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How to Run Low-Cost Minecraft on a Raspberry Pi for Block Building on the Cheap

- by Jason Fitzpatrick

We’ve shown you how to run your own blocktastic personal Minecraft server on a Windows/OSX box, but what if you crave something lighter weight, more energy efficient, and always ready for your friends? Read on as we turn a tiny Raspberry Pi machine into a low-cost Minecraft server you can leave on 24/7 for around a penny a day. Why Do I Want to Do This? There’s two aspects to this tutorial, running your own Minecraft server and specifically running that Minecraft server on a Raspberry Pi. Why would you want to run your own Minecraft server? It’s a really great way to extend and build upon the Minecraft play experience. You can leave the server running when you’re not playing so friends and family can join and continue building your world. You can mess around with game variables and introduce mods in a way that isn’t possible when you’re playing the stand-alone game. It also gives you the kind of control over your multiplayer experience that using public servers doesn’t, without incurring the cost of hosting a private server on a remote host. While running a Minecraft server on its own is appealing enough to a dedicated Minecraft fan, running it on the Raspberry Pi is even more appealing. The tiny little Pi uses so little resources that you can leave your Minecraft server running 24/7 for a couple bucks a year. Aside from the initial cost outlay of the Pi, an SD card, and a little bit of time setting it up, you’ll have an always-on Minecraft server at a monthly cost of around one gumball. What Do I Need? For this tutorial you’ll need a mix of hardware and software tools; aside from the actual Raspberry Pi and SD card, everything is free. 1 Raspberry Pi (preferably a 512MB model) 1 4GB+ SD card This tutorial assumes that you have already familiarized yourself with the Raspberry Pi and have installed a copy of the Debian-derivative Raspbian on the device. If you have not got your Pi up and running yet, don’t worry! Check out our guide, The HTG Guide to Getting Started with Raspberry Pi, to get up to speed. Optimizing Raspbian for the Minecraft Server Unlike other builds we’ve shared where you can layer multiple projects over one another (e.g. the Pi is more than powerful enough to serve as a weather/email indicator and a Google Cloud Print server at the same time) running a Minecraft server is a pretty intense operation for the little Pi and we’d strongly recommend dedicating the entire Pi to the process. Minecraft seems like a simple game, with all its blocky-ness and what not, but it’s actually a pretty complex game beneath the simple skin and required a lot of processing power. As such, we’re going to tweak the configuration file and other settings to optimize Rasbian for the job. The first thing you’ll need to do is dig into the Raspi-Config application to make a few minor changes. If you’re installing Raspbian fresh, wait for the last step (which is the Raspi-Config), if you already installed it, head to the terminal and type in “sudo raspi-config” to launch it again. One of the first and most important things we need to attend to is cranking up the overclock setting. We need all the power we can get to make our Minecraft experience enjoyable. In Raspi-Config, select option number 7 “Overclock”. Be prepared for some stern warnings about overclocking, but rest easy knowing that overclocking is directly supported by the Raspberry Pi foundation and has been included in the configuration options since late 2012. Once you’re in the actual selection screen, select “Turbo 1000MhHz”. Again, you’ll be warned that the degree of overclocking you’ve selected carries risks (specifically, potential corruption of the SD card, but no risk of actual hardware damage). Click OK and wait for the device to reset. Next, make sure you’re set to boot to the command prompt, not the desktop. Select number 3 “Enable Boot to Desktop/Scratch” and make sure “Console Text console” is selected. Back at the Raspi-Config menu, select number 8 “Advanced Options’. There are two critical changes we need to make in here and one option change. First, the critical changes. Select A3 “Memory Split”: Change the amount of memory available to the GPU to 16MB (down from the default 64MB). Our Minecraft server is going to ruin in a GUI-less environment; there’s no reason to allocate any more than the bare minimum to the GPU. After selecting the GPU memory, you’ll be returned to the main menu. Select “Advanced Options” again and then select A4 “SSH”. Within the sub-menu, enable SSH. There is very little reason to keep this Pi connected to a monitor and keyboard, by enabling SSH we can remotely access the machine from anywhere on the network. Finally (and optionally) return again to the “Advanced Options” menu and select A2 “Hostname”. Here you can change your hostname from “raspberrypi” to a more fitting Minecraft name. We opted for the highly creative hostname “minecraft”, but feel free to spice it up a bit with whatever you feel like: creepertown, minecraft4life, or miner-box are all great minecraft server names. That’s it for the Raspbian configuration tab down to the bottom of the main screen and select “Finish” to reboot. After rebooting you can now SSH into your terminal, or continue working from the keyboard hooked up to your Pi (we strongly recommend switching over to SSH as it allows you to easily cut and paste the commands). If you’ve never used SSH before, check out how to use PuTTY with your Pi here. Installing Java on the Pi The Minecraft server runs on Java, so the first thing we need to do on our freshly configured Pi is install it. Log into your Pi via SSH and then, at the command prompt, enter the following command to make a directory for the installation: sudo mkdir /java/ Now we need to download the newest version of Java. At the time of this publication the newest release is the OCT 2013 update and the link/filename we use will reflect that. Please check for a more current version of the Linux ARMv6/7 Java release on the Java download page and update the link/filename accordingly when following our instructions. At the command prompt, enter the following command: sudo wget --no-check-certificate http://www.java.net/download/jdk8/archive/b111/binaries/jdk-8-ea-b111-linux-arm-vfp-hflt-09_oct_2013.tar.gz Once the download has finished successfully, enter the following command: sudo tar zxvf jdk-8-ea-b111-linux-arm-vfp-hflt-09_oct_2013.tar.gz -C /opt/ Fun fact: the /opt/ directory name scheme is a remnant of early Unix design wherein the /opt/ directory was for “optional” software installed after the main operating system; it was the /Program Files/ of the Unix world. After the file has finished extracting, enter: sudo /opt/jdk1.8.0/bin/java -version This command will return the version number of your new Java installation like so: java version "1.8.0-ea" Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0-ea-b111) Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 25.0-b53, mixed mode) If you don’t see the above printout (or a variation thereof if you’re using a newer version of Java), try to extract the archive again. If you do see the readout, enter the following command to tidy up after yourself: sudo rm jdk-8-ea-b111-linux-arm-vfp-hflt-09_oct_2013.tar.gz At this point Java is installed and we’re ready to move onto installing our Minecraft server! Installing and Configuring the Minecraft Server Now that we have a foundation for our Minecraft server, it’s time to install the part that matter. We’ll be using SpigotMC a lightweight and stable Minecraft server build that works wonderfully on the Pi. First, grab a copy of the the code with the following command: sudo wget http://ci.md-5.net/job/Spigot/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/Spigot-Server/target/spigot.jar This link should remain stable over time, as it points directly to the most current stable release of Spigot, but if you have any issues you can always reference the SpigotMC download page here. After the download finishes successfully, enter the following command: sudo /opt/jdk1.8.0/bin/java -Xms256M -Xmx496M -jar /home/pi/spigot.jar nogui Note: if you’re running the command on a 256MB Pi change the 256 and 496 in the above command to 128 and 256, respectively. Your server will launch and a flurry of on-screen activity will follow. Be prepared to wait around 3-6 minutes or so for the process of setting up the server and generating the map to finish. Future startups will take much less time, around 20-30 seconds. Note: If at any point during the configuration or play process things get really weird (e.g. your new Minecraft server freaks out and starts spawning you in the Nether and killing you instantly), use the “stop” command at the command prompt to gracefully shutdown the server and let you restart and troubleshoot it. After the process has finished, head over to the computer you normally play Minecraft on, fire it up, and click on Multiplayer. You should see your server: If your world doesn’t popup immediately during the network scan, hit the Add button and manually enter the address of your Pi. Once you connect to the server, you’ll see the status change in the server status window: According to the server, we’re in game. According to the actual Minecraft app, we’re also in game but it’s the middle of the night in survival mode: Boo! Spawning in the dead of night, weaponless and without shelter is no way to start things. No worries though, we need to do some more configuration; no time to sit around and get shot at by skeletons. Besides, if you try and play it without some configuration tweaks first, you’ll likely find it quite unstable. We’re just here to confirm the server is up, running, and accepting incoming connections. Once we’ve confirmed the server is running and connectable (albeit not very playable yet), it’s time to shut down the server. Via the server console, enter the command “stop” to shut everything down. When you’re returned to the command prompt, enter the following command: sudo nano server.properties When the configuration file opens up, make the following changes (or just cut and paste our config file minus the first two lines with the name and date stamp): #Minecraft server properties #Thu Oct 17 22:53:51 UTC 2013 generator-settings= #Default is true, toggle to false allow-nether=false level-name=world enable-query=false allow-flight=false server-port=25565 level-type=DEFAULT enable-rcon=false force-gamemode=false level-seed= server-ip= max-build-height=256 spawn-npcs=true white-list=false spawn-animals=true texture-pack= snooper-enabled=true hardcore=false online-mode=true pvp=true difficulty=1 player-idle-timeout=0 gamemode=0 #Default 20; you only need to lower this if you're running #a public server and worried about loads. max-players=20 spawn-monsters=true #Default is 10, 3-5 ideal for Pi view-distance=5 generate-structures=true spawn-protection=16 motd=A Minecraft Server In the server status window, seen through your SSH connection to the pi, enter the following command to give yourself operator status on your Minecraft server (so that you can use more powerful commands in game, without always returning to the server status window). op [your minecraft nickname] At this point things are looking better but we still have a little tweaking to do before the server is really enjoyable. To that end, let’s install some plugins. The first plugin, and the one you should install above all others, is NoSpawnChunks. To install the plugin, first visit the NoSpawnChunks webpage and grab the download link for the most current version. As of this writing the current release is v0.3. Back at the command prompt (the command prompt of your Pi, not the server console–if your server is still active shut it down) enter the following commands: cd /home/pi/plugins sudo wget http://dev.bukkit.org/media/files/586/974/NoSpawnChunks.jar Next, visit the ClearLag plugin page, and grab the latest link (as of this tutorial, it’s v2.6.0). Enter the following at the command prompt: sudo wget http://dev.bukkit.org/media/files/743/213/Clearlag.jar Because the files aren’t compressed in a .ZIP or similar container, that’s all there is to it: the plugins are parked in the plugin directory. (Remember this for future plugin downloads, the file needs to be whateverplugin.jar, so if it’s compressed you need to uncompress it in the plugin directory.) Resart the server: sudo /opt/jdk1.8.0/bin/java -Xms256M -Xmx496M -jar /home/pi/spigot.jar nogui Be prepared for a slightly longer startup time (closer to the 3-6 minutes and much longer than the 30 seconds you just experienced) as the plugins affect the world map and need a minute to massage everything. After the spawn process finishes, type the following at the server console: plugins This lists all the plugins currently active on the server. You should see something like this: If the plugins aren’t loaded, you may need to stop and restart the server. After confirming your plugins are loaded, go ahead and join the game. You should notice significantly snappier play. In addition, you’ll get occasional messages from the plugins indicating they are active, as seen below: At this point Java is installed, the server is installed, and we’ve tweaked our settings for for the Pi. It’s time to start building with friends!

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Converting Encrypted Values

- by Johnm

Your database has been protecting sensitive data at rest using the cell-level encryption features of SQL Server for quite sometime. The employees in the auditing department have been inviting you to their after-work gatherings and buying you drinks. Thousands of customers implicitly include you in their prayers of thanks giving as their identities remain safe in your company's database. The cipher text resting snuggly in a column of the varbinary data type is great for security; but it can create some interesting challenges when interacting with other data types such as the XML data type. The XML data type is one that is often used as a message type for the Service Broker feature of SQL Server. It also can be an interesting data type to capture for auditing or integrating with external systems. The challenge that cipher text presents is that the need for decryption remains even after it has experienced its XML metamorphosis. Quite an interesting challenge nonetheless; but fear not. There is a solution. To simulate this scenario, we first will want to create a plain text value for us to encrypt. We will do this by creating a variable to store our plain text value: -- set plain text value DECLARE @PlainText NVARCHAR(255); SET @PlainText = 'This is plain text to encrypt'; The next step will be to create a variable that will store the cipher text that is generated from the encryption process. We will populate this variable by using a pre-defined symmetric key and certificate combination: -- encrypt plain text value DECLARE @CipherText VARBINARY(MAX); OPEN SYMMETRIC KEY SymKey DECRYPTION BY CERTIFICATE SymCert WITH PASSWORD='mypassword2010'; SET @CipherText = EncryptByKey ( Key_GUID('SymKey'), @PlainText ); CLOSE ALL SYMMETRIC KEYS; The value of our newly generated cipher text is 0x006E12933CBFB0469F79ABCC79A583--. This will be important as we reference our cipher text later in this post. Our final step in preparing our scenario is to create a table variable to simulate the existence of a table that contains a column used to hold encrypted values. Once this table variable has been created, populate the table variable with the newly generated cipher text: -- capture value in table variable DECLARE @tbl TABLE (EncVal varbinary(MAX)); INSERT INTO @tbl (EncVal) VALUES (@CipherText); We are now ready to experience the challenge of capturing our encrypted column in an XML data type using the FOR XML clause: -- capture set in xml DECLARE @xml XML; SET @xml = (SELECT EncVal FROM @tbl AS MYTABLE FOR XML AUTO, BINARY BASE64, ROOT('root')); If you add the SELECT @XML statement at the end of this portion of the code you will see the contents of the XML data in its raw format: <root> <MYTABLE EncVal="AG4Skzy/sEafeavMeaWDBwEAAACE--" /> </root> Strangely, the value that is captured appears nothing like the value that was created through the encryption process. The result being that when this XML is converted into a readable data set the encrypted value will not be able to be decrypted, even with access to the symmetric key and certificate used to perform the decryption. An immediate thought might be to convert the varbinary data type to either a varchar or nvarchar before creating the XML data. This approach makes good sense. The code for this might look something like the following: -- capture set in xml DECLARE @xml XML; SET @xml = (SELECT CONVERT(NVARCHAR(MAX),EncVal) AS EncVal FROM @tbl AS MYTABLE FOR XML AUTO, BINARY BASE64, ROOT('root')); However, this results in the following error: Msg 9420, Level 16, State 1, Line 26 XML parsing: line 1, character 37, illegal xml character A quick query that returns CONVERT(NVARCHAR(MAX),EncVal) reveals that the value that is causing the error looks like something off of a genuine Chinese menu. While this situation does present us with one of those spine-tingling, expletive-generating challenges, rest assured that this approach is on the right track. With the addition of the "style" argument to the CONVERT method, our solution is at hand. When dealing with converting varbinary data types we have three styles available to us: - The first is to not include the style parameter, or use the value of "0". As we see, this style will not work for us. - The second option is to use the value of "1" will keep our varbinary value including the "0x" prefix. In our case, the value will be 0x006E12933CBFB0469F79ABCC79A583-- - The third option is to use the value of "2" which will chop the "0x" prefix off of our varbinary value. In our case, the value will be 006E12933CBFB0469F79ABCC79A583-- Since we will want to convert this back to varbinary when reading this value from the XML data we will want the "0x" prefix, so we will want to change our code as follows: -- capture set in xml DECLARE @xml XML; SET @xml = (SELECT CONVERT(NVARCHAR(MAX),EncVal,1) AS EncVal FROM @tbl AS MYTABLE FOR XML AUTO, BINARY BASE64, ROOT('root')); Once again, with the inclusion of the SELECT @XML statement at the end of this portion of the code you will see the contents of the XML data in its raw format: <root> <MYTABLE EncVal="0x006E12933CBFB0469F79ABCC79A583--" /> </root> Nice! We are now cooking with gas. To continue our scenario, we will want to parse the XML data into a data set so that we can glean our freshly captured cipher text. Once we have our cipher text snagged we will capture it into a variable so that it can be used during decryption: -- read back xml DECLARE @hdoc INT; DECLARE @EncVal NVARCHAR(MAX); EXEC sp_xml_preparedocument @hDoc OUTPUT, @xml; SELECT @EncVal = EncVal FROM OPENXML (@hdoc, '/root/MYTABLE') WITH ([EncVal] VARBINARY(MAX) '@EncVal'); EXEC sp_xml_removedocument @hDoc; Finally, the decryption of our cipher text using the DECRYPTBYKEYAUTOCERT method and the certificate utilized to perform the encryption earlier in our exercise: SELECT CONVERT(NVARCHAR(MAX), DecryptByKeyAutoCert ( CERT_ID('AuditLogCert'), N'mypassword2010', @EncVal ) ) EncVal; Ah yes, another hurdle presents itself! The decryption produced the value of NULL which in cryptography means that either you don't have permissions to decrypt the cipher text or something went wrong during the decryption process (ok, sometimes the value is actually NULL; but not in this case). As we see, the @EncVal variable is an nvarchar data type. The third parameter of the DECRYPTBYKEYAUTOCERT method requires a varbinary value. Therefore we will need to utilize our handy-dandy CONVERT method: SELECT CONVERT(NVARCHAR(MAX), DecryptByKeyAutoCert ( CERT_ID('AuditLogCert'), N'mypassword2010', CONVERT(VARBINARY(MAX),@EncVal) ) ) EncVal; Oh, almost. The result remains NULL despite our conversion to the varbinary data type. This is due to the creation of an varbinary value that does not reflect the actual value of our @EncVal variable; but rather a varbinary conversion of the variable itself. In this case, something like 0x3000780030003000360045003--. Considering the "style" parameter got us past XML challenge, we will want to consider its power for this challenge as well. Knowing that the value of "1" will provide us with the actual value including the "0x", we will opt to utilize that value in this case: SELECT CONVERT(NVARCHAR(MAX), DecryptByKeyAutoCert ( CERT_ID('SymCert'), N'mypassword2010', CONVERT(VARBINARY(MAX),@EncVal,1) ) ) EncVal; Bingo, we have success! We have discovered what happens with varbinary data when captured as XML data. We have figured out how to make this data useful post-XML-ification. Best of all we now have a choice in after-work parties now that our very happy client who depends on our XML based interface invites us for dinner in celebration. All thanks to the effective use of the style parameter.

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Why does Cacti keep waiting for dead poller processes?

- by Oliver Salzburg

sorry for the length I am currently setting up a new Debian (6.0.5) server. I put Cacti (0.8.7g) on it yesterday and have been battling with it ever since. Initial issue The initial issue I was observing, was that my graphs weren't updating. So I checked my cacti.log and found this concerning message: POLLER: Poller[0] Maximum runtime of 298 seconds exceeded. Exiting. That can't be good, right? So I went checking and started poller.php myself (via sudo -u www-data php poller.php --force). It will pump out a lot of message (which all look like what I would expect) and then hang for a minute. After that 1 minute, it will loop the following message: Waiting on 1 of 1 pollers. This goes on for 4 more minutes until the process is forcefully ended for running longer than 300s. So far so good I went on for a good hour trying to determine what poller might still be running, until I got to the conclusion that there simply is no running poller. Debugging I checked poller.php to see how that warning is issued and why. On line 368, Cacti will retrieve the number of finished processes from the database and use that value to calculate how many processes are still running. So, let's see that value! I added the following debug code into poller.php: print "Finished: " . $finished_processes . " - Started: " . $started_processes . "\n"; Result This will print the following within seconds of starting poller.php: Finished: 0 - Started: 1 Waiting on 1 of 1 pollers. Finished: 1 - Started: 1 So the values are being read and are valid. Until we get to the part where it keeps looping: Finished: - Started: 1 Waiting on 1 of 1 pollers. Suddenly, the value is gone. Why? Putting var_dump() in there confirms the issue: NULL Finished: - Started: 1 Waiting on 1 of 1 pollers. The return value is NULL. How can that be when querying SELECT COUNT()...? (SELECT COUNT() should always return one result row, shouldn't it?) More debugging So I went into lib\database.php and had a look at that db_fetch_cell(). A bit of testing confirmed, that the result set is actually empty. So I added my own database query code in there to see what that would do: $finished_processes = db_fetch_cell("SELECT count(*) FROM poller_time WHERE poller_id=0 AND end_time>'0000-00-00 00:00:00'"); print "Finished: " . $finished_processes . " - Started: " . $started_processes . "\n"; $mysqli = new mysqli("localhost","cacti","cacti","cacti"); $result = $mysqli->query("SELECT COUNT(*) FROM poller_time WHERE poller_id=0 AND end_time>'0000-00-00 00:00:00';"); $row = $result->fetch_assoc(); var_dump( $row ); This will output Finished: - Started: 1 array(1) { ["COUNT(*)"]=> string(1) "2" } Waiting on 1 of 1 pollers. So, the data is there and can be accessed without any problems, just not with the method Cacti is using? Double-check that! I enabled MySQL logging to make sure I'm not imagining things. Sure enough, when the error message is looped, the cacti.log reads as if it was querying like mad: 06/29/2012 08:44:00 PM - CMDPHP: Poller[0] DEVEL: SQL Cell: "SELECT count(*) FROM cacti.poller_time WHERE poller_id=0 AND end_time>'0000-00-00 00:00:00'" 06/29/2012 08:44:01 PM - CMDPHP: Poller[0] DEVEL: SQL Cell: "SELECT count(*) FROM cacti.poller_time WHERE poller_id=0 AND end_time>'0000-00-00 00:00:00'" 06/29/2012 08:44:02 PM - CMDPHP: Poller[0] DEVEL: SQL Cell: "SELECT count(*) FROM cacti.poller_time WHERE poller_id=0 AND end_time>'0000-00-00 00:00:00'" But none of these queries are logged my MySQL. Yet, when I add my own database query code, it shows up just fine. What the heck is going on here?

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[ASP.NET 4.0] Persisting Row Selection in Data Controls

- by HosamKamel

Data Control Selection Feature In ASP.NET 2.0: ASP.NET Data Controls row selection feature was based on row index (in the current page), this of course produce an issue if you try to select an item in the first page then navigate to the second page without select any record you will find the same row (with the same index) selected in the second page! In the sample application attached: Select the second row in the books GridView. Navigate to second page without doing any selection You will find the second row in the second page selected. Persisting Row Selection: Is a new feature which replace the old selection mechanism which based on row index to be based on the row data key instead. This means that if you select the third row on page 1 and move to page 2, nothing is selected on page 2. When you move back to page 1, the third row is still selected. Data Control Selection Feature In ASP.NET 3.5 SP1: The Persisting Row Selection was initially supported only in Dynamic Data projects Data Control Selection Feature In ASP.NET 4.0: Persisted selection is now supported for the GridView and ListView controls in all projects. You can enable this feature by setting the EnablePersistedSelection property, as shown below: Important thing to note, once you enable this feature you have to set the DataKeyNames property too because as discussed the full approach is based on the Row Data Key Simple feature but is a much more natural behavior than the behavior in earlier versions of ASP.NET. Download Demo Project

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How To Run XP Mode in VirtualBox on Windows 7 (sort of)

- by Matthew Guay

A few weeks ago we showed you how to run XP Mode on a Windows 7 computer without Hardware Virtualization using VMware. Some of you have been asking if it can be done in Virtual Box as well. The answer is “Yes!” and here we’ll show you how. Editor Update: Apparently there isn’t a way to activate XP Mode through VirtualBox using this method. You will however, be able to run it for 30 days. We have a new updated article on how to Install XP Mode with VirtualBox Using the VMLite Plugin. Earlier we showed you how to run XP mode on windows 7 machines without hardware virtualization capability. Since then, a lot of you have been asking to a write up a tutorial about doing the same thing using VirtualBox. This makes it another great way to run XP Mode if your computer does not have hardware virtualization. Here we’ll see how to import the XP Mode from Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate into VirtualBox so you can run XP in it for free. Note: You need to have Windows 7 Professional or above to use XP Mode in this manner. In our tests we were able to get it to run on Home Premium as well, but you’ll be breaking Windows 7 licensing agreements. Getting Started First, download and install XP Mode (link below). There is no need to download Virtual PC if your computer cannot run it, so just download the XP Mode from the link on the left. Install XP mode; just follow the default prompts as usual. Now, download and install VirtualBox 3.1.2 or higher(link below). Install as normal, and simply follow the default prompts. VirtualBox may notify you that your network connection will be reset during the installation. Press Yes to continue. During the install, you may see several popups asking you if you wish to install device drivers for USB and Network interfaces. Simply click install, as these are needed for VirtualBox to run correctly. Setup only took a couple minutes, and doesn’t require a reboot. Setup XP Mode in VirtualBox: First we need to copy the default XP Mode so VirtualBox will not affect the original copy. Browse to C:\Program Files\Windows XP Mode, and copy the file “Windows XP Mode base.vhd”. Paste it in another folder of your choice, such as your Documents folder. Once you’ve copied the file, right-click on it and click Properties. Uncheck the “Read-only” box in this dialog, and then click Ok. Now, in VirtualBox, click New to create a new virtual machine. Enter the name of your virtual machine, and make sure the operating system selected is Windows XP. Choose how much memory you want to allow the virtual machine to use. VirtualBox’ default is 192 Mb ram, but for better performance you can select 256 or 512Mb. Now, select the hard drive for the virtual machine. Select “Use existing hard disk”, then click the folder button to choose the XP Mode virtual drive. In this window, click Add, and then browse to find the copy of XP Mode you previously made. Make sure the correct virtual drive is selected, then press Select. After selecting the VHD your screen should look like the following then click Next. Verify the settings you made are correct. If not, you can go back and make any changes. When everything looks correct click Finish. Setup XP Mode Now, in VirtualBox, click start to run XP Mode. The Windows XP in this virtual drive is not fully setup yet, so you will have to go through the setup process. If you didn’t uncheck the “Read-only” box in the VHD properties before, you may see the following error. If you see it, go back and check the file to makes sure it is not read-only. When you click in the virtual machine, it will capture your mouse by default. Simply press the right Ctrl key to release your mouse so you can go back to using Windows 7. This will only be the case during the setup process; after the Guest Additions are installed, the mouse will seamlessly move between operating systems. Now, accept the license agreement in XP. Choose your correct locale and keyboard settings. Enter a name for your virtual XP, and an administrative password. Check the date, time, and time zone settings, and adjust them if they are incorrect. The time and date are usually correct, but the time zone often has to be corrected. XP will now automatically finish setting up your virtual machine, and then will automatically reboot. After rebooting, select your automatic update settings. You may see a prompt to check for drivers; simply press cancel, as all the drivers we need will be installed later with the Guest Additions. Your last settings will be finalized, and finally you will see your XP desktop in VirtualBox. Please note that XP Mode may not remain activated after importing it into VirtualBox. When you activate it, use the key that is located at C:\Program Files\Windows XP Mode\key.txt. Note: During our tests we weren’t able to get the activation to go through. We are looking into the issue and will have a revised article showing the correct way to get XP Mode in VirutalBox working correctly soon. Now we have one final thing to install – the VirtualBox Guest Additions. In the VirtualBox window, click “Devices” and then select “Install Guest Additions”. This should automatically launch in XP; if it doesn’t, click Start, then My Computer, and finally double-click on the CD drive which should say VirtualBox Guest Additions. Simply install with the normal presets. You can select to install an experimental 3D graphics driver if you wish to try to run games in XP in VirtualBox; however, do note that this is not fully supported and is currently a test feature. You may see a prompt informing you that the drivers have not passed Logo testing; simply press “Continue Anyway” to proceed with the installation. When installation has completed, you will be required to reboot your virtual machine. Now, you can move your mouse directly from Windows XP to Windows 7 without pressing Ctrl. Integrating with Windows 7 Once your virtual machine is rebooted, you can integrate it with your Windows 7 desktop. In the VirtualBox window, click Machine and then select “Seamless Mode”. In Seamless mode you’ll have the XP Start menu and taskbar sit on top of your Windows 7 Start and Taskbar. Here we see XP running on Virtual Box in Seamless Mode. We have the old XP WordPad sitting next to the new Windows 7 version of WordPad. Another view of everything running seamlessly together on the same Windows 7 desktop. Hover the pointer over the XP taskbar to pull up the Virtual Box menu items. You can exit out of Seamless Mode from the VirtualBox menu or using “Ctrl+L”. Then you go back to having it run separately on your desktop again. Conclusion Running XP Mode in a Virtual Machine is a great way to experience the feature on computers without Hardware Virtualization capabilities. If you prefer VMware Player, then you’ll want to check out our articles on how to run XP Mode on Windows 7 machines without Hardware Virtualization, and how to create an XP Mode for Windows 7 Home Premium and Vista. Download VirtualBox Download XP Mode Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Install XP Mode with VirtualBox Using the VMLite PluginUsing Windows 7 or Vista Compatibility ModeMake Safari Stop Crashing Every 20 Seconds on Windows VistaForce Windows 7 / Vista to Boot Into Safe Mode Without Using the F8 KeyHow To Run Chrome OS in VirtualBox TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Enable Check Box Selection in Windows 7 OnlineOCR – Free OCR Service Betting on the Blind Side, a Vanity Fair article 30 Minimal Logo Designs that Say More with Less LEGO Digital Designer – Free Create a Personal Website Quickly using Flavors.me

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How To Run XP Mode in VirtualBox on Windows 7 (sort of)

- by Matthew Guay

A few weeks ago we showed you how to run XP Mode on a Windows 7 computer without Hardware Virtualization using VMware. Some of you have been asking if it can be done in Virtual Box as well. The answer is “Yes!” and here we’ll show you how. Editor Update: Apparently there isn’t a way to activate XP Mode through VirtualBox using this method. You will however, be able to run it for 30 days. We have a new updated article on how to Install XP Mode with VirtualBox Using the VMLite Plugin. Earlier we showed you how to run XP mode on windows 7 machines without hardware virtualization capability. Since then, a lot of you have been asking to a write up a tutorial about doing the same thing using VirtualBox. This makes it another great way to run XP Mode if your computer does not have hardware virtualization. Here we’ll see how to import the XP Mode from Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate into VirtualBox so you can run XP in it for free. Note: You need to have Windows 7 Professional or above to use XP Mode in this manner. In our tests we were able to get it to run on Home Premium as well, but you’ll be breaking Windows 7 licensing agreements. Getting Started First, download and install XP Mode (link below). There is no need to download Virtual PC if your computer cannot run it, so just download the XP Mode from the link on the left. Install XP mode; just follow the default prompts as usual. Now, download and install VirtualBox 3.1.2 or higher(link below). Install as normal, and simply follow the default prompts. VirtualBox may notify you that your network connection will be reset during the installation. Press Yes to continue. During the install, you may see several popups asking you if you wish to install device drivers for USB and Network interfaces. Simply click install, as these are needed for VirtualBox to run correctly. Setup only took a couple minutes, and doesn’t require a reboot. Setup XP Mode in VirtualBox: First we need to copy the default XP Mode so VirtualBox will not affect the original copy. Browse to C:\Program Files\Windows XP Mode, and copy the file “Windows XP Mode base.vhd”. Paste it in another folder of your choice, such as your Documents folder. Once you’ve copied the file, right-click on it and click Properties. Uncheck the “Read-only” box in this dialog, and then click Ok. Now, in VirtualBox, click New to create a new virtual machine. Enter the name of your virtual machine, and make sure the operating system selected is Windows XP. Choose how much memory you want to allow the virtual machine to use. VirtualBox’ default is 192 Mb ram, but for better performance you can select 256 or 512Mb. Now, select the hard drive for the virtual machine. Select “Use existing hard disk”, then click the folder button to choose the XP Mode virtual drive. In this window, click Add, and then browse to find the copy of XP Mode you previously made. Make sure the correct virtual drive is selected, then press Select. After selecting the VHD your screen should look like the following then click Next. Verify the settings you made are correct. If not, you can go back and make any changes. When everything looks correct click Finish. Setup XP Mode Now, in VirtualBox, click start to run XP Mode. The Windows XP in this virtual drive is not fully setup yet, so you will have to go through the setup process. If you didn’t uncheck the “Read-only” box in the VHD properties before, you may see the following error. If you see it, go back and check the file to makes sure it is not read-only. When you click in the virtual machine, it will capture your mouse by default. Simply press the right Ctrl key to release your mouse so you can go back to using Windows 7. This will only be the case during the setup process; after the Guest Additions are installed, the mouse will seamlessly move between operating systems. Now, accept the license agreement in XP. Choose your correct locale and keyboard settings. Enter a name for your virtual XP, and an administrative password. Check the date, time, and time zone settings, and adjust them if they are incorrect. The time and date are usually correct, but the time zone often has to be corrected. XP will now automatically finish setting up your virtual machine, and then will automatically reboot. After rebooting, select your automatic update settings. You may see a prompt to check for drivers; simply press cancel, as all the drivers we need will be installed later with the Guest Additions. Your last settings will be finalized, and finally you will see your XP desktop in VirtualBox. Please note that XP Mode may not remain activated after importing it into VirtualBox. When you activate it, use the key that is located at C:\Program Files\Windows XP Mode\key.txt. Note: During our tests we weren’t able to get the activation to go through. We are looking into the issue and will have a revised article showing the correct way to get XP Mode in VirutalBox working correctly soon. Now we have one final thing to install – the VirtualBox Guest Additions. In the VirtualBox window, click “Devices” and then select “Install Guest Additions”. This should automatically launch in XP; if it doesn’t, click Start, then My Computer, and finally double-click on the CD drive which should say VirtualBox Guest Additions. Simply install with the normal presets. You can select to install an experimental 3D graphics driver if you wish to try to run games in XP in VirtualBox; however, do note that this is not fully supported and is currently a test feature. You may see a prompt informing you that the drivers have not passed Logo testing; simply press “Continue Anyway” to proceed with the installation. When installation has completed, you will be required to reboot your virtual machine. Now, you can move your mouse directly from Windows XP to Windows 7 without pressing Ctrl. Integrating with Windows 7 Once your virtual machine is rebooted, you can integrate it with your Windows 7 desktop. In the VirtualBox window, click Machine and then select “Seamless Mode”. In Seamless mode you’ll have the XP Start menu and taskbar sit on top of your Windows 7 Start and Taskbar. Here we see XP running on Virtual Box in Seamless Mode. We have the old XP WordPad sitting next to the new Windows 7 version of WordPad. Another view of everything running seamlessly together on the same Windows 7 desktop. Hover the pointer over the XP taskbar to pull up the Virtual Box menu items. You can exit out of Seamless Mode from the VirtualBox menu or using “Ctrl+L”. Then you go back to having it run separately on your desktop again. Conclusion Running XP Mode in a Virtual Machine is a great way to experience the feature on computers without Hardware Virtualization capabilities. If you prefer VMware Player, then you’ll want to check out our articles on how to run XP Mode on Windows 7 machines without Hardware Virtualization, and how to create an XP Mode for Windows 7 Home Premium and Vista. Download VirtualBox Download XP Mode Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Install XP Mode with VirtualBox Using the VMLite PluginUsing Windows 7 or Vista Compatibility ModeMake Safari Stop Crashing Every 20 Seconds on Windows VistaForce Windows 7 / Vista to Boot Into Safe Mode Without Using the F8 KeyHow To Run Chrome OS in VirtualBox TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Enable Check Box Selection in Windows 7 OnlineOCR – Free OCR Service Betting on the Blind Side, a Vanity Fair article 30 Minimal Logo Designs that Say More with Less LEGO Digital Designer – Free Create a Personal Website Quickly using Flavors.me

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Run Windows in Ubuntu with VMware Player

- by Matthew Guay

Are you an enthusiast who loves their Ubuntu Linux experience but still needs to use Windows programs? Here’s how you can get the full Windows experience on Ubuntu with the free VMware Player. Linux has become increasingly consumer friendly, but still, the wide majority of commercial software is only available for Windows and Macs. Dual-booting between Windows and Linux has been a popular option for years, but this is a frustrating solution since you have to reboot into the other operating system each time you want to run a specific application. With virtualization, you’ll never have to make this tradeoff. VMware Player makes it quick and easy to install any edition of Windows in a virtual machine. With VMware’s great integration tools, you can copy and paste between your Linux and Windows programs and even run native Windows applications side-by-side with Linux ones. Getting Started Download the latest version of VMware Player for Linux, and select either the 32-bit or 64-bit version, depending on your system. VMware Player is a free download, but requires registration. Sign in with your VMware account, or create a new one if you don’t already have one. VMware Player is fairly easy to install on Linux, but you will need to start out the installation from the terminal. First, enter the following to make sure the installer is marked as executable, substituting version/build_number for the version number on the end of the file you downloaded. chmod +x ./VMware-Player-version/build_number.bundle Then, enter the following to start the install, again substituting your version number: gksudo bash ./VMware-Player-version/build_number.bundle You may have to enter your administrator password to start the installation, and then the VMware Player graphical installer will open. Choose whether you want to check for product updates and submit usage data to VMware, and then proceed with the install as normal. VMware Player installed in only a few minutes in our tests, and was immediately ready to run, no reboot required. You can now launch it from your Ubuntu menu: click Applications \ System Tools \ VMware Player. You’ll need to accept the license agreement the first time you run it. Welcome to VMware Player! Now you can create new virtual machines and run pre-built ones on your Ubuntu desktop. Install Windows in VMware Player on Ubuntu Now that you’ve got VMware setup, it’s time to put it to work. Click the Create a New Virtual Machine as above to start making a Windows virtual machine. In the dialog that opens, select your installer disk or ISO image file that you want to install Windows from. In this example, we’re select a Windows 7 ISO. VMware will automatically detect the operating system on the disk or image. Click Next to continue. Enter your Windows product key, select the edition of Windows to install, and enter your name and password. You can leave the product key field blank and enter it later. VMware will ask if you want to continue without a product key, so just click Yes to continue. Now enter a name for your virtual machine and select where you want to save it. Note: This will take up at least 15Gb of space on your hard drive during the install, so make sure to save it on a drive with sufficient storage space. You can choose how large you want your virtual hard drive to be; the default is 40Gb, but you can choose a different size if you wish. The entire amount will not be used up on your hard drive initially, but the virtual drive will increase in size up to your maximum as you add files. Additionally, you can choose if you want the virtual disk stored as a single file or as multiple files. You will see the best performance by keeping the virtual disk as one file, but the virtual machine will be more portable if it is broken into smaller files, so choose the option that will work best for your needs. Finally, review your settings, and if everything looks good, click Finish to create the virtual machine. VMware will take over now, and install Windows without any further input using its Easy Install. This is one of VMware’s best features, and is the main reason we find it the easiest desktop virtualization solution to use. Installing VMware Tools VMware Player doesn’t include the VMware Tools by default; instead, it automatically downloads them for the operating system you’re installing. Once you’ve downloaded them, it will use those tools anytime you install that OS. If this is your first Windows virtual machine to install, you may be prompted to download and install them while Windows is installing. Click Download and Install so your Easy Install will finish successfully. VMware will then download and install the tools. You may need to enter your administrative password to complete the install. Other than this, you can leave your Windows install unattended; VMware will get everything installed and running on its own. Our test setup took about 30 minutes, and when it was done we were greeted with the Windows desktop ready to use, complete with drivers and the VMware tools. The only thing missing was the Aero glass feature. VMware Player is supposed to support the Aero glass effects in virtual machines, and although this works every time when we use VMware Player on Windows, we could not get it to work in Linux. Other than that, Windows is fully ready to use. You can copy and paste text, images, or files between Ubuntu and Windows, or simply drag-and-drop files between the two. Unity Mode Using Windows in a window is awkward, and makes your Windows programs feel out of place and hard to use. This is where Unity mode comes in. Click Virtual Machine in VMware’s menu, and select Enter Unity. Your Windows desktop will now disappear, and you’ll see a new Windows menu underneath your Ubuntu menu. This works the same as your Windows Start Menu, and you can open your Windows applications and files directly from it. By default, programs from Windows will have a colored border and a VMware badge in the corner. You can turn this off from the VMware settings pane. Click Virtual Machine in VMware’s menu and select Virtual Machine Settings. Select Unity under the Options tab, and uncheck the Show borders and Show badges boxes if you don’t want them. Unity makes your Windows programs feel at home in Ubuntu. Here we have Word 2010 and IE8 open beside the Ubuntu Help application. Notice that the Windows applications show up in the taskbar on the bottom just like the Linux programs. If you’re using the Compiz graphics effects in Ubuntu, your Windows programs will use them too, including the popular wobbly windows effect. You can switch back to running Windows inside VMware Player’s window by clicking the Exit Unity button in the VMware window. Now, whenever you want to run Windows applications in Linux, you can quickly launch it from VMware Player. Conclusion VMware Player is a great way to run Windows on your Linux computer. It makes it extremely easy to get Windows installed and running, lets you run your Windows programs seamlessly alongside your Linux ones. VMware products work great in our experience, and VMware Player on Linux was no exception. If you’re a Windows user and you’d like to run Ubuntu on Windows, check out our article on how to Run Ubuntu in Windows with VMware Player. Link Download VMware Player 3 (Registration required) Download Windows 7 Enterprise 90-day trial Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Enable Copy and Paste from Ubuntu VMware GuestInstall VMware Tools on Ubuntu Edgy EftRestart the Ubuntu Gnome User Interface QuicklyHow to Add a Program to the Ubuntu Startup List (After Login)How To Run Ubuntu in Windows 7 with VMware Player 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 Get a free copy of WinUtilities Pro 2010 World Cup Schedule Boot Snooze – Reboot and then Standby or Hibernate Customize Everything Related to Dates, Times, Currency and Measurement in Windows 7 Google Earth replacement Icon (Icons we like) Build Great Charts in Excel with Chart Advisor

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PowerShell Script to Deploy Multiple VM on Azure in Parallel #azure #powershell

- by Marco Russo (SQLBI)

This blog is usually dedicated to Business Intelligence and SQL Server, but I didn’t found easily on the web simple PowerShell scripts to help me deploying a number of virtual machines on Azure that I use for testing and development. Since I need to deploy, start, stop and remove many virtual machines created from a common image I created (you know, Tabular is not part of the standard images provided by Microsoft…), I wanted to minimize the time required to execute every operation from my Windows Azure PowerShell console (but I suggest you using Windows PowerShell ISE), so I also wanted to fire the commands as soon as possible in parallel, without losing the result in the console. In order to execute multiple commands in parallel, I used the Start-Job cmdlet, and using Get-Job and Receive-Job I wait for job completion and display the messages generated during background command execution. This technique allows me to reduce execution time when I have to deploy, start, stop or remove virtual machines. Please note that a few operations on Azure acquire an exclusive lock and cannot be really executed in parallel, but only one part of their execution time is subject to this lock. Thus, you obtain a better response time also in these scenarios (this is the case of the provisioning of a new VM). Finally, when you remove the VMs you still have the disk containing the virtual machine to remove. This cannot be done just after the VM removal, because you have to wait that the removal operation is completed on Azure. So I wrote a script that you have to run a few minutes after VMs removal and delete disks (and VHD) no longer related to a VM. I just check that the disk were associated to the original image name used to provision the VMs (so I don’t remove other disks deployed by other batches that I might want to preserve). These examples are specific for my scenario, if you need more complex configurations you have to change and adapt the code. But if your need is to create multiple instances of the same VM running in a workgroup, these scripts should be good enough. I prepared the following PowerShell scripts: ProvisionVMs: Provision many VMs in parallel starting from the same image. It creates one service for each VM. RemoveVMs: Remove all the VMs in parallel – it also remove the service created for the VM StartVMs: Starts all the VMs in parallel StopVMs: Stops all the VMs in parallel RemoveOrphanDisks: Remove all the disks no longer used by any VMs. Run this script a few minutes after RemoveVMs script. ProvisionVMs # Name of subscription $SubscriptionName = "Copy the SubscriptionName property you get from Get-AzureSubscription" # Name of storage account (where VMs will be deployed) $StorageAccount = "Copy the Label property you get from Get-AzureStorageAccount" function ProvisionVM( [string]$VmName ) { Start-Job -ArgumentList $VmName { param($VmName) $Location = "Copy the Location property you get from Get-AzureStorageAccount" $InstanceSize = "A5" # You can use any other instance, such as Large, A6, and so on $AdminUsername = "UserName" # Write the name of the administrator account in the new VM $Password = "Password" # Write the password of the administrator account in the new VM $Image = "Copy the ImageName property you get from Get-AzureVMImage" # You can list your own images using the following command: # Get-AzureVMImage | Where-Object {$_.PublisherName -eq "User" } New-AzureVMConfig -Name $VmName -ImageName $Image -InstanceSize $InstanceSize | Add-AzureProvisioningConfig -Windows -Password $Password -AdminUsername $AdminUsername| New-AzureVM -Location $Location -ServiceName "$VmName" -Verbose } } # Set the proper storage - you might remove this line if you have only one storage in the subscription Set-AzureSubscription -SubscriptionName $SubscriptionName -CurrentStorageAccount $StorageAccount # Select the subscription - this line is fundamental if you have access to multiple subscription # You might remove this line if you have only one subscription Select-AzureSubscription -SubscriptionName $SubscriptionName # Every line in the following list provisions one VM using the name specified in the argument # You can change the number of lines - use a unique name for every VM - don't reuse names # already used in other VMs already deployed ProvisionVM "test10" ProvisionVM "test11" ProvisionVM "test12" ProvisionVM "test13" ProvisionVM "test14" ProvisionVM "test15" ProvisionVM "test16" ProvisionVM "test17" ProvisionVM "test18" ProvisionVM "test19" ProvisionVM "test20" # Wait for all to complete While (Get-Job -State "Running") { Get-Job -State "Completed" | Receive-Job Start-Sleep 1 } # Display output from all jobs Get-Job | Receive-Job # Cleanup of jobs Remove-Job * # Displays batch completed echo "Provisioning VM Completed" RemoveVMs # Name of subscription $SubscriptionName = "Copy the SubscriptionName property you get from Get-AzureSubscription" function RemoveVM( [string]$VmName ) { Start-Job -ArgumentList $VmName { param($VmName) Remove-AzureService -ServiceName $VmName -Force -Verbose } } # Select the subscription - this line is fundamental if you have access to multiple subscription # You might remove this line if you have only one subscription Select-AzureSubscription -SubscriptionName $SubscriptionName # Every line in the following list remove one VM using the name specified in the argument # You can change the number of lines - use a unique name for every VM - don't reuse names # already used in other VMs already deployed RemoveVM "test10" RemoveVM "test11" RemoveVM "test12" RemoveVM "test13" RemoveVM "test14" RemoveVM "test15" RemoveVM "test16" RemoveVM "test17" RemoveVM "test18" RemoveVM "test19" RemoveVM "test20" # Wait for all to complete While (Get-Job -State "Running") { Get-Job -State "Completed" | Receive-Job Start-Sleep 1 } # Display output from all jobs Get-Job | Receive-Job # Cleanup Remove-Job * # Displays batch completed echo "Remove VM Completed" StartVMs # Name of subscription $SubscriptionName = "Copy the SubscriptionName property you get from Get-AzureSubscription" function StartVM( [string]$VmName ) { Start-Job -ArgumentList $VmName { param($VmName) Start-AzureVM -Name $VmName -ServiceName $VmName -Verbose } } # Select the subscription - this line is fundamental if you have access to multiple subscription # You might remove this line if you have only one subscription Select-AzureSubscription -SubscriptionName $SubscriptionName # Every line in the following list starts one VM using the name specified in the argument # You can change the number of lines - use a unique name for every VM - don't reuse names # already used in other VMs already deployed StartVM "test10" StartVM "test11" StartVM "test11" StartVM "test12" StartVM "test13" StartVM "test14" StartVM "test15" StartVM "test16" StartVM "test17" StartVM "test18" StartVM "test19" StartVM "test20" # Wait for all to complete While (Get-Job -State "Running") { Get-Job -State "Completed" | Receive-Job Start-Sleep 1 } # Display output from all jobs Get-Job | Receive-Job # Cleanup Remove-Job * # Displays batch completed echo "Start VM Completed" StopVMs # Name of subscription $SubscriptionName = "Copy the SubscriptionName property you get from Get-AzureSubscription" function StopVM( [string]$VmName ) { Start-Job -ArgumentList $VmName { param($VmName) Stop-AzureVM -Name $VmName -ServiceName $VmName -Verbose -Force } } # Select the subscription - this line is fundamental if you have access to multiple subscription # You might remove this line if you have only one subscription Select-AzureSubscription -SubscriptionName $SubscriptionName # Every line in the following list stops one VM using the name specified in the argument # You can change the number of lines - use a unique name for every VM - don't reuse names # already used in other VMs already deployed StopVM "test10" StopVM "test11" StopVM "test12" StopVM "test13" StopVM "test14" StopVM "test15" StopVM "test16" StopVM "test17" StopVM "test18" StopVM "test19" StopVM "test20" # Wait for all to complete While (Get-Job -State "Running") { Get-Job -State "Completed" | Receive-Job Start-Sleep 1 } # Display output from all jobs Get-Job | Receive-Job # Cleanup Remove-Job * # Displays batch completed echo "Stop VM Completed" RemoveOrphanDisks $Image = "Copy the ImageName property you get from Get-AzureVMImage" # You can list your own images using the following command: # Get-AzureVMImage | Where-Object {$_.PublisherName -eq "User" } # Remove all orphan disks coming from the image specified in $ImageName Get-AzureDisk | Where-Object {$_.attachedto -eq $null -and $_.SourceImageName -eq $ImageName} | Remove-AzureDisk -DeleteVHD -Verbose

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Error 0x6ba (RPC server is unavailable) when running sfc /scannow on Windows XP in Safe Mode

- by leeand00

I think that my mup.sys file is corrupt. I received the following error when trying to access a network share that was located on my Windows 7 box, from my Windows XP box: No network provider accepted the given network path. After reading this I attempted to follow the directions by rebooting my computer into safe mode. After I run "sfc /scannow" I receive the following error message: The specific error code is 0x000006ba [The RPC server is unavailable]. When I go into Services, it says that the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) service is running but that the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Locator is not running. When I try to start the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Locator, it gives me an error saying: Error 1084: This service cannot be started in Safe Mode What can I do about this? If it can't find the Remote Procedure Call service in safe mode?

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SQL SERVER – Information Related to DATETIME and DATETIME2

- by pinaldave

I recently received interesting comment on the blog regarding workaround to overcome the precision issue while dealing with DATETIME and DATETIME2. I have written over this subject earlier over here. SQL SERVER – Difference Between GETDATE and SYSDATETIME SQL SERVER – Difference Between DATETIME and DATETIME2 – WITH GETDATE SQL SERVER – Difference Between DATETIME and DATETIME2 SQL Expert Jing Sheng Zhong has left following comment: The issue you found in SQL server new datetime type is related time source function precision. Folks have found the root reason of the problem – when data time values are converted (implicit or explicit) between different data type, which would lose some precision, so the result cannot match each other as thought. Here I would like to gave a work around solution to solve the problem which the developers met. -- Declare and loop DECLARE @Intveral INT, @CurDate DATETIMEOFFSET; CREATE TABLE #TimeTable (FirstDate DATETIME, LastDate DATETIME2, GlobalDate DATETIMEOFFSET) SET @Intveral = 10000 WHILE (@Intveral > 0) BEGIN ----SET @CurDate = SYSDATETIMEOFFSET(); -- higher precision for future use only SET @CurDate = TODATETIMEOFFSET(GETDATE(),DATEDIFF(N,GETUTCDATE(),GETDATE())); -- lower precision to match exited date process INSERT #TimeTable (FirstDate, LastDate, GlobalDate) VALUES (@CurDate, @CurDate, @CurDate) SET @Intveral = @Intveral - 1 END GO -- Distinct Values SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT FirstDate) D_DATETIME, COUNT(DISTINCT LastDate) D_DATETIME2, COUNT(DISTINCT GlobalDate) D_SYSGETDATE FROM #TimeTable GO -- Join SELECT DISTINCT a.FirstDate,b.LastDate, b.GlobalDate, CAST(b.GlobalDate AS DATETIME) GlobalDateASDateTime FROM #TimeTable a INNER JOIN #TimeTable b ON a.FirstDate = CAST(b.GlobalDate AS DATETIME) GO -- Select SELECT * FROM #TimeTable GO -- Clean up DROP TABLE #TimeTable GO If you read my blog SQL SERVER – Difference Between DATETIME and DATETIME2 you will notice that I have achieved the same using GETDATE(). Are you using DATETIME2 in your production environment? If yes, I am interested to know the use case. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://www.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL DateTime, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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Running sfc /scannow provides the error The specific error code is 0x000006ba [The RPC server is una

- by leeand00

I think that my mup.sys file is corrupted, I received the following error when trying to access a network share that was located on my Windows 7 box, from my Windows xp box: No network provider accepted the given network path. After reading this I attempted to follow the directions by entering my computer into safe mode. After I run "sfc /scannow" I receive the following error message: The specific error code is 0x000006ba [The RPC server is unavailable]. Additionally when I go into Services, it says that the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) service is running but that the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Locator is not running. When I try to start the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Locator, it gives me an error saying: Error 1084: This service cannot be started in Safe Mode So what can I do about this exactly? If it can't find the Remote Procedure Call service in safe mode?

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How to disable Bluetooth auto-answer on Windows 7?

- by MarkR

When my BlackBerry 9630 is connected via Bluetooth to my Dell desktop running Windows 7 x64 there are a bunch of Bluetooth services enabled on Windows Advanced Audio BB Bypass service BB Desktop Service Dial-up Networking Headset Audio Gateway Remote Control Remotely Controlled Device When a call arrives on the 9630 Windows immediately answer the call. This is annoying when windows answers the phone before I even hear an audible ring and the hapless caller is saying, "hello. hello" on top of music I have playing. Does anyone know how to tell Windows not to answer the call? I want to be able to don my headset, switch audio to my headset, THEN manually answer the call.

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Network Logon Issues with Group Policy and Network

- by bobloki

I am gravely in need of your help and assistance. We have a problem with our logon and startup to our Windows 7 Enterprise system. We have more than 3000 Windows Desktops situated in roughly 20+ buildings around campus. Almost every computer on campus has the problem that I will be describing. I have spent over one month peering over etl files from Windows Performance Analyzer (A great product) and hundreds of thousands of event logs. I come to you today humbled that I could not figure this out. The problem as simply put our logon times are extremely long. An average first time logon is roughly 2-10 minutes depending on the software installed. All computers are Windows 7, the oldest computers being 5 years old. Startup times on various computers range from good (1-2 minutes) to very bad (5-60). Our second time logons range from 30 seconds to 4 minutes. We have a gigabit connection between each computer on the network. We have 5 domain controllers which also double as our DNS servers. Initial testing led us to believe that this was a software problem. So I spent a few days testing machines only to find inconsistent results from the etl files from xperfview. Each subset of computers on campus had a different subset of software issues, none seeming to interfere with logon just startup. So I started looking at our group policy and located some very interesting event ID’s. Group Policy 1129: The processing of Group Policy failed because of lack of network connectivity to a domain controller. Group Policy 1055: The processing of Group Policy failed. Windows could not resolve the computer name. This could be caused by one of more of the following: a) Name Resolution failure on the current domain controller. b) Active Directory Replication Latency (an account created on another domain controller has not replicated to the current domain controller). NETLOGON 5719 : This computer was not able to set up a secure session with a domain controller in domain OURDOMAIN due to the following: There are currently no logon servers available to service the logon request. This may lead to authentication problems. Make sure that this computer is connected to the network. If the problem persists, please contact your domain administrator. E1kexpress 27: Intel®82567LM-3 Gigabit Network Connection – Network link is disconnected. NetBT 4300 – The driver could not be created. WMI 10 - Event filter with query "SELECT * FROM __InstanceModificationEvent WITHIN 60 WHERE TargetInstance ISA "Win32_Processor" AND TargetInstance.LoadPercentage 99" could not be reactivated in namespace "//./root/CIMV2" because of error 0x80041003. Events cannot be delivered through this filter until the problem is corrected. More or less with timestamps it becomes apparent that the network maybe the issue. 1:25:57 - Group Policy is trying to discover the domain controller information 1:25:57 - The network link has been disconnected 1:25:58 - The processing of Group Policy failed because of lack of network connectivity to a domain controller. This may be a transient condition. A success message would be generated once the machine gets connected to the domain controller and Group Policy has successfully processed. If you do not see a success message for several hours, then contact your administrator. 1:25:58 - Making LDAP calls to connect and bind to active directory. DC1.ourdomain.edu 1:25:58 - Call failed after 0 milliseconds. 1:25:58 - Forcing rediscovery of domain controller details. 1:25:58 - Group policy failed to discover the domain controller in 1030 milliseconds 1:25:58 - Periodic policy processing failed for computer OURDOMAIN\%name%$ in 1 seconds. 1:25:59 - A network link has been established at 1Gbps at full duplex 1:26:00 - The network link has been disconnected 1:26:02 - NtpClient was unable to set a domain peer to use as a time source because of discovery error. NtpClient will try again in 3473457 minutes and DOUBLE THE REATTEMPT INTERVAL thereafter. 1:26:05 - A network link has been established at 1Gbps at full duplex 1:26:08 - Name resolution for the name %Name% timed out after none of the configured DNS servers responded. 1:26:10 – The TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper service entered the running state. 1:26:11 - The time provider NtpClient is currently receiving valid time data at dc4.ourdomain.edu 1:26:14 – User Logon Notification for Customer Experience Improvement Program 1:26:15 - Group Policy received the notification Logon from Winlogon for session 1. 1:26:15 - Making LDAP calls to connect and bind to Active Directory. dc4.ourdomain.edu 1:26:18 - The LDAP call to connect and bind to Active Directory completed. dc4. ourdomain.edu. The call completed in 2309 milliseconds. 1:26:18 - Group Policy successfully discovered the Domain Controller in 2918 milliseconds. 1:26:18 - Computer details: Computer role : 2 Network name : (Blank) 1:26:18 - The LDAP call to connect and bind to Active Directory completed. dc4.ourdomain.edu. The call completed in 2309 milliseconds. 1:26:18 - Group Policy successfully discovered the Domain Controller in 2918 milliseconds. 1:26:19 - The WinHTTP Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Service service entered the running state. 1:26:46 - The Network Connections service entered the running state. 1:27:10 – Retrieved account information 1:27:10 – The system call to get account information completed. 1:27:10 - Starting policy processing due to network state change for computer OURDOMAIN\%name%$ 1:27:10 – Network state change detected 1:27:10 - Making system call to get account information. 1:27:11 - Making LDAP calls to connect and bind to Active Directory. dc4.ourdomain.edu 1:27:13 - Computer details: Computer role : 2 Network name : ourdomain.edu (Now not blank) 1:27:13 - Group Policy successfully discovered the Domain Controller in 2886 milliseconds. 1:27:13 - The LDAP call to connect and bind to Active Directory completed. dc4.ourdomain.edu The call completed in 2371 milliseconds. 1:27:15 - Estimated network bandwidth on one of the connections: 0 kbps. 1:27:15 - Estimated network bandwidth on one of the connections: 8545 kbps. 1:27:15 - A fast link was detected. The Estimated bandwidth is 8545 kbps. The slow link threshold is 500 kbps. 1:27:17 – Powershell - Engine state is changed from Available to Stopped. 1:27:20 - Completed Group Policy Local Users and Groups Extension Processing in 4539 milliseconds. 1:27:25 - Completed Group Policy Scheduled Tasks Extension Processing in 5210 milliseconds. 1:27:27 - Completed Group Policy Registry Extension Processing in 1529 milliseconds. 1:27:27 - Completed policy processing due to network state change for computer OURDOMAIN\%name%$ in 16 seconds. 1:27:27 – The Group Policy settings for the computer were processed successfully. There were no changes detected since the last successful processing of Group Policy. Any help would be appreciated. Please ask for any relevant information and it will be provided as soon as possible.

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Calling Web Service Functions Asynchronously from a Web Page

- by SGWellens

Over on the Asp.Net forums where I moderate, a user had a problem calling a Web Service from a web page asynchronously. I tried his code on my machine and was able to reproduce the problem. I was able to solve his problem, but only after taking the long scenic route through some of the more perplexing nuances of Web Services and Proxies. Here is the fascinating story of that journey. Start with a simple Web Service public class Service1 : System.Web.Services.WebService { [WebMethod] public string HelloWorld() { // sleep 10 seconds System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(10 * 1000); return "Hello World"; } } The 10 second delay is added to make calling an asynchronous function more apparent. If you don't call the function asynchronously, it takes about 10 seconds for the page to be rendered back to the client. If the call is made from a Windows Forms application, the application freezes for about 10 seconds. Add the web service to a web site. Right-click the project and select "Add Web Reference…" Next, create a web page to call the Web Service. Note: An asp.net web page that calls an 'Async' method must have the Async property set to true in the page's header: <%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="_Default" Async='true' %> Here is the code to create the Web Service proxy and connect the event handler. Shrewdly, we make the proxy object a member of the Page class so it remains instantiated between the various events. public partial class _Default : System.Web.UI.Page { localhost.Service1 MyService; // web service proxy // ---- Page_Load --------------------------------- protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { MyService = new localhost.Service1(); MyService.HelloWorldCompleted += EventHandler; } Here is the code to invoke the web service and handle the event: // ---- Async and EventHandler (delayed render) -------------------------- protected void ButtonHelloWorldAsync_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { // blocks ODS("Pre HelloWorldAsync..."); MyService.HelloWorldAsync(); ODS("Post HelloWorldAsync"); } public void EventHandler(object sender, localhost.HelloWorldCompletedEventArgs e) { ODS("EventHandler"); ODS(" " + e.Result); } // ---- ODS ------------------------------------------------ // // Helper function: Output Debug String public static void ODS(string Msg) { String Out = String.Format("{0} {1}", DateTime.Now.ToString("hh:mm:ss.ff"), Msg); System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(Out); } I added a utility function I use a lot: ODS (Output Debug String). Rather than include the library it is part of, I included it in the source file to keep this example simple. Fire up the project, open up a debug output window, press the button and we get this in the debug output window: 11:29:37.94 Pre HelloWorldAsync... 11:29:37.94 Post HelloWorldAsync 11:29:48.94 EventHandler 11:29:48.94 Hello World Sweet. The asynchronous call was made and returned immediately. About 10 seconds later, the event handler fires and we get the result. Perfect….right? Not so fast cowboy. Watch the browser during the call: What the heck? The page is waiting for 10 seconds. Even though the asynchronous call returned immediately, Asp.Net is waiting for the event to fire before it renders the page. This is NOT what we wanted. I experimented with several techniques to work around this issue. Some may erroneously describe my behavior as 'hacking' but, since no ingesting of Twinkies was involved, I do not believe hacking is the appropriate term. If you examine the proxy that was automatically created, you will find a synchronous call to HelloWorld along with an additional set of methods to make asynchronous calls. I tried the other asynchronous method supplied in the proxy: // ---- Begin and CallBack ---------------------------------- protected void ButtonBeginHelloWorld_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { ODS("Pre BeginHelloWorld..."); MyService.BeginHelloWorld(AsyncCallback, null); ODS("Post BeginHelloWorld"); } public void AsyncCallback(IAsyncResult ar) { String Result = MyService.EndHelloWorld(ar); ODS("AsyncCallback"); ODS(" " + Result); } The BeginHelloWorld function in the proxy requires a callback function as a parameter. I tested it and the debug output window looked like this: 04:40:58.57 Pre BeginHelloWorld... 04:40:58.57 Post BeginHelloWorld 04:41:08.58 AsyncCallback 04:41:08.58 Hello World It works the same as before except for one critical difference: The page rendered immediately after the function call. I was worried the page object would be disposed after rendering the page but the system was smart enough to keep the page object in memory to handle the callback. Both techniques have a use: Delayed Render: Say you want to verify a credit card, look up shipping costs and confirm if an item is in stock. You could have three web service calls running in parallel and not render the page until all were finished. Nice. You can send information back to the client as part of the rendered page when all the services are finished. Immediate Render: Say you just want to start a service running and return to the client. You can do that too. However, the page gets sent to the client before the service has finished running so you will not be able to update parts of the page when the service finishes running. Summary: YourFunctionAsync() and an EventHandler will not render the page until the handler fires. BeginYourFunction() and a CallBack function will render the page as soon as possible. I found all this to be quite interesting and did a lot of searching and researching for documentation on this subject….but there isn't a lot out there. The biggest clues are the parameters that can be sent to the WSDL.exe program: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/7h3ystb6(VS.100).aspx Two parameters are oldAsync and newAsync. OldAsync will create the Begin/End functions; newAsync will create the Async/Event functions. Caveat: I haven't tried this but it was stated in this article. I'll leave confirming this as an exercise for the student J. Included Code: I'm including the complete test project I created to verify the findings. The project was created with VS 2008 SP1. There is a solution file with 3 projects, the 3 projects are: Web Service Asp.Net Application Windows Forms Application To decide which program runs, you right-click a project and select "Set as Startup Project". I created and played with the Windows Forms application to see if it would reveal any secrets. I found that in the Windows Forms application, the generated proxy did NOT include the Begin/Callback functions. Those functions are only generated for Asp.Net pages. Probably for the reasons discussed earlier. Maybe those Microsoft boys and girls know what they are doing. I hope someone finds this useful. Steve Wellens

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SQL SERVER – Precision of SMALLDATETIME – A 1 Minute Precision

- by pinaldave

I am myself surprised that I am writing this post today. I am going to present one of the very known facts of SQL Server SMALLDATETIME datatype. Even though this is a very well-known datatype, many a time, I have seen developers getting confused with precision of the SMALLDATETIME datatype. The precision of the datatype SMALLDATETIME is 1 minute. It discards the seconds by rounding up or rounding down any seconds greater than zero. Let us see the following example DECLARE @varSDate AS SMALLDATETIME SET @varSDate = '1900-01-01 12:12:01' SELECT @varSDate C_SDT SET @varSDate = '1900-01-01 12:12:29' SELECT @varSDate C_SDT SET @varSDate = '1900-01-01 12:12:30' SELECT @varSDate C_SDT SET @varSDate = '1900-01-01 12:12:59' SELECT @varSDate C_SDT Following is the result of the above script and note that any value between 0 (zero) and 59 is converted up or down. The part that confuses the developers is the value of the seconds in the display. I think if it is not maintained or recorded, it should not be displayed as well. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL DateTime, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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WebCenter Implementation Specialist Exam Preparation Webcasts: WebCenter Content And WebCenter Portal

- by swalker

Oracle PartnerNetwork would like to invite you to Refresh Courses for WebCenter Content and WebCenter Portal, to help partners to prepare for the WebCenter Implementation Specialist EXAMS. This is a 3 hours intensive refresher partner-only training session, providing attendees with an overview of WebCenter Content and WebCenter Portal functions and related topics. After the refresher part you will be able to take the relevant Implementation Specialist EXAM depending on your personal focus. NOTE: This is only suitable for experienced WebCenter Content or WebCenter Portal practitioners Who should attend? Partner Consultants who want to become an Oracle WebCenter Content or a WebCenter Portal Certified Implementation Specialist or both, that will help them to differentiate themselves in front of customers and support their Companies to become Specialized. Webcast Details: Date Topic Speaker Web Call Details Intercall Details December 14th WebCenter Content Refresh Course Markus Neubauer, Silbury WebCenter Content Specialized Partner Join Webcast Dial-in numbers: CC/SP: 1579222/9221 Time: 12:00 -15:00 CET Break around 13:30 Conference ID/Key: 9249533/1412 Date Topic Speaker Web Call Details Intercall Details January 10th WebCenter Portal Refresh Course Yannick Ongena, InfoMentum WebCenter Portal Specialized Partner Join Webcast Dial-in numbers: CC/SP: 1579222/9221 Time: 12:00 -15:00 CET Break around 13:30 Conference ID/Key: 9249375/1001 Date Topic Speaker Web Call Details Intercall Details February 22nd WebCenter Content Refresh Course Markus Neubauer, Silbury WebCenter Content Specialized Partner Join Webcast Dial-in numbers: CC/SP: 1579222/9221 Time: 12:00 -15:00 CET Break around 13:30 Conference ID/Key: 9249541/2202 Date Topic Speaker Web Call Details Intercall Details March 13th WebCenter Portal Refresh Course Yannick Ongena, InfoMentum WebCenter Portal Specialized Partner Join Webcast Dial-in numbers: CC/SP: 1579222/9221 Time: 12:00 -15:00 CET Break around 13:30 Conference ID/Key: 9249549/1303 Local dial-in numbers can be found here . Next Steps: After the Webcast you will receive the Training material and FREE Vouchers to book and take the: Oracle ECM 11g Certified Implementation Specialist EXAM Oracle WebCenter 11g Essentials EXAM Booking with Voucher can be done on www.pearsonvue.com. Note: FREE Vouchers will be send after attending the webcast.

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Booting the server redis no errors

- by Tylër

The redis but usually begins with the following errors: tyler @ tyler-vortex: ~ / pens $. / src / redis-server [3690] Dec 01 10:56:05 # Warning: the specified config file, using the default config. In order to Specify a config file use 'redis-server / path / to / redis.conf' [3690] Dec 01 10:56:05 # Unable to set the max number of files limit to 10032 (Operation not permitted), setting the max configuration to 992 clients. Others errors founds: tyler@tyler-vortex:~/redis$ sudo ./utils/install_server.sh Welcome to the redis service installer This script will help you easily set up a running redis server Please select the redis port for this instance: [6379] Selecting default: 6379 Please select the redis config file name [/etc/redis/6379.conf] Selected default - /etc/redis/6379.conf Please select the redis log file name [/var/log/redis_6379.log] Selected default - /var/log/redis_6379.log Please select the data directory for this instance [/var/lib/redis/6379] Selected default - /var/lib/redis/6379 Please select the redis executable path [/usr/local/bin/redis-server] cat: ./redis.conf.tpl: Arquivo ou diretório não encontrado cat: ./redis_init_script.tpl: Arquivo ou diretório não encontrado ERROR: Could not write init script to /tmp/6379.conf. Aborting! Furthermore, I would like to know how to configure it not to consume so much RAM. Follow the memory configuration of our website, but the settings of "vm-*" does not exist in the file redis.conf. http://redis.io/topics/virtual-memory You have to create them? * Edit: I installed. After that, I believe that I no longer have access via. / Src / redis-server, because it happens: tyler@tyler-vortex:~$ cd redis/ tyler@tyler-vortex:~/redis$ ./src/redis-server [2616] 01 Dec 22:29:30 # Warning: no config file specified, using the default config. In order to specify a config file use 'redis-server /path/to/redis.conf' [2616] 01 Dec 22:29:30 # Opening port 6379: bind: Address already in use tyler@tyler-vortex:~/redis$ But there's another detail, the redistribution starts with the system .. redis 127.0.0.1:6379> exit tyler@tyler-vortex:~/redis$ ./src/redis-cli redis 127.0.0.1:6379> exit ... but how can I now see that the communication had before you installed from. sh?

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Creating a JSONP Formatter for ASP.NET Web API

- by Rick Strahl

Out of the box ASP.NET WebAPI does not include a JSONP formatter, but it's actually very easy to create a custom formatter that implements this functionality. JSONP is one way to allow Browser based JavaScript client applications to bypass cross-site scripting limitations and serve data from the non-current Web server. AJAX in Web Applications uses the XmlHttp object which by default doesn't allow access to remote domains. There are number of ways around this limitation <script> tag loading and JSONP is one of the easiest and semi-official ways that you can do this. JSONP works by combining JSON data and wrapping it into a function call that is executed when the JSONP data is returned. If you use a tool like jQUery it's extremely easy to access JSONP content. Imagine that you have a URL like this: http://RemoteDomain/aspnetWebApi/albums which on an HTTP GET serves some data - in this case an array of record albums. This URL is always directly accessible from an AJAX request if the URL is on the same domain as the parent request. However, if that URL lives on a separate server it won't be easily accessible to an AJAX request. Now, if the server can serve up JSONP this data can be accessed cross domain from a browser client. Using jQuery it's really easy to retrieve the same data with JSONP:function getAlbums() { $.getJSON("http://remotedomain/aspnetWebApi/albums?callback=?",null, function (albums) { alert(albums.length); }); } The resulting callback the same as if the call was to a local server when the data is returned. jQuery deserializes the data and feeds it into the method. Here the array is received and I simply echo back the number of items returned. From here your app is ready to use the data as needed. This all works fine - as long as the server can serve the data with JSONP. What does JSONP look like? JSONP is a pretty simple 'protocol'. All it does is wrap a JSON response with a JavaScript function call. The above result from the JSONP call looks like this:Query17103401925975181569_1333408916499( [{"Id":"34043957","AlbumName":"Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap",…},{…}] ) The way JSONP works is that the client (jQuery in this case) sends of the request, receives the response and evals it. The eval basically executes the function and deserializes the JSON inside of the function. It's actually a little more complex for the framework that does this, but that's the gist of what happens. JSONP works by executing the code that gets returned from the JSONP call. JSONP and ASP.NET Web API As mentioned previously, JSONP support is not natively in the box with ASP.NET Web API. But it's pretty easy to create and plug-in a custom formatter that provides this functionality. The following code is based on Christian Weyers example but has been updated to the latest Web API CodePlex bits, which changes the implementation a bit due to the way dependent objects are exposed differently in the latest builds. Here's the code: using System; using System.IO; using System.Net; using System.Net.Http.Formatting; using System.Net.Http.Headers; using System.Threading.Tasks; using System.Web; using System.Net.Http; namespace Westwind.Web.WebApi { /// <summary> /// Handles JsonP requests when requests are fired with /// text/javascript or application/json and contain /// a callback= (configurable) query string parameter /// /// Based on Christian Weyers implementation /// https://github.com/thinktecture/Thinktecture.Web.Http/blob/master/Thinktecture.Web.Http/Formatters/JsonpFormatter.cs /// </summary> public class JsonpFormatter : JsonMediaTypeFormatter { public JsonpFormatter() { SupportedMediaTypes.Add(new MediaTypeHeaderValue("application/json")); SupportedMediaTypes.Add(new MediaTypeHeaderValue("text/javascript")); //MediaTypeMappings.Add(new UriPathExtensionMapping("jsonp", "application/json")); JsonpParameterName = "callback"; } /// <summary> /// Name of the query string parameter to look for /// the jsonp function name /// </summary> public string JsonpParameterName {get; set; } /// <summary> /// Captured name of the Jsonp function that the JSON call /// is wrapped in. Set in GetPerRequestFormatter Instance /// </summary> private string JsonpCallbackFunction; public override bool CanWriteType(Type type) { return true; } /// <summary> /// Override this method to capture the Request object /// and look for the query string parameter and /// create a new instance of this formatter. /// /// This is the only place in a formatter where the /// Request object is available. /// </summary> /// <param name="type"></param> /// <param name="request"></param> /// <param name="mediaType"></param> /// <returns></returns> public override MediaTypeFormatter GetPerRequestFormatterInstance(Type type, HttpRequestMessage request, MediaTypeHeaderValue mediaType) { var formatter = new JsonpFormatter() { JsonpCallbackFunction = GetJsonCallbackFunction(request) }; return formatter; } /// <summary> /// Override to wrap existing JSON result with the /// JSONP function call /// </summary> /// <param name="type"></param> /// <param name="value"></param> /// <param name="stream"></param> /// <param name="contentHeaders"></param> /// <param name="transportContext"></param> /// <returns></returns> public override Task WriteToStreamAsync(Type type, object value, Stream stream, HttpContentHeaders contentHeaders, TransportContext transportContext) { if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(JsonpCallbackFunction)) { return Task.Factory.StartNew(() => { var writer = new StreamWriter(stream); writer.Write( JsonpCallbackFunction + "("); writer.Flush(); base.WriteToStreamAsync(type, value, stream, contentHeaders, transportContext).Wait(); writer.Write(")"); writer.Flush(); }); } else { return base.WriteToStreamAsync(type, value, stream, contentHeaders, transportContext); } } /// <summary> /// Retrieves the Jsonp Callback function /// from the query string /// </summary> /// <returns></returns> private string GetJsonCallbackFunction(HttpRequestMessage request) { if (request.Method != HttpMethod.Get) return null; var query = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(request.RequestUri.Query); var queryVal = query[this.JsonpParameterName]; if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(queryVal)) return null; return queryVal; } } } Note again that this code will not work with the Beta bits of Web API - it works only with post beta bits from CodePlex and hopefully this will continue to work until RTM :-) This code is a bit different from Christians original code as the API has changed. The biggest change is that the Read/Write functions no longer receive a global context object that gives access to the Request and Response objects as the older bits did. Instead you now have to override the GetPerRequestFormatterInstance() method, which receives the Request as a parameter. You can capture the Request there, or use the request to pick up the values you need and store them on the formatter. Note that I also have to create a new instance of the formatter since I'm storing request specific state on the instance (information whether the callback= querystring is present) so I return a new instance of this formatter. Other than that the code should be straight forward: The code basically writes out the function pre- and post-amble and the defers to the base stream to retrieve the JSON to wrap the function call into. The code uses the Async APIs to write this data out (this will take some getting used to seeing all over the place for me). Hooking up the JsonpFormatter Once you've created a formatter, it has to be added to the request processing sequence by adding it to the formatter collection. Web API is configured via the static GlobalConfiguration object. protected void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e) { // Verb Routing RouteTable.Routes.MapHttpRoute( name: "AlbumsVerbs", routeTemplate: "albums/{title}", defaults: new { title = RouteParameter.Optional, controller = "AlbumApi" } ); GlobalConfiguration .Configuration .Formatters .Insert(0, new Westwind.Web.WebApi.JsonpFormatter()); } That's all it takes. Note that I added the formatter at the top of the list of formatters, rather than adding it to the end which is required. The JSONP formatter needs to fire before any other JSON formatter since it relies on the JSON formatter to encode the actual JSON data. If you reverse the order the JSONP output never shows up. So, in general when adding new formatters also try to be aware of the order of the formatters as they are added. Resources JsonpFormatter Code on GitHub© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in Web Api Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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Entity Framework v1 – tips and Tricks Part 3

- by Rohit Gupta

General Tips on Entity Framework v1 & Linq to Entities: ToTraceString() If you need to know the underlying SQL that the EF generates for a Linq To Entities query, then use the ToTraceString() method of the ObjectQuery class. (or use LINQPAD) Note that you need to cast the LINQToEntities query to ObjectQuery before calling TotraceString() as follows: 1: string efSQL = ((ObjectQuery)from c in ctx.Contact 2: where c.Address.Any(a => a.CountryRegion == "US") 3: select c.ContactID).ToTraceString(); ================================================================================ MARS or MultipleActiveResultSet When you create a EDM Model (EDMX file) from the database using Visual Studio, it generates a connection string with the same name as the name of the EntityContainer in CSDL. In the ConnectionString so generated it sets the MultipleActiveResultSet attribute to true by default. So if you are running the following query then it streams multiple readers over the same connection: 1: using (BAEntities context = new BAEntities()) 2: { 3: var cons = 4: from con in context.Contacts 5: where con.FirstName == "Jose" 6: select con; 7: foreach (var c in cons) 8: { 9: if (c.AddDate < new System.DateTime(2007, 1, 1)) 10: { 11: c.Addresses.Load(); 12: } 13: } 14: } ================================================================================= Explicitly opening and closing EntityConnection When you call ToList() or foreach on a LINQToEntities query the EF automatically closes the connection after all the records from the query have been consumed. Thus if you need to run many LINQToEntities queries over the same connection then explicitly open and close the connection as follows: 1: using (BAEntities context = new BAEntities()) 2: { 3: context.Connection.Open(); 4: var cons = from con in context.Contacts where con.FirstName == "Jose" 5: select con; 6: var conList = cons.ToList(); 7: var allCustomers = from con in context.Contacts.OfType<Customer>() 8: select con; 9: var allcustList = allCustomers.ToList(); 10: context.Connection.Close(); 11: } ====================================================================== Dispose ObjectContext only if required After you retrieve entities using the ObjectContext and you are not explicitly disposing the ObjectContext then insure that your code does consume all the records from the LinqToEntities query by calling .ToList() or foreach statement, otherwise the the database connection will remain open and will be closed by the garbage collector when it gets to dispose the ObjectContext. Secondly if you are making updates to the entities retrieved using LinqToEntities then insure that you dont inadverdently dispose of the ObjectContext after the entities are retrieved and before calling .SaveChanges() since you need the SAME ObjectContext to keep track of changes made to the Entities (by using ObjectStateEntry objects). So if you do need to explicitly dispose of the ObjectContext do so only after calling SaveChanges() and only if you dont need to change track the entities retrieved any further. ======================================================================= SQL InjectionAttacks under control with EFv1 LinqToEntities and LinqToSQL queries are parameterized before they are sent to the DB hence they are not vulnerable to SQL Injection attacks. EntitySQL may be slightly vulnerable to attacks since it does not use parameterized queries. However since the EntitySQL demands that the query be valid Entity SQL syntax and valid native SQL syntax at the same time. So the only way one can do a SQLInjection Attack is by knowing the SSDL of the EDM Model and be able to write the correct EntitySQL (note one cannot append regular SQL since then the query wont be a valid EntitySQL syntax) and append it to a parameter. ====================================================================== Improving Performance You can convert the EntitySets and AssociationSets in a EDM Model into precompiled Views using the edmgen utility. for e.g. the Customer Entity can be converted into a precompiled view using edmgen and all LinqToEntities query against the contaxt.Customer EntitySet will use the precompiled View instead of the EntitySet itself (the same being true for relationships (EntityReference & EntityCollections of a Entity)). The advantage being that when using precompiled views the performance will be much better. The syntax for generating precompiled views for a existing EF project is : edmgen /mode:ViewGeneration /inssdl:BAModel.ssdl /incsdl:BAModel.csdl /inmsl:BAModel.msl /p:Chap14.csproj Note that this will only generate precompiled views for EntitySets and Associations and not for existing LinqToEntities queries in the project.(for that use CompiledQuery.Compile<>) Secondly if you have a LinqToEntities query that you need to run multiple times, then one should precompile the query using CompiledQuery.Compile method. The CompiledQuery.Compile<> method accepts a lamda expression as a parameter, which denotes the LinqToEntities query that you need to precompile. The following is a example of a lamda that we can pass into the CompiledQuery.Compile() method 1: Expression<Func<BAEntities, string, IQueryable<Customer>>> expr = (BAEntities ctx1, string loc) => 2: from c in ctx1.Contacts.OfType<Customer>() 3: where c.Reservations.Any(r => r.Trip.Destination.DestinationName == loc) 4: select c; Then we call the Compile Query as follows: 1: var query = CompiledQuery.Compile<BAEntities, string, IQueryable<Customer>>(expr); 2: 3: using (BAEntities ctx = new BAEntities()) 4: { 5: var loc = "Malta"; 6: IQueryable<Customer> custs = query.Invoke(ctx, loc); 7: var custlist = custs.ToList(); 8: foreach (var item in custlist) 9: { 10: Console.WriteLine(item.FullName); 11: } 12: } Note that if you created a ObjectQuery or a Enitity SQL query instead of the LINQToEntities query, you dont need precompilation for e.g. 1: An Example of EntitySQL query : 2: string esql = "SELECT VALUE c from Contacts AS c where c is of(BAGA.Customer) and c.LastName = 'Gupta'"; 3: ObjectQuery<Customer> custs = CreateQuery<Customer>(esql); 1: An Example of ObjectQuery built using ObjectBuilder methods: 2: from c in Contacts.OfType<Customer>().Where("it.LastName == 'Gupta'") 3: select c This is since the Query plan is cached and thus the performance improves a bit, however since the ObjectQuery or EntitySQL query still needs to materialize the results into Entities hence it will take the same amount of performance hit as with LinqToEntities. However note that not ALL EntitySQL based or QueryBuilder based ObjectQuery plans are cached. So if you are in doubt always create a LinqToEntities compiled query and use that instead ============================================================ GetObjectStateEntry Versus GetObjectByKey We can get to the Entity being referenced by the ObjectStateEntry via its Entity property and there are helper methods in the ObjectStateManager (osm.TryGetObjectStateEntry) to get the ObjectStateEntry for a entity (for which we know the EntityKey). Similarly The ObjectContext has helper methods to get an Entity i.e. TryGetObjectByKey(). TryGetObjectByKey() uses GetObjectStateEntry method under the covers to find the object, however One important difference between these 2 methods is that TryGetObjectByKey queries the database if it is unable to find the object in the context, whereas TryGetObjectStateEntry only looks in the context for existing entries. It will not make a trip to the database ============================================================= POCO objects with EFv1: To create POCO objects that can be used with EFv1. We need to implement 3 key interfaces: IEntityWithKey IEntityWithRelationships IEntityWithChangeTracker Implementing IEntityWithKey is not mandatory, but if you dont then we need to explicitly provide values for the EntityKey for various functions (for e.g. the functions needed to implement IEntityWithChangeTracker and IEntityWithRelationships). Implementation of IEntityWithKey involves exposing a property named EntityKey which returns a EntityKey object. Implementation of IEntityWithChangeTracker involves implementing a method named SetChangeTracker since there can be multiple changetrackers (Object Contexts) existing in memory at the same time. 1: public void SetChangeTracker(IEntityChangeTracker changeTracker) 2: { 3: _changeTracker = changeTracker; 4: } Additionally each property in the POCO object needs to notify the changetracker (objContext) that it is updating itself by calling the EntityMemberChanged and EntityMemberChanging methods on the changeTracker. for e.g.: 1: public EntityKey EntityKey 2: { 3: get { return _entityKey; } 4: set 5: { 6: if (_changeTracker != null) 7: { 8: _changeTracker.EntityMemberChanging("EntityKey"); 9: _entityKey = value; 10: _changeTracker.EntityMemberChanged("EntityKey"); 11: } 12: else 13: _entityKey = value; 14: } 15: } 16: ===================== Custom Property ==================================== 17: 18: [EdmScalarPropertyAttribute(IsNullable = false)] 19: public System.DateTime OrderDate 20: { 21: get { return _orderDate; } 22: set 23: { 24: if (_changeTracker != null) 25: { 26: _changeTracker.EntityMemberChanging("OrderDate"); 27: _orderDate = value; 28: _changeTracker.EntityMemberChanged("OrderDate"); 29: } 30: else 31: _orderDate = value; 32: } 33: } Finally you also need to create the EntityState property as follows: 1: public EntityState EntityState 2: { 3: get { return _changeTracker.EntityState; } 4: } The IEntityWithRelationships involves creating a property that returns RelationshipManager object: 1: public RelationshipManager RelationshipManager 2: { 3: get 4: { 5: if (_relManager == null) 6: _relManager = RelationshipManager.Create(this); 7: return _relManager; 8: } 9: } ============================================================ Tip : ProviderManifestToken – change EDMX File to use SQL 2008 instead of SQL 2005 To use with SQL Server 2008, edit the EDMX file (the raw XML) changing the ProviderManifestToken in the SSDL attributes from "2005" to "2008" ============================================================= With EFv1 we cannot use Structs to replace a anonymous Type while doing projections in a LINQ to Entities query. While the same is supported with LINQToSQL, it is not with LinqToEntities. For e.g. the following is not supported with LinqToEntities since only parameterless constructors and initializers are supported in LINQ to Entities. (the same works with LINQToSQL) 1: public struct CompanyInfo 2: { 3: public int ID { get; set; } 4: public string Name { get; set; } 5: } 6: var companies = (from c in dc.Companies 7: where c.CompanyIcon == null 8: select new CompanyInfo { Name = c.CompanyName, ID = c.CompanyId }).ToList(); ;

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SQL SERVER – Question to You – When to use Function and When to use Stored Procedure

- by pinaldave

This week has been very interesting week. I have asked few questions to users and have received remarkable participation on the subject. Q1) SQL SERVER – Puzzle – SELECT * vs SELECT COUNT(*) Q2) SQL SERVER – Puzzle – Statistics are not Updated but are Created Once Keeping the same spirit up, I am asking the third question over here. Q3) When to use User Defined Function and when to use Stored Procedure in your development? Personally, I believe that they are both different things - they cannot be compared. I can say, it will be like comparing apples and oranges. Each has its own unique use. However, they can be used interchangeably at many times and in real life (i.e., production environment). I have personally seen both of these being used interchangeably many times. This is the precise reason for asking this question. When do you use Function and when do you use Stored Procedure? What are Pros and Cons of each of them when used instead of each other? If you are going to answer that ‘To avoid repeating code, you use Function’ - please think harder! Stored procedure can do the same. In SQL Server Denali, even the stored procedure can return the result just like Function in SELECT statement; so if you are going to answer with ‘Function can be used in SELECT, whereas Stored Procedure cannot be used’ - again think harder! (link). Now, what do you say? I will post the answers of all the three questions with due credit next week. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, Readers Question, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Function, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Stored Procedure, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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How can I use Windows Workflow for validation of a Silverlight application?

- by Josh C.

I want to use Windows Workflow to provide a validation service. The validation that will be provided may have multiple tiers with chaining and redirecting to other stages of validation. The application that will generate the data for validation is a Silverlight app. I imagine the validation will take longer than the blink of an eye, so I don't want to tie the user up. Instead, I would like the user to submit the current data for validation. If the validation happens quickly, the service will perform an asynchronous callback to the app. The viewmodel that made the call would receive the validation output and post into the view. If the validation takes a long time, the user can move forward in the Silverlight app, disregarding the potential output of the validation. The viewmodel that made the call would be gone. I expect there would be another viewmodel that would contain the current validation output in its model. The validation value would change causing the user to get a notification in smaller notifcation area. I can see how the current view's viewmodel would call the validation through the viewmodel that is containing the validation output, but I am concerned that the service call will timeout. Also, I think the user may have already changed the values from the original validation, invalidating the feedback. I am sure asynchronous validation is a problem solved many times over, I am looking to glean from your experience in solving this kind of problem. Is this the right approach to the problem, or is there a better way to approach this?

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So…is it a Seek or a Scan?

- by Paul White

You’re probably most familiar with the terms ‘Seek’ and ‘Scan’ from the graphical plans produced by SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). The image to the left shows the most common ones, with the three types of scan at the top, followed by four types of seek. You might look to the SSMS tool-tip descriptions to explain the differences between them: Not hugely helpful are they? Both mention scans and ranges (nothing about seeks) and the Index Seek description implies that it will not scan the index entirely (which isn’t necessarily true). Recall also yesterday’s post where we saw two Clustered Index Seek operations doing very different things. The first Seek performed 63 single-row seeking operations; and the second performed a ‘Range Scan’ (more on those later in this post). I hope you agree that those were two very different operations, and perhaps you are wondering why there aren’t different graphical plan icons for Range Scans and Seeks? I have often wondered about that, and the first person to mention it after yesterday’s post was Erin Stellato (twitter | blog): Before we go on to make sense of all this, let’s look at another example of how SQL Server confusingly mixes the terms ‘Scan’ and ‘Seek’ in different contexts. The diagram below shows a very simple heap table with two columns, one of which is the non-clustered Primary Key, and the other has a non-unique non-clustered index defined on it. The right hand side of the diagram shows a simple query, it’s associated query plan, and a couple of extracts from the SSMS tool-tip and Properties windows. Notice the ‘scan direction’ entry in the Properties window snippet. Is this a seek or a scan? The different references to Scans and Seeks are even more pronounced in the XML plan output that the graphical plan is based on. This fragment is what lies behind the single Index Seek icon shown above: You’ll find the same confusing references to Seeks and Scans throughout the product and its documentation. Making Sense of Seeks Let’s forget all about scans for a moment, and think purely about seeks. Loosely speaking, a seek is the process of navigating an index B-tree to find a particular index record, most often at the leaf level. A seek starts at the root and navigates down through the levels of the index to find the point of interest: Singleton Lookups The simplest sort of seek predicate performs this traversal to find (at most) a single record. This is the case when we search for a single value using a unique index and an equality predicate. It should be readily apparent that this type of search will either find one record, or none at all. This operation is known as a singleton lookup. Given the example table from before, the following query is an example of a singleton lookup seek: Sadly, there’s nothing in the graphical plan or XML output to show that this is a singleton lookup – you have to infer it from the fact that this is a single-value equality seek on a unique index. The other common examples of a singleton lookup are bookmark lookups – both the RID and Key Lookup forms are singleton lookups (an RID lookup finds a single record in a heap from the unique row locator, and a Key Lookup does much the same thing on a clustered table). If you happen to run your query with STATISTICS IO ON, you will notice that ‘Scan Count’ is always zero for a singleton lookup. Range Scans The other type of seek predicate is a ‘seek plus range scan’, which I will refer to simply as a range scan. The seek operation makes an initial descent into the index structure to find the first leaf row that qualifies, and then performs a range scan (either backwards or forwards in the index) until it reaches the end of the scan range. The ability of a range scan to proceed in either direction comes about because index pages at the same level are connected by a doubly-linked list – each page has a pointer to the previous page (in logical key order) as well as a pointer to the following page. The doubly-linked list is represented by the green and red dotted arrows in the index diagram presented earlier. One subtle (but important) point is that the notion of a ‘forward’ or ‘backward’ scan applies to the logical key order defined when the index was built. In the present case, the non-clustered primary key index was created as follows: CREATE TABLE dbo.Example ( key_col INTEGER NOT NULL, data INTEGER NOT NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK dbo.Example key_col] PRIMARY KEY NONCLUSTERED (key_col ASC) ) ; Notice that the primary key index specifies an ascending sort order for the single key column. This means that a forward scan of the index will retrieve keys in ascending order, while a backward scan would retrieve keys in descending key order. If the index had been created instead on key_col DESC, a forward scan would retrieve keys in descending order, and a backward scan would return keys in ascending order. A range scan seek predicate may have a Start condition, an End condition, or both. Where one is missing, the scan starts (or ends) at one extreme end of the index, depending on the scan direction. Some examples might help clarify that: the following diagram shows four queries, each of which performs a single seek against a column holding every integer from 1 to 100 inclusive. The results from each query are shown in the blue columns, and relevant attributes from the Properties window appear on the right: Query 1 specifies that all key_col values less than 5 should be returned in ascending order. The query plan achieves this by seeking to the start of the index leaf (there is no explicit starting value) and scanning forward until the End condition (key_col < 5) is no longer satisfied (SQL Server knows it can stop looking as soon as it finds a key_col value that isn’t less than 5 because all later index entries are guaranteed to sort higher). Query 2 asks for key_col values greater than 95, in descending order. SQL Server returns these results by seeking to the end of the index, and scanning backwards (in descending key order) until it comes across a row that isn’t greater than 95. Sharp-eyed readers may notice that the end-of-scan condition is shown as a Start range value. This is a bug in the XML show plan which bubbles up to the Properties window – when a backward scan is performed, the roles of the Start and End values are reversed, but the plan does not reflect that. Oh well. Query 3 looks for key_col values that are greater than or equal to 10, and less than 15, in ascending order. This time, SQL Server seeks to the first index record that matches the Start condition (key_col >= 10) and then scans forward through the leaf pages until the End condition (key_col < 15) is no longer met. Query 4 performs much the same sort of operation as Query 3, but requests the output in descending order. Again, we have to mentally reverse the Start and End conditions because of the bug, but otherwise the process is the same as always: SQL Server finds the highest-sorting record that meets the condition ‘key_col < 25’ and scans backward until ‘key_col >= 20’ is no longer true. One final point to note: seek operations always have the Ordered: True attribute. This means that the operator always produces rows in a sorted order, either ascending or descending depending on how the index was defined, and whether the scan part of the operation is forward or backward. You cannot rely on this sort order in your queries of course (you must always specify an ORDER BY clause if order is important) but SQL Server can make use of the sort order internally. In the four queries above, the query optimizer was able to avoid an explicit Sort operator to honour the ORDER BY clause, for example. Multiple Seek Predicates As we saw yesterday, a single index seek plan operator can contain one or more seek predicates. These seek predicates can either be all singleton seeks or all range scans – SQL Server does not mix them. For example, you might expect the following query to contain two seek predicates, a singleton seek to find the single record in the unique index where key_col = 10, and a range scan to find the key_col values between 15 and 20: SELECT key_col FROM dbo.Example WHERE key_col = 10 OR key_col BETWEEN 15 AND 20 ORDER BY key_col ASC ; In fact, SQL Server transforms the singleton seek (key_col = 10) to the equivalent range scan, Start:[key_col >= 10], End:[key_col <= 10]. This allows both range scans to be evaluated by a single seek operator. To be clear, this query results in two range scans: one from 10 to 10, and one from 15 to 20. Final Thoughts That’s it for today – tomorrow we’ll look at monitoring singleton lookups and range scans, and I’ll show you a seek on a heap table. Yes, a seek. On a heap. Not an index! If you would like to run the queries in this post for yourself, there’s a script below. Thanks for reading! IF OBJECT_ID(N'dbo.Example', N'U') IS NOT NULL BEGIN DROP TABLE dbo.Example; END ; -- Test table is a heap -- Non-clustered primary key on 'key_col' CREATE TABLE dbo.Example ( key_col INTEGER NOT NULL, data INTEGER NOT NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK dbo.Example key_col] PRIMARY KEY NONCLUSTERED (key_col) ) ; -- Non-unique non-clustered index on the 'data' column CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX [IX dbo.Example data] ON dbo.Example (data) ; -- Add 100 rows INSERT dbo.Example WITH (TABLOCKX) ( key_col, data ) SELECT key_col = V.number, data = V.number FROM master.dbo.spt_values AS V WHERE V.[type] = N'P' AND V.number BETWEEN 1 AND 100 ; -- ================ -- Singleton lookup -- ================ ; -- Single value equality seek in a unique index -- Scan count = 0 when STATISTIS IO is ON -- Check the XML SHOWPLAN SELECT E.key_col FROM dbo.Example AS E WHERE E.key_col = 32 ; -- =========== -- Range Scans -- =========== ; -- Query 1 SELECT E.key_col FROM dbo.Example AS E WHERE E.key_col <= 5 ORDER BY E.key_col ASC ; -- Query 2 SELECT E.key_col FROM dbo.Example AS E WHERE E.key_col > 95 ORDER BY E.key_col DESC ; -- Query 3 SELECT E.key_col FROM dbo.Example AS E WHERE E.key_col >= 10 AND E.key_col < 15 ORDER BY E.key_col ASC ; -- Query 4 SELECT E.key_col FROM dbo.Example AS E WHERE E.key_col >= 20 AND E.key_col < 25 ORDER BY E.key_col DESC ; -- Final query (singleton + range = 2 range scans) SELECT E.key_col FROM dbo.Example AS E WHERE E.key_col = 10 OR E.key_col BETWEEN 15 AND 20 ORDER BY E.key_col ASC ; -- === TIDY UP === DROP TABLE dbo.Example; © 2011 Paul White email: [email protected] twitter: @SQL_Kiwi

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convert bat to sh

- by Cris

I am totally new to scripting in linux...so i want to port some simple window bat files to ubuntu. First file is easy setenv.bat set ANT_HOME=c:\ant\apache-ant-1.7.1 set JAVA_HOME=c:\java in linux i did this and it seems ok setenv.sh #!/bin/bash JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.24/ ANT_HOME=/usr/share/ant echo $JAVA_HOME echo $ANT_HOME but now i want to port this bat file: startserver.bat call ../config/setenv call %ANT_HOME%/bin/ant -f ../config/common.xml start_db call %ANT_HOME%/bin/ant -f ../config/common.xml start_server pause but i have no clue how can i do this in linux call ../config/setenv thank you for any help , direction given.

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SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #033

- by Pinal Dave

Here is the list of selected articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2007 Spatial Database Definition and Research Documents Here is the definition from Wikipedia about spatial database : A spatial database is a database that is optimized to store and query data related to objects in space, including points, lines and polygons. While typical databases can understand various numeric and character types of data, additional functionality needs to be added for databases to process spatial data types. Select Only Date Part From DateTime – Best Practice A very common question which I receive is how to only get Date or Time part from datetime value. In this blog post I explain the same in very simple words. T-SQL Paging Query Technique Comparison (OVER and ROW_NUMBER()) – CTE vs. Derived Table I have received few emails and comments about my post SQL SERVER – T-SQL Paging Query Technique Comparison – SQL 2000 vs SQL 2005. The main question was is this can be done using CTE? Absolutely! What about Performance? It is identical! Please refer above mentioned article for the history of paging. SQL SERVER – Cannot resolve collation conflict for equal to operation One of the very first error I ever encountered in my career was to resolve this conflict. I have blogged about it and I have realized that many others like me who are facing this error. LEN and DATALENGTH of NULL Simple Example Here is the question for you what is the LEN of NULL value? Well it is very easy – just read the blog. Recovery Models and Selection Very simple and easy explanation of the Database Backup Recovery Model and how to select the best option for you. Explanation SQL SERVER Hash Join Hash join gives best performance when two more join tables are joined and at-least one of them have no index or is not sorted. It is also expected that smaller of the either of table can be read in memory completely (though not necessary). Easy Sequence of SELECT FROM JOIN WHERE GROUP BY HAVING ORDER BY SELECT yourcolumns FROM tablenames JOIN tablenames WHERE condition GROUP BY yourcolumns HAVING aggregatecolumn condition ORDER BY yourcolumns NorthWind Database or AdventureWorks Database – Samples Databases In this blog post we learn how to install Northwind database. I also shared the source where one can download this database as that is used in many examples on MSDN help files. sp_HelpText for sp_HelpText – Puzzle A simple quick puzzle – do you know the answer of it? If not, go ahead and read the blog. 2008 SQL SERVER – 2008 – Step By Step Installation Guide With Images When SQL Server 2008 was newly introduced lots of people had no clue how to install SQL Server 2008 and the amount of the question which I used to receive were so much. I wrote this blog post with the spirit that this will help all the newbies to install SQL Server 2008 with the help of images. Still today this blog post has been bible for all of the people who are confused with SQL Server installation. Inline Variable Assignment I loved this feature. I have always wanted this feature to be present in SQL Server. The last time when I met developers from Microsoft SQL Server, I had talked about this feature. I think this feature saves some time but make the code more readable. Introduction to Policy Management – Enforcing Rules on SQL Server If our company policy is to create all the Stored Procedure with prefix ‘usp’ that developers should be just prevented to create Stored Procedure with any other prefix. Let us see a small tutorial how to create conditions and policy which will prevent any future SP to be created with any other prefix. 2009 Performance Counters from System Views – By Kevin Mckenna Many of you are not aware of this fact that access to performance information is readily available in SQL Server and that too without querying performance counters using a custom application or via perfmon. Till now, this fact has remained undisclosed but through this post I would like to explain you can easily access SQL Server performance counter information. Without putting much effort you will come across the system viewsys.dm_os_performance_counters. As the name suggests, this provides you easy access to the SQL Server performance counter information that is passed on to perfmon, but you can get at it via tsql. Customize Toolbar – Remove Debug Button from Toolbar I was fond of SQL Server Debugger feature in SQL Server 2000. To my utter disappointment, this feature was withdrawn from SQL Server 2005. The button of the debugger is similar to a play button and is used to run debugging commands of Visual Studio. Because of this reason, it gets very much infuriating for developers when they are developing on both – Visual Studio and SSMS. Let us now see how we can remove debugging button from SQL Server Management Studio. Effect of Normalization on Index and Performance A very interesting conversation which started from twitter. If you want to read one link this is the link I encourage you to read it. SSMS Feature – Multi-server Queries Using SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) DBAs can now query multiple servers from one window. It is quite common for DBAs with large amount of servers to maintain and gather information from multiple SQL Servers and create report. This feature is a blessing for the DBAs, as they can now assemble all the information instantaneously without going anywhere. Query Optimizer Hint ROBUST PLAN – Question to You “ROBUST PLAN” is a kind of query hint which works quite differently than other hints. It does not improve join or force any indexes to use; it just makes sure that a query does not crash due to over the limit size of row. Let me elaborate upon it in the blog post. 2010 Do you really know the difference between various date functions available in SQL Server 2012? Here is a three part story where we explored the same with examples: Fastest Way to Restore the Database Difference Between DATETIME and DATETIME2 Difference Between DATETIME and DATETIME2 – WITH GETDATE Shrinking NDF and MDF Files – Readers’ Opinion Shrinking Database always creates performance degradation and increases fragmentation in the database. I suggest that you keep that in mind before you start reading the following comment. If you are going to say Shrinking Database is bad and evil, here I am saying it first and loud. Now, the comment of Imran is written while keeping in mind only the process showing how the Shrinking Database Operation works. Imran has already explained his understanding and requests further explanation. I have removed the Best Practices section from Imran’s comments, as there are a few corrections. 2011 Solution – Puzzle – SELECT * vs SELECT COUNT(*) This is very interesting question and I am very confident that not every one knows the answer to this question. Let me ask you again – Which will be faster SELECT* or SELECT COUNT (*) or do you think this is apples and oranges comparison. 2012 Service Broker and CAP_CPU_PERCENT – Limiting SQL Server Instances to CPU Usage In SQL Server 2012 there are a few enhancements with regards to SQL Server Resource Governor. One of the enhancement is how the resources are allocated. Let me explain you with examples. Let us understand the entire discussion with the help of three different examples. Finding Size of a Columnstore Index Using DMVs One of the very common question I often see is need of the list of columnstore index along with their size and corresponding table name. I quickly re-wrote a script using DMVs sys.indexes and sys.dm_db_partition_stats. This script gives the size of the columnstore index on disk only. I am sure there will be advanced script to retrieve details related to components associated with the columnstore index. However, I believe following script is sufficient to start getting an idea of columnstore index size. Developer Training Resources and Summary Roundup Developer Training - Importance and Significance - Part 1 In this part we discussed the importance of training in the real world. The most important and valuable resource any company is its employee. Employees who have been well-trained will be better at their jobs and produce a better product. An employee who is well trained obviously knows more about their job and all the technical aspects. I have a very high opinion about training employees and it is the most important task. Developer Training – Employee Morals and Ethics – Part 2 In this part we discussed the most crucial components of training. Often employees are expecting the company to pay for their training and the company expresses no interest in training the employee. Quite often training expenses are the real issue for both the employee and employer. Developer Training – Difficult Questions and Alternative Perspective - Part 3 This part was the most difficult to write as I tried to address a few difficult questions and answers. Training is such a sensitive issue that many developers when not receiving chance for training think about leaving the organization. Developer Training – Various Options for Developer Training – Part 4 In this part I tried to explore a few methods and options for training. The generic feedback I received on this blog post was short and I should have explored each of the subject of the training in details. I believe there are two big buckets of training 1) Instructor Lead Training and 2) Self Lead Training. Developer Training – A Conclusive Summary- Part 5 There is no better motivation than a personal desire to learn new technology. Honestly there is nothing more personal learning. That “change is the only constant” and “adapt & overcome” are the essential lessons of life. One cannot stop the learning and resist the change. In the IT industry “ego of knowing all” and the “resistance to change” are the most challenging issues. A Quick Look at Logging and Ideas around Logging Question: What is the first thing comes to your mind when you hear the word “Logging”? Strange enough I got a different answer every single time. Let me just list what answer I got from my friends. Let us go over them one by one. Beginning Performance Tuning with SQL Server Execution Plan Solution of Puzzle – Swap Value of Column Without Case Statement Earlier this week I asked a question where I asked how to Swap Values of the column without using CASE Statement. Read here: SQL SERVER – A Puzzle – Swap Value of Column Without Case Statement. I have proposed 3 different solutions in the blog posts itself. I had requested the help of the community to come up with alternate solutions and honestly I am stunned and amazed by the qualified entries. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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Network Logon Issues with Group Policy and Network

- by bobloki

I am gravely in need of your help and assistance. We have a problem with our logon and startup to our Windows 7 Enterprise system. We have more than 3000 Windows Desktops situated in roughly 20+ buildings around campus. Almost every computer on campus has the problem that I will be describing. I have spent over one month peering over etl files from Windows Performance Analyzer (A great product) and hundreds of thousands of event logs. I come to you today humbled that I could not figure this out. The problem as simply put our logon times are extremely long. An average first time logon is roughly 2-10 minutes depending on the software installed. All computers are Windows 7, the oldest computers being 5 years old. Startup times on various computers range from good (1-2 minutes) to very bad (5-60). Our second time logons range from 30 seconds to 4 minutes. We have a gigabit connection between each computer on the network. We have 5 domain controllers which also double as our DNS servers. Initial testing led us to believe that this was a software problem. So I spent a few days testing machines only to find inconsistent results from the etl files from xperfview. Each subset of computers on campus had a different subset of software issues, none seeming to interfere with logon just startup. So I started looking at our group policy and located some very interesting event ID’s. Group Policy 1129: The processing of Group Policy failed because of lack of network connectivity to a domain controller. Group Policy 1055: The processing of Group Policy failed. Windows could not resolve the computer name. This could be caused by one of more of the following: a) Name Resolution failure on the current domain controller. b) Active Directory Replication Latency (an account created on another domain controller has not replicated to the current domain controller). NETLOGON 5719 : This computer was not able to set up a secure session with a domain controller in domain OURDOMAIN due to the following: There are currently no logon servers available to service the logon request. This may lead to authentication problems. Make sure that this computer is connected to the network. If the problem persists, please contact your domain administrator. E1kexpress 27: Intel®82567LM-3 Gigabit Network Connection – Network link is disconnected. NetBT 4300 – The driver could not be created. WMI 10 - Event filter with query "SELECT * FROM __InstanceModificationEvent WITHIN 60 WHERE TargetInstance ISA "Win32_Processor" AND TargetInstance.LoadPercentage 99" could not be reactivated in namespace "//./root/CIMV2" because of error 0x80041003. Events cannot be delivered through this filter until the problem is corrected. More or less with timestamps it becomes apparent that the network maybe the issue. 1:25:57 - Group Policy is trying to discover the domain controller information 1:25:57 - The network link has been disconnected 1:25:58 - The processing of Group Policy failed because of lack of network connectivity to a domain controller. This may be a transient condition. A success message would be generated once the machine gets connected to the domain controller and Group Policy has successfully processed. If you do not see a success message for several hours, then contact your administrator. 1:25:58 - Making LDAP calls to connect and bind to active directory. DC1.ourdomain.edu 1:25:58 - Call failed after 0 milliseconds. 1:25:58 - Forcing rediscovery of domain controller details. 1:25:58 - Group policy failed to discover the domain controller in 1030 milliseconds 1:25:58 - Periodic policy processing failed for computer OURDOMAIN\%name%$ in 1 seconds. 1:25:59 - A network link has been established at 1Gbps at full duplex 1:26:00 - The network link has been disconnected 1:26:02 - NtpClient was unable to set a domain peer to use as a time source because of discovery error. NtpClient will try again in 3473457 minutes and DOUBLE THE REATTEMPT INTERVAL thereafter. 1:26:05 - A network link has been established at 1Gbps at full duplex 1:26:08 - Name resolution for the name %Name% timed out after none of the configured DNS servers responded. 1:26:10 – The TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper service entered the running state. 1:26:11 - The time provider NtpClient is currently receiving valid time data at dc4.ourdomain.edu 1:26:14 – User Logon Notification for Customer Experience Improvement Program 1:26:15 - Group Policy received the notification Logon from Winlogon for session 1. 1:26:15 - Making LDAP calls to connect and bind to Active Directory. dc4.ourdomain.edu 1:26:18 - The LDAP call to connect and bind to Active Directory completed. dc4. ourdomain.edu. The call completed in 2309 milliseconds. 1:26:18 - Group Policy successfully discovered the Domain Controller in 2918 milliseconds. 1:26:18 - Computer details: Computer role : 2 Network name : (Blank) 1:26:18 - The LDAP call to connect and bind to Active Directory completed. dc4.ourdomain.edu. The call completed in 2309 milliseconds. 1:26:18 - Group Policy successfully discovered the Domain Controller in 2918 milliseconds. 1:26:19 - The WinHTTP Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Service service entered the running state. 1:26:46 - The Network Connections service entered the running state. 1:27:10 – Retrieved account information 1:27:10 – The system call to get account information completed. 1:27:10 - Starting policy processing due to network state change for computer OURDOMAIN\%name%$ 1:27:10 – Network state change detected 1:27:10 - Making system call to get account information. 1:27:11 - Making LDAP calls to connect and bind to Active Directory. dc4.ourdomain.edu 1:27:13 - Computer details: Computer role : 2 Network name : ourdomain.edu (Now not blank) 1:27:13 - Group Policy successfully discovered the Domain Controller in 2886 milliseconds. 1:27:13 - The LDAP call to connect and bind to Active Directory completed. dc4.ourdomain.edu The call completed in 2371 milliseconds. 1:27:15 - Estimated network bandwidth on one of the connections: 0 kbps. 1:27:15 - Estimated network bandwidth on one of the connections: 8545 kbps. 1:27:15 - A fast link was detected. The Estimated bandwidth is 8545 kbps. The slow link threshold is 500 kbps. 1:27:17 – Powershell - Engine state is changed from Available to Stopped. 1:27:20 - Completed Group Policy Local Users and Groups Extension Processing in 4539 milliseconds. 1:27:25 - Completed Group Policy Scheduled Tasks Extension Processing in 5210 milliseconds. 1:27:27 - Completed Group Policy Registry Extension Processing in 1529 milliseconds. 1:27:27 - Completed policy processing due to network state change for computer OURDOMAIN\%name%$ in 16 seconds. 1:27:27 – The Group Policy settings for the computer were processed successfully. There were no changes detected since the last successful processing of Group Policy. Any help would be appreciated. Please ask for any relevant information and it will be provided as soon as possible.

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