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• Kill your temp tables using keyboard shortcuts : SSMS

  - by jamiet

  Here’s a nifty little SSMS trick that my colleague Tom Hunter educated me on the other day and I thought it was worth sharing. If you’re a keyboard shortcut junkie then you’ll love it. How often when working with code in SSMS that contains temp tables do you see the following message: Msg 2714, Level 16, State 6, Line 78 There is already an object named '#table' in the database. Quite often I would imagine, it happens to me all the time! Usually I write a bit of code at the top of the query window that goes and drops the table if it exists but there’s a much easier way of dealing with it. Remember that temp tables disappear as soon as your sessions ends hence wouldn’t it be nice if there were a quick way of recycling (i.e. stopping and restarting) your session? Well turns out there is and all it takes is a sequence of 4 keystrokes: Bring up the context menu using that mythically-named button that usually sits 3 to the right of the space bar ‘C’ for “Connection” ‘H’ for “Change Connection…” ‘Enter’ to select the same connection you had open last time (screenshots below) Once you’ve done it a few times you’ll probably have the whole sequence down to less than a second. Such a simple little trick, I’m annoyed with myself for it not occurring to me before! The only caveat is that you’ll need a “USE <database>” directive at the top of your query window but I don’t think that’s much of a bind! That is all other than to say if you like little SSMS titbits like this then Lee Everest’s blog is a good one to keep an eye on! @jamiet Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• SQL SERVER – Guest Posts – Feodor Georgiev – The Context of Our Database Environment – Going Beyond the Internal SQL Server Waits – Wait Type – Day 21 of 28

  - by pinaldave

  This guest post is submitted by Feodor. Feodor Georgiev is a SQL Server database specialist with extensive experience of thinking both within and outside the box. He has wide experience of different systems and solutions in the fields of architecture, scalability, performance, etc. Feodor has experience with SQL Server 2000 and later versions, and is certified in SQL Server 2008. In this article Feodor explains the server-client-server process, and concentrated on the mutual waits between client and SQL Server. This is essential in grasping the concept of waits in a ‘global’ application plan. Recently I was asked to write a blog post about the wait statistics in SQL Server and since I had been thinking about writing it for quite some time now, here it is. It is a wide-spread idea that the wait statistics in SQL Server will tell you everything about your performance. Well, almost. Or should I say – barely. The reason for this is that SQL Server is always a part of a bigger system – there are always other players in the game: whether it is a client application, web service, any other kind of data import/export process and so on. In short, the SQL Server surroundings look like this: This means that SQL Server, aside from its internal waits, also depends on external waits and settings. As we can see in the picture above, SQL Server needs to have an interface in order to communicate with the surrounding clients over the network. For this communication, SQL Server uses protocol interfaces. I will not go into detail about which protocols are best, but you can read this article. Also, review the information about the TDS (Tabular data stream). As we all know, our system is only as fast as its slowest component. This means that when we look at our environment as a whole, the SQL Server might be a victim of external pressure, no matter how well we have tuned our database server performance. Let’s dive into an example: let’s say that we have a web server, hosting a web application which is using data from our SQL Server, hosted on another server. The network card of the web server for some reason is malfunctioning (think of a hardware failure, driver failure, or just improper setup) and does not send/receive data faster than 10Mbs. On the other end, our SQL Server will not be able to send/receive data at a faster rate either. This means that the application users will notify the support team and will say: “My data is coming very slow.” Now, let’s move on to a bit more exciting example: imagine that there is a similar setup as the example above – one web server and one database server, and the application is not using any stored procedure calls, but instead for every user request the application is sending 80kb query over the network to the SQL Server. (I really thought this does not happen in real life until I saw it one day.) So, what happens in this case? To make things worse, let’s say that the 80kb query text is submitted from the application to the SQL Server at least 100 times per minute, and as often as 300 times per minute in peak times. Here is what happens: in order for this query to reach the SQL Server, it will have to be broken into a of number network packets (according to the packet size settings) – and will travel over the network. On the other side, our SQL Server network card will receive the packets, will pass them to our network layer, the packets will get assembled, and eventually SQL Server will start processing the query – parsing, allegorizing, generating the query execution plan and so on. So far, we have already had a serious network overhead by waiting for the packets to reach our Database Engine. There will certainly be some processing overhead – until the database engine deals with the 80kb query and its 20 subqueries. The waits you see in the DMVs are actually collected from the point the query reaches the SQL Server and the packets are assembled. Let’s say that our query is processed and it finally returns 15000 rows. These rows have a certain size as well, depending on the data types returned. This means that the data will have converted to packages (depending on the network size package settings) and will have to reach the application server. There will also be waits, however, this time you will be able to see a wait type in the DMVs called ASYNC_NETWORK_IO. What this wait type indicates is that the client is not consuming the data fast enough and the network buffers are filling up. Recently Pinal Dave posted a blog on Client Statistics. What Client Statistics does is captures the physical flow characteristics of the query between the client(Management Studio, in this case) and the server and back to the client. As you see in the image, there are three categories: Query Profile Statistics, Network Statistics and Time Statistics. Number of server roundtrips–a roundtrip consists of a request sent to the server and a reply from the server to the client. For example, if your query has three select statements, and they are separated by ‘GO’ command, then there will be three different roundtrips. TDS Packets sent from the client – TDS (tabular data stream) is the language which SQL Server speaks, and in order for applications to communicate with SQL Server, they need to pack the requests in TDS packets. TDS Packets sent from the client is the number of packets sent from the client; in case the request is large, then it may need more buffers, and eventually might even need more server roundtrips. TDS packets received from server –is the TDS packets sent by the server to the client during the query execution. Bytes sent from client – is the volume of the data set to our SQL Server, measured in bytes; i.e. how big of a query we have sent to the SQL Server. This is why it is best to use stored procedures, since the reusable code (which already exists as an object in the SQL Server) will only be called as a name of procedure + parameters, and this will minimize the network pressure. Bytes received from server – is the amount of data the SQL Server has sent to the client, measured in bytes. Depending on the number of rows and the datatypes involved, this number will vary. But still, think about the network load when you request data from SQL Server. Client processing time – is the amount of time spent in milliseconds between the first received response packet and the last received response packet by the client. Wait time on server replies – is the time in milliseconds between the last request packet which left the client and the first response packet which came back from the server to the client. Total execution time – is the sum of client processing time and wait time on server replies (the SQL Server internal processing time) Here is an illustration of the Client-server communication model which should help you understand the mutual waits in a client-server environment. Keep in mind that a query with a large ‘wait time on server replies’ means the server took a long time to produce the very first row. This is usual on queries that have operators that need the entire sub-query to evaluate before they proceed (for example, sort and top operators). However, a query with a very short ‘wait time on server replies’ means that the query was able to return the first row fast. However a long ‘client processing time’ does not necessarily imply the client spent a lot of time processing and the server was blocked waiting on the client. It can simply mean that the server continued to return rows from the result and this is how long it took until the very last row was returned. The bottom line is that developers and DBAs should work together and think carefully of the resource utilization in the client-server environment. From experience I can say that so far I have seen only cases when the application developers and the Database developers are on their own and do not ask questions about the other party’s world. I would recommend using the Client Statistics tool during new development to track the performance of the queries, and also to find a synchronous way of utilizing resources between the client – server – client. Here is another example: think about similar setup as above, but add another server to the game. Let’s say that we keep our media on a separate server, and together with the data from our SQL Server we need to display some images on the webpage requested by our user. No matter how simple or complicated the logic to get the images is, if the images are 500kb each our users will get the page slowly and they will still think that there is something wrong with our data. Anyway, I don’t mean to get carried away too far from SQL Server. Instead, what I would like to say is that DBAs should also be aware of ‘the big picture’. I wrote a blog post a while back on this topic, and if you are interested, you can read it here about the big picture. And finally, here are some guidelines for monitoring the network performance and improving it: Run a trace and outline all queries that return more than 1000 rows (in Profiler you can actually filter and sort the captured trace by number of returned rows). This is not a set number; it is more of a guideline. The general thought is that no application user can consume that many rows at once. Ask yourself and your fellow-developers: ‘why?’. Monitor your network counters in Perfmon: Network Interface:Output queue length, Redirector:Network errors/sec, TCPv4: Segments retransmitted/sec and so on. Make sure to establish a good friendship with your network administrator (buy them coffee, for example J ) and get into a conversation about the network settings. Have them explain to you how the network cards are setup – are they standalone, are they ‘teamed’, what are the settings – full duplex and so on. Find some time to read a bit about networking. In this short blog post I hope I have turned your attention to ‘the big picture’ and the fact that there are other factors affecting our SQL Server, aside from its internal workings. As a further reading I would still highly recommend the Wait Stats series on this blog, also I would recommend you have the coffee break conversation with your network admin as soon as possible. This guest post is written by Feodor Georgiev. Read all the post in the Wait Types and Queue series. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, Readers Contribution, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL

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• Adventures in MVVM &ndash; My ViewModel Base

  - by Brian Genisio's House Of Bilz

  More Adventures in MVVM First, I’d like to say: THIS IS NOT A NEW MVVM FRAMEWORK. I tend to believe that MVVM support code should be specific to the system you are building and the developers working on it.  I have yet to find an MVVM framework that does everything I want it to without doing too much.  Don’t get me wrong… there are some good frameworks out there.  I just like to pick and choose things that make sense for me.  I’d also like to add that some of these features only work in WPF.  As of Silveright 4, they don’t support binding to dynamic properties, so some of the capabilities are lost. That being said, I want to share my ViewModel base class with the world.  I have had several conversations with people about the problems I have solved using this ViewModel base.  A while back, I posted an article about some experiments with a “Rails Inspired ViewModel”.  What followed from those ideas was a ViewModel base class that I take with me and use in my projects.  It has a lot of features, all designed to reduce the friction in writing view models. I have put the code out on Codeplex under the project: ViewModelSupport. Finally, this article focuses on the ViewModel and only glosses over the View and the Model.  Without all three, you don’t have MVVM.  But this base class is for the ViewModel, so that is what I am focusing on. Features: Automatic Command Plumbing Property Change Notification Strongly Typed Property Getter/Setters Dynamic Properties Default Property values Derived Properties Automatic Method Execution Command CanExecute Change Notification Design-Time Detection What about Silverlight? Automatic Command Plumbing This feature takes the plumbing out of creating commands.  The common pattern for commands in a ViewModel is to have an Execute method as well as an optional CanExecute method.  To plumb that together, you create an ICommand Property, and set it in the constructor like so: Before public class AutomaticCommandViewModel { public AutomaticCommandViewModel() { MyCommand = new DelegateCommand(Execute_MyCommand, CanExecute_MyCommand); } public void Execute_MyCommand() { // Do something } public bool CanExecute_MyCommand() { // Are we in a state to do something? return true; } public DelegateCommand MyCommand { get; private set; } } With the base class, this plumbing is automatic and the property (MyCommand of type ICommand) is created for you.  The base class uses the convention that methods be prefixed with Execute_ and CanExecute_ in order to be plumbed into commands with the property name after the prefix.  You are left to be expressive with your behavior without the plumbing.  If you are wondering how CanExecuteChanged is raised, see the later section “Command CanExecute Change Notification”. After public class AutomaticCommandViewModel : ViewModelBase { public void Execute_MyCommand() { // Do something } public bool CanExecute_MyCommand() { // Are we in a state to do something? return true; } }   Property Change Notification One thing that always kills me when implementing ViewModels is how to make properties that notify when they change (via the INotifyPropertyChanged interface).  There have been many attempts to make this more automatic.  My base class includes one option.  There are others, but I feel like this works best for me. The common pattern (without my base class) is to create a private backing store for the variable and specify a getter that returns the private field.  The setter will set the private field and fire an event that notifies the change, only if the value has changed. Before public class PropertyHelpersViewModel : INotifyPropertyChanged { private string text; public string Text { get { return text; } set { if(text != value) { text = value; RaisePropertyChanged("Text"); } } } protected void RaisePropertyChanged(string propertyName) { var handlers = PropertyChanged; if(handlers != null) handlers(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyName)); } public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged; } This way of defining properties is error-prone and tedious.  Too much plumbing.  My base class eliminates much of that plumbing with the same functionality: After public class PropertyHelpersViewModel : ViewModelBase { public string Text { get { return Get<string>("Text"); } set { Set("Text", value);} } }   Strongly Typed Property Getters/Setters It turns out that we can do better than that.  We are using a strongly typed language where the use of “Magic Strings” is often frowned upon.  Lets make the names in the getters and setters strongly typed: A refinement public class PropertyHelpersViewModel : ViewModelBase { public string Text { get { return Get(() => Text); } set { Set(() => Text, value); } } }   Dynamic Properties In C# 4.0, we have the ability to program statically OR dynamically.  This base class lets us leverage the powerful dynamic capabilities in our ecosystem. (This is how the automatic commands are implemented, BTW)  By calling Set(“Foo”, 1), you have now created a dynamic property called Foo.  It can be bound against like any static property.  The opportunities are endless.  One great way to exploit this behavior is if you have a customizable view engine with templates that bind to properties defined by the user.  The base class just needs to create the dynamic properties at runtime from information in the model, and the custom template can bind even though the static properties do not exist. All dynamic properties still benefit from the notifiable capabilities that static properties do. For any nay-sayers out there that don’t like using the dynamic features of C#, just remember this: the act of binding the View to a ViewModel is dynamic already.  Why not exploit it?  Get over it :) Just declare the property dynamically public class DynamicPropertyViewModel : ViewModelBase { public DynamicPropertyViewModel() { Set("Foo", "Bar"); } } Then reference it normally <TextBlock Text="{Binding Foo}" />   Default Property Values The Get() method also allows for default properties to be set.  Don’t set them in the constructor.  Set them in the property and keep the related code together: public string Text { get { return Get(() => Text, "This is the default value"); } set { Set(() => Text, value);} }   Derived Properties This is something I blogged about a while back in more detail.  This feature came from the chaining of property notifications when one property affects the results of another, like this: Before public class DependantPropertiesViewModel : ViewModelBase { public double Score { get { return Get(() => Score); } set { Set(() => Score, value); RaisePropertyChanged("Percentage"); RaisePropertyChanged("Output"); } } public int Percentage { get { return (int)(100 * Score); } } public string Output { get { return "You scored " + Percentage + "%."; } } } The problem is: The setter for Score has to be responsible for notifying the world that Percentage and Output have also changed.  This, to me, is backwards.    It certainly violates the “Single Responsibility Principle.” I have been bitten in the rear more than once by problems created from code like this.  What we really want to do is invert the dependency.  Let the Percentage property declare that it changes when the Score Property changes. After public class DependantPropertiesViewModel : ViewModelBase { public double Score { get { return Get(() => Score); } set { Set(() => Score, value); } } [DependsUpon("Score")] public int Percentage { get { return (int)(100 * Score); } } [DependsUpon("Percentage")] public string Output { get { return "You scored " + Percentage + "%."; } } }   Automatic Method Execution This one is extremely similar to the previous, but it deals with method execution as opposed to property.  When you want to execute a method triggered by property changes, let the method declare the dependency instead of the other way around. Before public class DependantMethodsViewModel : ViewModelBase { public double Score { get { return Get(() => Score); } set { Set(() => Score, value); WhenScoreChanges(); } } public void WhenScoreChanges() { // Handle this case } } After public class DependantMethodsViewModel : ViewModelBase { public double Score { get { return Get(() => Score); } set { Set(() => Score, value); } } [DependsUpon("Score")] public void WhenScoreChanges() { // Handle this case } }   Command CanExecute Change Notification Back to Commands.  One of the responsibilities of commands that implement ICommand – it must fire an event declaring that CanExecute() needs to be re-evaluated.  I wanted to wait until we got past a few concepts before explaining this behavior.  You can use the same mechanism here to fire off the change.  In the CanExecute_ method, declare the property that it depends upon.  When that property changes, the command will fire a CanExecuteChanged event, telling the View to re-evaluate the state of the command.  The View will make appropriate adjustments, like disabling the button. DependsUpon works on CanExecute methods as well public class CanExecuteViewModel : ViewModelBase { public void Execute_MakeLower() { Output = Input.ToLower(); } [DependsUpon("Input")] public bool CanExecute_MakeLower() { return !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(Input); } public string Input { get { return Get(() => Input); } set { Set(() => Input, value);} } public string Output { get { return Get(() => Output); } set { Set(() => Output, value); } } }   Design-Time Detection If you want to add design-time data to your ViewModel, the base class has a property that lets you ask if you are in the designer.  You can then set some default values that let your designer see what things might look like in runtime. Use the IsInDesignMode property public DependantPropertiesViewModel() { if(IsInDesignMode) { Score = .5; } }   What About Silverlight? Some of the features in this base class only work in WPF.  As of version 4, Silverlight does not support binding to dynamic properties.  This, in my opinion, is a HUGE limitation.  Not only does it keep you from using many of the features in this ViewModel, it also keeps you from binding to ViewModels designed in IronRuby.  Does this mean that the base class will not work in Silverlight?  No.  Many of the features outlined in this article WILL work.  All of the property abstractions are functional, as long as you refer to them statically in the View.  This, of course, means that the automatic command hook-up doesn’t work in Silverlight.  You need to plumb it to a static property in order for the Silverlight View to bind to it.  Can I has a dynamic property in SL5?     Good to go? So, that concludes the feature explanation of my ViewModel base class.  Feel free to take it, fork it, whatever.  It is hosted on CodePlex.  When I find other useful additions, I will add them to the public repository.  I use this base class every day.  It is mature, and well tested.  If, however, you find any problems with it, please let me know!  Also, feel free to suggest patches to me via the CodePlex site.  :)

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• Connecting Linux to WatchGuard Firebox SSL (OpenVPN client)

  Recently, I got a new project assignment that requires to connect permanently to the customer's network through VPN. They are using a so-called SSL VPN. As I am using OpenVPN since more than 5 years within my company's network I was quite curious about their solution and how it would actually be different from OpenVPN. Well, short version: It is a disguised version of OpenVPN. Unfortunately, the company only offers a client for Windows and Mac OS which shouldn't bother any Linux user after all. OpenVPN is part of every recent distribution and can be activated in a couple of minutes - both client as well as server (if necessary). WatchGuard Firebox SSL - About dialog Borrowing some files from a Windows client installation Initially, I didn't know about the product, so therefore I went through the installation on Windows 8. No obstacles (and no restart despite installation of TAP device drivers!) here and the secured VPN channel was up and running in less than 2 minutes or so. Much appreciated from both parties - customer and me. Of course, this whole client package and my long year approved and stable installation ignited my interest to have a closer look at the WatchGuard client. Compared to the original OpenVPN client (okay, I have to admit this is years ago) this commercial product is smarter in terms of file locations during installation. You'll be able to access the configuration and key files below your roaming application data folder. To get there, simply enter '%AppData%\WatchGuard\Mobile VPN' in your Windows/File Explorer and confirm with Enter/Return. This will display the following files: Application folder below user profile with configuration and certificate files From there we are going to borrow four files, namely: ca.crt client.crt client.ovpn client.pem and transfer them to the Linux system. You might also be able to isolate those four files from a Mac OS client. Frankly, I'm just too lazy to run the WatchGuard client installation on a Mac mini only to find the folder location, and I'm going to describe why a little bit further down this article. I know that you can do that! Feedback in the comment section is appreciated. Configuration of OpenVPN (console) Depending on your distribution the following steps might be a little different but in general you should be able to get the important information from it. I'm going to describe the steps in Ubuntu 13.04 (Raring Ringtail). As usual, there are two possibilities to achieve your goal: console and UI. Let's what it is necessary to be done. First of all, you should ensure that you have OpenVPN installed on your system. Open your favourite terminal application and run the following statement: $ sudo apt-get install openvpn network-manager-openvpn network-manager-openvpn-gnome Just to be on the safe side. The four above mentioned files from your Windows machine could be copied anywhere but either you place them below your own user directory or you put them (as root) below the default directory: /etc/openvpn At this stage you would be able to do a test run already. Just in case, run the following command and check the output (it's the similar information you would get from the 'View Logs...' context menu entry in Windows: $ sudo openvpn --config client.ovpn Pay attention to the correct path to your configuration and certificate files. OpenVPN will ask you to enter your Auth Username and Auth Password in order to establish the VPN connection, same as the Windows client. Remote server and user authentication to establish the VPN Please complete the test run and see whether all went well. You can disconnect pressing Ctrl+C. Simplifying your life - authentication file In my case, I actually set up the OpenVPN client on my gateway/router. This establishes a VPN channel between my network and my client's network and allows me to switch machines easily without having the necessity to install the WatchGuard client on each and every machine. That's also very handy for my various virtualised Windows machines. Anyway, as the client configuration, key and certificate files are located on a headless system somewhere under the roof, it is mandatory to have an automatic connection to the remote site. For that you should first change the file extension '.ovpn' to '.conf' which is the default extension on Linux systems for OpenVPN, and then open the client configuration file in order to extend an existing line. $ sudo mv client.ovpn client.conf $ sudo nano client.conf You should have a similar content to this one here: dev tunclientproto tcp-clientca ca.crtcert client.crtkey client.pemtls-remote "/O=WatchGuard_Technologies/OU=Fireware/CN=Fireware_SSLVPN_Server"remote-cert-eku "TLS Web Server Authentication"remote 1.2.3.4 443persist-keypersist-tunverb 3mute 20keepalive 10 60cipher AES-256-CBCauth SHA1float 1reneg-sec 3660nobindmute-replay-warningsauth-user-pass auth.txt Note: I changed the IP address of the remote directive above (which should be obvious, right?). Anyway, the required change is marked in red and we have to create a new authentication file 'auth.txt'. You can give the directive 'auth-user-pass' any file name you'd like to. Due to my existing OpenVPN infrastructure my setup differs completely from the above written content but for sake of simplicity I just keep it 'as-is'. Okay, let's create this file 'auth.txt' $ sudo nano auth.txt and just put two lines of information in it - username on the first, and password on the second line, like so: myvpnusernameverysecretpassword Store the file, change permissions, and call openvpn with your configuration file again: $ sudo chmod 0600 auth.txt $ sudo openvpn --config client.conf This should now work without being prompted to enter username and password. In case that you placed your files below the system-wide location /etc/openvpn you can operate your VPNs also via service command like so: $ sudo service openvpn start client $ sudo service openvpn stop client Using Network Manager For newer Linux users or the ones with 'console-phobia' I'm going to describe now how to use Network Manager to setup the OpenVPN client. For this move your mouse to the systray area and click on Network Connections => VPN Connections => Configure VPNs... which opens your Network Connections dialog. Alternatively, use the HUD and enter 'Network Connections'. Network connections overview in Ubuntu Click on 'Add' button. On the next dialog select 'Import a saved VPN configuration...' from the dropdown list and click on 'Create...' Choose connection type to import VPN configuration Now you navigate to your folder where you put the client files from the Windows system and you open the 'client.ovpn' file. Next, on the tab 'VPN' proceed with the following steps (directives from the configuration file are referred): General Check the IP address of Gateway ('remote' - we used 1.2.3.4 in this setup) Authentication Change Type to 'Password with Certificates (TLS)' ('auth-pass-user') Enter User name to access your client keys (Auth Name: myvpnusername) Enter Password (Auth Password: verysecretpassword) and choose your password handling Browse for your User Certificate ('cert' - should be pre-selected with client.crt) Browse for your CA Certificate ('ca' - should be filled as ca.crt) Specify your Private Key ('key' - here: client.pem) Then click on the 'Advanced...' button and check the following values: Use custom gateway port: 443 (second value of 'remote' directive) Check the selected value of Cipher ('cipher') Check HMAC Authentication ('auth') Enter the Subject Match: /O=WatchGuard_Technologies/OU=Fireware/CN=Fireware_SSLVPN_Server ('tls-remote') Finally, you have to confirm and close all dialogs. You should be able to establish your OpenVPN-WatchGuard connection via Network Manager. For that, click on the 'VPN Connections => client' entry on your Network Manager in the systray. It is advised that you keep an eye on the syslog to see whether there are any problematic issues that would require some additional attention. Advanced topic: routing As stated above, I'm running the 'WatchGuard client for Linux' on my head-less server, and since then I'm actually establishing a secure communication channel between two networks. In order to enable your network clients to get access to machines on the remote side there are two possibilities to enable that: Proper routing on both sides of the connection which enables both-direction access, or Network masquerading on the 'client side' of the connection Following, I'm going to describe the second option a little bit more in detail. The Linux system that I'm using is already configured as a gateway to the internet. I won't explain the necessary steps to do that, and will only focus on the additional tweaks I had to do. You can find tons of very good instructions and tutorials on 'How to setup a Linux gateway/router' - just use Google. OK, back to the actual modifications. First, we need to have some information about the network topology and IP address range used on the 'other' side. We can get this very easily from /var/log/syslog after we established the OpenVPN channel, like so: $ sudo tail -n20 /var/log/syslog Or if your system is quite busy with logging, like so: $ sudo less /var/log/syslog | grep ovpn The output should contain PUSH received message similar to the following one: Jul 23 23:13:28 ios1 ovpn-client[789]: PUSH: Received control message: 'PUSH_REPLY,topology subnet,route 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0,dhcp-option DOMAIN ,route-gateway 192.168.6.1,topology subnet,ping 10,ping-restart 60,ifconfig 192.168.6.2 255.255.255.0' The interesting part for us is the route command which I highlighted already in the sample PUSH_REPLY. Depending on your remote server there might be multiple networks defined (172.16.x.x and/or 10.x.x.x). Important: The IP address range on both sides of the connection has to be different, otherwise you will have to shuffle IPs or increase your the netmask. {loadposition content_adsense} After the VPN connection is established, we have to extend the rules for iptables in order to route and masquerade IP packets properly. I created a shell script to take care of those steps: #!/bin/sh -eIPTABLES=/sbin/iptablesDEV_LAN=eth0DEV_VPNS=tun+VPN=192.168.1.0/24 $IPTABLES -A FORWARD -i $DEV_LAN -o $DEV_VPNS -d $VPN -j ACCEPT$IPTABLES -A FORWARD -i $DEV_VPNS -o $DEV_LAN -s $VPN -j ACCEPT$IPTABLES -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o $DEV_VPNS -d $VPN -j MASQUERADE I'm using the wildcard interface 'tun+' because I have multiple client configurations for OpenVPN on my server. In your case, it might be sufficient to specify device 'tun0' only. Simplifying your life - automatic connect on boot Now, that the client connection works flawless, configuration of routing and iptables is okay, we might consider to add another 'laziness' factor into our setup. Due to kernel updates or other circumstances it might be necessary to reboot your system. Wouldn't it be nice that the VPN connections are established during the boot procedure? Yes, of course it would be. To achieve this, we have to configure OpenVPN to automatically start our VPNs via init script. Let's have a look at the responsible 'default' file and adjust the settings accordingly. $ sudo nano /etc/default/openvpn Which should have a similar content to this: # This is the configuration file for /etc/init.d/openvpn## Start only these VPNs automatically via init script.# Allowed values are "all", "none" or space separated list of# names of the VPNs. If empty, "all" is assumed.# The VPN name refers to the VPN configutation file name.# i.e. "home" would be /etc/openvpn/home.conf#AUTOSTART="all"#AUTOSTART="none"#AUTOSTART="home office"## ... more information which remains unmodified ... With the OpenVPN client configuration as described above you would either set AUTOSTART to "all" or to "client" to enable automatic start of your VPN(s) during boot. You should also take care that your iptables commands are executed after the link has been established, too. You can easily test this configuration without reboot, like so: $ sudo service openvpn restart Enjoy stable VPN connections between your Linux system(s) and a WatchGuard Firebox SSL remote server. Cheers, JoKi

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• Triple boot vista xp ubuntu

  - by Artyom2033

  My partition table is pretty messed up from install/uninstall os and what I want to do now is to clear that and have vista/xp/ubuntu 12.04 on the same hard drive. I have create a new partition for xp on vista, everything was fine, but when I restarted my pc, I was getting the grub restore prompt. Even when I was trying to install xp, when the 'lunch windows' came, a wild BSOD appear. So I have deleted my partition for xp using gParted include in the 12.04 live cd. This haven't resolve the problem and I am still unable to boot in vista nor ubuntu. But I realy what this triple boot for LoL purpose (since my vista installation keep giving latency spike in this game and I hope this will not be the case in a fresh xp installation (I have tested it in ubuntu, the ping was good, but the fps wasn't). So what I want to do, is to install xp on a partition, then be able to boot on any of them without a problem from a nice installation of grub or something. gParted screenshot Thanks for help. Sorry for my English.

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• Vim: Use different ~/.vim/plugin/ directories for different versions of vim?

  - by Stefan Lasiewski

  Like many of you, my custom Vim configuration is stored in my ~/.vimrc, with the plugins, colors, etc. stored under ~/.vim/plugins, ~/.vim/colors, etc. I want to share a single Vim configuration among many servers. Some of these servers run Vim 7, some run the older Vim 6. Most Vim plugins are intended for Vim 7, but older versions still exist for those of us on older systems. See DirDiff for an example. If I am on a system which runs Vim 6, how can I configure Vim to only use Vim 6-compatible plugins? I was thinking about storing older plugins in a subdirectory like ~/.vim/plugins6/ and keep the Vim plugins in ~/.vim/plugins, but then how can I tell Vim6 to ignore ~/.vim/plugins and use ~/.vim/plugins6 instead?

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• Migrating users and mailboxes from postfix / Maildir to Postfix with Mysql backend

  - by Chrispy

  So I've got 60 or so users on a hand rolled postfix installation on openbsd and I'd like to move their mailboxes to our new mail server running iRedMail (postfix, vmail/mysql back end) Does anyone know of a good way to do this? Preferably a script I can run to keep syncing the users mailboxes as MX records get updated? I presume one way (though I don't have all their passwords!) would be to have a command line imap client that simulated the users copying their mail themselves but I'm sure there must be a shell / php script to migrate users? Anyone got any bright ideas? Chris.

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• Do game-theoretic considerations stand in the way of this market-based game-mechanic achieving its goals?

  - by BerndBrot

  Mechanic The mechanic is called "market manipulation" and is supposed to work like this: Players can enter the London Stock Exchange (LSE) LSE displays the stock prices of 8 to 10 companies and derivatives. This number is relatively small to ensure that players will collide in their efforts to manipulate the market in their favor. The prices are calculated based on real world prices of these companies and derivatives (in real time) any market manipulations that were conducted by the players any market corrections of the system Players can buy and sell shares with cash, a resource in the game, at current in-game market value Players can manipulate the market, i.e. let the price of a share either rise or fall, by some amount, over a certain period of time. Manipulating the market requires spending certain in-game resources and is therefore limited. The system continuously corrects market manipulations by letting the in-game prices converge towards their real world counterparts at a rate of 2% of the difference between the two per hour. Because of this market correction mechanism, pushing up prices (and screwing down prices) becomes increasingly difficult the higher (lower) the price already is. Goals Players are supposed to collide (and have incentives to collide) in their efforts to manipulate the market in their favor, especially when it comes to manipulation efforts by different groups. Prices should not resolve around any equilibrium points. The more variance the better. Band-wagoning should always involve risk (recognizing that prices start rising should not be a sure sign that they will keep rising so that everybody can make easy profits even when they don't manipulate the market themselves) Question Are there any game-theoretic considerations that prevent the mechanic from achieving these goals?

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• IUSR account and SCCM 2007 R3 agent

  - by steve schofield

  I recently started working with SCCM and rolling the agent out with machine having IIS 7.x installed.  I ran into issues where the SCCM agent wouldn't install.  The errors mostly were 0x80004005 and 1603, another key one I found was Return Value 3 in the SCCM setup log.  During the troubleshooting, I found a cool utility called WMI Diag  WMI diag is a VBS script that reads the local WMI store and helps diagnose issue.  Anyone working with SMS or SCCM should keep this handy tool around.  The good thing my particular case WMI was healthy.  The issue turned out I changed the Anonymous Authentication module from using the IUSR account to inherit Application Pool identity.  Once we temporarily switched back to IUSR, installed the agent, then switched the setting back to inherit application pool identity, the SCCM agent installed with no issues. I'm not sure why switching back to the IUSR account solved my issue, if I find out I'll update the post.  More information on IIS 7 builtin accounts http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/140/understanding-built-in-user-and-group-accounts-in-iis-7 Specify an application pool identity  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc771170(WS.10).aspx SCCM resources (Config Mgr Setup  / Deployment forums) http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/configmgrsetup/threads http://www.myitforum.com (the best independent SCCM community resource) Hope this helps. Steve SchofieldMicrosoft MVP - IIS

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• Unavailable repository

  - by katrina

  I am new to Ubuntu and keep butting up against errors, such as this: Package libpng12-dev is not available, but is referred to by another package. This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or is only available from another source However the following packages replace it: libpng12-0 E: Unable to locate package subversion E: Package 'git-core' has no installation candidate E: Package 'build-essential' has no installation candidate E: Package 'autoconf' has no installation candidate E: Package 'libtool' has no installation candidate E: Unable to locate package libxml2-dev E: Unable to locate package libgeos-dev E: Unable to locate package libpq-dev E: Unable to locate package libbz2-dev E: Package 'proj' has no installation candidate E: Unable to locate package munin-node E: Unable to locate package munin E: Unable to locate package libprotobuf-c0-dev E: Unable to locate package protobuf-c-compiler E: Unable to locate package libfreetype6-dev E: Package 'libpng12-dev' has no installation candidate E: Unable to locate package libtiff4-dev E: Unable to locate package libicu-dev E: Unable to locate package libboost-all-dev E: Unable to locate package libgdal-dev E: Unable to locate package libcairo-dev E: Unable to locate package libcairomm-1.0-dev E: Couldn't find any package by regex 'libcairomm-1.0-dev' E: Unable to locate package apache2 E: Unable to locate package apache2-dev E: Unable to locate package libagg-dev when I want to do this: sudo apt-get install subversion git-core tar unzip wget bzip2 build-essential autoconf libtool libxml2-dev libgeos-dev libpq-dev libbz2-dev proj munin-node munin libprotobuf-c0-dev protobuf-c-compiler libfreetype6-dev libpng12-dev libtiff4-dev libicu-dev libboost-all-dev libgdal-dev libcairo-dev libcairomm-1.0-dev apache2 apache2-dev libagg-dev. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Or referrals to other questions...

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• Can't upgrade Windows Server 2012 Essentials to Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials

  - by Magnus

  So today was RTM of Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials released. I immediately tried to do an in-place upgrade of an existing RTM 2012 Essentials to RTM 2012 R2 Essentials, but get: Windows Server 2012 Essentials cannot be upgraded to Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials. You can choose to install a new copy of Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials instead, but this is different from an upgrade, and does not keep your files, settings, and programs. You’ll need to reinstall any programs using the original installation discs or files. To save your files before installing Windows, back them up to an external location such as a CD, DVD, or external hard drive. To install a new copy of Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials, click the Back button in the upper left-hand corner, and select “Custom (advanced)”. This seems a bit odd, is this really the case? I can't find anything in the official documentation stating that this upgrade isn't possible.

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• ZooZoo’s Are Back! Watch & Download ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 ZooZoo Ads

  - by Gopinath

  For the past couple of years VodaFone ZooZoo’s are integral part of major Cricket events. We have seen them as part of IPL 2 and IPL 3 and now as part of the on going ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 new ZooZoo ads are back on Televisions.  ZooZoos are adorable and they are my favourite videos to watch to relax. So here I’m going to post all the ZooZoo ads that are being aired on televisions as part of ICC Cricket World Cup 2011. If you love to keep the ZooZoo ads collections on you PC, you can click the download link next to each ad and save the videos. Downloads are available in FLV (for viewing on computers) and MP4 (for mobile phones) . Have Fun! Excited girl Zoozoo Interview [Download It] Pilot ZooZoo Interview [Download It] Angry Zoozoo Interview [Download It] Two ZooZoos Interview [Download It] This article titled,ZooZoo’s Are Back! Watch & Download ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 ZooZoo Ads, was originally published at Tech Dreams. Grab our rss feed or fan us on Facebook to get updates from us.

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• SpriteBatch being drawn outside of Stage?

  - by pyko

  Currently working on my first game, though running into some problems with libgx and screen aspect ratio. What I have is a Stage which contains things like menu buttons etc, and the rest of the game is pretty much sprites being drawn with via SpriteBatch. To avoid having multiple SpriteBatches and cameras, I have re-used the ones that are created when Stage is created. stage = new Stage(WIDTH, HEIGHT, true); // keep aspect ratio batch = stage.getSpriteBatch(); camera = (OrthographicCamera) stage.getCamera(); // move camera so 'active' screen is centred stage.getCamera().translate(-stage.getGutterWidth(), -stage.getGutterHeight(), 0); Anything that is Stage/Actor related is drawn fine - all goes within the aspect ratio adjusted boundaries. The problem I'm having is anything that drawn via SpriteBatch, seems to ignore this viewport that is defined by Stage and can be visible outside of the Stage area. batch.begin(); ... sirWuffles.draw(batch); ... batch.end(); For example, in the above, if Sir Wuffles is generated outside of the defined WIDTH/HEIGHT it might still appear in the "gutters" of the screen. Tried to explain it in the below screenshot. It's an exaggerated screen ratio to make the gutters large. I've also covered most of the gutter area in the blue/cyan rectangle so they are very obvious. Does anyone know what is happening? and how to fix it? Currently, my "fix" is to use ShapeRenderer to draw rectangles that correspond to the gutters on top of the sprites...

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• Move smaller hard drive to partition on a larger hard drive

  - by bluejeansummer

  My parents bought a new hard drive for a laptop that I've owned for several years. It's much larger than the current one, so I plan on splitting it up to dual boot it with Ubuntu. I have no problem with partitioning a drive (I always keep a LiveCD handy), but my question is this: how can I go about moving the existing partition to the new drive? This is a laptop, so I can't simply plug the new drive into another slot. Also, even if I manage to move it, will Windows still work on the new drive in a larger partition? I've had this laptop for quite a while, and I've lost the recovery discs that came with it a long time ago. I also have a lot of software without CDs to reinstall them with. This makes not reinstalling Windows a high priority. In case it helps, both drives use 2.5" PATA, and I have a 1 TB external drive available if it's needed.

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• Rendering shadow sprites in cocos2d-x

  - by lukeluke

  I am writing a 2D game with cocos2d-x. I want to put a "shadow" sprite on a background sprite using the equation: MAX(0, Cd*1 - Cs*S) where Cd is the destination color (that is, a background pixel), Cs is the source color (the shadow pixel) , S is the scale factor (between 0 and 1). The MAX() function is used to avoid negative results. This is a lighting effect: when the shadow sprite pixel is 0, there is no effect on the background pixel, otherwise, the background pixel becomes darker. Now, the only way that comes to my mind is to change the blending equation to GL_FUNC_SUBTRACT, but it doesn't compile with cocos2d-x (can't found it)... I would subclass the CCSprite class in order to implement the draw() method in order to change, when needed, the blending equation, call the original draw() method and restore the blending equation to its previous state at the end of the method. So my questions are two: how to use glBlendEquation() with cocos2d-x? Keep in mind that i am writing a game for iphone/android/windows. are shadows handled this way in 2D games? Thx

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• Update on ASP.NET MVC 3 RC2 (and a workaround for a bug in it)

  - by ScottGu

  Last week we published the RC2 build of ASP.NET MVC 3.  I blogged a bunch of details about it here. One of the reasons we publish release candidates is to help find those last “hard to find” bugs. So far we haven’t seen many issues reported with the RC2 release (which is good) - although we have seen a few reports of a metadata caching bug that manifests itself in at least two scenarios: Nullable parameters in action methods have problems: When you have a controller action method with a nullable parameter (like int? – or a complex type that has a nullable sub-property), the nullable parameter might always end up being null - even when the request contains a valid value for the parameter. [AllowHtml] doesn’t allow HTML in model binding: When you decorate a model property with an [AllowHtml] attribute (to turn off HTML injection protection), the model binding still fails when HTML content is posted to it. Both of these issues are caused by an over-eager caching optimization we introduced very late in the RC2 milestone.  This issue will be fixed for the final ASP.NET MVC 3 release.  Below is a workaround step you can implement to fix it today. Workaround You Can Use Today You can fix the above issues with the current ASP.NT MVC 3 RC2 release by adding one line of code to the Application_Start() event handler within the Global.asax class of your application: The above code sets the ModelMetaDataProviders.Current property to use the DataAnnotationsModelMetadataProvider.  This causes ASP.NET MVC 3 to use a meta-data provider implementation that doesn’t have the more aggressive caching logic we introduced late in the RC2 release, and prevents the caching issues that cause the above issues to occur.  You don’t need to change any other code within your application.  Once you make this change the above issues are fixed.  You won’t need to have this line of code within your applications once the final ASP.NET MVC 3 release ships (although keeping it in also won’t cause any problems). Hope this helps – and please keep any reports of issues coming our way, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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• Catch up with ‘In Touch’ on-demand

  - by rituchhibber

  We had another fantastic live broadcast of the ‘In Touch’ PartnerCast last week which covered a range of topics, updates and answered your questions live on air. The cast started with host David Callaghan, Senior Vice President EMEA Alliances and Channels, updating us on the Rebate programme and focussed on the benefits this system offers. We were then introduced to Will O’Brien, VP Alliances & Channels, UK & Ireland, and Markus Reischl, Senior Director and Sales Leader EMEA Strategic Alliances who discussed the headlines from Oracle OpenWorld from their point of view. Monia Bosetti sent in a video report discussing LMS and how this affects SI’s, which sparked studio conversation betweeen the guests and got you talking at your desks too! David also had the chance to talk with Platinmun Partner Uptime Technology, who shared their best practice and exmaples of working with Oracle to achieve great results. The studio team ended the cast answering your questions live, which had some interesting results! Like the sound of this cast? You can watch on-demand here: Make sure you keep up to date with the ‘In Touch’ series by visiting the website here.

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• Deprecated Methods in Code Base

  - by Jamie Taylor

  A lot of the code I've been working on recently, both professionally (read: at work) and in other spheres (read: at home, for friends/family/etc, or NOT FOR WORK), has been worked on, redesigned and re-implemented several times - where possible/required. This has been in an effort to make things smaller, faster more efficient, better and closer to spec (when requirements have changed). A down side to this is that I now have several code bases that have deprecated method blocks (and in some places small objects). I'm looking at making this code maintainable and easy to roll back on changes. I'm already using version control software in both instances, but I'm left wondering if there are any specific techniques that have been used by others for keeping the superseded methods without increasing the size of compiled outputs? At the minute, I'm simply wrapping the old code in C style multi line comments. Here's an example of what I mean (C style, psuedo-code): void main () { //Do some work //Foo(); //Deprecated method call Bar(); //New method } /***** Deprecated code ***** /// Summary of Method void Foo() { //Do some work } ***** Deprecated Code *****/ /// Summary of method void Bar() { //Do some work } I've added a C style example, simply because I'm more confident with the C style languages. I'm trying to put this question across as language agnostic (hence the tag), and would prefer language agnostic answers, if possible - since I see this question as more of a techniques and design question. I'd like to keep the old methods and blocks for a bunch of reasons, chief amongst them being the ability to quickly restore an older working method in the case of some tests failing, or some unforeseen circumstance. Is there a better way to do this (that multi line comments)? Are there any tools that will allow me to store these old methods in separate files? Is that even a good idea?

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• Google chrome asking for username and password for OWA

  - by Grant

  Hi, i have a question about the google chrome browser. When i navigate to my work's Outlook Web Access site to read my emails, the chrome browser is prompting me for a username and password to the server saying "Authentication Required - the server XXXXXX.XXX:443 requires a username and password. After i put them in i then have to enter in the normal OWA username and password to access my emails as per normal. The funny thing is.. 1] If i click CANCEL on the first dialog it takes me to the OWA screen and i can log in normal anyway. However - subqeuent page clicks will keep prompting me each time for the server credentials. 2] I am NOT prompted for server UN and PW if i use IE or fireFox. Does anyone know how to stop chrome from asking me each time? or is it a server setting - i do know that a friend who uses the same browser (chrome) and also OWA does not have the same problem (NB: they work at a different company) Thanks!

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• Fatal error: Incompatible file format: The encoded file has format major ID 1, whereas the Loader expects 4 in ... on line 0

  - by Eugene

  I am using Ubuntu 10.04 and for some time I had to keep a downgraded PHP 5.2 package because I need to run Zend encrypted scripts. Recently I noticed that Zend released beta version of their loader (http://forums.zend.com/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=1365&start=80#p22073) so I updated to the native PHP 5.3 package, downloaded the .so file, added this to php.ini ;zend_extension=/etc/php5/ZendOptimizer.so zend_extension=/etc/php5/ZendGuardLoader.so zend_loader.enable=1 zend_loader.disable_licensing=0 zend_loader.obfuscation_level_support=3 and restarted the server. Now I am getting this error: Fatal error: Incompatible file format: The encoded file has format major ID 1, whereas the Loader expects 4 in ... on line 0 Do you by chance know an easy fix for this? Or should I downgrade back and wait till when they release something more stable?

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• Productivity Tips

  - by Brian T. Jackett

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

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• Techie Land Silly Questions

  - by GeekAgilistMercenary

  Ok, it is time for an off the cuff, random, oddball, just for fun blog entry.  Two questions for the readers in Internet Land. Question #1:  If you did not have to work, had a few dollars stashed away so that you could live comfortably and do whatever you wanted, what would you do?  Would you still code?  Would you still create?  What would you create?  Would you be able to stay idle? Question #2:  Based on whatever you did with your free time, what would you title yourself?  Chief Potato Masher, Pencil Pushing Writer o’ Stories, or Coffee Endeavorer o’ Tastiness? There are a million possibilities, I would love to know what you would call yourself, so please do leave a comment or three. I will have my answers later in the week.  So stay tuned and help me out with some comments.  You can bet it will include something along the lines of what I already do, but I'll keep it a secret until then.  : )  Feel free to check out the original entry here to leave a comment.

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• More FlipBoard Magazines: Azure, XAML, ASP.NET MVC & Web API

  - by dwahlin

  In a previous post I introduced two new FlipBoard magazines that I put together including The AngularJS Magazine and The JavaScript & HTML5 Magazine. FlipBoard magazines provide a great way to keep content organized using a magazine-style format as opposed to trudging through multiple unorganized bookmarks or boring pages full of links. I think they’re really fun to read through as well. Based on feedback and the surprising popularity of the first two magazines I’ve decided to create some additional magazines on topics I like such as The Azure Magazine, The XAML Magazine and The ASP.NET MVC & Web API Magazine. Click on a cover below to get to the magazines using your browser. To subscribe to a given magazine you’ll need to create a FlipBoard account (not required to read the magazines though) which requires an iOS or Android device (the Windows Phone 8 app is coming soon they say). If you have a post or article that you think would be a good fit for any of the magazines please tweet the link to @DanWahlin and I’ll add it to my queue to review. I plan to be pretty strict about keeping articles “on topic” and focused.   The Azure Magazine   The XAML Magazine   The ASP.NET MVC & Web API Magazine   The AngularJS Magazine   The JavaScript & HTML5 Magazine

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• Resolving the Access is Denied Error in VSeWSS Deployments

  - by Damon

  Visual Studio Extensions for Windows SharePoint Services 1.3 (VSeWSS 1.3) tends to make my life easier unless I'm typing out the words that make up the VSeWSS acronym - really, what a mouthful.  But one of the problems that I routinely encounter are error messages when trying to deploy solutions.  These normally look something like the following: Access is denied. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070005 (E_ACCESSDENIED)) I tried a variety of steps to resolve this issue: Recycling the application pool Restarting IIS Closing Visual Studio Not detaching from the debugger until a request was fully completed Logging off and logging back into Windows etc. Nothing actually worked.  Some of these resolution attempts seemed to help keep the problem from happening quite as frequently, but I still have no idea what EXACTLY causes the problem and it would rear its ugly head from time to time.  Unfortunately, the only resolution I found that seemed to work was to reboot the machine . which is a crappy resolution. Finally sick enough of the problem to spend some time on it, I went on a search and tried to figure out if anyone else was having this issue.  People seem to suggest that turning off the Indexing Service on your machine helps resolve this problem.  I tried turning it off but I kept having issues.  Which was depressing.  Fortunately, I stumbled upon the resolution when I was looking through the services list.  If you encounter the issue, all you have to do is reset the World Wide Web Publishing Service.  I've had a 100% success rate so far with this approach.  I'm not sure if having the Indexing Service is part of the solution, but I've kept it disabled for the time being because I'm really sick of having to reboot my machine to deal with that error message. If you do VSeWSS development, you may also want to check out this blog post: VSeWSS 1.3 - Getting around the "Unable to load one or more of the requested types" Error

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• Would you re-design completely under .Net?

  - by dboarman

  A very extensive application began as an Access-based system (for database storage). Forms were written in VB5 and/or VB6. As .Net became a fixture in the development community, certain modules have been rewritten. This seems very awkward and potentially costly just to maintain because of the cross-technologies and extra work to keep the two technologies happy with each other. Of course, the application uses a mix of ODBC OleDb and MySql. Would you think spending the time and resources to completely re-develop the application under .Net would be more cost effective? In an effort to develop a more stable application, wouldn't it make sense to use .Net? Or continue chasing Access bugs, adding new features in .Net (which may or may not create new bugs between .Net and Access), and rewriting old Access modules into .Net modules under time constraints that prevent proper design and development? Update The application uses OleDb and MySql - I corrected my previous statement. Also, to lend further support to rewriting: I have since found out that when the "porting" to .Net began, the VBA/VB6 code that existed was basically translated to the .Net equivalent. From my understanding, nothing was done to improve performance, or take advantage of new libraries or technologies. In my opinion, this creates a very fragile and unstable application. With every new update, this becomes more and more visible. As a help desk technician, I have noticed an increase in problems reported. The customers using the software have noticed an increase in problems and are commenting on it.

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