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• Stream Media and Live TV Across the Internet with Orb

  - by DigitalGeekery

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

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• On Contract Employment

  - by kerry

  I am going to post about something I don’t post about a lot, the business side of development.  Scott at the antipimp does a good job of explaining how contracts work from a business perspective.  I am going to give a view from the ground. First, a little background on myself.  I have recently taken a 6 month contract after about 8 years of fulltime employment.  I have 2 kids, and a stay at home wife.  I took this contract opportunity because I wanted to try it on for size.  I have always wondered whether I would like doing contracts over fulltime employment.  So, in keeping with the theme of this blog I will write this down now so that I may reference it later. ALL jobs are temporary! Right now you may not realize it, most people simply ignore it, but EVERY job is temporary.  Everyone should be planning for life after the money stops coming in.  Sadly, most people do not.  Contracting pushes this issue to the forefront, making you deal with it.  After a month on a contract, I am happy to say that I am saving more than I ever saved in a fulltime position.  Hopefully, I will be ready in case of an extended window of unemployment between contracts. Networking I find it extremely gratifying getting to know people.  It is especially beneficial when moving to a new city.  What better way to go out and meet people in your field than to work a few contracts?  6 months of working beside someone and you get to know them pretty well.  This is one of my favorite aspects. Technical Agility Moving between IS shops takes (or molds you into) a flexible person.  You have to be able to go in and hit the ground running.  This means you need to be able to sit down and start work on a large codebase working in a language that you may or may not have that much experience in.  It is also an excellent way to learn new languages and broaden your technical skill set.  I took my current position to learn Ruby.  A month ago, I had only used it in passing, but now I am using it every day.  It’s a tragedy in this field when people start coding for the joy and love of coding, then become deeply entrenched in their companies methods and technologies that it becomes a just a job. Less Stress I am not talking about the kind of stress you get from a jackass boss.  I am talking about the kind of stress I (or others) experience about planning and future proofing your code.  Not saying I stay up at night worrying whether we have done it right, if that code I wrote today is going to bite me later, but it still creeps around in the dark recesses of my mind.  Careful though, I am not suggesting you write sloppy code; just defer any large architectural or design decisions to the ‘code owners’. Flexible Scheduling It makes me very happy to be able to cut out a few hours early on a Friday (provided the work is done) and start the weekend off early by going to the pool, or taking the kids to the park.  Contracting provides you this opportunity (mileage may vary).  Most of your fulltime brethren will not care, they will be jealous that they’re corporate policy prevents them from doing the same.  However, you must be mindful of situations where this is not appropriate, and don’t over do it.  You are there to work after all. Affirmation of Need Have you ever been stuck in a job where you thought you were underpaid?  Have you ever been in a position where you felt like there was not enough workload for you?  This is not a problem for contractors.  When you start a contract it is understood that you are needed, and the employer knows that you are happy with the terms. Contracting may not be for everyone.  But, if you develop a relationship with a good consulting firm, keep their clients happy, then they will keep you happy.  They want you to work almost as much as you do.  Just be sure and plan financially for any windows of unemployment.

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• The Winds of Change are a Blowin&rsquo;

  - by Ajarn Mark Caldwell

  For six years I have been an avid and outspoken fan and paying customer of SourceGear products…from Vault to Dragnet to Fortress and on to Vault Professional, but that is all changing now.  Not the fan part, but the paying customer part.  I’m still a huge fan.  I think that SourceGear does a great job with their product and support has been fantastic when needed (which is not very often).  I think that Eric Sink has done a fine job building a quality company and products, and I appreciate his contributions to the tech community through this blogging and books.  I still think their products are high quality and do a fantastic job of what they do.  But there’s the rub…what they do is no longer enough for me. As I have rebuilt our development team over the last couple of years, and we have begun to investigate Scrum and Kanban, I realize that I need more visibility into the progress of the team.  I need better project management tools, and this is where Vault Professional lags behind several other tools.  Granted, in the latest release (Vault 6.0) they added a nice time tracking feature, but I want more.  (Note, I did contact SourceGear about my quest for more, but apparently, the rest of their customer base has not been clamoring for this and so they have not built it.  Granted, I wasn’t clamoring for it either until just recently, but unfortunately for SourceGear, I want it now and don’t want to wait for them to build it into their system.) Ironically, it was SourceGear themselves who started to turn me on to the possibilities of other tools.  They built a limited integration with Axosoft OnTime which I read about several times on their support site (I used to regularly read and occasionally comment on their Support Forum).  I decided to check out OnTime and was very impressed with the tool for work item tracking and project management (not to mention their great Scrum Master in 10 Minutes video).  I fell in love with the capabilities of OnTime.  Unfortunately, the integration with Vault for source control management was, as I mentioned, limited.  I could have forfeited the integration between work items and source code, but there is too much benefit to linking check-ins to work items for me to give that up.  So then I did what was previously unthinkable for me, I considered switching not just the work tracking tool, but also the source code management tool.  This was really stepping outside my comfort zone because source code is Gold, and not to be trifled with.  When you find a good weapon to protect your gold, stick with it. I looked at Git and Tortoise SVN, but the integration methods for those was pretty rough compared to what I was used to.  The recommended tool from Axosoft’s point of view appeared to be RocketSVN, but I really wasn’t sure I wanted to go the “flavor of Subversion” route.  Then I started thinking about that other tool I liked back when I first chose to go with Vault, but couldn’t afford:  Team Foundation Server.  And what do you know…Microsoft has not only radically improved it over that version from back in 2006, but they also came to their senses about how it should be licensed, and it is much more affordable now.  So I started looking into the latest capabilities in the 2012 version, and I fell in love all over again. I really went deep on checking out the tools.  I watched numerous webcasts from Microsoft partners, went to a beta preview on Microsoft’s campus, and watched a lot of Channel 9 videos on the new ALM features (oooh…shiny).  Frankly, I was very impressed with the capabilities of the newest version, and figured this was probably our direction.  As an interesting twist of fate, one of my employees crossed paths with an ALM Consultant from Northwest Cadence, a local Microsoft Partner, and one of the companies that produced several of the webcasts that I had been watching.  So I gave Bryon a call and started grilling him to see if he really knew anything or was just another guy who couldn’t find a job so he called himself a consultant.  It turns out Bryon actually knows a lot, especially in an area that was becoming a frustration point for us: Branching strategies and automated builds (that’s probably a whole separate blog entry).  As we talked, Bryon suggested we look into doing a DTDPS (Developer Tools Deployment Planning Services) session with his company.  This is a service that can be paid for by Microsoft Enterprise Agreement planning services credits or SA training benefits, and, again, coincidentally, we had several that were just about to expire, so I put them to good use. The DTDPS sessions were great; and Bryon, Rick, and the rest of the folks at Northwest Cadence have been a pleasure to work with.  We have just purchased a new server for our TFS rollout and are planning the steps and options right now.  This is still a big project ahead of us to not only install and configure TFS, but also to load all of our source code (many different systems, not just one program) and transition to the new way of life with TFS, but I am convinced that it is the right move for my team at this point in time.  We need the new capabilities that are in alignment with Scrum and Kanban methodologies in order to more efficiently manage all the different projects that we have going on at one time. I would still wholeheartedly endorse SourceGear’s products and Axosoft’s OnTime for those whose needs are met by those tools, but for me and my team, I think that TFS is the right fit, and I am looking forward to the change.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, June 04, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, June 04, 2010New Projects23 Umbraco addons: 23 Umbraco addonsAdd-ons for EPiServer Relate+: In the Add-ons for EPiServer Relate+ you will find add-ons, extensions and modules that work together with EPiServer Relate+.Advanced Mail Merge (AMM) for Microsoft Office: Advanced Mail Merge for Microsoft Word 2007/2010, offers great extensable functionality: - Merge to document (PDF) - Merge to attachment - Use Out...Cenobith RLS Sample: Simple implementation of Row Level Security for Microsoft SQL ServerCodingWheels.DataTypes: DataTypes tries to make it easier for developers to have concrete typesafe objects for working with many common forms of data. Many times these dat...DigitArchive: Digit Archive makes it easy for the DIGIT magazine readers to find the correct software or movie bundled in the media along with the magazine. You'...dNet.DB: dNetDB is a .net framework that simplifies model and data access by providing a database independent object-based persistence, where objects are pe...Dynamic Application Framework: The Dynamic Application Framework provides a highly flexible environment for creating applications. Multiple UI and Execution Environments, along w...ECoG: ECoG toolkitFB Toolkit with Contracts: This is a research project where I have inserted code contracts into the Facebook Toolkit source code., version 3.1 beta. This delivers an efficien...GeneCMS: GeneCMS allows users to generate static HTML based websites by offering an ASP.NET editing front-end that can be run in the local machine. It is ta...HooIzDat: HooIzDat is game that asks, who the heck is that?! It's a two player game where your task is to guess your opponent's person before he or she guess...JingQiao.Interacting: JingQiao Interacting MessagingKanbanBoard: Visual task board for Kanban and Scrum.Learning CSharp: Just Learning CSharpMammoth: mammothMapWindow Mobile: MapWindow Mobile is mobile GIS Software which can run on windows mobile, developed in C# .NET Compact Framework. It provides basic GIS functionalit...Mindless Setback: Setback is a card game popular in New England. This project uses a combination of brute force and Monte Carlo methods to play Setback. This is an e...MSNCore(DirectUI) Element Viewer: MSNCore Element Viewer is an application designed to enumerate the elements with in applications built with MSNCore.dll and UXCore.dll. This appli...MSVN Team: bài tập thầy lườngNugget: Web Socket Server: A web socket server implemented in c#. The goal of the projects is to create an easy way to start using HTML5 web sockets in .NET web applications.oSoft ColorPicker Control for Visual Studio 2010: oSoft ColorPicker is an user control that can be used instead of the ColorDialog when you want to allow your users to select a color in a windows f...Prism Software Factory: The Prism Software Factory is a software factory for Visual Studio 2010 assisting developers in the process of building WPF & Silverlight applicati...Project Lion: Project lion is forum developed in Silverlight technology. Refix - .NET dependency management: Refix is an attempt to solve the problem of binary dependency management in large .NET solutions. It will achieve the goal using (amongst other thi...Rich Task List: Rich Task List is a tutorial project for DotNetNuke Module Development.SharePoint PowerRSS: Easy/Clean way to get SharePoint list data via more standard RSS feed. I found CleanRSS.aspx as part of SPRSS: Enhanced RSS Functionality for WSS ...SOAPI - StackOverflow API Generator: Generates, directly from the self documenting StackOverflow API specification, an end-to-end, fully documented API wrapper library with Visual Stu...SQL Script Application Utility: This C# project allows you to apply scripts to a database for table creation, data creation, etc. You can keep DDL in separate SQL scripts which c...Sql Server Reports Viewer: Sql Server Reports Viewer makes it easier to render Sql Server Reports without the need to setup a SSRS Server. This makes deployments a breeze. ...StorageHD: StorageHD system for large video filesUrzaGatherer: UrzaGatherer is a WPF 4.0 client application to handle Magic The Gathering cards collections. You can manage expansions, blocks and all informatio...webrel: This tool executes simple relational algebra expressions. It is useful for learning of Database course. Javascript and xhtml is used to develop thi...World Wide Grab: World Wide Grab allows retrieval and integration of various semi-structured data sorces, expecially Web applications. It turns every available res...New Releases3FD - Framework For Fast Development (C++): Alpha 3: This release was compiled in Visual Studio Release mode. It means you can use it in whatever compiler you want. However, the compatibility with ano...Advanced Mail Merge (AMM) for Microsoft Office: Advanced MailMerge 2007.zip: Release 1.1.0.0Army Bodger: Bodger 3 Archetype Test: Ok so it's later and I've largely finished it. Right now the Space Wolves have their Troops written and one HQ unit. The equipment panel largely wo...AwesomiumDotNet: AwesomiumDotNet 1.6 beta: Preview of AwesomiumDotNet 1.6.Bojinx: Bojinx Core V4.6: New features in this release: Greatly improved logging for INFO and DEBUG. Improved the getClassName function in ObjectUtils. Added the ability ...Cenobith RLS Sample: Sample App: Change connection strings in App.config and Web.config files.Christoc's DotNetNuke C# Module Development Template: 00.00.02: A minor update from the original release with a few fixes including Localization and some updated documentation.Community Forums NNTP bridge: Community Forums NNTP Bridge V25: Release of the Community Forums NNTP Bridge to access the social and anwsers MS forums with a single, open source NNTP bridge. This release has ad...DEWD: DEWD for Umbraco v1.0: Beta release of the package. Functional feature set and fairly stable. Since the alpha: Validation on input fields Custom view controls Ability...DotNetNuke Developers Help File: DNNHelpSystem 05.04.02: Release of the developer core API help documentation of DotNetNuke in MSDN style format, both as .CHM stand alone file as well as a html website ba...Drive Backup: Drive Backup V.0604: This release includes the following fixes/features: * Fixed incompatibility with some USB drives (those marked as “fixed” by Windows) * Ad...Event Scavenger: Version 3.3 (Refresh): Archiving bit added to database plus archiving stored procedure updated. Rest of items just refreshed. Database set to version 3.3Expression Encoder Batch Processor: Expression Batch v0.3: Now set the newly-converted file's Created DateTime to equal the source file's. This helps keep your videos sorterd chronologically in media librar...Folder Bookmarks: Folder Bookmarks 1.6.1: The latest version of Folder Bookmarks (1.6.1), with Mini-Menu bug fixes and 'Help' feature - all the instructions needed to use the software (If y...Genesis Smart Client Framework: Genesis v2.0 - Ruby User Experience Platform (UXP): This is the start of the rewrite of the entire framework. The rewrite will include support for XAML through WPF and Silverlight, WCF, Workflow Serv...Global: http requester tool: Added a brnad new console app for making http requests.GMap.NET - Great Maps for Windows Forms & Presentation: Hot Build: this is latest change-set build, unstable previewHERB.IQ: Alpha 0.1 Source code release 4: As of 6-23-10 @ 9:48ESTInfragistics Analytics Framework: Infragistics Analytics Framework 1.0: This project includes wrappers for the Infragistics controls that integrate with the recently launched Microsoft Silverlight Analytics Framework. T...Innovative Games: Cube Mapper: Cube Mapper is a small tool that takes in six textures and outputs a cube map that is a combination of the six textures. Cube Mapper supports .tga...jQuery Library for SharePoint Web Services: SPServices 0.5.6: This release is in an alpha state. Please only download it if you know what you are getting and are willing to test it. In any case, it's a bad ide...linq to jquery: jlinq v1.00 no doc: First public version of jlinq! no doc yet, soon too come!LinqSpecs: Version 1.0.1: Fabio Maulo has sent several patchs in order to make LinqSpecs to work with any linq provider other than in memory. Big KUDOS for him.mojoPortal: 2.3.4.4: see release notes on mojoportal.com Note that we have separate deployment packages for .NET 3.5 and .NET 4.0 The deployment package downloads on ...Nugget: Web Socket Server: Initial POC release: The initial proof of concept release. To try it out, open the Sample App.sln, set the ChatServer project as the start-up project, start debugging ...oSoft ColorPicker Control for Visual Studio 2010: oSoft ColorPicker Control for VS 2010 Beta 1: Beta 1Refix - .NET dependency management: Refix v0.1.0.48 ALPHA: First preview version of Refix command-line tool.SharePoint 2010 CSV Bulk Term Set Importer: Bulk Term Set Importer: Initial ReleaseSOAPI - StackOverflow API Generator: SOAPI Wrappers: SOAPI-JS First release as SOAPI-JS, SOAPI-CS coming shortly. Tests and example includedSQL Compact Toolbox: Beta 0.8.1: Initial test release - mind the bumps. Requires Visual Studio 2010.Thumb nail creator and image resizer: ThumbnailCreator1.2: this release fixes and issue that was occuring when the control was used inside paged dataTS3QueryLib.Net: TS3QueryLib.Net Version 0.23.17.0: Changelog Added Properties "IsSpacer" and "SpacerInfo" to ChannelListEntry. "IsSpacer" allows you to check whether the channel is a spacer channel ...UI Accessibility Checker: UI Accessibility Checker v.2.0: We are excited to announce the release of AccChecker 2.0! In addition to numerous bug fixes and usability improvements, these major features have...webrel: webrel 1.0: webrel 1.0WindStyle SlugHelper for Windows Live Writer: 1.2.0.0: 增加：可以配置是否忽略已经包含slug的日志，请在插件选项中配置； 增加：插件图标； 更新：支持最新Windows Live Writer，版本号14.0.8117.416。Work Recorder - Hold on own time!: WorkRecorder 1.1: +Only one instance can run #Change histogram to pie chartMost Popular ProjectsWBFS ManagerRawrAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)PHPExcelpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesASP.NETMost Active ProjectsCommunity Forums NNTP bridgeRawrIonics Isapi Rewrite Filterpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryGMap.NET - Great Maps for Windows Forms & PresentationN2 CMSBlogEngine.NETFarseer Physics EngineMain projectMirror Testing System

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• SQLAuthority News – Technology and Online Learning – Personal Technology Tip

  - by pinaldave

  This is the fourth post in my series about Personal Technology Tips and Tricks, and I knew exactly what I wanted to write about.  But at first I was conflicted.   Is online learning really a personal tip?  Is it really a trick that no one knows?  However, I have decided to stick with my original idea because online learning is everywhere.  It’s a trick that we can’t – and shouldn’t – overlook.  Here are ten of my ideas about how we should be taking advantage of online learning. 1) Get ahead in the work place.  We all know that a good way to become better at your job, and to become more competitive for promotions and raises.  Many people overlook online learning as a way to get job training, though, thinking it is a path for people still seeking their high school or college diplomas.  But take a look at what companies like Pluralsight offer, and you might be pleasantly surprised. 2) Flexibility.  Some of us remember the heady days of college with nostalgia, others remember it with loathing.  A lot of bad memories come from remembering the strict scheduling and deadlines of college.  But with online learning, the classes fit into your free time – you don’t have to schedule your life around classes.  Even better, there are usually no homework or test deadlines, only one final deadline where all work must be completed.  This allows students to work at their own pace – my next point. 3) Learn at your own pace.  One thing traditional classes suffer from is that they are highly structured.  If you work more quickly than the rest of the class, or especially if you work more slowly, traditional classes do not work for you.  Online courses let you move as quickly or as slowly as you find necessary. 4) Fill gaps in your knowledge.  I’m sure I am not the only one who has thought to myself “I would love to take a course on X, Y, or Z.”  The problem is that it can be very hard to find the perfect class that teaches exactly what you’re interested in, at a time and a price that’s right.  But online courses are far easier to tailor exactly to your tastes. 5) Fits into your schedule.  Even harder to find than a class you’re interested in is one that fits into your schedule.  If you hold down a job – even a part time job – you know it’s next to impossible to find class times that work for you.  Online classes can be taken anytime, anywhere.  On your lunch break, in your car, or in your pajamas at the end of the day. 6) Student centered.  Online learning has to stay competitive.  There are hundreds, even thousands of options for students, and every provider has to find a way to lure in students and provide them with a good education.  The best kind of online classes know that they need to provide great classes, flexible scheduling, and high quality to attract students – and the student benefit from this kind of attention. 7) You can save money.  The average cost for a college diploma in the US is over $20,000.  I don’t know about you, but that is not the kind of money I just have lying around for a rainy day.  Sometimes I think I’d love to go back to school, but not for that price tag.  Online courses are much, much more affordable.  And even better, you can pick and choose what courses you’d like to take, and avoid all the “electives” in college. 8) Get access to the best minds in the business.  One of the perks of being the best in your field is that you are one person who knows the most about something.  If students are lucky, you will choose to share that knowledge with them on a college campus.  For the hundreds of other students who don’t live in your area and don’t attend your school, they are out of luck.  But luckily for them, more and more online courses is attracting the best minds in the business, and if you enroll online, you can take advantage of these minds, too. 9) Save your time.  Getting a four year degree is a great decision, and I encourage everyone to pursue their Bachelor’s – and beyond.  But if you have already tried to go to school, or already have a degree but are thinking of switching fields, four years of your life is a long time to go back and redo things.  Getting your online degree will save you time by allowing you to work at your own pace, set your own schedule, and take only the classes you’re interested in. 10) Variety of degrees and programs.  If you’re not sure what you’re interested in, or if you only need a few classes here and there to finish a program, online classes are perfect for you.  You can pick and choose what you’d like, and sample a wide variety without spending too much money. I hope I’ve outlined for everyone just a few ways that they could benefit from online learning.  If you’re still unconvinced, just check out a few of my other articles that expand more on these topics. Here are the blog posts relevent to developer trainings: Developer Training - Importance and Significance - Part 1 Developer Training – Employee Morals and Ethics – Part 2 Developer Training – Difficult Questions and Alternative Perspective - Part 3 Developer Training – Various Options for Developer Training – Part 4 Developer Training – A Conclusive Summary- Part 5 Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Developer Training, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Developer Training

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• We're Hiring! - Server and Desktop Virtualization Product Management

  - by adam.hawley

  There is a lot of exciting stuff going on here at Oracle in general but the server and desktop virtualization group in particular is deeply involved in executing on Oracle's strategy for delivering complete hardware-software solutions across the company, so we're expanding our team with several open positions. If you're interested and qualified, then please send us your resume. The three positions in Virtualization Product Management can be found by going here or going to the Employment Opportunities Job Search page, clicking on 'Advanced Search' and typing the job opening numbers (include 'IRC'... see below) in the 'Keywords' field. Click Search. Current openings are... IRC1457623: Oracle VM Product Management IRC1457626: Desktop Virtualization Application Solutions Product Management IRC1473577: Oracle VM Best Practices Implementation Engineer (Product Management) I look forward to hearing from you!

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• Demystifying Silverlight Dependency Properties

  - by dwahlin

  I have the opportunity to teach a lot of people about Silverlight (amongst other technologies) and one of the topics that definitely confuses people initially is the concept of dependency properties. I confess that when I first heard about them my initial thought was “Why do we need a specialized type of property?” While you can certainly use standard CLR properties in Silverlight applications, Silverlight relies heavily on dependency properties for just about everything it does behind the scenes. In fact, dependency properties are an essential part of the data binding, template, style and animation functionality available in Silverlight. They simply back standard CLR properties. In this post I wanted to put together a (hopefully) simple explanation of dependency properties and why you should care about them if you’re currently working with Silverlight or looking to move to it.   What are Dependency Properties? XAML provides a great way to define layout controls, user input controls, shapes, colors and data binding expressions in a declarative manner. There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes in order to make XAML work and an important part of that magic is the use of dependency properties. If you want to bind data to a property, style it, animate it or transform it in XAML then the property involved has to be a dependency property to work properly. If you’ve ever positioned a control in a Canvas using Canvas.Left or placed a control in a specific Grid row using Grid.Row then you’ve used an attached property which is a specialized type of dependency property. Dependency properties play a key role in XAML and the overall Silverlight framework. Any property that you bind, style, template, animate or transform must be a dependency property in Silverlight applications. You can programmatically bind values to controls and work with standard CLR properties, but if you want to use the built-in binding expressions available in XAML (one of my favorite features) or the Binding class available through code then dependency properties are a necessity. Dependency properties aren’t needed in every situation, but if you want to customize your application very much you’ll eventually end up needing them. For example, if you create a custom user control and want to expose a property that consumers can use to change the background color, you have to define it as a dependency property if you want bindings, styles and other features to be available for use. Now that the overall purpose of dependency properties has been discussed let’s take a look at how you can create them. Creating Dependency Properties When .NET first came out you had to write backing fields for each property that you defined as shown next: Brush _ScheduleBackground; public Brush ScheduleBackground { get { return _ScheduleBackground; } set { _ScheduleBackground = value; } } Although .NET 2.0 added auto-implemented properties (for example: public Brush ScheduleBackground { get; set; }) where the compiler would automatically generate the backing field used by get and set blocks, the concept is still the same as shown in the above code; a property acts as a wrapper around a field. Silverlight dependency properties replace the _ScheduleBackground field shown in the previous code and act as the backing store for a standard CLR property. The following code shows an example of defining a dependency property named ScheduleBackgroundProperty: public static readonly DependencyProperty ScheduleBackgroundProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("ScheduleBackground", typeof(Brush), typeof(Scheduler), null);   Looking through the code the first thing that may stand out is that the definition for ScheduleBackgroundProperty is marked as static and readonly and that the property appears to be of type DependencyProperty. This is a standard pattern that you’ll use when working with dependency properties. You’ll also notice that the property explicitly adds the word “Property” to the name which is another standard you’ll see followed. In addition to defining the property, the code also makes a call to the static DependencyProperty.Register method and passes the name of the property to register (ScheduleBackground in this case) as a string. The type of the property, the type of the class that owns the property and a null value (more on the null value later) are also passed. In this example a class named Scheduler acts as the owner. The code handles registering the property as a dependency property with the call to Register(), but there’s a little more work that has to be done to allow a value to be assigned to and retrieved from the dependency property. The following code shows the complete code that you’ll typically use when creating a dependency property. You can find code snippets that greatly simplify the process of creating dependency properties out on the web. The MVVM Light download available from http://mvvmlight.codeplex.com comes with built-in dependency properties snippets as well. public static readonly DependencyProperty ScheduleBackgroundProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("ScheduleBackground", typeof(Brush), typeof(Scheduler), null); public Brush ScheduleBackground { get { return (Brush)GetValue(ScheduleBackgroundProperty); } set { SetValue(ScheduleBackgroundProperty, value); } } The standard CLR property code shown above should look familiar since it simply wraps the dependency property. However, you’ll notice that the get and set blocks call GetValue and SetValue methods respectively to perform the appropriate operation on the dependency property. GetValue and SetValue are members of the DependencyObject class which is another key component of the Silverlight framework. Silverlight controls and classes (TextBox, UserControl, CompositeTransform, DataGrid, etc.) ultimately derive from DependencyObject in their inheritance hierarchy so that they can support dependency properties. Dependency properties defined in Silverlight controls and other classes tend to follow the pattern of registering the property by calling Register() and then wrapping the dependency property in a standard CLR property (as shown above). They have a standard property that wraps a registered dependency property and allows a value to be assigned and retrieved. If you need to expose a new property on a custom control that supports data binding expressions in XAML then you’ll follow this same pattern. Dependency properties are extremely useful once you understand why they’re needed and how they’re defined. Detecting Changes and Setting Defaults When working with dependency properties there will be times when you want to assign a default value or detect when a property changes so that you can keep the user interface in-sync with the property value. Silverlight’s DependencyProperty.Register() method provides a fourth parameter that accepts a PropertyMetadata object instance. PropertyMetadata can be used to hook a callback method to a dependency property. The callback method is called when the property value changes. PropertyMetadata can also be used to assign a default value to the dependency property. By assigning a value of null for the final parameter passed to Register() you’re telling the property that you don’t care about any changes and don’t have a default value to apply. Here are the different constructor overloads available on the PropertyMetadata class: PropertyMetadata Constructor Overload Description PropertyMetadata(Object) Used to assign a default value to a dependency property. PropertyMetadata(PropertyChangedCallback) Used to assign a property changed callback method. PropertyMetadata(Object, PropertyChangedCalback) Used to assign a default property value and a property changed callback.   There are many situations where you need to know when a dependency property changes or where you want to apply a default. Performing either task is easily accomplished by creating a new instance of the PropertyMetadata class and passing the appropriate values to its constructor. The following code shows an enhanced version of the initial dependency property code shown earlier that demonstrates these concepts: public Brush ScheduleBackground { get { return (Brush)GetValue(ScheduleBackgroundProperty); } set { SetValue(ScheduleBackgroundProperty, value); } } public static readonly DependencyProperty ScheduleBackgroundProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("ScheduleBackground", typeof(Brush), typeof(Scheduler), new PropertyMetadata(new SolidColorBrush(Colors.LightGray), ScheduleBackgroundChanged)); private static void ScheduleBackgroundChanged(DependencyObject d, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e) { var scheduler = d as Scheduler; scheduler.Background = e.NewValue as Brush; } The code wires ScheduleBackgroundProperty to a property change callback method named ScheduleBackgroundChanged. What’s interesting is that this callback method is static (as is the dependency property) so it gets passed the instance of the object that owns the property that has changed (otherwise we wouldn’t be able to get to the object instance). In this example the dependency object is cast to a Scheduler object and its Background property is assigned to the new value of the dependency property. The code also handles assigning a default value of LightGray to the dependency property by creating a new instance of a SolidColorBrush. To Sum Up In this post you’ve seen the role of dependency properties and how they can be defined in code. They play a big role in XAML and the overall Silverlight framework. You can think of dependency properties as being replacements for fields that you’d normally use with standard CLR properties. In addition to a discussion on how dependency properties are created, you also saw how to use the PropertyMetadata class to define default dependency property values and hook a dependency property to a callback method. The most important thing to understand with dependency properties (especially if you’re new to Silverlight) is that they’re needed if you want a property to support data binding, animations, transformations and styles properly. Any time you create a property on a custom control or user control that has these types of requirements you’ll want to pick a dependency property over of a standard CLR property with a backing field. There’s more that can be covered with dependency properties including a related property called an attached property….more to come.

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• AutoScroll panel working intermittently.

  - by Edward Boyle

  I spent hours last week trying to get AutoScroll to function properly on a derived/inherited panel control I have been writing. I found no answers on my own so I posted to several forums and move onto other code while I wait for a reply. Then out of nowhere, it started working properly. Now, Today (about a week later) I notice it is no longer working again!  I go back to those old posts with hopes I will find an answer – No such luck. I Google for about two hours reading everything I come across. I was just about to write a new custom control from the ground up, perhaps use a little unmanaged code to force things to function properly. All I knew was “options in front of me = dealys”.  Just before I gave up, my head in my hands,  Jordan Sirwin’s appropriately titled blog post: “C#: Windows Panel AutoScroll Bug / Intended Suckyness” saves the day! In order for scroll bars to display, there must be at least one control in the Panel with AutoSize set to true. This is absurd… I’m not sure if this is a bug or intended, but it’s stupid. –I feel your pain. How many others have spent hours on this, or worse,  just plain given up? I want those hours back Damnit!

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• Conditional hotkey or include in AutoHotKey

  - by Bowen

  Is there a way to define a Hotkey conditionally in AutoHotKey? I want to do different keyboard mappings for different machines with different physical keyboards. This is what I want to do: RegRead, ComputerName, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, System\CurrentControlSet\Control\ComputerName, ComputerName If ( ComputerName = BDWELLE-DIM8300 ) { #Include %A_ScriptDir%\Mappings-BDWELLE-DIM8300.ahk } OR RegRead, ComputerName, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, System\CurrentControlSet\Control\ComputerName, ComputerName If ( ComputerName = BDWELLE-DIM8300 ) { LWin::LAlt [more hotkey definitions that only apply to this machine] } but since AHK parses Hotkey definitions and #Include statements BEFORE interpreting If statements, the Hotkeys definitions (whether buried in an #Include or not) do not respect the If condition. Thanks for pointing me to AutoHotKey_L! Do you have a specific example of how to conditionally define a hotkey? The syntax is very confusing. Here's what I'm trying (after having installed AutoHotKey_L.exe in place of AutoHotKey.exe): RegRead, ComputerName, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, System\CurrentControlSet\Control\ComputerName, ComputerName #If ( ComputerName = BDWELLE-DIM8300 ) LWin::LAlt but that doesn't seem to work...

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• How was your experience working as a game tester?

  - by MrDatabase

  I'm currently an independent game developer. I'm open to the idea of working on a team in the game industry. I'm under the impression that being a "game tester" is a relatively easy way to get a job... however that job may be somewhat undesirable. So how was your experience working as a tester in the game industry? Some interesting experiences could include: Did the game tester position lead to other more desirable positions? How were the relationships between testers and developers? Did you write any code? (test "frameworks", unit tests etc) If bugs made it into production was any (potentially unfair) blame put on the testers?

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• TFS 2010 and the missing Area & Iterations (stale data) Issue

  - by andresv

  The symptom is this: you change some area or iteration in a TFS Project, but the change is not reflected (or updated) in VS or any other TFS Client. Well, it happens that TFS now has some clever caching mechanisms that need to be updated when you make a change like this, and those changes are propagated by some scheduled jobs TFS is continuously running in the Application Tier.  So, you you get this behavior, please check (and possibly restart) the "Visual Studio Team Foundation Background Job Agent" service. In my case, this service was logging a very odd "Object Reference Not Set" into the Windows Event Log, and a simple restart fixed it. Hope this is fixed by RTM...   (we are using the RC version). And by the way, if the job agent is broken there are some other things that stops working like email notifications. Best regards, Andrés G Vettori, CTO, VMBC  

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, December 18, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, December 18, 2010Popular ReleasesHacker Passwords: HackerPasswords.zip: Source code, executable and documentationWatchersNET.SiteMap: WatchersNET.SiteMap 01.03.03: Whats NewSkin Object: You can now filter by Terms for Example use: <object id="dnnSITEMAPSL" codetype="dotnetnuke/server" codebase="SITEMAPSL"> <param name="TaxMode" value="terms" /> <param name="TaxTerms" value="TermName1,TermName2" /> </object> changes Tax Term Filter should work correct nowSubtitleTools: SubtitleTools 1.3: - Added .srt FileAssociation & Win7 ShowRecentCategory feature. - Applied UnifiedYeKe to fix Persian search problems. - Reduced file size of Persian subtitles for uploading @OSDB.EnhSim: EnhSim 2.2.3 ALPHA: 2.2.3 ALPHAThis release adds in the changes for 4.03a at level 85 To use this release, you must have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=A7B7A05E-6DE6-4D3A-A423-37BF0912DB84 To use the GUI you must have the .NET 4.0 Framework installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9cfb2d51-5ff4-4491-b0e5-b386f32c0992 - Added in th...Facebook C# SDK: 4.1.0: - Lots of bug fixes - Removed Dynamic Runtime Language dependencies from non-dynamic platforms. - Samples included in release for ASP.NET, MVC, Silverlight, Windows Phone 7, WPF, WinForms, and one Visual Basic Sample - Updated to Json.net - BREAKING CHANGE: Some renames and changes with Authorizer, CanvasAuthorizer, and Authorization action filters - BREAKING CHANGE: Renamed ApiSecret to AppSecret to be consistent with Facbeook's rename of the property - Added additional authentication helper...WCF Community Site: WCF Web APIs 10.12.17: Welcome to the second release of WCF Web APIs on codeplex Here is what is new in this release. WCF Support for jQuery - create WCF web services that are easy to consume from JavaScript clients, in particular jQuery. Better support for using JsonValue as dynamic Support for JsonValue change notification events for databinding and other purposes Support for going between JsonValue and CLR types WCF HTTP - create HTTP / REST based web services. This is a minor release which contains fixe...LiveChat Starter Kit: LCSK v1.0: This is a working version of the LCSK for Visual Studio 2010, ASP.NET MVC 3 (using Razor View Engine). this is still provider based (with 1 provider Sql) and this is still using WebService and Windows Forms operator console. The solution is cleaner, with an installer to create tables etc. Let me know your feedbackOrchard Project: Orchard 0.9: Orchard Release Notes Build: 0.9.253 Published: 12/16/2010 How to Install OrchardTo install the Orchard tech preview using Web PI, follow these instructions: http://www.orchardproject.net/docs/Installing-Orchard-Using-Web-PI.ashx Web PI will detect your hardware environment and install the application. --OR-- Alternatively, to install the release manually, download the Orchard.Web.0.9.253.zip file. The zip contents are pre-built and ready-to-run. Simply extract the contents of the Orch...SplendidCRM: SplendidCRM 5.0 Community Edition: SplendidCRM Software has adopted the GNU Affero General Public License Version 3 (AGPLv3) for its Community Edition. This release includes the full set of SQL source code in the Community Edition, something that was previously only available in the Professional and Enterprise Editions. An article on the subject of Commercial Open-Source licensing has been posted at http://www.codeproject.com/KB/architecture/splendid-guide-article6.aspx.DotSpatial: DotSpatial 12-15-2010: This release contains a few minor bug fixes and hopefully the GDAL libraries for the 3.5 x86 build actually built to the correct directory this time.DotNetNuke® Community Edition: 05.06.01 Beta: This is the initial Beta of DotNetNuke 5.6.1. See the DotNetNuke Roadmap a full list of changes in this release.MSBuild Extension Pack: December 2010: Release Blog Post The MSBuild Extension Pack December 2010 release provides a collection of over 380 MSBuild tasks. A high level summary of what the tasks currently cover includes the following: System Items: Active Directory, Certificates, COM+, Console, Date and Time, Drives, Environment Variables, Event Logs, Files and Folders, FTP, GAC, Network, Performance Counters, Registry, Services, Sound Code: Assemblies, AsyncExec, CAB Files, Code Signing, DynamicExecute, File Detokenisation, GU...Access Control Service Samples and Documentation (Labs): Samples-R3: Contains latest ACS samples (corresponding to R3 release) that show how to integrate ACS with web services, ASP.NET websites (Web Forms and MVC) and on how to interact with the ACS Management Service. The Readmes for these samples are available here.TweetSharp: TweetSharp v2.0.0.0 - Preview 5: Documentation for this release may be found at http://tweetsharp.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=UserGuide&referringTitle=Documentation. Note: This code is currently preview quality. Preview 5 ChangesMaintenance release with user reported fixes Preview 4 ChangesReintroduced fluent interface support via satellite assembly Added entities support, entity segmentation, and ITweetable/ITweeter interfaces for client development Numerous fixes reported by preview users Preview 3 ChangesNumerous ...Silverlight Contrib: Silverlight Contrib 2010.1.0: 2010.1.0 New FeaturesCompatibility Release for Silverlight 4 and Visual Studio 2010FlickrNet API Library: 3.1.4000: Newest release. Now contains dedicated Windows Phone 7 DLL as well as all previous DLLs. Also contains Windows Help file documentation now as standard.mojoPortal: 2.3.5.8: see release notes on mojoportal.com http://www.mojoportal.com/mojoportal-2358-released.aspx Note that we have separate deployment packages for .NET 3.5 and .NET 4.0 The deployment package downloads on this page are pre-compiled and ready for production deployment, they contain no C# source code. To download the source code see the Source Code Tab I recommend getting the latest source code using TortoiseHG, you can get the source code corresponding to this release here.Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework: Visual Studio 2010 Code Samples 2010-12-13: Code samples for Visual Studio 2010Wii Backup Fusion: Wii Backup Fusion 0.9 Beta: - Aqua or brushed metal style for Mac OS X - Shows selection count beside ID - Game list selection mode via settings - Compare Files <-> WBFS game lists - Verify game images/DVD/WBFS - WIT command line for log (via settings) - Cancel possibility for loading games process - Progress infos while loading games - Localization for dates - UTF-8 support - Shortcuts added - View game infos in browser - Transfer infos for log - All transfer routines rewritten - Extract image from image/WBFS - Support....NETTER Code Starter Pack: v1.0.beta: '.NETTER Code Starter Pack ' contains a gallery of Visual Studio 2010 solutions leveraging latest and new technologies and frameworks based on Microsoft .NET Framework. Each Visual Studio solution included here is focused to provide a very simple starting point for cutting edge development technologies and framework, using well known Northwind database (for database driven scenarios). The current release of this project includes starter samples for the following technologies: ASP.NET Dynamic...New ProjectsAsyncSimpleDB: Async access via .Net to Amazon's SimpleDB.BCS Tester Man - The BCS Test Client: BCS Tester Man is a BCS Test Client that makes it easier for SharePoint BCS Model Developers to test Models and External Content Types. You'll no longer have to create and configure Business Data Web Parts or External Lists. It's developed in C#. UI is WPF with MVVM.Client-side Templated Script Control: Allows a developer to add a repeater-style templated list control to a web page that will be data bound client-side, and may respond to client events. The control may be data bound by a web service call on initialization, and may also have it's data source set via client code.Conquer Online Emulation: Project Emulation is a set of tools and libraries to use for creating your own 'emulation' of the servers used by Conquer Online.CSV Report Generator for SQL: C# application for exporting SQL queries into a CSV file for easy importing into Excel, Access, and any other programs that support CSV file importing. This application is handy for extraordinarily large query results that typically cause stability issues for other programs.DFTSPAB: For info see [url:http://creativx.net/forums/general-software/20760-take-ownership-set-permissions-back-up-file-all-one-utillity.html]Directories Creater: <dirCreater> create lots of directories in simple way! <c#> <vs2010>DNN Rad Tag Cloud: A module that uses Telerik's Tag Cloud control to display tags applied in a DotNetNuke install. dotFB : Facebook Graph API client library for .NET: dotFB is a facebook Graph API client library for Windows, Web and Phone Client.Ganaderia Santa Fe: RevisiónsdfsdGoogle Translate .NET: A .NET class library for the Google Translate API v2.I Wanna Make A Game: Fun project to make a 2D platformer written in C#. Written by students from the University of Waterloo, the project explores several computer science topics; from implementing a scripting language to efficient spatial computation.Neddle: Neddle is an open source, SCORM compliant learning management system (LMS) built on the .NET platform using C#.Przetwarzanie sygnalów: Program zaliczeniowy z przedmiotu "Wstep do przetwarzania obrazów i sygnalów"Quickfix message wrapper: Quickfix message strongly typed wrapper generator (T4 template) Reading List: Simple ASP .NET MVC application to manage a list of books scheduled to be read. The application queries Amazon web services for book titles to add to the list.reservierung: Project for the university for applied sciences DeggendorfRTP HTML Newsletter: This DotNetNuke module allows you to create templated HTML newsletters, and email to a specific DNN role. Newsletters are automatically archived for later access.SQL Server Master Data Services Utilities: A set of useful add-ons for SQL Server Master Data Services, including utilities for generating an MDS model, loading the model, writing a custom UI for model data and integrating the model with SharePoint BCS.testerekproject: bla bla blaTools for social network VKontakte: Tools for developing desktop applications for social network VKontakte.Virtualegis: Control de código para Virtualegis.

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• SQL SERVER – Automation Process Good or Ugly

  - by pinaldave

  This blog post is written in response to T-SQL Tuesday hosted by SQL Server Insane Asylum. The idea of this post really caught my attention. Automation – something getting itself done after the initial programming, is my understanding of the subject. The very next thought was – is it good or evil? The reality is there is no right answer. However, what if we quickly note a few things, then I would like to request your help to complete this post. We will start with the positive parts in SQL Server where automation happens. The Good If I start thinking of SQL Server and Automation the very first thing that comes to my mind is SQL Agent, which runs various jobs. Once I configure any task or job, it runs fine (till something goes wrong!). Well, automation has its own advantages. We all have used SQL Agent for so many things – backup, various validation jobs, maintenance jobs and numerous other things. What other kinds of automation tasks do you run in your database server? The Ugly This part is very interesting, because it can get really ugly(!). During my career I have found so many bad automation agent jobs. Client had an agent job where he was dropping the clean buffers every hour Client using database mail to send regular emails instead of necessary alert related emails The best one – A client used new Missing Index and Unused Index scripts in SQL Agent Job to follow suggestions 100%. Believe me, I have never seen such a badly performing and hard to optimize database. (I ended up dropping all non-clustered indexes on the development server and ran production workload on the development server again, then configured with optimal indexes). Shrinking database is performance killer. It should never be automated. SQL SERVER – Shrinking Database is Bad – Increases Fragmentation – Reduces Performance The one I hate the most is AutoShrink Database. It has given me hard time in my career quite a few times. SQL SERVER – SHRINKDATABASE For Every Database in the SQL Server Automation is necessary but common sense is a must when creating automation. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• Silverlight Cream for November 21, 2011 -- #1171

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Colin Eberhardt, Sumit Dutta, Morten Nielsen, Jesse Liberty, Jeff Blankenburg(-2-), Brian Noyes, and Tony Champion. Above the Fold: Silverlight: "PV Basics : Client-side Collections" Tony Champion WP7: "Pushpin Clustering with the Windows Phone 7 Bing Map control" Colin Eberhardt Shoutouts: Michael Palermo's latest Desert Mountain Developers is up Michael Washington's latest Visual Studio #LightSwitch Daily is up From SilverlightCream.com: Pushpin Clustering with the Windows Phone 7 Bing Map control Colin Eberhardt is back discussing Pushpins for a BingMaps app on WP7 and provides a utility class that clusters pushpins, allowing you to render 1000s of pins on an app ... all the explanation and all the code Part 22 - Windows Phone 7 - Tile Push Notification Part 22 in Sumit Dutta's WP7 series is about Tile Push Notification... nice tutorial with all the code listed Correctly displaying your current location Morten Nielsen demonstrates formatting the information from the GPS on your WP7 into something intelligible and useful Spiking the Pomodoro Timer Jesse Liberty put up a quick and dirty version of a Pomodoro timer for WP7.1 to explore the technical challenges of the Full Stack Phase 2 he's cranking up 31 Days of Mango | Day #11: Network Jeff Blankenburg's Number 10 in his 31 Days quest of WP7.1 is about the NetworkInformation namespace which gives you all sorts of info on the user's device network connection availability, type, etc. 31 Days of Mango | Day #11: Live Tiles Jeff Blankenburg takes off on Live Tiles for Day 11... big topic for a 1 day post, but he takes off on it... updating and Live Tiles too Working with Prism 4 Part 2: MVVM Basics and Commands Brian Noyes has part 2 of his Prism/MVVM series up at SilverlightShow... very nice tutorial on the basics of getting a view and viewmodel up, and setting up an ICommand to launch an Edit View... plus the code to peruse. PV Basics : Client-side Collections Tony Champion is startig a series on Silverlight 5 and Pivot Viewer... First up is some basics in dealing with the control in SL5 and talking about Client-side Collections... great informative tutorial and all the code Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• Error headers: ap_headers_output_filter() after putting cache header in htaccess file

  - by Brad

  Receiving error: [debug] mod_headers.c(663): headers: ap_headers_output_filter() after I included this within the htaccess file: # 6 DAYS <FilesMatch "\.(ico|pdf|flv|jpg|jpeg|png|gif|js|css|swf)$"> Header set Cache-Control "max-age=518400, public" </FilesMatch> # 2 DAYS <FilesMatch "\.(xml|txt)$"> Header set Cache-Control "max-age=172800, public, must-revalidate" </FilesMatch> # 2 HOURS <FilesMatch "\.(html|htm)$"> Header set Cache-Control "max-age=7200, must-revalidate" </FilesMatch> Any help is appreciated as to what I could do to fix this?

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• Why does Mac OS X ignore my Windows NTFS and Share permissions?

  - by Michael

  Mac OS X Snow Leopard Windows Server 2003 Windows Folder "Videos" Share Permissions on Videos - Everyone NTFS Permissions on Videos - System (Full Control) - Domain Users (Modify) - Domain Admins (Full Control) Mac user Michael is a part of the Domain Users group. He connects to Videos using cifs://server/Videos and authenticates with his username Michael. Michael copies over a file "dance dance baby.avi". User Jon opens the Videos folder but cannot see the dance dance baby.avi file. Checking the dance dance baby.avi file permissions here is what I see: Everyone - Read, Write Domain Admins - Full Control Michael - Read, Write Owner of File - Michael So here's my question, how come when Michael copies a file over from a Mac, the permissions on the file get changed even though Michael has no rights to change permissions? If the same file is copied over from a Windows machine, it just inherits the proper permissions from the parent Video folder. Am I missing something? Are my permissions wrong? Thanks. Michael

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• Looking into Entity Framework Code First Migrations

  - by nikolaosk

  In this post I will introduce you to Code First Migrations, an Entity Framework feature introduced in version 4.3 back in February of 2012.I have extensively covered Entity Framework in this blog. Please find my other Entity Framework posts here .   Before the addition of Code First Migrations (4.1,4.2 versions), Code First database initialisation meant that Code First would create the database if it does not exist (the default behaviour - CreateDatabaseIfNotExists). The other pattern we could use is DropCreateDatabaseIfModelChanges which means that Entity Framework, will drop the database if it realises that model has changes since the last time it created the database.The final pattern is DropCreateDatabaseAlways which means that Code First will recreate the database every time one runs the application.That is of course fine for the development database but totally unacceptable and catastrophic when you have a production database. We cannot lose our data because of the work that Code First works.Migrations solve this problem.With migrations we can modify the database without completely dropping it.We can modify the database schema to reflect the changes to the model without losing data.In version EF 5.0 migrations are fully included and supported. I will demonstrate migrations with a hands-on example.Let me say a few words first about Entity Framework first. The .Net framework provides support for Object Relational Mappingthrough EF. So EF is a an ORM tool and it is now the main data access technology that microsoft works on. I use it quite extensively in my projects. Through EF we have many things out of the box provided for us. We have the automatic generation of SQL code.It maps relational data to strongly types objects.All the changes made to the objects in the memory are persisted in a transactional way back to the data store. You can find in this post an example on how to use the Entity Framework to retrieve data from an SQL Server Database using the "Database/Schema First" approach.In this approach we make all the changes at the database level and then we update the model with those changes. In this post you can see an example on how to use the "Model First" approach when working with ASP.Net and the Entity Framework.This model was firstly introduced in EF version 4.0 and we could start with a blank model and then create a database from that model.When we made changes to the model , we could recreate the database from the new model. The Code First approach is the more code-centric than the other two. Basically we write POCO classes and then we persist to a database using something called DBContext.Code First relies on DbContext. We create 2,3 classes (e.g Person,Product) with properties and then these classes interact with the DbContext class we can create a new database based upon our POCOS classes and have tables generated from those classes.We do not have an .edmx file in this approach.By using this approach we can write much easier unit tests.DbContext is a new context class and is smaller,lightweight wrapper for the main context class which is ObjectContext (Schema First and Model First).Let's move on to our hands-on example.I have installed VS 2012 Ultimate edition in my Windows 8 machine. 1)  Create an empty asp.net web application. Give your application a suitable name. Choose C# as the development language2) Add a new web form item in your application. Leave the default name.3) Create a new folder. Name it CodeFirst .4) Add a new item in your application, a class file. Name it Footballer.cs. This is going to be a simple POCO class.Place this class file in the CodeFirst folder.The code follows    public class Footballer     {         public int FootballerID { get; set; }         public string FirstName { get; set; }         public string LastName { get; set; }         public double Weight { get; set; }         public double Height { get; set; }              }5) We will have to add EF 5.0 to our project. Right-click on the project in the Solution Explorer and select Manage NuGet Packages... for it.In the window that will pop up search for Entity Framework and install it.Have a look at the picture below   If you want to find out if indeed EF version is 5.0 version is installed have a look at the References. Have a look at the picture below to see what you will see if you have installed everything correctly.Have a look at the picture below 6) Then we need to create a context class that inherits from DbContext.Add a new class to the CodeFirst folder.Name it FootballerDBContext.Now that we have the entity classes created, we must let the model know.I will have to use the DbSet<T> property.The code for this class follows     public class FootballerDBContext:DbContext     {         public DbSet<Footballer> Footballers { get; set; }             }    Do not forget to add  (using System.Data.Entity;) in the beginning of the class file 7) We must take care of the connection string. It is very easy to create one in the web.config.It does not matter that we do not have a database yet.When we run the DbContext and query against it , it will use a connection string in the web.config and will create the database based on the classes.I will use the name "FootballTraining" for the database.In my case the connection string inside the web.config, looks like this    <connectionStrings>    <add name="CodeFirstDBContext" connectionString="server=.;integrated security=true; database=FootballTraining" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient"/>                       </connectionStrings>8) Now it is time to create Linq to Entities queries to retrieve data from the database . Add a new class to your application in the CodeFirst folder.Name the file DALfootballer.csWe will create a simple public method to retrieve the footballers. The code for the class followspublic class DALfootballer     {         FootballerDBContext ctx = new FootballerDBContext();         public List<Footballer> GetFootballers()         {             var query = from player in ctx.Footballers select player;             return query.ToList();         }     } 9) Place a GridView control on the Default.aspx page and leave the default name.Add an ObjectDataSource control on the Default.aspx page and leave the default name. Set the DatasourceID property of the GridView control to the ID of the ObjectDataSource control.(DataSourceID="ObjectDataSource1" ). Let's configure the ObjectDataSource control. Click on the smart tag item of the ObjectDataSource control and select Configure Data Source. In the Wizzard that pops up select the DALFootballer class and then in the next step choose the GetFootballers() method.Click Finish to complete the steps of the wizzard.Build and Run your application.  10) Obviously you will not see any records coming back from your database, because we have not inserted anything. The database is created, though.Have a look at the picture below.  11) Now let's change the POCO class. Let's add a new property to the Footballer.cs class.        public int Age { get; set; } Build and run your application again. You will receive an error. Have a look at the picture below 12) That was to be expected.EF Code First Migrations is not activated by default. We have to activate them manually and configure them according to your needs. We will open the Package Manager Console from the Tools menu within Visual Studio 2012.Then we will activate the EF Code First Migration Features by writing the command “Enable-Migrations”.  Have a look at the picture below. This adds a new folder Migrations in our project. A new auto-generated class Configuration.cs is created.Another class is also created [CURRENTDATE]_InitialCreate.cs and added to our project.The Configuration.cs  is shown in the picture below. The [CURRENTDATE]_InitialCreate.cs is shown in the picture below  13) ??w we are ready to migrate the changes in the database. We need to run the Add-Migration Age command in Package Manager ConsoleAdd-Migration will scaffold the next migration based on changes you have made to your model since the last migration was created.In the Migrations folder, the file 201211201231066_Age.cs is created.Have a look at the picture below to see the newly generated file and its contents. Now we can run the Update-Database command in Package Manager Console .See the picture above.Code First Migrations will compare the migrations in our Migrations folder with the ones that have been applied to the database. It will see that the Age migration needs to be applied, and run it.The EFMigrations.CodeFirst.FootballeDBContext database is now updated to include the Age column in the Footballers table.Build and run your application.Everything will work fine now.Have a look at the picture below to see the migrations applied to our table. 14) We may want it to automatically upgrade the database (by applying any pending migrations) when the application launches.Let's add another property to our Poco class.          public string TShirtNo { get; set; }We want this change to migrate automatically to the database.We go to the Configuration.cs we enable automatic migrations.     public Configuration()        {            AutomaticMigrationsEnabled = true;        } In the Page_Load event handling routine we have to register the MigrateDatabaseToLatestVersion database initializer. A database initializer simply contains some logic that is used to make sure the database is setup correctly.   protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)        {            Database.SetInitializer(new MigrateDatabaseToLatestVersion<FootballerDBContext, Configuration>());        } Build and run your application. It will work fine. Have a look at the picture below to see the migrations applied to our table in the database. Hope it helps!!!  

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• Juniper Strategy, LLC is hiring SharePoint Developers&hellip;

  - by Mark Rackley

  Isn’t everybody these days? It seems as though there are definitely more jobs than qualified devs these days, but yes, we are looking for a few good devs to help round out our burgeoning SharePoint team. Juniper Strategy is located in the DC area, however we will consider remote devs for the right fit. This is your chance to get in on the ground floor of a bright company that truly “gets it” when it comes to SharePoint, Project Management, and Information Assurance. We need like-minded people who “get it”, enjoy it, and who are looking for more than just a job. We have government and commercial opportunities as well as our own internal product that has a bright future of its own. Our immediate needs are for SharePoint .NET developers, but feel free to submit your resume for us to keep on file as it looks as though we’ll need several people in the coming months. Please email us your resume and salary requirements to [email protected] Below are our official job postings. Thanks for stopping by, we look forward to  hearing from you. Senior SharePoint .NET Developer Senior developer will focus on design and coding of custom, end-to-end business process solutions within the SharePoint framework. Senior developer with the ability to serve as a senior developer/mentor and manage day-to-day development tasks. Work with business consultants and clients to gather requirements to prepare business functional specifications. Analyze and recommend technical/development alternative paths based on business functional specifications. For selected development path, prepare technical specification and build the solution. Assist project manager with defining development task schedule and level-of-effort. Lead technical solution deployment. Job Requirements Minimum of 7 years experience in agile development, with at least 3 years of SharePoint-related development experience (SPS, SharePoint 2007/2010, WSS2-4). Thorough understanding of and demonstrated experience in development under the SharePoint Object Model, with focus on the WSS 3.0 foundation (MOSS 2007 Standard/Enterprise, Project Server 2007). Experience with using multiple data sources/repositories for database CRUD activities, including relational databases, SAP, Oracle e-Business. Experience with designing and deploying performance-based solutions in SharePoint for business processes that involve a very large number of records. Experience designing dynamic dashboards and mashups with data from multiple sources (internal to SharePoint as well as from external sources). Experience designing custom forms to facilitate user data entry, both with and without leveraging Forms Services. Experience building custom web part solutions. Experience with designing custom solutions for processing underlying business logic requirements including, but not limited to, SQL stored procedures, C#/ASP.Net workflows/event handlers (including timer jobs) to support multi-tiered decision trees and associated computations. Ability to create complex solution packages for deployment (e.g., feature-stapled site definitions). Must have impeccable communication skills, both written and verbal. Seeking a "tinkerer"; proactive with a thirst for knowledge (and a sense of humor). A US Citizen is required, and need to be able to pass NAC/E-Verify. An active Secret clearance is preferred. Applicants must pass a skills assessment test. MCP/MCTS or comparable certification preferred. Salary & Travel Negotiable SharePoint Project Lead Define project task schedule, work breakdown structure and level-of-effort. Serve as principal liaison to the customer to manage deliverables and expectations. Day-to-day project and team management, including preparation and maintenance of project plans, budgets, and status reports. Prepare technical briefings and presentation decks, provide briefs to C-level stakeholders. Work with business consultants and clients to gather requirements to prepare business functional specifications. Analyze and recommend technical/development alternative paths based on business functional specifications. The SharePoint Project Lead will be working with SharePoint architects and system owners to perform requirements/gap analysis and develop the underlying functional specifications. Once we have functional specifications as close to "final" as possible, the Project Lead will be responsible for preparation of the associated technical specification/development blueprint, along with assistance in preparing IV&V/test plan materials with support from other team members. This person will also be responsible for day-to-day management of "developers", but is also expected to engage in development directly as needed.  Job Requirements Minimum 8 years of technology project management across the software development life-cycle, with a minimum of 3 years of project management relating specifically to SharePoint (SPS 2003, SharePoint2007/2010) and/or Project Server. Thorough understanding of and demonstrated experience in development under the SharePoint Object Model, with focus on the WSS 3.0 foundation (MOSS 2007 Standard/Enterprise, Project Server 2007). Ability to interact and collaborate effectively with team members and stakeholders of different skill sets, personalities and needs. General "development" skill set required is a fundamental understanding of MOSS 2007 Enterprise, SP1/SP2, from the top-level of skinning to the core of the SharePoint object model. Impeccable communication skills, both written and verbal, and a sense of humor are required. The projects will require being at a client site at least 50% of the time in Washington DC (NW DC) and Maryland (near Suitland). A US Citizen is required, and need to be able to pass NAC/E-Verify. An active Secret clearance is preferred. PMP certification, PgMP preferred. Salary & Travel Negotiable

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• The Year 2010, The Year of Change

  As I look back on the year of 2010, I could have never predicted the wonderful changes that have occurred for my wife and me. The beginning of this year started out as the 9th year that we lived in South Florida, and my fourth year working for DentalPlans.com as a software engineer/network admin. About 3 months in to the year I was given an excellent opportunity to work for MovieTickets.com in the software engineering department. This opportunity allowed me to gain experience with jQuery due to one of my projects was to reengineering MovieTickets.com existing Marketing Panel System. About 3 months after working at MovieTickets.com, my wife and I were offered an opportunity of a life time. I was offered a Job in a large background\information security company located in Nashville, TN as software engineer II.  I must note that after living in South Florida for 9 years, my wife and I really had a strong distaste for the South Florida life style and the general attitude/culture of the area. Even though we shared a strong dislike for the area in which we lived I must admit that it was a tough decision to leave MovieTickets.com because I was really doing well and I made some great new friends like Chris Catto, and Tyson Nero.  In fact, they introduced me to Local Microsoft User Groups, and software development podcast like DotNetRocks.com and Hanselminutes.com.  In addition, we also went to my first Microsoft launch down in Miami for Visual Studios 2010. I must admit it was a cool experience.  I truly hope to keep in touch with them to see how their careers grow, and I know they will. I must admit I was nervous and excited to start the next chapter in our live as I started up the 26 foot U-Haul truck and got on the road for Nashville from Boca Raton. I knew that the change was going to lead to new adventures and new opportunities that I could never imagine.  As we pulled in to the long driveway of our rental house, we knew that this was the right place for my wife and I. Natalie, my wife had actually come up to Nashville and within one week of my job offer had set up a nice rental home for us to restart our lives in TN.  I must admit that the wonderful southern hospitality took a bit to get use to due to the type of people we were used to dealing with on a regular basis. Our first 2 months seemed like we were living a dream because of our new area and the wonderful people we live around. So far my new job is going really well and I really like the people on my team and department. In fact after 6 months I am now in charge of all application builds for our new deployment process. I am also leading up a push for setting up of continuous integration within our new build process.  In addition to starting my new job, I was also offered a position as an adjust instructor at ITT Tech teaching course like VB.net, Java Script, Ajax, and database development. So far I have really like teaching at the college level.  Information technology has really been great for my life so I am really glad to be able to give back. That is actually why I started DotNetBlocks. This site allows me to document things I have learned as I work with technology, and allows others to borrow from my experiences.  I hope that this site can help others as others have helped me get where I am. Finally, I am glade to report that I only have 4 classes left for my master’s degree at Capella University. I am proud to announce that I am still on track to graduate with 3.91 GPA.  This last class was really a test because I had a crazy idea that I could work full time as a software engineer, teach two college courses as a first time teacher and also take an advanced masters class in application architecture. I have no idea how I actually survived, but I am really surprised how well I actually did. I was invited back to reach again at ITT Tech, and I passed my masters class with an “A”.  I have decided to take this next term off from my master’s program so that I do not get burned out.  Also, so that my new current employer will pay for more of my education, tuition reimbursement is an awesome benefit. This was my year 2010, how was yours?

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• MacBookPro running Windows 7: accidental trackpad input is driving me mad

  - by Ben Hammond

  I am running Windows7 Professional 64bit on a 2010 MacBookPro using BootCamp 3.1. I am using an external trackball. When I am typing, I accidently brushing the trackpad and accidently overtyping randomly selected pieces of text. Which is driving me mad. I have tried to install TrackPad++, but I could not get the Trackpad++ control panel to recognise that the driver software was installed. I tried TrackPad Magic, but although it gives me a system tray icon telling me it is working, but it does not appear to disable the track pad. A quick Google implies that there should be an option in the BootCamp Control Panel 'Ignore accidental Input while typing'. But I can't see one of those in my BootCamp Control Panel. Am I looking in the wrong place? Is this feature 32bit only? Is there anything else I should try?

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• Ubuntu 14.04: After login, top- and sidepanel don't load and system settings don't open

  - by Löwe Simon

  I have Ubuntu 14.04 on a Medion Erazer with the Nvidia GTX570M card. At first, while I had not installed the last nvidia driver, each time I would try to suspend my pc it would freeze frame on the login. Once I managed to install the nvidia drivers, everything seemed to work up until I noticed that suddenly the system settings would not open anymore. I then rebooted my pc, but when I logged in I just end up with my cursor but no top panel or side pannel. Thankfully, I had installed the gnome desktops which works, except for the fact the system settings do not open also in the gnome desktop. I have tried following: Problems after upgrading to 14.04 (only background and pointer after login) except for reinstalling nvidia, since then I would be back at square one with suspend not working. When I try to launch system settings through the terminal, I get: simon@simon-X681X:~$ unity-control-center libGL error: No matching fbConfigs or visuals found libGL error: failed to load driver: swrast (unity-control-center:2806): Gdk-ERROR **: The program 'unity-control-center' received an X Window System error. This probably reflects a bug in the program. The error was 'BadLength (poly request too large or internal Xlib length erro'. (Details: serial 229 error_code 16 request_code 155 (GLX) minor_code 1) (Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously; that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it. To debug your program, run it with the GDK_SYNCHRONIZE environment variable to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.) Trace/breakpoint trap (core dumped) I know the 2 problems seem unrelated, but since they occured together, I am wondering if that is really the case. Your help is much appreciated, Simon

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, March 26, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, March 26, 2010New Projects.NET settings class generator T4 templates: A couple of T4 templates to generate a Settings class for your .NET project. Allows you to define your application settings in an XML file and have...AlphaPagedList: AlphaPagedList makes it easier for .Net developers to write paging code. Based on PagedList it allows you to take any List<T> and split it based on...C# Projects: C# ProjectsChitme: Aenean feugiat pharetra enim rhoncus viverra. In at nunc nec sem varius bibendum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Nullam fringilla facilisis massa et eleife...CloudCache - Distributed Cache Tier with Azure: Cloudcache makes it easier for you to manage and deploy a distributed caching tier to Windows Azure. Included is a web-dashboard in MVC 2.0, Memcac...Composer: Composer is an extensible Compositional Architecture framework, providing a set of functionality such as Inversion of Control container (IoC), Depe...Data Connection Suite: Data Connection Suite is a set of easy to use data connection string builder dialogs & controls ready to be integrated in any .NET application.DatabaseHandler: Database HandlerEPiServer Blog Page Provider: A example page provider implementation for EPiServer that supports external blog sources for pages, Blogger and WordPress supported out of the box ...Extended MessageBox: ExtendedMessageBox makes it easier to display messages from your Windows applications. Based on the built-in .NET MessageBox class functionality, i...FluentPath: FluentPath implements a modern wrapper around System.IO, using modern patterns such as fluent APIs and Lambdas. By using FluentPath instead of Syst...Halcyone : Silverlight without pain: Halcyone is application framework for Silverlight that should make live of developers easier =)IlluminaRT: Real-time renderingme2: Mista Engine 2MessegeBox RightToLeft Lib: This is really simple lib project for use RTL in MessegeBox class. This just for short code and default option for RTL.MS Word Automation Service: A MS Word Automation service that comsumes a Word template and combines with XML to produce a word document. Currently in production. Must add some...SharePoint - Site Request InfoPath Form Template: This template allow portal user to enter initial information for requesting of creating a new SharePoint site. TextFlow - Text Editor: TextFlow is a fast and light text editor that simplifies day-to-day tasks. You can create letters and documents through TextFlow. It also includes ...TiledLib: A library for using Tiled (http://mapeditor.org) levels in XNA Game Studio projects. Includes a content pipeline extension and runtime library.wcf learning 2010: myWCFprojectsNew Releases.NET settings class generator T4 templates: Example 1: An example project containing the T4 templates and associated files. SingleSite - generate settings for a single site MultiSite - generate setting...AccessibilityChecker: Accessibility Checker V0.1: SharePoint Accessibility Checker V0.1AlphaPagedList: AlphaPagedList v0.9: Initial release of AlphaPagedListASP.Net RIA Controls: Version 1.1 Beta: New XHTML compliant version with alternative content support if no plugin installed.Business & System Analysis Templates and Best Practices: R 00: You may find out here the structured on my own materials from from Luxoft ReqLabs 2009 + short presentation about System Analysis and Modelling. Th...CloudCache - Distributed Cache Tier with Azure: v1.0.0.0: First release! More information at http://blog.shutupandcode.net/?p=935CycleMania Starter Kit EAP - ASP.NET 4 Problem - Design - Solution: Cyclemania 0.08.39: implemented client side functions on remainder of account pagesDevTreks -social budgeting that improves lives and livelihoods: Social Budgeting Web Software, DevTreks alpha 3d: Alpha 3d is a general bug fix -tweaking pagination, navigation, packaging, file system storage, page validation, security, locals, and linked views.Digital Media Processing Project 1: Image Processor: Image Processor 1.01: Supports opening files through Windows Explorer or by drag and drop.Extended MessageBox: ExtendedMessageBox Runtime Version 1.2: Initial releaseExtended MessageBox: SourceCode for Version 1.2: Initial SourceCodeFluent Ribbon Control Suite: Fluent Ribbon Control Suite 1.0: Fluent Ribbon Control Suite 1.0 Includes: Fluent.dll (with .pdb and .xml, debug and release version) Showcase Application Samples Foundation (T...FluentPath: FluentPath Beta: The Beta release of FluentPath.HaterAide ORM: HaterAide ORM 1.5: This version is a, more or less, rewrite of the code base. Also many new features have been added in this release: 1) Foreign keys are now added to...iTuner - The iTunes Companion: iTuner 1.2.3735 Beta: V1.2 allows you to synchronize one or more iTunes playlists to a USB MP3 player. This continues the evolution yet maintains the minimalistic appro...LogWin-Logging Your Computer Activities: LogWin-Logging your computer activities: This program is logging your computer activities and display them as table and pie chart. It is made by native C , HTML Dialog and Google Chart API.MessegeBox RightToLeft Lib: MessegeBoxRTL-1.0.0.0_BIN: My First upload.. This is binary release only. Have fun.MessegeBox RightToLeft Lib: MessegeBoxRTL-1.0.0.0_SRC: My first upload.. This is source code with binary. Have fun.MS Word Automation Service: Alpha: In production already, but who cares. It works.MultiMenu ASP.NET Cascading Menu WebControl: MultiMenu 2.6 ASP.NET Menu: Fixed problems that prevented the menu from working with the XHTML DocTypes Added support for IE 7-8 Added XmlLoading and XmlLoaded events Ad...netgod: LanyoWebBrowser: Lanyo ERP ClientnopCommerce. Open Source online shop e-commerce solution.: nopCommerce 1.50: To see the full list of fixes and changes please visit the release notes page (http://www.nopCommerce.com/ReleaseNotes.aspx).Open NFe: Open NFe v1.9.7: Fontes do DANFe 1.9.7 Trim na conversão TXT para XMLpatterns & practices - Smart Client Guidance: Smart Client Software Factory 2010 Beta Source: The Smart Client Software Factory 2010 provides an integrated set of guidance that assists architects and developers in creating composite smart cl...Physics Helper for Silverlight, WPF, Blend, and Farseer: PhysicsHelper 3.0.0.5 Alpha: This release supports Windows Phone 7 Series Development, along with the Silverlight 3 and WPF support. It requires Visual Studio 2010, plus the Wi...Protein Insight: ProteinInsight V2.0.1: Protein Insight is protein structure visualization system. Visualization rendering engine is based on native C and Direct3D, plug-in is based on CL...PSFGeneric: ERP / CRM business management and administration: PSFGeneric 1.4.0.9000 Manual and power-ups ASNIA: PSFGeneric 1.4.0.9000 Tareas 2.1.0 MySQL Persistente 1.0.3 TM-U220 40 col. Driver 1.0.0 Gestor Contable Básico 1.1.2.1 Cafetería 1.1.6 Catalogo 1....QuestTracker: QuestTracker 0.2: Primary new feature: Import/Export Quest Log. 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• Craftsmanship is ALL that Matters

  - by Wayne Molina

  Today, I'm going to talk about a touchy subject: the notion of working in a company that doesn't use the prescribed "best practices" in its software development endeavours.  Over the years I have, using a variety of pseudonyms, asked this question on popular programming forums.  Although I always add in some minor variation of the story to avoid suspicion that it's the same person posting, the crux of the tale remains the same: A Programmer’s Tale A junior software developer has just started a new job at an average company, creating average line-of-business applications for internal use (the most typical scenario programmers find themselves in).  This hypothetical newbie has spent a lot of time reading up on the "theory" of software development, devouring books, blogs and screencasts from well-known and respected software developers in the community in order to broaden his knowledge and "do what the pros do".  He begins his new job, eager to apply what he's learned on a real-world project only to discover that his new teammates doesn't use any of those concepts and techniques.  They hack their way through development, or in a best-case scenario use some homebrew, thrown-together semblance of a framework for their applications that follows not one of the best practices suggested by the “elite” in the software community - things like TDD (TDD as a "best practice" is the only subjective part of this post, but it's included here due to a very large following of respected developers who consider it one), the SOLID principles, well-known and venerable tools, even version control in a worst case and truly nightmarish scenario.  Our protagonist is frustrated that he isn't doing things the "proper" way - a way he's spent personal time digesting and learning about and, more importantly, a way that some of the top developers in the industry advocate - and turns to a forum to ask the advice of his peers. Invariably the answer I, in the guise of the concerned newbie, will receive is that A) I don't know anything and should just shut my mouth and sling code the bad way like everybody else on the team, and B) These "best practices" are fade or a joke, and the only thing that matters is shipping software to your customers. I am here today to say that anyone who says this, or anything like it, is not only full of crap but indicative of exactly the type of “developer” that has helped to give our industry a bad name.  Here is why: One Who Knows Nothing, Understands Nothing On one hand, you have the cognoscenti of the .NET development world.  Guys like James Avery, Jeremy Miller, Ayende Rahien and Rob Conery; all well-respected and noted programmers that are pretty much our version of celebrities.  These guys write blogs, books, and post videos outlining the "correct" way of writing software to make sure it not only works but is maintainable and extensible and a joy to work with.  They tout the virtues of the SOLID principles, or of using TDD/BDD, or using a mature ORM like NHibernate, Subsonic or even Entity Framework. On the other hand, you have Joe Everyman, Lead Software Developer at Initrode Corporation - in our hypothetical story Joe is the junior developer's new boss.  Joe's been with Initrode for 10 years, starting as the company’s very first programmer and over the years building up a little fiefdom of his own until at the present he’s in charge of all Initrode’s software development.  Joe writes code the same way he always has, without bothering to learn much, if anything.  He looked at NHibernate once and found it was "too hard", so he uses a primitive implementation of the TableDataGateway pattern as a wrapper around SqlClient.SqlConnection and SqlClient.SqlCommand instead of an actual ORM (or, in a better case scenario, has created his own ORM); the thought of using LINQ or Entity Framework or really anything other than his own hastily homebrew solution has never occurred to him.  He doesn't understand TDD and considers “testing” to be using the .NET debugger to step through code, or simply loading up an app and entering some values to see if it works.  He doesn't really understand SOLID, and he doesn't care to.  He's worked as a programmer for years, and that's all that counts.  Right?  WRONG. Who would you rather trust?  Someone with years of experience and who writes books, creates well-known software and is akin to a celebrity, or someone with no credibility outside their own minute environment who throws around their clout and company seniority as the "proof" of their ability?  Joe Everyman may have years of experience at Initrode as a programmer, and says to do things "his way" but someone like Jeremy Miller or Ayende Rahien have years of experience at companies just like Initrode, THEY know ten times more than Joe Everyman knows or could ever hope to know, and THEY say to do things "this way". Here's another way of thinking about it: If you wanted to get into politics and needed advice on the best way to do it, would you rather listen to the mayor of Hicktown, USA or Barack Obama?  One is a small-time nobody while the other is very well-known and, as such, would probably have much more accurate and beneficial advice. NOTE: The selection of Barack Obama as an example in no way, shape, or form suggests a political affiliation or political bent to this post or blog, and no political innuendo should be mistakenly read from it; the intent was merely to compare a small-time persona with a well-known persona in a non-software field.  Feel free to replace the name "Barack Obama" with any well-known Congressman, Senator or US President of your choice. DIY Considered Harmful I will say right now that the homebrew development environment is the WORST one for an aspiring programmer, because it relies on nothing outside it's own little box - no useful skill outside of the small pond.  If you are forced to use some half-baked, homebrew ORM created by your Director of Software, you are not learning anything valuable you can take with you in the future; now, if you plan to stay at Initrode for 10 years like Joe Everyman, this is fine and dandy.  However if, like most of us, you want to advance your career outside a very narrow space you will do more harm than good by sticking it out in an environment where you, to be frank, know better than everybody else because you are aware of alternative and, in almost most cases, better tools for the job.  A junior developer who understands why the SOLID principles are good to follow, or why TDD is beneficial, or who knows that it's better to use NHibernate/Subsonic/EF/LINQ/well-known ORM versus some in-house one knows better than a senior developer with 20 years experience who doesn't understand any of that, plain and simple.  Anyone who disagrees is either a liar, or someone who, just like Joe Everyman, Lead Developer, relies on seniority and tenure rather than adapting their knowledge as things evolve. In many cases, the Joe Everymans of the world act this way out of fear - they cannot possibly fathom that a “junior” could know more than them; after all, they’ve spent 10 or more years in the same company, doing the same job, cranking out the same shoddy software.  And here comes a newbie who hasn’t spent 10+ years doing the same things, with a fresh and often radical take on the craft, and Joe Everyman is afraid he might have to put some real effort into his career again instead of just pointing to his 10 years of service at Initrode as “proof” that he’s good, or that he might have to learn something new to improve; in most cases the problem is Joe Everyman, and by extension Initrode itself, has a mentality of just being “good enough”, and mediocrity is the rule of the day. A Thorn Bush is No Place for a Phoenix My advice is that if you work on a team where they don't use the best practices that some of the most famous developers in our field say is the "right" way to do things (and have legions of people who agree), and YOU are aware of these practices and can see why they work, then LEAVE the company.  Find a company where they DO care about quality, and craftsmanship, otherwise you will never be happy.  There is no point in "dumbing" yourself down to the level of your co-workers and slinging code without care to craftsmanship.  In 95% of these situations there will be no point in bringing it to the attention of Joe Everyman because he won't listen; he might even get upset that someone is trying to "upstage" him and fire the newbie, and replace someone with loads of untapped potential with a drone that will just nod affirmatively and grind out the tasks assigned without question. Find a company that has people smart enough to listen to the "best and brightest", and be happy.  Do not, I repeat, DO NOT waste away in a job working for ignorant people.  At the end of the day software development IS a craft, and a level of craftsmanship is REQUIRED for any serious professional.  When you have knowledgeable people with the credibility to back it up saying one thing, and small-time people who are, to put it bluntly, nobodies in the field saying and doing something totally different because they can't comprehend it, leave the nobodies to their own devices to fade into obscurity.  Work for a company that uses REAL software engineering techniques and really cares about craftsmanship.  The biggest issue affecting our career, and the reason software development has never been the respected, white-collar career it was meant to be, is because hacks and charlatans can pass themselves off as professional programmers without following a lick of good advice from programmers much better at the craft than they are.  These modern day snake-oil salesmen entrench themselves in companies by hoodwinking non-technical businesspeople and customers with their shoddy wares, end up in senior/lead/executive positions, and push their lack of knowledge on everybody unfortunate enough to work with/for/under them, crushing any dissent or voices of reason and change under their tyrannical heel and leaving behind a trail of dismayed and, often, unemployed junior developers who were made examples of to keep up the facade and avoid the shadow of doubt being cast upon them. To sum this up another way: If you surround yourself with learned people, you will learn.  Surround yourself with ignorant people who can't, as the saying goes, see the forest through the trees, and you'll learn nothing of any real value.  There is more to software development than just writing code, and the end goal should not be just "shipping software", it should be shipping software that is extensible, maintainable, and above all else software whose creation has broadened your knowledge in some capacity, even if a minor one.  An eager newbie who knows theory and thirsts for knowledge can easily be moulded and taught the advanced topics, but the same can't be said of someone who only cares about the finish line.  This industry needs more people espousing the benefits of software craftsmanship and proper software engineering techniques, and less Joe Everymans who are unwilling to adapt or foster new ways of thinking. Conclusion - I Cast “Protection from Fire” I am fairly certain this post will spark some controversy and might even invite the flames.  Please keep in mind these are opinions and nothing more.  A little healthy rant and subsequent flamewar can be good for the soul once in a while.  To paraphrase The Godfather: It helps to get rid of the bad blood.

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• Couldn't find package - But package is listed in the Packages file

  - by Chris

  (Quoted items are redacted elements) I am using a private repository and an currently trying to repackage some packages 3rd-party packages. I extract the package, make a few modifications (just the control files to fit with company policy - though sometimes file install locations though not in this case) and repackage (and usually rename). Normally I copy the files into a new blank debhelper project and reconstruct the package, however, with a recent one I attempting to convert and some libraries and stuff aren't linking properly (I did copy the postinst, postrm, and preinst files along with all DEDIAN files exactly), the original package worked, but my repackage doesn't, despite providing the same files in the same locations and the same postinst and preinst. So I was attempting to just modify the current packages control files (as the original package is not very good and will not list in our repository and getting a better one from the 3rd party is not an option). I also renamed the package. I did the following: dpkg-deb -R "directory" Modify DEBIAN/control dpkg-deb -b "directory" "package name I want" I did this and put it in our repository. The package shows up in the "Packages" file on the repository and running apt-get update on the client side shows the package in: /var/lib/apt/lists/"server"_"location"_Packages However when I do an apt-get install on the package name (as listed in the Packages file - I did a copy paste) it says it can't find the package. Same with an apt-cache search The Packages listings is as follow (name redacted): Package: "package name" Priority: extra Section: unknown Maintainer: "maintainer" Architecture: any Version: 1.0-lucid5 Depends: libc Filename: "directory"/"package_filename" Size: 2206292 MD5sum: "md5sum" SHA1: "sha key" SHA256: "sha256 key" Description: "description" I am running as sudo (and tried as root as well). I don't understand why apt-get won't see the package. Can you point out any flaws in what I have done, or perhaps some help on getting apt-get to properly see the package. Or perhaps an alternative. I am not even sure if this is a valid way to repackage something. Thanks.

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• My View on ASP.NET Web Forms versus MVC

  - by Ricardo Peres

  Introduction A lot has been said on Web Forms and MVC, but since I was recently asked about my opinion on the subject, here it is. First, I have to say that I really like both technologies and I don’t think any is going away – just remember SharePoint, which is built on top of Web Forms. I see them as complementary, targeting different needs and leveraging different skills. Let’s go through some of their differences. Rapid Application Development Rapid Application Development (RAD) is the development process by which you have an Integrated Development Environment (IDE), a visual design surface and a toolbox, and you drag components from the toolbox to the design surface and set their properties through a property inspector. It was introduced with some of the earliest Windows graphical IDEs such as Visual Basic and Delphi. With Web Forms you have RAD out of the box. Visual Studio offers a generally good (and extensible) designer for the layout of pages and web user controls. Designing a page may simply be about dragging controls from the toolbox, setting their properties and wiring up some events to event handlers, which are implemented in code behind .NET classes. Most people will be familiar with this kind of development and enjoy it. You can see what you are doing from the beginning. MVC also has designable pages – called views in MVC terminology – the problem is that they can be built using different technologies, some of which, at the moment (MVC 4) do not support RAD – Razor, for example. I believe it is just a matter of time for that to be implemented in Visual Studio, but it will mostly consist on HTML editing, and until that day comes, you have to live with source editing. Development Model Web Forms features the same development model that you are used to from Windows Forms and other similar technologies: events fired by controls and automatic persistence of their properties between postbacks. For that, it uses concepts such as view state, which some may love and others may hate, because it may be misused quite easily, but otherwise does its job well. Another fundamental concept is data binding, by which a collection of data can be fed to a control and have it render that data somehow – just thing of the GridView control. The focus is on the page, that’s where it all starts, and you can place everything in the same code behind class: data access, business logic, layout, etc. The controls take care of generating a great part of the HTML and JavaScript for you. With MVC there is no free lunch when it comes to data persistence between requests, you have to implement it yourself. As for event handling, that is at the core of MVC, in the form of controllers and action methods, you just don’t think of them as event handlers. In MVC you need to think more in HTTP terms, so action methods such as POST and GET are relevant to you, and may write actions to handle one or the other. Also of crucial importance is model binding: the way by which MVC converts your posted data into a .NET class. This is something that ASP.NET 4.5 Web Forms has introduced as well, but it is a cornerstone in MVC. MVC also has built-in validation of these .NET classes, which out of the box uses the Data Annotations API. You have full control of the generated HTML - except for that coming from the helper methods, usually small fragments - which requires a greater familiarity with the specifications. You normally rely much more on JavaScript APIs, they are even included in the Visual Studio template, that is because much less is done for you. Reuse It is difficult to accept a professional company/project that does not employ reuse. It can save a lot of time thus cutting costs significantly. Code reused in several projects matures as time goes by and helps developers learn from past experiences. ASP.NET Web Forms was built with reuse in mind, in the form of controls. Controls encapsulate functionality and are generally portable from project to project (with the notable exception of web user controls, those with an associated .ASCX markup file). ASP.NET has dozens of controls and it is very easy to develop new ones, so I believe this is a great advantage. A control can inject JavaScript code and external references as well as generate HTML an CSS. MVC on the other hand does not use controls – it is possible to use them, with some view engines like ASPX, but it is just not advisable because it breaks the flow – where do Init, Load, PreRender, etc, fit? The most similar to controls is extension methods, or helpers. They serve the same purpose – generating HTML, CSS or JavaScript – and can be reused between different projects. What differentiates them from controls is that there is no inheritance and no context – an extension method is just a static method which doesn’t know where it is being called. You also have partial views, which you can reuse in the same project, but there is no inheritance as well. This, in my view, is a weakness of MVC. Architecture Both technologies are highly extensible. I have writtenstarted writing a series of posts on ASP.NET Web Forms extensibility and will probably write another series on MVC extensibility as well. A number of scenarios are covered in any of these models, and some extensibility points apply to both, because, of course both stand upon ASP.NET. With Web Forms, if you’re like me, you start by defining you master pages, pages and controls, with some helper classes to glue everything. You may as well throw in some JavaScript, but probably you’re main work will be with plain old .NET code. The controls you define have the chance to inject JavaScript code and references, through either the ScriptManager or the page’s ClientScript object, as well as generating HTML and CSS code. The master page and page model with code behind classes offer a number of “hooks” by which you can change the normal way of things, for example, in a page you can access any control on the master page, add script or stylesheet references to its head and even change the page’s title. Also, with Web Forms, you typically have URLs in the form “/SomePath/SomePage.aspx?SomeParameter=SomeValue”, which isn’t really SEO friendly, no to mention the HTML that some controls produce, far from standards, optimization and best practices. In MVC, you also normally start by defining the master page (or layout) and views, which are the visible parts, and then define controllers on separate files. These controllers do not know anything about the views, except the names and types of the parameters that will be passed to and from them. The controller will be responsible for the data access and business logic, eventually relying on additional classes for this purpose. On a controller you only receive parameters and return a result, which may be a request for the rendering of a view, a redirection to another URL or a JSON object, to name just a few. The controller class does not know anything about the web, so you can effectively reuse it in a non-web project. This separation and the lack of programmatic access to the UI elements, makes it very difficult to implement, for example, something like SharePoint with MVC. OK, I know about Orchard, but it isn’t really a general purpose development framework, but instead, a CMS that happens to use MVC. Not having controls render HTML for you gives you in turn much more control over it – it is your responsibility to create it, which you can either consider a blessing or a curse, in the later case, you probably shouldn’t be using MVC at all. Also MVC URLs tend to be much more SEO-oriented, if you design your controllers and actions properly. Testing In a well defined architecture, you should separate business logic, data access logic and presentation logic, because these are all different things and it might even be the need to switch one implementation for another: for example, you might design a system which includes a data access layer, a business logic layer and two presentation layers, one on top of ASP.NET and the other with WPF; and the data access layer might be implemented first using NHibernate and later on switched for Entity Framework Code First. These changes are not that rare, so care should be taken in designing the system to make them possible. Web Forms are difficult to test, because it relies on event handlers which are only fired in web contexts, when a form is submitted or a page is requested. You can call them with reflection, but you have to set up a number of mocking objects first, HttpContext.Current first coming to my mind. MVC, on the other hand, makes testing controllers a breeze, so much that it even includes a template option for generating boilerplate unit test classes up from start. A well designed – from the unit test point of view - controller will receive everything it needs to work as parameters to its action methods, so you can pass whatever values you need very easily. That doesn’t mean, of course, that everything can be tested: views, for instance, are difficult to test without actually accessing the site, but MVC offers the possibility to compile views at build time, so that, at least, you know you don’t have syntax errors beforehand. Myths Some popular but unfounded myths around MVC include: You cannot use controls in MVC: not true, actually, you can, at least with the Web Forms (ASPX) view engine; the declaration and usage is exactly the same as with Web Forms; You cannot specify a base class for a view: with the ASPX view engine you can use the Inherits Page directive, with this and all the others you can use the pageBaseType and userControlBaseType attributes of the <page> element; MVC shields you from doing “bad things” on your views: well, you can place any code on a code block, at least with the ASPX view engine (you may be starting to see a pattern here), even data access code; The model is the entity model, tied to an O/RM: the model is actually any class that you use to pass values to a view, including (but generally not recommended) an entity model; Unit tests come with no cost: unit tests generally don’t cover the UI, although there are frameworks just for that (see WatiN, for example); also, for some tests, you will have to mock or replace either the HttpContext.Current property or the HttpContextBase class yourself; Everything is testable: views aren’t, without accessing the site; MVC relies on HTML5/some_cool_new_javascript_framework: there is no relation whatsoever, MVC renders whatever you want it to render and does not require any framework to be present. The thing is, the subsequent releases of MVC happened in a time when Microsoft has become much more involved in standards, so the files and technologies included in the Visual Studio templates reflect this, and it just happens to work well with jQuery, for example. Conclusion Well, this is how I see it. Some folks may think that I am being too rude on MVC, probably because I don’t like it, but that’s not true: like I said, I do like MVC and I am starting my new projects with it. I just don’t want to go along with that those that say that MVC is much superior to Web Forms, in fact, some things you can do much more easily with Web Forms than with MVC. I will be more than happy to hear what you think on this!

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