exchange transition - Page 160

AuthSub token from Google/YouTube API is always returned as invalid

- by Miriam Raphael Roberts

Anyone out there have experience with the YouTube/Google API? I am trying to login to Google/Youtube using clientLogin, retrieve an AuthSub token, exchange it for a multi-session token and then use it in our upload form. Just a note that we are not going to have other users logging into our (secure) website, this is for our use only (no multi-users). We just want a way to upload videos to our YT account via our own website without having to login/upload to YouTube. Ultimately, everything is dependent on the first step. My AuthSub token is always being returned as invalid (Error '403'). All the steps I used are below with username/password changed. Anyone have an insight on why my AuthSub is always invalid? I am spending an enormous amount of time trying to get this to work. STEP 1: Getting the authsub token from Youtube/Google POST /youtube/accounts/ClientLogin HTTP/1.1 User-Agent: curl/7.10.6 (i386-redhat-linux-gnu) libcurl/7.10.6 OpenSSL/0.9.7a ipv6 zlib/1.1.4 Host: www.google.com Pragma: no-cache Accept: image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, */* Content-Type:application/x-www-form-urlencoded Content-Length: 86 Email=MyGoogleUsername&Passwd=MyGooglePasswd&accountType=GOOGLE&service=youtube&source=Test RESPONSE RECEIVED: Auth=AIwbFAR99f3iACfkT-5PXCB-1tN4vlyP_1CiNZ8JOn6P-......yv4d4zeGRemNm4il1e-M6czgfDXAR0w9fQ YouTubeUser=MyYouTubeUsername CURL COMMAND USED: /usr/bin/curl -S -v --location https://www.google.com/youtube/accounts/ClientLogin --data Email=MyGoogleUsername&Passwd=MyGooglePasswd&accountType=GOOGLE&service=youtube&source=Test --header Content-Type:application/x-www-form-urlencoded STEP 2: Exchanging the AuthSub token for a multi-use token GET /accounts/AuthSubSessionToken HTTP/1.1 User-Agent: curl/7.10.6 (i386-redhat-linux-gnu) libcurl/7.10.6 OpenSSL/0.9.7a ipv6 zlib/1.1.4 Host: www.google.com Pragma: no-cache Accept: image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, */* Content-Type:application/x-www-form-urlencoded Authorization: AuthSub token="AIwbFASiRR3XDKs......p5Oy_VA_9U2yV1enxJoVGSgMlZqTcjKw9mS861vlc9GWTH9D9sQ" Response received: 403 Invalid AuthSub token. curl command used: /usr/bin/curl -S -v --location https://www.google.com/accounts/AuthSubSessionToken --header Content-Type:application/x-www-form-urlencoded -H Authorization: AuthSub token="AIwbFAQR_4xG2g.....vp3BQZW5XEMyIj_wFozHSTEQ-BQRfYuIY-1CyqLeQ" STEP 3: Checking to see if the token is good/valid GET /accounts/AuthSubTokenInfo HTTP/1.1 User-Agent: curl/7.10.6 (i386-redhat-linux-gnu) libcurl/7.10.6 OpenSSL/0.9.7a ipv6 zlib/1.1.4 Host: www.google.com Pragma: no-cache Accept: image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, */* Content-Type:application/x-www-form-urlencoded Authorization: AuthSub token="AIwbFASiRR3XDKsNkaIoPaujN5RQhKs3u.....A_9U2yV1enxJoVGSgMlZqTcjKw9mS861vlc9GWTH9D9sQ" Received response: 403 Invalid AuthSub token. curl command used: /usr/bin/curl -S -v --location https://www.google.com/accounts/AuthSubTokenInfo --header Content-Type:application/x-www-form-urlencoded -H Authorization: AuthSub token="AIwbFAQR_4xG2gHoAKDsNdFqdZdwWjGeNquOLpvp3BQZW5XEMyIj_wFozHSTEQ-BQRfYuIY-1CyqLeQ" STEP 4: Trying to get the upload token using the authsub token POST /action/GetUploadToken HTTP/1.1 User-Agent: curl/7.10.6 (i386-redhat-linux-gnu) libcurl/7.10.6 OpenSSL/0.9.7a ipv6 zlib/1.1.4 Host: gdata.youtube.com Pragma: no-cache Accept: image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, */* Content-Type:application/atom+xml Authorization: AuthSub token="AIwbFASiRR3XDKsNkaIoPaujN5RQhp5Oy_VA_9U2yV1enxJoVGSgMlZqTcjKw9mS861vlc9GWTH9D9sQ" X-Gdata-Key:key="AI39si5EQyo-TZPFAnmGjxJGFKpxd_7a6hEERh_3......R82AShoQ" Content-Length:0 GData-Version:2 Recevied Response: 401 Token invalid - Invalid AuthSub token. Curl command used: /usr/bin/curl -S -v --location http://gdata.youtube.com/action/GetUploadToken -H Content-Type:application/atom+xml -H Authorization: AuthSub token="AIwbFASiRR3XDKs....sYDp5Oy_VA_9U2yV1enxJoVGSgMlZqTcjKw9mS861vlc9GWTH9D9sQ" -H X-Gdata-Key:key="AI39si5EQyo-TZPFAnmGjxJGF......Kpxd6dN2J1oHFQYTj_7a6hEERh_3E48R82AShoQ" -H Content-Length:0 -H GData-Version:2

Read the article

Design for Vacation Tracking System

- by Aaronaught

I have been tasked with developing a system for tracking our company's paid time-off (vacation, sick days, etc.) At the moment we are using an Excel spreadsheet on a shared network drive, and it works pretty well, but we are concerned that we won't be able to "trust" employees forever and sometimes we run into locking issues when two people try to open the spreadsheet at once. So we are trying to build something a little more robust. I would like some input on this design in terms of maintainability, scalability, extensibility, etc. It's a pretty simple workflow we need to represent right now: I started with a basic MS Access schema like this: Employees (EmpID int, EmpName varchar(50), AllowedDays int) Vacations (VacationID int, EmpID int, BeginDate datetime, EndDate datetime) But we don't want to spend a lot of time building a schema and database like this and have to change it later, so I think I am going to go with something that will be easier to expand through configuration. Right now the vacation table has this schema: Vacations (VacationID int, PropName varchar(50), PropValue varchar(50)) And the table will be populated with data like this: VacationID | PropName | PropValue -----------+--------------+------------------ 1 | EmpID | 4 1 | EmpName | James Jones 1 | Reason | Vacation 1 | BeginDate | 2/24/2010 1 | EndDate | 2/30/2010 1 | Destination | Spectate Swamp 2 | ... | ... I think this is a pretty good, extensible design, we can easily add new properties to the vacation like the destination or maybe approval status, etc. I wasn't too sure how to go about managing the database of valid properties, I thought of putting them in a separate PropNames table but it gets complicated to manage all the different data types and people say that you shouldn't put CLR type names into a SQL database, so I decided to use XML instead, here is the schema: <VacationProperties> <PropertyNames>EmpID,EmpName,Reason,BeginDate,EndDate,Destination</PropertyNames> <PropertyTypes>System.Int32,System.String,System.String,System.DateTime,System.DateTime,System.String</PropertyTypes> <PropertiesRequired>true,true,false,true,true,false</PropertiesRequired> </VacationProperties> I might need more fields than that, I'm not completely sure. I'm parsing the XML like this (would like some feedback on the parsing code): string xml = File.ReadAllText("properties.xml"); Match m = Regex.Match(xml, "<(PropertyNames)>(.*?)</PropertyNames>"; string[] pn = m.Value.Split(','); // do the same for PropertyTypes, PropertiesRequired Then I use the following code to persist configuration changes to the database: string sql = "DROP TABLE VacationProperties"; sql = sql + " CREATE TABLE VacationProperties "; sql = sql + "(PropertyName varchar(100), PropertyType varchar(100) "; sql = sql + "IsRequired varchar(100))"; for (int i = 0; i < pn.Length; i++) { sql = sql + " INSERT VacationProperties VALUES (" + pn[i] + "," + pt[i] + "," + pv[i] + ")"; } // GlobalConnection is a singleton new SqlCommand(sql, GlobalConnection.Instance).ExecuteReader(); So far so good, but after a few days of this I then realized that a lot of this was just a more specific kind of a generic workflow which could be further abstracted, and instead of writing all of this boilerplate plumbing code I could just come up with a workflow and plug it into a workflow engine like Windows Workflow Foundation and have the users configure it: In order to support routing these configurations throw the workflow system, it seemed natural to implement generic XML Web Services for this instead of just using an XML file as above. I've used this code to implement the Web Services: public class VacationConfigurationService : WebService { [WebMethod] public void UpdateConfiguration(string xml) { // Above code goes here } } Which was pretty easy, although I'm still working on a way to validate that XML against some kind of schema as there's no error-checking yet. I also created a few different services for other operations like VacationSubmissionService, VacationReportService, VacationDataService, VacationAuthenticationService, etc. The whole Service Oriented Architecture looks like this: And because the workflow itself might change, I have been working on a way to integrate the WF workflow system with MS Visio, which everybody at the office already knows how to use so they could make changes pretty easily. We have a diagram that looks like the following (it's kind of hard to read but the main items are Activities, Authenticators, Validators, Transformers, Processors, and Data Connections, they're all analogous to the services in the SOA diagram above). The requirements for this system are: (Note - I don't control these, they were given to me by management) Main workflow must interface with Excel spreadsheet, probably through VBA macros (to ease the transition to the new system) Alerts should integrate with MS Outlook, Lotus Notes, and SMS (text messages). We also want to interface it with the company Voice Mail system but that is not a "hard" requirement. Performance requirements: Must handle 250,000 Transactions Per Second Should be able to handle up to 20,000 employees (right now we have 3) 99.99% uptime ("four nines") expected Must be secure against outside hacking, but users cannot be required to enter a username/password. Platforms: Must support Windows XP/Vista/7, Linux, iPhone, Blackberry, DOS 2.0, VAX, IRIX, PDP-11, Apple IIc. Time to complete: 6 to 8 weeks. My questions are: Is this a good design for the system so far? Am I using all of the recommended best practices for these technologies? How do I integrate the Visio diagram above with the Windows Workflow Foundation to call the ConfigurationService and persist workflow changes? Am I missing any important components? Will this be extensible enough to support any scenario via end-user configuration? Will the system scale to the above performance requirements? Will we need any expensive hardware to run it? Are there any "gotchas" I should know about with respect to cross-platform compatibility? For example would it be difficult to convert this to an iPhone app? How long would you expect this to take? (We've dedicated 1 week for testing so I'm thinking maybe 5 weeks?)

Read the article

Changes to JBoss web.xml have no effect

- by sixtyfootersdude

I just added this to my web.xml on my JBOSS server. But it had no effect. I am still allowed to connect to ports that do not use bi-directional certificate exchange. Anyone have an ideas?  <security-constraint>  <web-resource-collection>   <web-resource-name> Entire Application </web-resource-name>  <url-pattern> /* </url-pattern> </web-resource-collection>  <user-data-constraint>          <transport-guarantee> CONFIDENTIAL </transport-guarantee> </user-data-constraint> </security-constraint> <login-config>    <auth-method> CLIENT-CERT </auth-method> </login-config> Update Actually it appears that I have made an error in my original posting. The web.xml does block users from connecting to the webservice using http (port C below). However users are still allowed to connect to ports that do not force users to authenticate themselves (port B). I think that users should be able to connect to port A (it has clientAuth="true") but I dont think that people should be able to connect to port B (it has clientAuth="false"). Excerpt from server.xml <Connector port="<A>" ... SSLEnabled="true" ... scheme="https" secure="true" clientAuth="true" keystoreFile="... .keystore" keystorePass="pword" truststoreFile="... .keystore" truststorePass="pword" sslProtocol="TLS"/> <Connector port="<B>" ... SSLEnabled="true" ... scheme="https" secure="true" clientAuth="false" keystoreFile="... .keystore" keystorePass="pword" sslProtocol = "TLS" /> <Connector port="<C>" ... />

Read the article

RSA Encrypt / Decrypt Problem in .NET

- by Brendon Randall

I'm having a problem with C# encrypting and decrypting using RSA. I have developed a web service that will be sent sensitive financial information and transactions. What I would like to be able to do is on the client side, Encrypt the certain fields using the clients RSA Private key, once it has reached my service it will decrypt with the clients public key. At the moment I keep getting a "The data to be decrypted exceeds the maximum for this modulus of 128 bytes." exception. I have not dealt much with C# RSA cryptography so any help would be greatly appreciated. This is the method i am using to generate the keys private void buttonGenerate_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { string secretKey = RandomString(12, true); CspParameters param = new CspParameters(); param.Flags = CspProviderFlags.UseMachineKeyStore; SecureString secureString = new SecureString(); byte[] stringBytes = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(secretKey); for (int i = 0; i < stringBytes.Length; i++) { secureString.AppendChar((char)stringBytes[i]); } secureString.MakeReadOnly(); param.KeyPassword = secureString; RSACryptoServiceProvider rsaProvider = new RSACryptoServiceProvider(param); rsaProvider = (RSACryptoServiceProvider)RSACryptoServiceProvider.Create(); rsaProvider.KeySize = 1024; string publicKey = rsaProvider.ToXmlString(false); string privateKey = rsaProvider.ToXmlString(true); Repository.RSA_XML_PRIVATE_KEY = privateKey; Repository.RSA_XML_PUBLIC_KEY = publicKey; textBoxRsaPrivate.Text = Repository.RSA_XML_PRIVATE_KEY; textBoxRsaPublic.Text = Repository.RSA_XML_PUBLIC_KEY; MessageBox.Show("Please note, when generating keys you must sign on to the gateway\n" + " to exhange keys otherwise transactions will fail", "Key Exchange", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Information); } Once i have generated the keys, i send the public key to the web service which stores it as an XML file. Now i decided to test this so here is my method to encrypt a string public static string RsaEncrypt(string dataToEncrypt) { string rsaPrivate = RSA_XML_PRIVATE_KEY; CspParameters csp = new CspParameters(); csp.Flags = CspProviderFlags.UseMachineKeyStore; RSACryptoServiceProvider provider = new RSACryptoServiceProvider(csp); provider.FromXmlString(rsaPrivate); ASCIIEncoding enc = new ASCIIEncoding(); int numOfChars = enc.GetByteCount(dataToEncrypt); byte[] tempArray = enc.GetBytes(dataToEncrypt); byte[] result = provider.Encrypt(tempArray, true); string resultString = Convert.ToBase64String(result); Console.WriteLine("Encrypted : " + resultString); return resultString; } I do get what seems to be an encrypted value. In the test crypto web method that i created, i then take this encrypted data, try and decrypt the data using the clients public key and send this back in the clear. But this is where the exception is thrown. Here is my method responsible for this. public string DecryptRSA(string data, string merchantId) { string clearData = null; try { CspParameters param = new CspParameters(); param.Flags = CspProviderFlags.UseMachineKeyStore; RSACryptoServiceProvider rsaProvider = new RSACryptoServiceProvider(param); string merchantRsaPublic = GetXmlRsaKey(merchantId); rsaProvider.FromXmlString(merchantRsaPublic); byte[] asciiString = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(data); byte[] decryptedData = rsaProvider.Decrypt(asciiString, false); clearData = Convert.ToString(decryptedData); } catch (CryptographicException ex) { Log.Error("A cryptographic error occured trying to decrypt a value for " + merchantId, ex); } return clearData; } If anyone could help me that would be awesome, as i have said i have not done much with C# RSA encryption/decryption.

Read the article

Using SQLXML Bulk Load in .NET Environment - Error with One to Many relationship on Complex Type

- by user331111

Hi, I have an error when I am importing an XML file using SQLXMLBulkLoad, wondering if anyone could help. Error: Data mapping to column 'Attribute' was already found in the data. Make sure that no two schema definitions map to the same column Full files and details can be found here http://www.experts-exchange.com/Microsoft/Development/MS-SQL-Server/SQL-Server-2005/Q_26102239.html Exert from XSD: <sql:relationship name="EnvironmentDECAttributes" parent="Environment" parent-key="intEnvironmentID" child="DECAttributes" child-key="intEnvironmentID"/> <complexType name="Environment"> <sequence> <element name="ESANumber" minOccurs="0"> <annotation> <documentation> Environmentally Sensitive Area Number </documentation> </annotation> <simpleType> <restriction base="string"> <maxLength value="15"/> <whiteSpace value="collapse"/> </restriction> </simpleType> </element> <element name="Conditions" minOccurs="0" sql:relation="Conditions" sql:relationship="EnvironmentConditions"> <complexType> <sequence> <element name="Condition" type="vms:EnvironmentalConditions" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="5"/> </sequence> </complexType> </element> <element name="DECDistrict" minOccurs="0"> <annotation> <documentation> Department of Environment & Conservation District </documentation> </annotation> <simpleType> <restriction base="string"> <maxLength value="31"/> <whiteSpace value="collapse"/> </restriction> </simpleType> </element> <element name="DECAttributes" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" sql:relation="DECAttributes" sql:relationship="EnvironmentDECAttributes"> <complexType> <sequence> <element name="Attribute" type="vms:DECAttributes" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded" sql:field="Attribute"> <annotation> <documentation> Department of Environment & Conservation attributes. </documentation> </annotation> </element> </sequence> </complexType> </element> </sequence> </complexType> Exert from XML: <Environment> <DECAttributes> <Attribute>WA</Attribute> <Attribute>SA</Attribute> </DECAttributes> </Environment> Any help/ comments would be appreciated Thanks C

Read the article

Asp.net MVC/Silverlight and Sharepoint 2010 integration

- by Robert Koritnik

Just a sidenote: I'm not sure whether I should post this to serverfault as well, because some MOSS admin may have some info for me as well? Additional note 1: I've found this document (Asp.net MVC 2 & Sharepoint integration) if anybody with sufficient expirience is willing to comment on its content whether this can be used in my described scenario or not. Additional note 2: I've discovered (later) that Silverlight is supported in Sharepoint 2010 so I'm considering it as well. So if anyone would comment on silverlight integration as well. A bit of explanation first (without Asp.net MVC/Silverlight) Is it possible to integrate the two? Is it possible to write an application that would share at least credential information with MOSS? I have to write a MOSS application that has to do with these technologies: MOSS 2010 Personal client certificates authentication (most probably on USB keys) Active Directory Federation Services Separate SQL DB that would serve application specific data (separate as not being part of MOSS DB) How should it work? Users should authenticate using personal certificates into MOSS 2010 There would be a certain part of MOSS that would be related to my custom application This application should only authorize certain users via AD FS - I guess these users should have a certain security claim attached to them This application should manage users (that have access to this app) with additional (app specific) security claims related to this application (as additional application level authorization rights for individual application parts) This application should use custom SQL 2008 DB heavily with its own data This application should have the possibility to integrate with external systems as well (Exchange for instance to inject calendar entries, ERP systems etc) This application should be able to export its data (from its DB) to files. I don't know if it's possible, but it would be nice if the app could add these files to MOSS and attach authorization info to them so only users with sufficient rights would be able to view/open these files. Why Asp.net MVC/Silverlight then? I'm very well versed in Asp.net MVC (also with the latest version) and I haven't done anything on Sharepoint since version 2003 (which doesn't do me no good or prepare me for the latest version in any way shape or form). This project will most probably be a death march project so I would rather write my application as a UI rich Asp.net MVC application and somehow integrate it into MOSS. But not only via a link, because I would like to at least share credentials, so users wouldn't need to re-login when accessing my app. Using Asp.net MVC I would at least have the possibility to finish on time or be less death marching. Is this at all possible? I haven't done any serious project using SIlverlight, but I will sooner or later have to. So I'm also considering a jump into it at this moment, because it still might make this application development easier than strict Sharepoint 2010. Questions Is it possible to integrate Asp.net MVC/Silverlight into MOSS as described above? If integration is not possible, would it be possible to create a completely MOSS based application that would work as described? Which parts of MOSS 2010 should I use to accomplish what I need?

Read the article

Parsing a Directory of files - Check for a String

- by i.h4d35

This is my first post here so kindly pardon any mistakes that I have. I'm still learning to find my way around Stack Exchange. I am trying to write a Java program that tries to scan a Directory full of either .txt,.rtf or.doc files(and none other). The aim is to search all the files in the directory, and find out if a particular string exists in the file. If it does, it returns the string and the filename that it found the string in. The aim of this program is, it is a project for school wherein the program scans the personal folders of call center employees to check if they have stored any CC/DC nos and if yes, report the folder name - to reduce CC fraud. The search function was fairly straight forward and works when I individually specify the filename. However, the searching the directory and passing the files to the search function has me stumped. I've posted my code so far, if you guys could look thru it and give me some feedback/suggestions, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks in advance import java.io.*; import java.util.*; public class parse2{ void traverse(String directory) throws FileNotFoundException { File dir = new File(directory); if (dir.isDirectory()) { String[] children = dir.list(); for (int i=0; i<children.length; i++) { //System.out.println("\n" + children[i]); reader(children[i]); } } } void reader(String loc) throws FileNotFoundException { FileReader fr = new FileReader(loc); BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(fr); Scanner sc = new Scanner(br); char[] chkArray; int chk=1; char ch; while(sc.hasNext()) { String chkStr = sc.next(); chkArray = chkStr.toCharArray(); if ((chkArray[0]=='4')&&(chkStr.length()>13)) { for(int i=0;i<chkArray.length;i++) { ch=chkArray[i]; if((ch=='0')||(ch=='1')||(ch=='2')||(ch=='3')||(ch=='4')||(ch=='5')||(ch=='6')||(ch=='7')||(ch=='8')||(ch=='9')) { chk=0; continue; } else { chk=1; break; } } if(chk==0) System.out.println("\n"+ chkStr); } else if((chkArray[0]=='5')&&(chkStr.length()>13)) { for(int i=0;i<chkArray.length;i++) { ch=chkArray[i]; if((ch=='0')||(ch=='1')||(ch=='2')||(ch=='3')||(ch=='4')||(ch=='5')||(ch=='6')||(ch=='7')||(ch=='8')||(ch=='9')) { chk=0; continue; } else { chk=1; break; } } if(chk==0) System.out.println("\n"+ chkStr); } else if((chkArray[0]=='6')&&(chkStr.length()>13)) { for(int i=0;i<chkArray.length;i++) { ch=chkArray[i]; if((ch=='0')||(ch=='1')||(ch=='2')||(ch=='3')||(ch=='4')||(ch=='5')||(ch=='6')||(ch=='7')||(ch=='8')||(ch=='9')) { chk=0; continue; } else { chk=1; break; } } if(chk==0) System.out.println("\n"+ chkStr); } } } public static void main(String args[]) throws FileNotFoundException { parse2 P = new parse2(); P.traverse("C:/Documents and Settings/h4d35/Desktop/javatest/chk"); } }

Read the article

C# RSA Encrypt / Decrypt Problem

- by Brendon Randall

Hi All, Im having a problem with C# encrypting and decrypting using RSA. I have developed a web service that will be sent sensitive financial information and transactions. What I would like to be able to do is on the client side, Encrypt the certain fields using the clients RSA Private key, once it has reached my service it will decrypt with the clients public key. At the moment I keep getting a "The data to be decrypted exceeds the maximum for this modulus of 128 bytes." exception. I have not dealt much with C# RSA cryptography so any help would be greatly appreciated. This is the method i am using to generate the keys private void buttonGenerate_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { string secretKey = RandomString(12, true); CspParameters param = new CspParameters(); param.Flags = CspProviderFlags.UseMachineKeyStore; SecureString secureString = new SecureString(); byte[] stringBytes = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(secretKey); for (int i = 0; i < stringBytes.Length; i++) { secureString.AppendChar((char)stringBytes[i]); } secureString.MakeReadOnly(); param.KeyPassword = secureString; RSACryptoServiceProvider rsaProvider = new RSACryptoServiceProvider(param); rsaProvider = (RSACryptoServiceProvider)RSACryptoServiceProvider.Create(); rsaProvider.KeySize = 1024; string publicKey = rsaProvider.ToXmlString(false); string privateKey = rsaProvider.ToXmlString(true); Repository.RSA_XML_PRIVATE_KEY = privateKey; Repository.RSA_XML_PUBLIC_KEY = publicKey; textBoxRsaPrivate.Text = Repository.RSA_XML_PRIVATE_KEY; textBoxRsaPublic.Text = Repository.RSA_XML_PUBLIC_KEY; MessageBox.Show("Please note, when generating keys you must sign on to the gateway\n" + " to exhange keys otherwise transactions will fail", "Key Exchange", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Information); } Once i have generated the keys, i send the public key to the web service which stores it as an XML file. Now i decided to test this so here is my method to encrypt a string public static string RsaEncrypt(string dataToEncrypt) { string rsaPrivate = RSA_XML_PRIVATE_KEY; CspParameters csp = new CspParameters(); csp.Flags = CspProviderFlags.UseMachineKeyStore; RSACryptoServiceProvider provider = new RSACryptoServiceProvider(csp); provider.FromXmlString(rsaPrivate); ASCIIEncoding enc = new ASCIIEncoding(); int numOfChars = enc.GetByteCount(dataToEncrypt); byte[] tempArray = enc.GetBytes(dataToEncrypt); byte[] result = provider.Encrypt(tempArray, true); string resultString = Convert.ToBase64String(result); Console.WriteLine("Encrypted : " + resultString); return resultString; } I do get what seems to be an encrypted value. In the test crypto web method that i created, i then take this encrypted data, try and decrypt the data using the clients public key and send this back in the clear. But this is where the exception is thrown. Here is my method responsible for this. public string DecryptRSA(string data, string merchantId) { string clearData = null; try { CspParameters param = new CspParameters(); param.Flags = CspProviderFlags.UseMachineKeyStore; RSACryptoServiceProvider rsaProvider = new RSACryptoServiceProvider(param); string merchantRsaPublic = GetXmlRsaKey(merchantId); rsaProvider.FromXmlString(merchantRsaPublic); byte[] asciiString = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(data); byte[] decryptedData = rsaProvider.Decrypt(asciiString, false); clearData = Convert.ToString(decryptedData); } catch (CryptographicException ex) { Log.Error("A cryptographic error occured trying to decrypt a value for " + merchantId, ex); } return clearData; If anyone could help me that would be awesome, as i have said i have not done much with C# RSA encryption/decryption. Thanks in advance

Read the article

JavaMail - javax.mail.MessagingException

- by legendofawesomeness

I am trying to write a simple mail sender class that would receive a bunch of arguments and using those will send an email out using our Exchange 2010 server. While authentication etc. seem to work fine, I am getting the following exception when the code is actually trying to send the email (I think). I have ensured that the authentication is working and I get a transport back from the session, but still it fails. Could anyone shed some like on what I am doing wrong or missing? Thanks. Exception: javax.mail.MessagingException: [EOF] at com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPTransport.issueCommand(SMTPTransport.java:1481) at com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPTransport.issueSendCommand(SMTPTransport.java:1512) at com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPTransport.mailFrom(SMTPTransport.java:1054) at com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPTransport.sendMessage(SMTPTransport.java:634) at javax.mail.Transport.send0(Transport.java:189) at javax.mail.Transport.send(Transport.java:140) at com.ri.common.mail.util.MailSender.sendHTMLEmail(MailSender.java:75) at com.ri.common.mail.util.MailSender.main(MailSender.java:106) Relevant code: import java.util.Properties; import javax.mail.Authenticator; import javax.mail.Message; import javax.mail.MessagingException; import javax.mail.PasswordAuthentication; import javax.mail.Session; import javax.mail.Transport; import javax.mail.internet.InternetAddress; import javax.mail.internet.MimeMessage; public class MailSender { public static void sendHTMLEmail( String fromEmailId, String toEmailId, String host, String hostUserName, String hostPassword, String mailSubject, String mailBody ) { // Get system properties. Properties props = System.getProperties(); // Setup mail server props.put( "mail.transport.protocol", "smtp" ); props.put( "mail.smtp.host", host ); props.put( "mail.smtp.auth", "true" ); final String hostUName = hostUserName; final String hPassword = hostPassword; Authenticator authenticator = new Authenticator() { protected PasswordAuthentication getPasswordAuthentication() { return new PasswordAuthentication( hostUName, hPassword ); } }; // Get the default Session object. Session session = Session.getDefaultInstance( props, authenticator ); try { // Create a default MimeMessage object. MimeMessage message = new MimeMessage( session ); // Set From: header field of the header. message.setFrom( new InternetAddress( fromEmailId ) ); // Set To: header field of the header. message.addRecipient( Message.RecipientType.TO, new InternetAddress( toEmailId ) ); // Set Subject: header field message.setSubject( mailSubject ); // Send the actual HTML message, as big as you like message.setContent( mailBody, "text/html" ); // Send message Transport.send( message, message.getAllRecipients() ); System.out.println( "Sent message successfully...." ); } catch( Exception mex ) { mex.printStackTrace(); } } public static void main( String[] args ) { String to = "[email protected]"; String from = "[email protected]"; String host = "correctHostForExch2010"; String user = "correctUser"; String password = "CorrectPassword"; String subject = "Test Email"; String body = "Hi there. This is a test email!"; MailSender.sendHTMLEmail( from, to, host, user, password, subject, body ); } } EDIT: I turned on debugging and it says MAIL FROM:<[email protected]> 530 5.7.1 Client was not authenticated DEBUG SMTP: got response code 530, with response: 530 5.7.1 Client was not authenticated. Why would that be when the session authentication succeded?

Read the article

Explain the Peak and Flag Algorithm

- by Isaac Levin

EDIT Just was pointed that the requirements state peaks cannot be ends of Arrays. So I ran across this site http://codility.com/ Which gives you programming problems and gives you certificates if you can solve them in 2 hours. The very first question is one I have seen before, typically called the Peaks and Flags question. If you are not familiar A non-empty zero-indexed array A consisting of N integers is given. A peak is an array element which is larger than its neighbours. More precisely, it is an index P such that 0 < P < N - 1 and A[P - 1] < A[P] A[P + 1] . For example, the following array A: A[0] = 1 A[1] = 5 A[2] = 3 A[3] = 4 A[4] = 3 A[5] = 4 A[6] = 1 A[7] = 2 A[8] = 3 A[9] = 4 A[10] = 6 A[11] = 2 has exactly four peaks: elements 1, 3, 5 and 10. You are going on a trip to a range of mountains whose relative heights are represented by array A. You have to choose how many flags you should take with you. The goal is to set the maximum number of flags on the peaks, according to certain rules. Flags can only be set on peaks. What's more, if you take K flags, then the distance between any two flags should be greater than or equal to K. The distance between indices P and Q is the absolute value |P - Q|. For example, given the mountain range represented by array A, above, with N = 12, if you take: two flags, you can set them on peaks 1 and 5; three flags, you can set them on peaks 1, 5 and 10; four flags, you can set only three flags, on peaks 1, 5 and 10. You can therefore set a maximum of three flags in this case. Write a function that, given a non-empty zero-indexed array A of N integers, returns the maximum number of flags that can be set on the peaks of the array. For example, given the array above the function should return 3, as explained above. Assume that: N is an integer within the range [1..100,000]; each element of array A is an integer within the range [0..1,000,000,000]. Complexity: expected worst-case time complexity is O(N); expected worst-case space complexity is O(N), beyond input storage (not counting the storage required for input arguments). Elements of input arrays can be modified. So this makes sense, but I failed it using this code public int GetFlags(int[] A) { List<int> peakList = new List<int>(); for (int i = 0; i <= A.Length - 1; i++) { if ((A[i] > A[i + 1] && A[i] > A[i - 1])) { peakList.Add(i); } } List<int> flagList = new List<int>(); int distance = peakList.Count; flagList.Add(peakList[0]); for (int i = 1, j = 0, max = peakList.Count; i < max; i++) { if (Math.Abs(Convert.ToDecimal(peakList[j]) - Convert.ToDecimal(peakList[i])) >= distance) { flagList.Add(peakList[i]); j = i; } } return flagList.Count; } EDIT int[] A = new int[] { 7, 10, 4, 5, 7, 4, 6, 1, 4, 3, 3, 7 }; The correct answer is 3, but my application says 2 This I do not get, since there are 4 peaks (indices 1,4,6,8) and from that, you should be able to place a flag at 2 of the peaks (1 and 6) Am I missing something here? Obviously my assumption is that the beginning or end of an Array can be a peak, is this not the case? If this needs to go in Stack Exchange Programmers, I will move it, but thought dialog here would be helpful. EDIT

Read the article

Lock-Free, Wait-Free and Wait-freedom algorithms for non-blocking multi-thread synchronization.

- by GJ

In multi thread programming we can find different terms for data transfer synchronization between two or more threads/tasks. When exactly we can say that some algorithem is: 1)Lock-Free 2)Wait-Free 3)Wait-Freedom I understand what means Lock-free but when we can say that some synchronization algorithm is Wait-Free or Wait-Freedom? I have made some code (ring buffer) for multi-thread synchronization and it use Lock-Free methods but: 1) Algorithm predicts maximum execution time of this routine. 2) Therad which call this routine at beginning set unique reference, what mean that is inside of this routine. 3) Other threads which are calling the same routine check this reference and if is set than count the CPU tick count (measure time) of first involved thread. If that time is to long interrupt the current work of involved thread and overrides him job. 4) Thread which not finished job because was interrupted from task scheduler (is reposed) at the end check the reference if not belongs to him repeat the job again. So this algorithm is not really Lock-free but there is no memory lock in use, and other involved threads can wait (or not) certain time before overide the job of reposed thread. Added RingBuffer.InsertLeft function: function TgjRingBuffer.InsertLeft(const link: pointer): integer; var AtStartReference: cardinal; CPUTimeStamp : int64; CurrentLeft : pointer; CurrentReference: cardinal; NewLeft : PReferencedPtr; Reference : cardinal; label TryAgain; begin Reference := GetThreadId + 1; //Reference.bit0 := 1 with rbRingBuffer^ do begin TryAgain: //Set Left.Reference with respect to all other cores :) CPUTimeStamp := GetCPUTimeStamp + LoopTicks; AtStartReference := Left.Reference OR 1; //Reference.bit0 := 1 repeat CurrentReference := Left.Reference; until (CurrentReference AND 1 = 0)or (GetCPUTimeStamp - CPUTimeStamp > 0); //No threads present in ring buffer or current thread timeout if ((CurrentReference AND 1 <> 0) and (AtStartReference <> CurrentReference)) or not CAS32(CurrentReference, Reference, Left.Reference) then goto TryAgain; //Calculate RingBuffer NewLeft address CurrentLeft := Left.Link; NewLeft := pointer(cardinal(CurrentLeft) - SizeOf(TReferencedPtr)); if cardinal(NewLeft) < cardinal(@Buffer) then NewLeft := EndBuffer; //Calcolate distance result := integer(Right.Link) - Integer(NewLeft); //Check buffer full if result = 0 then //Clear Reference if task still own reference if CAS32(Reference, 0, Left.Reference) then Exit else goto TryAgain; //Set NewLeft.Reference NewLeft^.Reference := Reference; SFence; //Try to set link and try to exchange NewLeft and clear Reference if task own reference if (Reference <> Left.Reference) or not CAS64(NewLeft^.Link, Reference, link, Reference, NewLeft^) or not CAS64(CurrentLeft, Reference, NewLeft, 0, Left) then goto TryAgain; //Calcolate result if result < 0 then result := Length - integer(cardinal(not Result) div SizeOf(TReferencedPtr)) else result := cardinal(result) div SizeOf(TReferencedPtr); end; //with end; { TgjRingBuffer.InsertLeft } RingBuffer unit you can find here: RingBuffer, CAS functions: FockFreePrimitives, and test program: RingBufferFlowTest Thanks in advance, GJ

Read the article

Modelling boost::Lockable with semaphore rather than mutex (previously titled: Unlocking a mutex fr

- by dan

I'm using the C++ boost::thread library, which in my case means I'm using pthreads. Officially, a mutex must be unlocked from the same thread which locks it, and I want the effect of being able to lock in one thread and then unlock in another. There are many ways to accomplish this. One possibility would be to write a new mutex class which allows this behavior. For example: class inter_thread_mutex{ bool locked; boost::mutex mx; boost::condition_variable cv; public: void lock(){ boost::unique_lock<boost::mutex> lck(mx); while(locked) cv.wait(lck); locked=true; } void unlock(){ { boost::lock_guard<boost::mutex> lck(mx); if(!locked) error(); locked=false; } cv.notify_one(); } // bool try_lock(); void error(); etc. } I should point out that the above code doesn't guarantee FIFO access, since if one thread calls lock() while another calls unlock(), this first thread may acquire the lock ahead of other threads which are waiting. (Come to think of it, the boost::thread documentation doesn't appear to make any explicit scheduling guarantees for either mutexes or condition variables). But let's just ignore that (and any other bugs) for now. My question is, if I decide to go this route, would I be able to use such a mutex as a model for the boost Lockable concept. For example, would anything go wrong if I use a boost::unique_lock< inter_thread_mutex for RAII-style access, and then pass this lock to boost::condition_variable_any.wait(), etc. On one hand I don't see why not. On the other hand, "I don't see why not" is usually a very bad way of determining whether something will work. The reason I ask is that if it turns out that I have to write wrapper classes for RAII locks and condition variables and whatever else, then I'd rather just find some other way to achieve the same effect. EDIT: The kind of behavior I want is basically as follows. I have an object, and it needs to be locked whenever it is modified. I want to lock the object from one thread, and do some work on it. Then I want to keep the object locked while I tell another worker thread to complete the work. So the first thread can go on and do something else while the worker thread finishes up. When the worker thread gets done, it unlocks the mutex. And I want the transition to be seemless so nobody else can get the mutex lock in between when thread 1 starts the work and thread 2 completes it. Something like inter_thread_mutex seems like it would work, and it would also allow the program to interact with it as if it were an ordinary mutex. So it seems like a clean solution. If there's a better solution, I'd be happy to hear that also. EDIT AGAIN: The reason I need locks to begin with is that there are multiple master threads, and the locks are there to prevent them from accessing shared objects concurrently in invalid ways. So the code already uses loop-level lock-free sequencing of operations at the master thread level. Also, in the original implementation, there were no worker threads, and the mutexes were ordinary kosher mutexes. The inter_thread_thingy came up as an optimization, primarily to improve response time. In many cases, it was sufficient to guarantee that the "first part" of operation A, occurs before the "first part" of operation B. As a dumb example, say I punch object 1 and give it a black eye. Then I tell object 1 to change it's internal structure to reflect all the tissue damage. I don't want to wait around for the tissue damage before I move on to punch object 2. However, I do want the tissue damage to occur as part of the same operation; for example, in the interim, I don't want any other thread to reconfigure the object in such a way that would make tissue damage an invalid operation. (yes, this example is imperfect in many ways, and no I'm not working on a game) So we made the change to a model where ownership of an object can be passed to a worker thread to complete an operation, and it actually works quite nicely; each master thread is able to get a lot more operations done because it doesn't need to wait for them all to complete. And, since the event sequencing at the master thread level is still loop-based, it is easy to write high-level master-thread operations, as they can be based on the assumption that an operation is complete when the corresponding function call returns. Finally, I thought it would be nice to use inter_thread mutex/semaphore thingies using RAII with boost locks to encapsulate the necessary synchronization that is required to make the whole thing work.

Read the article

OpenID and Iframes

- by Phood

hey guys, I'm having a little bit of trouble making OpenID work from within an iframe. basically I have some heavy handed content loaded on the main page and I want to build a log in system where the page doesn't need to be reloaded (and thus reload all of that content again). I fell in love with OpenID from using stack exchange websites, and have intergrated it relatively well into other projects. I feel to do what I want to do I would like to try and use an iframe (because new windows make me cry), however I have stumbled at some form of hurdle somewhere near the middle and for the life of me can't work out whats going on... basically I have a form in a jQuery generated DIV and openID form that seems to work to dynamically load an iframe. something along these lines: <script type="text/javascript"> contentboxs = 0; function contentbox() { if (contentboxs == 0){ $('#mainpage').append("<div id='contentbox'><div style='clear:both;' id='oritext'></div><div id='f_content'><iframe src ='' name='framedcontent' width='580' height='600' scrolling='false'></iframe></div></div>"); $('#f_content').hide(); contentboxs++; } else { $('#contentbox-wipe').remove(); $('#contentbox').remove(); contentboxs--; } } function loginpanel(){ contentbox(); if (contentboxs == 1){ $('#oritext').append("<form method='post' action='login.php' name='oidform' target='framedcontent'>Please Select your OpenID Provider: <br/><input type='text' name=\"id\" id='openidbox' /><br /><input type='submit' name='submit' value='Log In' onclick='loginsubmit();' ></form>"); } } function loginsubmit() { $('#oritext').html(''); $('#contentbox').animate({'height':'600px', 'width':'700px', 'margin-top' : '-300px', 'margin-left' : '-350px'},500, 'linear', function() { $('#f_content').show(); }); } </script> <a href='javascript:loginpanel();'>login</a> and as far as I can tell this all works fine. my problem comes in my re-direction to the openID remote sites (again doing it with JS along these lines:) echo("<div><p><center>Redirecting...</center></div>"); echo "<script type='text/javascript'> function delayer() { this.location = '".$url."' } setTimeout('delayer()', 3000) </script>"; sorry this is a bit long winded, but here is my problem (finally): this works fine for some of the OID sites that I have tried, but some are giving me problems: Google won't load at all, Yahoo and mySpace open fine in the iframe then instantly redirect the full window to the home page and the OID page respectively, and wordpress returns an error. I'm assuming that this is a counter measure put in place to stop me stealing login details (thats not what i'm trying to achieve btw, hence the preamble), and thats fair enough, but still bloody aggravating. is there any thing here that i'm doing retardedly, is there some way round this, and if neither of the above, is my only other options to create new windows or build my own login/registration. If you have got this far thank you very much for your time, and I hope you didn't mind too much the spelling mistakes.

Read the article

3-way quicksort, question

- by peiska

I am trying to understand the 3-way radix Quicksort, and i dont understand why the the CUTOFF variable there? and the insertion method? public class Quick3string { private static final int CUTOFF = 15; // cutoff to insertion sort // sort the array a[] of strings public static void sort(String[] a) { // StdRandom.shuffle(a); sort(a, 0, a.length-1, 0); assert isSorted(a); } // return the dth character of s, -1 if d = length of s private static int charAt(String s, int d) { assert d >= 0 && d <= s.length(); if (d == s.length()) return -1; return s.charAt(d); } // 3-way string quicksort a[lo..hi] starting at dth character private static void sort(String[] a, int lo, int hi, int d) { // cutoff to insertion sort for small subarrays if (hi <= lo + CUTOFF) { insertion(a, lo, hi, d); return; } int lt = lo, gt = hi; int v = charAt(a[lo], d); int i = lo + 1; while (i <= gt) { int t = charAt(a[i], d); if (t < v) exch(a, lt++, i++); else if (t > v) exch(a, i, gt--); else i++; } // a[lo..lt-1] < v = a[lt..gt] < a[gt+1..hi]. sort(a, lo, lt-1, d); if (v >= 0) sort(a, lt, gt, d+1); sort(a, gt+1, hi, d); } // sort from a[lo] to a[hi], starting at the dth character private static void insertion(String[] a, int lo, int hi, int d) { for (int i = lo; i <= hi; i++) for (int j = i; j > lo && less(a[j], a[j-1], d); j--) exch(a, j, j-1); } // exchange a[i] and a[j] private static void exch(String[] a, int i, int j) { String temp = a[i]; a[i] = a[j]; a[j] = temp; } // is v less than w, starting at character d private static boolean less(String v, String w, int d) { assert v.substring(0, d).equals(w.substring(0, d)); return v.substring(d).compareTo(w.substring(d)) < 0; } // is the array sorted private static boolean isSorted(String[] a) { for (int i = 1; i < a.length; i++) if (a[i].compareTo(a[i-1]) < 0) return false; return true; } public static void main(String[] args) { // read in the strings from standard input String[] a = StdIn.readAll().split("\\s+"); int N = a.length; // sort the strings sort(a); // print the results for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) StdOut.println(a[i]); } } from http://www.cs.princeton.edu/algs4/51radix/Quick3string.java.html

Read the article

nivo slider and drop down menu doesnt work in IE

- by venom

Does anyone has any idea why drop down menu in IE disappear under nivo slider? tried to play with z-index, didn't help, i also know that drop down menus dissappear under flash content, but this is not the case(wmode=transparent) as far as i know the nivo slider uses just jquery, no flash. here is the html: <table> <tr height="50"><td colspan="2" align="right" class="bottom_menu"> <ul id="nav" class="dropdown dropdown-horizontal" > <li><a href="/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.logout" class="dir" style="border:0 !important;" >Çikis</a></li> <li><a href="/index.cfm?fuseaction=objects2.list_basket" class="dir">Sepetim</a></li> <li><a href="/index.cfm?fuseaction=objects2.me" class="dir">Sirketim</a> <ul> <li><a href="/index.cfm?fuseaction=objects2.list_opportunities">Firsatlar</a></li> <li><a href="/index.cfm?fuseaction=objects2.form_add_partner">Sirkete Kullanici Ekle</a></li> <li><a href="/index.cfm?fuseaction=objects2.form_upd_my_company">Kullanici Yönetimi</a></li> <li><a href="/index.cfm?fuseaction=objects2.list_analyses">Analizler</a></li> <li><a href="/index.cfm?fuseaction=objects2.list_extre">Hesap Ekstresi</a></li> <li><a href="/index.cfm?fuseaction=objects2.popup_add_online_pos" target="_blank">Sanal Pos</a></li> </ul> </li> </ul> </td></tr> </table> <div id="banner"> <img src="/documents/templates/projedepo/l_top.gif" style="z-index:1;position:absolute; left:0; top:0;" width="24px" height="24px" border="0" /> <img src="/documents/templates/projedepo/r_top.gif" style="z-index:1;position:absolute; right:0; top:0;" width="24px" height="24px" border="0" /> <img src="/documents/templates/projedepo/l_bottom.gif" style="z-index:1;position:absolute; left:0; bottom:0;" width="24px" height="24px" border="0" /> <img src="/documents/templates/projedepo/r_bottom.gif" style="z-index:1;position:absolute; right:0; bottom:0;" width="24px" height="24px" border="0" /> <div class="banner_img"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="/documents/templates/projedepo/banner/nivo-slider.css" type="text/css" media="screen" /> <link rel="stylesheet" href="/documents/templates/projedepo/banner/style.css" type="text/css" media="screen" /> <div id="slider" class="nivoSlider"> <img title="#1" src="/documents/templates/projedepo/banner/canon.jpg" alt="" /> <img title="#2" src="/documents/templates/projedepo/banner/indigovision.jpg" alt="" /> </div> <div id="1" class="nivo-html-caption"> <a href="/index.cfm?fuseaction=objects2.detail_product&product_id=612&stock_id=612"><img src="/documents/templates/projedepo/banner/daha_fazlasi.jpg" border="0" /></a> </div> <div id="2" class="nivo-html-caption"> <a href="/index.cfm?fuseaction=objects2.detail_product&product_id=630&stock_id=630"><img src="/documents/templates/projedepo/banner/daha_fazlasi.jpg" border="0" /></a> </div> <script type="text/javascript" src="/JS/jquery.nivo.slider.pack.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> $(window).load(function() { $('#slider').nivoSlider({ effect:'random', //Specify sets like: 'fold,fade,sliceDown' slices:15, animSpeed:1000, //Slide transition speed pauseTime:10000, startSlide:0, //Set starting Slide (0 index) directionNav:true, //Next & Prev directionNavHide:true, //Only show on hover controlNav:true, //1,2,3... controlNavThumbs:false, //Use thumbnails for Control Nav controlNavThumbsFromRel:false, //Use image rel for thumbs controlNavThumbsSearch: '.jpg', //Replace this with... controlNavThumbsReplace: '_thumb.jpg', //...this in thumb Image src keyboardNav:true, //Use left & right arrows pauseOnHover:true, //Stop animation while hovering manualAdvance:false, //Force manual transitions captionOpacity:1.0, //Universal caption opacity beforeChange: function(){}, afterChange: function(){}, slideshowEnd: function(){}, //Triggers after all slides have been shown lastSlide: function(){}, //Triggers when last slide is shown afterLoad: function(){} //Triggers when slider has loaded }); }); </script> </div> </div> Here is css for dropdown menu: http://www.micae.com/documents/templates/projedepo/default.css http://www.micae.com/documents/templates/projedepo/default.advanced.css http://www.micae.com/documents/templates/projedepo/dropdown.css and for nivo slider: http://www.micae.com/documents/templates/projedepo/banner/style.css http://www.micae.com/documents/templates/projedepo/banner/nivo-slider.css and for banner divs: #banner { position:relative; width:980px; height:435px; background:#fff; margin-bottom:20px; margin-top:-1px; color:#000; z-index:60; } .banner_img { padding:8px;position:absolute;z-index:2; } and the javascript by default, jquery and nivo slider http://www.micae.com/JS/jquery.nivo.slider.pack.js

Read the article

Resumable upload from Java client to Grails web application?

- by dersteps

After almost 2 workdays of Googling and trying several different possibilities I found throughout the web, I'm asking this question here, hoping that I might finally get an answer. First of all, here's what I want to do: I'm developing a client and a server application with the purpose of exchanging a lot of large files between multiple clients on a single server. The client is developed in pure Java (JDK 1.6), while the web application is done in Grails (2.0.0). As the purpose of the client is to allow users to exchange a lot of large files (usually about 2GB each), I have to implement it in a way, so that the uploads are resumable, i.e. the users are able to stop and resume uploads at any time. Here's what I did so far: I actually managed to do what I wanted to do and stream large files to the server while still being able to pause and resume uploads using raw sockets. I would send a regular request to the server (using Apache's HttpClient library) to get the server to send me a port that was free for me to use, then open a ServerSocket on the server and connect to that particular socket from the client. Here's the problem with that: Actually, there are at least two problems with that: I open those ports myself, so I have to manage open and used ports myself. This is quite error-prone. I actually circumvent Grails' ability to manage a huge amount of (concurrent) connections. Finally, here's what I'm supposed to do now and the problem: As the problems I mentioned above are unacceptable, I am now supposed to use Java's URLConnection/HttpURLConnection classes, while still sticking to Grails. Connecting to the server and sending simple requests is no problem at all, everything worked fine. The problems started when I tried to use the streams (the connection's OutputStream in the client and the request's InputStream in the server). Opening the client's OutputStream and writing data to it is as easy as it gets. But reading from the request's InputStream seems impossible to me, as that stream is always empty, as it seems. Example Code Here's an example of the server side (Groovy controller): def test() { InputStream inStream = request.inputStream if(inStream != null) { int read = 0; byte[] buffer = new byte[4096]; long total = 0; println "Start reading" while((read = inStream.read(buffer)) != -1) { println "Read " + read + " bytes from input stream buffer" //<-- this is NEVER called } println "Reading finished" println "Read a total of " + total + " bytes" // <-- 'total' will always be 0 (zero) } else { println "Input Stream is null" // <-- This is NEVER called } } This is what I did on the client side (Java class): public void connect() { final URL url = new URL("myserveraddress"); final byte[] message = "someMessage".getBytes(); // Any byte[] - will be a file one day HttpURLConnection connection = url.openConnection(); connection.setRequestMethod("GET"); // other methods - same result // Write message DataOutputStream out = new DataOutputStream(connection.getOutputStream()); out.writeBytes(message); out.flush(); out.close(); // Actually connect connection.connect(); // is this placed correctly? // Get response BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(connection.getInputStream())); String line = null; while((line = in.readLine()) != null) { System.out.println(line); // Prints the whole server response as expected } in.close(); } As I mentioned, the problem is that request.inputStream always yields an empty InputStream, so I am never able to read anything from it (of course). But as that is exactly what I'm trying to do (so I can stream the file to be uploaded to the server, read from the InputStream and save it to a file), this is rather disappointing. I tried different HTTP methods, different data payloads, and also rearranged the code over and over again, but did not seem to be able to solve the problem. What I hope to find I hope to find a solution to my problem, of course. Anything is highly appreciated: hints, code snippets, library suggestions and so on. Maybe I'm even having it all wrong and need to go in a totally different direction. So, how can I implement resumable file uploads for rather large (binary) files from a Java client to a Grails web application without manually opening ports on the server side?

Read the article

PHP database selection issue

- by Citroenfris

I'm in a bit of a pickle with freshening up my PHP a bit, it's been about 3 years since I last coded in PHP. Any insights are welcomed! I'll give you as much information as I possibly can to resolve this error so here goes! Files config.php database.php news.php BLnews.php index.php Includes config.php - news.php database.php - news.php news.php - BLnews.php BLnews.php - index.php Now the problem with my current code is that the database connection is being made but my database refuses to be selected. The query I have should work but due to my database not getting selected it's kind of annoying to get any data exchange going! database.php <?php class Database { //------------------------------------------- // Connects to the database //------------------------------------------- function connect() { if (isset($dbhost) && isset($dbuser) && isset($dbpass)) { $con = mysql_connect($dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpass) or die("Could not connect: " . mysql_error()); } }// end function connect function selectDB() { if (isset($dbname) && isset($con)) { $selected_db = mysql_select_db($dbname, $con) or die("Could not select test DB"); } } } // end class Database ?> News.php <?php // include the config file and database class include 'config.php'; include 'database.php'; ... ?> BLnews.php <?php // include the news class include 'news.php'; // create an instance of the Database class and call it $db $db = new Database; $db -> connect(); $db->selectDB(); class BLnews { function getNews() { $sql = "SELECT * FROM news"; if (isset($sql)) { $result = mysql_query($sql) or die("Could not execute query. Reason: " .mysql_error()); } return $result; } ?> index.php <?php ... include 'includes/BLnews.php'; $blNews = new BLnews(); $news = $blNews->getNews(); ?> ... <?php while($row = mysql_fetch_array($news)) { echo '<div class="post">'; echo '<h2><a href="#"> ' . $row["title"] .'</a></h2>'; echo '<p class="post-info">Posted by <a href="#"> </a> | <span class="date"> Posted on <a href="#">' . $row["date"] . '</a></span></p>'; echo $row["content"]; echo '</div>'; } ?> Well this is pretty much everything that should get the information going however due to the mysql_error in $result = mysql_query($sql) or die("Could not execute query. Reason: " .mysql_error()); I can see the error and it says: Could not execute query. Reason: No database selected I honestly have no idea why it would not work and I've been fiddling with it for quite some time now. Help is most welcomed and I thank you in advance! Greets Lemon

Read the article

Log4j: Events appear in the wrong logfile

- by Markus

Hi there! To be able to log and trace some events I've added a LoggingHandler class to my java project. Inside this class I'm using two different log4j logger instances - one for logging an event and one for tracing an event into different files. The initialization block of the class looks like this: public void initialize() { System.out.print("starting logging server ..."); // create logger instances logLogger = Logger.getLogger("log"); traceLogger = Logger.getLogger("trace"); // create pattern layout String conversionPattern = "%c{2} %d{ABSOLUTE} %r %p %m%n"; try { patternLayout = new PatternLayout(); patternLayout.setConversionPattern(conversionPattern); } catch (Exception e) { System.out.println("error: could not create logger layout pattern"); System.out.println(e); System.exit(1); } // add pattern to file appender try { logFileAppender = new FileAppender(patternLayout, logFilename, false); traceFileAppender = new FileAppender(patternLayout, traceFilename, false); } catch (IOException e) { System.out.println("error: could not add logger layout pattern to corresponding appender"); System.out.println(e); System.exit(1); } // add appenders to loggers logLogger.addAppender(logFileAppender); traceLogger.addAppender(traceFileAppender); // set logger level logLogger.setLevel(Level.INFO); traceLogger.setLevel(Level.INFO); // start logging server loggingServer = new LoggingServer(logLogger, traceLogger, serverPort, this); loggingServer.start(); System.out.println(" done"); } To make sure that only only thread is using the functionality of a logger instance at the same time each logging / tracing method calls the logging method .info() inside a synchronized-block. One example looks like this: public void logMessage(String message) { synchronized (logLogger) { if (logLogger.isInfoEnabled() && logFileAppender != null) { logLogger.info(instanceName + ": " + message); } } } If I look at the log files, I see that sometimes a event appears in the wrong file. One example: trace 10:41:30,773 11080 INFO masterControl(192.168.2.21): string broadcast message was pushed from 1267093 to vehicle 1055293 (slaveControl 1) trace 10:41:30,784 11091 INFO masterControl(192.168.2.21): string broadcast message was pushed from 1156513 to vehicle 1105792 (slaveControl 1) trace 10:41:30,796 11103 INFO masterControl(192.168.2.21): string broadcast message was pushed from 1104306 to vehicle 1055293 (slaveControl 1) trace 10:41:30,808 11115 INFO masterControl(192.168.2.21): vehicle 1327879 was pushed to slave control 1 10:41:30,808 11115 INFO masterControl(192.168.2.21): string broadcast message was pushed from 1101572 to vehicle 106741 (slaveControl 1) trace 10:41:30,820 11127 INFO masterControl(192.168.2.21): string broadcast message was pushed from 1055293 to vehicle 1104306 (slaveControl 1) I think that the problem occures everytime two event happen at the same time (here: 10:41:30,808). Does anybody has an idea how to solve my problem? I already tried to add a sleep() after the method call, but that doesn't helped ... BR, Markus Edit: logtrace 11:16:07,75511:16:07,755 1129711297 INFOINFO masterControl(192.168.2.21): string broadcast message was pushed from 1291400 to vehicle 1138272 (slaveControl 1)masterControl(192.168.2.21): vehicle 1333770 was added to slave control 1 or log 11:16:08,562 12104 INFO 11:16:08,562 masterControl(192.168.2.21): string broadcast message was pushed from 117772 to vehicle 1217744 (slaveControl 1) 12104 INFO masterControl(192.168.2.21): vehicle 1169775 was pushed to slave control 1 Edit 2: It seems like the problem only occurs if logging methods are called from inside a RMI thread (my client / server exchange information using RMI connections). ... Edit 3: I solved the problem by myself: It seems like log4j is NOT completely thread-save. After synchronizing all log / trace methods using a separate object everything is working fine. Maybe the lib is writing the messages to a thread-unsafe buffer before writing them to file?

Read the article

Need a hand understanding this Java code please :-)

- by Brian

Hi all, Just wondering if anyone would be able to take a look at this code for implementing the quicksort algorithm and answer me a few questions, please :-) public class Run { /*************************************************************************** * Quicksort code from Sedgewick 7.1, 7.2. **************************************************************************/ public static void quicksort(double[] a) { //shuffle(a); // to guard against worst-case quicksort(a, 0, a.length - 1, 0); } static void quicksort(final double[] a, final int left, final int right, final int tdepth) { if (right <= left) return; final int i = partition(a, left, right); if ((tdepth < 4) && ((i - left) > 1000)) { final Thread t = new Thread() { public void run() { quicksort(a, left, i - 1, tdepth + 1); } }; t.start(); quicksort(a, i + 1, right, tdepth + 1); try { t.join(); } catch (InterruptedException e) { throw new RuntimeException("Cancelled", e); } } else { quicksort(a, left, i - 1, tdepth); quicksort(a, i + 1, right, tdepth); } } // partition a[left] to a[right], assumes left < right private static int partition(double[] a, int left, int right) { int i = left - 1; int j = right; while (true) { while (less(a[++i], a[right])) // find item on left to swap ; // a[right] acts as sentinel while (less(a[right], a[--j])) // find item on right to swap if (j == left) break; // don't go out-of-bounds if (i >= j) break; // check if pointers cross exch(a, i, j); // swap two elements into place } exch(a, i, right); // swap with partition element return i; } // is x < y ? private static boolean less(double x, double y) { return (x < y); } // exchange a[i] and a[j] private static void exch(double[] a, int i, int j) { double swap = a[i]; a[i] = a[j]; a[j] = swap; } // shuffle the array a[] private static void shuffle(double[] a) { int N = a.length; for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) { int r = i + (int) (Math.random() * (N - i)); // between i and N-1 exch(a, i, r); } } // test client public static void main(String[] args) { int N = 5000000; // Integer.parseInt(args[0]); // generate N random real numbers between 0 and 1 long start = System.currentTimeMillis(); double[] a = new double[N]; for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) a[i] = Math.random(); long stop = System.currentTimeMillis(); double elapsed = (stop - start) / 1000.0; System.out.println("Generating input: " + elapsed + " seconds"); // sort them start = System.currentTimeMillis(); quicksort(a); stop = System.currentTimeMillis(); elapsed = (stop - start) / 1000.0; System.out.println("Quicksort: " + elapsed + " seconds"); } } My questions are: What is the purpose of the variable tdepth? Is this considered a "proper" implementation of a parallel quicksort? I ask becuase it doesn't use implements Runnable or extends Thread... If it doesn't already, is it possible to modify this code to use multiple threads? By passing in the number of threads you want to use as a parameter, for example...? Many thanks, Brian

Read the article

z index background issue in IE

- by Michael

I have a jQuery tools scroller set up with controls managing two separate divs of info - one images, the other related text that needs to sit over the top of the images with a transparent bg image. I am using z-indexing to achieve this and am aware of IE's issues with this but am unable to sort it (tested in IE6-8). Image of the issue below: http://test.shakingpaper.com.au/not_working.png It seems that the overlayed div is taking on the containers white. Try as I might, I can't resolve this. HTML/CSS code below: <div id="content"> <div id="nav"></div> <div class="s4 slideshow"> <div> <img src="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/images/hero_1_white.jpg" width="770" height="367" /> </div> <div> <img src="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/images/hero_1_white.jpg" width="770" height="367" /> </div> <div> <img src="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/images/hero_1_white.jpg" width="770" height="367" /> </div> </div> <div id="overlay_bg"></div> <div class="s4 information"> <div> <h1>Support</h1> <p>Quisque lacus quam, egestas ac tincidunt a, lacinia vel velit. Aenean facilisis nulla vitae.</p> <p><a href="#">Support Us</a></p> </div> <div> <h1>Events</h1> <p>Quisque lacegestas ac tincidunt a, lacinia vel velit. Aenean facilisis nulla vitae.</p> <p><a href="#">Read More</a></p> </div> <div> <h1>Regional</h1> <p>Quisque lacus quam, egestas ac tincidunt a, lacinia vel velit. Aenean facilisis nulla vitae.</p> <p><a href="#">Support Us</a></p> </div> </div> </div>  #content { height: auto; min-height: 300px !important; overflow: hidden; position:relative; margin-left: 27px; width: 770px; padding-bottom: 43px; } #nav { width: 60px; z-index: 10000; position: absolute; top:340px; left: 28px; } .s4 { width: 770px; height: 370px; overflow: hidden; } #nav a { background-color: transparent; background-image: url(images/transition.png); background-position: 0 0; text-indent: -1000em; width: 10px; height: 10px; display: block; float: left; margin-right: 5px; } #nav a.activeSlide { background-position: 0 -10px; } #overlay_bg { background: url(images/soild_block.png) no-repeat; width: 318px; height: 339px; z-index: 5000; position: absolute; top: 28px; } .information { position: absolute; top: 60px; left: 28px; z-index: 16000; width: 290px; height: 260px; color: #FFF; } .information h1 { font-size: 50px; font-style: italic; text-transform: uppercase; } .information p { font-size: 17px; line-height: 27px; margin-top: 37px; } .information a { font-size: 13px; padding-bottom: 2px; border-bottom: 1px solid; color: #FFF; text-transform: uppercase; font-style: italic; } .information a:hover { color: #000; } Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Read the article

Tools and Utilities for the .NET Developer

- by mbcrump

Tweet this list! Add a link to my site to your bookmarks to quickly find this page again! Add me to twitter! This is a list of the tools/utilities that I use to do my job/hobby. I wanted this page to load fast and contain information that only you care about. If I have missed a tool that you like, feel free to contact me and I will add it to the list. Also, this list took a lot of time to complete. Please do not steal my work, if you like the page then please link back to my site. I will keep the links/information updated as new tools/utilities are created. Windows/.NET Development – This is a list of tools that any Windows/.NET developer should have in his bag. I have used at some point in my career everything listed on this page and below is the tools worth keeping. Name Description License AnkhSVN Subversion support for Visual Studio. It also works with VS2010. Free Aurora XAML Designer One of the best XAML creation tools available. Has a ton of built in templates that you can copy/paste into VS2010. COST/Trial BeyondCompare Beyond Compare 3 is the ideal tool for comparing files and folders on your Windows or Linux system. Visualize changes in your code and carefully reconcile them. COST/Trial BuildIT Automated Task Tool Its main purpose is to automate tasks, whether it is the final packaging of a product, an automated daily build, maybe sending out a mailing list, even backing-up files. Free C Sharper for VB Convert VB to C#. COST CLRProfiler Analyze and improve the behavior of your .NET app. Free CodeRush Direct competitor to ReSharper, contains similar feature. This is one of those decide for yourself. COST/Trial Disk2VHD Disk2vhd is a utility that creates VHD (Virtual Hard Disk - Microsoft's Virtual Machine disk format) versions of physical disks for use in Microsoft Virtual PC or Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines (VMs). Free Eazfuscator.NET Is a free obfuscator for .NET. The main purpose is to protect intellectual property of software. Free EQATEC Profiler Make your .NET app run faster. No source code changes are needed. Just point the profiler to your app, run the modified code, and get a visual report. COST Expression Studio 3/4 Comes with Web, Blend, Sketch Flow and more. You can create websites, produce beautiful XAML and more. COST/Trial Expresso The award-winning Expresso editor is equally suitable as a teaching tool for the beginning user of regular expressions or as a full-featured development environment for the experienced programmer or web designer with an extensive knowledge of regular expressions. Free Fiddler Fiddler is a web debugging proxy which logs all HTTP(s) traffic between your computer and the internet. Free Firebug Powerful Web development tool. If you build websites, you will need this. Free FxCop FxCop is an application that analyzes managed code assemblies (code that targets the .NET Framework common language runtime) and reports information about the assemblies, such as possible design, localization, performance, and security improvements. Free GAC Browser and Remover Easy way to remove multiple assemblies from the GAC. Assemblies registered by programs like Install Shield can also be removed. Free GAC Util The Global Assembly Cache tool allows you to view and manipulate the contents of the global assembly cache and download cache. Free HelpScribble Help Scribble is a full-featured, easy-to-use help authoring tool for creating help files from start to finish. You can create Win Help (.hlp) files, HTML Help (.chm) files, a printed manual and online documentation (on a web site) all from the same Help Scribble project. COST/Trial IETester IETester is a free Web Browser that allows you to have the rendering and JavaScript engines of IE9 preview, IE8, IE7 IE 6 and IE5.5 on Windows 7, Vista and XP, as well as the installed IE in the same process. Free iTextSharp iText# (iTextSharp) is a port of the iText open source java library for PDF generation written entirely in C# for the .NET platform. Use the iText mailing list to get support. Free Kaxaml Kaxaml is a lightweight XAML editor that gives you a "split view" so you can see both your XAML and your rendered content. Free LINQPad LinqPad lets you interactively query databases in a LINQ. Free Linquer Many programmers are familiar with SQL and will need a help in the transition to LINQ. Sometimes there are complicated queries to be written and Linqer can help by converting SQL scripts to LINQ. COST/Trial LiquidXML Liquid XML Studio 2010 is an advanced XML developers toolkit and IDE, containing all the tools needed for designing and developing XML schema and applications. COST/Trial Log4Net log4net is a tool to help the programmer output log statements to a variety of output targets. log4net is a port of the excellent log4j framework to the .NET runtime. We have kept the framework similar in spirit to the original log4j while taking advantage of new features in the .NET runtime. For more information on log4net see the features document. Free Microsoft Web Platform Installer The Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 (Web PI) is a free tool that makes getting the latest components of the Microsoft Web Platform, including Internet Information Services (IIS), SQL Server Express, .NET Framework and Visual Web Developer easy. Free Mono Development Don't have Visual Studio - no problem! This is an open Source C# and .NET development environment for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X Free Net Mass Downloader While it’s great that Microsoft has released the .NET Reference Source Code, you can only get it one file at a time while you’re debugging. If you’d like to batch download it for reading or to populate the cache, you’d have to write a program that instantiated and called each method in the Framework Class Library. Fortunately, .NET Mass Downloader comes to the rescue! Free nMap Nmap ("Network Mapper") is a free and open source (license) utility for network exploration or security auditing. Many systems and network administrators also find it useful for tasks such as network inventory, managing service upgrade schedules, and monitoring host or service uptime. Free NoScript (Firefox add-in) The NoScript Firefox extension provides extra protection for Firefox, Flock, Seamonkey and other Mozilla-based browsers: this free, open source add-on allows JavaScript, Java and Flash and other plug-ins to be executed only by trusted web sites of your choice (e.g. your online bank), and provides the most powerful Anti-XSS protection available in a browser. Free NotePad 2 Notepad2, a fast and light-weight Notepad-like text editor with syntax highlighting. This program can be run out of the box without installation, and does not touch your system's registry. Free PageSpy PageSpy is a small add-on for Internet Explorer that allows you to select any element within a webpage, select an option in the context menu, and view detailed information about both the coding behind the page and the element you selected. Free Phrase Express PhraseExpress manages your frequently used text snippets in customizable categories for quick access. Free PowerGui PowerGui is a free community for PowerGUI, a graphical user interface and script editor for Microsoft Windows PowerShell! Free Powershell Comes with Win7, but you can automate tasks by using the .NET Framework. Great for network admins. Free Process Explorer Ever wondered which program has a particular file or directory open? Now you can find out. Process Explorer shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded. Also, included in the SysInterals Suite. Free Process Monitor Process Monitor is an advanced monitoring tool for Windows that shows real-time file system, Registry and process/thread activity. Free Reflector Explore and analyze compiled .NET assemblies, viewing them in C#, Visual Basic, and IL. This is an Essential for any .NET developer. Free Regular Expression Library Stuck on a Regular Expression but you think someone has already figured it out? Chances are they have. Free Regulator Regulator makes Regular Expressions easy. This is a must have for a .NET Developer. Free RenameMaestro RenameMaestro is probably the easiest batch file renamer you'll find to instantly rename multiple files COST ReSharper The one program that I cannot live without. Supports VS2010 and offers simple refactoring, code analysis/assistance/cleanup/templates. One of the few applications that is worth the $$$. COST/Trial ScrewTurn Wiki ScrewTurn Wiki allows you to create, manage and share wikis. A wiki is a collaboratively-edited, information-centered website: the most famous is Wikipedia. Free SharpDevelop What is #develop? SharpDevelop is a free IDE for C# and VB.NET projects on Microsoft's .NET platform. Free Show Me The Template Show Me The Template is a tool for exploring the templates, be their data, control or items panel, that comes with the controls built into WPF for all 6 themes. Free SnippetCompiler Compiles code snippets without opening Visual Studio. It does not support .NET 4. Free SQL Prompt SQL Prompt is a plug-in that increases how fast you can work with SQL. It provides code-completion for SQL server, reformatting, db schema information and snippets. Awesome! COST/Trial SQLinForm SQLinForm is an automatic SQL code formatter for all major databases including ORACLE, SQL Server, DB2, UDB, Sybase, Informix, PostgreSQL, Teradata, MySQL, MS Access etc. with over 70 formatting options. COST/OnlineFree SSMS Tools SSMS Tools Pack is an add-in for Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) including SSMS Express. Free Storm STORM is a free and open source tool for testing web services. Free Telerik Code Convertor Convert code from VB to C Sharp and Vice Versa. Free TurtoiseSVN TortoiseSVN is a really easy to use Revision control / version control / source control software for Windows.Since it's not an integration for a specific IDE you can use it with whatever development tools you like. Free UltraEdit UltraEdit is the ideal text, HTML and hex editor, and an advanced PHP, Perl, Java and JavaScript editor for programmers. UltraEdit is also an XML editor including a tree-style XML parser. An industry-award winner, UltraEdit supports disk-based 64-bit file handling (standard) on 32-bit Windows platforms (Windows 2000 and later). COST/Trial Virtual Windows XP Comes with some W7 version and allows you to run WinXP along side W7. Free VirtualBox Virtualization by Sun Microsystems. You can virtualize Windows, Linux and more. Free Visual Log Parser SQL queries against a variety of log files and other system data sources. Free WinMerge WinMerge is an Open Source differencing and merging tool for Windows. WinMerge can compare both folders and files, presenting differences in a visual text format that is easy to understand and handle. Free Wireshark Wireshark is one of the best network protocol analyzer's for Unix and windows. This has been used several times to get me out of a bind. Free XML Notepad 07 Old, but still one of my favorite XML viewers. Free Productivity Tools – This is the list of tools that I use to save time or quickly navigate around Windows. Name Description License AutoHotKey Automate almost anything by sending keystrokes and mouse clicks. You can write a mouse or keyboard macro by hand or use the macro recorder. Free CLCL CLCL is clipboard caching utility. Free Ditto Ditto is an extension to the standard windows clipboard. It saves each item placed on the clipboard allowing you access to any of those items at a later time. Ditto allows you to save any type of information that can be put on the clipboard, text, images, html, custom formats, ..... Free Evernote Remember everything from notes to photos. It will synch between computers/devices. Free InfoRapid Inforapid is a search tool that will display all you search results in a html like browser. If you click on a word in that browser, it will start another search to the word you clicked on. Handy if you want to trackback something to it's true origin. The word you looked for will be highlighted in red. Clicking on the red word will open the containing file in a text based viewer. Clicking on any word in the opened document will start another search on that word. Free KatMouse The prime purpose of the KatMouse utility is to enhance the functionality of mice with a scroll wheel, offering 'universal' scrolling: moving the mouse wheel will scroll the window directly beneath the mouse cursor (not the one with the keyboard focus, which is default on Windows OSes). This is a major increase in the usefulness of the mouse wheel. Free ScreenR Instant Screencast with nothing to download. Works with Mac or PC and free. Free Start++ Start++ is an enhancement for the Start Menu in Windows Vista. It also extends the Run box and the command-line with customizable commands. For example, typing "w Windows Vista" will take you to the Windows Vista page on Wikipedia! Free Synergy Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware. It's intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own monitor(s). Free Texter Texter lets you define text substitution hot strings that, when triggered, will replace hotstring with a larger piece of text. By entering your most commonly-typed snippets of text into Texter, you can save countless keystrokes in the course of the day. Free Total Commander File handling, FTP, Archive handling and much more. Even works with Win3.11. COST/Trial Available Wizmouse WizMouse is a mouse enhancement utility that makes your mouse wheel work on the window currently under the mouse pointer, instead of the currently focused window. This means you no longer have to click on a window before being able to scroll it with the mouse wheel. This is a far more comfortable and practical way to make use of the mouse wheel. Free Xmarks Bookmark sync and search between computers. Free General Utilities – This is a list for power user users or anyone that wants more out of Windows. I usually install a majority of these whenever I get a new system. Name Description License µTorrent µTorrent is a lightweight and efficient BitTorrent client for Windows or Mac with many features. I use this for downloading LEGAL media. Free Audacity Audacity® is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. Learn more about Audacity... Also check our Wiki and Forum for more information. Free AVast Free FREE Antivirus. Free CD Burner XP Pro CDBurnerXP is a free application to burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. It also includes the feature to burn and create ISOs, as well as a multilanguage interface. Free CDEX You can extract digital audio CDs into mp3/wav. Free Combofix Combofix is a freeware (a legitimate spyware remover created by sUBs), Combofix was designed to scan a computer for known malware, spyware (SurfSideKick, QooLogic, and Look2Me as well as any other combination of the mentioned spyware applications) and remove them. Free Cpu-Z Provides information about some of the main devices of your system. Free Cropper Cropper is a screen capture utility written in C#. It makes it fast and easy to grab parts of your screen. Use it to easily crop out sections of vector graphic files such as Fireworks without having to flatten the files or open in a new editor. Use it to easily capture parts of a web site, including text and images. It's also great for writing documentation that needs images of your application or web site. Free DropBox Drag and Drop files to sync between computers. Free DVD-Fab Converts/Copies DVDs/Blu-Ray to different formats. (like mp4, mkv, avi) COST/Trial Available FastStone Capture FastStone Capture is a powerful, lightweight, yet full-featured screen capture tool that allows you to easily capture and annotate anything on the screen including windows, objects, menus, full screen, rectangular/freehand regions and even scrolling windows/web pages. Free ffdshow FFDShow is a DirectShow decoding filter for decompressing DivX, XviD, H.264, FLV1, WMV, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, MPEG-4 movies. Free Filezilla FileZilla Client is a fast and reliable cross-platform FTP, FTPS and SFTP client with lots of useful features and an intuitive graphical user interface. You can also download a server version. Free FireFox Web Browser, do you really need an explanation? Free FireGestures A customizable mouse gestures extension which enables you to execute various commands and user scripts with five types of gestures. Free FoxIt Reader Light weight PDF viewer. You should install this with the advanced setting or it will install a toolbar and setup some shortcuts. Free gSynchIt Synch Gmail and Outlook. Even supports Outlook 2010 32/64 bit COST/Trial Available Hulu Desktop At home or in a hotel, this has replaced my cable/satellite subscription. Free ImgBurn ImgBurn is a lightweight CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application that everyone should have in their toolkit! Free Infrarecorder InfraRecorder is a free CD/DVD burning solution for Microsoft Windows. It offers a wide range of powerful features; all through an easy to use application interface and Windows Explorer integration. Free KeePass KeePass is a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. Free LastPass Another password management, synchronize between browsers, automatic form filling and more. Free Live Essentials One download and lots of programs including Mail, Live Writer, Movie Maker and more! Free Monitores MonitorES is a small windows utility that helps you to turnoff monitor display when you lock down your machine.Also when you lock your machine, it will pause all your running media programs & set your IM status message to "Away" / Custom message(via options) and restore it back to normal when you back. Free mRemote mRemote is a full-featured, multi-tab remote connections manager. Free Open Office OpenOffice.org 3 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose. Free Paint.NET Simple, intuitive, and innovative user interface for editing photos. Free Picasa Picasa is free photo editing software from Google that makes your pictures look great. Free Pidgin Pidgin is an easy to use and free chat client used by millions. Connect to AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and more chat networks all at once. Free PING PING is a live Linux ISO, based on the excellent Linux From Scratch (LFS) documentation. It can be burnt on a CD and booted, or integrated into a PXE / RIS environment. Free Putty PuTTY is an SSH and telnet client, developed originally by Simon Tatham for the Windows platform. Free Revo Uninstaller Revo Uninstaller Pro helps you to uninstall software and remove unwanted programs installed on your computer easily! Even if you have problems uninstalling and cannot uninstall them from "Windows Add or Remove Programs" control panel applet.Revo Uninstaller is a much faster and more powerful alternative to "Windows Add or Remove Programs" applet! It has very powerful features to uninstall and remove programs. Free Security Essentials Microsoft Security Essentials is a new, free consumer anti-malware solution for your computer. Free SetupVirtualCloneDrive Virtual CloneDrive works and behaves just like a physical CD/DVD drive, however it exists only virtually. Point to the .ISO file and it appears in Windows Explorer as a Drive. Free Shark 007 Codec Pack Play just about any file format with this download. Also includes my W7 Media Playlist Generator. Free Snagit 9 Screen Capture on steroids. Add arrows, captions, etc to any screenshot. COST/Trial Available SysinternalsSuite Go ahead and download the entire sys internals suite. I have mentioned multiple programs in this suite already. Free TeraCopy TeraCopy is a compact program designed to copy and move files at the maximum possible speed, providing the user with a lot of features. Free for Home TrueCrypt Free open-source disk encryption software for Windows 7/Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux Free TweetDeck Fully featured Twitter client. Free UltraVNC UltraVNC is a powerful, easy to use and free software that can display the screen of another computer (via internet or network) on your own screen. The program allows you to use your mouse and keyboard to control the other PC remotely. It means that you can work on a remote computer, as if you were sitting in front of it, right from your current location. Free Unlocker Unlocks locked files. Pretty simple right? Free VLC Media Player VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player and multimedia framework capable of reading most audio and video formats Free Windows 7 Media Playlist This program is special to my heart because I wrote it. It has been mentioned on podcast and various websites. It allows you to quickly create wvx video playlist for Windows Media Center. Free WinRAR WinRAR is a powerful archive manager. It can backup your data and reduce the size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP and other files downloaded from Internet and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format. COST/Trial Available Blogging – I use the following for my blog. Name Description License Insert Code for Windows Live Writer Insert Code for Windows Live Writer will format a snippet of text in a number of programming languages such as C#, HTML, MSH, JavaScript, Visual Basic and TSQL. Free LiveWriter Included in Live Essentials, but the ultimate in Windows Blogging Free PasteAsVSCode Plug-in for Windows Live Writer that pastes clipboard content as Visual Studio code. Preserves syntax highlighting, indentation and background color. Converts RTF, outputted by Visual Studio, into HTML. Free Desktop Management – The list below represent the best in Windows Desktop Management. Name Description License 7 Stacks Allows users to have "stacks" of icons in their taskbar. Free Executor Executor is a multi purpose launcher and a more advanced and customizable version of windows run. Free Fences Fences is a program that helps you organize your desktop and can hide your icons when they are not in use. Free RocketDock Rocket Dock is a smoothly animated, alpha blended application launcher. It provides a nice clean interface to drop shortcuts on for easy access and organization. With each item completely customizable there is no end to what you can add and launch from the dock. Free WindowsTab Tabbing is an essential feature of modern web browsers. Window Tabs brings the productivity of tabbed window management to all of your desktop applications. Free

Read the article

Upgrading from TFS 2010 RC to TFS 2010 RTM done

- by Martin Hinshelwood

Today is the big day, with the Launch of Visual Studio 2010 already done in Asia, and rolling around the world towards us, we are getting ready for the RTM (Released). We have had TFS 2010 in Production for nearly 6 months and have had only minimal problems. Update 12th April 2010 – Added Scott Hanselman’s tweet about the MSDN download release time. SSW was the first company in the world outside of Microsoft to deploy Visual Studio 2010 Team Foundation Server to production, not once, but twice. I am hoping to make it 3 in a row, but with all the hype around the new version, and with it being a production release and not just a go-live, I think there will be a lot of competition. Developers: MSDN will be updated with #vs2010 downloads and details at 10am PST *today*! @shanselman - Scott Hanselman Same as before, we need to Uninstall 2010 RC and install 2010 RTM. The installer will take care of all the complexity of actually upgrading any schema changes. If you are upgrading from TFS 2008 to TFS2010 you can follow our Rules To Better TFS 2010 Migration and read my post on our successes. We run TFS 2010 in a Hyper-V virtual environment, so we have the advantage of running a snapshot as well as taking a DB backup. Done - Snapshot the hyper-v server Microsoft does not support taking a snapshot of a running server, for very good reason, and Brian Harry wrote a post after my last upgrade with the reason why you should never snapshot a running server. Done - Uninstall Visual Studio Team Explorer 2010 RC You will need to uninstall all of the Visual Studio 2010 RC client bits that you have on the server. Done - Uninstall TFS 2010 RC Done - Install TFS 2010 RTM Done - Configure TFS 2010 RTM Pick the Upgrade option and point it at your existing “tfs_Configuration” database to load all of the existing settings Done - Upgrade the SharePoint Extensions Upgrade Build Servers (Pending) Test the server The back out plan, and you should always have one, is to restore the snapshot. Upgrading to Team Foundation Server 2010 – Done The first thing you need to do is off the TFS server and then log into the Hyper-v server and create a snapshot. Figure: Make sure you turn the server off and delete all old snapshots before you take a new one I noticed that the snapshot that was taken before the Beta 2 to RC upgrade was still there. You should really delete old snapshots before you create a new one, but in this case the SysAdmin (who is currently tucked up in bed) asked me not to. I guess he is worried about a developer messing up his server Turn your server on and wait for it to boot in anticipation of all the nice shiny RTM’ness that is coming next. The upgrade procedure for TFS2010 is to uninstal the old version and install the new one. Figure: Remove Visual Studio 2010 Team Foundation Server RC from the system. Figure: Most of the heavy lifting is done by the Uninstaller, but make sure you have removed any of the client bits first. Specifically Visual Studio 2010 or Team Explorer 2010. Once the uninstall is complete, this took around 5 minutes for me, you can begin the install of the RTM. Running the 64 bit OS will allow the application to use more than 2GB RAM, which while not common may be of use in heavy load situations. Figure: It is always recommended to install the 64bit version of a server application where possible. I do not think it is likely, with SharePoint 2010 and Exchange 2010 and even Windows Server 2008 R2 being 64 bit only, I do not think there will be another release of a server app that is 32bit. You then need to choose what it is you want to install. This depends on how you are running TFS and on how many servers. In our case we run TFS and the Team Foundation Build Service (controller only) on out TFS server along with Analysis services and Reporting Services. But our SharePoint server lives elsewhere. Figure: This always confuses people, but in reality it makes sense. Don’t install what you do not need. Every extra you install has an impact of performance. If you are integrating with SharePoint you will need to run this install on every Front end server in your farm and don’t forget to upgrade your Build servers and proxy servers later. Figure: Selecting only Team Foundation Server (TFS) and Team Foundation Build Services (TFBS) It is worth noting that if you have a lot of builds kicking off, and hence a lot of get operations against your TFS server, you can use a proxy server to cache the source control on another server in between your TFS server and your build servers. Figure: Installing Microsoft .NET Framework 4 takes the most time. Figure: Now run Windows Update, and SSW Diagnostic to make sure all your bits and bobs are up to date. Note: SSW Diagnostic will check your Power Tools, Add-on’s, Check in Policies and other bits as well. Configure Team Foundation Server 2010 – Done Now you can configure the server. If you have no key you will need to pick “Install a Trial Licence”, but it is only £500, or free with a MSDN subscription. Anyway, if you pick Trial you get 90 days to get your key. Figure: You can pick trial and add your key later using the TFS Server Admin. Here is where the real choices happen. We are doing an Upgrade from a previous version, so I will pick Upgrade the same as all you folks that are using the RC or TFS 2008. Figure: The upgrade wizard takes your existing 2010 or 2008 databases and upgraded them to the release. Once you have entered your database server name you can click “List available databases” and it will show what it can upgrade. Figure: Select your database from the list and at this point, make sure you have a valid backup. At this point you have not made ANY changes to the databases. At this point the configuration wizard will load configuration from your existing database if you have one. If you are upgrading TFS 2008 refer to Rules To Better TFS 2010 Migration. Mostly during the wizard the default values will suffice, but depending on the configuration you want you can pick different options. Figure: Set the application tier account and Authentication method to use. We use NTLM to keep things simple as we host our TFS server externally for our remote developers. Figure: Setting your TFS server URL’s to be the remote URL’s allows the reports to be accessed without using VPN. Very handy for those remote developers. Figure: Detected the existing Warehouse no problem. Figure: Again we love green ticks. It gives us a warm fuzzy feeling. Figure: The username for connecting to Reporting services should be a domain account (if you are on a domain that is). Figure: Setup the SharePoint integration to connect to your external SharePoint server. You can take the option to connect later. You then need to run all of your readiness checks. These check can save your life! it will check all of the settings that you have entered as well as checking all the external services are configures and running properly. There are two reasons that TFS 2010 is so easy and painless to install where previous version were not. Microsoft changes the install to two steps, Install and configuration. The second reason is that they have pulled out all of the stops in making the install run all the checks necessary to make sure that once you start the install that it will complete. if you find any errors I recommend that you report them on http://connect.microsoft.com so everyone can benefit from your misery. Figure: Now we have everything setup the configuration wizard can do its work. Figure: Took a while on the “Web site” stage for some point, but zipped though after that. Figure: last wee bit. TFS Needs to do a little tinkering with the data to complete the upgrade. Figure: All upgraded. I am not worried about the yellow triangle as SharePoint was being a little silly Exception Message: TF254021: The account name or password that you specified is not valid. (type TfsAdminException) Exception Stack Trace: at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Management.Controls.WizardCommon.AccountSelectionControl.TestLogon(String connectionString) at System.ComponentModel.BackgroundWorker.WorkerThreadStart(Object argument) [Info @16:10:16.307] Benign exception caught as part of verify: Exception Message: TF255329: The following site could not be accessed: http://projects.ssw.com.au/. The server that you specified did not return the expected response. Either you have not installed the Team Foundation Server Extensions for SharePoint Products on this server, or a firewall is blocking access to the specified site or the SharePoint Central Administration site. For more information, see the Microsoft Web site (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=161206). (type TeamFoundationServerException) Exception Stack Trace: at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client.SharePoint.WssUtilities.VerifyTeamFoundationSharePointExtensions(ICredentials credentials, Uri url) at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Admin.VerifySharePointSitesUrl.Verify() Inner Exception Details: Exception Message: TF249064: The following Web service returned an response that is not valid: http://projects.ssw.com.au/_vti_bin/TeamFoundationIntegrationService.asmx. This Web service is used for the Team Foundation Server Extensions for SharePoint Products. Either the extensions are not installed, the request resulted in HTML being returned, or there is a problem with the URL. Verify that the following URL points to a valid SharePoint Web application and that the application is available: http://projects.ssw.com.au. If the URL is correct and the Web application is operating normally, verify that a firewall is not blocking access to the Web application. (type TeamFoundationServerInvalidResponseException) Exception Data Dictionary: ResponseStatusCode = InternalServerError I’ll look at SharePoint after, probably the SharePoint box just needs a restart or a kick If there is a problem with SharePoint it will come out in testing, But I will definatly be passing this on to Microsoft. Upgrading the SharePoint connector to TFS 2010 You will need to upgrade the Extensions for SharePoint Products and Technologies on all of your SharePoint farm front end servers. To do this uninstall the TFS 2010 RC from it in the same way as the server, and then install just the RTM Extensions. Figure: Only install the SharePoint Extensions on your SharePoint front end servers. TFS 2010 supports both SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010. Figure: When you configure SharePoint it uploads all of the solutions and templates. Figure: Everything is uploaded Successfully. Figure: TFS even remembered the settings from the previous installation, fantastic. Upgrading the Team Foundation Build Servers to TFS 2010 Just like on the SharePoint servers you will need to upgrade the Build Server to the RTM. Just uninstall TFS 2010 RC and then install only the Team Foundation Build Services component. Unlike on the SharePoint server you will probably have some version of Visual Studio installed. You will need to remove this as well. (Coming Soon) Connecting Visual Studio 2010 / 2008 / 2005 and Eclipse to TFS2010 If you have developers still on Visual Studio 2005 or 2008 you will need do download the respective compatibility pack: Visual Studio Team System 2005 Service Pack 1 Forward Compatibility Update for Team Foundation Server 2010 Visual Studio Team System 2008 Service Pack 1 Forward Compatibility Update for Team Foundation Server 2010 If you are using Eclipse you can download the new Team Explorer Everywhere install for connecting to TFS. Get your developers to check that you have the latest version of your applications with SSW Diagnostic which will check for Service Packs and hot fixes to Visual Studio as well. Technorati Tags: TFS,TFS2010,TFS 2010,Upgrade

Read the article

Installing UCMA 3.0 and Creating a Communications Server "14"Trusted Application Pool

A lot of setup and administration tasks have gotten a lot easier in Communications Server 14; one of them is building an application server to develop and run your UCMA 3.0 applications on. In this post, Ill walk you through installing the UCMA 3.0 Core SDK and creating a Trusted Application Pool on the server, thus adding it to the Communications Server 14 topology and allowing you to host and run UCMA 3.0 applications on it. Note: These instructions will change slightly as the bits get updated for the eventual Beta release I will update this post as soon as I get a chance to run this setup on a more recent build. Im doing the install on a simple Communications Server 14 topology consisting of the following Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V images: DC Domain Controller ExchangeUM Exchange Server 2010 CS-SE Microsoft Communications Server 2010 Standard Edition TS Development machine Ill walk through setting up UCMA 3.0 on the TS VM, which is a fully patched Windows Server 2008 R2 machine that is joined to the Fabrikam domain. Im also running Visual Studio 2010 on this VM because I intend to use it as a development machine. In a future post, Ill walk through installing just the UCMA 3.0 run time to build a true production UCMA application server. Im making a couple of assumptions here: You have an existing CS 2010 site and cluster configured(well look at this in a future post) Youre starting with a fully patched Windows Server 2008 R2 machine The machine is joined to your domain This walkthrough was done in my Fabrikam VM environment but can easily be modified for your own environment. Installing the UCMA 3.0 SDK Lets start by installing the UCMA 3.0 SDK. Run UcmaSdkWebDownload.msi to kick off the SDK installer package extract process. The installed package is extracted to C: >> Program Files >> Microsoft UCMA 3.0 >> SDK Installer Package. Browse there and run setup.exe. Click Install to install the UCMA 3.0 Core SDK and Workflow SDK. Install Communications Server Core Components UCMA 3.0 introduces a new concept called Auto-provisioning, which is most easily explained from the developer point of view. Remember what your app.config looked it in UCMA 2.0? You had to store the application GRUU, the trusted contact SIP Uri, the port for your application, and the name of the certificate authority. Thats all gone with auto-provisioning all you need in your app.config is your ApplicationId, e.g.: urn:application:MyApplication. How does CS 2010 do this? All of the applications configuration data is associated with the applications id. UCMA also queries a replicated copy of the Central Management Database to retrieve the applications configuration data and also the configuration data for any endpoints. In this step, well run Bootstrapper.exe to install the CS Core components, this checked for the following components and installs them if they are not already present: VcRedist Sqlexpress Sqlnativeclient Sqlbackcompat Ucmaredist OcsCore.msi Open a command window at C: >> Program Files >> Microsoft Communications Server 2010 >> Deployment and run the following command: Bootstrapper.exe /BootstrapReplica /MinCache /SourceDirectory:"%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft UCMA 3.0\SDK Installer Package\Prereq\BootstrapperCache" Create a New Trusted Application Pool The next step is to create a new trusted application pool for the new server. Fire up the Communications Server Management Shell from Start >> Microsoft Communications Server 2010 >> Communications Server Management Shell and enter the following PowerShell command: New-CsTrustedApplicationPool -Identity <FQDN of Server> -Registrar <FQDN of CS Server> -Site <CS Site Name> Verify that the new server was added to the CS topology by running the following PowerShell command: (Get-CsTopology -AsXml).ToString() > Topology.xml This created a file called Topology.xml in the directory that you ran the command from. Open the file and find the Clusters section and look for a node for the new server. The Cluster Fqdn is the name of your server, and note the name of the Site that this Cluster is a part of. <Cluster Fqdn="appsrv.fabrikam.com" RequiresReplication="true" RequiresSetup="true"> <ClusterId SiteId="UcMarketing2" Number="5" /> <Machine OrdinalInCluster="1" Fqdn="appsrv.fabrikam.com"> <NetInterface InterfaceSide="Primary" InterfaceNumber="1" IPAddress="0.0.0.0" /> </Machine> </Cluster> Configure CS Management Store Replication At this point, we have the CS Core components installed and the server configured as a trusted application pool. We now need to set up replication so that the Central Management Store replicates down to the new server. From the Communications Server Management Shell, run the following PowerShell command to enable the Replica service on the new server: Enable-CSReplica The Replica service is enabled, but hasn't done anything yet. This can be verified by running the following PowerShell command to check the replication status for the various servers in the topology: Get-CSManagementStoreReplicationStatus You can see in the screenshot below that the UpToDate property of the new server is still False Run the following PowerShell command to force the replication to run: Invoke-CSManagementStoreReplicationStatus Run Get-CSManagementStoreReplicationStatus again to verify that the new service is now up to date Request and Set a New Certificate The last step in the process is to request a new certificate from the certificate authority on the domain and assign it to the new server. From the Communications Server Management Shell, run the following PowerShell command to request a new certificate: Request-CSCertificate -Action new -Type default -CA <Domain Controller FQDN>\<Certificate Authority> Setting the -Verbose switch on the cmdlet creates an Xml file with its output. Open the Xml file and copy the thumbprint of the generated certificate. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <Action Name="Request-CsCertificate" Time="20100512T212258"> <Action Name="Request-CsCertificate" Time="20100512T212258"> <Info Title="Connection" Time="20100512T212258">Data Source=(local)\rtclocal;Initial Catalog=xds;Integrated Security=True</Info> <Action Time="20100512T212258"> <Info Title="Certificate use" Time="20100512T212258">urn:certref:default</Info> <Info Title="Subject distinguished name" Time="20100512T212258">CN="appsrv2.fabrikam.com"</Info> <Info Time="20100512T212259">The certificate request is submitted to the Certification Authority dc.fabrikam.com\FabrikamCA.</Info> <Info Time="20100512T212259">The certificate was issued.</Info> <Info Time="20100512T212259">The certificate was imported with thumbprint AFC3C46E459C1A39AD06247676F3555826DBF705.</Info> <Complete Time="20100512T212259" /> </Action> <Info Title="command status" Time="20100512T212259">Command execution processing completed</Info> <Action Name="DeploymentXdsCmdlet.SaveCachedItems" Time="20100512T212259"> <Info Time="20100512T212259">0 updates</Info> <Complete Time="20100512T212259" /> </Action> <Info Title="command status" Time="20100512T212259">Command has completed</Info> </Action> </Action> Run the following PowerShell command to set the certificate: Set-CsCertificate -Type Default -Thumbprint <Thumbprint> Wrapping Up You now have a new UCMA 3.0 application server in your Communications Server 2010 server topology. You can provision trusted applications and trusted application endpoints on the new server using the Communications Server 2010 Management Shell. Well take a look at how to do that in another post. Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

Read the article

Letter to Ballmer: Making Better Consumer Devices

- by andrewbrust

Last year, I wrote Steve Ballmer an email, and he was kind enough to write me back. The email contained a scan of a column I wrote praising Microsoft’s BI strategy. His reply contained three simple words: “Super nice thanks.” Well, now I’d like to write to Steve again, in an open letter format, and this time the love may be a bit tougher. But I’m still super earnest. The past two days have been eventful ones for Microsoft: The company announced the departure of company veterans Robbie Bach and J Allard and the market announced Apple is now besting Microsoft in market capitalization. Plus, announcements were made that make it plain that Ballmer will, in effect, be running Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices division himself. With that in mind, I’d like to offer my list of a dozen things I think Microsoft’s CEO should do to improve that division’s offerings and, hopefully, its bottom line. So here goes: 1. On Windows Phone 7, Stay the Course The press is teeming with headlines and reader comments proclaiming the death-before-arrival of Windows Phone 7. That’s plain silly. You’ve got the makings of a great and unique SmartPhone platform, and you’re the only company (even considering RIM) that can offer full fidelity Exchange integration, not to mention implementing Office on the device. Let the existing team finish this puppy and ship it. And then have them pump out a few updates, over-the-air, quickly. Show them that Google Android’s not the only product that can do good, rapid dot releases. And another thing: make sure your OEMs’ devices have flawless touch screens. If they don’t, then you shouldn’t certify them for delivery to customers. Period. Oh, and kill the Kin, quietly. It was DOA, and you know it. 2. Move Media Center to the Xbox Platform Media Center is, at its core, a good product. But delivering a media distribution and DVR platform on a sophisticated PC operating system like Windows 7 just creates too many moving parts. Xbox already functions as the best Media Center extender device – it should actually be the hub as well. Media Center is mostly based on .NET code – and XNA is a .NET environment for Xbox – find a way to bridge that small gap and make Media Center a joy to work with instead of a frustration. Beating Apple TV out of this sub-market is the lowest hanging fruit on the tree (goofy pun, but it’s true). 3. Integrate Media Center with Mediaroom, or Kill the Latter You have two media products with almost identical names. One is for standalone DVRs and the other is for IPTV cable set tops with DVR capabilities. Can we merge these please? My previous request of putting Media Center on Xbox would seem to tie into this nicely, since you’ve announced plans to do that with Mediaroom already. 4. Fix the Red Ring of Death People love the Xbox, but they really don’t love sending their consoles back every 18-24 months, when they get a bunch of red lights flashing on power up. You’ve handled this defect about as gracefully as possible, but it’s been around for a long time now and it doesn’t seem to be fixed yet. You can do better. In fact, you must do better, or you insult your customers. 5. Add Blu Ray to Xbox I know, streaming movies are the future; physical media is legacy technology. So if that’s true, why did you back HD DVD so hard? You know why: for now, the film studios won’t allow a large selection of new release, HD, surround sound content be distributed on any medium other than Blu Ray or cable pay per view/on-demand. Don’t you want home theater buffs to see the Xbox as a fantastic device for their rigs? Don’t you want to put PlayStation 3 out of its misery? And if you follow my suggestions above (move Media Center to the Xbox and fix the Red Ring problem), you’d have it all sewn up. Do I think Blu Ray functionality will move a lot of units? No. Do I think that it would move more units with desperately needed influential home theater consumers? You bet. And you might sell more ZunePass subscriptions in the process. But while you’re at it, make the fan quieter, please. 6. Make More of Windows Home Server Home Server is a fantastic product. And for reasons unknown to me, it seems like you’re letting it languish. Development of the add-in ecosystem seems underfunded. WHS’ unparalleled ease of use and reliability for home PC backup (and emergency restores) goes unsung. Product cycles are slow. Support for your OEMs, who are doing great work, especially in the green space with Atom CPUs, seems lacking. You’ve married a trophy girl and you keep her cloistered at home! That’s cruel, unusual and, um, incredibly ill-advised. Make use of this ace card, and while you’re at it, give it real integration with Media Center. The integration thus far proof-of-concept quality. You should go way past that – both products will benefit immeasurably. 7. Set Up a Partner Platform for Custom Installers There’s a whole sub-industry of companies that install, integrate and configure home theater, security and connected home products. They have an industry group. They are influential in the high-end of the consumer electronics industry, and so are their customers. They love Media Center and they love Windows Home Server. But I have talked to several of them at the Consumer Electronics Show and they tell me you don’t love them. They find it very difficult to do business with Microsoft, even though they want nothing more than to sell and evangelize your platform. This is a travesty. Please fix it. Get Allison Watson and the Microsoft Partner Network on board and have her hire someone who knows how to run a channel program for consumer electronics companies. Problem solved. Markets expanded. 8. Make Your Own Hardware In other areas, I know you love your partners. I help run one, so I appreciate that. But when it came to Xbox and Zune you built them it yourself (albeit on a contract basis, which is fine). Windows Phone 7 has a chance to work as an OEM play, but it would work better if you produced the devices. At least consider building a reference device that sells alongside your OEMs’ offerings. That’s what Google did with the Nexxus One. And while that phone was not itself a big seller, it catalyzed two wonderful things : (1) a quality bar was set and (2) partners exceeded it. Before the Nexxus One, the best Android handset out there was the Motorola Droid. The Nexxus One was better, and the HTC Droid Incredible and Evo 4G are now even better than Google’s phone, which is why Verizon and Sprint decided not to carry it. Imagine if all Windows Phone 6.x devices were on par with the HTC HD2. I tend to believe you’d have a lot bigger market share than you do now. 9. Continue with Your Retail Initiative From what I hear, it sounds like it’s going well. And this goes right along with making your own hardware. When you build it, they will come. And then it makes the likes of Best Buy and Staples do better. 10. Make an Acquisition (or Two) TiVo and/or Moxi look ripe for the picking. With their ability to build stuff people love and your ability to run a business, you might just have something. But do a better job than you did when you bought Danger. Buy the ideas, not just the customers, eh? 11. Make Beautiful Stuff You’ve heard this one before, I know. But I have some head-shrinking advice on this one. You know that Apple obsesses over its industrial design. You know that appeals to consumers. But it seems you think doing so is Apple’s game exclusively and so you shouldn’t even try. Bull dinky. Come to New York and visit the Museum of Modern Art’s Architecture and Design gallery. You’ll see that lots of companies and product categories have had very high design value well before Apple existed. You can do this, and the Zune HD was a great start. Now run with that. Find those negative voices in your head that are telling you that you can’t and shut them up. For good. 12. Burst the Bubble Some of the products you’ve built seem like they were conceived in a bizarro world. That would appear to be the result of groupthink. You must do better. And there’s lots of people willing to advise you. This includes just about everyone in the Regional Director program, and probably a bunch of MVPs. Heck, I bet the guys at Engadget could help out too. Imagine if you let them see the Kin before it shipped. Talk to high-end gear consumers. Talk to Best Buy and CostCo customers too. Signing Off I hope this was of value to you. As I wrote this I kept telling myself how obvious, even trite, some of these pieces of advice were and then, because of that, doubting they’d really help. But I decided that they must not be obvious to Microsoft. Sometimes when you get wrapped up in stuff, it’s hard to clear your head. I think my head’s pretty clear here though (I’m wrapped up in other stuff), so maybe my perspective can help. If not, well, then, I guess they all can’t be super nice.

Read the article

Quick guide to Oracle IRM 11g: Classification design

- by Simon Thorpe

Quick guide to Oracle IRM 11g indexThis is the final article in the quick guide to Oracle IRM. If you've followed everything prior you will now have a fully functional and tested Information Rights Management service. It doesn't matter if you've been following the 10g or 11g guide as this next article is common to both. ContentsWhy this is the most important part... Understanding the classification and standard rights model Identifying business use cases Creating an effective IRM classification modelOne single classification across the entire businessA context for each and every possible granular use caseWhat makes a good context? Deciding on the use of roles in the context Reviewing the features and security for context roles Summary Why this is the most important part...Now the real work begins, installing and getting an IRM system running is as simple as following instructions. However to actually have an IRM technology easily protecting your most sensitive information without interfering with your users existing daily work flows and be able to scale IRM across the entire business, requires thought into how confidential documents are created, used and distributed. This article is going to give you the information you need to ask the business the right questions so that you can deploy your IRM service successfully. The IRM team here at Oracle have over 10 years of experience in helping customers and it is important you understand the following to be successful in securing access to your most confidential information. Whatever you are trying to secure, be it mergers and acquisitions information, engineering intellectual property, health care documentation or financial reports. No matter what type of user is going to access the information, be they employees, contractors or customers, there are common goals you are always trying to achieve.Securing the content at the earliest point possible and do it automatically. Removing the dependency on the user to decide to secure the content reduces the risk of mistakes significantly and therefore results a more secure deployment. K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) Reduce complexity in the rights/classification model. Oracle IRM lets you make changes to access to documents even after they are secured which allows you to start with a simple model and then introduce complexity once you've understood how the technology is going to be used in the business. After an initial learning period you can review your implementation and start to make informed decisions based on user feedback and administration experience. Clearly communicate to the user, when appropriate, any changes to their existing work practice. You must make every effort to make the transition to sealed content as simple as possible. For external users you must help them understand why you are securing the documents and inform them the value of the technology to both your business and them. Before getting into the detail, I must pay homage to Martin White, Vice President of client services in SealedMedia, the company Oracle acquired and who created Oracle IRM. In the SealedMedia years Martin was involved with every single customer and was key to the design of certain aspects of the IRM technology, specifically the context model we will be discussing here. Listening carefully to customers and understanding the flexibility of the IRM technology, Martin taught me all the skills of helping customers build scalable, effective and simple to use IRM deployments. No matter how well the engineering department designed the software, badly designed and poorly executed projects can result in difficult to use and manage, and ultimately insecure solutions. The advice and information that follows was born with Martin and he's still delivering IRM consulting with customers and can be found at www.thinkers.co.uk. It is from Martin and others that Oracle not only has the most advanced, scalable and usable document security solution on the market, but Oracle and their partners have the most experience in delivering successful document security solutions. Understanding the classification and standard rights model The goal of any successful IRM deployment is to balance the increase in security the technology brings without over complicating the way people use secured content and avoid a significant increase in administration and maintenance. With Oracle it is possible to automate the protection of content, deploy the desktop software transparently and use authentication methods such that users can open newly secured content initially unaware the document is any different to an insecure one. That is until of course they attempt to do something for which they don't have any rights, such as copy and paste to an insecure application or try and print. Central to achieving this objective is creating a classification model that is simple to understand and use but also provides the right level of complexity to meet the business needs. In Oracle IRM the term used for each classification is a "context". A context defines the relationship between.A group of related documents The people that use the documents The roles that these people perform The rights that these people need to perform their role The context is the key to the success of Oracle IRM. It provides the separation of the role and rights of a user from the content itself. Documents are sealed to contexts but none of the rights, user or group information is stored within the content itself. Sealing only places information about the location of the IRM server that sealed it, the context applied to the document and a few other pieces of metadata that pertain only to the document. This important separation of rights from content means that millions of documents can be secured against a single classification and a user needs only one right assigned to be able to access all documents. If you have followed all the previous articles in this guide, you will be ready to start defining contexts to which your sensitive information will be protected. But before you even start with IRM, you need to understand how your own business uses and creates sensitive documents and emails. Identifying business use cases Oracle is able to support multiple classification systems, but usually there is one single initial need for the technology which drives a deployment. This need might be to protect sensitive mergers and acquisitions information, engineering intellectual property, financial documents. For this and every subsequent use case you must understand how users create and work with documents, to who they are distributed and how the recipients should interact with them. A successful IRM deployment should start with one well identified use case (we go through some examples towards the end of this article) and then after letting this use case play out in the business, you learn how your users work with content, how well your communication to the business worked and if the classification system you deployed delivered the right balance. It is at this point you can start rolling the technology out further. Creating an effective IRM classification model Once you have selected the initial use case you will address with IRM, you need to design a classification model that defines the access to secured documents within the use case. In Oracle IRM there is an inbuilt classification system called the "context" model. In Oracle IRM 11g it is possible to extend the server to support any rights classification model, but the majority of users who are not using an application integration (such as Oracle IRM within Oracle Beehive) are likely to be starting out with the built in context model. Before looking at creating a classification system with IRM, it is worth reviewing some recognized standards and methods for creating and implementing security policy. A very useful set of documents are the ISO 17799 guidelines and the SANS security policy templates. First task is to create a context against which documents are to be secured. A context consists of a group of related documents (all top secret engineering research), a list of roles (contributors and readers) which define how users can access documents and a list of users (research engineers) who have been given a role allowing them to interact with sealed content. Before even creating the first context it is wise to decide on a philosophy which will dictate the level of granularity, the question is, where do you start? At a department level? By project? By technology? First consider the two ends of the spectrum... One single classification across the entire business Imagine that instead of having separate contexts, one for engineering intellectual property, one for your financial data, one for human resources personally identifiable information, you create one context for all documents across the entire business. Whilst you may have immediate objections, there are some significant benefits in thinking about considering this. Document security classification decisions are simple. You only have one context to chose from! User provisioning is simple, just make sure everyone has a role in the only context in the business. Administration is very low, if you assign rights to groups from the business user repository you probably never have to touch IRM administration again. There are however some obvious downsides to this model.All users in have access to all IRM secured content. So potentially a sales person could access sensitive mergers and acquisition documents, if they can get their hands on a copy that is. You cannot delegate control of different documents to different parts of the business, this may not satisfy your regulatory requirements for the separation and delegation of duties. Changing a users role affects every single document ever secured. Even though it is very unlikely a business would ever use one single context to secure all their sensitive information, thinking about this scenario raises one very important point. Just having one single context and securing all confidential documents to it, whilst incurring some of the problems detailed above, has one huge value. Once secured, IRM protected content can ONLY be accessed by authorized users. Just think of all the sensitive documents in your business today, imagine if you could ensure that only everyone you trust could open them. Even if an employee lost a laptop or someone accidentally sent an email to the wrong recipient, only the right people could open that file. A context for each and every possible granular use case Now let's think about the total opposite of a single context design. What if you created a context for each and every single defined business need and created multiple contexts within this for each level of granularity? Let's take a use case where we need to protect engineering intellectual property. Imagine we have 6 different engineering groups, and in each we have a research department, a design department and manufacturing. The company information security policy defines 3 levels of information sensitivity... restricted, confidential and top secret. Then let's say that each group and department needs to define access to information from both internal and external users. Finally add into the mix that they want to review the rights model for each context every financial quarter. This would result in a huge amount of contexts. For example, lets just look at the resulting contexts for one engineering group. Q1FY2010 Restricted Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Research Q1FY2010 Restricted Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Design Q1FY2010 Restricted Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Manufacturing Q1FY2010 Restricted External- Engineering Group 1 - Research Q1FY2010 Restricted External - Engineering Group 1 - Design Q1FY2010 Restricted External - Engineering Group 1 - Manufacturing Q1FY2010 Confidential Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Research Q1FY2010 Confidential Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Design Q1FY2010 Confidential Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Manufacturing Q1FY2010 Confidential External - Engineering Group 1 - Research Q1FY2010 Confidential External - Engineering Group 1 - Design Q1FY2010 Confidential External - Engineering Group 1 - Manufacturing Q1FY2010 Top Secret Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Research Q1FY2010 Top Secret Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Design Q1FY2010 Top Secret Internal - Engineering Group 1 - Manufacturing Q1FY2010 Top Secret External - Engineering Group 1 - Research Q1FY2010 Top Secret External - Engineering Group 1 - Design Q1FY2010 Top Secret External - Engineering Group 1 - Manufacturing Now multiply the above by 6 for each engineering group, 18 contexts. You are then creating/reviewing another 18 every 3 months. After a year you've got 72 contexts. What would be the advantages of such a complex classification model? You can satisfy very granular rights requirements, for example only an authorized engineering group 1 researcher can create a top secret report for access internally, and his role will be reviewed on a very frequent basis. Your business may have very complex rights requirements and mapping this directly to IRM may be an obvious exercise. The disadvantages of such a classification model are significant...Huge administrative overhead. Someone in the business must manage, review and administrate each of these contexts. If the engineering group had a single administrator, they would have 72 classifications to reside over each year. From an end users perspective life will be very confusing. Imagine if a user has rights in just 6 of these contexts. They may be able to print content from one but not another, be able to edit content in 2 contexts but not the other 4. Such confusion at the end user level causes frustration and resistance to the use of the technology. Increased synchronization complexity. Imagine a user who after 3 years in the company ends up with over 300 rights in many different contexts across the business. This would result in long synchronization times as the client software updates all your offline rights. Hard to understand who can do what with what. Imagine being the VP of engineering and as part of an internal security audit you are asked the question, "What rights to researchers have to our top secret information?". In this complex model the answer is not simple, it would depend on many roles in many contexts. Of course this example is extreme, but it highlights that trying to build many barriers in your business can result in a nightmare of administration and confusion amongst users. In the real world what we need is a balance of the two. We need to seek an optimum number of contexts. Too many contexts are unmanageable and too few contexts does not give fine enough granularity. What makes a good context? Good context design derives mainly from how well you understand your business requirements to secure access to confidential information. Some customers I have worked with can tell me exactly the documents they wish to secure and know exactly who should be opening them. However there are some customers who know only of the government regulation that requires them to control access to certain types of information, they don't actually know where the documents are, how they are created or understand exactly who should have access. Therefore you need to know how to ask the business the right questions that lead to information which help you define a context. First ask these questions about a set of documentsWhat is the topic? Who are legitimate contributors on this topic? Who are the authorized readership? If the answer to any one of these is significantly different, then it probably merits a separate context. Remember that sealed documents are inherently secure and as such they cannot leak to your competitors, therefore it is better sealed to a broad context than not sealed at all. Simplicity is key here. Always revert to the first extreme example of a single classification, then work towards essential complexity. If there is any doubt, always prefer fewer contexts. Remember, Oracle IRM allows you to change your mind later on. You can implement a design now and continue to change and refine as you learn how the technology is used. It is easy to go from a simple model to a more complex one, it is much harder to take a complex model that is already embedded in the work practice of users and try to simplify it. It is also wise to take a single use case and address this first with the business. Don't try and tackle many different problems from the outset. Do one, learn from the process, refine it and then take what you have learned into the next use case, refine and continue. Once you have a good grasp of the technology and understand how your business will use it, you can then start rolling out the technology wider across the business. Deciding on the use of roles in the context Once you have decided on that first initial use case and a context to create let's look at the details you need to decide upon. For each context, identify; Administrative rolesBusiness owner, the person who makes decisions about who may or may not see content in this context. This is often the person who wanted to use IRM and drove the business purchase. They are the usually the person with the most at risk when sensitive information is lost. Point of contact, the person who will handle requests for access to content. Sometimes the same as the business owner, sometimes a trusted secretary or administrator. Context administrator, the person who will enact the decisions of the Business Owner. Sometimes the point of contact, sometimes a trusted IT person. Document related rolesContributors, the people who create and edit documents in this context. Reviewers, the people who are involved in reviewing documents but are not trusted to secure information to this classification. This role is not always necessary. (See later discussion on Published-work and Work-in-Progress) Readers, the people who read documents from this context. Some people may have several of the roles above, which is fine. What you are trying to do is understand and define how the business interacts with your sensitive information. These roles obviously map directly to roles available in Oracle IRM. Reviewing the features and security for context roles At this point we have decided on a classification of information, understand what roles people in the business will play when administrating this classification and how they will interact with content. The final piece of the puzzle in getting the information for our first context is to look at the permissions people will have to sealed documents. First think why are you protecting the documents in the first place? It is to prevent the loss of leaking of information to the wrong people. To control the information, making sure that people only access the latest versions of documents. You are not using Oracle IRM to prevent unauthorized people from doing legitimate work. This is an important point, with IRM you can erect many barriers to prevent access to content yet too many restrictions and authorized users will often find ways to circumvent using the technology and end up distributing unprotected originals. Because IRM is a security technology, it is easy to get carried away restricting different groups. However I would highly recommend starting with a simple solution with few restrictions. Ensure that everyone who reasonably needs to read documents can do so from the outset. Remember that with Oracle IRM you can change rights to content whenever you wish and tighten security. Always return to the fact that the greatest value IRM brings is that ONLY authorized users can access secured content, remember that simple "one context for the entire business" model. At the start of the deployment you really need to aim for user acceptance and therefore a simple model is more likely to succeed. As time passes and users understand how IRM works you can start to introduce more restrictions and complexity. Another key aspect to focus on is handling exceptions. If you decide on a context model where engineering can only access engineering information, and sales can only access sales data. Act quickly when a sales manager needs legitimate access to a set of engineering documents. Having a quick and effective process for permitting other people with legitimate needs to obtain appropriate access will be rewarded with acceptance from the user community. These use cases can often be satisfied by integrating IRM with a good Identity & Access Management technology which simplifies the process of assigning users the correct business roles. The big print issue... Printing is often an issue of contention, users love to print but the business wants to ensure sensitive information remains in the controlled digital world. There are many cases of physical document loss causing a business pain, it is often overlooked that IRM can help with this issue by limiting the ability to generate physical copies of digital content. However it can be hard to maintain a balance between security and usability when it comes to printing. Consider the following points when deciding about whether to give print rights. Oracle IRM sealed documents can contain watermarks that expose information about the user, time and location of access and the classification of the document. This information would reside in the printed copy making it easier to trace who printed it. Printed documents are slower to distribute in comparison to their digital counterparts, so time sensitive information in printed format may present a lower risk. Print activity is audited, therefore you can monitor and react to users abusing print rights. Summary In summary it is important to think carefully about the way you create your context model. As you ask the business these questions you may get a variety of different requirements. There may be special projects that require a context just for sensitive information created during the lifetime of the project. There may be a department that requires all information in the group is secured and you might have a few senior executives who wish to use IRM to exchange a small number of highly sensitive documents with a very small number of people. Oracle IRM, with its very flexible context classification system, can support all of these use cases. The trick is to introducing the complexity to deliver them at the right level. In another article i'm working on I will go through some examples of how Oracle IRM might map to existing business use cases. But for now, this article covers all the important questions you need to get your IRM service deployed and successfully protecting your most sensitive information.

Search Results

Search found 4108 results on 165 pages for 'exchange transition'.

Page 160/165 | < Previous Page | 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 | Next Page >

- by Miriam Raphael Roberts

- by Aaronaught

- by sixtyfootersdude

- by Brendon Randall

- by user331111

- by Robert Koritnik

- by i.h4d35

- by Brendon Randall

- by legendofawesomeness

- by Isaac Levin

- by GJ

- by dan

- by Phood

- by peiska

- by venom

- by dersteps

- by Citroenfris

- by Markus

- by Brian

- by Michael

- by mbcrump

- by Martin Hinshelwood

- by andrewbrust

- by Simon Thorpe

< Previous Page | 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 | Next Page >