000. In build 11000 and later, one of the users will receive a message on the task form when they attempt to respond, stating that they need to try again in a few moments. Additional processing on the task A cause of this error appearing consistently and inconsistently is having an additional system running on the items in the task list. Some examples include: a workflow running on the task list, an event receiver running on the task list or another automated process querying and updating workflow tasks. Note: This Microsoft help article (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/HA102376561033.aspx#5) explains creating a workflow that runs on the task list to update a field on the task. Our experience shows that this causes the ‘Task Locked’ issues when the ‘parent’ workflow is generating more than one task at once. Isolated system error If the error is a rare event, or a ‘one off’ event, then an isolated system error may have occurred. For example, if there is a database connectivity issue while the workflow is processing the task response, the task will lock. In this case, the user will respond to a task but the workflow will not continue. When they respond again, the ‘task locked’ message will display. In this case, there will be an error in the SharePoint ULS Logs at the time that the user originally responded. Temporary delay while workflow processes If the workflow is taking a long time to process after a user submits a task, they may notice and try to respond to the task again. They will see the task locked error, but after a number of attempts (or after waiting some time) the task response page eventually indicates the task has been responded to. In this case, nothing actually went wrong, and the error message gives an accurate indication of what is happening – the workflow temporarily locked the task while it was processing. This scenario may occur in a very large workflow, or after the SharePoint application pool has just started. Modifying the task via a web service with an invalid url If the Nintex Workflow web service is used to respond to or delegate a task, the site context part of the url must be a valid alternative access mapping url. For example, if you access the web service via the IP address of the SharePoint server, and the IP address is not a valid AAM, the task can become locked. The workflow has become stuck without any apparent errors This behaviour can occur as a result of a bug in the SharePoint 2010 workflow engine.  If you do not have the August 2010 Cumulative Update (or later) for SharePoint, and your workflow uses delays, “Flexi-task”, State machine”, “Task Reminder” actions or variables, you could be affected. Check the SharePoint 2010 Updates site here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ff800847.  The October CU is recommended http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2553031.   The fix is described as “Consider the following scenario. You add a Delay activity to a workflow. Then, you set the duration for the Delay activity. You deploy the workflow in SharePoint Foundation 2010. In this scenario, the workflow is not resumed after the duration of the Delay activity”. If you find this is occurring in your environment, install the October CU, terminate all the running workflows affected and run them afresh. Investigative steps The first step to isolate the issue is to create a new task list on the site and configure the workflow to use it.  Any customizations that were made to the original task list should not be made to the new task list. If the new task list eliminates the issue, then the cause can be attributed to the original task list or a change that was made to it. To change the task list that the workflow uses: In Workflow Designer select Settings -> Startup Options Then configure the task list as required If any of the scenarios above do not help, check the SharePoint logs for any messages with a category of ‘Workflow Infrastructure’. Conclusion The information in this article has been gathered from observations and investigations by Nintex. The sources of these issues are the underlying SharePoint workflow engine. This article will be updated if further causes are discovered. From <http://connect.nintex.com/forums/thread/6503.aspx>

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• Error on 64 Bit Install of IIS &ndash; LoadLibraryEx failed on aspnet_filter.dll

  - by Rick Strahl

  I’ve been having a few problems with my Windows 7 install and trying to get IIS applications to run properly in 64 bit. After installing IIS and creating virtual directories for several of my applications and firing them up I was left with the following error message from IIS: Calling LoadLibraryEx on ISAPI filter “c:\windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\aspnet_filter.dll” failed This is on Windows 7 64 bit and running on an ASP.NET 4.0 Application configured for running 64 bit (32 bit disabled). It’s also on what is essentially a brand new installation of IIS and Windows 7. So it failed right out of the box. The problem here is that IIS is trying to loading this ISAPI filter from the 32 bit folder – it should be loading from Framework64 folder note the Framework folder. The aspnet_filter.dll component is a small Win32 ISAPI filter used to back up the cookieless session state for ASP.NET on IIS 7 applications. It’s not terribly important because of this focus, but it’s a default loaded component. After a lot of fiddling I ended up with two solutions (with the help and support of some Twitter folks): Switch IIS to run in 32 bit mode Fix the filter listing in ApplicationHost.config Switching IIS to allow 32 Bit Code This is a quick fix for the problem above which enables 32 bit code in the Application Pool. The problem above is that IIS is trying to load a 32 bit ISAPI filter and enabling 32 bit code gets you around this problem. To configure your Application Pool, open the Application Pool in IIS Manager bring up Advanced Options and Enable 32 Bit Applications: And voila the error message above goes away. Fix Filters Enabling 32 bit code is a quick fix solution to this problem, but not an ideal one. If you’re running a pure .NET application that doesn’t need to do COM or pInvoke Interop with 32 bit apps there’s usually no need for enabling 32 bit code in an Application Pool as you can run in native 64 bit code. So trying to get 64 bit working natively is a pretty key feature in my opinion :-) So what’s the problem – why is IIS trying to load a 32 bit DLL in a 64 bit install, especially if the application pool is configured to not allow 32 bit code at all? The problem lies in the server configuration and the fact that 32 bit and 64 bit configuration settings exist side by side in IIS. If I open my Default Web Site (or any other root Web Site) and go to the ISAPI filter list here’s what I see: Notice that there are 3 entries for ASP.NET 4.0 in this list. Only two of them however are specifically scoped to the specifically to 32 bit or 64 bit. As you can see the 64 bit filter correctly points at the Framework64 folder to load the dll, while both the 32 bit and the ‘generic’ entry point at the plain Framework 32 bit folder. Aha! Hence lies our problem. You can edit ApplicationHost.config manually, but I ran into the nasty issue of not being able to easily edit that file with the 32 bit editor (who ever thought that was a good idea???? WTF). You have to open ApplicationHost.Config in a 64 bit native text editor – which Visual Studio is not. Or my favorite editor: EditPad Pro. Since I don’t have a native 64 bit editor handy Notepad was my only choice. Or as an alternative you can use the IIS 7.5 Configuration Editor which lets you interactively browse and edit most ApplicationHost settings. You can drill into the configuration hierarchy visually to find your keys and edit attributes and sub values in property editor type interface. I had no idea this tool existed prior to today and it’s pretty cool as it gives you some visual clues to options available – especially in absence of an Intellisense scheme you’d get in Visual Studio (which doesn’t work). To use the Configuration Editor go the Web Site root and use the Configuration Editor option in the Management Group. Drill into System.webServer/isapiFilters and then click on the Collection’s … button on the right. You should now see a display like this: which shows all the same attributes you’d see in ApplicationHost.config (cool!). These entries correspond to these raw ApplicationHost.config entries: <filter name="ASP.Net_4.0" path="C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\aspnet_filter.dll" enableCache="true" preCondition="runtimeVersionv4.0" /> <filter name="ASP.Net_4.0_64bit" path="C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_filter.dll" enableCache="true" preCondition="runtimeVersionv4.0,bitness64" /> <filter name="ASP.Net_4.0_32bit" path="C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\aspnet_filter.dll" enableCache="true" preCondition="runtimeVersionv4.0,bitness32" /> The key attribute we’re concerned with here is the preCondition and the bitness subvalue. Notice that the ‘generic’ version – which comes first in the filter list – has no bitness assigned to it, so it defaults to 32 bit and the 32 bit dll path. And this is where our problem comes from. The simple solution to fix the startup problem is to remove the generic entry from this list here or in the filters list shown earlier and leave only the bitness specific versions active. The preCondition attribute acts as a filter and as you can see here it filters the list by runtime version and bitness value. This is something to keep an eye out in general – if a bitness values are missing it’s easy to run into conflicts like this with any settings that are global and especially those that load modules and handlers and other executable code. On 64 bit systems it’s a good idea to explicitly set the bitness of all entries or remove the non-specific versions and add bit specific entries. So how did this get misconfigured? I installed IIS before everything else was installed on this machine and then went ahead and installed Visual Studio. I suspect the Visual Studio install munged this up as I never saw a similar problem on my live server where everything just worked right out of the box. In searching about this problem a lot of solutions pointed at using aspnet_regiis –r from the Framework64 directory, but that did not fix this extra entry in the filters list – it adds the required 32 bit and 64 bit entries, but it doesn’t remove the errand un-bitness set entry. Hopefully this post will help out anybody who runs into a similar situation without having to trouble shoot all the way down into the configuration settings and noticing the bitness settings. It’s a good lesson learned for me – this is my first desktop install of a 64 bit OS and things like this are what I was reluctant to find. Now that I ran into this I have a good idea what to look for with 32/64 bit misconfigurations in IIS at least.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in IIS7   ASP.NET  

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• Geek Fun: Virtualized Old School Windows – Windows 95

  - by Matthew Guay

  Last week we enjoyed looking at Windows 3.1 running in VMware Player on Windows 7.  Today, let’s upgrade our 3.1 to 95, and get a look at how most of us remember Windows from the 90’s. In this demo, we’re running the first release of Windows 95 (version 4.00.950) in VMware Player 3.0 running on Windows 7 x64.  For fun, we ran the 95 upgrade on the 3.1 virtual machine we built last week. Windows 95 So let’s get started.  Here’s the first setup screen.  For the record, Windows 95 installed in about 15 minutes or less in VMware in our test. Strangely, Windows 95 offered several installation choices.  They actually let you choose what extra parts of Windows to install if you wished.  Oh, and who wants to run Windows 95 on your “Portable Computer”?  Most smartphones today are more powerful than the “portable computers” of 95. Your productivity may vastly increase if you run Windows 95.  Anyone want to switch? No, I don’t want to restart … I want to use my computer! Welcome to Windows 95!  Hey, did you know you can launch programs from the Start button? Our quick spin around Windows 95 reminded us why Windows got such a bad reputation in the ‘90’s for being unstable.  We didn’t even get our test copy fully booted after installation before we saw our first error screen.  Windows in space … was that the most popular screensaver in Windows 95, or was it just me? Hello Windows 3.1!  The UI was still outdated in some spots.   Ah, yes, Media Player before it got 101 features to compete with iTunes. But, you couldn’t even play CDs in Media Player.  Actually, CD player was one program I used almost daily in Windows 95 back in the day. Want some new programs?  This help file about new programs designed for Windows 95 lists a lot of outdated names in tech.    And, you really may want some programs.  The first edition of Windows 95 didn’t even ship with Internet Explorer.   We’ve still got Minesweeper, though! My Computer had really limited functionality, and by default opened everything in a new window.  Double click on C:, and it opens in a new window.  Ugh. But Explorer is a bit more like more modern versions. Hey, look, Start menu search!  If only it found the files you were looking for… Now I’m feeling old … this shutdown screen brought back so many memories … of shutdowns that wouldn’t shut down! But, you still have to turn off your computer.  I wonder how many old monitors had these words burned into them? So there’s yet another trip down Windows memory lane.  Most of us can remember using Windows 95, so let us know your favorite (or worst) memory of it!  At least we can all be thankful for our modern computers and operating systems today, right?  Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Geek Fun: Remember the Old-School SkiFree Game?Geek Fun: Virtualized old school Windows 3.11Stupid Geek Tricks: Tile or Cascade Multiple Windows in Windows 7Stupid Geek Tricks: Select Multiple Windows on the TaskbarHow to Delete a System File in Windows 7 or Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Enable Check Box Selection in Windows 7 OnlineOCR – Free OCR Service Betting on the Blind Side, a Vanity Fair article 30 Minimal Logo Designs that Say More with Less LEGO Digital Designer – Free Create a Personal Website Quickly using Flavors.me

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• Geek Fun: Virtualized Old School Windows – Windows 95

  - by Matthew Guay

  Last week we enjoyed looking at Windows 3.1 running in VMware Player on Windows 7.  Today, let’s upgrade our 3.1 to 95, and get a look at how most of us remember Windows from the 90’s. In this demo, we’re running the first release of Windows 95 (version 4.00.950) in VMware Player 3.0 running on Windows 7 x64.  For fun, we ran the 95 upgrade on the 3.1 virtual machine we built last week. Windows 95 So let’s get started.  Here’s the first setup screen.  For the record, Windows 95 installed in about 15 minutes or less in VMware in our test. Strangely, Windows 95 offered several installation choices.  They actually let you choose what extra parts of Windows to install if you wished.  Oh, and who wants to run Windows 95 on your “Portable Computer”?  Most smartphones today are more powerful than the “portable computers” of 95. Your productivity may vastly increase if you run Windows 95.  Anyone want to switch? No, I don’t want to restart … I want to use my computer! Welcome to Windows 95!  Hey, did you know you can launch programs from the Start button? Our quick spin around Windows 95 reminded us why Windows got such a bad reputation in the ‘90’s for being unstable.  We didn’t even get our test copy fully booted after installation before we saw our first error screen.  Windows in space … was that the most popular screensaver in Windows 95, or was it just me? Hello Windows 3.1!  The UI was still outdated in some spots.   Ah, yes, Media Player before it got 101 features to compete with iTunes. But, you couldn’t even play CDs in Media Player.  Actually, CD player was one program I used almost daily in Windows 95 back in the day. Want some new programs?  This help file about new programs designed for Windows 95 lists a lot of outdated names in tech.    And, you really may want some programs.  The first edition of Windows 95 didn’t even ship with Internet Explorer.   We’ve still got Minesweeper, though! My Computer had really limited functionality, and by default opened everything in a new window.  Double click on C:, and it opens in a new window.  Ugh. But Explorer is a bit more like more modern versions. Hey, look, Start menu search!  If only it found the files you were looking for… Now I’m feeling old … this shutdown screen brought back so many memories … of shutdowns that wouldn’t shut down! But, you still have to turn off your computer.  I wonder how many old monitors had these words burned into them? So there’s yet another trip down Windows memory lane.  Most of us can remember using Windows 95, so let us know your favorite (or worst) memory of it!  At least we can all be thankful for our modern computers and operating systems today, right?  Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Geek Fun: Remember the Old-School SkiFree Game?Geek Fun: Virtualized old school Windows 3.11Stupid Geek Tricks: Tile or Cascade Multiple Windows in Windows 7Stupid Geek Tricks: Select Multiple Windows on the TaskbarHow to Delete a System File in Windows 7 or Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Enable Check Box Selection in Windows 7 OnlineOCR – Free OCR Service Betting on the Blind Side, a Vanity Fair article 30 Minimal Logo Designs that Say More with Less LEGO Digital Designer – Free Create a Personal Website Quickly using Flavors.me

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• Parallelism in .NET – Part 10, Cancellation in PLINQ and the Parallel class

  - by Reed

  Many routines are parallelized because they are long running processes.  When writing an algorithm that will run for a long period of time, its typically a good practice to allow that routine to be cancelled.  I previously discussed terminating a parallel loop from within, but have not demonstrated how a routine can be cancelled from the caller’s perspective.  Cancellation in PLINQ and the Task Parallel Library is handled through a new, unified cooperative cancellation model introduced with .NET 4.0. Cancellation in .NET 4 is based around a new, lightweight struct called CancellationToken.  A CancellationToken is a small, thread-safe value type which is generated via a CancellationTokenSource.  There are many goals which led to this design.  For our purposes, we will focus on a couple of specific design decisions: Cancellation is cooperative.  A calling method can request a cancellation, but it’s up to the processing routine to terminate – it is not forced. Cancellation is consistent.  A single method call requests a cancellation on every copied CancellationToken in the routine. Let’s begin by looking at how we can cancel a PLINQ query.  Supposed we wanted to provide the option to cancel our query from Part 6: double min = collection .AsParallel() .Min(item => item.PerformComputation()); .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } We would rewrite this to allow for cancellation by adding a call to ParallelEnumerable.WithCancellation as follows: var cts = new CancellationTokenSource(); // Pass cts here to a routine that could, // in parallel, request a cancellation try { double min = collection .AsParallel() .WithCancellation(cts.Token) .Min(item => item.PerformComputation()); } catch (OperationCanceledException e) { // Query was cancelled before it finished } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Here, if the user calls cts.Cancel() before the PLINQ query completes, the query will stop processing, and an OperationCanceledException will be raised.  Be aware, however, that cancellation will not be instantaneous.  When cts.Cancel() is called, the query will only stop after the current item.PerformComputation() elements all finish processing.  cts.Cancel() will prevent PLINQ from scheduling a new task for a new element, but will not stop items which are currently being processed.  This goes back to the first goal I mentioned – Cancellation is cooperative.  Here, we’re requesting the cancellation, but it’s up to PLINQ to terminate. If we wanted to allow cancellation to occur within our routine, we would need to change our routine to accept a CancellationToken, and modify it to handle this specific case: public void PerformComputation(CancellationToken token) { for (int i=0; i<this.iterations; ++i) { // Add a check to see if we've been canceled // If a cancel was requested, we'll throw here token.ThrowIfCancellationRequested(); // Do our processing now this.RunIteration(i); } } With this overload of PerformComputation, each internal iteration checks to see if a cancellation request was made, and will throw an OperationCanceledException at that point, instead of waiting until the method returns.  This is good, since it allows us, as developers, to plan for cancellation, and terminate our routine in a clean, safe state. This is handled by changing our PLINQ query to: try { double min = collection .AsParallel() .WithCancellation(cts.Token) .Min(item => item.PerformComputation(cts.Token)); } catch (OperationCanceledException e) { // Query was cancelled before it finished } PLINQ is very good about handling this exception, as well.  There is a very good chance that multiple items will raise this exception, since the entire purpose of PLINQ is to have multiple items be processed concurrently.  PLINQ will take all of the OperationCanceledException instances raised within these methods, and merge them into a single OperationCanceledException in the call stack.  This is done internally because we added the call to ParallelEnumerable.WithCancellation. If, however, a different exception is raised by any of the elements, the OperationCanceledException as well as the other Exception will be merged into a single AggregateException. The Task Parallel Library uses the same cancellation model, as well.  Here, we supply our CancellationToken as part of the configuration.  The ParallelOptions class contains a property for the CancellationToken.  This allows us to cancel a Parallel.For or Parallel.ForEach routine in a very similar manner to our PLINQ query.  As an example, we could rewrite our Parallel.ForEach loop from Part 2 to support cancellation by changing it to: try { var cts = new CancellationTokenSource(); var options = new ParallelOptions() { CancellationToken = cts.Token }; Parallel.ForEach(customers, options, customer => { // Run some process that takes some time... DateTime lastContact = theStore.GetLastContact(customer); TimeSpan timeSinceContact = DateTime.Now - lastContact; // Check for cancellation here options.CancellationToken.ThrowIfCancellationRequested(); // If it's been more than two weeks, send an email, and update... if (timeSinceContact.Days > 14) { theStore.EmailCustomer(customer); customer.LastEmailContact = DateTime.Now; } }); } catch (OperationCanceledException e) { // The loop was cancelled } Notice that here we use the same approach taken in PLINQ.  The Task Parallel Library will automatically handle our cancellation in the same manner as PLINQ, providing a clean, unified model for cancellation of any parallel routine.  The TPL performs the same aggregation of the cancellation exceptions as PLINQ, as well, which is why a single exception handler for OperationCanceledException will cleanly handle this scenario.  This works because we’re using the same CancellationToken provided in the ParallelOptions.  If a different exception was thrown by one thread, or a CancellationToken from a different CancellationTokenSource was used to raise our exception, we would instead receive all of our individual exceptions merged into one AggregateException.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, February 22, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, February 22, 2010New ProjectsAVDB: System to keep track of orders and the inventory of televisions, DVDs, VCRs etcBooky: Booky is an online Bookmark Management Tool. Gear Up for Lord of the Rings Online (lotro): Windows utility for checking what your LOTRO character currently has equipped and figuring out gear you should get to improve your stats.GotSharp Extensions: GotSharp Extensions is a set of helpful classes and extension methods that can make your coding experience easier and cleaner. Halfwit: A minimalist WPF Twitter client.HOA Starter Kit: A community subdivision website starter kit. First draft.Lua For Irony: Project to define the Lua language using the Irony (http://irony.codeplex.com/) development kit. This work is based heavily on the work done for V...MimeCloud: Scalable .NET Digital Asset & Media Management: MimeCloud is a scalable digital asset library & media management toolset. Founded by Alex Norcliffe and Peter Miller Written by people who have b...Parallel Mandelbrot Set solver: Solving the Mandelbrot set using the Parallel class in .NET 4.0. Showing the resulting image in a WPF application. The solution file requires VS 2010.Pomogad - Pomodoro Windows Gadget: Você usa Pomodoro Technique? Não sabe o que é? Veja aqui http://www.pomodorotechnique.com Agora que você já sabe, que tal usar essa técnica? E p...PostCrap - flyweight .NET AOP post compiler: PostCrap is a flyweight attribute based aspect injection .NET post compiler It is written in C# and uses Mono.Cecil to modify assemblies and injec...Software + Service Reference Demo Kit: MS China Developer and Platform Evangelism team created an End-2-End demo for Software + Service. Yet Another SharePoint Tool: YEAST provides you with a simple to integrate approach to generating SharePoint solution packages as part of a Visual Studio project. Zen Coding Visual Studio Plugin: Zen Coding for Visual Studio is plugin for HTML and CSS hi-speed codingNew Releases.Net MSBuild Google Closure Compiler Task: .Net MSBuild Google Closure Compiler Task 1.1: - Corrected issue with regular expression source file and renamingdotNails: dotNails_0.5.9: NOTE - the latest source code has been moved to google code to take advantage of Mercurial source control - http://code.google.com/p/dotnails/sourc...EasyWFUnit: EasyWFUnit-2.2: Release 2.2 of EasyWFUnit, an extension library to support unit testing of Windows Workflow, includes a revised WinForm GUI Test Builder that utili...Fluent Ribbon Control Suite: Fluent Ribbon Control Suite BETA2 (for .NET 4.0RC): Includes Fluent.dll (with .pdb and .xml) and test application compiled with .NET 4.0 RC.FolderSize: FolderSize.Win32.1.0.3.0: FolderSize.Win32.1.0.3.0 A simple utility intended to be used to scan harddrives for the folders that take most place and display this to the user...Fusion Charts Free for SharePoint: 1.3: Fix release for issue #11833 : Feature Must Be Activated on Root of Web Application.GotSharp Extensions: 1.0: First release, containing only a few extension methods for the System.String and System.IO.Stream classes, and a Range utility class.Jeremy's Experimental Repository: FluentValidation with IoC Sample: Sample code for the blog post Using FluentValidation with an IoC containerMiniTwitter: 1.08: MiniTwitter 1.08 更新内容 修正 自動更新が CodePlex の変更で動いていなかった問題を修正 自動更新に失敗すると落ちるバグを修正 通知領域アイコン右クリックで表示されるメニューが消えないバグを修正 変更 ハッシュタグの抽出条件を変更 API のエンドポイ...MSTS Editors & Tools: Simis Editor v0.3: Simis Editor v0.3 Enabled Edit > Undo and Edit > Redo. Undoing/redoing back to last saved state is identified as saved (no prompt on exit, etc.)....Parallel Mandelbrot Set solver: Alpha 1: First releaseParallelTasks: ParallelTasks 2.0 beta1: ParallelTasks 2.0 is a total re-write of the original version. Featuring improved performance and stability and a more consistent API.Personal Expense Tracker: Personal Expense Tracker v0.1 beta: This is the first beta release. Please provide me with your feedback.PostCrap - flyweight .NET AOP post compiler: PostCrap 1.0 AOP source and binaries: PostCrap 1.0 source and binaries (the unit test project contains sample interceptor attributes for exception handling & logging)Protoforma | Tactica Adversa: Skilful 0.1.3.276: AlphaRawr: Rawr 2.3.10: - More improvements to the default filters - Further improvement on avoiding useless gem swaps from the Optimizer. - Normal/Heroic ICC items shou...Reusable Library: v1.0.2: A collection of reusable abstractions for enterprise application developer.Sem.Sync: 2010-02-21 - Synchronization Manager - Beta: This release is not tested very well, so you should use this version only to evaluate new features. - Changed way of handling source-ids in order ...Survey - web survey & form engine: Survey 1.1.0: Release Survey v. 1.1.0.0 Major changes: - layout & graphics completely overhauled - several technical changes & repairs (e.g. matrix question iss...Yet Another SharePoint Tool: Version 1: Version 1Zeta Resource Editor: Release 2010-02-21: New source code release.Most Popular ProjectsWBFS ManagerRawrAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)Image Resizer Powertoy Clone for WindowsASP.NETDotNetNuke® Community EditionMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesMost Active ProjectsDinnerNow.netRawrBlogEngine.NETNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModuleSharpyjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesSharePoint ContribInfoServicepatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryPHPExcel

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• TFS 2010 Basic Concepts

  - by jehan

  v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Here, I’m going to discuss some key Architectural changes and concepts that have taken place in TFS 2010 when compared to TFS 2008. In TFS 2010 Installation, First you need to do the Installation and then you have to configure the Installation Feature from the available features. This is bit similar to SharePoint Installation, where you will first do the Installation and then configure the SharePoint Farms. 1) Installation Features available in TFS2010: a) Basic: It is the most compact TFS installation possible. It will install and configure Source Control, Work Item tracking and Build Services only. (SharePoint and Reporting Integration will not be possible). b) Standard Single Server: This is suitable for Single Server deployment of TFS. It will install and configure Windows SharePoint Services for you and will use the default instance of SQL Server. c) Advanced: It is suitable, if you want use Remote Servers for SQL Server Databases, SharePoint Products and Technologies and SQL Server Reporting Services. d) Application Tier Only: If you want to configure high availability for Team Foundation Server in a Load Balanced Environment (NLB) or you want to move Team Foundation Server from one server to other or you want to restore TFS. e) Upgrade: If you want to upgrade from a prior version of TFS. Note: One more important thing to know here about  TFS 2010 Basic is that,  it can be installed on Client Operations Systems(Windows 7 and Windows Vista SP3), Where as  earlier you cannot Install previous version of TFS (2008 and 2005) on client OS. 2) Team Project Collections: Connect to TFS dialog box in TFS 2008:  In TFS 2008, the TFS Server contains a set of Team Projects and each project may or may not be independent of other projects and every checkin gets a ever increasing  changeset ID  irrespective of the team project in which it is checked in and the same applies to work items  also, who also gets unique Work Item Ids.The main problem with this approach was that there are certain things which were impossible to do; those were required as per the Application Development Process. a)      If something has gone wrong in one team project and now you want to restore it back to earlier state where it was working properly then it requires you to restore the Database of Team Foundation Server from the backup you have taken as per your Maintenance plans and because of this the other team projects may lose out on the work which is not backed up. b)       Your company had a merge with some other company and now you have two TFS servers. One TFS Server which you are working on and other TFS server which other company was working and now after the merge you want to integrate the team projects from two TFS servers into one, which is almost impossible to achieve in TFS 2008. Though you can create the Team Projects in one server manually (In Source Control) which you want to integrate from the other TFS Server, but will lose out on History of Change Sets and Work items and others which are very important. There were few more issues of this sort, which were difficult to resolve in TFS 2008. To resolve issues related to above kind of scenarios which were mainly related TFS Maintenance, Integration, migration and Security,  Microsoft has come up with Team Project Collections concept in TFS 2010.This concept is similar to SharePoint Site Collections and if you are familiar with SharePoint Architecture, then it will help you to understand TFS 2010 Architecture easily. Connect to TFS dialog box in TFS 2010: In above dialog box as you can see there are two Team Project Collections, each team project can contain any number of team projects as you can see on right side it shows the two Team Projects in Team Project Collection (Default Collection) which I have chosen. Note: You can connect to only one Team project Collection at a time using an instance of  TFS Team Explorer. How does it work? To introduce Team Project Collections, changes have been done in reorganization of TFS databases. TFS 2008 was composed of 5-7 databases partitioned by subsystem (each for Version Control, Work Item Tracking, Build, Integration, Project Management...) New TFS 2010 database architecture: TFS_Config: It’s the root database and it contains centralized TFS configuration data, including the list of all team projects exist in TFS server. TFS_Warehouse: The data warehouse contains all the reporting data of served by this server (farm). TFS_* : This contains individual team project collection data. This database contains all the operational data of team project collection regardless of subsystem.In additional to this, you will have databases for SharePoint and Report Server. 3) TFS Farms:  As TFS 2010 is more flexible to configure as multiple Application tiers and multiple Database tiers, so it will be more appropriate to call as TFS Farm if you going for multi server installation of TFS. NLB support for TFS application tiers – With TFS 2010: you can configure multiple TFS application tier machines to serve the same set of Team Project Collections. The primary purpose of NLB support is to enable a cleaner and more complete high availability than in TFS 2008. Even if any application tier in the farm fails then farm will automatically continue to work with hardly any indication to end users of a problem. SQL data tiers: With 2010 you can configure many SQL Servers. Each Database can be configured to be on any SQL Server because each Team Project Collection is an independent database. This feature can also be used to load balance databases across SQL Servers.These new capabilities will significantly change the way enterprises manage their TFS installations in the future. With Team Project Collections and TFS farms, you can create a single, arbitrarily large TFS installation. You can grow it incrementally by adding ATs and SQL Servers as needed.

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• Developer’s Life – Summary of Superhero Articles

  - by Pinal Dave

  Earlier this year, I wrote an article series where I talked about developer’s life and compared it with Superhero. I have got amazing response to this series and I have been receiving quite a lots of email suggesting that I should write more blog post about them. Currently I am not planning to write more blog post but I will soon continue another series. In this blog post, I have summarized the entire series. Let me know if you want me to write about any superhero. I will see what I can do about that hero. Developer’s Life – Every Developer is a Captain America Captain America was first created as a comic book character in the 1940’s as a way to boost morale during World War II.  Aimed at a children’s audience, his legacy faded away when the war ended.  However, he has recently has a major reboot to become a popular movie character that deals with modern issues. Developer’s Life – Every Developer is the Incredible Hulk The Incredible Hulk is possibly one of the scariest superheroes out there.  All superheroes are meant to be “out of this world” and awe-inspiring, but I think most people will agree with I say The Hulk takes this to the next level.  He is the result of an industrial accident, which is scary enough in it’s own right.  Plus, when mild-mannered Bruce Banner is angered, he goes completely out-of-control and transforms into a destructive monster that he cannot control and has no memories of. Developer’s Life – Every Developer is a Wonder Woman We have focused a lot lately on this “superhero series.”  I love fantasy books and movies, and I feel like there is a lot to be learned from them.  As I am writing this series, though, I have noticed that every super hero I write about is a man.  So today, I would like to talk about the major female super hero – Wonder Woman. Developer’s Life – Every Developer is a Harry Potter Harry Potter might not be a superhero in the traditional sense, but I believe he still has a lot to teach us and show us about life as a developer.  If you have been living under a rock for the last 17 years, you might not know that Harry Potter is the main character in an extremely popular series of books and movies documenting the education and tribulation of a young wizard (and his friends). Developer’s Life – Every Developer is Like Transformers Transformers may not be superheroes – they don’t wear capes, they don’t have amazing powers outside of their size and folding ability, they’re not even human (technically).  Part of their enduring popularity is that while we are enjoying over-the-top movies, we are learning about good leadership and strong personal skills. Developer’s Life – Every Developer is a Iron Man Iron Man is another superhero who is not naturally “super,” but relies on his brain (and money) to turn him into a fighting machine.  While traditional superheroes are still popular, a three-movie franchise and incorporation into the new Avengers series shows that Iron Man is popular enough on his own. Developer’s Life – Every Developer is a Sherlock Holmes I have been thinking a lot about how developers are like super heroes, and I have written two blog posts now comparing them to Spiderman and Superman.  I have a lot of love and respect for developers, and I hope that they are enjoying these articles, and others are learning a little bit about the profession.  There is another fictional character who, while not technically asuper hero, is very powerful, and I also think stands as a good example of a developer. That character is Sherlock Holmes.  Sherlock Holmes is a British detective, first made popular at the turn of the 19thcentury by author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  The original Sherlock Holmes was a brilliant detective who could solve the most mind-boggling crime through simple observations and deduction. Developer’s Life – Every Developer is a Chhota Bheem Chhota Bheem is a cartoon character that is extremely popular where I live.  He is my daughter’s favorite characters.  I like to say that children love Chhota Bheem more than their parents – it is lucky for us he is not real!  Children love Chhota Bheem because he is the absolute “good guy.”  He is smart, loyal, and strong.  He and his friends live in Dholakpur and fight off their many enemies – and always win – in every episode.  In each episode, they learn something about friendship, bravery, and being kind to others.  Chhota Bheem is a good role model for children, and I think that he is a good role model for developers are well. Developer’s Life – Every Developer is a Batman Batman is one of the darkest superheroes in the fantasy canon.  He does not come to his powers through any sort of magical coincidence or radioactive insect, but through a lot of psychological scarring caused by witnessing the death of his parents.  Despite his dark back story, he possesses a lot of admirable abilities that I feel bear comparison to developers. Developer’s Life – Every Developer is a Superman I enjoyed comparing developers to Spiderman so much, that I have decided to continue the trend and encourage some of my favorite people (developers) with another favorite superhero – Superman.  Superman is probably the most famous superhero – and one of the most inspiring. Developer’s Life – Every Developer is a Spiderman I have to admit, Spiderman is my favorite superhero.  The most recent movie recently was released in theaters, so it has been at the front of my mind for some time. Spiderman was my favorite superhero even before the latest movie came out, but of course I took my whole family to see the movie as soon as I could!  Every one of us loved it, including my daughter.  We all left the movie thinking how great it would be to be Spiderman.  So, with that in mind, I started thinking about how we are like Spiderman in our everyday lives, especially developers. I would like to know which Superhero is your favorite hero! Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL Tagged: Developer, Superhero

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• How to Assign a Static IP Address in XP, Vista, or Windows 7

  - by Mysticgeek

  When organizing your home network it’s easier to assign each computer it’s own IP address than using DHCP. Here we will take a look at doing it in XP, Vista, and Windows 7. If you have a home network with several computes and devices, it’s a good idea to assign each of them a specific address. If you use DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol), each computer will request and be assigned an address every time it’s booted up. When you have to do troubleshooting on your network, it’s annoying going to each machine to figure out what IP they have. Using Static IPs prevents address conflicts between devices and allows you to manage them more easily. Assigning IPs to Windows is essentially the same process, but getting to where you need to be varies between each version. Windows 7 To change the computer’s IP address in Windows 7, type network and sharing into the Search box in the Start Menu and select Network and Sharing Center when it comes up.   Then when the Network and Sharing Center opens, click on Change adapter settings. Right-click on your local adapter and select Properties. In the Local Area Connection Properties window highlight Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) then click the Properties button. Now select the radio button Use the following IP address and enter in the correct IP, Subnet mask, and Default gateway that corresponds with your network setup. Then enter your Preferred and Alternate DNS server addresses. Here we’re on a home network and using a simple Class C network configuration and Google DNS. Check Validate settings upon exit so Windows can find any problems with the addresses you entered. When you’re finished click OK. Now close out of the Local Area Connections Properties window. Windows 7 will run network diagnostics and verify the connection is good. Here we had no problems with it, but if you did, you could run the network troubleshooting wizard. Now you can open the command prompt and do an ipconfig  to see the network adapter settings have been successfully changed.   Windows Vista Changing your IP from DHCP to a Static address in Vista is similar to Windows 7, but getting to the correct location is a bit different. Open the Start Menu, right-click on Network, and select Properties. The Network and Sharing Center opens…click on Manage network connections. Right-click on the network adapter you want to assign an IP address and click Properties. Highlight Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) then click the Properties button. Now change the IP, Subnet mask, Default Gateway, and DNS Server Addresses. When you’re finished click OK. You’ll need to close out of Local Area Connection Properties for the settings to go into effect. Open the Command Prompt and do an ipconfig to verify the changes were successful.   Windows XP In this example we’re using XP SP3 Media Center Edition and changing the IP address of the Wireless adapter. To set a Static IP in XP right-click on My Network Places and select Properties. Right-click on the adapter you want to set the IP for and select Properties. Highlight Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and click the Properties button. Now change the IP, Subnet mask, Default Gateway, and DNS Server Addresses. When you’re finished click OK. You will need to close out of the Network Connection Properties screen before the changes go into effect.   Again you can verify the settings by doing an ipconfig in the command prompt. In case you’re not sure how to do this, click on Start then Run.   In the Run box type in cmd and click OK. Then at the prompt type in ipconfig and hit Enter. This will show the IP address for the network adapter you changed.   If you have a small office or home network, assigning each computer a specific IP address makes it a lot easier to manage and troubleshoot network connection problems. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Change Ubuntu Desktop from DHCP to a Static IP AddressChange Ubuntu Server from DHCP to a Static IP AddressVista Breadcrumbs for Windows XPCreate a Shortcut or Hotkey for the Safely Remove Hardware DialogCreate a Shortcut or Hotkey to Eject the CD/DVD Drive TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Nice Websites To Watch TV Shows Online 24 Million Sites Windows Media Player Glass Icons (icons we like) How to Forecast Weather, without Gadgets Outlook Tools, one stop tweaking for any Outlook version Zoofs, find the most popular tweeted YouTube videos

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• New Product: Oracle Java ME Embedded 3.2 – Small, Smart, Connected

  - by terrencebarr

  The Internet of Things (IoT) is coming. And, with todays launch of the Oracle Java ME Embedded 3.2 product, Java is going to play an even greater role in it. Java in the Internet of Things By all accounts, intelligent embedded devices are penetrating the world around us – driving industrial processes, monitoring environmental conditions, providing better health care, analyzing and processing data, and much more. And these devices are becoming increasingly connected, adding another dimension of utility. Welcome to the Internet of Things. As I blogged yesterday, this is a huge opportunity for the Java technology and ecosystem. To enable and utilize these billions of devices effectively you need a programming model, tools, and protocols which provide a feature-rich, consistent, scalable, manageable, and interoperable platform.  Java technology is ideally suited to address these technical and business problems, enabling you eliminate many of the typical challenges in designing embedded solutions. By using Java you can focus on building smarter, more valuable embedded solutions faster. To wit, Java technology is already powering around 10 billion devices worldwide. Delivering on this vision and accelerating the growth of embedded Java solutions, Oracle is today announcing a brand-new product: Oracle Java Micro Edition (ME) Embedded 3.2, accompanied by an update release of the Java ME Software Development Kit (SDK) to version 3.2. What is Oracle Java ME Embedded 3.2? Oracle Java ME Embedded 3.2 is a complete Java runtime client, optimized for ARM architecture connected microcontrollers and other resource-constrained systems. The product provides dedicated embedded functionality and is targeted for low-power, limited memory devices requiring support for a range of network services and I/O interfaces.  What features and APIs are provided by Oracle Java ME Embedded 3.2? Oracle Java ME Embedded 3.2 is a Java ME runtime based on CLDC 1.1 (JSR-139) and IMP-NG (JSR-228). The runtime and virtual machine (VM) are highly optimized for embedded use. Also included in the product are the following optional JSRs and Oracle APIs: File I/O API’s (JSR-75)  Wireless Messaging API’s (JSR-120) Web Services (JSR-172) Security and Trust Services subset (JSR-177) Location API’s (JSR-179) XML API’s (JSR-280)  Device Access API Application Management System (AMS) API AccessPoint API Logging API Additional embedded features are: Remote application management system Support for continuous 24×7 operation Application monitoring, auto-start, and system recovery Application access to peripheral interfaces such as GPIO, I2C, SPIO, memory mapped I/O Application level logging framework, including option for remote logging Headless on-device debugging – source level Java application debugging over IP Connection Remote configuration of the Java VM What type of platforms are targeted by Oracle Java ME 3.2 Embedded? The product is designed for embedded, always-on, resource-constrained, headless (no graphics/no UI), connected (wired or wireless) devices with a variety of peripheral I/O.  The high-level system requirements are as follows: System based on ARM architecture SOCs Memory footprint (approximate) from 130 KB RAM/350KB ROM (for a minimal, customized configuration) to 700 KB RAM/1500 KB ROM (for the full, standard configuration)  Very simple embedded kernel, or a more capable embedded OS/RTOS At least one type of network connection (wired or wireless) The initial release of the product is delivered as a device emulation environment for x86/Windows desktop computers, integrated with the Java ME SDK 3.2. A standard binary of Oracle Java ME Embedded 3.2 for ARM KEIL development boards based on ARM Cortex M-3/4 (KEIL MCBSTM32F200 using ST Micro SOC STM32F207IG) will soon be available for download from the Oracle Technology Network (OTN).  What types of applications can I develop with Oracle Java ME Embedded 3.2? The Oracle Java ME Embedded 3.2 product is a full-featured embedded Java runtime supporting applications based on the IMP-NG application model, which is derived from the well-known MIDP 2 application model. The runtime supports execution of multiple concurrent applications, remote application management, versatile connectivity, and a rich set of APIs and features relevant for embedded use cases, including the ability to interact with peripheral I/O directly from Java applications. This rich feature set, coupled with familiar and best-in class software development tools, allows developers to quickly build and deploy sophisticated embedded solutions for a wide range of use cases. Target markets well supported by Oracle Java ME Embedded 3.2 include wireless modules for M2M, industrial and building control, smart grid infrastructure, home automation, and environmental sensors and tracking. What tools are available for embedded application development for Oracle Java ME Embedded 3.2? Along with the release of Oracle Java ME Embedded 3.2, Oracle is also making available an updated version of the Java ME Software Development Kit (SDK), together with plug-ins for the NetBeans and Eclipse IDEs, to deliver a complete development environment for embedded application development.  OK – sounds great! Where can I find out more? And how do I get started? There is a complete set of information, data sheet, API documentation, “Getting Started Guide”, FAQ, and download links available: For an overview of Oracle Embeddable Java, see here. For the Oracle Java ME Embedded 3.2 press release, see here. For the Oracle Java ME Embedded 3.2 data sheet, see here. For the Oracle Java ME Embedded 3.2 landing page, see here. For the Oracle Java ME Embedded 3.2 documentation page, including a “Getting Started Guide” and FAQ, see here. For the Oracle Java ME SDK 3.2 landing and download page, see here. Finally, to ask more questions, please see the OTN “Java ME Embedded” forum To get started, grab the “Getting Started Guide” and download the Java ME SDK 3.2, which includes the Oracle Java ME Embedded 3.2 device emulation.  Can I learn more about Oracle Java ME Embedded 3.2 at JavaOne and/or Java Embedded @ JavaOne? Glad you asked Both conferences, JavaOne and Java Embedded @ JavaOne, will feature a host of content and information around the new Oracle Java ME Embedded 3.2 product, from technical and business sessions, to hands-on tutorials, and demos. Stay tuned, I will post details shortly. Cheers, – Terrence Filed under: Mobile & Embedded Tagged: "Oracle Java ME Embedded", Connected, embedded, Embedded Java, Java Embedded @ JavaOne, JavaOne, Smart

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• Building a database installer with WiX, datadude and Visual Studio 2010

  - by jamiet

  Today I have been using Windows Installer XML (WiX) to build an installer (.msi file) that would install a SQL Server database on a server of my choosing; the source code for that database lives in datadude (a tool which you may know by one of quite a few other names). The basis for this work was a most excellent blog post by Duke Kamstra entitled Implementing a WIX installer that calls the GDR version of VSDBCMD.EXE which coves the delicate intricacies of doing this – particularly how to call Vsdbcmd.exe in a CustomAction. Unfortunately there are a couple of things wrong with Duke’s post: Searching for “datadude wix” didn’t turn it up in the first page of search results and hence it took me a long time to find it. And I knew that it existed. If someone else were after a post on using WiX with datadude its likely that they would never have come across Duke’s post and that would be a great shame because its the definitive post on the matter. It was written in October 2009 and had not been updated for Visual Studio 2010. Well, this blog post is an attempt to solve those problems. Hopefully I’ve solved the first one just by following a few of my blogging SEO tips while writing this blog post, in the rest of it I will explain how I took Duke’s code and updated it to work in Visual Studio 2010. If you need to build a database installer using WiX, datadude and Visual Studio 2010 then you still need to follow Duke’s blog post so go and do that now. Below are the amendments that I made that enabled the project to get built in Visual Studio 2010: In VS2010 datadude’s output files have changed from being called Database.<suffix> to <ProjectName>_Database.<suffix>. Duke’s code was referencing the old file name formats. Duke used $(var.SolutionDir) and relative paths to point to datadude artefacts I have replaced these with Votive Project References http://wix.sourceforge.net/manual-wix3/votive_project_references.htm I commented out all references to MicrosoftSqlTypesDbschema in DatabaseArtifacts.wxi. I don't think this is produced in VS2010 (I may be wrong about that but it wasn't in the output from my project) Similarly I commented out component MicrosoftSqlTypesDbschema in VsdbcmdArtifacts.wxi. It wasn't where Duke's code said it should have been so am assuming/hoping it isn't needed. Duke's ?define block to work out appropriate SrcArchPath actually wasn't working for me (i.e. <?if $(var.Platform)=x64 ?> was evaluating to false)  so I just took out the conditional stuff and declared the path explicitly to the “Program Files (x86)” path. The old code is still there though if you need to put it back. None of the <RegistrySearch> stuff is needed for VS2010 - so I commented it all out! Changed to use /manifest option rather than /model option on vsdbcmd.exe command-line. Personal preference is all! Added a new component in order to bundle along the vsdbcmd.exe.config file Made the install of the Custom Action dependent on the relevant feature being selected for install. This one is actually really important – deselecting the database feature for installation does not, by default, stop the CustomAction from executing and so would cause an error - so that scenario needs to be catered for I have made my amended solution available for download at: http://cid-550f681dad532637.office.live.com/self.aspx/Public/BlogShare/20110210/InstallMyDatabase.zip It contains two projects: the WiX project and the datadude project that is the source to be deployed (for demo purposes it only contains one table). I have also made the .msi available although in order that it gets through file blockers I changed the name from InstallMyDatabase.msi to InstallMyDatabase.ms_ – simply rename the file back once you have downloaded it from: http://cid-550f681dad532637.office.live.com/self.aspx/Public/BlogShare/20110210/InstallMyDatabase.ms%5E_ .You can try it out for yourself – the only thing it does is dump the files into %Program Files%\MyDatabase and uses them to install a database onto a server of your choosing with a name of your choosing - no damaging side-affects. I will caveat this by saying “it works on my machine” and, not having access to a plethora of different machines, I haven’t tested it anywhere else. One potential issue that I know of is that Vsdbcmd.exe has a dependency on SQL Server CE although if you have SQL Server tools or Visual Studio installed you should be fine. Unfortunately its not possible to bundle along the SQL Server CE installer in the .msi because Windows will not allow you to call one installer from inside another – the recommended way to get around this problem is to build a bootstrapper to bundle the whole lot together but doing that is outside the scope of this blog post. If you discover any other issues then please let me know. Here are the screenshots from the installer: And once installed…. Hope this is useful! @jamiet 

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• How to Play FLAC Files in Windows 7 Media Center & Player

  - by Mysticgeek

  An annoyance for music lovers who enjoy FLAC format, is there’s no native support for WMP or WMC. If you’re a music enthusiast who prefers FLAC format, we’ll look at adding support to Windows 7 Media Center and Player. For the following article we are using Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit edition. Download and Install madFLAC v1.8 The first thing we need to do is download and install the madFLAC v1.8 decoder (link below). Just unzip the file and run install.bat… You’ll get a message that it has been successfully registered, click Ok. To verify everything is working, open up one of your FLAC files with WMP, and you’ll get the following message. Check the box Don’t ask me again for this extension and click Yes. Now Media Player should play the track you’ve chosen.   Delete Current Music Library But what if you want to add your entire collection of FLAC files to the Library? If you already have it set up as your default music player, unfortunately we need to remove the current library and delete the database. The best way to manage the music library in Windows 7 is via WMP 12. Since we don’t want to delete songs from the computer we need to Open WMP, press “Alt+T” and navigate to Tools \ Options \ Library.   Now uncheck the box Delete files from computer when deleted from library and click Ok. Now in your Library click “Ctrl + A” to highlight all of the songs in the Library, then hit the “Delete” key. If you have a lot of songs in your library (like on our system) you’ll see the following dialog box while it collects all of the information.   After all of the data is collected, make sure the radio button next to Delete from library only is marked and click Ok. Again you’ll see the Working progress window while the songs are deleted. Deleting Current Database Now we need to make sure we’re starting out fresh. Close out of Media Player, then we’ll basically follow the same directions The Geek pointed out for fixing the WMP Library. Click on Start and type in services.msc into the search box and hit Enter. Now scroll down and stop the service named Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service. Now, navigate to the following directory and the main file to delete CurrentDatabase_372.wmdb %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Media Player\ Again, the main file to delete is CurrentDatabase_372.wmdb, though if you want, you can delete them all. If you’re uneasy about deleting these files, make sure to back them up first. Now after you restart WMP you can begin adding your FLAC files. For those of us with large collections, it’s extremely annoying to see WMP try to pick up all of your media by default. To delete the other directories go to Organize \ Manage Libraries then open the directories you want to remove. For example here we’re removing the default libraries it tries to check for music. Remove the directories you don’t want it to gather contents from in each of the categories. We removed all of the other collections and only added the FLAC music directory from our home server. SoftPointer Tag Support Plugin Even though we were able to get FLAC files to play in WMP and WMC at this point, there’s another utility from SoftPointer to add. It enables FLAC (and other file formats) to be picked up in the library much easier. It has a long name but is effective –M4a/FLAC/Ogg/Ape/Mpc Tag Support Plugin for Media Player and Media Center (link below). Just install it by accepting the defaults, and you’ll be glad you did. After installing it, and re-launching Media Player, give it some time to collect all of the data from your FLAC directory…it can take a while. In fact, if your collection is huge, just walk away and let it do its thing. If you try to use it right away, WMP slows down considerably while updating the library.   Once the library is setup you’ll be able to play your FLAC tunes in Windows 7 Media Center as well and Windows Media Player 12.   Album Art One caveat is that some of our albums didn’t show any cover art. But we were usually able to get it by right-clicking the album and selecting Find album info.   Then confirming the album information is correct…   Conclusion Although this seems like several steps to go through to play FLAC files in Windows 7 Media Center and Player, it seems to work really well after it’s set up. We haven’t tried this with a 64-bit machine, but the process should be similar, but you might want to make sure the codecs you use are 64-bit. We’re sure there are other methods out there that some of you use, and if so leave us a comment and tell us about it. Download madFlac V1.8  M4a/FLAC/Ogg/Ape/Mpc Tag Support Plugin for Media Player and Media Center from SoftPointer Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips How to Play .OGM Video Files in Windows VistaFixing When Windows Media Player Library Won’t Let You Add FilesUsing Netflix Watchnow in Windows Vista Media Center (Gmedia)Kantaris is a Unique Media Player Based on VLCEasily Change Audio File Formats with XRECODE TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional OutSync will Sync Photos of your Friends on Facebook and Outlook Windows 7 Easter Theme YoWindoW, a real time weather screensaver Optimize your computer the Microsoft way Stormpulse provides slick, real time weather data Geek Parents – Did you try Parental Controls in Windows 7?

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• The ASP.NET Daily Community Spotlight - How posts get there, and how to make it your Visual Studio Start Page

  - by Jon Galloway

  One really cool part of my job is selecting the articles for the Daily Community Spotlight, on the home page of the ASP.NET website. The spotlight highlights a new post about ASP.NET development every day from a member of the ASP.NET community. You can find it on the home page of the ASP.NET site, at http://asp.net These posts aren't automatically drawn from a pool of RSS feeds or anything - I pick a new post for each day of the year. How I pick the posts I have a few important selection criteria: Interesting to well rounded ASP.NET developers The ASP.NET website has a lot of material for all skill and experience levels, from download / get started to advanced. I try to select community spotlight posts to round that out with fresh and timely information that working ASP.NET developers can really use. Posts highlight solutions to common problems, clever projects and code that helps you leverage ASP.NET, and important announcements about things you can use today. As part of that, I try to mix between ASP.NET MVC, Web Forms, and Web Pages (a.k.a. WebMatrix). As a professional developer, I want to keep on top of all of my options for ASP.NET development, and the common platform base they all share generally means that good ASP.NET code is good ASP.NET code. Exposing new and non-Microsoft community members as much as possible The exercise of selecting good ASP.NET community posts every day of the year has made me think about what the community is. Given the choice, I'll always favor non-Microsoft employees, but since Microsoft often hires ASP.NET community members and MVP's (myself included), I really think that the ASP.NET community includes developers who are using and writing about ASP.NET, both inside and outside of Microsoft. I'm especially excited about the opportunity to highlight new and lesser known bloggers. Usually being featured on the ASP.NET Community Spotlight gives a pretty good traffic bump, and I love being able to both provide great content to the community and encourage lesser known community members by giving them some (much deserved) attention. Announcements only when they're useful to working developers - not marketing Some of the posts are announcements about new releases, such as Scott Hanselman's post on ASP.NET Universal Providers for Session, Memebership, and Roles. I include those when I think they're interesting and of immediate use to you on projects. I occasionally get asked to link to new content from a team at Microsoft; if it's useful and timely content I'll ask them to point me to a blog post by an actual person rather than a faceless team. How the posts are managed This feed used to be managed by an internal spreadsheet on a Sharepoint site, which was painful for a lot of reasons. I took a cue from Jon Udell, who uses of a public Delicious feed feed for his Elm City project, and we moved the management of these posts over to a Delicious feed as well. You can hear more about Jon's use of Delicious in Elm City in our Herding Code interview - still one of my favorite interviews. We ended up with a simpler scenario, but Note: I watched the Yahoo/Delicious news over the past year and was happy to see that Delicious was recently acquired by the founders of YouTube. I investigated several other Delicious competitors, but am happy with Delicious for now. My Delicious feed here: http://www.delicious.com/jon_galloway You can also browse through this past year's ASP.NET Community Spotlight posts using the (pretty cool) Delicious Browse Bar Submitting articles I'm always on the lookout for new articles to feature. The best way to get them to me is to share them via Delicious. It's pretty easy - sign up for an account, then you can add a post and share it to me. Alternatively, you can send them to me via Twitter (@jongalloway) or e-mail (). If you do e-mail me, it helps to include a short description and your full name so I can credit you. Way too many developer blogs don't include names and pictures; if I can't find them I can't feature the post. Subscribing to the Community Spotlight feed The Community Spotlight is available as an RSS feed, so you might want to subscribe to it: http://www.asp.net/rss/spotlight Setting the ASP.NET Community Spotlight feed as your Visual Studio start page If you're an ASP.NET developer, you might consider setting the ASP.NET Community Spotlight as the content for your Visual Studio Start Page. It's really easy - here's how to do it in Visual Studio 2010: Display the Visual Studio Start Page if it's not already showing (View / Start Page) Click on the Latest News tab and enter the following RSS URL: http://www.asp.net/rss/spotlight If you didn't previously have RSS feeds enabled for your start page, click the Enable RSS Feed button Now, every time you start up Visual Studio you'll see great content from members of the ASP.NET community: You can also configure - and disable, if you'd like - the Visual Studio start page in the Tools / Options / Environment / Startup dialog. Credits I'll do a follow-up highlighting some places I commonly find great content for the feed, but I'd like to specifically point out two of them: Elijah Manor posts a lot of great content, which is available in his Twitter feed at @elijahmanor, on his Delicious feed, and on a dedicated website - Web Dev Tweets Chris Alcock's The Morning Brew is a must-read blog which highlights each day's best blog posts across the .NET community. He's an absolute machine, and no matter how obscure the post I find, I can guarantee he'll find it as well if he hasn't already. Did I say must read?

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• Michael Crump&rsquo;s notes for 70-563 PRO &ndash; Designing and Developing Windows Applications usi

  - by mbcrump

  TIME TO GO PRO! This is my notes for 70-563 PRO – Designing and Developing Windows Applications using .NET Framework 3.5 I created it using several resources (various certification web sites, msdn, official ms 70-548 book). The reason that I created this review is because a) I am taking the exam. b) MS did not create a book for this exam. Use the(MS 70-548)book. c) To make sure I am familiar with each before the exam. I hope that it provides a good start for your own notes. I hope that someone finds this useful. At least, it will give you a starting point of what to expect to know on the PRO exam. Also, for those wondering, the PRO exam does contains very little code. It is basically all theory. 1. Validation Controls – How to prevent users from entering invalid data on forms. (MaskedTextBox control and RegEx) 2. ServiceController – used to start and control the behavior of existing services. 3. User Feedback (know winforms Status Bar, Tool Tips, Color, Error Provider, Context-Sensitive and Accessibility) 4. Specific (derived) exceptions must be handled before general (base class) exceptions. By moving the exception handling for the base type Exception to after exception handling of ArgumentNullException, all ArgumentNullException thrown by the Helper method will be caught and logged correctly. 5. A heartbeat method is a method exposed by a Web service that allows external applications to check on the status of the service. 6. New users must master key tasks quickly. Giving these tasks context and appropriate detail will help. However, advanced users will demand quicker paths. Shortcuts, accelerators, or toolbar buttons will speed things along for the advanced user. 7. MSBuild uses project files to instruct the build engine what to build and how to build it. MSBuild project files are XML files that adhere to the MSBuild XML schema. The MSBuild project files contain complete file, build action, and dependency information for each individual projects. 8. Evaluating whether or not to fix a bug involves a triage process. You must identify the bug's impact, set the priority, categorize it, and assign a developer. Many times the person doing the triage work will assign the bug to a developer for further investigation. In fact, the workflow for the bug work item inside of Team System supports this step. Developers are often asked to assess the impact of a given bug. This assessment helps the person doing the triage make a decision on how to proceed. When assessing the impact of a bug, you should consider time and resources to fix it, bug risk, and impacts of the bug. 9. In large projects it is generally impossible and unfeasible to fix all bugs because of the impact on schedule and budget. 10. Code reviews should be conducted by a technical lead or a technical peer. 11. Testing Applications 12. WCF Services – application state 13. SQL Server 2005 / 2008 Express Edition – reliable storage of data / Microsoft SQL Server 3.5 Compact Database– used for client computers to retrieve and save data from a shared location. 14. SQL Server 2008 Compact Edition – used for minimum possible memory and can synchronize data with a corporate SQL Server 2008 Database. Supports offline user and minimum dependency on external components. 15. MDI and SDI Forms (specifically IsMDIContainer) 16. GUID – in the case of data warehousing, it is important to define unique keys. 17. Encrypting / Security Data 18. Understanding of Isolated Storage/Proper location to store items 19. LINQ to SQL 20. Multithreaded access 21. ADO.NET Entity Framework model 22. Marshal.ReleaseComObject 23. Common User Interface Layout (ComboBox, ListBox, Listview, MaskedTextBox, TextBox, RichTextBox, SplitContainer, TableLayoutPanel, TabControl) 24. DataSets Class - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.data.dataset%28VS.71%29.aspx 25. SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services (SSRS) 26. SystemIcons.Shield (Vista UAC) 27. Leverging stored procedures to perform data manipulation for a database schema that can change. 28. DataContext 29. Microsoft Windows Installer Packages, ClickOnce(bootstrapping features), XCopy. 30. Client Application Services – will authenticate users by using the same data source as a ASP.NET web application. 31. SQL Server 2008 Caching 32. StringBuilder 33. Accessibility Guidelines for Windows Applications http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms228004.aspx 34. Logging erros 35. Testing performance related issues. 36. Role Based Security, GenericIdentity and GenericPrincipal 37. System.Net.CookieContainer will store session data for webapps (see isolated storage for winforms) 38. .NET CLR Profiler tool will identify objects that cause performance issues. 39. ADO.NET Synchronization (SyncGroup) 40. Globalization - CultureInfo 41. IDisposable Interface- reports on several questions relating to this. 42. Adding timestamps to determine whether data has changed or not. 43. Converting applications to .NET Framework 3.5 44. MicrosoftReportViewer 45. Composite Controls 46. Windows Vista KNOWN folders. 47. Microsoft Sync Framework 48. TypeConverter -Provides a unified way of converting types of values to other types, as well as for accessing standard values and sub properties. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.componentmodel.typeconverter.aspx 49. Concurrency control mechanisms The main categories of concurrency control mechanisms are: Optimistic - Delay the checking of whether a transaction meets the isolation rules (e.g., serializability and recoverability) until its end, without blocking any of its (read, write) operations, and then abort a transaction, if the desired rules are violated. Pessimistic - Block operations of a transaction, if they may cause violation of the rules. Semi-optimistic - Block operations in some situations, and do not block in other situations, while delaying rules checking to transaction's end, as done with optimistic. 50. AutoResetEvent 51. Microsoft Messaging Queue (MSMQ) 4.0 52. Bulk imports 53. KeyDown event of controls 54. WPF UI components 55. UI process layer 56. GAC (installing, removing and queuing) 57. Use a local database cache to reduce the network bandwidth used by applications. 58. Sound can easily be annoying and distracting to users, so use it judiciously. Always give users the option to turn sound off. Because a user might have sound off, never convey important information through sound alone.

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• Test Drive Windows 7 Online with Virtual Labs

  - by Matthew Guay

  Did you miss out on the Windows 7 public beta and want to try it out before you actually make the leap and upgrade? Maybe you want to learn how to deploy new features in a business environment. Here’s how you can test drive Windows 7 directly from your browser. Whether you manage 10,000 desktops or simply manage your own laptop, it’s usually best to test out a new OS before installing it.  If you’re upgrading from Windows XP you may find many things unfamiliar.  Microsoft has setup a special Windows 7 Test Drive website with resources to help IT professionals test and deploy Windows 7 in their workplaces.  This is a great resource to try out Windows 7 from the comfort of your browser, and look at some of the new features without even installing it. Please note that the online version is not nearly as responsive as a full standard install of Windows 7.  It also does not run the full Aero interface or desktop effects, and may refresh slowly depending on your Internet connection.  So don’t judge Windows 7’s performance based on this virtual lab, but use it as a way to learn more about Windows 7 without installing it. Getting Started To test drive Windows 7, visit Microsoft’s Windows 7 Test Drive website (link below).  You will need to run the Windows 7 Test Drive in Internet Explorer, as it requires Active X support.  We received this error when attempting to run the Test Drive in Firefox: Now, click the “Take a Test Drive” link on the bottom left of the page. This site includes several test drives to demonstrate different features of Windows 7 and its related ecosystem of products including Windows Server 2008 R2, some of which, including the XP Mode test drive, are not yet ready.  For this test, we selected the MED-V Test drive, as this includes Office 2007 and 2010 so you can test them in Windows 7 as well.  Simply select the test drive you want, and click “Try it now!”   If you haven’t run a Windows test drive before, you will be asked to install an ActiveX control.  Click the link to install. Click the yellow bar at the top of the page in Internet Explorer, and select to Install the add-on.  You may have to approve a UAC prompt to finish the install. Once this is finished, click the link on the bottom of the page to return to your test drive.  The test drive page should automatically refresh; if it doesn’t, click refresh to reload it. Now the test drive will load the components.   Once its fully loaded, click the link to launch Windows 7 in a new window. You may see a prompt warning that the server may have been impersonated.  Simply click Yes to proceed. The test lab will give you some getting started directions; click Close Window when you’re ready to try out Windows 7. Here’s the default desktop in the Windows 7 test drive.  You can use it just like a normal Windows computer, but do note that it may function slowly depending on your internet connection.   This test drive includes both Office 2007 and Office 2010 Tech Preview, so you can try out both in Windows 7 as well. You can try out the new Windows 7 applications such as the reworked Paint with the Ribbon interface from Office. Or you can even test the newest version of Media Center, though it will warn you that it may not function good with the down-scaled graphics in the test drive.   Most importantly, you can try out the new features in Windows 7, such as Jumplists and even Aero Snap.  Once again, these features will not function the quickest, but it does let you test them out. While working with the Virtual Lab, there are different tasks it walks you through. You can also download a copy of the lab manual in PDF format to help you navigate through the various objectives. The test drive system is running Microsoft Forefront Security, the enterprise security solution from which Microsoft Security Essentials has adapted components from. Conclusion These virtual labs are great for tech students, or those of you who want to get a first-hand trial of the new features. Also, if you’re not sure on how to deploy something and want to practice in a virtual environment, these labs are quite valuable.While these labs are geared toward IT professionals, it’s a good way for anyone to try out Windows 7 features from the comfort of your current computer. Test Drive Windows 7 Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Mount Multiple ISO Images Using Virtual CloneDriveHow To Delete a VHD in Windows 7Keyboard Shortcuts for VMware WorkstationMount an ISO image in Windows 7 or VistaHow To Turn a Physical Computer Into A Virtual Machine with Disk2vhd TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 If it were only this easy SyncToy syncs Files and Folders across Computers on a Network (or partitions on the same drive) Classic Cinema Online offers 100’s of OnDemand Movies OutSync will Sync Photos of your Friends on Facebook and Outlook Windows 7 Easter Theme YoWindoW, a real time weather screensaver

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• BNF – how to read syntax?

  - by Piotr Rodak

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

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• [GEEK SCHOOL] Network Security 4: Windows Firewall: Your System’s Best Defense

  - by Ciprian Rusen

  If you have your computer connected to a network, or directly to your Internet connection, then having a firewall is an absolute necessity. In this lesson we will discuss the Windows Firewall – one of the best security features available in Windows! The Windows Firewall made its debut in Windows XP. Prior to that, Windows system needed to rely on third-party solutions or dedicated hardware to protect them from network-based attacks. Over the years, Microsoft has done a great job with it and it is one of the best firewalls you will ever find for Windows operating systems. Seriously, it is so good that some commercial vendors have decided to piggyback on it! Let’s talk about what you will learn in this lesson. First, you will learn about what the Windows Firewall is, what it does, and how it works. Afterward, you will start to get your hands dirty and edit the list of apps, programs, and features that are allowed to communicate through the Windows Firewall depending on the type of network you are connected to. Moving on from there, you will learn how to add new apps or programs to the list of allowed items and how to remove the apps and programs that you want to block. Last but not least, you will learn how to enable or disable the Windows Firewall, for only one type of networks or for all network connections. By the end of this lesson, you should know enough about the Windows Firewall to use and manage it effectively. What is the Windows Firewall? Windows Firewall is an important security application that’s built into Windows. One of its roles is to block unauthorized access to your computer. The second role is to permit authorized data communications to and from your computer. Windows Firewall does these things with the help of rules and exceptions that are applied both to inbound and outbound traffic. They are applied depending on the type of network you are connected to and the location you have set for it in Windows, when connecting to the network. Based on your choice, the Windows Firewall automatically adjusts the rules and exceptions applied to that network. This makes the Windows Firewall a product that’s silent and easy to use. It bothers you only when it doesn’t have any rules and exceptions for what you are trying to do or what the programs running on your computer are trying to do. If you need a refresher on the concept of network locations, we recommend you to read our How-To Geek School class on Windows Networking. Another benefit of the Windows Firewall is that it is so tightly and nicely integrated into Windows and all its networking features, that some commercial vendors decided to piggyback onto it and use it in their security products. For example, products from companies like Trend Micro or F-Secure no longer provide their proprietary firewall modules but use the Windows Firewall instead. Except for a few wording differences, the Windows Firewall works the same in Windows 7 and Windows 8.x. The only notable difference is that in Windows 8.x you will see the word “app” being used instead of “program”. Where to Find the Windows Firewall By default, the Windows Firewall is turned on and you don’t need to do anything special in order for it work. You will see it displaying some prompts once in a while but they show up so rarely that you might forget that is even working. If you want to access it and configure the way it works, go to the Control Panel, then go to “System and Security” and select “Windows Firewall”. Now you will see the Windows Firewall window where you can get a quick glimpse on whether it is turned on and the type of network you are connected to: private networks or public network. For the network type that you are connected to, you will see additional information like: The state of the Windows Firewall How the Windows Firewall deals with incoming connections The active network When the Windows Firewall will notify you You can easily expand the other section and view the default settings that apply when connecting to networks of that type. If you have installed a third-party security application that also includes a firewall module, chances are that the Windows Firewall has been disabled, in order to avoid performance issues and conflicts between the two security products. If that is the case for your computer or device, you won’t be able to view any information in the Windows Firewall window and you won’t be able to configure the way it works. Instead, you will see a warning that says: “These settings are being managed by vendor application – Application Name”. In the screenshot below you can see an example of how this looks. How to Allow Desktop Applications Through the Windows Firewall Windows Firewall has a very comprehensive set of rules and most Windows programs that you install add their own exceptions to the Windows Firewall so that they receive network and Internet access. This means that you will see prompts from the Windows Firewall on occasion, generally when you install programs that do not add their own exceptions to the Windows Firewall’s list. In a Windows Firewall prompt, you are asked to select the network locations to which you allow access for that program: private networks or public networks. By default, Windows Firewall selects the checkbox that’s appropriate for the network you are currently using. You can decide to allow access for both types of network locations or just to one of them. To apply your setting press “Allow access”. If you want to block network access for that program, press “Cancel” and the program will be set as blocked for both network locations. At this step you should note that only administrators can set exceptions in the Windows Firewall. If you are using a standard account without administrator permissions, the programs that do not comply with the Windows Firewall rules and exceptions are automatically blocked, without any prompts being shown. You should note that in Windows 8.x you will never see any Windows Firewall prompts related to apps from the Windows Store. They are automatically given access to the network and the Internet based on the assumption that you are aware of the permissions they require based on the information displayed by the Windows Store. Windows Firewall rules and exceptions are automatically created for each app that you install from the Windows Store. However, you can easily block access to the network and the Internet for any app, using the instructions in the next section. How to Customize the Rules for Allowed Apps Windows Firewall allows any user with an administrator account to change the list of rules and exceptions applied for apps and desktop programs. In order to do this, first start the Windows Firewall. On the column on the left, click or tap “Allow an app or feature through Windows Firewall” (in Windows 8.x) or “Allow a program or feature through Windows Firewall” (in Windows 7). Now you see the list of apps and programs that are allowed to communicate through the Windows Firewall. At this point, the list is grayed out and you can only view which apps, features, and programs have rules that are enabled in the Windows Firewall.

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• Seriously, It’s Time to Get Your Content Act Together

  - by Mike Stiles

  Branded content, content marketing, social content, brand journalism, we’re seeing those terms more and more. Why? The technology tools are coming together. We should know. We can gather big data, crunch it, listen to the public, moderate, respond, get to know the customer intimately, know what they like, know what they want, we can target, distribute, amplify, measure engagement and reaction, modify strategy and even automate a great deal of all that. An amazing machine, a sleek, smooth-running engine has been built such that all the parts can interact and work together to deliver peak performance and maximum output. But that engine isn’t going anywhere without any gas. Content is the gas. Yes, we curate other people’s content. We can siphon their gas. There’s tech to help with that too. But as for the creation of original, worthwhile content made for a specific audience, our audience, machines can’t do that…at least not yet. Curated content is great. But somebody has to originate the content for it to be curated and shared. And since the need for good, curated content is obviously large and the desire to share is there, it’s a winning proposition for a brand to be a consistent producer of original content. And yet, it feels like content is an issue we’re avoiding. There’s a reluctance to build a massive pipeline if you have no idea what you’re going to run through it. The C-suite often doesn’t know what content is, that it’s different from ads, where to get it, who makes it, how long it should be, what the point of it is if there’s no hard sell of the product, what it costs, how to use it, how to measure it, how to make sure it’s good, or how to make sure it will keep flowing. It could be the reason many brands aren’t pulling the trigger on socially enabling the enterprise. And that’s a shame, because there are a lot of creative, daring, experimental, uniquely talented entertainers and journalists chomping at the bit to execute content for brands. But for many corporate executives, content is “weird,” and the people who make it are even weirder. The content side of the equation is human. It’s art, but art that can be informed by data. The natural inclination is for brands to turn to their agencies for such creative endeavors. But agencies are falling into one of two categories. They’re failing to transition from ads to content. In “Content Era, What’s the Role of Agencies?” Alexander Jutkowitz says agencies were made for one-hit campaigns, not ongoing content. Or, they’re ready and capable but can’t get clients to do the right things. Agencies have to make money, even if it means continuing to do the wrong things because that’s all the client will agree to. So what we wind up with in the pipeline is advertising, marketing-heavy content, content that was obviously created or spearheaded by non-creative executives, random & inconsistent content, copy written for SEO bots, and other completely uninteresting nightmares. Frank Rose, author of “The Art of Immersion,” writes, “Content without story and excitement is noise pollution.” In the old days, you made an ad and inserted it into shows made by people who knew what they were doing. You could bask in that show’s success and leverage their audience. Now, you are tasked with attracting, amassing and holding your own audience. You may just want to make, advertise and sell your widgets. But now there’s a war on for a precious commodity, attention. People are busy. They have filters to keep uninteresting and irrelevant things out. They value their time and expect value back when they give it up. Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute, says, "Your customers don't care about you, your products, your services…they care about themselves, their wants and their needs." Is it worth getting serious about content and doing it right? 61% of consumers feel better about a company that delivers custom content (Custom Content Council). Interesting content is one of the top 3 reasons people follow brands on social (Content+). 78% of consumers think organizations that provide custom content want to build good relationships with them (TMG Custom Media). On the B2B side, 80% of business decision makers prefer to get company info in a series of articles vs. an ad. So what’s the hang-up? Cited barriers to content marketing are lack of human resources (42%) and lack of budget (35%). 54% of brands don’t have a single on-site, dedicated content creator. And only 38% of brands have a content marketing strategy. Tech has built the biggest, most incredible stage for brands that’s ever been built. Putting something on that stage is your responsibility. Do a bad show, or no show at all, and you’ll be the beautiful, talented actress that never got discovered. @mikestilesPhoto: Gabriella Fabbri, stock.xchng

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• Visual Studio 2013, ASP.NET MVC 5 Scaffolded Controls, and Bootstrap

  - by plitwin

  A few days ago, I created an ASP.NET MVC 5 project in the brand new Visual Studio 2013. I added some model classes and then proceeded to scaffold a controller class and views using the Entity Framework. Scaffolding Some Views Visual Studio 2013, by default, uses the Bootstrap 3 responsive CSS framework. Great; after all, we all want our web sites to be responsive and work well on mobile devices. Here’s an example of a scaffolded Create view as shown in Google Chrome browser   Looks pretty good. Okay, so let’s increase the width of the Title, Description, Address, and Date/Time textboxes. And decrease the width of the  State and MaxActors textbox controls. Can’t be that hard… Digging Into the Code Let’s take a look at the scaffolded Create.cshtml file. Here’s a snippet of code behind the Create view. Pretty simple stuff. @using (Html.BeginForm()) { @Html.AntiForgeryToken() <div class="form-horizontal"> <h4>RandomAct</h4> <hr /> @Html.ValidationSummary(true) <div class="form-group"> @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Title, new { @class = "control-label col-md-2" }) <div class="col-md-10"> @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Title) @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Title) </div> </div> <div class="form-group"> @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Description, new { @class = "control-label col-md-2" }) <div class="col-md-10"> @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Description) @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Description) </div> </div> .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } A little more digging and I discover that there are three CSS files of importance in how the page is rendered: boostrap.css (and its minimized cohort) and site.css as shown below.   The Root of the Problem And here’s the root of the problem which you’ll find the following CSS in Site.css: /* Set width on the form input elements since they're 100% wide by default */ input, select, textarea { max-width: 280px; } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Yes, Microsoft is for some reason setting the maximum width of all input, select, and textarea controls to 280 pixels. Not sure the motivation behind this, but until you change this or overrride this by assigning the form controls to some other CSS class, your controls will never be able to be wider than 280px. The Fix Okay, so here’s the deal: I hope to become very competent in all things Bootstrap in the near future, but I don’t think you should have to become a Bootstrap guru in order to modify some scaffolded control widths. And you don’t. Here is the solution I came up with: Find the aforementioned CSS code in SIte.css and change it to something more tenable. Such as: /* Set width on the form input elements since they're 100% wide by default */ input, select, textarea { max-width: 600px; } Because the @Html.EditorFor html helper doesn’t support the passing of HTML attributes, you will need to repalce any @Html.EditorFor() helpers with @Html.TextboxFor(), @Html.TextAreaFor, @Html.CheckBoxFor, etc. helpers, and then add a custom width attribute to each control you wish to modify. Thus, the earlier stretch of code might end up looking like this: @using (Html.BeginForm()) { @Html.AntiForgeryToken() <div class="form-horizontal"> <h4>Random Act</h4> <hr /> @Html.ValidationSummary(true) <div class="form-group"> @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Title, new { @class = "control-label col-md-2" }) <div class="col-md-10"> @Html.TextBoxFor(model => model.Title, new { style = "width: 400px" }) @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Title) </div> </div> <div class="form-group"> @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Description, new { @class = "control-label col-md-2" }) <div class="col-md-10"> @Html.TextAreaFor(model => model.Description, new { style = "width: 400px" }) @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Description) </div> </div> .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Resulting Form Here’s what the page looks like after the fix: Technorati Tags: ASP.NET MVC,ASP.NET MVC 5,Bootstrap

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• How to Collect Debug Info for Oracle SQL Developer

  - by thatjeffsmith

  In a perfect world, there would be no software bugs. Developers would always test their code. QA would find any scenarios and bugs the developers hadn’t already thought of. Regression tests would be complete and flawless. But alas, we can only afford to pay mere humans here, so we will have bugs from time to time. Or sometimes you are trying to do something the software wasn’t designed for, or perhaps your machine has exhausted it’s resources trying to build the un-buildable. When you run into problems, you will need help. Developers need your help so they can help you. Surprisingly enough, feedback like this isn’t very helpful: Your program isn’t working. How can I make it work? When you are ready to work with us on the SQL Developer OTN forum, you will most likely be asked to run SQL Developer and capture the output from the command console. In case you need help with this, ere’s a step-by-step process you can follow in Windows 7 (should work in XP too.) Open a windows command window Start – Run – CMD Once it’s open, click on the window icon and select ‘Defaults.’ Change the default buffer size to be something bigger, much bigger. Set the CMD window default buffer size HIGHER Note: you only need to do this once. Navigate to your SQL Developer Installation Folder Instead of running the ‘sqldeveloper.exe’ file in the root directory, we are going to go several sub-directories down. Find the ‘bin’ sub-directory and run the ‘sqldeveloper.exe’ there. When you do this, a CMD window will open, and then you’ll see the SQL Developer application load. The SQL Developer bin directory - run the tool from here and get a logging window Use SQL Developer as normal, until it ‘breaks’ or ‘hangs’ Now, you are ready to grab the nitty-gritty information that MIGHT tell the developer what is going wrong or happening in your scenario. Click back into the CMD window Send a Ctrl+Break or a Ctrl+Pause. If you on a newer laptop that doesn’t have this key, be sure to check the ‘Fn’ subset of keys. If you need to map the BREAK or PAUSE buttons, this article might help. You can also try the on-screen keyboard in windows – just type ‘OSK’ in your START – RUN prompt. Copy the logging information from the command window – all of it We need this information, help us get it! Open a case with Oracle Support or Start a Thread on the Forums Or email me. If you’re on my blog reading this, it’s the least I can do to help Now, before you hit ‘Send’ or ‘Post’ or ‘Submit’ – be sure to add a brief description of what you were doing in the application when you ran into the problem. Even if you were doing ‘nothing,’ let us know how many connections you had open, what windows were active, etc. The more you can tell us, the higher your odds go up to getting a quick fix or at least an answer as to what is happening. Also include the following information: The version of SQL Developer you are running The version of the JDK you are using The OS you are using The version of Oracle you are connected to Now, don’t be surprised if you get asked to upgrade to a supported configuration, say ‘version 3.1 and the 1.6 JDK.’ Supporting older versions of software is fun, and while we enjoy a challenge, it may be easier for you to upgrade your way out of the problem at hand.

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• Diagnose PC Hardware Problems with an Ubuntu Live CD

  - by Trevor Bekolay

  So your PC randomly shuts down or gives you the blue screen of death, but you can’t figure out what’s wrong. The problem could be bad memory or hardware related, and thankfully the Ubuntu Live CD has some tools to help you figure it out. Test your RAM with memtest86+ RAM problems are difficult to diagnose—they can range from annoying program crashes, or crippling reboot loops. Even if you’re not having problems, when you install new RAM it’s a good idea to thoroughly test it. The Ubuntu Live CD includes a tool called Memtest86+ that will do just that—test your computer’s RAM! Unlike many of the Live CD tools that we’ve looked at so far, Memtest86+ has to be run outside of a graphical Ubuntu session. Fortunately, it only takes a few keystrokes. Note: If you used UNetbootin to create an Ubuntu flash drive, then memtest86+ will not be available. We recommend using the Universal USB Installer from Pendrivelinux instead (persistence is possible with Universal USB Installer, but not mandatory). Boot up your computer with a Ubuntu Live CD or USB drive. You will be greeted with this screen: Use the down arrow key to select the Test memory option and hit Enter. Memtest86+ will immediately start testing your RAM. If you suspect that a certain part of memory is the problem, you can select certain portions of memory by pressing “c” and changing that option. You can also select specific tests to run. However, the default settings of Memtest86+ will exhaustively test your memory, so we recommend leaving the settings alone. Memtest86+ will run a variety of tests that can take some time to complete, so start it running before you go to bed to give it adequate time. Test your CPU with cpuburn Random shutdowns – especially when doing computationally intensive tasks – can be a sign of a faulty CPU, power supply, or cooling system. A utility called cpuburn can help you determine if one of these pieces of hardware is the problem. Note: cpuburn is designed to stress test your computer – it will run it fast and cause the CPU to heat up, which may exacerbate small problems that otherwise would be minor. It is a powerful diagnostic tool, but should be used with caution. Boot up your computer with a Ubuntu Live CD or USB drive, and choose to run Ubuntu from the CD or USB drive. When the desktop environment loads up, open the Synaptic Package Manager by clicking on the System menu in the top-left of the screen, then selecting Administration, and then Synaptic Package Manager. Cpuburn is in the universe repository. To enable the universe repository, click on Settings in the menu at the top, and then Repositories. Add a checkmark in the box labeled “Community-maintained Open Source software (universe)”. Click close. In the main Synaptic window, click the Reload button. After the package list has reloaded and the search index has been rebuilt, enter “cpuburn” in the Quick search text box. Click the checkbox in the left column, and select Mark for Installation. Click the Apply button near the top of the window. As cpuburn installs, it will caution you about the possible dangers of its use. Assuming you wish to take the risk (and if your computer is randomly restarting constantly, it’s probably worth it), open a terminal window by clicking on the Applications menu in the top-left of the screen and then selection Applications > Terminal. Cpuburn includes a number of tools to test different types of CPUs. If your CPU is more than six years old, see the full list; for modern AMD CPUs, use the terminal command burnK7 and for modern Intel processors, use the terminal command burnP6 Our processor is an Intel, so we ran burnP6. Once it started up, it immediately pushed the CPU up to 99.7% total usage, according to the Linux utility “top”. If your computer is having a CPU, power supply, or cooling problem, then your computer is likely to shutdown within ten or fifteen minutes. Because of the strain this program puts on your computer, we don’t recommend leaving it running overnight – if there’s a problem, it should crop up relatively quickly. Cpuburn’s tools, including burnP6, have no interface; once they start running, they will start driving your CPU until you stop them. To stop a program like burnP6, press Ctrl+C in the terminal window that is running the program. Conclusion The Ubuntu Live CD provides two great testing tools to diagnose a tricky computer problem, or to stress test a new computer. While they are advanced tools that should be used with caution, they’re extremely useful and easy enough that anyone can use them. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Reset Your Ubuntu Password Easily from the Live CDCreate a Persistent Bootable Ubuntu USB Flash DriveAdding extra Repositories on UbuntuHow to Share folders with your Ubuntu Virtual Machine (guest)Building a New Computer – Part 3: Setting it Up TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Have Fun Editing Photo Editing with Citrify Outlook Connector Upgrade Error Gadfly is a cool Twitter/Silverlight app Enable DreamScene in Windows 7 Microsoft’s “How Do I ?” Videos Home Networks – How do they look like & the problems they cause

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• Learning AngularJS by Example – The Customer Manager Application

  - by dwahlin

  I’m always tinkering around with different ideas and toward the beginning of 2013 decided to build a sample application using AngularJS that I call Customer Manager. It’s not exactly the most creative name or concept, but I wanted to build something that highlighted a lot of the different features offered by AngularJS and how they could be used together to build a full-featured app. One of the goals of the application was to ensure that it was approachable by people new to Angular since I’ve never found overly complex applications great for learning new concepts. The application initially started out small and was used in my AngularJS in 60-ish Minutes video on YouTube but has gradually had more and more features added to it and will continue to be enhanced over time. It’ll be used in a new “end-to-end” training course my company is working on for AngularjS as well as in some video courses that will be coming out. Here’s a quick look at what the application home page looks like: In this post I’m going to provide an overview about how the application is organized, back-end options that are available, and some of the features it demonstrates. I’ve already written about some of the features so if you’re interested check out the following posts: Building an AngularJS Modal Service Building a Custom AngularJS Unique Value Directive Using an AngularJS Factory to Interact with a RESTful Service Application Structure The structure of the application is shown to the right. The  homepage is index.html and is located at the root of the application folder. It defines where application views will be loaded using the ng-view directive and includes script references to AngularJS, AngularJS routing and animation scripts, plus a few others located in the Scripts folder and to custom application scripts located in the app folder. The app folder contains all of the key scripts used in the application. There are several techniques that can be used for organizing script files but after experimenting with several of them I decided that I prefer things in folders such as controllers, views, services, etc. Doing that helps me find things a lot faster and allows me to categorize files (such as controllers) by functionality. My recommendation is to go with whatever works best for you. Anyone who says, “You’re doing it wrong!” should be ignored. Contrary to what some people think, there is no “one right way” to organize scripts and other files. As long as the scripts make it down to the client properly (you’ll likely minify and concatenate them anyway to reduce bandwidth and minimize HTTP calls), the way you organize them is completely up to you. Here’s what I ended up doing for this application: Animation code for some custom animations is located in the animations folder. In addition to AngularJS animations (which are defined using CSS in Content/animations.css), it also animates the initial customer data load using a 3rd party script called GreenSock. Controllers are located in the controllers folder. Some of the controllers are placed in subfolders based upon the their functionality while others are placed at the root of the controllers folder since they’re more generic:   The directives folder contains the custom directives created for the application. The filters folder contains the custom filters created for the application that filter city/state and product information. The partials folder contains partial views. This includes things like modal dialogs used in the application. The services folder contains AngularJS factories and services used for various purposes in the application. Most of the scripts in this folder provide data functionality. The views folder contains the different views used in the application. Like the controllers folder, the views are organized into subfolders based on their functionality:   Back-End Services The Customer Manager application (grab it from Github) provides two different options on the back-end including ASP.NET Web API and Node.js. The ASP.NET Web API back-end uses Entity Framework for data access and stores data in SQL Server (LocalDb). The other option on the back-end is Node.js, Express, and MongoDB.   Using the ASP.NET Web API Back-End To run the application using ASP.NET Web API/SQL Server back-end open the .sln file at the root of the project in Visual Studio 2012 or higher (the free Express 2013 for Web version is fine). Press F5 and a browser will automatically launch and display the application. Using the Node.js Back-End To run the application using the Node.js/MongoDB back-end follow these steps: In the CustomerManager directory execute 'npm install' to install Express, MongoDB and Mongoose (package.json). Load sample data into MongoDB by performing the following steps: Execute 'mongod' to start the MongoDB daemon Navigate to the CustomerManager directory (the one that has initMongoCustData.js in it) then execute 'mongo' to start the MongoDB shell Enter the following in the mongo shell to load the seed files that handle seeding the database with initial data: use custmgr load("initMongoCustData.js") load("initMongoSettingsData.js") load("initMongoStateData.js") Start the Node/Express server by navigating to the CustomerManager/server directory and executing 'node app.js' View the application at http://localhost:3000 in your browser. Key Features The Customer Manager application certainly doesn’t cover every feature provided by AngularJS (as mentioned the intent was to keep it as simple as possible) but does provide insight into several key areas: Using factories and services as re-useable data services (see the app/services folder) Creating custom directives (see the app/directives folder) Custom paging (see app/views/customers/customers.html and app/controllers/customers/customersController.js) Custom filters (see app/filters) Showing custom modal dialogs with a re-useable service (see app/services/modalService.js) Making Ajax calls using a factory (see app/services/customersService.js) Using Breeze to retrieve and work with data (see app/services/customersBreezeService.js). Switch the application to use the Breeze factory by opening app/services.config.js and changing the useBreeze property to true. Intercepting HTTP requests to display a custom overlay during Ajax calls (see app/directives/wcOverlay.js) Custom animations using the GreenSock library (see app/animations/listAnimations.js) Creating custom AngularJS animations using CSS (see Content/animations.css) JavaScript patterns for defining controllers, services/factories, directives, filters, and more (see any JavaScript file in the app folder) Card View and List View display of data (see app/views/customers/customers.html and app/controllers/customers/customersController.js) Using AngularJS validation functionality (see app/views/customerEdit.html, app/controllers/customerEditController.js, and app/directives/wcUnique.js) More… Conclusion I’ll be enhancing the application even more over time and welcome contributions as well. Tony Quinn contributed the initial Node.js/MongoDB code which is very cool to have as a back-end option. Access the standard application here and a version that has custom routing in it here. Additional information about the custom routing can be found in this post.

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• Kaiden and the Arachnoid Cyst

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  Some of you may remember when my son Kaiden was born I posted pictures of him and his sister. Kaiden is now 15 months old and is progressing perfectly in every area except that and we had been worried that he was not walking yet. We were only really concerned as his sister was walking at 8 months. Figure: Kai as his usual self   Jadie and I were concerned over that and that he had a rather large head (noggin) so we talked to various GP’s and our health visitor who immediately dismissed our concerns every time. That was until about two months ago when we happened to get a GP whose daughter had Hyper Mobility and she recognised the symptoms immediately. We were referred to the Southbank clinic who were lovely and the paediatrician confirmed that he had Hyper Mobility after testing all of his faculties. This just means that his joints are overly mobile and would need a little physiotherapy to help him out. At the end the paediatrician remarked offhand that he has a rather large head and wanted to measure it. Sure enough he was a good margin above the highest percentile mark for his height and weight. The paediatrician showed the measurements to a paediatric consultant who, as a precautionary measure, referred us for an MRI at Yorkhill Children's hospital. Now, Yorkhill has always been fantastic to us, and this was no exception. You know we have NEVER had a correct diagnosis for the kids (with the exception of the above) from a GP and indeed twice have been proscribed incorrect medication that made the kids sicker! We now always go strait to Yorkhill to save them having to fix GP mistakes as well. Monday 24th May, 7pm The scan went fantastically, with Kaiden sleeping in the MRI machine for all but 5 minutes at the end where he waited patiently for it to finish. We were not expecting anything to be wrong as this was just a precautionary scan to make sure that nothing in his head was affecting his gross motor skills. After the scan we were told to expect a call towards the end of the week… Tuesday 25th May, 12pm The very next day we got a call from Southbank who said that they has found an Arachnoid Cyst and could we come in the next day to see a Consultant and that Kai would need an operation. Wednesday 26th May, 12:30pm We went into the Southbank clinic and spoke to the paediatric consultant who assured us that it was operable but that it was taking up considerable space in Kai’s head. Cerebrospinal fluid is building up as a cyst is blocking the channels it uses to drain. Thankfully they told us that prospects were good and that Kai would expect to make a full recovery before showing us the MRI pictures. Figure: Normal brain MRI cross section. This normal scan shows the spaces in the middle of the brain that contain and produce the Cerebrospinal fluid. Figure: Normal Cerebrospinal Flow This fluid is needed by the brain but is drained in the middle down the spinal column. Figure: Kai’s cyst blocking the four channels. I do not think that I need to explain the difference between the healthy picture and Kai’s picture. However you can see in this first picture the faint outline of the cyst in the middle that is blocking the four channels from draining. After seeing the scans a Neurosurgeon has decided that he is not acute, but needs an operation to unblock the flow. Figure: OMFG! You can see in the second picture the effect of the build up of fluid. If I was not horrified by the first picture I was seriously horrified by this one. What next? Kai is not presenting the symptoms of vomiting or listlessness that would show an immediate problem and as such we will get an appointment to see the Paediatric Neurosurgeon at the Southern General hospital in about 4 weeks. This timescale is based on the Neurosurgeon seeing the scans. After that Kai will need an operation to release the pressure and either remove the cyst completely or put in a permanent shunt (tube from brain to stomach) to bypass the blockage. We have updated his notes for the referral with additional recent information on top of the scan that the consultant things will help improve the timescales, but that is just a guess.   All we can do now is wait and see, and be watchful for tell tail signs of listlessness, eye problems and vomiting that would signify a worsening of his condition.   Technorati Tags: Personal

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• How Mary Meeker’s Latest Findings May Make You Re-Imagine Commerce

  - by Brenna Johnson-Oracle

  0 0 1 954 5439 Endeca Technologies 45 12 6381 14.0 Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Today, Mary Meeker released her highly anticipated annual “Internet Trends” presentation for 2014. All 164 slides are jam-packed with pretty much everything you need to know about the state of the Internet. And as luck would have it, Oracle is staying ahead of these trends (but we’ll talk about that later). There were a few surprises, some stats to solidify what you likely already know, and Meeker’s novel observations about where we are all going. What interested me the most is not only how people are engaging in their personal lives, but how they engage with brands. As you could probably predict, Internet usage growth is slowing while tablet user and mobile data traffic growth continue their meteoric rise around the globe, with tremendous growth in underpenetrated markets like China, India, Brazil and Indonesia. Now hold those the “Internet is dead” comments. Keep in mind there’s still plenty of room to grow, and a multiscreen model is Meeker’s vision for our future. Despite 1.5x YOY growth for mobile traffic, mobile still only makes up about 23% of all traffic today. With tablet shipments easily outpacing figures for PCs even at their height (in 2007), mobile will only continue on it’s path, but won’t be everything to everyone. Mobile won’t replace every touchpoint, it’s just created our shorter attention spans and demand for simpler, more personal experiences. As Meeker points out TVs, tablets, PCs, and smartphones are used for different activities at present, but lines will blur (for example, 84% of smartphones owners use their device while watching TV). Day-to-day activities are being re-imagining through simple, beautiful user experiences. It seems like every day I discover a new way a brand/site/app made the most mundane or mounting task enjoyable and frictionless – and I’m not alone. Meeker points out the evolution of how we do everything from how we communicate, get information, use money, meet someone, get places, order a meal, and consume media is all done through new user interfaces that make day-to-day tasks simpler. This movement has caused just about everyone’s patience for a poor UX to take a nosedive. And it’s not just the digital user experience, technology is making a lot of people’s offline lives easier, and less expensive. Today 47% of online shopping utilizes free shipping— nearly half. And Meeker predicts same day local delivery will be the “next big thing” (and you can take a guess on who will own that). Content, Community and Commerce creates the “Internet Trifecta.” Meeker pointed out that when content, communities and commerce occur in a single experience it’s embraced by consumers, which translates to big dollars for brands. The magic happens when consumers can get inspired, research, and buy in a single experience. As the buying cycle has changed and touchpoints (Web, mobile, social, store) are no longer tied to “roles” or steps in the customer journey, brands must make all experiences (content and commerce) available in a single, adaptable experience. (We at Oracle Commerce have a lot to say on this topic – stay tuned!) And in what Meeker calls the “biggest re-imagination of all:” consumers enabled with smartphones and sensors are creating troves of findable and sharable data, which she says is in the early stages, by growing rapidly. She notes that transparency and patterns of consumers with this hardware (FYI - there are up to 10 sensors embedded in smartphones now) has created a Big Data treasure chest to be mined to improve business and the life of the consumer. The opportunities are endless. So what does it all mean for a company doing business online? Start thinking about how you can: Re-imagine your experience. Not your online experience and your mobile experience and your social experience – your overall experience. When consumers can research, buy, and advocate from anywhere (and their attention spans are at an all-time low) channels don’t exist. Enable simple and beautiful interactions informed by all of the online and offline data you leverage across your enterprise. Ethically leverage the endless supply of data (user generated content, clicks, purchases, in-store behavior, social activity) to make experiences more beautiful, more accurate, and more personalized (not to mention, more lucrative for you). Re-imagine content and commerce. Content and commerce must co-exist in a single destination where shoppers can get inspired, explore, research, share, and purchase in a collective experience. Think of how you can deliver an experience where all types of experiences (brand stories and commerce) adapt to every customer need. (Look for more on this topic coming soon). Re-imagine your reach. Look to Meeker’s findings to see how the global appetite for digital experiences is growing, but under-served in many places (i.e.: India, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, Philippines, etc.). Growing your online business to a new geography doesn’t have to mean starting from scratch or having an entirely new team manage the new endeavor. Expand using what you’ve already built in a multisite framework, with global language support. And of course, make sure it’s optimized for mobile! Re-imagine the possible. After every Meeker report, I’m always left with the thought “we are just at the beginning.” Everyday there is more data, more possibilities, more online consumers, and more opportunities to use new latest technology to get closer to your customers and be more successful. There’s a lot going on in our Product Development and Product Innovations groups to automate innovation for our customers, so that they can continue to stay ahead of these trends, without disrupting their business. Check out a recent interview with our Innovations Team on some of these new possibilities. Staying on track despite the seemingly endless possibilities out there is the hard part. Prioritizing where you will focus based on your unique brand promise, customer and goals is what you do best. To learn how Oracle Commerce can help your business achieve your goals check out oracle.com/commerce. Check out Meeker’s entire report here.

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