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• Softfail / Failure Notice on SMTP

  - by pascal1954

  Hey, i'm searching for an answer for about 24 hours now and I still can't find any really useful help... The problem appears as the following: I'm running a debian server with Plesk 9.5.3 and qmail. Since a few weeks I'm not able to send mails to some particular servers (like web.de, aol.com). Hence I get failure notices like "Sorry, I wasn't able to establish an SMTP connection." But when I try to send mails to gmail.com - it works! Gmail only reports a softfail in the mail header like so: Received: from h1600XXX.?none? (DOMAIN2.TLD [XX.XXX.XX.XX]) Received-SPF: softfail (google.com: best guess record for domain of transitioning [email protected] does not designate 85.XXX.XX.XX as permitted sender) client-ip=85.XXX.XX.XX This sounds like a dns problem for me, but I can't get an answer for that... What makes me wondering is: h1600XXX is correct, but it should look like h1600XXX.stratoserver.net, not ?none? DOMAIN2.TLD (first line) is different from DOMAIN1 (second line). Both are hosted on this machine, but is this correct? DOMAIN1 is the one I send this mail from. Hopefully someone could help me! If you need more specific information, let me know. Thanks in advance!!! Best regards

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• Help with Backup Scheme for B.E 12.5

  - by Jemartin

  I'm in process of implementing a new backup scheme. I would say that I'm kind of new to it. So here my question. I'm currently using Backup Exec 12.5 on Windows Server 2008 w/Hyper-V, and IBM Adic Scalar 24. I currently backup our mail server, SQL DB, Board Server Linux Red Hat, Ftp, etc. To a Near-line which is local on our SAN I have the daily's go there as well as full. I would like to start weekly full to tape on a Saturday it takes about 2-3 days to complete the entire full to tape due to backing up from our Co-Lo as well. I have read up on the Father/son rotation but here's my issue with that I dont use tapes everyday only on the weekly full to tape will I be using them. So if there is 4 weeks in a month would I rotate in this order ( Month June WK1 =7tapes , June WK2=7 tapes, June WK3=7tapes June Wk4=7tapes with WK4 being the last tape for the month of June I would use that as a Month tape. For the month of July Wk1= June's WK1 tapes, July WK2= June's WK2 tapes July WK4 = Junes Wk4 tape for a month or would I use a set of new tapes for the last week in July. All tapes are being taking off site as well.

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• When buying hardware, what sites do you trust for information? [closed]

  - by Matt Dawdy

  I won't ask "what laptop should I buy" since the information is likely to change very quickly. However, I am about to buy a laptop, and I honestly don't know where to begin researching this based on my needs. I am hoping that asking about specific sites that do reviews/recommendations that this will still be on topic. I read the 6 guidelines for subjective questions and believe that this question scores favorably. I'm starting a new job in a few weeks, and they want to know what specific laptop to purchase. I'd like to get the most for their money and get a machine that will not need to be replaced in a year. When looking at a site like Dell, it's hard to get a full picture of the performance of a laptop. Does it work with a docking station, and if so, what kinds of video outs are on it? Will it work well when compiling several large projects in .Net? Has anyone had any issues with the machine getting flaky when dragging it from work to home and back all the time? etc. So, if people would enter in their preferred sites they use when researching hardware, and why they prefer that site (x is great for laptop comparisons, y is great for gaming machine reviews, etc) the I hope that this can be a question with valuable answers to others than just myself.

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• Computers on network crashing

  - by Phil Cross

  We have recently upgraded our network to Windows 7 clients with Windows server 2008 servers. The upgrade was completed by the end of September and until now has been fine (apart from the minor bugs). Recently (within the last 2 weeks) we've notice all computers on the network (around 1000) start to slow down to the point their unusable. It starts at about 08:45 and finishes at 09:15. Because of this, we think something may be broadcasting across the network. This happens every day, between these times. I cant use my computer at all at the slowdown peak, and looking at task managers performance graphs, Physical memory is hovering around 35% and CPU usage is at 0-10% (idle) yet still crashing. I've looked on DHCPs server log and cant see anything which stands out. The only change we made prior to the slowdown was installing adobe CS6 on some computers, however the slowdown affects computers without CS6. We have 2 physical machines, each with around 5-7 virtual machines running on them with ample memory. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what we can do to narrow down whats causing the crashes? Any help, suggestions or advice would be appreciated.

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• Diagnosing PC crashes (most often while using shared folders or torrents)

  - by Dyppl

  For the last few weeks my PC (pretty old P4 with WinXP SP3) has been crashing randomly. It just suddenly reboots instanteneously. It feels hardware-related but I wasn't able to determine wether it's software or hardware that causes it. I did notice a pattern though: it's more likely to crash when I copy a lot of files over network or have uTorrent running, but sometimes it crashes when I am not doing anything with it. Copying files from it over network causes it to crash in 1 to 10 minutes almost every time. Using torrents causes it to crash every 1-3 hours. With neither or that on it crashes every 24 hours or so. I ruled out the following probable causes: PSU (I bought a new one and turned off most of the drives so the power is sufficient 100%) Bad HDD or interface cable on my SATA disk from which I was originally copying the data over network (bought new SATA cable and later yanked out the HDD completely, PC still crashes without it) Video adapter (AGP slot is now empty, using the onboard VGA at the moment) Network adapter (removed it from PCI, using onboard LAN) CPU (I think: I changed the termopaste and it's temperature is below 50C) RAM (I think: I ran Memtest86 and it didn't show any errors) At the moment I only have only one system HDD and DVD drives, a mouse and a keyboard plugged in. The fact that it crashes most often when I use network extensively makes me think that maybe it's software related (I removed the network adapter from PCI and now am using an onboard one, so network hardware is unlikely to cause problems). I am now pondering system reinstall but it's not a pleasant solution so I decided to ask wether there are better ideas first. If someone can share a good diagnostic tool it would be great because I didn't find anything good. Thanks in advance, I hope that "help to diagnose" questions aren't entirely banned here. EDIT: Motherboard is actually ~4 years old as I replaced it back in 2007

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• Bi-directional WCF Client-Server Communication

  - by Bill

  I have been working for weeks on creating a client/server to control a music-server application located on the server-side that is controlled by several client apps located across the LAN. I've been successful in getting the client-side to communicate with the Server, sending commands to operate the music-server, and through the use of callbacks, reply to the clients so that all of the client UI's can be appropriately updated. My problem is however, that I unable to figure-out how to broadcast other messages that need to be sent from the server app to the clients. I was hoping to utilize the callback method; however I have not been able to access it from the server side. Do I need to modify or create another contract that provides for communication from the server to the clients? Does the binding require modification? As I mentioned earlier, I have truly been working on this for weeks (which is beginning to feel like 'years'), and hope to get this last piece of the application working. Would someone please steer me in the right direction? Client Side SERVICE REFERENCE: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceReference> <ProxyGenerationParameters ServiceReferenceUri="http://localhost:8001/APService/mex" Name="APGateway" NotifyPropertyChange="True" UseObservableCollection="False"> </ProxyGenerationParameters> <EndPoints> <EndPoint Address="net.tcp://localhost:8000/APService/service" BindingConfiguration="TcpBinding" Contract="APClient.APGateway.APUserService" > </EndPoint> <EndPoint Address="http://localhost:8001/APService/service" BindingConfiguration="HttpBinding" Contract="APClient.APGateway.APUserService" > </EndPoint> </EndPoints> </ServiceReference> Client Side AP CONFIG <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <configuration> <configSections> <sectionGroup name="applicationSettings" type="System.Configuration.ApplicationSettingsGroup, System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" > <section name="APClient.Properties.Settings" type="System.Configuration.ClientSettingsSection, System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" requirePermission="false" /> </sectionGroup> </configSections> <system.serviceModel> <client> <endpoint address="net.tcp://localhost:8000/APService/service" binding="netTcpBinding" contract="APClient.APGateway.APUserService" name="TcpBinding" /> <endpoint address="http://localhost:8001/APService/service" binding="wsDualHttpBinding" contract="APClient.APGateway.APUserService" name="HttpBinding" /> </client> </system.serviceModel> <applicationSettings> <APClient.Properties.Settings> <setting name="pathToDatabase" serializeAs="String"> <value>C:\Users\Bill\Documents\APData\</value> </setting> </APClient.Properties.Settings> </applicationSettings> Server Side AP.CONFIG <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <configuration> <system.serviceModel> <behaviors> <serviceBehaviors> <behavior name="MetadataBehavior"> <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" httpGetUrl="http://localhost:8001/APService/mex" /> </behavior> </serviceBehaviors> </behaviors> <services> <service behaviorConfiguration="MetadataBehavior" name="APService.APService"> <endpoint address="service" binding="netTcpBinding" name="TcpBinding" contract="APService.IAPServiceInventory" /> <endpoint address="service" binding="wsDualHttpBinding" name="HttpBinding" contract="APService.IAPServiceInventory" /> <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" name="MexBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange" /> <host> <baseAddresses> <add baseAddress="net.tcp://localhost:8000/APService/" /> <add baseAddress="http://localhost:8001/APService/" /> </baseAddresses> </host> </service> </services> </system.serviceModel> </configuration> Server Side APSERVICE.CS namespace APService { [ServiceBehavior(ConcurrencyMode=ConcurrencyMode.Single,InstanceContextMode=InstanceContextMode.PerCall)] public class APService : IAPServiceInventory { private static List<IClientCallback> _callbackList = new List<IClientCallback>(); private static int _beerInventory = Convert.ToInt32(System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["InitialBeerInventory"]); public APService() {} public int SubscribeToServer(string guestName) { IClientCallback guest = OperationContext.Current.GetCallbackChannel<IClientCallback>(); if(!_callbackList.Contains(guest)) { _callbackList.Add(guest); } else { Console.WriteLine(guest + " is already logged onto the Server."); } _callbackList.ForEach(delegate(IClientCallback callback) { callback.NotifyGuestJoinedParty(guestName); }); } public void UpdateClients(string guestName,string UpdateInfo) { _callbackList.ForEach(delegate(IClientCallback callback) { callback.NotifyUpdateClients(guestName,UpdateInfo); }); } public void SendRequestToServer(string guestName, string request) { _callbackList.ForEach(delegate(IClientCallback callback) { callback.NotifyRequestMadeToServer(guestName,request); }); if(request == "Play") { APControl.Play(); } else if(request == "Stop") { APControl.Stop(); } else if(request == "Pause") { APControl.PlayPause(); } else if(request == "Next Track") { APControl.NextTrack(); } else if(request == "Previous Track") { APControl.PreviousTrack(); } else if(request == "Mute") { APControl.Mute(); } else if(request == "Volume Up") { APControl.VolumeUp(5); } else if(request == "Volume Down") { APControl.VolumeDown(5); } } public void CancelServerSubscription(string guestName) { IClientCallback guest = OperationContext.Current.GetCallbackChannel<IClientCallback>(); if(_callbackList.Contains(guest)) { _callbackList.Remove(guest); } _callbackList.ForEach(delegate(IClientCallback callback) { callback.NotifyGuestLeftParty(guestName); }); } } Server Side IAPSERVICE.CS namespace APService { [ServiceContract(Name="APUserService",Namespace="http://AP.com/WCFClientServer/",SessionMode=SessionMode.Required, CallbackContract=typeof(IClientCallback))] public interface IAPServiceInventory { [OperationContract()] int SubscribeToServer(string guestName); [OperationContract(IsOneWay=true)] void SendRequestToServer(string guestName,string request); [OperationContract(IsOneWay=true)] void UpdateClients(string guestName,string UpdateInfo); [OperationContract(IsOneWay=true)] void CancelServerSubscription(string guestName); } } Server side - IAPServiceCallback.cs namespace APService { public interface IClientCallback { [OperationContract(IsOneWay=true)] void NotifyGuestJoinedParty(string guestName); [OperationContract(IsOneWay=true)] void NotifyUpdateClients(string guestName,string UpdateInfo); [OperationContract(IsOneWay=true)] void NotifyRequestMadeToServer(string guestName,string request); [OperationContract(IsOneWay=true)] void NotifyGuestLeftParty(string guestName); }

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• Windows Azure: Import/Export Hard Drives, VM ACLs, Web Sockets, Remote Debugging, Continuous Delivery, New Relic, Billing Alerts and More

  - by ScottGu

  Two weeks ago we released a giant set of improvements to Windows Azure, as well as a significant update of the Windows Azure SDK. This morning we released another massive set of enhancements to Windows Azure.  Today’s new capabilities include: Storage: Import/Export Hard Disk Drives to your Storage Accounts HDInsight: General Availability of our Hadoop Service in the cloud Virtual Machines: New VM Gallery, ACL support for VIPs Web Sites: WebSocket and Remote Debugging Support Notification Hubs: Segmented customer push notification support with tag expressions TFS & GIT: Continuous Delivery Support for Web Sites + Cloud Services Developer Analytics: New Relic support for Web Sites + Mobile Services Service Bus: Support for partitioned queues and topics Billing: New Billing Alert Service that sends emails notifications when your bill hits a threshold you define All of these improvements are now available to use immediately (note that some features are still in preview).  Below are more details about them. Storage: Import/Export Hard Disk Drives to Windows Azure I am excited to announce the preview of our new Windows Azure Import/Export Service! The Windows Azure Import/Export Service enables you to move large amounts of on-premises data into and out of your Windows Azure Storage accounts. It does this by enabling you to securely ship hard disk drives directly to our Windows Azure data centers. Once we receive the drives we’ll automatically transfer the data to or from your Windows Azure Storage account.  This enables you to import or export massive amounts of data more quickly and cost effectively (and not be constrained by available network bandwidth). Encrypted Transport Our Import/Export service provides built-in support for BitLocker disk encryption – which enables you to securely encrypt data on the hard drives before you send it, and not have to worry about it being compromised even if the disk is lost/stolen in transit (since the content on the transported hard drives is completely encrypted and you are the only one who has the key to it).  The drive preparation tool we are shipping today makes setting up bitlocker encryption on these hard drives easy. How to Import/Export your first Hard Drive of Data You can read our Getting Started Guide to learn more about how to begin using the import/export service.  You can create import and export jobs via the Windows Azure Management Portal as well as programmatically using our Server Management APIs. It is really easy to create a new import or export job using the Windows Azure Management Portal.  Simply navigate to a Windows Azure storage account, and then click the new Import/Export tab now available within it (note: if you don’t have this tab make sure to sign-up for the Import/Export preview): Then click the “Create Import Job” or “Create Export Job” commands at the bottom of it.  This will launch a wizard that easily walks you through the steps required: For more comprehensive information about Import/Export, refer to Windows Azure Storage team blog.  You can also send questions and comments to the [email protected] email address. We think you’ll find this new service makes it much easier to move data into and out of Windows Azure, and it will dramatically cut down the network bandwidth required when working on large data migration projects.  We hope you like it. HDInsight: 100% Compatible Hadoop Service in the Cloud Last week we announced the general availability release of Windows Azure HDInsight. HDInsight is a 100% compatible Hadoop service that allows you to easily provision and manage Hadoop clusters for big data processing in Windows Azure.  This release is now live in production, backed by an enterprise SLA, supported 24x7 by Microsoft Support, and is ready to use for production scenarios. HDInsight allows you to use Apache Hadoop tools, such as Pig and Hive, to process large amounts of data in Windows Azure Blob Storage. Because data is stored in Windows Azure Blob Storage, you can choose to dynamically create Hadoop clusters only when you need them, and then shut them down when they are no longer required (since you pay only for the time the Hadoop cluster instances are running this provides a super cost effective way to use them).  You can create Hadoop clusters using either the Windows Azure Management Portal (see below) or using our PowerShell and Cross Platform Command line tools: The import/export hard drive support that came out today is a perfect companion service to use with HDInsight – the combination allows you to easily ingest, process and optionally export a limitless amount of data.  We’ve also integrated HDInsight with our Business Intelligence tools, so users can leverage familiar tools like Excel in order to analyze the output of jobs.  You can find out more about how to get started with HDInsight here. Virtual Machines: VM Gallery Enhancements Today’s update of Windows Azure brings with it a new Virtual Machine gallery that you can use to create new VMs in the cloud.  You can launch the gallery by doing New->Compute->Virtual Machine->From Gallery within the Windows Azure Management Portal: The new Virtual Machine Gallery includes some nice enhancements that make it even easier to use: Search: You can now easily search and filter images using the search box in the top-right of the dialog.  For example, simply type “SQL” and we’ll filter to show those images in the gallery that contain that substring. Category Tree-view: Each month we add more built-in VM images to the gallery.  You can continue to browse these using the “All” view within the VM Gallery – or now quickly filter them using the category tree-view on the left-hand side of the dialog.  For example, by selecting “Oracle” in the tree-view you can now quickly filter to see the official Oracle supplied images. MSDN and Supported checkboxes: With today’s update we are also introducing filters that makes it easy to filter out types of images that you may not be interested in. The first checkbox is MSDN: using this filter you can exclude any image that is not part of the Windows Azure benefits for MSDN subscribers (which have highly discounted pricing - you can learn more about the MSDN pricing here). The second checkbox is Supported: this filter will exclude any image that contains prerelease software, so you can feel confident that the software you choose to deploy is fully supported by Windows Azure and our partners. Sort options: We sort gallery images by what we think customers are most interested in, but sometimes you might want to sort using different views. So we’re providing some additional sort options, like “Newest,” to customize the image list for what suits you best. Pricing information: We now provide additional pricing information about images and options on how to cost effectively run them directly within the VM Gallery. The above improvements make it even easier to use the VM Gallery and quickly create launch and run Virtual Machines in the cloud. Virtual Machines: ACL Support for VIPs A few months ago we exposed the ability to configure Access Control Lists (ACLs) for Virtual Machines using Windows PowerShell cmdlets and our Service Management API. With today’s release, you can now configure VM ACLs using the Windows Azure Management Portal as well. You can now do this by clicking the new Manage ACL command in the Endpoints tab of a virtual machine instance: This will enable you to configure an ordered list of permit and deny rules to scope the traffic that can access your VM’s network endpoints. For example, if you were on a virtual network, you could limit RDP access to a Windows Azure virtual machine to only a few computers attached to your enterprise. Or if you weren’t on a virtual network you could alternatively limit traffic from public IPs that can access your workloads: Here is the default behaviors for ACLs in Windows Azure: By default (i.e. no rules specified), all traffic is permitted. When using only Permit rules, all other traffic is denied. When using only Deny rules, all other traffic is permitted. When there is a combination of Permit and Deny rules, all other traffic is denied. Lastly, remember that configuring endpoints does not automatically configure them within the VM if it also has firewall rules enabled at the OS level.  So if you create an endpoint using the Windows Azure Management Portal, Windows PowerShell, or REST API, be sure to also configure your guest VM firewall appropriately as well. Web Sites: Web Sockets Support With today’s release you can now use Web Sockets with Windows Azure Web Sites.  This feature enables you to easily integrate real-time communication scenarios within your web based applications, and is available at no extra charge (it even works with the free tier).  Higher level programming libraries like SignalR and socket.io are also now supported with it. You can enable Web Sockets support on a web site by navigating to the Configure tab of a Web Site, and by toggling Web Sockets support to “on”: Once Web Sockets is enabled you can start to integrate some really cool scenarios into your web applications.  Check out the new SignalR documentation hub on www.asp.net to learn more about some of the awesome scenarios you can do with it. Web Sites: Remote Debugging Support The Windows Azure SDK 2.2 we released two weeks ago introduced remote debugging support for Windows Azure Cloud Services. With today’s Windows Azure release we are extending this remote debugging support to also work with Windows Azure Web Sites. With live, remote debugging support inside of Visual Studio, you are able to have more visibility than ever before into how your code is operating live in Windows Azure. It is now super easy to attach the debugger and quickly see what is going on with your application in the cloud. Remote Debugging of a Windows Azure Web Site using VS 2013 Enabling the remote debugging of a Windows Azure Web Site using VS 2013 is really easy.  Start by opening up your web application’s project within Visual Studio. Then navigate to the “Server Explorer” tab within Visual Studio, and click on the deployed web-site you want to debug that is running within Windows Azure using the Windows Azure->Web Sites node in the Server Explorer.  Then right-click and choose the “Attach Debugger” option on it: When you do this Visual Studio will remotely attach the debugger to the Web Site running within Windows Azure.  The debugger will then stop the web site’s execution when it hits any break points that you have set within your web application’s project inside Visual Studio.  For example, below I set a breakpoint on the “ViewBag.Message” assignment statement within the HomeController of the standard ASP.NET MVC project template.  When I hit refresh on the “About” page of the web site within the browser, the breakpoint was triggered and I am now able to debug the app remotely using Visual Studio: Note above how we can debug variables (including autos/watchlist/etc), as well as use the Immediate and Command Windows. In the debug session above I used the Immediate Window to explore some of the request object state, as well as to dynamically change the ViewBag.Message property.  When we click the the “Continue” button (or press F5) the app will continue execution and the Web Site will render the content back to the browser.  This makes it super easy to debug web apps remotely. Tips for Better Debugging To get the best experience while debugging, we recommend publishing your site using the Debug configuration within Visual Studio’s Web Publish dialog. This will ensure that debug symbol information is uploaded to the Web Site which will enable a richer debug experience within Visual Studio.  You can find this option on the Web Publish dialog on the Settings tab: When you ultimately deploy/run the application in production we recommend using the “Release” configuration setting – the release configuration is memory optimized and will provide the best production performance.  To learn more about diagnosing and debugging Windows Azure Web Sites read our new Troubleshooting Windows Azure Web Sites in Visual Studio guide. Notification Hubs: Segmented Push Notification support with tag expressions In August we announced the General Availability of Windows Azure Notification Hubs - a powerful Mobile Push Notifications service that makes it easy to send high volume push notifications with low latency from any mobile app back-end.  Notification hubs can be used with any mobile app back-end (including ones built using our Mobile Services capability) and can also be used with back-ends that run in the cloud as well as on-premises. Beginning with the initial release, Notification Hubs allowed developers to send personalized push notifications to both individual users as well as groups of users by interest, by associating their devices with tags representing the logical target of the notification. For example, by registering all devices of customers interested in a favorite MLB team with a corresponding tag, it is possible to broadcast one message to millions of Boston Red Sox fans and another message to millions of St. Louis Cardinals fans with a single API call respectively. New support for using tag expressions to enable advanced customer segmentation With today’s release we are adding support for even more advanced customer targeting.  You can now identify customers that you want to send push notifications to by defining rich tag expressions. With tag expressions, you can now not only broadcast notifications to Boston Red Sox fans, but take that segmenting a step farther and reach more granular segments. This opens up a variety of scenarios, for example: Offers based on multiple preferences—e.g. send a game day vegetarian special to users tagged as both a Boston Red Sox fan AND a vegetarian Push content to multiple segments in a single message—e.g. rain delay information only to users who are tagged as either a Boston Red Sox fan OR a St. Louis Cardinal fan Avoid presenting subsets of a segment with irrelevant content—e.g. season ticket availability reminder to users who are tagged as a Boston Red Sox fan but NOT also a season ticket holder To illustrate with code, consider a restaurant chain app that sends an offer related to a Red Sox vs Cardinals game for users in Boston. Devices can be tagged by your app with location tags (e.g. “Loc:Boston”) and interest tags (e.g. “Follows:RedSox”, “Follows:Cardinals”), and then a notification can be sent by your back-end to “(Follows:RedSox || Follows:Cardinals) && Loc:Boston” in order to deliver an offer to all devices in Boston that follow either the RedSox or the Cardinals. This can be done directly in your server backend send logic using the code below: var notification = new WindowsNotification(messagePayload); hub.SendNotificationAsync(notification, "(Follows:RedSox || Follows:Cardinals) && Loc:Boston"); In your expressions you can use all Boolean operators: AND (&&), OR (||), and NOT (!).  Some other cool use cases for tag expressions that are now supported include: Social: To “all my group except me” - group:id && !user:id Events: Touchdown event is sent to everybody following either team or any of the players involved in the action: Followteam:A || Followteam:B || followplayer:1 || followplayer:2 … Hours: Send notifications at specific times. E.g. Tag devices with time zone and when it is 12pm in Seattle send to: GMT8 && follows:thaifood Versions and platforms: Send a reminder to people still using your first version for Android - version:1.0 && platform:Android For help on getting started with Notification Hubs, visit the Notification Hub documentation center.  Then download the latest NuGet package (or use the Notification Hubs REST APIs directly) to start sending push notifications using tag expressions.  They are really powerful and enable a bunch of great new scenarios. TFS & GIT: Continuous Delivery Support for Web Sites + Cloud Services With today’s Windows Azure release we are making it really easy to enable continuous delivery support with Windows Azure and Team Foundation Services.  Team Foundation Services is a cloud based offering from Microsoft that provides integrated source control (with both TFS and Git support), build server, test execution, collaboration tools, and agile planning support.  It makes it really easy to setup a team project (complete with automated builds and test runners) in the cloud, and it has really rich integration with Visual Studio. With today’s Windows Azure release it is now really easy to enable continuous delivery support with both TFS and Git based repositories hosted using Team Foundation Services.  This enables a workflow where when code is checked in, built successfully on an automated build server, and all tests pass on it – I can automatically have the app deployed on Windows Azure with zero manual intervention or work required. The below screen-shots demonstrate how to quickly setup a continuous delivery workflow to Windows Azure with a Git-based ASP.NET MVC project hosted using Team Foundation Services. Enabling Continuous Delivery to Windows Azure with Team Foundation Services The project I’m going to enable continuous delivery with is a simple ASP.NET MVC project whose source code I’m hosting using Team Foundation Services.  I did this by creating a “SimpleContinuousDeploymentTest” repository there using Git – and then used the new built-in Git tooling support within Visual Studio 2013 to push the source code to it.  Below is a screen-shot of the Git repository hosted within Team Foundation Services: I can access the repository within Visual Studio 2013 and easily make commits with it (as well as branch, merge and do other tasks).  Using VS 2013 I can also setup automated builds to take place in the cloud using Team Foundation Services every time someone checks in code to the repository: The cool thing about this is that I don’t have to buy or rent my own build server – Team Foundation Services automatically maintains its own build server farm and can automatically queue up a build for me (for free) every time someone checks in code using the above settings.  This build server (and automated testing) support now works with both TFS and Git based source control repositories. Connecting a Team Foundation Services project to Windows Azure Once I have a source repository hosted in Team Foundation Services with Automated Builds and Testing set up, I can then go even further and set it up so that it will be automatically deployed to Windows Azure when a source code commit is made to the repository (assuming the Build + Tests pass).  Enabling this is now really easy.  To set this up with a Windows Azure Web Site simply use the New->Compute->Web Site->Custom Create command inside the Windows Azure Management Portal.  This will create a dialog like below.  I gave the web site a name and then made sure the “Publish from source control” checkbox was selected: When we click next we’ll be prompted for the location of the source repository.  We’ll select “Team Foundation Services”: Once we do this we’ll be prompted for our Team Foundation Services account that our source repository is hosted under (in this case my TFS account is “scottguthrie”): When we click the “Authorize Now” button we’ll be prompted to give Windows Azure permissions to connect to the Team Foundation Services account.  Once we do this we’ll be prompted to pick the source repository we want to connect to.  Starting with today’s Windows Azure release you can now connect to both TFS and Git based source repositories.  This new support allows me to connect to the “SimpleContinuousDeploymentTest” respository we created earlier: Clicking the finish button will then create the Web Site with the continuous delivery hooks setup with Team Foundation Services.  Now every time someone pushes source control to the repository in Team Foundation Services, it will kick off an automated build, run all of the unit tests in the solution , and if they pass the app will be automatically deployed to our Web Site in Windows Azure.  You can monitor the history and status of these automated deployments using the Deployments tab within the Web Site: This enables a really slick continuous delivery workflow, and enables you to build and deploy apps in a really nice way. Developer Analytics: New Relic support for Web Sites + Mobile Services With today’s Windows Azure release we are making it really easy to enable Developer Analytics and Monitoring support with both Windows Azure Web Site and Windows Azure Mobile Services.  We are partnering with New Relic, who provide a great dev analytics and app performance monitoring offering, to enable this - and we have updated the Windows Azure Management Portal to make it really easy to configure. Enabling New Relic with a Windows Azure Web Site Enabling New Relic support with a Windows Azure Web Site is now really easy.  Simply navigate to the Configure tab of a Web Site and scroll down to the “developer analytics” section that is now within it: Clicking the “add-on” button will display some additional UI.  If you don’t already have a New Relic subscription, you can click the “view windows azure store” button to obtain a subscription (note: New Relic has a perpetually free tier so you can enable it even without paying anything): Clicking the “view windows azure store” button will launch the integrated Windows Azure Store experience we have within the Windows Azure Management Portal.  You can use this to browse from a variety of great add-on services – including New Relic: Select “New Relic” within the dialog above, then click the next button, and you’ll be able to choose which type of New Relic subscription you wish to purchase.  For this demo we’ll simply select the “Free Standard Version” – which does not cost anything and can be used forever:  Once we’ve signed-up for our New Relic subscription and added it to our Windows Azure account, we can go back to the Web Site’s configuration tab and choose to use the New Relic add-on with our Windows Azure Web Site.  We can do this by simply selecting it from the “add-on” dropdown (it is automatically populated within it once we have a New Relic subscription in our account): Clicking the “Save” button will then cause the Windows Azure Management Portal to automatically populate all of the needed New Relic configuration settings to our Web Site: Deploying the New Relic Agent as part of a Web Site The final step to enable developer analytics using New Relic is to add the New Relic runtime agent to our web app.  We can do this within Visual Studio by right-clicking on our web project and selecting the “Manage NuGet Packages” context menu: This will bring up the NuGet package manager.  You can search for “New Relic” within it to find the New Relic agent.  Note that there is both a 32-bit and 64-bit edition of it – make sure to install the version that matches how your Web Site is running within Windows Azure (note: you can configure your Web Site to run in either 32-bit or 64-bit mode using the Web Site’s “Configuration” tab within the Windows Azure Management Portal): Once we install the NuGet package we are all set to go.  We’ll simply re-publish the web site again to Windows Azure and New Relic will now automatically start monitoring the application Monitoring a Web Site using New Relic Now that the application has developer analytics support with New Relic enabled, we can launch the New Relic monitoring portal to start monitoring the health of it.  We can do this by clicking on the “Add Ons” tab in the left-hand side of the Windows Azure Management Portal.  Then select the New Relic add-on we signed-up for within it.  The Windows Azure Management Portal will provide some default information about the add-on when we do this.  Clicking the “Manage” button in the tray at the bottom will launch a new browser tab and single-sign us into the New Relic monitoring portal associated with our account: When we do this a new browser tab will launch with the New Relic admin tool loaded within it: We can now see insights into how our app is performing – without having to have written a single line of monitoring code.  The New Relic service provides a ton of great built-in monitoring features allowing us to quickly see: Performance times (including browser rendering speed) for the overall site and individual pages.  You can optionally set alert thresholds to trigger if the speed does not meet a threshold you specify. Information about where in the world your customers are hitting the site from (and how performance varies by region) Details on the latency performance of external services your web apps are using (for example: SQL, Storage, Twitter, etc) Error information including call stack details for exceptions that have occurred at runtime SQL Server profiling information – including which queries executed against your database and what their performance was And a whole bunch more… The cool thing about New Relic is that you don’t need to write monitoring code within your application to get all of the above reports (plus a lot more).  The New Relic agent automatically enables the CLR profiler within applications and automatically captures the information necessary to identify these.  This makes it super easy to get started and immediately have a rich developer analytics view for your solutions with very little effort. If you haven’t tried New Relic out yet with Windows Azure I recommend you do so – I think you’ll find it helps you build even better cloud applications.  Following the above steps will help you get started and deliver you a really good application monitoring solution in only minutes. Service Bus: Support for partitioned queues and topics With today’s release, we are enabling support within Service Bus for partitioned queues and topics. Enabling partitioning enables you to achieve a higher message throughput and better availability from your queues and topics. Higher message throughput is achieved by implementing multiple message brokers for each partitioned queue and topic.  The  multiple messaging stores will also provide higher availability. You can create a partitioned queue or topic by simply checking the Enable Partitioning option in the custom create wizard for a Queue or Topic: Read this article to learn more about partitioned queues and topics and how to take advantage of them today. Billing: New Billing Alert Service Today’s Windows Azure update enables a new Billing Alert Service Preview that enables you to get proactive email notifications when your Windows Azure bill goes above a certain monetary threshold that you configure.  This makes it easier to manage your bill and avoid potential surprises at the end of the month. With the Billing Alert Service Preview, you can now create email alerts to monitor and manage your monetary credits or your current bill total.  To set up an alert first sign-up for the free Billing Alert Service Preview.  Then visit the account management page, click on a subscription you have setup, and then navigate to the new Alerts tab that is available: The alerts tab allows you to setup email alerts that will be sent automatically once a certain threshold is hit.  For example, by clicking the “add alert” button above I can setup a rule to send myself email anytime my Windows Azure bill goes above $100 for the month: The Billing Alert Service will evolve to support additional aspects of your bill as well as support multiple forms of alerts such as SMS.  Try out the new Billing Alert Service Preview today and give us feedback. Summary Today’s Windows Azure release enables a ton of great new scenarios, and makes building applications hosted in the cloud even easier. If you don’t already have a Windows Azure account, you can sign-up for a free trial and start using all of the above features today.  Then visit the Windows Azure Developer Center to learn more about how to build apps with it. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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• DirectoryServicesCOMException when working with System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement

  - by antik

  I'm attempting to determine whether a user is a member of a given group using System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagment. I'm doing this inside a SharePoint WebPart in SharePoint 2007 on a 64-bit system. Project targets .NET 3.5 Impersonation is enabled in the web.config. The IIS Site in question is using an IIS App Pool with a domain user configured as the identity. I am able to instantiate a PrincipalContext as such: PrincipalContext pc = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain) Next, I try to grab a principal: using (PrincipalContext pc = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain)) { GroupPrincipal group = GroupPrincipal.FindByIdentity(pc, "MYDOMAIN\somegroup"); // snip: exception thrown by line above. } Both the above and UserPrincipal.FindByIdentity with a user SAM throw a DirectoryServicesCOMException: "Logon failure: Unknown user name or bad password" I've tried passing in a complete SAMAccountName to either FindByIdentity (in the form of MYDOMAIN\username) or just the username with no change in behavior. I've tried executing the code with other credentials using both the HostingEnvironment.Impersonate and SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges approaches and also experience the same result. I've also tried instantiating my context with the domain name in place: Principal Context pc = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain, "MYDOMAIN"); This throws a PrincipalServerDownException: "The server could not be contacted." I'm working on a reasonably hardened server. I did not lock the system down so I am unsure exactly what has been done to it. If there are credentials I need to allocate to my pool identity's user or in the domain security policy in order for these to work, I can configure the domain accordingly. Are there any settings that would be preventing my code from running? Am I missing something in the code itself? Is this just not possible in a SharePoint web? EDIT: Given further testing, my code functions correctly when tested in a Console application targeting .NET 4.0. I targeted a different framework because I didn't have AccountManagement available to me in the console app when targeting .NET 3.5 for some reason. using (PrincipalContext pc = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain)) using (UserPrincipal adUser = UserPrincipal.FindByIdentity(pc, "MYDOMAIN\joe.user")) using (GroupPrincipal adGroup = GroupPrincipal.FindByIdentity(pc, "MYDOMAIN\user group")) { if (adUser.IsMemberOf(adGroup)) { Console.WriteLine("User is a member!"); } else { Console.WriteLine("User is NOT a member."); } } What varies in my SharePoint environment that might prohibit this function from executing?

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• Can't checkin to Facebook Places by post to api?

  - by MarcusJoe

  Hey everybody, I am trying to build an app where I let my registered user be able to check in to places on Facebook Places. I however for some reason can't seem to make this work. I assumed this is possible with the Api as write functionality has been added to it, but I couldn't find an clear explanation on the web. this is what I currently have, after I have asked the user for permission to publish checkins and for user_checkins. <?php require("src/facebook.php"); $facebook = new Facebook(array( 'appId' => 'xxxxxxxxx', 'secret' => 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx', 'cookie' => true )); # see if active session $session = $facebook->getSession(); if(!empty($session)) { try{ $uid = $facebook->getUser(); $api_call = array( 'method' => 'users.hasAppPermission', 'uid' => $uid, 'ext_perm' => 'publish_checkins' ); $can_post = $facebook->api($api_call); if($can_post){ $facebook->api('/'.$uid.'/checkins', 'POST', array( 'access_token' => $facebook->getAccessToken(), 'place' => 'place_id', 'message' =>'I went to placename today', 'picture' => 'http://www.place.com/logo.jpg', 'coordinates' => array( 'latitude' => 'lattiude', 'longitude' => 'lattitude', 'tags' => $uid, ) ) ); echo 'You were checked in'; } else { die('Permissions required!'); } } catch (Exception $e){} } else { # There's no active session,generate one $login_url = $facebook->getLoginUrl(); header("Location: ".$login_url); } ?> The code works when I change it 'checkins' to 'feed'. Is there something wrong with my code or am I trying to do somethign that isn't possible (or do it the wrong way). Any help will be greatly appreciated as I already spent quite a significant amount of time trying to fix this, but I just can't seem to make it work. Best regards, Marcus Joe

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• Using XMLDecoder to cast Encoded XML to List<>

  - by Ender

  I am writing an application that reads in a large number of basic user details in the following format; once read in it then allows the user to search for a user's details using their email: NAME ROLE EMAIL --------------------------------------------------- Joe Bloggs Manager [email protected] John Smith Consultant [email protected] Alan Wright Tester [email protected] ... The problem I am suffering is that I need to store a large number of details of all people that have worked at the company. The file containing these details will be written on a yearly basis simply for reporting purposes, but the program will need to be able to access these details quickly. The way I aim to access these files is to have a program that asks the user for the name of the unique email of the member of staff and for the program to then return the name and the role from that line of the file. I've played around with text files, but am struggling with how I would handle multiple columns of data when it comes to searching this large file. What is the best format to store such data in? A text file? XML? The size doesn't bother me, but I'd like to be able to search it as quickly as possible. The file will need to contain a lot of entries, probably over the 10K mark over time. EDIT: I've decided to go with the XML serialisation method. I've managed to get the code for Encoding working perfectly, but the Decoding code below does not work. XMLDecoder d = new XMLDecoder( new BufferedInputStream(new FileInputStream("data.xml"))); List<Employee> list = (List<Employee>) d.readObject(); d.close(); for(Employee x : list) { if(x.getEmail().equals(userInput)) { // do stuff } } When the program hits List<Employee> list = (List<Employee>) d.readObject(); an exception is thrown claiming that "Employee cannot be cast to java.util.List". I've added a bounty to this and anyone that can help me solve this problem once and for all will get lots of lovely points. EDIT 2: I've looked a bit more into the problem and have come across Serialization as a potential answer. If anyone can look into this for me as I've no experience with Serialization or Deserialization I'd be very grateful. It can provide an Object with no problems whatsoever, but I really need to return it in the same format as it went in (List). EDIT 3: Ugh, this problem is really starting to drive me crazy and to be honest I'm starting to think that it's an unsolvable problem. If possible, could someone take a look at the code and help provide a solution for me?

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• How to sort my paws?

  - by Ivo Flipse

  In my previous question I got an excellent answer that helped me detect where a paw hit a pressure plate, but now I'm struggling to link these results to their corresponding paws: I manually annotated the paws (RF=right front, RH= right hind, LF=left front, LH=left hind). As you can see there's clearly a pattern repeating pattern and it comes back in aknist every measurement. Here's a link to a presentation of 6 trials that were manually annotated. My initial thought was to use heuristics to do the sorting, like: There's a ~60-40% ratio in weight bearing between the front and hind paws; The hind paws are generally smaller in surface; The paws are (often) spatially divided in left and right. However, I’m a bit skeptical about my heuristics, as they would fail on me as soon as I encounter a variation I hadn’t thought off. They also won’t be able to cope with measurements from lame dogs, whom probably have rules of their own. Furthermore, the annotation suggested by Joe sometimes get's messed up and doesn't take into account what the paw actually looks like. Based on the answers I received on my question about peak detection within the paw, I’m hoping there are more advanced solutions to sort the paws. Especially because the pressure distribution and the progression thereof are different for each separate paw, almost like a fingerprint. I hope there's a method that can use this to cluster my paws, rather than just sorting them in order of occurrence. So I'm looking for a better way to sort the results with their corresponding paw. For anyone up to the challenge, I have pickled a dictionary with all the sliced arrays that contain the pressure data of each paw (bundled by measurement) and the slice that describes their location (location on the plate and in time). To clarfiy: walk_sliced_data is a dictionary that contains ['ser_3', 'ser_2', 'sel_1', 'sel_2', 'ser_1', 'sel_3'], which are the names of the measurements. Each measurement contains another dictionary, [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10] (example from 'sel_1') which represent the impacts that were extracted. Also note that 'false' impacts, such as where the paw is partially measured (in space or time) can be ignored. They are only useful because they can help recognizing a pattern, but won't be analyzed. And for anyone interested, I’m keeping a blog with all the updates regarding the project!

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• Understanding CLR 2.0 Memory Model

  - by Eloff

  Joe Duffy, gives 6 rules that describe the CLR 2.0+ memory model (it's actual implementation, not any ECMA standard) I'm writing down my attempt at figuring this out, mostly as a way of rubber ducking, but if I make a mistake in my logic, at least someone here will be able to catch it before it causes me grief. Rule 1: Data dependence among loads and stores is never violated. Rule 2: All stores have release semantics, i.e. no load or store may move after one. Rule 3: All volatile loads are acquire, i.e. no load or store may move before one. Rule 4: No loads and stores may ever cross a full-barrier (e.g. Thread.MemoryBarrier, lock acquire, Interlocked.Exchange, Interlocked.CompareExchange, etc.). Rule 5: Loads and stores to the heap may never be introduced. Rule 6: Loads and stores may only be deleted when coalescing adjacent loads and stores from/to the same location. I'm attempting to understand these rules. x = y y = 0 // Cannot move before the previous line according to Rule 1. x = y z = 0 // equates to this sequence of loads and stores before possible re-ordering load y store x load 0 store z Looking at this, it appears that the load 0 can be moved up to before load y, but the stores may not be re-ordered at all. Therefore, if a thread sees z == 0, then it also will see x == y. If y was volatile, then load 0 could not move before load y, otherwise it may. Volatile stores don't seem to have any special properties, no stores can be re-ordered with respect to each other (which is a very strong guarantee!) Full barriers are like a line in the sand which loads and stores can not be moved over. No idea what rule 5 means. I guess rule 6 means if you do: x = y x = z Then it is possible for the CLR to delete both the load to y and the first store to x. x = y z = y // equates to this sequence of loads and stores before possible re-ordering load y store x load y store z // could be re-ordered like this load y load y store x store z // rule 6 applied means this is possible? load y store x // but don't pop y from stack (or first duplicate item on top of stack) store z What if y was volatile? I don't see anything in the rules that prohibits the above optimization from being carried out. This does not violate double-checked locking, because the lock() between the two identical conditions prevents the loads from being moved into adjacent positions, and according to rule 6, that's the only time they can be eliminated. So I think I understand all but rule 5, here. Anyone want to enlighten me (or correct me or add something to any of the above?)

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• Is there any alternative to obfuscation to make it harder to get any string in javascript?

  - by MarceloRamires

  I use DropBox and I've had some trouble reaching to my files from other computers: I not always want to login to anything when I'm in a public computer, but I like being able to reach my stuff from wherever I am. So I've made a simple little application that when put in the public folder, ran and given the right UID, creates (still in your public folder) an HTML of all the content in the folder (including subfolders) as a tree of links. But I didn't risk loading it anywhere, since there are slightly private things in there (yes, I know that the folder's name is "PUBLIC"). So I've came up with the idea to make it a simple login page, given the right password, the rest of the page should load. brilliant!, but how? If I did this by redirecting to other HTML on the same folder, I'd still put the html link in the web history and the "url's accessed" history of the administrator. So I should generate itin the same page. I've done it. And currently the page is a textbox and a button, and only if you type in the right password (asked by the generator) the rest of the page loads. The fault is that everything (password, URL's) is easily reachable through the sourcecode. Now, assuming I only want to avoid silly people to get it all too easily, not make a bulletproof all-content-holding NSA certified website, I though about some ways to make these informations a bit harder to get. As you may have already figured, I use a streamwritter to write a .HTM file (head, loop through links, bottom), then it's extremely configurable, and I can come up with a pretty messy-but-working c# code, though my javascript knowledge is not that good. Public links in DropBox look like this: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3045472/img.png Summarizing: How do I hide stuff (MAINLY the password, of course) in my source-code so that no bumb-a-joe that can read, use a computer and press CTRL+U can reach to my stuff too easily ? PS.: It's not that personal, if someone REALLY wants it, it could never be 100% protected, and if it was that important, I wouldnt put it in the public folder, also, if the dude really wants to get it that hard, he should deserve it. PS2.: "Use the ultra-3000'tron obfuscator!!11" is not a real answer, since my javascript is GENERATED by my c# program. PS3.: I don't want other solutions as "use a serverside application and host it somewhere to redirect and bla bla" or "compress the links in a .RAR file and put a password in it" since I'm doing this ALSO to learn, and I want the thrill of it =)

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• What are the Options for Storing Hierarchical Data in a Relational Database?

  - by orangepips

  Good Overviews One more Nested Intervals vs. Adjacency List comparison: the best comparison of Adjacency List, Materialized Path, Nested Set and Nested Interval I've found. Models for hierarchical data: slides with good explanations of tradeoffs and example usage Representing hierarchies in MySQL: very good overview of Nested Set in particular Hierarchical data in RDBMSs: most comprehensive and well organized set of links I've seen, but not much in the way on explanation Options Ones I am aware of and general features: Adjacency List: Columns: ID, ParentID Easy to implement. Cheap node moves, inserts, and deletes. Expensive to find level (can store as a computed column), ancestry & descendants (Bridge Hierarchy combined with level column can solve), path (Lineage Column can solve). Use Common Table Expressions in those databases that support them to traverse. Nested Set (a.k.a Modified Preorder Tree Traversal) First described by Joe Celko - covered in depth in his book Trees and Hierarchies in SQL for Smarties Columns: Left, Right Cheap level, ancestry, descendants Compared to Adjacency List, moves, inserts, deletes more expensive. Requires a specific sort order (e.g. created). So sorting all descendants in a different order requires additional work. Nested Intervals Combination of Nested Sets and Materialized Path where left/right columns are floating point decimals instead of integers and encode the path information. Bridge Table (a.k.a. Closure Table: some good ideas about how to use triggers for maintaining this approach) Columns: ancestor, descendant Stands apart from table it describes. Can include some nodes in more than one hierarchy. Cheap ancestry and descendants (albeit not in what order) For complete knowledge of a hierarchy needs to be combined with another option. Flat Table A modification of the Adjacency List that adds a Level and Rank (e.g. ordering) column to each record. Expensive move and delete Cheap ancestry and descendants Good Use: threaded discussion - forums / blog comments Lineage Column (a.k.a. Materialized Path, Path Enumeration) Column: lineage (e.g. /parent/child/grandchild/etc...) Limit to how deep the hierarchy can be. Descendants cheap (e.g. LEFT(lineage, #) = '/enumerated/path') Ancestry tricky (database specific queries) Database Specific Notes MySQL Use session variables for Adjacency List Oracle Use CONNECT BY to traverse Adjacency Lists PostgreSQL ltree datatype for Materialized Path SQL Server General summary 2008 offers HierarchyId data type appears to help with Lineage Column approach and expand the depth that can be represented.

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• Normalizing Item Names & Synonyms

  - by RabidFire

  Consider an e-commerce application with multiple stores. Each store owner can edit the item catalog of his store. My current database schema is as follows: item_names: id | name | description | picture | common(BOOL) items: id | item_name_id | picture | price | description | picture item_synonyms: id | item_name_id | name | error(BOOL) Notes: error indicates a wrong spelling (eg. "Ericson"). description and picture of the item_names table are "globals" that can optionally be overridden by "local" description and picture fields of the items table (in case the store owner wants to supply a different picture for an item). common helps separate unique item names ("Jimmy Joe's Cheese Pizza" from "Cheese Pizza") I think the bright side of this schema is: Optimized searching & Handling Synonyms: I can query the item_names & item_synonyms tables using name LIKE %QUERY% and obtain the list of item_name_ids that need to be joined with the items table. (Examples of synonyms: "Sony Ericsson", "Sony Ericson", "X10", "X 10") Autocompletion: Again, a simple query to the item_names table. I can avoid the usage of DISTINCT and it minimizes number of variations ("Sony Ericsson Xperia™ X10", "Sony Ericsson - Xperia X10", "Xperia X10, Sony Ericsson") The down side would be: Overhead: When inserting an item, I query item_names to see if this name already exists. If not, I create a new entry. When deleting an item, I count the number of entries with the same name. If this is the only item with that name, I delete the entry from the item_names table (just to keep things clean; accounts for possible erroneous submissions). And updating is the combination of both. Weird Item Names: Store owners sometimes use sentences like "Harry Potter 1, 2 Books + CDs + Magic Hat". There's something off about having so much overhead to accommodate cases like this. This would perhaps be the prime reason I'm tempted to go for a schema like this: items: id | name | picture | price | description | picture (... with item_names and item_synonyms as utility tables that I could query) Is there a better schema you would suggested? Should item names be normalized for autocomplete? Is this probably what Facebook does for "School", "City" entries? Is the first schema or the second better/optimal for search? Thanks in advance! References: (1) Is normalizing a person's name going too far?, (2) Avoiding DISTINCT

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• Stubbing a before_filter with RSpec

  - by TheDelChop

  Guys, I'm having trouble understanding why I can't seem to stub this controller method :load_user, since all of my tests fail if I change the actual implementation of :load_user to not return and instance of @user. Can anybody see why my stub (controller.stub!(:load_user).and_return(@user)) seems to fail to actually get called when RSpec makes a request to the controller? require 'spec_helper' describe TasksController do before(:each) do @user = Factory(:user) sign_in @user @task = Factory(:task) User.stub_chain(:where, :first).and_return(@user) controller.stub!(:load_user).and_return(@user) end #GET Index describe "GET Index" do before(:each) do @tasks = 7.times{Factory(:task, :user = @user)} @user.stub!(:tasks).and_return(@tasks) end it "should should find all of the tasks owned by a user" do @user.should_receive(:tasks).and_return(@tasks) get :index, :user_id = @user.id end it "should assign all of the user's tasks to the view" do get :index, :user_id = @user.id assigns[:tasks].should be(@tasks) end end #GET New describe "GET New" do before(:each) do @user.stub_chain(:tasks, :new).and_return(@task) end it "should return a new Task" do @user.tasks.should_receive(:new).and_return(@task) get :new, :user_id = @user.id end end #POST Create describe "POST Create" do before(:each) do @user.stub_chain(:tasks, :new).and_return(@task) end it "should create a new task" do @user.tasks.should_receive(:new).and_return(@task) post :create, :user_id = @user.id, :task = @task.to_s end it "saves the task" do @task.should_receive(:save) post :create, :user_id = @user.id, :task = @task end context "when the task is saved successfully" do before(:each) do @task.stub!(:save).and_return(true) end it "should set the flash[:notice] message to 'Task Added Successfully'"do post :create, :user_id = @user.id, :task = @task flash[:notice].should == "Task Added Successfully!" end it "should redirect to the user's task page" do post :create, :user_id = @user.id, :task = @task response.should redirect_to(user_tasks_path(@user.id)) end end context "when the task isn't saved successfully" do before(:each) do @task.stub(:save).and_return(false) end it "should return to the 'Create New Task' page do" do post :create, :user_id = @user.id, :task = @task response.should render_template('new') end end end it "should attempt to authenticate and load the user who owns the tasks" do context "when the tasks belong to the currently logged in user" do it "should set the user instance variable to the currently logged in user" do pending end end context "when the tasks belong to another user" do it "should set the flash[:notice] to 'Sorry but you can't view other people's tasks.'" do pending end it "should redirect to the home page" do pending end end end end class TasksController < ApplicationController before_filter :load_user def index @tasks = @user.tasks end def new @task = @user.tasks.new end def create @task = @user.tasks.new if @task.save flash[:notice] = "Task Added Successfully!" redirect_to user_tasks_path(@user.id) else render :action => 'new' end end private def load_user if current_user.id == params[:user_id].to_i @user = User.where(:id => params[:user_id]).first else flash[:notice] = "Sorry but you can't view other people's tasks." redirect_to root_path end end end Can anybody see why my stub doesnt' work? Like I said, my tests only pass if I make sure that load_user works, if not, all my tests fail which makes my think that RSpec isn't using the stub I created. Thanks, Joe

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• Registration form validation not validating

  - by jgray

  I am a noob when it comes to web development. I am trying to validate a registration form and to me it looks right but it will not validate.. This is what i have so far and i am validating through a repository or database. Any help would be greatly appreciated. thanks <?php session_start(); $title = "User Registration"; $keywords = "Name, contact, phone, e-mail, registration"; $description = "user registration becoming a member."; require "partials/_html_header.php"; //require "partials/_header.php"; require "partials/_menu.php"; require "DataRepository.php"; // if all validation passed save user $db = new DataRepository(); // form validation goes here $first_nameErr = $emailErr = $passwordErr = $passwordConfirmErr = ""; $first_name = $last_name = $email = $password = $passwordConfirm = ""; if(isset($_POST['submit'])) { $valid = TRUE; // check if all fields are valid { if ($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] == "POST") { if (empty($_POST["first_name"])) {$first_nameErr = "Name is required";} else { // $first_name = test_input($_POST["first_name"]); // check if name only contains letters and whitespace if (!preg_match("/^[a-zA-Z ]*$/",$first_name)) { $first_nameErr = "Only letters and white space allowed"; } } if (empty($_POST["email"])) {$emailErr = "Email is required";} else { // $email = test_input($_POST["email"]); // check if e-mail address syntax is valid if (!preg_match("/([\w\-]+\@[\w\-]+\.[\w\-]+)/",$email)) { $emailErr = "Invalid email format"; } } if (!preg_match("/(......)/",$password)) { $passwordErr = "Subject must contain THREE or more characters!"; } if ($_POST['password']!= $_POST['passwordConfirm']) { echo("Oops! Password did not match! Try again. "); } function test_input($data) { $data = trim($data); $data = stripslashes($data); $data = htmlspecialchars($data); return $data; } } } if(!$db->isEmailUnique($_POST['email'])) { $valid = FALSE; //display errors in the correct places } // if still valid save the user if($valid) { $new_user = array( 'first_name' => $_POST['first_name'], 'last_name' => $_POST['last_name'], 'email' => $_POST['email'], 'password' => $_POST['password'] ); $results = $db->saveUser($new_user); if($results == TRUE) { header("Location: login.php"); } else { echo "WTF!"; exit; } } } ?> <head> <style> .error {color: #FF0000;} </style> </head> <h1 class="center"> World Wide Web Creations' User Registration </h1> <p><span class="error"></span><p> <form method="POST" action="<?php echo htmlspecialchars($_SERVER["PHP_SELF"]);?>" onsubmit="return validate_form()" > First Name: <input type="text" name="first_name" id="first_name" value="<?php echo $first_name;?>" /> <span class="error"> <?php echo $first_nameErr;?></span> <br /> <br /> Last Name(Optional): <input type="text" name="last_name" id="last_name" value="<?php echo $last_name;?>" /> <br /> <br /> E-mail: <input type="email" name="email" id="email" value="<?php echo $email;?>" /> <span class="error"> <?php echo $emailErr;?></span> <br /> <br /> Password: <input type="password" name="password" id="password" value="" /> <span class="error"> <?php echo $passwordErr;?></span> <br /> <br /> Confirmation Password: <input type="password" name="passwordConfirm" id="passwordConfirm" value="" /> <span class="error"> <?php echo $passwordConfirmErr;?></span> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <input type="submit" name="submit" id="submit" value="Submit Data" /> <input type="reset" name="reset" id="reset" value="Reset Form" /> </form> </body> </html> <?php require "partials/_footer.php"; require "partials/_html_footer.php"; ?> class DataRepository { // version number private $version = "1.0.3"; // turn on and off debugging private static $debug = FALSE; // flag to (re)initialize db on each call private static $initialize_db = FALSE; // insert test data on initialization private static $load_default_data = TRUE; const DATAFILE = "203data.txt"; private $data = NULL; private $errors = array(); private $user_fields = array( 'id' => array('required' => 0), 'created_at' => array('required' => 0), 'updated_at' => array('required' => 0), 'first_name' => array('required' => 1), 'last_name' => array('required' => 0), 'email' => array('required' => 1), 'password' => array('required' => 1), 'level' => array('required' => 0, 'default' => 2), ); private $post_fields = array( 'id' => array('required' => 0), 'created_at' => array('required' => 0), 'updated_at' => array('required' => 0), 'user_id' => array('required' => 1), 'title' => array('required' => 1), 'message' => array('required' => 1), 'private' => array('required' => 0, 'default' => 0), ); private $default_user = array( 'id' => 1, 'created_at' => '2013-01-01 00:00:00', 'updated_at' => '2013-01-01 00:00:00', 'first_name' => 'Admin Joe', 'last_name' => 'Tester', 'email' => '[email protected]', 'password' => 'a94a8fe5ccb19ba61c4c0873d391e987982fbbd3', 'level' => 1, ); private $default_post = array( 'id' => 1, 'created_at' => '2013-01-01 00:00:00', 'updated_at' => '2013-01-01 00:00:00', 'user_id' => 1, 'title' => 'My First Post', 'message' => 'This is the message of the first post.', 'private' => 0, ); // constructor will load existing data into memory // if it does not exist it will create it and initialize if desired public function __construct() { // check if need to reset if(DataRepository::$initialize_db AND file_exists(DataRepository::DATAFILE)) { unlink(DataRepository::DATAFILE); } // if file doesn't exist, create the initial datafile if(!file_exists(DataRepository::DATAFILE)) { $this->log("Data file does not exist. Attempting to create it... (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")"); // create initial file $this->data = array( 'users' => array( ), 'posts' => array() ); // load default data if needed if(DataRepository::$load_default_data) { $this->data['users'][1] = $this->default_user; $this->data['posts'][1] = $this->default_post; } $this->writeTheData(); } // load the data into memory for use $this->loadTheData(); } private function showErrors($break = TRUE, $type = NULL) { if(count($this->errors) > 0) { echo "<div style=\"color:red;font-weight: bold;font-size: 1.3em\":<h3>$type Errors</h3><ol>"; foreach($this->errors AS $error) { echo "<li>$error</li>"; } echo "</ol></div>"; if($break) { "</br></br></br>Exiting because of errors!"; exit; } } } private function writeTheData() { $this->log("Attempting to write the datafile: ".DataRepository::DATAFILE." (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")"); file_put_contents(DataRepository::DATAFILE, json_encode($this->data)); $this->log("Datafile written: ".DataRepository::DATAFILE." (line: ".__LINE__.")"); } private function loadTheData() { $this->log("Attempting to load the datafile: ".DataRepository::DATAFILE." (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")"); $this->data = json_decode(file_get_contents(DataRepository::DATAFILE), true); $this->log("Datafile loaded: ".DataRepository::DATAFILE." (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")", $this->data); } private function validateFields(&$info, $fields, $pre_errors = NULL) { // merge in any pre_errors if($pre_errors != NULL) { $this->errors = array_merge($this->errors, $pre_errors); } // check all required fields foreach($fields AS $field => $reqs) { if(isset($reqs['required']) AND $reqs['required'] == 1) { if(!isset($info[$field]) OR strlen($info[$field]) == 0) { $this->errors[] = "$field is a REQUIRED field"; } } // set any default values if not present if(isset($reqs['default']) AND (!isset($info[$field]) OR $info[$field] == "")) { $info[$field] = $reqs['default']; } } $this->showErrors(); if(count($this->errors) == 0) { return TRUE; } else { return FALSE; } } private function validateUser(&$user_info) { // check if the email is already in use $this->log("About to check pre_errors: ".DataRepository::DATAFILE." (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")", $user_info); $pre_errors = NULL; if(isset($user_info['email'])) { if(!$this->isEmailUnique($user_info['email'])) { $pre_errors = array('The email: '.$user_info['email'].' is already used in our system'); } } $this->log("After pre_error check: ".DataRepository::DATAFILE." (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")", $pre_errors); return $this->validateFields($user_info, $this->user_fields, $pre_errors); } private function validatePost(&$post_info) { // check if the user_id in the post actually exists $this->log("About to check pre_errors: ".DataRepository::DATAFILE." (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")", $post_info); $pre_errors = NULL; if(isset($post_info['user_id'])) { if(!isset($this->data['users'][$post_info['user_id']])) { $pre_errors = array('The posts must belong to a valid user. (User '.$post_info['user_id'].' does not exist in the data'); } } $this->log("After pre_error check: ".DataRepository::DATAFILE." (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")", $pre_errors); return $this->validateFields($post_info, $this->post_fields, $pre_errors); } private function log($message, $data = NULL) { $style = "background-color: #F8F8F8; border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; border-radius: 3px; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; overflow: auto; padding: 6px 10px;"; if(DataRepository::$debug) { if($data != NULL) { $dump = "<div style=\"$style\"><pre>".json_encode($data, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT)."</pre></div>"; } else { $dump = NULL; } echo "<code><b>Debug:</b> $message</code>$dump<br />"; } } public function saveUser($user_info) { $this->log("Entering saveUser: (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")", $user_info); $mydata = array(); $update = FALSE; // check for existing data if(isset($user_info['id']) AND $this->data['users'][$user_info['id']]) { $mydata = $this->data['users'][$user_info['id']]; $this->log("Loaded prior user: ".print_r($mydata, TRUE)." (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")"); } // copy over existing values $this->log("Before copying over existing values: (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")", $mydata); foreach($user_info AS $k => $v) { $mydata[$k] = $user_info[$k]; } $this->log("After copying over existing values: (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")", $mydata); // check required fields if($this->validateUser($mydata)) { // hash password if new if(isset($mydata['password'])) { $mydata['password'] = sha1($mydata['password']); } // if no id, add the next available one if(!isset($mydata['id']) OR (int)$mydata['id'] < 1) { $this->log("No id set: ".DataRepository::DATAFILE." (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")"); if(count($this->data['users']) == 0) { $mydata['id'] = 1; $this->log("Setting id to 1: ".DataRepository::DATAFILE." (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")"); } else { $mydata['id'] = max(array_keys($this->data['users']))+1; $this->log("Found max id and added 1 [".$mydata['id']."]: ".DataRepository::DATAFILE." (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")"); } } // set created date if null if(!isset($mydata['created_at'])) { $mydata['created_at'] = date ("Y-m-d H:i:s", time()); } // update modified time $mydata['modified_at'] = date ("Y-m-d H:i:s", time()); // copy into data and save $this->log("Before data save: (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")", $this->data); $this->data['users'][$mydata['id']] = $mydata; $this->writeTheData(); } return TRUE; } public function getUserById($id) { if(isset($this->data['users'][$id])) { return $this->data['users'][$id]; } else { return array(); } } public function isEmailUnique($email) { // find the user that has the right username/password foreach($this->data['users'] AS $k => $v) { $this->log("Checking unique email: {$v['email']} == $email (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")", NULL); if($v['email'] == $email) { $this->log("FOUND NOT unique email: {$v['email']} == $email (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")", NULL); return FALSE; break; } } $this->log("Email IS unique: $email (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")", NULL); return TRUE; } public function login($username, $password) { // hash password for validation $password = sha1($password); $this->log("Attempting to login with $username / $password: (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")", NULL); $user = NULL; // find the user that has the right username/password foreach($this->data['users'] AS $k => $v) { if($v['email'] == $username AND $v['password'] == $password) { $user = $v; break; } } $this->log("Exiting login: (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")", $user); return $user; } public function savePost($post_info) { $this->log("Entering savePost: (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")", $post_info); $mydata = array(); // check for existing data if(isset($post_info['id']) AND $this->data['posts'][$post_info['id']]) { $mydata = $this->data['posts'][$post_info['id']]; $this->log("Loaded prior posts: ".print_r($mydata, TRUE)." (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")"); } $this->log("Before copying over existing values: (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")", $mydata); foreach($post_info AS $k => $v) { $mydata[$k] = $post_info[$k]; } $this->log("After copying over existing values: (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")", $mydata); // check required fields if($this->validatePost($mydata)) { // if no id, add the next available one if(!isset($mydata['id']) OR (int)$mydata['id'] < 1) { $this->log("No id set: ".DataRepository::DATAFILE." (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")"); if(count($this->data['posts']) == 0) { $mydata['id'] = 1; $this->log("Setting id to 1: ".DataRepository::DATAFILE." (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")"); } else { $mydata['id'] = max(array_keys($this->data['posts']))+1; $this->log("Found max id and added 1 [".$mydata['id']."]: ".DataRepository::DATAFILE." (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")"); } } // set created date if null if(!isset($mydata['created_at'])) { $mydata['created_at'] = date ("Y-m-d H:i:s", time()); } // update modified time $mydata['modified_at'] = date ("Y-m-d H:i:s", time()); // copy into data and save $this->data['posts'][$mydata['id']] = $mydata; $this->log("Before data save: (".__FUNCTION__.":".__LINE__.")", $this->data); $this->writeTheData(); } return TRUE; } public function getAllPosts() { return $this->loadPostsUsers($this->data['posts']); } public function loadPostsUsers($posts) { foreach($posts AS $id => $post) { $posts[$id]['user'] = $this->getUserById($post['user_id']); } return $posts; } public function dump($line_number, $temp = 'NO') { // if(DataRepository::$debug) { if($temp == 'NO') { $temp = $this->data; } echo "<pre>Dumping from line: $line_number\n"; echo json_encode($temp, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT); echo "</pre>"; } } } /* * Change Log * * 1.0.0 * - first version * 1.0.1 * - Added isEmailUnique() function for form validation and precheck on user save * 1.0.2 * - Fixed getAllPosts() to include the post's user info * - Added loadPostsUsers() to load one or more posts with their user info * 1.0.3 * - Added autoload to always add admin Joe. */

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• Silverlight 4 Released

  - by ScottGu

  The final release of Silverlight 4 is now available. What is in the Silverlight 4 Release Silverlight 4 contains a ton of new features and capabilities.  In particular we focused on three scenarios with this release: Further enhancing media support Building great business applications Enabling out of the browser experiences On Tuesday I gave a 60 minute keynote about Silverlight 4 which showed off many of the new features and capabilities now available.  You can watch my keynote to learn more about Silverlight 4 and see a ton of great demos of it in action. Also check out these three great posts by Tim Heuer that talk about the new features and provide a guide to the new Silverlight 4 capabilities: Silverlight 4 Beta – A Guide to the New Features Silverlight 4 RC – What was updated Silverlight 4 Released Also read David Anson’s great Silverlight 4 Toolkit post to learn more about the new controls and functionality also available within the Silverlight Toolkit release we also made available today.  Also visit this page to learn more about the new Pivot functionality in Silverlight 4 – which makes it really easy to visualize and interact with collections of images using Silverlight. Lastly – make sure to visit the www.silverlight.net web-site and visit the “Get Started” section to find free tutorials that you can use. Download and Install Silverlight 4 Tools for VS 2010 To develop Silverlight 4 applications you should first download and install Visual Studio 2010 or download and install the free Visual Web Developer 2010 Express edition. Then install the Silverlight Tools RC2 for Visual Studio 2010.  This setup includes the Silverlight 4 Developer Runtime, Silverlight 4 SDK, RIA Services, and VS 2010 tools support.  Once installed you can do File->New Project and choose Silverlight Application to create your first Silverlight 4 project.  You can then use the new WYSIWYG Silverlight designer in Visual Studio 2010 to design and build rich Silverlight 4 applications. Important: If you previously installed the Silverlight 4 Beta or RC build on your machine, please make sure to go into Add/Remove programs and uninstall the “Update for Visual Studio 2010 (KB976272)” package prior to installing the Silverlight Tools RC2 for Visual Studio 2010 setup.  Note that while Silverlight 4 is released, the “Silverlight 4 Tools for VS 2010” is currently in “RC2” mode (meaning we are going to keep an eye out for any remaining issues before finally calling it done).  We’ll update the tools to be “final” in a few weeks once we verify that no last minute issues/bugs remain. Download and Install Expression Blend 4 Release Candidate You can also download and install the Expression Blend 4 RC to create and design great Silverlight 4 applications.  Blend contains “Sketchflow” support – which makes it really easy to rapidly prototype ideas and applications.  To learn more about Sketchflow watch this 90 second video of it in action. Summary Today’s release is the fourth release of Silverlight that we’ve shipped in the last 2.5 years.  The team has done a great job of advancing it quickly and staying focused.  We think today’s Silverlight 4 release opens up a ton of new opportunities to build great solutions for both consumers and business scenarios.  We are looking forward to seeing what you build with it! Hope this helps, Scott

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• Links to my “Best of 2010” Posts

  - by ScottGu

  I hope everyone is having a Happy New Years! 2010 has been a busy blogging year for me (this is the 100th blog post I’ve done in 2010).  Several people this week suggested I put together a summary post listing/organizing my favorite posts from the year.  Below is a quick listing of some of my favorite posts organized by topic area: VS 2010 and .NET 4 Below is a series of posts I wrote (some in late 2009) about the VS 2010 and .NET 4 (including ASP.NET 4 and WPF 4) release we shipped in April: Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4 Released Clean Web.Config Files Starter Project Templates Multi-targeting Multiple Monitor Support New Code Focused Web Profile Option HTML / ASP.NET / JavaScript Code Snippets Auto-Start ASP.NET Applications URL Routing with ASP.NET 4 Web Forms Searching and Navigating Code in VS 2010 VS 2010 Code Intellisense Improvements WPF 4 Add Reference Dialog Improvements SEO Improvements with ASP.NET 4 Output Cache Extensibility with ASP.NET 4 Built-in Charting Controls for ASP.NET and Windows Forms Cleaner HTML Markup with ASP.NET 4 - Client IDs Optional Parameters and Named Arguments in C# 4 - and a cool scenarios with ASP.NET MVC 2 Automatic Properties, Collection Initializers and Implicit Line Continuation Support with VB 2010 New <%: %> Syntax for HTML Encoding Output using ASP.NET 4 JavaScript Intellisense Improvements with VS 2010 VS 2010 Debugger Improvements (DataTips, BreakPoints, Import/Export) Box Selection and Multi-line Editing Support with VS 2010 VS 2010 Extension Manager (and the cool new PowerCommands Extension) Pinning Projects and Solutions VS 2010 Web Deployment Debugging Tips/Tricks with Visual Studio Search and Navigation Tips/Tricks with Visual Studio Visual Studio Below are some additional Visual Studio posts I’ve done (not in the first series above) that I thought were nice: Download and Share Visual Studio Color Schemes Visual Studio 2010 Keyboard Shortcuts VS 2010 Productivity Power Tools Fun Visual Studio 2010 Wallpapers Silverlight We shipped Silverlight 4 in April, and announced Silverlight 5 the beginning of December: Silverlight 4 Released Silverlight 4 Tools for VS 2010 and WCF RIA Services Released Silverlight 4 Training Kit Silverlight PivotViewer Now Available Silverlight Questions Announcing Silverlight 5 Silverlight for Windows Phone 7 We shipped Windows Phone 7 this fall and shipped free Visual Studio development tools with great Silverlight and XNA support in September: Windows Phone 7 Developer Tools Released Building a Windows Phone 7 Twitter Application using Silverlight ASP.NET MVC We shipped ASP.NET MVC 2 in March, and started previewing ASP.NET MVC 3 this summer.  ASP.NET MVC 3 will RTM in less than 2 weeks from today: ASP.NET MVC 2: Strongly Typed Html Helpers ASP.NET MVC 2: Model Validation Introducing ASP.NET MVC 3 (Preview 1) Announcing ASP.NET MVC 3 Beta and NuGet (nee NuPack) Announcing ASP.NET MVC 3 Release Candidate 1  Announcing ASP.NET MVC 3 Release Candidate 2 Introducing Razor – A New View Engine for ASP.NET ASP.NET MVC 3: Layouts with Razor ASP.NET MVC 3: New @model keyword in Razor ASP.NET MVC 3: Server-Side Comments with Razor ASP.NET MVC 3: Razor’s @: and <text> syntax ASP.NET MVC 3: Implicit and Explicit code nuggets with Razor ASP.NET MVC 3: Layouts and Sections with Razor IIS and Web Server Stack The IIS and Web Stack teams have made a bunch of great improvements to the core web server this year: Fix Common SEO Problems using the URL Rewrite Extension Introducing the Microsoft Web Farm Framework Automating Deployment with Microsoft Web Deploy Introducing IIS Express SQL CE 4 (New Embedded Database Support with ASP.NET) Introducing Web Matrix EF Code First EF Code First is a really nice new data option that enables a very clean code-oriented data workflow: Announcing Entity Framework Code-First CTP5 Release Class-Level Model Validation with EF Code First and ASP.NET MVC 3 Code-First Development with Entity Framework 4 EF 4 Code First: Custom Database Schema Mapping Using EF Code First with an Existing Database jQuery and AJAX Contributions My team began making some significant source code contributions to the jQuery project this year: jQuery Templates, Data Link and Globalization Accepted as Official jQuery Plugins jQuery Templates and Data Linking (and Microsoft contributing to jQuery) jQuery Globalization Plugin from Microsoft Patches and Hot Fixes Some useful fixes you can download prior to VS 2010 SP1: Patch for Cut/Copy “Insufficient Memory” issue with VS 2010 Patch for VS 2010 Find and Replace Dialog Growing Patch for VS 2010 Scrolling Context Menu Videos of My Talks Some recordings of technical talks I’ve done this year: ASP.NET 4, ASP.NET MVC, and Silverlight 4 Talks I did in Europe VS 2010 and ASP.NET 4 Web Forms Talk in Arizona Other About Technical Debates (and ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC debates in particular) ASP.NET Security Fix Now on Windows Update Upcoming Web Camps I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who follows my blog – I really appreciate you reading it (the comments you post help encourage me to write it).  See you in the New Year! Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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• BizTalk and IBM WebSphere MQ Errors

  - by Christopher House

  The project I'm currently working on is going to make heavy use of IBM WebShere MQ to send messages from BizTalk to the client's iSeries box.  I'd never previously worked with WebSphere MQ, so I didn't really have any idea what it would take to get this to work.  I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't too difficult to configure a send port and pass messages through it to a queue.  Or so I thought... A couple of weeks ago, the client gave me the name of a host, queue manager and queue that I'd been using for my development.  Everything was going great, I was able to put messages onto the queue, I was happy, the client was happy.  Life was good.  Then the client tells me that the host I've been connecting to is actually a Solaris box and that in prod, we'll actually be sending to an iSeries.  We both agree that it would behoove us to start pointing my dev environment to their dev iSeries box in order to flush out any weirdness there might be.  As it turns out, it was a good thing we made the change.  As soon as I reconfigured my BRE policy that sets endpoint information to point to the iSeries queue, we started seeing failures in the event log.  An example from the event log: Event Type: Error Event Source: BizTalk Server 2009 Event Category: BizTalk Server 2009 Event ID: 5754 Date:  6/9/2010 Time:  10:16:41 AM User:  N/A Computer: WINDOWS2003 Description: A message sent to adapter "MQSC" on send port "<my dynamic sendport name>" with URI "mqsc://client/tcp/<hostname>(1414)/<queue manager name>/<queue name>" is suspended.  Error details: Failure encountered while attempting to open queue. queue = <queue name> queueManager = <queue manager name>, reasonCode = 6124  MessageId:  {76825C7C-611A-4A56-8A6F-35E1124BDB5C}  InstanceID: {BA389103-DF9B-493F-8C61-44574822AAD6} The key piece of information in the event entry is the reasonCode, 6124.  A quick Google search shows that reasonCode 6124 is the code for MQRC_NOT_CONNECTED.  According to IBM's docs, this means that you've tried to send a message without first opening a connection to the queue manager.  Obviously, in the context of BizTalk, this is an unexpected error, since this sort of thing should be managed entirely by the send adapter. Perusing IBM's documentation a bit more, I came across some info on how to turn on tracing for MQ.  With tracing enabled, I tried sending a message again, then went and reviewed the trace files.  The bulk of the information in the trace files didn't mean a thing to me, but at the end of one of the files, I did notice this: 00006257 15:40:20.327795   3500.4      RSESS:000009 ------{  reqReleaseConn 00006258 15:40:20.328714   3500.4      RSESS:000009 ------}  reqReleaseConn (rc=OK) 00006259 15:40:20.328727   3500.4      RSESS:000009 ------{  xcsClearTraceIdent 0000625A 15:40:20.328739   3500.4           :       ------}  xcsClearTraceIdent (rc=OK) 0000625B 15:40:20.328752   3500.4           :       -----}! trmzstMQCONNX (rc=MQRC_NOT_AUTHORIZED) 0000625C 15:40:20.328765   3500.4           :       ----}! MQCONNX (rc=MQRC_NOT_AUTHORIZED) 0000625D 15:40:20.328766   3500.4           :       ---}! ImqQueueManager::connect (rc=MQRC_NOT_AUTHORIZED) 0000625E 15:40:20.328767   3500.4           :       --}! ImqObject::open (rc=MQRC_NOT_CONNECTED) 0000625F 15:40:20.328768   3500.4           :       --{  ImqQueue::lock 00006260 15:40:20.328769   3500.4           :       --}! ImqQueue::lock (rc=Unknown(1)) 00006261 15:40:20.328769   3500.4           :       --{  ImqQueue::unlock 00006262 15:40:20.328769   3500.4           :       --}! ImqQueue::unlock (rc=Unknown(1)) It seemed like the MQRC_NOT_CONNECTED error was being caused by a security related issue (MQRC_NOT_AUTHORIZED).  I did notice something earlier in the log where it appeared that MQ was passing a field named UID with a value equal to the account name that my BizTalk service was running under.  I ended up creating a new local account on the BizTalk server that had the same name as a user which had access to the queue manager on the iSeries.  I then created a new host instance that ran under this new account, created a send handler for the MQSC adapter on this new host instance and reconfigured my orchestration to run on the new host instance.  After bouncing all my host instances, I was now able to send messages to the iSeries. It's still not clear to me why we were able to connect to the Solaris server.  I ended up contacting IBM's support and they did confirm that the process sending to MQ does in fact pass the identity to the queue manager it's connecting to.

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• Windows Phone 7 Prototype 001: Speech Recognition on WP7

  At some point in the future it will be awesome when you can just tell your computer what to do and it does it - without typing to help those of us with a blistering 11 WPM hunk and peck technique. Siri, a mobile digital assistant using speech recognition was voted best tech at SXSW. I dont know about that one. Although, I'm sure it will get better when Apple rebuilds it and  bundles on iPhone 5. So how would you do that on WP7? There have been some videos floating around showing Bing with some voice control so obviously the phone has speech recognition. So what options are there: System.Speech? Not included in WP7/SL Nuance software like Siri? No WP7/SL version yet. Invoking the SAPI dlls on the phone? No automation factory in WP7 SL. Web services using System.Speech and mic on the phone? YES! The last one was my least favorite but that works for now. I built a quick sample app to show how to do text-to-speech and speech recognition on WP7.   @eklimczak will not be happy with the developer designed UI. In this sample there is web service with provides access to the system.speech APIs in .NET. Basically its just passing around byte arrays. On the phone its using the XNA audio frameworks to play the text-to-speech stream and to record using the microphone. The code is pretty simple and you can download from the link at the end of this post. The only things to note are adjusting the WCF config to handle larger byte uploads and the Microphone API is a little weird with that 1 second buffer. It would be nice if you could just to mic.start and mic.end which would return an array of bytes instead of managing your own stream inside the buffer ready callback. Couple of downsides to this approach: Recoding from the phone has some static. Could be my code or the my mic is bad / not calibrated right. Having to make web service calls instead of local access is not ideal (Microsoft, please add an API for the SAPI dlls) Although in the context of an app like Siri its not so bad since you need to do web service lookups to get data back Speech recognition quality really depends on either a) a limited grammar set like that pizza grammar in the sample or b) training the recognizer. For the latter it would be annoying to have users train the system. Using the System.Speech stuff youd have to have a profile for each user. So until Microsoft adds some speech client APIs on the phone or Nuance releases a wp7 product, this is a decent workaround. In the future Id like to build something similar to Siri. I shall call it Iris in homage. Im a big fan of mobile speech apps because frankly its just not safe to Google while driving. Since some of my designer co-workers have been posting UI sketches for WP7, Id like to start posting some code prototypes for things I try out on the phone. That will probably last 2 weeks, but for the moment I have like 10 posts in the queue. Sample Code 100% guaranteed to work on my emulatorDid you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• You Might Be a DBA

  - by BuckWoody

  With all apologies to Jeff Foxworthy, I was up late Friday night on a holiday weekend (which translated into T-SQL becomes “Maintenance Window”) and I got bored in between the two or three minutes I had between clicks. So I started a “Twitter” meme – and it just took off. I haven’t cleaned these up much, but here, in author order as of Saturday the 29th of May is the list “You might be a DBA” from around the Twitterverse: buckwoody Your two main enemies are developers and SAN admins #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody People can use Access as a cross or garlic on you #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You always plan an exit strategy, even when entering a McDonald's #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You can't explain to your family what you really do for a living #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You have at least one set of scripts you won't share #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You have an opinion on the best code-beautifier #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You have children older than the rest of your team #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You and the Oracle DBA would kill each other, but you'll happily fight off a developer together first #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You've threatened to quit if they give anyone the sa password on production #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You've sent a vendor suggestions on improving their database design or code (and been ignored) #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You've sent a vendor suggestions on improving their database design or code (and been ignored) #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You have an opinion on the best code-beautifier #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You have at least one set of scripts you won't share #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You refer to co-workers as "carbon-units" #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody Being paranoid is on your resume at the top #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody Everyone comes to your cube to find the MSDN DVD's #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You always plan an exit strategy, even when entering a McDonald's #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You've worn down developers to get your way by explaining normalization levels #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You refer to clothes as "Data Abstractions" #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody Users pester you to be able to put data in a database, then they pester you to take it out and put it in Excel #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody Others try to de-duplicate data, you try to copy it to more than three locations #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You have at least one DLT tape in the trunk of your car #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You use twitter and facebook to talk with colleagues because there's no one else in your company that does what you do #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody Your spouse knows what "ETL" means #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You've referred to yourself as the "Data Janitor" #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You don't have positive connotations of the word "upgrade" #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You get your coffee before you check your servers, because you know you won't get any if you don't #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You always come to work through the back door so no one hijacks you on the way to your cube #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You check your server logs before you check your e-mail in the morning so you can reply "Yeah, I already fixed that." #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You have more conference badges than clean socks #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody Your coffee mug says "It depends" #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You can convince a boss that you need 16GB of RAM in your laptop #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You've used ebay to find production equipment #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You pad all project timelines by 2X, and you still miss them #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You know when your company is acquiring another even before the CFO #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You pad all project timelines by 2X, and you still miss them #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You call aspirin "work vitamins" #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You get the same amount of sleep even after you have a child #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You obsess about performance metrics from over one year ago #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody The first thing you buy after the database software is aftermarket tools to manage the database software #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You've tried to convince someone else to become a DBA #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You use twitter and facebook to talk with colleagues because there's no one else in your company that does what you do #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You only know other DBA's by their Tweet Handle #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You've explained the difference between 32 and 64-bit to more than one manager in terms they can understand, using puppets #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody Your two main enemies are developers and SAN admins #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You've driven to the Datacenter to install SQL Server because "you don't trust those NOC admins" #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You pay more for faster Internet connections than cable at home so you don't have to drive in #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You call texting a "queuing system" #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You know that if someone can read Perl, they manage an Oracle system #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You have an e-mail rule for backup notifications #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody Your food pyramid includes coffee, salt and fat #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You wish everything had a graphical query plan #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You refactor your e-mails #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You've gotten more help from twitter and facebook than all your years in college #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You would pay money for a license plate that has the letters S-Q-L together #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You have actually considered making a RAID array from thumb drives #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody Everything on your laptop is installed from your MSDN subscription #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You've written blog posts on technology you've never actually implemented in production #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody Everything on your laptop is installed from your MSDN subscription #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody @MidnightDBA Click the #youmightbeaDBA tag. I've had WAY too much coffee today.  buckwoody There is no other position that is 1-deep except you and the CEO #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody When you watch "The Office" you call it "OJT" #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You would pay money for a license plate that has the letters S-Q-L together #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody Your blog would make a "best practices" or "worst practices" book #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You have actually considered making a RAID array from thumb drives #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody The first thing you install on your netbook is SSMS #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody Everything on your laptop is installed from your MSDN subscription #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody Your watch is set to UTC because it's just easier #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You make plenty of money, but you're excited to get a $2.00 squeeze-ball from Quest and Redgate #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You make plenty of money, but you're excited to get a $2.00 squeeze-ball from Quest and Redgate #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You think data can be represented as something OTHER than XML #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You tell people that you made a database query go faster, and expect them to be happy for you #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You take the word "NoSQL" as a personal attack #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody People can use Access as a cross or garlic on you #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody * == bad #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody * == bad #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody There are just as many females in your technical field as males #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody People can use Access as a cross or garlic on you #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You've gotten more help from twitter and facebook than all your years in college #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You think that something OTHER than the database might be the performance bottleneck #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You refer to time as a "Clustered Index" #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You know why "user" refers to both business people and crack addicts #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You make plenty of money, but you're excited to get a $2.00 squeeze-ball from Quest and Redgate #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You can't explain to your family what you really do for a living #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You tell people that you made a database query go faster, and expect them to be happy for you #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You think a millisecond is a really long time #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You're sitting and typing #youmightbeaDBA when you could be outside #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You can't wait for a technical conference so you can wear a kilt - and you're not Scottish #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You know that "DBA" stands for "Default Blame Acceptor" #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody People can use Access as a cross or garlic on you #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You know what "the truth, thole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me Codd" means #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You've gotten more help from twitter and facebook than all your years in college #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You can't talk fast enough to get a concept out of your head so you tweet it instead #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You cry when someone doesn't use a WHERE clause #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You think data can be represented as something OTHER than XML #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You think "Set theory" is not an verb but a noun #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You try to convince random strangers to vote on your Connect item #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You think 3 hours of contiguous sleep is a good thing #youmightbeaDBA or #youmightbeamother  buckwoody You don't like Oracle, and not just because of what she did to Neo #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You know when to say "sequel" and "s-q-l" #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You know where the data is #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You refer to your children as "Fully Redundant Mirrors" #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody Holiday == "Maintenance Window" #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody Your laptop is more powerful than the servers in most companies - including your own #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You capitalize SELECTed words #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You take the word "NoSQL" as a personal attack #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You know why "user" refers to both business people and crack addicts #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You cringe in public when the word "upgrade" is used in a sentence #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody Holiday == "Maintenance Window" #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody All Data Is MetaData means something to you #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You've never seen the driveway to your house in the daylight #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You think that something OTHER than the database might be the performance bottleneck #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody Most of your bloodstream is composed of caffeine #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody Your task list is labeled "CRUD Matrix" #youmightbeaDBA  buckwoody You call your wife/husband a "Linked Server" #youmightbeaDBA  anonythemouse When someone tells you they are going to take a dump and you wonder of which database then #youmightbeaDBA  anonythemouse When it's 11pm on a holiday weekend and you are working #youmightbeaDBA  anonythemouse When you sit down at a table and look for it's primary key #youmightbeaDBA  anonythemouse When getting milk from the fridge you check the expiry date is > getdate() #youmightbeaDBA  blakmk when you wake up dreaming about sql #youmightbeaDBA  CharlesGarver You think a @buckwoody bobblehead would be a cool thing to have on the dashboard of your car #youmightbeaDBA  CharlesGarver Your friends don't understand why you think there's a difference between single and double quotes #youmightbeaDBA  CharlesGarver Even the newest employees know your name from all the downtime notices you've sent out #youmightbeaDBA  CharlesGarver You sometimes feel anxious and think "I should test restoring those backups" and then the feeling passes #youmightbeadba  CharlesGarver You know what a co-worker means when they ask "how is your squirrel server?" #youmightbeadba  CharlesGarver You can't sleep at night and you ponder the logisitcs of collecting every copy of Access for the world's biggest bonfire #youmightbeaDBA  CharlesGarver You can't sleep at night and you ponder the logisitcs of collecting every copy of Access for the world's biggest bonfire #youmightbeaDBA  CharlesGarver You're willing to move someone's job up in priority for a box of #voodoodonuts #youmightbeaDBA  CharlesGarver Each person in your company seems to think you work for THEM #youmightbeaDBA  CharlesGarver You have a Love/Hate relationship going on with #Microsoft #youmightbeaDBA  CharlesGarver People ask you to troubleshoot their Access program #youmightbeaDBA  CharlesGarver The first words you hear in the morning are 'your voicemail box is full' #youmightbeaDBA  CharlesGarver The thought of disrupting 500 people's work so you can do something doesn't phase you #youmightbeaDBA  CharlesGarver You can't sleep at night and you ponder the logisitcs of collecting every copy of Access for the world's biggest bonfire #youmightbeaDBA  CharlesGarver Your home computer is backed up in 3 different places #youmightbeaDBA  CharlesGarver Your wardrobe for work includes pajamas #youmightbeaDBA  CharlesGarver Someone tells you to look in the INDEX and you look puzzled before finally going to the back of the book. #youmightbeaDBA  chuckboycejr If you have ever set up a SQLAgent job to email your mobile phone to serve as an alarm clock #youmightbeaDBA  chuckboycejr If you'd rather meet Itzik than Jay Z #youmightbeaDBA  chuckboycejr If you'd rather meet Itzik than Jay Z #youmightbeaDBA  chuckboycejr If you'd wrestle a SysAdmin to the ground to implement #DPA best practices as per @aspiringgeek #youmightbeaDBA  databaseguy I need to be up in 7 hours, so I'm off to bed! I'll have to read the rest of @buckwoody's #youmightbeaDBA posts in the AM. (g'night Buck!)  databaseguy When people ask you about your house, the first thing you describe is the network. #youmightbeaDBA  databaseguy The last thing you say at the office each day is, "is anybody else here? I'm shutting off the lights!" #youmightbeaDBA  databaseguy Your blood pressure rises when you read application specs drafted by marketing. #youmightbeaDBA  databaseguy A good day at work is one when nobody pays you no mind. #youmightbeaDBA  databaseguy You care about latches and wait states. #youmightbeaDBA  databaseguy You have worked over 200 hours on a performance tuning project that required no application changes at all. #youmightbeaDBA  databaseguy The late-night security guard knows the names of your spouse and kids. #youmightbeaDBA  databaseguy You have had vigorous debates about whether it should be pronounced "sequel" or "ess-queue-ell". #youmightbeaDBA  databaseguy You have VPN and RDP software installed on your phone ... just in case. #youmightbeaDBA  databaseguy You have edited a data file by hand, just to see what would happen. #youmightbeaDBA  databaseguy You decorate your office walls with database catalog posters. #youmightbeaDBA  databaseguy You've built programs that access data just to keep other developers from asking you to run queries all the time. #youmightbeaDBA  databaseguy When you watch movies like The Matrix, you find yourself calculating the fasibility of storing all that data. #youmightbeaDBA  databaseguy You have tried to convince someone to spend money on an SSD storage array. #youmightbeaDBA  databaseguy When CPU is spiked on a server, you want to gather forensic evidence. #youmightbeaDBA  databaseguy You have to remind developers not to push code to production without checking if the database is ready. #youmightbeaDBA  databaseguy Nobody cares what you wear to work, as long as the thing keeps running. #youmightbeaDBA  databaseguy Telepathy is a job requirement when working with app dev teams. #youmightbeaDBA  databaseguy You read database statistics for the educational value. #youmightbeaDBA  databaseguy And your boss freely admits this to anyone within earshot. #youmightbeaDBA  databaseguy Your boss cannot explain or understand what you do. #youmightbeaDBA  databaseguy You envision ERDs when you see a GUI. #youmightbeaDBA  databaseguy You say things like "applications come and go, but data lasts forever." #youmightbeaDBA  databaseguy You have memorized the names of several of the AdventureWorks employees. #youmightbeaDBA  databaseguy You know what MAXDOP setting you can get away with for a big query based on current server load. #youmightbeaDBA  databaseguy And you immediately recognize the recursion in my last tweet. #youmightbeaDBA  databaseguy You find 50 simultaneous tweets from @buckwoody about #youmightbeaDBA :O)  DBAishness You have "funny stories" about the times your developers accidentally deleted the T-log in their test environment. #youmightbeaDBA  DBAishness Planning to slice and dice your MDW data with PowerPivot makes you giggle like a schoolgirl. #youmightbeaDBA  donalddotfarmer You think @buckwoody lives in the "real world." #youmightbeaDBA  jamach09 @buckwoody #youmightbeaDBA Why go outside when you can sit in the nice cool server room?  jamach09 If you refer to procreation as "Replication", #youmightbeaDBA.  jamach09 If you think ORM is a four-letter word, #youmightbeaDBA  JamesMarsh If you have ever preached the value of Source Code Control, #YouMightBeADBA  jethrocarr @venzann You store your shopping list in a ACID compliant DB #youmightbeaDBA  joe_positive @buckwoody thought it stood for "Don't Bother Asking" #youmightbeaDBA  joe_positive when you check your IT Events Calendar before making weekend plans #youmightbeaDBA  LadyRuna You cringe whenever someone calls Excel a database #youmightbeaDBA  LadyRuna When the waiter says he'll be your server today, you ask how many terabytes he is #youmightbeaDBA  LadyRuna you always call the asterisk a "Star" #youmightbeaDBA  LadyRuna You walk into a server room, say "Nice RACK!" and everyone there knows you're talking about server rack... #youmightbeaDBA  LadyRuna You receive more messages from servers than from friends #youmightbeaDBA  LadyRuna hmmm... #youmightbeaDBA if your recipe for gumbo is "SELECT * FROM Refrigerator"  markjholmes @SQLSoldier Heh. #youmightbeaDBA if you correct other DBAs' spelling of @PaulRandal  markjholmes #youmightbeaDBA if you actually test RAID5 vs RAID10 on your SAN because when it comes to configuration, "it depends."  markjholmes #youmightbeaDBA if you have at least 3 definitions of the word "cluster"  MarlonRibunal 3 Words: @BrentO, snicker, & Access #youmightbeaDBA  MarlonRibunal @onpnt @mikeSQL my appeal was a couple of mins late. Enjoying #youmightbeaDBA  MarlonRibunal @mikeSQL @onpnt pls, don't mention bacon #youmightbeaDBA  merv @buckwoody You HATE 3-way joins #youmightbeaDBA  MidnightDBA If you're up at midnight Tweeting about SQL #youmightbeaDBA  MidnightDBA @buckwoody I'd noticed that. :) #youmightbeaDBA  mikeSQL when people talk about "their type" you're thinking varchar, bigint, binary, etc #youmightbeadba  mikeSQL people ask you to go to lunch , but you can't go because you're attending #SQLlunch #youmightbeadba  mikeSQL you laugh for hours at all of the #sqlmoviequotes ....things in which a normal individual would scratch their head at. #youmightbeadba  mikeSQL you laugh for hours at all of the #sqlmoviequotes ....things in which a normal individual would scratch their head at. #youmightbeadba  mrdenny If you think that @buckwoody's demo using PowerPivot to analyze index usage data from DMVs is awesome then #youmightbeaDBA  mrdenny You wish @PaulRandal still worked at Microsoft so that they would make a bobble head of him #youmightbeadba  mrdenny When it's 11pm on a holiday weekend, and your posting stupid jokes on Twitter then #youmightbeadba  mrdenny If you go out with friends and wonder why no one's wearing a kilt then #YouMightBeADBA  mrdenny You can't do basic math, but you know off the top of your head how many CALs $14,412 can buy you. #YoumightbeaDBA  mrdenny If you've ever setup a SQL Job to email you to get you out of a regularly scheduled meeting #YouMightBeADBA.  mrdenny You throw up in your mouth a little when ever you here the word "Access". Even if it doesn't relate to a MS product. #YouMightBeADBA  msdtjones You spend more time listening to @buckwoody than your wife #youmightbeaDBA  NFDotCom You perform "hail deltas" on a regular basis. #YouMightBeADBA  NoelMcKinney If you tell your wife you want to go to Columbus Ohio for your wedding anniversary so you can attend #sqlsat42 then #youmightbeaDBA  NoelMcKinney You read a union is on strike and wonder if it's a UNION ALL #youmightbeaDBA  NoelMcKinney You read a union is on strike and wonder if it's a UNION ALL #youmightbeaDBA  NoelMcKinney Someone asks you to throw another log on the fire and you tell them not to worry about it because Autogrowth is turned on #youmightbeaDBA  Nuurdygirl Even if you have a girlfriend...its possible #youmightbeadba. Yeah-i said its possible!  Nuurdygirl When your girlfriend has to lean around the laptop to kiss you goodnight #youmightbeadba  Old_Man_Fish If you worry about how big your package is and how long it takes to finish #youmightbeaDBA  Old_Man_Fish If you no longer wonder if someone is in trouble or died if you are getting calls at 2AM #youmightbeaDBA  Old_Man_Fish If, when you hear the word ACCESS with no connotation you blood pressure jumps 50 points, #youmightbeaDBA  onpnt When you hear the word inject you immediately get concerned if your databases are OK #youmightbeaDBA  onpnt Your servers haven't been rebooted in a year #youmightbeaDBA  onpnt You know why it's funny when @PaulRandal has the word, "Sheep" in a tweet #youmightbeaDBA  onpnt You have read BOL without actually having a problem to figure out #youmightbeaDBA  onpnt You can type "SELECT columns FROM tables" without typos but tipen ni Banglish ares a messis #youmightbeaDBA  onpnt DR strategies doesn't include the word, RAID in them #youmightbeaDBA  onpnt you can move a SQL Server instance to a new server without the users ever knowing #youmightbeaDBA  onpnt You have made an SSIS package that is more than one step #youmightbeaDBA  onpnt You have the balls to say no to your boss when they ask for the sa password #youmightbeaDBA  onpnt you google to trouble shoot a problem and end up at your own blog (and it fixes it) #youmightbeaDBA  onpnt You talk your wife into moving the family vacation a week earlier so you can attend the areas local SSUG meeting #youmightbeaDBA  onpnt you can explain to a nontechnical person what a deadlock is #youmightbeaDBA  onpnt You hope a girl asks you what your collation is #youmightbeaDBA  onpnt you make jokes that include the words shrink, truncate and 1205. And you are the only one that laughs at them #youmightbeaDBA  onpnt You rate your ability to stay awake to work longer on blogs, twitter, forums and your day to day job with the 5 9's goal #youmightbeaDBA  onpnt you have major surgery and beg the doctor to release you back to work 5 days later because you miss your servers #youmightbeaDBA #TrueStory  onpnt You do have backups and you know how to use them #youmightbeaDBA  onpnt It's the network #youmightbeaDBA  onpnt When the developers get to work your mood changes rapidly #youmightbeaDBA  onpnt When someone says, "PASS", you first think of karaoke #youmightbeaDBA  onpnt Recruiters try to get you to call them *just* because they think you'll give them @BrentO contact info #youmightbeaDBA  onpnt You chuckle every time you go to grab the "CLR" Calcium, Lime and Rust Remover to clean something #youmightbeaDBA  onpnt @MarlonRibunal @mikeSQL Sorry man, it was already in motion ;-) #youmightbeaDBA  onpnt When you have an "I love bacon" sticker on your laptop. #youmightbeaDBA http://twitpic.com/1ry671  onpnt You sing SELECT statements in the shower #youmightbeaDBA  onpnt When you see a chicken it doesn't remind you of food. It reminds you of a guy named Jorge #youmightbeaDBA  onpnt At time, SQL is your mistress #youmightbeaDBA  onpnt Your wife wonders if SQL is the code name of your mistress at times #youmightbeaDBA  onpnt it's Friday and you are on twitter thinking really hard about what would be funny for hash tag #youmightbeaDBA  onpnt You organize your wife's "decorative"pillows on the bed in a B-Tree structure #youmightbeaDBA  PaulWhiteNZ If you: SELECT TOP (1) milk FROM fridge WHERE use_by_date >= GET_DATE() ORDER BY use_by_date ASC #YouMightBeaDBA  RonDBA #youmightbeaDBA if you read @buckwoody's and @BrentO's blogs.  ryaneastabrook @buckwoody omg, you have to stand up a website with these on them, they are awesome #youmightbeaDBA  soulvy @StrateSQL @LadyRuna Or a "Splat" #youmightbeaDBA  speedracer You can still fall asleep after three cups of coffee #youmightbeaDBA  speedracer You retweet @buckwoody on a Friday night #youmightbeaDBA  speedracer You can still fall asleep after three cups of coffee #youmightbeaDBA  speedracer Developers make you twitch #youmightbeaDBA  sqlagentman You know what X/1024*8 is. #YouMightBeADBA  SqlAsylum Your still in the office at 5:00 on memorial day weekend. #youmightbeadba :)  SQLBob Whenever someone you know gets pregnant you bring up INNER JOINs or SQL Injection attacks... #youmightbeaDBA  SQLChicken You know one or more SQL folks in the community with an animal in their username #youmightbeaDBA  SQLChicken You've used one or more car analogies to explain how a database works #youmightbeaDBA  SQLChicken “@sqljoe: #youmightbeaDBA if you applied to attend #sqlu and requested @SQLChicken to pull strings for you” lmao nice!  SQLChicken When talking about SSIS your discussions break down into various jokes about packages #youmightbeaDBA  SQLChicken Just SEEING the code for cursors makes you break out in hives #youmightbeaDBA  SQLChicken Just SEEING the code for cursors makes you break out in hives #youmightbeaDBA  SQLCraftsman You coined the phrase "Magic SAN Dust" because calling a vendor's marketing claims BS is not acceptable in a meeting. #YouMightBeADBA  SQLCraftsman If you hear about a new feature with the acronym "DAC" and wonder what disaster of a feature it is attached to this time. #YouMightBeADBA  SQLCraftsman You really own a "Stick of Much Developer Whacking" #YouMightBeADBA  SQLCraftsman You coined the phrase "Magic SAN Dust" because calling a vendor's marketing claims BS is not acceptable in a meeting. #YouMightBeADBA  SQLCraftsman Default Blame Acceptor #YouMightBeADBA  SQLCraftsman If you hear about a new feature with the acronym "DAC" and wonder what disaster of a feature it is attached to this time. #YouMightBeADBA  SQLCraftsman Default Blame Acceptor #YouMightBeADBA  SQLCraftsman If you hear about a new feature with the acronym "DAC" and wonder what disaster of a feature it is attached to this time. #YouMightBeADBA  sqljoe #youmightbeaDBA if you wished your wife knew T-sql. USE ShoppingList SELECT NecessaryItems from Supermarket WHERE Category<> ("junk food")  sqljoe #youmightbeaDBA if the first thing you kiss when you wake up is your mobile for not waking you up in the middle of the night  sqljoe #youmightbeaDBA if your wife has a "Do Not Fly" family vacation list of her own including your laptop and mobile  sqljoe #youmightbeaDBA if you have researched for DBA Anonymous groups and attended a #SSUG willing to drop your database (vice)  sqljoe #youmightbeaDBA if your only maintenance windows are staff meetings  sqljoe #youmightbeaDBA if you think of yourself as "The One" in The Matrix "balancing the equation" from The Architect's (developers) poor coding  sqljoe #youmightbeaDBA if you think @PaulRandal should have played the Oracle in The Matrix  sqljoe #youmightbeaDBA if home CD & Movie collection is stored in secured containers,in logical order & naming convention,and with a backup copy  sqljoe #youmightbeaDBA if you applied to attend #sqlu and requested @SQLChicken to pull strings for you  sqljoe #youmightbeaDBA if you have tried to TiVo @MidnightDBA broadcasts  sqljoe #youmightbeaDBA if your #sql user group feels like #AA meetings  sqljoe #youmightbeaDBA if you thought of bringing your #sql books to #sqlsaturday and #sqlpass for autographs  sqljoe #youmightbeaDBA if #sqlpass feels like the #oscars  sqljoe #youmightbeaDBA if you are proud of your small package  SQLLawman #youmightbeaDBA when you hear MDX and Acura is not first thought that comes to mind.  sqlrunner If your wife double checks that there isn't a SQLSat within 200 miles of your vacation destination #youmightbeaDBA  sqlrunner When you're on a conference call and your wife thinks your speaking in a foreign language #youmightbeaDBA  sqlrunner When you're on a conference call and your wife thinks your speaking in a foreign language #youmightbeaDBA  sqlrunner You treat the word 'access' as a verb, not a noun #youmightbeaDBA  sqlrunner If you are happy with sub-second performance #youmightbeaDBA  sqlrunner When you know the names of the NOC people AND their families #youmightbeadba  sqlrunner When you know the names of the NOC people AND their families #youmightbeadba  sqlrunner Your company set's up international phone coverage for your cruise #youmightbeaDBA  sqlsamson @buckwoody if your manager asks you for data and you respond with "there's a script for that" #youmightbeadba  sqlsamson @buckwoody If you receive more messages from your server then your spouse #youmightbeadba  SQLSoldier You've spent all night Valentines Day upgrading the SQL Servers and forgot to tell your wife you'd be working late. #youmightbeadba  SQLSoldier You're flattered when someone calls you a geek. #youmightbeadba  SQLSoldier @llangit @mrdenny it's 11pm on a holiday weekend, & your reading stupid jokes on Twitter then #youmightbeadba  SQLSoldier Your manager borrows lunch money from you because your salary is 30% higher than his. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier You think "intellisense" is a double negative because it's not intelligent nor makes sense. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier 75% of the emails you receive at home have the phrase "now following you on Twitter!" in the subject line. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier You petition Ken Burns to remake Office Space because it should have been 18 hours long. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier You select a candidate for a Jr DBA position because his resume said he's willing to get your coffee. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier Somebody misquotes @PaulRandall and you call him on your cell to verify. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier You wish the elevator in your building was slower because it's the last time you'll be left alone all day. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier The developers sacrifice small animals before giving you their code for review. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier Developers bring you coffee and a BLT when you review their code. #youmightbeaDBA #IWish  SQLSoldier You can get out of any family get-together by saying you have to work and nobody questions it. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier You've requested a HP Superdome for you "test" box. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier Your leave work early because your internet connection to the data center is better at home #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier The new CEO asks you to justify your salary, so you go on vacation for 2 weeks. And he never questions you again. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier You cheer when Milton burns down the company in Office Space #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier A dev. asks if you've heard about some great new feature in SQL and you show the 16 blog posts you wrote on it ... last year #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier Your dev team is still testing SQL 2008 and you're already planning for SQL 11. #youmightbeaDBA #TrueStory  SQLSoldier The new CEO asks you to justify your salary, so you go on vacation for 2 weeks. And he never questions you again. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier Your dev team is still testing SQL 2008 and you're already planning for SQL 11. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier You use a cell phone service coverage map to plan your next vacation. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier You come in to work at 7 AM because it gives you at least 3 hours without any developers around. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier You figure out a way to make take your wife on a cruise and deduct it as a business expense. #youmightbeaDBA #sqlcruise  SQLSoldier You name your cat SQLDog because the name @SQLCat was already taken. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier You rate your blog posts based on the number of retweets you get. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier You disable random logins just to mess with people. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier You fall for the pickup line, "Hey baby, what's your collation?" #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier You can blame an outage on anyone in the company because you're the only one that knows how to find out what really happened #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier You can blame an outage on anyone in the company because you're the only one that knows how to find out what really happened #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier You cheer when Milton burns down the company in Office Space #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier Your leave work early because your internet connection to the data center is better at home #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier You cheer when Milton burns down the company in Office Space #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier Your think the 4 food groups are coffee, bacon, fast food, and Mountain Dew. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier You tell someone your job title and they ask "What?" You describe it and they ask "What?". So you say "computer geek". #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier The #1 referrer to your blog is Twitter.com. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier Your idea of a good time on a Saturday involves free training. #youmightbeaDBA #sqlsat43  SQLSoldier You write a book that all of your co-workers have and none have read it. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier You write a book that sells a couple thousand copies and is heralded a best seller. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier No matter how sick you are, you go to work if it's time to pass the pager on to the next guy. #youmightbeaDBA #TrueStory  SQLSoldier You go out on the town, and strangers walk up to you and say, "Hey you're that SQL guy" #youmightbeaDBA #TrueStory  SQLSoldier Your wife asks you to fix something, and you request a downtime window. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier Your wife asks when you'll be home, and you tell her that you wish you knew. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier Your best pickup line, "Hey baby, what's your collation?" #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier Your wife asks when you'll be home, and you tell her that you wish you knew. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier You know that @BuckWoody is not someone's porno name. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier You list TSQL as your native language on the 2010 census. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier Starbucks' stock price drops every time you go on vacation. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier You're happy when the web master says that the website is down. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier You know that @BuckWoody is not someone's porno name. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier You get mad when someone calls your car a "heap" because you've always considered it to be a "clustered index". #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier Your blog has more hits than your company's website. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier You systematically remove the asterisk key from all keyboards in the company except yours. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier When asked if you recycle, you reply that you run sp_cycle_errorlog every night at midnight #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier You wouldn't allow someone named @AdamMachanic to work on your car. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier You switch offices every 3 days to avoid developers #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier PSS has your number on speed dial. #youmightbeaDBA  SQLSoldier You frown when you they tell Neo that he's going to the Oracle #youmightbeaDBA  swhaley you regretted saying "This shouldn't effect production" #youmightbeaDBA  swhaley you regretted saying "This shouldn't effect production" #youmightbeaDBA  Tarwn A pleasurable saturday means spending the day learning more about what you already do the rest of the week #youmightbeaDBA ...oh, wait...  thelostforum For great justice; all our base are belong to YOU !! #youmightbeadba  thelostforum @SQLSoldier: You need a witness to use a mirror #youmightbeaDBA ;)  TimCost you capitalize key words. always. everywhere. you can't help it, usually don't even notice. #youmightbeaDBA  Toshana Your the only one in your company not impressed with the developers new application. #youmightbeaDBA  venzann Coming soon from a (respected) book publisher - @buckwoody's #youmightbeaDBA  venzann He's on a role tonight. @buckwoody is summing up my life with his #youmightbeaDBA tweets...  venzann I love the #youmightbeaDBA tag. Found at least 6 new DBAs to follow..  venzann He's on a role tonight. @buckwoody is summing up my life with his #youmightbeaDBA tweets...  venzann You use #sqlhelp as a primary resource during troubleshooting #youmightbeaDBA  venzann You insist on stricter password security for your sql servers than you implement on your own laptop #youmightbeaDBA  WesBrownSQL @buckwoody you are up so late the only tweets you see are from @buckwoody #youmightbeaDBA  WesBrownSQL @SQLSoldier you are upgrading all your 2005 prod servers to 2008 R2 on a three day weekend... #youmightbeaDBA  zippy1981 #youmightbeaDBA if everytime you do something with #mongodb you think of the Vulcan proverb "only Nixon could go to China."  Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Google Chrome OS

  - by Piet

  It’s about time someone took this initiative: Google Chrome OS I especially like the following: Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work. I recently had the ‘pleasure’ witnessing several 60+ yr old friends and family (all respect for everyone in their 2nd or 3rd youth) buying their first pc, taking their first steps using a pc and the net. Have you ever seen the gazillions of little ‘useful’ tools that are installed on a new standard Vista pc or laptop ? This is like learning to drive a new car and being placed in an airplane cockpit. And all the messages one gets about virus/security checks, fingerprint nog being enrolled, trial period expiring (because half those really useful tools come with a trial period), … If I was in their shoes, being confronted with this as a total newbie, I guess I’d just give up pretty soon. As a matter of fact, I actually gave up on Vista on my work-laptop, it was driving me crazy. Thank god I was allowed to install XP. I’m a Linux user at home, and Vista was such a frustrating experience that Windows XP actually felt like breath of fresh air. And what are those people using? Email, browsing…. and maybe writing a little letter now and then or storing their photo’s if they have a digital camera. Actually (side note), I get the impression that hearing about facebook is a major motivator for the digital newbies to finally take the plunge, buy a pc and get on-line. And OK, we’ve seen initiatives like this before, but Google is a brand everyone knows… unlike Ubuntu, Debain or Mandriva. Google = God. If I was Microsoft I’d be wetting my pants knowing Google was about to release their own OS, without a doubt fully optimized to use their own on-line office suit. On the other hand, the old adage ‘no one ever got fired for choosing Microsoft’ still holds a lot of truth. I hope I’ll be able to give it a big thumbs up if a would-be pc-user asks me what kind of pc/OS they should go for in the near future. On the other hand, if I’d do that, I’m pretty sure a couple of weeks later I’d get a call asking how to install this game or photo editing tool they got from one of their Windows using friends… or that nifty photo-printer they just bought. But then, I also get those questions now from newbie Windows users. It takes a couple of years before Newbie pc users understand that some things just don’t work and aren’t worth the time trying to fix them. I’d just wish they’d go back to the shop when something doesn’t work. You also don’t let you mechanic friend try to fix a problem with your brand new car. But that’s another story… Wait and see…

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• Optional Parameters and Named Arguments in C# 4 (and a cool scenario w/ ASP.NET MVC 2)

  - by ScottGu

  [In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu] This is the seventeenth in a series of blog posts I’m doing on the upcoming VS 2010 and .NET 4 release. Today’s post covers two new language feature being added to C# 4.0 – optional parameters and named arguments – as well as a cool way you can take advantage of optional parameters (both in VB and C#) with ASP.NET MVC 2. Optional Parameters in C# 4.0 C# 4.0 now supports using optional parameters with methods, constructors, and indexers (note: VB has supported optional parameters for awhile). Parameters are optional when a default value is specified as part of a declaration.  For example, the method below takes two parameters – a “category” string parameter, and a “pageIndex” integer parameter.  The “pageIndex” parameter has a default value of 0, and as such is an optional parameter: When calling the above method we can explicitly pass two parameters to it: Or we can omit passing the second optional parameter – in which case the default value of 0 will be passed:   Note that VS 2010’s Intellisense indicates when a parameter is optional, as well as what its default value is when statement completion is displayed: Named Arguments and Optional Parameters in C# 4.0 C# 4.0 also now supports the concept of “named arguments”.  This allows you to explicitly name an argument you are passing to a method – instead of just identifying it by argument position.  For example, I could write the code below to explicitly identify the second argument passed to the GetProductsByCategory method by name (making its usage a little more explicit): Named arguments come in very useful when a method supports multiple optional parameters, and you want to specify which arguments you are passing.  For example, below we have a method DoSomething that takes two optional parameters: We could use named arguments to call the above method in any of the below ways: Because both parameters are optional, in cases where only one (or zero) parameters is specified then the default value for any non-specified arguments is passed. ASP.NET MVC 2 and Optional Parameters One nice usage scenario where we can now take advantage of the optional parameter support of VB and C# is with ASP.NET MVC 2’s input binding support to Action methods on Controller classes. For example, consider a scenario where we want to map URLs like “Products/Browse/Beverages” or “Products/Browse/Deserts” to a controller action method.  We could do this by writing a URL routing rule that maps the URLs to a method like so: We could then optionally use a “page” querystring value to indicate whether or not the results displayed by the Browse method should be paged – and if so which page of the results should be displayed.  For example: /Products/Browse/Beverages?page=2. With ASP.NET MVC 1 you would typically handle this scenario by adding a “page” parameter to the action method and make it a nullable int (which means it will be null if the “page” querystring value is not present).  You could then write code like below to convert the nullable int to an int – and assign it a default value if it was not present in the querystring: With ASP.NET MVC 2 you can now take advantage of the optional parameter support in VB and C# to express this behavior more concisely and clearly.  Simply declare the action method parameter as an optional parameter with a default value: C# VB If the “page” value is present in the querystring (e.g. /Products/Browse/Beverages?page=22) then it will be passed to the action method as an integer.  If the “page” value is not in the querystring (e.g. /Products/Browse/Beverages) then the default value of 0 will be passed to the action method.  This makes the code a little more concise and readable. Summary There are a bunch of great new language features coming to both C# and VB with VS 2010.  The above two features (optional parameters and named parameters) are but two of them.  I’ll blog about more in the weeks and months ahead. If you are looking for a good book that summarizes all the language features in C# (including C# 4.0), as well provides a nice summary of the core .NET class libraries, you might also want to check out the newly released C# 4.0 in a Nutshell book from O’Reilly: It does a very nice job of packing a lot of content in an easy to search and find samples format. Hope this helps, Scott

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• What makes them click ?

  - by Piet

  The other day (well, actually some weeks ago while relaxing at the beach in Kos) I read ‘Neuro Web Design - What makes them click?’ by Susan Weinschenk. (http://neurowebbook.com) The book is a fast and easy read (no unnecessary filler) and a good introduction on how your site’s visitors can be steered in the direction you want them to go. The Obvious The book handles some of the more known/proven techniques, like for example that ratings/testimonials of other people can help sell your product or service. Another well known technique it talks about is inducing a sense of scarcity/urgency in the visitor. Only 2 seats left! Buy now and get 33% off! It’s not because these are known techniques that they stop working. Luckily 2/3rd of the book handles less obvious techniques, otherwise it wouldn’t be worth buying. The Not So Obvious A less known influencing technique is reciprocity. And then I’m not talking about swapping links with another website, but the fact that someone is more likely to do something for you after you did something for them first. The book cites some studies (I always love the facts and figures) and gives some actual examples of how to implement this in your site’s design, which is less obvious when you think about it. Want to know more ? Buy the book! Other interesting sources For a more general introduction to the same principles, I’d suggest ‘Yes! 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion’. ‘Yes!…’ cites some of the same studies (it seems there’s a rather limited pool of studies covering this subject), but of course doesn’t show how to implement these techniques in your site’s design. I read ‘Yes!…’ last year, making ‘Neuro Web Design’ just a little bit less interesting. !!!Always make sure you’re able to measure your changes. If you haven’t yet, check out the advanced segmentation in Google Analytics (don’t be afraid because it says ‘beta’, it works just fine) and Google Website Optimizer. Worth Buying? Can I recommend it ? Sure, why not. I think it can be useful for anyone who ever had to think about the design or content of a site. You don’t have to be a marketing guy to want a site you’re involved with to be successful. The content/filler ratio is excellent too: you don’t need to wade through dozens of pages to filter out the interesting bits. (unlike ‘The Design of Sites’, which contains too much useless info and because it’s in dead-tree format, you can’t google it) If you like it, you might also check out ‘Yes! 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion’. Tip for people living in Europe: check Amazon UK for your book buying needs. Because of the low UK Pound exchange rate, it’s usually considerably cheaper and faster to get a book delivered to your doorstep by Amazon UK compared to having to order it at the local book store or web-shop.

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