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• Dotfuscator Deep Dive with WP7

  - by Bil Simser

  I thought I would share some experience with code obfuscation (specifically the Dotfuscator product) and Windows Phone 7 apps. These days twitter is a buzz with black hat and white operations coming out about how the marketplace is insecure and Microsoft failed, blah, blah, blah. So it’s that much more important to protect your intellectual property. You should protect it no matter what when releasing apps into the wild but more so when someone is paying for them. You want to protect the time and effort that went into your code and have some comfort that the casual hacker isn’t going to usurp your next best thing. Enter code obfuscation. Code obfuscation is one tool that can help protect your IP. Basically it goes into your compiled assemblies, rewrites things at an IL level (like renaming methods and classes and hiding logic flow) and rewrites it back so that the assembly or executable is still fully functional but prying eyes using a tool like ILDASM or Reflector can’t see what’s going on.  You can read more about code obfuscation here on Wikipedia. A word to the wise. Code obfuscation isn’t 100% secure. More so on the WP7 platform where the OS expects certain things to be as they were meant to be. So don’t expect 100% obfuscation of every class and every method and every property. It’s just not going to happen. What this does do is give you some level of protection but don’t put all your eggs in one basket and call it done. Like I said, this is just one step in the process. There are a few tools out there that provide code obfuscation and support the Windows Phone 7 platform (see links to other tools at the end of this post). One such tool is Dotfuscator from PreEmptive solutions. The thing about Dotfuscator is that they’ve struck a deal with Microsoft to provide a *free* copy of their commercial product for Windows Phone 7. The only drawback is that it only runs until March 31, 2010. However it’s a good place to start and the focus of this article. Getting Started When you fire up Dotfuscator you’re presented with a dialog to start a new project or load a previous one. We’ll start with a new project. You’re then looking at a somewhat blank screen that shows an Input tab (among others) and you’re probably wondering what to do? Click on the folder icon (first one) and browse to where your xap file is. At this point you can save the project and click on the arrow to start the process. Bam! You’re done. Right? Think again. The program did indeed run and create a new version of your xap (doing it’s thing and rewriting back your *obfuscated* assemblies) but let’s take a look at the assembly in Reflector to see the end result. Remember a xap file is really just a glorified zip file (or cab file if you prefer). When you ran Dotfuscator for the first time with the default settings you’ll see it created a new version of your xap in a folder under “My Documents” called “Dotfuscated” (you can configure the output directory in settings). Here’s the new xap file. Since a xap is just a zip, rename it to .cab or .zip or something and open it with your favorite unarchive program (I use WinRar but it doesn’t matter as long as it can unzip files). If you already have the xap file associated with your unarchive tool the rename isn’t needed. Once renamed extract the contents of the xap to your hard drive: Now you’ll have a folder with the contents of the xap file extracted: Double click or load up your assembly (WindowsPhoneDataBoundApplication1.dll in the example) in Reflector and let’s see the results: Hmm. That doesn’t look right. I can see all the methods and the code is all there for my LoadData method I wanted to protect. Product failure. Let’s return it for a refund. Hold your horses. We need to check out the settings in the program first. Remember when we loaded up our xap file. It started us on the Input tab but there was a settings tab before that. Wonder what it does? Here’s the default settings: Renaming Taking a closer look, all of the settings in Feature are disabled. WTF? Yeah, it leaves me scratching my head why an obfuscator by default doesn’t obfuscate. However it’s a simple fix to change these settings. Let’s enable Renaming as it sounds like a good start. Renaming obscures code by renaming methods and fields to names that are not understandable. Great. Run the tool again and go through the process of unzipping the updated xap and let’s take a look in Reflector again at our project. This looks a lot better. Lots of methods named a, b, c, d, etc. That’ll help slow hackers down a bit. What about our logic that we spent days weeks on? Let’s take a look at the LoadData method: What gives? We have renaming enabled but all of our code is still there. If you look through all your methods you’ll find it’s still sitting there out in the open. Control Flow Back to the settings page again. Let’s enable Control Flow now. Control Flow obfuscation synthesizes branching, conditional, and iterative constructs (such as if, for, and while) that produce valid executable logic, but yield non-deterministic semantic results when decompilation is attempted. In other words, the code runs as before, but decompilers cannot reproduce the original code. Do the dance again and let’s see the results in Reflector. Ahh, that’s better. Methods renamed *and* nobody can look at our LoadData method now. Life is good. More than Minimum This is the bare minimum to obfuscate your xap to at least a somewhat comfortable level. However I did find that while this worked in my Hello World demo, it didn’t work on one of my real world apps. I had to do some extra tweaking with that. Below are the screens that I used on one app that worked. I’m not sure what it was about the app that the approach above didn’t work with (maybe the extra assembly?) but it works and I’m happy with it. YMMV. Remember to test your obfuscated app on your device first before submitting to ensure you haven’t obfuscated the obfuscator. settings tab: rename tab: string encryption tab: premark tab: A few final notes Play with the settings and keep bumping up the bar to try to get as much obfuscation as you can. The more the better but remember you can overdo it. Always (always, always, always) deploy your obfuscated xap to your device and test it before submitting to the marketplace. I didn’t and got rejected because I had gone overboard with the obfuscation so the app wouldn’t launch at all. Not everything is going to be obfuscated. Specifically I don’t see a way to obfuscate auto properties and a few other language features. Again, if you crank the settings up you might hide these but I haven’t spent a lot of time optimizing the process. Some people might say to obfuscate your xaml using string encryption but again, test, test, test. Xaml is picky so too much obfuscation (or any) might disable your app or produce odd rendering effets. Remember, obfuscation is not 100% secure! Don’t rely on it as a sole way of protecting your assets. Other Tools Dotfuscator is one just product and isn’t the end-all be-all to obfuscation so check out others below. For example, Crypto can make it so Reflector doesn’t even recognize the app as a .NET one and won’t open it. Others can encrypt resources and Xaml markup files. Here are some other obfuscators that support the Windows Phone 7 platform. Feel free to give them a try and let people know your experience with them! Dotfuscator Windows Phone Edition Crypto Obfuscator for .NET DeepSea Obfuscation

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• Using Table-Valued Parameters in SQL Server

  - by Jesse

  I work with stored procedures in SQL Server pretty frequently and have often found myself with a need to pass in a list of values at run-time. Quite often this list contains a set of ids on which the stored procedure needs to operate the size and contents of which are not known at design time. In the past I’ve taken the collection of ids (which are usually integers), converted them to a string representation where each value is separated by a comma and passed that string into a VARCHAR parameter of a stored procedure. The body of the stored procedure would then need to parse that string into a table variable which could be easily consumed with set-based logic within the rest of the stored procedure. This approach works pretty well but the VARCHAR variable has always felt like an un-wanted “middle man” in this scenario. Of course, I could use a BULK INSERT operation to load the list of ids into a temporary table that the stored procedure could use, but that approach seems heavy-handed in situations where the list of values is usually going to contain only a few dozen values. Fortunately SQL Server 2008 introduced the concept of table-valued parameters which effectively eliminates the need for the clumsy middle man VARCHAR parameter. Example: Customer Transaction Summary Report Let’s say we have a report that can summarize the the transactions that we’ve conducted with customers over a period of time. The report returns a pretty simple dataset containing one row per customer with some key metrics about how much business that customer has conducted over the date range for which the report is being run. Sometimes the report is run for a single customer, sometimes it’s run for all customers, and sometimes it’s run for a handful of customers (i.e. a salesman runs it for the customers that fall into his sales territory). This report can be invoked from a website on-demand, or it can be scheduled for periodic delivery to certain users via SQL Server Reporting Services. Because the report can be created from different places and the query to generate the report is complex it’s been packed into a stored procedure that accepts three parameters: @startDate – The beginning of the date range for which the report should be run. @endDate – The end of the date range for which the report should be run. @customerIds – The customer Ids for which the report should be run. Obviously, the @startDate and @endDate parameters are DATETIME variables. The @customerIds parameter, however, needs to contain a list of the identity values (primary key) from the Customers table representing the customers that were selected for this particular run of the report. In prior versions of SQL Server we might have made this parameter a VARCHAR variable, but with SQL Server 2008 we can make it into a table-valued parameter. Defining And Using The Table Type In order to use a table-valued parameter, we first need to tell SQL Server about what the table will look like. We do this by creating a user defined type. For the purposes of this stored procedure we need a very simple type to model a table variable with a single integer column. We can create a generic type called ‘IntegerListTableType’ like this: CREATE TYPE IntegerListTableType AS TABLE (Value INT NOT NULL) Once defined, we can use this new type to define the @customerIds parameter in the signature of our stored procedure. The parameter list for the stored procedure definition might look like: 1: CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.rpt_CustomerTransactionSummary 2: @starDate datetime, 3: @endDate datetime, 4: @customerIds IntegerListTableTableType READONLY   Note the ‘READONLY’ statement following the declaration of the @customerIds parameter. SQL Server requires any table-valued parameter be marked as ‘READONLY’ and no DML (INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE) statements can be performed on a table-valued parameter within the routine in which it’s used. Aside from the DML restriction, however, you can do pretty much anything with a table-valued parameter as you could with a normal TABLE variable. With the user defined type and stored procedure defined as above, we could invoke like this: 1: DECLARE @cusomterIdList IntegerListTableType 2: INSERT @customerIdList VALUES (1) 3: INSERT @customerIdList VALUES (2) 4: INSERT @customerIdList VALUES (3) 5:  6: EXEC dbo.rpt_CustomerTransationSummary 7: @startDate = '2012-05-01', 8: @endDate = '2012-06-01' 9: @customerIds = @customerIdList   Note that we can simply declare a variable of type ‘IntegerListTableType’ just like any other normal variable and insert values into it just like a TABLE variable. We could also populate the variable with a SELECT … INTO or INSERT … SELECT statement if desired. Using The Table-Valued Parameter With ADO .NET Invoking a stored procedure with a table-valued parameter from ADO .NET is as simple as building a DataTable and passing it in as the Value of a SqlParameter. Here’s some example code for how we would construct the SqlParameter for the @customerIds parameter in our stored procedure: 1: var customerIdsParameter = new SqlParameter(); 2: customerIdParameter.Direction = ParameterDirection.Input; 3: customerIdParameter.TypeName = "IntegerListTableType"; 4: customerIdParameter.Value = selectedCustomerIds.ToIntegerListDataTable("Value");   All we’re doing here is new’ing up an instance of SqlParameter, setting the pamameters direction, specifying the name of the User Defined Type that this parameter uses, and setting its value. We’re assuming here that we have an IEnumerable<int> variable called ‘selectedCustomerIds’ containing all of the customer Ids for which the report should be run. The ‘ToIntegerListDataTable’ method is an extension method of the IEnumerable<int> type that looks like this: 1: public static DataTable ToIntegerListDataTable(this IEnumerable<int> intValues, string columnName) 2: { 3: var intergerListDataTable = new DataTable(); 4: intergerListDataTable.Columns.Add(columnName); 5: foreach(var intValue in intValues) 6: { 7: var nextRow = intergerListDataTable.NewRow(); 8: nextRow[columnName] = intValue; 9: intergerListDataTable.Rows.Add(nextRow); 10: } 11:  12: return intergerListDataTable; 13: }   Since the ‘IntegerListTableType’ has a single int column called ‘Value’, we pass that in for the ‘columnName’ parameter to the extension method. The method creates a new single-columned DataTable using the provided column name then iterates over the items in the IEnumerable<int> instance adding one row for each value. We can then use this SqlParameter instance when invoking the stored procedure just like we would use any other parameter. Advanced Functionality Using passing a list of integers into a stored procedure is a very simple usage scenario for the table-valued parameters feature, but I’ve found that it covers the majority of situations where I’ve needed to pass a collection of data for use in a query at run-time. I should note that BULK INSERT feature still makes sense for passing large amounts of data to SQL Server for processing. MSDN seems to suggest that 1000 rows of data is the tipping point where the overhead of a BULK INSERT operation can pay dividends. I should also note here that table-valued parameters can be used to deal with more complex data structures than single-columned tables of integers. A User Defined Type that backs a table-valued parameter can use things like identities and computed columns. That said, using some of these more advanced features might require the use the SqlDataRecord and SqlMetaData classes instead of a simple DataTable. Erland Sommarskog has a great article on his website that describes when and how to use these classes for table-valued parameters. What About Reporting Services? Earlier in the post I referenced the fact that our example stored procedure would be called from both a web application and a SQL Server Reporting Services report. Unfortunately, using table-valued parameters from SSRS reports can be a bit tricky and warrants its own blog post which I’ll be putting together and posting sometime in the near future.

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• 10 Reasons Why Java is the Top Embedded Platform

  - by Roger Brinkley

  With the release of Oracle ME Embedded 3.2 and Oracle Java Embedded Suite, Java is now ready to fully move into the embedded developer space, what many have called the "Internet of Things". Here are 10 reasons why Java is the top embedded platform. 1. Decouples software development from hardware development cycle Development is typically split between both hardware and software in a traditional design flow . This leads to complicated co-design and requires prototype hardware to be built. This parallel and interdependent hardware / software design process typically leads to two or more re-development phases. With Embedded Java, all specific work is carried out in software, with the (processor) hardware implementation fully decoupled. This with eliminate or at least reduces the need for re-spins of software or hardware and the original development efforts can be carried forward directly into product development and validation. 2. Development and testing can be done (mostly) using standard desktop systems through emulation Because the software and hardware are decoupled it now becomes easier to test the software long before it reaches the hardware through hardware emulation. Emulation is the ability of a program in an electronic device to imitate another program or device. In the past Java tools like the Java ME SDK and the SunSPOTs Solarium provided developers with emulation for a complete set of mobile telelphones and SunSpots. This often included network interaction or in the case of SunSPOTs radio communication. What emulation does is speed up the development cycle by refining the software development process without the need of hardware. The software is fixed, redefined, and refactored without the timely expense of hardware testing. With tools like the Java ME 3.2 SDK, Embedded Java applications can be be quickly developed on Windows based platforms. In the end of course developers should do a full set of testing on the hardware as incompatibilities between emulators and hardware will exist, but the amount of time to do this should be significantly reduced. 3. Highly productive language, APIs, runtime, and tools mean quick time to market Charles Nutter probably said it best in twitter blog when he tweeted, "Every time I see a piece of C code I need to port, my heart dies a little. Then I port it to 1/4 as much Java, and feel better." The Java environment is a very complex combination of a Java Virtual Machine, the Java Language, and it's robust APIs. Combine that with the Java ME SDK for small devices or just Netbeans for the larger devices and you have a development environment where development time is reduced significantly meaning the product can be shipped sooner. Of course this is assuming that the engineers don't get slap happy adding new features given the extra time they'll have.  4. Create high-performance, portable, secure, robust, cross-platform applications easily The latest JIT compilers for the Oracle JVM approach the speed of C/C++ code, and in some memory allocation intensive circumstances, exceed it. And specifically for the embedded devices both ME Embedded and SE Embedded have been optimized for the smaller footprints.  In portability Java uses Bytecode to make the language platform independent. This creates a write once run anywhere environment that allows you to develop on one platform and execute on others and avoids a platform vendor lock in. For security, Java achieves protection by confining a Java program to a Java execution environment and not allowing it to access other parts of computer.  In variety of systems the program must execute reliably to be robust. Finally, Oracle Java ME Embedded is a cross-industry and cross-platform product optimized in release version 3.2 for chipsets based on the ARM architectures. Similarly Oracle Java SE Embedded works on a variety of ARM V5, V6, and V7, X86 and Power Architecture Linux. 5. Java isolates your apps from language and platform variations (e.g. C/C++, kernel, libc differences) This has been a key factor in Java from day one. Developers write to Java and don't have to worry about underlying differences in the platform variations. Those platform variations are being managed by the JVM. Gone are the C/C++ problems like memory corruptions, stack overflows, and other such bugs which are extremely difficult to isolate. Of course this doesn't imply that you won't be able to get away from native code completely. There could be some situations where you have to write native code in either assembler or C/C++. But those instances should be limited. 6. Most popular embedded processors supported allowing design flexibility Java SE Embedded is now available on ARM V5, V6, and V7 along with Linux on X86 and Power Architecture platforms. Java ME Embedded is available on system based on ARM architecture SOCs with low memory footprints and a device emulation environment for x86/Windows desktop computers, integrated with the Java ME SDK 3.2. A standard binary of Oracle Java ME Embedded 3.2 for ARM KEIL development boards based on ARM Cortex M-3/4 (KEIL MCBSTM32F200 using ST Micro SOC STM32F207IG) will soon be available for download from the Oracle Technology Network (OTN). 7. Support for key embedded features (low footprint, power mgmt., low latency, etc) All embedded devices by there very nature are constrained in some way. Economics may dictate a device with a less RAM and ROM. The CPU needs can dictate a less powerful device. Power consumption is another major resource in some embedded devices as connecting to consistent power source not always desirable or possible. For others they have to constantly on. Often many of these systems are headless (in the embedded space it's almost always Halloween).  For memory resources ,Java ME Embedded can run in environment as low as 130KB RAM/350KB ROM for a minimal, customized configuration up to 700KB RAM/1500KB ROM for the full, standard configuration. Java SE Embedded is designed for environments starting at 32MB RAM/39MB  ROM. Key functionality of embedded devices such as auto-start and recovery, flexible networking are fully supported. And while Java SE Embedded has been optimized for mid-range to high-end embedded systems, Java ME Embedded is a Java runtime stack optimized for small embedded systems. It provides a robust and flexible application platform with dedicated embedded functionality for always-on, headless (no graphics/UI), and connected devices. 8. Leverage huge Java developer ecosystem (expertise, existing code) There are over 9 million developers in world that work on Java, and while not all of them work on embedded systems, their wealth of expertise in developing applications is immense. In short, getting a java developer to work on a embedded system is pretty easy, you probably have a java developer living in your subdivsion.  Then of course there is the wealth of existing code. The Java Embedded Community on Java.net is central gathering place for embedded Java developers. Conferences like Embedded Java @ JavaOne and the a variety of hardware vendor conferences like Freescale Technlogy Forums offer an excellent opportunity for those interested in embedded systems. 9. Easily create end-to-end solutions integrated with Java back-end services In the "Internet of Things" things aren't on an island doing an single task. For instance and embedded drink dispenser doesn't just dispense a beverage, but could collect money from a credit card and also send information about current sales. Similarly, an embedded house power monitoring system doesn't just manage the power usage in a house, but can also send that data back to the power company. In both cases it isn't about the individual thing, but monitoring a collection of  things. How much power did your block, subdivsion, area of town, town, county, state, nation, world use? How many Dr Peppers were purchased from thing1, thing2, thingN? The point is that all this information can be collected and transferred securely  (and believe me that is key issue that Java fully supports) to back end services for further analysis. And what better back in service exists than a Java back in service. It's interesting to note that on larger embedded platforms that support the Java Embedded Suite some of the analysis might be done on the embedded device itself as JES has a glassfish server and Java Database as part of the installation. The result is an end to end Java solution. 10. Solutions from constrained devices to server-class systems Just take a look at some of the embedded Java systems that have already been developed and you'll see a vast range of solutions. Livescribe pen, Kindle, each and every Blu-Ray player, Cisco's Advanced VOIP phone, KronosInTouch smart time clock, EnergyICT smart metering, EDF's automated meter management, Ricoh Printers, and Stanford's automated car  are just a few of the list of embedded Java implementation that continues to grow. Conclusion Now if your a Java Developer you probably look at some of the 10 reasons and say "duh", but for the embedded developers this is should be an eye opening list. And with the release of ME Embedded 3.2 and the Java Embedded Suite the embedded developers life is now a whole lot easier. For the Java developer your employment opportunities are about to increase. For both it's a great time to start developing Java for the "Internet of Things".

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• C#: My World Clock

  - by Bruce Eitman

  [Placeholder:  I will post the entire project soon] I have been working on cleaning my office of 8 years of stuff from several engineers working on many projects.  It turns out that we have a few extra single board computers with displays, so at the end of the day last Friday I though why not create a little application to display the time, you know, a clock.  How difficult could that be?  It turns out that it is quite simple – until I decided to gold plate the project by adding time displays for our offices around the world. I decided to use C#, which actually made creating the main clock quite easy.   The application was simply a text box and a timer.  I set the timer to fire a couple of times a second, and when it does use a DateTime object to get the current time and retrieve a string to display. And I could have been done, but of course that gold plating came up.   Seems simple enough, simply offset the time from the local time to the location that I want the time for and display it.    Sure enough, I had the time displayed for UK, Italy, Kansas City, Japan and China in no time at all. But it is October, and for those of us still stuck with Daylight Savings Time, we know that the clocks are about to change.   My first attempt was to simply check to see if the local time was DST or Standard time, then change the offset for China.  China doesn’t have Daylight Savings Time. If you know anything about the time changes around the world, you already know that my plan is flawed – in a big way.   It turns out that the transitions in and out of DST take place at different times around the world.   If you didn’t know that, do a quick search for “Daylight Savings” and you will find many WEB sites dedicated to tracking the time changes dates, and times. Now the real challenge of this application; how do I programmatically find out when the time changes occur and handle them correctly?  After a considerable amount of research it turns out that the solution is to read the data from the registry and parse it to figure out when the time changes occur. Reading Time Change Information from the Registry Reading the data from the registry is simple, using the data is a little more complicated.  First, reading from the registry can be done like:             byte[] binarydata = (byte[])Registry.GetValue("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\Time Zones\\Eastern Standard Time", "TZI", null);   Where I have hardcoded the registry key for example purposes, but in the end I will use some variables.   We now have a binary blob with the data, but it needs to be converted to use the real data.   To start we will need a couple of structs to hold the data and make it usable.   We will need a SYSTEMTIME and REG_TZI_FORMAT.   You may have expected that we would need a TIME_ZONE_INFORMATION struct, but we don’t.   The data is stored in the registry as a REG_TZI_FORMAT, which excludes some of the values found in TIME_ZONE_INFORMATION.     struct SYSTEMTIME     {         internal short wYear;         internal short wMonth;         internal short wDayOfWeek;         internal short wDay;         internal short wHour;         internal short wMinute;         internal short wSecond;         internal short wMilliseconds;     }       struct REG_TZI_FORMAT     {         internal long Bias;         internal long StdBias;         internal long DSTBias;         internal SYSTEMTIME StandardStart;         internal SYSTEMTIME DSTStart;     }   Now we need to convert the binary blob to a REG_TZI_FORMAT.   To do that I created the following helper functions:         private void BinaryToSystemTime(ref SYSTEMTIME ST, byte[] binary, int offset)         {             ST.wYear = (short)(binary[offset + 0] + (binary[offset + 1] << 8));             ST.wMonth = (short)(binary[offset + 2] + (binary[offset + 3] << 8));             ST.wDayOfWeek = (short)(binary[offset + 4] + (binary[offset + 5] << 8));             ST.wDay = (short)(binary[offset + 6] + (binary[offset + 7] << 8));             ST.wHour = (short)(binary[offset + 8] + (binary[offset + 9] << 8));             ST.wMinute = (short)(binary[offset + 10] + (binary[offset + 11] << 8));             ST.wSecond = (short)(binary[offset + 12] + (binary[offset + 13] << 8));             ST.wMilliseconds = (short)(binary[offset + 14] + (binary[offset + 15] << 8));         }             private REG_TZI_FORMAT ConvertFromBinary(byte[] binarydata)         {             REG_TZI_FORMAT RTZ = new REG_TZI_FORMAT();               RTZ.Bias = binarydata[0] + (binarydata[1] << 8) + (binarydata[2] << 16) + (binarydata[3] << 24);             RTZ.StdBias = binarydata[4] + (binarydata[5] << 8) + (binarydata[6] << 16) + (binarydata[7] << 24);             RTZ.DSTBias = binarydata[8] + (binarydata[9] << 8) + (binarydata[10] << 16) + (binarydata[11] << 24);             BinaryToSystemTime(ref RTZ.StandardStart, binarydata, 4 + 4 + 4);             BinaryToSystemTime(ref RTZ.DSTStart, binarydata, 4 + 16 + 4 + 4);               return RTZ;         }   I am the first to admit that there may be a better way to get the settings from the registry and into the REG_TXI_FORMAT, but I am not a great C# programmer which I have said before on this blog.   So sometimes I chose brute force over elegant. Now that we have the Bias information and the start date information, we can start to make sense of it.   The bias is an offset, in minutes, from local time (if already in local time for the time zone in question) to get to UTC – or as Microsoft defines it: UTC = local time + bias.  Standard bias is an offset to adjust for standard time, which I think is usually zero.   And DST bias is and offset to adjust for daylight savings time. Since we don’t have the local time for a time zone other than the one that the computer is set to, what we first need to do is convert local time to UTC, which is simple enough using:                 DateTime.Now.ToUniversalTime(); Then, since we have UTC we need to do a little math to alter the formula to: local time = UTC – bias.  In other words, we need to subtract the bias minutes. I am ahead of myself though, the standard and DST start dates really aren’t dates.   Instead they indicate the month, day of week and week number of the time change.   The dDay member of SYSTEM time will be set to the week number of the date change indicating that the change happens on the first, second… day of week of the month.  So we need to convert them to dates so that we can determine which bias to use, and when to change to a different bias.   To do that, I wrote the following function:         private DateTime SystemTimeToDateTimeStart(SYSTEMTIME Time, int Year)         {             DayOfWeek[] Days = { DayOfWeek.Sunday, DayOfWeek.Monday, DayOfWeek.Tuesday, DayOfWeek.Wednesday, DayOfWeek.Thursday, DayOfWeek.Friday, DayOfWeek.Saturday };             DateTime InfoTime = new DateTime(Year, Time.wMonth, Time.wDay == 1 ? 1 : ((Time.wDay - 1) * 7) + 1, Time.wHour, Time.wMinute, Time.wSecond, DateTimeKind.Utc);             DateTime BestGuess = InfoTime;             while (BestGuess.DayOfWeek != Days[Time.wDayOfWeek])             {                 BestGuess = BestGuess.AddDays(1);             }             return BestGuess;         }   SystemTimeToDateTimeStart gets two parameters; a SYSTEMTIME and a year.   The reason is that we will try this year and next year because we are interested in start dates that are in the future, not the past.  The function starts by getting a new Datetime with the first possible date and then looking for the correct date. Using the start dates, we can then determine the correct bias to use, and the next date that time will change:             NextTimeChange = StandardChange;             CurrentBias = TimezoneSettings.Bias + TimezoneSettings.DSTBias;             if (DSTChange.Year != 1 && StandardChange.Year != 1)             {                 if (DSTChange.CompareTo(StandardChange) < 0)                 {                     NextTimeChange = DSTChange;                     CurrentBias = TimezoneSettings.StdBias + TimezoneSettings.Bias;                 }             }             else             {                 // I don't like this, but it turns out that China Standard Time                 // has a DSTBias of -60 on every Windows system that I tested.                 // So, if no DST transitions, then just use the Bias without                 // any offset                 CurrentBias = TimezoneSettings.Bias;             }   Note that some time zones do not change time, in which case the years will remain set to 1.   Further, I found that the registry settings are actually wrong in that the DST Bias is set to -60 for China even though there is not DST in China, so I ignore the standard and DST bias for those time zones. There is one thing that I have not solved, and don’t plan to solve.  If the time zone for this computer changes, this application will not update the clock using the new time zone.  I tell  you this because you may need to deal with it – I do not because I won’t let the user get to the control panel applet to change the timezone. Copyright © 2012 – Bruce Eitman All Rights Reserved

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, April 18, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, April 18, 2010New ProjectsBare Bones Email Trace Listener: Bare Bones Email Trace Listener is about the simplest email trace listener you can have. No bells, no whistles, and no good if you need authenticat...Cartellino: Scopo del progetto è la realizzazione di un software in grado di rilevare i dati dai rilevatori 3Tec (www.3tec.it) e stampare i cartellini presenza...Castle Windsor app.config Properties: The Castle Windsor app.config Properties library makes it possible for users of Castle Windsor to reference appSettings values in Windsor's XML pro...DeskD: This is a simple desktop dictionary application(something like WordWeb) created in Java using Netbeans IDE. Since i am new to codeplex all updates ...FunPokerMakerOnline: It is a play of poker online with a game editor. It is done with .net 4 and WPF and SOAP or WCF. KLOCS Team GIN Project: This is a Master's Degree program group project. It may have academic interest, but won't be maintained after June 2010KNN: This is KNN projectProject Santa: Program to organize teams using mysql databases and c# in a clean and robust task and group system. For more information see my blog post at http:/...ProjetoIntegradoJuridico: Sistema Integrado de Acompanhamento JurídicoRSSR for Windows Phone 7: This is a simple RSS reader application, the project aims to show people that it is easy to build application for windows phones. The applicatio...Simple Rcon: Simple Rcon is a simple lightweight rcon client for HL1/HL2 Servers. It is developed in C# and WPFTAB METHOD SQL Create a data dictionary from your Transact SQL code: TABMETHODSQL makes it easier for data/information workers to document their work. Create a data governance solution that maps sql data process, inc...TM BF Tournament: WPF software to manage Trackmania tournament with Battle France RulesviBlog: visinia plugin, this plugin is used to add blogging facility in visinia cmsviNews: visinia plugin, this plugin can be used to create a news portal like cnn.com nytimeVolumeMaster: VolumeMaster is an On Screen Display (OSD) that gets activated whenever the volume changes. It's written in WPF and uses Vista Core Audio API by Ra...WiiCIS.NET: This is a managed port of WiiCIS, which is a Nintendo Wiimote library originally created by TheOboeNerd and posted on Sourceforge.New ReleasesCastle Windsor app.config Properties: Version 1.0: Initial release.Code for Rapid C# Windows Development eBook: Enumerable Debugger Visualizer Version 1.1: Second release of the Enumerable Debugger Visualizer. There are more classes registered and it is more robust. The list of classes I have register...Convection Game Engine (Basic Edition): Convection Basic (40223): Compiled version of Convection Basic change set 40223.CycleMania Starter Kit EAP - ASP.NET 4 Problem - Design - Solution: Cyclemania 0.08.59: See Source Code tab for recent change history.DbEntry.Net (Lephone Framework): DbEntry.Net 3.9: DbEntry.Net is a lightweight Object Relational Mapping (ORM) database access compnent for .Net 3.5. It has clearly and easily programing interface ...Hash Calculator: HashCalculator 2.0: Upgraded to .NET Framework 4.0 Added support to calculate CRC32 hash function Added "Cancel" button in the Windows 7 taskbar thumbnailHKGolden Express: HKGoldenExpress (Build 201004172120): New features: Added jump links at top of page of message. Bug fix: Fixed page count bug. Improvements: HKGolden Express now uses DocumentBuild...HTML Ruby: 6.21.4: Styles added to override those on some sites for better rendering of ruby Fix regression on complex ruby annotation rendering Better spacingHTML Ruby: 6.21.5: Removed debug code in preference handling Status bar indicator now resets for each action Replace ruby in place without using document fragment...IceChat: IceChat 2009 Alpha 12.4 EXE Update: This is simply an update to the main IceChat program files and DLL. Simpply overwrite the ones in the place where IceChat 2009 is installed.IceChat: IceChat 2009 Alpha 12.4 Full Install: Build Alpha 12.4 - April 17 2010 Added IceChatScript.dll , needs to be added in same folder with EXE and IPluginIceChat.dll Added Self Notice in ...PokeIn Comet Ajax Library: PokeIn Library v05 x64: With this version, PokeIn library has become a stable. Numerous tests have completed. This is the first release candidate of PokeIn. Cheers!PokeIn Comet Ajax Library: PokeIn Library v05 x86: PokeIn Library version 0.5 (x86) With this version, PokeIn library has become a stable. Numerous tests have completed. This is the first release c...Project Santa: Project Santa V1.0: The first initial release of my project manager program, for more information see http://coderplex.blogspot.com/2010/04/project-manager-using-mysq...Salient: TestingWithVSDevServer v1: Using code from Salient, I have assembled a few strategies for programmatic contol of the Visual Studio Development Server (WebDev.WebServer.exe). ...SharePoint Navigation Menu: spNavigationMenu 1.1: Changed the CAML query so it will order by Link Order, then Title. Added the ability to override the On Hover event on the parent menu to use On ...Simple Rcon: Simple Rcon Version 1: Version 1TAB METHOD SQL Create a data dictionary from your Transact SQL code: RELEASE 1: TESTING THE RELEASE SYSTEMTribe.Cache: Tribe.Cache Beta 0.1: Beta release of Tribe.Cache - Now with cache expiration serviceviBlog: viBlog_beta: visinia plugin to add blogging facility in visinia cmsviNews: viNews_beta: visinia plugin.visinia: visinia_beta2: visinia beta 2 released with many new feature.Visual Studio DSite: Visual C++ 2008 Login Form: A simple login form made in visual c 2008. Source code only.WiiCIS.NET: WiiCIS.NET v0.11: 0.11 Removed an unnecessary function from the Wiimote class, and improved the demo. You will need the latest version of SlimDX to compile the sourc...WinControls TreeListView: TreeListView 1.5.1: -fixes issue #5837 -Preliminary feature #5874WoW Character Viewer: Viewer Setup: Finally, I've brought out the next setup of WoW Viewer. Most loose ends have been tied up. Loading and Saving of character files has been fixed.Most Popular ProjectsRawrAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseMicrosoft SQL Server Community & Samplespatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryPHPExcelFacebook Developer ToolkitBlogEngine.NETMvcContrib: a Codeplex Foundation projectIronPythonMost Active ProjectsRawrpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryIndustrial DashboardFarseer Physics EnginejQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesIonics Isapi Rewrite FilterGMap.NET - Great Maps for Windows Forms & PresentationProxi [Proxy Interface]BlogEngine.NETCaliburn: An Application Framework for WPF and Silverlight

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• C#/.NET Little Wonders: The Timeout static class

  - by James Michael Hare

  Once again, in this series of posts I look at the parts of the .NET Framework that may seem trivial, but can help improve your code by making it easier to write and maintain. The index of all my past little wonders posts can be found here. When I started the “Little Wonders” series, I really wanted to pay homage to parts of the .NET Framework that are often small but can help in big ways.  The item I have to discuss today really is a very small item in the .NET BCL, but once again I feel it can help make the intention of code much clearer and thus is worthy of note. The Problem - Magic numbers aren’t very readable or maintainable In my first Little Wonders Post (Five Little Wonders That Make Code Better) I mention the TimeSpan factory methods which, I feel, really help the readability of constructed TimeSpan instances. Just to quickly recap that discussion, ask yourself what the TimeSpan specified in each case below is 1: // Five minutes? Five Seconds? 2: var fiveWhat1 = new TimeSpan(0, 0, 5); 3: var fiveWhat2 = new TimeSpan(0, 0, 5, 0); 4: var fiveWhat3 = new TimeSpan(0, 0, 5, 0, 0); You’d think they’d all be the same unit of time, right?  After all, most overloads tend to tack additional arguments on the end.  But this is not the case with TimeSpan, where the constructor forms are:     TimeSpan(int hours, int minutes, int seconds);     TimeSpan(int days, int hours, int minutes, int seconds);     TimeSpan(int days, int hours, int minutes, int seconds, int milliseconds); Notice how in the 4 and 5 parameter version we suddenly have the parameter days slipping in front of hours?  This can make reading constructors like those above much harder.  Fortunately, there are TimeSpan factory methods to help make your intention crystal clear: 1: // Ah! Much clearer! 2: var fiveSeconds = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(5); These are great because they remove all ambiguity from the reader!  So in short, magic numbers in constructors and methods can be ambiguous, and anything we can do to clean up the intention of the developer will make the code much easier to read and maintain. Timeout – Readable identifiers for infinite timeout values In a similar way to TimeSpan, let’s consider specifying timeouts for some of .NET’s (or our own) many methods that allow you to specify timeout periods. For example, in the TPL Task class, there is a family of Wait() methods that can take TimeSpan or int for timeouts.  Typically, if you want to specify an infinite timeout, you’d just call the version that doesn’t take a timeout parameter at all: 1: myTask.Wait(); // infinite wait But there are versions that take the int or TimeSpan for timeout as well: 1: // Wait for 100 ms 2: myTask.Wait(100); 3:  4: // Wait for 5 seconds 5: myTask.Wait(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(5); Now, if we want to specify an infinite timeout to wait on the Task, we could pass –1 (or a TimeSpan set to –1 ms), which what the .NET BCL methods with timeouts use to represent an infinite timeout: 1: // Also infinite timeouts, but harder to read/maintain 2: myTask.Wait(-1); 3: myTask.Wait(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(-1)); However, these are not as readable or maintainable.  If you were writing this code, you might make the mistake of thinking 0 or int.MaxValue was an infinite timeout, and you’d be incorrect.  Also, reading the code above it isn’t as clear that –1 is infinite unless you happen to know that is the specified behavior. To make the code like this easier to read and maintain, there is a static class called Timeout in the System.Threading namespace which contains definition for infinite timeouts specified as both int and TimeSpan forms: Timeout.Infinite An integer constant with a value of –1 Timeout.InfiniteTimeSpan A static readonly TimeSpan which represents –1 ms (only available in .NET 4.5+) This makes our calls to Task.Wait() (or any other calls with timeouts) much more clear: 1: // intention to wait indefinitely is quite clear now 2: myTask.Wait(Timeout.Infinite); 3: myTask.Wait(Timeout.InfiniteTimeSpan); But wait, you may say, why would we care at all?  Why not use the version of Wait() that takes no arguments?  Good question!  When you’re directly calling the method with an infinite timeout that’s what you’d most likely do, but what if you are just passing along a timeout specified by a caller from higher up?  Or perhaps storing a timeout value from a configuration file, and want to default it to infinite? For example, perhaps you are designing a communications module and want to be able to shutdown gracefully, but if you can’t gracefully finish in a specified amount of time you want to force the connection closed.  You could create a Shutdown() method in your class, and take a TimeSpan or an int for the amount of time to wait for a clean shutdown – perhaps waiting for client to acknowledge – before terminating the connection.  So, assume we had a pub/sub system with a class to broadcast messages: 1: // Some class to broadcast messages to connected clients 2: public class Broadcaster 3: { 4: // ... 5:  6: // Shutdown connection to clients, wait for ack back from clients 7: // until all acks received or timeout, whichever happens first 8: public void Shutdown(int timeout) 9: { 10: // Kick off a task here to send shutdown request to clients and wait 11: // for the task to finish below for the specified time... 12:  13: if (!shutdownTask.Wait(timeout)) 14: { 15: // If Wait() returns false, we timed out and task 16: // did not join in time. 17: } 18: } 19: } We could even add an overload to allow us to use TimeSpan instead of int, to give our callers the flexibility to specify timeouts either way: 1: // overload to allow them to specify Timeout in TimeSpan, would 2: // just call the int version passing in the TotalMilliseconds... 3: public void Shutdown(TimeSpan timeout) 4: { 5: Shutdown(timeout.TotalMilliseconds); 6: } Notice in case of this class, we don’t assume the caller wants infinite timeouts, we choose to rely on them to tell us how long to wait.  So now, if they choose an infinite timeout, they could use the –1, which is more cryptic, or use Timeout class to make the intention clear: 1: // shutdown the broadcaster, waiting until all clients ack back 2: // without timing out. 3: myBroadcaster.Shutdown(Timeout.Infinite); We could even add a default argument using the int parameter version so that specifying no arguments to Shutdown() assumes an infinite timeout: 1: // Modified original Shutdown() method to add a default of 2: // Timeout.Infinite, works because Timeout.Infinite is a compile 3: // time constant. 4: public void Shutdown(int timeout = Timeout.Infinite) 5: { 6: // same code as before 7: } Note that you can’t default the ShutDown(TimeSpan) overload with Timeout.InfiniteTimeSpan since it is not a compile-time constant.  The only acceptable default for a TimeSpan parameter would be default(TimeSpan) which is zero milliseconds, which specified no wait, not infinite wait. Summary While Timeout.Infinite and Timeout.InfiniteTimeSpan are not earth-shattering classes in terms of functionality, they do give you very handy and readable constant values that you can use in your programs to help increase readability and maintainability when specifying infinite timeouts for various timeouts in the BCL and your own applications. Technorati Tags: C#,CSharp,.NET,Little Wonders,Timeout,Task

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, April 28, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, April 28, 2010New ProjectsArgument Handler: This project aims to help the handling of arguments in command line programs.Bing for BlackBerry: Bing for BlackBerry is a SDK that allows intergration and searching Bing in there applications.C4F - GeoWallpaper: This is an extension for my MEF Utility Runner to change desktop wallpaper based on Flickr images geotagged with your current location. Uses Windo...CRM 4.0 Contract Utilities: List of Contract Utilities (i.e. custom workflow actions) 1. Change contract status from Active to Draft 2. Copy Contract (with custom start/end da...ELIS: Multimedia player based on WPFEnterprise Administration with Powershell: The EnterpriseShell aims to produce a powershell code library that will enable Enterprise Administrators to quickly reconfigure their IT infrastruc...ExposedObject: ExposedObject uses dynamic typing in C# to provide convenient access to private fields and methods from code outside of the class – for testing, ex...F# Project Extender: Installing F# Project Extender provides tools to better organize files in F# projects by allowing project subdirectories and separating file manage...Hack Framework: Code bundle with the internets brains connected into one piece of .Net frameworkKrypton XNA: Krypton allows users of the XNA framework to easily add 2D lighting to their games. Krypton is fast, as it utilizes the GPU and uses a vertex shade...Net Darts: Provides an easy way to calculate the score left to throw. Users can easily click on the score.PlayerSharp: PlayerSharp is a library written entirely in C# that allows you to communicate your C# programs with the Player Server by Brian Gerkey et al (http:...Ratpoid: RatpoidRedeemer Tower Defense: 2d tower defense game. It is developed with XNA technology, using .Net Visual Studio 2008 or .Net Visual Studio 2010SelfService: Simple self service projectSharePoint Exchange Calendar: a jQuery based calendar web part for displaying Exchange calendars within SharePoint.SharpORM, easy use Object & Relation Database mapping Library: AIM on: Object easy storeage, Create,Retrieve,Update,Delete User .NET Attribute marking or Xml Standalone Mapping eg. public class Somethin...Silverlight Calculator: Silverlight Calculator makes it easier for people to do simple math calculations. It's developed in C# Silverlight 2. Silverlight Calendar: Silverlight Calendar makes it easier for people to view a calendar in silverlight way. It's developed in C# Silverlight 2.SPSocialUtil for SharePoint 2010: SPSocialUtil makes it easier for delevoper to use Social Tag, Tag Cloud, BookMark, Colleague in SharePoint 2010. It's developed in C# with Visual S...Sublight: Sublight open source project is a simple metadata utility for view models in ASP.NET MVC 2Veda Auto Dealer Report: Create work item tasks for the Veda Auto Dealer ReportWPF Meta-Effects: WPF Meta-Effects makes it easier for shader effect developpers to develop and maintain shader code. You'll no longer have to write any HLSL, instea...New ReleasesBing for BlackBerry: Bing SDK for BlackBerry: There are four downloadable components: The library, in source code format, in its latest stable release. A "getting started" doc that will gui...DotNetNuke® Store: 02.01.34: What's New in this release? Bugs corrected: - Fixed a bug related to encryption cookie when DNN is used in Medium Trust environment. New Features:...Encrypted Notes: Encrypted Notes 1.6.4: This is the latest version of Encrypted Notes, with general improvements and bug fixes for 'Batch Encryption'. It has an installer that will create...EPiServer CMS Page Type Builder: Page Type Builder 1.2 Beta 2: For more information about this release check out this blog post.ExposedObject: ExposedObject 0.1: This is an initial release of the ExposedObject library that lets you conveniently call private methods and access private fields of a class.Extended SSIS Package Execute: Ver 0.01: Version 0.01 - 2008 Compatible OnlyF# Project Extender: V0.9.0.0 (VS2008): F# project extender for Visual Studio 2008. Initial ReleaseFileExplorer.NET: FileExplorer.NET 1.0: This is the first release of this project. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Please report any bugs that you may en...Fluent ViewModel Configuration for WPF (MVVM): FluentViewModel Alpha3: Overhaul of the configuration system Separation of the configuratior and service locator Added support for general services - using Castle Wind...Home Access Plus+: v4.1: v4.1 Change Log: booking system fixes/additions Uploader fixes Added excluded extensions in my computer Updated Config Tool Fixed an issue ...ILMerge-GUI, merge .NET assemblies: 1.9.0 BETA: Compatible with .NET 4.0 This is the first version of ILMerge-GUI working with .NET 4.0. The final version will be 2.0.0, to be released by mid May...iTuner - The iTunes Companion: iTuner 1.2.3769 Beta 3c: Given the high download rate and awesome feedback for Beta 3b, I decided to release this interim build with the following enhancements: Added new h...Jet Login Tool (JetLoginTool): In then Out - 1.5.3770.18310: Fixed: Will only attempt to logout if currently logged in Fixed: UI no longer blocks while waiting for log outKooboo CMS: Kooboo CMS 2.1.1.0: New features Add new API RssUrl to generate RSS link, this is an extension to UrlHelper. Add possibility to index and search attachment content ...Krypton XNA: Krypton v1.0: First release of Krypton. I've tried to throw together a small testbed, but just getting tortoisehq to work the first time around was a huge pain. ...LinkedIn® for Windows Mobile: LinkedIn for Windows Mobile v0.5: Added missing files to installer packageNito.KitchenSink: Version 7: New features (since Version 5) Fixed null reference bug in ExceptionExtensions. Added DynamicStaticTypeMembers and RefOutArg for dynamically (lat...Numina Application/Security Framework: Numina.Framework Core 51341: Added multiple methods to API and classic ASP libraryOpenIdPortableArea: 0.1.0.3 OpenIdPortableArea: OpenIdPortableArea.Release: DotNetOpenAuth.dll DotNetOpenAuth.xml MvcContrib.dll MvcContrib.xml OpenIdPortableArea.dll OpenIdPortableAre...Play-kanaler (Windows Media Center Plug-in): Playkanaler 1.0.5 Alpha: Playkanaler version 1.0.5 Alpha Skärmsläckar-fix. helt otestad!PokeIn Comet Ajax Library: PokeIn v0.81 Library with ServerWatch Sample: Release Notes Functionality improved. Possible bugs fixed. Realtime server time sample addedSharpORM, easy use Object & Relation Database mapping Library: Vbyte.SharpOrm 1.0.2010.427: Vbyte.SharpOrm for Access & SQLServer.7z 1.0 alpha release for Access oledb provider and Sql Server 2000+.Silverlight 4.0 Popup Menu: Context Menu for Silverlight 4.0: - Markup items can now be added seperately using the AddItem method. Alternatingly all items can be placed inside a listbox which can then be added...Silverlight Calculator: SilverCalculator: SilverCalculator version 1.0 Live demoSilverlight Calendar: Silverlight Calendar: Silverlight Calendar version 1.0 Live demoSpeakup Desktop Frontend: Speakup Desktop Frontend v0.2a: This is new version of Speakup Desktop Frontend. It requires .net 4.0 to be installed before using it. In this release next changes were done: - ...TwitterVB - A .NET Twitter Library: Twitter-2.5: Adds xAuth support and increases TwitterLocation information (html help file is not up to date, will correct in a later version.)VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30427.5: Automatic drop of latest buildXP-More: 1.1: Added a parent VHD edit feature. Moved VM settings from double-click to a button, and rearranged the buttons' layout.Yasbg: It's Static 1.0: Many changes have been made from the previous release. Read the README! This release adds settings tab and fixes bugs. To run, first unzip, then...Most Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS Managerpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryAJAX Control ToolkitSilverlight ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)ASP.NETMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesPHPExcelMost Active ProjectsRawrpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryGMap.NET - Great Maps for Windows Forms & PresentationNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModuleIonics Isapi Rewrite FilterParticle Plot PivotFarseer Physics EngineBlogEngine.NETDotNetZip LibrarySqlDiffFramework-A Visual Differencing Engine for Dissimilar Data Sources

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• guvcview recording video and audio out of synchronisation in Ubuntu 10.10

  - by SIJAR

  I finally got Guvcview, a great software for Logitech webcam and it does all the stuff that one wants out of it. But I'm not satisfy with the video recording, video and audio out of synchronisation also video seems to be in slow motion. Please help so that I can tweak in and get a good video recording with the webcam. Below is the log of Guvcview ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- guvcview 1.4.1 video_device: /dev/video0 vid_sleep: 0 cap_meth: 1 resolution: 640 x 480 windowsize: 1024 x 715 vert pane: 578 spin behavior: 0 mode: mjpg fps: 1/25 Display Fps: 0 bpp: 0 hwaccel: 1 avi_format: 4 sound: 1 sound Device: 4 sound samp rate: 0 sound Channels: 0 Sound delay: 0 nanosec Sound Format: 85 Pan Step: 2 degrees Tilt Step: 2 degrees Video Filter Flags: 0 image inc: 0 profile(default):/home/sijar/default.gpfl starting portaudio... bt_audio_service_open: connect() failed: Connection refused (111) bt_audio_service_open: connect() failed: Connection refused (111) bt_audio_service_open: connect() failed: Connection refused (111) bt_audio_service_open: connect() failed: Connection refused (111) Cannot connect to server socket err = No such file or directory Cannot connect to server socket jack server is not running or cannot be started language catalog= dir:/usr/share/locale type:UTF-8 lang:en_US.utf8 cat:guvcview.mo mjpg: setting format to 1196444237 capture method = 1 video device: /dev/video0 libv4lconvert: warning more framesizes then I can handle! libv4lconvert: warning more framesizes then I can handle! /dev/video0 - device 1 libv4lconvert: warning more framesizes then I can handle! libv4lconvert: warning more framesizes then I can handle! Init. UVC Camera (046d:0825) (location: usb-0000:00:1d.7-5) { pixelformat = 'YUYV', description = 'YUV 4:2:2 (YUYV)' } { discrete: width = 640, height = 480 } Time interval between frame: 1/30, 1/25, 1/20, 1/15, 1/10, 1/5, { discrete: width = 160, height = 120 } Time interval between frame: 1/30, 1/25, 1/20, 1/15, 1/10, 1/5, { discrete: width = 176, height = 144 } Time interval between frame: 1/30, 1/25, 1/20, 1/15, 1/10, 1/5, { discrete: width = 320, height = 176 } Time interval between frame: 1/30, 1/25, 1/20, 1/15, 1/10, 1/5, { discrete: width = 320, height = 240 } Time interval between frame: 1/30, 1/25, 1/20, 1/15, 1/10, 1/5, { discrete: width = 352, height = 288 } Time interval between frame: 1/30, 1/25, 1/20, 1/15, 1/10, 1/5, { discrete: width = 432, height = 240 } Time interval between frame: 1/30, 1/25, 1/20, 1/15, 1/10, 1/5, { discrete: width = 544, height = 288 } Time interval between frame: 1/30, 1/25, 1/20, 1/15, 1/10, 1/5, { discrete: width = 640, height = 360 } Time interval between frame: 1/30, 1/25, 1/20, 1/15, 1/10, 1/5, ... repeats a couple of times ... vid:046d pid:0825 driver:uvcvideo Adding control for Pan (relative) UVCIOC_CTRL_ADD - Error: Operation not permitted checking format: 1196444237 VIDIOC_G_COMP:: Invalid argument compression control not supported fps is set to 1/25 drawing controls control[0]: 0x980900 Brightness, 0:255:1, default 128 control[0]: 0x980901 Contrast, 0:255:1, default 32 control[0]: 0x980902 Saturation, 0:255:1, default 32 control[0]: 0x98090c White Balance Temperature, Auto, 0:1:1, default 1 control[0]: 0x980913 Gain, 0:255:1, default 0 control[0]: 0x980918 Power Line Frequency, 0:2:1, default 2 control[0]: 0x98091a White Balance Temperature, 0:10000:10, default 4000 control[0]: 0x98091b Sharpness, 0:255:1, default 24 control[0]: 0x98091c Backlight Compensation, 0:1:1, default 1 control[0]: 0x9a0901 Exposure, Auto, 0:3:1, default 3 control[0]: 0x9a0902 Exposure (Absolute), 1:10000:1, default 166 control[0]: 0x9a0903 Exposure, Auto Priority, 0:1:1, default 0 resolutions of format(2) = 19 frame rates of 1º resolution=6 Def. Res: 0 numb. fps:6 --------------------------------------- device #0 Name = Intel 82801DB-ICH4: Intel 82801DB-ICH4 (hw:0,0) Host API = ALSA Max inputs = 2, Max outputs = 2 Def. low input latency = 0.012 Def. low output latency = 0.012 Def. high input latency = 0.046 Def. high output latency = 0.046 Def. sample rate = 44100.00 --------------------------------------- device #1 Name = Intel 82801DB-ICH4: Intel 82801DB-ICH4 - MIC ADC (hw:0,1) Host API = ALSA Max inputs = 2, Max outputs = 0 Def. low input latency = 0.011 Def. low output latency = -1.000 Def. high input latency = 0.043 Def. high output latency = -1.000 Def. sample rate = 48000.00 --------------------------------------- device #2 Name = Intel 82801DB-ICH4: Intel 82801DB-ICH4 - MIC2 ADC (hw:0,2) Host API = ALSA Max inputs = 2, Max outputs = 0 Def. low input latency = 0.011 Def. low output latency = -1.000 Def. high input latency = 0.043 Def. high output latency = -1.000 Def. sample rate = 48000.00 --------------------------------------- device #3 Name = Intel 82801DB-ICH4: Intel 82801DB-ICH4 - ADC2 (hw:0,3) Host API = ALSA Max inputs = 2, Max outputs = 0 Def. low input latency = 0.011 Def. low output latency = -1.000 Def. high input latency = 0.043 Def. high output latency = -1.000 Def. sample rate = 48000.00 --------------------------------------- device #4 Name = Intel 82801DB-ICH4: Intel 82801DB-ICH4 - IEC958 (hw:0,4) Host API = ALSA Max inputs = 0, Max outputs = 2 Def. low input latency = -1.000 Def. low output latency = 0.011 Def. high input latency = -1.000 Def. high output latency = 0.043 Def. sample rate = 48000.00 --------------------------------------- device #5 Name = USB Device 0x46d:0x825: USB Audio (hw:1,0) Host API = ALSA Max inputs = 1, Max outputs = 0 Def. low input latency = 0.011 Def. low output latency = -1.000 Def. high input latency = 0.043 Def. high output latency = -1.000 Def. sample rate = 48000.00 --------------------------------------- device #6 Name = front Host API = ALSA Max inputs = 0, Max outputs = 2 Def. low input latency = -1.000 Def. low output latency = 0.012 Def. high input latency = -1.000 Def. high output latency = 0.046 Def. sample rate = 44100.00 --------------------------------------- device #7 Name = iec958 Host API = ALSA Max inputs = 0, Max outputs = 2 Def. low input latency = -1.000 Def. low output latency = 0.011 Def. high input latency = -1.000 Def. high output latency = 0.043 Def. sample rate = 48000.00 --------------------------------------- device #8 Name = spdif Host API = ALSA Max inputs = 0, Max outputs = 2 Def. low input latency = -1.000 Def. low output latency = 0.011 Def. high input latency = -1.000 Def. high output latency = 0.043 Def. sample rate = 48000.00 --------------------------------------- device #9 Name = pulse Host API = ALSA Max inputs = 32, Max outputs = 32 Def. low input latency = 0.012 Def. low output latency = 0.012 Def. high input latency = 0.046 Def. high output latency = 0.046 Def. sample rate = 44100.00 --------------------------------------- device #10 Name = dmix Host API = ALSA Max inputs = 0, Max outputs = 2 Def. low input latency = -1.000 Def. low output latency = 0.043 Def. high input latency = -1.000 Def. high output latency = 0.043 Def. sample rate = 48000.00 --------------------------------------- device #11 [ Default Input, Default Output ] Name = default Host API = ALSA Max inputs = 32, Max outputs = 32 Def. low input latency = 0.012 Def. low output latency = 0.012 Def. high input latency = 0.046 Def. high output latency = 0.046 Def. sample rate = 44100.00 ---------------------------------------------- SampleRate:0 Channels:0 Video driver: x11 A window manager is available VIDIOC_S_EXT_CTRLS for multiple controls failed (error -1) using VIDIOC_S_CTRL for user class controls control(0x0098091a) "White Balance Temperature" failed to set (error -1) VIDIOC_S_EXT_CTRLS for multiple controls failed (error -1) using VIDIOC_S_EXT_CTRLS on single controls for class: 0x009a0000 control(0x009a0902) "Exposure (Absolute)" failed to set (error -1) VIDIOC_S_EXT_CTRLS for multiple controls failed (error -1) using VIDIOC_S_CTRL for user class controls control(0x0098091a) "White Balance Temperature" failed to set (error -1) VIDIOC_S_EXT_CTRLS for multiple controls failed (error -1) using VIDIOC_S_EXT_CTRLS on single controls for class: 0x009a0000 control(0x009a0902) "Exposure (Absolute)" failed to set (error -1) Cap Video toggled: 1 (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25371756K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K using audio codec: 0x0055 Audio frame size is 1152 samples for selected codec IO thread started...OK [libx264 @ 0x8cbd8b0]using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2 Cache64 [libx264 @ 0x8cbd8b0]profile Baseline, level 3.0 [libx264 @ 0x8cbd8b0]non-strictly-monotonic PTS shift sound by -9 ms shift sound by -9 ms shift sound by -9 ms AUDIO: droping audio data AUDIO: droping audio data AUDIO: droping audio data AUDIO: droping audio data AUDIO: droping audio data ... repeats a couple of times ... AUDIO: droping audio data (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25371748K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K AUDIO: droping audio data AUDIO: droping audio data ... repeats a couple of times ... Cap Video toggled: 0 Shuting Down IO Thread AUDIO: droping audio data stop= 4426644744000 start=4416533023000 VIDEO: 146 frames in 10111.000000 ms = 14.439719 fps Stoping audio stream Closing audio stream... close avi Last message repeated 145 times [libx264 @ 0x8cbd8b0]frame I:2 Avg QP:14.10 size: 24492 [libx264 @ 0x8cbd8b0]frame P:103 Avg QP:16.06 size: 20715 [libx264 @ 0x8cbd8b0]mb I I16..4: 48.4% 0.0% 51.6% [libx264 @ 0x8cbd8b0]mb P I16..4: 57.5% 0.0% 0.0% P16..4: 40.2% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% skip: 2.3% [libx264 @ 0x8cbd8b0]final ratefactor: 62.05 [libx264 @ 0x8cbd8b0]coded y,uvDC,uvAC intra: 79.7% 92.2% 68.4% inter: 62.4% 87.5% 48.0% [libx264 @ 0x8cbd8b0]i16 v,h,dc,p: 23% 17% 41% 19% [libx264 @ 0x8cbd8b0]i4 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 30% 24% 26% 2% 5% 3% 3% 3% 4% [libx264 @ 0x8cbd8b0]i8c dc,h,v,p: 53% 20% 23% 4% [libx264 @ 0x8cbd8b0]ref P L0: 63.0% 37.0% [libx264 @ 0x8cbd8b0]kb/s:-0.00 total frames encoded: 0 total audio frames encoded: 0 IO thread finished...OK IO Thread finished enabling controls Cap Video toggled: 1 (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25379744K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K using audio codec: 0x0055 Audio frame size is 1152 samples for selected codec IO thread started...OK [libx264 @ 0x8cfba20]using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2 Cache64 [libx264 @ 0x8cfba20]profile Baseline, level 3.0 [libx264 @ 0x8cfba20]non-strictly-monotonic PTS shift sound by -236 ms shift sound by -236 ms shift sound by -236 ms (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25377044K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25373408K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K AUDIO: droping audio data AUDIO: droping audio data AUDIO: droping audio data AUDIO: droping audio data AUDIO: droping audio data AUDIO: droping audio data ... repeats a couple of times ... (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25370696K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K AUDIO: droping audio data AUDIO: droping audio data AUDIO: droping audio data ... repeats a couple of times ... (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25367680K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25364052K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25360312K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25356628K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25352908K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25349316K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25345552K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25341828K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25338092K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K (/home/sijar/Videos/Webcam) 25334412K bytes free on a total of 39908968K (used: 36 %) treshold=51200K Cap Video toggled: 0 Shuting Down IO Thread stop= 4708817235000 start=4578624714000 VIDEO: 1604 frames in 130192.000000 ms = 12.320265 fps Stoping audio stream Closing audio stream... close avi Last message repeated 1603 times [libx264 @ 0x8cfba20]frame I:16 Avg QP:14.78 size: 42627 [libx264 @ 0x8cfba20]frame P:1547 Avg QP:16.44 size: 28599 [libx264 @ 0x8cfba20]mb I I16..4: 21.6% 0.0% 78.4% [libx264 @ 0x8cfba20]mb P I16..4: 28.1% 0.0% 0.0% P16..4: 70.5% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% skip: 1.4% [libx264 @ 0x8cfba20]final ratefactor: 88.17 [libx264 @ 0x8cfba20]coded y,uvDC,uvAC intra: 74.4% 95.8% 83.2% inter: 75.2% 94.6% 69.2% [libx264 @ 0x8cfba20]i16 v,h,dc,p: 27% 17% 40% 16% [libx264 @ 0x8cfba20]i4 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 25% 25% 21% 3% 6% 4% 5% 4% 7% [libx264 @ 0x8cfba20]i8c dc,h,v,p: 61% 18% 18% 4% [libx264 @ 0x8cfba20]ref P L0: 64.0% 36.0% [libx264 @ 0x8cfba20]kb/s:-0.00 total frames encoded: 0 total audio frames encoded: 0 IO thread finished...OK IO Thread finished enabling controls Shuting Down Thread Thread terminated... cleaning Thread allocations: 100% SDL Quit Video Thread finished write /home/sijar/.guvcviewrc OK free audio mutex closed v4l2 strutures free controls free controls - vidState cleaned allocations - 100% Closing portaudio ...OK Closing GTK... OK

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• MIX 2010 Covert Operations Day 2 Silverlight + Windows 7 Phone

  - by GeekAgilistMercenary

  Left the Circus Circus and headed to the geek circus at Mandalay Bay.  Got in, got some breakfast, met a few more people and headed to the keynote. Upon arriving the crew I was hanging with at the event; Erik Mork, Beth Murray, and Brian Henderson and I were entertained with several other thousand geeks by the wicked yo-yoing. The first video demo of something was of Bing Maps and various aspects of Microsoft Research integrated together.  Namely the pictures, put in place, on real 3d element maps of various environments. Silverlight Scott Guthrie, as one would guess, kicked off the keynote.  His first point was that user experience has become a priority at Microsoft.  This can be seen by any observant soul with the release and push of Expression, Silverlight, and the other tools.  This is even more apparent when one takes note of Microsoft bringing in people that can actually do good design and putting them at the forefront. The next thing Scott brought up was a few key points about Silverlight.  Currently Silverlight is a little over 2 years old and has achieved a pretty solid 60% penetration.  Silverlight has all sorts of capabilities that have been developed and are now provided as open source including;  ad injection, smoothing, playback editing, and more.  Another thing he showed, which really struck me as awesome being in the analytics space, was the Olympics and a quick glimpse of the ad statistics, viewer experience, video playback performance, audience trends, and overall viewer participation.  All of it rendered in Silverlight in beautiful detail. The key piece of Scott's various points were all punctuated with the fact that all of this code is available as open source.  Not only is Microsoft really delving into this design element of things, they're getting involved in the right ways. One of the last points I'll bring up about Silverlight 4 is the ability to have HD video on a monitor, and an entirely different activity being done on the other monitor, effectively making Silverlight the only RIA framework that supports multi-monitor support.  Overall, Silverlight is continuing to impress – providing superior capabilities tit-for-tat with the competition. Windows 7 Phone The Windows 7 Phone has 3 primary buttons (yes, more than the iPhone, don't let your mind explode!!).  Start, Search, and Back control all of the needed functionality of the phone.  At the same time, of course, there is the multi-touch, touch, and other interactive abilities of the interface.  The intent, once start is pressed is to have all the information that a phone owner wants displayed immediately.  Avoiding the scrolling through pages of apps or rolling a ball to get through multitudes of other non-interactive phone interfaces.  The Windows 7 Phone simply has the data right in front of you, basically a phone dashboard.  From there it is easy to dive into the interactive areas of the phone. Each area of the interface of the phone is broken into hubs.  These hubs include applications, data, and other things based on a relative basis.  This basis being determined by the user.  These applications interact on many other levels, and form a kind of relationship between each other adding more and more meta-data to the phone user, their interactions between the applications, and of course the social element of their interactions on the phone.  This makes this phone a practical must have for a marketer involved in social media.  The level of wired together interaction is massive, and of course, if you've seen Office Outlook 2010 you know that the power that is pulled into the phone by being tied to Outlook is massive. Joe Belfiore also showed several UI & specifically UX elements of the phone interface that allows paging to be instinctual by simple clipped items, flipping page to page, and other excellent user experience advances for phone devices.  Belfiore's also showed how his people hub had a massive list of people, with pictures, all from various different social networks and other associated relations.  The rendering, speed, and viewing of these people's, their pictures, their social network information, and other characteristics was smooth and in some situations unbelievably rendered.  This demo showed some of the great power of the beta phone, which isn't even as powerful as the planned end device. Joe finished up by jumping into the music, videos, and other media with the Zune Component of the Windows 7 Mobile Phone.  This was all good stuff, but I'll get to what really sold me on the media element in a moment. When Joe was done, Scott Guthrie stepped back up to walk through building a Windows 7 Mobile Phone.  This is were I have to give serious props.  He built this application, in Visual Studio 2010, in front of 2000+ people.  That was cool, but what really was amazing that he build the application in about 2 minutes.  The IDE, side by side design that is standard in Visual Studio is light years ahead of x-Code or any of the iPhone IDEs.  The Windows 7 Mobile System, if it can get market penetration, poses a technologically superior development and phone platform over anything on the market right now.  The biggest problem with the phone, is it just isn't available yet.  I personally can't wait for a chance to build some apps for the new Windows Phone. Netflix, I May Start Up an Account Again! When I get my Windows 7 Phone device, I am absolutely getting a Netflix account again.  The Vertigo crew, as I wrote on Twitter "#MIX10 Props @seesharp on @netflix demo", displayed an application on the phone for Netflix that actually ran HD Video of Rescue Me (with Dennis Leary).  The video played back smooth as it would on a dedicated computer, I was instantly sold.  So this didn't actually sell me on the phone, because I'm already sold, but it did sell me whole heartedly on the media capabilities of the pending phone. Anyway, I try not to do this but I may double post today.  Lunch is over and I'm off to another session very near and dear to the heart of my occupation, Analytics Tracking.  Stay tuned and I should have that post up by the end of the day. Original Post – Check out my other blog for even more technical ramblings and reads.

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• Building Simple Workflows in Oozie

  - by dan.mcclary

  Introduction More often than not, data doesn't come packaged exactly as we'd like it for analysis. Transformation, match-merge operations, and a host of data munging tasks are usually needed before we can extract insights from our Big Data sources. Few people find data munging exciting, but it has to be done. Once we've suffered that boredom, we should take steps to automate the process. We want codify our work into repeatable units and create workflows which we can leverage over and over again without having to write new code. In this article, we'll look at how to use Oozie to create a workflow for the parallel machine learning task I described on Cloudera's site. Hive Actions: Prepping for Pig In my parallel machine learning article, I use data from the National Climatic Data Center to build weather models on a state-by-state basis. NCDC makes the data freely available as gzipped files of day-over-day observations stretching from the 1930s to today. In reading that post, one might get the impression that the data came in a handy, ready-to-model files with convenient delimiters. The truth of it is that I need to perform some parsing and projection on the dataset before it can be modeled. If I get more observations, I'll want to retrain and test those models, which will require more parsing and projection. This is a good opportunity to start building up a workflow with Oozie. I store the data from the NCDC in HDFS and create an external Hive table partitioned by year. This gives me flexibility of Hive's query language when I want it, but let's me put the dataset in a directory of my choosing in case I want to treat the same data with Pig or MapReduce code. CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE IF NOT EXISTS historic_weather(column 1, column2) PARTITIONED BY (yr string) STORED AS ... LOCATION '/user/oracle/weather/historic'; As new weather data comes in from NCDC, I'll need to add partitions to my table. That's an action I should put in the workflow. Similarly, the weather data requires parsing in order to be useful as a set of columns. Because of their long history, the weather data is broken up into fields of specific byte lengths: x bytes for the station ID, y bytes for the dew point, and so on. The delimiting is consistent from year to year, so writing SerDe or a parser for transformation is simple. Once that's done, I want to select columns on which to train, classify certain features, and place the training data in an HDFS directory for my Pig script to access. ALTER TABLE historic_weather ADD IF NOT EXISTS PARTITION (yr='2010') LOCATION '/user/oracle/weather/historic/yr=2011'; INSERT OVERWRITE DIRECTORY '/user/oracle/weather/cleaned_history' SELECT w.stn, w.wban, w.weather_year, w.weather_month, w.weather_day, w.temp, w.dewp, w.weather FROM ( FROM historic_weather SELECT TRANSFORM(...) USING '/path/to/hive/filters/ncdc_parser.py' as stn, wban, weather_year, weather_month, weather_day, temp, dewp, weather ) w; Since I'm going to prepare training directories with at least the same frequency that I add partitions, I should also add that to my workflow. Oozie is going to invoke these Hive actions using what's somewhat obviously referred to as a Hive action. Hive actions amount to Oozie running a script file containing our query language statements, so we can place them in a file called weather_train.hql. Starting Our Workflow Oozie offers two types of jobs: workflows and coordinator jobs. Workflows are straightforward: they define a set of actions to perform as a sequence or directed acyclic graph. Coordinator jobs can take all the same actions of Workflow jobs, but they can be automatically started either periodically or when new data arrives in a specified location. To keep things simple we'll make a workflow job; coordinator jobs simply require another XML file for scheduling. The bare minimum for workflow XML defines a name, a starting point, and an end point: <workflow-app name="WeatherMan" xmlns="uri:oozie:workflow:0.1"> <start to="ParseNCDCData"/> <end name="end"/> </workflow-app> To this we need to add an action, and within that we'll specify the hive parameters Also, keep in mind that actions require <ok> and <error> tags to direct the next action on success or failure. <action name="ParseNCDCData"> <hive xmlns="uri:oozie:hive-action:0.2"> <job-tracker>localhost:8021</job-tracker> <name-node>localhost:8020</name-node> <configuration> <property> <name>oozie.hive.defaults</name> <value>/user/oracle/weather_ooze/hive-default.xml</value> </property> </configuration> <script>ncdc_parse.hql</script> </hive> <ok to="WeatherMan"/> <error to="end"/> </action> There are a couple of things to note here: I have to give the FQDN (or IP) and port of my JobTracker and NameNode. I have to include a hive-default.xml file. I have to include a script file. The hive-default.xml and script file must be stored in HDFS That last point is particularly important. Oozie doesn't make assumptions about where a given workflow is being run. You might submit workflows against different clusters, or have different hive-defaults.xml on different clusters (e.g. MySQL or Postgres-backed metastores). A quick way to ensure that all the assets end up in the right place in HDFS is just to make a working directory locally, build your workflow.xml in it, and copy the assets you'll need to it as you add actions to workflow.xml. At this point, our local directory should contain: workflow.xml hive-defaults.xml (make sure this file contains your metastore connection data) ncdc_parse.hql Adding Pig to the Ooze Adding our Pig script as an action is slightly simpler from an XML standpoint. All we do is add an action to workflow.xml as follows: <action name="WeatherMan"> <pig> <job-tracker>localhost:8021</job-tracker> <name-node>localhost:8020</name-node> <script>weather_train.pig</script> </pig> <ok to="end"/> <error to="end"/> </action> Once we've done this, we'll copy weather_train.pig to our working directory. However, there's a bit of a "gotcha" here. My pig script registers the Weka Jar and a chunk of jython. If those aren't also in HDFS, our action will fail from the outset -- but where do we put them? The Jython script goes into the working directory at the same level as the pig script, because pig attempts to load Jython files in the directory from which the script executes. However, that's not where our Weka jar goes. While Oozie doesn't assume much, it does make an assumption about the Pig classpath. Anything under working_directory/lib gets automatically added to the Pig classpath and no longer requires a REGISTER statement in the script. Anything that uses a REGISTER statement cannot be in the working_directory/lib directory. Instead, it needs to be in a different HDFS directory and attached to the pig action with an <archive> tag. Yes, that's as confusing as you think it is. You can get the exact rules for adding Jars to the distributed cache from Oozie's Pig Cookbook. Making the Workflow Work We've got a workflow defined and have collected all the components we'll need to run. But we can't run anything yet, because we still have to define some properties about the job and submit it to Oozie. We need to start with the job properties, as this is essentially the "request" we'll submit to the Oozie server. In the same working directory, we'll make a file called job.properties as follows: nameNode=hdfs://localhost:8020 jobTracker=localhost:8021 queueName=default weatherRoot=weather_ooze mapreduce.jobtracker.kerberos.principal=foo dfs.namenode.kerberos.principal=foo oozie.libpath=${nameNode}/user/oozie/share/lib oozie.wf.application.path=${nameNode}/user/${user.name}/${weatherRoot} outputDir=weather-ooze While some of the pieces of the properties file are familiar (e.g., JobTracker address), others take a bit of explaining. The first is weatherRoot: this is essentially an environment variable for the script (as are jobTracker and queueName). We're simply using them to simplify the directives for the Oozie job. The oozie.libpath pieces is extremely important. This is a directory in HDFS which holds Oozie's shared libraries: a collection of Jars necessary for invoking Hive, Pig, and other actions. It's a good idea to make sure this has been installed and copied up to HDFS. The last two lines are straightforward: run the application defined by workflow.xml at the application path listed and write the output to the output directory. We're finally ready to submit our job! After all that work we only need to do a few more things: Validate our workflow.xml Copy our working directory to HDFS Submit our job to the Oozie server Run our workflow Let's do them in order. First validate the workflow: oozie validate workflow.xml Next, copy the working directory up to HDFS: hadoop fs -put working_dir /user/oracle/working_dir Now we submit the job to the Oozie server. We need to ensure that we've got the correct URL for the Oozie server, and we need to specify our job.properties file as an argument. oozie job -oozie http://url.to.oozie.server:port_number/ -config /path/to/working_dir/job.properties -submit We've submitted the job, but we don't see any activity on the JobTracker? All I got was this funny bit of output: 14-20120525161321-oozie-oracle This is because submitting a job to Oozie creates an entry for the job and places it in PREP status. What we got back, in essence, is a ticket for our workflow to ride the Oozie train. We're responsible for redeeming our ticket and running the job. oozie -oozie http://url.to.oozie.server:port_number/ -start 14-20120525161321-oozie-oracle Of course, if we really want to run the job from the outset, we can change the "-submit" argument above to "-run." This will prep and run the workflow immediately. Takeaway So, there you have it: the somewhat laborious process of building an Oozie workflow. It's a bit tedious the first time out, but it does present a pair of real benefits to those of us who spend a great deal of time data munging. First, when new data arrives that requires the same processing, we already have the workflow defined and ready to run. Second, as we build up a set of useful action definitions over time, creating new workflows becomes quicker and quicker.

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• A Simple Approach For Presenting With Code Samples

  - by Jesse Taber

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/GruffCode/archive/2013/07/31/a-simple-approach-for-presenting-with-code-samples.aspxI’ve been getting ready for a presentation and have been struggling a bit with the best way to show and execute code samples. I don’t present often (hardly ever), but when I do I like the presentation to have a lot of succinct and executable code snippets to help illustrate the points that I’m making. Depending on what the presentation is about, I might just want to build an entire sample application that I would run during the presentation. In other cases, however, building a full-blown application might not really be the best way to present the code. The presentation I’m working on now is for an open source utility library for dealing with dates and times. I could have probably cooked up a sample app for accepting date and time input and then contrived ways in which it could put the library through its paces, but I had trouble coming up with one app that would illustrate all of the various features of the library that I wanted to highlight. I finally decided that what I really needed was an approach that met the following criteria: Simple: I didn’t want the user interface or overall architecture of a sample application to serve as a distraction from the demonstration of the syntax of the library that the presentation is about. I want to be able to present small bits of code that are focused on accomplishing a single task. Several of these examples will look similar, and that’s OK. I want each sample to “stand on its own” and not rely much on external classes or methods (other than the library that is being presented, of course). “Debuggable” (not really a word, I know): I want to be able to easily run the sample with the debugger attached in Visual Studio should I want to step through any bits of code and show what certain values might be at run time. As far as I know this rules out something like LinqPad, though using LinqPad to present code samples like this is actually a very interesting idea that I might explore another time. Flexible and Selectable: I’m going to have lots of code samples to show, and I want to be able to just package them all up into a single project or module and have an easy way to just run the sample that I want on-demand. Since I’m presenting on a .NET framework library, one of the simplest ways in which I could execute some code samples would be to just create a Console application and use Console.WriteLine to output the pertinent info at run time. This gives me a “no frills” harness from which to run my code samples, and I just hit ‘F5’ to run it with the debugger. This satisfies numbers 1 and 2 from my list of criteria above, but item 3 is a little harder. By default, just running a console application is going to execute the ‘main’ method, and then terminate the program after all code is executed. If I want to have several different code samples and run them one at a time, it would be cumbersome to keep swapping the code I want in and out of the ‘main’ method of the console application. What I really want is an easy way to keep the console app running throughout the whole presentation and just have it run the samples I want when I want. I could setup a simple Windows Forms or WPF desktop application with buttons for the different samples, but then I’m getting away from my first criteria of keeping things as simple as possible. Infinite Loops To The Rescue I found a way to have a simple console application satisfy all three of my requirements above, and it involves using an infinite loop and some Console.ReadLine calls that will give the user an opportunity to break out and exit the program. (All programs that need to run until they are closed explicitly (or crash!) likely use similar constructs behind the scenes. Create a new Windows Forms project, look in the ‘Program.cs’ that gets generated, and then check out the docs for the Application.Run method that it calls.). Here’s how the main method might look: 1: static void Main(string[] args) 2: { 3: do 4: { 5: Console.Write("Enter command or 'exit' to quit: > "); 6: var command = Console.ReadLine(); 7: if ((command ?? string.Empty).Equals("exit", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)) 8: { 9: Console.WriteLine("Quitting."); 10: break; 11: } 12: 13: } while (true); 14: } The idea here is the app prompts me for the command I want to run, or I can type in ‘exit’ to break out of the loop and let the application close. The only trick now is to create a set of commands that map to each of the code samples that I’m going to want to run. Each sample is already encapsulated in a single public method in a separate class, so I could just write a big switch statement or create a hashtable/dictionary that maps command text to an Action that will invoke the proper method, but why re-invent the wheel? CLAP For Your Own Presentation I’ve blogged about the CLAP library before, and it turns out that it’s a great fit for satisfying criteria #3 from my list above. CLAP lets you decorate methods in a class with an attribute and then easily invoke those methods from within a console application. CLAP was designed to take the arguments passed into the console app from the command line and parse them to determine which method to run and what arguments to pass to that method, but there’s no reason you can’t re-purpose it to accept command input from within the infinite loop defined above and invoke the corresponding method. Here’s how you might define a couple of different methods to contain two different code samples that you want to run during your presentation: 1: public static class CodeSamples 2: { 3: [Verb(Aliases="one")] 4: public static void SampleOne() 5: { 6: Console.WriteLine("This is sample 1"); 7: } 8:   9: [Verb(Aliases="two")] 10: public static void SampleTwo() 11: { 12: Console.WriteLine("This is sample 2"); 13: } 14: } A couple of things to note about the sample above: I’m using static methods. You don’t actually need to use static methods with CLAP, but the syntax ends up being a bit simpler and static methods happen to lend themselves well to the “one self-contained method per code sample” approach that I want to use. The methods are decorated with a ‘Verb’ attribute. This tells CLAP that they are eligible targets for commands. The “Aliases” argument lets me give them short and easy-to-remember aliases that can be used to invoke them. By default, CLAP just uses the full method name as the command name, but with aliases you can simply the usage a bit. I’m not using any parameters. CLAP’s main feature is its ability to parse out arguments from a command line invocation of a console application and automatically pass them in as parameters to the target methods. My code samples don’t need parameters ,and honestly having them would complicate giving the presentation, so this is a good thing. You could use this same approach to invoke methods with parameters, but you’d have a couple of things to figure out. When you invoke a .NET application from the command line, Windows will parse the arguments and pass them in as a string array (called ‘args’ in the boilerplate console project Program.cs). The parsing that gets done here is smart enough to deal with things like treating strings in double quotes as one argument, and you’d have to re-create that within your infinite loop if you wanted to use parameters. I plan on either submitting a pull request to CLAP to add this capability or maybe just making a small utility class/extension method to do it and posting that here in the future. So I now have a simple class with static methods to contain my code samples, and an infinite loop in my ‘main’ method that can accept text commands. Wiring this all up together is pretty easy: 1: static void Main(string[] args) 2: { 3: do 4: { 5: try 6: { 7: Console.Write("Enter command or 'exit' to quit: > "); 8: var command = Console.ReadLine(); 9: if ((command ?? string.Empty).Equals("exit", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)) 10: { 11: Console.WriteLine("Quitting."); 12: break; 13: } 14:   15: Parser.Run<CodeSamples>(new[] { command }); 16: Console.WriteLine("---------------------------------------------------------"); 17: } 18: catch (Exception ex) 19: { 20: Console.Error.WriteLine("Error: " + ex.Message); 21: } 22:   23: } while (true); 24: } Note that I’m now passing the ‘CodeSamples’ class into the CLAP ‘Parser.Run’ as a type argument. This tells CLAP to inspect that class for methods that might be able to handle the commands passed in. I’m also throwing in a little “----“ style line separator and some basic error handling (because I happen to know that some of the samples are going to throw exceptions for demonstration purposes) and I’m good to go. Now during my presentation I can just have the console application running the whole time with the debugger attached and just type in the alias of the code sample method that I want to run when I want to run it.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, April 16, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, April 16, 2010New Projects[C#] UML Touch: This project is my master thesis project for Msc Software Engineering at Oxford Brookes univesity. The goal of this project is to develop a UML Edi...3D Chart Reports, using ASP.NET 2.0: Project focuses on the visibility of internal supply chain management process. The objective is materialized, using MSChart and hence provides asse...Active Directory Health: ActiveDirectoryHealth (ADHealth) Aim: To create a suite of tools to allow an Active Directory administrator monitor and identify problems, particu...Art4Desktop: Aplicação desktop simplesAuto Increment field for any entity in MS CRM: Auto Increment field for any entity in MS CRM will add an attribute in any entity which will be auto increment type.Convection Game Engine (Basic Edition): A basic 2D game engine written in C# using XNA 3.1CSharp Intellisense: VS 2010 IntelliSense plug-in Provides custom IntelliSense for the CSharp Editor that is capable to filter out events, preoperties or methods. ...EP: Generic platform for enterprise applications developed on .NETFile Change Checker: A simple windows form application that checks and copies all modified files given a specified date. It aims to help developers that use Visual Stu...Folder: Folder is a puzzle platformer game, which provides you a whole new experience. You can fold objects in game play; a wall becomes a road, a high sti...Industrial Dashboard: WCF service that allows executing SQL Server stored procedures straight from javascript code, enabling sending and receiving structured data withou...kafrilion: Open Source Platform GameLogikBug.Injection: LogikBug.Injection is an IOC container and is very light weight. It is very simple to use and yet very roboust, there are many options and ways to ...MongoMvc: NoSql with MongoDB, NoRM and ASP.NET MVC. For more details check out the blog post http://weblogs.asp.net/shijuvarghese/archive/2010/04/16/nosql-wi...MOSSDAL: MOSS Data Access Layer for data from the Sharepoint Lists Service: MOSSDAL is a lightweight framework for working with Sharepoint MOSS List data using the List web Service. It can be used with silverlight or regul...Should: This is a set of test framework agnostic extensions assetion extensions. This project was born because test runners Should be independent of the...Software Localization Tool: summaryTIMETABLEASY: planning managerTR9: implementions of t9 technologies from mobile device to personal computer and laptopTrp net tools: net toolTwep: Twep is a JavaScript lib.Using PowerPivot to analyze MS Dynamics NAV: Project show how to prepare MS Dynamics NAV data for analyzing in PowerPivot for Excel. Project include Data Warehouse demo database, sql procedure...vmware virtual mashines management system for education: System for management many classes with PC and VMware virtual mashines (bad english,sorry)WebSite: Mr. John's projectsWebtrends DX and DC Services Libraries: This project is setup to provide assemblies to simplify access to the REST based DX and DC Web Services that Webtrends Provides. For access you ne...YetAnotherFileRenamer: Searches a directory and/or sub-directories for files matching a certain extension and copies and renames them to the same folder. The intent is a...New Releases3D Chart Reports, using ASP.NET 2.0: Beta iscm1.0.0.1: Its first release, might be a tolerant to bugs.A Guide to Parallel Programming: Drop 2 - Guide Chapters 2 and 5, accompanying code: This is Drop 2 with just the Guide Chapters 2 and 5 and the accompanying code samples. This drop requires Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 or later in ord...AnimeJ: AnimeJ 1.1: This new release features reversible animations. It is fully backward compatible, and by simply specifying an additional parameter to Run() you can...AutoPoco: AutoPoco 0.4: A load of additions to the convention system Inheritance precedence added And a pile of extra data sourcesCSharp Intellisense: V1.5: CSharpIntellisensePresenter(Free) Created by: Bnaya Eshet (Bnaya Eshet (credit to Karl Shifflett)) Last Updated: Tuesday, April 13, 2010 Version...DevTreks -social budgeting that improves lives and livelihoods: Social Budgeting Web Software, DevTreks alpha 4: Alpha 4 upgrades all story-telling with one very basic, simple, 'story' data pattern, schema, and stylesheet. Basic, simple, stories and eBook pa...ESPEHA: Espeha 4.3: Deletion of categories and tasks via F8 Saving on CtrlS, CtrlShiftS Navigating to search on CtrlF Hiding on CtrlQ, CtrlX, CtrlH, Q, X, H + Drag ...Folder Bookmarks: Folder Bookmarks 1.4.4: This is the latest version of Folder Bookmarks (1.4.4), with general improvements. It has an installer - it will create a directory 'CPascoe' in My...HouseFly controls: HouseFly controls alpha 0.9.1: Version 0.9.1 alpha release of HouseFly controlsIndustrial Dashboard: 2.0 Beta: 2.0 Beta includes : IndustrialDashboard Framework Sample widgets : TabularReport, DropDownPicker, DatePicker, ScopePicker Sample html pageskdar: KDAR 0.0.20: KDAR - Kernel Debugger Anti Rootkit - signature's bases updated - many bugs fixedLogikBug.Injection: Initial Release: This project is dependent upon Microsoft.Practices.ServiceLocation.IServiceLocator and must be referenced when referencing LogikBug.Injection.Mesopotamia Experiment: Mesopotamia 1.2.72: New Features - Select organims to load in sim or in hw mode Fixes - fixed robotics engine not shutting down properly - selects new robotics port o...MobySharp: MobySharp 1.1: Fixed GetComments Added the new Likes featureMongoMvc: NoSQL with MongoDB, NoRM and ASP.NET MVC: A demo on NoSQL with MongoDB, NoRM and ASP.NET MVC. To run the demo application do the ollowing actions. 1. Create a directory call C:\data\...NetMassDownloader: Release 1.6.0.0: Mass Downloader For .Net Framework which allows you do download .Net Framework source code all at once.Offline debugging for VS2005 , VS2008 , Code...Nito.KitchenSink: Version 4: Features added in this release: PDBs are source-indexed to CodePlex, so it should be possible to step through the code (with on-demand downloads) w...Nito.KitchenSink: Version 5: The only feature for this release is support of the .NET 4.0 platform. Dependencies Nito.Linq 0.4 Beta (released 2010-04-15) Rx 1.0.2441.0 (rele...Nito.LINQ: Beta (v0.4): Rx version The "with Rx" versions of Nito.LINQ are built against Rx 1.0.2441.0, released 2010-04-15. Breaking changes IEnumerable<T>.Min and IEnum...N-Twill Twitter Client for VB.NET: NTWILL PROJECT 15-abril-2010: Este archivo es un Zip que contiene el proyecto hasta este punto editado... tiene algunas que otras funciones, pero lo cuelgo para tener un referen...PanBrowser: 1.2.0: added screensaver support, hit a key to exit, up/down keys cycle through images.PersianDateTimePicker, PersianMonthCalendar: PersianDatetimePicker,PersianMonthCalendar: PersianDatetimePicker,PersianMonthCalendar 1.1 releasesPokeIn Comet Ajax Library: PokeIn Library v03: New Features! Client MessageLog Management Added CrossBrowser Script Injector Added to work with non ajax supported browsers and activeX disabled...PokeIn Comet Ajax Library: PokeIn Sample VS09: Sample Project of PokeIn VS09. Contains version 0.3 of LibraryPokeIn Comet Ajax Library: PokeIn Sample VS10: Sample Visual Studio 10 project for PokeIn. Contains v03 Library of PokeInSilverlight Toolkit: April 2010: Suggestions? Features? Questions? Ask questions in our Silverlight Toolkit forum on Silverlight.net. The forum is the best resource for Silverlig...Software Localization Tool: SharpSLT 0.9: This is the first release of SharpSLT. Features Framework: .Net 3.5 UI language: English Works as standalone and External Tool for Visual C# Ex...Star Trooper for XNA 2D Tutorial: Lesson two content: Here is Lesson two original content for the StarTrooper 2D XNA tutorial. The blog tutorial has now started over on http://xna-uk.net/blogs/darkgen...StyleCop for ReSharper: StyleCop for ReSharper 5.0.14714.1: StyleCop for ReSharper 5.0.14714.1 o StyleCop 4.3.3.0 o ReSharper 5.0.1659.36 o Visual Studio 2008 / Visual Studio 2010 Installation Instructi...TaskUnZip for SSIS: TaskUnZip for SSIS 1.1.1.0 (beta 2): Ver. 1.1.1.0 (beta2) Bug: Correct installation bug. Add: Support SQL SERVER 2008 / 2005 Minor corrections Ver. 1.1.0.0 (Tnx to: Kevin Wendler)...TaskUnZip for SSIS: TaskUnZip for SSIS 1.2.0.0: Ver. 1.2.0.0 Add: Support SQL SERVER 2008 / 2005. Add: recursive compress.* Add: filter option for extract e compress file.* Add: Test archiv...Test Project (ignore): abcde: aaaaadaTR9: TR9 Beta: this setup is first release of the program.TR9: TR9 Source Code: TR9 Source CodeUsing PowerPivot to analyze MS Dynamics NAV: GL sql procedures and demo DB: For using sql procedures and creating DW database, please see Documentation.VivoSocial: VivoSocial 7.1.1: Version 7.1.1 of VivoSocial has been released. If you experienced any issues with the previous version, please update your modules to the 7.1.1 rel...WPF Inspirational Quote Management System: Release 1.1.1: - Changed to only allow one running instance a time. - Custom icon in system tray popup removed for now as this breaks when text size is set to gr...WPF ShaderEffect Generator: WPF ShaderEffect Generator 1.6.1: Just a minor release to fix the problem with resource Uri generation in the C# Shadereffect files. ChangesThe Uri should be correctly generated no...Most Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)ASP.NETMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesPHPExcelpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryMost Active ProjectsRawrpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryGMap.NET - Great Maps for Windows Forms & PresentationIndustrial DashboardFarseer Physics EngineIonics Isapi Rewrite FilterNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModuleBlogEngine.NETjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesDotRas

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• Handling HumanTask attachments in Oracle BPM 11g PS4FP+ (I)

  - by ccasares

  Adding attachments to a HumanTask is a feature that exists in Oracle HWF (Human Workflow) since 10g. However, in 11g there have been many improvements on this feature and this entry will try to summarize them. Oracle BPM 11g 11.1.1.5.1 (aka PS4 Feature Pack or PS4FP) introduced two great features: Ability to link attachments at a Task scope or at a Process scope: "Task" attachments are only visible within the scope (lifetime) of a task. This means that, initially, any member of the assignment pattern of the Human Task will be able to handle (add, review or remove) attachments. However, once the task is completed, subsequent human tasks will not have access to them. This does not mean those attachments got lost. Once the human task is completed, attachments can be retrieved in order to, i.e., check them in to a Content Server or to inject them to a new and different human task. Aside note: a "re-initiated" human task will inherit comments and attachments, along with history and -optionally- payload. See here for more info. "Process" attachments are visible within the scope of the process. This means that subsequent human tasks in the same process instance will have access to them. Ability to use Oracle WebCenter Content (previously known as "Oracle UCM") as the backend for the attachments instead of using HWF database backend. This feature adds all content server document lifecycle capabilities to HWF attachments (versioning, RBAC, metadata management, etc). As of today, only Oracle WCC is supported. However, Oracle BPM Suite does include a license of Oracle WCC for the solely usage of document management within BPM scope. Here are some code samples that leverage the above features. Retrieving uploaded attachments -Non UCM- Non UCM attachments (default ones or those that have existed from 10g, and are stored "as-is" in HWK database backend) can be retrieved after the completion of the Human Task. Firstly, we need to know whether any attachment has been effectively uploaded to the human task. There are two ways to find it out: Through an XPath function: Checking the execData/attachment[] structure. For example: Once we are sure one ore more attachments were uploaded to the Human Task, we want to get them. In this example, by "get" I mean to get the attachment name and the payload of the file. Aside note: Oracle HWF lets you to upload two kind of [non-UCM] attachments: a desktop document and a Web URL. This example focuses just on the desktop document one. In order to "retrieve" an uploaded Web URL, you can get it directly from the execData/attachment[] structure. Attachment content (payload) is retrieved through the getTaskAttachmentContents() XPath function: This example shows how to retrieve as many attachments as those had been uploaded to the Human Task and write them to the server using the File Adapter service. The sample process excerpt is as follows:  A dummy UserTask using "HumanTask1" Human Task followed by a Embedded Subprocess that will retrieve the attachments (we're assuming at least one attachment is uploaded): and once retrieved, we will write each of them back to a file in the server using a File Adapter service: In detail: We've defined an XSD structure that will hold the attachments (both name and payload): Then, we can create a BusinessObject based on such element (attachmentCollection) and create a variable (named attachmentBPM) of such BusinessObject type. We will also need to keep a copy of the HumanTask output's execData structure. Therefore we need to create a variable of type TaskExecutionData... ...and copy the HumanTask output execData to it: Now we get into the embedded subprocess that will retrieve the attachments' payload. First, and using an XSLT transformation, we feed the attachmentBPM variable with the name of each attachment and setting an empty value to the payload: Please note that we're using the XSLT for-each node to create as many target structures as necessary. Also note that we're setting an Empty text to the payload variable. The reason for this is to make sure the <payload></payload> tag gets created. This is needed when we map the payload to the XML variable later. Aside note: We are assuming that we're retrieving non-UCM attachments. However in real life you might want to check the type of attachment you're handling. The execData/attachment[]/storageType contains the values "UCM" for UCM type attachments, "TASK" for non-UCM ones or "URL" for Web URL ones. Those values are part of the "Ext.Com.Oracle.Xmlns.Bpel.Workflow.Task.StorageTypeEnum" enumeration. Once we have fed the attachmentsBPM structure and so it now contains the name of each of the attachments, it is time to iterate through it and get the payload. Therefore we will use a new embedded subprocess of type MultiInstance, that will iterate over the attachmentsBPM/attachment[] element: In every iteration we will use a Script activity to map the corresponding payload element with the result of the XPath function getTaskAttachmentContents(). Please, note how the target array element is indexed with the loopCounter predefined variable, so that we make sure we're feeding the right element during the array iteration:  The XPath function used looks as follows: hwf:getTaskAttachmentContents(bpmn:getDataObject('UserTask1LocalExecData')/ns1:systemAttributes/ns1:taskId, bpmn:getDataObject('attachmentsBPM')/ns:attachment[bpmn:getActivityInstanceAttribute('SUBPROCESS3067107484296', 'loopCounter')]/ns:fileName)  where the input parameters are: taskId of the just completed Human Task attachment name we're retrieving the payload from array index (loopCounter predefined variable)  Aside note: The reason whereby we're iterating the execData/attachment[] structure through embedded subprocess and not, i.e., using XSLT and for-each nodes, is mostly because the getTaskAttachmentContents() XPath function is currently not available in XSLT mappings. So all this example might be considered as a workaround until this gets fixed/enhanced in future releases. Once this embedded subprocess ends, we will have all attachments (name + payload) in the attachmentsBPM variable, which is the main goal of this sample. But in order to test everything runs fine, we finish the sample writing each attachment to a file. To that end we include a final embedded subprocess to concurrently iterate through each attachmentsBPM/attachment[] element: On each iteration we will use a Service activity that invokes a File Adapter write service. In here we have two important parameters to set. First, the payload itself. The file adapter awaits binary data in base64 format (string). We have to map it using XPath (Simple mapping doesn't recognize a String as a base64-binary valid target):  Second, we must set the target filename using the Service Properties dialog box:  Again, note how we're making use of the loopCounter index variable to get the right element within the embedded subprocess iteration. Handling UCM attachments will be part of a different and upcoming blog entry. Once I finish will all posts on this matter, I will upload the whole sample project to java.net.

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• SQL SERVER – 3 Online SQL Courses at Pluralsight and Free Learning Resources

  - by pinaldave

  Usain Bolt is an inspiration for all. He broke his own record multiple times because he wanted to do better! Read more about him on wikipedia. He is great and indeed fastest man on the planet. Usain Bolt – World’s Fastest Man “Can you teach me SQL Server Performance Tuning?” This is one of the most popular questions which I receive all the time. The answer is YES. I would love to do performance tuning training for anyone, anywhere.  It is my favorite thing to do, and it is my favorite thing to train others in.  If possible, I would love to do training 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.  To me, it doesn’t feel like a job. Of course, as much as I would love to do performance tuning 24/7/365, obviously I am just one human being and can only be in one place t one time.  It is also very difficult to train more than one person at a time, and it is difficult to train two or more people at a time, especially when the two people are at different levels.  I am also limited by geography.  I live in India, and adjust to my own time zone.  Trying to teach a live course from India to someone whose time zone is 12 or more hours off of mine is very difficult.  If I am trying to teach at 2 am, I am sure I am not at my best! There was only one solution to scale – Online Trainings. I have built 3 different courses on SQL Server Performance Tuning with Pluralsight. Now I have no problem – I am 100% scalable and available 24/7 and 365. You can make me say the same things again and again till you find it right. I am in your mobile, PC as well as on XBOX. This is why I am such a big fan of online courses.  I have recorded many performance tuning classes and you can easily access them online, at your own time.  And don’t think that just because these aren’t live classes you won’t be able to get any feedback from me.  I encourage all my viewers to go ahead and ask me questions by e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, or whatever way you can get a hold of me. Here are details of three of my courses with Pluralsight. I suggest you go over the description of the course. As an author of the course, I have few FREE codes for watching the free courses. Please leave a comment with your valid email address, I will send a few of them to random winners. SQL Server Performance: Introduction to Query Tuning  SQL Server performance tuning is an art to master – for developers and DBAs alike. This course takes a systematic approach to planning, analyzing, debugging and troubleshooting common query-related performance problems. This includes an introduction to understanding execution plans inside SQL Server. In this almost four hour course we cover following important concepts. Introduction 10:22 Execution Plan Basics 45:59 Essential Indexing Techniques 20:19 Query Design for Performance 50:16 Performance Tuning Tools 01:15:14 Tips and Tricks 25:53 Checklist: Performance Tuning 07:13 The duration of each module is mentioned besides the name of the module. SQL Server Performance: Indexing Basics This course teaches you how to master the art of performance tuning SQL Server by better understanding indexes. In this almost two hour course we cover following important concepts. Introduction 02:03 Fundamentals of Indexing 22:21 Practical Indexing Implementation Techniques 37:25 Index Maintenance 16:33 Introduction to ColumnstoreIndex 08:06 Indexing Practical Performance Tips and Tricks 24:56 Checklist : Index and Performance 07:29 The duration of each module is mentioned besides the name of the module. SQL Server Questions and Answers This course is designed to help you better understand how to use SQL Server effectively. The course presents many of the common misconceptions about SQL Server, and then carefully debunks those misconceptions with clear explanations and short but compelling demos, showing you how SQL Server really works. In this almost 2 hours and 15 minutes course we cover following important concepts. Introduction 00:54 Retrieving IDENTITY value using @@IDENTITY 08:38 Concepts Related to Identity Values 04:15 Difference between WHERE and HAVING 05:52 Order in WHERE clause 07:29 Concepts Around Temporary Tables and Table Variables 09:03 Are stored procedures pre-compiled? 05:09 UNIQUE INDEX and NULLs problem 06:40 DELETE VS TRUNCATE 06:07 Locks and Duration of Transactions 15:11 Nested Transaction and Rollback 09:16 Understanding Date/Time Datatypes 07:40 Differences between VARCHAR and NVARCHAR datatypes 06:38 Precedence of DENY and GRANT security permissions 05:29 Identify Blocking Process 06:37 NULLS usage with Dynamic SQL 08:03 Appendix Tips and Tricks with Tools 20:44 The duration of each module is mentioned besides the name of the module. SQL in Sixty Seconds You will have to login and to get subscribed to the courses to view them. Here are my free video learning resources SQL in Sixty Seconds. These are 60 second video which I have built on various subjects related to SQL Server. Do let me know what you think about them? Here are three of my latest videos: Identify Most Resource Intensive Queries – SQL in Sixty Seconds #028 Copy Column Headers from Resultset – SQL in Sixty Seconds #027 Effect of Collation on Resultset – SQL in Sixty Seconds #026 You can watch and learn at your own pace.  Then you can easily ask me any questions you have.  E-mail is easiest, but for really tough questions I’m willing to talk on Skype, Gtalk, or even Facebook chat.  Please do watch and then talk with me, I am always available on the internet! Here is the video of the world’s fastest man.Usain St. Leo Bolt inspires us that we all do better than best. We can go the next level of our own record. We all can improve if we have a will and dedication.  Watch the video from 5:00 mark. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL in Sixty Seconds, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Training, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology, Video

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• Coming to OpenWorld? A must attend session…

  - by Ruma Sanyal

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE NTT Docomo, Inc. is the predominant mobile phone operator in Japan. The name is officially an abbreviation of the phrase, "do communications over the mobile network", and is also from a compound word dokomo, meaning "everywhere" in Japanese.  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} One of the most important of NTT Docomo’s systems is ALADIN, which is a nationwide operating system shared with its eight regional subsidiaries. ALADIN has five primary functions: customer management, phone number management, information processing and storage, sales information management, and credit investigation. To enhance cost efficiency and help ensure stable operation of ALADIN, NTT Docomo has employed Oracle WebLogic Server as a new application platform. Further information on this can be found here. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Last year at OpenWorld, NTT Docomo was honored as an Innovation Award Winner for: · Implementing real time sales and contract management system enabling all services requested by customers for immediate activations before customer leaves the Docomo store · A robust disaster recovery strategy, room to grow the business, and ability to move custom Java development to a platform with built in standards - WebLogic · Better performance, better reliability, better stability, and smooth migration v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Meet This Year's Most Impressive Innovators! This year we continue to honor customers for their most innovative and cutting-edge solutions using Oracle Fusion Middleware. Join us in celebrating award recipients’ great achievements and commitment to innovation.   Oracle Fusion Middleware: Meet This Year's Most Impressive Innovators Session ID: CON7029 Tuesday September 30, 2014 @ 5-5:45 pm (PST) Yerba Buena Center for the Arts  YBCA Theater (next to Moscone North) 700 Howard St., San Francisco, CA, 94103 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• Build an Organization Chart In Visio 2010

  - by Mysticgeek

  With trying to manage a business these days, it’s very important to have an Organization Chart to keep everything manageable. Here we’ll show you how to build one in Visio 2010. This Guest Article was written by our friends over at Office 2010 Club. Need for Organization Charts The need of creating Organization Charts are becoming indispensable these days, as companies start focusing on extensive hiring for far reach availability, increase in productivity and targeting diverse markets. Considering this rigorous change, creating an organization chart can help stakeholders in comprehending the ever growing organization structure & hierarchy with an ease. It shows the basic structure of organization along with defining the relationships between employees working in different departments. Opportunely, Microsoft Visio 2010 offers an easy way to create Organization chart. As before now, orthodox ways of listing organization hierarchy have been used for defining the structure of departments along with communication possible including; horizontal and vertical communications. To transform these lists which defines organizational structure, into a detailed chart, Visio 2010 includes an add-in for importing Excel spreadsheet, which comes in handy for pulling out data from spreadsheet to create an organization chart. Importantly, you don’t need to indulge yourself in maze of defining organizational hierarchies and chalking-out structure, as you just need to specify the column & row headers, along with data you need to import and it will automatically create out chart defining; organizational hierarchies with specified credentials of each employee, categorized in their corresponding departments. Creating Organization Charts in Visio 2010 To start off with, we have created an Excel spreadsheet having fields, Name, Supervisor, Designation, Department and Phone. The Name field contains name of all the employees working in different departments, whereas Supervisor field contains name of supervisors or team leads. This field is vital for creating Organization Chart, as it defines the basic structure & hierarchy in chart. Now launch Visio 2010, head over to View tab, under Add-Ons menu, from Business options, click Organization Chart Wizard. This will start Organization Chart Wizard, in the first step, enable Information that’s already stored in a file or database option, and click Next. As we are importing Excel sheet, select the second option for importing Excel spreadsheet. Specify the Excel file path and click Next to continue. In this step, you need to specify the fields which actually defines the structure of an organization. In our case, these are Name & Supervisor fields. After specifying fields, click Next to Proceed further. As organization chart is primarily for showing the hierarchy of departments/employees working in organization along with how they are linked together, and who supervises whom. Considering this, in this step we will leave out Supervisor field, because it’s inclusion wouldn’t be necessary as Visio automatically chalks-out the basic structure defined in Excel sheet. Add the rest of the fields under Displayed fields category, and click Next. Now choose the fields which you want to include in Organization Chart’s shapes and click Next. This step is about breaking the chart into multiple pages, if you are dealing with 100+ employees, you may want to specify numbers of pages on which Organization Chart will be displayed. But in our case, we are dealing with much less amount of data, so we will enable I want the wizard to automatically break my organization chart across pages option. Specify the name you need to show on the top of the page. If you are having less than 20 hierarchies, enter the name of the highest ranked employee in organization and click Finish to end the wizard. It will instantly create an Organization chart out of specified Excel spreadsheet. Highest ranked employee will be shown on top of the organization chart, supervising various employees from different departments. As shown below, his immediate subordinates further manages other employees and so on. For advance customizations, head over to Org Chart tab, here you will find different groups for setting up the Org Chart’s hierarchy and manage other employees’ positions. Under Arrange group, shapes’ arrangements can be changed and it provides easy navigation through the chart. You can also change the type of the position and hide subordinates of selected employee. From Picture group, you can insert a picture of the employees, departments, etc. From synchronization group, you have the option of creating a synced copy and expanding subordinates of selected employee. Under Organization Data group, you can change whole layout of Organization chart from Display Options including; shape display, show divider, enable/disable imported fields, change block position, and fill colors, etc. If at any point of time, you need to insert new position or announce vacancy, Organization Chart stencil is always available on the left sidebar. Drag the desired Organization Chart shape into main diagram page, to maintain the structure integrity, i.e, for inserting subordinates for a specific employee, drag the position shape over the existing employee shape box. For instance, We have added a consultant in organization, who is directly under CEO, for maintaining this, we have dragged the Consultant box and just dropped it over the CEO box to make the immediate subordinate position. Adding details to new position is a cinch, just right-click new position box and click Properties. This will open up Shape Data dialog, start filling in all the relevant information and click OK. Here you can see the newly created position is easily populated with all the specified information. Now expanding an Organization Chart doesn’t require maintenance of long lists any more. Under Design tab, you can also try out different designs & layouts over organization chart to make it look more flamboyant and professional.  Conclusion An Organization Chart is a great way of showing detailed organizational hierarchies; with defined credentials of employees, departments structure, new vacancies, newly hired employees, recently added departments, and importantly shows most convenient way of interaction between different departments & employees, etc. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Geek Reviews: Using Dia as a Free Replacement for Microsoft VisioMysticgeek Blog: Create Appealing Charts In Excel 2007Create Charts in Excel 2007 the Easy Way with Chart AdvisorCreate a Hyperlink in a Word 2007 Flow Chart and Hide Annoying ScreenTipsCreate A Flow Chart In Word 2007 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Know if Someone Accessed Your Facebook Account Shop for Music with Windows Media Player 12 Access Free Documentaries at BBC Documentaries Rent Cameras In Bulk At CameraRenter Download Songs From MySpace Steve Jobs’ iPhone 4 Keynote Video

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• How I Record Screencasts

  - by Daniel Moth

  I get this asked a lot so here is my brain dump on the topic. What A screencast is just a demo that you present to yourself while recording the screen. As such, my advice for clearing your screen for demo purposes and setting up Visual Studio still applies here (adjusting for the fact I wrote those blog posts when I was running Vista and VS2008, not Windows 8 and VS2012). To see examples of screencasts, watch any of my screencasts on channel9. Why If you are a technical presenter, think of when you get best reactions from a developer audience in your sessions: when you are doing demos, of course. Imagine if you could package those alone and share them with folks to watch over and over? If you have ever gone through a tutorial trying to recreate steps to explore a feature, think how much more helpful it would be if you could watch a video and follow along. Think of how many folks you "touch" with a conference presentation, and how many more you can reach with an online shorter recording of the demo. If you invest so much of your time for the first type of activity, isn't the second type of activity also worth an investment? Fact: If you are able to record a screencast of a demo, you will be much better prepared to deliver it in person. In fact lately I will force myself to make a screencast of any demo I need to present live at an upcoming event. It is also a great backup - if for whatever reason something fails (software, network, etc) during an attempt of a live demo, you can just play the recorded video for the live audience. There are other reasons (e.g. internal sharing of the latest implemented feature) but the context above is the one within which I create most of my screencasts. Software & Hardware I use Camtasia from Tech Smith, version 7.1.1. Microsoft has a variety of options for capturing the screen to video, but I have been using this software for so long now that I have not invested time to explore alternatives… I also use whatever cheapo headset is near me, but sometimes I get some complaints from some folks about the audio so now I try to remember to use "the good headset". I do not use a web camera as I am not a huge fan of PIP. Preparation First you have to know your technology and demo. Once you think you know it, write down the outline and major steps of the demo. Keep it short 5-20 minutes max. I break that rule sometimes but try not to. The longer the video is the more chances that people will not have the patience to sit through it and the larger the download wmv file ends up being. Run your demo a few times, timing yourself each time to ensure that you have the planned timing correct, but also to make sure that you are comfortable with what you are going to demo. Unlike with a live audience, there is no live reaction/feedback to steer you, so it can be a bit unnerving at first. It can also lead you to babble too much, so try extra hard to be succinct when demoing/screencasting on your own. TIP: Before recording, hide your desktop/taskbar clock if it is showing. Recording To record you start the Camtasia Recorder tool Configure the settings thought the menus Capture menu to choose custom size or full screen. I try to use full screen and remember to lower the resolution of your screen to as low as possible, e.g. 1024x768 or 1360x768 or something like that. From the Tools -> Options dialog you can choose to record audio and the volume level. Effects menu I typically leave untouched but you should explore and experiment to your liking, e.g. how the mouse pointer is captured, and whether there should be a delay for the recording when you start it. Once you've configured these settings, typically you just launch this tool and hit the F9 key to start recording. TIP: As you record, if you ever start to "lose your way" hit F9 again to pause recording, regroup your thoughts and flow, and then hit F9 again to resume. Finally, hit F10 to stop recording. At that point the video starts playing for you in the recorder. This is where you can preview the video to see that you are happy with it before saving. If you are happy, hit the Save As menu to choose where you want to save the video.     TIP: If you've really lost your way to the extent where you'll need to do some editing, hit F10 to stop recording, save the video and then record some more - you'll be able to stitch the videos together later and this will make it easier for you to delete the parts where you messed up. TIP: Before you commit to recording the whole demo, every time you should record 5 seconds and preview them to ensure that you are capturing the screen the way you want to and that your audio is still correctly configured and at the right level. Trust me, you do not want to be recording 15 minutes only to find out that you messed up on the configuration somewhere. Editing To edit the video you launch another Camtasia app, the Camtasia Studio. File->New Project. File->Save Project and choose location. File->Import Media and choose the video(s) you saved earlier. These adds them to the area at the top/middle but not at the timeline at the bottom. Right click on the video and choose Add to timeline. It will prompt you for the Editing dimensions and I always choose Recording Dimensions. Do whatever edits you want to do for this video, then add the next video if you have one to stitch and repeat. In terms of edits there are many options. The simplest is to do nothing, which is the option I did when I first starting doing these in 2006. Nowadays, I typically cut out pieces that I don't like and also lower/mute the audio in other areas and also speed up the video in some areas. A full tutorial on how to do this is beyond the scope of this blog post, but your starting point is to select portions on the timeline and then open the Edit menu at the very top (tip: the context menu doesn't have all options). You can spend hours editing a recording, so don’t lose track of time! When you are done editing, save again, and you are now ready to Produce. Producing Production is specific to where you will publish. I've only ever published on channel9, so for that I do the following File -> Produce and share. This opens a wizard dialog In the dropdown choose Custom production settings Hit Next and then choose WMV Hit Next and keep the default of Camtasia Studio Best Quality and File Size (recommended) Hit Next and choose Editing dimensions video size Hit Next, hit Options and you get a dialog. Enter a Title for the project tab and then on the author tab enter the Creator and Homepage. Hit OK Hit Next. Hit Next again. Enter a video file name in the Production name textbox and then hit Finish. Now do other stuff while you wait for the video to be produced and you hear it playing. After the video is produced watch it to ensure it was produced correctly (e.g. sometimes you get mouse issues) and then you are ready for publishing it. Publishing Follow the instructions of the place where you are going to publish. If you are MSFT internal and want to choose channel9 then contact those folks so they can share their instructions (if you don't know who they are ping me and I'll connect you but they are easy to find in the GAL). For me this involves using a tool to point to the video, choosing a file name (again), choosing an image from the video to display when it is not playing, choosing what output formats I want, and then later on a webpage adding tags, adding a description, and adding a title. That’s all folks, have fun! Comments about this post by Daniel Moth welcome at the original blog.

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• Dynamic DNS registration for VPN clients

  - by Eric Falsken

  I've got a VPN server set up in my Active Directory on a remote network. (VPN Server is separate box from DNS/AD) When I dial into the network (client machine is not a member of the AD) the machine does not register its IP or Hostname in the DNS. I've played with all possible combinations of DHCP and RRAS-allocated IP pools, and none of them seem to cause my client to register. Is it because my client has to be a member of the domain? Are there some security settins I can tweak so that it can register its hostname/ip? I've looked in the event logs (System and Security) for the AD, DNS, DHCP, RRAS, and the client machine, and don't see anything relating to DNS Registration. Here's the IPConfig on the client machine (once connected): PPP adapter My VPN Name: Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : mydomain.local Description . . . . . . . . . . . : My VPN Name Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.22(Preferred) Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.255 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.52 <- DC1 192.168.1.53 <- DC2 NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled Edit: It looks like my clients are not recieving the DHCP Scoope Options. I found this great article in Microsoft's KB. So the problem here is that the VPN Server "pre-reserves" the DHCP addresses, but then you have to add the DHCP Relay Agent to relay the secondary request for scope options. My problem is that the DHCP Relay Agent isn't relaying to the local DHCP server (same box as the VPN/RRAS). I've configured the DHCP Relay Agent according to this KB, but it dosn't work for a local DHCP server. (I see the request count increasing, but no responses) I was able to get everything working by specifying the DNS server and domain name in the VPN connection properties on the client. But am still unable to assign it (or the default gateway) dynamically via DHCP. The client also has to be a member of the remote domain.

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• The DOS DEBUG Environment

  - by MarkPearl

  Today I thought I would go back in time and have a look at the DEBUG command that has been available since the beginning of dawn in DOS, MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. up to today I always knew it was there, but had no clue on how to use it so for those that are interested this might be a great geek party trick to pull out when you want the awe the younger generation and want to show them what “real” programming is about. But wait, you will have to do it relatively quickly as it seems like DEBUG was finally dumped from the Windows group in Windows 7. Not to worry, pull out that Windows XP box which will get you even more geek points and you can still poke DEBUG a bit. So, for those that are interested and want to find out a bit about the history of DEBUG read the wiki link here. That all put aside, lets get our hands dirty.. How to Start DEBUG in Windows Make sure your version of Windows supports DEBUG. Open up a console window Make a directory where you want to play with debug – in my instance I called it C221 Enter the directory and type Debug You will get a response with a – as illustrated in the image below…   The commands available in DEBUG There are several commands available in DEBUG. The most common ones are A (Assemble) R (Register) T (Trace) G (Go) D (Dump or Display) U (Unassemble) E (Enter) P (Proceed) N (Name) L (Load) W (Write) H (Hexadecimal) I (Input) O (Output) Q (Quit) I am not going to cover all these commands, but what I will do is go through a few of them briefly. A is for Assemble Command (to write code) The A command translates assembly language statements into machine code. It is quite useful for writing small assembly programs. Below I have written a very basic assembly program. The code typed out is as follows mov ax,0015 mov cx,0023 sub cx,ax mov [120],al mov cl,[120]A nop R is for Register (to jump to a point in memory) The r command turns out to be one of the most frequent commands you will use in DEBUG. It allows you to view the contents of registers and to change their values. It can be used with the following combinations… R – Displays the contents of all the registers R f – Displays the flags register R register_name – Displays the contents of a specific register All three methods are illustrated in the image above T is for Trace (To execute a program step by step) The t command allows us to execute the program step by step. Before we can trace the program we need to point back to the beginning of the program. We do this by typing in r ip, which moves us back to memory point 100. We then type trace which executes the first line of code (line 100) (As shown in the image below starting from the red arrow). You can see from the above image that the register AX now contains 0015 as per our instruction mov ax,0015 You can also see that the IP points to line 0103 which has the MOV CX,0023 command If we type t again it will now execute the second line of the program which moves 23 in the cx register. Again, we can see that the line of code was executed and that the CX register now holds the value of 23. What I would like to highlight now is the section underlined in red. These are the status flags. The ones we are going to look at now are 1st (NV), 4th (PL), 5th (NZ) & 8th (NC) NV means no overflow, the alternate would be OV PL means that the sign of the previous arithmetic operation was Plus, the alternate would be NG (Negative) NZ means that the results of the previous arithmetic operation operation was Not Zero, the alternate would be ZR NC means that No final Carry resulted from the previous arithmetic operation. CY means that there was a final Carry. We could now follow this process of entering the t command until the entire program is executed line by line. G is for Go (To execute a program up to a certain line number) So we have looked at executing a program line by line, which is fine if your program is minuscule BUT totally unpractical if we have any decent sized program. A quicker way to run some lines of code is to use the G command. The ‘g’ command executes a program up to a certain specified point. It can be used in connection with the the reset IP command. You would set your initial point and then run the G command with the line you want to end on. P is for Proceed (Similar to trace but slightly more streamlined) Another command similar to trace is the proceed command. All that the p command does is if it is called and it encounters a CALL, INT or LOOP command it terminates the program execution. In the example below I modified our example program to include an int 20 at the end of it as illustrated in the image below… Then when executing the code when I encountered the int 20 command I typed the P command and the program terminated normally (illustrated below). D is for Dump (or for those more polite Display) So, we have all these assembly lines of code, but if you have ever opened up an exe or com file in a text/hex editor, it looks nothing like assembly code. The D command is a way that we can see what our code looks like in memory (or in a hex editor). If we examined the image above, we can see that Debug is storing our assembly code with each instruction following immediately after the previous one. For instance in memory address 110 we have int and 111 we have 20. If we examine the dump of memory we can see at memory point 110 CD is stored and at memory point 111 20 is stored. U is for Unassemble (or Convert Machine code to Assembly Code) So up to now we have gone through a bunch of commands, but probably one of the most useful is the U command. Let’s say we don’t understand machine code so well and so instead we want to see it in its equivalent assembly code. We can type the U command followed by the start memory point, followed by the end memory point and it will show us the assembly code equivalent of the machine code. E is for a bunch of things… The E command can be used for a bunch of things… One example is to enter data or machine code instructions directly into memory. It can also be used to display the contents of memory locations. I am not going to worry to much about it in this post. N / L / W is for Name, Load & Write So we have written out assembly code in debug, and now we want to save it to disk, or write it as a com file or load it. This is where the N, L & W command come in handy. The n command is used to give a name to the executable program file and is pretty simple to use. The w command is a bit trickier. It saves to disk all the memory between point bx and point cx so you need to specify the bx memory address and the cx memory address for it to write your code. Let’s look at an example illustrated below. You do this by calling the r command followed by the either bx or cx. We can then go to the directory where we were working and will see the new file with the name we specified. The L command is relatively simple. You would first specify the name of the file you would like to load using the N command, and then call the L command. Q is for Quit The last command that I am going to write about in this post is the Q command. Simply put, calling the Q command exits DEBUG. Commands we did not Cover Out of the standard DEBUG commands we covered A, T, G, D, U, E, P, R, N, L & W. The ones we did not cover were H, I & O – I might make mention of these in a later post, but for the basics they are not really needed. Some Useful Resources Please note this post is based on the COS2213 handouts for UNISA A Guide to DEBUG - http://mirror.href.com/thestarman/asm/debug/debug.htm#NT

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• How did I get here? My route to Android, iPhone, Windows Phone 7, and interest in Mobile Devices

  - by Wallym

  I get asked all the time how/why I got interested in mobile and jumped on this fairly early.  I tend to give half answers because it wasn't just one thing that took me to mobile, but a whole host of separate ivents culminating in a specific event where I wasdoing market research in May/June 2008.  Let me throw out the events and the facts about me: I tend to like new, different, cool stuff.  I jumped on .NET early on.  I jumped on Ajax early on.  I don't jump on every new technology that comes down the road, I'm probably the only person on the planet that doesn't "get" MVC, though I acknowledge that a lot of people do and it solves a number of problems in the default settings of ASP.NET WebForms. I remember buying an early Windows CE device. It was interesting, but dang, this stylus thing sucks. After I lost my third stylus, i just gave up.  I got my first mobile phone in early 1999.  Reception was crappy, but I could see the value in being mobile. In 1999, I worked on a manufacturing systems project.  One piece of the projects was a set of handheld devices on the shop floor.  While the UI was a crappy DOS based, yes I said DOS as in Disk Operating System Version 6.22, I could see that the wireless world was a direction I wanted to be in. In 2000, Microsoft released the first public alpha of .NET.  Very cool stuff indeed.  One piece of the puzzle was a set of mobile controls for ASP.NET.  I build numerous test apps as well as mobile version using these mobile controls.  Now, the mobile UIs of the time were based on WML, which was crap. I could real all the analysis of mobile and read all about growth rates.  Now, you have to realize that growth rates can be impressive when dealing with small numbers, but I knew it was a comer. In our first book, I got talked out of mobile because of the line from the publisher "Wally, mobile doesn't sell." Blackberry was the dominant device of the mid 2000s.  Its users were referred to as "Crackberry addicts."  Unfortunately, the mobile development experience for native apps was crap and the web experience was fairly rough as well, but if they could get the ecosystem started, other phones and better blackberryies would come out.  I finally jumped into using a blackberry. Sometime around 2006, I heard "Wally, mobile doesn't sell" again.  Now, anyone that knows me knows that someone saying something like this to me means I'll keep trying it. The phones of the mid 2000s were moving to be more graphical, but there were too many that had this idea that they had to use a stylus.  Stylus suck.  They get lost too easily. I worked on a project in 2007 and 2008 for a startup trying to answer the question of "What is there to do where I am at?"  For some reason, they wanted to be tied to PCs.  As it became obvious that they were having problems, their investor asked us to do some market research and to figure out what the marketplace did want.  One of the important things that I figured out was the we lived in a mobile world and if you had a mobile app, it need to be on a mobile device, not tied to a desktop/laptop/netbook device.  If there was any single event, this was it - I was doing some market research and sat and talked to people in a bar/restaurant in Atlanta called "The Grove" on Lavista.  The consensus of the people that I talked to was that they wanted their data where ever they were at, laptop, pc, mobile, whereever. In 2007, Apple released the iPhone.  Wow, what an impressive device, even with all the problems of a 1st generation device.  I bought an iPod Touch 1st generation to understand touch better, one of the best decisions I ever made. I decided in late 2008, to make a move into cloud, for a number of reasons.  I was working on an example app.  In April, 2009, one of my friends at Microsoft said "don't mention my name with this, but you need an iPhone front end for this app."  How do you get on the iPhone.  Well, there are a number of ways including: ObjectiveC.  Its hard to teach an old dog new tricks, and this dog knows .NET, not ObjectiveC. HTML, web, javascript optimized interface.  yeah, this is possible. PhoneGap.  Now, this is interesting, take an html interface and get it to run on the iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and other platforms.  I thought that this way made the most sense for me until......... MonoTouch.  In May/June 2009, Novell announced a way for .NET/c# developers to write apps for the iPhone.  This is the way that made the most sense to me. Titanium by Appcelerator.  This is similar in concept to PhoneGap.  I haven't played with this much but do want to learn more about it. In July, 2009, I emailed one of my contacts at Wrox to see if they would be interested in a short MonoTouch ebook in their Wrox Blox format.  I fully expected another  response along the lines of "Wally, mobile doesn't sell."  The response I got was "Wally, iPhone is H O T, get started immediately, can you have this to me before Labor Day."  Not quite the response I expected.  Thankfully, we didn't make the Labor Day, first draft date. I kept pushing back because I had a feeling that things were not going to be quite as polished and feature rich as necessary.  After all, Novell doesn't have the resouces of Microsoft's developer division. The ebook shipped on November 30, 2009. On about December, 15, 2009, my editor emailed and said "Your ebook is selling really well, lets do a full book and it by March 1 so get started."  Thankfully, guys like Craig Dunn and Chris Hardy were interested along with Martin and Ror joinged us later on. I bought my wife an iPhone 3Gs in early 2010 to go along with all my iPod Touch devices. I tried to pretend in 2010 that I wasn't that interested in mobile and still had interest in the desktop technologies.  I love the technologies and continue to use them today, but that isn't where my interest is right now.  I'm just about all mobile all the time with my energies.  Our book shipped in the beginning of July, 2010 right in the middle of the Apple FUD.I've been looking at Mobile Web as a way around the AppStores and Apple FUD problems of 2010. With all the Apple self FUD, we became interested in Android.I went up to Dino Esposito at DevConnections in Las Vegas at introduced myself. I've always tried to keep up with what Dino has been doing. I was shocked, he wanted to meet me.  We must have talked for 1.5 hours. It was way more time than I deserved. If you get a chance, go and introduce yourself to Dino. He's a great guy. Microsoft released Windows Phone 7 in the Fall of 2010.  I'm not doing development on that platform at this time.  I think they have a very interesting user interface.  The devices are being positively reviewed.  For my purposes, the devices are limited at this point in time.  We'll see what 2011 brings as far as updates to the operating system.  I need multitasking/background processing and html5 in the browser. Add that as well as acceptance in the marketplace and I'll be more interested in the device. Obviosuly, I'm now working on a MonoDroid book . I own Android and iPhone/iOS devices.  I am currently working on some startup ideas and am exploring as much in that area as I can. For 2011, I'm planning on speaking at Android Developer's Conference (AnDevCon) and Mobile Connections.  I'm really excited about this. I have a couple of magazine articles coming out in 2011 on Android and iPhone development with the Mono technologies.is Mono "The Answer"? What's "The Question?" I think it will work for me.  It might work for you, it might not.  it depends on your situation.  Its the current horse that I am riding. I might find a better horse tomorrow. So, that's how I got here.  I'm in love with mobile.  Mobile native apps on the device as well as mobile web.  I'm into all this cool stuff.  Where are you at?

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, May 22, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, May 22, 2010New ProjectsDocument Toolkit Extensions: Document Toolkit Extensions provide a variety of samples, document converters and helpers for Document Toolkit, a fast, feature-rich and 100% clien...dream: dreamEnhanced Web Controls: The Enhanced Web Control Library Contains web controls that enhance the functionality of the microsoft input controls. New functionality includes l...Europe Engulfed: Europe Engulfed is a PC version of the classic GMT board war game of the same name simulating World War II in the European theater. It is develope...eXpress Persistent Objects (XPO) Toolkit: eXpress Persistent Objects (XPO) Toolkit provides extensions to the DevExpress Object-Relational Mapping Suite.FBGraph.NET: Write apps for Facebook's Graph API using .NET. Includes support for C#, VB.NET, ASP.NET WebForms and ASP.NET MVC.HugeFlow.OOB: Silverlight OOB Library It supports useful custom controls. WindowChrome, InstallScreen. LivePad: LivePad, It can be used to record your life journey. LivePad，可以用来记录您的人生历程。Management listings: The project is management adsMerthin: Merthin is an F# based Framework which boundaries are not defined yet. For now a bit of linear algebra.Mobile Exchange: Mobile Exchange is a .NET Compact Framework library and sample application for accessing the Stack Exchange API available on sites like Stack Overf...PC/SC Micro: PC/SC Micro is an API and a library. The API is a subset of the PC/SC Lite API and allows a .NET Micro Framework application to communicate with ...SerialPortLogger: SerialPortLogger is a simple monitoring application which montors the serial port and outputs to a database.SharePoint NNTP List Sync: Syncronizes NNTP groups with SharePoint lists and offers post/reply capability. Sets item date as post date and attempts to lookup user in local d...Simple Help System: Simple Help System (SHS) je jednoduchý nápovědný systém jak pro vývojáře tak pro obyčejné lidi. Vyvýjeno v C#.SoulHackers Demon Unite(Chinese version): SoulHackers Demon Unite calculate program, for Chinese version on PlayStationTPager: Mercurial pager with color support on WindowsWork Item Query Administration: Work Item Query Administration (wiqadmin) is command-line utility to manage work item queries in Team Foundation Server. For any TeamProject you ca...XPlatformCPP: A cross platform C++ rendering API, that uses either OpenGL 2.1 or Direct3D 9.0c as a backend. Works with Win32API (Windows), Xlib (Linux,etc...), ...Xshell: Xshell is a replacement for the Windows Explorer shell designed for Media Center/Home Theater PCs.عبر السـدم: عبر السدم هي لعبة ثلاثية الأبعاد من إنجاز أعضاء الشبكة العربية لمطوري الألعاب بالاعتماد على تقنية XNA. http://www.agdn-online.com http://www.ag...New ReleasesAzure Publish-Subscribe: Azure Pub-Sub Developer Manual v0.1: Very early alpha of the documentation. It's an early look at the architecture only.Chaow Framework: Chaow Framework V1.00: Project Description Chaow Framework is the set of class libraries designed for enhancing standard .NET framework. It allows you to write more simpl...Document Toolkit Extensions: Document Toolkit Extensions Beta 1: The first public beta release of Document Toolkit and Document Toolkit Extensions.DotNetNuke Russian Language packs: Core Russian Language Pack for DNN 05.04.02: Core Russian Language Pack for DNN 05.04.02 Добавлены несколько ресурсов из новой редакции... Исправлены ошибки и описки.DynamicJson: Release 1.2.0.0: Fix - Deserialize(cast) can't convert to dynamic[] Fix - Deserialize(cast) throw exception if has getonly propertyEnhanced Web Controls: Enhanced Web Controls: This download includes the Enhanced Web Control Library DLL. Also inlcuded is the most recently tested version of the Ajax Control Toolkit, you may...Europe Engulfed: Europe Engulfed: This is the first release for the Codeplex-based project. It includes all source code changes up to and including Change Set 50762. To use: copy ...Extend SmallBasic: Teaching Extensions v.017: added a quiz for spiderweb recipeFree Silverlight & WPF Chart Control - Visifire: Visifire SL and WPF Charts v3.1.0 Released: Hi, This release contains the following enhancements: Mouse events for TrendLine have been implemented. You can go through Visifire documentation...Free Silverlight & WPF Chart Control - Visifire: Visifire SL and WPF Charts v3.5.3 Released: Hi, This release contains the following enhancements: Mouse events for TrendLine have been implemented. You can go through Visifire documentation...GreedyRSS: GreedyRSS 2.1: SuchSofts GreedyRSS平台整体更新至2.1版，重写了大量代码，可见还不够成熟稳定。此外还有以下几点主要更新： 增加一个辅助类Settings，参见http://semify.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!7CB96C25969B3811!2345.entry...HugeFlow.OOB: HugeFlow.OOB 0.9 Beta for SL4: First release!NLog - Advanced .NET Logging: Nightly Build 2010.05.21.001: Changes since the last build:2010-05-20 23:20:17 Jarek Kowalski added tests for CsvLayout, refactored TargetWithLayoutHeaderAndFooter 2010-05-20 2...patterns & practices SharePoint Guidance: SPG 2010 Drop11: SharePoint Guidance Drop Notes Microsoft patterns and practices What's in this Drop: Docs/CHM ** *DropLocation\CHM\SharePointGuidance.chm ...Persian Date/Time support for MsSQL: Build 59 (STABLE): Removed CreateDateTimeWmS() ! Use public static PersianDateTime CreateDateTime(int year, int month, int day, int hour, int min, int sec) instead. ...PiPiBugNet: 增加了创建新Bug界面: 增加了创建新Bug界面，尚未编写代码Rule 18 - Love your clipboard: Rule 18 (Beta version): This is the beta of the next release for Rule 18. Use if you feel comfortable with software that has minimal real world testing applied. Current...Scrum Sprint Monitor: v1.0.0.48591: What is new in this release? #6132 - Bug with open work hours; Added support for MSF for Agile process template; Improved data reporting in the...sGSHOPedit: sGSHOPedit v1.0 (Alpha): -SharePoint NNTP List Sync: 1.0 Release: You may need to change the posting server within the layouts, it is hard coded A webpart wsp is not provided because you should customize the sou...Silverlight Report Library: Version 2.0: - Upgraded to Silverlight 4.0 RTW - ReportHeader control added which is templateable - PagePrinting and PagePrinted events added - PageBreak ad...Snoop, the WPF Spy Utility: Snoop 2.5.1: This is a minor bug fix release for Snoop. In particular, I have fixed the installers so that they create separately named shortcuts ... for each ...SoulHackers Demon Unite(Chinese version): WCFTestClient: This program is using WCF and .NET 4.0. This version is include unite 2 and unite 3 and check what can unite. Element unite is not included yet.SqlServerExtensions: V 0.1 beta: Version 0.1 BetaStackOverflow.Net: StackOverflow.Net for Silverlight public beta: The beta version of StackOverflow.Net for silverlight 4StackOverflow.Net: StackOverflow.Net for Windows Phone 7 public beta: The Windows Phone 7 version of StackOverflow.netStackOverflow.Net: StackOverflow.Net public beta: A public beta to go along with with the public beta of the Stack Exchange APIStyleCop+: StyleCop+ 0.8: Added new extended rule for SA1502. SP1502 has an option which allows constructors to be placed on a single line.SynthExport: SynthExport 1.1.0: Added support for extraction of camera parameters The number of images in coordinate systems is now shown Added status label Improved user ex...TPager: TPager-20100521: First releaseVCC: Latest build, v2.1.30521.0: Automatic drop of latest buildWcfDoc: 1.0.5: Targeting .NET 4.0.Work Item Query Administration: 1.0: This is the first release an contains the following commands: list import export rename deleteMost Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)patterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryPHPExcelMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesASP.NETMost Active ProjectsRawrpatterns & practices – Enterprise Librarypatterns & practices: Windows Azure Security GuidanceCaliburn: An Application Framework for WPF and SilverlightSQL Server PowerShell ExtensionsGMap.NET - Great Maps for Windows Forms & PresentationBlogEngine.NETCodeReviewNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModulePHPExcel

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, May 29, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, May 29, 2010New ProjectsASP.NET MVC Time Planner: ASP.NET MVC based time planner is example solution that introduces ASP.NET MVC, MSSQL AJAX and jQuery development.Blit Scripting Engine: Blit Scripting Engine provides developers using Microsofts XNA Framework the ability to implement a scripting solution to their games and other pro...Expression Evaluator: This is an article on how to build a basic expression evaluator. It can evaluate any numerical expression combined with trigonometric functions for...Log Analyzer: This project has the aim to help developers to see live log/trace from their application applying visual styles to the grabbed text.LParse: LParse is a monadic parser combinator library, similar to Haskell’s Parsec. It allows you create parsers on C# language. All parsers are first-clas...NeatHtml: NeatHtml™ is a highly-portable open source website component that displays untrusted content securely, efficiently, and accessibly. Untrusted conte...NeatUpload: The NeatUpload ™ ASP.NET component allows developers to stream uploaded files to storage (filesystem or database) and allows users to monitor uplo...NSoup: NSoup is a .NET port of the jsoup (http://jsoup.org) HTML parser and sanitizer originally written in Java. jsoup originally written by Jonathan He...Ordering: c# farm softwarephone7: Project for Windows Phone 7RestCall: A very simple library to make a simple REST call and deserialize to an object. It uses WCF REST Starter Kit and the .net serializer in: System.Runt...SCSM CSV Connector: CSV Connector allows you to specify a data file and mapping location and a scheuled interval in minutes. At each scheduled interval Service Manage...Silverlight Adorner Control: An Adorner is a custom FrameworkElement that is bound to a FrameworkElement and displays information about that element 'above' the element without...Simple Stupid Tools: Simple Stupid ToolsSQScriptRunner: Simple Quick Script Runner allows an administrator to run T-SQL Scripts against one or more servers with common characteristics. For example, an m...ssisassembly: ssisassemblySSRS Report RoboCopy: a tools used to pass a report from a server to anotherTeam Foundation Server Explorer: A standalone Team Foundation Server explorer that can be used to view and manage source files.New Releases(SocketCoder) Full Silverlight Web Video/Voice Conferencing: SocketCoderWebConferencingSystem_Compiled: Installing The Server: 1- before you start you should allow the SocketCoderWCService.MainService.exe service to use the TCP ports from 4528 to 4532...ASP.NET MVC Time Planner: MVC Time Planner - v0.0.1.0: First public alpha of MVC Time Planner is now available. I got a lot of letters from my ASP.NET blog readers who are interested in this example sol...AvalonDock: AvalonDock 1.3.3384: Welcome to AvalonDock 1.3 This is the new version of AvalonDock targetting .NET 4 These are the main features that are included: - Target Microso...Blit Scripting Engine: Blit Scripting Engine 1.0: This marks the initial release of the Blit Scripting Engine. It provides the ability to compile scripts to an assembly, load pre-compiled assemblie...Community Forums NNTP bridge: Community Forums NNTP Bridge V12: Release of the Community Forums NNTP Bridge to access the social and anwsers MS forums with a single, open source NNTP bridge. This release has add...Community Forums NNTP bridge: Community Forums NNTP Bridge V13: Release of the Community Forums NNTP Bridge to access the social and anwsers MS forums with a single, open source NNTP bridge. This release has add...CSharp Intellisense: V2.4: bug fix: Pascal Casing, Single Selection and other selection errorsExpression Evaluator: Expression Evaluator - Visual Studio 2010: Visual Studio 2010 VersionFacebook Graph Toolkit: Preview 2: Preview 2 updates the source to be much more like the Facebook PHP-SDK. Additionally, the code has been updated to follow StyleCop framework rules....Facebook Graph Toolkit: Preview 3: Rest API now working although not fully tested. Removed JsonObject and JsonArray custom dynamic objects in favor of standard ExpandoObject and List...Free Silverlight & WPF Chart Control - Visifire: Visifire SL and WPF Charts v3.1.1 beta Released: Hi, Today we are releasing the two most awaited features i.e, Logarithmic axis and auto update of y-axis while Scrolling and Zooming. * Logar...Free Silverlight & WPF Chart Control - Visifire: Visifire SL and WPF Charts v3.5.4 beta Released: Hi, Today we are releasing the two most awaited features i.e, Logarithmic axis and auto update of y-axis while Scrolling and Zooming. Logarithmic...Fulcrum: Fulcrum 1.0: Initial release.Git Source Control Provider: V 0.3: V 0.3 Add automatic status refresh when files in solution folder changedIBCSharp: IBCSharp 1.04: What IBCSharp 1.04.zip unzips to: http://i50.tinypic.com/205qofl.png IBCSharp Change Log 1.04 - 5/28/2010 Updated IBClient.dll to IB API version...MapWindow6: MapWindow 6.0 May 28 2010: This shifts the projection library to System.Spatial.Projections instead of MWProj4. This also fixes a meter/feet conversion error.Microsoft Health Common User Interface: Release 8.2.51.000: This is version 8.2 of the Microsoft® Health Common User Interface Control Toolkit. This release includes code updates to controls as listed below....NeatHtml: NeatHtml-trunk.221: Adds support for Internet Explorer Mobile 6.NeatUpload: NeatUpload-1.3.25: Fixes the following bugs: SWFUpload.swf could not be served by a CDN because it was embedded without setting allowScriptAccess="always". NeatUpl...NSoup: NSoup 0.1: Initial port release. Corresponds to jsoup version 0.3.1.Numina Application/Security Framework: Numina.Framework Core 53265: Visit http://framework.numina.net to help get you started.Nuntio Content: Nuntio Content 4.2.0: This upgrades MagicContent instances to the latest version that is now called NuntioContent. While this release is quite stable it is still marked ...patterns & practices: Composite WPF and Silverlight: ProjectLinker Source for VS2010 - May 2010: The ProjectLinker helps keep the source for two projects in sync by automatically creating a linked file in one project as files are added in anoth...phone7: Prism for WP7: This the first version of prism for wp7SCSM CSV Connector: SCSM CSV Connector Version 0.1: Release Notes This is the first release of the SCSM CSV Connector solution. It is an 'alpha' release and has only been tested by the developers on ...Silverlight Adorner Control: 1.0: Initial releaseSilverlight Web Comic: Comic 1.1.1: Comic Beta with functionality to button newSilverlight Web Comic: Web Comic 1.1: This version has a little implementation no visible about the future versions, options to new, save, and load. The next version has a better review...Simple.NET: Simple.Mocking 1.0.0.6: Initial version of a new mocking framework for .NET Revision 1: Expect.AnyInocationOn<T>(T target) changed to Expect.AnyInocationOn(object target...Sonic.Net: Sonic.Net v1.0.1 For Unity 2.0: This Version is a port to VS2010 of the codebase with support for unity 2.0. note: currently follows the xsd schema of the previous unity Configur...Squiggle - A Free open source Lan Messenger: Squiggle 1.0.2: v1.0 Release.Team Foundation Server Explorer: Beta 1: The first public beta release of the TFS Explorer.thinktecture WSCF.blue: WSCF.blue V1 Update (1.0.8): Bug fix release with the following fix: When an XmlArrayAttribute decorated member has IsNullable=false, and the List<T> or Collection option is s...VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30528.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVisual Studio 2010 AutoScroller Extension: AutoScroller v0.4: A Visual studio 2010 auto-scroller extension. Simply hold down your middle mouse button and drag the mouse in the direction you wish to scroll, fu...WatchersNET CKEditor™ Provider for DotNetNuke: CKEditor Provider 1.10.03: !!Whats New Added CKEditor 3.3 Revision 5542 changes Options: Default Toolbar Set to Full for Administrators Browser Window: Increased Size of ...Most Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)patterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesPHPExcelASP.NETMost Active ProjectsAStar.netpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryBlogEngine.NETGMap.NET - Great Maps for Windows Forms & PresentationCommunity Forums NNTP bridgeRawrSqlServerExtensionsCustomer Portal Accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRMPAPpatterns & practices: Windows Azure Security Guidance

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• C#: Optional Parameters - Pros and Pitfalls

  - by James Michael Hare

  When Microsoft rolled out Visual Studio 2010 with C# 4, I was very excited to learn how I could apply all the new features and enhancements to help make me and my team more productive developers. Default parameters have been around forever in C++, and were intentionally omitted in Java in favor of using overloading to satisfy that need as it was though that having too many default parameters could introduce code safety issues.  To some extent I can understand that move, as I’ve been bitten by default parameter pitfalls before, but at the same time I feel like Java threw out the baby with the bathwater in that move and I’m glad to see C# now has them. This post briefly discusses the pros and pitfalls of using default parameters.  I’m avoiding saying cons, because I really don’t believe using default parameters is a negative thing, I just think there are things you must watch for and guard against to avoid abuses that can cause code safety issues. Pro: Default Parameters Can Simplify Code Let’s start out with positives.  Consider how much cleaner it is to reduce all the overloads in methods or constructors that simply exist to give the semblance of optional parameters.  For example, we could have a Message class defined which allows for all possible initializations of a Message: 1: public class Message 2: { 3: // can either cascade these like this or duplicate the defaults (which can introduce risk) 4: public Message() 5: : this(string.Empty) 6: { 7: } 8:  9: public Message(string text) 10: : this(text, null) 11: { 12: } 13:  14: public Message(string text, IDictionary<string, string> properties) 15: : this(text, properties, -1) 16: { 17: } 18:  19: public Message(string text, IDictionary<string, string> properties, long timeToLive) 20: { 21: // ... 22: } 23: }   Now consider the same code with default parameters: 1: public class Message 2: { 3: // can either cascade these like this or duplicate the defaults (which can introduce risk) 4: public Message(string text = "", IDictionary<string, string> properties = null, long timeToLive = -1) 5: { 6: // ... 7: } 8: }   Much more clean and concise and no repetitive coding!  In addition, in the past if you wanted to be able to cleanly supply timeToLive and accept the default on text and properties above, you would need to either create another overload, or pass in the defaults explicitly.  With named parameters, though, we can do this easily: 1: var msg = new Message(timeToLive: 100);   Pro: Named Parameters can Improve Readability I must say one of my favorite things with the default parameters addition in C# is the named parameters.  It lets code be a lot easier to understand visually with no comments.  Think how many times you’ve run across a TimeSpan declaration with 4 arguments and wondered if they were passing in days/hours/minutes/seconds or hours/minutes/seconds/milliseconds.  A novice running through your code may wonder what it is.  Named arguments can help resolve the visual ambiguity: 1: // is this days/hours/minutes/seconds (no) or hours/minutes/seconds/milliseconds (yes) 2: var ts = new TimeSpan(1, 2, 3, 4); 3:  4: // this however is visually very explicit 5: var ts = new TimeSpan(days: 1, hours: 2, minutes: 3, seconds: 4);   Or think of the times you’ve run across something passing a Boolean literal and wondered what it was: 1: // what is false here? 2: var sub = CreateSubscriber(hostname, port, false); 3:  4: // aha! Much more visibly clear 5: var sub = CreateSubscriber(hostname, port, isBuffered: false);   Pitfall: Don't Insert new Default Parameters In Between Existing Defaults Now let’s consider a two potential pitfalls.  The first is really an abuse.  It’s not really a fault of the default parameters themselves, but a fault in the use of them.  Let’s consider that Message constructor again with defaults.  Let’s say you want to add a messagePriority to the message and you think this is more important than a timeToLive value, so you decide to put messagePriority before it in the default, this gives you: 1: public class Message 2: { 3: public Message(string text = "", IDictionary<string, string> properties = null, int priority = 5, long timeToLive = -1) 4: { 5: // ... 6: } 7: }   Oh boy have we set ourselves up for failure!  Why?  Think of all the code out there that could already be using the library that already specified the timeToLive, such as this possible call: 1: var msg = new Message(“An error occurred”, myProperties, 1000);   Before this specified a message with a TTL of 1000, now it specifies a message with a priority of 1000 and a time to live of -1 (infinite).  All of this with NO compiler errors or warnings. So the rule to take away is if you are adding new default parameters to a method that’s currently in use, make sure you add them to the end of the list or create a brand new method or overload. Pitfall: Beware of Default Parameters in Inheritance and Interface Implementation Now, the second potential pitfalls has to do with inheritance and interface implementation.  I’ll illustrate with a puzzle: 1: public interface ITag 2: { 3: void WriteTag(string tagName = "ITag"); 4: } 5:  6: public class BaseTag : ITag 7: { 8: public virtual void WriteTag(string tagName = "BaseTag") { Console.WriteLine(tagName); } 9: } 10:  11: public class SubTag : BaseTag 12: { 13: public override void WriteTag(string tagName = "SubTag") { Console.WriteLine(tagName); } 14: } 15:  16: public static class Program 17: { 18: public static void Main() 19: { 20: SubTag subTag = new SubTag(); 21: BaseTag subByBaseTag = subTag; 22: ITag subByInterfaceTag = subTag; 23:  24: // what happens here? 25: subTag.WriteTag(); 26: subByBaseTag.WriteTag(); 27: subByInterfaceTag.WriteTag(); 28: } 29: }   What happens?  Well, even though the object in each case is SubTag whose tag is “SubTag”, you will get: 1: SubTag 2: BaseTag 3: ITag   Why?  Because default parameter are resolved at compile time, not runtime!  This means that the default does not belong to the object being called, but by the reference type it’s being called through.  Since the SubTag instance is being called through an ITag reference, it will use the default specified in ITag. So the moral of the story here is to be very careful how you specify defaults in interfaces or inheritance hierarchies.  I would suggest avoiding repeating them, and instead concentrating on the layer of classes or interfaces you must likely expect your caller to be calling from. For example, if you have a messaging factory that returns an IMessage which can be either an MsmqMessage or JmsMessage, it only makes since to put the defaults at the IMessage level since chances are your user will be using the interface only. So let’s sum up.  In general, I really love default and named parameters in C# 4.0.  I think they’re a great tool to help make your code easier to read and maintain when used correctly. On the plus side, default parameters: Reduce redundant overloading for the sake of providing optional calling structures. Improve readability by being able to name an ambiguous argument. But remember to make sure you: Do not insert new default parameters in the middle of an existing set of default parameters, this may cause unpredictable behavior that may not necessarily throw a syntax error – add to end of list or create new method. Be extremely careful how you use default parameters in inheritance hierarchies and interfaces – choose the most appropriate level to add the defaults based on expected usage. Technorati Tags: C#,.NET,Software,Default Parameters

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, April 23, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, April 23, 2010New Projects3D TagCloud for SharePoint 2010: 3D Flash TagCloud WebPart for SharePoint 2010AnyCAD.Net: AnyCAD.NetCassandraemon: Cassandraemon is LINQ Provider for Apache Cassandra.CCLI SongSelect Importer for PowerPoint: CCLI SongSelect Importer for PowerPoint ® is an Add-in for Microsoft ® PowerPoint ® that allows CCLI SongSelect (USR) files to be turned into slide...Compactar Arquivo Txt, Flat File, em Pipeline Decoder Customizado: Objetivo do projeto: Desenvolver um componente do tipo Pipeline Receiver Decoder, onde compacta o conteúdo, cria uma mensagem em XML e transforma ...Console Calculator: Console calculator is a simple, yet useful, mathematical expression calculator, supporting functions and variables. It was created to demonstrate ...CRM Dynamics Excel Importer: CRM Dynamics Excel Importercubace: The standard audio composer software with just single difference: this is CLR compilation.deneb: deneb projectDrive Backup: Drive Backup is an easy to use, automatic backup program. Simply insert a USB drive, and the program will backup either files on the drive to your ...eWebMVCCMS: this is the start of eWeb MVC CMS.Fix.ly: Small app that allows for URL rewriting before passing to the browser. Accepts MEF plugins that make themselves available by informing the applicat...GArphics: GArphics uses a genetic algorithm to produce graphics and animation with the assitance of the user.JDS Toolkit: An experimental toolkit geared to make richer applications with less effort. 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• A Closable jQuery Plug-in

  - by Rick Strahl

  In my client side development I deal a lot with content that pops over the main page. Be it data entry ‘windows’ or dialogs or simple pop up notes. In most cases this behavior goes with draggable windows, but sometimes it’s also useful to have closable behavior on static page content that the user can choose to hide or otherwise make invisible or fade out. Here’s a small jQuery plug-in that provides .closable() behavior to most elements by using either an image that is provided or – more appropriately by using a CSS class to define the picture box layout. /* * * Closable * * Makes selected DOM elements closable by making them * invisible when close icon is clicked * * Version 1.01 * @requires jQuery v1.3 or later * * Copyright (c) 2007-2010 Rick Strahl * http://www.west-wind.com/ * * Licensed under the MIT license: * http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php Support CSS: .closebox { position: absolute; right: 4px; top: 4px; background-image: url(images/close.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; width: 14px; height: 14px; cursor: pointer; opacity: 0.60; filter: alpha(opacity="80"); } .closebox:hover { opacity: 0.95; filter: alpha(opacity="100"); } Options: * handle Element to place closebox into (like say a header). Use if main element and closebox container are two different elements. * closeHandler Function called when the close box is clicked. Return true to close the box return false to keep it visible. * cssClass The CSS class to apply to the close box DIV or IMG tag. * imageUrl Allows you to specify an explicit IMG url that displays the close icon. If used bypasses CSS image styling. * fadeOut Optional provide fadeOut speed. Default no fade out occurs */ (function ($) { $.fn.closable = function (options) { var opt = { handle: null, closeHandler: null, cssClass: "closebox", imageUrl: null, fadeOut: null }; $.extend(opt, options); return this.each(function (i) { var el = $(this); var pos = el.css("position"); if (!pos || pos == "static") el.css("position", "relative"); var h = opt.handle ? $(opt.handle).css({ position: "relative" }) : el; var div = opt.imageUrl ? $("<img>").attr("src", opt.imageUrl).css("cursor", "pointer") : $("<div>"); div.addClass(opt.cssClass) .click(function (e) { if (opt.closeHandler) if (!opt.closeHandler.call(this, e)) return; if (opt.fadeOut) $(el).fadeOut(opt.fadeOut); else $(el).hide(); }); if (opt.imageUrl) div.css("background-image", "none"); h.append(div); }); } })(jQuery); The plugin can be applied against any selector that is a container (typically a div tag). The close image or close box is provided typically by way of a CssClass - .closebox by default – which supplies the image as part of the CSS styling. The default styling for the box looks something like this: .closebox { position: absolute; right: 4px; top: 4px; background-image: url(images/close.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; width: 14px; height: 14px; cursor: pointer; opacity: 0.60; filter: alpha(opacity="80"); } .closebox:hover { opacity: 0.95; filter: alpha(opacity="100"); } Alternately you can also supply an image URL which overrides the background image in the style sheet. I use this plug-in mostly on pop up windows that can be closed, but it’s also quite handy for remove/delete behavior in list displays like this: you can find this sample here to look to play along: http://www.west-wind.com/WestwindWebToolkit/Samples/Ajax/AmazonBooks/BooksAdmin.aspx For closable windows it’s nice to have something reusable because in my client framework there are lots of different kinds of windows that can be created: Draggables, Modal Dialogs, HoverPanels etc. and they all use the client .closable plug-in to provide the closable operation in the same way with a few options. Plug-ins are great for this sort of thing because they can also be aggregated and so different components can pick and choose the behavior they want. The window here is a draggable, that’s closable and has shadow behavior and the server control can simply generate the appropriate plug-ins to apply to the main <div> tag: $().ready(function() { $('#ctl00_MainContent_panEditBook') .closable({ handle: $('#divEditBook_Header') }) .draggable({ dragDelay: 100, handle: '#divEditBook_Header' }) .shadow({ opacity: 0.25, offset: 6 }); }) The window is using the default .closebox style and has its handle set to the header bar (Book Information). The window is just closable to go away so no event handler is applied. Actually I cheated – the actual page’s .closable is a bit more ugly in the sample as it uses an image from a resources file: .closable({ imageUrl: '/WestWindWebToolkit/Samples/WebResource.axd?d=TooLongAndNastyToPrint', handle: $('#divEditBook_Header')}) so you can see how to apply a custom image, which in this case is generated by the server control wrapping the client DragPanel. More interesting maybe is to apply the .closable behavior to list scenarios. For example, each of the individual items in the list display also are .closable using this plug-in. Rather than having to define each item with Html for an image, event handler and link, when the client template is rendered the closable behavior is attached to the list. Here I’m using client-templating and the code that this is done with looks like this: function loadBooks() { showProgress(); // Clear the content $("#divBookListWrapper").empty(); var filter = $("#" + scriptVars.lstFiltersId).val(); Proxy.GetBooks(filter, function(books) { $(books).each(function(i) { updateBook(this); showProgress(true); }); }, onPageError); } function updateBook(book,highlight) { // try to retrieve the single item in the list by tag attribute id var item = $(".bookitem[tag=" +book.Pk +"]"); // grab and evaluate the template var html = parseTemplate(template, book); var newItem = $(html) .attr("tag", book.Pk.toString()) .click(function() { var pk = $(this).attr("tag"); editBook(this, parseInt(pk)); }) .closable({ closeHandler: function(e) { removeBook(this, e); }, imageUrl: "../../images/remove.gif" }); if (item.length > 0) item.after(newItem).remove(); else newItem.appendTo($("#divBookListWrapper")); if (highlight) { newItem .addClass("pulse") .effect("bounce", { distance: 15, times: 3 }, 400); setTimeout(function() { newItem.removeClass("pulse"); }, 1200); } } Here the closable behavior is applied to each of the items along with an event handler, which is nice and easy compared to having to embed the right HTML and click handling into each item in the list individually via markup. Ideally though (and these posts make me realize this often a little late) I probably should set up a custom cssClass to handle the rendering – maybe a CSS class called .removebox that only changes the image from the default box image. This example also hooks up an event handler that is fired in response to the close. In the list I need to know when the remove button is clicked so I can fire of a service call to the server to actually remove the item from the database. The handler code can also return false; to indicate that the window should not be closed optionally. Returning true will close the window. You can find more information about the .closable class behavior and options here: .closable Documentation Plug-ins make Server Control JavaScript much easier I find this plug-in immensely useful especial as part of server control code, because it simplifies the code that has to be generated server side tremendously. This is true of plug-ins in general which make it so much easier to create simple server code that only generates plug-in options, rather than full blocks of JavaScript code.  For example, here’s the relevant code from the DragPanel server control which generates the .closable() behavior: if (this.Closable && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(DragHandleID) ) { string imageUrl = this.CloseBoxImage; if (imageUrl == "WebResource" ) imageUrl = ScriptProxy.GetWebResourceUrl(this, this.GetType(), ControlResources.CLOSE_ICON_RESOURCE); StringBuilder closableOptions = new StringBuilder("imageUrl: '" + imageUrl + "'"); if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(this.DragHandleID)) closableOptions.Append(",handle: $('#" + this.DragHandleID + "')"); if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(this.ClientDialogHandler)) closableOptions.Append(",handler: " + this.ClientDialogHandler); if (this.FadeOnClose) closableOptions.Append(",fadeOut: 'slow'"); startupScript.Append(@" .closable({ " + closableOptions + "})"); } The same sort of block is then used for .draggable and .shadow which simply sets options. Compared to the code I used to have in pre-jQuery versions of my JavaScript toolkit this is a walk in the park. In those days there was a bunch of JS generation which was ugly to say the least. I know a lot of folks frown on using server controls, especially the UI is client centric as the example is. However, I do feel that server controls can greatly simplify the process of getting the right behavior attached more easily and with the help of IntelliSense. Often the script markup is easier is especially if you are dealing with complex, multiple plug-in associations that often express more easily with property values on a control. Regardless of whether server controls are your thing or not this plug-in can be useful in many scenarios. Even in simple client-only scenarios using a plug-in with a few simple parameters is nicer and more consistent than creating the HTML markup over and over again. I hope some of you find this even a small bit as useful as I have. Related Links Download jquery.closable West Wind Web Toolkit jQuery Plug-ins © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in jQuery   ASP.NET  JavaScript  

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