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• How can I thoroughly evaluate a prospective employer?

  - by glenviewjeff

  We hear much about code smells, test smells, and even project smells, but I have heard no discussion about employer "smells" outside of the Joel Test. After much frustration working for employers with a bouquet of unpleasant corporate-culture odors, I believe it's time for me to actively seek a more mature development environment. I've started assembling a list of questions to help vet employers by identifying issues during a job interview, and am looking for additional ideas. I suppose this list could easily be modified by an employer to vet an employee as well, but please answer from the interviewee's perspective. I think it would be important to ask many of these questions of multiple people to find out if consistent answers are given. For the most part, I tried to put the questions in each section in the order they could be asked. An undesired answer to an early question will often make follow-ups moot. Values What constitutes "well-written" software? What attributes does a good developer have? Same question for manager. Process Do you have a development process? How rigorously do you follow it? How do you decide how much process to apply to each project? Describe a typical project lifecycle. Ask the following if they don't come up otherwise: Waterfall/iterative: How much time is spent in upfront requirements gathering? upfront design? Testing Who develops tests (developers or separate test engineers?) When are they developed? When are the tests executed? How long do they take to execute? What makes a good test? How do you know you've tested enough? What percentage of code is tested? Review What is the review process like? What percentage of code is reviewed? Design? How frequently can I expect to participate as code/design reviewer/reviewee? What are the criteria applied to review and where do the criteria come from? Improvement What new tools and techniques have you evaluated or deployed in the past year? What training courses have your employees been given in the past year? What will I be doing for the first six months in your company (hinting at what kind of organized mentorship/training has been thought through, if any) What changes to your development process have been made in the past year? How do you improve and learn from your mistakes as an organization? What was your organizations biggest mistake in the past year, and how was it addressed? What feedback have you given to management lately? Was it implemented? If not, why? How does your company use "best practices?" How do you seek them out from the outside or within, and how do you share them with each other? Ethics Tell me about an ethical problem you or your employees experienced recently and how was it resolved? Do you use open-source software? What open-source contributions have you made? Follow-Ups I liked what @jim-leonardo said on this Stack Overflow question: Really a thing to ask yourself: "Does this person seem like they are trying to recruit me and make me interested?" I think this is one of the most important bits. If they seem to be taking the attitude that the only one being interviewed is you, then they probably will treat you poorly. Good interviewers understand they have to sell the position as much as the candidate needs to sell themselves. @SethP added: Glassdoor.com is a good web site for researching potential employers. It contains information about how specific companies conduct interviews...

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• Help me get my 3D camera to look like the ones in RTS

  - by rFactor

  I am a newbie in 3D game development and I am trying to make a real-time strategy game. I am struggling with the camera currently as I am unable to make it look like they do in RTS games. Here is my Camera.cs class using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input; namespace BB { public class Camera : Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GameComponent { public Matrix view; public Matrix projection; protected Game game; KeyboardState currentKeyboardState; Vector3 cameraPosition = new Vector3(600.0f, 0.0f, 600.0f); Vector3 cameraForward = new Vector3(0, -0.4472136f, -0.8944272f); BoundingFrustum cameraFrustum = new BoundingFrustum(Matrix.Identity); // Light direction Vector3 lightDir = new Vector3(-0.3333333f, 0.6666667f, 0.6666667f); public Camera(Game game) : base(game) { this.game = game; } public override void Initialize() { this.view = Matrix.CreateLookAt(this.cameraPosition, this.cameraPosition + this.cameraForward, Vector3.Up); this.projection = Matrix.CreatePerspectiveFieldOfView(MathHelper.PiOver4, this.game.renderer.aspectRatio, 1, 10000); base.Initialize(); } /* Handles the user input * @ param GameTime gameTime */ private void HandleInput(GameTime gameTime) { float time = (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalMilliseconds; currentKeyboardState = Keyboard.GetState(); } void UpdateCamera(GameTime gameTime) { float time = (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalMilliseconds; // Check for input to rotate the camera. float pitch = 0.0f; float turn = 0.0f; if (currentKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Up)) pitch += time * 0.001f; if (currentKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Down)) pitch -= time * 0.001f; if (currentKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Left)) turn += time * 0.001f; if (currentKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Right)) turn -= time * 0.001f; Vector3 cameraRight = Vector3.Cross(Vector3.Up, cameraForward); Vector3 flatFront = Vector3.Cross(cameraRight, Vector3.Up); Matrix pitchMatrix = Matrix.CreateFromAxisAngle(cameraRight, pitch); Matrix turnMatrix = Matrix.CreateFromAxisAngle(Vector3.Up, turn); Vector3 tiltedFront = Vector3.TransformNormal(cameraForward, pitchMatrix * turnMatrix); // Check angle so we cant flip over if (Vector3.Dot(tiltedFront, flatFront) > 0.001f) { cameraForward = Vector3.Normalize(tiltedFront); } // Check for input to move the camera around. if (currentKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.W)) cameraPosition += cameraForward * time * 0.4f; if (currentKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.S)) cameraPosition -= cameraForward * time * 0.4f; if (currentKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.A)) cameraPosition += cameraRight * time * 0.4f; if (currentKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.D)) cameraPosition -= cameraRight * time * 0.4f; if (currentKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.R)) { cameraPosition = new Vector3(0, 50, 50); cameraForward = new Vector3(0, 0, -1); } cameraForward.Normalize(); // Create the new view matrix view = Matrix.CreateLookAt(cameraPosition, cameraPosition + cameraForward, Vector3.Up); // Set the new frustum value cameraFrustum.Matrix = view * projection; } public override void Update(Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GameTime gameTime) { HandleInput(gameTime); UpdateCamera(gameTime); } } } The problem is that the initial view is looking in a horizontal direction. I would like to have an RTS like top down view (but with a slight pitch). Can you help me out?

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• 65536% Autogrowth!

  - by Tara Kizer

  Twice a year, we move our production systems to our disaster recovery site.  Last Saturday night was one of those days.  There are about 50 SQL Server databases to be moved to the DR site, which is done via database mirroring.  It takes only a few seconds to failover, but some databases have a bit more involved work such as setting up replication.  Everything went relatively smooth, but we encountered a weird bug on our most mission critical system.  After everything was successfully failed over to the DR site, it was noticed that mirroring was in a suspended state on one of the databases.  We thought we had run into a SQL Server 2005 bug that we had been encountering and were working with Microsoft on a fix.  Microsoft did fix it in both SQL Server 2005 service pack 3 cumulative update package 13 and service pack 4 cumulative update package 2, however SP3 CU13 and SP4 both recently failed on this system so we were not patched yet with the bug fix.  As the suspended state was causing us issues with replication, we dropped mirroring.  We then noticed we had 10MB of free disk space on the mount point where the principal’s data files are stored.  I knew something went amiss as this system should have at least 150GB free on that mount point.  I immediately checked the main database’s data file and was shocked to see an autgrowth size of 65536%.  The data file autogrew right before mirroring went into the suspended state. 65536%! I didn’t have a lot of time to research if this autgrowth problem was a known SQL Server bug, so I deferred that research to today.  A quick Google search yielded no results but emphasis on “quick”.  I checked our performance system, which was recently restored with a copy of the affected production database, and found the autogrowth setting to be 512MB.  So this autogrowth bug was encountered sometime in the last two weeks.  On February 26th, we had attempted to install SQL 2005 SP4 on production, however it had failed (PSS case open with Microsoft).  I suspected that the SP4 failure was somehow related to this autgrowth bug although that turned out not to be the case. I then tweeted (@TaraKizer) about this problem to see if the SQL Server community (#sqlhelp) had any insights.  It seems several people have either heard of this bug or encountered it.  Aaron Bertrand (blog|twitter) referred me to this Connect item. Our affected database originated on SQL Server 2000 and was upgraded to SQL Server 2005 in 2007.  Back on SQL Server 2000, we were using the default file growth setting which was a percentage.  Sometime after the 2005 upgrade is when we changed it to 512MB.  Our situation seemed to fit the bug Aaron referred to me, so now the question was whether Microsoft had fixed it yet. I received a reply to my tweet from Amit Banerjee (twitter) that it had been fixed in SP3 CU1 (KB958004).  My affected system is SP3 CU8, so I was initially confused why we had encountered the bug.  Because I don’t read things fully, I had missed that there are additional steps you have to follow after applying the bug fix.  Amit set me straight.  Although you can read this information in the KB article, I will also copy it here in case you are as lazy as me and miss the most important section of it (although if you are as lazy as me, you won’t have read this far down my blog post): This hotfix will prevent only future occurrences of this problem. For example, if you restore a database from SQL Server 2000 to a SQL Server 2005 instance that contains this hotfix, this problem will not occur. However, if you already have a database that is affected by this problem, you must follow these steps to resolve this problem manually: Apply this hotfix. Set the file growth settings for the affected files to percentage settings, and then set the settings back to megabyte settings. Take the database offline, and then bring it back online. Verify that the values of the is_percent_growth column are correct in the sys.database_files system table and in the sys.master_files system table.

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• How to Create SharePoint List and Insert List Item programmatically from a Windows Forms Application.

  - by Michael M. Bangoy

  In this post I’m going to demonstrate how to create SharePoint List and also Insert Items on the List from a Windows Forms Application. 1. Open Visual Studio and create a new project. On the project template select Windows Form Application under C#. 2. In order to communicate with Sharepoint from a Windows Forms Application we need to add the 2 Sharepoint Client DLL located in c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\ISAPI.  3. Select the Microsoft.Sharepoint.Client.dll and Microsoft.Sharepoint.Client.Runtime.dll. (Your solution should look like the one below) 4. Open the Form1 in design view and from the Toolbox menu add a button on the form surface. Your form should look like the one below. 5. Double click the button to open the code view. Add Using statement to reference the Sharepoint Client Library then create method for the Create List. Your code should like the codes below. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.ComponentModel; using System.Data; using System.Drawing; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.Security; using System.Windows.Forms; using SP = Microsoft.SharePoint.Client; namespace ClientObjectModel {     public partial class Form1 : Form     {         // url of the Sharepoint site         const string _context = "urlofthesharepointsite";         public Form1()         {             InitializeComponent();         }         private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)         {                    }         private void cmdcreate_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)         {             try             {                 // declare the ClientContext Object                 SP.ClientContext _clientcontext = new SP.ClientContext(_context);                 SP.Web _site = _clientcontext.Web;                 // declare a ListCreationInfo                 SP.ListCreationInformation _listcreationinfo = new SP.ListCreationInformation();                 // set the Title and the Template of the List to be created                 _listcreationinfo.Title = "NewListFromCOM";                 _listcreationinfo.TemplateType = (int)SP.ListTemplateType.GenericList;                 // Call the add method to the ListCreatedInfo                 SP.List _list = _site.Lists.Add(_listcreationinfo);                 // Add Description field to the List                 SP.Field _Description = _list.Fields.AddFieldAsXml(@"                                     <Field Type='Text'                                         DisplayName='Description'>                                     </Field>", true, SP.AddFieldOptions.AddToDefaultContentType);                 // declare the List item Creation object for creating List Item                 SP.ListItemCreationInformation _itemcreationinfo = new SP.ListItemCreationInformation();                 // call the additem method of the list to insert a new List Item                 SP.ListItem _item = _list.AddItem(_itemcreationinfo);                 _item["Title"] = "New Item from Client Object Model";                 _item["Description"] = "This item was added by a Windows Forms Application";                 // call the update method                 _item.Update();                 // execute the query of the clientcontext                 _clientcontext.ExecuteQuery();                 // dispose the clientcontext                 _clientcontext.Dispose();                 MessageBox.Show("List Creation Successfull");             }             catch(Exception ex)             {                 MessageBox.Show("Error creating list" + ex.ToString());             }          }     } } 6. Hit F5 to run the application. A message will be displayed on the screen if the operation is successful and also if it fails. 7. To make that the operation of our Windows Form Application has really created the List and Inserted an item on it. Let’s open our SharePoint site. Once the SharePoint is open click on the Site Actions then View All Site Content. 7. Click the List to open it and check if an Item is inserted. That’s it. Hope this helps.

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• How the number of indexes built on a table can impact performances?

  - by Davide Mauri

  We all know that putting too many indexes (I’m talking of non-clustered index only, of course) on table may produce performance problems due to the overhead that each index bring to all insert/update/delete operations on that table. But how much? I mean, we all agree – I think – that, generally speaking, having many indexes on a table is “bad”. But how bad it can be? How much the performance will degrade? And on a concurrent system how much this situation can also hurts SELECT performances? If SQL Server take more time to update a row on a table due to the amount of indexes it also has to update, this also means that locks will be held for more time, slowing down the perceived performance of all queries involved. I was quite curious to measure this, also because when teaching it’s by far more impressive and effective to show to attended a chart with the measured impact, so that they can really “feel” what it means! To do the tests, I’ve create a script that creates a table (that has a clustered index on the primary key which is an identity column) , loads 1000 rows into the table (inserting 1000 row using only one insert, instead of issuing 1000 insert of one row, in order to minimize the overhead needed to handle the transaction, that would have otherwise ), and measures the time taken to do it. The process is then repeated 16 times, each time adding a new index on the table, using columns from table in a round-robin fashion. Test are done against different row sizes, so that it’s possible to check if performance changes depending on row size. The result are interesting, although expected. This is the chart showing how much time it takes to insert 1000 on a table that has from 0 to 16 non-clustered indexes. Each test has been run 20 times in order to have an average value. The value has been cleaned from outliers value due to unpredictable performance fluctuations due to machine activity. The test shows that in a  table with a row size of 80 bytes, 1000 rows can be inserted in 9,05 msec if no indexes are present on the table, and the value grows up to 88 (!!!) msec when you have 16 indexes on it This means a impact on performance of 975%. That’s *huge*! Now, what happens if we have a bigger row size? Say that we have a table with a row size of 1520 byte. Here’s the data, from 0 to 16 indexes on that table: In this case we need near 22 msec to insert 1000 in a table with no indexes, but we need more that 500msec if the table has 16 active indexes! Now we’re talking of a 2410% impact on performance! Now we can have a tangible idea of what’s the impact of having (too?) many indexes on a table and also how the size of a row also impact performances. That’s why the golden rule of OLTP databases “few indexes, but good” is so true! (And in fact last week I saw a database with tables with 1700bytes row size and 23 (!!!) indexes on them!) This also means that a too heavy denormalization is really not a good idea (we’re always talking about OLTP systems, keep it in mind), since the performance get worse with the increase of the row size. So, be careful out there, and keep in mind the “equilibrium” is the key world of a database professional: equilibrium between read and write performance, between normalization and denormalization, between to few and too may indexes. PS Tests are done on a VMWare Workstation 7 VM with 2 CPU and 4 GB of Memory. Host machine is a Dell Precsioni M6500 with i7 Extreme X920 Quad-Core HT 2.0Ghz and 16Gb of RAM. Database is stored on a SSD Intel X-25E Drive, Simple Recovery Model, running on SQL Server 2008 R2. If you also want to to tests on your own, you can download the test script here: Open TestIndexPerformance.sql

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• Build-time dependency resolving coming to Entity Framework. Now, how about those BI tools too?

  - by jamiet

  Three months ago I wrote a blog post entitled Some thoughts on Visual Studio database references and how they should be used for SQL Server BI where I shared some thoughts on a feature available to database developers in Visual Studio 2010 that I would love to see added to SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), Analysis Services (SSAS) and Reporting Services (SSRS). In there I said: Over the past few weeks I have been making heavy use of the Database tools in Visual Studio 2010 and one of the features that has most impressed me has been database references.   Database references allow you to have stored procedures in your database project that refer to objects (tables, views, stored procedures etc…) that exist in other database projects and hence when you build your database project it is able to resolve those references.   It occurred to me that similar functionality would be incredibly useful for SQL Server Integration Services(SSIS), Analysis Services (SSAS) & Reporting Services (SSRS) projects. After all reports, packages and data source views are rife with references to database objects – why shouldn’t we be able to have design-time dependency checking in our BI projects the same way that database and .Net developers do? In that blog post I shared links to three Connect submissions where I requested this feature be added to SSIS, SSAS & SSRS. In addition I also submitted a request that the feature be extended to .Net projects so that any reference to a database object in a .Net assembly can be resolved at build time. That Connect submission is at [Entity FX] Use database references to constrain the EDM and overnight it received this comment from Microsoft: We have been working on this feature for a while and and will be available soon This is really good news - it improves the Microsoft developer ecosystem by ensuring invalid references to database references get caught at build time (ideally as part of a Continuous integration build) rather than run time. [Hopefully it might nip this code-first nonsense in the bud too (Ooo...way to incite flame comments :) ) ]. If you want to see this feature in action then check out a video from Teched Europe last month entitled SQL Server Developer Tools Code-named "Juneau" where it is demo'd by Lance Delano and Tim Laverty.   The point of this blog post though is not just to draw attention to this forthcoming feature for .Net developers, it is to ask you to petition Microsoft to get this feature added to SSIS/SSAS/SSRS too. After all, we already know (from the video above) that the feature is coming to this new code-name Juneau development environment plus we also know that Juneau will be the development environment for SSIS/SSAS/SSRS as well - is it really much of a stretch to expect the BI tools to have access to this great feature too? I don't think so and if you agree with me then I urge you to vote and add a comment to the Connection submissions that are requesting this feature. They are at: [SSAS] Declare Object Dependancies [SSRS] Declare Object Dependancies [SSIS] Declare Object Dependancies (Update, Apparently someone at Microsoft has deemed it necassary to set this to private and I am not able to change it back even though I submitted it. You can still vote on the other two though.) Let's close that SQL Developer Gap!   @Jamiet    

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• Do you want to be an ALM Consultant?

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  Northwest Cadence is looking for our next great consultant! At Northwest Cadence, we have created a work environment that emphasizes excellence, integrity, and out-of-the-box thinking.  Our customers have high expectations (rightfully so) and we wouldn’t have it any other way!   Northwest Cadence has some of the most exciting customers I have ever worked with and even though I have only been here just over a month I have already: Provided training/consulting for 3 government departments Created and taught courseware for delivering Scrum to teams within a high profile multinational company Started presenting Microsoft's ALM Engagement Program  So if you are interested in helping companies build better software more efficiently, then.. Enquire at [email protected] Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Consultant An ALM Consultant with a minimum of 8 years of relevant experience with Application Lifecycle Management, Visual Studio (including Visual Studio Team System) and software design is needed. Must provide thought leadership on best practices for enterprise architecture, understand the Microsoft technology solution stack, and have a thorough understanding of enterprise application integration. The ALM Practice Lead will play a central role in designing and implementing the overall ALM Practice strategy, including creating, updating, and delivering ALM courseware and consultancy engagements. This person will also provide project support, deliverables, and quality solutions on Visual Studio Team System that exceed client expectations. Engagements will vary and will involve providing expert training, consulting, mentoring, formulating technical strategies and policies and acting as a “trusted advisor” to customers and internal teams. Sound sense of business and technical strategy required. Strong interpersonal skills as well as solid strategic thinking are key. The ideal candidate will be capable of envisioning the solution based on the early client requirements, communicating the vision to both technical and business stakeholders, leading teams through implementation, as well as training, mentoring, and hands-on software development. The ideal candidate will demonstrate successful use of both agile and formal software development methods, enterprise application patterns, and effective leadership on prior projects. Job Requirements Minimum Education: Bachelor’s Degree (computer science, engineering, or math preferred). Locale / Travel: The Practice Lead position requires estimated 50% travel, most of which will be in the Continental US (a valid national Passport must be maintained).  This is a full time position and will be based in the Kirkland office. Preferred Education: Master’s Degree in Information Technology or Software Engineering; Premium Microsoft Certifications on .NET (MCSD) or MCPD or relevant experience; Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) or relevant experience. Minimum Experience and Skills: 7+ years experience with business information systems integration or custom business application design and development in a professional technology consulting, corporate MIS or software development environment. Essential Duties & Responsibilities: Provide training, consulting, and mentoring to organizations on topics that include Visual Studio Team System and ALM. Create content, including labs and demonstrations, to be delivered as training classes by Northwest Cadence employees. Lead development teams through the complete ALM and/or Visual Studio Team System solution. Be able to communicate in detail how a solution will integrate into the larger technical problem space for large, complex enterprises. Define technical solution requirements. Provide guidance to the customer and project team with respect to technical feasibility, complexity, and level of effort required to deliver a custom solution. Ensure that the solution is designed, developed and deployed in accordance with the agreed upon development work plan. Create and deliver weekly status reports of training and/or consulting progress. Engagement Responsibilities: · Provide a strong desire to provide thought leadership related to technology and to help grow the business. · Work effectively and professionally with employees at all levels of a customer’s organization. · Have strong verbal and written communication skills. · Have effective presentation, organizational and planning skills. · Have effective interpersonal skills and ability to work in a team environment. Enquire at [email protected]

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• How to display Sharepoint Data in a Windows Forms Application

  - by Michael M. Bangoy

  In this post I'm going to demonstrate how to retrieve Sharepoint data and display it on a Windows Forms Application. 1. Open Visual Studio 2010 and create a new Project. 2. In the project template select Windows Forms Application. 3. In order to communicate with Sharepoint from a Windows Forms Application we need to add the 2 Sharepoint Client DLL located in c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\ISAPI. 4. Select the Microsoft.Sharepoint.Client.dll and Microsoft.Sharepoint.Client.Runtime.dll. (Your solution should look like the one below) 5. Open the Form1 in design view and from the Toolbox menu Add a Button, TextBox, Label and DataGridView on the form. 6. Next double click on the Load Button, this will open the code view of the form. Add Using statement to reference the Sharepoint Client Library then create two method for the Load Site Title and LoadList. See below:   using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.ComponentModel; using System.Data; using System.Drawing; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.Security; using System.Windows.Forms; using SP = Microsoft.SharePoint.Client;   namespace ClientObjectModel {     public partial class Form1 : Form     {         // url of the Sharepoint site         const string _context = "theurlofthesharepointsite";         public Form1()         {             InitializeComponent();         }         private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)         {                    }         private void getsitetitle()         {             SP.ClientContext context = new SP.ClientContext(_context);             SP.Web _site = context.Web;             context.Load(_site);             context.ExecuteQuery();             txttitle.Text = _site.Title;             context.Dispose();         }                 private void loadlist()         {             using (SP.ClientContext _clientcontext = new SP.ClientContext(_context))             {                 SP.Web _web = _clientcontext.Web;                 SP.ListCollection _lists = _clientcontext.Web.Lists;                 _clientcontext.Load(_lists);                 _clientcontext.ExecuteQuery();                 DataTable dt = new DataTable();                 DataColumn column;                 DataRow row;                 column = new DataColumn();                 column.DataType = Type.GetType("System.String");                 column.ColumnName = "List Title";                 dt.Columns.Add(column);                 foreach (SP.List listitem in _lists)                 {                     row = dt.NewRow();                     row["List Title"] = listitem.Title;                     dt.Rows.Add(row);                 }                 dataGridView1.DataSource = dt;             }                   }       private void cmdload_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)         {             getsitetitle();             loadlist();          }     } } 7. That’s it. Hit F5 to run the application then click the Load Button. Your screen should like the one below. Hope this helps.

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• Crime Scene Investigation: SQL Server

  - by Rodney Landrum

  “The packages are running slower in Prod than they are in Dev” My week began with this simple declaration from one of our lead BI developers, quickly followed by an emailed spreadsheet demonstrating that, over 5 executions, an extensive ETL process was running average 630 seconds faster on Dev than on Prod. The situation needed some scientific investigation to determine why the same code, the same data, the same schema would yield consistently slower results on a more powerful server. Prod had yet to be officially christened with a “Go Live” date so I had the time, and having recently been binge watching CSI: New York, I also had the inclination. An inspection of the two systems, Prod and Dev, revealed the first surprise: although Prod was indeed a “bigger” system, with double the amount of RAM of Dev, the latter actually had twice as many processor cores. On neither system did I see much sign of resources being heavily taxed, while the ETL process was running. Without any real supporting evidence, I jumped to a conclusion that my years of performance tuning should have helped me avoid, and that was that the hardware differences explained the better performance on Dev. We spent time setting up a Test system, similarly scoped to Prod except with 4 times the cores, and ported everything across. The results of our careful benchmarks left us truly bemused; the ETL process on the new server was slower than on both other systems. We burned more time tweaking server configurations, monitoring IO and network latency, several times believing we’d uncovered the smoking gun, until the results of subsequent test runs pitched us back into confusion. Finally, I decided, enough was enough. Hadn’t I learned very early in my DBA career that almost all bottlenecks were caused by code and database design, not hardware? It was time to get back to basics. With over 100 SSIS packages and hundreds of queries, each handling specific tasks such as file loads, bulk inserts, transforms, logging, and so on, the task seemed formidable. And yet, after barely an hour spent with Profiler, Extended Events, and wait statistics DMVs, I had a lead in the shape of a query that joined three tables, containing millions of rows, returned 3279 results, but performed 239K logical reads. As soon as I looked at the execution plans for the query in Dev and Test I saw the culprit, an implicit conversion warning on a join predicate field that was numeric in one table and a varchar(50) in another! I turned this information over to the BI developers who quickly resolved the data type mismatches and found and fixed “several” others as well. After the schema changes the same query with the same databases ran in under 1 second on all systems and reduced the logical reads down to fewer than 300. The analysis also revealed that on Dev, the ETL task was pulling data across a LAN, whereas Prod and Test were connected across slower WAN, in large part explaining why the same process ran slower on the latter two systems. Loading the data locally on Prod delivered a further 20% gain in performance. As we progress through our DBA careers we learn valuable lessons. Sometimes, with a project deadline looming and pressure mounting, we choose to forget them. I was close to giving into the temptation to throw more hardware at the problem. I’m pleased at least that I resisted, though I still kick myself for not looking at the code on day one. It can seem a daunting prospect to return to the fundamentals of the code so close to roll out, but with the right tools, and surprisingly little time, you can collect the evidence that reveals the true problem. It is a lesson I trust I will remember for my next 20 years as a DBA, if I’m ever again tempted to bypass the evidence.

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• What are some good questions (and good/bad answers) to ask at an interview to gauge the competency of the company/team?

  - by Wayne M

  I'm already familiar with the Joel Test, but it's been my experience that some of the questions there have the answers "massaged" to make the company seem better than it is. I've had several jobs in the past that, for instance, claimed they had a QA process and did unit testing, and what they really meant is "The programmers test the app, and test with the debugger and via trial-and-error."; they said they used SVN but they just lumped everything into one giant repository and had no concept of branching/merging or anything more complicated than updating and committing; said they can build in one step and what they really mean is it's "one step" to copy dozens of files by hand from the programmer's PC to the live server. How do you go about properly gauging a company's environment to make sure that it's a well-evolved company and not stuck on doing things a certain way because they've done it for years and they're ignorant of change? You can almost never ask to see their source code, so you're stuck trying to figure out if the interviewer's answer is accurate or BS to make the company seem good. Besides the Joel Test what are some other good questions to get the proper feel for a company, and more importantly what are some good and bad answers that could indicate a good or bad company? I mean something like (take at face value, please, it's all I could think of at short notice): Question: How does the software team apply the SOLID principles and Inversion of Control to their code? Good Answer: We adhere to SOLID wherever possible; we use TDD so it kind of forces us to write abstract, testable code. We use Ninject for our IoC container because it's fairly easy to configure - it was that or StructureMap but I find Ninject a bit more intuitive, and who doesn't like ninjas? You're not a pirate, are you? Bad Answer: Our code is pretty secure, yeah. And what's this Inversion of Control thing? I've never heard of it before. You see what I did there. The "good" answer uses facts to back it up and has a bit of "in crowd" humor; the bad answer shows complete ignorance of the question - not necessarily a bad thing if you are interviewing for a manger/director position, but a terrible answer and a huge red flag if you're interviewing as a developer and talking to a senior developer or manager! My biggest problem at the moment is being able to take a generic response and gauge whether it's the good or bad answer; more often than not it's the bad kind and I find myself frustrated almost from day one at the new job. I suppose I could name drop if I ask about specific things (e.g. "Do you write unit tests?" and if the answer is yes, ask if they use NUnit, MbUnit or something else; if they mention data access ask if they use a clean ORM like NHibernate or something more coupled like EF or Linq) but is there another way short of being resolute to actually call the interview on things (which will almost certainly result in not getting the job, but if they are skirting the question it's probably not a job I want).

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• How to retrieve Sharepoint data from a Windows Forms Application.

  - by Michael M. Bangoy

  In this demo I'm going to demonstrate how to retrieve Sharepoint data and display it on a Windows Forms Application. 1. Open Visual Studio 2010 and create a new Project. 2. In the project template select Windows Forms Application. 3. In order to communicate with Sharepoint from a Windows Forms Application we need to add the 2 Sharepoint Client DLL located in c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\ISAPI. 4. Select the Microsoft.Sharepoint.Client.dll and Microsoft.Sharepoint.Client.Runtime.dll. That's it we're ready to write our codes. Note: In this example I've added to controls on the form, the controls are Button, TextBox, Label and DataGridView. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.ComponentModel; using System.Data; using System.Data.Objects; using System.Drawing; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.Security; using System.Windows.Forms; using SP = Microsoft.SharePoint.Client; namespace ClientObjectModel { public partial class Form1 : Form { // declare string url of the Sharepoint site string _context = "theurlofyoursharepointsite"; public Form1() { InitializeComponent(); } private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { } private void getsitetitle() {    SP.ClientContext context = new SP.ClientContext(_context);    SP.Web _site = context.Web;    context.Load(_site);    context.ExecuteQuery();    txttitle.Text = _site.Title;    context.Dispose(); } private void loadlist() { using (SP.ClientContext _clientcontext = new SP.ClientContext(_context)) {    SP.Web _web = _clientcontext.Web;    SP.ListCollection _lists = _clientcontext.Web.Lists;    _clientcontext.Load(_lists);    _clientcontext.ExecuteQuery();    DataTable dt = new DataTable();    DataColumn column;    DataRow row;    column = new DataColumn();    column.DataType = Type.GetType("System.String");    column.ColumnName = "List Title";    dt.Columns.Add(column);    foreach (SP.List listitem in _lists)    {       row = dt.NewRow();       row["List Title"] = listitem.Title;       dt.Rows.Add(row);    }       dataGridView1.DataSource = dt;    } private void cmdload_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { getsitetitle(); loadlist(); } } That's it. Running the application and clicking the Load Button will retrieve the Title of the Sharepoint site and display it on the TextBox and also it will retrieve ALL of the Sharepoint List on that site and populate the DataGridView with the List Title. Hope this helps. Thank you.

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• Passed: Exam 70-480: Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3

  First off: Mission accomplished successfully. And it was fun! Using the resources listed in my previous article about Learning Content, I'd like to thank Microsoft Technical Evangelists Jeremy Foster and Michael Palermo for their excellent jump start videos on Channel 9, and the various authors at Pluralsight. Local Prometric testing centre Back in November I chose a local testing centre which was the easiest to access from my office despite the horrible traffic you might experience here on the island. Actually, it was not the closest one. But due to their website, their awards as Microsoft Learning Center, and my general curiosity about the premises, I gave FRCI my priority. Boy, how should I regret this decision this morning... The official Prometric exam guide asks any attendee to show up at least 30 minutes prior to the scheduled time of the test. Well, this should have been the easier part but unfortunately due to heavier traffic than usual I arrived only 20 minutes before time. Not too bad but more to come. The building called 'le Hub' is nicely renovated and provides the right environment for an IT group of companies like FRCI. I think they have currently 5 independent IT departments over there. Even the handling at the reception was straight forward, welcoming and at my ease. But then... first shock: "We don't have any exam registration for today." - Hm, that's nice... Here's my mail confirmation from Prometric. First attack successfully handled and the lady went off again to check their records. Next shock: A couple of minutes later, another guy tries to explain me that "the staff of the testing centre is already on vacation and the centre is officially closed." - Are you kidding me? Here's the official confirmation by Prometric, and I don't find it funny that I take a day off today only to hear this kind of blubbering nonsense. I thought that I'll be on the safe side choosing a company with a good reputation here on the island. Another 40 (!) minutes later, they finally come back to the waiting area with a pre-filled form about the test appointment. And finally, after an hour of waiting, discussing, restarting the testing PC, and lots of talk, I am allowed to sit down and take the exam. Exam details Well, you know the rules. Signing an NDA doesn't allow me to provide you any details about the questions or topics that have been covered. Please check out the official exam description, and you're on the right way. Sorry, guys... ;-) The result "Congratulations! You have passed this Microsoft Certification exam." - In general, I have to admit that the parts on HTML5 and CSS3 were the easiest after all, and that I have to get myself a little bit more familiar with certain Javascript features like class definitions, inheritance and data security. Anyway, exam passed - who cares about the details? Next goal Of course, the journey to Microsoft Certifications continues and my next goal is to pass exams 70-481 - Essentials of Developing Windows Store Apps using HTML5 and JavaScript and 70-482 - Advanced Windows Store App Development using HTML5 and JavaScript. This would allow me to achieve the certification of MCSD: Windows Store Apps using HTML5. I guess, during 2013 I'll be busy with various learning and teaching lessons.

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• Resolving collisions between dynamic game objects

  - by TheBroodian

  I've been building a 2D platformer for some time now, I'm getting to the point where I am adding dynamic objects to the stage for testing. This has prompted me to consider how I would like my character and other objects to behave when they collide. A typical staple in many 2D platformer type games is that the player takes damage upon touching an enemy, and then essentially becomes able to pass through enemies during a period of invulnerability, and at the same time, enemies are able to pass through eachother freely. I personally don't want to take this approach, it feels strange to me that the player should receive arbitrary damage for harmless contact to an enemy, despite whether the enemy is attacking or not, and I would like my enemies' interactions between each other (and my player) to be a little more organic, so to speak. In my head I sort of have this idea where a game object (player, or non player) would be able to push other game objects around by manner of 'pushing' each other out of one anothers' bounding boxes if there is an intersection, and maybe correlate the repelling force to how much their bounding boxes are intersecting. The problem I'm experiencing is I have no idea what the math might look like for something like this? I'll show what work I've done so far, it sort of works, but it's jittery, and generally not quite what I would pass in a functional game: //Clears the anti-duplicate buffer collisionRecord.Clear(); //pick a thing foreach (GameObject entity in entities) { //pick another thing foreach (GameObject subject in entities) { //check to make sure both things aren't the same thing if (!ReferenceEquals(entity, subject)) { //check to see if thing2 is in semi-near proximity to thing1 if (entity.WideProximityArea.Intersects(subject.CollisionRectangle) || entity.WideProximityArea.Contains(subject.CollisionRectangle)) { //check to see if thing2 and thing1 are colliding. if (entity.CollisionRectangle.Intersects(subject.CollisionRectangle) || entity.CollisionRectangle.Contains(subject.CollisionRectangle) || subject.CollisionRectangle.Contains(entity.CollisionRectangle)) { //check if we've already resolved their collision or not. if (!collisionRecord.ContainsKey(entity.GetHashCode())) { //more duplicate resolution checking. if (!collisionRecord.ContainsKey(subject.GetHashCode())) { //if thing1 is traveling right... if (entity.Velocity.X > 0) { //if it isn't too far to the right... if (subject.CollisionRectangle.Contains(new Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Rectangle(entity.CollisionRectangle.Right, entity.CollisionRectangle.Y, 1, entity.CollisionRectangle.Height)) || subject.CollisionRectangle.Intersects(new Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Rectangle(entity.CollisionRectangle.Right, entity.CollisionRectangle.Y, 1, entity.CollisionRectangle.Height))) { //Find how deep thing1 is intersecting thing2's collision box; float offset = entity.CollisionRectangle.Right - subject.CollisionRectangle.Left; //Move both things in opposite directions half the length of the intersection, pushing thing1 to the left, and thing2 to the right. entity.Velocities.Add(new Vector2(-(((offset * 4) * (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalMilliseconds)), 0)); subject.Velocities.Add(new Vector2((((offset * 4) * (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalMilliseconds)), 0)); } } //if thing1 is traveling left... if (entity.Velocity.X < 0) { //if thing1 isn't too far left... if (entity.CollisionRectangle.Contains(new Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Rectangle(subject.CollisionRectangle.Right, subject.CollisionRectangle.Y, 1, subject.CollisionRectangle.Height)) || entity.CollisionRectangle.Intersects(new Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Rectangle(subject.CollisionRectangle.Right, subject.CollisionRectangle.Y, 1, subject.CollisionRectangle.Height))) { //Find how deep thing1 is intersecting thing2's collision box; float offset = subject.CollisionRectangle.Right - entity.CollisionRectangle.Left; //Move both things in opposite directions half the length of the intersection, pushing thing1 to the right, and thing2 to the left. entity.Velocities.Add(new Vector2((((offset * 4) * (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalMilliseconds)), 0)); subject.Velocities.Add(new Vector2(-(((offset * 4) * (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalMilliseconds)), 0)); } } //Make record that thing1 and thing2 have interacted and the collision has been solved, so that if thing2 is picked next in the foreach loop, it isn't checked against thing1 a second time before the next update. collisionRecord.Add(entity.GetHashCode(), subject.GetHashCode()); } } } } } } } } One of the biggest issues with my code aside from the jitteriness is that if one character were to land on top of another character, it very suddenly and abruptly resolves the collision, whereas I would like a more subtle and gradual resolution. Any thoughts or ideas are incredibly welcome and helpful.

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• PASS: The Legal Stuff

  - by Bill Graziano

  I wanted to give a little background on the legal status of PASS.  The Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) is an American corporation chartered in the state of Illinois.  In America a corporation has to be chartered in a particular state.  It has to abide by the laws of that state and potentially pay taxes to that state.  Our bylaws and actions have to comply with Illinois state law and United States law.  We maintain a mailing address in Chicago, Illinois but our headquarters is currently in Vancouver, Canada. We have roughly a dozen people that work in our Vancouver headquarters and 4-5 more that work remotely on various projects.  These aren’t employees of PASS.  They are employed by a management company that we hire to run the day to day operations of the organization.  I’ll have more on this arrangement in a future post. PASS is a non-profit corporation.  The term non-profit and not-for-profit are used interchangeably.  In a for-profit corporation (or LLC) there are owners that are entitled to the profits of a company.  In a non-profit there are no owners.  As a non-profit, all the money earned by the organization must be retained or spent.  There is no money that flows out to shareholders, owners or the board of directors.  Any money not spent in furtherance of our mission is retained as financial reserves. Many non-profits apply for tax exempt status.  Being tax exempt means that an organization doesn’t pay taxes on its profits.  There are a variety of laws governing who can be tax exempt in the United States.  There are many professional associations that are tax exempt however PASS isn’t tax exempt.  Because our mission revolves around the software of a single company we aren’t eligible for tax exempt status. PASS was founded in the late 1990’s by Microsoft and Platinum Technologies.  Platinum was later purchased by Computer Associates. As the founding partners Microsoft and CA each have two seats on the Board of Directors.  The other six directors and three officers are elected as specified in our bylaws. As a non-profit, our bylaws layout our governing practices.  They must conform to Illinois and United States law.  These bylaws specify that PASS is governed by a Board of Directors elected by the membership with two members each from Microsoft and CA.  You can find our bylaws as well as a proposed update to them on the governance page of the PASS web site. The last point that I’d like to make is that PASS is completely self-funded.  All of our $4 million in revenue comes from conference registrations, sponsorships and advertising.  We don’t receive any money from anyone outside those channels.  While we work closely with Microsoft we are independent of them and only derive a very small percentage of our revenue from them.

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• Broken Views

  - by Ajarn Mark Caldwell

  “SELECT *” isn’t just hazardous to performance, it can actually return blatantly wrong information. There are a number of blog posts and articles out there that actively discourage the use of the SELECT * FROM …syntax.  The two most common explanations that I have seen are: Performance:  The SELECT * syntax will return every column in the table, but frequently you really only need a few of the columns, and so by using SELECT * your are retrieving large volumes of data that you don’t need, but the system has to process, marshal across tiers, and so on.  It would be much more efficient to only select the specific columns that you need. Future-proof:  If you are taking other shortcuts in your code, along with using SELECT *, you are setting yourself up for trouble down the road when enhancements are made to the system.  For example, if you use SELECT * to return results from a table into a DataTable in .NET, and then reference columns positionally (e.g. myDataRow[5]) you could end up with bad data if someone happens to add a column into position 3 and skewing all the remaining columns’ ordinal position.  Or if you use INSERT…SELECT * then you will likely run into errors when a new column is added to the source table in any position. And if you use SELECT * in the definition of a view, you will run into a variation of the future-proof problem mentioned above.  One of the guys on my team, Mike Byther, ran across this in a project we were doing, but fortunately he caught it while we were still in development.  I asked him to put together a test to prove that this was related to the use of SELECT * and not some other anomaly.  I’ll walk you through the test script so you can see for yourself what happens. We are going to create a table and two views that are based on that table, one of them uses SELECT * and the other explicitly lists the column names.  The script to create these objects is listed below. IF OBJECT_ID('testtab') IS NOT NULL DROP TABLE testtabgoIF OBJECT_ID('testtab_vw') IS NOT NULL DROP VIEW testtab_vwgo IF OBJECT_ID('testtab_vw_named') IS NOT NULL DROP VIEW testtab_vw_namedgo CREATE TABLE testtab (col1 NVARCHAR(5) null, col2 NVARCHAR(5) null)INSERT INTO testtab(col1, col2)VALUES ('A','B'), ('A','B')GOCREATE VIEW testtab_vw AS SELECT * FROM testtabGOCREATE VIEW testtab_vw_named AS SELECT col1, col2 FROM testtabgo Now, to prove that the two views currently return equivalent results, select from them. SELECT 'star', col1, col2 FROM testtab_vwSELECT 'named', col1, col2 FROM testtab_vw_named OK, so far, so good.  Now, what happens if someone makes a change to the definition of the underlying table, and that change results in a new column being inserted between the two existing columns?  (Side note, I normally prefer to append new columns to the end of the table definition, but some people like to keep their columns alphabetized, and for clarity for later people reviewing the schema, it may make sense to group certain columns together.  Whatever the reason, it sometimes happens, and you need to protect yourself and your code from the repercussions.) DROP TABLE testtabgoCREATE TABLE testtab (col1 NVARCHAR(5) null, col3 NVARCHAR(5) NULL, col2 NVARCHAR(5) null)INSERT INTO testtab(col1, col3, col2)VALUES ('A','C','B'), ('A','C','B')goSELECT 'star', col1, col2 FROM testtab_vwSELECT 'named', col1, col2 FROM testtab_vw_named I would have expected that the view using SELECT * in its definition would essentially pass-through the column name and still retrieve the correct data, but that is not what happens.  When you run our two select statements again, you see that the View that is based on SELECT * actually retrieves the data based on the ordinal position of the columns at the time that the view was created.  Sure, one work-around is to recreate the View, but you can’t really count on other developers to know the dependencies you have built-in, and they won’t necessarily recreate the view when they refactor the table. I am sure that there are reasons and justifications for why Views behave this way, but I find it particularly disturbing that you can have code asking for col2, but actually be receiving data from col3.  By the way, for the record, this entire scenario and accompanying test script apply to SQL Server 2008 R2 with Service Pack 1. So, let the developer beware…know what assumptions are in effect around your code, and keep on discouraging people from using SELECT * syntax in anything but the simplest of ad-hoc queries. And of course, let’s clean up after ourselves.  To eliminate the database objects created during this test, run the following commands. DROP TABLE testtabDROP VIEW testtab_vwDROP VIEW testtab_vw_named

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• WIF-less claim extraction from ACS: JWT

  - by Elton Stoneman

  ACS support for JWT still shows as "beta", but it meets the spec and it works nicely, so it's becoming the preferred option as SWT is losing favour. (Note that currently ACS doesn’t support JWT encryption, if you want encrypted tokens you need to go SAML). In my last post I covered pulling claims from an ACS token without WIF, using the SWT format. The JWT format is a little more complex, but you can still inspect claims just with string manipulation. The incoming token from ACS is still presented in the BinarySecurityToken element of the XML payload, with a TokenType of urn:ietf:params:oauth:token-type:jwt: <t:RequestSecurityTokenResponse xmlns:t="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/02/trust">   <t:Lifetime>     <wsu:Created xmlns:wsu="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-utility-1.0.xsd">2012-08-31T07:39:55.337Z</wsu:Created>     <wsu:Expires xmlns:wsu="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-utility-1.0.xsd">2012-08-31T09:19:55.337Z</wsu:Expires>   </t:Lifetime>   <wsp:AppliesTo xmlns:wsp="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2004/09/policy">     <EndpointReference xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/08/addressing">       <Address>http://localhost/x.y.z</Address>     </EndpointReference>   </wsp:AppliesTo>   <t:RequestedSecurityToken>     <wsse:BinarySecurityToken wsu:Id="_1eeb5cf4-b40b-40f2-89e0-a3343f6bd985-6A15D1EED0CDB0D8FA48C7D566232154" ValueType="urn:ietf:params:oauth:token-type:jwt" EncodingType="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-soap-message-security-1.0#Base64Binary" xmlns:wsu="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-utility-1.0.xsd" xmlns:wsse="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-secext-1.0.xsd">[ base64string ] </wsse:BinarySecurityToken>   </t:RequestedSecurityToken>   <t:TokenType>urn:ietf:params:oauth:token-type:jwt</t:TokenType>   <t:RequestType>http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/02/trust/Issue</t:RequestType>   <t:KeyType>http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/NoProofKey</t:KeyType> </t:RequestSecurityTokenResponse> The token as a whole needs to be base-64 decoded. The decoded value contains a header, payload and signature, dot-separated; the parts are also base-64, but they need to be decoded using a no-padding algorithm (implementation and more details in this MSDN article on validating an Exchange 2013 identity token). The values are then in JSON; the header contains the token type and the hashing algorithm: "{"typ":"JWT","alg":"HS256"}" The payload contains the same data as in the SWT, but JSON rather than querystring format: {"aud":"http://localhost/x.y.z" "iss":"https://adfstest-bhw.accesscontrol.windows.net/" "nbf":1346398795 "exp":1346404795 "http://schemas.microsoft.com/ws/2008/06/identity/claims/authenticationinstant":"2012-08-31T07:39:53.652Z" "http://schemas.microsoft.com/ws/2008/06/identity/claims/authenticationmethod":"http://schemas.microsoft.com/ws/2008/06/identity/authenticationmethod/windows" "http://schemas.microsoft.com/ws/2008/06/identity/claims/windowsaccountname":"xyz" "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/emailaddress":"[email protected]" "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/upn":"[email protected]" "identityprovider":"http://fs.svc.x.y.z.com/adfs/services/trust"} The signature is in the third part of the token. Unlike SWT which is fixed to HMAC-SHA-256, JWT can support other protocols (the one in use is specified as the "alg" value in the header). How to: Validate an Exchange 2013 identity token contains an implementation of a JWT parser and validator; apart from the custom base-64 decoding part, it’s very similar to SWT extraction. I've wrapped the basic SWT and JWT in a ClaimInspector.aspx page on gitHub here: SWT and JWT claim inspector. You can drop it into any ASP.Net site and set the URL to be your redirect page in ACS. Swap ACS to issue SWT or JWT, and using the same page you can inspect the claims that come out.

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• CI tests to enforce specific development rules - good practice?

  - by KeithS

  The following is all purely hypothetical and any particular portion of it may or may not accurately describe real persons or situations, whether living, dead or just pretending. Let's say I'm a senior dev or architect in charge of a dev team working on a project. This project includes a security library for user authentication/authorization of the application under development. The library must be available for developers to edit; however, I wish to "trust but verify" that coders are not doing things that could compromise the security of the finished system, and because this isn't my only responsibility I want it to be done in an automated way. As one example, let's say I have an interface that represents a user which has been authenticated by the system's security library. The interface exposes basic user info and a list of things the user is authorized to do (so that the client app doesn't have to keep asking the server "can I do this?"), all in an immutable fashion of course. There is only one implementation of this interface in production code, and for the purposes of this post we can say that all appropriate measures have been taken to ensure that this implementation can only be used by the one part of our code that needs to be able to create concretions of the interface. The coders have been instructed that this interface and its implementation are sacrosanct and any changes must go through me. However, those are just words; the security library's source is open for editing by necessity. Any of my devs could decide that this secured, private, hash-checked implementation needs to be public so that they could do X, or alternately they could create their own implementation of this public interface in a different library, exposing the hashing algorithm that provides the secure checksum, in order to do Y. I may not be made aware of these changes so that I can beat the developer over the head for it. An attacker could then find these little nuggets in an unobfuscated library of the compiled product, and exploit it to provide fake users and/or falsely-elevated administrative permissions, bypassing the entire security system. This possibility keeps me awake for a couple of nights, and then I create an automated test that reflectively checks the codebase for types deriving from the interface, and fails if it finds any that are not exactly what and where I expect them to be. I compile this test into a project under a separate folder of the VCS that only I have rights to commit to, have CI compile it as an external library of the main project, and set it up to run as part of the CI test suite for user commits. Now, I have an automated test under my complete control that will tell me (and everyone else) if the number of implementations increases without my involvement, or an implementation that I did know about has anything new added or has its modifiers or those of its members changed. I can then investigate further, and regain the opportunity to beat developers over the head as necessary. Is this considered "reasonable" to want to do in situations like this? Am I going to be seen in a negative light for going behind my devs' backs to ensure they aren't doing something they shouldn't?

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• ?Exadata??????DBFS

  - by Liu Maclean(???)

  ?Exadata???DBFS ??????? 1. ??fuse RPM  [root@dm01db01 ~]# yum install fuse Loaded plugins: rhnplugin, security This system is not registered with ULN. ULN support will be disabled. Setting up Install Process Resolving Dependencies --> Running transaction check ---> Package fuse.x86_64 0:2.7.4-8.0.1.el5 set to be updated --> Finished Dependency Resolution Dependencies Resolved ========================================================================================================================================================================  Package                            Arch                                 Version                                         Repository                                Size ======================================================================================================================================================================== Installing:  fuse                               x86_64                               2.7.4-8.0.1.el5                                 el5_latest                                85 k Transaction Summary ======================================================================================================================================================================== Install       1 Package(s) Upgrade       0 Package(s) Total download size: 85 k Is this ok [y/N]: y Downloading Packages: fuse-2.7.4-8.0.1.el5.x86_64.rpm                                                                                                                  |  85 kB     00:00      Running rpm_check_debug Running Transaction Test Finished Transaction Test Transaction Test Succeeded Running Transaction   Installing     : fuse                                                                                                                                             1/1  Installed:   fuse.x86_64 0:2.7.4-8.0.1.el5                                                                                                                                          [root@dm01db01 ~]# yum install fuse-libs Loaded plugins: rhnplugin, security This system is not registered with ULN. ULN support will be disabled. Setting up Install Process Resolving Dependencies --> Running transaction check ---> Package fuse-libs.i386 0:2.7.4-8.0.1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package fuse-libs.x86_64 0:2.7.4-8.0.1.el5 set to be updated --> Finished Dependency Resolution Dependencies Resolved ========================================================================================================================================================================  Package                                Arch                                Version                                       Repository                               Size ======================================================================================================================================================================== Installing:  fuse-libs                              i386                                2.7.4-8.0.1.el5                               el5_latest                               71 k  fuse-libs                              x86_64                              2.7.4-8.0.1.el5                               el5_latest                               70 k Transaction Summary ======================================================================================================================================================================== Install       2 Package(s) Upgrade       0 Package(s) Total download size: 141 k Is this ok [y/N]: y Downloading Packages: (1/2): fuse-libs-2.7.4-8.0.1.el5.x86_64.rpm                                                                                                      |  70 kB     00:00      (2/2): fuse-libs-2.7.4-8.0.1.el5.i386.rpm                                                                                                        |  71 kB     00:00      ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Total                                                                                                                                    71 kB/s | 141 kB     00:01      Running rpm_check_debug Running Transaction Test Finished Transaction Test Transaction Test Succeeded Running Transaction   Installing     : fuse-libs                                                                                                                                        1/2    Installing     : fuse-libs                                                                                                                                        2/2  Installed:   fuse-libs.i386 0:2.7.4-8.0.1.el5                                                  fuse-libs.x86_64 0:2.7.4-8.0.1.el5                                                  Complete! [root@dm01db01 ~]# yum install fuse-devel Loaded plugins: rhnplugin, security This system is not registered with ULN. ULN support will be disabled. Setting up Install Process Resolving Dependencies --> Running transaction check ---> Package fuse-devel.i386 0:2.7.4-8.0.1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package fuse-devel.x86_64 0:2.7.4-8.0.1.el5 set to be updated --> Finished Dependency Resolution Dependencies Resolved ========================================================================================================================================================================  Package                                 Arch                                Version                                      Repository                               Size ======================================================================================================================================================================== Installing:  fuse-devel                              i386                                2.7.4-8.0.1.el5                              el5_latest                               28 k  fuse-devel                              x86_64                              2.7.4-8.0.1.el5                              el5_latest                               28 k Transaction Summary ======================================================================================================================================================================== Install       2 Package(s) Upgrade       0 Package(s) Total download size: 57 k Is this ok [y/N]: y Downloading Packages: (1/2): fuse-devel-2.7.4-8.0.1.el5.x86_64.rpm                                                                                                     |  28 kB     00:00      (2/2): fuse-devel-2.7.4-8.0.1.el5.i386.rpm                                                                                                       |  28 kB     00:00      ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Total                                                                                                                                    21 kB/s |  57 kB     00:02      Running rpm_check_debug Running Transaction Test Finished Transaction Test Transaction Test Succeeded Running Transaction   Installing     : fuse-devel                                                                                                                                       1/2    Installing     : fuse-devel                                                                                                                                       2/2  Installed:   fuse-devel.i386 0:2.7.4-8.0.1.el5                                                 fuse-devel.x86_64 0:2.7.4-8.0.1.el5                                                 Complete! 2. ?? DBFS??? ?????? cd $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin sqlplus / as sysdba Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.3.0 - 64bit Production With the Partitioning, Real Application Clusters, Automatic Storage Management, OLAP, Data Mining and Real Application Testing options SQL> @prvtfspi.plb Package body created. No errors. Package body created. No errors. ?????dbms_dbfs_sfs package  SQL> create tablespace dbfstbs datafile size 20g; Tablespace created. SQL> create user maclean_dbfs identified by oracle; User created. SQL> grant dba to maclean_dbfs; Grant succeeded. @@!!! SQL> grant  dbfs_role to maclean_dbfs; Grant succeeded. 3. ??DBFS SQL> conn maclean_dbfs/oracle Connected. SQL> @?/rdbms/admin/dbfs_create_filesystem.sql  dbfstbs mac_dbfs   No errors. -------- CREATE STORE: begin dbms_dbfs_sfs.createFilesystem(store_name => 'FS_MAC_DBFS', tbl_name => 'T_MAC_DBFS', tbl_tbs => 'dbfstbs', lob_tbs => 'dbfstbs', do_partition => false, partition_key => 1, do_compress => false, compression => '', do_dedup => false, do_encrypt => false); end; -------- REGISTER STORE: begin dbms_dbfs_content.registerStore(store_name=> 'FS_MAC_DBFS', provider_name => 'sample1', provider_package => 'dbms_dbfs_sfs'); end; -------- MOUNT STORE: begin dbms_dbfs_content.mountStore(store_name=>'FS_MAC_DBFS', store_mount=>'mac_dbfs'); end; -------- CHMOD STORE: declare m integer; begin m := dbms_fuse.fs_chmod('/mac_dbfs', 16895); end; No errors. 4.  ??mount point  [root@dm01db01 ~]# mkdir /dbfs [root@dm01db01 ~]# chown oracle:oinstall /dbfs 5. ??library path ?OS  # echo "/usr/local/lib" >> /etc/ld.so.conf.d/usr_local_lib.conf 6. ?????? export ORACLE_HOME=/s01/orabase/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1 [root@dm01db01 ~]# ln -s $ORACLE_HOME/lib/libclntsh.so.11.1 /usr/local/lib/libclntsh.so.11.1 [root@dm01db01 ~]#  ln -s $ORACLE_HOME/lib/libnnz11.so /usr/local/lib/libnnz11.so [root@dm01db01 ~]#  ln -s /lib64/libfuse.so.2 /usr/local/lib/libfuse.so.2 7. ??ldconfig  [root@dm01db01 ~]# ldconfig [root@dm01db01 ~]#  8. ??fusermount??????? [root@dm01db01 ~]#  chmod +x /usr/bin/fusermount [root@dm01db01 ~]#  ls -l /usr/bin/fusermount lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 Sep  7 03:06 /usr/bin/fusermount -> /bin/fusermount [root@dm01db01 ~]#  ls -l /bin/fusermount -rwsr-x--x 1 root fuse 27072 Oct 17  2011 /bin/fusermount 9. ???????OS  dbfs_client maclean_dbfs@dm01db01:1521/orcl  /dbfs 10. ????nohup + &?????mount DBFS,???????????? [oracle@dm01db01 ~]$ echo "oracle"  >> dbfs_pw [oracle@dm01db01 ~]$ nohup dbfs_client maclean_dbfs@dm01db01:1521/orcl /dbfs < dbfs_pw & [oracle@dm01db01 ~]$ df -h Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/mapper/VGExaDb-LVDbSys1                        30G   15G   14G  53% / /dev/sda1             502M   30M  447M   7% /boot /dev/mapper/VGExaDb-LVDbOra1                        99G   20G   75G  21% /u01 tmpfs                  81G     0   81G   0% /dev/shm dbfs-maclean_dbfs@orcl:/                        20G  120K   20G   1% /dbfs [oracle@dm01db01 ~]$ mount /dev/mapper/VGExaDb-LVDbSys1 on / type ext3 (rw) proc on /proc type proc (rw) sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw) devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620) /dev/sda1 on /boot type ext3 (rw,nodev) /dev/mapper/VGExaDb-LVDbOra1 on /u01 type ext3 (rw,nodev) tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,size=82052m) none on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw) dbfs-maclean_dbfs@orcl:/ on /dbfs type fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,max_read=1048576,default_permissions,user=oracle) [oracle@dm01db01 ~]$ ls -l /dbfs/ total 0 drwxrwxrwx 3 root root 0 Sep 14 05:11 mac_dbfs [oracle@nas ~]$ dbfs_client  --------MOUNT mode: usage: dbfs_client <db_user>@<db_server> [options] <mountpoint>   db_user:              Name of Database user that owns DBFS content repository filesystem(s)   db_server:            A valid connect string for Oracle database server                         (for example, hrdb_host:1521/hrservice)   mountpoint:           Path to mount Database File System(s)                         All the file systems owned by the database user will be seen at the mountpoint. DBFS options:   -o direct_io          Bypass the Linux page cache. Gives much better performance for large files.                         Programs in the file system cannot be executed with this option.                         This option is recommended when DBFS is used as an ETL staging area.   -o wallet             Run dbfs_client in background.                         Wallet must be configured to get credentials.   -o failover           dbfs_client fails over to surviving database instance with no data loss.                         Some performance cost on writes, especially for small files.   -o allow_root         Allows root access to the filesystem.                         This option requires setting 'user_allow_other' parameter in '/etc/fuse.conf'.   -o allow_other        Allows other users access to the file system.                         This option requires setting 'user_allow_other' parameter in '/etc/fuse.conf'.   -o rw                 Mount the filesystem read-write. [Default]   -o ro                 Mount the filesystem read-only. Files cannot be modified.   -o trace_file=STR     Tracing <filename> | 'syslog'   -o trace_level=N      Trace Level: 1->DEBUG, 2->INFO, 3->WARNING, 4->ERROR, 5->CRITICAL [Default: 4]   -h                    help   -V                    version --------COMMAND mode: Usage:     dbfs_client <db_user>@<db_server> --command command [switches] [arguments]             command:          Command to be executed, e.g., ls, cp, mkdir, rm            switches:         Switches are described below for each command.            arguments:        File names or directory names NOTE:      All database pathnames must be absolute and preceded by dbfs:/ Commands   ls            dbfs_client <db_user>@<db_server> --command ls [switches] target      Switches:              -a         Show all files including those starting with '.'            -l         Use a long listing format. In addition to the name of each file                       print the file type, permissions, size, user and group information            -R         List subdirectories recursively cp                     dbfs_client <db_user>@<db_server> --command cp [switches] source destination      Switches:              -r, -R      Copy a directory and its contents recursively into the destination directory rm                     dbfs_client <db_user>@<db_server> --command rm [switches] target      Switches:              -r, -R      Removes a directory and its contents recursively mkdir                  dbfs_client <db_user>@<db_server> --command mkdir directory_name Examples                     dbfs_client ETLUser@DBConnectString --command ls -l -a dbfs:/staging_area/directory1            dbfs_client ETLUser@DBConnectString --command cp -R  /tmp/1-Jan-2009-dump dbfs:/staging_area            dbfs_client ETLUser@DBConnectString --command rm dbfs:/staging_area/hello.txt            dbfs_client ETLUser@DBConnectString --command mkdir dbfs:/staging_area/directory2 [oracle@dm01db01 ~]$ ls -lh /tmp/largefile -rw-r--r-- 1 oracle oinstall 2.0G Sep 14 08:50 /tmp/largefile [oracle@dm01db01 ~]$ time dbfs_client  maclean_dbfs@dm01db01:1521/orcl --command cp /tmp/largefile dbfs:/mac_dbfs Password: /tmp/largefile -> dbfs:/mac_dbfs/largefile real    0m11.802s user    0m0.580s sys     0m2.375s ?Exadata?????2G?????? DBFS???11s => 200MB/s 

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• Qt vs WPF/.NET

  - by aaronc

  My company is trying to make the decision between using Qt/C++ for our GUI framework or migrating to .NET and using WPF. We have up to this point been using MFC. It seems that .NET/WPF is technically the most advanced and feature-rich platform. I do, however, have several concerns. These include: Platform support Framework longevity (i.e. future-proofing) Performance and overhead For this application we are willing to sacrifice support for Windows 2000, Macs, and Linux. But, the issue is more related to Microsoft's commitment to the framework and their extant platforms. It seems like Microsoft has a bad habit of coming up with something new, hyping it for a few years, and then relegating it to the waste-bin essentially abandoning the developers who chose it. First it was MFC and VB6, then Windows Forms, and now there's WPF. Also with .NET, versions of Windows were progressively nicked off the support list. Looks like WPF could be here to stay for a while, but since its not open source its really in Microsoft's hands. I'm also concerned about the overhead and performance of WPF since some of our applications involve processing large amounts of information and doing real-time data capture. Qt seems like a really good option, but it doesn't have all the features of WPF/.NET couldn't use languages like C#. Basically, what does the community think about Microsoft's commitment to WPF compared with previous frameworks? Are the performance considerations significant enough to avoid using it for a realtime app? And, how significant are the benefits of WPF/.NET in terms of productivity and features compared to Qt?

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• Reporting services 2008: ReportExecution2005.asmx does not exist

  - by Shimrod

  Hi everyone, I'm trying to generate a report directly from the code (to send it by mail after). I make this in a windows service. So here is what I'm doing: Dim rview As New ReportViewer() Dim reportServerAddress As String = "http://server/Reports_client" rview.ServerReport.ReportServerUrl = New Uri(reportServerAddress) Dim paramList As New List(Of Microsoft.Reporting.WinForms.ReportParameter) paramList.Add(New Microsoft.Reporting.WinForms.ReportParameter("param1", t.Value)) paramList.Add(New Microsoft.Reporting.WinForms.ReportParameter("CurrentDate", Date.Now)) Dim reportsDirectory As String = "AppName.Reports" Dim reportPath As String = String.Format("/{0}/{1}", reportsDirectory, reportName) rview.ServerReport.ReportPath = reportPath rview.ServerReport.SetParameters(paramList) 'This is where I get the exception Dim mimeType, encoding, extension, deviceInfo As String Dim streamids As String() Dim warnings As Microsoft.Reporting.WinForms.Warning() deviceInfo = "<DeviceInfo><SimplePageHeaders>True</SimplePageHeaders></DeviceInfo>" Dim format As String = "PDF" Dim bytes As Byte() = rview.ServerReport.Render(format, deviceInfo, mimeType, encoding, extension, streamids, warnings) When debugging this code, I can see it throws a MissingEndpointException where I make the SetParameters(paramList) with this message: The attempt to connect to the report server failed. Check your connection information and that the report server is a compatible version. Looking in the server's log file, I can see this: ui!ReportManager_0-8!878!06/02/2010-11:34:36:: Unhandled exception: System.Web.HttpException: The file '/Reports_client/ReportExecution2005.asmx' does not exist. at System.Web.UI.Util.CheckVirtualFileExists(VirtualPath virtualPath) at System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.GetVPathBuildResultInternal(VirtualPath virtualPath, Boolean noBuild, Boolean allowCrossApp, Boolean allowBuildInPrecompile) at System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.GetVPathBuildResultWithNoAssert(HttpContext context, VirtualPath virtualPath, Boolean noBuild, Boolean allowCrossApp, Boolean allowBuildInPrecompile) at System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.GetVPathBuildResult(HttpContext context, VirtualPath virtualPath, Boolean noBuild, Boolean allowCrossApp, Boolean allowBuildInPrecompile) at System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.GetVPathBuildResult(HttpContext context, VirtualPath virtualPath) at System.Web.UI.WebServiceParser.GetCompiledType(String inputFile, HttpContext context) at System.Web.Services.Protocols.WebServiceHandlerFactory.GetHandler(HttpContext context, String verb, String url, String filePath) at System.Web.HttpApplication.MapHttpHandler(HttpContext context, String requestType, VirtualPath path, String pathTranslated, Boolean useAppConfig) at System.Web.HttpApplication.MapHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute() at System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) I didn't find any resource on the web that fits my problem. Does anyone have a clue ? I'm able to view the reports from a web application, so I'm sure the server is running. Thanks in advance.

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• How to mix C++ Qt objects and Qt Jambi objects

  - by Dan

  Hi, I'm trying to combine some existing Qt code written in C++ with some code written in Java using Qt Jambi, but I'm not quite sure how to do it. I'm basically trying to acieve two things: Pass a QObject from C++ to Java using JNI Pass a Qt Jambi QObject from Java to C++ It looks like I can pass the pointer directly and then wrap it in QNativePointer on the Java side, but I can't figure out how to turn a QNativePointer back into the original object, wrapped by Qt Jambi. Eg: I can pass a QWidget* as a long to Java and then create a QNativePointer in Java, but how can I then construct a QWidget out of this? QJambiObject and QObject dont seem to have a "setNativePointer" method and I'm not sure how to convert it. In C++: QWidget* widget = ... jclass cls = env->FindClass("Test"); jmethodID mid = env->GetStaticMethodID(cls, "test", "(I)V"); env->CallStaticVoidMethod(cls, mid, int(widget)); In Java: public class Test { public static void test (int ptr) { QNativePointer pointer = new QNativePointer(QNativePointer.Type.Int); pointer.setIntValue(ptr); QWidget widget = ... Thanks!

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• Multiple Exception Handlers for one exception type

  - by danish

  I am using Enterprose Library 4.1. I have created a custom exception handler called CustomHandler. This is how the configuration section would look like: <exceptionHandling> <exceptionPolicies> <add name="Exception Policy"> <exceptionTypes> <add type="System.Exception, mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" postHandlingAction="NotifyRethrow" name="Exception"> <exceptionHandlers> <add type="WindowsFormsApplication1.CustomHandler, WindowsFormsApplication1" name="Custom Handler" /> <add exceptionMessage="Some test mesage." exceptionMessageResourceName="" exceptionMessageResourceType="" replaceExceptionType="Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.ExceptionHandling.ExceptionHandlingException, Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.ExceptionHandling" type="Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.ExceptionHandling.ReplaceHandler, Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.ExceptionHandling" name="Replace Handler" /> </exceptionHandlers> </add> </exceptionTypes> </add> </exceptionPolicies> </exceptionHandling> There are two handlers for same exception type. What I want is that based on a certain condition one of the handlers should handle the exception. Any ideas how that can be done? Is there a way to call the other handler from inside the HandleException method of the custom handler based on some condition?

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• MSDeploy doesn't deploy to remote server using MSBuild and Visual Studio 2010

  - by user317762

  I'm currently running Visual Studio Team System 2010 RC and I'm trying to get the Build Service setup to build my solution and deploy 3 web applications in it. I've created a custom build configuration called Integration and I've setup the "IIS Web site/application name to use on the destination server" on the Package/Publish tab of the Properties for each of the web applications. In my Build Definition I've set the following arguments: /p:DeployOnBuild=True /p:DeployTarget=MSDeployPublish /p:MSDeployPublishMethod=InProc /p:MsDeployServiceUrl=http://my-server-name:8172/msdeploy.axd /p:EnablePackageProcessLoggingAndAssert=True However, when I run the build I get the following error, for all three web applications: Updating setAcl (RightContent). C:\Program Files\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.targets(3481,5): error : Web deployment task failed. (Attempted to perform an unauthorized operation.) I don't think this is my actual problem though. This error is occuring after the following entry in the log: Updating setAcl This is what's causing the error message, but it appears that MSDeploy is trying to deploy to the local IIS on the Build server, not the server I specified with the MsDeployServiceUrl parameter. After looking at the targets file at C:\Program Files\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.targets, I added the EnablePackageProcessLoggingAndAssert, which adds extra logging. The log shows an emptry string for the value of MsDeployServiceUrl. I also noticed in the target that MsDeployServiceUrl has a lowercase s, which is somewhat confusing because the task name MSDeployPublish has an uppercase S. I tried using it using uppercase, then again using lowercase, but neither worked. A couple other things to note: My build service is running as NETWORK SERVICE. The server I'm trying to deploy to is on another domain. I also tried adding /p:username=mydomain\myusername /p:password=mypassword to the MSBuild paramter list, but that didn't help. Does anyone know if I'm supplying the correct parameters? Or provide me with the correct ones? Thanks

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• T-SQL: Compute Subtotals For A Range Of Rows

  - by John Dibling

  MSSQL 2008. I am trying to construct a SQL statement which returns the total of column B for all rows where column A is between 2 known ranges. The range is a sliding window, and should be recomputed as it might be using a loop. Here is an example of what I'm trying to do, much simplified from my actual problem. Suppose I have this data: table: Test Year Sales ----------- ----------- 2000 200 2001 200 2002 200 2003 200 2004 200 2005 200 2006 200 2007 200 2008 200 2009 200 2010 200 2011 200 2012 200 2013 200 2014 200 2015 200 2016 200 2017 200 2018 200 2019 200 I want to construct a query which returns 1 row for every decade in the above table, like this: Desired Results: DecadeEnd TotalSales --------- ---------- 2009 2000 2010 2000 Where the first row is all the sales for the years 2000-2009, the second for years 2010-2019. The DecadeEnd is a sliding window that moves forward by a set ammount for each row in the result set. To illustrate, here is one way I can accomplish this using a loop: declare @startYear int set @startYear = (select top(1) [Year] from Test order by [Year] asc) declare @endYear int set @endYear = (select top(1) [Year] from Test order by [Year] desc) select @startYear, @endYear create table DecadeSummary (DecadeEnd int, TtlSales int) declare @i int -- first decade ends 9 years after the first data point set @i = (@startYear + 9) while @i <= @endYear begin declare @ttlSalesThisDecade int set @ttlSalesThisDecade = (select SUM(Sales) from Test where(Year <= @i and Year >= (@i-9))) insert into DecadeSummary values(@i, @ttlSalesThisDecade) set @i = (@i + 9) end select * from DecadeSummary This returns the data I want: DecadeEnd TtlSales ----------- ----------- 2009 2000 2018 2000 But it is very inefficient. How can I construct such a query?

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• jQuery FullCalendar JSON date issue

  - by durilai

  I am integrating jQuery plugin FullCalendar, overall it has been really straightforward. I however have ran into a problem with adding events to the calendar. I am using ASP.NET MVC 1.0 and have found and followed this post. I am returning JSON to the FullCalendar and the events are getting bound, but they all show up as all day events. I am formatting the dates as ISO8601 format. Calendar Javascript $('#calendar').fullCalendar({ events: "/Calendar/GetEvents/" }); JsonResult public JsonResult GetEvents(double start, double end) { var fromDate = Utility.Dates.ConvertFromUnixTimestamp(start); var toDate = Utility.Dates.ConvertFromUnixTimestamp(end); List<GenericEventList> events = GETGENERICLISTOFEVENTS(); return Json(events.ToArray()); } JSON Result Value [{"id":2,"title":"Test Event","start":"2010-03-14T11:00:00","end":"2010-03-14T16:00:00"}, {"id":3,"title":"Test Event1asasas","start":"2010-03-14T10:00:00","end":"2010-03-14T14:00:00"}, {"id":4,"title":"Test Event12","start":"2010-03-14T16:00:00","end":"2010-03-14T17:00:00"}, {"id":6,"title":"Test Event1aaa","start":"2010-03-14T10:00:00","end":"2010-03-14T14:00:00"}] Any help is truly appreciated!

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