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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, May 05, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, May 05, 2010New Projects2010微软精英大挑战Heritage of Dragon项目: 我们来自上海市同济大学，兴趣相投，集聚于此共同构建一个开放的网络平台。致力于运用构建在云端基于地图的服务，使用文字、图片、视频、互动动画等形式来展示全国各地的传统手工艺。并且充分发挥网络的优势，通过开放协作的维基平台人人都可以参与到内容的添加修改与完善中来。目的在于记录、展示、挖掘、传承中国古...AutoArchive: Auto archive your "my documents" to a remote machine. I'm writing this so my wife can put things in "my documents" and it'll automaticly archive i...BigDoor .NET Client: A .NET client for the BigDoor Media API. The API enables secured virtual transactions with support for any number of currencies, transactions, awar...bubujie: Dreamweaver LibraryGeckoGit: GeckoGit is a combination of TortoiseSVN and AnkhSVN, but for Git repositories, and built on the GitSharp library.Global: global, config, mail, http, rest, xml, serialization, helper, path, ioIndustrial Dashboard Connected Grid webpart: This Sharepoint 2007/10 webpart provides a simple way to display grid based reports populated with data that comes from a SQL Server stored procedu...IpControls: "IpControls" contains IPv4 and IPv6 text boxes, both as Windows Forms and WPF version. The IPv6 control automatically detects the older hybrid for...LiteME: LiteME is short for LiteMapleStoryEmulator... it is v75, open-source, and still going through it's alpha stages. It is still in development!Meditel PHP Class: Une classe PHP qui vous permet de d'envoyer des SMS vers tous les numeros Meditel en utilisant leservice des SMS gratuits depuis le site Meditel.maMoneySafe: Help people.Mouse Zoom - Visual Studio Extension: Mouse Zoom is a Visual Studio 2010 extension that will cause the mouse zoom functionality to zoom at the mouse's cursor instead of at the top of th...Multi-Language Words Memorizer: This .net application is designed for learning words and help foreign language learners by lots of automatic features. After you select a list of ...Navigation for ASP.NET Web Forms: Navigation for ASP.NET Web Forms manages movement and data passing between aspx Pages in a unit testable manner. There is no Client-side logic, so ...NazTek.Extension.Clr4: CLR 4.0 extensions and utility APIOpalis Community Releases: Sample workflows, objects, code and other items related to System Center's Opalis Integration Server, published by the Opalis team.Power Video Player: Power Video Player is a slim feature-rich video/dvd player that meets everyday needs in video playback on PC with a bunch of advanced features on b...SchemeEditor: <WPF> <.NET> <Editor> <Silverlight> <Scheme> <Graphics> <simulink> <schematic>StyleCop+: StyleCop+ is a plug-in that extends original StyleCop features.timemanager2010: Just another work time managerTweetTunes: Updates Twitter with current song playing in iTunes - if your Twitter account is linked to Facebook - it will update that too The twittervb2 down...WCF Discovery Library: WCF Discovery Library is a small collection of utilities that makes it easy to add WCF 4.0 Discovery features into your projects.New ReleasesAjaxControlToolkit additional extenders: ControlToolkitExtended: this build contains web example with BreadCrumbsAnyCAD: AnyCAD Free Beta1: AnyCAD Free Beta1Baccarat: Single player practice baccarat: This is a simple baccarat game for Windows Mobile. It is single player and is only a practice version, which will help users familiarize themselve...BigDoor .NET Client: BigDoor .NET 2.0 Client (Alpha): Our first iteration of the .NET client. Please fork and or ask to be added if you want to make any contributions.CBM-Command: 2010-05-04: Release NotesNew Features Panel navigation now complete. Scroll up and down through directories using the up and down cursor keys. Switch between...Directory Linker: Directory Linker 2.1: This release introduces XP support, more information about all features can be found at http://www.humblecoder.co.uk/?p=141Extend SmallBasic: Teaching Extensions v.015: added high low quizGoogle AJAX Search Services for jQuery: jquery.gss-0.1.3.js: First official release - use at your own discretion. Thanks, AndrewIndustrial Dashboard Connected Grid webpart: Filtered Industrial Grid: Filtered Industrial Grid web part for SharePoint 2007/2010, First Release.jQuery Library for SharePoint Web Services: SPServices 0.5.5: IMPORTANT NOTE: This release is in an alpha state. You should only download it if you know what you are getting and are interested in testing it f...Meditel PHP Class: Meditel PHP Class: Zipped File : Example : exemplemeditel.php PHP Class : meditel.class.phpMulti-Language Words Memorizer: Memorizer 1.0: First release.mwNSPECT: mwNSPECT Plugin DLL: mwNSPECT Mapwindow plugin dll. Place in your MapWindow or BASINS plugins directory. Presently only for testing form functionality (not including...mwNSPECT: mwNSPECT Simple Installer: Simplistic mwNSPECT Mapwindow plugin installer using Inno setup. Installs all the files you'll need for NSPECT into the C:\NSPECT folder and insta...MyWSAT - ASP.NET Membership Administration Tool: MyWSAT v3.5.3: MyWSAT 3.5.3 Update Notes - May 4th 2010 1.) Added the user search box and a-z navigation menu to all relevant user gridviews. 2.) Added a membersh...Object/Relational Mapper & Code Generator in Net 2.0 for Relational & XML Schema: 2.7: Upgraded UI-generation templates for special case of associative tables (2-column primary keys). Minor bugfix with template-editor.Open NFSe: Open NFSe 2.0: Versao para Belo Horizonte utilizando Windows Services.Power Video Player: PVP 1.1.3776: v1.1.3776 This is mainly a rebuild of version 1.1 under Ms-PL license and is the 1st version available at CodePlex.PROGRAMMABLE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT: PROGRAMMABLE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT-3.1: The following error has been corrected: PCG ERROR: srcproj -- 3933 PCG ERROR: srcproj -- 2943 PCG ERROR: devproj -- 1474 PCG ERROR: mainprj -- 128...Rehost Image: 1.3.9: Fixed locations saving for mac and linux platforms.Robot Shootans: Robot Shootans 0.5.1 (Windows): This is the first public release of this game. Instructions on how to play are included in the game itself Known issues: Changing control style wh...SchemeEditor: SchemeEditor Beta: First release. Wait for documentation & update for some new functionSharePoint Rsync List: SharePoint Rsync 0.9.0.0: Initial release of sprsync. Comments, questions, feedback, and code enhancements are welcome!Software Is Hardwork: Sw. Is Hw. Lib. 3.0.0.x+01: Sw. Is Hw. Lib. 3.0.0.x+01 UNSUPPORTED, UNTESTED ALPHA RELEASE Code may disappear. This is just a preview of code that was in progress. Code is s...Software Localization Tool: SharpSLT 1.0.1: Minor release: bug fixes slight changes in the UIStyleCop+: StyleCop+ 0.6: Several important improvements made for Advanced Naming Rules: - Added new entities for fields and constants - Added new entities for methods (incl...turing machine simulator: First version of turing machine: Overview: First version of turing simulator with example script (transaction function). Files: SimulatorGui.exe - main GUI of simulator TuringMach...VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30504.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVocabulary Training Center: Basic Edition 1.1: A release with medium large changes: New functionality: Multiple-choice questions added Grammatical questions added Evaluation changed accordin...Web Service Software Factory: Web Service Software Factory 2010 RC: To use the Web Service Software Factory 2010, you need the following software installed on your computer: • Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 (Ultima...Web Service Software Factory: WSSF2010 Guide: This is the help and guidance for Web Service Software Factory 2010Windows Phone 7 Panorama control: panorama control v0.6 + samples: IMPORTANT NOTE: Please read the following bug + suggested workaround. I'll fix this in a new release shortly. Panorama Control source code + sampl...WPF Behavior Library: WPF Behavior Library 0.2 Release: Drag & Drop Took away the ItemType and DataTemplate requirements Added functions for inheritors to be able to provide custom logic to handle movi...Most Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight Toolkitpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)iTuner - The iTunes CompanionDotNetNuke® Community EditionASP.NETMost Active Projectspatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryAJAX Control FrameworkHydroServer - CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System ServerIonics Isapi Rewrite Filterpatterns & practices: Azure Security GuidanceRawrBlogEngine.NETTinyProjectNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModuleAll-In-One Code Framework

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• VS 2010 Debugger Improvements (BreakPoints, DataTips, Import/Export)

  - by ScottGu

  This is the twenty-first in a series of blog posts I’m doing on the VS 2010 and .NET 4 release.  Today’s blog post covers a few of the nice usability improvements coming with the VS 2010 debugger.  The VS 2010 debugger has a ton of great new capabilities.  Features like Intellitrace (aka historical debugging), the new parallel/multithreaded debugging capabilities, and dump debuging support typically get a ton of (well deserved) buzz and attention when people talk about the debugging improvements with this release.  I’ll be doing blog posts in the future that demonstrate how to take advantage of them as well.  With today’s post, though, I thought I’d start off by covering a few small, but nice, debugger usability improvements that were also included with the VS 2010 release, and which I think you’ll find useful. Breakpoint Labels VS 2010 includes new support for better managing debugger breakpoints.  One particularly useful feature is called “Breakpoint Labels” – it enables much better grouping and filtering of breakpoints within a project or across a solution.  With previous releases of Visual Studio you had to manage each debugger breakpoint as a separate item. Managing each breakpoint separately can be a pain with large projects and for cases when you want to maintain “logical groups” of breakpoints that you turn on/off depending on what you are debugging.  Using the new VS 2010 “breakpoint labeling” feature you can now name these “groups” of breakpoints and manage them as a unit. Grouping Multiple Breakpoints Together using a Label Below is a screen-shot of the breakpoints window within Visual Studio 2010.  This lists all of the breakpoints defined within my solution (which in this case is the ASP.NET MVC 2 code base): The first and last breakpoint in the list above breaks into the debugger when a Controller instance is created or released by the ASP.NET MVC Framework. Using VS 2010, I can now select these two breakpoints, right-click, and then select the new “Edit labels…” menu command to give them a common label/name (making them easier to find and manage): Below is the dialog that appears when I select the “Edit labels” command.  We can use it to create a new string label for our breakpoints or select an existing one we have already defined.  In this case we’ll create a new label called “Lifetime Management” to describe what these two breakpoints cover: When we press the OK button our two selected breakpoints will be grouped under the newly created “Lifetime Management” label: Filtering/Sorting Breakpoints by Label We can use the “Search” combobox to quickly filter/sort breakpoints by label.  Below we are only showing those breakpoints with the “Lifetime Management” label: Toggling Breakpoints On/Off by Label We can also toggle sets of breakpoints on/off by label group.  We can simply filter by the label group, do a Ctrl-A to select all the breakpoints, and then enable/disable all of them with a single click: Importing/Exporting Breakpoints VS 2010 now supports importing/exporting breakpoints to XML files – which you can then pass off to another developer, attach to a bug report, or simply re-load later.  To export only a subset of breakpoints, you can filter by a particular label and then click the “Export breakpoint” button in the Breakpoints window: Above I’ve filtered my breakpoint list to only export two particular breakpoints (specific to a bug that I’m chasing down).  I can export these breakpoints to an XML file and then attach it to a bug report or email – which will enable another developer to easily setup the debugger in the correct state to investigate it on a separate machine.  Pinned DataTips Visual Studio 2010 also includes some nice new “DataTip pinning” features that enable you to better see and track variable and expression values when in the debugger.  Simply hover over a variable or expression within the debugger to expose its DataTip (which is a tooltip that displays its value)  – and then click the new “pin” button on it to make the DataTip always visible: You can “pin” any number of DataTips you want onto the screen.  In addition to pinning top-level variables, you can also drill into the sub-properties on variables and pin them as well.  Below I’ve “pinned” three variables: “category”, “Request.RawUrl” and “Request.LogonUserIdentity.Name”.  Note that these last two variable are sub-properties of the “Request” object.   Associating Comments with Pinned DataTips Hovering over a pinned DataTip exposes some additional UI within the debugger: Clicking the comment button at the bottom of this UI expands the DataTip - and allows you to optionally add a comment with it: This makes it really easy to attach and track debugging notes: Pinned DataTips are usable across both Debug Sessions and Visual Studio Sessions Pinned DataTips can be used across multiple debugger sessions.  This means that if you stop the debugger, make a code change, and then recompile and start a new debug session - any pinned DataTips will still be there, along with any comments you associate with them.  Pinned DataTips can also be used across multiple Visual Studio sessions.  This means that if you close your project, shutdown Visual Studio, and then later open the project up again – any pinned DataTips will still be there, along with any comments you associate with them. See the Value from Last Debug Session (Great Code Editor Feature) How many times have you ever stopped the debugger only to go back to your code and say: $#@! – what was the value of that variable again??? One of the nice things about pinned DataTips is that they keep track of their “last value from debug session” – and you can look these values up within the VB/C# code editor even when the debugger is no longer running.  DataTips are by default hidden when you are in the code editor and the debugger isn’t running.  On the left-hand margin of the code editor, though, you’ll find a push-pin for each pinned DataTip that you’ve previously setup: Hovering your mouse over a pinned DataTip will cause it to display on the screen.  Below you can see what happens when I hover over the first pin in the editor - it displays our debug session’s last values for the “Request” object DataTip along with the comment we associated with them: This makes it much easier to keep track of state and conditions as you toggle between code editing mode and debugging mode on your projects. Importing/Exporting Pinned DataTips As I mentioned earlier in this post, pinned DataTips are by default saved across Visual Studio sessions (you don’t need to do anything to enable this). VS 2010 also now supports importing/exporting pinned DataTips to XML files – which you can then pass off to other developers, attach to a bug report, or simply re-load later. Combined with the new support for importing/exporting breakpoints, this makes it much easier for multiple developers to share debugger configurations and collaborate across debug sessions. Summary Visual Studio 2010 includes a bunch of great new debugger features – both big and small.  Today’s post shared some of the nice debugger usability improvements. All of the features above are supported with the Visual Studio 2010 Professional edition (the Pinned DataTip features are also supported in the free Visual Studio 2010 Express Editions)  I’ll be covering some of the “big big” new debugging features like Intellitrace, parallel/multithreaded debugging, and dump file analysis in future blog posts.  Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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• Understanding Windows 8 Recovery options

  - by stuffe

  Background: I am preparing a PC that I am sending to a relative abroad, who has little or no internet access, and next to no sensible options for getting IT support should anything go wrong. As such I am trying to provide a full set of recovery options such that they are able to reinstall the OS with minimum fuss or assistance if required. The PC is a brand new Acer laptop that came with Windows 7 pre-installed (and an associated recovery partition) and a free upgrade to Windows 8. I have installed Windows 8 from scratch performing a format and clean install from media I burned from the official download. The existing Windows 7 recovery partition is still there, and I can still boot from it. I have created recovery DVDs of that in case it is ever lost. Here are my recovery options so far. I can perform a factory reset of Win 7 via the recovery partition I can perform a factory reset of Win 7 via burned recovery DVDs I can re-install Windows 8 cleanly from a DVD All of these are useful, but not what I want, because the first 2 methods use Win 7, and still fill the machine with crapware, and the latter doesn't provide for any post-install customisation and software installation. So, I am looking to see what other options are available to perform a Windows 8 recovery that will be more than a simple install. I am aware that Win8 comes with some useful refresh tools: Refresh your PC - Re-install Win 8 over the top of your existing installation, recovering from any Windows corruption etc. I can run this from my current install, although it says some files are missing that will be provided by me install or recovery media, which seems to be code for stick your install DVD in, and it starts after I do that - unfortunately for this particular laptop you need to specify a particular WIFI driver or the install bombs out part way through with IRQL errors, and this refresh method skips the part where you can load a driver, so it's no use to me. I think I can fix this by creating a custom recovery image using the recimg.exe command but it takes hours to complete so I haven't tried it yet. Reset your PC - Perform a full install and lose all your files. Again it needs my Install media inserting before it will do anything, but then it provides an error (will include later when I recreate it...) Now, these recovery options look useful (in principal, although both are fail for me) but they rely on having a working system to access the tools, which leads me to the last option, of making a Recovery USB drive. I have made a recovery drive, and it should perform loads of useful things, including copying my WIN7 recovery partition to the drive, providing the above refresh and reset options, providing other troubleshooting options and also the ability to restore from a custom image, only none of them seem to work for me. Creating the Recovery Drive - the option to include my recovery partition is greyed out. The partition exists and works fine, why will it not copy it? Refresh - I imagine this would have the same issues as I described before, but this is moot because when I try it says that the "drive where Windows is installed is locked, please unlock the drive and try again" with no info on what that means and how to do it. Restore - Again, probably pointless as I can just use the DVD, but it also errors: "unable to reset your PC. A required drive partition is missing" System Restore - should let me roll back a bad driver etc as per normal in Windows, only it simply says "To use system restore you must specify which windows installation to restore. Restart this computer, select an operating system, and select system restore" ?!?! System Image Recovery - this seems to be offering to restore from a Windows system image, but this is deprecated in Windows 8, although you can still make one if you use the Windows 7 Backup tools, however the resultant file is too large to put on the USB stick as it's FAT formatted, and would be a massive stack of DVDs anyway. So useless. It would be nice it it would work with the custom recovery image you can use with the refresh command, but there seems no option to do this. Automatic Repair - some diagnostics, which seem useless as it happily tells me it can't fix my problem, even though I have none. Command Prompt - yay, this works! What on earth do I want to use it for... Had any of the above worked, it might be useful, but as any form of install still requires you to have the DVD, and any form of custom recovery image also requires you to have either a massive stack of DVDs or an NTFS formatted backup device in addition to the recovery drive, it sort of ruins the point. It doesn't seem rocket science. I want to create a bootable USB drive that I can refresh Windows over an existing install with, perform a clean reinstall to a bare system, or recovery a customised image with existing apps installed. If anyone can point me in a direction that allows me to make a single recovery drive do these all these things, I would appreciate it. I have a 32Gb USB3 thumb drive that I bought for this very purpose, but it's seems to be fighting to let me do anything useful. At this rate I will be making a DriveImageXML recovery stick and dumping the OS with that, which I know works, but isn't so elegant as using the proper tools..

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• Craftsmanship is ALL that Matters

  - by Wayne Molina

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

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• Partial Page Rendering in OAF Page

  - by PRajkumar

  Let us try to implement partial page rendering for a text item. If value of TextItem1 is null then TextItem2 will not be appreared on UI. If value of TextItem1 is not null then TextItem2 will be appreared on UI.   1. Create a New OA Workspace and Empty OA Project File> New > General> Workspace Configured for Oracle Applications File Name -- PPRProj Project Name – PPRDemoProj Default Package -- prajkumar.oracle.apps.fnd.pprdemo   2. Create Application Module AM PPRDemoProj right click > New > ADF Business Components > Application Module Name -- PPRAM Package -- prajkumar.oracle.apps.fnd.pprdemo.server   Check Application Module Class: PPRAMImpl Generate JavaFile(s)   3. Create a PPRVO View Object PPRDemoProj> New > ADF Business Components > View Objects Name – PPRVO Package – prajkumar.oracle.apps.fnd.pprdemo.server   In Attribute Page Click on New button and create transient primary key attribute with the following properties:   Attribute Property Name RowKey Type Number Updateable Always Key Attribute (Checked)   Click New button again and create transient attribute with the following properties:   Attribute Property Name TextItem2Render Type Boolean Updateable Always   Note – No Need to generate any JAVA files for PPRVO   4. Add Your View Object to Root UI Application Module Right click on PPRAM > Edit PPRAM > Data Model > Select PPRVO in Available View Objects list and shuttle to Data Model list   5. Create a OA components Page PPRDemoProj right click > New > OA Components > Page Name – PPRPG Package -- prajkumar.oracle.apps.fnd.pprdemo.webui   6. Modify the Page Layout (Top-level) Region   Attribute Property ID PageLayoutRN Region Style pageLayout Form Property True Auto Footer True Window Title PPR Demo Window Title True Title PPR Demo Page Header AM Definition prajkumar.oracle.apps.fnd.pprdemo.server.PPRAM   7. Create the Second Region (Main Content Region) Right click on PageLayoutRN > New > Region   Attribute Property ID MainRN Region Style messageComponentLayout   8. Create Two Text Items   Create First messageTextItem -- Right click on MainRN > New > messageTextInput   Attribute Property ID TextItem1 Region Style messageTextInput Prompt Text Item1 Length 20 Disable Server Side Validation True Disable Client Side Validation True Action Type firePartialAction Event TextItem1Change Submit True   Note -- Disable Client Side Validation and Event property appears after you set the Action Type property to firePartialAction   Create Second messageTextItem -- Select MainRN right click > New > messageTextInput   Attribute Property ID TextItem2 Region Style messageTextInput Prompt Text Item2 Length 20 Rendered ${oa.PPRVO1.TextItem2Render}   9. Add Following code in PPRAMImpl.java   import oracle.apps.fnd.framework.OARow; import oracle.apps.fnd.framework.OAViewObject; import oracle.apps.fnd.framework.server.OAApplicationModuleImpl; import oracle.apps.fnd.framework.server.OAViewObjectImpl; public void handlePPRAction()  {   Number val = 1;  OAViewObject vo = (OAViewObject)findViewObject("PPRVO1");  if (vo != null)   {    if (vo.getFetchedRowCount() == 0)    {     vo.setMaxFetchSize(0);     vo.executeQuery();     vo.insertRow(vo.createRow());     OARow row = (OARow)vo.first();            row.setAttribute("RowKey", val);    row.setAttribute("TextItem2Render", Boolean.FALSE);      }  } }   10. Implement Controller for Page Select PageLayoutRN in Structure pane right click > Set New Controller Package Name -- prajkumar.oracle.apps.fnd.pprdemo.webui Class Name – PPRCO   Write following code in processFormRequest function of PPRCO Controller   import oracle.apps.fnd.framework.OARow; import oracle.apps.fnd.framework.OAViewObject; public void processRequest(OAPageContext pageContext, OAWebBean webBean) {  super.processRequest(pageContext, webBean);  PPRAMImpl am = (PPRAMImpl)pageContext.getApplicationModule(webBean);      am.invokeMethod("handlePPRAction"); } public void processFormRequest(OAPageContext pageContext, OAWebBean webBean) {  super.processFormRequest(pageContext, webBean);        PPRAMImpl am = (PPRAMImpl)pageContext.getApplicationModule(webBean);  OAViewObject vo = (OAViewObject)am.findViewObject("PPRVO1");  OARow row = (OARow)vo.getCurrentRow();        if ("TextItem1Change".equals(pageContext.getParameter(EVENT_PARAM)))  {   if (pageContext.getParameter("TextItem1").equals(""))   {    row.setAttribute("TextItem2Render", Boolean.FALSE);   }   else   {    row.setAttribute("TextItem2Render", Boolean.TRUE);   }  } }   11. Congratulation you have successfully finished. Run Your PPRPG page and Test Your Work          

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• Generate Strongly Typed Observable Events for the Reactive Extensions for .NET (Rx)

  - by Bobby Diaz

  I must have tried reading through the various explanations and introductions to the new Reactive Extensions for .NET before the concepts finally started sinking in.  The article that gave me the ah-ha moment was over on SilverlightShow.net and titled Using Reactive Extensions in Silverlight.  The author did a good job comparing the "normal" way of handling events vs. the new "reactive" methods. Admittedly, I still have more to learn about the Rx Framework, but I wanted to put together a sample project so I could start playing with the new Observable and IObservable<T> constructs.  I decided to throw together a whiteboard application in Silverlight based on the Drawing with Rx example on the aforementioned article.  At the very least, I figured I would learn a thing or two about a new technology, but my real goal is to create a fun application that I can share with the kids since they love drawing and coloring so much! Here is the code sample that I borrowed from the article: var mouseMoveEvent = Observable.FromEvent<MouseEventArgs>(this, "MouseMove"); var mouseLeftButtonDown = Observable.FromEvent<MouseButtonEventArgs>(this, "MouseLeftButtonDown"); var mouseLeftButtonUp = Observable.FromEvent<MouseButtonEventArgs>(this, "MouseLeftButtonUp");       var draggingEvents = from pos in mouseMoveEvent                              .SkipUntil(mouseLeftButtonDown)                              .TakeUntil(mouseLeftButtonUp)                              .Let(mm => mm.Zip(mm.Skip(1), (prev, cur) =>                                  new                                  {                                      X2 = cur.EventArgs.GetPosition(this).X,                                      X1 = prev.EventArgs.GetPosition(this).X,                                      Y2 = cur.EventArgs.GetPosition(this).Y,                                      Y1 = prev.EventArgs.GetPosition(this).Y                                  })).Repeat()                          select pos;       draggingEvents.Subscribe(p =>     {         Line line = new Line();         line.Stroke = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Black);         line.StrokeEndLineCap = PenLineCap.Round;         line.StrokeLineJoin = PenLineJoin.Round;         line.StrokeThickness = 5;         line.X1 = p.X1;         line.Y1 = p.Y1;         line.X2 = p.X2;         line.Y2 = p.Y2;         this.LayoutRoot.Children.Add(line);     }); One thing that was nagging at the back of my mind was having to deal with the event names as strings, as well as the verbose syntax for the Observable.FromEvent<TEventArgs>() method.  I came up with a couple of static/helper classes to resolve both issues and also created a T4 template to auto-generate these helpers for any .NET type.  Take the following code from the above example: var mouseMoveEvent = Observable.FromEvent<MouseEventArgs>(this, "MouseMove"); var mouseLeftButtonDown = Observable.FromEvent<MouseButtonEventArgs>(this, "MouseLeftButtonDown"); var mouseLeftButtonUp = Observable.FromEvent<MouseButtonEventArgs>(this, "MouseLeftButtonUp"); Turns into this with the new static Events class: var mouseMoveEvent = Events.Mouse.Move.On(this); var mouseLeftButtonDown = Events.Mouse.LeftButtonDown.On(this); var mouseLeftButtonUp = Events.Mouse.LeftButtonUp.On(this); Or better yet, just remove the variable declarations altogether:     var draggingEvents = from pos in Events.Mouse.Move.On(this)                              .SkipUntil(Events.Mouse.LeftButtonDown.On(this))                              .TakeUntil(Events.Mouse.LeftButtonUp.On(this))                              .Let(mm => mm.Zip(mm.Skip(1), (prev, cur) =>                                  new                                  {                                      X2 = cur.EventArgs.GetPosition(this).X,                                      X1 = prev.EventArgs.GetPosition(this).X,                                      Y2 = cur.EventArgs.GetPosition(this).Y,                                      Y1 = prev.EventArgs.GetPosition(this).Y                                  })).Repeat()                          select pos; The Move, LeftButtonDown and LeftButtonUp members of the Events.Mouse class are readonly instances of the ObservableEvent<TTarget, TEventArgs> class that provide type-safe access to the events via the On() method.  Here is the code for the class: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq;   namespace System.Linq {     /// <summary>     /// Represents an event that can be managed via the <see cref="Observable"/> API.     /// </summary>     /// <typeparam name="TTarget">The type of the target.</typeparam>     /// <typeparam name="TEventArgs">The type of the event args.</typeparam>     public class ObservableEvent<TTarget, TEventArgs> where TEventArgs : EventArgs     {         /// <summary>         /// Initializes a new instance of the <see cref="ObservableEvent"/> class.         /// </summary>         /// <param name="eventName">Name of the event.</param>         protected ObservableEvent(String eventName)         {             EventName = eventName;         }           /// <summary>         /// Registers the specified event name.         /// </summary>         /// <param name="eventName">Name of the event.</param>         /// <returns></returns>         public static ObservableEvent<TTarget, TEventArgs> Register(String eventName)         {             return new ObservableEvent<TTarget, TEventArgs>(eventName);         }           /// <summary>         /// Creates an enumerable sequence of event values for the specified target.         /// </summary>         /// <param name="target">The target.</param>         /// <returns></returns>         public IObservable<IEvent<TEventArgs>> On(TTarget target)         {             return Observable.FromEvent<TEventArgs>(target, EventName);         }           /// <summary>         /// Gets or sets the name of the event.         /// </summary>         /// <value>The name of the event.</value>         public string EventName { get; private set; }     } } And this is how it's used:     /// <summary>     /// Categorizes <see cref="ObservableEvents"/> by class and/or functionality.     /// </summary>     public static partial class Events     {         /// <summary>         /// Implements a set of predefined <see cref="ObservableEvent"/>s         /// for the <see cref="System.Windows.System.Windows.UIElement"/> class         /// that represent mouse related events.         /// </summary>         public static partial class Mouse         {             /// <summary>Represents the MouseMove event.</summary>             public static readonly ObservableEvent<UIElement, MouseEventArgs> Move =                 ObservableEvent<UIElement, MouseEventArgs>.Register("MouseMove");               // additional members omitted...         }     } The source code contains a static Events class with prefedined members for various categories (Key, Mouse, etc.).  There is also an Events.tt template that you can customize to generate additional event categories for any .NET type.  All you should have to do is add the name of your class to the types collection near the top of the template:     types = new Dictionary<String, Type>()     {         //{ "Microsoft.Maps.MapControl.Map, Microsoft.Maps.MapControl", null }         { "System.Windows.FrameworkElement, System.Windows", null },         { "Whiteboard.MainPage, Whiteboard", null }     }; The template is also a bit rough at this point, but at least it generates code that *should* compile.  Please let me know if you run into any issues with it.  Some people have reported errors when trying to use T4 templates within a Silverlight project, but I was able to get it to work with a little black magic...  You can download the source code for this project or play around with the live demo.  Just be warned that it is at a very early stage so don't expect to find much today.  I plan on adding alot more options like pen colors and sizes, saving, printing, etc. as time permits.  HINT: hold down the ESC key to erase! Enjoy! Additional Resources Using Reactive Extensions in Silverlight DevLabs: Reactive Extensions for .NET (Rx) Rx Framework Part III - LINQ to Events - Generating GetEventName() Wrapper Methods using T4

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• Amazon Web Services (AWS) Plug-in for Oracle Enterprise Manager

  - by Anand Akela

  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:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Contributed by Sunil Kunisetty and Daniel Chan Introduction and ArchitectureAs more and more enterprises deploy some of their non-critical workload on Amazon Web Services (AWS), it’s becoming critical to monitor those public AWS resources along side with their on-premise resources. Oracle recently announced Oracle Enterprise Manager Plug-in for Amazon Web Services (AWS) allows you to achieve that goal. The on-premise Oracle Enterprise Manager (EM12c) acts as a single tool to get a comprehensive view of your public AWS resources as well as your private cloud resources.  By deploying the plug-in within your Cloud Control environment, you gain the following management features: Monitor EBS, EC2 and RDS instances on Amazon Web Services Gather performance metrics and configuration details for AWS instances Raise alerts and violations based on thresholds set on monitoring Generate reports based on the gathered data Users of this Plug-in can leverage the rich Enterprise Manager features such as system promotion, incident generation based on thresholds, integration with 3rd party ticketing applications etc. AWS Monitoring via this Plug-in is enabled via Amazon CloudWatch API and the users of this Plug-in are responsible for supplying credentials for accessing AWS and the CloudWatch API. This Plug-in can only be deployed on an EM12C R2 platform and agent version should be at minimum 12c R2.Here is a pictorial view of the overall architecture: Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) Here are a few key features: Rich and exhaustive list of metrics. Metrics can be gathered from an Agent running outside AWS. Critical configuration information. Custom Home Pages with charts and AWS configuration information. Generate incidents based on thresholds set on monitoring data. Discovery and Monitoring AWS instances can be added to EM12C either via the EM12c User Interface (UI) or the EM12c Command Line Interface ( EMCLI)  by providing the AWS credentials (Secret Key and Access Key Id) as well as resource specific properties as target properties. Here is a quick mapping of target types and properties for each AWS resources AWS Resource Type Target Type Resource specific properties EBS Resource Amazon EBS Service CloudWatch base URI, EC2 Base URI, Period, Volume Id, Proxy Server and Port EC2 Resource Amazon EC2 Service CloudWatch base URI, EC2 Base URI, Period, Instance  Id, Proxy Server and Port RDS Resource Amazon RDS Service CloudWatch base URI, RDS Base URI, Period, Instance  Id, Proxy Server and Port Proxy server and port are optional and are only needed if the agent is within the firewall. Here is an emcli example to add an EC2 target. Please read the Installation and Readme guide for more details and step-by-step instructions to deploy  the plugin and adding the AWS the instances. ./emcli add_target \       -name="<target name>" \       -type="AmazonEC2Service" \       -host="<host>" \       -properties="ProxyHost=<proxy server>;ProxyPort=<proxy port>;EC2_BaseURI=http://ec2.<region>.amazonaws.com;BaseURI=http://monitoring.<region>.amazonaws.com;InstanceId=<EC2 instance Id>;Period=<data point periond>"  \     -subseparator=properties="=" ./emcli set_monitoring_credential \                 -set_name="AWSKeyCredentialSet"  \                 -target_name="<target name>"  \                 -target_type="AmazonEC2Service" \                 -cred_type="AWSKeyCredential"  \                 -attributes="AccessKeyId:<access key id>;SecretKey:<secret key>" Emcli utility is found under the ORACLE_HOME of EM12C install. Once the instance is discovered, the target will show up under the ‘All Targets’ list under “Amazon EC2 Service’. Once the instances are added, one can navigate to the custom homepages for these resource types. The custom home pages not only include critical metrics, but also vital configuration parameters and incidents raised for these instances.  By mapping the configuration parameters as instance properties, we can slice-and-dice and group various AWS instance by leveraging the EM12C Config search feature. The following configuration properties and metrics are collected for these Resource types. Resource Type Configuration Properties Metrics EBS Resource Volume Id, Volume Type, Device Name, Size, Availability Zone Response: Status Utilization: QueueLength, IdleTime Volume Statistics: ReadBrandwith, WriteBandwidth, ReadThroughput, WriteThroughput Operation Statistics: ReadSize, WriteSize, ReadLatency, WriteLatency EC2 Resource Instance ID, Owner Id, Root Device type, Instance Type. Availability Zone Response: Status CPU Utilization: CPU Utilization Disk I/O:  DiskReadBytes, DiskWriteBytes, DiskReadOps, DiskWriteOps, DiskReadRate, DiskWriteRate, DiskIOThroughput, DiskReadOpsRate, DiskWriteOpsRate, DiskOperationThroughput Network I/O : NetworkIn, NetworkOut, NetworkInRate, NetworkOutRate, NetworkThroughput RDS Resource Instance ID, Database Engine Name, Database Engine Version, Database Instance Class, Allocated Storage Size, Availability Zone Response: Status Disk I/O:  ReadIOPS, WriteIOPS, ReadLatency, WriteLatency, ReadThroughput, WriteThroughput DB Utilization:  BinLogDiskUsage, CPUUtilization, DatabaseConnections, FreeableMemory, ReplicaLag, SwapUsage Custom Home Pages As mentioned above, we have custom home pages for these target types that include basic configuration information,  last 24 hours availability, top metrics and the incidents generated. Here are few snapshots. EBS Instance Home Page: EC2 Instance Home Page: RDS Instance Home Page: Further Reading: 1)      AWS Plugin download 2)      Installation and  Read Me. 3)      Screenwatch on SlideShare 4)      Extensibility Programmer's Guide 5)      Amazon Web Services

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• Chef-solo cannot locate an nginx recipe template

  - by crftr

  I have been recently experimenting with Chef. I thought I would attempt to rebuild my personal web server using chef-solo. It's an AWS instance running the Amazon 64bit Linux AMI. My first objective is to install nginx. I have cloned the Opscode cookbook repository, and am using their nginx cookbook. My problem appears to be that chef-solo cannot find a template after it has started the process. The command I'm using is chef-solo -j /etc/chef/dna.json dna.json { "nginx": { "user": "ec2-user" }, "recipes": [ "nginx" ] } solo.rb file_cache_path "/var/chef-solo" cookbook_path "/var/chef-solo/cookbooks" ...the output [root@ip-10-202-221-135 chef-solo]# chef-solo -j /etc/chef/dna.json /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/systemu-2.2.0/lib/systemu.rb:29: Use RbConfig instead of obsolete and deprecated Config. [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:41:36 +0000] INFO: *** Chef 0.10.8 *** [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:41:37 +0000] INFO: Setting the run_list to ["nginx"] from JSON [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:41:37 +0000] INFO: Run List is [recipe[nginx]] [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:41:37 +0000] INFO: Run List expands to [nginx] [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:41:37 +0000] INFO: Starting Chef Run for ip-10-202-221-135.ec2.internal [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:41:37 +0000] INFO: Running start handlers [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:41:37 +0000] INFO: Start handlers complete. [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:41:37 +0000] INFO: Missing gem 'mysql' [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:41:38 +0000] INFO: Processing package[nginx] action install (nginx::default line 21) [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:41:39 +0000] INFO: Processing directory[/var/log/nginx] action create (nginx::default line 23) [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:41:39 +0000] INFO: Processing template[/usr/sbin/nxensite] action create (nginx::default line 30) [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:41:39 +0000] INFO: Processing template[/usr/sbin/nxdissite] action create (nginx::default line 30) [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:41:39 +0000] INFO: Processing template[nginx.conf] action create (nginx::default line 38) [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:41:39 +0000] INFO: Processing template[/etc/nginx/sites-available/default] action create (nginx::default line 46) [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:41:39 +0000] INFO: template[/etc/nginx/sites-available/default] mode changed to 644 [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:41:39 +0000] ERROR: template[/etc/nginx/sites-available/default] (nginx::default line 46) has had an error [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:41:39 +0000] ERROR: template[/etc/nginx/sites-available/default] (/var/chef-solo/cookbooks/nginx/recipes/default.rb:46:in `from_file') had an error: template[/etc/nginx/sites-available/default] (nginx::default line 46) had an error: Errno::ENOENT: No such file or directory - (/tmp/chef-rendered-template20120127-29441-1yp55vz, /etc/nginx/sites-available/default) /usr/lib64/ruby/1.9.1/fileutils.rb:519:in `rename' /usr/lib64/ruby/1.9.1/fileutils.rb:519:in `block in mv' /usr/lib64/ruby/1.9.1/fileutils.rb:1515:in `block in fu_each_src_dest' /usr/lib64/ruby/1.9.1/fileutils.rb:1531:in `fu_each_src_dest0' /usr/lib64/ruby/1.9.1/fileutils.rb:1513:in `fu_each_src_dest' /usr/lib64/ruby/1.9.1/fileutils.rb:508:in `mv' /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/chef-0.10.8/lib/chef/provider/template.rb:47:in `block in action_create' /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/chef-0.10.8/lib/chef/mixin/template.rb:48:in `block in render_template' /usr/lib64/ruby/1.9.1/tempfile.rb:316:in `open' /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/chef-0.10.8/lib/chef/mixin/template.rb:45:in `render_template' /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/chef-0.10.8/lib/chef/provider/template.rb:99:in `render_with_context' /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/chef-0.10.8/lib/chef/provider/template.rb:39:in `action_create' /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/chef-0.10.8/lib/chef/resource.rb:440:in `run_action' /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/chef-0.10.8/lib/chef/runner.rb:45:in `run_action' /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/chef-0.10.8/lib/chef/runner.rb:81:in `block (2 levels) in converge' /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/chef-0.10.8/lib/chef/runner.rb:81:in `each' /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/chef-0.10.8/lib/chef/runner.rb:81:in `block in converge' /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/chef-0.10.8/lib/chef/resource_collection.rb:94:in `block in execute_each_resource' /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/chef-0.10.8/lib/chef/resource_collection/stepable_iterator.rb:116:in `call' /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/chef-0.10.8/lib/chef/resource_collection/stepable_iterator.rb:116:in `call_iterator_block' /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/chef-0.10.8/lib/chef/resource_collection/stepable_iterator.rb:85:in `step' /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/chef-0.10.8/lib/chef/resource_collection/stepable_iterator.rb:104:in `iterate' /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/chef-0.10.8/lib/chef/resource_collection/stepable_iterator.rb:55:in `each_with_index' /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/chef-0.10.8/lib/chef/resource_collection.rb:92:in `execute_each_resource' /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/chef-0.10.8/lib/chef/runner.rb:76:in `converge' /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/chef-0.10.8/lib/chef/client.rb:312:in `converge' /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/chef-0.10.8/lib/chef/client.rb:160:in `run' /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/chef-0.10.8/lib/chef/application/solo.rb:192:in `block in run_application' /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/chef-0.10.8/lib/chef/application/solo.rb:183:in `loop' /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/chef-0.10.8/lib/chef/application/solo.rb:183:in `run_application' /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/chef-0.10.8/lib/chef/application.rb:67:in `run' /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/chef-0.10.8/bin/chef-solo:25:in `<top (required)>' /usr/bin/chef-solo:19:in `load' /usr/bin/chef-solo:19:in `<main>' [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:41:39 +0000] ERROR: Running exception handlers [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:41:39 +0000] ERROR: Exception handlers complete [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:41:39 +0000] FATAL: Stacktrace dumped to /var/chef-solo/chef-stacktrace.out [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:41:39 +0000] FATAL: Errno::ENOENT: template[/etc/nginx/sites-available/default] (nginx::default line 46) had an error: Errno::ENOENT: No such file or directory - (/tmp/chef-rendered-template20120127-29441-1yp55vz, /etc/nginx/sites-available/default) What am I doing incorrectly?

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• Data Integration 12c Raising the Big Data Roof at Oracle OpenWorld

  - by Tanu Sood

  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:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"MS Mincho";} Author: Dain Hansen, Director, Oracle It was an exciting OpenWorld 2013 for us in the Data Integration track. Our theme this year was all about ‘being future ready’ - previewing one of our biggest releases this year: Oracle Data Integration 12c. Just this week we followed up with this preview by announcing the general availability of 12c release for Oracle’s key data integration products: Oracle Data Integrator 12c and Oracle GoldenGate 12c. The new release delivers extreme performance, increase IT productivity, and simplify deployment, while helping IT organizations to keep pace with new data-oriented technology trends including cloud computing, big data analytics, real-time business intelligence. 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:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"MS Mincho";} Mark Hurd's keynote on day one set the tone for the Data Integration sessions. Mark focused on big data analytics and the changing consumer expectations. Especially real-time insight is a key theme for Oracle overall and data integration products. In Mark Hurd's keynote we heard from key customers, such as Airbus and Thomson Reuters, how real-time analysis of operational data including machine data creates value, in some cases even saves lives. Thomas Kurian gave a deeper look into Oracle's big data and fast data solutions. In the initial lead Data Integration track session - Brad Adelberg, VP of Development, presented Oracle’s Data Integration 12c product strategy based on key trends from the initial OpenWorld keynotes. Brad talked about how Oracle's data integration products address the new data integration requirements that evolved with cloud computing, big data, and changing consumer expectations and how they set the key themes in our products’ road map. Brad explained why and how fast-time to value, high-performance and future-ready solutions is the top focus areas for product development. If you were not able to attend OpenWorld or this session I recommend reading the white paper: Five New Data Integration Requirements and How to Meet them with Oracle Data Integration, which provides an in-depth look into how Oracle addresses the new trends in the DI market. Following Brad’s session, Nick Wagner provided in depth review of Oracle GoldenGate’s latest features and roadmap. Nick discussed how Oracle GoldenGate’s tight integration with Oracle Database sets the product apart from the competition. We also heard that heterogeneity of the product is still a major focus for GoldenGate’s development and there will be more news on that front when there is a major release. 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:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"MS Mincho";} After GoldenGate’s product strategy session, Denis Gray from the PM team presented Oracle Data Integrator’s product strategy session, talking about the latest and greatest on ODI. Another good session was delivered by long-time GoldenGate users, Comcast.  Jason Hurd and Amit Patel of Comcast talked about the various use cases they deploy Oracle GoldenGate throughout their enterprise, from database upgrades, feeding reporting systems, to active-active database synchronization.  The Comcast team shared many good tips on how to use GoldenGate for both zero downtime upgrades and active-active replication with conflict management requirement. One of our other important goals we had this year for the Data Integration track at OpenWorld was hearing from our customers. We ended day 1 on just that, with a wonderful award ceremony for Oracle Excellence Awards for Oracle Fusion Middleware Innovation. The ceremony was held in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Congratulations to Royal Bank of Scotland and Yalumba Wine Company, the winners in the Data Integration category. You can find more information on the award and the winners in our previous blog post: 2013 Oracle Excellence Awards for Fusion Middleware Innovation… Selected for their innovation use of Oracle’s Data Integration products; the winners for the Data Integration Category are Royal Bank of Scotland and The Yalumba Wine Company. Congratulations!!! Royal Bank of Scotland’s Market and International Banking division provides clients across the globe with seamless trading and competitive pricing, underpinned by a deep knowledge of risk management across the full spectrum of financial products. They handle millions of transactions daily to keep the lifeblood of their clients’ businesses flowing – whether through payment management solutions or through bespoke trade finance solutions. Royal Bank of Scotland is leveraging Oracle GoldenGate and Oracle Data Integrator along with Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition and the Oracle Database for a variety of solutions. Mainly, Oracle GoldenGate and Oracle Data Integrator are used to feed their data warehouse – providing a real-time data integration solution that feeds transactional data to their analytics system in minutes to enable improved decision making with timely, accurate data for their business users. Oracle Data Integrator’s in-database transformation capabilities and its ability to integrate with Oracle GoldenGate for real-time data capture is the foundation of this implementation. This solution makes it such that changes happening in the analytics systems are available the same day they are deployed on the operational system with 100% data quality guaranteed. Additionally, the solution has helped to reduce their operational database size from 150GB to 10GB. Impressive! Now what if I told you this solution was built in 3 months and had a less than 6 month return on investment? That’s outstanding! The Yalumba Wine Company is situated in the Barossa Valley of Australia. It is the oldest family owned winery in Australia with a unique way of aging their wines in specially crafted 100 liter barrels. Did you know that “Yalumba” is Aboriginal for “all the land around”? The Yalumba Wine Company is growing rapidly, and was in need of introducing a more modern standard to the existing manufacturing processes to meet globalization demands, overall time-to-market, and better operational efficiency objectives of product development. The Yalumba Wine Company worked with a partner, Bristlecone to develop a unique solution whereby Oracle Data Integrator is leveraged to pull data from Salesforce.com and JD Edwards, in addition to their other pre-existing source systems, for consumption into their data warehouse. They have emphasized the overall ease of developing integration workflows with Oracle Data Integrator. The solution has brought better visibility for the business users, shorter data loading and transformation performance to their data warehouse with rapid incorporation of new data sources, and a solid future-proof foundation for their organization. Moving forward, they plan on leveraging more from Oracle’s Data Integration portfolio. Terrific! In addition to these two customers on Tuesday we featured many other important Oracle Data Integrator and Oracle GoldenGate customers. On Tuesday the GoldenGate panel included: Land O’Lakes, Smuckers, and Veolia Water. Besides giving us yummy nutrition and healthy water, these companies have another aspect in common. They all use GoldenGate to boost their ERP application. Please read the recap by Irem Radzik. On Wednesday, the ODI Panel included: Barry Ralston and Ryan Weber of Infinity Insurance, Paul Stracke of Paychex Inc., and Ian Wall of Vertex Pharmaceuticals for a session filled with interesting projects, use cases and approaches to leveraging Oracle Data Integrator. Please read the recap by Sandrine Riley for more. Thanks to everyone who joined with us and we hope to stay connected! To hear more about our Data Integration12c products join us in an upcoming webcast to learn more. Follow us www.twitter.com/ORCLGoldenGate or goto our website at www.oracle.com/goto/dataintegration

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• OpenCV install problems on Studio 12.04 - broken dependencies

  - by Will

  I'm trying to follow the Ubuntu OpenCV documentation at OpenCV. The provided script has a line which executed for some time, taking away more packages than I expected (such as ubuntu-studio video); sudo apt-get -qq remove ffmpeg x264 libx264-dev When the script gets to the line below, it bombs; sudo apt-get -qq install libopencv-dev build-essential checkinstall cmake pkg-config yasm libtiff4-dev libjpeg-dev libjasper-dev libavcodec-dev libavformat-dev libswscale-dev libdc1394-22-dev libxine-dev libgstreamer0.10-dev libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-dev libv4l-dev python-dev python-numpy libtbb-dev libqt4-dev libgtk2.0-dev libfaac-dev libmp3lame-dev libopencore-amrnb-dev libopencore-amrwb-dev libtheora-dev libvorbis-dev libxvidcore-dev x264 v4l-utils ffmpeg The error msg is; E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages. I've since run Update-Manager, run sudo apt-get updates, rebooted, tried the above script line manually, and still no change. I've just run sudo apt-get install -f and nothing seemed to change. It did mention that some packages were no longer needed and could be removed by apt-get autoremove, so I ran that. It removed a number of packages, so I reran the install command above. Still same problem of held broken packages. I just ran sudo apt-get -u dist-upgrade Part of the response was; The following packages have been kept back: gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg I'm not sure what that means. I do know that it shows up in my Update-Manager and cannot be checked I then ran sudo dpkg --configure -a and then reran sudo apt-get -f install and the package was still not upgraded, though there was this very interesting comment; Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or been moved out of Incoming. The following information may help to resolve the situation: The following packages have unmet dependencies: gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg : Depends: libavcodec53 (< 5:0) but it is not going to be installed or libavcodec-extra-53 (< 5:0) but 5:0.7.2-1ubuntu1+codecs1~oneiric2 is to be installed E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages. Then I ran sudo apt-get -u dist-upgrade It showed I had one held package, so I ran; sudo apt-get -o Debug::pkgProblemResolver=yes dist-upgrade It also exited without upgrading the package, so I ran; sudo apt-get remove --dry-run gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg:i386 And it gave me; *The following packages will be REMOVED: arista gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 2 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Remv arista [0.9.7-3ubuntu1] Remv gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg [0.10.12-1ubuntu1]* But when I reran sudo apt-get -u dist-upgrade It showed the package was still there. *The following packages have been kept back: gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.* Update: Just went into Synaptic PM and completely removed gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg Reran sudo apt-get -u dist-upgrade And was told; 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. However, when I ran the original apt-get to install opencv (first code at the top of this question), it still gave me the same broken package errors. So I tried $ cat /etc/apt/sources.list # # deb cdrom:[Ubuntu-Studio 11.10 _Oneiric Ocelot_ - Release i386 (20111011.1)]/ oneiric main multiverse restricted universe # deb cdrom:[Ubuntu-Studio 11.10 _Oneiric Ocelot_ - Release i386 (20111011.1)]/ oneiric main multiverse restricted universe # See http://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes for how to upgrade to # newer versions of the distribution. deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise main restricted deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise main restricted ## Major bug fix updates produced after the final release of the ## distribution. deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates main restricted deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates main restricted ## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu ## team. Also, please note that software in universe WILL NOT receive any ## review or updates from the Ubuntu security team. deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise universe deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise universe deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates universe deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates universe ## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu ## team, and may not be under a free licence. Please satisfy yourself as to ## your rights to use the software. Also, please note that software in ## multiverse WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu ## security team. deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise multiverse deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise multiverse deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates multiverse deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates multiverse ## N.B. software from this repository may not have been tested as ## extensively as that contained in the main release, although it includes ## newer versions of some applications which may provide useful features. ## Also, please note that software in backports WILL NOT receive any review ## or updates from the Ubuntu security team. deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security main restricted deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security main restricted deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security universe deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security universe deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security multiverse deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security multiverse ## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from Canonical's ## 'partner' repository. ## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by Canonical and the ## respective vendors as a service to Ubuntu users. deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu precise partner # deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu oneiric partner ## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from Ubuntu's ## 'extras' repository. ## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by third-party ## developers who want to ship their latest software. # deb http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu oneiric main # deb-src http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu oneiric main # deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/popinet/xUbuntu_11.04 ./ # disabled on upgrade to precise and then; $ cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/* But I don't have enough reputation to post the results here (it says I need at least 10 reputation points to post more than 2 links), so I don't know how to provide the requested feedback. Then tried; $ sudo apt-get check [sudo] password for <abcd>: Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done However, no resolution of the problem yet. What else do I need to do? Will an upgrade to Ubuntu Studio 13.xx solve this problem (or compound it)?

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• Thank You for a Great Welcome for Oracle GoldenGate 11g Release 2

  - by Irem Radzik

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* 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:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; 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-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-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;} Yesterday morning we had two launch webcasts for Oracle GoldenGate 11g Release 2. I had the pleasure to present, as well as moderate the Q&A panels in both of these webcasts. Both events had hundreds of live attendees, sending us over 150 questions. Even though we left 30 minutes for Q&A, it was not nearly enough time to address for all the insightful questions our audience sent. Our product management team and I really appreciate the interaction we had yesterday and we are starting to respond back with outstanding questions today. Oracle GoldenGate’s new release launch also had great welcome from the media. You can find the links for various articles on the new release below: ITBusinessEdge Oracle Embraces Cross-Platform Data Integration Information Week: Oracle Real-Time Advance Taps Compressed Data Integration Developer News, Oracle GoldenGate Adds Deeper Oracle Integration, Extends Real-Time Performance CIO, Oracle GoldenGate Buddies Up with Sibling Software DBTA, Real-Time Data Integration: Oracle GoldenGate 11g Release 2 Now Available CBR Oracle unveils GoldenGate 11g Release 2 real-time data integration application In this blog, I want to address some of the frequently asked questions that came up during the webcasts. You can find the top questions and their answers along with related resources below. We will continue to address frequently asked questions via future blogs. Q: Will the new Integrated Capture for Oracle Database replace the Classic Capture? If not, which one do I use when? A: No, Classic Capture will be around for long time. Core platform specific features, bug fixes, and patches will be available for both Capture processes.Oracle Database specific features will be only available in the Integrated Capture. The Integrated Capture for Oracle Database is an option for users that need to capture data from compressed tables or need support for XML data types, XA on RAC. Users who don’t leverage these features should continue to use our Classic Capture. For more information on Oracle GoldenGate 11g Release 2 I recommend to check out the White paper: Oracle GoldenGate 11gR2 New Features as well as other technical white papers we have on OTN.                                                         For those of you coming to OpenWorld, please attend the related session: Extracting Data in Oracle GoldenGate Integrated Capture Mode, Monday Oct 1st 1:45pm Moscone South – 102 to learn more about this new feature. Q: What is new in Conflict Detection and Resolution? And how does it work? A: There are now pre-built functions to identify the conditions under which an error occurs and how to handle the record when the condition occurs. Error conditions handled include inserts into a target table where the row already exists, updates or deletes to target table rows that exist, but the original source data (before columns) do not match the existing data in the target row, and updates or deletes where the row does not exist in the target database table.Foreach of these conditions a method to handle the error is specified.  Please check out our recent blog on this topic and the White paper: Oracle GoldenGate 11gR2 New Features white paper.  Also, for those attending OpenWorld please attend the session: Best Practices for Conflict Detection and Resolution in Oracle GoldenGate for Active/Active-  Wednesday Oct 3rd  3:30pm Mascone 3000 Q: Does Oracle GoldenGate Veridata and the Management Pack require additional licenses, or is it incorporated with the GoldenGate license? A: Oracle GoldenGate Veridata and Oracle Management Pack for Oracle GoldenGate are additional products and require separate licenses. Please check out Oracle's price list here. Q: Does GoldenGate - Oracle Enterprise Manager Plug-in require additional license? A: Oracle Enterprise Manager Plug-in is included in the Oracle Management Pack for Oracle GoldenGate license, which is separate from Oracle GoldenGate license. There is no separate license for the Enterprise Manager Plug-in by itself. Oracle GoldenGate Monitor, Oracle GoldenGate Director, and Enterprise Manager Plug-in are included in the Management Pack for Oracle GoldenGate license. Please check out Management Pack for Oracle GoldenGate data sheet for more info on this product bundle. Q: Is Oracle GoldenGate replacing Oracle Streams product? A: Oracle GoldenGate is the strategic data replication product. Therefore, Oracle Streams will continue to be supported, but will not be actively enhanced. Rather, the best elements of Oracle Streams will be added to Oracle GoldenGate. Conflict management is one of them and with the latest release Oracle GoldenGate has a more advanced conflict management offering. Current customers depending on Oracle Streams will continue to be fully supported. Q: How is Oracle GoldenGate different than Oracle Data Integrator? A: Oracle Data Integrator is designed for fast bulk data movement and transformation between heterogeneous systems, while GoldenGate is designed for real-time movement of transactions between heterogeneous systems. These two products are completely complementary where GoldenGate provides low-impact real-time change data capture and delivery to a staging area on the target. And Oracle Data Integrator transforms this data and loads the DW tables. In fact, Oracle Data Integrator integrates with GoldenGate to use GoldenGate’s Capture process as one option for its CDC mechanism. We have several customers that deployed GoldenGate and ODI together to feed real-time data to their data warehousing solutions. Please also check out Oracle Data Integrator Changed Data Capture with Oracle GoldenGate Data Sheet (PDF). Thank you again very much for welcoming Oracle GoldenGate 11g Release 2 and stay in touch with us for more exciting news, updates, and events.

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• Silverlight Recruiting Application Part 4 - Navigation and Modules

  After our brief intermission (and the craziness of Q1 2010 release week), we're back on track here and today we get to dive into how we are going to navigate through our applications as well as how to set up our modules. That way, as I start adding the functionality- adding Jobs and Applicants, Interview Scheduling, and finally a handy Dashboard- you'll see how everything is communicating back and forth. This is all leading up to an eventual webinar, in which I'll dive into this process and give a honest look at the current story for MVVM vs. Code-Behind applications. (For a look at the future with SL4 and a little thing called MEF, check out what Ross is doing over at his blog!) Preamble... Before getting into really talking about this app, I've done a little bit of work ahead of time to create a ton of files that I'll need. Since the webinar is going to cover the Dashboard, it's not here, but otherwise this is a look at what the project layout looks like (and remember, this is both projects since they share the .Web): So as you can see, from an architecture perspective, the code-behind app is much smaller and more streamlined- aka a better fit for the one man shop that is me. Each module in the MVVM app has the same setup, which is the Module class and corresponding Views and ViewModels. Since the code-behind app doesn't need a go-between project like Infrastructure, each MVVM module is instead replaced by a single Silverlight UserControl which will contain all the logic for each respective bit of functionality. My Very First Module Navigation is going to be key to my application, so I figured the first thing I would setup is my MenuModule. First step here is creating a Silverlight Class Library named MenuModule, creatingthe View and ViewModel folders, and adding the MenuModule.cs class to handle module loading. The most important thing here is that my MenuModule inherits from IModule, which runs an Initialize on each module as it is created that, in my case, adds the views to the correct regions. Here's the MenuModule.cs code: public class MenuModule : IModule { private readonly IRegionManager regionManager; private readonly IUnityContainer container; public MenuModule(IUnityContainer container, IRegionManager regionmanager) { this.container = container; this.regionManager = regionmanager; } public void Initialize() { var addMenuView = container.Resolve<MenuView>(); regionManager.Regions["MenuRegion"].Add(addMenuView); } } Pretty straightforward here... We inject a container and region manager from Prism/Unity, then upon initialization we grab the view (out of our Views folder) and add it to the region it needs to live in. Simple, right? When the MenuView is created, the only thing in the code-behind is a reference to the set the MenuViewModel as the DataContext. I'd like to achieve MVVM nirvana and have zero code-behind by placing the viewmodel in the XAML, but for the reasons listed further below I can't. Navigation - MVVM Since navigation isn't the biggest concern in putting this whole thing together, I'm using the Button control to handle different options for loading up views/modules. There is another reason for this- out of the box, Prism has command support for buttons, which is one less custom command I had to work up for the functionality I would need. This comes from the Microsoft.Practices.Composite.Presentation assembly and looks as follows when put in code: <Button x:Name="xGoToJobs" Style="{StaticResource menuStyle}" Content="Jobs" cal:Click.Command="{Binding GoModule}" cal:Click.CommandParameter="JobPostingsView" /> For quick reference, 'menuStyle' is just taking care of margins and spacing, otherwise it looks, feels, and functions like everyone's favorite Button. What MVVM's this up is that the Click.Command is tying to a DelegateCommand (also coming fromPrism) on the backend. This setup allows you to tie user interaction to a command you setup in your viewmodel, which replaces the standard event-based setup you'd see in the code-behind app. Due to databinding magic, it all just works. When we get looking at the DelegateCommand in code, it ends up like this: public class MenuViewModel : ViewModelBase { private readonly IRegionManager regionManager; public DelegateCommand<object> GoModule { get; set; } public MenuViewModel(IRegionManager regionmanager) { this.regionManager = regionmanager; this.GoModule = new DelegateCommand<object>(this.goToView); } public void goToView(object obj) { MakeMeActive(this.regionManager, "MainRegion", obj.ToString()); } } Another for reference, ViewModelBase takes care of iNotifyPropertyChanged and MakeMeActive, which switches views in the MainRegion based on the parameters. So our public DelegateCommand GoModule ties to our command on the view, that in turn calls goToView, and the parameter on the button is the name of the view (which we pass with obj.ToString()) to activate. And how do the views get the names I can pass as a string? When I called regionManager.Regions[regionname].Add(view), there is an overload that allows for .Add(view, "viewname"), with viewname being what I use to activate views. You'll see that in action next installment, just wanted to clarify how that works. With this setup, I create two more buttons in my MenuView and the MenuModule is good to go. Last step is to make sure my MenuModule loads in my Bootstrapper: protected override IModuleCatalog GetModuleCatalog() { ModuleCatalog catalog = new ModuleCatalog(); // add modules here catalog.AddModule(typeof(MenuModule.MenuModule)); return catalog; } Clean, simple, MVVM-delicious. Navigation - Code-Behind Keeping with the history of significantly shorter code-behind sections of this series, Navigation will be no different. I promise. As I explained in a prior post, due to the one-project setup I don't have to worry about the same concerns so my menu is part of MainPage.xaml. So I can cheese-it a bit, though, since I've already got three buttons all set I'm just copying that code and adding three click-events instead of the command/commandparameter setup: <!-- Menu Region --> <StackPanel Grid.Row="1" Orientation="Vertical"> <Button x:Name="xJobsButton" Content="Jobs" Style="{StaticResource menuStyleCB}" Click="xJobsButton_Click" /> <Button x:Name="xApplicantsButton" Content="Applicants" Style="{StaticResource menuStyleCB}" Click="xApplicantsButton_Click" /> <Button x:Name="xSchedulingModule" Content="Scheduling" Style="{StaticResource menuStyleCB}" Click="xSchedulingModule_Click" /> </StackPanel> Simple, easy to use events, and no extra assemblies required! Since the code for loading each view will be similar, we'll focus on JobsView for now.The code-behind with this setup looks something like... private JobsView _jobsView; public MainPage() { InitializeComponent(); } private void xJobsButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { if (MainRegion.Content.GetType() != typeof(JobsView)) { if (_jobsView == null) _jobsView = new JobsView(); MainRegion.Content = _jobsView; } } What am I doing here? First, for each 'view' I create a private reference which MainPage will hold on to. This allows for a little bit of state-maintenance when switching views. When a button is clicked, first we make sure the 'view' typeisn't active (why load it again if it is already at center stage?), then we check if the view has been created and create if necessary, then load it up. Three steps to switching views and is easy as pie. Part 4 Results The end result of all this is that I now have a menu module (MVVM) and a menu section (code-behind) that load their respective views. Since I'm using the same exact XAML (except with commands/events depending on the project), the end result for both is again exactly the same and I'll show a slightly larger image to show it off: Next time, we add the Jobs Module and wire up RadGridView and a separate edit page to handle adding and editing new jobs. That's when things get fun. And somewhere down the line, I'll make the menu look slicker. :) Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Load and Web Performance Testing using Visual Studio Ultimate 2010-Part 2

  - by Tarun Arora

  Welcome back, in part 1 of Load and Web Performance Testing using Visual Studio 2010 I talked about why Performance Testing the application is important, the test tools available in Visual Studio Ultimate 2010 and various test rig topologies. In this blog post I’ll get into the details of web performance & load tests as well as why it’s important to follow a goal based pattern while performance testing your application. Tools => Options => Test Tools Have you visited the treasures of Visual Studio Menu bar tools => Options => Test Tools lately? The options to enable disable prompts on creating, editing, deleting or running manual/automated tests can be controller from here. The default test project language and default test types created on a new test project creation could be selected/unselected from here. Ever wondered how you can change the default limit of 25 test results, this can again be changed from here. If you record a lot of Web Tests and wish for the web test recorder to start with “that” URL populated, well this again can be specified from here. If you haven’t so far, I would urge you to spend 2 minutes in the test tools options.   Test Menu => Ready Steady Test Action! The Test tools are under the Test Menu in Visual Studio, apart from being able to create a new Test and Test List you can also load an existing vsmdi file. You can also manage your test controllers from here. A solution can have one or more test setting files, but there can only be one active test settings file at any time. Again, this selection can be done from here.  You can open the various test windows from under the windows option from the test menu. If you open the Test view window you will see that you have the option to group the tests by work items, project, test type, etc. You can set these properties by right clicking a test in the test list and choosing properties from the context menu.    So, what is a vsmdi file? vsmdi stands for Visual Studio Test Metadata File. Placed under the Solution Items this file keeps track of the list of unit tests in your solution. If you open the vsmdi file as an xml file you will see a series of Test Links nested with in the list Test List tags along with the Run Configuration tag. When in visual studio you run tests, the IDE looks at the vsmdi file to see what tests need to be run. You also have the option of using the vsmdi file in your team builds to specify which tests need to run as part of the build. Refer here for a walkthrough from a fellow blogger on how to use the vsmdi file in the team builds. Web Performance Test – The Truth! In Visual Studio 2010 “Web Tests” have been renamed to “Web Performance Tests”. Apart from renaming this test type there have been several improvements to this test type in visual studio 2010. I am very active on the MSDN Visual Studio And Load Testing forum and a frequent question from many users is “Do Web Tests support Pages that run JavaScript?” I will start with a little bit of background before answering this question. Web Performance Tests operate at the HTTP Layer, but why? To enable you to generate high loads with a relatively low amount of hardware, Web performance tests are driven at the protocol layer rather than instantiating a browser.The most common source of confusion is that users do not realize Web Performance Tests work at the HTTP layer. The tool adds to that misconception. After all, you record in IE, and when running a Web test you can select which browser to use, and then the result viewer shows the results in a browser window. So that means the tests run through the browser, right? NO! The Web test engine works at the HTTP layer, and does not instantiate a browser. What does that mean? In the diagram below, you can see there are no browsers running when the engine is sending and receiving requests. Does that mean I can’t test pages that use Java script? The best example for java script generating HTTP traffic is AJAX calls. The most common example of browser plugins are Silverlight or Flash. The Web test recorder will record HTTP traffic from AJAX calls and from most (but not all) browser plugins. This means you will still be able to web performance test pages that use java script or plugin and play back the results but the playback engine will not show the java script or plug in results in the ‘browser control’. If you want to test the page behaviour as a result of the java script or plug in consider using Coded UI Tests. This page looks like it failed, when in fact it succeeded! Looking closely at the response, and subsequent requests, it is clear the operation succeeded. As stated above, the reason why the browser control is pasting this message is because java script has been disabled in this control. So, to reiterate, the web performance test recorder: - Sends and receives data at the HTTP layer. - Does NOT run a browser. - Does NOT run java script. - Does NOT host ActiveX controls or plugins. There is a great series of blog posts from Ed Glas, i would highly recommend his blog to any one performing Load/Performance testing through Visual Studio. Demo – Web Performance Test [Demo] - Visual Studio Ultimate 2010: Test Settings and Configuration   [Demo]–Visual Studio Ultimate 2010: Web Performance Test   In this short video I try and answer the following questions, Why is performance Testing important? How does Visual Studio Help you performance Test your applications? How do i record a web performance test? How do make a web performance test data driven, transaction driven, loop driven, convert to code, add validations? Best practices for recording Web Performance Tests. I have a web performance test, what next? Creating the Web Performance Test was the first step towards load testing your application. Now that we have the base test we can test the page behaviour when N-users access the page. Have you ever had the head of business call you and mention that the marketing team has done a fantastic job and are expecting increased traffic on the web site, can the website survive the weekend with that additional load? This is the perfect opportunity to capacity test your application to see how your website holds up under various levels of load, you can work the results backwards to see how much hardware you may need to scale up your application to survive the weekend. Apart from that it is always a good idea to have some benchmarks around how the application performs under light loads for short duration, under heavy load for long duration and soak test the application run a constant load for a very week or two to record the effects of constant load for really long durations, this is a great way of identifying how your application handles the default IIS application pool reset which by default is configured to once every 25 hours. These bench marks will act as the perfect yard stick to measure performance gains when you start making improvements. BUT there are some best practices! => Goal Based Load Testing Approach Since the subject is vast and there are a lot of things to measure and analyse, … it is very easy to get distracted from the real goal!  You can optimize your application once you know where the pain points are. There is no point performing a load test of 5000 users if your intranet application will only have a 100 simultaneous users, it is important to keep focussed on the real goals of the project. So the idea is to have a user story around your load testing scenarios and test realistically. So it is recommended that you follow the below outline, It is an Iterative process, refine your objectives, identify the key scenarios, what is the expected workload, key metrics you want to report, record the web performance tests, simulate load and analyse results. Is your application already deployed in Production? This is great! You can analyse the IIS Logs to understand the user behaviour… But what are IIS LOGS? The IIS logs allow you to record events for each application and Web site on the Web server. You can create separate logs for each of your applications and Web sites. Logging information in IIS goes beyond the scope of the event logging or performance monitoring features provided by Windows. The IIS logs can include information, such as who has visited your site, what the visitor viewed, and when the information was last viewed. You can use the IIS logs to identify any attempts to gain unauthorized access to your Web server. How to configure IIS LOGS? For those Ninjas who already have IIS Logs configured (by the way its on by default) and need a way to analyse the IIS Logs, can use the Windows IIS Utility – Log Parser. Log Parser is a very powerful tool that provides a generic SQL-like language on top of many types of data like IIS Logs, Event Viewer entries, XML files, CSV files, File System and others; and it allows you to export the result of the queries to many output formats such as CSV, XML, SQL Server, Charts and others; and it works well with IIS 5, 6, 7 and 7.5. Frequently used Log Parser queries. Demo – Load Test [Demo]–Visual Studio Ultimate 2010: Load Testing   In this short video I try and answer the following questions, - Types of Performance Testing? - Perform Goal driven Load Testing, analyse Test Run Result and Generate a report? Recap A quick recap of what we have covered so far,     Thank you for taking the time out and reading this blog post, in part III of this blog series I’ll be getting into the details of Test Result Analysis, Test Result Drill through, Test Report Generation, Test Run Comparison, and the Asp.net Profiler. If you enjoyed the post, remember to subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/TarunArora. Questions/Feedback/Suggestions, etc please leave a comment. See you on in Part III   Share this post : CodeProject

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, April 03, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, April 03, 2010New ProjectsASP.NET MVC Demo: aspnetmvcdemoClasslessInterDomainRouting: ClasslessInterDomainRouting provides a class that is designed to detail with CIDR requests and ranges, it is developed within the C# Langauge and f...ClientSideRefactor: Plugin for Visual Studio.ColinTest: ColinTestePMS: An educational project to learn ASP.Net MVC, entity framework using vs 2010Extensible ASP.NET: Extensible Framework on top of ASP.NET - infrastructure level. Uses MEF for extensibility.Franchise Computing Model: Franchise Computing is a client-centric, contract-oriented, consumption-based computing model. Its framework allows service providers and consumers...GameEngine ReactorFX: Set of tools and code snippets for creation DirectX based games. Also provides a number of ideas, algorythms and problem-solutions.It's All Just Ones And Zeros: Utility code libraries for Vault API developers.Live Writer Picasa Plugin: Live Writer Picasa Plugin is a plugin for Windows Live Writer that allows you to embed photos from your Picasa Web Albums into your blog posts. Liv...Managed SDK for Meizu Cell Phone: The goal of this project is to deliver an open source managed SDK for Meizu cell phones, currently for M8. Media Player Field Type: Display a media player in a column of you document library. The library can contain movie files of diferent formats. The player will appear in the ...praca magisterska: This is my thesis: Algebraical aspects of modern cryptography,Pyx: An experimental programming language for statistics.SharpHydroLiDAR: A C# version of Lidar Hydrographic ExtractionSql Server Mds Destination: SSIS destination transform component for SQL Server Master Data ServicesStackOverflow.Net: A C# library for the StackOverflow API (currently in beta). Provides methods for every call currently in the StackOverflow API.TRX Merger Utility: People working on test projects that involve test management and execution from Visual Studio Team System 2008 and who do not have a TFS server for...UniPlanner: The UniPlanner project goal is to develop a web application able to visualize and schedule a university timetable.WikiNETParser: Wiki .NET Parser, Open Source project powered by ANTLR. Syntax defined in 3(4) files Lexer, Grammar, AST Parser.New ReleasesaaronERP builder - a framework to create customized ERP solutions: aaronERP_0.4.0.0: Changes (compared to version 0.3.0.0) : Businesslayer : - Caching of data-tables - ITranslatable Interface for mutli-language DAOs Web-Frontend: ...BatterySaver: Version 0.5: Add support for executing a power state event manually (Issue) Add support for battery percentage thresholds (Issue)ColinTest: asdfzxcv: asdfasdfComposer: V1.0.402.2001 Beta: Minor bug fixes Minor changes in interfaces Added documentation to the setup packageDynamic Configuration: Dynamic Configuration Release 2: Added ConfigurationChanged event fired whenever changes in .config file detected. Improved file watching filtering.Facebook Developer Toolkit: Version 3.1 BETA: Lots of bug fixes. Issues addressed: http://facebooktoolkit.codeplex.com/WorkItem/View.aspx?WorkItemId=14808 http://facebooktoolkit.codeplex.com/W...iExporter - iTunes playlist exporting: iExporter gui v2.5.0.0 - console v1.2.1.0: Paypal donate! New features and redesign for iExporter Gui You can now select/deselect all visible items with one click in the overview When yo...Line Counter: 1.5.5: The Line Counter is a tool to calculate lines of your code files. The tool was written in .NET 2.0. Line Counter 1.5.5 Fixed bugs in C# counter an...Live Writer Picasa Plugin: Live Writer Picasa Plugin 1.0.0: Changelog Since this is the first version there are no changes.Media Player Field Type: Media Player Field Type v1.0: Display a media player in a column of you document library. The library can contain movie files of diferent formats. The player will appear in the ...Numina Application/Security Framework: Numina.Framework Core 49601: Added .LESS library for CSS Updated default style and logo Added a few methods and method overloads to the .NET libraryOver Store: OverStore 1.16.0.0: Version 1.16.0.0 Runtime components uses PersistingRuntimeException instead of many exception types. PersistingRuntimeException message includes...patterns & practices Web Client Developer Guidance: Web Client Software Factory 2010 beta source code: The Web Client Software Factory 2010 provides an integrated set of guidance that assists architects and developers in creating web client applicati...SCSI Interface for Multimedia and Block Devices: Release 12 - View CD-DVD Drive Features: Changes in this version: - Added the ability to view the features of a CD/DVD device (e.g.: what discs it supports, whether it supports Mount Raini...SharePoint Labs: SPLab5006A-FRA-Level100: SPLab5006A-FRA-Level100 This SharePoint Lab will teach you how to create a Feature within Visual Studio, how to brand it, how to incorporate ressou...SharePoint Labs: SPLab5007A-FRA-Level300: SPLab5007A-FRA-Level300 This SharePoint Lab will teach you how to create a reusable and distributable project model for developping Features within...SharePoint Labs: SPLab5008A-FRA-Level100: SPLab5008A-FRA-Level100 This SharePoint Lab will teach you how to add an option in the ECB menu (Edit Control Block) only for specific file types w...SharePoint Labs: SPLab5009A-FRA-Level100: SPLab5009A-FRA-Level100 This SharePoint Lab will teach you the "Site Pages" model and the differences between customized/uncustomized pages (ghoste...SharePoint Labs: SPLab5010A-FRA-Level100: SPLab5010A-FRA-Level100 This SharePoint Lab will teach you the "Application Pages" model and the differences between "Site Pages" and "Application ...SharePoint Labs: SPLab5011A-FRA-Level100: SPLab5011A-FRA-Level100 This SharePoint Lab will teach you how to create a basic Application Page in the 12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS. Lab Language : French...sPATCH: sPatch v0.9b: + Fixed: an issue most webservers need leading slash to return filestreamsTASKedit: sTASKedit (pre-Alpha Release): This release is only for playing around, currently not useful Supported Files:Open 1.3.6 client tasks.data Export to 1.3.6 client tasks.data E...TRX Merger Utility: TRX Merger v1.0: First versionttgLib: ttgLib-0.01-beta1: In beta-version we've implemented basic functionality of ttgLib - now it can solve various problems using CPU+GPU bundle. Most important things: ...WikiNETParser: Wiki .NET Parser 2.5: Wiki .NET Parser 2.5 The documentation, binaries and source code could be downloaded from http://catarsa.com portal The latest release to downloa...WPF Zen Garden: Release 1.0: This is the first release.XNA 3D World Studio Content Pipeline: XNA 3DWS Content Pipeline - R2: This version adds terrains and brush based modelsMost Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseASP.NET Ajax LibrarySilverlight ToolkitAJAX Control ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)ASP.NETMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesDotNetNuke® Community EditionMost Active ProjectsGraffiti CMSRawrjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesFacebook Developer ToolkitBlogEngine.NETN2 CMSBase Class LibrariesFarseer Physics EngineLINQ to TwitterMicrosoft Biology Foundation

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• 8 Reasons Why Even Microsoft Agrees the Windows Desktop is a Nightmare

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Let’s be honest: The Windows desktop is a mess. Sure, it’s extremely powerful and has a huge software library, but it’s not a good experience for average people. It’s not even a good experience for geeks, although we tolerate it. Even Microsoft agrees about this. Microsoft’s Surface tablets with Windows RT don’t support any third-party desktop apps. They consider this a feature — users can’t install malware and other desktop junk, so the system will always be speedy and secure. Malware is Still Common Malware may not affect geeks, but it certainly continues to affect average people. Securing Windows, keeping it secure, and avoiding unsafe programs is a complex process. There are over 50 different file extensions that can contain harmful code to keep track of. It’s easy to have theoretical discussions about how malware could infect Mac computers, Android devices, and other systems. But Mac malware is extremely rare, and has  generally been caused by problem with the terrible Java plug-in. Macs are configured to only run executables from identified developers by default, whereas Windows will run everything. Android malware is talked about a lot, but Android malware is rare in the real world and is generally confined to users who disable security protections and install pirated apps. Google has also taken action, rolling out built-in antivirus-like app checking to all Android devices, even old ones running Android 2.3, via Play Services. Whatever the reason, Windows malware is still common while malware for other systems isn’t. We all know it — anyone who does tech support for average users has dealt with infected Windows computers. Even users who can avoid malware are stuck dealing with complex and nagging antivirus programs, especially since it’s now so difficult to trust Microsoft’s antivirus products. Manufacturer-Installed Bloatware is Terrible Sit down with a new Mac, Chromebook, iPad, Android tablet, Linux laptop, or even a Surface running Windows RT and you can enjoy using your new device. The system is a clean slate for you to start exploring and installing your new software. Sit down with a new Windows PC and the system is a mess. Rather than be delighted, you’re stuck reinstalling Windows and then installing the necessary drivers or you’re forced to start uninstalling useless bloatware programs one-by-one, trying to figure out which ones are actually useful. After uninstalling the useless programs, you may end up with a system tray full of icons for ten different hardware utilities anyway. The first experience of using a new Windows PC is frustration, not delight. Yes, bloatware is still a problem on Windows 8 PCs. Manufacturers can customize the Refresh image, preventing bloatware rom easily being removed. Finding a Desktop Program is Dangerous Want to install a Windows desktop program? Well, you’ll have to head to your web browser and start searching. It’s up to you, the user, to know which programs are safe and which are dangerous. Even if you find a website for a reputable program, the advertisements on that page will often try to trick you into downloading fake installers full of adware. While it’s great to have the ability to leave the app store and get software that the platform’s owner hasn’t approved — as on Android — this is no excuse for not providing a good, secure software installation experience for typical users installing typical programs. Even Reputable Desktop Programs Try to Install Junk Even if you do find an entirely reputable program, you’ll have to keep your eyes open while installing it. It will likely try to install adware, add browse toolbars, change your default search engine, or change your web browser’s home page. Even Microsoft’s own programs do this — when you install Skype for Windows desktop, it will attempt to modify your browser settings t ouse Bing, even if you’re specially chosen another search engine and home page. With Microsoft setting such an example, it’s no surprise so many other software developers have followed suit. Geeks know how to avoid this stuff, but there’s a reason program installers continue to do this. It works and tricks many users, who end up with junk installed and settings changed. The Update Process is Confusing On iOS, Android, and Windows RT, software updates come from a single place — the app store. On Linux, software updates come from the package manager. On Mac OS X, typical users’ software updates likely come from the Mac App Store. On the Windows desktop, software updates come from… well, every program has to create its own update mechanism. Users have to keep track of all these updaters and make sure their software is up-to-date. Most programs now have their act together and automatically update by default, but users who have old versions of Flash and Adobe Reader installed are vulnerable until they realize their software isn’t automatically updating. Even if every program updates properly, the sheer mess of updaters is clunky, slow, and confusing in comparison to a centralized update process. Browser Plugins Open Security Holes It’s no surprise that other modern platforms like iOS, Android, Chrome OS, Windows RT, and Windows Phone don’t allow traditional browser plugins, or only allow Flash and build it into the system. Browser plugins provide a wealth of different ways for malicious web pages to exploit the browser and open the system to attack. Browser plugins are one of the most popular attack vectors because of how many users have out-of-date plugins and how many plugins, especially Java, seem to be designed without taking security seriously. Oracle’s Java plugin even tries to install the terrible Ask toolbar when installing security updates. That’s right — the security update process is also used to cram additional adware into users’ machines so unscrupulous companies like Oracle can make a quick buck. It’s no wonder that most Windows PCs have an out-of-date, vulnerable version of Java installed. Battery Life is Terrible Windows PCs have bad battery life compared to Macs, IOS devices, and Android tablets, all of which Windows now competes with. Even Microsoft’s own Surface Pro 2 has bad battery life. Apple’s 11-inch MacBook Air, which has very similar hardware to the Surface Pro 2, offers double its battery life when web browsing. Microsoft has been fond of blaming third-party hardware manufacturers for their poorly optimized drivers in the past, but there’s no longer any room to hide. The problem is clearly Windows. Why is this? No one really knows for sure. Perhaps Microsoft has kept on piling Windows component on top of Windows component and many older Windows components were never properly optimized. Windows Users Become Stuck on Old Windows Versions Apple’s new OS X 10.9 Mavericks upgrade is completely free to all Mac users and supports Macs going back to 2007. Apple has also announced their intention that all new releases of Mac OS X will be free. In 2007, Microsoft had just shipped Windows Vista. Macs from the Windows Vista era are being upgraded to the latest version of the Mac operating system for free, while Windows PCs from the same era are probably still using Windows Vista. There’s no easy upgrade path for these people. They’re stuck using Windows Vista and maybe even the outdated Internet Explorer 9 if they haven’t installed a third-party web browser. Microsoft’s upgrade path is for these people to pay $120 for a full copy of Windows 8.1 and go through a complicated process that’s actaully a clean install. Even users of Windows 8 devices will probably have to pay money to upgrade to Windows 9, while updates for other operating systems are completely free. If you’re a PC geek, a PC gamer, or someone who just requires specialized software that only runs on Windows, you probably use the Windows desktop and don’t want to switch. That’s fine, but it doesn’t mean the Windows desktop is actually a good experience. Much of the burden falls on average users, who have to struggle with malware, bloatware, adware bundled in installers, complex software installation processes, and out-of-date software. In return, all they get is the ability to use a web browser and some basic Office apps that they could use on almost any other platform without all the hassle. Microsoft would agree with this, touting Windows RT and their new “Windows 8-style” app platform as the solution. Why else would Microsoft, a “devices and services” company, position the Surface — a device without traditional Windows desktop programs — as their mass-market device recommended for average people? This isn’t necessarily an endorsement of Windows RT. If you’re tech support for your family members and it comes time for them to upgrade, you may want to get them off the Windows desktop and tell them to get a Mac or something else that’s simple. Better yet, if they get a Mac, you can tell them to visit the Apple Store for help instead of calling you. That’s another thing Windows PCs don’t offer — good manufacturer support. Image Credit: Blanca Stella Mejia on Flickr, Collin Andserson on Flickr, Luca Conti on Flickr     

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• User Guide to Dropbox Shared Folders

  - by Matthew Guay

  Dropbox is an incredibly useful tool for keeping all your files synced between your computers and the cloud.  Here we’re going to look at how you can keep all of your team on the same page with Dropbox shared folders. Creating a Shared Folder Setting up a shared folder in Dropbox is easy.  Add the files you want to share to a folder in Dropbox on your computer, then right-click in the folder, select Dropbox, and then choose Share This Folder.   Alternately, log into your Dropbox account online, click the drop-down menu beside the folder you want to share, and click Share this folder. Now, enter the email addresses of the people you want to share the folder with, and optionally enter a message explaining why you’re sharing the folder. The people you invite will receive an email inviting them to view and join the shared folder.  If they haven’t signed up for Dropbox, they can directly signup; otherwise, they can simply log into their Dropbox account and start adding or editing files. Shared folders have a slightly different icon in your Dropbox.  Notice the shared folder on the left has an icon with 2 people, while the folder on the right that is not shared, shows previews of its contents. See Your Shared Folder’s History Whenever your collaborators with your shared folders add or change files, you will see a tooltip notification telling you what changed. You can also view the changes online.  Log into your Dropbox account in your browser and select the Events tab.  This shows all changes to your Dropbox, but you can view only the changes in your shared folder by selecting its name on the left sidebar. Now you can see all recent changes to your folder, and can also see who added or removed each file.   On the bottom of the page, you can even add a comment that all the collaborators will see. If someone deleted a file you still need, you can restore it by clicking its link in this online history.  Or, you can view any deleted files by right-clicking in your Dropbox folder in Explorer.  Select Dropbox, and then click Show Deleted Files.   Get Notified When a Change is Made You’re not always in front of your computer; you’ve got a life beyond your projects, after all (at least hopefully).  If you really want to stay connected to what’s happening with your project, though, you can easily do that no matter where you are. Your shared Dropbox folder’s history page offers an RSS feed of all changes to the folder.  Click  the Subscribe to this feed hyperlink. Now, in the popup that opens, click “Copy to clipboard” so you can use this RSS feed. You can subscribe to RSS feeds through many web browsers, email clients, dedicated feed readers, and more.  In Firefox, Internet Explorer 7/8, or Opera, you can paste the feed address into your address bar and subscribe to the feed directly in your browser.   However, subscribing to the feed in a desktop application won’t help you much when you’re away from your computer.  One great option is to subscribe in the popular Google Reader.  Then you can check your feed from any browser, on any computer or mobile device. To add your Dropbox feed to Google Reader, log into Google Reader (link below), click Add a subscription on the top left, paste your RSS feed from Dropbox, and click Add.   Now you can see any changes to files or folders in Google Reader. You can even add your feed to your iGoogle homepage.  Click the Add it Now button on the right in the front page of Google Reader to add your feeds to iGoogle.   Now you can see updates on your files from your homepage.  If you’re using a different computer, just login to your Google account to see what’s happening. You can also access your Google Reader feeds from many programs and apps for most major Smartphones including iPhone, Windows Phone, and Blackberry. Receive a Tweet or Text When Changes are Made If you’re a hyper-connected individual, chances are you send and receive tweets on the go.  If so, this might be the best way for you to get notified when changes are made to your Dropbox shared folder.  To do this, first create a new Twitter account to publish your changes through.  If you don’t want the whole world to see your updates, click Settings and set your new Twitter account to Private. Once the new account is created, follow it with your normal Twitter account so you’ll see updates. Now, let’s publish our Dropbox RSS feed to Twitter.  Create an account with Twitterfeed (link below). Once your account is setup, add your feed to it.  Name your feed, and enter your Feed address from Dropbox.  Click Advanced Settings to make your feed work just like you want. In Advanced Settings, change the frequency to “Every 30 mins” to make sure you’re updated on changes as quick as possible.  You can also change other settings if you like. Click “Continue to Step 2”, and then click Twitter under the available services to add your account. Make sure your signed into your new Twitter account, and then click Authenticate Twitter. Allow the application. Now, finally, click Create Service. Whenever a change is made, you will receive a tweet via your new Twitter account.  And since you can receive tweets via text message or many mobile applications, you’ll never be very far away from your Dropbox changes!   Conclusion Dropbox shared folders are a great way to keep your whole team working together on the same files in a project.  And with these handy tricks, you can keep up with your shared files wherever you are! There are a lot of cool things you can do with Dropbox make sure to check out our posts on adding Dropbox to the Windows 7 Start menu, Accessing Dropbox files from Chrome, and Syncing your Pidgin Profile Across Multiple PCs. Links Signup or access your Dropbox account Google Reader Tweet your feed with Twitterfeed Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips How to Add and Manage Shared Folders on Windows Home ServerManage User Accounts in Windows Home ServerAdd "My Dropbox" to Your Windows 7 Start MenuComplete Guide to Networking Windows 7 with XP and VistaMoving Your Personal Data Folders in Windows Vista the Easy Way TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Office 2010 reviewed in depth by Ed Bott FoxClocks adds World Times in your Statusbar (Firefox) Have Fun Editing Photo Editing with Citrify Outlook Connector Upgrade Error Gadfly is a cool Twitter/Silverlight app Enable DreamScene in Windows 7

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• SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #038

  - by Pinal Dave

  Here is the list of selected articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2007 CASE Statement in ORDER BY Clause – ORDER BY using Variable This article is as per request from the Application Development Team Leader of my company. His team encountered code where the application was preparing string for ORDER BY clause of the SELECT statement. Application was passing this string as variable to Stored Procedure (SP) and SP was using EXEC to execute the SQL string. This is not good for performance as Stored Procedure has to recompile every time due to EXEC. sp_executesql can do the same task but still not the best performance. SSMS – View/Send Query Results to Text/Grid/Files Results to Text – CTRL + T Results to Grid – CTRL + D Results to File – CTRL + SHIFT + F 2008 Introduction to SPARSE Columns Part 2 I wrote about Introduction to SPARSE Columns Part 1. Let us understand the concept of the SPARSE column in more detail. I suggest you read the first part before continuing reading this article. All SPARSE columns are stored as one XML column in the database. Let us see some of the advantage and disadvantage of SPARSE column. Deferred Name Resolution How come when table name is incorrect SP can be created successfully but when an incorrect column is used SP cannot be created? 2009 Backup Timeline and Understanding of Database Restore Process in Full Recovery Model In general, databases backup in full recovery mode is taken in three different kinds of database files. Full Database Backup Differential Database Backup Log Backup Restore Sequence and Understanding NORECOVERY and RECOVERY While doing RESTORE Operation if you restoring database files, always use NORECOVER option as that will keep the database in a state where more backup file are restored. This will also keep database offline also to prevent any changes, which can create itegrity issues. Once all backup file is restored run RESTORE command with a RECOVERY option to get database online and operational. Four Different Ways to Find Recovery Model for Database Perhaps, the best thing about technical domain is that most of the things can be executed in more than one ways. It is always useful to know about the various methods of performing a single task. Two Methods to Retrieve List of Primary Keys and Foreign Keys of Database When Information Schema is used, we will not be able to discern between primary key and foreign key; we will have both the keys together. In the case of sys schema, we can query the data in our preferred way and can join this table to another table, which can retrieve additional data from the same. Get Last Running Query Based on SPID PID is returns sessions ID of the current user process. The acronym SPID comes from the name of its earlier version, Server Process ID. 2010 SELECT * FROM dual – Dual Equivalent Dual is a table that is created by Oracle together with data dictionary. It consists of exactly one column named “dummy”, and one record. The value of that record is X. You can check the content of the DUAL table using the following syntax. SELECT * FROM dual Identifying Statistics Used by Query Someone asked this question in my training class of query optimization and performance tuning.  “Can I know which statistics were used by my query?” 2011 SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 14 of 31 What are the basic functions for master, msdb, model, tempdb and resource databases? What is the Maximum Number of Index per Table? Explain Few of the New Features of SQL Server 2008 Management Studio Explain IntelliSense for Query Editing Explain MultiServer Query Explain Query Editor Regions Explain Object Explorer Enhancements Explain Activity Monitors SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 15 of 31 What is Service Broker? Where are SQL server Usernames and Passwords Stored in the SQL server? What is Policy Management? What is Database Mirroring? What are Sparse Columns? What does TOP Operator Do? What is CTE? What is MERGE Statement? What is Filtered Index? Which are the New Data Types Introduced in SQL SERVER 2008? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 16 of 31 What are the Advantages of Using CTE? How can we Rewrite Sub-Queries into Simple Select Statements or with Joins? What is CLR? What are Synonyms? What is LINQ? What are Isolation Levels? What is Use of EXCEPT Clause? What is XPath? What is NOLOCK? What is the Difference between Update Lock and Exclusive Lock? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 17 of 31 How will you Handle Error in SQL SERVER 2008? What is RAISEERROR? What is RAISEERROR? How to Rebuild the Master Database? What is the XML Datatype? What is Data Compression? What is Use of DBCC Commands? How to Copy the Tables, Schema and Views from one SQL Server to Another? How to Find Tables without Indexes? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 18 of 31 How to Copy Data from One Table to Another Table? What is Catalog Views? What is PIVOT and UNPIVOT? What is a Filestream? What is SQLCMD? What do you mean by TABLESAMPLE? What is ROW_NUMBER()? What are Ranking Functions? What is Change Data Capture (CDC) in SQL Server 2008? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 19 of 31 How can I Track the Changes or Identify the Latest Insert-Update-Delete from a Table? What is the CPU Pressure? How can I Get Data from a Database on Another Server? What is the Bookmark Lookup and RID Lookup? What is Difference between ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE and WITH NO_WAIT during ALTER DATABASE? What is Difference between GETDATE and SYSDATETIME in SQL Server 2008? How can I Check that whether Automatic Statistic Update is Enabled or not? How to Find Index Size for Each Index on Table? What is the Difference between Seek Predicate and Predicate? What are Basics of Policy Management? What are the Advantages of Policy Management? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 20 of 31 What are Policy Management Terms? What is the ‘FILLFACTOR’? Where in MS SQL Server is ’100’ equal to ‘0’? What are Points to Remember while Using the FILLFACTOR Argument? What is a ROLLUP Clause? What are Various Limitations of the Views? What is a Covered index? When I Delete any Data from a Table, does the SQL Server reduce the size of that table? What are Wait Types? How to Stop Log File Growing too Big? If any Stored Procedure is Encrypted, then can we see its definition in Activity Monitor? 2012 Example of Width Sensitive and Width Insensitive Collation Width Sensitive Collation: A single-byte character (half-width) represented as single-byte and the same character represented as a double-byte character (full-width) are when compared are not equal the collation is width sensitive. In this example we have one table with two columns. One column has a collation of width sensitive and the second column has a collation of width insensitive. Find Column Used in Stored Procedure – Search Stored Procedure for Column Name Very interesting conversation about how to find column used in a stored procedure. There are two different characters in the story and both are having a conversation about how to find column in the stored procedure. Here are two part story Part 1 | Part 2 SQL SERVER – 2012 Functions – FORMAT() and CONCAT() – An Interesting Usage Generate Script for Schema and Data – SQL in Sixty Seconds #021 – Video In simple words, in many cases the database move from one place to another place. It is not always possible to back up and restore databases. There are possibilities when only part of the database (with schema and data) has to be moved. In this video we learn that we can easily generate script for schema for data and move from one server to another one. INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS and Value Character Maximum Length -1 I often see the value -1 in the CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH column of INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS table. I understand that the length of any column can be between 0 to large number but I do not get it when I see value in negative (i.e. -1). Any insight on this subject? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Making a Case For The Command Line

  - by Jesse Taber

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/GruffCode/archive/2013/06/30/making-a-case-for-the-command-line.aspxI have had an idea percolating in the back of my mind for over a year now that I’ve just recently started to implement. This idea relates to building out “internal tools” to ease the maintenance and on-going support of a software system. The system that I currently work on is (mostly) web-based, so we traditionally we have built these internal tools in the form of pages within the app that are only accessible by our developers and support personnel. These pages allow us to perform tasks within the system that, for one reason or another, we don’t want to let our end users perform (e.g. mass create/update/delete operations on data, flipping switches that turn paid modules of the system on or off, etc). When we try to build new tools like this we often struggle with the level of effort required to build them. Effort Required Creating a whole new page in an existing web application can be a fairly large undertaking. You need to create the page and ensure it will have a layout that is consistent with the other pages in the app. You need to decide what types of input controls need to go onto the page. You need to ensure that everything uses the same style as the rest of the site. You need to figure out what the text on the page should say. Then, when you figure out that you forgot about an input that should really be present you might have to go back and re-work the entire thing. Oh, and in addition to all of that, you still have to, you know, write the code that actually performs the task. Everything other than the code that performs the task at hand is just overhead. We don’t need a fancy date picker control in a nicely styled page for the vast majority of our internal tools. We don’t even really need a page, for that matter. We just need a way to issue a command to the application and have it, in turn, execute the code that we’ve written to accomplish a given task. All we really need is a simple console application! Plumbing Problems A former co-worker of mine, John Sonmez, always advocated the Unix philosophy for building internal tools: start with something that runs at the command line, and then build a UI on top of that if you need to. John’s idea has a lot of merit, and we tried building out some internal tools as simple Console applications. Unfortunately, this was often easier said that done. Doing a “File –> New Project” to build out a tool for a mature system can be pretty daunting because that new project is totally empty.  In our case, the web application code had a lot of of “plumbing” built in: it managed authentication and authorization, it handled database connection management for our multi-tenanted architecture, it managed all of the context that needs to follow a user around the application such as their timezone and regional/language settings. In addition, the configuration file for the web application  (a web.config in our case because this is an ASP .NET application) is large and would need to be reproduced into a similar configuration file for a Console application. While most of these problems are could be solved pretty easily with some refactoring of the codebase, building Console applications for internal tools still potentially suffers from one pretty big drawback: you’d have to execute them on a machine with network access to all of the needed resources. Obviously, our web servers can easily communicate the the database servers and can publish messages to our service bus, but the same is not true for all of our developer and support personnel workstations. We could have everyone run these tools remotely via RDP or SSH, but that’s a bit cumbersome and certainly a lot less convenient than having the tools built into the web application that is so easily accessible. Mix and Match So we need a way to build tools that are easily accessible via the web application but also don’t require the overhead of creating a user interface. This is where my idea comes into play: why not just build a command line interface into the web application? If it’s part of the web application we get all of the plumbing that comes along with that code, and we’re executing everything on the web servers which means we’ll have access to any external resources that we might need. Rather than having to incur the overhead of creating a brand new page for each tool that we want to build, we can create one new page that simply accepts a command in text form and executes it as a request on the web server. In this way, we can focus on writing the code to accomplish the task. If the tool ends up being heavily used, then (and only then) should we consider spending the time to build a better user experience around it. To be clear, I’m not trying to downplay the importance of building great user experiences into your system; we should all strive to provide the best UX possible to our end users. I’m only advocating this sort of bare-bones interface for internal consumption by the technical staff that builds and supports the software. This command line interface should be the “back end” to a highly polished and eye-pleasing public face. Implementation As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, this is an idea that I’ve had for awhile but have only recently started building out. I’ve outlined some general guidelines and design goals for this effort as follows: Text in, text out: In the interest of keeping things as simple as possible, I want this interface to be purely text-based. Users will submit commands as plain text, and the application will provide responses in plain text. Obviously this text will be “wrapped” within the context of HTTP requests and responses, but I don’t want to have to think about HTML or CSS when taking input from the user or displaying responses back to the user. Task-oriented code only: After building the initial “harness” for this interface, the only code that should need to be written to create a new internal tool should be code that is expressly needed to accomplish the task that the tool is intended to support. If we want to encourage and enable ourselves to build good tooling, we need to lower the barriers to entry as much as possible. Built-in documentation: One of the great things about most command line utilities is the ‘help’ switch that provides usage guidelines and details about the arguments that the utility accepts. Our web-based command line utility should allow us to build the documentation for these tools directly into the code of the tools themselves. I finally started trying to implement this idea when I heard about a fantastic open-source library called CLAP (Command Line Auto Parser) that lets me meet the guidelines outlined above. CLAP lets you define classes with public methods that can be easily invoked from the command line. Here’s a quick example of the code that would be needed to create a new tool to do something within your system: 1: public class CustomerTools 2: { 3: [Verb] 4: public void UpdateName(int customerId, string firstName, string lastName) 5: { 6: //invoke internal services/domain objects/hwatever to perform update 7: } 8: } This is just a regular class with a single public method (though you could have as many methods as you want). The method is decorated with the ‘Verb’ attribute that tells the CLAP library that it is a method that can be invoked from the command line. Here is how you would invoke that code: Parser.Run(args, new CustomerTools()); Note that ‘args’ is just a string[] that would normally be passed passed in from the static Main method of a Console application. Also, CLAP allows you to pass in multiple classes that define [Verb] methods so you can opt to organize the code that CLAP will invoke in any way that you like. You can invoke this code from a command line application like this: SomeExe UpdateName -customerId:123 -firstName:Jesse -lastName:Taber ‘SomeExe’ in this example just represents the name of .exe that is would be created from our Console application. CLAP then interprets the arguments passed in order to find the method that should be invoked and automatically parses out the parameters that need to be passed in. After a quick spike, I’ve found that invoking the ‘Parser’ class can be done from within the context of a web application just as easily as it can from within the ‘Main’ method entry point of a Console application. There are, however, a few sticking points that I’m working around: Splitting arguments into the ‘args’ array like the command line: When you invoke a standard .NET console application you get the arguments that were passed in by the user split into a handy array (this is the ‘args’ parameter referenced above). Generally speaking they get split by whitespace, but it’s also clever enough to handle things like ignoring whitespace in a phrase that is surrounded by quotes. We’ll need to re-create this logic within our web application so that we can give the ‘args’ value to CLAP just like a console application would. Providing a response to the user: If you were writing a console application, you might just use Console.WriteLine to provide responses to the user as to the progress and eventual outcome of the command. We can’t use Console.WriteLine within a web application, so I’ll need to find another way to provide feedback to the user. Preferably this approach would allow me to use the same handler classes from both a Console application and a web application, so some kind of strategy pattern will likely emerge from this effort. Submitting files: Often an internal tool needs to support doing some kind of operation in bulk, and the easiest way to submit the data needed to support the bulk operation is in a file. Getting the file uploaded and available to the CLAP handler classes will take a little bit of effort. Mimicking the console experience: This isn’t really a requirement so much as a “nice to have”. To start out, the command-line interface in the web application will probably be a single ‘textarea’ control with a button to submit the contents to a handler that will pass it along to CLAP to be parsed and run. I think it would be interesting to use some javascript and CSS trickery to change that page into something with more of a “shell” interface look and feel. I’ll be blogging more about this effort in the future and will include some code snippets (or maybe even a full blown example app) as I progress. I also think that I’ll probably end up either submitting some pull requests to the CLAP project or possibly forking/wrapping it into a more web-friendly package and open sourcing that.

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• What steps can you take to ensure sane build environments when compiling software?

  - by Chris Adams

  Hi guys, I've been stuck with a compilation problem when building a standardised virtual machine on CentOS 5.4, and I'm in the dark here as to a) why this error is occurring, and b) how to fix it, and in the hope that someone else stumbles across this problem too, I'm hoping someone can help me find the solution here. I'm getting a configure: error: newly created file is older than distributed files! error when trying to compile Ruby Enterprise like below when I try to run the installer, and the solutions offered to on the forums (of checking the tine, and touching the files to update the time associated with them) don't seem to be helping here. What steps can I take to work out what the cause of this problem? [vagrant@vagrant-centos-5 ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2009.10]$ sudo ./installer Welcome to the Ruby Enterprise Edition installer This installer will help you install Ruby Enterprise Edition 1.8.7-2009.10. Don't worry, none of your system files will be touched if you don't want them to, so there is no risk that things will screw up. You can expect this from the installation process: 1. Ruby Enterprise Edition will be compiled and optimized for speed for this system. 2. Ruby on Rails will be installed for Ruby Enterprise Edition. 3. You will learn how to tell Phusion Passenger to use Ruby Enterprise Edition instead of regular Ruby. Press Enter to continue, or Ctrl-C to abort. Checking for required software... * C compiler... found at /usr/bin/gcc * C++ compiler... found at /usr/bin/g++ * The 'make' tool... found at /usr/bin/make * Zlib development headers... found * OpenSSL development headers... found * GNU Readline development headers... found -------------------------------------------- Target directory Where would you like to install Ruby Enterprise Edition to? (All Ruby Enterprise Edition files will be put inside that directory.) [/opt/ruby-enterprise] : -------------------------------------------- Compiling and optimizing the memory allocator for Ruby Enterprise Edition In the mean time, feel free to grab a cup of coffee. ./configure --prefix=/opt/ruby-enterprise --disable-dependency-tracking checking build system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu checking host system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c checking whether build environment is sane... configure: error: newly created file is older than distributed files! Check your system clock This is a virtual machine running on virtualbox, and the time of the host and the virtual machine are identical, and up to date. I've also tried running this after updating time with an ntp-client, so no avail. I tried this after reading this post here of someone having a similar problem [vagrant@vagrant-centos-5 ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2009.10]$ date Tue Apr 27 08:09:05 BST 2010 The other approach I've tried is to touch the top level the files in the build folder like suggested here, but this hasn't worked either (an to be honest, I'm not sure why it would have worked either) [vagrant@vagrant-centos-5 ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2009.10]$ sudo touch ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2009.10/* I'm not sure what I can do next here - the problem seems to be the bash configure script that returns this error error: newly created file is older than distributed files!, at line :2214 { echo "$as_me:$LINENO: checking whether build environment is sane" >&5 echo $ECHO_N "checking whether build environment is sane... $ECHO_C" >&6; } # Just in case sleep 1 echo timestamp > conftest.file # Do `set' in a subshell so we don't clobber the current shell's # arguments. Must try -L first in case configure is actually a # symlink; some systems play weird games with the mod time of symlinks # (eg FreeBSD returns the mod time of the symlink's containing # directory). if ( set X `ls -Lt $srcdir/configure conftest.file 2> /dev/null` if test "$*" = "X"; then # -L didn't work. set X `ls -t $srcdir/configure conftest.file` fi rm -f conftest.file if test "$*" != "X $srcdir/configure conftest.file" \ && test "$*" != "X conftest.file $srcdir/configure"; then # If neither matched, then we have a broken ls. This can happen # if, for instance, CONFIG_SHELL is bash and it inherits a # broken ls alias from the environment. This has actually # happened. Such a system could not be considered "sane". { { echo "$as_me:$LINENO: error: ls -t appears to fail. Make sure there is not a broken alias in your environment" >&5 echo "$as_me: error: ls -t appears to fail. Make sure there is not a broken alias in your environment" >&2;} { (exit 1); exit 1; }; } fi ### PROBLEM LINE #### # this line is the problem line - this is returned true, sometimes it isn't and I can't # see a pattern that that determines when this will test will pass or not. test "$2" = conftest.file ) then # Ok. : else { { echo "$as_me:$LINENO: error: newly created file is older than distributed files! Check your system clock" >&5 echo "$as_me: error: newly created file is older than distributed files! Check your system clock" >&2;} { (exit 1); exit 1; }; } fi the thing that makes this really frustrating is that this script works sometimes, when the VM has been running for an hour or so it works, but not at boot. There's nothing I see in the crontab that suggests any hourly tasks are run that might change the state of the system enough make a difference to this script working. I'm totally at a loss when it comes to debugging beyond here. What's the best approach to take here? Thanks

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• Creating a podcast feed for iTunes & BlackBerry users using WCF Syndication

  - by brian_ritchie

   In my previous post, I showed how to create a RSS feed using WCF Syndication.  Next, I'll show how to add the additional tags needed to turn a RSS feed into an iTunes podcast.   A podcast is merely a RSS feed with some special characteristics: iTunes RSS tags.  These are additional tags beyond the standard RSS spec.  Apple has a good page on the requirements. Audio file enclosure.  This is a link to the audio file (such as mp3) hosted by your site.  Apple doesn't host the audio, they just read the meta-data from the RSS feed into their system. The SyndicationFeed class supports both AttributeExtensions & ElementExtensions to add custom tags to the RSS feeds. A couple of points of interest in the code below: The imageUrl below provides the album cover for iTunes (170px × 170px) Each SyndicationItem corresponds to an audio episode in your podcast So, here's the code: .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: Consolas, "Courier New", Courier, Monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } 1: XNamespace itunesNS = "http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd"; 2: string prefix = "itunes"; 3:   4: var feed = new SyndicationFeed(title, description, new Uri(link)); 5: feed.Categories.Add(new SyndicationCategory(category)); 6: feed.AttributeExtensions.Add(new XmlQualifiedName(prefix, 7: "http://www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/"), itunesNS.NamespaceName); 8: feed.Copyright = new TextSyndicationContent(copyright); 9: feed.Language = "en-us"; 10: feed.Copyright = new TextSyndicationContent(DateTime.Now.Year + " " + ownerName); 11: feed.ImageUrl = new Uri(imageUrl); 12: feed.LastUpdatedTime = DateTime.Now; 13: feed.Authors.Add(new SyndicationPerson() {Name=ownerName, Email=ownerEmail }); 14: var extensions = feed.ElementExtensions; 15: extensions.Add(new XElement(itunesNS + "subtitle", subTitle).CreateReader()); 16: extensions.Add(new XElement(itunesNS + "image", 17: new XAttribute("href", imageUrl)).CreateReader()); 18: extensions.Add(new XElement(itunesNS + "author", ownerName).CreateReader()); 19: extensions.Add(new XElement(itunesNS + "summary", description).CreateReader()); 20: extensions.Add(new XElement(itunesNS + "category", 21: new XAttribute("text", category), 22: new XElement(itunesNS + "category", 23: new XAttribute("text", subCategory))).CreateReader()); 24: extensions.Add(new XElement(itunesNS + "explicit", "no").CreateReader()); 25: extensions.Add(new XDocument( 26: new XElement(itunesNS + "owner", 27: new XElement(itunesNS + "name", ownerName), 28: new XElement(itunesNS + "email", ownerEmail))).CreateReader()); 29:   30: var feedItems = new List<SyndicationItem>(); 31: foreach (var i in Items) 32: { 33: var item = new SyndicationItem(i.title, null, new Uri(link)); 34: item.Summary = new TextSyndicationContent(i.summary); 35: item.Id = i.id; 36: if (i.publishedDate != null) 37: item.PublishDate = (DateTimeOffset)i.publishedDate; 38: item.Links.Add(new SyndicationLink() { 39: Title = i.title, Uri = new Uri(link), 40: Length = i.size, MediaType = i.mediaType }); 41: var itemExt = item.ElementExtensions; 42: itemExt.Add(new XElement(itunesNS + "subtitle", i.subTitle).CreateReader()); 43: itemExt.Add(new XElement(itunesNS + "summary", i.summary).CreateReader()); 44: itemExt.Add(new XElement(itunesNS + "duration", 45: string.Format("{0}:{1:00}:{2:00}", 46: i.duration.Hours, i.duration.Minutes, i.duration.Seconds) 47: ).CreateReader()); 48: itemExt.Add(new XElement(itunesNS + "keywords", i.keywords).CreateReader()); 49: itemExt.Add(new XElement(itunesNS + "explicit", "no").CreateReader()); 50: itemExt.Add(new XElement("enclosure", new XAttribute("url", i.url), 51: new XAttribute("length", i.size), new XAttribute("type", i.mediaType))); 52: feedItems.Add(item); 53: } 54:   55: feed.Items = feedItems; If you're hosting your podcast feed within a MVC project, you can use the code from my previous post to stream it. Once you have created your feed, you can use the Feed Validator tool to make sure it is up to spec.  Or you can use iTunes: Launch iTunes. In the Advanced menu, select Subscribe to Podcast. Enter your feed URL in the text box and click OK. After you've verified your feed is solid & good to go, you can submit it to iTunes.  Launch iTunes. In the left navigation column, click on iTunes Store to open the store. Once the store loads, click on Podcasts along the top navigation bar to go to the Podcasts page. In the right column of the Podcasts page, click on the Submit a Podcast link. Follow the instructions on the Submit a Podcast page. Here are the full instructions.  Once they have approved your podcast, it will be available within iTunes. RIM has also gotten into the podcasting business...which is great for BlackBerry users.  They accept the same enhanced-RSS feed that iTunes uses, so just create an account with them & submit the feed's URL.  It goes through a similar approval process to iTunes.  BlackBerry users must be on BlackBerry 6 OS or download the Podcast App from App World. In my next post, I'll show how to build the podcast feed dynamically from the ID3 tags within the MP3 files.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, July 01, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, July 01, 2012Popular ReleasesEnterprise Library 5 Caching with ProtoBuf.NET: Initial Release: This is the initial version, which includes zipped up sourcecode????: ????2.0.3: 1、???????????。 2、????????。 3、????????????。 4、bug??，????。Apworks: Apworks (v2.5.4563.21309, 30JUN2012): Installation Prerequisites: 1. Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 SP1 2. Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 SP1 3. Other required libraries & assemblies are now included in the installation package so no more prerequisites needed Functional Updates: 1. Refactor the identity field of the IEntity interface from 'Id' to 'ID' 2. Changed the MySql Storage to use the MySql NetConnector version 6.4.4. 3. Implemented the paging support for the repositories. 4. Added the Eager Loading Property specification t...Turing Machine Simulator in C#: TuringMachineSimulator 1.0 Setup: Initial release.RESTester: First version: First beta release that contain following features: - specify http method - specify content type - specify url - specify custom headers - make request - see request result in plain text, XML, JSON, WEB form - save request to DB - load request from DB - delete request from DBScreen Mate: ScreenMate17551.7z: ScreenMate17551.7z - Full Source StarTrek.exe - Just the exe for USSExcelsiorNCC-2000myManga: myManga v1.0.0.6: ChangeLogUpdating from Previous Version: Extract contents of Release - myManga v1.0.0.5.zip to previous version's folder. Replaces: myManga.exe BakaBox.dll CoreMangaClasses.dll Manga.dll Plugins/MangaReader.manga.dll Plugins/MangaFox.manga.dll Plugins/MangaHere.manga.dll Plugins/MangaPanda.manga.dllMagelia WebStore Open-source Ecommerce software: Magelia WebStore 2.0: User Right Licensing ContentType version 2.0.267.1Supporting Guidance and Whitepapers: v1 - Supporting Media: Welcome to the Release Candidate (RC) release of the ALM Rangers Readiness supporting edia As this is a RC release and the quality bar for the final Release has not been achieved, we value your candid feedback and recommend that you do not use or deploy these RC artifacts in a production environment. Quality-Bar Details All critical bugs have been resolved Known Issues / Bugs Practical Ruck training workshop not yet includedDesigning Windows 8 Applications with C# and XAML: Chapters 1 - 7 Release Preview: Source code for all examples from Chapters 1 - 7 for the Release PreviewMicrosoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.57: Fix for issue #18284: evaluating literal expressions in the pattern c1 * (x / c2) where c1/c2 is an integer value (as opposed to c2/c1 being the integer) caused the expression to be destroyed.Visual Studio ALM Quick Reference Guidance: v2 - Visual Studio 2010 (Japanese): Rex Tang (?? ??) http://blogs.msdn.com/b/willy-peter_schaub/archive/2011/12/08/introducing-the-visual-studio-alm-rangers-rex-tang.aspx, Takaho Yamaguchi (?? ??), Masashi Fujiwara (?? ??), localized and reviewed the Quick Reference Guidance for the Japanese communities, based on http://vsarquickguide.codeplex.com/releases/view/52402. The Japanese guidance is available in AllGuides and Everything packages. The AllGuides package contains guidances in PDF file format, while the Everything packag...Visual Studio Team Foundation Server Branching and Merging Guide: v1 - Visual Studio 2010 (Japanese): Rex Tang (?? ??) http://blogs.msdn.com/b/willy-peter_schaub/archive/2011/12/08/introducing-the-visual-studio-alm-rangers-rex-tang.aspx, Takaho Yamaguchi (?? ??), Hirokazu Higashino (?? ??), localized and reviewed the Branching Guidance for the Japanese communities, based on http://vsarbranchingguide.codeplex.com/releases/view/38849. The Japanese guidance is available in AllGuides and Everything packages. The AllGuides package contains guidances in PDF file format, while the Everything packag...SQL Server FineBuild: Version 3.1.0: Top SQL Server FineBuild Version 3.1.0This is the stable version of FineBuild for SQL Server 2012, 2008 R2, 2008 and 2005 Documentation FineBuild Wiki containing details of the FineBuild process Known Issues Limitations with this release FineBuild V3.1.0 Release Contents List of changes included in this release Please DonateFineBuild is free, but please donate what you think FineBuild is worth as everything goes to charity. Tearfund is one of the UK's leading relief and de...EasySL: RapidSL V2: Rewrite RapidSL UI Framework, Using Silverlight 5.0 EF4.1 Code First Ria Service SP2 + Lastest Silverlight Toolkit.SOLID by example: All examples: All solid examplesSiteMap Editor for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: SiteMap Editor (1.1.1726.406): Use of new version of connection controls for a full support of OSDP authentication mechanism for CRM Online.Umbraco CMS: Umbraco CMS 5.2: Development on Umbraco v5 discontinued After much discussion and consultation with leaders from the Umbraco community it was decided that work on the v5 branch would be discontinued with efforts being refocused on the stable and feature rich v4 branch. For full details as to why this decision was made please watch the CodeGarden 12 Keynote. What about all that hard work?!?? We are not binning everything and it does not mean that all work done on 5 is lost! we are taking all of the best and m...CodeGenerate: CodeGenerate Alpha: The Project can auto generate C# code. Include BLL Layer、Domain Layer、IDAL Layer、DAL Layer. Support SqlServer And Oracle This is a alpha program,but which can run and generate code. Generate database table info into MS WordXDA ROM HUB: XDA ROM HUB v0.9: Kernel listing added -- Thanks to iONEx Added scripts installer button. Added "Nandroid On The Go" -- Perform a Nandroid backup without a PC! Added official Android app!New ProjectsAdventureWorks Portal: This project will serve as a demonstration of web-based composite application using HTML 5 (with JSRender), ASP.NET MVC 4, Unity, and Entity Framework.Arkalia Core: Basic vD1.29.1 emulatorBooncraft: This project is a launcher for minecraft that loads and updates the BoonCraft mod pack. See 352n.dyndns.org for more info on BoonCraft.CloudWebSiteDemo: Windows Azure demo codeComputer Mayhem: Computer Mayhem is a growing collection of computer related add-ons for Mayhem.CSharp Extensions: Piccolo insieme di estensioni alla libreria standard di C#D3MediaLib: Diablo 3 Media LibraryEpub Editor: A simple epub editor that allows you to make quick changes to epub source files.IpScanner: The IpScanner windows application should help discovering hosts in a ip based network. The project is written in C#jQuery UI Script# Import Library: This library allows you to develop C# code against the jQueryUI API. This library is a Script# import library with definitions for the jQueryUI v1.8.21 API.Mayhem KeyLogger: The reaction module created allows for a given user to write text to a given file. When enough mappings between Key Press Events and my reaction module, the MayMayhem Keypress Module: The Mayhem Keypress Module was written as a reaction module for the purpose of simulating a keypress. Given an event, a certain key will be pressed in reaction.mIP - A C# Managed TCP/IP Stack for .NET Micro Framework: A fully managed TCP/IP stack for .NET MicroFramework with the primary purpose of enabling web servers. Local Name Resolution for Windows and iOS is automatic!OL 2012 Mayhem: OL 2012 Mayhem is a collection of OL 2012 related add-ons for Mayhem.PHP Code Model: A PHP class library that abstracts PHP language constructs with the goal is to facilitate automated PHP code generationQTalk: QChat, using Gtalk technologyreal date & time for command mode in windows OS: This is a console application to output date and time in specified format in Windows OS both 32 and 64 bits.RESTester: Help to create web requests with all needed customization. Available possibility to save any request to database and in any time recover it.Screen Mate: This project is an open source Visual Studio 2010 C# WinForms screen mate template. As a Star Trek fan (Trekee) my first screen mate will be starships.Sensor Mayhem: Sensor Mayhem is a growing collection of sensor and location related add-ons for Mayhem.SharpTFTP: TFTP server/client lib for .Net/C# (v3.5) implementing RFC1350 The TFTP Protocol (Revision 2), RFC2347 TFTP Option Extension and RFC 2348 TFTP Blocksize Option.Turing Machine Simulator in C#: Turing machine simulator simulates the working of Turing machine. Turing machine is used to study model of computation. Twilio Mayhem: Twilio Mayhem is a growing collection of Twilio related add-ons for Mayhem.Vimeo API for Metro and Windows Runtime: This library helps you to easily access the Vimeo Advanced API from your Metro style applications. It is based on the VimeoDotNet code, and supports Upload API.?????????? ?????: ?????????? ????? ?????????? ? ?????????????? ????????? ??????? ?????????????????? ? ????????? ???????

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• Responsive Inline Elements with Twitter Bootstrap

  - by MightyZot

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/MightyZot/archive/2013/11/12/responsive-inline-elements-with-twitter-bootstrap.aspxTwitter Boostrap is a responsive css platform created by some dudes affiliated with Twitter and since supported and maintained by an open source following. I absolutely love the new version of this css toolkit. They rebuilt it with a mobile first strategy and it’s very easy to layout pages once you get the hang of it. Using a css / javascript framework like bootstrap is certainly much easier than coding your layout by hand. And, you get a “leg up” when it comes to adding responsive features to your site. Bootstrap includes column layout classes that let you specify size and placement based upon the viewport width. In addition, there are a handful of responsive helpers to hide and show content based upon the user’s device size. Most notably, the visible-xs, visible-sm, visible-md, and visible-lg classes let you show content for devices corresponding to those sizes (they are listed in the bootstrap docs.) hidden-xs, hidden-sm, hidden-md, and hidden-lg let you hide content for devices with those respective sizes. These helpers work great for showing and hiding block elements. Unfortunately, there isn’t a provision yet in Twitter Bootstrap (as of the time of this writing) for inline elements. We are using the navbar classes to create a navigation bar at the top of our website, www.crowdit.com. When you shrink the width of the screen to tablet or phone size, the tools in the navbar are turned into a drop down menu, and a button appears on the right side of the navbar. This is great! But, we wanted different content to display based upon whether the items were on the navbar versus when they were in the dropdown menu. The visible-?? and hidden-?? classes make this easy for images and block elements. In our case, we wanted our anchors to show different text depending upon whether they’re in the navbar, or in the dropdown. span is inherently inline and it can be a block element. My first approach was to create two anchors for each options, one set visible when the navbar is on a desktop or laptop with a wide display and another set visible when the elements converted to a dropdown menu. That works fine with the visible-?? and hidden-?? classes, but it just doesn’t seem that clean to me. I put up with that for about a week…last night I created the following classes to augment the block-based classes provided by bootstrap. .cdt-hidden-xs, .cdt-hidden-sm, .cdt-hidden-md, .cdt-hidden-lg {     display: inline !important; } @media (max-width:767px) {     .cdt-hidden-xs, .cdt-hidden-sm.cdt-hidden-xs, .cdt-hidden-md.cdt-hidden-xs, .cdt-hidden-lg.cdt-hidden-xs {         display: none !important;     } } @media (min-width:768px) and (max-width:991px) {     .cdt-hidden-xs.cdt-hidden-sm, .cdt-hidden-sm, .cdt-hidden-md.cdt-hidden-sm, .cdt-hidden-lg.cdt-hidden-sm {         display: none !important;     } } @media (min-width:992px) and (max-width:1199px) {     .cdt-hidden-xs.cdt-hidden-md, .cdt-hidden-sm.cdt-hidden-md, .cdt-hidden-md, .cdt-hidden-lg.cdt-hidden-md {         display: none !important;     } } @media (min-width:1200px) {     .cdt-hidden-xs.cdt-hidden-lg, .cdt-hidden-sm.cdt-hidden-lg, .cdt-hidden-md.cdt-hidden-lg, .cdt-hidden-lg {         display: none !important;     } } .cdt-visible-xs, .cdt-visible-sm, .cdt-visible-md, .cdt-visible-lg {     display: none !important; } @media (max-width:767px) {     .cdt-visible-xs, .cdt-visible-sm.cdt-visible-xs, .cdt-visible-md.cdt-visible-xs, .cdt-visible-lg.cdt-visible-xs {         display: inline !important;     } } @media (min-width:768px) and (max-width:991px) {     .cdt-visible-xs.cdt-visible-sm, .cdt-visible-sm, .cdt-visible-md.cdt-visible-sm, .cdt-visible-lg.cdt-visible-sm {         display: inline !important;     } } @media (min-width:992px) and (max-width:1199px) {     .cdt-visible-xs.cdt-visible-md, .cdt-visible-sm.cdt-visible-md, .cdt-visible-md, .cdt-visible-lg.cdt-visible-md {         display: inline !important;     } } @media (min-width:1200px) {     .cdt-visible-xs.cdt-visible-lg, .cdt-visible-sm.cdt-visible-lg, .cdt-visible-md.cdt-visible-lg, .cdt-visible-lg {         display: inline !important;     } } I created these by looking at the example provided by bootstrap and consolidating the styles. “cdt” is just a prefix that I’m using to distinguish these classes from the block-based classes in bootstrap. You are welcome to change the prefix to whatever feels right for you. These classes can be applied to spans in textual content to hide and show text based upon the browser width. Applying the styles is simple… <span class=”cdt-visible-xs”>This text is visible in extra small</span> <span class=”cdt-visible-sm”>This text is visible in small</span> Why would you want to do this? Here are a couple of examples, shown in screen shots. This is the CrowdIt navbar on larger displays. Notice how the text is two line and certain words are capitalized? Now, check this out! Here is a screen shot showing the dropdown menu that’s displayed when the browser window is tablet or phone sized. The markup to make this happen is quite simple…take a look. <li>     <a href="@Url.Action("what-is-crowdit","home")" title="Learn about what CrowdIt can do for your Small Business">         <span class="cdt-hidden-xs">WHAT<br /><small>is CrowdIt?</small></span>         <span class="cdt-visible-xs">What is CrowdIt?</span>     </a> </li> There is a single anchor tag in this example and only the spans change visibility based on browser width. I left them separate for readability and because I wanted to use the small tag; however, you could just as easily hide the “WHAT” and the br tag on small displays and replace them with “What “, consolidating this even further to text containing a single span. <span class=”cdt-hidden-xs”>WHAT<br /></span><span class=”cdt-visible-xs”>What </span>is CrowdIt? You might be a master of css and have a better method of handling this problem. If so, I’d love to hear about your solution…leave me some feedback! You’ll be entered into a drawing for a chance to win an autographed picture of ME! Yay!

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• Tools of the Trade

  - by Ajarn Mark Caldwell

  I got pretty excited a couple of days ago when my new laptop arrived. “The new phone books are here!  The new phone books are here!  I’m a somebody!” - Steve Martin in The Jerk It is a Dell Precision M4500 with an Intel i7 Core 2.8 GHZ running 64-bit Windows 7 with a 15.6” widescreen, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD.  For some of you high fliers, this may be nothing to write home about, but compared to the 32–bit Windows XP laptop with 2 GB of RAM and a regular hard disk that I’m coming from, it’s a really nice step forward.  I won’t even bore you with the details of the desktop PC I was first given when I started here 5 1/2 years ago.  Let’s just say that things have improved.  One really nice thing is that while we are definitely running a lean and mean department in terms of staffing, my boss believes in supporting that lean staff with good tools in order to stay lean instead of having to spend even more money on additional employees.  Of course, that only goes so far, and at some point you have to add more people in order to get more work done, which is why we are bringing on-board a new employee and a new contract developer next week.  But that’s a different story for a different time. But the main topic for this post is to highlight the variety of tools that I use in my job and that you might find useful, too.  This is easy to do right now because the process of building up my new laptop from scratch has forced me to assemble a list of software that had to be installed and configured.  Keep in mind as you look through this list that I play many roles in our company.  My official title is Software Engineering Manager, but in addition to managing the team, I am also an active ASP.NET and SQL developer, the Database Administrator, and 50% of the SAN Administrator team.  So, without further ado, here are the tools and some comments about why I use them: Tool Purpose Virtual Clone Drive Easily mount an ISO image as a DVD Drive.  This is particularly handy when you are downloading disk images from Microsoft for your tools. SQL Server 2008 R2 Developer Edition We are migrating all of our active systems to SQL 2008 R2.  Developer Edition has all the features of Enterprise Edition, but intended for development use. SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition (BIDS ONLY) The migration to SSRS 2008 R2 is just getting started, and in the meantime, maintenance work still has to be done on the reports on our SQL 2005 server.  For some reason, you can’t use BIDS from 2008 to write reports for a 2005 server.  There is some different format and when you open 2005 reports in 2008 BIDS, it forces you to upgrade, and they can no longer be uploaded to a 2005 server.  Hopefully Microsoft will fix this soon in some manner similar to Visual Studio now allows you to pick which version of the .NET Framework you are coding against. Visual Studio 2010 Premium All of our application development is in ASP.NET, and we might as well use the tool designed for it. I’ve used a version of Visual Studio going all the way back to VB 6.0 and Visual Interdev. Vault Professional Client Several years ago we replaced Visual Source Safe with SourceGear Vault (then Fortress, and now Vault Pro), and I love it.  It is very reliable with low overhead - perfect for a small to medium size development team.  And being a small ISV, their support is exceptional. Red-Gate Developer Bundle with the SQL Source Control update for Vault I first used, and fell in love with, SQL Prompt shortly before Red-Gate bought it, and then Red-Gate’s first release made me love it even more.  SQL Refactor (which has since been rolled into the latest version of SQL Prompt) has saved me many hours and migraine’s trying to understand somebody else’s code when their indenting was nonexistant, or worse, irrational.  SQL Compare has been awesome for troubleshooting potential schema issues between different instances of system databases.  SQL Data Compare helped us identify the cause behind a bug which appeared in PROD but could not be reproduced in a nearly (but not quite exactly) identical copy in UAT.  And the newest tool we are embracing: SQL Source Control.  I blogged about it here (and here, and here) last December.  This is really going to help us keep each developer’s copy of the database in sync with one another. Fiddler Helps you watch the whole traffic stream on web visits.  Haven’t used it a lot, but it did help me track down some odd 404 errors we were finding in our own application logs.  Has some other JavaScript troubleshooting capabilities, but some of its usefulness has been supplanted by the Developer Tools option in IE8. Funduc Search & Replace Find any string anywhere in a mound of source code really, really fast.  Does RegEx searches, if you understand that foreign language.  Has really helped with some refactoring work to pinpoint, for example, everywhere a particular stored procedure is referenced, whether in .NET code or other SQL procedures (which we have in script files).  Provides in-context preview of the search results.  Fantastic tool, and a bargain price. SciTE SciTE is a Scintilla based Text Editor and it is a fantastic, light-weight tool for quickly reviewing (or writing) program code, SQL scripts, and extract files.  It has language-specific syntax highlighting.  I used it to write several batch and CMD programs a year ago, and to examine data extract files for exchanging information with other systems.  Extremely handy are the options to View End of Line and View Whitespace.  Ever receive a file that is supposed to use CRLF as an end-of-line marker, but really only has CRs?  SciTE will quickly make that visible. Infragistics Controls We do a lot of ASP.NET development, and frequently use the WebGrid, WebTab, and date picker controls.  We will likely be implementing the Hierarchical Data Grid soon.  Infragistics has control suites for WebForms, WinForms, Silverlight, and coming soon MVC/JQuery. WinZip - WITH Command-Line add-in The classic compression program with a great command-line interface that allows me to build those CMD (and soon PowerShell) programs for automated compression jobs.  Our versioned Build packages are zip files. XML Notepad Haven’t used this a lot myself, but one of my team really likes it for examining large XML files. LINQPad Again, haven’t used this one a lot, but it was recommended to me for learning and practicing my LINQ skills which will come in handy as we implement Entity Framework. SQL Sentry Plan Explorer SQL Server Show Plan on steroids.  Great for helping you focus on the parts of a large query that are of most importance.  Also great for just compressing the graphical plan into more readable layout. Araxis Merge A great DIFF and Merge tool.  SourceGear provides a great tool called DiffMerge that we use all the time, but occasionally, I like the cross-edit capabilities of Araxis Merge.  For a while, we also produced DIFF reports in HTML that showed all the changes that occurred between two releases.  This was most important when we were putting out very small, but very important hot fixes on a very politically hot system.  The reports produced by Araxis Merge gave the Director of IS assurance that we were not accidentally introducing ripples throughout the system with our releases. Idera SQL Admin Toolset A great collection of tools including a password checker to help analyze your SQL Server for weak user passwords, a Backup Status tool to quickly scan a large list of servers and databases to identify any that are overdue for backups.  Particularly helpful for highlighting new databases that have been deployed without getting included in your backup processing.  I also like Space Analyzer to keep an eye on disk space consumed by database files. Idera SQL Job Manager This free tool provides a nice calendar view of SQL Server Job Schedules, but to a degree, you also get what you pay for.  We will be purchasing SQL Sentry Event Manager later this year as an even better job schedule reviewer/manager.  But in the meantime, this at least gives me a good view on potential resource conflicts across multiple instances of SQL Server. DBFViewer 2000 I inherited a couple of FoxPro databases that I have to keep an eye on occasionally and have not yet been able to migrate them to SQL Server. Balsamiq Mockups We are still in evaluation-mode on this tool, but I really like it as a quick UI mockup tool that does not require Visual Studio, so someone other than a programmer can do UI design.  The interface looks hand-drawn which definitely has some psychological benefits when communicating to users, too. FeedDemon I have to stay on top of my WAY TOO MANY blog subscriptions somehow.  I may read blogs on a couple of different computers, and FeedDemon’s integration with Google Reader allows me to keep them all in sync.  I don’t particularly like the Google Reader interface, or the fact that it always wanted to mark articles as read just because I scrolled past them.  FeedDemon solves this problem for me, and provides a multi-tabbed interface which is good because fairly frequently one blog will link to something else I want to read, and I can end up with a half-dozen open tabs all from one article. Synergy+ In my office, I run four monitors across two computers all with one mouse and keyboard.  Synergy is the magic software that makes this work. TweetDeck I’m not the most active Tweeter in the world, but when I want to check-in with the Twitterverse, this really helps.  I have found the #sqlhelp and #PoshHelp hash tags particularly useful, and I also have columns setup to make it easy to monitor #sqlpass, #PASSProfDev, and short term events like #sqlsat68.   Whew!  That’s a lot.  No wonder it took me a couple of days to get everything setup the way I wanted it.  Oh, that and actually getting some work accomplished at the same time.  Anyway, I know that is a huge dump of info, and most people never make it here to the end, so for those who did, let me say, CONGRATULATIONS, you made it! I hope you’ll find a new tool or two to make your work life a little easier.

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• Tailoring the Oracle Fusion Applications User Interface with Oracle Composer

  - by mvaughan

  By Killian Evers, Oracle Applications User Experience Changing the user interface (UI) is one of the most common modifications customers perform to Oracle Fusion Applications. Typically, customers add or remove a field based on their needs. Oracle makes the process of tailoring easier for customers, and reduces the burden for their IT staff, which you can read about on the Usable Apps website or in an earlier VoX post.This is the first in a series of posts that will talk about the tools that Oracle has provided for tailoring with its family of composers. These tools are designed for business systems analysts, and they allow employees other than IT staff to make changes in an upgrade-safe and patch-friendly manner. Let’s take a deep dive into one of these composers, the Oracle Composer. Oracle Composer allows business users to modify existing UIs after they have been deployed and are in use. It is an integral component of our SaaS offering. Using Oracle Composer, users can control:     •    Who sees the changes     •    When the changes are made     •    What changes are made Change for me, change for you, change for all of youOne of the most powerful aspects of Oracle Composer is its flexibility. Oracle uses Oracle Composer to make changes for a user or group of users – those who see the changes. A user of Oracle Fusion Applications can make changes to the user interface at runtime via Oracle Composer, and these changes will remain every time they log into the system. For example, they can rearrange certain objects on a page, add and remove designated content, and save queries.Business systems analysts can make changes to Oracle Fusion Application UIs for groups of users or all users. Oracle’s Fusion Middleware Metadata Services (MDS) stores these changes and retrieves them at runtime, merging customizations with the base metadata and revealing the final experience to the end user. A tailored application can have multiple customization layers, and some layers can be specific to certain Fusion Applications. Some examples of customization layers are: site, organization, country, or role. Customization layers are applied in a specific order of precedence on top of the base application metadata. This image illustrates how customization layers are applied.What time is it?Users make changes to UIs at design time, runtime, and design time at runtime. Design time changes are typically made by application developers using an integrated development environment, or IDE, such as Oracle JDeveloper. Once made, these changes are then deployed to managed servers by application administrators. Oracle Composer covers the other two areas: Runtime changes and design time at runtime changes. When we say users are making changes at runtime, we mean that the changes are made within the running application and take effect immediately in the running application. A prime example of this ability is users who make changes to their running application that only affect the UIs they see. What is new with Oracle Composer is the last area: Design time at runtime.  A business systems analyst can make changes to the UIs at runtime but does not have to make those changes immediately to the application. These changes are stored as metadata, separate from the base application definitions. Customizations made at runtime can be saved in a sandbox so that the changes can be isolated and validated before being published into an environment, without the need to redeploy the application. What can I do?Oracle Composer can be run in one of two modes. Depending on which mode is chosen, you may have different capabilities available for changing the UIs. The first mode is view mode, the most common default mode for most pages. This is the mode that is used for personalizations or user customizations. Users can access this mode via the Personalization link (see below) in the global region on Oracle Fusion Applications pages. In this mode, you can rearrange components on a page with drag-and-drop, collapse or expand components, add approved external content, and change the overall layout of a page. However, all of the changes made this way are exclusive to that particular user.The second mode, edit mode, is typically made available to select users with access privileges to edit page content. We call these folks business systems analysts. This mode is used to make UI changes for groups of users. Users with appropriate privileges can access the edit mode of Oracle Composer via the Administration menu (see below) in the global region on Oracle Fusion Applications pages. In edit mode, users can also add components, delete components, and edit component properties. While in edit mode in Oracle Composer, there are two views that assist the business systems analyst with making UI changes: Design View and Source View (see below). Design View, the default view, is a WYSIWYG rendering of the page and its content. The business systems analyst can perform these actions: Add content – including custom content like a portlet displaying news or stock quotes, or predefined content delivered from Oracle Fusion Applications (including ADF components and task flows) Rearrange content – performed via drag-and-drop on the page or by using the actions menu of a component or portlet to move content around Edit component properties and parameters – for specific components, control the visual properties such as text or display labels, or parameters such as RSS feeds Hide or show components – hidden components can be re-shown Delete components Change page layout – users can select from eight pre-defined layouts Edit page properties – create or edit a page’s parameters and display properties Reset page customizations – remove edits made to the page in the current layer and/or reset the page to a previous state. Detailed information on each of these capabilities and the additional actions not covered in the list above can be found in the Oracle® Fusion Middleware Developer's Guide for Oracle WebCenter.This image shows what the screen looks like in Design View.Source View, the second option in the edit mode of Oracle Composer, provides a WYSIWYG and a hierarchical rendering of page components in a component navigator. In Source View, users can access and modify properties of components that are not otherwise selectable in Design View. For example, many ADF Faces components can be edited only in Source View. Users can also edit components within a task flow. This image shows what the screen looks like in Source View.Detailed information on Source View can be found in the Oracle® Fusion Middleware Developer's Guide for Oracle WebCenter.Oracle Composer enables any application or portal to be customized or personalized after it has been deployed and is in use. It is designed to be extremely easy to use so that both business systems analysts and users can edit Oracle Fusion Applications pages with a few clicks of the mouse. Oracle Composer runs in all modern browsers and provides a rich, dynamic way to edit JSF application and portal pages.From the editor: The next post in this series about composers will be on Data Composer. You can also catch Killian speaking about extensibility at OpenWorld 2012 and in her Faces of Fusion video.

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• How does one get rid of fishy behavior in Windows?

  - by Tom Wijsman

  After I had boot my computer this morning there suddenly flooded water from the top of the screen, after which some fishes dropped into it. Now I can barely see what I am doing because the water distorts the view. Sometimes the fish follow the cursor so I need to move it away or wait for the fish to mind their own business. This makes it very annoying to use my system. What have I tried? Reboot the system. This caused the water to deplete from the desktop. Upon reboot, the screen was refilled with water and fishes. Attach another monitor. Same problem, fills that monitor as well and gives me extra fish. Clicking the fish. Makes them turn direction. Right clicking the fish. Changes color of the fish, not really useful. I'm locked out of changing the background or screen saver settings. Hence, I had to post the lady below... Safe mode doesn't save me from the fishes. It does give me another background there, but I can't screenshot easily. Other user accounts experience this as well. The Guest account seems to experience more fish than the other accounts. Using HijackThis, OTL Timekeeper List, Syninternal Autoruns, RootKitRevealer, ShellExView and similar tools I can't seem to find any entries that could be it, the Sysinternals tools show everything as verified. I'm suspecting this to be a driver problem. Randomly removing drivers doesn't seem to alleviate the problem. When removing the Graphics Drivers, it makes my screen black. While that could be considered the solution, it's not what I want. Changing the time / date settings does also not seem to affect the fishes. Changing the time a few years in the future, I would have expected the fishes to be dead. But, the same fishes are still there... They simply won't die! Tried to get used to them. They are really bothering me, looks like they require food. I don't know how to give them food, but apparently they get it elsewhere during reboot... Tried to disable my mouse pointer and use the keyboard. This works, they now swim around more randomly. They do put their attention to huge changes on the screen, so I need to type slow. Or otherwise I can't see what I'm tying exactly. Hold my laptop upside down. This seems to affect the water and fishes, but the water stays in the screen. They seem super resistant against water sickness and confusion though... What does the problem look like? What do I need? A way to get rid of these fishes on my screen forever, they are really annoying me a lot and I'm about to crack the screen to see if that makes them escape. Do you have any idea why this problem is occurring? What are my considerations? Buying an USB fish tank could make the fish leave the screen, I am uncertain though whether the fish could leave the screen through the USB cable. Using the FISh (programming language) which seems to provide EXPRESSIVE POWER and EFFICIENT EXECUTION, I can however not find any examples on how to remove fish. What are my Specifications? I'm using a Sony Vaio Fishy laptop. Sony VAIO VGN-Fishy, VAIO. Processor: 1337 MHz, Intel Core 2 Duo, T5432, 1 MB, Intel PM965 Express, 667 MHz. Memory: 1024 MB, DDR2-SDRAM, 667 MHz, 2 x 1024 MB, 4 GB. Disk Drive: 50 GB, Serial ATA, 5400 RPM. Storage Media: Memory Stick™, Memory Stick PRO™. Display: 15.4 ", 1280 x 800 pixels, LCD. Video: GeForce 8400M GT, 128 MB. Optical Drive: DVD±R/RW DL, 24 x, 24 x, 24 x, 6 x, 4 x, 6 x, 4 x, 5 x, 5 x, 8 x, 8 x, 8 x, 8 x, 6 x, 6 x, 24 x, 24 x, 24 x, 16 x. Camera: 1.3 MP, 30 fps. Networking: 2.0+EDR. Keyboard: Touchpad, AZERTY. Operating System/Software: Windows Vista Home Premium. Security: Kensington. Weight & Dimensions: 98.8 oz (2800 g), 14 " (355.8 mm), 10 " (254.4 mm), 0.98 " (24.9 mm). Other features: 100 BASE-TX/10 BASE-T, 802.11a/b/g/n/Draft n, V92/V.90, fishes. Plz! Help me...

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