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BizTalk 2009 - The Community ODBC Adapter: Installation

- by Stuart Brierley

I have previsouly detailed the installation of MySQL, the configuration of MySQL and the installation of the ODBC Data Connector for MySQL. The reason I needed to install and configure these servers was to provide a test environment for a BizTalk Server 2009 solution I am working on where BizTalk will be querying and populating a MySQL database. To do this I then needed to install and add the Community ODBC adapter from Two Connect: "The Community BizTalk Adapter for ODBC is based on the code that was first made available on GotDotNet a few years ago. TwoConnect has refreshed this code, added an installer, and tested it against the latest BizTalk editions. We are releasing the updates back to the BizTalk developer, user and partner community as part of our ongoing community intitiatives. This is the second adapter package that TwoConnect makes available to the community after the very succesful release of the BizTalk WSE 3 adapter a couple of years ago. This adapter is useful in all ODBC based integration scenarios. The following are the new features added and fixes made to the old code base on GotDotNet." Detailed below are the installation instructions for this adapter. Downloading and running the installer will load up the splash screen. Next you need to select the installation location for the adapter. You then need to confirm the installation following which you will be shown the installation progress. Assuming all has gone well you should see the installation complete screen. Once the installation has completed successfully you will then need to add the adapter to your BizTalk Server. To do this open the BizTalk Administration console, expand the Platform Settings and right click on Adapters then select New\Adapter. You should then be able to select the ODBC adapter and choose the display name for the adapter. This adapter will then be shown in the BizTalk Administration console. Next I will be looking at using the ODBC Adapter when: Generating schemas Creating a receive port Creating a send port

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What's the best way of marketing to programmers?

- by Stuart

Disclaimer up front - I'm definitely not going to include any links in here - this question isn't part of my marketing! I've had a few projects recently where the end product is something that developers will use. In the past I've been on the receiving end of all sorts of marketing - as a developer I've gotten no end of junk - 1000s of pens, tee-shirts and mouse pads; enough CDs to keep my desk tea-free; some very useful USB keys with some logos I no longer recognise; a small forest's worth of leaflets; a bulging spam folder full of ignored emails, etc... So that's my question - What are good ways to market to developers? And as an aside - are developers the wrong people to target? - since we so often don't have a purchasing budget anyways!

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USB install from second internal hard drive in a MacBook Pro

- by aaron.anderson

I am trying to install Ubuntu (among others) on a second internal hard drive on my MacBook Pro. I have an 80 GB internal SSD with OS X on it, along with a 750 GB internal HD with a few partitions, one of which being for Ubuntu. I currently have rEFInd installed for switching between the OS's. I was wondering how one would go about installing Ubuntu from the USB install stick. I have followed the instructions on creating a bootable USB. Once this is bootable, could I just hold the Option key on startup, and it should appear in the menu? Or am I missing something?

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BizTalk - Removing BAM Activities and Views using bm.exe

- by Stuart Brierley

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/StuartBrierley/archive/2013/10/16/biztalk---removing-bam-activities-and-views-using-bm.exe.aspxOn the project I am currently working on, we are making quite extensive use of BAM within our growing number of BizTalk applications, all of which are being deployed and undeployed using the excellent Deployment Framework for BizTalk 5.0.Recently I had an issue where problems on the build server had left the target development servers in a state where the BAM activities and views for a particular application were not being removed by the undeploy process and unfortunately the definition in the solution had changed meaning that I could not easily recreate the file from source control. To get around this I used the bm.exe application from the command line to manually remove the problem BAM artifacts - bm.exe can be found at the following path:C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010\TrackingC:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010\TrackingStep1 :Get the BAM Definition FileRun the following command to get the BAm definition file, containing the details of all the activities, views and alerts:bm.exe get-defxml -FileName:{Path and File Name Here}.xmlStep 2: Remove the BAM ArtifactsAt this stage I chose to manually remove each of my problem BAM activities and views using seperate command line calls. By looking in the definition file I could see the names of the activities and views that I wanted to remove and then use the following commands to remove first the views and then the activities:bm.exe remove-view -name:{viewname}bm.exe remove-activity -name:{activityname}

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MySQL - Installation

- by Stuart Brierley

In order to create a development environment for a project I am working on, I recently needed to install MySQL Server. The first step was to download the msi. Running this presents you with the installer splash screen, detailing the version of MySQL that you are about to install - in this case MySQL Server 5.1. Next you can choose whether to install a Typical, Complete or Custom installation. Although this is the first time I have installed MySQL and the Custom option states "Recommended for advanced users" I opted to carry out a Custom installation, specifically so that I could be sure of what features and components were installed. On the Custom Setup screen you can choose which components to install. By default the Developer Components are not included, but I opted to include some of these elements. Next up is the ready to install screen and then the intsallation progress. Following the completion of the installation you are shown a few screens with details of the MySQL Enterprise subscription option. Finally the installation is complete and you are offered the chance to configure and register MySQL. Next I will be looking at the configuration of MySQL Server 5.1.

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Test Driven Development with vxml

- by Malcolm Anderson

It's been 3 years since I did any coding and am starting back up with Java using netBeans and glassfish. Right off the bat I noticed two things about Java's ease of use. The java ide (netBeans) has finally caught up with visual studio, and jUnit, has finally caught up with nUnit. netBeans intellisense exists and I don't have to subclass everything in jUnit. Now on to the point of this very short post ( request) I'm trying to figure out how to do test driven development with vxml and have not found anythnig yet. I've done my google search, but unfortunately, TDD in IVR land has something to do with helping the hearing impared. I've found a vxml simulator or two, but none of their marketing is getting my hopes up. My request - if you have done any agile engineering work with vxml, contact me, I need to pick your brain and bring some ideas back to my team. Thanks in advance.

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MySQL - ODBC Data Connector

- by Stuart Brierley

Having previsouly installed and then configured MySQL, you may now need to install the ODBC Data Connector driver in order to connect to your MySQL database. Following the Splash screen the first thing to choose is the Setup Type for your installation. As usual I chose custom so that I could see the components that were actually being installed. In this case the custom set up screen allows you to choose to install the driver and the documentation. Finally you can complete the installation Assuming it completes okay you have now installed the MySQL ODBC driver. My intention for installing all these MySQL components is so that I can now attempt to get BizTalk 2009 talking to the MySQL database for a solution that I am currently working on. For this I will next be looking at the Community ODBC Adapter.

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BizTalk Pipeline Component Error: "Object reference not set to an instance of an object"

- by Stuart Brierley

Yesterday I posted about my BizTalk Archiving Pipeline Component, which can be found on Codeplex if anyone is interested in taking a look. During testing of this component I began to encounter an error whereby the component would throw an "Object reference not set to an instance of an object" error when processing as a part of a Custom Pipeline. This was occurring when the component was reading a ReadOnlySeekableStream so that the data can be archived to file, but the actual code throwing the error was somewhere in the depths of the Microsoft.BizTalk.Streaming stack. It turns out that there is a known issue where this exception can be thrown because the garbage collector has disposed of of the stream before execution of the custom pipeline has completed. To get around this you need to add the streams in your code to the pipeline context resource tracker. So a block of my code goes from: originalStrm = bodyPart.GetOriginalDataStream(); if (!originalStrm.CanSeek) { ReadOnlySeekableStream seekableStream = new ReadOnlySeekableStream(originalStrm); inmsg.BodyPart.Data = seekableStream; originalStrm = inmsg.BodyPart.Data; } fileArchive = new FileStream(FullPath, FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write); binWriter = new BinaryWriter(fileArchive); byte[] buffer = new byte[bufferSize]; int sizeRead = 0; while ((sizeRead = originalStrm.Read(buffer, 0, bufferSize)) != 0) { binWriter.Write(buffer, 0, sizeRead); } to originalStrm = bodyPart.GetOriginalDataStream(); if (!originalStrm.CanSeek) { ReadOnlySeekableStream seekableStream = new ReadOnlySeekableStream(originalStrm); inmsg.BodyPart.Data = seekableStream; originalStrm = inmsg.BodyPart.Data; } pc.ResourceTracker.AddResource(originalStrm); fileArchive = new FileStream(FullPath, FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write); binWriter = new BinaryWriter(fileArchive); byte[] buffer = new byte[bufferSize]; int sizeRead = 0; while ((sizeRead = originalStrm.Read(buffer, 0, bufferSize)) != 0) { binWriter.Write(buffer, 0, sizeRead); } So far this seems to have solved the issue, the error is no more, and my archive component is continuing its way through testing.

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SAB BizTalk Archiving Pipeline Component - Codeplex

- by Stuart Brierley

In an effort to give a little more to the BizTalk development community, I have created my first Codeplex project. The SAB BizTalk Archiving Pipeline Component was written using Visual Studio 2010 with BizTalk Server 2010 intended as the target platform. It is currently at version 0.1, meaning that I have not yet completed all the intended functionality and have so far carried out a limited number of tests. It does however archive files within the bounds of the functionailty so far implemented and seems to be stable in use. It is based on a recent evolution of a basic archiving component that I wrote in the past, and it is my hope that it will continue to evolve in the coming months. This work was inspired by some old posts by Gilles Zunino and Jeff Lynch. You can download the documentation, source code or component dll from Codeplex, but to give you a taste here is the first section of the documentation to whet your appetite: SAB BizTalk Archiving Pipeline Component The SAB BizTalk Archiving Pipeline Component has been developed to allow custom piplelines to be created that can archive messages at any stage of pipeline processing. It works in both receive and send pipelines and will archive messages to file based on the configuration applied to the component in the BizTalk Administration Console. The Archiving Pipeline Component has been coded for use with BizTalk Server 2010. Use with other versions of BizTalk has not been tested. The Archiving Pipeline component is supplied as a dll file that should be placed in the BizTalk Server Pipeline Components folder. It can then be used when developing custom pipelines to be deployed as a part of your BizTalk Server applications. This version of the component allows you to use a number of generic messaging macros and also a small number that are specific to the FILE adapter. It is intended to extend these macros to cover context properties from other adapters in future releases. Archive Pipeline Parameters As with all pipeline components, the following parameters can be set when creating your custom pipeline and at runtime via the administration console. Enabled: Enables and disables the archive process. True; messages will be archived. False; messages will be passed to the next stage in the pipeline without performing any processing. File Name: The file name of the archived message. Allows the component to build the archive filename at run-time; based on the values entered, the permitted macros and data extracted from the message context properties. e.g. %FileReceivedFileName%-%InterchangeSequenceNumber% File Mask: The extension to be added to the File Name following all Macro processing. e.g. .xml File Path: The path on which the archived message should be saved. Allows the component to build the archive directory at run-time; based on the values entered, permitted macros and data extracted from the message context properties. e.g. C:\Archive\%ReceivePortName%\%Year%\%Month%\%Day%\ \\ArchiveShare\%ReceivePortName%\%Date%\ Overwrite: Enables and disables existing file overwrites. True; any existing file with the same File Path/Name combination (following macro replacement) will be overwritten. False; any existing file with the same File Path/Name combination (following macro replacement) will not be overwritten. The current message will be archived with a GUID appended to the File Name.

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BizTalk 2009 - Pipeline Component Wizard

- by Stuart Brierley

Recently I decided to try out the BizTalk Server Pipeline Component Wizard when creating a new pipeline component for BizTalk 2009. There are different versions of the wizard available, so be sure to download the appropriate version for the BizTalk environment that you are working with. Following the download and expansion of the zip file, you should be left with a Visual Studio solution. Open this solution and build the project. Following this installation is straight foward - locate and run the built setup.exe file in the PipelineComponentWizard Setup project and click through the small number of installation screens. Once you have completed installation you will be ready to use the wizard in Visual Studio to create your BizTalk Pipeline Component. Start by creating a new project, selecting BizTalk Projects then BizTalk Server Pipeline Component. You will then be presented with the splash screen. The next step is General Setup, where you will detail the classname, namespace, pipeline and component types, and the implementation language for your Pipeline Component. The options for pipeline type are Receive, Send or Any. Depending on the pipeline type chosen there are different options presented for the component type, matching those available within the BizTalk Pipelines themselves: Receive - Decoder, Disassembling Parser, Validate, Party Resolver, Any. Send - Encoder, Assembling Serializer, Any. Any - Any. The options for implementation language are C# or VB.Net Next you must set up the UI settings - these are the settings that affect the appearance of the pipeline component within Visual Studio. You must detail the component name, version, description and icon. Next is the definition of the variables that the pipeline component will use. The values for these variables will be defined in Visual Studio when creating a pipeline. The options for each variable you require are: Designer Property - The name of the variable. Data Type - String, Boolean, Integer, Long, Short, Schema List, Schema With None Clicking finish now will complete the wizard stage of the creation of your pipeline component. Once the wizard has completed you will be left with a BizTalk Server Pipeline Component project containing a skeleton code file for you to complete. Within this code file you will mainly be interested in the execute method, which is left mostly empty ready for you to implement your custom pipeline code: #region IComponent members /// <summary> /// Implements IComponent.Execute method. /// </summary> /// <param name="pc">Pipeline context</param> /// <param name="inmsg">Input message</param> /// <returns>Original input message</returns> /// <remarks> /// IComponent.Execute method is used to initiate /// the processing of the message in this pipeline component. /// </remarks> public Microsoft.BizTalk.Message.Interop.IBaseMessage Execute(Microsoft.BizTalk.Component.Interop.IPipelineContext pc, Microsoft.BizTalk.Message.Interop.IBaseMessage inmsg) { // // TODO: implement component logic // // this way, it's a passthrough pipeline component return inmsg; } #endregion Once you have implemented your custom code, build and compile your Custom Pipeline Component then add the compiled .dll to C:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009\Pipeline Components . When creating a new pipeline, in Visual Studio reset the toolbox and the custom pipeline component should appear ready for you to use in your Biztalk Pipeline. Drop the pipeline component into the relevant pipeline stage and configure the component properties (the variables defined in the wizard). You can now deploy and use the pipeline as you would any other custom pipeline.

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How can I use SSMTP to send through Gmail and accept relay requests from another machine?

- by Kris Anderson

I'm running sSMTP on Ubuntu 12.04 and 14.04 and it's sending emails perfectly through Gmail. However, I'm also running an OmniOS operating system (a spinoff of Solaris) and it doesn't handle TLS which means it can't connect and send through gmail. What I'd like to do is point the OmniOS machine to one of my local Ubuntu machines, and have the Ubuntu machine relay all of the email for the OmniOS machine. How can I accomplish this?

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My New Job

- by Stuart Brierley

Last year I started a new job with a logistics company in the North of England, where I was responsible for the management, design and development of IT Integration strategies, architectures and solutions using BizTalk Server 2009. This included the design and implementation of the BizTalk Server 2009 infrastructure, the definition of development standards, mentoring a fellow developer in the ways of BizTalk and migrating a number of existing solutions from Softshare over to BizTalk 2009. Unfortunately I then realised that, following this initial set up, there didn't actually seem to be that much BizTalk work for me to get stuck into and reluctantly I have now moved on from this role to a very similar role with the country's largest office supplies company. Based in Sheffield, we distribute office supplies on a UK wide basis and computer supplies across Europe. The situation here is slightly different than when I first joined my previous employer. Whereas that was a green field installation with no previous BizTalk solutions in place, my new employer currently has a number of live BizTalk 2000 (!) and BizTalk 2006 solutions in place. Unfortunately the infrastructure around these is less than ideal; with no clear distinction between development and test environments and no source control what so ever! We are currently building a proposal for a new BizTalk Server 2010 implementation, where I am hopeful of being able to implement fully independent development, test and pseudo-live environments, alongside an enterprise level live installation. We should also be introducing Team Foundation Server to the development process, thereby giving us some much needed source control capabilities. Following this is likely to be a period of migration for the existing BizTalk Solutions, along with the onward development of new projects and initiatives - I'm hoping to be a busy man for the forseeable future :o)

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BizTalk 2009 - Pipeline Component Wizard Error

- by Stuart Brierley

When attempting to run the BizTalk Server Pipeline Component Wizard for the first time I encountered an error that prevented the creation of the pipeline component project: System.ArgumentException : Value does not fall withing the expected range I found the solution for this error in a couple of places, first a reference to the issue on the Codeplex Project and then a fuller description on a blog referring to the BizTalk 2006 implementation. To resolve this issue you need to make a change to the downloaded wizard solution code, by changing the file BizTalkPipelineComponentWizard.cs around line 304 From // get a handle to the project. using mySolution will not work. pipelineComponentProject = this._Application.Solution.Projects.Item(Path.Combine(Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(projectFileName), projectFileName)); To // get a handle to the project. using mySolution will not work. if (this._Application.Solution.Projects.Count == 1) pipelineComponentProject = this._Application.Solution.Projects.Item(1); else { // In Doubt: Which project is the target? pipelineComponentProject = this._Application.Solution.Projects.Item(projectFileName); } Following this you need to uninstall the the wizard, rebuild the solution and re-install the wizard again.

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Architecture Forum in the North 2010 - Hosted by Black Marble

- by Stuart Brierley

On Thursday the 8th of December I attended the "Architecture Forum in the North 2010" hosted by Black Marble. The third time this annual event has been held, it was pitched as featuring Black Marble and Microsoft UK architecture experts focusing on “Tools and Methods for Architects.... a unique opportunity to provide IT Managers, IT and software architects from Northern businesses the chance to learn about the latest technologies and best practices from Microsoft in the field of Architecture....insightful information about the latest techniques, demonstrating how with Microsoft’s architecture tools and technologies you can address your current business needs." Following a useful overview of the Architecture features of Visual Studio 2010, the rest of the day was given over to various features and ways to make use of Microsoft's Azure offerings. While I did feel that a wider spread of technologies could have been covered (maybe a bit of Sharepoint or BizTalk even), the technological and architectural overviews of the Azure platform were well presented, informative and useful. The day was well organised and all those involved were friendly and approachable for questions and discussions. If you are in "the North" and get a chance to attend next year I would highly recommend it.

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BizTalk 2009 - The Community ODBC Adapter: Schema Generation with Input Parameters

- by Stuart Brierley

As previsouly noted in my post on Schema Generation using the Community ODBC Adapter, I ran into a problem when trying to generate a schema to represent a MySQL stored procedure that had input parameters. After a bit of investigation and a few deadends I managed to figure out a way around this issue - detailed below are both the problem and solution in case you ever run into this yourself. The Problem Imagine a stored procedure that is coded as follows in MySQL: StuTest(in DStr varchar(80)) BEGIN Declare GRNID int; Select grn_id into GRNID from grn_header where distribution_number = DStr; Select GRNID; END This is quite a simple stored procedure but can be used to illustrate the issue with parameters quite niceley. When generating the schema using the Add Generated Items wizard, I tried selecting "Stored Procedure" and then in the Statement Information window typing the stored procedure name: StuTest Pressing generate then gives the following error: "Incorrect Number of arguments for Procedure StuTest; expected 1, got 0" If you attempt to supply a value for the parameter you end up with a schema that will only ever supply the parameter value that you specify. For example supplying StuTest('123') will always call the procedure with a parameter value of 123. The Solution I tried contacting Two Connect about this, but their experience of testing the adapter with MySQL was limited. After looking through the code for the ODBC adapter myself and trying a few things out, I was eventually able to use the ODBC adapter to call a test stored procedure using a two way send port. In the generate schema wizard instead of selecting Stored Procedure I had to choose SQL Script instead, detailing the following script: Call StuTest(@InputParameter) By default this would create a request schema with an attribute called InputParameter, with a SQL type of NVarChar(1). In most cases this is not going to be correct for the stored procedure being called. To change the type from the default that is applied you need to select the "Override default query processing" check box when specifying the script in the wizard. This then opens the BizTalk ODBC Override window which lets you change the properties of the parameters and also test out the query script. Once I had done this I was then able to generate the correct schema, which included an attribute representing the parameter. By deploying the schema assembly I was then able to try the ODBC adapter out on a two way send port. When supplied with an appropriate message instance (for the generated request schema) this send port successfully returned the expected response.

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Patch Set Update: Hyperion Essbase 11.1.2.3.502

- by Paul Anderson -Oracle

A Patch Set Update (PSU) for Oracle Hyperion Essbase 11.1.2.3.x . The PSU downloads are from the My Oracle Support | Patches & Updates section. Hyperion Essbase Server 11.1.2.3.502 Patch 18950479: Essbase Server Hyperion Essbase Client 11.2.3.502 Patch 18950453: Essbase RTC Patch 18950474: Essbase Client Patch 18950482: Essbase MSI Hyperion Essbase Administration Services (EAS) 11.1.2.3.502 Patch 17767626: Essbase Server Patch 17767628: Essbase Console MSI Hyperion Analytic Provider Services (APS) 11.1.2.3.502 Patch 18907738: APS Services Hyperion Essbase Studio 11.1.2.3.502 Patch 18907980: Essbase Studio Server Patch 18907987: Essbase Studio Console MSI Refer to the Readme file prior to proceeding with this PSU implementation for important information that includes a full list of the defects fixed, along with additional support information, prerequisites, details for applying patch and troubleshooting FAQ's. It is important to ensure that the requirements and support paths to this patch are met as outlined within the Readme file. The Readme file is available from the Patches & Updates download screen. To locate the latest Essbase Patch Sets and Patch Set Updates at anytime visit the My Oracle Support (MOS) Knowledge Article: Available Patch Sets and Patch Set Updates for Oracle Hyperion Essbase Doc ID 1396084.1 Why not share your experience about installing this patch ... In the MOS | Patches & Updates screen simply click the "Start a Discussion" and submit your review. The patch install reviews and other patch related information is available within the My Oracle Support Communities. Visit the Oracle Hyperion EPM sub-space: Hyperion Patch Reviews

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Interesting conversation about the nature of info-wars

- by Malcolm Anderson

Over at Schlock Mercenary, Howard Taylor has started a facinating conversation on the nature of Info-Wars. As Howard puts it: Somebody (I forget who) tweeted that the Wikileaks fight right now is the first infowar in history. I disagree. I think we've fought numerous infowars in the last fifteen years. And that's really what I want to see discussed in the comments. We can argue right and wrong until the eCows come 127.0.0.1 but nobody is going to walk away convinced. I want to see a list of information-age conflicts that you feel qualify as "infowar." Me, I think the RIAA vs file-sharing qualifies. My buddy Rodney suggested RBLs vs Spammers (the spammers won that one.) Somebody pointed out that the Secret Service raid on Steve Jackson Games back in the 80's might qualify.

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BizTalk 2009 - The Community ODBC Adapter: Receive Location

- by Stuart Brierley

I have previously talked about the installation of the Community ODBC adapter and also using the ODBC adapter to generate schemas. But what about creating a receive location? An ODBC receive location will periodically poll the configured database using the stored procedure or SQL string defined in your request schema. If you need to, begin by adding a new receive port to your BizTalk configuration. Create a new receive location and select to use the ODBC adapter and click Address. You will now be shown the ODBC Community Adapter Transport properties window. Select connection string and you will be shown the Choose data Source window. If you have already created the Test Database source when generating a schema from ODBC this will be shown (if not go and take a look in my previous post to see how this is done). You will then need to choose the SQL command that will be run by the recieve port. In this case I have deployed the Test Mapping schemas that I created previously and selected the Request schema. You should now have populated the appropriate properties for the ODBC Com Adapter. Finally set the standard receive location properties and your ODBC receive location is now ready.

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BizTalk 2009 - The Community ODBC Adapter: Send Port

- by Stuart Brierley

I have previously talked about the installation of the Community ODBC adapter and also using the ODBC adapter to generate schemas and laterly the creation of a receive port using the ODBC Adapter. But what about creating a send port? Select to add a new Send Port, select the ODBC Adapter and click configure. Clicking Connection string will open the DataSource window. Choose one of your system datasources and press OK. This will now update the Transport properties. Select okay. All that remains is to set the standard send port properties and your ODBC send port is now ready.

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What's the best way of marketing to programmers?

- by Stuart

Disclaimer up front - I'm definitely not going to include any links in here - this question isn't part of my marketing! I've had a few projects recently where the end product is something that developers will use. In the past I've been on the receiving end of all sorts of marketing - as a developer I've gotten no end of junk - 1000s of pens, tee-shirts and mouse pads; enough CDs to keep my desk tea-free; some very useful USB keys with some logos I no longer recognise; a small forest's worth of leaflets; a bulging spam folder full of ignored emails, etc... So that's my question - What are good ways to market to developers? And as an aside - are developers the wrong people to target? - since we so often don't have a purchasing budget anyways!

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Tessellation Texture Coordinates

- by Stuart Martin

Firstly some info - I'm using DirectX 11 , C++ and I'm a fairly good programmer but new to tessellation and not a master graphics programmer. I'm currently implementing a tessellation system for a terrain model, but i have reached a snag. My current system produces a terrain model from a height map complete with multiple texture coordinates, normals, binormals and tangents for rendering. Now when i was using a simple vertex and pixel shader combination everything worked perfectly but since moving to include a hull and domain shader I'm slightly confused and getting strange results. My terrain is a high detail model but the textured results are very large patches of solid colour. My current setup passes the model data into the vertex shader then through the hull into the domain and then finally into the pixel shader for use in rendering. My only thought is that in my hull shader i pass the information into the domain shader per patch and this is producing the large areas of solid colour because each patch has identical information. Lighting and normal data are also slightly off but not as visibly as texturing. Below is a copy of my hull shader that does not work correctly because i think the way that i am passing the data through is incorrect. If anyone can help me out but suggesting an alternative way to get the required data into the pixel shader? or by showing me the correct way to handle the data in the hull shader id be very thankful! cbuffer TessellationBuffer { float tessellationAmount; float3 padding; }; struct HullInputType { float3 position : POSITION; float2 tex : TEXCOORD0; float3 normal : NORMAL; float3 tangent : TANGENT; float3 binormal : BINORMAL; float2 tex2 : TEXCOORD1; }; struct ConstantOutputType { float edges[3] : SV_TessFactor; float inside : SV_InsideTessFactor; }; struct HullOutputType { float3 position : POSITION; float2 tex : TEXCOORD0; float3 normal : NORMAL; float3 tangent : TANGENT; float3 binormal : BINORMAL; float2 tex2 : TEXCOORD1; float4 depthPosition : TEXCOORD2; }; ConstantOutputType ColorPatchConstantFunction(InputPatch<HullInputType, 3> inputPatch, uint patchId : SV_PrimitiveID) { ConstantOutputType output; output.edges[0] = tessellationAmount; output.edges[1] = tessellationAmount; output.edges[2] = tessellationAmount; output.inside = tessellationAmount; return output; } [domain("tri")] [partitioning("integer")] [outputtopology("triangle_cw")] [outputcontrolpoints(3)] [patchconstantfunc("ColorPatchConstantFunction")] HullOutputType ColorHullShader(InputPatch<HullInputType, 3> patch, uint pointId : SV_OutputControlPointID, uint patchId : SV_PrimitiveID) { HullOutputType output; output.position = patch[pointId].position; output.tex = patch[pointId].tex; output.tex2 = patch[pointId].tex2; output.normal = patch[pointId].normal; output.tangent = patch[pointId].tangent; output.binormal = patch[pointId].binormal; return output; } Edited to include the domain shader:- [domain("tri")] PixelInputType ColorDomainShader(ConstantOutputType input, float3 uvwCoord : SV_DomainLocation, const OutputPatch<HullOutputType, 3> patch) { float3 vertexPosition; PixelInputType output; // Determine the position of the new vertex. vertexPosition = uvwCoord.x * patch[0].position + uvwCoord.y * patch[1].position + uvwCoord.z * patch[2].position; output.position = mul(float4(vertexPosition, 1.0f), worldMatrix); output.position = mul(output.position, viewMatrix); output.position = mul(output.position, projectionMatrix); output.depthPosition = output.position; output.tex = patch[0].tex; output.tex2 = patch[0].tex2; output.normal = patch[0].normal; output.tangent = patch[0].tangent; output.binormal = patch[0].binormal; return output; }

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Do we need to adopt a black-box asset our project is inheriting from its predecessor?

- by Tom Anderson

Our client has an eCommerce site which was developed by an in-house team, and is now showing its age. I work for a firm brought in as external contractors to build a replacement. Part of the current site is a Flash viewer applet which displays media about the product - zoom-able images, 360-degree views, movies, and so on. We need to show the same media the current site does, so we are simply reusing the viewer. The viewer is embedded on a page in the usual way, and told what media to show by means of an XML file it loads from our server, which is pretty simple for us to generate. We've got this working; it was pretty straightforward. But what else do we need to do? The thing is, as far as we're concerned, the viewer is a binary blob which is served from the client's content-distribution network. We embed it, feed it some XML, and it does its job, but we have no power over its internals. It's completely opaque to us - a black box. We can use it to do what it does, but we can't change it, so if we ever need to do something different, we're stuffed. We're building this site for the client, and when we're done, we'll hand it over for them to maintain. We won't be doing the maintenance ourselves. There's a small team within the client who are working as part of our team, and who will be the ones doing the maintenance. That team only includes one person from the team that built the old site, and it's not someone who knows the image viewer. The people who do know the image viewer are not slated to join our team when our system replaces theirs - they'll be moved to other projects. The documentation on the viewer is extremely thin, and as far as i know doesn't cover the internals at all. My worry is that if someone doesn't take some positive action, all knowledge of the internal workings of the viewer - even down to where the source code for it is - will be lost. It's possible it already has been. Is this something to worry about? If so, whose job is it to worry about it? What should they do about it once they've got worried?

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Is there an equivalent to the Max OS X software Hazel that runs on Ubuntu?

- by Stuart Woodward

Is there an equivalent to the Max OS X software Hazel that runs on Ubuntu? "Hazel watches whatever folders you tell it to, automatically organizing your files according to the rules you create. It features a rule interface [..]. Have Hazel move files around based on name, date, type, what site/email address it came from [..] and much more. Automatically put your music in your Music folder, movies in Movies. Keep your downloads off the desktop and put them where they are supposed to be." This question probably won't make sense unless you have used Hazel, but basically you can define rules via the GUI to move and rename files automatically to make an automated workflow.

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SAB BizTalk Archiving Pipeline Component v0.2

- by Stuart Brierley

Just released to Codeplex is an updated version of my archiving pipeline component for BizTalk. The changes in this release are: Addition of FTP adapter macros to the base macros and File adapter macros. Fix for the issue of garbage collection of data streams within pipelines as discussed in this previous blog entry. Now looks for OutboundTransportType in addition to InboundTransportType to pick up send port transport type; Therefore changed %InboundTransportType% macro to %TransportType%. An initial outline of the project can be read here.

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12.10 unable to connect to the Internet using Chrome or Firefox

- by Thomas Anderson

I received a software update for Ubuntu 12.10 while using Zorin OS6 wireless. I accepted the update and installed 12.10. Please tell me the step by step, using layman's terms, on how to get Google Chrome, or Mozilla Firefox to connect to the Internet? I am receiving DNS server error with both browsers. I can connect to my router wired or wireless. I posted and received initial information but was not sure exactly what some of the terms were and or what to do next etc. I am not necessarily familiar with some technical terms, or do I need to install additional plug-ins? I do not know what proxy or DCHP means or what do with these terms please, please help. I am not a programmer, nor do I work in IT. Again please help.

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