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  • Fitting it together, database, reporting, applications in C#

    - by alvonellos
    Introduction Preamble I was hesitant to post this, since it's an application whose intricate details are defined elsewhere, and answers may not be helpful to others. Within the past few weeks (I was actually going to write a blog post about this after I finished) I've discovered that the barrier I'm encountering is one that's actually quite common for newer developers. This question is not so much about a specific thing as it is about piecing those things together. I've searched the internet far and wide, and found many tutorials on how to create applications that are kind of similar to what I'm looking for. I've also looked at hiring another, more experienced, developer to help me along, but all I've gotten are unqualified candidates that don't have the experience necessary and won't take care of the client or project like I will. I'd rather have the project never transpire than to release a solution that is half-baked. I've asked professors at my school, but they've not turned up answers to my question. I'm an experienced developer, and I've written many applications that are -- very abstractly -- close to what I'm doing, but my experiences from those applications aren't giving me enough leverage to solve this particular problem. I just hope that posting this article isn't a mistake for me to write. Project Description I have a project I'm working on for a client that is a rewrite of an application, originally written in Foxpro 2.6 by someone before me, that performs some analysis (which, sadly, I'm not allowed to disclose as per of my employment contract) on financial data. One day, after a long talk between the client and I -- where he intimately described his frustrations with all the bugs I've been hacking out of this code for 6 months now -- he told me to just rewrite it and gave me a month to write a good 1/8 of this 65k LOC Foxpro monstrosity. this 65k line of code foxpro monstrosity. It'll take me a good 3 - 6 months to rewrite this software (I know things the original programmer did not, like inheritance) going as I am right now, but I'm quickly discovering that I'm going to need to use databases. Prior to this contract I didn't even know about foxpro, and so I've had to learn foxpro on the fly, write procedures and make modifications to the database. I've actually come to like it, and this project would be rewritten in Foxpro if it were still a supported language, because over the past few months, I've come to like the features of Foxpro that make it so easy to develop data-driven applications. I once perfomed an experiment, comparing C# to Foxpro. What took me 45 minutes in C# took me two in Foxpro, and I knew C# prior to Foxpro. I was hoping to leverage the power of C#, but it intimidates me that in foxpro, you can have one line of code and be using a database. Prior to this, I have never written any serious database development from scratch. All the applications that I've written are in a different league. They are either completely data-naive or data-naive enough that I can get away with not using a database through serialization or by designing algorithms that work with the data in a manner that is stateless, so there is no need to worry about databases. I've come to realize, very quickly, that serialization and my efficacy with data structures has been my crutch all these years that's prevented me from adventuring into databases, and has consequently hindered my success in real-world programming. Sure, I've written some database stuff in Perl and Python, and I've done forms and worked with relational databases and tables, I'm a wizard in Access and Excel (seriously) and can do just about anything, but it just feels unnatural writing SQL code in another language... I don't mind writing SQL, and I don't It's that bridge between the database and the program code that drives me absolutely bonkers. I hope I'm not the only one to think this, but it bothers me that I have to create statements like the following string sSql = "SELECT * from tablename" When there's really no reason for that kind of unchecked language binding between two languages and two API's. Don't get my wrong, SQL is great, but I don't like the idea that, when executing commands on a SQL database, that one must intermix database and application software, and there's no database independence, which means that different versions of different databases can break code. This isn't very nice. The nicest thing about Foxpro is the cohesiveness between programming language and database. It's so easy, and Foxpro makes it easy, because the tool just fits the task. I can see why so many developers have created a career with this language, because it lowered the barrier of entry to data-driven applications that so many businesses need. It was wonderful. For my purposes today, with the demands and need for community support, extensibility, and language features, Foxpro isn't a solution that I feel would be the right tool for the job. I'm also worried about working too heavy with the database, because I've seen data-driven .NET applications have issues with database caches, running out of memory, and objects in the database not being collected. (Memory leaks) And OH the queries. Which one, how, and why? There are a plethora of different ways that a database can be setup, I think I counted 5 or 6 different kinds of database applications alone that I can chose from. That is a great mountain for me to climb when I don't even know where to begin when it comes to writing data-driven applications. The problem isn't that I don't know SQL or that I don't know C#. I know both and have worked with both extensively. It's making them work together that's the problem, and it's something I've never done in C# before. Reports The client likes paper. The data needs to be printed out in a format that is extensible, layered, and easy to use. I have never done reporting before, and so this is a bit of a problem. From the data source comes crystal reports, and so there's a dependency on the database, from what I understand. Code reuse A large part of the design decision that I've gone through so far is to break the task of writing a piece of this software into routines and modular DLL's and so forth such that much of the code can be reused. For example, when I setup this database, I want to be able to reuse the same database code over and over again. I also want to make sure that when the day comes that another developer is here, that he/she will be able to pick up just where I left off. The quicker I develop these applications, the better off I am. Tasks & Goals In my project, I need to write routines that apply algorithms and look for predefined patterns in financial data. Additionally, I need to simulate trading based on predefined algorithms and data. Then I need to prepare reports on that data. Additionally, I need to have a way to change the code base for this application quickly and effectively, without hacking together some band-aid solution for a problem that really needs a trauma ward. Special Considerations The solution must be fast, run quickly on existing hardware, and not be too much of a pain to maintain and write. I understand that anything I write I'm married to -- I'm responsible for the things that I write because my reputation and livelihood is dependent on it. Do I really need a database? What about performance? Performance was such a big issue that I hand wrote a data structure that is capable of performing 2 billion operations, using a total of 4 gigs of memory in under 1/4 of a second using the standard core two duo processor. I could not find a similar, pre-written data structure in C# to perform this task. What setup do I use in terms of database? What about reporting? I'd prefer to have PDF's generated, but I'd like to be able to visually sketch those reports and then just have a ReportFactory of some sort, that when I pass some variables in, it just does that data. About Me I'm a lone developer for a small business in this area. This is the first time I've done this and I've never had the breadth and depth of my knowledge tested. I'm incredibly frustrated with this project because I feel incredibly overwhelmed with the task at hand. I'm looking for that entry level point where I can draw a line and say "this is what I need to do" Conclusion I may have not been clear enough on my post. I'm still new to this whole thing, and I've been doing my best to contribute back to the community that I've leached so much knowledge from. I'd be glad to edit my post and add more information if possible. I'm looking for a big-picture solution or design process that helps me get off the ground in this world of data-driven applications, because I have a feeling that it's going to be concentric to my entire career as a programmer for some time. Specifically, if you didn't get it from the rest of the post (I may not have been clear enough) I really need some guidance as to where to go in terms of the design decisions for this project. Some things that'll be useful will be a pro/con list for the different kinds of database projects available in VS2010. I've tried, but generating that list has been as hard as solving the problem itself... If you could walk a developer writing a data-driven application for the first time in C#, how would you do that? Where would you point them to?

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  • Azure Grid Computing - Worker Roles as HPC Compute Nodes

    - by JoshReuben
    Overview ·        With HPC 2008 R2 SP1 You can add Azure worker roles as compute nodes in a local Windows HPC Server cluster. ·        The subscription for Windows Azure like any other Azure Service - charged for the time that the role instances are available, as well as for the compute and storage services that are used on the nodes. ·        Win-Win ? - Azure charges the computer hour cost (according to vm size) amortized over a month – so you save on purchasing compute node hardware. Microsoft wins because you need to purchase HPC to have a local head node for managing this compute cluster grid distributed in the cloud. ·        Blob storage is used to hold input & output files of each job. I can see how Parametric Sweep HPC jobs can be supported (where the same job is run multiple times on each node against different input units), but not MPI.NET (where different HPC Job instances function as coordinated agents and conduct master-slave inter-process communication), unless Azure is somehow tunneling MPI communication through inter-WorkerRole Azure Queues. ·        this is not the end of the story for Azure Grid Computing. If MS requires you to purchase a local HPC license (and administrate it), what's to stop a 3rd party from doing this and encapsulating exposing HPC WCF Broker Service to you for managing compute nodes? If MS doesn’t  provide head node as a service, someone else will! Process ·        requires creation of a worker node template that specifies a connection to an existing subscription for Windows Azure + an availability policy for the worker nodes. ·        After worker nodes are added to the cluster, you can start them, which provisions the Windows Azure role instances, and then bring them online to run HPC cluster jobs. ·        A Windows Azure worker role instance runs a HPC compatible Azure guest operating system which runs on the VMs that host your service. The guest operating system is updated monthly. You can choose to upgrade the guest OS for your service automatically each time an update is released - All role instances defined by your service will run on the guest operating system version that you specify. see Windows Azure Guest OS Releases and SDK Compatibility Matrix (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=190549). ·        use the hpcpack command to upload file packages and install files to run on the worker nodes. see hpcpack (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=205514). Requirements ·        assuming you have an azure subscription account and the HPC head node installed and configured. ·        Install HPC Pack 2008 R2 SP 1 -  see Microsoft HPC Pack 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 Release Notes (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=202812). ·        Configure the head node to connect to the Internet - connectivity is provided by the connection of the head node to the enterprise network. You may need to configure a proxy client on the head node. Any cluster network topology (1-5) is supported). ·        Configure the firewall - allow outbound TCP traffic on the following ports: 80,       443, 5901, 5902, 7998, 7999 ·        Note: HPC Server  uses Admin Mode (Elevated Privileges) in Windows Azure to give the service administrator of the subscription the necessary privileges to initialize HPC cluster services on the worker nodes. ·        Obtain a Windows Azure subscription certificate - the Windows Azure subscription must be configured with a public subscription (API) certificate -a valid X.509 certificate with a key size of at least 2048 bits. Generate a self-sign certificate & upload a .cer file to the Windows Azure Portal Account page > Manage my API Certificates link. see Using the Windows Azure Service Management API (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=205526). ·        import the certificate with an associated private key on the HPC cluster head node - into the trusted root store of the local computer account. Obtain Windows Azure Connection Information for HPC Server ·        required for each worker node template ·        copy from azure portal - Get from: navigation pane > Hosted Services > Storage Accounts & CDN ·        Subscription ID - a 32-char hex string in the form xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx. In Properties pane. ·        Subscription certificate thumbprint - a 40-char hex string (you need to remove spaces). In Management Certificates > Properties pane. ·        Service name - the value of <ServiceName> configured in the public URL of the service (http://<ServiceName>.cloudapp.net). In Hosted Services > Properties pane. ·        Blob Storage account name - the value of <StorageAccountName> configured in the public URL of the account (http://<StorageAccountName>.blob.core.windows.net). In Storage Accounts > Properties pane. Import the Azure Subscription Certificate on the HPC Head Node ·        enable the services for Windows HPC Server  to authenticate properly with the Windows Azure subscription. ·        use the Certificates MMC snap-in to import the certificate to the Trusted Root Certification Authorities store of the local computer account. The certificate must be in PFX format (.pfx or .p12 file) with a private key that is protected by a password. ·        see Certificates (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=163918). ·        To open the certificates snapin: Run > mmc. File > Add/Remove Snap-in > certificates > Computer account > Local Computer ·        To import the certificate via wizard - Certificates > Trusted Root Certification Authorities > Certificates > All Tasks > Import ·        After the certificate is imported, it appears in the details pane in the Certificates snap-in. You can open the certificate to check its status. Configure a Proxy Client on the HPC Head Node ·        the following Windows HPC Server services must be able to communicate over the Internet (through the firewall) with the services for Windows Azure: HPCManagement, HPCScheduler, HPCBrokerWorker. ·        Create a Windows Azure Worker Node Template ·        Edit HPC node templates in HPC Node Template Editor. ·        Specify: 1) Windows Azure subscription connection info (unique service name) for adding a set of worker nodes to the cluster + 2)worker node availability policy – rules for deploying / removing worker role instances in Windows Azure o   HPC Cluster Manager > Configuration > Navigation Pane > Node Templates > Actions pane > New à Create Node Template Wizard or Edit à Node Template Editor o   Choose Node Template Type page - Windows Azure worker node template o   Specify Template Name page – template name & description o   Provide Connection Information page – Azure Subscription ID (text) & Subscription certificate (browse) o   Provide Service Information page - Azure service name + blob storage account name (optionally click Retrieve Connection Information to get list of available from azure – possible LRT). o   Configure Azure Availability Policy page - how Windows Azure worker nodes start / stop (online / offline the worker role instance -  add / remove) – manual / automatic o   for automatic - In the Configure Windows Azure Worker Availability Policy dialog -select days and hours for worker nodes to start / stop. ·        To validate the Windows Azure connection information, on the template's Connection Information tab > Validate connection information. ·        You can upload a file package to the storage account that is specified in the template - eg upload application or service files that will run on the worker nodes. see hpcpack (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=205514). Add Azure Worker Nodes to the HPC Cluster ·        Use the Add Node Wizard – specify: 1) the worker node template, 2) The number of worker nodes   (within the quota of role instances in the azure subscription), and 3)           The VM size of the worker nodes : ExtraSmall, Small, Medium, Large, or ExtraLarge.  ·        to add worker nodes of different sizes, must run the Add Node Wizard separately for each size. ·        All worker nodes that are added to the cluster by using a specific worker node template define a set of worker nodes that will be deployed and managed together in Windows Azure when you start the nodes. This includes worker nodes that you add later by using the worker node template and, if you choose, worker nodes of different sizes. You cannot start, stop, or delete individual worker nodes. ·        To add Windows Azure worker nodes o   In HPC Cluster Manager: Node Management > Actions pane > Add Node à Add Node Wizard o   Select Deployment Method page - Add Azure Worker nodes o   Specify New Nodes page - select a worker node template, specify the number and size of the worker nodes ·        After you add worker nodes to the cluster, they are in the Not-Deployed state, and they have a health state of Unapproved. Before you can use the worker nodes to run jobs, you must start them and then bring them online. ·        Worker nodes are numbered consecutively in a naming series that begins with the root name AzureCN – this is non-configurable. Deploying Windows Azure Worker Nodes ·        To deploy the role instances in Windows Azure - start the worker nodes added to the HPC cluster and bring the nodes online so that they are available to run cluster jobs. This can be configured in the HPC Azure Worker Node Template – Azure Availability Policy -  to be automatic or manual. ·        The Start, Stop, and Delete actions take place on the set of worker nodes that are configured by a specific worker node template. You cannot perform one of these actions on a single worker node in a set. You also cannot perform a single action on two sets of worker nodes (specified by two different worker node templates). ·        ·          Starting a set of worker nodes deploys a set of worker role instances in Windows Azure, which can take some time to complete, depending on the number of worker nodes and the performance of Windows Azure. ·        To start worker nodes manually and bring them online o   In HPC Node Management > Navigation Pane > Nodes > List / Heat Map view - select one or more worker nodes. o   Actions pane > Start – in the Start Azure Worker Nodes dialog, select a node template. o   the state of the worker nodes changes from Not Deployed to track the provisioning progress – worker node Details Pane > Provisioning Log tab. o   If there were errors during the provisioning of one or more worker nodes, the state of those nodes is set to Unknown and the node health is set to Unapproved. To determine the reason for the failure, review the provisioning logs for the nodes. o   After a worker node starts successfully, the node state changes to Offline. To bring the nodes online, select the nodes that are in the Offline state > Bring Online. ·        Troubleshooting o   check node template. o   use telnet to test connectivity: telnet <ServiceName>.cloudapp.net 7999 o   check node status - Deployment status information appears in the service account information in the Windows Azure Portal - HPC queries this -  see  node status information for any failed nodes in HPC Node Management. ·        When role instances are deployed, file packages that were previously uploaded to the storage account using the hpcpack command are automatically installed. You can also upload file packages to storage after the worker nodes are started, and then manually install them on the worker nodes. see hpcpack (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=205514). ·        to remove a set of role instances in Windows Azure - stop the nodes by using HPC Cluster Manager (apply the Stop action). This deletes the role instances from the service and changes the state of the worker nodes in the HPC cluster to Not Deployed. ·        Each time that you start a set of worker nodes, two proxy role instances (size Small) are configured in Windows Azure to facilitate communication between HPC Cluster Manager and the worker nodes. The proxy role instances are not listed in HPC Cluster Manager after the worker nodes are added. However, the instances appear in the Windows Azure Portal. The proxy role instances incur charges in Windows Azure along with the worker node instances, and they count toward the quota of role instances in the subscription.

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  • Implementing a generic repository for WCF data services

    - by cibrax
    The repository implementation I am going to discuss here is not exactly what someone would call repository in terms of DDD, but it is an abstraction layer that becomes handy at the moment of unit testing the code around this repository. In other words, you can easily create a mock to replace the real repository implementation. The WCF Data Services update for .NET 3.5 introduced a nice feature to support two way data bindings, which is very helpful for developing WPF or Silverlight based application but also for implementing the repository I am going to talk about. As part of this feature, the WCF Data Services Client library introduced a new collection DataServiceCollection<T> that implements INotifyPropertyChanged to notify the data context (DataServiceContext) about any change in the association links. This means that it is not longer necessary to manually set or remove the links in the data context when an item is added or removed from a collection. Before having this new collection, you basically used the following code to add a new item to a collection. Order order = new Order {   Name = "Foo" }; OrderItem item = new OrderItem {   Name = "bar",   UnitPrice = 10,   Qty = 1 }; var context = new OrderContext(); context.AddToOrders(order); context.AddToOrderItems(item); context.SetLink(item, "Order", order); context.SaveChanges(); Now, thanks to this new collection, everything is much simpler and similar to what you have in other ORMs like Entity Framework or L2S. Order order = new Order {   Name = "Foo" }; OrderItem item = new OrderItem {   Name = "bar",   UnitPrice = 10,   Qty = 1 }; order.Items.Add(item); var context = new OrderContext(); context.AddToOrders(order); context.SaveChanges(); In order to use this new feature, you first need to enable V2 in the data service, and then use some specific arguments in the datasvcutil tool (You can find more information about this new feature and how to use it in this post). DataSvcUtil /uri:"http://localhost:3655/MyDataService.svc/" /out:Reference.cs /dataservicecollection /version:2.0 Once you use those two arguments, the generated proxy classes will use DataServiceCollection<T> rather than a simple ObjectCollection<T>, which was the default collection in V1. There are some aspects that you need to know to use this feature correctly. 1. All the entities retrieved directly from the data context with a query track the changes and report those to the data context automatically. 2. A entity created with “new” does not track any change in the properties or associations. In order to enable change tracking in this entity, you need to do the following trick. public Order CreateOrder() {   var collection = new DataServiceCollection<Order>(this.context);   var order = new Order();   collection.Add(order);   return order; } You basically need to create a collection, and add the entity to that collection with the “Add” method to enable change tracking on that entity. 3. If you need to attach an existing entity (For example, if you created the entity with the “new” operator rather than retrieving it from the data context with a query) to a data context for tracking changes, you can use the “Load” method in the DataServiceCollection. var order = new Order {   Id = 1 }; var collection = new DataServiceCollection<Order>(this.context); collection.Load(order); In this case, the order with Id = 1 must exist on the data source exposed by the Data service. Otherwise, you will get an error because the entity did not exist. These cool extensions methods discussed by Stuart Leeks in this post to replace all the magic strings in the “Expand” operation with Expression Trees represent another feature I am going to use to implement this generic repository. Thanks to these extension methods, you could replace the following query with magic strings by a piece of code that only uses expressions. Magic strings, var customers = dataContext.Customers .Expand("Orders")         .Expand("Orders/Items") Expressions, var customers = dataContext.Customers .Expand(c => c.Orders.SubExpand(o => o.Items)) That query basically returns all the customers with their orders and order items. Ok, now that we have the automatic change tracking support and the expression support for explicitly loading entity associations, we are ready to create the repository. The interface for this repository looks like this,public interface IRepository { T Create<T>() where T : new(); void Update<T>(T entity); void Delete<T>(T entity); IQueryable<T> RetrieveAll<T>(params Expression<Func<T, object>>[] eagerProperties); IQueryable<T> Retrieve<T>(Expression<Func<T, bool>> predicate, params Expression<Func<T, object>>[] eagerProperties); void Attach<T>(T entity); void SaveChanges(); } The Retrieve and RetrieveAll methods are used to execute queries against the data service context. While both methods receive an array of expressions to load associations explicitly, only the Retrieve method receives a predicate representing the “where” clause. The following code represents the final implementation of this repository.public class DataServiceRepository: IRepository { ResourceRepositoryContext context; public DataServiceRepository() : this (new DataServiceContext()) { } public DataServiceRepository(DataServiceContext context) { this.context = context; } private static string ResolveEntitySet(Type type) { var entitySetAttribute = (EntitySetAttribute)type.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(EntitySetAttribute), true).FirstOrDefault(); if (entitySetAttribute != null) return entitySetAttribute.EntitySet; return null; } public T Create<T>() where T : new() { var collection = new DataServiceCollection<T>(this.context); var entity = new T(); collection.Add(entity); return entity; } public void Update<T>(T entity) { this.context.UpdateObject(entity); } public void Delete<T>(T entity) { this.context.DeleteObject(entity); } public void Attach<T>(T entity) { var collection = new DataServiceCollection<T>(this.context); collection.Load(entity); } public IQueryable<T> Retrieve<T>(Expression<Func<T, bool>> predicate, params Expression<Func<T, object>>[] eagerProperties) { var entitySet = ResolveEntitySet(typeof(T)); var query = context.CreateQuery<T>(entitySet); foreach (var e in eagerProperties) { query = query.Expand(e); } return query.Where(predicate); } public IQueryable<T> RetrieveAll<T>(params Expression<Func<T, object>>[] eagerProperties) { var entitySet = ResolveEntitySet(typeof(T)); var query = context.CreateQuery<T>(entitySet); foreach (var e in eagerProperties) { query = query.Expand(e); } return query; } public void SaveChanges() { this.context.SaveChanges(SaveChangesOptions.Batch); } } For instance, you can use the following code to retrieve customers with First name equal to “John”, and all their orders in a single call. repository.Retrieve<Customer>(    c => c.FirstName == “John”, //Where    c => c.Orders.SubExpand(o => o.Items)); In case, you want to have some pre-defined queries that you are going to use across several places, you can put them in an specific class. public static class CustomerQueries {   public static Expression<Func<Customer, bool>> LastNameEqualsTo(string lastName)   {     return c => c.LastName == lastName;   } } And then, use it with the repository. repository.Retrieve<Customer>(    CustomerQueries.LastNameEqualsTo("foo"),    c => c.Orders.SubExpand(o => o.Items));

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  • Ten - oh, wait, eleven - Eleven things you should know about the ASP.NET Fall 2012 Update

    - by Jon Galloway
    Today, just a little over two months after the big ASP.NET 4.5 / ASP.NET MVC 4 / ASP.NET Web API / Visual Studio 2012 / Web Matrix 2 release, the first preview of the ASP.NET Fall 2012 Update is out. Here's what you need to know: There are no new framework bits in this release - there's no change or update to ASP.NET Core, ASP.NET MVC or Web Forms features. This means that you can start using it without any updates to your server, upgrade concerns, etc. This update is really an update to the project templates and Visual Studio tooling, conceptually similar to the ASP.NET MVC 3 Tools Update. It's a relatively lightweight install. It's a 41MB download. I've installed it many times and usually takes 5-7 minutes; it's never required a reboot. It adds some new project templates to ASP.NET MVC: Facebook Application and Single Page Application templates. It adds a lot of cool enhancements to ASP.NET Web API. It adds some tooling that makes it easy to take advantage of features like SignalR, Friendly URLs, and Windows Azure Authentication. Most of the new features are installed via NuGet packages. Since ASP.NET is open source, nightly NuGet packages are available, and the roadmap is published, most of this has really been publicly available for a while. The official name of this drop is the ASP.NET Fall 2012 Update BUILD Prerelease. Please do not attempt to say that ten times fast. While the EULA doesn't prohibit it, it WILL legally change your first name to Scott. As with all new releases, you can find out everything you need to know about the Fall Update at http://asp.net/vnext (especially the release notes!) I'm going to be showing all of this off, assisted by special guest code monkey Scott Hanselman, this Friday at BUILD: Bleeding edge ASP.NET: See what is next for MVC, Web API, SignalR and more… (and I've heard it will be livestreamed). Let's look at some of those things in more detail. No new bits ASP.NET 4.5, MVC 4 and Web API have a lot of great core features. I see the goal of this update release as making it easier to put those features to use to solve some useful scenarios by taking advantage of NuGet packages and template code. If you create a new ASP.NET MVC application using one of the new templates, you'll see that it's using the ASP.NET MVC 4 RTM NuGet package (4.0.20710.0): This means you can install and use the Fall Update without any impact on your existing projects and no worries about upgrading or compatibility. New Facebook Application Template ASP.NET MVC 4 (and ASP.NET 4.5 Web Forms) included the ability to authenticate your users via OAuth and OpenID, so you could let users log in to your site using a Facebook account. One of the new changes in the Fall Update is a new template that makes it really easy to create full Facebook applications. You could create Facebook application in ASP.NET already, you'd just need to go through a few steps: Search around to find a good Facebook NuGet package, like the Facebook C# SDK (written by my friend Nathan Totten and some other Facebook SDK brainiacs). Read the Facebook developer documentation to figure out how to authenticate and integrate with them. Write some code, debug it and repeat until you got something working. Get started with the application you'd originally wanted to write. What this template does for you: eliminate steps 1-3. Erik Porter, Nathan and some other experts built out the Facebook Application template so it automatically pulls in and configures the Facebook NuGet package and makes it really easy to take advantage of it in an ASP.NET MVC application. One great example is the the way you access a Facebook user's information. Take a look at the following code in a File / New / MVC / Facebook Application site. First, the Home Controller Index action: [FacebookAuthorize(Permissions = "email")] public ActionResult Index(MyAppUser user, FacebookObjectList<MyAppUserFriend> userFriends) { ViewBag.Message = "Modify this template to jump-start your Facebook application using ASP.NET MVC."; ViewBag.User = user; ViewBag.Friends = userFriends.Take(5); return View(); } First, notice that there's a FacebookAuthorize attribute which requires the user is authenticated via Facebook and requires permissions to access their e-mail address. It binds to two things: a custom MyAppUser object and a list of friends. Let's look at the MyAppUser code: using Microsoft.AspNet.Mvc.Facebook.Attributes; using Microsoft.AspNet.Mvc.Facebook.Models; // Add any fields you want to be saved for each user and specify the field name in the JSON coming back from Facebook // https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/user/ namespace MvcApplication3.Models { public class MyAppUser : FacebookUser { public string Name { get; set; } [FacebookField(FieldName = "picture", JsonField = "picture.data.url")] public string PictureUrl { get; set; } public string Email { get; set; } } } You can add in other custom fields if you want, but you can also just bind to a FacebookUser and it will automatically pull in the available fields. You can even just bind directly to a FacebookUser and check for what's available in debug mode, which makes it really easy to explore. For more information and some walkthroughs on creating Facebook applications, see: Deploying your first Facebook App on Azure using ASP.NET MVC Facebook Template (Yao Huang Lin) Facebook Application Template Tutorial (Erik Porter) Single Page Application template Early releases of ASP.NET MVC 4 included a Single Page Application template, but it was removed for the official release. There was a lot of interest in it, but it was kind of complex, as it handled features for things like data management. The new Single Page Application template that ships with the Fall Update is more lightweight. It uses Knockout.js on the client and ASP.NET Web API on the server, and it includes a sample application that shows how they all work together. I think the real benefit of this application is that it shows a good pattern for using ASP.NET Web API and Knockout.js. For instance, it's easy to end up with a mess of JavaScript when you're building out a client-side application. This template uses three separate JavaScript files (delivered via a Bundle, of course): todoList.js - this is where the main client-side logic lives todoList.dataAccess.js - this defines how the client-side application interacts with the back-end services todoList.bindings.js - this is where you set up events and overrides for the Knockout bindings - for instance, hooking up jQuery validation and defining some client-side events This is a fun one to play with, because you can just create a new Single Page Application and hit F5. Quick, easy install (with one gotcha) One of the cool engineering changes for this release is a big update to the installer to make it more lightweight and efficient. I've been running nightly builds of this for a few weeks to prep for my BUILD demos, and the install has been really quick and easy to use. The install takes about 5 minutes, has never required a reboot for me, and the uninstall is just as simple. There's one gotcha, though. In this preview release, you may hit an issue that will require you to uninstall and re-install the NuGet VSIX package. The problem comes up when you create a new MVC application and see this dialog: The solution, as explained in the release notes, is to uninstall and re-install the NuGet VSIX package: Start Visual Studio 2012 as an Administrator Go to Tools->Extensions and Updates and uninstall NuGet. Close Visual Studio Navigate to the ASP.NET Fall 2012 Update installation folder: For Visual Studio 2012: Program Files\Microsoft ASP.NET\ASP.NET Web Stack\Visual Studio 2012 For Visual Studio 2012 Express for Web: Program Files\Microsoft ASP.NET\ASP.NET Web Stack\Visual Studio Express 2012 for Web Double click on the NuGet.Tools.vsix to reinstall NuGet This took me under a minute to do, and I was up and running. ASP.NET Web API Update Extravaganza! Uh, the Web API team is out of hand. They added a ton of new stuff: OData support, Tracing, and API Help Page generation. OData support Some people like OData. Some people start twitching when you mention it. If you're in the first group, this is for you. You can add a [Queryable] attribute to an API that returns an IQueryable<Whatever> and you get OData query support from your clients. Then, without any extra changes to your client or server code, your clients can send filters like this: /Suppliers?$filter=Name eq ‘Microsoft’ For more information about OData support in ASP.NET Web API, see Alex James' mega-post about it: OData support in ASP.NET Web API ASP.NET Web API Tracing Tracing makes it really easy to leverage the .NET Tracing system from within your ASP.NET Web API's. If you look at the \App_Start\WebApiConfig.cs file in new ASP.NET Web API project, you'll see a call to TraceConfig.Register(config). That calls into some code in the new \App_Start\TraceConfig.cs file: public static void Register(HttpConfiguration configuration) { if (configuration == null) { throw new ArgumentNullException("configuration"); } SystemDiagnosticsTraceWriter traceWriter = new SystemDiagnosticsTraceWriter() { MinimumLevel = TraceLevel.Info, IsVerbose = false }; configuration.Services.Replace(typeof(ITraceWriter), traceWriter); } As you can see, this is using the standard trace system, so you can extend it to any other trace listeners you'd like. To see how it works with the built in diagnostics trace writer, just run the application call some API's, and look at the Visual Studio Output window: iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Request, Method=GET, Url=http://localhost:11147/api/Values, Message='http://localhost:11147/api/Values' iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Message='Values', Operation=DefaultHttpControllerSelector.SelectController iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Message='WebAPI.Controllers.ValuesController', Operation=DefaultHttpControllerActivator.Create iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Message='WebAPI.Controllers.ValuesController', Operation=HttpControllerDescriptor.CreateController iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Message='Selected action 'Get()'', Operation=ApiControllerActionSelector.SelectAction iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Operation=HttpActionBinding.ExecuteBindingAsync iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Operation=QueryableAttribute.ActionExecuting iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Message='Action returned 'System.String[]'', Operation=ReflectedHttpActionDescriptor.ExecuteAsync iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Message='Will use same 'JsonMediaTypeFormatter' formatter', Operation=JsonMediaTypeFormatter.GetPerRequestFormatterInstance iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Message='Selected formatter='JsonMediaTypeFormatter', content-type='application/json; charset=utf-8'', Operation=DefaultContentNegotiator.Negotiate iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Operation=ApiControllerActionInvoker.InvokeActionAsync, Status=200 (OK) iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Operation=QueryableAttribute.ActionExecuted, Status=200 (OK) iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Operation=ValuesController.ExecuteAsync, Status=200 (OK) iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Response, Status=200 (OK), Method=GET, Url=http://localhost:11147/api/Values, Message='Content-type='application/json; charset=utf-8', content-length=unknown' iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Operation=JsonMediaTypeFormatter.WriteToStreamAsync iisexpress.exe Information: 0 : Operation=ValuesController.Dispose API Help Page When you create a new ASP.NET Web API project, you'll see an API link in the header: Clicking the API link shows generated help documentation for your ASP.NET Web API controllers: And clicking on any of those APIs shows specific information: What's great is that this information is dynamically generated, so if you add your own new APIs it will automatically show useful and up to date help. This system is also completely extensible, so you can generate documentation in other formats or customize the HTML help as much as you'd like. The Help generation code is all included in an ASP.NET MVC Area: SignalR SignalR is a really slick open source project that was started by some ASP.NET team members in their spare time to add real-time communications capabilities to ASP.NET - and .NET applications in general. It allows you to handle long running communications channels between your server and multiple connected clients using the best communications channel they can both support - websockets if available, falling back all the way to old technologies like long polling if necessary for old browsers. SignalR remains an open source project, but now it's being included in ASP.NET (also open source, hooray!). That means there's real, official ASP.NET engineering work being put into SignalR, and it's even easier to use in an ASP.NET application. Now in any ASP.NET project type, you can right-click / Add / New Item... SignalR Hub or Persistent Connection. And much more... There's quite a bit more. You can find more info at http://asp.net/vnext, and we'll be adding more content as fast as we can. Watch my BUILD talk to see as I demonstrate these and other features in the ASP.NET Fall 2012 Update, as well as some other even futurey-er stuff!

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  • How to Reuse Your Old Wi-Fi Router as a Network Switch

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Just because your old Wi-Fi router has been replaced by a newer model doesn’t mean it needs to gather dust in the closet. Read on as we show you how to take an old and underpowered Wi-Fi router and turn it into a respectable network switch (saving your $20 in the process). Image by mmgallan. Why Do I Want To Do This? Wi-Fi technology has changed significantly in the last ten years but Ethernet-based networking has changed very little. As such, a Wi-Fi router with 2006-era guts is lagging significantly behind current Wi-Fi router technology, but the Ethernet networking component of the device is just as useful as ever; aside from potentially being only 100Mbs instead of 1000Mbs capable (which for 99% of home applications is irrelevant) Ethernet is Ethernet. What does this matter to you, the consumer? It means that even though your old router doesn’t hack it for your Wi-Fi needs any longer the device is still a perfectly serviceable (and high quality) network switch. When do you need a network switch? Any time you want to share an Ethernet cable among multiple devices, you need a switch. For example, let’s say you have a single Ethernet wall jack behind your entertainment center. Unfortunately you have four devices that you want to link to your local network via hardline including your smart HDTV, DVR, Xbox, and a little Raspberry Pi running XBMC. Instead of spending $20-30 to purchase a brand new switch of comparable build quality to your old Wi-Fi router it makes financial sense (and is environmentally friendly) to invest five minutes of your time tweaking the settings on the old router to turn it from a Wi-Fi access point and routing tool into a network switch–perfect for dropping behind your entertainment center so that your DVR, Xbox, and media center computer can all share an Ethernet connection. What Do I Need? For this tutorial you’ll need a few things, all of which you likely have readily on hand or are free for download. To follow the basic portion of the tutorial, you’ll need the following: 1 Wi-Fi router with Ethernet ports 1 Computer with Ethernet jack 1 Ethernet cable For the advanced tutorial you’ll need all of those things, plus: 1 copy of DD-WRT firmware for your Wi-Fi router We’re conducting the experiment with a Linksys WRT54GL Wi-Fi router. The WRT54 series is one of the best selling Wi-Fi router series of all time and there’s a good chance a significant number of readers have one (or more) of them stuffed in an office closet. Even if you don’t have one of the WRT54 series routers, however, the principles we’re outlining here apply to all Wi-Fi routers; as long as your router administration panel allows the necessary changes you can follow right along with us. A quick note on the difference between the basic and advanced versions of this tutorial before we proceed. Your typical Wi-Fi router has 5 Ethernet ports on the back: 1 labeled “Internet”, “WAN”, or a variation thereof and intended to be connected to your DSL/Cable modem, and 4 labeled 1-4 intended to connect Ethernet devices like computers, printers, and game consoles directly to the Wi-Fi router. When you convert a Wi-Fi router to a switch, in most situations, you’ll lose two port as the “Internet” port cannot be used as a normal switch port and one of the switch ports becomes the input port for the Ethernet cable linking the switch to the main network. This means, referencing the diagram above, you’d lose the WAN port and LAN port 1, but retain LAN ports 2, 3, and 4 for use. If you only need to switch for 2-3 devices this may be satisfactory. However, for those of you that would prefer a more traditional switch setup where there is a dedicated WAN port and the rest of the ports are accessible, you’ll need to flash a third-party router firmware like the powerful DD-WRT onto your device. Doing so opens up the router to a greater degree of modification and allows you to assign the previously reserved WAN port to the switch, thus opening up LAN ports 1-4. Even if you don’t intend to use that extra port, DD-WRT offers you so many more options that it’s worth the extra few steps. Preparing Your Router for Life as a Switch Before we jump right in to shutting down the Wi-Fi functionality and repurposing your device as a network switch, there are a few important prep steps to attend to. First, you want to reset the router (if you just flashed a new firmware to your router, skip this step). Following the reset procedures for your particular router or go with what is known as the “Peacock Method” wherein you hold down the reset button for thirty seconds, unplug the router and wait (while still holding the reset button) for thirty seconds, and then plug it in while, again, continuing to hold down the rest button. Over the life of a router there are a variety of changes made, big and small, so it’s best to wipe them all back to the factory default before repurposing the router as a switch. Second, after resetting, we need to change the IP address of the device on the local network to an address which does not directly conflict with the new router. The typical default IP address for a home router is 192.168.1.1; if you ever need to get back into the administration panel of the router-turned-switch to check on things or make changes it will be a real hassle if the IP address of the device conflicts with the new home router. The simplest way to deal with this is to assign an address close to the actual router address but outside the range of addresses that your router will assign via the DHCP client; a good pick then is 192.168.1.2. Once the router is reset (or re-flashed) and has been assigned a new IP address, it’s time to configure it as a switch. Basic Router to Switch Configuration If you don’t want to (or need to) flash new firmware onto your device to open up that extra port, this is the section of the tutorial for you: we’ll cover how to take a stock router, our previously mentioned WRT54 series Linksys, and convert it to a switch. Hook the Wi-Fi router up to the network via one of the LAN ports (consider the WAN port as good as dead from this point forward, unless you start using the router in its traditional function again or later flash a more advanced firmware to the device, the port is officially retired at this point). Open the administration control panel via  web browser on a connected computer. Before we get started two things: first,  anything we don’t explicitly instruct you to change should be left in the default factory-reset setting as you find it, and two, change the settings in the order we list them as some settings can’t be changed after certain features are disabled. To start, let’s navigate to Setup ->Basic Setup. Here you need to change the following things: Local IP Address: [different than the primary router, e.g. 192.168.1.2] Subnet Mask: [same as the primary router, e.g. 255.255.255.0] DHCP Server: Disable Save with the “Save Settings” button and then navigate to Setup -> Advanced Routing: Operating Mode: Router This particular setting is very counterintuitive. The “Operating Mode” toggle tells the device whether or not it should enable the Network Address Translation (NAT)  feature. Because we’re turning a smart piece of networking hardware into a relatively dumb one, we don’t need this feature so we switch from Gateway mode (NAT on) to Router mode (NAT off). Our next stop is Wireless -> Basic Wireless Settings: Wireless SSID Broadcast: Disable Wireless Network Mode: Disabled After disabling the wireless we’re going to, again, do something counterintuitive. Navigate to Wireless -> Wireless Security and set the following parameters: Security Mode: WPA2 Personal WPA Algorithms: TKIP+AES WPA Shared Key: [select some random string of letters, numbers, and symbols like JF#d$di!Hdgio890] Now you may be asking yourself, why on Earth are we setting a rather secure Wi-Fi configuration on a Wi-Fi router we’re not going to use as a Wi-Fi node? On the off chance that something strange happens after, say, a power outage when your router-turned-switch cycles on and off a bunch of times and the Wi-Fi functionality is activated we don’t want to be running the Wi-Fi node wide open and granting unfettered access to your network. While the chances of this are next-to-nonexistent, it takes only a few seconds to apply the security measure so there’s little reason not to. Save your changes and navigate to Security ->Firewall. Uncheck everything but Filter Multicast Firewall Protect: Disable At this point you can save your changes again, review the changes you’ve made to ensure they all stuck, and then deploy your “new” switch wherever it is needed. Advanced Router to Switch Configuration For the advanced configuration, you’ll need a copy of DD-WRT installed on your router. Although doing so is an extra few steps, it gives you a lot more control over the process and liberates an extra port on the device. Hook the Wi-Fi router up to the network via one of the LAN ports (later you can switch the cable to the WAN port). Open the administration control panel via web browser on the connected computer. Navigate to the Setup -> Basic Setup tab to get started. In the Basic Setup tab, ensure the following settings are adjusted. The setting changes are not optional and are required to turn the Wi-Fi router into a switch. WAN Connection Type: Disabled Local IP Address: [different than the primary router, e.g. 192.168.1.2] Subnet Mask: [same as the primary router, e.g. 255.255.255.0] DHCP Server: Disable In addition to disabling the DHCP server, also uncheck all the DNSMasq boxes as the bottom of the DHCP sub-menu. If you want to activate the extra port (and why wouldn’t you), in the WAN port section: Assign WAN Port to Switch [X] At this point the router has become a switch and you have access to the WAN port so the LAN ports are all free. Since we’re already in the control panel, however, we might as well flip a few optional toggles that further lock down the switch and prevent something odd from happening. The optional settings are arranged via the menu you find them in. Remember to save your settings with the save button before moving onto a new tab. While still in the Setup -> Basic Setup menu, change the following: Gateway/Local DNS : [IP address of primary router, e.g. 192.168.1.1] NTP Client : Disable The next step is to turn off the radio completely (which not only kills the Wi-Fi but actually powers the physical radio chip off). Navigate to Wireless -> Advanced Settings -> Radio Time Restrictions: Radio Scheduling: Enable Select “Always Off” There’s no need to create a potential security problem by leaving the Wi-Fi radio on, the above toggle turns it completely off. Under Services -> Services: DNSMasq : Disable ttraff Daemon : Disable Under the Security -> Firewall tab, uncheck every box except “Filter Multicast”, as seen in the screenshot above, and then disable SPI Firewall. Once you’re done here save and move on to the Administration tab. Under Administration -> Management:  Info Site Password Protection : Enable Info Site MAC Masking : Disable CRON : Disable 802.1x : Disable Routing : Disable After this final round of tweaks, save and then apply your settings. Your router has now been, strategically, dumbed down enough to plod along as a very dependable little switch. Time to stuff it behind your desk or entertainment center and streamline your cabling.     

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  • Oracle Fusion Applications: Changing the Game

    - by kellsey.ruppel(at)oracle.com
    Originally posted in the Oracle Profit Magazine, November 2010 Edition. When the order processing system red-flags a customer's credit status, the IT department doesn't get the customer's call. When a supplier misses a delivery date for a key automotive assembly, it's not the CIO who has to answer for the error. Knowledge workers (known in IT circles as "users") are on the front lines when an exception occurs in an established business process. They're also the ones who study sales trends to decide when to open a new store in an up-and-coming neighborhood, which products are most profitable, how employee skill sets are evolving, and which suppliers are most efficient. In short, knowledge workers are masters of business as unusual. Traditional enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and other familiar enterprise applications excel at automating, managing, and executing standard business processes. These programs shine when everything goes as planned. Life gets even trickier when a traditional application needs to be extended with a new service or an extra step is added to a business process when new products are brought to market, divisions are merged, or companies are acquired. Monolithic applications often need the IT department to step in and make the necessary adjustments--incurring additional costs and delays. Until now. When Oracle unveiled the much-anticipated family of Oracle Fusion Applications at Oracle OpenWorld in September 2010, knowledge workers in particular had a lot to cheer about. Business users will soon have ready access to analytical information and collaboration tools in the context of what they are working on, so they can make better decisions when problems or opportunities arise. Additionally, the Oracle Fusion Applications platform will make it easy for business users to tweak processes, create new capabilities, and find information, often without the need for IT department assistance and while still following company guidelines. And IT leaders will be happy to hear about new deployment options, guided implementation and setup tools, and cost-saving management capabilities. Just as important, the underlying technologies in Oracle Fusion Applications will allow organizations to choose among their existing investments and next-generation enterprise applications so they can introduce innovations at a pace that makes the most business and financial sense. "Oracle Fusion Applications are architected so you don't have to do rip and replace," says Jim Hayes, managing director of the consulting firm Accenture. "That's very important for creating a business case that will get through the steering committee and be approved by the board. It shows you can drive value and make a difference in the near term." For these and other reasons, analysts and early adopters are calling Oracle Fusion Applications a game changer for enterprise customers. The differences become apparent in three key areas: the way we innovate, work, and adopt technology. Game Changer #1: New Standard for InnovationChange is a constant challenge for most businesses, whether the catalysts are market dynamics, new competition, or the ever-expanding regulatory environment. And, in an ongoing effort to differentiate, business leaders are constantly looking for new ways to do business, serve constituents, and bring new products and services to market. In addition, companies face significant costs to keep their applications up-to-date. For example, when a company adds new suppliers to a procurement system, the IT shop typically has to invest time, effort, and even consulting fees for custom integrations that allow various ERP systems to communicate with each other. Oracle Fusion Applications were built on Web services and a modular SOA foundation to ease customizations and integration activities among all applications--whether from Oracle or another vendor. Interfaces and updates written in ubiquitous Java, rather than a proprietary coding language, allow organizations to tap into existing in-house technical skills rather than seek expensive outside specialists. And with SOA, organizations can extend a feature set or integrate with other SOA environments by combining Web services such as "look up customer" into a new business process managed by the BPEL orchestration engine. Flexibility like this has long-term implications. "Because users capture these changes at a higher metadata layer, not in the application's code, changes and additions are protected even as new versions of Oracle Fusion Applications are released," says Steve Miranda, senior vice president of applications development at Oracle. "This is a much more sustainable approach because you don't incur costly customizations that prevent upgrades and other innovations." And changes are easier to make: if one change is made in the metadata, that change is automatically reflected throughout the application interface, business intelligence, business process, and business logic. Game Changer #2: New Standard for WorkBoosting productivity comes down to doing the basics right: running business processes more efficiently and managing exceptions more effectively, so users can accomplish more in the course of a day or spend more quality time with the most profitable customers. The fastest way to improve process efficiency is to reduce the number of steps it takes to execute common tasks, such as ordering office equipment from an internal procurement system. Oracle Fusion Applications will deliver a complete role-based user experience with business intelligence and collaboration capabilities provided in the context of the work at hand. "We created every Oracle Fusion Applications screen by asking 'What does the user need to know?' 'What does he or she need to do?' and 'Who do they need to work with to get the job done?'" Miranda explains. So when the sales department heads need new laptops, the self-service procurement screen will not only display a list of approved vendors and configurations, but also a running list of reviews by coworkers who recently purchased the various models. Embedded intelligence may also display prevailing delivery lead times based on actual order histories, not the generic shipping dates vendors may quote. The pervasive business intelligence serves many other business activities across all areas of the enterprise. For example, a manager considering whether to promote a direct report can see the person's employee profile, with a salary history, appraisal summaries, and a rundown of skills and training. This approach to business intelligence also has implications for supply chain management. "One of the challenges at Ingersoll Rand is lack of visibility in our supply chain," says Mike Macrie, global director of enterprise applications for global industrial firm Ingersoll Rand. "Oracle Fusion Applications are going to provide the embedded intelligence to give us that visibility and give us the ability to analyze those orders at any point in our supply chain." Oracle Fusion Applications will also create a "role-based user experience" that displays a work list of events that need attention, based on user job function. Role awareness guides users with daily lists of action items and exceptions. So a credit manager may see seven invoices with discounts that are about to expire or 12 suppliers that have been put on hold because credit memos are awaiting approval. Individualization extends to the search capabilities of Oracle Fusion Applications. The platform uses Web-style search screens powered by an Oracle enterprise search engine, with a security framework that filters search results so individuals will only see the internal information they're authorized to access. A further aid to productivity is Oracle Fusion Applications' integration with Web 2.0 collaboration and social networking resources for business environments. Hover-over text will reveal relevant contact information whenever the name of a person appears in an Oracle Fusion Application. Users can connect via an online chat, phone call, or instant message without leaving the main application, reducing the time required for an accounts payable staffer to resolve a mismatch between an invoiced charge and the service record, for example. Addresses of suppliers, customers, or partners will also initiate hover-over text to show contact details and Web-based maps. Finally, Oracle Fusion Applications will promote a new way of working with purpose-driven communities that can bring new efficiencies to everything from cultivating sales leads to managing new projects. As soon as a lead or project materializes, the applications will automatically gather relevant participants into an online community that shares member contact information, schedules, discussion forums, and Wiki pages. "Oracle Fusion Applications will allow us to take it to the next level with embedded Web 2.0 tools and the embedded analytics," says Steve Printz, CIO and vice president, supply chain management, at window-and-door manufacturer Pella. "[This] allows those employees today who are processing transactions to really contribute to the success of the company and become decision-makers." Game Changer #3: New Standard for Technology AdoptionAs IT becomes a dominant component of how businesses run and compete, organizations need to lower the cost of implementing applications and introducing new application features. In the past, rolling out new code often required creating a test bed system, moving beta code to a separate system for user feedback, and--once all the revisions were made--moving version one of the software onto production systems, where business users could finally get the needed new features. Oracle Fusion Applications will use a dedicated setup manager application to streamline this process. First, the setup manager will help scope out the project, querying users about their requirements. "From those questions and answers we determine the steps and the order of those steps that will enable that task," Miranda says. Next, system utilities will assign tasks to owners, track completion status, and monitor the overall status of a programming effort. Oracle Fusion Applications can then recommend Web services that allow users to migrate setup choices and steps across all the various deployments of the application. Those setup capabilities automate the migration from test systems to production systems, as well as between different business units that may be using the same application. "The self-service ability of the setup manager helps business users change setups with very little intervention from the IT team," says Ravi Kumar, vice president at IT services company Infosys. "That to me is a big difference from how we've viewed enterprise applications before." For additional flexibility, organizations will be able to adopt Oracle Fusion Applications modules in either of two modes: a single-instance alternative uses one database for all Oracle Fusion Applications, while a "pillar mode" creates separate databases to underpin each application. This means IT departments running any one of Oracle's applications or even third-party applications can plug Oracle Fusion Applications modules into their environment and see additional business value created on top of their existing systems. And Oracle Fusion Applications offer a hybrid approach to deployment. The applications are all software-as-a-service-ready, so customers can choose on-premises, public or private cloud, or a combination of these to suit their business needs. It's that combination of flexibility and a roadmap for the future that may be the biggest game changer of all. "The Oracle Fusion Applications architecture allows us to migrate our company at a pace that's consistent with our business strategy, whereas before we might have had to do it with a massive upgrade," says Macrie of Ingersoll Rand. "We're looking forward to that architecture to really give us more flexibility in how we migrate over time." For More InformationUser Input Key to the Success of Oracle Fusion ApplicationsTransforming Coexistence into Strategic ValueUnder the HoodOracle Fusion ApplicationsOracle Service-Oriented Architecture  

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  • Revisiting ANTS Performance Profiler 7.4

    - by James Michael Hare
    Last year, I did a small review on the ANTS Performance Profiler 6.3, now that it’s a year later and a major version number higher, I thought I’d revisit the review and revise my last post. This post will take the same examples as the original post and update them to show what’s new in version 7.4 of the profiler. Background A performance profiler’s main job is to keep track of how much time is typically spent in each unit of code. This helps when we have a program that is not running at the performance we expect, and we want to know where the program is experiencing issues. There are many profilers out there of varying capabilities. Red Gate’s typically seem to be the very easy to “jump in” and get started with very little training required. So let’s dig into the Performance Profiler. I’ve constructed a very crude program with some obvious inefficiencies. It’s a simple program that generates random order numbers (or really could be any unique identifier), adds it to a list, sorts the list, then finds the max and min number in the list. Ignore the fact it’s very contrived and obviously inefficient, we just want to use it as an example to show off the tool: 1: // our test program 2: public static class Program 3: { 4: // the number of iterations to perform 5: private static int _iterations = 1000000; 6: 7: // The main method that controls it all 8: public static void Main() 9: { 10: var list = new List<string>(); 11: 12: for (int i = 0; i < _iterations; i++) 13: { 14: var x = GetNextId(); 15: 16: AddToList(list, x); 17: 18: var highLow = GetHighLow(list); 19: 20: if ((i % 1000) == 0) 21: { 22: Console.WriteLine("{0} - High: {1}, Low: {2}", i, highLow.Item1, highLow.Item2); 23: Console.Out.Flush(); 24: } 25: } 26: } 27: 28: // gets the next order id to process (random for us) 29: public static string GetNextId() 30: { 31: var random = new Random(); 32: var num = random.Next(1000000, 9999999); 33: return num.ToString(); 34: } 35: 36: // add it to our list - very inefficiently! 37: public static void AddToList(List<string> list, string item) 38: { 39: list.Add(item); 40: list.Sort(); 41: } 42: 43: // get high and low of order id range - very inefficiently! 44: public static Tuple<int,int> GetHighLow(List<string> list) 45: { 46: return Tuple.Create(list.Max(s => Convert.ToInt32(s)), list.Min(s => Convert.ToInt32(s))); 47: } 48: } So let’s run it through the profiler and see what happens! Visual Studio Integration First, let’s look at how the ANTS profilers integrate with Visual Studio’s menu system. Once you install the ANTS profilers, you will get an ANTS menu item with several options: Notice that you can either Profile Performance or Launch ANTS Performance Profiler. These sound similar but achieve two slightly different actions: Profile Performance: this immediately launches the profiler with all defaults selected to profile the active project in Visual Studio. Launch ANTS Performance Profiler: this launches the profiler much the same way as starting it from the Start Menu. The profiler will pre-populate the application and path information, but allow you to change the settings before beginning the profile run. So really, the main difference is that Profile Performance immediately begins profiling with the default selections, where Launch ANTS Performance Profiler allows you to change the defaults and attach to an already-running application. Let’s Fire it Up! So when you fire up ANTS either via Start Menu or Launch ANTS Performance Profiler menu in Visual Studio, you are presented with a very simple dialog to get you started: Notice you can choose from many different options for application type. You can profile executables, services, web applications, or just attach to a running process. In fact, in version 7.4 we see two new options added: ASP.NET Web Application (IIS Express) SharePoint web application (IIS) So this gives us an additional way to profile ASP.NET applications and the ability to profile SharePoint applications as well. You can also choose your level of detail in the Profiling Mode drop down. If you choose Line-Level and method-level timings detail, you will get a lot more detail on the method durations, but this will also slow down profiling somewhat. If you really need the profiler to be as unintrusive as possible, you can change it to Sample method-level timings. This is performing very light profiling, where basically the profiler collects timings of a method by examining the call-stack at given intervals. Which method you choose depends a lot on how much detail you need to find the issue and how sensitive your program issues are to timing. So for our example, let’s just go with the line and method timing detail. So, we check that all the options are correct (if you launch from VS2010, the executable and path are filled in already), and fire it up by clicking the [Start Profiling] button. Profiling the Application Once you start profiling the application, you will see a real-time graph of CPU usage that will indicate how much your application is using the CPU(s) on your system. During this time, you can select segments of the graph and bookmark them, giving them mnemonic names. This can be useful if you want to compare performance in one part of the run to another part of the run. Notice that once you select a block, it will give you the call tree breakdown for that selection only, and the relative performance of those calls. Once you feel you have collected enough information, you can click [Stop Profiling] to stop the application run and information collection and begin a more thorough analysis. Analyzing Method Timings So now that we’ve halted the run, we can look around the GUI and see what we can see. By default, the times are shown in terms of percentage of time of the total run of the application, though you can change it in the View menu item to milliseconds, ticks, or seconds as well. This won’t affect the percentages of methods, it only affects what units the times are shown. Notice also that the major hotspot seems to be in a method without source, ANTS Profiler will filter these out by default, but you can right-click on the line and remove the filter to see more detail. This proves especially handy when a bottleneck is due to a method in the BCL. So now that we’ve removed the filter, we see a bit more detail: In addition, ANTS Performance Profiler gives you the ability to decompile the methods without source so that you can dive even deeper, though typically this isn’t necessary for our purposes. When looking at timings, there are generally two types of timings for each method call: Time: This is the time spent ONLY in this method, not including calls this method makes to other methods. Time With Children: This is the total of time spent in both this method AND including calls this method makes to other methods. In other words, the Time tells you how much work is being done exclusively in this method, and the Time With Children tells you how much work is being done inclusively in this method and everything it calls. You can also choose to display the methods in a tree or in a grid. The tree view is the default and it shows the method calls arranged in terms of the tree representing all method calls and the parent method that called them, etc. This is useful for when you find a hot-spot method, you can see who is calling it to determine if the problem is the method itself, or if it is being called too many times. The grid method represents each method only once with its totals and is useful for quickly seeing what method is the trouble spot. In addition, you can choose to display Methods with source which are generally the methods you wrote (as opposed to native or BCL code), or Any Method which shows not only your methods, but also native calls, JIT overhead, synchronization waits, etc. So these are just two ways of viewing the same data, and you’re free to choose the organization that best suits what information you are after. Analyzing Method Source If we look at the timings above, we see that our AddToList() method (and in particular, it’s call to the List<T>.Sort() method in the BCL) is the hot-spot in this analysis. If ANTS sees a method that is consuming the most time, it will flag it as a hot-spot to help call out potential areas of concern. This doesn’t mean the other statistics aren’t meaningful, but that the hot-spot is most likely going to be your biggest bang-for-the-buck to concentrate on. So let’s select the AddToList() method, and see what it shows in the source window below: Notice the source breakout in the bottom pane when you select a method (from either tree or grid view). This shows you the timings in this method per line of code. This gives you a major indicator of where the trouble-spot in this method is. So in this case, we see that performing a Sort() on the List<T> after every Add() is killing our performance! Of course, this was a very contrived, duh moment, but you’d be surprised how many performance issues become duh moments. Note that this one line is taking up 86% of the execution time of this application! If we eliminate this bottleneck, we should see drastic improvement in the performance. So to fix this, if we still wanted to maintain the List<T> we’d have many options, including: delay Sort() until after all Add() methods, using a SortedSet, SortedList, or SortedDictionary depending on which is most appropriate, or forgoing the sorting all together and using a Dictionary. Rinse, Repeat! So let’s just change all instances of List<string> to SortedSet<string> and run this again through the profiler: Now we see the AddToList() method is no longer our hot-spot, but now the Max() and Min() calls are! This is good because we’ve eliminated one hot-spot and now we can try to correct this one as well. As before, we can then optimize this part of the code (possibly by taking advantage of the fact the list is now sorted and returning the first and last elements). We can then rinse and repeat this process until we have eliminated as many bottlenecks as possible. Calls by Web Request Another feature that was added recently is the ability to view .NET methods grouped by the HTTP requests that caused them to run. This can be helpful in determining which pages, web services, etc. are causing hot spots in your web applications. Summary If you like the other ANTS tools, you’ll like the ANTS Performance Profiler as well. It is extremely easy to use with very little product knowledge required to get up and running. There are profilers built into the higher product lines of Visual Studio, of course, which are also powerful and easy to use. But for quickly jumping in and finding hot spots rapidly, Red Gate’s Performance Profiler 7.4 is an excellent choice. Technorati Tags: Influencers,ANTS,Performance Profiler,Profiler

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  • C# Neural Networks with Encog

    - by JoshReuben
    Neural Networks ·       I recently read a book Introduction to Neural Networks for C# , by Jeff Heaton. http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Neural-Networks-C-2nd/dp/1604390093/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1296821004&sr=8-2-spell. Not the 1st ANN book I've perused, but a nice revision.   ·       Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) are a mechanism of machine learning – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_neural_network , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Machine_learning ·       Problems Not Suited to a Neural Network Solution- Programs that are easily written out as flowcharts consisting of well-defined steps, program logic that is unlikely to change, problems in which you must know exactly how the solution was derived. ·       Problems Suited to a Neural Network – pattern recognition, classification, series prediction, and data mining. Pattern recognition - network attempts to determine if the input data matches a pattern that it has been trained to recognize. Classification - take input samples and classify them into fuzzy groups. ·       As far as machine learning approaches go, I thing SVMs are superior (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Support_vector_machine ) - a neural network has certain disadvantages in comparison: an ANN can be overtrained, different training sets can produce non-deterministic weights and it is not possible to discern the underlying decision function of an ANN from its weight matrix – they are black box. ·       In this post, I'm not going to go into internals (believe me I know them). An autoassociative network (e.g. a Hopfield network) will echo back a pattern if it is recognized. ·       Under the hood, there is very little maths. In a nutshell - Some simple matrix operations occur during training: the input array is processed (normalized into bipolar values of 1, -1) - transposed from input column vector into a row vector, these are subject to matrix multiplication and then subtraction of the identity matrix to get a contribution matrix. The dot product is taken against the weight matrix to yield a boolean match result. For backpropogation training, a derivative function is required. In learning, hill climbing mechanisms such as Genetic Algorithms and Simulated Annealing are used to escape local minima. For unsupervised training, such as found in Self Organizing Maps used for OCR, Hebbs rule is applied. ·       The purpose of this post is not to mire you in technical and conceptual details, but to show you how to leverage neural networks via an abstraction API - Encog   Encog ·       Encog is a neural network API ·       Links to Encog: http://www.encog.org , http://www.heatonresearch.com/encog, http://www.heatonresearch.com/forum ·       Encog requires .Net 3.5 or higher – there is also a Silverlight version. Third-Party Libraries – log4net and nunit. ·       Encog supports feedforward, recurrent, self-organizing maps, radial basis function and Hopfield neural networks. ·       Encog neural networks, and related data, can be stored in .EG XML files. ·       Encog Workbench allows you to edit, train and visualize neural networks. The Encog Workbench can generate code. Synapses and layers ·       the primary building blocks - Almost every neural network will have, at a minimum, an input and output layer. In some cases, the same layer will function as both input and output layer. ·       To adapt a problem to a neural network, you must determine how to feed the problem into the input layer of a neural network, and receive the solution through the output layer of a neural network. ·       The Input Layer - For each input neuron, one double value is stored. An array is passed as input to a layer. Encog uses the interface INeuralData to hold these arrays. The class BasicNeuralData implements the INeuralData interface. Once the neural network processes the input, an INeuralData based class will be returned from the neural network's output layer. ·       convert a double array into an INeuralData object : INeuralData data = new BasicNeuralData(= new double[10]); ·       the Output Layer- The neural network outputs an array of doubles, wraped in a class based on the INeuralData interface. ·        The real power of a neural network comes from its pattern recognition capabilities. The neural network should be able to produce the desired output even if the input has been slightly distorted. ·       Hidden Layers– optional. between the input and output layers. very much a “black box”. If the structure of the hidden layer is too simple it may not learn the problem. If the structure is too complex, it will learn the problem but will be very slow to train and execute. Some neural networks have no hidden layers. The input layer may be directly connected to the output layer. Further, some neural networks have only a single layer. A single layer neural network has the single layer self-connected. ·       connections, called synapses, contain individual weight matrixes. These values are changed as the neural network learns. Constructing a Neural Network ·       the XOR operator is a frequent “first example” -the “Hello World” application for neural networks. ·       The XOR Operator- only returns true when both inputs differ. 0 XOR 0 = 0 1 XOR 0 = 1 0 XOR 1 = 1 1 XOR 1 = 0 ·       Structuring a Neural Network for XOR  - two inputs to the XOR operator and one output. ·       input: 0.0,0.0 1.0,0.0 0.0,1.0 1.0,1.0 ·       Expected output: 0.0 1.0 1.0 0.0 ·       A Perceptron - a simple feedforward neural network to learn the XOR operator. ·       Because the XOR operator has two inputs and one output, the neural network will follow suit. Additionally, the neural network will have a single hidden layer, with two neurons to help process the data. The choice for 2 neurons in the hidden layer is arbitrary, and often comes down to trial and error. ·       Neuron Diagram for the XOR Network ·       ·       The Encog workbench displays neural networks on a layer-by-layer basis. ·       Encog Layer Diagram for the XOR Network:   ·       Create a BasicNetwork - Three layers are added to this network. the FinalizeStructure method must be called to inform the network that no more layers are to be added. The call to Reset randomizes the weights in the connections between these layers. var network = new BasicNetwork(); network.AddLayer(new BasicLayer(2)); network.AddLayer(new BasicLayer(2)); network.AddLayer(new BasicLayer(1)); network.Structure.FinalizeStructure(); network.Reset(); ·       Neural networks frequently start with a random weight matrix. This provides a starting point for the training methods. These random values will be tested and refined into an acceptable solution. However, sometimes the initial random values are too far off. Sometimes it may be necessary to reset the weights again, if training is ineffective. These weights make up the long-term memory of the neural network. Additionally, some layers have threshold values that also contribute to the long-term memory of the neural network. Some neural networks also contain context layers, which give the neural network a short-term memory as well. The neural network learns by modifying these weight and threshold values. ·       Now that the neural network has been created, it must be trained. Training a Neural Network ·       construct a INeuralDataSet object - contains the input array and the expected output array (of corresponding range). Even though there is only one output value, we must still use a two-dimensional array to represent the output. public static double[][] XOR_INPUT ={ new double[2] { 0.0, 0.0 }, new double[2] { 1.0, 0.0 }, new double[2] { 0.0, 1.0 }, new double[2] { 1.0, 1.0 } };   public static double[][] XOR_IDEAL = { new double[1] { 0.0 }, new double[1] { 1.0 }, new double[1] { 1.0 }, new double[1] { 0.0 } };   INeuralDataSet trainingSet = new BasicNeuralDataSet(XOR_INPUT, XOR_IDEAL); ·       Training is the process where the neural network's weights are adjusted to better produce the expected output. Training will continue for many iterations, until the error rate of the network is below an acceptable level. Encog supports many different types of training. Resilient Propagation (RPROP) - general-purpose training algorithm. All training classes implement the ITrain interface. The RPROP algorithm is implemented by the ResilientPropagation class. Training the neural network involves calling the Iteration method on the ITrain class until the error is below a specific value. The code loops through as many iterations, or epochs, as it takes to get the error rate for the neural network to be below 1%. Once the neural network has been trained, it is ready for use. ITrain train = new ResilientPropagation(network, trainingSet);   for (int epoch=0; epoch < 10000; epoch++) { train.Iteration(); Debug.Print("Epoch #" + epoch + " Error:" + train.Error); if (train.Error > 0.01) break; } Executing a Neural Network ·       Call the Compute method on the BasicNetwork class. Console.WriteLine("Neural Network Results:"); foreach (INeuralDataPair pair in trainingSet) { INeuralData output = network.Compute(pair.Input); Console.WriteLine(pair.Input[0] + "," + pair.Input[1] + ", actual=" + output[0] + ",ideal=" + pair.Ideal[0]); } ·       The Compute method accepts an INeuralData class and also returns a INeuralData object. Neural Network Results: 0.0,0.0, actual=0.002782538818034049,ideal=0.0 1.0,0.0, actual=0.9903741937121177,ideal=1.0 0.0,1.0, actual=0.9836807956566187,ideal=1.0 1.0,1.0, actual=0.0011646072586172778,ideal=0.0 ·       the network has not been trained to give the exact results. This is normal. Because the network was trained to 1% error, each of the results will also be within generally 1% of the expected value.

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, May 14, 2010

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, May 14, 2010New ProjectsCampfire#: Campfire# is a campfire client written in .NET 4.0 using WPF, which uses the Campfire API.CHESS: Systematic Concurrency Testing: CHESS is a tool for systematic and disciplined concurrency testing. Given a concurrent test, CHESS systematically enumerates the possible thread sc...cmpp: cmppcycloid: Arcanoid gameDotNetNuke® C#: The DotNetNuke® project is developed and maintained on a Visual Basic codebase, however a C# version has always been a popular request. This is a ...EasyBuildingCMS.NET: EasyBuildingCMS is an easy use content management system.fluidCMS: Provide for flexible management of web content that is not tightly integrated with the layout and rendering of sites that consume the content.Golem: An automation tool oriented to localization engineering environmentHB Batch Encoder Mk 2: HandBrake Batch Encoder Mk II This Program was adapted from an original project downloaded from codeplex by the name of "Handbrake Batch Encoder"...Integrating Social Media Networks: This is part of my pos graduation project.Ketonic: The Ketonic project aims to improve development of websites based on the Kentico CMS. LinkSharp: LinkSharp is a short-URL provider that can be used to generate short static non changing URL's. The web interface allows you to easily add / edit /...PUC NET (C++ Network Library - PUC Minas): This is an Academic Library for an Easy Development of Applications and Games based on Network Communication.Regular Expression Tester: Small utility for testing regular expressionsSharePoint User Management WebPart: SharePoint User Management WebPartSharpBox: SharpBox makes it easier for .NET developers to interact with existing cloud storage service, e.g. DropBox or Amazon S3Snipivit: Snipivit is a snippet manager service and VS2010 plugin that allows small development teams to store all their code snippets on a central database,...Software Factories Applied: Software Factories Applied is a project collecting the companion bits for the eponymous book to be published by Wiley & Sons in 2011. The authors ...The Ping Master: A service that periodically pings network addresses and allows the running of command line type utilities in response to success or failure.Title Safe Region Checker: A simple utility for XNA developers to check screenshots from games intended for release on the LIVE Marketplace for "title safe" region compliance...Trial project: sky is blueUyghur Named Date: Generate Uyghur named date string. ئۇيغۇرچە ئاي ناملىق چىسلا ھاسىل قىلىشWildcard Search Web Part for SharePoint 2010: The Wildcard Search web part for MOSS 2007 was wildly successful. Although, SharePoint 2010 has built-in wildcard searching functionality, the out...在线Office控件 Online Offical Control: 在线Office控件软件作品发布平台: SoftwarePublishPlatform 软件作品发布平台New ReleasesDemina: Demina Binaries version 0.1: Demina binaries are now available. This release (version 0.1) is an alpha version. Please report any bugs for extermination.EasyTFS: EasyTfs 1.0 Beta 2: Added cache refreshing when contents are updated rather than just every 10 minutes. Added window title based on currently-open case. Added attachme...Extending C# editor - Outlining, classification: Initial release: Initial releaseHB Batch Encoder Mk 2: HB Batch Encoder Mk2 v1.01: Binary release files.HB Batch Encoder Mk 2: Source Code: Source CodeHobbyBrew Mobile: Beta 2: Corretti numerosi bug, data un implementazione "approssimativa" del riscaldamento per Infusione. Aggiornamento consigliato!HouseFly controls: HouseFly controls beta 1.0.2.0: HouseFly controls relase 1.0.2.0 betaHtml Reader: Beta 2: I fixed a bug in HtmlElementCollection, Which exposed an integer enumerator, instead of enumerating through HtmlElements. I added a WPF Window tha...Html to OpenXml: HtmlToOpenXml 1.2: Fix some reported bug. See change set for description. The dll library to include in your project. The dll is signed for GAC support. Compiled wi...Infection Protection: Infection Protection 0.1: This is the final version of Infection Protection that was entered into the 2010 OGPC game competition.Jobping Url Shortener: Deploy Code 0.5.1: Deployment code for Version 0.5 This version includes our Jobping style.Jobping Url Shortener: Source Code 0.5.1: Source code for the 0.5 release. This release includes our Jobping style skin.Kooboo HTML form: Kooboo HTML form module 2.1.0.1: HTML form module contributed by member aledelgo. Add SMTP user and password authentication.KooBoo Image Galery: Beta 2: This new version corrects some issues pointed by Guoqi Zheng Some schema and folders were renamed, so it's better to uninstall the module and remo...MFCMAPI: May 2010 Release: If you just want to run the tool, get the executable. If you want to debug it, get the symbol file and the source. Build: 6.0.0.1020 The 64 bit bu...MVC Turbine: Release 2.1 for MVC2: This RTM contains the same features as v2.0 RTM plus these features: Instance Registration to IServiceLocator You can now add an instance of a typ...NazTek.Extension.Clr4: NazTek.Extension.Clr4 Binary: Binary releaseNazTek.Extension.Clr4: NazTek.Extension.Clr4 Source: Cab with source codeNSIS Autorun: NSIS Autorun 0.1.8: This release includes source code, executable binaries and example materials.Ottawa IT Day: 2010 Source Code and Presentations: During the Ottawa IT Day 2010, some of the presenters shared their code (and some presentations). This release is the culmination of all those effo...PHPWord: PHPWord 0.6.1 Beta: Changelog: Fixed Error when adding a JPEG image and opening in office 2007 Issue #1 Fixed Already defined constant PHPWORD_BASE_PATH Issue #2 F...Rapid Dictionary: Rapid Dictionary Alpha 2.0: Release Notes * Try auto updatable version: http://install.rapiddict.com/index.html Rapid Dictionary Alpha 2.0 includes such functionality: ...Shake - C# Make: Shake v0.1.18: Core changes. Process wrapper class, console logger, etc.SharpBox: SharpBox-Trunk: This is the SharpBox build from the trunk source branch!SharpBox: SharpBox-Trunk-Initial-Source: The initial source code, will be updated from time to timeSpackle.NET: 4.0.0.0 Release: This new drop contains the following A CreateBigInteger() method on SecureRandom to create random BigInteger values. An extension method to prop...StreamInsight example queries, input adapters and output adapters: StreamInsight Examples for V1.0 RTM: Zipped source code.The Ping Master: v0.1.0.0: Early release of The Ping Master for test purposes. Configuration tool is unfinished and does not include an installer.Title Safe Region Checker: Title Safe Region Checker v1.0.0.1: Release 1.0 of Title Safe Region Checker. No known bugs or problems. File is a zipped directory containing the necessary installation files.TortoiseHg: TortoiseHg 1.0.3: This is a bug fix release, we recommend all users upgrade to 1.0.3Usa*Usa Libraly: Smart.Windows.Navigation 0.4: Smart.Windows.Navigation simple navigation library ver 0.4.0. Include Windows Forms & Compact Framework samples. Information - Smart.Windows.Mvc ...VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30513.0: Automatic drop of latest buildWabbitStudio Z80 Software Tools: Wabbitcode: Wabbitcode is an Z80 Assembly IDE for Windows, OS X, and Linux. Built to take full advantage of the features of SPASM and Wabbitemu, Wabbitcode has...white: Release 0.20: Source Code: https://white-project.googlecode.com/svn/tags/0.20 Add few more keyboard keys like windows button and F13-F24. Fixed bugs for keyboar...Wildcard Search Web Part for SharePoint 2010: Version 1.0 Release 1: This is the initial release of the Wildcard Search Web Part for SharePoint 2010. All queries will be issued as wildcards unless disabled with the ...Windows Azure Command-line Tools for PHP Developers: Windows Azure Command-line Tools May 2010 Update: May 2010 Update – May 13, 2010 We are pleased to announced the May 2010 update of Windows Azure Command-Line Tools. In addition to bug fixes and i...WinXmlCook: WinXmlCook 2.1: Version 2.1 released!Xrns2XMod: Xrns2XMod 1.1: some source code optimization在线Office控件 Online Offical Control: SPOffice2.0Release: 该版本在MS Office2003/2007,WPS2009,WPS2010下测试通过Most Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)patterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesPHPExcelASP.NETMost Active Projectspatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryMirror Testing SystemRawrBlogEngine.NETPHPExcelMicrosoft Biology FoundationwhiteWindows Azure Command-line Tools for PHP DevelopersStyleCopShake - C# Make

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  • SQLAuthority Book Review – DBA Survivor: Become a Rock Star DBA

    - by pinaldave
    DBA Survivor: Become a Rock Star DBA – Thomas LaRock Link to Amazon Link to Flipkart First of all, I thank all my readers when I wrote that I could not get this book in any local book stores, because they offered me to send a copy of this good book. A very special mention goes to Sripada and Jayesh for they gave so much effort in finding my home address and sending me the hard copy. Before, I did not have the copy of the book, but now I have two of it already! It surprises me how my readers were able to find my home address, which I have not publicly shared. Quick Review: This is indeed a one easy-to-read and fun book. We all work day and night with technology yet we should not forget to show our love and care for our family at home. For our souls that starve for peace and guidance, this one book is the “it” book for all the technology enthusiasts. Though this book was specifically written for DBAs, the reach is not limited to DBAs only because the lessons incorporated in it actually applies to all. This is one of the most motivating technical books I have read. Detailed Review: Let us go over a few questions first: Who wants to be as famous as rockstars in the field of Database Administration? How can one learn what it takes to become a top notch software developer? If you are a beginner in your field, how will you go to next level? Your boss may be very kind or like Dilbert’s Boss, what will you do? How do you keep growing when Eco-system around you does not support you? You are almost at top but there is someone else at the TOP, what do you do and how do you avoid office politics? As a database developer what should be your basic responsibility? and many more… I was able to completely read book in one sitting and I loved it. Before I continue with my opinion, I want to echo the opinion of Kevin Kline who has written the Forward of the book. He has truly suggested that “You hold in your hands a collection of insights and wisdom on the topic of database administration gained through many years of hard-won experience, long nights of study, and direct mentorship under some of the industry’s most talented database professionals and information technology (IT) experts.” Today, IT field is getting bigger and better, while talking about terabytes of the database becomes “more” normal every single day. The gods and demigods of database professionals are taking care of these large scale databases and are carefully maintaining them. In this world, there are only a few beginnings on the first step. There are many experts in different technology fields who are asked to address the issues with databases. There is YOU and ME, who is just new to this work. So we ask ourselves WHERE to begin and HOW to begin. We adore and follow the religion of our rockstars, but oftentimes we really have no idea about their background and their struggles. Every rockstar has his success story which needs to be digested before learning his tricks and tips. This book starts with the same note and teaches the two most important lessons for anybody who wants to be a DBA Rockstar –  to focus on their single goal of learning and to excel the technology. The story starts with three simple guidelines – Get Prepared, Get Trained, Get Certified. Once a person learns the skills, and then, it would be about time that he needs to enrich or to improve those skills you have learned. I am sure that the right opportunity will come finding themselves and they will not have to go run behind it. However, the real challenge for any person is the first day or first week. A new employee, no matter how much experienced he is, sometimes has no clue about what should one do at new job. Chapter 2 and chapter 3 precisely talk about what one should do as soon as the new job begins. It is also written with keeping the fact in focus that each job can be very much different but there are few infrastructure setups and programming concepts are the same. Learning basics of database was really interesting. I like to focus on the roots of any technology. It is important to understand the structure of the database before suggesting what indexes needs to be created, the same way this book covers the most essential knowledge one must learn by most database developers. I think the title of the fourth chapter is my favorite sentence in this book. I can see that I will be saying this again and again in the future – “A Development Server Is a Production Server to a Developer“. I have worked in the software industry for almost 8 years now and I have seen so many developers sitting on their chairs and waiting for instructions from their lead about how to improve the code or what to do the next. When I talk to them, I suggest that the experiment with their server and try various techniques. I think they all should understand that for them, a development server is their production server and needs to pay proper attention to the code from the beginning. There should be NO any inappropriate code from the beginning. One has to fully focus and give their best, if they are not sure they should ask but should do something and stay active. Chapter 5 and 6 talks about two essential skills for any developer and database administration – what are the ethics of developers when they are working with production server and how to support software which is running on the production server. I have met many people who know the theory by heart but when put in front of keyboard they do not know where to start. The first thing they do opening the browser and searching online, instead of opening SQL Server Management Studio. This can very well happen to anybody who is experienced as well. Chapter 5 and 6 addresses that situation as well includes the handy scripts which can solve almost all the basic trouble shooting issues. “Where’s the Buffet?” By far, this is the best chapter in this book. If you have ever met me, you would know that I love food. I think after reading this chapter, I felt Thomas has written this just keeping me in mind. I think there will be many other people who feel the same way, too. Even my wife who read this chapter thought this was specifically written for me. I will not talk any more about this chapter as this is one must read chapter. And of course this is about real ‘FOOD‘. I am an SQL Server Trainer and Consultant and I totally agree with the point made in the chapter 8 of this book. Yes, it says here that what is necessary to train employees and people. Millions of dollars worth the labor is continuously done in the world which has faults and incorrect. Once something goes wrong, very expensive consultant comes in and fixes the problem. This whole cycle which can be stopped and improved if proper training is done. There is plenty of free trainings available as well, if one cannot afford paid training. “Connect. Learn. Share” – I think this is a great summary and bird’s eye view of this book. Networking is the key. Everything which is discussed in this book can be taken to next level if one properly uses this tips and continuously grow with it. Connecting with others, helping learn each other and building the good knowledge sharing environment should be the goal of everyone. Before I end the review I want to share a real experience. I have personally met one DBA who has worked in a single department in a company for so long that when he was put in a different department in his company due to closing that department, he could not adjust and quit the job despite the same people and company around him. Adjusting in the new environment gets much tougher as one person gets more and more experienced. This book precisely addresses the same issue along with their solutions. I just cannot stop comparing the book with my personal journey. I found so many things which are coincidently in the book is written as how we developer and DBA think. I must express special thanks to Thomas for taking time in his personal life and write this book for us. This book is indeed a book for everybody who wants to grow healthy in the tough and competitive environment. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Book Review, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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  • Heaps of Trouble?

    - by Paul White NZ
    If you’re not already a regular reader of Brad Schulz’s blog, you’re missing out on some great material.  In his latest entry, he is tasked with optimizing a query run against tables that have no indexes at all.  The problem is, predictably, that performance is not very good.  The catch is that we are not allowed to create any indexes (or even new statistics) as part of our optimization efforts. In this post, I’m going to look at the problem from a slightly different angle, and present an alternative solution to the one Brad found.  Inevitably, there’s going to be some overlap between our entries, and while you don’t necessarily need to read Brad’s post before this one, I do strongly recommend that you read it at some stage; he covers some important points that I won’t cover again here. The Example We’ll use data from the AdventureWorks database, copied to temporary unindexed tables.  A script to create these structures is shown below: CREATE TABLE #Custs ( CustomerID INTEGER NOT NULL, TerritoryID INTEGER NULL, CustomerType NCHAR(1) COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AI NOT NULL, ); GO CREATE TABLE #Prods ( ProductMainID INTEGER NOT NULL, ProductSubID INTEGER NOT NULL, ProductSubSubID INTEGER NOT NULL, Name NVARCHAR(50) COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AI NOT NULL, ); GO CREATE TABLE #OrdHeader ( SalesOrderID INTEGER NOT NULL, OrderDate DATETIME NOT NULL, SalesOrderNumber NVARCHAR(25) COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AI NOT NULL, CustomerID INTEGER NOT NULL, ); GO CREATE TABLE #OrdDetail ( SalesOrderID INTEGER NOT NULL, OrderQty SMALLINT NOT NULL, LineTotal NUMERIC(38,6) NOT NULL, ProductMainID INTEGER NOT NULL, ProductSubID INTEGER NOT NULL, ProductSubSubID INTEGER NOT NULL, ); GO INSERT #Custs ( CustomerID, TerritoryID, CustomerType ) SELECT C.CustomerID, C.TerritoryID, C.CustomerType FROM AdventureWorks.Sales.Customer C WITH (TABLOCK); GO INSERT #Prods ( ProductMainID, ProductSubID, ProductSubSubID, Name ) SELECT P.ProductID, P.ProductID, P.ProductID, P.Name FROM AdventureWorks.Production.Product P WITH (TABLOCK); GO INSERT #OrdHeader ( SalesOrderID, OrderDate, SalesOrderNumber, CustomerID ) SELECT H.SalesOrderID, H.OrderDate, H.SalesOrderNumber, H.CustomerID FROM AdventureWorks.Sales.SalesOrderHeader H WITH (TABLOCK); GO INSERT #OrdDetail ( SalesOrderID, OrderQty, LineTotal, ProductMainID, ProductSubID, ProductSubSubID ) SELECT D.SalesOrderID, D.OrderQty, D.LineTotal, D.ProductID, D.ProductID, D.ProductID FROM AdventureWorks.Sales.SalesOrderDetail D WITH (TABLOCK); The query itself is a simple join of the four tables: SELECT P.ProductMainID AS PID, P.Name, D.OrderQty, H.SalesOrderNumber, H.OrderDate, C.TerritoryID FROM #Prods P JOIN #OrdDetail D ON P.ProductMainID = D.ProductMainID AND P.ProductSubID = D.ProductSubID AND P.ProductSubSubID = D.ProductSubSubID JOIN #OrdHeader H ON D.SalesOrderID = H.SalesOrderID JOIN #Custs C ON H.CustomerID = C.CustomerID ORDER BY P.ProductMainID ASC OPTION (RECOMPILE, MAXDOP 1); Remember that these tables have no indexes at all, and only the single-column sampled statistics SQL Server automatically creates (assuming default settings).  The estimated query plan produced for the test query looks like this (click to enlarge): The Problem The problem here is one of cardinality estimation – the number of rows SQL Server expects to find at each step of the plan.  The lack of indexes and useful statistical information means that SQL Server does not have the information it needs to make a good estimate.  Every join in the plan shown above estimates that it will produce just a single row as output.  Brad covers the factors that lead to the low estimates in his post. In reality, the join between the #Prods and #OrdDetail tables will produce 121,317 rows.  It should not surprise you that this has rather dire consequences for the remainder of the query plan.  In particular, it makes a nonsense of the optimizer’s decision to use Nested Loops to join to the two remaining tables.  Instead of scanning the #OrdHeader and #Custs tables once (as it expected), it has to perform 121,317 full scans of each.  The query takes somewhere in the region of twenty minutes to run to completion on my development machine. A Solution At this point, you may be thinking the same thing I was: if we really are stuck with no indexes, the best we can do is to use hash joins everywhere. We can force the exclusive use of hash joins in several ways, the two most common being join and query hints.  A join hint means writing the query using the INNER HASH JOIN syntax; using a query hint involves adding OPTION (HASH JOIN) at the bottom of the query.  The difference is that using join hints also forces the order of the join, whereas the query hint gives the optimizer freedom to reorder the joins at its discretion. Adding the OPTION (HASH JOIN) hint results in this estimated plan: That produces the correct output in around seven seconds, which is quite an improvement!  As a purely practical matter, and given the rigid rules of the environment we find ourselves in, we might leave things there.  (We can improve the hashing solution a bit – I’ll come back to that later on). Faster Nested Loops It might surprise you to hear that we can beat the performance of the hash join solution shown above using nested loops joins exclusively, and without breaking the rules we have been set. The key to this part is to realize that a condition like (A = B) can be expressed as (A <= B) AND (A >= B).  Armed with this tremendous new insight, we can rewrite the join predicates like so: SELECT P.ProductMainID AS PID, P.Name, D.OrderQty, H.SalesOrderNumber, H.OrderDate, C.TerritoryID FROM #OrdDetail D JOIN #OrdHeader H ON D.SalesOrderID >= H.SalesOrderID AND D.SalesOrderID <= H.SalesOrderID JOIN #Custs C ON H.CustomerID >= C.CustomerID AND H.CustomerID <= C.CustomerID JOIN #Prods P ON P.ProductMainID >= D.ProductMainID AND P.ProductMainID <= D.ProductMainID AND P.ProductSubID = D.ProductSubID AND P.ProductSubSubID = D.ProductSubSubID ORDER BY D.ProductMainID OPTION (RECOMPILE, LOOP JOIN, MAXDOP 1, FORCE ORDER); I’ve also added LOOP JOIN and FORCE ORDER query hints to ensure that only nested loops joins are used, and that the tables are joined in the order they appear.  The new estimated execution plan is: This new query runs in under 2 seconds. Why Is It Faster? The main reason for the improvement is the appearance of the eager Index Spools, which are also known as index-on-the-fly spools.  If you read my Inside The Optimiser series you might be interested to know that the rule responsible is called JoinToIndexOnTheFly. An eager index spool consumes all rows from the table it sits above, and builds a index suitable for the join to seek on.  Taking the index spool above the #Custs table as an example, it reads all the CustomerID and TerritoryID values with a single scan of the table, and builds an index keyed on CustomerID.  The term ‘eager’ means that the spool consumes all of its input rows when it starts up.  The index is built in a work table in tempdb, has no associated statistics, and only exists until the query finishes executing. The result is that each unindexed table is only scanned once, and just for the columns necessary to build the temporary index.  From that point on, every execution of the inner side of the join is answered by a seek on the temporary index – not the base table. A second optimization is that the sort on ProductMainID (required by the ORDER BY clause) is performed early, on just the rows coming from the #OrdDetail table.  The optimizer has a good estimate for the number of rows it needs to sort at that stage – it is just the cardinality of the table itself.  The accuracy of the estimate there is important because it helps determine the memory grant given to the sort operation.  Nested loops join preserves the order of rows on its outer input, so sorting early is safe.  (Hash joins do not preserve order in this way, of course). The extra lazy spool on the #Prods branch is a further optimization that avoids executing the seek on the temporary index if the value being joined (the ‘outer reference’) hasn’t changed from the last row received on the outer input.  It takes advantage of the fact that rows are still sorted on ProductMainID, so if duplicates exist, they will arrive at the join operator one after the other. The optimizer is quite conservative about introducing index spools into a plan, because creating and dropping a temporary index is a relatively expensive operation.  It’s presence in a plan is often an indication that a useful index is missing. I want to stress that I rewrote the query in this way primarily as an educational exercise – I can’t imagine having to do something so horrible to a production system. Improving the Hash Join I promised I would return to the solution that uses hash joins.  You might be puzzled that SQL Server can create three new indexes (and perform all those nested loops iterations) faster than it can perform three hash joins.  The answer, again, is down to the poor information available to the optimizer.  Let’s look at the hash join plan again: Two of the hash joins have single-row estimates on their build inputs.  SQL Server fixes the amount of memory available for the hash table based on this cardinality estimate, so at run time the hash join very quickly runs out of memory. This results in the join spilling hash buckets to disk, and any rows from the probe input that hash to the spilled buckets also get written to disk.  The join process then continues, and may again run out of memory.  This is a recursive process, which may eventually result in SQL Server resorting to a bailout join algorithm, which is guaranteed to complete eventually, but may be very slow.  The data sizes in the example tables are not large enough to force a hash bailout, but it does result in multiple levels of hash recursion.  You can see this for yourself by tracing the Hash Warning event using the Profiler tool. The final sort in the plan also suffers from a similar problem: it receives very little memory and has to perform multiple sort passes, saving intermediate runs to disk (the Sort Warnings Profiler event can be used to confirm this).  Notice also that because hash joins don’t preserve sort order, the sort cannot be pushed down the plan toward the #OrdDetail table, as in the nested loops plan. Ok, so now we understand the problems, what can we do to fix it?  We can address the hash spilling by forcing a different order for the joins: SELECT P.ProductMainID AS PID, P.Name, D.OrderQty, H.SalesOrderNumber, H.OrderDate, C.TerritoryID FROM #Prods P JOIN #Custs C JOIN #OrdHeader H ON H.CustomerID = C.CustomerID JOIN #OrdDetail D ON D.SalesOrderID = H.SalesOrderID ON P.ProductMainID = D.ProductMainID AND P.ProductSubID = D.ProductSubID AND P.ProductSubSubID = D.ProductSubSubID ORDER BY D.ProductMainID OPTION (MAXDOP 1, HASH JOIN, FORCE ORDER); With this plan, each of the inputs to the hash joins has a good estimate, and no hash recursion occurs.  The final sort still suffers from the one-row estimate problem, and we get a single-pass sort warning as it writes rows to disk.  Even so, the query runs to completion in three or four seconds.  That’s around half the time of the previous hashing solution, but still not as fast as the nested loops trickery. Final Thoughts SQL Server’s optimizer makes cost-based decisions, so it is vital to provide it with accurate information.  We can’t really blame the performance problems highlighted here on anything other than the decision to use completely unindexed tables, and not to allow the creation of additional statistics. I should probably stress that the nested loops solution shown above is not one I would normally contemplate in the real world.  It’s there primarily for its educational and entertainment value.  I might perhaps use it to demonstrate to the sceptical that SQL Server itself is crying out for an index. Be sure to read Brad’s original post for more details.  My grateful thanks to him for granting permission to reuse some of his material. Paul White Email: [email protected] Twitter: @PaulWhiteNZ

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  • How to Use USER_DEFINED Activity in OWB Process Flow

    - by Jinggen He
    Process Flow is a very important component of Oracle Warehouse Builder. With Process Flow, we can create and control the ETL process by setting all kinds of activities in a well-constructed flow. In Oracle Warehouse Builder 11gR2, there are 28 kinds of activities, which fall into three categories: Control activities, OWB specific activities and Utility activities. For more information about Process Flow activities, please refer to OWB online doc. Most of those activities are pre-defined for some specific use. For example, the Mapping activity allows execution an OWB mapping in Process Flow and the FTP activity allows an interaction between the local host and a remote FTP server. Besides those activities for specific purposes, the User Defined activity enables you to incorporate into a Process Flow an activity that is not defined within Warehouse Builder. So the User Defined activity brings flexibility and extensibility to Process Flow. In this article, we will take an amazing tour of using the User Defined activity. Let's start. Enable execution of User Defined activity Let's start this section from creating a very simple Process Flow, which contains a Start activity, a User Defined activity and an End Success activity. Leave all parameters of activity USER_DEFINED unchanged except that we enter /tmp/test.sh into the Value column of the COMMAND parameter. Then let's create the shell script test.sh in /tmp directory. Here is the content of /tmp/test.sh (this article is demonstrating a scenario in Linux system, and /tmp/test.sh is a Bash shell script): echo Hello World! > /tmp/test.txt Note: don't forget to grant the execution privilege on /tmp/test.sh to OS Oracle user. For simplicity, we just use the following command. chmod +x /tmp/test.sh OK, it's so simple that we’ve almost done it. Now deploy the Process Flow and run it. For a newly installed OWB, we will come across an error saying "RPE-02248: For security reasons, activity operator Shell has been disabled by the DBA". See below. That's because, by default, the User Defined activity is DISABLED. Configuration about this can be found in <ORACLE_HOME>/owb/bin/admin/Runtime.properties: property.RuntimePlatform.0.NativeExecution.Shell.security_constraint=DISABLED The property can be set to three different values: NATIVE_JAVA, SCHEDULER and DISBALED. Where NATIVE_JAVA uses the Java 'Runtime.exec' interface, SCHEDULER uses a DBMS Scheduler external job submitted by the Control Center repository owner which is executed by the default operating system user configured by the DBA. DISABLED prevents execution via these operators. We enable the execution of User Defined activity by setting: property.RuntimePlatform.0.NativeExecution.Shell.security_constraint= NATIVE_JAVA Restart the Control Center service for the change of setting to take effect. cd <ORACLE_HOME>/owb/rtp/sql sqlplus OWBSYS/<password of OWBSYS> @stop_service.sql sqlplus OWBSYS/<password of OWBSYS> @start_service.sql And then run the Process Flow again. We will see that the Process Flow completes successfully. The execution of /tmp/test.sh successfully generated a file /tmp/test.txt, containing the line Hello World!. Pass parameters to User Defined Activity The Process Flow created in the above section has a drawback: the User Defined activity doesn't accept any information from OWB nor does it give any meaningful results back to OWB. That's to say, it lacks interaction. Maybe, sometimes such a Process Flow can fulfill the business requirement. But for most of the time, we need to get the User Defined activity executed according to some information prior to that step. In this section, we will see how to pass parameters to the User Defined activity and pass them into the to-be-executed shell script. First, let's see how to pass parameters to the script. The User Defined activity has an input parameter named PARAMETER_LIST. This is a list of parameters that will be passed to the command. Parameters are separated from one another by a token. The token is taken as the first character on the PARAMETER_LIST string, and the string must also end in that token. Warehouse Builder recommends the '?' character, but any character can be used. For example, to pass 'abc,' 'def,' and 'ghi' you can use the following equivalent: ?abc?def?ghi? or !abc!def!ghi! or |abc|def|ghi| If the token character or '\' needs to be included as part of the parameter, then it must be preceded with '\'. For example '\\'. If '\' is the token character, then '/' becomes the escape character. Let's configure the PARAMETER_LIST parameter as below: And modify the shell script /tmp/test.sh as below: echo $1 is saying hello to $2! > /tmp/test.txt Re-deploy the Process Flow and run it. We will see that the generated /tmp/test.txt contains the following line: Bob is saying hello to Alice! In the example above, the parameters passed into the shell script are static. This case is not so useful because: instead of passing parameters, we can directly write the value of the parameters in the shell script. To make the case more meaningful, we can pass two dynamic parameters, that are obtained from the previous activity, to the shell script. Prepare the Process Flow as below: The Mapping activity MAPPING_1 has two output parameters: FROM_USER, TO_USER. The User Defined activity has two input parameters: FROM_USER, TO_USER. All the four parameters are of String type. Additionally, the Process Flow has two string variables: VARIABLE_FOR_FROM_USER, VARIABLE_FOR_TO_USER. Through VARIABLE_FOR_FROM_USER, the input parameter FROM_USER of USER_DEFINED gets value from output parameter FROM_USER of MAPPING_1. We achieve this by binding both parameters to VARIABLE_FOR_FROM_USER. See the two figures below. In the same way, through VARIABLE_FOR_TO_USER, the input parameter TO_USER of USER_DEFINED gets value from output parameter TO_USER of MAPPING_1. Also, we need to change the PARAMETER_LIST of the User Defined activity like below: Now, the shell script is getting input from the Mapping activity dynamically. Deploy the Process Flow and all of its necessary dependees then run the Process Flow. We see that the generated /tmp/test.txt contains the following line: USER B is saying hello to USER A! 'USER B' and 'USER A' are two outputs of the Mapping execution. Write the shell script within Oracle Warehouse Builder In the previous section, the shell script is located in the /tmp directory. But sometimes, when the shell script is small, or for the sake of maintaining consistency, you may want to keep the shell script inside Oracle Warehouse Builder. We can achieve this by configuring these three parameters of a User Defined activity properly: COMMAND: Set the path of interpreter, by which the shell script will be interpreted. PARAMETER_LIST: Set it blank. SCRIPT: Enter the shell script content. Note that in Linux the shell script content is passed into the interpreter as standard input at runtime. About how to actually pass parameters to the shell script, we can utilize variable substitutions. As in the following figure, ${FROM_USER} will be replaced by the value of the FROM_USER input parameter of the User Defined activity. So will the ${TO_USER} symbol. Besides the custom substitution variables, OWB also provide some system pre-defined substitution variables. You can refer to the online document for that. Deploy the Process Flow and run it. We see that the generated /tmp/test.txt contains the following line: USER B is saying hello to USER A! Leverage the return value of User Defined activity All of the previous sections are connecting the User Defined activity to END_SUCCESS with an unconditional transition. But what should we do if we want different subsequent activities for different shell script execution results? 1.  The simplest way is to add three simple-conditioned out-going transitions for the User Defined activity just like the figure below. In the figure, to simplify the scenario, we connect the User Defined activity to three End activities. Basically, if the shell script ends successfully, the whole Process Flow will end at END_SUCCESS, otherwise, the whole Process Flow will end at END_ERROR (in our case, ending at END_WARNING seldom happens). In the real world, we can add more complex and meaningful subsequent business logic. 2.  Or we can utilize complex conditions to work with different results of the User Defined activity. Previously, in our script, we only have this line: echo ${FROM_USER} is saying hello to ${TO_USER}! > /tmp/test.txt We can add more logic in it and return different values accordingly. echo ${FROM_USER} is saying hello to ${TO_USER}! > /tmp/test.txt if CONDITION_1 ; then ...... exit 0 fi if CONDITION_2 ; then ...... exit 2 fi if CONDITION_3 ; then ...... exit 3 fi After that we can leverage the result by checking RESULT_CODE in condition expression of those out-going transitions. Let's suppose that we have the Process Flow as the following graph (SUB_PROCESS_n stands for more different further processes): We can set complex condition for the transition from USER_DEFINED to SUB_PROCESS_1 like this: Other transitions can be set in the same way. Note that, in our shell script, we return 0, 2 and 3, but not 1. As in Linux system, if the shell script comes across a system error like IO error, the return value will be 1. We can explicitly handle such a return value. Summary Let's summarize what has been discussed in this article: How to create a Process Flow with a User Defined activity in it How to pass parameters from the prior activity to the User Defined activity and finally into the shell script How to write the shell script within Oracle Warehouse Builder How to do variable substitutions How to let the User Defined activity return different values and in what way can we leverage

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  • Productivity Tips

    - by Brian T. Jackett
    A few months ago during my first end of year review at Microsoft I was doing an assessment of my year.  One of my personal goals to come out of this reflection was to improve my personal productivity.  While I hear many people say “I wish I had more hours in the day so that I could get more done” I feel like that is the wrong approach.  There is an inherent assumption that you are being productive with your time that you already have and thus more time would allow you to be as productive given more time.    Instead of wishing I could add more hours to the day I’ve begun adopting a number of processes or behavior changes in my personal life to make better use of my time with the goal of improving productivity.  The areas of focus are as follows: Focus Processes Tools Personal health Email Note: A number of these topics have spawned from reading Scott Hanselman’s blog posts on productivity, reading of David Allen’s book Getting Things Done, and discussions with friends and coworkers who had great insights into this topic.   Focus Pre-reading / viewing: Overcome your work addiction Millennials paralyzed by choice Its Not What You Read Its What You Ignore (Scott Hanselman video)    I highly recommend Scott Hanselman’s video above and this post before continuing with this article.  It is well worth the 40+ mins price of admission for the video and couple minutes for article.  One key takeaway for me was listing out my activities in an average week and realizing which ones held little or no value to me.  We all have a finite amount of time to work each day.  Do you know how much time and effort you spend on various aspects of your life (family, friends, religion, work, personal happiness, etc.)?  Do your actions and commitments reflect your priorities?    The biggest time consumers with little value for me were time spent on social media services (Twitter and Facebook), playing an MMO video game, and watching TV.  I still check up on Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft internal chat forums, and other services to keep contact with others but I’ve reduced that time significantly.  As for TV I’ve cut the cord and no longer subscribe to cable TV.  Instead I use Netflix, RedBox, and over the air channels but again with reduced time consumption.  With the time I’ve freed up I’m back to working out 2-3 times a week and reading 4 nights a week (both of which I had been neglecting previously).  I’ll mention a few tools for helping measure your time in the Tools section.   Processes    Do not multi-task.  I’ll say it again.  Do not multi-task.  There is no such thing as multi tasking.  The human brain is optimized to work on one thing at a time.  When you are “multi-tasking” you are really doing 2 or more things at less than 100%, usually by a wide margin.  I take pride in my work and when I’m doing something less than 100% the results typically degrade rapidly.    Now there are some ways of bending the rules of physics for this one.  There is the notion of getting a double amount of work done in the same timeframe.  Some examples would be listening to podcasts / watching a movie while working out, using a treadmill as your work desk, or reading while in the bathroom.    Personally I’ve found good results in combining one task that does not require focus (making dinner, playing certain video games, working out) and one task that does (watching a movie, listening to podcasts).  I believe this is related to me being a visual and kinesthetic (using my hands or actually doing it) learner.  I’m terrible with auditory learning.  My fiance and I joke that sometimes we talk and talk to each other but never really hear each other.   Goals / Tasks    Goals can give us direction in life and a sense of accomplishment when we complete them.  Goals can also overwhelm us and give us a sense of failure when we don’t complete them.  I propose that you shift your perspective and not dwell on all of the things that you haven’t gotten done, but focus instead on regularly setting measureable goals that are within reason of accomplishing.    At the end of each time frame have a retrospective to review your progress.  Do not feel guilty about what you did not accomplish.  Feel proud of what you did accomplish and readjust your goals for the next time frame to more attainable goals.  Here is a sample schedule I’ve seen proposed by some.  I have not consistently set goals for each timeframe, but I do typically set 3 small goals a day (this blog post is #2 for today). Each day set 3 small goals Each week set 3 medium goals Each month set 1 large goal Each year set 2 very large goals   Tools    Tools are an extension of our human body.  They help us extend beyond what we can physically and mentally do.  Below are some tools I use almost daily or have found useful as of late. Disclaimer: I am not getting endorsed to promote any of these products.  I just happen to like them and find them useful. Instapaper – Save internet links for reading later.  There are many tools like this but I’ve found this to be a great one.  There is even a “read it later” JavaScript button you can add to your browser so when you navigate to a site it will then add this to your list. Stacks for Instapaper – A Windows Phone 7 app for reading my Instapaper articles on the go.  It does require a subscription to Instapaper (nominal $3 every three months) but is easily worth the cost.  Alternatively you can set up your Kindle to sync with Instapaper easily but I haven’t done so. SlapDash Podcast – Apps for Windows Phone and  Windows 8 (possibly other platforms) to sync podcast viewing / listening across multiple devices.  Now that I have my Surface RT device (which I love) this is making my consumption easier to manage. Feed Reader – Simple Windows 8 app for quickly catching up on my RSS feeds.  I used to have hundreds of unread items all the time.  Now I’m down to 20-50 regularly and it is much easier and faster to consume on my Surface RT.  There is also a free version (which I use) and I can’t see much different between the free and paid versions currently. Rescue Time – Have you ever wondered how much time you’ve spent on websites vs. email vs. “doing work”?  This service tracks your computer actions and then lets you report on them.  This can help you quantitatively identify areas where your actions are not in line with your priorities. PowerShell – Windows automation tool.  It is now built into every client and server OS.  This tool has saved me days (and I mean the full 24 hrs worth) of time and effort in the past year alone.  If you haven’t started learning PowerShell and you administrating any Windows OS or server product you need to start today. Various blogging tools – I wrote a post a couple years ago called How I Blog about my blogging process and tools used.  Almost all of it still applies today.   Personal Health    Some of these may be common sense or debatable, but I’ve found them to help prioritize my daily activities. Get plenty of sleep on a regular basis.  Sacrificing sleep too many nights a week negatively impacts your cognition, attitude, and overall health. Exercise at least three days.  Exercise could be lifting weights, taking the stairs up multiple flights of stairs, walking for 20 mins, or a number of other "non-traditional” activities.  I find that regular exercise helps with sleep and improves my overall attitude. Eat a well balanced diet.  Too much sugar, caffeine, junk food, etc. are not good for your body.  This is not a matter of losing weight but taking care of your body and helping you perform at your peak potential.   Email    Email can be one of the biggest time consumers (i.e. waster) if you aren’t careful. Time box your email usage.  Set a meeting invite for yourself if necessary to limit how much time you spend checking email. Use rules to prioritize your email.  Email from external customers, my manager, or include me directly on the To line go into my inbox.  Everything else goes a level down and I have 30+ rules to further sort it, mostly distribution lists. Use keyboard shortcuts (when available).  I use Outlook for my primary email and am constantly hitting Alt + S to send, Ctrl + 1 for my inbox, Ctrl + 2 for my calendar, Space / Tab / Shift + Tab to mark items as read, and a number of other useful commands.  Learn them and you’ll see your speed getting through emails increase. Keep emails short.  No one Few people like reading through long emails.  The first line should state exactly why you are sending the email followed by a 3-4 lines to support it.  Anything longer might be better suited as a phone call or in person discussion.   Conclusion    In this post I walked through various tips and tricks I’ve found for improving personal productivity.  It is a mix of re-focusing on the things that matter, using tools to assist in your efforts, and cutting out actions that are not aligned with your priorities.  I originally had a whole section on keyboard shortcuts, but with my recent purchase of the Surface RT I’m finding that touch gestures have replaced numerous keyboard commands that I used to need.  I see a big future in touch enabled devices.  Hopefully some of these tips help you out.  If you have any tools, tips, or ideas you would like to share feel free to add in the comments section.         -Frog Out   Links Scott Hanselman Productivity posts http://www.hanselman.com/blog/CategoryView.aspx?category=Productivity Overcome your work addiction http://blogs.hbr.org/hbsfaculty/2012/05/overcome-your-work-addiction.html?awid=5512355740280659420-3271   Millennials paralyzed by choice http://priyaparker.com/blog/millennials-paralyzed-by-choice   Its Not What You Read Its What You Ignore (video) http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ItsNotWhatYouReadItsWhatYouIgnoreVideoOfScottHanselmansPersonalProductivityTips.aspx   Cutting the cord – Jeff Blankenburg http://www.jeffblankenburg.com/2011/04/06/cutting-the-cord/   Building a sitting standing desk – Eric Harlan http://www.ericharlan.com/Everything_Else/building-a-sitting-standing-desk-a229.html   Instapaper http://www.instapaper.com/u   Stacks for Instapaper http://www.stacksforinstapaper.com/   Slapdash Podcast Windows Phone -  http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/slapdash-podcasts/90e8b121-080b-e011-9264-00237de2db9e Windows 8 - http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-us/app/slapdash-podcasts/0c62e66a-f2e4-4403-af88-3430a821741e/m/ROW   Feed Reader http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-us/app/feed-reader/d03199c9-8e08-469a-bda1-7963099840cc/m/ROW   Rescue Time http://www.rescuetime.com/   PowerShell Script Center http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/scriptcenter/bb410849.aspx

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  • Stream Media and Live TV Across the Internet with Orb

    - by DigitalGeekery
    Looking for a way to stream your media collection across the Internet? Or perhaps watch and record TV remotely? Today we are going to look at how to do all that and more with Orb. Requirements Windows XP / Vista / 7 or Intel based Mac w/ OS X 10.5 or later. 1 GB RAM or more Pentium 4 2.4 GHz or higher / AMD Athlon 3200+ Broadband connections TV Tuner for streaming and recording live TV (optional) Note: Slower internet connections may result in stuttering during playback. Installation and Setup Download and install Orb on your home computer. (Download link below) You’ll want to take the defaults for the initial portion of the install. When we get to the Orb Account setup portion of the install is when we will have to enter information and make some decisions. Choose your language and click Next. We’ll need to create and user account and password. A valid email address is required as we’ll need to confirm the account later. Click Next.   Now you’ll want to choose your media sources. Orb will automatically look for folders that may contain media files. You can add or remove folders click on the (+) or (-) buttons. To remove a folder, click on it once to select it from the list and then click the minus (-) button. To add a folder, click the plus (+) button and browse for the folder. You can add local folders as well as shared folders from networked computers and USB attached storage. Note: Both the host computer running Orb and the networked computer will need to be running to access shared network folders remotely. When you’ve selected all your media files, click Next. Orb will proceed to index your media files… When the indexing is complete, click Next. Orb TV Setup Note: Streaming Live TV to Macs is not currently supported. If you have a TV tuner card connected to your PC, you can opt to configure Orb to stream live or recorded TV. Click Next  to configure TV. Or, choose Skip if you don’t wish to configure Orb for TV.   If you have a Digital tuner card, type in your Zip Code and click Get List to pull your channel listings. Select a TV provider from the list and click Next. If not, click Skip.   You can select or deselect any channels by checking or un-checking the box to each channel. Select Auto Scan to let Orb find more channels or disable the ones with no reception. Click Next when finished.   Next choose an analog provider, if necessary, and click Next.   Select “Yes” or “No” for a set top box and click Next. Just as we did with the Digital tuner, select or deselect any channels by checking or un-checking the box to each channel. Select Auto Scan to let Orb find more channels or disable the ones with no reception. Click Next when finished.   Now we’re finished with the setup. Click Close. Accessing your Media Remotely Media files are accessed through a web-based interface. Before we go any further, however, we’ll need to confirm our username and password. Check your inbox for an email from Orb Networks. Click the enclosed confirmation link. You’ll be prompted to enter the username and password you selected in your browser then click Next.   Your account will be confirmed. Now, we’re ready to enjoy our media remotely. To get started, point your browser to the MyCast website from your remote computer. (See link below) Enter your credentials and click Log In. Once logged in, you’ll be presented with the MyCast Home screen. By default you’ll see a handful of “channels” such as a TV program guide, random audio and photos, video favorites, and weather. You can add, remove, or customize channels. To add additional channels, click on Add Channels at the top right…   …and select from the dropdown list. To access your full media libraries, click Open Application at the top left and select from one of the options. Live and Recorded TV If you have a TV tuner card you configured for Orb, you’ll see your program guide on the TV / Webcams screen. To watch or record a show, click on the program listing to bring up a detail box. Then click the red button to record, or the green button to play. When recording a show, you’ll see a pulsating red icon at the top right of the listing in the program guide. If you want to watch Live TV, you may be prompted to choose your media player, depending on your browser and settings. Playback should begin shortly.   Note for Windows Media Center Users If you try to stream live TV in Orb while Windows Media Center is running on your PC, you’ll get an error message. Click the Stop MediaCenter button and then try again.   Audio On the Audio screen, you’ll find your music files indexed by genre, artist, and album. You can play a selection by clicking once and then clicking the green play button, or by simply double-clicking.   Playback will begin in the default media player for the streaming format.   Video Video works essentially the same as audio. Click on a selection and press the green play button, or double-click on the video title. Video playback will begin in the default media player for the streaming format.   Streaming Formats You can change the default streaming format in the control panel settings. To access the Control Panel, click on Open Applications  and select Control Panel. You can also click Settings at the top right.   Select General from the drop down list and then click on the Streaming Formats tab. You are provided four options. Flash, Windows Media, .SDP, and .PLS.   Creating Playlists To create playlists, drag and drop your media title to the playlist work area on the right, or click Add to playlist on the top menu. Click Save when finished.    Sharing your Media Orb allows you to share media playlists across the Internet with friends and family. There are a few ways to accomplish this. We’ll start by click the Share button at the bottom of the playlist work area after you’ve compiled your playlist. You’ll be prompted to choose a method by which to share your playlist. You’ll have the option to share your playlist publicly or privately. You can share publically through links, blogs, or on your Orb public profile.  By choosing the Public Profile option, Orb will automatically create a profile page for you with a URL like http://public.orb.com/username that anyone can easily access on the Internet. The private sharing option allows you to invite friends by email and requires recipients to register with Orb. You can also give your playlist a custom name, or accept the auto-generated title. Click OK when finished. Users who visit your public profile will be able to view and stream any of your shared playlists to their computer or supported device.   Portable Media Devices and Smartphones Orb can stream media to many portable devices and 3G phones. Streaming audio is supported on the iPhone and iPod Touch through the Safari browser. However, video and live TV streaming requires the Orb Live iPhone App.  Orb Live is available in the App store for $9.99. To stream media to your portable device, go to the MyCast website in your mobile browser and login. Browse for your media or playlist. Make a selection and play the media. Playback will begin. We found streaming music to both the Droid and the iPhone to work quite nicely. Video playback on the Droid, however, left a bit to be desired. The video looked good, but the audio tended to be out of sync. System Tray Control Panel By default Orb runs in the system tray on start up. To access the System Tray Control Panel, right-click on the Orb icon in the system tray and select Control Panel. Login with your Orb username and  password and click OK.   From here you can add or remove media sources, add manage accounts, change your password, and more. If you’d rather not run Orb on Startup, click the General icon.   Unselect the checkbox next to Start Orb when the system starts. Conclusion It may seem like a lot of steps, but getting Orb up and running isn’t terribly difficult. Orb is available for both Windows and Intel based Macs. It also supports streaming to many Game Consoles such as the Wii, PS3, and XBox 360. If you are running Windows 7 on multiple computers, you may want to check out our write-up on how to stream music and video over the Internet with Windows Media Player 12. Downloads Download Orb Logon to MyCast Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Stream Music and Video Over the Internet with Windows Media Player 12Enable Media Streaming in Windows Home Server to Windows Media PlayerStream Media from Windows 7 to XP with VLC Media PlayerShare Digital Media With Other Computers on a Home Network with Windows 7Automatically Start Windows 7 Media Center in Live TV Mode TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Looking for Good Windows Media Player 12 Plug-ins? Find Out the Celebrity You Resemble With FaceDouble Whoa ! Use Printflush to Solve Printing Problems Icelandic Volcano Webcams Open Multiple Links At One Go

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  • Option Trading: Getting the most out of the event session options

    - by extended_events
    You can control different aspects of how an event session behaves by setting the event session options as part of the CREATE EVENT SESSION DDL. The default settings for the event session options are designed to handle most of the common event collection situations so I generally recommend that you just use the defaults. Like everything in the real world though, there are going to be a handful of “special cases” that require something different. This post focuses on identifying the special cases and the correct use of the options to accommodate those cases. There is a reason it’s called Default The default session options specify a total event buffer size of 4 MB with a 30 second latency. Translating this into human terms; this means that our default behavior is that the system will start processing events from the event buffer when we reach about 1.3 MB of events or after 30 seconds, which ever comes first. Aside: What’s up with the 1.3 MB, I thought you said the buffer was 4 MB?The Extended Events engine takes the total buffer size specified by MAX_MEMORY (4MB by default) and divides it into 3 equally sized buffers. This is done so that a session can be publishing events to one buffer while other buffers are being processed. There are always at least three buffers; how to get more than three is covered later. Using this configuration, the Extended Events engine can “keep up” with most event sessions on standard workloads. Why is this? The fact is that most events are small, really small; on the order of a couple hundred bytes. Even when you start considering events that carry dynamically sized data (eg. binary, text, etc.) or adding actions that collect additional data, the total size of the event is still likely to be pretty small. This means that each buffer can likely hold thousands of events before it has to be processed. When the event buffers are finally processed there is an economy of scale achieved since most targets support bulk processing of the events so they are processed at the buffer level rather than the individual event level. When all this is working together it’s more likely that a full buffer will be processed and put back into the ready queue before the remaining buffers (remember, there are at least three) are full. I know what you’re going to say: “My server is exceptional! My workload is so massive it defies categorization!” OK, maybe you weren’t going to say that exactly, but you were probably thinking it. The point is that there are situations that won’t be covered by the Default, but that’s a good place to start and this post assumes you’ve started there so that you have something to look at in order to determine if you do have a special case that needs different settings. So let’s get to the special cases… What event just fired?! How about now?! Now?! If you believe the commercial adage from Heinz Ketchup (Heinz Slow Good Ketchup ad on You Tube), some things are worth the wait. This is not a belief held by most DBAs, particularly DBAs who are looking for an answer to a troubleshooting question fast. If you’re one of these anxious DBAs, or maybe just a Program Manager doing a demo, then 30 seconds might be longer than you’re comfortable waiting. If you find yourself in this situation then consider changing the MAX_DISPATCH_LATENCY option for your event session. This option will force the event buffers to be processed based on your time schedule. This option only makes sense for the asynchronous targets since those are the ones where we allow events to build up in the event buffer – if you’re using one of the synchronous targets this option isn’t relevant. Avoid forgotten events by increasing your memory Have you ever had one of those days where you keep forgetting things? That can happen in Extended Events too; we call it dropped events. In order to optimizes for server performance and help ensure that the Extended Events doesn’t block the server if to drop events that can’t be published to a buffer because the buffer is full. You can determine if events are being dropped from a session by querying the dm_xe_sessions DMV and looking at the dropped_event_count field. Aside: Should you care if you’re dropping events?Maybe not – think about why you’re collecting data in the first place and whether you’re really going to miss a few dropped events. For example, if you’re collecting query duration stats over thousands of executions of a query it won’t make a huge difference to miss a couple executions. Use your best judgment. If you find that your session is dropping events it means that the event buffer is not large enough to handle the volume of events that are being published. There are two ways to address this problem. First, you could collect fewer events – examine you session to see if you are over collecting. Do you need all the actions you’ve specified? Could you apply a predicate to be more specific about when you fire the event? Assuming the session is defined correctly, the next option is to change the MAX_MEMORY option to a larger number. Picking the right event buffer size might take some trial and error, but a good place to start is with the number of dropped events compared to the number you’ve collected. Aside: There are three different behaviors for dropping events that you specify using the EVENT_RETENTION_MODE option. The default is to allow single event loss and you should stick with this setting since it is the best choice for keeping the impact on server performance low.You’ll be tempted to use the setting to not lose any events (NO_EVENT_LOSS) – resist this urge since it can result in blocking on the server. If you’re worried that you’re losing events you should be increasing your event buffer memory as described in this section. Some events are too big to fail A less common reason for dropping an event is when an event is so large that it can’t fit into the event buffer. Even though most events are going to be small, you might find a condition that occasionally generates a very large event. You can determine if your session is dropping large events by looking at the dm_xe_sessions DMV once again, this time check the largest_event_dropped_size. If this value is larger than the size of your event buffer [remember, the size of your event buffer, by default, is max_memory / 3] then you need a large event buffer. To specify a large event buffer you set the MAX_EVENT_SIZE option to a value large enough to fit the largest event dropped based on data from the DMV. When you set this option the Extended Events engine will create two buffers of this size to accommodate these large events. As an added bonus (no extra charge) the large event buffer will also be used to store normal events in the cases where the normal event buffers are all full and waiting to be processed. (Note: This is just a side-effect, not the intended use. If you’re dropping many normal events then you should increase your normal event buffer size.) Partitioning: moving your events to a sub-division Earlier I alluded to the fact that you can configure your event session to use more than the standard three event buffers – this is called partitioning and is controlled by the MEMORY_PARTITION_MODE option. The result of setting this option is fairly easy to explain, but knowing when to use it is a bit more art than science. First the science… You can configure partitioning in three ways: None, Per NUMA Node & Per CPU. This specifies the location where sets of event buffers are created with fairly obvious implication. There are rules we follow for sub-dividing the total memory (specified by MAX_MEMORY) between all the event buffers that are specific to the mode used: None: 3 buffers (fixed)Node: 3 * number_of_nodesCPU: 2.5 * number_of_cpus Here are some examples of what this means for different Node/CPU counts: Configuration None Node CPU 2 CPUs, 1 Node 3 buffers 3 buffers 5 buffers 6 CPUs, 2 Node 3 buffers 6 buffers 15 buffers 40 CPUs, 5 Nodes 3 buffers 15 buffers 100 buffers   Aside: Buffer size on multi-processor computersAs the number of Nodes or CPUs increases, the size of the event buffer gets smaller because the total memory is sub-divided into more pieces. The defaults will hold up to this for a while since each buffer set is holding events only from the Node or CPU that it is associated with, but at some point the buffers will get too small and you’ll either see events being dropped or you’ll get an error when you create your session because you’re below the minimum buffer size. Increase the MAX_MEMORY setting to an appropriate number for the configuration. The most likely reason to start partitioning is going to be related to performance. If you notice that running an event session is impacting the performance of your server beyond a reasonably expected level [Yes, there is a reasonably expected level of work required to collect events.] then partitioning might be an answer. Before you partition you might want to check a few other things: Is your event retention set to NO_EVENT_LOSS and causing blocking? (I told you not to do this.) Consider changing your event loss mode or increasing memory. Are you over collecting and causing more work than necessary? Consider adding predicates to events or removing unnecessary events and actions from your session. Are you writing the file target to the same slow disk that you use for TempDB and your other high activity databases? <kidding> <not really> It’s always worth considering the end to end picture – if you’re writing events to a file you can be impacted by I/O, network; all the usual stuff. Assuming you’ve ruled out the obvious (and not so obvious) issues, there are performance conditions that will be addressed by partitioning. For example, it’s possible to have a successful event session (eg. no dropped events) but still see a performance impact because you have many CPUs all attempting to write to the same free buffer and having to wait in line to finish their work. This is a case where partitioning would relieve the contention between the different CPUs and likely reduce the performance impact cause by the event session. There is no DMV you can check to find these conditions – sorry – that’s where the art comes in. This is  largely a matter of experimentation. On the bright side you probably won’t need to to worry about this level of detail all that often. The performance impact of Extended Events is significantly lower than what you may be used to with SQL Trace. You will likely only care about the impact if you are trying to set up a long running event session that will be part of your everyday workload – sessions used for short term troubleshooting will likely fall into the “reasonably expected impact” category. Hey buddy – I think you forgot something OK, there are two options I didn’t cover: STARTUP_STATE & TRACK_CAUSALITY. If you want your event sessions to start automatically when the server starts, set the STARTUP_STATE option to ON. (Now there is only one option I didn’t cover.) I’m going to leave causality for another post since it’s not really related to session behavior, it’s more about event analysis. - Mike Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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  • Do’s and Don’ts Building SharePoint Applications

    - by Bil Simser
    SharePoint is a great platform for building quick LOB applications. Simple things from employee time trackers to server and software inventory to full blown Help Desks can be crafted up using SharePoint from just customizing Lists. No programming necessary. However there are a few tricks I’ve painfully learned over the years that you can use for your own solutions. DO What’s In A Name? When you create a new list, column, or view you’ll commonly name it something like “Expense Reports”. However this has the ugly effect of creating a url to the list as “Expense%20Reports”. Or worse, an internal field name of “Expense_x0x0020_Reports” which is not only cryptic but hard to remember when you’re trying to find the column by internal name. While “Expense Reports 2011” is user friendly, “ExpenseReports2011” is not (unless you’re a programmer). So that’s not the solution. Well, not entirely. Instead when you create your column or list or view use the scrunched up name (I can’t think of the technical term for it right now) of “ExpenseReports2011”, “WomenAtTheOfficeThatAreMen” or “KoalaMeatIsGoodWhenBroiled”. After you’ve created it, go back and change the name to the more friendly “Silly Expense Reports That Nobody Reads”. The original internal name will be the url and code friendly one without spaces while the one used on data entry forms and view headers will be the human version. Smart Columns When building a view include columns that make sense. By default when you add a column the “Add to default view” is checked. Resist the urge to be lazy and leave it checked. Uncheck that puppy and decide consciously what columns should be included in the view. Pick columns that make sense to what the user is trying to do. This means you have to talk to the user. Yes, I know. That can be trying at times and even painful. Go ahead, talk to them. You might learn something. Find out what’s important to them and why. If they’re doing something repetitively as part of their job, try to make their life easier by including what’s most important to them. Do they really need to see the Created *and* Modified date of a document or do they just need the title and author? You’ll only find out after talking to them (or getting them drunk in a bar and leaving them in the back alley handcuffed to a garbage bin, don’t ask). Gotta Keep it Separated Hey, views are there for a reason. Use them. While “All Items” is a fine way to present a list of well, all items, it’s hardly sufficient to present a list of servers built before the Y2K bug hit. You’ll be scrolling the list for hours finally arriving at Page 387 of 12,591 and cursing that SharePoint guy for convincing you that putting your hardware into a list would be of any use to anyone. Next to collecting the data, presenting it is just as important. Views are often overlooked and many times ignored or misused. They’re the way you can slice and dice the data up so that you’re not trying to consume 3,000 years of human evolution on a single web page. Remember views can be filtered so feel free to create a view for each status or one for each operating system or one for each species of Information Worker you might be putting in that list or document library. Not only will it reduce the number of items someone sees at one time, it’ll also make the information that much more relevant. Also remember that each view is a separate page. Use it in navigation by creating a menu on the Quick Launch to each view. The discoverability of the Views menu isn’t overly obvious and if you violate the rule of columns (see Horizontally Scrolling below) the view menu doesn’t even show up until you shuffle the scroll bar to the left. Navigation links, big giant buttons, a screaming flashing “CLICK ME NOW” will help your users find their way. Sort It! Views are great so we’re building nice, rich views for the user. Awesomesauce. However sort is not very discoverable by the user. For example when you’re looking at a view how do you know if it’s ascending or descending and what is it sorted on. Maybe it’s sorted using two fields so what’s that all about? Help your users by letting them know the information they’re looking at is sorted. Maybe you name the view something appropriate like “Bogus Expense Claims Sorted By Deadbeats”. If you use the naming strategy just make sure you keep the name consistent with the description. In the previous example their better be a Deadbeat column so I can see the sort in action. Having a “Loser” column, while equally correct, is a little obtuse to the average Information Worker. Remember, they usually don’t use acronyms and even if they knew how to, it’s not immediately obvious to them that’s what you’re trying to convey. Another option is to simply drop a Content Editor Web Part above the list and explain exactly the view they’re looking at. Each view is it’s own page so one CEWP won’t be used across the board. Be descriptive in what the user is seeing but try to keep it brief. Dumping the first chapter of I, Claudius might be informative to the data but can gobble up screen real estate and miss the point of having the list. DO NOT Useless Attachments The attachments column is, in a word, useless. For the most part. Sure it indicates there’s an attachment on the list item but in the grand scheme of things that’s not overly informative. Maybe it is and by all means, if it makes sense to you include it. Colour it. Make it shine and stand like the Return of Clippy on every SharePoint list. Without it being functional it can be boring. EndUserSharePoint.com has an article to make the son of Clippy that much more useful so feel free to head over and check out this blog post by Paul Grenier on the task (Warning code ahead! Danger Will Robinson!) In any case, I would suggest you remove it from your views. Again if it’s important then include it but consider the jQuery solution above to make it functional. It’s added by default to views and one of things that people forget to clean up. Horizontal Scrolling Screen real estate is premium so building a list that contains 8,000 columns and stretches horizontally across 15 screens probably isn’t the most user friendly experience. Most users can’t figure out how to scroll vertically let alone horizontally so don’t make it even that more confusing for them. Take the Steve Krug approach in your view designs and try not to make the user think. Again views are your friend. Consider splitting up the data into views where one view contains 10 columns and other view contains the other 10. Okay, maybe your information doesn’t work that way but humans can only process 7 pieces of data at a time, 10 at most (then their heads explode and you don’t want to clean that mess up, especially on a Friday night before the big dance). It drives me batshit crazy when I see a view with 80 columns of data. I often ask the user “So what do you do with all this information”. The response is usually “With this data [the first 10 columns] I decide if I’m going to fire everyone, and with this data [the next 10 columns] I decide if I’m going to set the building on fire and collect the insurance”. It’s at that point I show them how to create two new views “People Who Are About To Get The Axe” and “Beach Time For The Executives”. Again, talk to your users and try to reason with them on cutting down the number of columns they see at once. Vertical Scrolling Another big faux pas I find is the use of multi-line comment fields in views. It’s not so bad when you have a statement like this in your view: “I really like, oh my god, thought I was going to scream when I saw this turtle then I decided what I was going to have for dinner and frankly I hate having to work late so when I was talking to the customer I thought, oh my god, what if the customer has turtles and then it appeared to me that I really was hungry so I'm going to have lunch now.” It’s fine if that’s the only column along with two or three others, but once you slap those 20 columns of data into the list, the comment field wraps and forms a new multi-page novel that takes up your entire screen. Do everyone a favour and just avoid adding the column to views. Train the user to just click through to the item if they need to see the contents. Duplicate Information Duplication is never good. Views and great as you can group data together. For example create a view of project status reports grouped by author. Then you can see what project manager is being a dip and not submitting their report. However if you group by author do you really need the Created By field as well in the view? Or if the view is grouped by Project then Author do you need both. Horizontal real estate is always at a premium so try not to clutter up the view with duplicate data like this. Oh  yeah, if you’re scratching your head saying “But Bil, if I don’t include the Project name in the view and I have a lot of items then how do I know which one I’m looking at”. That’s a hint that your grouping is too vague or you have too much data in the view based on that criteria. Filter it down a notch, create some views, and try to keep the group down to a single screen where you can see the group header at the top of the page. Again it’s just managing the information you have. Redundant, See Redundant This partially relates to duplicate information and smart columns but basically remember to not include the obvious in a view. Remember, don’t make me think. If you’ve gone to the trouble (and it was a lot of trouble wasn’t it?) to create separate views of your data by creating a “September Zombie Brain Sales”, “October Zombie Brain Sales”, etc. then please for the love of all that is holy do not include the Month and Product columns in your view. Similarly if you create a “My” view of anything (“My Favourite Brands of Spandex”, “My Co-Workers I Find The Urge To Disinfect”) then again, do not include the owner or author field (or whatever field you use to identify “My”). That’s just silly. Hope that helps! Happy customizing!

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  • Building a Windows Phone 7 Twitter Application using Silverlight

    - by ScottGu
    On Monday I had the opportunity to present the MIX 2010 Day 1 Keynote in Las Vegas (you can watch a video of it here).  In the keynote I announced the release of the Silverlight 4 Release Candidate (we’ll ship the final release of it next month) and the VS 2010 RC tools for Silverlight 4.  I also had the chance to talk for the first time about how Silverlight and XNA can now be used to build Windows Phone 7 applications. During my talk I did two quick Windows Phone 7 coding demos using Silverlight – a quick “Hello World” application and a “Twitter” data-snacking application.  Both applications were easy to build and only took a few minutes to create on stage.  Below are the steps you can follow yourself to build them on your own machines as well. [Note: In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu] Building a “Hello World” Windows Phone 7 Application First make sure you’ve installed the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP – this includes the Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone development tool (which will be free forever and is the only thing you need to develop and build Windows Phone 7 applications) as well as an add-on to the VS 2010 RC that enables phone development within the full VS 2010 as well. After you’ve downloaded and installed the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP, launch the Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone that it installs or launch the VS 2010 RC (if you have it already installed), and then choose “File”->”New Project.”  Here, you’ll find the usual list of project template types along with a new category: “Silverlight for Windows Phone”. The first CTP offers two application project templates. The first is the “Windows Phone Application” template - this is what we’ll use for this example. The second is the “Windows Phone List Application” template - which provides the basic layout for a master-details phone application: After creating a new project, you’ll get a view of the design surface and markup. Notice that the design surface shows the phone UI, letting you easily see how your application will look while you develop. For those familiar with Visual Studio, you’ll also find the familiar ToolBox, Solution Explorer and Properties pane. For our HelloWorld application, we’ll start out by adding a TextBox and a Button from the Toolbox. Notice that you get the same design experience as you do for Silverlight on the web or desktop. You can easily resize, position and align your controls on the design surface. Changing properties is easy with the Properties pane. We’ll change the name of the TextBox that we added to username and change the page title text to “Hello world.” We’ll then write some code by double-clicking on the button and create an event handler in the code-behind file (MainPage.xaml.cs). We’ll start out by changing the title text of the application. The project template included this title as a TextBlock with the name textBlockListTitle (note that the current name incorrectly includes the word “list”; that will be fixed for the final release.)  As we write code against it we get intellisense showing the members available.  Below we’ll set the Text property of the title TextBlock to “Hello “ + the Text property of the TextBox username: We now have all the code necessary for a Hello World application.  We have two choices when it comes to deploying and running the application. We can either deploy to an actual device itself or use the built-in phone emulator: Because the phone emulator is actually the phone operating system running in a virtual machine, we’ll get the same experience developing in the emulator as on the device. For this sample, we’ll just press F5 to start the application with debugging using the emulator.  Once the phone operating system loads, the emulator will run the new “Hello world” application exactly as it would on the device: Notice that we can change several settings of the emulator experience with the emulator toolbar – which is a floating toolbar on the top right.  This includes the ability to re-size/zoom the emulator and two rotate buttons.  Zoom lets us zoom into even the smallest detail of the application: The orientation buttons allow us easily see what the application looks like in landscape mode (orientation change support is just built into the default template): Note that the emulator can be reused across F5 debug sessions - that means that we don’t have to start the emulator for every deployment. We’ve added a dialog that will help you from accidentally shutting down the emulator if you want to reuse it.  Launching an application on an already running emulator should only take ~3 seconds to deploy and run. Within our Hello World application we’ll click the “username” textbox to give it focus.  This will cause the software input panel (SIP) to open up automatically.  We can either type a message or – since we are using the emulator – just type in text.  Note that the emulator works with Windows 7 multi-touch so, if you have a touchscreen, you can see how interaction will feel on a device just by pressing the screen. We’ll enter “MIX 10” in the textbox and then click the button – this will cause the title to update to be “Hello MIX 10”: We provide the same Visual Studio experience when developing for the phone as other .NET applications. This means that we can set a breakpoint within the button event handler, press the button again and have it break within the debugger: Building a “Twitter” Windows Phone 7 Application using Silverlight Rather than just stop with “Hello World” let’s keep going and evolve it to be a basic Twitter client application. We’ll return to the design surface and add a ListBox, using the snaplines within the designer to fit it to the device screen and make the best use of phone screen real estate.  We’ll also rename the Button “Lookup”: We’ll then return to the Button event handler in Main.xaml.cs, and remove the original “Hello World” line of code and take advantage of the WebClient networking class to asynchronously download a Twitter feed. This takes three lines of code in total: (1) declaring and creating the WebClient, (2) attaching an event handler and then (3) calling the asynchronous DownloadStringAsync method. In the DownloadStringAsync call, we’ll pass a Twitter Uri plus a query string which pulls the text from the “username” TextBox. This feed will pull down the respective user’s most frequent posts in an XML format. When the call completes, the DownloadStringCompleted event is fired and our generated event handler twitter_DownloadStringCompleted will be called: The result returned from the Twitter call will come back in an XML based format.  To parse this we’ll use LINQ to XML. LINQ to XML lets us create simple queries for accessing data in an xml feed. To use this library, we’ll first need to add a reference to the assembly (right click on the References folder in the solution explorer and choose “Add Reference): We’ll then add a “using System.Xml.Linq” namespace reference at the top of the code-behind file at the top of Main.xaml.cs file: We’ll then add a simple helper class called TwitterItem to our project. TwitterItem has three string members – UserName, Message and ImageSource: We’ll then implement the twitter_DownloadStringCompleted event handler and use LINQ to XML to parse the returned XML string from Twitter.  What the query is doing is pulling out the three key pieces of information for each Twitter post from the username we passed as the query string. These are the ImageSource for their profile image, the Message of their tweet and their UserName. For each Tweet in the XML, we are creating a new TwitterItem in the IEnumerable<XElement> returned by the Linq query.  We then assign the generated TwitterItem sequence to the ListBox’s ItemsSource property: We’ll then do one more step to complete the application. In the Main.xaml file, we’ll add an ItemTemplate to the ListBox. For the demo, I used a simple template that uses databinding to show the user’s profile image, their tweet and their username. <ListBox Height="521" HorizonalAlignment="Left" Margin="0,131,0,0" Name="listBox1" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="476"> <ListBox.ItemTemplate> <DataTemplate> <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Height="132"> <Image Source="{Binding ImageSource}" Height="73" Width="73" VerticalAlignment="Top" Margin="0,10,8,0"/> <StackPanel Width="370"> <TextBlock Text="{Binding UserName}" Foreground="#FFC8AB14" FontSize="28" /> <TextBlock Text="{Binding Message}" TextWrapping="Wrap" FontSize="24" /> </StackPanel> </StackPanel> </DataTemplate> </ListBox.ItemTemplate> </ListBox> Now, pressing F5 again, we are able to reuse the emulator and re-run the application. Once the application has launched, we can type in a Twitter username and press the  Button to see the results. Try my Twitter user name (scottgu) and you’ll get back a result of TwitterItems in the Listbox: Try using the mouse (or if you have a touchscreen device your finger) to scroll the items in the Listbox – you should find that they move very fast within the emulator.  This is because the emulator is hardware accelerated – and so gives you the same fast performance that you get on the actual phone hardware. Summary Silverlight and the VS 2010 Tools for Windows Phone (and the corresponding Expression Blend Tools for Windows Phone) make building Windows Phone applications both really easy and fun.  At MIX this week a number of great partners (including Netflix, FourSquare, Seesmic, Shazaam, Major League Soccer, Graphic.ly, Associated Press, Jackson Fish and more) showed off some killer application prototypes they’ve built over the last few weeks.  You can watch my full day 1 keynote to see them in action. I think they start to show some of the promise and potential of using Silverlight with Windows Phone 7.  I’ll be doing more blog posts in the weeks and months ahead that cover that more. Hope this helps, Scott

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, April 29, 2010

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, April 29, 2010New ProjectsDesign Technology Laboratory: DTL project is prominent.Em-Lib: Electronic Music Library เป็นโปรแกรมที่พัฒนาขึ้นเพื่อให้เป็นห้องสมุดอิเล็กทรอนิกส์ โดยตัวโปรแกรมจะสามารถจำลองเครื่องดนตรี พร้อมข้อมูลที่เกี่ย...Extensions For ASP.NET: Extensions For ASP.NETFIM 2010 PowerShell Cmdlets: These PowerShell cmdlets let you manage objects in the Forefront Identity Manager 2010 web service easily and concisely. The five cmdlets let you e...Grunty OS: Grunty OS is a Free open source OS made my GruntXproductionsIrishDevelopers.net Test: IrishDevelopers.net TestJobping Url Shortener: MVC 2 project that Shortens urls Fully functioning 'bare bones' url shortening website. Just 1 page to create and display the short url. 'API' ...Made In Hell: Small console game. Just a training in code writings.manx: manx is a system for managing catalogs of technical documents. The system was created to handle the needs of the vintage computing community with ...ntn: playing around with new featuresOpen Bitrac: Bitrac is ASP.NET Blog SystemOpenNETCF.WindowsMobile.Ink: The Mobile Ink Library is a .NET component that provides support for the new Windows Mobile 6 WISP Lite API in your .NET Compact Framework applicat...Proxy Switch: Proxy switch is a program which allows the user to easily switch between a configured proxy server and a home network. The program is developed in ...Samcrypt: .Seoftware Evoluion Repository Mining: Project for mining data about develpoment effort from svn repository.SharePoint 2010 Bulk Document Importer: Need to import/migrate files and folders from servers and network shares into SharePoint 2010 document libraries? This free commandline application...SL2 - A Scala interpreter for L2: A simple L2 Interpreter. Just a project for a class.sMAPedit: -SocialCare: SocialCare - Team EUSOCIALSqlDiffFramework-A Visual Differencing Engine for Dissimilar Data Sources: Unique in database comparison, SDF lets you compare live data--or saved snapshots--from any combination of SQL Server, Oracle, MySql, or ODBC data ...Yasminuroban: Yasminuroban is an open source "Sokoban" (aka "Warehouse Keeper" or "Boxes") alike game totally written in DHTML (JavaScript, CSS and HTML) that us...Хрень для ао: Test project to implement Bot.New ReleasesAntySpam Microsoft Outlook Plugin: AntySpam Microsoft Outlook 2010 Plugin v.2.0.1: this release only tested on MS Outlook 2010 version: 14.0.4536.1000 (32-bit and 64-bit) part of Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010. Source pro...AppFabric Caching Admin Tool: AppFabric Caching Admin Tool 1.2: System Requirements:.NET 4.0 RC AppFabric Caching Beta2 Refresh Test On:Win 7 (64x) Note: Must run as Administrator !!!AutoSPInstaller: Powershell script to pre-download prerequisites: This script will download all files required by Prerequisiteinstaller.exe in advance, in order to support an 'offline' installation of SharePoint 2...BeanProxy: BeanProxy 2.5: BeanProxy is a C# (.NET 3.5) library housing classes that facilitates unit testing. Any non-static, public interface/class/or abstract class can be...Bluetooth Radar: Verison 2.2.1: Please follow this link for the latest release - http://bluetoothradar.codeplex.com/releases/view/44232CSS 360 Planetary Calendar: LCA: Upload your LCA ppt pieces here. Then someone can merge them together.DeskNotes: DeskNotes 2.1.2: Version in development which features following improvements over DeskNotes 2.1.1: Each DeskNote can be made switchable between other windows on Wi...DotNetNuke Russian Language packs: Core Russian Language Pack for DNN 05.04.01: Core Russian Resource Language Pack for DNN 05.04.01 Русский языковый пакет для DNN 05.04.01DotNetNuke® Community Edition: 05.04.01: Major Highlights Fixed issue with assembly version type. Fixed issue with multiple cancel buttons on Add User screen. Fixed issue with ve...Event Scavenger: Version 3.2: Tweaked the import foreign logs functionality. Set version to 3.2 for Admin tool, service and database. Viewer unaffected.Event Scavenger: Version 3.2 stable: Update viewer version to 3.2 for consistency. Minor changes for rest.Event Scavenger: Version 3.2.2: Added setting to enable/disable creation of historic data.FIM 2010 PowerShell Cmdlets: Initial Release of FIM 2010 PowerShell Cmdlets: Initial release of FIM 2010 PowerShell cmdlets based on open source FIM web service client. Install by running installutil on Quest.FIMPowerhellSna...Fix.ly: Fix.ly 0.2: Fixed a bug where non-verbose mode would not workJobping Url Shortener: Deployment Code v0.1: Contains only the files necessary to run the Url Shortener website. Just provide a valid connection string in the web.configMetabolite Enterprise Libraries for EPiServer CMS using Page Type Builder: Metabolite Enterprise Libraries 1.1: This is the release of the Metabolite Enterprise Libraries 1.1 for use with EPiServer 5 R2 SP2 and Page Type Builder 1.1. If you want to get the s...Metabolite Enterprise Libraries for EPiServer CMS using Page Type Builder: Metabolite Enterprise Libraries 1.1 (source): This is the source code release of the Metabolite Enterprise Libraries 1.1 for use with EPiServer 5 R2 SP2 and Page Type Builder 1.1.MVC Music Store: MVC Music Store v0.8: This is the initial release of the MVC Music Store Tutorial. Download contains source and a tutorial document in PDF format.MyWSAT - ASP.NET Membership Administration Tool: MyWSAT v3.5.2: MyWSAT 3.5.2 Update Notes - April 28th 2010 1.) Fixed theme engine for administration area. Now I can create theme packages to make them available ...N2 CMS: 2.0 rc2: N2 is a lightweight CMS framework for ASP.NET. It helps you build great web sites that anyone can update. Major Changes (1.5 -> 2.0 release candid...NodeXL: Network Overview, Discovery and Exploration for Excel: NodeXL Excel 2007 Template, version 1.0.1.122: The NodeXL Excel 2007 template displays a network graph using edge and vertex lists stored in an Excel 2007 workbook. What's NewThis version signi...nRoute Framework: nRoute.Toolkit Release Version 0.4.5: Release Targets, Silverlight and WPF: - Targets Silverlight 4 for Web - Targets WPF in .NET 4 for Desktop nRoute Dependencies: - System.Windows...NSIS Autorun: NSIS Autorun 0.1.4: NSIS Autorun 0.1.4 This release includes source code, application binary, and example materials.OpenNETCF.WindowsMobile.Ink: Initial Release: This is the source as originally hosted in the OpenNETCF SVN server.Resharper Settings Manager: RSM v2.1: Warning! The 'Load Settings File...' menu item won't show up in VS 2008. Will release an update soon. ChangesReworked plug-in options UI: Split RSM...RoTwee: RoTwee (11.1.0.0): Rotation is improved from 11.0.0.3.SharePoint 2010 Bulk Document Importer: SharePoint 2010 Bulk Document Importer 1.0.0.0: Features in 1.0.0.0 Command line interface Import folders and files with all subfolders Can be run from outside the SharePoint Server. Every a...sMAPedit: sMAPedit v0.6 (Base): + base version containing the applicaion & html resourcesSocialCare: SocialCare_src: Codigo Fonte da Aplicação e Banco de DadosTFS Code Comment Checking Policy (CCCP): CCCP 4.0 for VS2010: This release installs side-by-side with CCCP 3.0 for VS2008 SP1.VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30428.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVCC: Latest build, v2.1.30428.1: Automatic drop of latest buildVCC: Latest build, v2.1.30428.2: Automatic drop of latest buildХрень для ао: Первый релиз: Пробую что это такое.Most Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control Toolkitpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibrarySilverlight ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)ASP.NETiTuner - The iTunes CompanionMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesMost Active Projectspatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryRawrHydroServer - CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System ServerIonics Isapi Rewrite FilterGMap.NET - Great Maps for Windows Forms & PresentationNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModuleParticle Plot PivotSqlDiffFramework-A Visual Differencing Engine for Dissimilar Data SourcesN2 CMSBlogEngine.NET

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, March 10, 2010

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, March 10, 2010New ProjectsASP.NET jQuery MessageBox: The ASP.NET jQuery it's an Web User Control that uses jQuery framework to enable diferent ways to present information to the user, by using these ...CommentRemover: Utility for removing comments from source codes. Support PL/SQL, Delphi, C/C#/C++ Developed in C# Requirement Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5DotNetNuke® RadMenu: DNNRadMenu makes it easy to create skins which use telerik RadMenu functionality. Licensing permits anyone (including designers) to use the compon...DotNetNuke® Skin AlphaBrisk: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Web Standards" category by dnnskin.net. Eight themes using transparent png, div, CSS, ...DotNetNuke® Skin Collaborate: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Modern Business" category by Cuong Dang of R2Integrated. This package is 100% XHTML an...DotNetNuke® Skin TR: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Out of the box" category by Tracy Wittenkeller of T-Worx. This package is 100% XHTML, ...Encrypted Notes: Encrypted Notes is similar to Notes, but uses Triple DES to encrypt text and files. It has a random key generator, and can save the key. It is deve...FalconLobby: FalconLobby is an authorized AddOn for Falcon 4.0 Allied Force which was created to support the multiplayer experience. FalconLobby retrieves the l...INETA Europe WebSite: Website for INETA EuropeInsert a Favorite (Bookmark) plugin for Windows Live Writer: This Windows Live Writer plugin allows you to select a Favorite (Bookmark) and insert it into your blog entry.Javascript Lib: an javascript libraryjqGrid ASP.Net MVC Control: A fully integrated ASP.Net MVC (2.0) grid control based on the successfull jqGrid plugin for the jQuery jscript framework. Among the features of...Mosaictor: Mosaictor is a per project of mine that I started halfway my education. It is a photo mosaic creator using locally saved files and files obtained t...Notes: Notes is a simple but fast text editor. It can save in many text formats, and includes many features, such as templates (soon to be customizable), ...notmuchweb: A web frontend for notmuchPervasiveID: The PID is actively involved in Open Source ID community-building and education. PID members frequently travel the world to attend ID conferences a...Proyect Electronica: Proyecto de electronicaRapidshare Downloader 2: Rapidshare Downloader 2ROAD is Rapid Oberon Application Development: A suite of integrated tools for the develpment of Oberon-2 applicationSDNTFSIntegration: TFS Integration.SilverlightImageUpload: SilverlightImageUploadSMIL - SharePoint Map Integration Layer: .Useful SharePoint Site Workflow Utilities: This project aims to make it easy use SharePoint 2010's Site Workflows as "event handlers" for various back end systems by providing ways to start ...Windows Media Autorization: Windows Media Autorizaton PlugIn for windows media 9 WinMo Twitter Widget StarterKit: This project will allow you to quickly create Widgets that run on a Windows Mobile 6.5 phone to allow you to view Tweets designated by a hash tag. ...XNA 3D World Studio Content Pipeline: XNA 3D World Studio Content Pipeline New ReleasesAPSales - CRM Software as a Service: APSales 0.1.2: This version add some interesting features to the project: Implements a Grid Control Custom View Query Use lastest version(2.0.2) of APEnnead.net ...ASP.NET jQuery MessageBox: ASP.NET jQuery MessageBox 0.1: Project Description The ASP.NET jQuery it's an Web User Control que uses jQuery framework to enable diferent ways to present information to the use...BTP Tools: CSBC+CUVC+HCSBC.dict files 2010-03-09: a space character should be only between <Strong Number Pattern> and <Count> like: <Text><Strong Number pattern><space character> <Count> The abov...Citrix HDX MediaStream for Flash System Verifier: HDX Flash Verifier Beta (v1.20): Reduced the number of exceptions that terminate the verification process.Code examples, utilities and misc from Lars Wilhelmsen [MVP]: LarsW.MexEdmxFixer 1.5: Added some missing sub elements from the EDMX file's Designer element; Connection and Output. Without them, some of the properties in the designer ...CommonLibrary.NET: CommonLibrary.NET 0.9.4 - Beta 2: A collection of very reusable code and components in C# 3.5 ranging from ActiveRecord, Csv, Command Line Parsing, Configuration, Holiday Calendars,...Encrypted Notes: Source Code: This has the all the code for Encrypted Notes in a Text file.Hybrid Windows Service: Release Assembly: Main Assembly. Usage: 1. Add reference to this dll in your 'Windows Service' project. 2. Replace references to ServiceBase to HybridServiceBase in...jqGrid ASP.Net MVC Control: Version 1.0.0.0: Initial Versionkdar: KDAR 0.0.16: KDAR - Kernel Debugger Anti Rootkit - KINTERRUPT object check added - load image notifier check addedlatex2mathml: 1.0 alpha: This is the first public release of Latex2MathML. Lots are left to add and fix. I encourage you to test it. If something goes wrong, send me the lo...MapWindow GIS: MapWindow 6.0 msi (March 9): This fixes a bug with saving and opening maps.Microsoft Research Biology Extension for Excel: MSR Biology Extension for Excel - Beta 2 (Update): This is an updated release for the Beta 2 Installer for the MSR Biology Extension for Excel. A couple of identified issues with the installation f...Notes: Notes 5.2: This is the latest version of Notes (5.2). It has an installer - it will create a directory 'CPascoe' in My Documents. Once you have extracted the...Notes: Source Code: This has the all the code for Notes in a Text file.RedBulb for XNA Framework: Tree Massacre XMAS Edition (Sample): Tree Massacre XMAS Edition Source Code and Creators Club Package http://bayimg.com/image/jalkiaacb.jpgRoTwee: RoTwee (7.0.2.0): Now color mode is introduced to RoTwee. Push change color button and you can change color mode of RoTwee. Recommended mode is active rainbow mode :)SharePoint Team-Mailer: SharePoint Team-Mailer v1.0: Recommended versionsPWadmin: pwAdmin v0.7_nightly: Nightly Build --------------------- + Target JRE -> 1.5.0_21 + Target ApplicationServer -> Apache Tomcat 5.5.28 + Added xml editor (only working fo...SQL Server PowerShell Extensions: 2.1 Production: Release 2.1 re-implements SQLPSX as PowersShell version 2.0 modules. SQLPSX consists of 9 modules with 133 advanced functions, 2 cmdlets and 7 scri...TMap for VS2010: TMap for VS2010 (MSF Agile) RC Release: Release of the TMap process template for VS2010 combined with the MSF Agile process template basd on the Release Candidate. The references to the g...TS3QueryLib.Net: TS3QueryLib.Net Version 0.19.14.0: Changelog Added property "IsClientRecording" to class "ClientListEntry" which is used in method "GetClientList" of QueryRunner class. (Change of Be...VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30309.0: Automatic drop of latest buildWinMo Twitter Widget StarterKit: Tweet Viewer Files: Files necessary to create your own Tweet ViewerWPF AutoComplete TextBox Control: Version 1.1: This release includes accumulated bug fixes since the initial release. Besides, adds experimental asynchronous support. Sample application gets...XNA 3D World Studio Content Pipeline: XNA 3DWS Content Pipeline: This is an rar file containing the latest content importer codeMost Popular ProjectsMetaSharpWBFS ManagerRawrAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)ASP.NETMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesASP.NET Ajax LibraryMost Active ProjectsUmbraco CMSRawrSDS: Scientific DataSet library and toolsjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesBlogEngine.NETN2 CMSFasterflect - A Fast and Simple Reflection APIFarseer Physics Enginepatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryCaliburn: An Application Framework for WPF and Silverlight

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  • Run WordPress & Other Web Apps with Windows Web Platform

    - by Matthew Guay
    Would you like to run WordPress or other web apps on your PC so you can easily test and design websites?  Here we’ll look at how you can get the latest web apps on your computer in only a few quick steps. Many web apps today, such as WordPress, MediaWiki, and more, are open source and can be run for free from any computer with even a simple local web server.  They are often very difficult to install on your computer, since they require a number of dependencies such as PHP and MySQL.  Microsoft has worked to make this easier, releasing the Windows Web Platform Installer.  This lets you install many popular web apps and free tools in Windows with only a few clicks. Here we’re going to look at how to install WordPress and the free Visual Web Developer 2010 Express to edit web code with the Web Platform Installer.  But, if you’d rather install a different web app or tool, feel free to choose those as the installations are generally similar. Getting Started Head over to Microsoft’s Web development site and download the Web Platform Installer (link below).  This will download very quick, as it is just a small loader.  When you run this loader, it will download the Web Platform Installer files.  The Web Platform Installer works on XP, Vista, and Windows 7, as well as the related versions of Windows Server. After a couple moments, the Web Platform Installer will open and load information about the latest web offerings.    Now you can choose what you want to install.  You can quickly select the recommended products for several categories such as Web Server, Database, and more. Alternately, click Customize under the category and select exactly what you want to install.  Note that items already installed on your computer will be grayed out. We wanted to install Visual Web Developer 2010 Express, so select Customize under Tools, and select Visual Web Developer 2010 Express. Or, for more preset choices, select Options on the bottom of the window. You can choose to add Multimedia, Developer, and Enterprise tools to the lists, or add a new preset list from a feed. Choose Specific Web apps to Install We wanted to install WordPress, so instead of choosing a preset, select the Web Applications tab on the left.  Now you can choose from a variety of apps based on category, or you can view them all together in an A to Z, Most Popular, or Highest Rating list. Click the checkbox beside the app you want to install to select it, or click the “i” for more information. Here’s the More Information pane for WordPress.  If you’re ready to install it, click the checkbox. Now you can go back and add more web apps or tools to the install list if you like.  The Web Platform Installer will automatically find and select prerequisite apps such as MySQL, so you won’t need to worry about finding them. Once you’ve selected everything you want to install, click the Install button on the bottom of the window. The Web Platform Installer will now show you everything that’s selected, including components that it automatically selected.  Notice we only chose to install WordPress and Visual Web Developer 2010 Express, but it also has selected MySQL and PHP automatically.  Click I Accept to proceed. Enter an administrator password for MySQL before the setup begins. Now the Web Platform Installer will take over, automatically downloading, installing, and configuring all of your web apps.  It will also activate optional Windows components that may be needed on your computer.  This may take several minutes, depending on the components you selected and your internet speed.   Setting up Your Test Site Once the installation is finished, you’ll be asked to enter some information about your site.  You can simply accept the defaults or enter your own choices, and then click Continue. Now you’ll need to enter some information for your web apps.  When installing WordPress, you’ll need to choose a database and enter administrative usernames and passwords.  You may also be asked to enter extra information for additional security, but for a local-only test site this isn’t necessary.  Click Continue when you’re finished. You’ll need to wait a few more moments as it complete the setup of your web apps.  The good thing is, once it’s finished, they’ll be ready to go with only minimal configuration. And you’re finished!  The installer will let you know everything it installed, and if there were any problems.  In our test, Visual Web Developer 2010 Express failed to install successfully.  Often the problems may be with the download, so click Finish and then reselect the apps that didn’t install and run the installer again. Now you’re ready to run WordPress from your PC.  Click the Launch WordPress link or enter http://localhost:80/wordpress in your browser to get started. You’ll only have a little more setup to do on WordPress to get it running.  Once you’ve opened your WordPress page in your browser, enter a name for your blog and your email address, and click Install WordPress.   After a few seconds, you should see a Success! page with your username and a temporary password.  Copy the password, and then click Log In. Enter admin as the Username and paste the random generated password, and click Log In. WordPress will remind you to change the default password.  Click the Yes, Take me to my profile page link to do this. Enter something easier for you to remember, and click Update Profile. Now you’re ready to enjoy your new WordPress install on Windows.  You can add plugins and themes, and everything else you’d do with a normal WordPress site.  Here’s the dashboard running from localhost. And here’s the default blog running. Setting up Visual Web Developer 2010 Express As mentioned before, Visual Web Developer 2010 Express didn’t install correctly on our first try, but the second time it installed seamlessly.  Once it’s installed, launch it from your start menu as normal.  It may take a few minutes to load on the first run as it is finishing up setup. You may notice that the splash screen displayed while the program is loading says For Evaluation Purposes Only.  This is because you still need to register the program. You have 30 days to register the program, but let’s go ahead and do it to get this step out of the way.  Click Help in the menu bar, and select Register Product. Click Obtain a registration key online in the popup window. You’ll need to sign in with your Windows Live ID, and then fill out a quick form. When you’re done, copy the registration key displayed and paste it into the registration dialog in Visual Web Developer.   Now you’ve got a registered, free web development program with full standards compliance and IntelliSense to help you work smarter and faster.  And it works great with your local web apps, so you can create, tweak, and then deploy, all from your desktop with this simple installer! Install More Apps You can always run the Web Platform Installer again in the future and add more apps if you’d like.  The install adds a link to the Installer in the Start menu; just run it and repeat the steps above with your new selections. Also, from the installer, you can cleanup the setup files downloaded during the installation if you want.  Click the Options link in the bottom of the window, and then scroll down and select Delete installer cache folder. Uninstalling the apps is not as easy, unfortunately.  If you wish to uninstall the Web Platform Installer and everything you installed with it, you’ll need to uninstall each item individually.  One easy way to see what was all installed together is to sort the entries in Uninstall Programs by date.  In our case, we also installed some other applications on the same day, but it’s easier to see what was installed together. Or if you are not a fan of using Programs and Features to uninstall them, try out a program like Revo Uninstaller Pro. Conclusion Whether you’re a full-time web developer or just enjoy testing out the latest web apps, the Web Platform Installer makes it quick and easy to get your computer loaded up with the latest bits.  In fact, it’s easier to install these tools with all their dependencies than it is to install many standard boxed programs. If you’d like to take your web server anywhere you go and not have it confined to your desktop, then check out our article on how to Turn Your Flashdrive into a Portable Webserver. Link Download the Microsoft Web Platform Installer Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Linux QuickTip: Downloading and Un-tarring in One StepQuick Tip: Set a Future Date for a Post in WordPressHow-To Geek SoftwareAdd Social Bookmarking (Digg This!) Links to your Wordpress BlogHow-To Geek Software: WordPress Comment Moderation Notifier 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 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 Windows Media Player Glass Icons (icons we like) How to Forecast Weather, without Gadgets Outlook Tools, one stop tweaking for any Outlook version Zoofs, find the most popular tweeted YouTube videos Video preview of new Windows Live Essentials 21 Cursor Packs for XP, Vista & 7

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  • Oracle Coherence & Oracle Service Bus: REST API Integration

    - by Nino Guarnacci
    This post aims to highlight one of the features found in Oracle Coherence which allows it to be easily added and integrated inside a wider variety of projects.  The features in question are the REST API exposed by the Coherence nodes, with which you can interact in the wider mode in memory data grid.Oracle Coherence and Oracle Service Bus are natively integrated through a feature found in the Oracle Service Bus, which allows you to use the coherence grid cache during the configuration phase of a business service. This feature allows you to use an intermediate layer of cache to retrieve the answers from previous invocations of the same service, without necessarily having to invoke the real business service again. Directly from the web console of Oracle Service Bus, you can decide the policies of eviction of the objects / answers and define the discriminating parameters that identify their uniqueness.The coherence REST APIs, however, allow you to integrate both products for other necessities enabling realization of new architectures design.  Consider coherence’s node as a simple service which interoperates through the stardard services and in particular REST (with JSON and XML). Thinking of coherence as a company’s shared service, able to have an implementation of a centralized “map and reduce” which you can access  by a huge variety of protocols (transport and envelopes).An amazing step forward for those who still imagine connectors and code. This type of integration does not require writing custom code or complex implementation to be self-supported. The added value is made unique by the incredible value of both products independently, and still more out of their simple and robust integration.As already mentioned this scenario discovers a hidden new door behind the columns of these two products. The door leads to new ideas and perspectives for enterprise architectures that increasingly wink to next-generation applications: simple and dynamic, perhaps towards the mobile and web 2.0.Below, a small and simple demo useful to demonstrate how easily is to integrate these two products using the Coherence REST API. This demo is also intended to imagine new enterprise architectures using this approach.The idea is to create a centralized system of alerting, fed easily from any company’s application, regardless of the technology with which they were built . Then use a representation standard protocol: RSS, using a service exposed by the service bus; So you can browse and search only the alerts that you are interested on, by category, author, title, date, etc etc.. The steps needed to implement this system are very simple and very few. Here they are listed below and described to be easily replicated within your environment. I would remind you that the demo is only meant to demonstrate how easily is to integrate Oracle Coherence and the Oracle Service Bus, and stimulate your imagination to new technological approaches.1) Install the two products: In this demo used (if necessary, consult the installation guides of 2 products)  - Oracle Service Bus ver. 11.1.1.5.0 http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/service-bus/downloads/index.html - Oracle Coherence ver. 3.7.1 http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/coherence/downloads/index.html 2) Because you choose to create a centralized alerting system, we need to define a structure type containing some alerting attributes useful to preserve and organize the information of the various alerts sent by the different applications. Here, then it was built a java class named Alert containing the canonical properties of an alarm information:- Title- Description- System- Time- Severity 3) Therefore, we need to create two configuration files for the coherence node, in order to save the Alert objects within the grid, through the rest/http protocol (more than the native API for Java, C + +, C,. Net). Here are the two minimal configuration files for Coherence:coherence-rest-config.xml resty-server-config.xml This minimum configuration allows me to use a distributed cache named "alerts" that can  also be accessed via http - rest on the host "localhost" over port "8080", objects are of type “oracle.cohsb.Alert”. 4) Below  a simple Java class that represents the type of alert messages: 5) At this point we just need to startup our coherence node, able to listen on http protocol to manage the “alerts” cache, which will receive incoming XML or JSON objects of type Alert. Remember to include in the classpath of the coherence node, the Alert java class and the following coherence libraries and configuration files:  At this point, just run the coherence class node “com.tangosol.net.DefaultCacheServer”advising you to set the following parameters:-Dtangosol.coherence.log.level=9 -Dtangosol.coherence.log=stdout -Dtangosol.coherence.cacheconfig=[PATH_TO_THE_FILE]\resty-server-config.xml 6) Let's create a procedure to test our configuration of Coherence and in order to insert some custom alerts in our cache. The technology with which you want to achieve this functionality is fully not considerable: Javascript, Python, Ruby, Scala, C + +, Java.... Because the protocol to communicate with Coherence is simply HTTP / JSON or XML. For this little demo i choose Java: A method to send/put the alert to the cache: A method to query and view the content of the cache: Finally the main method that execute our methods:  No special library added in the classpath for our class (json struct static defined), when it will be executed, it asks some information such as title, description,... in order to compose and send an alert to the cache and then it will perform an inquiry, to the same cache. At this point, a good exercise at this point, may be to create the same procedure using other technologies, such as a simple html page containing some JavaScript code, and then using Python, Ruby, and so on.7) Now we are ready to start configuring the Oracle Service Bus in order to integrate the two products. First integrate the internal alerting system of Oracle Service Bus with our centralized alerting system based on coherence node. This ensures that by monitoring, or directly from within our Proxy Message Flow, we can throw alerts and save them directly into the Coherence node. To do this I choose to use the jms technology, natively present inside the Oracle Weblogic / Service Bus. Access to the Oracle WebLogic Administration console and create and configure a new JMS connection factory and a new jms destination (queue). Now we should create a new resource of type “alert destination” within our Oracle Service Bus project. The new “alert destination” resource should be configured using the newly created connection factory jms and jms destination. Finally, in order to withdraw the message alert enqueued in our JMS destination and send it to our coherence node, we just need to create a new business service and proxy service within our Oracle Service Bus project.Our business service is responsible for sending a message to our REST service Coherence using as a method action: PUT Finally our proxy service have to collect all messages enqueued on the destination, execute an xquery transformation on those messages  in order to translate them into valid XML / alert objects useful to be sent to our coherence service, through the newly created business service. The message flow pipeline containing the xquery transformation: Incredibly,  we just did a basic first integration between the native alerting system of Oracle Service Bus and our centralized alerting system by simply configuring our coherence node without developing anything.It's time to test it out. To do this I create a proxy service able to generate an alert using our "alert destination", whenever the proxy is invoked. After some invocation to our proxy that generates fake alerts, we could open an Internet browser and type the URL  http://localhost: 8080/alerts/  so we could see what has been inserted within the coherence node. 8) We are ready for the final step.  We would create a new message flow, that can be used to search and display the results in standard mode. To do this I choosen the standard representation of RSS, to display a formatted result on a huge variety of devices such as readers for the iPhone and Android. The inquiry may be defined already at the time of the request able to return only feed / items related to our needs. To do this we need to create a new business service, a new proxy service, and finally a new XQuery Transformation to take care of translating the collection of alerts that will be return from our coherence node in a nicely formatted RSS standard document.So we start right from this resource (xquery), which has the task of transforming a collection of alerts / xml returned from the node coherence in a type well-formatted feed RSS 2.0 our new business service that will search the alerts on our coherence node using the Rest API. And finally, our last resource, the proxy service that will be exposed as an RSS / feeds to various mobile devices and traditional web readers, in which we will intercept any search query, and transform the result returned by the business service in an RSS feed 2.0. The message flow with the transformation phase (Alert TO Feed Items): Finally some little tricks to follow during the routing to the business service, - check for any queries present in the url to require a subset of alerts  - the http header "Accept" to help get an answer XML instead of JSON: In our little demo we also static added some coherence parameters to the request:sort=time:desc;start=0;count=100I would like to get from Coherence that the results will be sorted by date, and starting from 1 up to a maximum of 100.Done!!Just incredible, our centralized alerting system is ready. Inheriting all the qualities and capabilities of the two products involved Oracle Coherence & Oracle Service Bus: - RASP (Reliability, Availability, Scalability, Performance)Now try to use your mobile device, or a normal Internet browser by accessing the RSS just published: Some urls you may test: Search for the last 100 alerts : http://localhost:7001/alarmsSearch for alerts that do not have time set to null (time is not null):http://localhost:7001/alarms?q=time+is+not+nullSearch for alerts that the system property is “Web Browser” (system = ‘Web Browser’):http://localhost:7001/alarms?q=system+%3D+%27Web+Browser%27Search for alerts that the system property is “Web Browser” and the severity property is “Fatal” and the title property contain the word “Javascript”  (system = ‘Web Broser’ and severity = ‘Fatal’ and title like ‘%Javascript%’)http://localhost:8080/alerts?q=system+%3D+%27Web+Browser%27+AND+severity+%3D+%27Fatal%27+AND+title+LIKE+%27%25Javascript%25%27 To compose more complex queries about your need I would suggest you to read the chapter in the coherence documentation inherent the Cohl language (Coherence Query Language) http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E24290_01/coh.371/e22837/api_cq.htm . Some useful links: - Oracle Coherence REST API Documentation http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E24290_01/coh.371/e22839/rest_intro.htm - Oracle Service Bus Documentation http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E21764_01/soa.htm#osb - REST explanation from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_state_transfer At this URL could be downloaded the whole materials of this demo http://blogs.oracle.com/slc/resource/cosb/coh-sb-demo.zip Author: Nino Guarnacci.

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  • Building the Ultimate SharePoint 2010 Development Environment

    - by Manesh Karunakaran
    It’s been more than a month since SharePoint 2010 RTMed. And a lot of people have downloaded and set up their very own SharePoint 2010 development rigs. And quite a few people have written blogs about setting up good development environments, there is even an MSDN article on it. Two of the blogs worth noting are from MVPs Sahil Malik and Wictor Wilén. Make sure that you check these out as well. Part of the bad side-effects of being a geek is the need to do the technical stuff the best way possible (pragmatic or otherwise), but the problem with this is that what is considered “best” is relative. Precisely the reason why you are reading this post now. Most of the posts that I read are out dated/need updations or are using the wrong OS’es or virtualization solutions (again, opinions vary) or using them the wrong way. Here’s a developer’s view of Building the Ultimate SharePoint 2010 Development Rig. If you are a sales guy, it’s time to close this window. Confusion 1: Which Host Operating System and Virtualization Solution to use? This point has been beaten to death in numerous blog posts in the past, if you have time to invest, read this excellent post by our very own SharePoint Joel on this subject. But if you are planning to build the Ultimate Development Rig, then Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V is the option that you should be looking at. I have been using this as my primary OS for about 6-7 months now, and I haven’t had any Driver issue or Application compatibility issue. In my experience all the Windows 7 drivers work fine with WIN2008 R2 also. You can enable Aero for eye candy (and the Windows 7 look and feel) and except for a few things like the Hibernation support (which a can be enabled if you really want it), Windows Server 2008 R2, is the best Workstation OS that I have used till date. But frankly the answer to this question of which OS to use depends primarily on one question - Are you willing to change your primary OS? If the answer to that is ‘Yes’, then Windows 2008 R2 with Hyper-V is the best option, if not look at vmWare or VirtualBox, both are equally good. Those who are familiar with a Virtual PC background might prefer Sun VirtualBox. Besides, these provide support for running 64 bit guest machines on 32 bit hosts if the underlying hardware is truly 64 bit. See my earlier post on this. Since we are going to make the ultimate rig, we will use Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V, for reasons mentioned above. Confusion 2: Should I use a multi-(virtual) server set up? A lot of people use multiple servers for their development environments - like Wictor Wilén is suggesting - one server hosting the Active directory, one hosting SharePoint Server and another one for SQL Server. True, this mimics the production environment the best possible way, but as somebody who has fallen for this set up earlier, I can tell you that you don’t really get anything by doing this. Microsoft has done well to ensure that if you can do it on one machine, you can do it in a farm environment as well. Besides, when you run multiple Server class machine instances in parallel, there are a lot of unwanted processor cycles wasted for no good use. In my personal experience, as somebody who needs to switch between MOSS 2007/SharePoint 2010 environments from time to time, the best possible solution is to Make the host Windows Server 2008 R2 machine your Domain Controller (AD Server) Make all your Virtual Guest OS’es join this domain. Have each Individual Guest OS Image have it’s own local SQL Server instance. The advantages are that you can reuse the users and groups in each of the Guest operating systems, you can manage the users in one place, AD is light weight and doesn't take too much resources on your host machine and also having separate SQL instances for each of the Development images gives you maximum flexibility in terms of configuration, for example your SharePoint rigs can have simpler DB configurations, compared to your MS BI blast pits. Confusion 3: Which Operating System should I use to run SharePoint 2010 Now that’s a no brainer. Use Windows 2008 R2 as your Guest OS. When you are building the ultimate rig, why compromise? If you are planning to run Windows Server 2008 as your Guest OS, there are a few patches that you need to install at different times during the installation, for that follow the steps mentioned here Okay now that we have made our choices, let’s get to the interesting part of building the rig, Step 1: Prepare the host machine – Install Windows Server 2008 R2 Install Windows Server 2008 R2 on your best Desktop/Laptop. If you have read this far, I am quite sure that you are somebody who can install an OS on your own, so go ahead and do that. Make sure that you run the compatibility wizard before you go ahead and nuke your current OS. There are plenty of blogs telling you how to make a good Windows 2008 R2 Workstation that feels and behaves like a Windows 7 machine, follow one and once you are done, head to Step 2. Step 2: Configure the host machine as a Domain Controller Before we begin this, let me tell you, this step is completely optional, you don’t really need to do this, you can simply use the local users on the Guest machines instead, but if this is a much cleaner approach to manage users and groups if you run multiple guest operating systems.  This post neatly explains how to configure your Windows Server 2008 R2 host machine as a Domain Controller. Follow those simple steps and you are good to go. If you are not able to get it to work, try this. Step 3: Prepare the guest machine – Install Windows Server 2008 R2 Open Hyper-V Manager Choose to Create a new Guest Operating system Allocate at least 2 GB of Memory to the Guest OS Choose the Windows 2008 R2 Installation Media Start the Virtual Machine to commence installation. Once the Installation is done, Activate the OS. Step 4: Make the Guest operating systems Join the Domain This step is quite simple, just follow these steps below, Fire up Hyper-V Manager, open your Guest OS Click on Start, and Right click on ‘Computer’ and choose ‘Properties’ On the window that pops-up, click on ‘Change Settings’ On the ‘System Properties’ Window that comes up, Click on the ‘Change’ button Now a window named ‘Computer Name/Domain Changes’ opens up, In the text box titled Domain, type in the Domain name from Step 2. Click Ok and windows will show you the welcome to domain message and ask you to restart the machine, click OK to restart. If the addition to domain fails, that means that you have not set up networking in Hyper-V for the Guest OS to communicate with the Host. To enable it, follow the steps I had mentioned in this post earlier. Step 5: Install SQL Server 2008 R2 on the Guest Machine SQL Server 2008 R2 gets installed with out hassle on Windows Server 2008 R2. SQL Server 2008 needs SP2 to work properly on WIN2008 R2. Also SQL Server 2008 R2 allows you to directly add PowerPivot support to SharePoint. Choose to install in SharePoint Integrated Mode in Reporting Server Configuration. Step 6: Install KB971831 and SharePoint 2010 Pre-requisites Now install the WCF Hotfix for Microsoft Windows (KB971831) from this location, and SharePoint 2010 Pre-requisites from the SP2010 Installation media. Step 7: Install and Configure SharePoint 2010 Install SharePoint 2010 from the installation media, after the installation is complete, you are prompted to start the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard. If you are using a local instance of Microsoft SQL Server 2008, install the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 KB 970315 x64 before starting the wizard. If your development environment uses a remote instance of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 or if it has a pre-existing installation of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 on which KB 970315 x64 has already been applied, this step is not necessary. With the wizard open, do the following: Install SQL Server 2008 KB 970315 x64. After the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 KB 970315 x64 installation is finished, complete the wizard. Alternatively, you can choose not to run the wizard by clearing the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard check box and closing the completed installation dialog box. Install SQL Server 2008 KB 970315 x64, and then manually start the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard by opening a Command Prompt window and executing the following command: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared Debug\Web Server Extensions\14\BIN\psconfigui.exe The SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard may fail if you are using a computer that is joined to a domain but that is not connected to a domain controller. Step 8: Install Visual Studio 2010 and SharePoint 2010 SDK Install Visual Studio 2010 Download and Install the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 SDK Step 9: Install PowerPivot for SharePoint and Configure Reporting Services Pop-In the SQLServer 2008 R2 installation media once again and install PowerPivot for SharePoint. This will get added as another instance named POWERPIVOT. Configure Reporting Services by following the steps mentioned here, if you need to get down to the details on how the integration between SharePoint 2010 and SQL Server 2008 R2 works, see Working Together: SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services Integration in SharePoint 2010 an excellent article by Alan Le Marquand Step 10: Download and Install Sample Databases for Microsoft SQL Server 2008R2 SharePoint 2010 comes with a lot of cool stuff like PerformancePoint Services and BCS, if you need to try these out, you need to have data in your databases. So if you want to save yourself the trouble of creating sample data for your PerformancePoint and BCS experiments, download and install Sample Databases for Microsoft SQL Server 2008R2 from CodePlex. And you are done! Fire up your Visual Studio 2010 and Start Coding away!!

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  • Silverlight Recruiting Application Part 6 - Adding an Interview Scheduling Module/View

    Between the last post and this one I went ahead and carried the ideas for the Jobs module and view into the Applicants module and view- they're both doing more or less the same thing, except with different objects being at their core.  Made for an easy cut-and-paste operation with a few items being switched from one to another.  Now that we have the ability to add postings and applicants, wouldn't it be nice if we could schedule an interview?  Of course it would! Scheduling Module I think you get the drift from previous posts that these project structures start looking somewhat similar.  The interview scheduling module is no different than the rest- it gets a SchedulingModule.cs file at the root that inherits from IModule, and there is a single SchedulerView.xsml and SchedulerViewModel.cs setup for our V+VM.  We have one unique concern as we enter into this- RadScheduler deals with AppointmentsSource, not ItemsSource, so there are some special considerations to take into account when planning this module. First, I need something which inherits from AppointmentBase.  This is the core of the RadScheduler appointment, and if you are planning to do any form of custom appointment, you'll want it to inherit from this.  Then you can add-on functionality as needed.  Here is my addition to the mix, the InterviewAppointment: 01.public class InterviewAppointment : AppointmentBase 02.{ 03.    private int _applicantID; 04.    public int ApplicantID 05.    { 06.        get { return this._applicantID; } 07.        set 08.        { 09.            if (_applicantID != value) 10.            { 11.                _applicantID = value; 12.                OnPropertyChanged("ApplicantID"); 13.            } 14.        } 15.    } 16.   17.    private int _postingID; 18.    public int PostingID 19.    { 20.        get { return _postingID; } 21.        set 22.        { 23.            if (_postingID != value) 24.            { 25.                _postingID = value; 26.                OnPropertyChanged("PostingID"); 27.            } 28.        } 29.    } 30.   31.    private string _body; 32.    public string Body 33.    { 34.        get { return _body; } 35.        set 36.        { 37.            if (_body != value) 38.            { 39.                _body = value; 40.                OnPropertyChanged("Body"); 41.            } 42.        } 43.    } 44.   45.    private int _interviewID; 46.    public int InterviewID 47.    { 48.        get { return _interviewID; } 49.        set 50.        { 51.            if (_interviewID != value) 52.            { 53.                _interviewID = value; 54.                OnPropertyChanged("InterviewID"); 55.            } 56.        } 57.    } 58.   59.    public override IAppointment Copy() 60.    { 61.        IAppointment appointment = new InterviewAppointment(); 62.        appointment.CopyFrom(this);             63.        return appointment; 64.    } 65.   66.    public override void CopyFrom(IAppointment other) 67.    {             68.        base.CopyFrom(other); 69.        var appointment = other as InterviewAppointment; 70.        if (appointment != null) 71.        { 72.            ApplicantID = appointment.ApplicantID; 73.            PostingID = appointment.PostingID; 74.            Body = appointment.Body; 75.            InterviewID = appointment.InterviewID; 76.        } 77.    } 78.} Nothing too exciting going on here, we just make sure that our custom fields are persisted (specifically set in CopyFrom at the bottom) and notifications are fired- otherwise this ends up exactly like the standard appointment as far as interactions, etc.  But if we've got custom appointment items... that also means we need to customize what our appointment dialog window will look like. Customizing the Edit Appointment Dialog This initially sounds a lot more intimidating than it really is.  The first step here depends on what you're dealing with for theming, but for ease of everything I went ahead and extracted my templates in Blend for RadScheduler so I could modify it as I pleased.  For the faint of heart, the RadScheduler template is a few thousand lines of goodness since there are some very complex things going on in that control.  I've gone ahead and trimmed down the template parts I don't need as much as possible, so what is left is all that is relevant to the Edit Appointment Dialog.  Here's the resulting Xaml, with line numbers, so I can explain further: 001.<UserControl.Resources> 002.    <!-- begin Necessary Windows 7 Theme Resources for EditAppointmentTemplate --> 003.    <helpers:DataContextProxy x:Key="DataContextProxy" /> 004.       005.    <telerik:Windows7Theme x:Key="Theme" /> 006.    <SolidColorBrush x:Key="DialogWindowBackground" 007.                     Color="White" /> 008.    <SolidColorBrush x:Key="CategorySelectorBorderBrush" 009.                     Color="#FFB1B1B1" /> 010.    <LinearGradientBrush x:Key="RadToolBar_InnerBackground" 011.                         EndPoint="0.5,1" 012.                         StartPoint="0.5,0"> 013.        <GradientStop Color="#FFFDFEFF" 014.                      Offset="0" /> 015.        <GradientStop Color="#FFDDE9F7" 016.                      Offset="1" /> 017.        <GradientStop Color="#FFE6F0FA" 018.                      Offset="0.5" /> 019.        <GradientStop Color="#FFDCE6F4" 020.                      Offset="0.5" /> 021.    </LinearGradientBrush> 022.    <Style x:Key="FormElementTextBlockStyle" 023.           TargetType="TextBlock"> 024.        <Setter Property="HorizontalAlignment" 025.                Value="Right" /> 026.        <Setter Property="VerticalAlignment" 027.                Value="Top" /> 028.        <Setter Property="Margin" 029.                Value="15, 15, 0, 2" /> 030.    </Style> 031.    <Style x:Key="FormElementStyle" 032.           TargetType="FrameworkElement"> 033.        <Setter Property="Margin" 034.                Value="10, 10, 0, 2" /> 035.    </Style> 036.    <SolidColorBrush x:Key="GenericShallowBorderBrush" 037.                     Color="#FF979994" /> 038.    <telerik:BooleanToVisibilityConverter x:Key="BooleanToVisibilityConverter" /> 039.    <telerikScheduler:ImportanceToBooleanConverter x:Key="ImportanceToBooleanConverter" /> 040.    <telerikScheduler:NullToVisibilityConverter x:Key="NullToVisibilityConverter" /> 041.    <telerikScheduler:InvertedNullToVisibilityConverter x:Key="InvertedNullToVisibilityConverter" /> 042.    <scheduler:ResourcesSeparatorConverter x:Key="ResourcesSeparatorConverter" /> 043.    <DataTemplate x:Key="IconDataEditTemplate"> 044.        <Image Source="/Telerik.Windows.Controls.Scheduler;component/Themes/Office/Images/cal.png" 045.               Margin="3,3,0,0" 046.               Width="16" 047.               Height="16" /> 048.    </DataTemplate> 049.    <DataTemplate x:Key="SingleSelectionTemplate"> 050.        <Grid VerticalAlignment="Stretch" 051.              HorizontalAlignment="Stretch"> 052.            <Grid.RowDefinitions> 053.                <RowDefinition Height="Auto" /> 054.            </Grid.RowDefinitions> 055.            <Grid.ColumnDefinitions> 056.                <ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" 057.                                  MinWidth="84" /> 058.                <ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" 059.                                  MinWidth="200" /> 060.            </Grid.ColumnDefinitions> 061.            <TextBlock x:Name="SelectionNameLabel" 062.                       Margin="0,13,4,2" 063.                       Text="{Binding ResourceType.DisplayName}" 064.                       Style="{StaticResource FormElementTextBlockStyle}" 065.                       Grid.Column="0" /> 066.            <telerikInput:RadComboBox ItemsSource="{Binding ResourceItems}" 067.                                      Width="185" 068.                                      Margin="5,10,20,2" 069.                                      HorizontalAlignment="Left" 070.                                      Grid.Column="1" 071.                                      ClearSelectionButtonVisibility="Visible" 072.                                      ClearSelectionButtonContent="Clear All" 073.                                      DisplayMemberPath="Resource.DisplayName" 074.                                      telerik:StyleManager.Theme="{StaticResource Theme}" 075.                                      SelectedItem="{Binding SelectedItem, Mode=TwoWay}" /> 076.        </Grid> 077.    </DataTemplate> 078.    <DataTemplate x:Key="MultipleSelectionTemplate"> 079.        <Grid VerticalAlignment="Stretch" 080.              HorizontalAlignment="Stretch"> 081.            <Grid.RowDefinitions> 082.                <RowDefinition Height="Auto" /> 083.            </Grid.RowDefinitions> 084.            <Grid.ColumnDefinitions> 085.                <ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" 086.                                  MinWidth="84" /> 087.                <ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" 088.                                  MinWidth="200" /> 089.            </Grid.ColumnDefinitions> 090.            <TextBlock x:Name="SelectionNameLabel" 091.                       Grid.Column="0" 092.                       Text="{Binding ResourceType.DisplayName}" 093.                       Margin="0,13,4,2" 094.                       Style="{StaticResource FormElementTextBlockStyle}" /> 095.            <telerikInput:RadComboBox Grid.Column="1" 096.                                      Width="185" 097.                                      HorizontalAlignment="Left" 098.                                      Margin="5,10,20,2" 099.                                      ItemsSource="{Binding ResourceItems}" 100.                                      SelectedIndex="{Binding SelectedIndex, Mode=TwoWay}" 101.                                      ClearSelectionButtonVisibility="Visible" 102.                                      ClearSelectionButtonContent="Clear All" 103.                                      telerik:StyleManager.Theme="{StaticResource Theme}"> 104.                <telerikInput:RadComboBox.ItemTemplate> 105.                    <DataTemplate> 106.                        <Grid HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" 107.                              VerticalAlignment="Stretch"> 108.                            <CheckBox VerticalAlignment="Center" 109.                                      HorizontalContentAlignment="Stretch" 110.                                      VerticalContentAlignment="Center" 111.                                      IsChecked="{Binding IsChecked, Mode=TwoWay}" 112.                                      Content="{Binding Resource.DisplayName}"> 113.                                <CheckBox.ContentTemplate> 114.                                    <DataTemplate> 115.                                        <TextBlock HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" 116.                                                   VerticalAlignment="Stretch" 117.                                                   Text="{Binding Content, RelativeSource={RelativeSource TemplatedParent}}" /> 118.                                    </DataTemplate> 119.                                </CheckBox.ContentTemplate> 120.                            </CheckBox> 121.                        </Grid> 122.                    </DataTemplate> 123.                </telerikInput:RadComboBox.ItemTemplate> 124.            </telerikInput:RadComboBox> 125.        </Grid> 126.    </DataTemplate> 127.    <scheduler:ResourceTypeTemplateSelector x:Key="ItemTemplateSelector" 128.                                            MultipleSelectionTemplate="{StaticResource MultipleSelectionTemplate}" 129.                                            SingleSelectionTemplate="{StaticResource SingleSelectionTemplate}" /> 130.    <!-- end Necessary Windows 7 Theme Resources for EditAppointmentTemplate -->  131.       132.    <ControlTemplate x:Key="EditAppointmentTemplate" 133.                     TargetType="telerikScheduler:AppointmentDialogWindow"> 134.        <StackPanel Background="{TemplateBinding Background}" 135.                    UseLayoutRounding="True"> 136.            <StackPanel Grid.Row="0" 137.                        Orientation="Horizontal" 138.                        Background="{StaticResource RadToolBar_InnerBackground}" 139.                        Grid.ColumnSpan="2" 140.                        Height="0"> 141.                <!-- Recurrence buttons --> 142.                <Border Margin="1,1,0,0" 143.                        Background="#50000000" 144.                        HorizontalAlignment="Left" 145.                        VerticalAlignment="Center" 146.                        Width="2" 147.                        Height="16"> 148.                    <Border Margin="0,0,1,1" 149.                            Background="#80FFFFFF" 150.                            HorizontalAlignment="Left" 151.                            Width="1" /> 152.                </Border> 153.                <Border Margin="1,1,0,0" 154.                        Background="#50000000" 155.                        HorizontalAlignment="Left" 156.                        VerticalAlignment="Center" 157.                        Width="2" 158.                        Height="16"> 159.                    <Border Margin="0,0,1,1" 160.                            Background="#80FFFFFF" 161.                            HorizontalAlignment="Left" 162.                            Width="1" /> 163.                </Border> 164.                <TextBlock telerik:LocalizationManager.ResourceKey="ShowAs" 165.                           VerticalAlignment="Center" 166.                           Margin="5,0,0,0" /> 167.                <telerikInput:RadComboBox ItemsSource="{TemplateBinding TimeMarkers}" 168.                                          Width="100" 169.                                          Height="20" 170.                                          VerticalAlignment="Center" 171.                                          Margin="5,0,0,0" 172.                                          ClearSelectionButtonVisibility="Visible" 173.                                          ClearSelectionButtonContent="Clear" 174.                                          SelectedItem="{Binding TimeMarker,RelativeSource={RelativeSource TemplatedParent},Mode=TwoWay}" 175.                                          telerik:StyleManager.Theme="{StaticResource Theme}"> 176.                    <telerikInput:RadComboBox.ItemTemplate> 177.                        <DataTemplate> 178.                            <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal"> 179.                                <Rectangle Fill="{Binding TimeMarkerBrush}" 180.                                           Margin="2" 181.                                           Width="12" 182.                                           Height="12" /> 183.                                <TextBlock Text="{Binding TimeMarkerName}" 184.                                           Margin="2" /> 185.                            </StackPanel> 186.                        </DataTemplate> 187.                    </telerikInput:RadComboBox.ItemTemplate> 188.                </telerikInput:RadComboBox> 189.                <telerik:RadToggleButton x:Name="High" 190.                                         BorderThickness="0" 191.                                         Background="{StaticResource RadToolBar_InnerBackground}" 192.                                         DataContext="{TemplateBinding EditedAppointment}" 193.                                         telerik:StyleManager.Theme="{StaticResource Theme}" 194.                                         IsChecked="{Binding Importance,Mode=TwoWay, Converter={StaticResource ImportanceToBooleanConverter},ConverterParameter=High}" 195.                                         Margin="2,2,0,2" 196.                                         Width="23" 197.                                         Height="23" 198.                                         HorizontalContentAlignment="Center" 199.                                         ToolTipService.ToolTip="High importance" 200.                                         CommandParameter="High" 201.                                         Command="telerikScheduler:RadSchedulerCommands.SetAppointmentImportance"> 202.                    <StackPanel HorizontalAlignment="Center"> 203.                        <Path Stretch="Fill" 204.                              Height="10" 205.                              HorizontalAlignment="Center" 206.                              VerticalAlignment="Top" 207.                              Width="5.451" 208.                              Data="M200.39647,58.840393 C200.39337,58.336426 201.14566,57.683922 202.56244,57.684292 C204.06589,57.684685 204.73764,58.357765 204.72783,58.992363 C205.04649,61.795574 203.04713,64.181099 202.47388,66.133446 C201.93753,64.154961 199.9471,61.560352 200.39647,58.840393 z"> 209.                            <Path.Fill> 210.                                <LinearGradientBrush EndPoint="1.059,0.375" 211.                                                     StartPoint="-0.457,0.519"> 212.                                    <GradientStop Color="#FFFF0606" 213.                                                  Offset="0.609" /> 214.                                    <GradientStop Color="#FFBF0303" 215.                                                  Offset="0.927" /> 216.                                </LinearGradientBrush> 217.                            </Path.Fill> 218.                        </Path> 219.                        <Ellipse Height="3" 220.                                 HorizontalAlignment="Center" 221.                                 Margin="0,-1,0,0" 222.                                 VerticalAlignment="Top" 223.                                 Width="3"> 224.                            <Ellipse.Fill> 225.                                <RadialGradientBrush> 226.                                    <GradientStop Color="#FFFF0606" 227.                                                  Offset="0" /> 228.                                    <GradientStop Color="#FFBF0303" 229.                                                  Offset="1" /> 230.                                </RadialGradientBrush> 231.                            </Ellipse.Fill> 232.                        </Ellipse> 233.                    </StackPanel> 234.                </telerik:RadToggleButton> 235.                <telerik:RadToggleButton x:Name="Low" 236.                                         HorizontalContentAlignment="Center" 237.                                         BorderThickness="0" 238.                                         Background="{StaticResource RadToolBar_InnerBackground}" 239.                                         DataContext="{TemplateBinding EditedAppointment}" 240.                                         IsChecked="{Binding Importance,Mode=TwoWay, Converter={StaticResource ImportanceToBooleanConverter},ConverterParameter=Low}" 241.                                         Margin="0,2,0,2" 242.                                         Width="23" 243.                                         Height="23" 244.                                         ToolTipService.ToolTip="Low importance" 245.                                         CommandParameter="Low" 246.                                         telerik:StyleManager.Theme="{StaticResource Theme}" 247.                                         Command="telerikScheduler:RadSchedulerCommands.SetAppointmentImportance"> 248.                    <Path Stretch="Fill" 249.                          Height="12" 250.                          HorizontalAlignment="Center" 251.                          VerticalAlignment="Top" 252.                          Width="9" 253.                          Data="M222.40353,60.139881 L226.65768,60.139843 L226.63687,67.240196 L229.15347,67.240196 L224.37816,71.394943 L219.65274,67.240196 L222.37572,67.219345 z" 254.                          Stroke="#FF0365A7"> 255.                        <Path.Fill> 256.                            <LinearGradientBrush EndPoint="1.059,0.375" 257.                                                 StartPoint="-0.457,0.519"> 258.                                <GradientStop Color="#FFBBE4FF" /> 259.                                <GradientStop Color="#FF024572" 260.                                              Offset="0.836" /> 261.                                <GradientStop Color="#FF43ADF4" 262.                                              Offset="0.466" /> 263.                            </LinearGradientBrush> 264.                        </Path.Fill> 265.                    </Path> 266.                </telerik:RadToggleButton> 267.            </StackPanel > 268.            <Border DataContext="{TemplateBinding EditedAppointment}" 269.                    Background="{Binding Category.CategoryBrush}" 270.                    Visibility="{Binding Category,Converter={StaticResource NullToVisibilityConverter}}" 271.                    CornerRadius="3" 272.                    Height="20" 273.                    Margin="5,10,5,0"> 274.                <TextBlock Text="{Binding Category.DisplayName}" 275.                           VerticalAlignment="Center" 276.                           Margin="5,0,0,0" /> 277.            </Border> 278.            <Grid VerticalAlignment="Stretch" 279.                  HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" 280.                  DataContext="{TemplateBinding EditedAppointment}" 281.                  Background="{TemplateBinding Background}"> 282.                <Grid.RowDefinitions> 283.                    <RowDefinition Height="Auto" /> 284.                    <RowDefinition Height="Auto" /> 285.                    <RowDefinition Height="Auto" /> 286.                    <RowDefinition Height="Auto" /> 287.                    <RowDefinition Height="Auto" /> 288.                    <RowDefinition Height="Auto" /> 289.                    <RowDefinition Height="Auto" /> 290.                    <RowDefinition Height="Auto" /> 291.                    <RowDefinition Height="Auto" /> 292.                    <RowDefinition Height="Auto" /> 293.                </Grid.RowDefinitions> 294.                <Grid.ColumnDefinitions> 295.                    <ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" 296.                                      MinWidth="100" /> 297.                    <ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" 298.                                      MinWidth="200" /> 299.                </Grid.ColumnDefinitions> 300.                <!-- Subject --> 301.                <TextBlock x:Name="SubjectLabel" 302.                           Grid.Row="0" 303.                           Grid.Column="0" 304.                           Margin="0,15,0,2" 305.                           telerik:LocalizationManager.ResourceKey="Subject" 306.                           Style="{StaticResource FormElementTextBlockStyle}" /> 307.                <TextBox x:Name="Subject" 308.                         Grid.Row="0" 309.                         Grid.Column="1" 310.                         MinHeight="22" 311.                         Padding="4 2" 312.                         Width="340" 313.                         HorizontalAlignment="Left" 314.                         Text="{Binding Subject, Mode=TwoWay}" 315.                         MaxLength="255" 316.                         telerik:StyleManager.Theme="{StaticResource Theme}" 317.                         Margin="10,12,20,2" /> 318.                <!-- Description --> 319.                <TextBlock x:Name="DescriptionLabel" 320.                           Grid.Row="1" 321.                           Grid.Column="0" 322.                           Margin="0,13,0,2" 323.                           telerik:LocalizationManager.ResourceKey="Body" 324.                           Style="{StaticResource FormElementTextBlockStyle}" /> 325.                <TextBox x:Name="Body" 326.                         VerticalAlignment="top" 327.                         Grid.Row="1" 328.                         Grid.Column="1" 329.                         Height="Auto" 330.                         MaxHeight="82" 331.                         Width="340" 332.                         HorizontalAlignment="Left" 333.                         MinHeight="22" 334.                         Padding="4 2" 335.                         TextWrapping="Wrap" 336.                         telerik:StyleManager.Theme="{StaticResource Theme}" 337.                         Text="{Binding Body, Mode=TwoWay}" 338.                         AcceptsReturn="true" 339.                         Margin="10,10,20,2" 340.                         HorizontalScrollBarVisibility="Auto" 341.                         VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto" /> 342.                <!-- Start/End date --> 343.                <TextBlock x:Name="StartDateLabel" 344.                           Grid.Row="2" 345.                           Grid.Column="0" 346.                           Margin="0,13,0,2" 347.                           telerik:LocalizationManager.ResourceKey="StartTime" 348.                           Style="{StaticResource FormElementTextBlockStyle}" /> 349.                <telerikScheduler:DateTimePicker x:Name="StartDateTime" 350.                                                 Height="22" 351.                                                 Grid.Row="2" 352.                                                 Grid.Column="1" 353.                                                 HorizontalAlignment="Left" 354.                                                 Margin="10,10,20,2" 355.                                                 Style="{StaticResource FormElementStyle}" 356.                                                 SelectedDateTime="{Binding Start, Mode=TwoWay}" 357.                                                 telerikScheduler:StartEndDatePicker.EndPicker="{Binding ElementName=EndDateTime}" 358.                                                 IsTabStop="False" 359.                                                 IsEnabled="False" /> 360.                <TextBlock x:Name="EndDateLabel" 361.                           Grid.Row="3" 362.                           Grid.Column="0" 363.                           Margin="0,13,0,2" 364.                           telerik:LocalizationManager.ResourceKey="EndTime" 365.                           Style="{StaticResource FormElementTextBlockStyle}" /> 366.                <telerikScheduler:DateTimePicker x:Name="EndDateTime" 367.                                                 Height="22" 368.                                                 Grid.Row="3" 369.                                                 Grid.Column="1" 370.                                                 HorizontalAlignment="Left" 371.                                                 Margin="10,10,20,2" 372.                                                 Style="{StaticResource FormElementStyle}" 373.                                                 IsTabStop="False" 374.                                                 IsEnabled="False" 375.                                                 SelectedDateTime="{Binding End, Mode=TwoWay}" /> 376.                <!-- Is-all-day selector --> 377.                <CheckBox x:Name="AllDayEventCheckbox" 378.                          IsChecked="{Binding IsAllDayEvent, Mode=TwoWay}" 379.                          Grid.Row="4" 380.                          Grid.Column="1" 381.                          Margin="10,10,20,2" 382.                          HorizontalAlignment="Left" 383.                          telerik:StyleManager.Theme="{StaticResource Theme}" 384.                          telerik:LocalizationManager.ResourceKey="AllDayEvent"> 385.                    <telerik:CommandManager.InputBindings> 386.                        <telerik:InputBindingCollection> 387.                            <telerik:MouseBinding Command="telerikScheduler:RadSchedulerCommands.ChangeTimePickersVisibility" 388.                                                  Gesture="LeftClick" /> 389.                        </telerik:InputBindingCollection> 390.                    </telerik:CommandManager.InputBindings> 391.                </CheckBox> 392.                <Grid Grid.Row="5" 393.                      Grid.ColumnSpan="2"> 394.                    <Grid.ColumnDefinitions> 395.                        <ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" 396.                                          MinWidth="100" /> 397.                        <ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" 398.                                          MinWidth="200" /> 399.                    </Grid.ColumnDefinitions> 400.                    <Grid.RowDefinitions> 401.                        <RowDefinition Height="Auto" /> 402.                        <RowDefinition Height="Auto" /> 403.                    </Grid.RowDefinitions> 404.                    <TextBlock Text="Applicant" 405.                               Margin="0,13,0,2" 406.                               Style="{StaticResource FormElementTextBlockStyle}" /> 407.                    <telerikInput:RadComboBox IsEditable="False" 408.                                              Grid.Column="1" 409.                                              Height="24" 410.                                              VerticalAlignment="Center" 411.                                              ItemsSource="{Binding Source={StaticResource DataContextProxy}, Path=DataSource.ApplicantList}" 412.                                              SelectedValue="{Binding ApplicantID, Mode=TwoWay}" 413.                                              SelectedValuePath="ApplicantID" 414.                                              DisplayMemberPath="FirstName" /> 415.                       416.                    <TextBlock Text="Job" 417.                               Margin="0,13,0,2" 418.                               Grid.Row="1" 419.                               Style="{StaticResource FormElementTextBlockStyle}" /> 420.                    <telerikInput:RadComboBox IsEditable="False" 421.                                              Grid.Column="1" 422.                                              Grid.Row="1" 423.                                              Height="24" 424.                                              VerticalAlignment="Center" 425.                                              ItemsSource="{Binding Source={StaticResource DataContextProxy}, Path=DataSource.JobsList}" 426.                                              SelectedValue="{Binding PostingID, Mode=TwoWay}" 427.                                              SelectedValuePath="PostingID" 428.                                              DisplayMemberPath="JobTitle"/> 429.                </Grid> 430.                    <!-- Resources --> 431.                <Grid x:Name="ResourcesLayout" 432.                      Grid.Row="7" 433.                      Grid.Column="0" 434.                      Grid.ColumnSpan="2" 435.                      MaxHeight="130" 436.                      Margin="20,5,20,0"> 437.                    <Border Margin="0" 438.                            BorderThickness="1" 439.                            BorderBrush="{StaticResource GenericShallowBorderBrush}" 440.                            Visibility="{Binding ElementName=ResourcesScrollViewer, Path=ComputedVerticalScrollBarVisibility}"></Border> 441.                    <ScrollViewer x:Name="ResourcesScrollViewer" 442.                                  IsTabStop="false" 443.                                  Grid.Row="6" 444.                                  Grid.Column="0" 445.                                  Grid.ColumnSpan="2" 446.                                  Margin="1" 447.                                  telerik:StyleManager.Theme="{StaticResource Theme}" 448.                                  VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto"> 449.                        <scheduler:ResourcesItemsControl x:Name="PART_Resources" 450.                                                         HorizontalAlignment="Left" 451.                                                         Padding="0,2,0,5" 452.                                                         IsTabStop="false" 453.                                                         ItemsSource="{TemplateBinding ResourceTypeModels}" 454.                                                         ItemTemplateSelector="{StaticResource ItemTemplateSelector}" /> 455.                    </ScrollViewer> 456.                </Grid> 457.                <StackPanel x:Name="FooterControls" 458.                            Margin="5 10 10 10" 459.                            Grid.Row="8" 460.                            Grid.Column="1" 461.                            HorizontalAlignment="Left" 462.                            Orientation="Horizontal"> 463.                    <telerik:RadButton x:Name="OKButton" 464.                                       Margin="5" 465.                                       Padding="10 0" 466.                                       MinWidth="80" 467.                                       Command="telerikScheduler:RadSchedulerCommands.SaveAppointment" 468.                                       telerik:StyleManager.Theme="{StaticResource Theme}" 469.                                       telerikNavigation:RadWindow.ResponseButton="Accept" 470.                                       telerik:LocalizationManager.ResourceKey="SaveAndCloseCommandText"> 471.                    </telerik:RadButton> 472.                    <telerik:RadButton x:Name="CancelButton" 473.                                       Margin="5" 474.                                       Padding="10 0" 475.                                       MinWidth="80" 476.                                       telerik:LocalizationManager.ResourceKey="Cancel" 477.                                       telerik:StyleManager.Theme="{StaticResource Theme}" 478.                                       telerikNavigation:RadWindow.ResponseButton="Cancel" 479.                                       Command="telerik:WindowCommands.Close"> 480.                    </telerik:RadButton> 481.                </StackPanel> 482.            </Grid> 483.            <vsm:VisualStateManager.VisualStateGroups> 484.                <vsm:VisualStateGroup x:Name="RecurrenceRuleState"> 485.                    <vsm:VisualState x:Name="RecurrenceRuleIsNull"> 486.                        <Storyboard> 487.                            <ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames Storyboard.TargetName="StartDateTime" 488.                                                           Storyboard.TargetProperty="IsEnabled" 489.                                                           Duration="0"> 490.                                <DiscreteObjectKeyFrame KeyTime="0" 491.                                                        Value="True" /> 492.                            </ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames> 493.                            <ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames Storyboard.TargetName="EndDateTime" 494.                                                           Storyboard.TargetProperty="IsEnabled" 495.                                                           Duration="0"> 496.                                <DiscreteObjectKeyFrame KeyTime="0" 497.                                                        Value="True" /> 498.                            </ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames> 499.                            <ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames Storyboard.TargetName="AllDayEventCheckbox" 500.                                                           Storyboard.TargetProperty="IsEnabled" 501.                                                           Duration="0"> 502.                                <DiscreteObjectKeyFrame KeyTime="0" 503.                                                        Value="True" /> 504.                            </ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames> 505.                        </Storyboard> 506.                    </vsm:VisualState> 507.                    <vsm:VisualState x:Name="RecurrenceRuleIsNotNull"> 508.                        <Storyboard> 509.                            <ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames Storyboard.TargetName="StartDateTime" 510.                                                           Storyboard.TargetProperty="IsEnabled" 511.                                                           Duration="0"> 512.                                <DiscreteObjectKeyFrame KeyTime="0" 513.                                                        Value="False" /> 514.                            </ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames> 515.                            <ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames Storyboard.TargetName="EndDateTime" 516.                                                           Storyboard.TargetProperty="IsEnabled" 517.                                                           Duration="0"> 518.                                <DiscreteObjectKeyFrame KeyTime="0" 519.                                                        Value="False" /> 520.                            </ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames> 521.                            <ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames Storyboard.TargetName="AllDayEventCheckbox" 522.                                                           Storyboard.TargetProperty="IsEnabled" 523.                                                           Duration="0"> 524.                                <DiscreteObjectKeyFrame KeyTime="0" 525.                                                        Value="False" /> 526.                            </ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames> 527.                        </Storyboard> 528.                    </vsm:VisualState> 529.                </vsm:VisualStateGroup> 530.            </vsm:VisualStateManager.VisualStateGroups> 531.        </StackPanel> 532.    </ControlTemplate> 533.    <DataTemplate x:Key="AppointmentDialogWindowHeaderDataTemplate"> 534.        <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" 535.                    MaxWidth="400"> 536.            <TextBlock telerik:LocalizationManager.ResourceKey="Event" 537.                       Visibility="{Binding Appointment.IsAllDayEvent, Converter={StaticResource BooleanToVisibilityConverter}}" /> 538.            <TextBlock telerik:LocalizationManager.ResourceKey="Appointment" 539.                       Visibility="{Binding Appointment.IsAllDayEvent, Converter={StaticResource InvertedBooleanToVisibilityConverter}}" /> 540.            <TextBlock Text=" - " /> 541.            <TextBlock x:Name="SubjectTextBlock" 542.                       Visibility="{Binding Appointment.Subject, Converter={StaticResource NullToVisibilityConverter}}" 543.                       Text="{Binding Appointment.Subject}" /> 544.            <TextBlock telerik:LocalizationManager.ResourceKey="Untitled" 545.                       Visibility="{Binding Appointment.Subject, Converter={StaticResource InvertedNullToVisibilityConverter}}" /> 546.        </StackPanel> 547.    </DataTemplate> 548.    <Style x:Key="EditAppointmentStyle" 549.           TargetType="telerikScheduler:AppointmentDialogWindow"> 550.        <Setter Property="IconTemplate" 551.                Value="{StaticResource IconDataEditTemplate}" /> 552.        <Setter Property="HeaderTemplate" 553.                Value="{StaticResource AppointmentDialogWindowHeaderDataTemplate}" /> 554.        <Setter Property="Background" 555.                Value="{StaticResource DialogWindowBackground}" /> 556.        <Setter Property="Template" 557.                Value="{StaticResource EditAppointmentTemplate}" /> 558.    </Style> 559.</UserControl.Resources> The first line there is the DataContextProxy I mentioned previously- we use that again to work a bit of magic in this template. Where we start getting into the dialog in question is line 132, but line 407 is where things start getting interesting.  The ItemsSource is pointing at a list that exists in my ViewModel (or code-behind, if it is used as a DataContext), the SelectedValue is the item I am actually binding from the applicant (note the TwoWay binding), and SelectedValuePath and DisplayMemberPath ensure the proper applicant is being displayed from the collection.  You will also see similar starting on line 420 where I do the same for the Jobs we'll be displaying. Just to wrap-up the Xaml, here's the RadScheduler declaraction that ties this all together and will be the main focus of our view: 01.<telerikScheduler:RadScheduler x:Name="xJobsScheduler" 02.                  Grid.Row="1" 03.                  Grid.Column="1" 04.                  Width="800" 05.                  MinWidth="600" 06.                  Height="500" 07.                  MinHeight="300" 08.                  AppointmentsSource="{Binding Interviews}" 09.                  EditAppointmentStyle="{StaticResource EditAppointmentStyle}" 10.                  command:AppointmentAddedEventClass.Command="{Binding AddAppointmentCommand}" 11.                  command:ApptCreatedEventClass.Command="{Binding ApptCreatingCommand}" 12.                  command:ApptEditedEventClass.Command="{Binding ApptEditedCommand}" 13.                  command:ApptDeletedEventClass.Command="{Binding ApptDeletedCommand}"> 14.</telerikScheduler:RadScheduler> Now, we get to the ViewModel and what it takes to get that rigged up.  And for those of you who remember the jobs post, those command:s in the Xaml are pointing to attached behavior commands that reproduce the respective events.  This becomes very handy when we're setting up the code-behind version. ;) ViewModel I've been liking this approach so far, so I'm going to put the entire ViewModel here and then go into the lines of interest.  Of course, feel free to ask me questions about anything that isn't clear (by line number, ideally) so I can help out if I have missed anything important: 001.public class SchedulerViewModel : ViewModelBase 002.{ 003.    private readonly IEventAggregator eventAggregator; 004.    private readonly IRegionManager regionManager; 005.   006.    public RecruitingContext context; 007.   008.    private ObservableItemCollection<InterviewAppointment> _interviews = new ObservableItemCollection<InterviewAppointment>(); 009.    public ObservableItemCollection<InterviewAppointment> Interviews 010.    { 011.        get { return _interviews; } 012.        set 013.        { 014.            if (_interviews != value) 015.            { 016.                _interviews = value; 017.                NotifyChanged("Interviews"); 018.            } 019.        } 020.    } 021.   022.    private QueryableCollectionView _jobsList; 023.    public QueryableCollectionView JobsList 024.    { 025.        get { return this._jobsList; } 026.        set 027.        { 028.            if (this._jobsList != value) 029.            { 030.                this._jobsList = value; 031.                this.NotifyChanged("JobsList"); 032.            } 033.        } 034.    } 035.   036.    private QueryableCollectionView _applicantList; 037.    public QueryableCollectionView ApplicantList 038.    { 039.        get { return _applicantList; } 040.        set 041.        { 042.            if (_applicantList != value) 043.            { 044.                _applicantList = value; 045.                NotifyChanged("ApplicantList"); 046.            } 047.        } 048.    } 049.   050.    public DelegateCommand<object> AddAppointmentCommand { get; set; } 051.    public DelegateCommand<object> ApptCreatingCommand { get; set; } 052.    public DelegateCommand<object> ApptEditedCommand { get; set; } 053.    public DelegateCommand<object> ApptDeletedCommand { get; set; } 054.   055.    public SchedulerViewModel(IEventAggregator eventAgg, IRegionManager regionmanager) 056.    { 057.        // set Unity items 058.        this.eventAggregator = eventAgg; 059.        this.regionManager = regionmanager; 060.   061.        // load our context 062.        context = new RecruitingContext(); 063.        LoadOperation<Interview> loadOp = context.Load(context.GetInterviewsQuery()); 064.        loadOp.Completed += new EventHandler(loadOp_Completed); 065.   066.        this._jobsList = new QueryableCollectionView(context.JobPostings); 067.        context.Load(context.GetJobPostingsQuery()); 068.   069.        this._applicantList = new QueryableCollectionView(context.Applicants); 070.        context.Load(context.GetApplicantsQuery()); 071.   072.        AddAppointmentCommand = new DelegateCommand<object>(this.AddAppt); 073.        ApptCreatingCommand = new DelegateCommand<object>(this.ApptCreating); 074.        ApptEditedCommand = new DelegateCommand<object>(this.ApptEdited); 075.        ApptDeletedCommand = new DelegateCommand<object>(this.ApptDeleted); 076.   077.    } 078.   079.    void loadOp_Completed(object sender, EventArgs e) 080.    { 081.        LoadOperation loadop = sender as LoadOperation; 082.   083.        foreach (var ent in loadop.Entities) 084.        { 085.            _interviews.Add(EntityToAppointment(ent as Interview)); 086.        } 087.    } 088.   089.    #region Appointment Adding 090.   091.    public void AddAppt(object obj) 092.    { 093.        // now we have a new InterviewAppointment to add to our QCV :) 094.        InterviewAppointment newInterview = obj as InterviewAppointment; 095.   096.        this.context.Interviews.Add(AppointmentToEntity(newInterview)); 097.        this.context.SubmitChanges((s) => 098.        { 099.            ActionHistory myAction = new ActionHistory(); 100.            myAction.InterviewID = newInterview.InterviewID; 101.            myAction.PostingID = newInterview.PostingID; 102.            myAction.ApplicantID = newInterview.ApplicantID; 103.            myAction.Description = String.Format("Interview with {0} has been created by {1}", newInterview.ApplicantID.ToString(), "default user"); 104.            myAction.TimeStamp = DateTime.Now; 105.            eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddActionEvent>().Publish(myAction); 106.        } 107.            , null); 108.    } 109.   110.    public void ApptCreating(object obj) 111.    { 112.        // handled in the behavior, just a placeholder to ensure it runs :) 113.    } 114.   115.    #endregion 116.   117.    #region Appointment Editing 118.   119.    public void ApptEdited(object obj) 120.    { 121.        Interview editedInterview = (from x in context.Interviews 122.                            where x.InterviewID == (obj as InterviewAppointment).InterviewID 123.                            select x).SingleOrDefault(); 124.   125.        CopyAppointmentEdit(editedInterview, obj as InterviewAppointment); 126.   127.        context.SubmitChanges((s) => { 128.            ActionHistory myAction = new ActionHistory(); 129.            myAction.InterviewID = editedInterview.InterviewID; 130.            myAction.PostingID = editedInterview.PostingID; 131.            myAction.ApplicantID = editedInterview.ApplicantID; 132.            myAction.Description = String.Format("Interview with {0} has been modified by {1}", editedInterview.ApplicantID.ToString(), "default user"); 133.            myAction.TimeStamp = DateTime.Now; 134.            eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddActionEvent>().Publish(myAction); } 135.            , null); 136.    } 137.   138.    #endregion 139.   140.    #region Appointment Deleting 141.   142.    public void ApptDeleted(object obj) 143.    { 144.        Interview deletedInterview = (from x in context.Interviews 145.                                      where x.InterviewID == (obj as InterviewAppointment).InterviewID 146.                                      select x).SingleOrDefault(); 147.   148.        context.Interviews.Remove(deletedInterview); 149.        context.SubmitChanges((s) => 150.        { 151.            ActionHistory myAction = new ActionHistory(); 152.            myAction.InterviewID = deletedInterview.InterviewID; 153.            myAction.PostingID = deletedInterview.PostingID; 154.            myAction.ApplicantID = deletedInterview.ApplicantID; 155.            myAction.Description = String.Format("Interview with {0} has been deleted by {1}", deletedInterview.ApplicantID.ToString(), "default user"); 156.            myAction.TimeStamp = DateTime.Now; 157.            eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddActionEvent>().Publish(myAction); 158.        } 159.            , null); 160.    } 161.   162.    #endregion 163.   164.    #region Appointment Helpers :) 165.   166.    public Interview AppointmentToEntity(InterviewAppointment ia) 167.    { 168.        Interview newInterview = new Interview(); 169.        newInterview.Subject = ia.Subject; 170.        newInterview.Body = ia.Body; 171.        newInterview.Start = ia.Start; 172.        newInterview.End = ia.End; 173.        newInterview.ApplicantID = ia.ApplicantID; 174.        newInterview.PostingID = ia.PostingID; 175.        newInterview.InterviewID = ia.InterviewID; 176.   177.        return newInterview; 178.    } 179.   180.    public InterviewAppointment EntityToAppointment(Interview ia) 181.    { 182.        InterviewAppointment newInterview = new InterviewAppointment(); 183.        newInterview.Subject = ia.Subject; 184.        newInterview.Body = ia.Body; 185.        newInterview.Start = ia.Start; 186.        newInterview.End = ia.End; 187.        newInterview.ApplicantID = ia.ApplicantID; 188.        newInterview.PostingID = ia.PostingID; 189.        newInterview.InterviewID = ia.InterviewID; 190.   191.        return newInterview; 192.    } 193.   194.    public void CopyAppointmentEdit(Interview entityInterview, InterviewAppointment appointmentInterview) 195.    { 196.        entityInterview.Subject = appointmentInterview.Subject; 197.        entityInterview.Body = appointmentInterview.Body; 198.        entityInterview.Start = appointmentInterview.Start; 199.        entityInterview.End = appointmentInterview.End; 200.        entityInterview.ApplicantID = appointmentInterview.ApplicantID; 201.        entityInterview.PostingID = appointmentInterview.PostingID; 202.    } 203.   204.    #endregion 205.} One thing we're doing here which you won't see in any of the other ViewModels is creating a duplicate collection.  I know this is something which will be fixed down the line for using RadScheduler, simplifying this process, but with WCF RIA changing as it does I wanted to ensure functionality would remain consistent as I continued development on this application.  So, I do a little bit of duplication, but for the greater good.  This all takes place starting on line 79, so for every entity that comes back we add it to the collection that is bound to RadScheduler.  Otherwise, the DelegateCommands that you see correspond directly to the events they are named after.  In each case, rather than sending over the full event arguments, I just send in the appointment in question (coming through as the object obj in all cases) so I can add (line 91), edit (line 119), and delete appointments (line 142) like normal.  This just ensures they get updated back to my database.  Also, the one bit of code you won't see is for the Appointment Creating (line 110) event- that is because in the command I've created I simply make the replacement I need to: 1.void element_AppointmentCreating(object sender, AppointmentCreatingEventArgs e) 2.{ 3.    e.NewAppointment = new InterviewAppointment(); 4.    base.ExecuteCommand(); 5.} And the ViewModel is none the wiser, the appointments just work as far as it is concerned since as they are created they become InterviewAppointments.  End result?  I've customized my EditAppointmentDialog as follows: And adding, editing, and deleting appointments works like a charm.  I can even 'edit' by moving appointments around RadScheduler, so as they are dropped into a timeslot they perform their full edit routine and things get updated. And then, the Code-Behind Version Perhaps the thing I like the most about doing one then the other is I get to steal 90% or more of the code from the MVVM version.  For example, the only real changes to the Code-Behind Xaml file exist in the control declaration, in which I use events instead of attached-behavior-event-commands: 01.<telerikScheduler:RadScheduler x:Name="xJobsScheduler" 02.                  Grid.Row="1" 03.                  Grid.Column="1" 04.                  Width="800" 05.                  MinWidth="600" 06.                  Height="500" 07.                  MinHeight="300" 08.                  EditAppointmentStyle="{StaticResource EditAppointmentStyle}" 09.                  AppointmentAdded="xJobsScheduler_AppointmentAdded" 10.                  AppointmentCreating="xJobsScheduler_AppointmentCreating" 11.                  AppointmentEdited="xJobsScheduler_AppointmentEdited" 12.                  AppointmentDeleted="xJobsScheduler_AppointmentDeleted"> 13.</telerikScheduler:RadScheduler> Easy, right?  Otherwise, all the same styling in UserControl.Resources was re-used, right down to the DataContextProxy that lets us bind to a collection from our viewmodel (in this case, our code-behind) to use within the DataTemplate.  The code conversion gets even easier, as I could literally copy and paste almost everything from the ViewModel to my Code-Behind, just a matter of pasting the right section into the right event.  Here's the code-behind as proof: 001.public partial class SchedulingView : UserControl, INotifyPropertyChanged 002.{ 003.    public RecruitingContext context; 004.   005.    private QueryableCollectionView _jobsList; 006.    public QueryableCollectionView JobsList 007.    { 008.        get { return this._jobsList; } 009.        set 010.        { 011.            if (this._jobsList != value) 012.            { 013.                this._jobsList = value; 014.                this.NotifyChanged("JobsList"); 015.            } 016.        } 017.    } 018.   019.    private QueryableCollectionView _applicantList; 020.    public QueryableCollectionView ApplicantList 021.    { 022.        get { return _applicantList; } 023.        set 024.        { 025.            if (_applicantList != value) 026.            { 027.                _applicantList = value; 028.                NotifyChanged("ApplicantList"); 029.            } 030.        } 031.    } 032.   033.    private ObservableItemCollection<InterviewAppointment> _interviews = new ObservableItemCollection<InterviewAppointment>(); 034.    public ObservableItemCollection<InterviewAppointment> Interviews 035.    { 036.        get { return _interviews; } 037.        set 038.        { 039.            if (_interviews != value) 040.            { 041.                _interviews = value; 042.                NotifyChanged("Interviews"); 043.            } 044.        } 045.    } 046.   047.    public SchedulingView() 048.    { 049.        InitializeComponent(); 050.   051.        this.DataContext = this; 052.   053.        this.Loaded += new RoutedEventHandler(SchedulingView_Loaded); 054.    } 055.   056.    void SchedulingView_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 057.    { 058.        this.xJobsScheduler.AppointmentsSource = Interviews; 059.   060.        context = new RecruitingContext(); 061.           062.        LoadOperation loadop = context.Load(context.GetInterviewsQuery()); 063.        loadop.Completed += new EventHandler(loadop_Completed); 064.   065.        this._applicantList = new QueryableCollectionView(context.Applicants); 066.        context.Load(context.GetApplicantsQuery()); 067.   068.        this._jobsList = new QueryableCollectionView(context.JobPostings); 069.        context.Load(context.GetJobPostingsQuery()); 070.    } 071.   072.    void loadop_Completed(object sender, EventArgs e) 073.    { 074.        LoadOperation loadop = sender as LoadOperation; 075.   076.        _interviews.Clear(); 077.   078.        foreach (var ent in loadop.Entities) 079.        { 080.            _interviews.Add(EntityToAppointment(ent as Interview)); 081.        } 082.    } 083.   084.    private void xJobsScheduler_AppointmentAdded(object sender, Telerik.Windows.Controls.AppointmentAddedEventArgs e) 085.    { 086.        // now we have a new InterviewAppointment to add to our QCV :) 087.        InterviewAppointment newInterview = e.Appointment as InterviewAppointment; 088.   089.        this.context.Interviews.Add(AppointmentToEntity(newInterview)); 090.        this.context.SubmitChanges((s) => 091.        { 092.            ActionHistory myAction = new ActionHistory(); 093.            myAction.InterviewID = newInterview.InterviewID; 094.            myAction.PostingID = newInterview.PostingID; 095.            myAction.ApplicantID = newInterview.ApplicantID; 096.            myAction.Description = String.Format("Interview with {0} has been created by {1}", newInterview.ApplicantID.ToString(), "default user"); 097.            myAction.TimeStamp = DateTime.Now; 098.            context.ActionHistories.Add(myAction); 099.            context.SubmitChanges(); 100.        } 101.            , null); 102.    } 103.   104.    private void xJobsScheduler_AppointmentCreating(object sender, Telerik.Windows.Controls.AppointmentCreatingEventArgs e) 105.    { 106.        e.NewAppointment = new InterviewAppointment(); 107.    } 108.   109.    private void xJobsScheduler_AppointmentEdited(object sender, Telerik.Windows.Controls.AppointmentEditedEventArgs e) 110.    { 111.        Interview editedInterview = (from x in context.Interviews 112.                                     where x.InterviewID == (e.Appointment as InterviewAppointment).InterviewID 113.                                     select x).SingleOrDefault(); 114.   115.        CopyAppointmentEdit(editedInterview, e.Appointment as InterviewAppointment); 116.   117.        context.SubmitChanges((s) => 118.        { 119.            ActionHistory myAction = new ActionHistory(); 120.            myAction.InterviewID = editedInterview.InterviewID; 121.            myAction.PostingID = editedInterview.PostingID; 122.            myAction.ApplicantID = editedInterview.ApplicantID; 123.            myAction.Description = String.Format("Interview with {0} has been modified by {1}", editedInterview.ApplicantID.ToString(), "default user"); 124.            myAction.TimeStamp = DateTime.Now; 125.            context.ActionHistories.Add(myAction); 126.            context.SubmitChanges(); 127.        } 128.            , null); 129.    } 130.   131.    private void xJobsScheduler_AppointmentDeleted(object sender, Telerik.Windows.Controls.AppointmentDeletedEventArgs e) 132.    { 133.        Interview deletedInterview = (from x in context.Interviews 134.                                      where x.InterviewID == (e.Appointment as InterviewAppointment).InterviewID 135.                                      select x).SingleOrDefault(); 136.   137.        context.Interviews.Remove(deletedInterview); 138.        context.SubmitChanges((s) => 139.        { 140.            ActionHistory myAction = new ActionHistory(); 141.            myAction.InterviewID = deletedInterview.InterviewID; 142.            myAction.PostingID = deletedInterview.PostingID; 143.            myAction.ApplicantID = deletedInterview.ApplicantID; 144.            myAction.Description = String.Format("Interview with {0} has been deleted by {1}", deletedInterview.ApplicantID.ToString(), "default user"); 145.            myAction.TimeStamp = DateTime.Now; 146.            context.ActionHistories.Add(myAction); 147.            context.SubmitChanges(); 148.        } 149.            , null); 150.    } 151.   152.    #region Appointment Helpers :) 153.   154.    public Interview AppointmentToEntity(InterviewAppointment ia) 155.    { 156.        Interview newInterview = new Interview(); 157.        newInterview.Subject = ia.Subject; 158.        newInterview.Body = ia.Body; 159.        newInterview.Start = ia.Start; 160.        newInterview.End = ia.End; 161.        newInterview.ApplicantID = ia.ApplicantID; 162.        newInterview.PostingID = ia.PostingID; 163.        newInterview.InterviewID = ia.InterviewID; 164.   165.        return newInterview; 166.    } 167.   168.    public InterviewAppointment EntityToAppointment(Interview ia) 169.    { 170.        InterviewAppointment newInterview = new InterviewAppointment(); 171.        newInterview.Subject = ia.Subject; 172.        newInterview.Body = ia.Body; 173.        newInterview.Start = ia.Start; 174.        newInterview.End = ia.End; 175.        newInterview.ApplicantID = ia.ApplicantID; 176.        newInterview.PostingID = ia.PostingID; 177.        newInterview.InterviewID = ia.InterviewID; 178.   179.        return newInterview; 180.    } 181.   182.    public void CopyAppointmentEdit(Interview entityInterview, InterviewAppointment appointmentInterview) 183.    { 184.        entityInterview.Subject = appointmentInterview.Subject; 185.        entityInterview.Body = appointmentInterview.Body; 186.        entityInterview.Start = appointmentInterview.Start; 187.        entityInterview.End = appointmentInterview.End; 188.        entityInterview.ApplicantID = appointmentInterview.ApplicantID; 189.        entityInterview.PostingID = appointmentInterview.PostingID; 190.    } 191.   192.    #endregion 193.   194.    #region INotifyPropertyChanged Members 195.   196.    public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged; 197.   198.    public void NotifyChanged(string propertyName) 199.    { 200.        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(propertyName)) 201.            throw new ArgumentException("propertyName"); 202.   203.        PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyName)); 204.    } 205.   206.    #endregion 207.} Nice... right? :) One really important thing to note as well.  See on line 51 where I set the DataContext before the Loaded event?  This is super important, as if you don't have this set before the usercontrol is loaded, the DataContextProxy has no context to use and your EditAppointmentDialog Job/Applicant dropdowns will be blank and empty.  Trust me on this, took a little bit of debugging to figure out that by setting the DataContext post-loaded would only lead to disaster and frustration.  Otherwise, the only other real difference is that instead of sending an ActionHistory item through an event to get added to the database and saved, I do those right in the callback from submitting.  The Result Again, I only have to post one picture because these bad boys used nearly identical code for both the MVVM and the code-behind views, so our end result is... So what have we learned here today?  One, for the most part this MVVM thing is somewhat easy.  Yeah, you sometimes have to write a bunch of extra code, but with the help of a few useful snippits you can turn the process into a pretty streamlined little workflow.  Heck, this story gets even easier as you can see in this blog post by Michael Washington- specifically run a find on 'InvokeCommandAction' and you'll see the section regarding the command on TreeView in Blend 4.  Brilliant!  MVVM never looked so sweet! Otherwise, it is business as usual with RadScheduler for Silverlight whichever path you're choosing for your development.  Between now and the next post, I'll be cleaning up styles a bit (those RadComboBoxes are a little too close to my labels!) and adding some to the RowDetailsViews for Applicants and Jobs, so you can see all the info for an appointment in the dropdown tab view.  Otherwise, we're about ready to call a wrap on this oneDid 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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  • Option Trading: Getting the most out of the event session options

    - by extended_events
    You can control different aspects of how an event session behaves by setting the event session options as part of the CREATE EVENT SESSION DDL. The default settings for the event session options are designed to handle most of the common event collection situations so I generally recommend that you just use the defaults. Like everything in the real world though, there are going to be a handful of “special cases” that require something different. This post focuses on identifying the special cases and the correct use of the options to accommodate those cases. There is a reason it’s called Default The default session options specify a total event buffer size of 4 MB with a 30 second latency. Translating this into human terms; this means that our default behavior is that the system will start processing events from the event buffer when we reach about 1.3 MB of events or after 30 seconds, which ever comes first. Aside: What’s up with the 1.3 MB, I thought you said the buffer was 4 MB?The Extended Events engine takes the total buffer size specified by MAX_MEMORY (4MB by default) and divides it into 3 equally sized buffers. This is done so that a session can be publishing events to one buffer while other buffers are being processed. There are always at least three buffers; how to get more than three is covered later. Using this configuration, the Extended Events engine can “keep up” with most event sessions on standard workloads. Why is this? The fact is that most events are small, really small; on the order of a couple hundred bytes. Even when you start considering events that carry dynamically sized data (eg. binary, text, etc.) or adding actions that collect additional data, the total size of the event is still likely to be pretty small. This means that each buffer can likely hold thousands of events before it has to be processed. When the event buffers are finally processed there is an economy of scale achieved since most targets support bulk processing of the events so they are processed at the buffer level rather than the individual event level. When all this is working together it’s more likely that a full buffer will be processed and put back into the ready queue before the remaining buffers (remember, there are at least three) are full. I know what you’re going to say: “My server is exceptional! My workload is so massive it defies categorization!” OK, maybe you weren’t going to say that exactly, but you were probably thinking it. The point is that there are situations that won’t be covered by the Default, but that’s a good place to start and this post assumes you’ve started there so that you have something to look at in order to determine if you do have a special case that needs different settings. So let’s get to the special cases… What event just fired?! How about now?! Now?! If you believe the commercial adage from Heinz Ketchup (Heinz Slow Good Ketchup ad on You Tube), some things are worth the wait. This is not a belief held by most DBAs, particularly DBAs who are looking for an answer to a troubleshooting question fast. If you’re one of these anxious DBAs, or maybe just a Program Manager doing a demo, then 30 seconds might be longer than you’re comfortable waiting. If you find yourself in this situation then consider changing the MAX_DISPATCH_LATENCY option for your event session. This option will force the event buffers to be processed based on your time schedule. This option only makes sense for the asynchronous targets since those are the ones where we allow events to build up in the event buffer – if you’re using one of the synchronous targets this option isn’t relevant. Avoid forgotten events by increasing your memory Have you ever had one of those days where you keep forgetting things? That can happen in Extended Events too; we call it dropped events. In order to optimizes for server performance and help ensure that the Extended Events doesn’t block the server if to drop events that can’t be published to a buffer because the buffer is full. You can determine if events are being dropped from a session by querying the dm_xe_sessions DMV and looking at the dropped_event_count field. Aside: Should you care if you’re dropping events?Maybe not – think about why you’re collecting data in the first place and whether you’re really going to miss a few dropped events. For example, if you’re collecting query duration stats over thousands of executions of a query it won’t make a huge difference to miss a couple executions. Use your best judgment. If you find that your session is dropping events it means that the event buffer is not large enough to handle the volume of events that are being published. There are two ways to address this problem. First, you could collect fewer events – examine you session to see if you are over collecting. Do you need all the actions you’ve specified? Could you apply a predicate to be more specific about when you fire the event? Assuming the session is defined correctly, the next option is to change the MAX_MEMORY option to a larger number. Picking the right event buffer size might take some trial and error, but a good place to start is with the number of dropped events compared to the number you’ve collected. Aside: There are three different behaviors for dropping events that you specify using the EVENT_RETENTION_MODE option. The default is to allow single event loss and you should stick with this setting since it is the best choice for keeping the impact on server performance low.You’ll be tempted to use the setting to not lose any events (NO_EVENT_LOSS) – resist this urge since it can result in blocking on the server. If you’re worried that you’re losing events you should be increasing your event buffer memory as described in this section. Some events are too big to fail A less common reason for dropping an event is when an event is so large that it can’t fit into the event buffer. Even though most events are going to be small, you might find a condition that occasionally generates a very large event. You can determine if your session is dropping large events by looking at the dm_xe_sessions DMV once again, this time check the largest_event_dropped_size. If this value is larger than the size of your event buffer [remember, the size of your event buffer, by default, is max_memory / 3] then you need a large event buffer. To specify a large event buffer you set the MAX_EVENT_SIZE option to a value large enough to fit the largest event dropped based on data from the DMV. When you set this option the Extended Events engine will create two buffers of this size to accommodate these large events. As an added bonus (no extra charge) the large event buffer will also be used to store normal events in the cases where the normal event buffers are all full and waiting to be processed. (Note: This is just a side-effect, not the intended use. If you’re dropping many normal events then you should increase your normal event buffer size.) Partitioning: moving your events to a sub-division Earlier I alluded to the fact that you can configure your event session to use more than the standard three event buffers – this is called partitioning and is controlled by the MEMORY_PARTITION_MODE option. The result of setting this option is fairly easy to explain, but knowing when to use it is a bit more art than science. First the science… You can configure partitioning in three ways: None, Per NUMA Node & Per CPU. This specifies the location where sets of event buffers are created with fairly obvious implication. There are rules we follow for sub-dividing the total memory (specified by MAX_MEMORY) between all the event buffers that are specific to the mode used: None: 3 buffers (fixed)Node: 3 * number_of_nodesCPU: 2.5 * number_of_cpus Here are some examples of what this means for different Node/CPU counts: Configuration None Node CPU 2 CPUs, 1 Node 3 buffers 3 buffers 5 buffers 6 CPUs, 2 Node 3 buffers 6 buffers 15 buffers 40 CPUs, 5 Nodes 3 buffers 15 buffers 100 buffers   Aside: Buffer size on multi-processor computersAs the number of Nodes or CPUs increases, the size of the event buffer gets smaller because the total memory is sub-divided into more pieces. The defaults will hold up to this for a while since each buffer set is holding events only from the Node or CPU that it is associated with, but at some point the buffers will get too small and you’ll either see events being dropped or you’ll get an error when you create your session because you’re below the minimum buffer size. Increase the MAX_MEMORY setting to an appropriate number for the configuration. The most likely reason to start partitioning is going to be related to performance. If you notice that running an event session is impacting the performance of your server beyond a reasonably expected level [Yes, there is a reasonably expected level of work required to collect events.] then partitioning might be an answer. Before you partition you might want to check a few other things: Is your event retention set to NO_EVENT_LOSS and causing blocking? (I told you not to do this.) Consider changing your event loss mode or increasing memory. Are you over collecting and causing more work than necessary? Consider adding predicates to events or removing unnecessary events and actions from your session. Are you writing the file target to the same slow disk that you use for TempDB and your other high activity databases? <kidding> <not really> It’s always worth considering the end to end picture – if you’re writing events to a file you can be impacted by I/O, network; all the usual stuff. Assuming you’ve ruled out the obvious (and not so obvious) issues, there are performance conditions that will be addressed by partitioning. For example, it’s possible to have a successful event session (eg. no dropped events) but still see a performance impact because you have many CPUs all attempting to write to the same free buffer and having to wait in line to finish their work. This is a case where partitioning would relieve the contention between the different CPUs and likely reduce the performance impact cause by the event session. There is no DMV you can check to find these conditions – sorry – that’s where the art comes in. This is  largely a matter of experimentation. On the bright side you probably won’t need to to worry about this level of detail all that often. The performance impact of Extended Events is significantly lower than what you may be used to with SQL Trace. You will likely only care about the impact if you are trying to set up a long running event session that will be part of your everyday workload – sessions used for short term troubleshooting will likely fall into the “reasonably expected impact” category. Hey buddy – I think you forgot something OK, there are two options I didn’t cover: STARTUP_STATE & TRACK_CAUSALITY. If you want your event sessions to start automatically when the server starts, set the STARTUP_STATE option to ON. (Now there is only one option I didn’t cover.) I’m going to leave causality for another post since it’s not really related to session behavior, it’s more about event analysis. - Mike Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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  • Native packaging for JavaFX

    - by igor
    JavaFX 2.2 adds new packaging option for JavaFX applications, allowing you to package your application as a "native bundle". This gives your users a way to install and run your application without any external dependencies on a system JRE or FX SDK. I'd like to give you an overview of what is it, motivation behind it, and finally explain how to get started with it. Screenshots may give you some idea of user experience but first hand experience is always the best. Before we go into all of the boring details, here are few different flavors of Ensemble for you to try: exe, msi, dmg, rpm installers and zip of linux bundle for non-rpm aware systems. Alternatively, check out native packages for JFXtras 2. Whats wrong with existing deployment options? JavaFX 2 applications are easy to distribute as a standalone application or as an application deployed on the web (embedded in the web page or as link to launch application from the webpage). JavaFX packaging tools, such as ant tasks and javafxpackager utility, simplify the creation of deployment packages even further. Why add new deployment options? JavaFX applications have implicit dependency on the availability of Java and JavaFX runtimes, and while existing deployment methods provide a means to validate the system requirements are met -- and even guide user to perform required installation/upgrades -- they do not fully address all of the important scenarios. In particular, here are few examples: the user may not have admin permissions to install new system software if the application was certified to run in the specific environment (fixed version of Java and JavaFX) then it may be hard to ensure user has this environment due to an autoupdate of the system version of Java/JavaFX (to ensure they are secure). Potentially, other apps may have a requirement for a different JRE or FX version that your app is incompatible with. your distribution channel may disallow dependencies on external frameworks (e.g. Mac AppStore) What is a "native package" for JavaFX application? In short it is  A Wrapper for your JavaFX application that makes is into a platform-specific application bundle Each Bundle is self-contained and includes your application code and resources (same set as need to launch standalone application from jar) Java and JavaFX runtimes (private copies to be used by this application only) native application launcher  metadata (icons, etc.) No separate installation is needed for Java and JavaFX runtimes Can be distributed as .zip or packaged as platform-specific installer No application changes, the same jar app binaries can be deployed as a native bundle, double-clickable jar, applet, or web start app What is good about it: Easy deployment of your application on fresh systems, without admin permissions when using .zip or a user-level installer No-hassle compatibility.  Your application is using a private copy of Java and JavaFX. The developer (you!) controls when these are updated. Easily package your application for Mac AppStore (or Windows, or...) Process name of running application is named after your application (and not just java.exe)  Easily deploy your application using enterprise deployment tools (e.g. deploy as MSI) Support is built in into JDK 7u6 (that includes JavaFX 2.2) Is it a silver bullet for the deployment that other deployment options will be deprecated? No.  There are no plans to deprecate other deployment options supported by JavaFX, each approach addresses different needs. Deciding whether native packaging is a best way to deploy your application depends on your requirements. A few caveats to consider: "Download and run" user experienceUnlike web deployment, the user experience is not about "launch app from web". It is more of "download, install and run" process, and the user may need to go through additional steps to get application launched - e.g. accepting a browser security dialog or finding and launching the application installer from "downloads" folder. Larger download sizeIn general size of bundled application will be noticeably higher than size of unbundled app as a private copy of the JRE and JavaFX are included.  We're working to reduce the size through compression and customizable "trimming", but it will always be substantially larger than than an app that depends on a "system JRE". Bundle per target platformBundle formats are platform specific. Currently a native bundle can only be produced for the same system you are building on.  That is, if you want to deliver native app bundles on Windows, Linux and Mac you will have to build your project on all three platforms. Application updates are the responsibility of developerWeb deployed Java applications automatically download application updates from the web as soon as they are available. The Java Autoupdate mechanism takes care of updating the Java and JavaFX runtimes to latest secure version several times every year. There is no built in support for this in for bundled applications. It is possible to use 3rd party libraries (like Sparkle on Mac) to add autoupdate support at application level.  In a future version of JavaFX we may include built-in support for autoupdate (add yourself as watcher for RT-22211 if you are interested in this) Getting started with native bundles First, you need to get the latest JDK 7u6 beta build (build 14 or later is recommended). On Windows/Mac/Linux it comes with JavaFX 2.2 SDK as part of JDK installation and contains JavaFX packaging tools, including: bin/javafxpackagerCommand line utility to produce JavaFX packages. lib/ant-javafx.jar Set of ant tasks to produce JavaFX packages (most recommended way to deploy apps) For general information on how to use them refer to the Deploying JavaFX Application guide. Once you know how use these tools to package your JavaFX application for other deployment methods there are only a few minor tweaks necessary to produce native bundles: make sure java is used from JDK7u6 bundle you have installed adjust your PATH settings if needed  if you are using ant tasks add "nativeBundles=all" attribute to fx:deploy task if you are using javafxpackager pass "-native" option to deploy command or if you are using makeall command then it will try build native packages by default result bundles will be in the "bundles" folder next to other deployment artifacts Note that building some types of native packages (e.g. .exe or .msi) may require additional free 3rd party software to be installed and available on PATH. As of JDK 7u6 build 14 you could build following types of packages: Windows bundle image EXE Inno Setup 5 or later is required Result exe will perform user level installation (no admin permissions are required) At least one shortcut will be created (menu or desktop) Application will be launched at the end of install MSI WiX 3.0 or later is required Result MSI will perform user level installation (no admin permissions are required) At least one shortcut will be created (menu or desktop)  MacOS bundle image dmg (drag and drop) installer Linux bundle image rpm rpmbuild is required shortcut will be added to the programs menu If you are using Netbeans for producing the deployment packages then you will need to add custom build step to the build.xml to execute the fx:deploy task with native bundles enabled. Here is what we do for BrickBreaker sample: <target name="-post-jfx-deploy"> <fx:deploy width="${javafx.run.width}" height="${javafx.run.height}" nativeBundles="all" outdir="${basedir}/${dist.dir}" outfile="${application.title}"> <fx:application name="${application.title}" mainClass="${javafx.main.class}"> <fx:resources> <fx:fileset dir="${basedir}/${dist.dir}" includes="BrickBreaker.jar"/> </fx:resources> <info title="${application.title}" vendor="${application.vendor}"/> </fx:application> </fx:deploy> </target> This is pretty much regular use of fx:deploy task, the only special thing here is nativeBundles="all". Perhaps the easiest way to try building native bundles is to download the latest JavaFX samples bundle and build Ensemble, BrickBreaker or SwingInterop. Please give it a try and share your experience. We need your feedback! BTW, do not hesitate to file bugs and feature requests to JavaFX bug database! Wait! How can i ... This entry is not a comprehensive guide into native bundles, and we plan to post on this topic more. However, I am sure that once you play with native bundles you will have a lot of questions. We may not have all the answers, but please do not hesitate to ask! Knowing all of the questions is the first step to finding all of the answers.

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