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  • Lots of bugs in SourceForge, maybe?

    - by Delirium tremens
    http://sourceforge.net/develop/ - Project Finder - Programming Language - Python ( * 16596 * ) - even so, All Anys - Go - Programming Language - Python ( * 11,847 * ) - Desktop ( * 572 * ) - All Desktop Categories (7 + 1 + 67 + 35 + 286 = * 396 * ) Does anybody know what is going on there?

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  • iPhone to Android Market

    - by BahaiResearch.com
    (I am coming from an iPhone experience) When we create an iPhone app, Apple gives us a http URL that we can put on web pages that when clicked will open iTunes and give the user a chance to buy on their desktop. As Android has no "iTunes" Windows/Mac application on the desktop, what do I link to on my Web pages/email marketing so that users can go and buy the Android apps we are writing? Ian

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  • showing error message of missing VB dll

    - by user261740
    On Windows 7 (32 bits), i have downloaded and installed the windows desktop java application using windows installer of that application. When i re-open application it complains about a missing VB dll. What may be reason complains for missing VB dll and how can i resolved? Any help will be appreciated. FYI: The installer is build using NSIS and executable is prepared using JSmooth, of windows desktop java application that i have installed.

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  • Empty R environment becomes large file when saved

    - by user1052019
    I'm getting behaviour I don't understand when saving environments. The code below demonstrates the problem. I would have expected the two files (far-too-big.RData, and right-size.RData) to be the same size, and also very small because the environments they contain are empty. In fact, far-too-big.R ends up the same size as bigfile.RData. I get the same results using 2.14.1 and 2.15.2, both on WinXP 5.1 SP3. Can anyone explain why this is happening? Thanks. a <- matrix(runif(1000000, 0, 1), ncol=1000) save(a, file="c:/temp/bigfile.RData") test <- function() { load("c:/temp/bigfile.RData") test <- new.env() save(test, file="c:/temp/far-too-big.RData") test1 <- new.env(parent=globalenv()) save(test1, file="c:/temp/right-size.RData") } test()

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  • Java date long value changed after insert, select query

    - by StackExploded
    AFAIK, java Date type is independent from Timezone which means that it represents specific moment of time as long typed value. I found really weird thing here. This is the original value i tried to insert. (http-0.0.0.0-9080-4) 1352955600000 <-- long integer. (http-0.0.0.0-9080-4) Thu Nov 15 00:00:00 EST 2012 <-- User Friendly Format. After i finished inserting into Oracle 11g database, the value has changed! (http-0.0.0.0-9080-4) 1352952000000 (http-0.0.0.0-9080-4) Wed Nov 14 23:00:00 EST 2012 How could this happen?? The more weird thing is it only happens specific environments such as Jboss. I'm currently using below environments. java 1.6 ibatis 2.34 jboss-5.1 (server) tomcat 6.0 (local) oracle 11g Is there anybody who can give me a clue or link to be helpful? it really bugging me!!

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  • Ways to restrict WCF Service so only our apps can access it.

    - by RP
    I have a public WCF Service. I have a WPF Desktop app & a silverlight app. My apps does not have any login requirements. I want to make it difficult for another developer / website to make use of my service. What's the best way to restrict access to my service? Use SSL and have the desktop / silverlight app store a token inside of it?

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  • Part 2&ndash;Load Testing In The Cloud

    - by Tarun Arora
    Welcome to Part 2, In Part 1 we discussed the advantages of creating a Test Rig in the cloud, the Azure edge and the Test Rig Topology we want to get to. In Part 2, Let’s start by understanding the components of Azure we’ll be making use of followed by manually putting them together to create the test rig, so… let’s get down dirty start setting up the Test Rig.  What Components of Azure will I be using for building the Test Rig in the Cloud? To run the Test Agents we’ll make use of Windows Azure Compute and to enable communication between Test Controller and Test Agents we’ll make use of Windows Azure Connect.  Azure Connect The Test Controller is on premise and the Test Agents are in the cloud (How will they talk?). To enable communication between the two, we’ll make use of Windows Azure Connect. With Windows Azure Connect, you can use a simple user interface to configure IPsec protected connections between computers or virtual machines (VMs) in your organization’s network, and roles running in Windows Azure. With this you can now join Windows Azure role instances to your domain, so that you can use your existing methods for domain authentication, name resolution, or other domain-wide maintenance actions. For more details refer to an overview of Windows Azure connect. A very useful video explaining everything you wanted to know about Windows Azure connect.  Azure Compute Windows Azure compute provides developers a platform to host and manage applications in Microsoft’s data centres across the globe. A Windows Azure application is built from one or more components called ‘roles.’ Roles come in three different types: Web role, Worker role, and Virtual Machine (VM) role, we’ll be using the Worker role to set up the Test Agents. A very nice blog post discussing the difference between the 3 role types. Developers are free to use the .NET framework or other software that runs on Windows with the Worker role or Web role. Developers can also create applications using languages such as PHP and Java. More on Windows Azure Compute. Each Windows Azure compute instance represents a virtual server... Virtual Machine Size CPU Cores Memory Cost Per Hour Extra Small Shared 768 MB $0.04 Small 1 1.75 GB $0.12 Medium 2 3.50 GB $0.24 Large 4 7.00 GB $0.48 Extra Large 8 14.00 GB $0.96   You might want to review the Windows Azure Pricing FAQ. Let’s Get Started building the Test Rig… Configuration Machine Role Comments VM – 1 Domain Controller for Playpit.com On Premise VM – 2 TFS, Test Controller On Premise VM – 3 Test Agent Cloud   In this blog post I would assume that you have the domain, Team Foundation Server and Test Controller Installed and set up already. If not, please refer to the TFS 2010 Installation Guide and this walkthrough on MSDN to set up your Test Controller. You can also download a preconfigured TFS 2010 VM from Brian Keller's blog, Brian also has some great hands on Labs on TFS 2010 that you may want to explore. I. Lets start building VM – 3: The Test Agent Download the Windows Azure SDK and Tools Open Visual Studio and create a new Windows Azure Project using the Cloud Template                   Choose the Worker Role for reasons explained in the earlier post         The WorkerRole.cs implements the Run() and OnStart() methods, no code changes required. You should be able to compile the project and run it in the compute emulator (The compute emulator should have been installed as part of the Windows Azure Toolkit) on your local machine.                   We will only be making changes to WindowsAzureProject, open ServiceDefinition.csdef. Ensure that the vmsize is small (remember the cost chart above). Import the “Connect” module. I am importing the Connect module because I need to join the Worker role VM to the Playpit domain. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceDefinition name="WindowsAzureProject2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceDefinition"> <WorkerRole name="WorkerRole1" vmsize="Small"> <Imports> <Import moduleName="Diagnostics" /> <Import moduleName="Connect"/> </Imports> </WorkerRole> </ServiceDefinition> Go to the ServiceConfiguration.Cloud.cscfg and note that settings with key ‘Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.%%%%’ have been added to the configuration file. This is because you decided to import the connect module. See the config below. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceConfiguration serviceName="WindowsAzureProject2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceConfiguration" osFamily="1" osVersion="*"> <Role name="WorkerRole1"> <Instances count="1" /> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Diagnostics.ConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.ActivationToken" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Refresh" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.WaitForConnectivity" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Upgrade" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.EnableDomainJoin" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainFQDN" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainControllerFQDN" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainAccountName" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainPassword" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainOU" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Administrators" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainSiteName" value="" /> </ConfigurationSettings> </Role> </ServiceConfiguration>             Let’s go step by step and understand all the highlighted parameters and where you can find the values for them.       osFamily – By default this is set to 1 (Windows Server 2008 SP2). Change this to 2 if you want the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system. The Advantage of using osFamily = “2” is that you get Powershell 2.0 rather than Powershell 1.0. In Powershell 2.0 you could simply use “powershell -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted ./myscript.ps1” and it will work while in Powershell 1.0 you will have to change the registry key by including the following in your command file “reg add HKLM\Software\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\ShellIds\Microsoft.PowerShell /v ExecutionPolicy /d Unrestricted /f” before you can execute any power shell. The other reason you might want to move to os2 is if you wanted IIS 7.5.       Activation Token – To enable communication between the on premise machine and the Windows Azure Worker role VM both need to have the same token. Log on to Windows Azure Management Portal, click on Connect, click on Get Activation Token, this should give you the activation token, copy the activation token to the clipboard and paste it in the configuration file. Note – Later in the blog I’ll be showing you how to install connect on the on premise machine.                       EnableDomainJoin – Set the value to true, ofcourse we want to join the on windows azure worker role VM to the domain.       DomainFQDN, DomainControllerFQDN, DomainAccountName, DomainPassword, DomainOU, Administrators – This information is specific to your domain. I have extracted this information from the ‘service manager’ and ‘Active Directory Users and Computers’. Also, i created a new Domain-OU namely ‘CloudInstances’ so all my cloud instances joined to my domain show up here, this is optional. You can encrypt the DomainPassword – refer to the instructions here. Or hold fire, I’ll be covering that when i come to certificates and encryption in the coming section.       Now once you have filled all this information up, the configuration file should look something like below, <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceConfiguration serviceName="WindowsAzureProject2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceConfiguration" osFamily="2" osVersion="*"> <Role name="WorkerRole1"> <Instances count="1" /> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Diagnostics.ConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.ActivationToken" value="45f55fea-f194-4fbc-b36e-25604faac784" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Refresh" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.WaitForConnectivity" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Upgrade" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.EnableDomainJoin" value="true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainFQDN" value="play.pit.com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainControllerFQDN" value="WIN-KUDQMQFGQOL.play.pit.com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainAccountName" value="playpit\Administrator" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainPassword" value="************************" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainOU" value="OU=CloudInstances, DC=Play, DC=Pit, DC=com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Administrators" value="Playpit\Administrator" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainSiteName" value="" /> </ConfigurationSettings> </Role> </ServiceConfiguration> Next we will be enabling the Remote Desktop module in to the ServiceDefinition.csdef, we could make changes manually or allow a beautiful wizard to help us make changes. I prefer the second option. So right click on the Windows Azure project and choose Publish       Now once you get the publish wizard, if you haven’t already you would be asked to import your Windows Azure subscription, this is simply the Msdn subscription activation key xml. Once you have done click Next to go to the Settings page and check ‘Enable Remote Desktop for all roles’.       As soon as you do that you get another pop up asking you the details for the user that you would be logging in with (make sure you enter a reasonable expiry date, you do not want the user account to expire today). Notice the more information tag at the bottom, click that to get access to the certificate section. See screen shot below.       From the drop down select the option to create a new certificate        In the pop up window enter the friendly name for your certificate. In my case I entered ‘WAC – Test Rig’ and click ok. This will create a new certificate for you. Click on the view button to see the certificate details. Do you see the Thumbprint, this is the value that will go in the config file (very important). Now click on the Copy to File button to copy the certificate, we will need to import the certificate to the windows Azure Management portal later. So, make sure you save it a safe location.                                Click Finish and enter details of the user you would like to create with permissions for remote desktop access, once you have entered the details on the ‘Remote desktop configuration’ screen click on Ok. From the Publish Windows Azure Wizard screen press Cancel. Cancel because we don’t want to publish the role just yet and Yes because we want to save all the changes in the config file.       Now if you go to the ServiceDefinition.csdef file you will see that the RemoteAccess and RemoteForwarder roles have been imported for you. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceDefinition name="WindowsAzureProject2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceDefinition"> <WorkerRole name="WorkerRole1" vmsize="Small"> <Imports> <Import moduleName="Diagnostics" /> <Import moduleName="Connect" /> <Import moduleName="RemoteAccess" /> <Import moduleName="RemoteForwarder" /> </Imports> </WorkerRole> </ServiceDefinition> Now go to the ServiceConfiguration.Cloud.cscfg file and you see a whole bunch for setting “Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.%%%” values added for you. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceConfiguration serviceName="WindowsAzureProject2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceConfiguration" osFamily="2" osVersion="*"> <Role name="WorkerRole1"> <Instances count="1" /> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Diagnostics.ConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.ActivationToken" value="45f55fea-f194-4fbc-b36e-25604faac784" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Refresh" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.WaitForConnectivity" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Upgrade" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.EnableDomainJoin" value="true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainFQDN" value="play.pit.com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainControllerFQDN" value="WIN-KUDQMQFGQOL.play.pit.com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainAccountName" value="playpit\Administrator" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainPassword" value="************************" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainOU" value="OU=CloudInstances, DC=Play, DC=Pit, DC=com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Administrators" value="Playpit\Administrator" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainSiteName" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.Enabled" value="true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.AccountUsername" value="Administrator" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.AccountEncryptedPassword" value="MIIBnQYJKoZIhvcNAQcDoIIBjjCCAYoCAQAxggFOMIIBSgIBADAyMB4xHDAaBgNVBAMME1dpbmRvd 3MgQXp1cmUgVG9vbHMCEGa+B46voeO5T305N7TSG9QwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEBBQAEggEABg4ol5Xol66Ip6QKLbAPWdmD4ae ADZ7aKj6fg4D+ATr0DXBllZHG5Umwf+84Sj2nsPeCyrg3ZDQuxrfhSbdnJwuChKV6ukXdGjX0hlowJu/4dfH4jTJC7sBWS AKaEFU7CxvqYEAL1Hf9VPL5fW6HZVmq1z+qmm4ecGKSTOJ20Fptb463wcXgR8CWGa+1w9xqJ7UmmfGeGeCHQ4QGW0IDSBU6ccg vzF2ug8/FY60K1vrWaCYOhKkxD3YBs8U9X/kOB0yQm2Git0d5tFlIPCBT2AC57bgsAYncXfHvPesI0qs7VZyghk8LVa9g5IqaM Cp6cQ7rmY/dLsKBMkDcdBHuCTAzBgkqhkiG9w0BBwEwFAYIKoZIhvcNAwcECDRVifSXbA43gBApNrp40L1VTVZ1iGag+3O1" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.AccountExpiration" value="2012-11-27T23:59:59.0000000+00:00" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteForwarder.Enabled" value="true" /> </ConfigurationSettings> <Certificates> <Certificate name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.PasswordEncryption" thumbprint="AA23016CF0BDFC344400B5B82706B608B92E4217" thumbprintAlgorithm="sha1" /> </Certificates> </Role> </ServiceConfiguration>          Okay let’s look at them one at a time,       Enabled - Yes, we would like to enable Remote Access.       AccountUserName – This is the user name you entered while you were on the publish windows azure role screen, as detailed above.       AccountEncrytedPassword – Try and decode that, the certificate is used to encrypt the password you specified for the user account. Remember earlier i said, either use the instructions or wait and i’ll be showing you encryption, now the user account i am using for rdp has the same password as my domain password, so i can simply copy the value of the AccountEncryptedPassword to the DomainPassword as well.       AccountExpiration – This is the expiration as you specified in the wizard earlier, make sure your account does not expire today.       Remote Forwarder – Check out the documentation, below is how I understand it, -- One role in an application that implements a remote desktop connection must import the RemoteForwarder module. The two modules work together to enable the remote desktop connections to role instances. -- If you have multiple roles defined in the service model, it does not matter which role you add the RemoteForwarder module to, but you must add it to only one of the role definitions.       Certificate – Remember the certificate thumbprint from the wizard, the on premise machine and windows azure role machine that need to speak to each other must have the same thumbprint. More on that when we install Windows Azure connect Endpoints on the on premise machine. As i said earlier, in this blog post, I’ll be showing you the manual process so i won’t be scripting any star up tasks to install the test agent or register the test agent with the TFS Server. I’ll be showing you all this cool stuff in the next blog post, that’s because it’s important to understand the manual side of it, it becomes easier for you to troubleshoot in case something fails. Having said that, the changes we have made are sufficient to spin up the Windows Azure Worker Role aka Test Agent VM, have it connected with the play.pit.com domain and have remote access enabled on it. Before we deploy the Test Agent VM we need to set up Windows Azure Connect on the TFS Server. II. Windows Azure Connect: Setting up Connect on VM – 2 i.e. TFS & Test Controller Glad you made it so far, now to enable communication between the on premise TFS/Test Controller and Azure-ed Test Agent we need to enable communication. We have set up the Azure connect module in the Test Agent configuration, now the connect end points need to be enabled on the on premise machines, let’s have a look at how we can do this. Log on to VM – 2 running the TFS Server and Test Controller Log on to the Windows Azure Management Portal and click on Virtual Network Click on Virtual Network, if you already have a subscription you should see the below screen shot, if not, you would be asked to complete the subscription first        Click on Install Local Endpoints from the top left on the panel and you get a url appended with a token id in it, remember the token i showed you earlier, in theory the token you get here should match the token you added to the Test Agent config file.        Copy the url to the clip board and paste it in IE explorer (important, the installation at present only works out of IE and you need to have cookies enabled in order to complete the installation). As stated in the pop up, you can NOT download and run the software later, you need to run it as is, since it contains a token. Once the installation completes you should see the Windows Azure connect icon in the system tray.                         Right click the Azure Connect icon, choose Diagnostics and refer to this link for diagnostic detail terminology. NOTE – Unfortunately I could not see the Windows Azure connect icon in the system tray, a bit of binging with Google revealed that the azure connect icon is only shown when the ‘Windows Azure Connect Endpoint’ Service is started. So go to services.msc and make sure that the service is started, if not start it, unfortunately again, the service did not start for me on a manual start and i realised that one of the dependant services was disabled, you can look at the service dependencies and start them and then start windows azure connect. Bottom line, you need to start Windows Azure connect service before you can proceed. Please refer here on MSDN for more on Troubleshooting Windows Azure connect. (Follow the next step as well)   Now go back to the Windows Azure Management Portal and from Groups and Roles create a new group, lets call it ‘Test Rig’. Make sure you add the VM – 2 (the TFS Server VM where you just installed the endpoint).       Now if you go back to the Azure Connect icon in the system tray and click ‘Refresh Policy’ you will notice that the disconnected status of the icon should change to ready for connection. III. Importing Certificate in to Windows Azure Management Portal But before that you need to import the certificate you created in Step I in to the Windows Azure Management Portal. Log on to the Windows Azure Management Portal and click on ‘Hosted Services, Storage Accounts & CDN’ and then ‘Management Certificates’ followed by Add Certificates as shown in the screen shot below        Browse to the location where you saved the certificate earlier, remember… Refer to Step I in case you forgot.        Now you should be able to see the imported certificate here, make sure the thumbprint of the certificate matches the one you inserted in the config files        IV. Publish Windows Azure Worker Role aka Test Agent Having completed I, II and III, you are ready to publish the Test Agent VM – 3 to the cloud. Go to Visual Studio and right click the Windows Azure project and select Publish. Verify the infomration in the wizard, from the advanced settings tab, you can also enabled capture of intellitrace or profiling information.         Click Next and Click Publish! From the view menu bar select the Windows Azure Activity Log window.       Now you should be able to see the deployment progress in real time.             In the Windows Azure Management Portal, you should also be able to see the progress of creation of a new Worker Role.       Once the deployment is complete you should be able to RDP (go to run prompt type mstsc and in the pop up the machine name) in to the Test Agent Worker Role VM from the Playpit network using the domain admin user account. In case you are unable to log in to the Test Agent using the domain admin user account it means the process of joining the Test Agent to the domain has failed! But the good news is, because you imported the connect module, you can connect to the Test Agent machine using Windows Azure Management Portal and troubleshoot the reason for failure, you will be able to log in with the user name and password you specified in the config file for the keys ‘RemoteAccess.AccountUsername, RemoteAccess.EncryptedPassword (just that enter the password unencrypted)’, fix it or manually join the machine to the domain. Once you have managed to Join the Test Agent VM to the Domain move to the next step.      So, log in to the Test Agent Worker Role VM with the Playpit Domain Administrator and verify that you can log in, the machine is connected to the domain and the connect service is successfully running. If yes, give your self a pat on the back, you are 80% mission accomplished!         Go to the Windows Azure Management Portal and click on Virtual Network, click on Groups and Roles and click on Test Rig, click Edit Group, the edit the Test Rig group you created earlier. In the Connect to section, click on Add to select the worker role you have just deployed. Also, check the ‘Allow connections between endpoints in the group’ with this you will enable to communication between test controller and test agents and test agents/test agents. Click Save.      Now, you are ready to deploy the Test Agent software on the Worker Role Test Agent VM and configure it to work with the Test Controller. V. Configuring VM – 3: Installing Test Agent and Associating Test Agent to Controller Log in to the Worker Role Test Agent VM that you have just successfully deployed, make sure you log in with the domain administrator account. Download the All Agents software from MSDN, ‘en_visual_studio_agents_2010_x86_x64_dvd_509679.iso’, extract the iso and navigate to where you have extracted the iso. In my case, i have extracted the iso to “C:\Resources\Temp\VsAgentSetup”. Open the Test Agent folder and double click on setup.exe. Once you have installed the Test Agent you should reach the configuration window. If you face any issues installing TFS Test Agent on the VM, refer to the walkthrough on MSDN.       Once you have successfully installed the Test Agent software you will need to configure the test agent. Right click the test agent configuration tool and run as a different user. i.e. an Administrator. This is really to run the configuration wizard with elevated privileges (you might have UAC block something's otherwise).        In the run options, you can select ‘service’ you do not need to run the agent as interactive un less you are running coded UI tests. I have specified the domain administrator to connect to the TFS Test Controller. In real life, i would never do that, i would create a separate test user service account for this purpose. But for the blog post, we are using the most powerful user so that any policies or restrictions don’t block you.        Click the Apply Settings button and you should be all green! If not, the summary usually gives helpful error messages that you can resolve and proceed. As per my experience, you may run in to either a permission or a firewall blocking communication issue.        And now the moment of truth! Go to VM –2 open up Visual Studio and from the Test Menu select Manage Test Controller       Mission Accomplished! You should be able to see the Test Agent that you have just configured here,         VI. Creating and Running Load Tests on your brand new Azure-ed Test Rig I have various blog posts on Performance Testing with Visual Studio Ultimate, you can follow the links and videos below, Blog Posts: - Part 1 – Performance Testing using Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate - Part 2 – Performance Testing using Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate - Part 3 – Performance Testing using Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Videos: - Test Tools Configuration & Settings in Visual Studio - Why & How to Record Web Performance Tests in Visual Studio Ultimate - Goal Driven Load Testing using Visual Studio Ultimate Now that you have created your load tests, there is one last change you need to make before you can run the tests on your Azure Test Rig, create a new Test settings file, and change the Test Execution method to ‘Remote Execution’ and select the test controller you have configured the Worker Role Test Agent against in our case VM – 2 So, go on, fire off a test run and see the results of the test being executed on the Azur-ed Test Rig. Review and What’s next? A quick recap of the benefits of running the Test Rig in the cloud and what i will be covering in the next blog post AND I would love to hear your feedback! Advantages Utilizing the power of Azure compute to run a heavy virtual user load. Benefiting from the Azure flexibility, destroy Test Agents when not in use, takes < 25 minutes to spin up a new Test Agent. Most important test Network Latency, (network latency and speed of connection are two different things – usually network latency is very hard to test), by placing the Test Agents in Microsoft Data centres around the globe, one can actually test the lag in transferring the bytes not because of a slow connection but because the page has been requested from the other side of the globe. Next Steps The process of spinning up the Test Agents in windows Azure is not 100% automated. I am working on the Worker process and power shell scripts to make the role deployment, unattended install of test agent software and registration of the test agent to the test controller automated. In the next blog post I will show you how to make the complete process unattended and automated. Remember to subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/TarunArora. Hope you enjoyed this post, I would love to hear your feedback! If you have any recommendations on things that I should consider or any questions or feedback, feel free to leave a comment. See you in Part III.   Share this post : CodeProject

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  • Pairing Bluetooth device with PIN fails

    - by Pikaro
    I'm trying to pair my old BlackBerry 8310 to my Linux desktop (up-to-date Debian Sid, 3.15-10.dmz.1-liquorix-amd64) by using blueman and its associated tools. Scanning for the device works equally well for both sides; however, I am unable to pair the two once it comes to entering the PIN. If I scan from my PC, I have two options in blueman-manager regarding my phone: Directly selecting "pair", or selecting "setup". If I select "pair", nothing happens on my desktop, but the phone asks me to enter a PIN; if I do so, it reports that pairing has failed. During that, nothing is logged to the console. Selecting "setup" opens a configuration dialog that allows for entering or generating a PIN. Regardless, I get to a screen that tells me to enter the PIN on the phone, and at the same time, the phone pops up the equivalent dialog. This would be what one would expect to work; but whatever I enter (naturally, the same on both), both devices report that pairing has failed, and blueman-manager logs init_services (/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/blueman/main/Device.py:73) Loading services org.bluez.Error.AuthenticationFailed: Authentication Failed If I instead try to pair from the phone, I cannot see any kind of reaction from my desktop - all I get is the equivalent "pairing failed" message from the BlackBerry after I entered a PIN in the dialog that pops up there. hcitool scan and hciconfig -a work without complaints, but I cannot find a way to try the pairing as a whole on the console since bluez-simple-agent seems to have been discontinued and this recommendation is everywhere on Google. hcitool cc as root opens the PIN dialog on the phone, then fails with "Input/Output error" once I enter it. The user is not permitted to execute this command. I also tried creating /usr/lib/bluetooth/<MAC>/pincodes to manually define a persistent PIN, which seems to have had no effect. The same goes for running the different commands as root, though I'm really confused about the internal structure of the Bluetooth subsystem now: They usually and inconsistently failed with Python or DBUS errors or just showed the same results. The only other Bluetooth device I have around are a pair of Creative speakers. Trying "setup" asks me to enter a key on them, which is impossible. If I try "pair", I'm asked for a PIN as I should, but no pairing takes place, and no errors appear on the console. (It just repeats their name a few times.) Interestingly, I tried that before writing my question, and nothing happened in terms of PIN questions, just like with the BlackBerry, which still shows no change. I don't think I actively changed anything since then. The BlackBerry can pair with and connect to the speakers, and everything goes as one would expect, so the problem is definitely with my desktop. So thus my questions: What is that PIN window generated by, and why does it seem to appear randomly? How can I find out what, exactly, fails after trying to add the speakers, as this may give me a clue? Is there any kind of complete log that concerns itself with Bluetooth? What data can I provide to make this more solvable?

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, March 29, 2012

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, March 29, 2012Popular ReleasesWouter's SharePoint Demo Land: Custom Views and Forms: Samples showing how to provision custom lists. Custom view rendering with code, XSLT, XSLT + code. Custom forms with database lookups.YouTube API Class & Server Control for ASP.NET 4.0: Binary dll Files with Demo: . You can find binary dll files under :- Demo\bin\ folder Demo url :- http://demo.svinn.com/YouTube/Default.aspx 1 GB Hosting + Free Domain => http://ghosting.in/ .callisto: callisto 2.0.23: Patched Script static class and peak user count bug fix.Circuit Diagram: Circuit Diagram 2.0 Alpha 3: New in this release: Added components: Microcontroller Demultiplexer Flip & rotate components Open XML files from older versions of Circuit Diagram Text formatting for components New CDDX syntax Other fixesUmbraco CMS: Umbraco 5.1 CMS (Beta): Beta build for testing - please report issues at issues.umbraco.org (Latest uploaded: 5.1.0.123) What's new in 5.1? The full list of changes is on our http://progress.umbraco.org task tracking page. It shows items complete for 5.1, and 5.1 includes items for 5.0.1 and 5.0.2 listed there too. Here's two headline acts: Members5.1 adds support for backoffice editing of Members. We support the pairing up of our content type system in Hive with regular ASP.NET Membership providers (we ship a def...51Degrees.mobi - Mobile Device Detection and Redirection: 2.1.2.11: One Click Install from NuGet Changes to Version 2.1.2.11Code Changes 1. The project is now licenced under the Mozilla Public Licence 2. 2. User interface control and associated data access layer classes have been added to aid developers integrating 51Degrees.mobi into wider projects such as content management systems or web hosting management solutions. Use the following in a web form or user control to access these new UI components. <%@ Register Assembly="FiftyOne.Foundation" Namespace="...JSON Toolkit: JSON Toolkit 3.1: slight performance improvement (5% - 10%) new JsonException classPicturethrill: Version 2.3.28.0: Straightforward image selection. New clean UI look. Super stable. Simplified user experience.Indent Guides for Visual Studio: Indent Guides v12 (beta 2): Note This beta is likely to be less stable than the previous one. If you have severe troubles using this version, please report them with as much detail as possible (especially other extensions/addins that you may have) and downgrade to the last stable release. Version History Changed since v12 (beta 1): new options dialog with Quick Set selections for behavior restructured settings storage (should be more reliable) asynchronous background document analysis glow effect now appears in p...SQL Monitor - managing sql server performance: SQL Monitor 4.2 alpha 16: 1. finally fixed problem with logic fault checking for temporary table name... I really mean finally ...ScintillaNET: ScintillaNET 2.5: A slew of bug-fixes with a few new features sprinkled in. This release also upgrades the SciLexer and SciLexer64 DLLs to version 3.0.4. The official stuff: Issue # Title 32402 32402 27137 27137 31548 31548 30179 30179 24932 24932 29701 29701 31238 31238 26875 26875 30052 30052 Mugen MVVM Toolkit: Mugen MVVM Toolkit ver 1.1: Added Design mode support.Multiwfn: Multiwfn 2.3.2: Multiwfn 2.3.2Harness: Harness 2.0.2: change to .NET Framework Client Profile bug fix the download dialog auto answer. bug fix setFocus command. add "SendKeys" command. remove "closeAll" command. minor bugs fixed.BugNET Issue Tracker: BugNET 0.9.161: Below is a list of fixes in this release. Bug BGN-2092 - Link in Email "visit your profile" not functional BGN-2083 - Manager of bugnet can not edit project when it is not public BGN-2080 - clicking on a link in the project summary causes error (0.9.152.0) BGN-2070 - Missing Functionality On Feed.aspx BGN-2069 - Calendar View does not work BGN-2068 - Time tracking totals not ok BGN-2067 - Issues List Page Size Bug: Index was out of range. Must be non-negative and less than the si...YAF.NET (aka Yet Another Forum.NET): v1.9.6.1 RTW: v1.9.6.1 FINAL is .NET v4.0 ONLY v1.9.6.1 has: Performance Improvements .NET v4.0 improvements Improved FaceBook Integration KNOWN ISSUES WITH THIS RELEASE: ON INSTALL PLEASE DON'T CHECK "Upgrade BBCode Extensions...". More complete change list and discussion here: http://forum.yetanotherforum.net/yaf_postst14201_v1-9-6-1-RTW-Dated--3-26-2012.aspxmenu4web: menu4web 0.0.3: menu4web 0.0.3ArcGIS Editor for OpenStreetMap: ArcGIS Editor for OSM 2.0 Final: This release installs both the ArcGIS Editor for OSM Server Component and/or ArcGIS Editor for OSM Desktop components. The Desktop tools allow you to download data from the OpenStreetMap servers and store it locally in a geodatabase. You can then use the familiar editing environment of ArcGIS Desktop to create, modify, or delete data. Once you are done editing, you can post back the edit changes to OSM to make them available to all OSM users. The Server Component allows you to quickly create...Craig's Utility Library: Craig's Utility Library 3.1: This update adds about 60 new extension methods, a couple of new classes, and a number of fixes including: Additions Added DateSpan class Added GenericDelimited class Random additions Added static thread friendly version of Random.Next called ThreadSafeNext. AOP Manager additions Added Destroy function to AOPManager (clears out all data so system can be recreated. Really only useful for testing...) ORM additions Added PagedCommand and PageCount functions to ObjectBaseClass (same as M...DotSpatial: DotSpatial 1.1: This is a Minor Release. See the changes in the issue tracker. Minimal -- includes DotSpatial core and essential extensions Extended -- includes debugging symbols and additional extensions Just want to run the software? End user (non-programmer) version available branded as MapWindow Want to add your own feature? Develop a plugin, using the template and contribute to the extension feed (you can also write extensions that you distribute in other ways). Components are available as NuGet pa...New ProjectsAeroFichierAchats: Program that reworks excel files into PDFArepa: A lightweight non-invasive tool that helps you to implement Behavior Driven Development (BDD) on .NET projects. Arepa produces guidelines of using BDD on your current tests, and customisable and portable test reports integrating XML Documentation Comments. It's developed in C# using Scrum and BDD.Azure User Management Console - AUMC: Azure User Management Console - AUMC is a User Graphic Interface (GUI) that manages the users and logins of an Azure SQL database. The tool is simply converting your action into T-SQL commands and execute them on the Azure SQL Database. BaseProject: BaseProjectCraftBukkit Updater: I don't activly monitor the status of CraftBukkit's updates, but I want to stay on top of the updated versions. This will track the last version in cache then check for updates. Upon update there should be an option to download automaticly to location XYZ or to send an email/sms.Dan Dot Com: Dan's SandboxEjemplos Windows 8 Javascript: Este proyecto pretende recoger todos los ejemplos de aplicaciones metro para Windows 8 en JavaScript que vaya desarrollando para fines didácticos. Todas las colaboraciones son bienvenidas.EntityFramework Generic Patterns: EntityFramework Generic PatternsEpFamvir: EpFamvir is a Visual C++ software framework that supports data-intensive distributed applications under a GPL3.0 license. It enables applications to work with thousands of nodes and petabytes of data. Famvir was inspired by Apache Hadoop, Google's MapReduce, and Google FS.etdc/etp: ???????????????? ???????? ??????? etest.ru. IndieCiv: IndieCiv - An independent look at how a new game could be made using fan-made graphics from Civ3. You can visit the discussion at www.civfanatics.com http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=421582Libro SQL Server 2012: Databases and examples for my Italian book on "SQL Server 2012"Linq2Rest: Parses OData system query parameters to create a LINQ query that can be used to filter a model set. Also exposes a LINQ provider for web services supporting the OData query parameters. Use extension method Filter (in Linq2Rest namespace) on any IEnumerable source.LittleUmph: It's a little library to help you to alleviate some of the mundane stuff during your development. It has some nifty stuff like a neat database wrapper, conversion utilities, string functions and vast of other mini helpers to improve the efficiency and consistency of your code.LonghornRPG: LonghornRPGMemberManager: Keep track of membersMSU Student Teaching DataBase: A C# application to manage student placements for MSU.MvcContrib4: This is the MvcContrib project to support MVC 4MYFIRSTDEMOPROJECT: Introduction to CSharpOrchard Page Title Override: This Orchard CMS module allows a user to manage the Page Title. You can now have the Site Name show up last in the Page Title or hide the Site Name completely from the Page Title. The module also contains a Content Part allowing a Page Title to be separate from content title.phoenixtree: .net linux sql php python html javascript c exampleProject Explorer for Notepad++: This project mainly aims at providing a functional rich project explorer experience on notepad++. Features include Folder based file browsing, searching, filtering and more.Projeto Exemplo FPU: Projeto Exemplo FPUPureCalendar: simple web calendarrails study: rails studySafe IM: a safe IM software use AES,SHA,RSA.Contain a server and a clientScoreboard: Scoreboard is a simple sports and/or activities scoreboard which can be used for a variety of purposes It was developed for use with a 1024x768 projector and features home and away scores, countdown clock, even a buzzer. It's developed in VB.net.SharePoint System dates and editor fields updater: The SPChangeDate is a utility used to modify some of the system fields in a SharePoint 2010 document library using a datagridview (Excel Like). It allows the modification of the following SharePoint fields: 1. Created 2. Modified 3. Modified By 4. Created By Shi Ji Xiang CRM 2012: Shi Ji XiangSIGECAR: SIGECARStable Dependencies Principle Checker for nDepend: Small console app for parsing nDepend output files and find assemblies that breaks the Stable Dependencies PrincipleStudentsPointManager: StudentsPointManagertclh123test: 4testThai Sign Language Translator: Thai Sign Language Translator with Kinect Sensor.The House FM / My Praise FM Desktop App: An App to play Christian radio on the desktop of windows Vista and Windows 7 computersTradeSea: Uni ProjectVisual Dependency Tracer: This tool will help you understand how an excel formula is derived/calculated. It provides a visual representation (tree) of the formula, including the precendents and dependents.VK Video Player: Video player for russian social network vk.comXrmSvcToolkit: XrmSvcToolkit is a small JavaScript library that helps you access Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 web service interfaces (SOAP and REST).

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  • Python CGI on Amazon AWS EC2 micro-instance -- a how-to!

    - by user595585
    How can you make an EC2 micro instance serve CGI scripts from lighthttpd? For instance Python CGI? Well, it took half a day, but I have gotten Python cgi running on a free Amazon AWS EC2 micro-instance, using the lighttpd server. I think it will help my fellow noobs to put all the steps in one place. Armed with the simple steps below, it will take you only 15 minutes to set things up! My question for the more experienced users reading this is: Are there any security flaws in what I've done? (See file and directory permissions.) Step 1: Start your EC2 instance and ssh into it. [Obviously, you'll need to sign up for Amazon EC2 and save your key pairs to a *.pem file. I won't go over this, as Amazon tells you how to do it.] Sign into your AWS account and start your EC2 instance. The web has tutorials on doing this. Notice that default instance-size that Amazon presents to you is "small." This is not "micro" and so it will cost you money. Be sure to manually choose "micro." (Micro instances are free only for the first year...) Find the public DNS code for your running instance. To do this, click on the instance in the top pane of the dashboard and you'll eventually see the "Public DNS" field populated in the bottom pane. (You may need to fiddle a bit.) The Public DNS looks something like: ec2-174-129-110-23.compute-1.amazonaws.com Start your Unix console program. (On Max OS X, it's called Terminal, and lives in the Applications - Utilities folder.) cd to the directory on your desktop system that has your *.pem file containing your AWS keypairs. ssh to your EC2 instance using a command like: ssh -i <<your *.pem filename>> ec2-user@<< Public DNS address >> So, for me, this was: ssh -i amzn_ec2_keypair.pem [email protected] Your EC2 instance should let you in. Step 2: Download lighttpd to your EC2 instance. To install lighttpd, you will need root access on your EC2 instance. The problem is: Amazon will not let you sign in as root. (Not straightforwardly, at least.) But there is a workaround. Type this command: sudo /bin/bash The system prompt-character will change from $ to #. We won't exit from "sudo" until the very last step in this whole process. Install the lighttpd application (version 1.4.28-1.3.amzn1 for me): yum install lighttpd Install the FastCGI libraries for lighttpd (not needed, but why not?): yum install lighttpd-fastcgi Test that your server is working: /etc/init.d/lighttpd start Step 3: Let the outside world see your server. If you now tried to hit your server from the browser on your desktop, it would fail. The reason: By default, Amazon AWS does not open any ports to your EC2 instance. So, you have to open the ports manually. Go to your EC2 dashboard in your desktop's browser. Click on "Security Groups" in the left pane. One or more security groups will appear in the upper right pane. Choose the one that was assigned to your EC2 instance when you launched your instance. A table called "Allowed Connections" will appear in the lower right pane. A pop-up menu will let you choose "HTTP" as the connection method. The other values in that line of the table should be: tcp, 80, 80, 0.0.0.0/0 Now hit your EC2 instance's server from the desktop in your browser. Use the Public DNS address that you used earlier to SSH in. You should see the lighttpd generic web page. If you don't, I can't help you because I am such a noob. :-( Step 4: Configure lighttpd to serve CGI. Back in the console program, cd to the configuration directory for lighttpd: cd /etc/lighttpd To enable CGI, you want to uncomment one line in the < modules.conf file. (I could have enabled Fast CGI, but baby steps are best!) You can do this with the "ed" editor as follows: ed modules.conf /include "conf.d\/cgi.conf"/ s/#// w q Create the directory where CGI programs will live. (The /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf file determines where this will be.) We'll create our directory in the default location, so we don't have to do any editing of configuration files: cd /var/www/lighttpd mkdir cgi-bin chmod 755 cgi-bin Almost there! Of course you need to put a test CGI program into the cgi-bin directory. Here is one: cd cgi-bin ed a #!/usr/bin/python print "Content-type: text/html\n\n" print "<html><body>Hello, pyworld.</body></html>" . w hellopyworld.py q chmod 655 hellopyworld.py Restart your lighttpd server: /etc/init.d/lighttpd restart Test your CGI program. In your desktop's browser, hit this URL, substituting your EC2 instance's public DNS address: http://<<Public DNS>>/cgi-bin/hellopyworld.py For me, this was: http://ec2-174-129-110-23.compute-1.amazonaws.com/cgi-bin/hellopyworld.py Step 5: That's it! Clean up, and give thanks! To exit from the "sudo /bin/bash" command given earlier, type: exit Acknowledgements: Heaps of thanks to: wiki.vpslink.com/Install_and_Configure_lighttpd www.cyberciti.biz/tips/lighttpd-howto-setup-cgi-bin-access-for-perl-programs.html aws.typepad.com/aws/2010/06/building-three-tier-architectures-with-security-groups.html Good luck, amigos! I apologize for the non-traditional nature of this "question" but I have gotten so much help from Stackoverflow that I was eager to give something back.

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  • Create a Bootable Ubuntu 9.10 USB Flash Drive

    - by Trevor Bekolay
    The Ubuntu Live CD isn’t just useful for trying out Ubuntu before you install it, you can also use it to maintain and repair your Windows PC. Even if you have no intention of installing Linux, every Windows user should have a bootable Ubuntu USB drive on hand in case something goes wrong in Windows. Creating a bootable USB flash drive is surprisingly easy with a small self-contained application called UNetbootin. It will even download Ubuntu for you! Note: Ubuntu will take up approximately 700 MB on your flash drive, so choose a flash drive with at least 1 GB of free space, formatted as FAT32. This process should not remove any existing files on the flash drive, but to be safe you should backup the files on your flash drive. Put Ubuntu on your flash drive UNetbootin doesn’t require installation; just download the application and run it. Select Ubuntu from the Distribution drop-down box, then 9.10_Live from the Version drop-down box. If you have a 64-bit machine, then select 9.10_Live_x64 for the Version. At the bottom of the screen, select the drive letter that corresponds to the USB drive that you want to put Ubuntu on. If you select USB Drive in the Type drop-down box, the only drive letters available will be USB flash drives. Click OK and UNetbootin will start doing its thing. First it will download the Ubuntu Live CD. Then, it will copy the files from the Ubuntu Live CD to your flash drive. The amount of time it takes will vary depending on your Internet speed, an when it’s done, click on Exit. You’re not planning on installing Ubuntu right now, so there’s no need to reboot. If you look at the USB drive now, you should see a bunch of new files and folders. If you had files on the drive before, they should still be present. You’re now ready to boot your computer into Ubuntu 9.10! How to boot into Ubuntu When the time comes that you have to boot into Ubuntu, or if you just want to test and make sure that your flash drive works properly, you will have to set your computer to boot off of the flash drive. The steps to do this will vary depending on your BIOS – which varies depending on your motherboard. To get detailed instructions on changing how your computer boots, search for your motherboard’s manual (or your laptop’s manual for a laptop). For general instructions, which will suffice for 99% of you, read on. Find the important keyboard keys When your computer boots up, a bunch of words and numbers flash across the screen, usually to be ignored. This time, you need to scan the boot-up screen for a few key words with some associated keys: Boot menu and Setup. Typically, these will show up at the bottom of the screen. If your BIOS has a Boot Menu, then read on. Otherwise, skip to the Hard: Using Setup section. Easy: Using the Boot Menu If your BIOS offers a Boot Menu, then during the boot-up process, press the button associated with the Boot Menu. In our case, this is ESC. Our example Boot Menu doesn’t have the ability to boot from USB, but your Boot Menu should have some options, such as USB-CDROM, USB-HDD, USB-FLOPPY, and others. Try the options that start with USB until you find one that works. Don’t worry if it doesn’t work – you can just restart and try again. Using the Boot Menu does not change the normal boot order on your system, so the next time you start up your computer it will boot from the hard drive as normal. Hard: Using Setup If your BIOS doesn’t offer a Boot Menu, then you will have to change the boot order in Setup. Note: There are some options in BIOS Setup that can affect the stability of your machine. Take care to only change the boot order options. Press the button associated with Setup. In our case, this is F2. If your BIOS Setup has a Boot tab, then switch to it and change the order such that one of the USB options occurs first. There may be several USB options, such as USB-CDROM, USB-HDD, USB-FLOPPY, and others; try them out to see which one works for you. If your BIOS does not have a boot tab, boot order is commonly found in Advanced CMOS Options. Note that this changes the boot order permanently until you change it back. If you plan on only plugging in a bootable flash drive when you want to boot from it, then you could leave the boot order as it is, but you may find it easier to switch the order back to the previous order when you reboot from Ubuntu. Booting into Ubuntu If you set the right boot option, then you should be greeted with the UNetbootin screen. Press enter to start Ubuntu with the default options, or wait 10 seconds for this to happen automatically. Ubuntu will start loading. It should go straight to the desktop with no need for a username or password. And that’s it! From this live desktop session, you can try out Ubuntu, and even install software that is not included in the live CD. Installed software will only last for the duration of your session – the next time you start up the live CD it will be back to its original state. Download UNetbootin from sourceforge.net Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Create a Bootable Ubuntu USB Flash Drive the Easy WayReset Your Ubuntu Password Easily from the Live CDHow-To Geek on Lifehacker: Control Your Computer with Shortcuts & Speed Up Vista SetupHow To Setup a USB Flash Drive to Install Windows 7Speed up Your Windows Vista Computer with ReadyBoost TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional New Stinger from McAfee Helps Remove ‘FakeAlert’ Threats Google Apps Marketplace: Tools & Services For Google Apps Users Get News Quick and Precise With Newser Scan for Viruses in Ubuntu using ClamAV Replace Your Windows Task Manager With System Explorer Create Talking Photos using Fotobabble

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  • New EBS 12.0 AutoConfig Rollup 7 Now Available

    - by Steven Chan
    AutoConfig manages the configuration of E-Business Suite environments.  The seventh and latest rollup patch for the AutoConfig engine and tools for Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.0 is now available for download.  The official (and admittedly-cryptic) name for this EBS 12.0 patch is: R12.TXK.A.DELTA.7 (Patch 9386653)

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  • Issue 15: The Benefits of Oracle Exastack

    - by rituchhibber
         SOLUTIONS FOCUS The Benefits of Oracle Exastack Paul ThompsonDirector, Alliances and Solutions Partner ProgramsOracle EMEA Alliances & Channels RESOURCES -- Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Oracle Exastack Program Oracle Exastack Ready Oracle Exastack Optimized Oracle Exastack Labs and Enablement Resources Oracle Exastack Labs Video Tour SUBSCRIBE FEEDBACK PREVIOUS ISSUES Exastack is a revolutionary programme supporting Oracle independent software vendor partners across the entire Oracle technology stack. Oracle's core strategy is to engineer software and hardware together, and our ISV strategy is the same. At Oracle we design engineered systems that are pre-integrated to reduce the cost and complexity of IT infrastructures while increasing productivity and performance. Oracle innovates and optimises performance at every layer of the stack to simplify business operations, drive down costs and accelerate business innovation. Our engineered systems are optimised to achieve enterprise performance levels that are unmatched in the industry. Faster time to production is achieved by implementing pre-engineered and pre-assembled hardware and software bundles. Our strategy of delivering a single-vendor stack simplifies and reduces costs associated with purchasing, deploying, and supporting IT environments for our customers and partners. In parallel to this core engineered systems strategy, the Oracle Exastack Program enables our Oracle ISV partners to leverage a scalable, integrated infrastructure that delivers their applications tuned, tested and optimised for high-performance. Specifically, the Oracle Exastack Program helps ISVs run their solutions on the Oracle Exadata Database Machine, Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, and Oracle SPARC SuperCluster T4-4 - integrated systems products in which the software and hardware are engineered to work together. These products provide OPN members with a lower cost and high performance infrastructure for database and application workloads across on-premise and cloud based environments. Ready and Optimized Oracle Partners can now leverage our new Oracle Exastack Program to become Oracle Exastack Ready and Oracle Exastack Optimized. Partners can achieve Oracle Exastack Ready status through their support for Oracle Solaris, Oracle Linux, Oracle VM, Oracle Database, Oracle WebLogic Server, Oracle Exadata Database Machine, Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, and Oracle SPARC SuperCluster T4-4. By doing this, partners can demonstrate to their customers that their applications are available on the latest major releases of these products. The Oracle Exastack Ready programme helps customers readily differentiate Oracle partners from lesser software developers, and identify applications that support Oracle engineered systems. Achieving Oracle Exastack Optimized status demonstrates that an OPN member has proven itself against goals for performance and scalability on Oracle integrated systems. This status enables end customers to readily identify Oracle partners that have tested and tuned their solutions for optimum performance on an Oracle Exadata Database Machine, Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, and Oracle SPARC SuperCluster T4-4. These ISVs can display the Oracle Exadata Optimized, Oracle Exalogic Optimized or Oracle SPARC SuperCluster Optimized logos on websites and on all their collateral to show that they have tested and tuned their application for optimum performance. Deliver higher value to customers Oracle's investment in engineered systems enables ISV partners to deliver higher value to customer business processes. New innovations are enabled through extreme performance unachievable through traditional best-of-breed multi-vendor server/software approaches. Core product requirements can be launched faster, enabling ISVs to focus research and development investment on core competencies in order to bring value to market as quickly as possible. Through Exastack, partners no longer have to worry about the underlying product stack, which allows greater focus on the development of intellectual property above the stack. Partners are not burdened by platform issues and can concentrate simply on furthering their applications. The advantage to end customers is that partners can focus all efforts on business functionality, rather than bullet-proofing underlying technologies, and so will inevitably deliver application updates faster. Exastack provides ISVs with a number of flexible deployment options, such as on-premise or Cloud, while maintaining one single code base for applications regardless of customer deployment preference. Customers buying their solutions from Exastack ISVs can therefore be confident in deploying on their own networks, on private clouds or into a public cloud. The underlying platform will support all conceivable deployments, enabling a focus on the ISV's application itself that wouldn't be possible with other vendor partners. It stands to reason that Exastack accelerates time to value as well as lowering implementation costs all round. There is a big competitive advantage in partners being able to offer customers an optimised, pre-configured solution rather than an assortment of components and a suggested fit. Once a customer has decided to buy an Oracle Exastack Ready or Optimized partner solution, it will be up and running without any need for the customer to conduct testing of its own. Operational costs and complexity are also reduced, thanks to streamlined customer support through standardised configurations and pro-active monitoring. 'Engineered to Work Together' is a significant statement of Oracle strategy. It guarantees smoother deployment of a single vendor solution, clear ownership with no finger-pointing and the peace of mind of the Oracle Support Centre underpinning the entire product stack. Next steps Every OPN member with packaged applications must seriously consider taking steps to become Exastack Ready, or Exastack Optimized at the first opportunity. That first step down the track is to talk to an expert on the OPN Portal, at the Oracle Partner Business Center or to discuss the next steps with the closest Oracle account manager. Oracle Exastack lab environments and other technical enablement resources are available for OPN members wishing to further their knowledge of Oracle Exastack and qualify their applications for Oracle Exastack Optimized. New Boot Camps and Guided Learning Paths (GLPs), tailored specifically for ISVs, are available for Oracle Exadata Database Machine, Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, Oracle Linux, Oracle Solaris, Oracle Database, and Oracle WebLogic Server. More information about these GLPs and Boot Camps (including delivery dates and locations) are posted on the OPN Competency Center and corresponding OPN Knowledge Zones. Learn more about Oracle Exastack labs and ISV specific enablement resources. "Oracle Specialized partners are of course front-and-centre, with potential customers clearly directed to those partners and to Exadata Ready partners as a matter of priority." --More OpenWorld 2011 highlights for Oracle partners and customers Oracle Application Testing Suite 9.3 application testing solution for Web, SOA and Oracle Applications Oracle Application Express Release 4.1 improving the development of database-centric Web 2.0 applications and reports Oracle Unified Directory 11g helping customers manage the critical identity information that drives their business applications Oracle SOA Suite for healthcare integration Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse 11g demonstrating continued commitment to the developer and open source communities Oracle Coherence 3.7.1, the latest release of the industry's leading distributed in-memory data grid Oracle Process Accelerators helping to simplify and accelerate time-to-value for customers' business process management initiatives Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne on the iPad meeting the increasingly mobile demands of today's workforces Oracle CRM On Demand Release 19 Innovation Pack introducing industry-leading hosted call centre and enterprise-marketing capabilities designed to drive further revenue and productivity while reducing costs and improving the customer experience Oracle's Primavera Portfolio Management 9 for businesses delivering on project portfolio goals with increased versatility, transparency and accuracy Oracle's PeopleSoft Human Capital Management (HCM) 9.1 On Demand Standard Edition helping customers manage their long-term investment in enterprise-wide business applications New versions of Oracle FLEXCUBE Universal Banking and Oracle FLEXCUBE Investor Servicing for Financial Institutions, as well as Oracle Financial Services Enterprise Case Management, Oracle Financial Services Pricing Management, Oracle Financial Management Analytics and Oracle Tax Analytics Oracle Utilities Network Management System 1.11 offering new modelling and analysis features to improve distribution-grid management for electric utilities Oracle Communications Network Charging and Control 4.4 helping communications service providers (CSPs) offer their customers more flexible charging options Plus many, many more technology announcements, enhancements, momentum news and community updates -- Oracle OpenWorld 2012 A date has already been set for Oracle OpenWorld 2012. Held once again in San Francisco, exhibitors, partners, customers and Oracle people will gather from 30 September until 4 November to meet, network and learn together with the rest of the global Oracle community. Register now for Oracle OpenWorld 2012 and save $$$! We'll reward your early planning for Oracle OpenWorld 2012 with reduced rates. Super Saver deals are now available! -- Back to the welcome page

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  • Test All Features of Windows Phone 7 On Your PC

    - by Matthew Guay
    Are you developer or just excited about the upcoming Windows Phone 7, and want to try it out now?  Thanks to free developer tools from Microsoft and a new unlocked emulator rom, you can try out most of the exciting features today from your PC. Last week we showed you how to try out Windows Phone 7 on your PC and get started developing for the upcoming new devices.  We noticed, however, that the emulator only contains Internet Explorer Mobile and some settings.  This is still interesting to play around with, but it wasn’t the full Windows Phone 7 experience. Some enterprising tweakers discovered that more applications were actually included in the emulator, but were simply hidden from users.  Developer Dan Ardelean then figured out how to re-enable these features, and released a tweaked emulator rom so everyone can try out all of the Windows Phone 7 features for themselves.  Here we’ll look at how you can run this new emulator image on your PC, and then look at some interesting features in Windows Phone 7. Editor Note: This modified emulator image is not official, and isn’t sanctioned by Microsoft. Use your own judgment when choosing to download and use the emulator. Setting Up Emulator Rom To test-drive Windows Phone 7 on your PC, you must first download and install the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP (link below).  Follow the steps we showed you last week at: Try out Windows Phone 7 on your PC today.  Once it’s installed, go ahead and run the default emulator as we showed to make sure everything works ok. Once the Windows Phone Developer Tools are installed and running, download the new emulator rom from XDA Forums (link below).  This will be a zip file, so extract it first. Note where you save the file, as you will need the address in the next step. Now, to run our new emulator image, we need to open the emulator in command line and point to the new rom image.  To do this, browse to the correct directory, depending on whether you’re running the 32 bit or 64 bit version of Windows: 32 bit: C:\Program Files\Microsoft XDE\1.0\ 64 bit: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft XDE\1.0\ Hold your Shift key down and right-click in the folder.  Choose Open Command Window here. At the command prompt, enter XDE.exe followed by the location of your new rom image.  Here, we downloaded the rom to our download folder, so at the command prompt we entered: XDE.exe C:\Users\Matthew\Downloads\WM70Full\WM70Full.bin The emulator loads … with the full Windows Phone 7 experience! To make it easier, let’s make a shortcut on our desktop to load the emulator with the new rom directly.  Right-click on your desktop (or any folder you want to create the shortcut in), select New, and then Shortcut. Now, in the box, we need to enter the path for the emulator followed by the location of our rom.  Both items must be in quotes.  So, in our test, we entered the following: 32 bit: “C:\Program Files\Microsoft XDE\1.0\” “C:\Users\Matthew\Downloads\WM70Full\WM70Full.bin” 64 bit: “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft XDE\1.0\” “C:\Users\Matthew\Downloads\WM70Full\WM70Full.bin” Make sure to enter the correct location of the new emulator rom for your computer, and keep both items in separate quotes.  Click next when you’ve entered the location. Name the shortcut; we named it Windows Phone 7, but simply enter whatever you’d like.  Click Finish when you’re done. You should now have a nice Windows Phone icon and your fully functional shortcut!  Double-click it to run the Windows Phone 7 emulator as above. Features in the Unlocked Windows Phone 7 Emulator So let’s look at what you can do with this new emulator.  Almost everything you’ve seen in demos from the Mobile World Conference and Mix’10 are right here for you to play with.  Here’s the application menu, which you can access by clicking on the arrow on the top of the home screen, which shows how much stuff they’ve got in this!   And, of course, even the home screen itself shows much more activity than it did in the original emulator. Let’s check out some of these sections.  Here’s Zune running on Windows Phone 7, and the Zune Marketplace.  The animations are beautiful, so be sure to check this out yourself. The new picture hub is much nicer than any picture viewer included with Windows Mobile in the past…   Stay productive, and on schedule with the new Calendar. The XBOX hub gives us only a hint of things to come, and the links to games now are simply placeholders. Here’s a look at the Office hub.  This doesn’t show up on the homescreen right now, but you can access it in the applications menu.  Office obviously still has a lot of work left on it, but even at a glance here it looks like it includes a lot more functionality than Office Mobile in Windows Mobile 6. Here’s a look at each of the three apps: Word, Excel, and OneNote, and the formatting pallet in Office apps.   This emulator also includes a lot more settings than the default one, including settings for individual applications. You can even activate the screen lock, and try out the lift-to-peek-or-unlock feature… Finally, this version of Windows Phone 7 includes a very nice SystemInfo app with an advanced task manager.  We hope this is still available when the actual phones are released. Conclusion If you’re excited about the upcoming Windows Phone 7 series, or simply want to learn more about what’s coming, this is a great way to test it out.  With these exciting new hubs and applications, there’s something here for everyone.  Let us know what you like most about Windows Phone 7 and what your favorite app or hub is. Links Please note: These roms are not officially supported by Microsoft, and could be taken down. Download the unlocked Windows Phone 7 emulator from XDA Forums – click the link in this post to download How the unlocked emulator image was created Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Try out Windows Phone 7 on your PC todayGet stats on your Ruby on Rails codeDisable Windows Vista’s Built-in CD/DVD Burning FeaturesWeek in Geek – The Slick Windows 7 File Copy Animation EditionGeek Fun: Virtualized Old School Windows – Windows 95 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Get Better Windows Search With UltraSearch Scan News With NY Times Article Skimmer SpeedyFox Claims to Speed up your Firefox Beware Hover Kitties Test Drive Mobile Phones Online With TryPhone Ben & Jerry’s Free Cone Day, 3/23/10

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  • Guidance: A Branching strategy for Scrum Teams

    - by Martin Hinshelwood
    Having a good branching strategy will save your bacon, or at least your code. Be careful when deviating from your branching strategy because if you do, you may be worse off than when you started! This is one possible branching strategy for Scrum teams and I will not be going in depth with Scrum but you can find out more about Scrum by reading the Scrum Guide and you can even assess your Scrum knowledge by having a go at the Scrum Open Assessment. You can also read SSW’s Rules to Better Scrum using TFS which have been developed during our own Scrum implementations. Acknowledgements Bill Heys – Bill offered some good feedback on this post and helped soften the language. Note: Bill is a VS ALM Ranger and co-wrote the Branching Guidance for TFS 2010 Willy-Peter Schaub – Willy-Peter is an ex Visual Studio ALM MVP turned blue badge and has been involved in most of the guidance including the Branching Guidance for TFS 2010 Chris Birmele – Chris wrote some of the early TFS Branching and Merging Guidance. Dr Paul Neumeyer, Ph.D Parallel Processes, ScrumMaster and SSW Solution Architect – Paul wanted to have feature branches coming from the release branch as well. We agreed that this is really a spin-off that needs own project, backlog, budget and Team. Scenario: A product is developed RTM 1.0 is released and gets great sales.  Extra features are demanded but the new version will have double to price to pay to recover costs, work is approved by the guys with budget and a few sprints later RTM 2.0 is released.  Sales a very low due to the pricing strategy. There are lots of clients on RTM 1.0 calling out for patches. As I keep getting Reverse Integration and Forward Integration mixed up and Bill keeps slapping my wrists I thought I should have a reminder: You still seemed to use reverse and/or forward integration in the wrong context. I would recommend reviewing your document at the end to ensure that it agrees with the common understanding of these terms merge (forward integration) from parent to child (same direction as the branch), and merge  (reverse integration) from child to parent (the reverse direction of the branch). - one of my many slaps on the wrist from Bill Heys.   As I mentioned previously we are using a single feature branching strategy in our current project. The single biggest mistake developers make is developing against the “Main” or “Trunk” line. This ultimately leads to messy code as things are added and never finished. Your only alternative is to NEVER check in unless your code is 100%, but this does not work in practice, even with a single developer. Your ADD will kick in and your half-finished code will be finished enough to pass the build and the tests. You do use builds don’t you? Sadly, this is a very common scenario and I have had people argue that branching merely adds complexity. Then again I have seen the other side of the universe ... branching  structures from he... We should somehow convince everyone that there is a happy between no-branching and too-much-branching. - Willy-Peter Schaub, VS ALM Ranger, Microsoft   A key benefit of branching for development is to isolate changes from the stable Main branch. Branching adds sanity more than it adds complexity. We do try to stress in our guidance that it is important to justify a branch, by doing a cost benefit analysis. The primary cost is the effort to do merges and resolve conflicts. A key benefit is that you have a stable code base in Main and accept changes into Main only after they pass quality gates, etc. - Bill Heys, VS ALM Ranger & TFS Branching Lead, Microsoft The second biggest mistake developers make is branching anything other than the WHOLE “Main” line. If you branch parts of your code and not others it gets out of sync and can make integration a nightmare. You should have your Source, Assets, Build scripts deployment scripts and dependencies inside the “Main” folder and branch the whole thing. Some departments within MSFT even go as far as to add the environments used to develop the product in there as well; although I would not recommend that unless you have a massive SQL cluster to house your source code. We tried the “add environment” back in South-Africa and while it was “phenomenal”, especially when having to switch between environments, the disk storage and processing requirements killed us. We opted for virtualization to skin this cat of keeping a ready-to-go environment handy. - Willy-Peter Schaub, VS ALM Ranger, Microsoft   I think people often think that you should have separate branches for separate environments (e.g. Dev, Test, Integration Test, QA, etc.). I prefer to think of deploying to environments (such as from Main to QA) rather than branching for QA). - Bill Heys, VS ALM Ranger & TFS Branching Lead, Microsoft   You can read about SSW’s Rules to better Source Control for some additional information on what Source Control to use and how to use it. There are also a number of branching Anti-Patterns that should be avoided at all costs: You know you are on the wrong track if you experience one or more of the following symptoms in your development environment: Merge Paranoia—avoiding merging at all cost, usually because of a fear of the consequences. Merge Mania—spending too much time merging software assets instead of developing them. Big Bang Merge—deferring branch merging to the end of the development effort and attempting to merge all branches simultaneously. Never-Ending Merge—continuous merging activity because there is always more to merge. Wrong-Way Merge—merging a software asset version with an earlier version. Branch Mania—creating many branches for no apparent reason. Cascading Branches—branching but never merging back to the main line. Mysterious Branches—branching for no apparent reason. Temporary Branches—branching for changing reasons, so the branch becomes a permanent temporary workspace. Volatile Branches—branching with unstable software assets shared by other branches or merged into another branch. Note   Branches are volatile most of the time while they exist as independent branches. That is the point of having them. The difference is that you should not share or merge branches while they are in an unstable state. Development Freeze—stopping all development activities while branching, merging, and building new base lines. Berlin Wall—using branches to divide the development team members, instead of dividing the work they are performing. -Branching and Merging Primer by Chris Birmele - Developer Tools Technical Specialist at Microsoft Pty Ltd in Australia   In fact, this can result in a merge exercise no-one wants to be involved in, merging hundreds of thousands of change sets and trying to get a consolidated build. Again, we need to find a happy medium. - Willy-Peter Schaub on Merge Paranoia Merge conflicts are generally the result of making changes to the same file in both the target and source branch. If you create merge conflicts, you will eventually need to resolve them. Often the resolution is manual. Merging more frequently allows you to resolve these conflicts close to when they happen, making the resolution clearer. Waiting weeks or months to resolve them, the Big Bang approach, means you are more likely to resolve conflicts incorrectly. - Bill Heys, VS ALM Ranger & TFS Branching Lead, Microsoft   Figure: Main line, this is where your stable code lives and where any build has known entities, always passes and has a happy test that passes as well? Many development projects consist of, a single “Main” line of source and artifacts. This is good; at least there is source control . There are however a couple of issues that need to be considered. What happens if: you and your team are working on a new set of features and the customer wants a change to his current version? you are working on two features and the customer decides to abandon one of them? you have two teams working on different feature sets and their changes start interfering with each other? I just use labels instead of branches? That's a lot of “what if’s”, but there is a simple way of preventing this. Branching… In TFS, labels are not immutable. This does not mean they are not useful. But labels do not provide a very good development isolation mechanism. Branching allows separate code sets to evolve separately (e.g. Current with hotfixes, and vNext with new development). I don’t see how labels work here. - Bill Heys, VS ALM Ranger & TFS Branching Lead, Microsoft   Figure: Creating a single feature branch means you can isolate the development work on that branch.   Its standard practice for large projects with lots of developers to use Feature branching and you can check the Branching Guidance for the latest recommendations from the Visual Studio ALM Rangers for other methods. In the diagram above you can see my recommendation for branching when using Scrum development with TFS 2010. It consists of a single Sprint branch to contain all the changes for the current sprint. The main branch has the permissions changes so contributors to the project can only Branch and Merge with “Main”. This will prevent accidental check-ins or checkouts of the “Main” line that would contaminate the code. The developers continue to develop on sprint one until the completion of the sprint. Note: In the real world, starting a new Greenfield project, this process starts at Sprint 2 as at the start of Sprint 1 you would have artifacts in version control and no need for isolation.   Figure: Once the sprint is complete the Sprint 1 code can then be merged back into the Main line. There are always good practices to follow, and one is to always do a Forward Integration from Main into Sprint 1 before you do a Reverse Integration from Sprint 1 back into Main. In this case it may seem superfluous, but this builds good muscle memory into your developer’s work ethic and means that no bad habits are learned that would interfere with additional Scrum Teams being added to the Product. The process of completing your sprint development: The Team completes their work according to their definition of done. Merge from “Main” into “Sprint1” (Forward Integration) Stabilize your code with any changes coming from other Scrum Teams working on the same product. If you have one Scrum Team this should be quick, but there may have been bug fixes in the Release branches. (we will talk about release branches later) Merge from “Sprint1” into “Main” to commit your changes. (Reverse Integration) Check-in Delete the Sprint1 branch Note: The Sprint 1 branch is no longer required as its useful life has been concluded. Check-in Done But you are not yet done with the Sprint. The goal in Scrum is to have a “potentially shippable product” at the end of every Sprint, and we do not have that yet, we only have finished code.   Figure: With Sprint 1 merged you can create a Release branch and run your final packaging and testing In 99% of all projects I have been involved in or watched, a “shippable product” only happens towards the end of the overall lifecycle, especially when sprints are short. The in-between releases are great demonstration releases, but not shippable. Perhaps it comes from my 80’s brain washing that we only ship when we reach the agreed quality and business feature bar. - Willy-Peter Schaub, VS ALM Ranger, Microsoft Although you should have been testing and packaging your code all the way through your Sprint 1 development, preferably using an automated process, you still need to test and package with stable unchanging code. This is where you do what at SSW we call a “Test Please”. This is first an internal test of the product to make sure it meets the needs of the customer and you generally use a resource external to your Team. Then a “Test Please” is conducted with the Product Owner to make sure he is happy with the output. You can read about how to conduct a Test Please on our Rules to Successful Projects: Do you conduct an internal "test please" prior to releasing a version to a client?   Figure: If you find a deviation from the expected result you fix it on the Release branch. If during your final testing or your “Test Please” you find there are issues or bugs then you should fix them on the release branch. If you can’t fix them within the time box of your Sprint, then you will need to create a Bug and put it onto the backlog for prioritization by the Product owner. Make sure you leave plenty of time between your merge from the development branch to find and fix any problems that are uncovered. This process is commonly called Stabilization and should always be conducted once you have completed all of your User Stories and integrated all of your branches. Even once you have stabilized and released, you should not delete the release branch as you would with the Sprint branch. It has a usefulness for servicing that may extend well beyond the limited life you expect of it. Note: Don't get forced by the business into adding features into a Release branch instead that indicates the unspoken requirement is that they are asking for a product spin-off. In this case you can create a new Team Project and branch from the required Release branch to create a new Main branch for that product. And you create a whole new backlog to work from.   Figure: When the Team decides it is happy with the product you can create a RTM branch. Once you have fixed all the bugs you can, and added any you can’t to the Product Backlog, and you Team is happy with the result you can create a Release. This would consist of doing the final Build and Packaging it up ready for your Sprint Review meeting. You would then create a read-only branch that represents the code you “shipped”. This is really an Audit trail branch that is optional, but is good practice. You could use a Label, but Labels are not Auditable and if a dispute was raised by the customer you can produce a verifiable version of the source code for an independent party to check. Rare I know, but you do not want to be at the wrong end of a legal battle. Like the Release branch the RTM branch should never be deleted, or only deleted according to your companies legal policy, which in the UK is usually 7 years.   Figure: If you have made any changes in the Release you will need to merge back up to Main in order to finalise the changes. Nothing is really ever done until it is in Main. The same rules apply when merging any fixes in the Release branch back into Main and you should do a reverse merge before a forward merge, again for the muscle memory more than necessity at this stage. Your Sprint is now nearly complete, and you can have a Sprint Review meeting knowing that you have made every effort and taken every precaution to protect your customer’s investment. Note: In order to really achieve protection for both you and your client you would add Automated Builds, Automated Tests, Automated Acceptance tests, Acceptance test tracking, Unit Tests, Load tests, Web test and all the other good engineering practices that help produce reliable software.     Figure: After the Sprint Planning meeting the process begins again. Where the Sprint Review and Retrospective meetings mark the end of the Sprint, the Sprint Planning meeting marks the beginning. After you have completed your Sprint Planning and you know what you are trying to achieve in Sprint 2 you can create your new Branch to develop in. How do we handle a bug(s) in production that can’t wait? Although in Scrum the only work done should be on the backlog there should be a little buffer added to the Sprint Planning for contingencies. One of these contingencies is a bug in the current release that can’t wait for the Sprint to finish. But how do you handle that? Willy-Peter Schaub asked an excellent question on the release activities: In reality Sprint 2 starts when sprint 1 ends + weekend. Should we not cater for a possible parallelism between Sprint 2 and the release activities of sprint 1? It would introduce FI’s from main to sprint 2, I guess. Your “Figure: Merging print 2 back into Main.” covers, what I tend to believe to be reality in most cases. - Willy-Peter Schaub, VS ALM Ranger, Microsoft I agree, and if you have a single Scrum team then your resources are limited. The Scrum Team is responsible for packaging and release, so at least one run at stabilization, package and release should be included in the Sprint time box. If more are needed on the current production release during the Sprint 2 time box then resource needs to be pulled from Sprint 2. The Product Owner and the Team have four choices (in order of disruption/cost): Backlog: Add the bug to the backlog and fix it in the next Sprint Buffer Time: Use any buffer time included in the current Sprint to fix the bug quickly Make time: Remove a Story from the current Sprint that is of equal value to the time lost fixing the bug(s) and releasing. Note: The Team must agree that it can still meet the Sprint Goal. Cancel Sprint: Cancel the sprint and concentrate all resource on fixing the bug(s) Note: This can be a very costly if the current sprint has already had a lot of work completed as it will be lost. The choice will depend on the complexity and severity of the bug(s) and both the Product Owner and the Team need to agree. In this case we will go with option #2 or #3 as they are uncomplicated but severe bugs. Figure: Real world issue where a bug needs fixed in the current release. If the bug(s) is urgent enough then then your only option is to fix it in place. You can edit the release branch to find and fix the bug, hopefully creating a test so it can’t happen again. Follow the prior process and conduct an internal and customer “Test Please” before releasing. You can read about how to conduct a Test Please on our Rules to Successful Projects: Do you conduct an internal "test please" prior to releasing a version to a client?   Figure: After you have fixed the bug you need to ship again. You then need to again create an RTM branch to hold the version of the code you released in escrow.   Figure: Main is now out of sync with your Release. We now need to get these new changes back up into the Main branch. Do a reverse and then forward merge again to get the new code into Main. But what about the branch, are developers not working on Sprint 2? Does Sprint 2 now have changes that are not in Main and Main now have changes that are not in Sprint 2? Well, yes… and this is part of the hit you take doing branching. But would this scenario even have been possible without branching?   Figure: Getting the changes in Main into Sprint 2 is very important. The Team now needs to do a Forward Integration merge into their Sprint and resolve any conflicts that occur. Maybe the bug has already been fixed in Sprint 2, maybe the bug no longer exists! This needs to be identified and resolved by the developers before they continue to get further out of Sync with Main. Note: Avoid the “Big bang merge” at all costs.   Figure: Merging Sprint 2 back into Main, the Forward Integration, and R0 terminates. Sprint 2 now merges (Reverse Integration) back into Main following the procedures we have already established.   Figure: The logical conclusion. This then allows the creation of the next release. By now you should be getting the big picture and hopefully you learned something useful from this post. I know I have enjoyed writing it as I find these exploratory posts coupled with real world experience really help harden my understanding.  Branching is a tool; it is not a silver bullet. Don’t over use it, and avoid “Anti-Patterns” where possible. Although the diagram above looks complicated I hope showing you how it is formed simplifies it as much as possible.   Technorati Tags: Branching,Scrum,VS ALM,TFS 2010,VS2010

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  • Install Ubuntu Netbook Edition with Wubi Installer

    - by Matthew Guay
    Ubuntu is one of the most popular versions of Linux, and their Netbook Remix edition is especially attractive for netbook owners.  Here we’ll look at how you can easily try out Ubuntu on your netbook without a CD/DVD drive. Netbooks, along with the growing number of thin, full powered laptops, lack a CD/DVD drive.  Installing software isn’t much of a problem since most programs, whether free or for-pay, are available for download.  Operating systems, however, are usually installed from a disk.  You can easily install Windows 7 from a flash drive with our tutorial, but installing Ubuntu from a USB flash drive is more complicated.  However, using Wubi, a Windows installer for Ubuntu, you can easily install it directly on your netbook and even uninstall it with only a few clicks. Getting Started Download and run the Wubi installer for Ubuntu (link below).  In the installer, select the drive you where you wish to install Ubuntu, the size of the installation (this is the amount dedicated to Ubuntu; under 20Gb should be fine), language, username, and desired password.  Also, from the Desktop environment menu, select Ubuntu Netbook to install the netbook edition.  Click Install when your settings are correct. Wubi will automatically download the selected version of Ubuntu and install it on your computer. Windows Firewall may ask if you want to unblock Wubi; select your network and click Allow access. The download will take around an hour on broadband, depending on your internet connection speed.  Once the download is completed, it will automatically install to your computer.  If you’d prefer to have everything downloaded before you start the install, download the ISO of Ubuntu Netbook edition (link below) and save it in the same folder as Wubi. Then, when you run Wubi, select the netbook edition as before and click Install.  Wubi will verify that your download is valid, and will then proceed to install from the downloaded ISO.  This install will only take about 10 minutes. Once the install is finished you will be asked to reboot your computer.  Save anything else you’re working on, and then reboot to finish setting up Ubuntu on your netbook. When your computer reboots, select Ubuntu at the boot screen.  Wubi leaves the default OS as Windows 7, so if you don’t select anything it will boot into Windows 7 after a few seconds. Ubuntu will automatically finish the install when you boot into it the first time.  This took about 12 minutes in our test. When the setup is finished, your netbook will reboot one more time.  Remember again to select Ubuntu at the boot screen.  You’ll then see a second boot screen; press your Enter key to select the default.   Ubuntu only took less than a minute to boot in our test.  When you see the login screen, select your name and enter your password you setup in Wubi.  Now you’re ready to start exploring Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Using Ubuntu Netbook Remix Ubuntu Netbook Remix offers a simple, full-screen interface to take the best advantage of netbooks’ small screens.  Pre-installed applications are displayed in the application launcher, and are organized by category.  Click once to open an application. The first screen on the application launcher shows your favorite programs.  If you’d like to add another application to the favorites pane, click the plus sign beside its icon. Your files from Windows are still accessible from Ubuntu Netbook Remix.  From the home screen, select Files & Folders on the left menu, and then click the icon that says something like 100GB Filesystem under the Volumes section. Now you’ll be able to see all of your files from Windows.  Your user files such as documents, music, and pictures should be located in Documents and Settings in a folder with your user name. You can also easily install a variety of free applications via the Software Installer. Connecting to the internet is also easy, as Ubuntu Netbook Remix automatically recognized the WiFi adaptor on our test netbook, a Samsung N150.  To connect to a wireless network, click the wireless icon on the top right of the screen and select the network’s name from the list. And, if you’d like to customize your screen, right-click on the application launcher and select Change desktop background. Choose a background picture you’d like. Now you’ll see it through your application launcher.  Nice! Most applications are opened full-screen.  You can close them by clicking the x on the right of the program’s name. You can also switch to other applications from their icons on the top left.  Open the home screen by clicking the Ubuntu logo in the far left. Changing Boot Options By default, Wubi will leave Windows as the default operating system, and will give you 10 seconds at boot to choose to boot into Ubuntu.  To change this, boot into Windows and enter Advanced system settings in your start menu search. In this dialog, click Settings under Startup and Recovery. From this dialog, you can select the default operating system and the time to display list of operating systems.  You can enter a lower number to make the boot screen appear for less time. And if you’d rather make Ubuntu the default operating system, select it from the drop-down list.   Uninstalling Ubuntu Netbook Remix If you decide you don’t want to keep Ubuntu Netbook Remix on your computer, you can uninstall it just like you uninstall any normal application.  Boot your computer into Windows, open Control Panel, click Uninstall a Program, and enter ubuntu in the search box.  Select it, and click Uninstall. Click Uninstall at the prompt.  Ubuntu uninstalls very quickly, and removes the entry from the bootloader as well, so your computer is just like it was before you installed it.   Conclusion Ubuntu Netbook Remix offers an attractive Linux interface for netbooks.  We enjoyed trying it out, and found it much more user-friendly than most Linux distros.  And with the Wubi installer, you can install it risk-free and try it out on your netbook.  Or, if you’d like to try out another alternate netbook operating system, check out our article on Jolicloud, another new OS for netbooks. Links Download Wubi Installer for Windows Download Ubuntu Netbook Edition Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Easily Install Ubuntu Linux with Windows Using the Wubi InstallerInstall VMware Tools on Ubuntu Edgy EftHow to install Spotify in Ubuntu 9.10 using WineInstalling PHP5 and Apache on UbuntuInstalling PHP4 and Apache on Ubuntu TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Explorer++ is a Worthy Windows Explorer Alternative Error Goblin Explains Windows Error Codes Twelve must-have Google Chrome plugins Cool Looking Skins for Windows Media Player 12 Move the Mouse Pointer With Your Face Movement Using eViacam Boot Windows Faster With Boot Performance Diagnostics

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  • [OT] : Windows Activation, en masse

    - by AaronBertrand
    This weekend I discovered a minor issue in one of my virtual environments. I had built out 100 VMs based on a Hyper-V template, but I forgot to activate the original source before creating the template, so all of the machines were suddenly out of compliance. While easy enough on a one- or two-machine basis to just log into the machine and activate manually, there was no way I was even going to dream of repeating that process on 100 machines. My First Reaction : PowerShell Whenever I do anything with...(read more)

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  • Tools to Help Post Content On Your WordPress Blog

    - by Matthew Guay
    Now that you’ve got a nice blog, you want to do more with it and start posting content.  Here we look at some tools that will allow you to post directly to your WordPress blog. Writing a new blog post is easy with WordPress as we saw in our previous post about Starting your own WordPress blog.  The web editor gives you a lot of features and even lets you edit your post’s source code if you enjoy hacking HTML.  There are other tools that will allow you to post content, here we look at how you can post with dedicated apps, browser plugins, and even by email. Windows Live Writer Windows Live Writer (part of the Windows Live Essentials Suite) is a great app for posting content to your blog.  This free program for Microsoft lets you post content to a variety of blogging services, including Blogger, Typepad, LiveJournal, and of course WordPress.  You can write blog posts directly from its Word-like editor, complete with pictures and advanced formatting.  Even if you’re offline, you can still write posts and save them for when you’re online again. For more information about installing Live writer, check out our article on how to Install Windows Live Essentials In Windows 7. Once Live Writer is installed, open it to add your blog.  If you already had Live Writer installed and configured for a blog, you can add your new blog, too.  Just click your blog’s name in the top right corner, and select “Add blog account”. Select “Other blog service” to add your WordPress blog to Writer, and click Next.   Enter your blog’s web address, and your username and password.  Check Remember my password so you don’t have to enter it every time you write something. Writer will analyze your blog and setup your account. During the setup process it may ask to post a temporary post.  This will let you preview blog posts using your blog’s real theme, which is helpful, so click Yes. Finally, add your Blog’s name, and click Finish. You can now use the rich editor to write and add content to a new blog post.   Select the Preview tab to see how your post will look on your blog… Or, if you’re a HTML geek, select the Source tab to edit the code of your blog post. From the bottom of the window, you can choose categories, insert tags, and even schedule the post to publish on a different day.  Live Writer is fully integrated with WordPress; you’re not missing anything by using the desktop editor. If you want to edit a post you’ve already published, click the Open button and select the post.  You can chose and edit any post, including ones you published via the web interface or other editors. Add Multimedia Content to your Posts with Live Writer Back in the Edit tab, you can add pictures, videos and more from the sidebar.  Select what you want to insert. Pictures If you insert a picture, you can add many nice borders and designs to it. Or, you can even add artistic effects from the Effects tab in the sidebar. Photo Gallery If you want to post several pictures, say some of your vacation shots, then inserting a picture gallery may be the best option.  Select Insert Photo Gallery in the sidebar, and then choose the pictures you want in the gallery. Once the gallery is inserted, you can choose from several styles to showcase your pictures. When you post the blog, you will be asked to sign in with your Windows Live ID as the gallery pictures will be stored in the free Skydrive storage service. Your blog readers can see the preview of your pictures directly on your blog, and then can view each individual picture, download them, or see a slideshow online via the link. Video If you want to add a video to your blog post, select Video from the sidebar as above.  You can select a video that’s already online, or you can choose a new video from file and upload it via YouTube directly from Windows Live Writer.   Note that you will have to sign in with your YouTube account to upload videos to YouTube, so if you’re not logged in you’ll be prompted to do so when you click Insert. Geek Tip:  If you ever want to copy your Live Writer settings to another computer, check out our article on how to Backup Your Windows Live Writer Settings. Microsoft Office Word Word 2007 and 2010 also let you post content directly to your blog.  This is especially nice if you’ve already typed up a document and think it would be good on your Blog as well.  Check out our in-depth tutorial on posting blog posts via Word 2007 using Word 2007 as a blogging tool. This works in Word 2010 too, except the Office Orb has been replaced by the new Backstage view.  So, in Word 2010, to start a new blog post, click File \ New then select Blog post.  Proceed as you would in Word 2007 to add your blog settings and post the content you want. Or, if you’ve already written a document and want to post it, select File \ Share (or Save and Send in the final version of Word 2010), and then click Publish as Blog Post.  If you haven’t setup your blog account yet, set it up as shown in the Word 2007 article. Post Via Email Most of us use email daily, and already have our favorite email app or service.  Whether on your desktop or mobile phone, it’s easy to create rich emails and add content.  WordPress lets you generate a unique email address that you can use to easily post content and email to your blog.  Just compose your email with the subject as the title of your post, and send it to this unique address.  Your new post will be up in minutes. To active this feature, click the My Account button in the top menu bar in your WordPress.com account, and select My Blogs. Click the Enable button under Post by Email beside your blog’s name.   Now you’ll have a private email you can use to post to your blog.  Anything you send to this email will be posted as a new post.  If you think your email may be compromised, click Regenerate to get a new publishing email address. Any email program or webapp now is a blog post editor.  Feel free to use rich formatting or insert pictures; it all comes through great.  This is also a great way to post to your blog from your mobile device.  Whether you’re using webmail or a dedicated email client on your phone, you can now blog from anywhere.   Mobile Applications WordPress also offer dedicated applications for blogging directly from your mobile device.  You can write new posts, edit existing ones, and manage comments all from your Smartphone.  Currently they offer apps for iPhone, Android, and Blackberry.  Check them out at the link below. Conclusion Whether you want to write from your browser or email a post to your blog, WordPress is flexible enough to work right along with your preferences.  However you post, you can be sure that it will look professional and be easily accessible with your WordPress blog. Download Windows Live Writer Download WordPress apps for your mobile device Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Quick Tip: Set a Future Date for a Post in WordPressAdd Social Bookmarking (Digg This!) Links to your Wordpress BlogFuture Date a Post in Windows Live WriterHow To Start Your Own Professional Blog with WordPressUsing Word 2007 as a Blogging Tool TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows Fun with 47 charts and graphs Tomorrow is Mother’s Day Check the Average Speed of YouTube Videos You’ve Watched OutlookStatView Scans and Displays General Usage Statistics How to Add Exceptions to the Windows Firewall Office 2010 reviewed in depth by Ed Bott

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  • SQL Server and Hyper-V Dynamic Memory Part 3

    - by SQLOS Team
    In parts 1 and 2 of this series we looked at the basics of Hyper-V Dynamic Memory and SQL Server memory management. In this part Serdar looks at configuration guidelines for SQL Server memory management. Part 3: Configuration Guidelines for Hyper-V Dynamic Memory and SQL Server Now that we understand SQL Server Memory Management and Hyper-V Dynamic Memory basics, let’s take a look at general configuration guidelines in order to utilize benefits of Hyper-V Dynamic Memory in your SQL Server VMs. Requirements Host Operating System Requirements Hyper-V Dynamic Memory feature is introduced with Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. Therefore in order to use Dynamic Memory for your virtual machines, you need to have Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 or Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 SP1 in your Hyper-V host. Guest Operating System Requirements In addition to this Dynamic Memory is only supported in Standard, Web, Enterprise and Datacenter editions of windows running inside VMs. Make sure that your VM is running one of these editions. For additional requirements on each operating system see “Dynamic Memory Configuration Guidelines” here. SQL Server Requirements All versions of SQL Server support Hyper-V Dynamic Memory. However, only certain editions of SQL Server are aware of dynamically changing system memory. To have a truly dynamic environment for your SQL Server VMs make sure that you are running one of the SQL Server editions listed below: ·         SQL Server 2005 Enterprise ·         SQL Server 2008 Enterprise / Datacenter Editions ·         SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise / Datacenter Editions Configuration guidelines for other versions of SQL Server are covered below in the FAQ section. Guidelines for configuring Dynamic Memory Parameters Here is how to configure Dynamic Memory for your SQL VMs in a nutshell: Hyper-V Dynamic Memory Parameter Recommendation Startup RAM 1 GB + SQL Min Server Memory Maximum RAM > SQL Max Server Memory Memory Buffer % 5 Memory Weight Based on performance needs   Startup RAM In order to ensure that your SQL Server VMs can start correctly, ensure that Startup RAM is higher than configured SQL Min Server Memory for your VMs. Otherwise SQL Server service will need to do paging in order to start since it will not be able to see enough memory during startup. Also note that Startup Memory will always be reserved for your VMs. This will guarantee a certain level of performance for your SQL Servers, however setting this too high will limit the consolidation benefits you’ll get out of your virtualization environment. Maximum RAM This one is obvious. If you’ve configured SQL Max Server Memory for your SQL Server, make sure that Dynamic Memory Maximum RAM configuration is higher than this value. Otherwise your SQL Server will not grow to memory values higher than the value configured for Dynamic Memory. Memory Buffer % Memory buffer configuration is used to provision file cache to virtual machines in order to improve performance. Due to the fact that SQL Server is managing its own buffer pool, Memory Buffer setting should be configured to the lowest value possible, 5%. Configuring a higher memory buffer will prevent low resource notifications from Windows Memory Manager and it will prevent reclaiming memory from SQL Server VMs. Memory Weight Memory weight configuration defines the importance of memory to a VM. Configure higher values for the VMs that have higher performance requirements. VMs with higher memory weight will have more memory under high memory pressure conditions on your host. Questions and Answers Q1 – Which SQL Server memory model is best for Dynamic Memory? The best SQL Server model for Dynamic Memory is “Locked Page Memory Model”. This memory model ensures that SQL Server memory is never paged out and it’s also adaptive to dynamically changing memory in the system. This will be extremely useful when Dynamic Memory is attempting to remove memory from SQL Server VMs ensuring no SQL Server memory is paged out. You can find instructions on configuring “Locked Page Memory Model” for your SQL Servers here. Q2 – What about other SQL Server Editions, how should I configure Dynamic Memory for them? Other editions of SQL Server do not adapt to dynamically changing environments. They will determine how much memory they should allocate during startup and don’t change this value afterwards. Therefore make sure that you configure a higher startup memory for your VM because that will be all the memory that SQL Server utilize Tune Maximum Memory and Memory Buffer based on the other workloads running on the system. If there are no other workloads consider using Static Memory for these editions. Q3 – What if I have multiple SQL Server instances in a VM? Having multiple SQL Server instances in a VM is not a general recommendation for predictable performance, manageability and isolation. In order to achieve a predictable behavior make sure that you configure SQL Min Server Memory and SQL Max Server Memory for each instance in the VM. And make sure that: ·         Dynamic Memory Startup Memory is greater than the sum of SQL Min Server Memory values for the instances in the VM ·         Dynamic Memory Maximum Memory is greater than the sum of SQL Max Server Memory values for the instances in the VM Q4 – I’m using Large Page Memory Model for my SQL Server. Can I still use Dynamic Memory? The short answer is no. SQL Server does not dynamically change its memory size when configured with Large Page Memory Model. In virtualized environments Hyper-V provides large page support by default. Most of the time, Large Page Memory Model doesn’t bring any benefits to a SQL Server if it’s running in virtualized environments. Q5 – How do I monitor SQL performance when I’m trying Dynamic Memory on my VMs? Use the performance counters below to monitor memory performance for SQL Server: Process - Working Set: This counter is available in the VM via process performance counters. It represents the actual amount of physical memory being used by SQL Server process in the VM. SQL Server – Buffer Cache Hit Ratio: This counter is available in the VM via SQL Server counters. This represents the paging being done by SQL Server. A rate of 90% or higher is desirable. Conclusion These blog posts are a quick start to a story that will be developing more in the near future. We’re still continuing our testing and investigations to provide more detailed configuration guidelines with example performance numbers with a white paper in the upcoming months. Now it’s time to give SQL Server and Hyper-V Dynamic Memory a try. Use this guidelines to kick-start your environment. See what you think about it and let us know of your experiences. - Serdar Sutay Originally posted at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlosteam/

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  • Security Talk Webcast: Agile Security - Develop Code Rapidly and Securely with SDL-Agile

    Find out how SDL and Agile can be made to work well together - and in many ways actually work better together than separately. Get an in-depth look at the new MSF-Agile+SDL process template for Visual Studio Team System that can help development teams integrate SDL-Agile tasks directly into their Visual Studio development environments....Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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  • Getting MySQL work with Entity Framework 4.0

    - by DigiMortal
    Does MySQL work with Entity Framework 4.0? The answer is: yes, it works! I just put up one experimental project to play with MySQL and Entity Framework 4.0 and in this posting I will show you how to get MySQL data to EF. Also I will give some suggestions how to deploy your applications to hosting and cloud environments. MySQL stuff As you may guess you need MySQL running somewhere. I have MySQL installed to my development machine so I can also develop stuff when I’m offline. The other thing you need is MySQL Connector for .NET Framework. Currently there is available development version of MySQL Connector/NET 6.3.5 that supports Visual Studio 2010. Before you start download MySQL and Connector/NET: MySQL Community Server Connector/NET 6.3.5 If you are not big fan of phpMyAdmin then you can try out free desktop client for MySQL – HeidiSQL. I am using it and I am really happy with this program. NB! If you just put up MySQL then create also database with couple of table there. To use all features of Entity Framework 4.0 I suggest you to use InnoDB or other engine that has support for foreign keys. Connecting MySQL to Entity Framework 4.0 Now create simple console project using Visual Studio 2010 and go through the following steps. 1. Add new ADO.NET Entity Data Model to your project. For model insert the name that is informative and that you are able later recognize. Now you can choose how you want to create your model. Select “Generate from database” and click OK. 2. Set up database connection Change data connection and select MySQL Database as data source. You may also need to set provider – there is only one choice. Select it if data provider combo shows empty value. Click OK and insert connection information you are asked about. Don’t forget to click test connection button to see if your connection data is okay. If everything works then click OK. 3. Insert context name Now you should see the following dialog. Insert your data model name for application configuration file and click OK. Click next button. 4. Select tables for model Now you can select tables and views your classes are based on. I have small database with events data. Uncheck the checkbox “Include foreign key columns in the model” – it is damn annoying to get them away from model later. Also insert informative and easy to remember name for your model. Click finish button. 5. Define your classes Now it’s time to define your classes. Here you can see what Entity Framework generated for you. Relations were detected automatically – that’s why we needed foreign keys. The names of classes and their members are not nice yet. After some modifications my class model looks like on the following diagram. Note that I removed attendees navigation property from person class. Now my classes look nice and they follow conventions I am using when naming classes and their members. NB! Don’t forget to see properties of classes (properties windows) and modify their set names if set names contain numbers (I changed set name for Entity from Entity1 to Entities). 6. Let’s test! Now let’s write simple testing program to see if MySQL data runs through Entity Framework 4.0 as expected. My program looks for events where I attended. using(var context = new MySqlEntities()) {     var myEvents = from e in context.Events                     from a in e.Attendees                     where a.Person.FirstName == "Gunnar" &&                             a.Person.LastName == "Peipman"                     select e;       Console.WriteLine("My events: ");       foreach(var e in myEvents)     {         Console.WriteLine(e.Title);     } }   Console.ReadKey(); And when I run it I get the result shown on screenshot on right. I checked out from database and these results are correct. At first run connector seems to work slow but this is only the effect of first run. As connector is loaded to memory by Entity Framework it works fast from this point on. Now let’s see what we have to do to get our program work in hosting and cloud environments where MySQL connector is not installed. Deploying application to hosting and cloud environments If your hosting or cloud environment has no MySQL connector installed you have to provide MySQL connector assemblies with your project. Add the following assemblies to your project’s bin folder and include them to your project (otherwise they are not packaged by WebDeploy and Azure tools): MySQL.Data MySQL.Data.Entity MySQL.Web You can also add references to these assemblies and mark references as local so these assemblies are copied to binary folder of your application. If you have references to these assemblies then you don’t have to include them to your project from bin folder. Also add the following block to your application configuration file. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <configuration> ...   <system.data>     <DbProviderFactories>         <add              name=”MySQL Data Provider”              invariant=”MySql.Data.MySqlClient”              description=”.Net Framework Data Provider for MySQL”              type=”MySql.Data.MySqlClient.MySqlClientFactory, MySql.Data,                   Version=6.2.0.0, Culture=neutral,                   PublicKeyToken=c5687fc88969c44d”          />     </DbProviderFactories>   </system.data> ... </configuration> Conclusion It was not hard to get MySQL connector installed and MySQL connected to Entity Framework 4.0. To use full power of Entity Framework we used InnoDB engine because it supports foreign keys. It was also easy to query our model. To get our project online we needed some easy modifications to our project and configuration files.

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  • Oracle Data Integration Solutions and the Oracle EXADATA Database Machine

    - by João Vilanova
    Oracle's data integration solutions provide a complete, open and integrated solution for building, deploying, and managing real-time data-centric architectures in operational and analytical environments. Fully integrated with and optimized for the Oracle Exadata Database Machine, Oracle's data integration solutions take data integration to the next level and delivers extremeperformance and scalability for all the enterprise data movement and transformation needs. Easy-to-use, open and standards-based Oracle's data integration solutions dramatically improve productivity, provide unparalleled efficiency, and lower the cost of ownership.You can watch a video about this subject, after clicking on the link below.DIS for EXADATA Video

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  • Agile isn’t always Agile

    - by BuckWoody
    I want to make a disclaimer before I dive into this topic – At Microsoft we use all kinds of development methodologies, and I’ve worked in lots of other shops using lots of methodologies. This is one of those “religious” topics like which programming language or database is best, and is bound to generate some heat. But this isn’t pointed towards one particular event or company. But I really don’t like Agile. In particular, I really don’t like Scrum. Let me explain. Agile is a methodology for developing software that emphasizes adapting to change more so than the traditional “waterfall” method of developing software. Within Agile is a process called a “scrum” meeting. The pitch goes that in this quick, stand-up meeting the people involved in the development project (which should include the DBA, but very often doesn’t) go around the room stating what they are working on, when that will be finished and what is keeping them from getting finished (“blockers”, these are called). Sounds all very non-threatening – we’re just “enabling” the developers to work more efficiently. And that’s what we all want, isn’t it? Except it doesn’t work. In my experience (and yours might be VERY different) this just turns into a micro-management environment, where devs have to defend their daily work. Of all the work environments I hate the most, micro-management environments are THE worst. I don’t like workign in them, and I don’t like creating them. The other issue I have with Scrum is that it makes your whole team task-focused. Everyone wants to make sure that they are not the “long pole” in the meeting (meaning that they aren’t the one that gets all the attention) so they only focus on safe, quick tasks. And although you have all of the boxes checked, the project does not go well at all – even when it does finish. Before you comment (and please do comment) I fully realize that Agile <> Scrum. But in my experience, it sometimes turns into that. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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  • Recover Deleted Files on an NTFS Hard Drive from a Ubuntu Live CD

    - by Trevor Bekolay
    Accidentally deleting a file is a terrible feeling. Not being able to boot into Windows and undelete that file makes that even worse. Fortunately, you can recover deleted files on NTFS hard drives from an Ubuntu Live CD. To show this process, we created four files on the desktop of a Windows XP machine, and then deleted them. We then booted up the same machine with the bootable Ubuntu 9.10 USB Flash Drive that we created last week. Once Ubuntu 9.10 boots up, open a terminal by clicking Applications in the top left of the screen, and then selecting Accessories > Terminal. To undelete our files, we first need to identify the hard drive that we want to undelete from. In the terminal window, type in: sudo fdisk –l and press enter. What you’re looking for is a line that ends with HPSF/NTFS (under the heading System). In our case, the device is “/dev/sda1”. This may be slightly different for you, but it will still begin with /dev/. Note this device name. If you have more than one hard drive partition formatted as NTFS, then you may be able to identify the correct partition by the size. If you look at the second line of text in the screenshot above, it reads “Disk /dev/sda: 136.4 GB, …” This means that the hard drive that Ubuntu has named /dev/sda is 136.4 GB large. If your hard drives are of different size, then this information can help you track down the right device name to use. Alternatively, you can just try them all, though this can be time consuming for large hard drives. Now that you know the name Ubuntu has assigned to your hard drive, we’ll scan it to see what files we can uncover. In the terminal window, type: sudo ntfsundelete <HD name> and hit enter. In our case, the command is: sudo ntfsundelete /dev/sda1 The names of files that can recovered show up in the far right column. The percentage in the third column tells us how much of that file can be recovered. Three of the four files that we originally deleted are showing up in this list, even though we shut down the computer right after deleting the four files – so even in ideal cases, your files may not be recoverable. Nevertheless, we have three files that we can recover – two JPGs and an MPG. Note: ntfsundelete is immediately available in the Ubuntu 9.10 Live CD. If you are in a different version of Ubuntu, or for some other reason get an error when trying to use ntfsundelete, you can install it by entering “sudo apt-get install ntfsprogs” in a terminal window. To quickly recover the two JPGs, we will use the * wildcard to recover all of the files that end with .jpg. In the terminal window, enter sudo ntfsundelete <HD name> –u –m *.jpg which is, in our case, sudo ntfsundelete /dev/sda1 –u –m *.jpg The two files are recovered from the NTFS hard drive and saved in the current working directory of the terminal. By default, this is the home directory of the current user, though we are working in the Desktop folder. Note that the ntfsundelete program does not make any changes to the original NTFS hard drive. If you want to take those files and put them back in the NTFS hard drive, you will have to move them there after they are undeleted with ntfsundelete. Of course, you can also put them on your flash drive or open Firefox and email them to yourself – the sky’s the limit! We have one more file to undelete – our MPG. Note the first column on the far left. It contains a number, its Inode. Think of this as the file’s unique identifier. Note this number. To undelete a file by its Inode, enter the following in the terminal: sudo ntfsundelete <HD name> –u –i <Inode> In our case, this is: sudo ntfsundelete /dev/sda1 –u –i 14159 This recovers the file, along with an identifier that we don’t really care about. All three of our recoverable files are now recovered. However, Ubuntu lets us know visually that we can’t use these files yet. That’s because the ntfsundelete program saves the files as the “root” user, not the “ubuntu” user. We can verify this by typing the following in our terminal window: ls –l We want these three files to be owned by ubuntu, not root. To do this, enter the following in the terminal window: sudo chown ubuntu <Files> If the current folder has other files in it, you may not want to change their owner to ubuntu. However, in our case, we only have these three files in this folder, so we will use the * wildcard to change the owner of all three files. sudo chown ubuntu * The files now look normal, and we can do whatever we want with them. Hopefully you won’t need to use this tip, but if you do, ntfsundelete is a nice command-line utility. It doesn’t have a fancy GUI like many of the similar Windows programs, but it is a powerful tool that can recover your files quickly. See ntfsundelete’s manual page for more detailed usage information Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Reset Your Ubuntu Password Easily from the Live CDUse Ubuntu Live CD to Backup Files from Your Dead Windows ComputerCreate a Bootable Ubuntu 9.10 USB Flash DriveCreate a Bootable Ubuntu USB Flash Drive the Easy WayGuide to Using Check Disk in Windows Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Windows 7 Easter Theme YoWindoW, a real time weather screensaver Optimize your computer the Microsoft way Stormpulse provides slick, real time weather data Geek Parents – Did you try Parental Controls in Windows 7? Change DNS servers on the fly with DNS Jumper

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