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• Corsair Hackers Reboot

  It wasn't easy for me to attend but it was absolutely worth to go. The Linux User Group of Mauritius (LUGM) organised another get-together for any open source enthusiast here on the island. Strangely named "Corsair Hackers Reboot" but it stands for a positive cause: "Corsair Hackers Reboot Event A collaborative activity involving LUGM, UoM Computer Club, Fortune Way Shopping Mall and several geeks from around the island, striving to put FOSS into homes & offices. The public is invited to discover and explore Free Software & Open Source." And it was a good opportunity for me and the kids to visit the east coast of Mauritius, too. Perfect timing It couldn't have been better... Why? Well, for two important reasons (in terms of IT): End of support for Microsoft Windows XP - 08.04.2014 Release of Ubuntu 14.04 Long Term Support - 17.04.2014 Quite funnily, those two IT dates weren't the initial reasons and only during the weeks of preparations we put those together. And therefore it was even more positive to promote the use of Linux and open source software in general to a broader audience. Getting there ... Thanks to the new motor way M3 and all the additional road work which has been completed recently it was very simple to get across the island in a very quick and relaxed manner. Compared to my trips in the early days of living in Mauritius (and riding on a scooter) it was very smooth and within less than an hour we hit Centrale de Flacq. Well, being in the city doesn't necessarily mean that one has arrived at the destination. But thanks to modern technology I had a quick look on Google Maps, and we finally managed to get a parking behind the huge bus terminal in Flacq. From there it was just a short walk to Fortune Way. The children were trying to count the number of buses... Well, lots and lots of buses - really impressive actually. What was presented? There were different areas set up. Right at the entrance one's attention was directly drawn towards the elevated hacker's stage. Similar to rock stars performing their gig there was bunch of computers, laptops and networking equipment in order to cater the right working conditions for coding/programming challenge(s) on the one hand and for the pen-testing or system hacking competition on the other hand. Personally, I was very impresses that actually Nitin took care of the pen-testing competition. He hardly started one year back with Linux in general, and Kali Linux specifically. Seeing his personal development from absolute newbie to a decent Linux system administrator within such a short period of time, is really impressive. His passion to open source software made him a living. Next, clock-wise seen, was the Kid's Corner with face-painting as the main attraction. Additionally, there were numerous paper print outs to colour. Plus a decent workstation with the educational suite GCompris. Of course, my little ones were into that. They already know GCompris since a while as they are allowed to use it on an IGEL thin client terminal here at home. To simplify my life, I set up GCompris as full-screen guest session on the server, and they can pass the login screen without any further obstacles. And because it's a thin client hooked up to a XDMCP remote session I don't have to worry about the hardware on their desk, too. The next section was the main attraction of the event: BYOD - Bring Your Own Device Well, compared to the usual context of BYOD the corsairs had a completely different intention. Here, you could bring your own laptop and a team of knowledgeable experts - read: geeks and so on - offered to fully convert your system on any Linux distribution of your choice. And even though I came later, I was told that the USB pen drives had been in permanent use. From being prepared via dd command over launching LiveCD session to finally installing a fresh Linux system on bare metal. Most interestingly, I did a similar job already a couple of months ago, while upgrading an existing Windows XP system to Xubuntu 13.10. So far, the female owner is very happy and enjoys her system almost every evening to go shopping online, checking mails, and reading latest news from the Anime world. Back to the Hackers event, Ish told me that they managed approximately 20 conversion during the day. Furthermore, Ajay and others gladly assisted some visitors with some tricky issues and by the end of the day you can call is a success. While I was around, there was a elderly male visitor that got a full-fledged system conversion to a Linux system running completely in French language. A little bit more to the centre it was Yasir's turn to demonstrate his Arduino hardware that he hooked up with an experimental electrical circuit board connected to an LCD matrix display. That's the real spirit of hacking, and he showed some minor adjustments on the fly while demo'ing the system. Also, very interesting there was a thermal sensor around. Personally, I think that platforms like the Arduino as well as the Raspberry Pi have a great potential at a very affordable price in order to bring a better understanding of electronics as well as computer programming to a broader audience. It would be great to see more of those experiments during future activities. And last but not least there were a small number of vendors. Amongst them was Emtel - once again as sponsor of the general internet connectivity - and another hardware supplier from Riche Terre shopping mall. They had a good collection of Android related gimmicks, like a autonomous web cam that can convert any TV with HDMI connector into an online video chat system given WiFi. It's actually kind of awesome to have a Skype or Google hangout video session on the big screen rather than on the laptop. Some pictures of the event LUGM: Great conversations on Linux, open source and free software during the Corsair Hackers Reboot LUGM: Educational workstation running GCompris suite attracted the youngest attendees of the day. Of course, face painting had to be done prior to hacking... LUGM: Nadim demoing some Linux specifics to interested visitors. Everyone was pretty busy during the whole day LUGM: The hacking competition, here pen-testing a wireless connection and access point between multiple machines LUGM: Well prepared workstations to be able to 'upgrade' visitors' machines to any Linux operating system Final thoughts Gratefully, during the preparations of the event I was invited to leave some comments or suggestions, and the team of the LUGM did a great job. The outdoor banner was a eye-catcher, the various flyers and posters for the event were clearly written and as far as I understood from the quick chats I had with Ish, Nadim, Nitin, Ajay, and of course others all were very happy about the event execution. Great job, LUGM! And I'm already looking forward to the next Corsair Hackers Reboot event ... Crossing fingers: Very soon and hopefully this year again :) Update: In the media The event had been announced in local media, too. L'Express: Salon informatique: Hacking Challenge à Flacq

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• JSP Precompilation for ADF Applications

  - by Duncan Mills

  A question that comes up from time to time, particularly in relation to build automation, is how to best pre-compile the .jspx and .jsff files in an ADF application. Thus ensuring that the app is ready to run as soon as it's installed into WebLogic. In the normal run of things, the first poor soul to hit a page pays the price and has to wait a little whilst the JSP is compiled into a servlet. Everyone else subsequently gets a free lunch. So it's a reasonable thing to want to do... Let Me List the Ways So forth to Google (other search engines are available)... which lead me to a fairly old article on WLDJ - Removing Performance Bottlenecks Through JSP Precompilation. Technololgy wise, it's somewhat out of date, but the one good point that it made is that it's really not very useful to try and use the precompile option in the weblogic.xml file. That's a really good observation - particularly if you're trying to integrate a pre-compile step into a Hudson Continuous Integration process. That same article mentioned an alternative approach for programmatic pre-compilation using weblogic.jspc. This seemed like a much more useful approach for a CI environment. However, weblogic.jspc is now obsoleted by weblogic.appc so we'll use that instead.  Thanks to Steve for the pointer there. And So To APPC APPC has documentation - always a great place to start, and supports usage both from Ant via the wlappc task and from the command line using the weblogic.appc command. In my testing I took the latter approach. Usage, as the documentation will show you, is superficially pretty simple.  The nice thing here, is that you can pass an existing EAR file (generated of course using OJDeploy) and that EAR will be updated in place with the freshly compiled servlet classes created from the JSPs. Appc takes care of all the unpacking, compiling and re-packing of the EAR for you. Neat.  So we're done right...? Not quite. The Devil is in the Detail  OK so I'm being overly dramatic but it's not all plain sailing, so here's a short guide to using weblogic.appc to compile a simple ADF application without pain.  Information You'll Need The following is based on the assumption that you have a stand-alone WLS install with the Application Development  Runtime installed and a suitable ADF enabled domain created. This could of course all be run off of a JDeveloper install as well 1. Your Weblogic home directory. Everything you need is relative to this so make a note.  In my case it's c:\builds\wls_ps4. 2. Next deploy your EAR as normal and have a peek inside it using your favourite zip management tool. First of all look at the weblogic-application.xml inside the EAR /META-INF directory. Have a look for any library references. Something like this: <library-ref>    <library-name>adf.oracle.domain</library-name> </library-ref>   Make a note of the library ref (adf.oracle.domain in this case) , you'll need that in a second. 3. Next open the nested WAR file within the EAR and then have a peek inside the weblogic.xml file in the /WEB-INF directory. Again  make a note of the library references. 4. Now start the WebLogic as per normal and run the WebLogic console app (e.g. http://localhost:7001/console). In the Domain Structure navigator, select Deployments. 5. For each of the libraries you noted down drill into the library definition and make a note of the .war, .ear or .jar that defines the library. For example, in my case adf.oracle.domain maps to "C:\ builds\ WLS_PS4\ oracle_common\ modules\ oracle. adf. model_11. 1. 1\ adf. oracle. domain. ear". Note the extra spaces that are salted throughout this string as it is displayed in the console - just to make it annoying, you'll have to strip these out. 6. Finally you'll need the location of the adfsharebean.jar. We need to pass this on the classpath for APPC so that the ADFConfigLifeCycleCallBack listener can be found. In a more complex app of your own you may need additional classpath entries as well.  Now we're ready to go, and it's a simple matter of applying the information we have gathered into the relevant command line arguments for the utility A Simple CMD File to Run APPC  Here's the stub .cmd file I'm using on Windows to run this. @echo offREM Stub weblogic.appc Runner setlocal set WLS_HOME=C:\builds\WLS_PS4 set ADF_LIB_ROOT=%WLS_HOME%\oracle_common\modulesset COMMON_LIB_ROOT=%WLS_HOME%\wlserver_10.3\common\deployable-libraries set ADF_WEBAPP=%ADF_LIB_ROOT%\oracle.adf.view_11.1.1\adf.oracle.domain.webapp.war set ADF_DOMAIN=%ADF_LIB_ROOT%\oracle.adf.model_11.1.1\adf.oracle.domain.ear set JSTL=%COMMON_LIB_ROOT%\jstl-1.2.war set JSF=%COMMON_LIB_ROOT%\jsf-1.2.war set ADF_SHARE=%ADF_LIB_ROOT%\oracle.adf.share_11.1.1\adfsharembean.jar REM Set up the WebLogic Environment so appc can be found call %WLS_HOME%\wlserver_10.3\server\bin\setWLSEnv.cmd CLS REM Now compile away!java weblogic.appc -verbose -library %ADF_WEBAPP%,%ADF_DOMAIN%,%JSTL%,%JSF% -classpath %ADF_SHARE% %1 endlocal Running the above on a target ADF .ear  file will zip through and create all of the relevant compiled classes inside your nested .war file in the \WEB-INF\classes\jsp_servlet\ directory (but don't take my word for it, run it and take a look!) And So... In the immortal words of  the Pet Shop Boys, Was It Worth It? Well, here's where you'll have to do your own testing. In  my case here, with a simple ADF application, pre-compilation shaved an non-scientific "3 Elephants" off of the initial page load time for the first access of each page. That's a pretty significant payback for such a simple step to add into your CI process, so why not give it a go.

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• UV Atlas Generation and Seam Removal

  - by P. Avery

  I'm generating light maps for scene mesh objects using DirectX's UV Atlas Tool( D3DXUVAtlasCreate() ). I've succeeded in generating an atlas, however, when I try to render the mesh object using the atlas the seams are visible on the mesh. Below are images of a lightmap generated for a cube. Here is the code I use to generate a uv atlas for a cube: struct sVertexPosNormTex { D3DXVECTOR3 vPos, vNorm; D3DXVECTOR2 vUV; sVertexPosNormTex(){} sVertexPosNormTex( D3DXVECTOR3 v, D3DXVECTOR3 n, D3DXVECTOR2 uv ) { vPos = v; vNorm = n; vUV = uv; } ~sVertexPosNormTex() { } }; // create a light map texture to fill programatically hr = D3DXCreateTexture( pd3dDevice, 128, 128, 1, 0, D3DFMT_A8R8G8B8, D3DPOOL_MANAGED, &pLightmap ); if( FAILED( hr ) ) { DebugStringDX( "Main", "Failed to D3DXCreateTexture( lightmap )", __LINE__, hr ); return hr; } // get the zero level surface from the texture IDirect3DSurface9 *pS = NULL; pLightmap->GetSurfaceLevel( 0, &pS ); // clear surface pd3dDevice->ColorFill( pS, NULL, D3DCOLOR_XRGB( 0, 0, 0 ) ); // load a sample mesh DWORD dwcMaterials = 0; LPD3DXBUFFER pMaterialBuffer = NULL; V_RETURN( D3DXLoadMeshFromX( L"cube3.x", D3DXMESH_MANAGED, pd3dDevice, &pAdjacency, &pMaterialBuffer, NULL, &dwcMaterials, &g_pMesh ) ); // generate adjacency DWORD *pdwAdjacency = new DWORD[ 3 * g_pMesh->GetNumFaces() ]; g_pMesh->GenerateAdjacency( 1e-6f, pdwAdjacency ); // create light map coordinates LPD3DXMESH pMesh = NULL; LPD3DXBUFFER pFacePartitioning = NULL, pVertexRemapArray = NULL; FLOAT resultStretch = 0; UINT numCharts = 0; hr = D3DXUVAtlasCreate( g_pMesh, 0, 0, 128, 128, 3.5f, 0, pdwAdjacency, NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL, 0, &pMesh, &pFacePartitioning, &pVertexRemapArray, &resultStretch, &numCharts ); if( SUCCEEDED( hr ) ) { // release and set mesh SAFE_RELEASE( g_pMesh ); g_pMesh = pMesh; // write mesh to file hr = D3DXSaveMeshToX( L"cube4.x", g_pMesh, 0, ( const D3DXMATERIAL* )pMaterialBuffer->GetBufferPointer(), NULL, dwcMaterials, D3DXF_FILEFORMAT_TEXT ); if( FAILED( hr ) ) { DebugStringDX( "Main", "Failed to D3DXSaveMeshToX() at OnD3D9CreateDevice()", __LINE__, hr ); } // fill the the light map hr = BuildLightmap( pS, g_pMesh ); if( FAILED( hr ) ) { DebugStringDX( "Main", "Failed to BuildLightmap()", __LINE__, hr ); } } else { DebugStringDX( "Main", "Failed to D3DXUVAtlasCreate() at OnD3D9CreateDevice()", __LINE__, hr ); } SAFE_RELEASE( pS ); SAFE_DELETE_ARRAY( pdwAdjacency ); SAFE_RELEASE( pFacePartitioning ); SAFE_RELEASE( pVertexRemapArray ); SAFE_RELEASE( pMaterialBuffer ); Here is code to fill lightmap texture: HRESULT BuildLightmap( IDirect3DSurface9 *pS, LPD3DXMESH pMesh ) { HRESULT hr = S_OK; // validate lightmap texture surface and mesh if( !pS || !pMesh ) return E_POINTER; // lock the mesh vertex buffer sVertexPosNormTex *pV = NULL; pMesh->LockVertexBuffer( D3DLOCK_READONLY, ( void** )&pV ); // lock the mesh index buffer WORD *pI = NULL; pMesh->LockIndexBuffer( D3DLOCK_READONLY, ( void** )&pI ); // get the lightmap texture surface description D3DSURFACE_DESC desc; pS->GetDesc( &desc ); // lock the surface rect to fill with color data D3DLOCKED_RECT rct; hr = pS->LockRect( &rct, NULL, 0 ); if( FAILED( hr ) ) { DebugStringDX( "main.cpp:", "Failed to IDirect3DTexture9::LockRect()", __LINE__, hr ); return hr; } // iterate the pixels of the lightmap texture // check each pixel to see if it lies between the uv coordinates of a cube face BYTE *pBuffer = ( BYTE* )rct.pBits; for( UINT y = 0; y < desc.Height; ++y ) { BYTE* pBufferRow = ( BYTE* )pBuffer; for( UINT x = 0; x < desc.Width * 4; x+=4 ) { // determine the pixel's uv coordinate D3DXVECTOR2 p( ( ( float )x / 4.0f ) / ( float )desc.Width + 0.5f / 128.0f, y / ( float )desc.Height + 0.5f / 128.0f ); // for each face of the mesh // check to see if the pixel lies within the face's uv coordinates for( UINT i = 0; i < 3 * pMesh->GetNumFaces(); i +=3 ) { sVertexPosNormTex v[ 3 ]; v[ 0 ] = pV[ pI[ i + 0 ] ]; v[ 1 ] = pV[ pI[ i + 1 ] ]; v[ 2 ] = pV[ pI[ i + 2 ] ]; if( TexcoordIsWithinBounds( v[ 0 ].vUV, v[ 1 ].vUV, v[ 2 ].vUV, p ) ) { // the pixel lies b/t the uv coordinates of a cube face // light contribution functions aren't needed yet //D3DXVECTOR3 vPos = TexcoordToPos( v[ 0 ].vPos, v[ 1 ].vPos, v[ 2 ].vPos, v[ 0 ].vUV, v[ 1 ].vUV, v[ 2 ].vUV, p ); //D3DXVECTOR3 vNormal = v[ 0 ].vNorm; // set the color of this pixel red( for demo ) BYTE ba[] = { 0, 0, 255, 255, }; //ComputeContribution( vPos, vNormal, g_sLight, ba ); // copy the byte array into the light map texture memcpy( ( void* )&pBufferRow[ x ], ( void* )ba, 4 * sizeof( BYTE ) ); } } } // go to next line of the texture pBuffer += rct.Pitch; } // unlock the surface rect pS->UnlockRect(); // unlock mesh vertex and index buffers pMesh->UnlockIndexBuffer(); pMesh->UnlockVertexBuffer(); // write the surface to file hr = D3DXSaveSurfaceToFile( L"LightMap.jpg", D3DXIFF_JPG, pS, NULL, NULL ); if( FAILED( hr ) ) DebugStringDX( "Main.cpp", "Failed to D3DXSaveSurfaceToFile()", __LINE__, hr ); return hr; } bool TexcoordIsWithinBounds( const D3DXVECTOR2 &t0, const D3DXVECTOR2 &t1, const D3DXVECTOR2 &t2, const D3DXVECTOR2 &p ) { // compute vectors D3DXVECTOR2 v0 = t1 - t0, v1 = t2 - t0, v2 = p - t0; float f00 = D3DXVec2Dot( &v0, &v0 ); float f01 = D3DXVec2Dot( &v0, &v1 ); float f02 = D3DXVec2Dot( &v0, &v2 ); float f11 = D3DXVec2Dot( &v1, &v1 ); float f12 = D3DXVec2Dot( &v1, &v2 ); // Compute barycentric coordinates float invDenom = 1 / ( f00 * f11 - f01 * f01 ); float fU = ( f11 * f02 - f01 * f12 ) * invDenom; float fV = ( f00 * f12 - f01 * f02 ) * invDenom; // Check if point is in triangle if( ( fU >= 0 ) && ( fV >= 0 ) && ( fU + fV < 1 ) ) return true; return false; } Screenshot Lightmap I believe the problem comes from the difference between the lightmap uv coordinates and the pixel center coordinates...for example, here are the lightmap uv coordinates( generated by D3DXUVAtlasCreate() ) for a specific face( tri ) within the mesh, keep in mind that I'm using the mesh uv coordinates to write the pixels for the texture: v[ 0 ].uv = D3DXVECTOR2( 0.003581, 0.295631 ); v[ 1 ].uv = D3DXVECTOR2( 0.003581, 0.003581 ); v[ 2 ].uv = D3DXVECTOR2( 0.295631, 0.003581 ); the lightmap texture size is 128 x 128 pixels. The upper-left pixel center coordinates are: float halfPixel = 0.5 / 128 = 0.00390625; D3DXVECTOR2 pixelCenter = D3DXVECTOR2( halfPixel, halfPixel ); will the mapping and sampling of the lightmap texture will require that an offset be taken into account or that the uv coordinates are snapped to the pixel centers..? ...Any ideas on the best way to approach this situation would be appreciated...What are the common practices?

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• Why do we (really) program to interfaces?

  - by Kyle Burns

  One of the earliest lessons I was taught in Enterprise development was "always program against an interface".  This was back in the VB6 days and I quickly learned that no code would be allowed to move to the QA server unless my business objects and data access objects each are defined as an interface and have a matching implementation class.  Why?  "It's more reusable" was one answer.  "It doesn't tie you to a specific implementation" a slightly more knowing answer.  And let's not forget the discussion ending "it's a standard".  The problem with these responses was that senior people didn't really understand the reason we were doing the things we were doing and because of that, we were entirely unable to realize the intent behind the practice - we simply used interfaces and had a bunch of extra code to maintain to show for it. It wasn't until a few years later that I finally heard the term "Inversion of Control".  Simply put, "Inversion of Control" takes the creation of objects that used to be within the control (and therefore a responsibility of) of your component and moves it to some outside force.  For example, consider the following code which follows the old "always program against an interface" rule in the manner of many corporate development shops: 1: ICatalog catalog = new Catalog(); 2: Category[] categories = catalog.GetCategories(); In this example, I met the requirement of the rule by declaring the variable as ICatalog, but I didn't hit "it doesn't tie you to a specific implementation" because I explicitly created an instance of the concrete Catalog object.  If I want to test the functionality of the code I just wrote I have to have an environment in which Catalog can be created along with any of the resources upon which it depends (e.g. configuration files, database connections, etc) in order to test my functionality.  That's a lot of setup work and one of the things that I think ultimately discourages real buy-in of unit testing in many development shops. So how do I test my code without needing Catalog to work?  A very primitive approach I've seen is to change the line the instantiates catalog to read: 1: ICatalog catalog = new FakeCatalog();   once the test is run and passes, the code is switched back to the real thing.  This obviously poses a huge risk for introducing test code into production and in my opinion is worse than just keeping the dependency and its associated setup work.  Another popular approach is to make use of Factory methods which use an object whose "job" is to know how to obtain a valid instance of the object.  Using this approach, the code may look something like this: 1: ICatalog catalog = CatalogFactory.GetCatalog();   The code inside the factory is responsible for deciding "what kind" of catalog is needed.  This is a far better approach than the previous one, but it does make projects grow considerably because now in addition to the interface, the real implementation, and the fake implementation(s) for testing you have added a minimum of one factory (or at least a factory method) for each of your interfaces.  Once again, developers say "that's too complicated and has me writing a bunch of useless code" and quietly slip back into just creating a new Catalog and chalking any test failures up to "it will probably work on the server". This is where software intended specifically to facilitate Inversion of Control comes into play.  There are many libraries that take on the Inversion of Control responsibilities in .Net and most of them have many pros and cons.  From this point forward I'll discuss concepts from the standpoint of the Unity framework produced by Microsoft's Patterns and Practices team.  I'm primarily focusing on this library because it questions about it inspired this posting. At Unity's core and that of most any IoC framework is a catalog or registry of components.  This registry can be configured either through code or using the application's configuration file and in the most simple terms says "interface X maps to concrete implementation Y".  It can get much more complicated, but I want to keep things at the "what does it do" level instead of "how does it do it".  The object that exposes most of the Unity functionality is the UnityContainer.  This object exposes methods to configure the catalog as well as the Resolve<T> method which is used to obtain an instance of the type represented by T.  When using the Resolve<T> method, Unity does not necessarily have to just "new up" the requested object, but also can track dependencies of that object and ensure that the entire dependency chain is satisfied. There are three basic ways that I have seen Unity used within projects.  Those are through classes directly using the Unity container, classes requiring injection of dependencies, and classes making use of the Service Locator pattern. The first usage of Unity is when classes are aware of the Unity container and directly call its Resolve method whenever they need the services advertised by an interface.  The up side of this approach is that IoC is utilized, but the down side is that every class has to be aware that Unity is being used and tied directly to that implementation. Many developers don't like the idea of as close a tie to specific IoC implementation as is represented by using Unity within all of your classes and for the most part I agree that this isn't a good idea.  As an alternative, classes can be designed for Dependency Injection.  Dependency Injection is where a force outside the class itself manipulates the object to provide implementations of the interfaces that the class needs to interact with the outside world.  This is typically done either through constructor injection where the object has a constructor that accepts an instance of each interface it requires or through property setters accepting the service providers.  When using dependency, I lean toward the use of constructor injection because I view the constructor as being a much better way to "discover" what is required for the instance to be ready for use.  During resolution, Unity looks for an injection constructor and will attempt to resolve instances of each interface required by the constructor, throwing an exception of unable to meet the advertised needs of the class.  The up side of this approach is that the needs of the class are very clearly advertised and the class is unaware of which IoC container (if any) is being used.  The down side of this approach is that you're required to maintain the objects passed to the constructor as instance variables throughout the life of your object and that objects which coordinate with many external services require a lot of additional constructor arguments (this gets ugly and may indicate a need for refactoring). The final way that I've seen and used Unity is to make use of the ServiceLocator pattern, of which the Patterns and Practices team has also provided a Unity-compatible implementation.  When using the ServiceLocator, your class calls ServiceLocator.Retrieve in places where it would have called Resolve on the Unity container.  Like using Unity directly, it does tie you directly to the ServiceLocator implementation and makes your code aware that dependency injection is taking place, but it does have the up side of giving you the freedom to swap out the underlying IoC container if necessary.  I'm not hugely concerned with hiding IoC entirely from the class (I view this as a "nice to have"), so the single biggest problem that I see with the ServiceLocator approach is that it provides no way to proactively advertise needs in the way that constructor injection does, allowing more opportunity for difficult to track runtime errors. This blog entry has not been intended in any way to be a definitive work on IoC, but rather as something to spur thought about why we program to interfaces and some ways to reach the intended value of the practice instead of having it just complicate your code.  I hope that it helps somebody begin or continue a journey away from being a "Cargo Cult Programmer".

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• 5 Ways Android Still Disappoints (Me)

  - by TStewartDev

  Let me make this clear: I'm annoyed with Apple. I don't like their current policies and I don't like where Steve Jobs is taking the company. In general, I don't like it when any one company gets too much control in a market. When that happens, the leading company dictates the game and as consumers, our options all but disappear. That said, I'm still going to buy a new iPhone next week. My Apple-hating friends seem to desperately want me to go Android instead, but frankly, it's not good enough for me, and here are the reasons why. The Modern WinMo One of the reasons that Microsoft has identified for Windows Mobile's rapid decline is the breadth of hardware. They exercised little control over manufacturer's implementations. In theory, that sounds great. We as consumers have lots of choice. In practice, though, it meant among other things that updates to the devices were left up to the manufacturers. As a result, that rarely happened. (I'm still bitter at Toshiba for leaving me hanging back in 2002.) And now, Google is doing the same thing with Android. Case in point: my wife has a Motorola Backflip that we bought in April. It was released in March. Motorola says it will get Android 2.1 "sometime in Q3". Great. Meanwhile, I pull down the latest version of iPhone OS (now iOS) and install it the same day it's released. You may say that I can't judge Android by one lazy manufacturer. Yup, I sure can. With Apple, my original iPhone has been supported perfectly for 3 years. With Android, I will have to wait for upgrades after Google releases them, possibly indefinitely. Not cool. AT&T We signed a new contract with AT&T in April to get my wife's phone. I've had a reasonable experience with them. I don't imagine my experience with Verizon would be any better, and I'm relatively confident that Sprint doesn't have the coverage it takes to work well for us. The fact is, AT&T, for whatever reason, doesn't have jack for Android phones. May not be Android's fault, but it's still a shortcoming that prevents me from having it just like the iPhone's exclusivity keeps some folks on other networks from having it. Innovation? What Innovation? Android has a nice dashboard and a great notification system and… nothing else original. I keep reading about how disappointing the iPhone is nowadays. "It has no innovation," people say. Who does? Android has modeled its behavior after the iPhone. That's fine, but if all you've got is a similar product and I'm invested both skill-wise and app-wise in my current platform, why should I change? Microsoft's new Windows Phone 7 looks somewhat innovative, and I'm pretty excited to see what they'll bring to the table, but that's another six months away, at least. I've got a 3 year old phone that has some annoying issues now (thanks to recent encounters with water). I need a new phone now. Is This Going to Work? There's no shortage of criticism of Apple over its App Store policies, and I've vented my own anger about it. However, I will give them credit: their screening of apps has done a great job of weeding out the crap and gives an excellent indication that the app will work on my device. How about Android? Nope. It might work on your phone. Maybe. You'll have to try it to see. Get burned by it? Well, write a nasty review to try to keep others from making the mistake you did. If you don't mind doing that stuff, then Android is the platform for you. Personally, I'd rather have a receptionist screening out the telemarketing and survey calls than hang up on them myself, but that's your call. Slow, Slowing, Slower All this yapping about multitasking. This is an area I've been on Apple's side from the beginning. Sorry folks, but this is the number one reason I hated Windows Mobile: the longer you use it, the slower it gets because it doesn't kill apps. I'm with Steve Jobs on this one: if you see a task manager, we're doing it wrong. I don't want to have to manually kill apps. I hate doing that on Windows let alone on a mobile device. To me, priority one should be keeping the device speedy. Waiting for your device to respond is unacceptable. Bonus! Taken from iPhone Letdown? 8 Things Apple Didn't Announce, here are my responses: 4G Yeah, let me know if your area actually has it. I live in Lincoln, Nebraska. No carrier is going to have 4G here for at least 3 years. Meanwhile, you still get to pay for it. Yay! Cloud iTunes/OTA Sync You got me here. Of course, whether or not your Android device will be able to do it is always a good question. 3G Video Chat You got me here, too. I'm sure you spent countless hours in front of your phone with video chat. Also, I can't wait for the "No Video Chat While Driving" laws. Mobile Hotspot This is a neat feature, but as the author points out, it's left up to the carrier whether to implement it or not. Pretty sure any Android phones that come to AT&T won't have this enabled in the foreseeable future. Is Verizon even allowing this? I just figured Sprint was because they're failing so hard at keeping customers. Free MobileMe I use Google's services with my iPhone. The only people I know who use MobileMe are Apple fanboys and fangirls. If you choose to pay for a service that you can get for free, that's your decision, not Apple's. Voice Input Voice input has been available on phones (even "dumb" phones) for years now. iPhone does have the ability, though limited. Why don't I hear people telling their phones what to do? Maybe because it's still easier to use your fingers than talk to it. Get back to me when this becomes an important feature. Free Navigation Maybe this will be a bigger deal to me now that I'm getting a phone with GPS, but when using my buddy's 3gs, Google maps has worked just fine. Maybe I just don't trust turn-by-turn navigation enough to want it. Dashboard The only legitimate complaint on this list, to me. iPhone's home screen is pathetic, doubly so for the iPad. What a waste of perfectly usable space. I also want to add notifications to this list. Android's notification panel is far superior to the iPhone's. I don't want to hunt all over my screen to find little red dots. Put 'em in one place, Apple.

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• How to Control Screen Layouts in LightSwitch

  - by ChrisD

  Visual Studio LightSwitch has a bunch of screen templates that you can use to quickly generate screens. They give you good starting points that you can customize further. When you add a new screen to your project you see a set of screen templates that you can choose from. These templates lay out all the related data you choose to put on a screen automatically for you. And don’t under estimate them; they do a great job of laying out controls in a smart way. For instance, a tab control will be used when you select more than one related set of data to display on a screen. However, you’re not limited to taking the layout as is. In fact, the screen designer is pretty flexible and allows you to create stacks of controls in a variety of configurations. You just need to visualize your screen as a series of containers that you can lay out in rows and columns. You then place controls or stacks of controls into these areas to align the screen exactly how you want. If you’re new in Visual Studio LightSwitch, you can see this tutorial. OK, Let’s start with a simple example. I have already designed my data entities for a simple order tracking system similar to the Northwind database. I also have added a Search Data  Screen to search my Products already. Now I will add a new Details Screen for my Products and make it the default screen via the “Add New Screen” dialog: The screen designer picks a simple layout for me based on the single entity I chose, in this case Product. Hit F5 to run the application, select a Product on the search screen to open the Product Details Screen. Notice that it’s pretty simple because my entity is simple. Click the “Customize” button in the top right of the screen so we can start tweaking it. The left side of the screen shows the containership of controls and data bindings (called the content tree) and the right side shows the live preview with data. Notice that we have a simple layout of two rows but only one row is populated (with a vertical stack of controls in this case). The bottom row is empty. You can envision the screen like this: Each container will display a group of data that you select. For instance in the above screen, the top row is set to a vertical stack control and the group of data to display is coming from Product. So when laying out screens you need to think in terms of containers of controls bound to groups of data. To change the data to which a container is bound, select the data item next to the container: You can select the “New Group” item in order to create more containers (or controls) within the current container. For instance to totally control the layout, select the Product in the top row and hit the delete key. This will delete the vertical stack and therefore all the controls on the screen. The content tree will still have two rows, but the rows are now both empty. If you want a layout of four containers (two rows and two columns) then select “New Group” for the data item and then change the vertical stack control to “Two Columns” for both of the rows as shown here: You can keep going on and on by selecting new groups and choosing between rows or columns. Here’s a layout with 8 containers, 4 rows and 2 columns: And here is a layout with 7 content areas; one row across the top of the screen and three rows with two columns below that: When you select Choose Content and select a data item like Product it will populate all the controls within the container (row or column in a vertical stack) however you have complete control on what to display within each group. You can delete fields you don’t want to display and/or change their controls. You can also change the size of controls and how they display by changing the settings in the properties window. If you are in the Screen Designer (and not the customization mode like we are here) you can also drag-drop data items from the left-hand side of the screen to the content tree. Note, however, that not all areas of the tree will allow you to drop a data item if there is a binding already set to a different set of data. For instance you can’t drop a Customer ID into the same group as a Product if they originate from different entities. To get around this, all you need to do is create a new group and content area as shown above. Let’s take a more complex example that deals with more than just product. I want to design a complex screen that displays Products and their Category, as well as all the OrderDetails for which that product is selected. This time I will create a new screen and select List and Details, select the Products screen data, and include the related OrderDetails. However I’m going to totally change the layout so that a Product grid is at the top left and below that is the selected Product detail. Below that will be the Category text fields and image in two columns below. On the right side I want the OrderDetails grid to take up the whole right side of the screen. All this can be done in customization mode while you’re debugging the application. To do this, I first deleted all the content items in the tree and then re-created the content tree as shown in the image below. I also set the image to be larger and the description textbox to be 5 rows using the property window below the live preview. I added the green lines to indicate the containers and show how it maps to the content tree (click to enlarge): I hope this demystifies the screen designer a little bit. Remember that screen templates are excellent starting points – you can take them as-is or customize them further. It takes a little fooling around with customizing screens to get them to do exactly what you want but there are a ton of possibilities once you get the hang of it. Stay tuned for more information on how to create your own screen templates that show up in the “Add New Screen” dialog. Enjoy! The tutorial that might be interested: Adding Custom Control In LightSwitch

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• Organization &amp; Architecture UNISA Studies &ndash; Chap 4

  - by MarkPearl

  Learning Outcomes Explain the characteristics of memory systems Describe the memory hierarchy Discuss cache memory principles Discuss issues relevant to cache design Describe the cache organization of the Pentium Computer Memory Systems There are key characteristics of memory… Location – internal or external Capacity – expressed in terms of bytes Unit of Transfer – the number of bits read out of or written into memory at a time Access Method – sequential, direct, random or associative From a users perspective the two most important characteristics of memory are… Capacity Performance – access time, memory cycle time, transfer rate The trade off for memory happens along three axis… Faster access time, greater cost per bit Greater capacity, smaller cost per bit Greater capacity, slower access time This leads to people using a tiered approach in their use of memory   As one goes down the hierarchy, the following occurs… Decreasing cost per bit Increasing capacity Increasing access time Decreasing frequency of access of the memory by the processor The use of two levels of memory to reduce average access time works in principle, but only if conditions 1 to 4 apply. A variety of technologies exist that allow us to accomplish this. Thus it is possible to organize data across the hierarchy such that the percentage of accesses to each successively lower level is substantially less than that of the level above. A portion of main memory can be used as a buffer to hold data temporarily that is to be read out to disk. This is sometimes referred to as a disk cache and improves performance in two ways… Disk writes are clustered. Instead of many small transfers of data, we have a few large transfers of data. This improves disk performance and minimizes processor involvement. Some data designed for write-out may be referenced by a program before the next dump to disk. In that case the data is retrieved rapidly from the software cache rather than slowly from disk. Cache Memory Principles Cache memory is substantially faster than main memory. A caching system works as follows.. When a processor attempts to read a word of memory, a check is made to see if this in in cache memory… If it is, the data is supplied, If it is not in the cache, a block of main memory, consisting of a fixed number of words is loaded to the cache. Because of the phenomenon of locality of references, when a block of data is fetched into the cache, it is likely that there will be future references to that same memory location or to other words in the block. Elements of Cache Design While there are a large number of cache implementations, there are a few basic design elements that serve to classify and differentiate cache architectures… Cache Addresses Cache Size Mapping Function Replacement Algorithm Write Policy Line Size Number of Caches Cache Addresses Almost all non-embedded processors support virtual memory. Virtual memory in essence allows a program to address memory from a logical point of view without needing to worry about the amount of physical memory available. When virtual addresses are used the designer may choose to place the cache between the MMU (memory management unit) and the processor or between the MMU and main memory. The disadvantage of virtual memory is that most virtual memory systems supply each application with the same virtual memory address space (each application sees virtual memory starting at memory address 0), which means the cache memory must be completely flushed with each application context switch or extra bits must be added to each line of the cache to identify which virtual address space the address refers to. Cache Size We would like the size of the cache to be small enough so that the overall average cost per bit is close to that of main memory alone and large enough so that the overall average access time is close to that of the cache alone. Also, larger caches are slightly slower than smaller ones. Mapping Function Because there are fewer cache lines than main memory blocks, an algorithm is needed for mapping main memory blocks into cache lines. The choice of mapping function dictates how the cache is organized. Three techniques can be used… Direct – simplest technique, maps each block of main memory into only one possible cache line Associative – Each main memory block to be loaded into any line of the cache Set Associative – exhibits the strengths of both the direct and associative approaches while reducing their disadvantages For detailed explanations of each approach – read the text book (page 148 – 154) Replacement Algorithm For associative and set associating mapping a replacement algorithm is needed to determine which of the existing blocks in the cache must be replaced by a new block. There are four common approaches… LRU (Least recently used) FIFO (First in first out) LFU (Least frequently used) Random selection Write Policy When a block resident in the cache is to be replaced, there are two cases to consider If no writes to that block have happened in the cache – discard it If a write has occurred, a process needs to be initiated where the changes in the cache are propagated back to the main memory. There are several approaches to achieve this including… Write Through – all writes to the cache are done to the main memory as well at the point of the change Write Back – when a block is replaced, all dirty bits are written back to main memory The problem is complicated when we have multiple caches, there are techniques to accommodate for this but I have not summarized them. Line Size When a block of data is retrieved and placed in the cache, not only the desired word but also some number of adjacent words are retrieved. As the block size increases from very small to larger sizes, the hit ratio will at first increase because of the principle of locality, which states that the data in the vicinity of a referenced word are likely to be referenced in the near future. As the block size increases, more useful data are brought into cache. The hit ratio will begin to decrease as the block becomes even bigger and the probability of using the newly fetched information becomes less than the probability of using the newly fetched information that has to be replaced. Two specific effects come into play… Larger blocks reduce the number of blocks that fit into a cache. Because each block fetch overwrites older cache contents, a small number of blocks results in data being overwritten shortly after they are fetched. As a block becomes larger, each additional word is farther from the requested word and therefore less likely to be needed in the near future. The relationship between block size and hit ratio is complex, and no set approach is judged to be the best in all circumstances.   Pentium 4 and ARM cache organizations The processor core consists of four major components: Fetch/decode unit – fetches program instruction in order from the L2 cache, decodes these into a series of micro-operations, and stores the results in the L2 instruction cache Out-of-order execution logic – Schedules execution of the micro-operations subject to data dependencies and resource availability – thus micro-operations may be scheduled for execution in a different order than they were fetched from the instruction stream. As time permits, this unit schedules speculative execution of micro-operations that may be required in the future Execution units – These units execute micro-operations, fetching the required data from the L1 data cache and temporarily storing results in registers Memory subsystem – This unit includes the L2 and L3 caches and the system bus, which is used to access main memory when the L1 and L2 caches have a cache miss and to access the system I/O resources

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• Border image on UIView

  - by drunknbass

  I want to have a UIView subclass that has a border image, but i dont want or care about this 'new' frame/bounds around the border image itself. What i wanted to do was just use drawRect and draw outside of the rect but all drawing is clipped and i dont see a way to not clip drawing outside of this context rect. So now i have added a sublayer to the views layer, set [self clipsToBounds] on the view and override setFrame to control my sublayers frame and always keep it at the proper size (spilling over the views frame by 40px) the problem with this is that setFrame on a uiview by default has no animation but seTFrame on a calayer does. i cant just disable the animations on the calayers setFrame because if i were to call setFrame on the uiview inside a uiview animation block the calayer would still have its animation disabled. the obvious solution is to look up the current animationDuration on the uiview animation and set a matching animation on the sublayer, but i dont know if this value is available. And even if it is, im afraid that calling an animation from within another animation is wrong. Unfortunately the best solution is to not use a calayer at all and just add a uiview as a subview and draw into that just like i am drawing into my layer, and hope that with autoresizingMask set to height and width that everything will 'just work'. Just seems like unnecessary overhead for such a simple task.

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• Caching with AVPlayer and AVAssetExportSession

  - by tba

  I would like to cache progressive-download videos using AVPlayer. How can I save an AVPlayer's item to disk? I'm trying to use AVAssetExportSession on the player's currentItem (which is fully loaded). This code is giving me "AVAssetExportSessionStatusFailed (The operation could not be completed)" : AVAsset *mediaAsset = self.player.currentItem.asset; AVAssetExportSession *es = [[AVAssetExportSession alloc] initWithAsset:mediaAsset presetName:AVAssetExportPresetLowQuality]; NSString *outPath = [NSTemporaryDirectory() stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"out.mp4"]; NSFileManager *fileManager = [NSFileManager defaultManager]; [fileManager removeItemAtPath:outPath error:NULL]; es.outputFileType = @"com.apple.quicktime-movie"; es.outputURL = [[[NSURL alloc] initFileURLWithPath:outPath] autorelease]; NSLog(@"exporting to %@",outPath); [es exportAsynchronouslyWithCompletionHandler:^{ NSString *status = @""; if( es.status == AVAssetExportSessionStatusUnknown ) status = @"AVAssetExportSessionStatusUnknown"; else if( es.status == AVAssetExportSessionStatusWaiting ) status = @"AVAssetExportSessionStatusWaiting"; else if( es.status == AVAssetExportSessionStatusExporting ) status = @"AVAssetExportSessionStatusExporting"; else if( es.status == AVAssetExportSessionStatusCompleted ) status = @"AVAssetExportSessionStatusCompleted"; else if( es.status == AVAssetExportSessionStatusFailed ) status = @"AVAssetExportSessionStatusFailed"; else if( es.status == AVAssetExportSessionStatusCancelled ) status = @"AVAssetExportSessionStatusCancelled"; NSLog(@"done exporting to %@ status %d = %@ (%@)",outPath,es.status, status,[[es error] localizedDescription]); }]; How can I export successfully? I'm looking into copying mediaAsset into an AVMutableComposition, but haven't had much luck with that either. Thanks! PS: Here are some questions from people trying to accomplish the same thing (but with MPMoviePlayerController): Cache Progressive downloaded content in MPMoviePlayerController Simultaneously stream and save a video? Caching videos to disk after successful preload by MPMoviePlayerController

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• Using MVVM, how to pass SelectedItems of a XamDataGrid as parameter to the Command raised by the Co

  - by saddaypally

  Hi, I'm trying to pass the item on XamDataGrid on which I do a mouse right click to open a ContextMenu, which raises a Command in my ViewModel. Somehow the method that the Command calls is not reachable in debug mode. This is the snipped from the view <ig:XamDataGrid DataSource="{Binding DrdResults}" Height="700" Width="600"> <ig:XamDataGrid.ContextMenu> <ContextMenu DataContext="{Binding RelativeSource={RelativeSource Mode=Self}, Path=PlacementTarget.DataContext}" AllowDrop="True" Name="cmAudit"> <MenuItem Header="View History" Command="{Binding ViewTradeHistory}" CommandParameter="{Binding Path=SelectedItems}"> </MenuItem> </ContextMenu> </ig:XamDataGrid.ContextMenu> <ig:XamDataGrid.FieldSettings> <ig:FieldSettings AllowFixing="NearOrFar" AllowEdit="False" Width="auto" Height="auto" /> </ig:XamDataGrid.FieldSettings> </ig:XamDataGrid> My code in the corresponding ViewModel for this View is as follows public WPF.ICommand ViewTradeHistory { get { if (_viewTradeHistory == null) { _viewTradeHistory = new DelegateCommand( (object SelectedItems) = { this.OpenTradeHistory(SelectedItems); }); } return _viewTradeHistory; } } And lastly the actual method that gets called by the Command is as below private void OpenTradeHistory(object records) { DataPresenterBase.SelectedItemHolder auditRecords = (DataPresenterBase.SelectedItemHolder)records; // Do something with the auditRecords now. } I'm not sure what am I doing incorrectly here. Any help will be very much appreciated. Thanks, Shravan

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• The HTTP request was forbidden with client authentication scheme 'Anonymous'

  - by dudia

  I am trying to configure a WCF server\client to work with SSL I get the following exception: The HTTP request was forbidden with client authentication scheme 'Anonymous' I have a self hosted WCF server. I have run hhtpcfg both my client and server certificates are stored under Personal and Trusted People on the Local Machine Here is the server code: binding.Security.Transport.ClientCredentialType = HttpClientCredentialType.Certificate; binding.Security.Mode = WebHttpSecurityMode.Transport; _host.Credentials.ClientCertificate.Authentication.CertificateValidationMode = System.ServiceModel.Security.X509CertificateValidationMode.PeerOrChainTrust; _host.Credentials.ClientCertificate.Authentication.RevocationMode = X509RevocationMode.NoCheck; _host.Credentials.ClientCertificate.Authentication.TrustedStoreLocation = StoreLocation.LocalMachine; _host.Credentials.ServiceCertificate.SetCertificate("cn=ServerSide", StoreLocation.LocalMachine, StoreName.My); Client Code: binding.Security.Mode = WebHttpSecurityMode.Transport; binding.Security.Transport.ClientCredentialType = HttpClientCredentialType.Certificate; WebChannelFactory<ITestClientForServer> cf = new WebChannelFactory<ITestClientForServer>(binding, url2Bind); cf.Credentials.ClientCertificate.SetCertificate("cn=ClientSide", StoreLocation.LocalMachine, StoreName.My); ServicePointManager.ServerCertificateValidationCallback += RemoteCertificateValidate; Looking at web_tracelog.svclog and trace.log reveals that the server cannot autheticate the client certificate My certificate are not signed by an Authorized CA but this is why I added them to the Trusted People.... What Am I missing? What am I missing?

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• Binding Image.Source to String in WPF ?

  - by Mohammad

  I have below XAML code : <Window x:Class="WpfApplication1.Window1" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" DataContext="{Binding RelativeSource={RelativeSource Self}}" WindowStartupLocation="CenterScreen" Title="Window1" Height="300" Width="300"> <Grid> <Image x:Name="TestImage" Source="{Binding Path=ImageSource}" /> </Grid> </Window> Also, there is a method that makes an Image from a Base64 string : Image Base64StringToImage(string base64ImageString) { try { byte[] b; b = Convert.FromBase64String(base64ImageString); MemoryStream ms = new System.IO.MemoryStream(b); System.Drawing.Image img = System.Drawing.Image.FromStream(ms); ////////////////////////////////////////////// //convert System.Drawing.Image to WPF image System.Drawing.Bitmap bmp = new System.Drawing.Bitmap(img); IntPtr hBitmap = bmp.GetHbitmap(); System.Windows.Media.ImageSource imageSource = System.Windows.Interop.Imaging.CreateBitmapSourceFromHBitmap(hBitmap, IntPtr.Zero, Int32Rect.Empty, BitmapSizeOptions.FromEmptyOptions()); Image wpfImage = new Image(); wpfImage.Source = imageSource; wpfImage.Width = wpfImage.Height = 16; ////////////////////////////////////////////// return wpfImage; } catch { Image img1 = new Image(); img1.Source = new BitmapImage(new Uri(@"/passwordManager;component/images/TreeView/empty-bookmark.png", UriKind.Relative)); img1.Width = img1.Height = 16; return img1; } } Now, I'm gonna bind TestImage to the output of Base64StringToImage method. I've used the following way : public string ImageSource { get; set; } ImageSource = Base64StringToImage("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").Source.ToString(); but nothing happen. How can I fix it ? BTW, I'm dead sure that the base64 string is correct

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• Is it OK to set "Cache-Control: public" when sending “304 Not Modified” for images stored in the dat

  - by Emilien

  After asking a question about sending “304 Not Modified” for images stored in the in the Google App Engine datastore, I now have a question about Cache-Control. My app now sends Last-Modified and Etag, but by default GAE alsto sends Cache-Control: no-cache. According to this page: The “no-cache” directive, according to the RFC, tells the browser that it should revalidate with the server before serving the page from the cache. [...] In practice, IE and Firefox have started treating the no-cache directive as if it instructs the browser not to even cache the page. As I DO want browsers to cache the image, I've added the following line to my code: self.response.headers['Cache-Control'] = "public" According to the same page as before: The “cache-control: public” directive [...] tells the browser and proxies [...] that the page may be cached. This is good for non-sensitive pages, as caching improves performance. The question is if this could be harmful to the application in some way? Would it be best to send Cache-Control: must-revalidate to "force" the browser to revalidate (I suppose that is the behavior that was originally the reason behind sending Cache-Control: no-cache) This directive insists that the browser must revalidate the page against the server before serving it from cache. Note that it implicitly lets the browser cache the page.

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• WCF Restful services getting error 400 (bad request) when post xml data

  - by Wayne Lo

  I am trying to self host a WCF services and calling the services via javascript. It works when I pass the request data via Json but not xml (400 bad request). Please help. Contract: public interface iSelfHostServices { [OperationContract] [WebInvoke(Method = "POST", UriTemplate = INFOMATO.RestTemplate.hello_post2,RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Xml, ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Xml, BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.Wrapped)] Stream hello_post2(string helloString); } Server side code: public Stream hello_post2(string helloString) { if (helloString == null) { WebOperationContext.Current.OutgoingResponse.StatusCode = System.Net.HttpStatusCode.BadRequest; return null; } WebOperationContext.Current.OutgoingResponse.StatusCode = System.Net.HttpStatusCode.OK; return new MemoryStream(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(helloString)); } JavaScript: function testSelfHost_WCFService_post_Parameter() { var xmlString = "<helloString>'hello via Post'</helloString>"; Ajax_sendData("hello/post2", xmlString); } function Ajax_sendData(url, data) { var request = false; request = getHTTPObject(); if (request) { request.onreadystatechange = function() { parseResponse(request); }; request.open("post", url, true); request.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "text/xml; charset=utf-8"); charset=utf-8"); request.send(data); return true; } } function getHTTPObject() { var xhr = false; if (window.XMLHttpRequest) { xhr = new XMLHttpRequest(); } else if (window.ActiveXObject) {...} }

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• MPNowPlayingInfoCenter defaultCenter will not update or retrieve information

  - by Jayson Lane

  I'm working to update the MPNowPlayingInfoCenter and having a bit of trouble. I've tried quite a bit to the point where I'm at a loss. The following is my code: self.audioPlayer.allowsAirPlay = NO; Class playingInfoCenter = NSClassFromString(@"MPNowPlayingInfoCenter"); if (playingInfoCenter) { NSMutableDictionary *songInfo = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init]; MPMediaItemArtwork *albumArt = [[MPMediaItemArtwork alloc] initWithImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"series_placeholder"]]; [songInfo setObject:thePodcast.title forKey:MPMediaItemPropertyTitle]; [songInfo setObject:thePodcast.author forKey:MPMediaItemPropertyArtist]; [songInfo setObject:@"NCC" forKey:MPMediaItemPropertyAlbumTitle]; [songInfo setObject:albumArt forKey:MPMediaItemPropertyArtwork]; [[MPNowPlayingInfoCenter defaultCenter] setNowPlayingInfo:songInfo]; } This isn't working, I've also tried: [[MPNowPlayingInfoCenter defaultCenter] setNowPlayingInfo:nil]; In an attempt to get it to remove the existing information from the iPod app (or whatever may have info there). In addition, just to see if I could find out the problem, I've tried retrieving the current information on app launch: NSDictionary *info = [[MPNowPlayingInfoCenter defaultCenter] nowPlayingInfo]; NSString *title = [info valueForKey:MPMediaItemPropertyTitle]; NSString *author = [info valueForKey:MPMediaItemPropertyArtist]; NSLog(@"Currently playing: %@ // %@", title, author); and I get Currently playing: (null) // (null) I've researched this quite a bit and the following articles explain it pretty thoroughly, however, I am still unable to get this working properly. Am I missing something? Would there be anything interfering with this? Is this a service something my app needs to register to access (didn't see this in any docs)? Apple's Docs Change lock screen background audio controls Now playing info ignored UPDATE: I've created a tutorial outlining how I was able to get this functioning properly: http://jaysonlane.net/tech-blog/2012/04/lock-screen-now-playing-with-mpnowplayinginfocenter/

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• WPF TextBox.SelectAll () doesn't work

  - by Zoliq

  Hi! I have used the following template in my project: <DataTemplate x:Key="textBoxDataTemplate"> <TextBox Name="textBox" ToolTip="{Binding RelativeSource={RelativeSource Self}, Path=(Validation.Errors)[0].ErrorContent}" Tag="{Binding}" PreviewKeyDown="cellValueTextBoxKeyDown"> <TextBox.Text> <MultiBinding Converter="{StaticResource intToStringMultiConverter}"> <Binding Path="CellValue" Mode="TwoWay"> <Binding.ValidationRules> <y:MatrixCellValueRule MaxValue="200" /> </Binding.ValidationRules> </Binding> <Binding RelativeSource="{RelativeSource FindAncestor, AncestorType={x:Type y:MatrixGrid}}" Path="Tag" Mode="OneWay" /> </MultiBinding> </TextBox.Text> </TextBox> </DataTemplate> I used this template to create an editable matrix for the user. The user is able to navigate from cell to cell within the matrix and I would like to highlight the data in the selected textbox but it doesn't work. I called TextBox.Focus () and TextBox.SelectAll () to achieve the effect but nothing. The Focus () works but the text never gets highlighted. Any help is welcome and appreciated.

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• managing images in an iphone/ipad universal app

  - by taber

  Hi, I'm just curious as to what methods people are using to dynamically use larger or smaller images in their universal iPhone/iPad apps. I created a large test image and I tried scaling down (using cocos2d) by 0.46875. After viewing that in the iPhone 4.0 simulator I found the results were pretty crappy... rough pixel edges, etc. Plus, loading huge image files for iPhone users when they don't need them is pretty lame. So I guess what I will probably have to do is save out two versions of every sprite... large (for the iPad side) and small (for iPhone/iPod Touch) then detect the user's device and spit out the proper sprite like so: NSString *deviceType = [UIDevice currentDevice].model; CCSprite *test; if([deviceType isEqualToString:@"iPad"]) { test = [CCSprite spriteWithFile:@"testBigHuge.png"]; } else { test = [CCSprite spriteWithFile:@"testRegularMcTiny.png"]; } [self addChild: test]; How are you guys doing this? I'd rather avoid sprinkling all of my code with if statements like this. I want to also avoid using .xib files since it's an OpenGL-based app. Thanks!

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• Calling C# object method from IronPython

  - by Jason

  I'm trying to embed a scripting engine in my game. Since I'm writing it in C#, I figured IronPython would be a great fit, but the examples I've been able to find all focus on calling IronPython methods in C# instead of C# methods in IronPython scripts. To complicate things, I'm using Visual Studio 2010 RC1 on Windows 7 64 bit. IronRuby works like I expect it would, but I'm not very familiar with Ruby or Python syntax. What I'm doing: ScriptEngine engine = Python.CreateEngine(); ScriptScope scope = engine.CreateScope(); //Test class with a method that prints to the screen. scope.SetVariable("test", this); ScriptSource source = engine.CreateScriptSourceFromString("test.SayHello()", Microsoft.Scripting.SourceCodeKind.Statements); source.Execute(scope); This generates an error, "'TestClass' object has no attribute 'SayHello'" This exact set up works fine with IronRuby though using "self.test.SayHello()" I'm wary using IronRuby though because it doesn't appear as mature as IronPython. If it's close enough, I might go with that though. Any ideas? I know this has to be something simple.

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• MVC - Cocoa interface - Cocoa Design pattern book

  - by Idan

  So I started reading this book: http://www.amazon.com/Cocoa-Design-Patterns-Erik-Buck/dp/0321535022 On chapter 2 it explains about the MVC design pattern and gives and example which I need some clarification to. The simple example shows a view with the following fields: hourlyRate, WorkHours, Standarthours , salary. The example is devided into 3 parts : View - contains some text fiels and a table (the table contains a list of employees' data). Controller - comprised of NSArrayController class (contains an array of MyEmployee) Model - MyEmployee class which describes an employee. MyEmployee class has one method which return the salary according to the calculation logic, and attributes in accordance with the view UI controls. MyEmployee inherits from NSManagedObject. Few things i'm not sure of : 1. Inside the MyEmplpyee class implemenation file, the calculation method gets the class attributes using sentence like " [[self valueForKey:@"hourlyRate"] floatValue];" Howevern, inside the header there is no data member named hourlyRate or any of the view fields. I'm not quite sure how does it work, and how it gets the value from the right view field. (does it have to be the same name as the field name in the view). maybe the conncetion is made somehow using the Interface builder and was not shown in the book ? and more important: 2. how does it seperate the view from the model ? let's say ,as the book implies might happen, I decide one day to remove one of the fields in the view. as far as I understand, that means changing the way the salary method works in MyEmplpyee (cause we have one field less) , and removing one attribute from the same calss. So how is that separate the View from the Model if changing one reflect on the other ? I guess I get something wrong... Any comments ? Thanks

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• -[UIImage drawInRect:] / CGContextDrawImage() not releasing memory?

  - by sohocoke

  I wanted to easily blend a UIImage on top of another background image, so wrote a category method for UIImage, adapted from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1309757/blend-two-uiimages : - (UIImage *) blendedImageOn:(UIImage *) backgroundImage { NSAutoreleasePool* pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init]; UIGraphicsBeginImageContext(backgroundImage.size); CGRect rect = CGRectMake(0, 0, backgroundImage.size.width, backgroundImage.size.height); [backgroundImage drawInRect:rect]; [self drawInRect:rect]; UIImage* blendedImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext(); UIGraphicsEndImageContext(); [pool release]; return blendedImage; } Unfortunately my app that uses the above method to load around 20 images and blend them with background and gloss images (so probably around 40 calls), is being jettisoned on the device. An Instruments session revealed that calls to malloc stemming from the calls to drawInRect: are responsible for the bulk of the memory usage. I tried replacing the drawInRect: messages with equivalent function calls to the function CGContextDrawImage but it didn't help. The AutoReleasePool was added after I found the memory usage problem; it also didn't make a difference. I'm thinking this is probably because I'm not using graphics contexts appropriately. Would calling the above method in a loop be a bad idea because of the number of contexts I create? Or did I simply miss something?

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• sqlite3 problem..need help..urgently..HELP**

  - by summer

  - (void) hydrateDetailViewData { //if detail view is hydrated then do not get it from database if(isDetailViewHydrated) return; if(detailStmt == nil) { const char *sql = "select snapTitle, snapDesc from Snap where snapID =?"; if(sqlite3_prepare_v2(database, sql, -1, &detailStmt, NULL) != SQLITE_OK) NSAssert1(0, @"Error while creating detail view statement. '%s'", sqlite3_errmsg(database)); NSLog(@"SQLite= %d", sqlite3_step(detailStmt)); } if (sqlite3_step(detailStmt) == SQLITE_ROW)//execute sql statement on database, and make sure it executed properly. { self.snapDescription = [NSString stringWithUTF8String:(char *)sqlite3_column_text(detailStmt, 1)]; } looking at the above code, can someone tell me what's wrong and why is it that i can't get it to load on my detailview?i basically followed the tutorial on iphone sdk article..but yet i am having this don't know why error..need help urgently because i have been at this for days!!it's driving me crazy! i can even send my project if u guys need to take a look..help please!! Error msg: * Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInvalidArgumentException', reason: '-[UIViewController _loadViewFromNibNamed:bundle:] was unable to load a nib named "DetailView"' 2010-03-15 16:35:55.202 Snap2Play[58213:20b]

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• SetupAPI.DLL to HID.DLL

  - by lexdean

  With the SetupAPI.DLL I execute Function SetupDiGetClassDevs and get a pointer or handle Then Begin a loop Then I run Return = Function SetupDiEnumDeviceInterfaces with SP_DEVICE_INTERFACE_DATA.cbSize = 0 to get my size of what SP_DEVICE_INTERFACE_DATA needs to be Then I set size and execute again SP_DEVICE_INTERFACE_DATA.cbSize = return (the size) Function SetupDiEnumDeviceInterfaces From the data structures I get DevicePath from SP_DEVINFO_DATA And a heap of information from the registry if I want it I beleave What I’m realy wanting is to access the HID.DLL and call HidD_GetAttributes to get VendorID, ProductID, and VersionNumber To this Enumerated device, so I can ID the device. I expect this particular info would come from the USB device its self. Can any one show me how to do that. By the way in my version of windows XP I’m using the registry path, I cannot find HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\HID...\Class I do not even get HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\ I think this is because I have not executed the SetupDiEnumDeviceInterfaces Function Why? I find Lake View Research the only data that is in complete And does not cover this subject. Why is it all over the net when its junk???????? Thanks in advance, J Lex Dean.

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• Alternative to FindAncestor RelativeSource in Silverlight 4 to bind to a property of the page

  - by TimothyP

  Hi, FindAncestor RelativeSource only supports 'Self' and 'TemplatedParent', but I have to bind the width of a popup to the width of the page. Giving the page a name causes problems because sometimes it will throw exceptions saying a control with that name is already present in the visual tree. <Popup IsOpen="True" Width="{Binding ElementName=BordPage, Path=Width}" Height="{Binding ElementName=BordPage, Path=Height}"> Background information: I'm using a SL4 navigation based application here. BordPage is a navigation page, which I'm using multiple times within the application. So giving it a name in the page itself is not really a good idea, but I don't know how else I can bind to the width and height of the page. What I'm trying to do is have a black border (with opacity 0.8) cover the entire screen, (including the controls of the MainPage). Then on top of that I want to display some other controls. Since the application is touch controlled, providing the user with a ComboBox to select a value doesn't really work wel. Instead I want to show this black overlay window with a listbox taking up most of the screen so the user can simply touch the value he wants with a single click. Update: I just realized I can use the ChildWindow class to do this. But my original question remains.

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• iphone xcode annotation pin drop with slider value change also remove

  - by chirag

  i have to add annotation pin on location with UIslider Value change .... this is code where i add annotation (MKAnnotationView *) mapView:(MKMapView *)mapView1 viewForAnnotation:(id ) annotation{ MKAnnotationView* annotationView = nil; NSString* identifier = @"Pin"; MyAnnotationView* annView = (MyAnnotationView*)[mapView1 dequeueReusableAnnotationViewWithIdentifier:identifier]; // annotationView.leftCalloutAccessoryView = myImage; //myImage = [UIButton buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeCustom]; // [myImage setImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"mark.png"]forState:UIControlStateNormal]; //Property_Photo UIButton *mybtn = [UIButton buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeCustom]; if([annotation isKindOfClass:[AddressAnnotation class]]){ AddressAnnotation x=(AddressAnnotation)annotation; mybtn.frame = CGRectMake(0, 0, 35, 35); mybtn.contentVerticalAlignment = UIControlContentVerticalAlignmentCenter; mybtn.contentHorizontalAlignment = UIControlContentHorizontalAlignmentCenter; [mybtn setImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"btn.png"] forState:UIControlStateNormal]; [mybtn setTitle:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@",[x getID]] forState:UIControlStateDisabled]; [mybtn addTarget:self action:@selector(btnShowProperty:) forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchUpInside]; ((IMOVEISAppDelegate*)[[UIApplication sharedApplication]delegate]).strPropertyPrice = [[myTblArray objectAtIndex:imgIndex]valueForKey:@"Property_Price"]; NSLog(@"property price: %@",((IMOVEISAppDelegate*)[[UIApplication sharedApplication]delegate]).strPropertyPrice); if(nil == annView) { ///if(annView!=nil && [annView retainCount]>0){ [annView release]; annView=nil; } annView = [[[MyAnnotationView alloc] initWithAnnotation:x reuseIdentifier:identifier] autorelease]; if(Objslider.value==10){ [myMapView removeAnnotations:myMapView.annotations]; } } NSURL *imgURL = [NSURL URLWithString:[[myTblArray objectAtIndex:imgIndex]valueForKey:@"Property_Photo"]]; UIImage *imgPhoto = [UIImage imageWithData:[NSData dataWithContentsOfURL:imgURL]]; UIImageView *pinImgView = [[UIImageView alloc]initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0,35, 35)]; imgIndex++; [pinImgView setImage:imgPhoto]; annView.rightCalloutAccessoryView = mybtn; annView.leftCalloutAccessoryView = pinImgView; [annView setBackgroundColor:[UIColor clearColor]]; } [annView setEnabled:YES]; annView.canShowCallout = YES; annView.calloutOffset = CGPointMake(-5, 5); annotationView = annView; return annotationView; }

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• Tracking changes in Entity Framework 4.0 using POCO Dynamic Proxies across multiple data contexts.

  - by Rob Packwood

  I started messing with EF 4.0 because I am curious about the POCO possibilities... I wanted to simulate disconnected web environment and wrote the following code to simulate this: Save a test object in the database. Retrieve the test object Dispose of the DataContext associated with the test object I used to retrieve it Update the test object Create a new data context and persist the changes on the test object that are automatically tracked within the DynamicProxy generated against my POCO object. The problem is that when I call dataContext.SaveChanges in the Test method above, the updates are not applied. The testStore entity shows a status of "Modified" when I check its EntityStateTracker, but it is no longer modified when I view it within the new dataContext's Stores property. I would have thought that calling the Attach method on the new dataContext would also bring the object's "Modified" state over, but that appears to not be the case. Is there something I am missing? I am definitely working with self-tracking POCOs using DynamicProxies. private static void SaveTestStore(string storeName = "TestStore") { using (var context = new DataContext()) { Store newStore = context.Stores.CreateObject(); newStore.Name = storeName; context.Stores.AddObject(newStore); context.SaveChanges(); } } private static Store GetStore(string storeName = "TestStore") { using (var context = new DataContext()) { return (from store in context.Stores where store.Name == storeName select store).SingleOrDefault(); } } [Test] public void Test_Store_Update_Using_Different_DataContext() { SaveTestStore(); Store testStore = GetStore(); testStore.Name = "Updated"; using (var dataContext = new DataContext()) { dataContext.Stores.Attach(testStore); dataContext.SaveChanges(SaveOptions.DetectChangesBeforeSave); } Store updatedStore = GetStore("Updated"); Assert.IsNotNull(updatedStore); }

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