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• How to Easily Put a Windows PC into Kiosk Mode With Assigned Access

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Windows 8.1′s Assigned Access feature allows you to easily lock a Windows PC to a single application, such as a web browser. This feature makes it easy for anyone to configure Windows 8.1 devices as point-of-sale or other kiosk systems. In the past, setting up a Windows PC in kiosk mode involved much more work, requiring the use of third-party software, group policy, or Linux distributions designed around kiosk mode. Assigned Access is available on Windows 8.1 RT, Windows 8.1 Professional, and Windows 8.1 Enterprise. The standard edition of Windows 8.1 doesn’t support Assigned Access. Create a User Account for Assigned Access Rather than turn your entire computer into a locked-down kiosk system, Assigned Access allows you to create a separate user account that can only launch a single app — such as a web browser. To set this up, you must be logged into Windows as a user with administrator permissions. First, open the PC settings app — swipe in from the right or press Windows Key + C to open the charms bar, tap Settings, and tap Change PC settings. In the PC settings app, select Accounts and select Other accounts. Use the Add an account button to create a new Windows account. Select  the “Sign in without a Microsoft account” option and select Local account to create a local user account. You could also create a Microsoft account, but you may not want to do this if you just want a locked-down account with only browser access. If you need to install apps from the Windows Store to use in Assigned Access mode, you’ll have to set up a Microsoft account instead of a local account. A local account will still allow you access to the preinstalled apps, such as Internet Explorer. You may want to create a user account with a blank password. This would make it simple for anyone to access kiosk mode, even if the system becomes locked or needs to be rebooted. The account will be created as a standard user account with limited permissions. Leave it as a standard user account — don’t make it an administrator account. Set Up Assigned Access Once you’ve created an account, you’ll first need to sign into it. If you don’t, you’ll see a “This account has no apps” message when trying to enable Assigned Access. Go back to the welcome screen, log in to the new account you created, and allow Windows to go through the first-time account setup process. If you want to use a non-default app in kiosk mode, install it while logged in as that user account. Once you’re done, log out of the other account, log back in as your administrator account, and go back to the Other accounts screen. Click the Set up an account for assigned access option to continue. Select the user account you created and select the app you want to limit the account to. For a web-based kiosk, this can be a web browser such as the Modern version of Internet Explorer. Businesses can also create their own Modern apps and set them to run in kiosk mode in this way. Note that Microsoft’s documentation says “web browsers are not good choices for assigned access” because they require more permissions than average Modern (or “Windows Store”) apps. However, if you want to provide a kiosk for web-browsing, using Assigned Access is a much better option than using Guest Mode and offering up a full Windows desktop. When you’re done, restart your PC and log in as the Assigned Access account. Windows will automatically open the app you chose and won’t allow a user to leave that app. Standard Windows 8 features like the charms bar, app switcher, and Start screen won’t appear. Pressing the Windows key once will do nothing. To sign out of Assigned Access mode, press the Windows key five times — quickly — while signed in. You’ll be sent back to the standard login screen. The account will actually still be logged in and the app will remain running — this method just “locks” the screen and allows another user to log in. Automatically Log Into Assigned Access Whenever your Windows device boots, you can log into the Assigned Access account and turn it into a kiosk system. While this isn’t ideal for all kiosk systems, you may want the device to automatically launch the specific app when it boots without requiring any login process. To do so, you’ll just need to have Windows automatically log into the Assigned Access account when it boots. This option is hidden and not available in the standard Control Panel. You’ll need to use the hidden netplwiz Control Panel tool to set up automatic login on boot. If you didn’t create a password for the user account, leave the Password field empty while configuring this. Security Considerations If you’re using this feature to turn a Windows 8.1 system into a kiosk and leaving it open to the public, remember to consider security. Anyone could come up to the system, press the Windows key five times, and try to log into your standard administrator user account. Ensure the administrator user account has a strong password so people won’t be able to get past the kiosk system’s limitations and tamper with the system. Even Windows 8′s detractors have to admit that it’s an ideal system for a touch-screen kiosk device, running either a browser or another specific application. Assigned Access finally makes this easy to set up on Windows systems in the real world — no IT experience, third-party software, or Linux distributions necessary.     

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• Conversion of BizTalk Projects to Use the New WCF-SAP Adaptor

  - by Geordie

  We are in the process of upgrading our BizTalk Environment from BizTalk 2006 R2 to BizTalk 2010. The SAP adaptor in BizTalk 2010 is an all new and more powerful WCF-SAP adaptor. When my colleagues tested out the new adaptor they discovered that the format of the data extracted from SAP was not identical to the old adaptor. This is not a big deal if the structure of the messages from SAP is simple. In this case we were receiving the delivery and invoice iDocs. Both these structures are complex especially the delivery document. Over the past few years I have tweaked the delivery mapping to remove bugs from original mapping. The idea of redoing these maps did not appeal and due to the current work load was not even an option. I opted for a rather crude alternative of pulling in the iDoc in the new typed format and then adding a static map at the start of the orchestration to convert the data to the old schema.  Note WCF-SAP data formats (on the binding tab of the configuration dialog box is the ‘RecieiveIdocFormat’ field): Typed:  Returns a XML document with the hierarchy represented in XML and all fields being represented by XML tags. RFC: Returns an XML document with the hierarchy represented in XML but the iDoc lines in flat file format. String: This returns the iDoc in a format that is closest to the original flat file format but is still wrapped with some top level XML tags. The files also contained some strange characters at the end of each line. I started with the invoice document and it was quite straight forward to add the mapping but this is where my problems started. The orchestrations for these documents are dynamic and so require the identity of the partner to be able to correctly configure the orchestration. The partner identity is in the EDI_DC40 segment of the iDoc. In the old project the RECPRN node of the segment was promoted. The code to set a variable to the partner ID was now failing. After lot of head scratching I discovered the problem was due to the addition of Namespaces to the fields in the EDI_DC40 segment. To overcome this I needed to use an xPath query with a Namespace Manager. This had to be done in custom code. I now tried to repeat the process with the delivery document. Unfortunately when we tried to get sample typed data from SAP an exception was thrown. The adapter "WCF-SAP" raised an error message. Details "Microsoft.ServiceModel.Channels.Common.XmlReaderGenerationException: The segment or group definition E2EDKA1001 was not found in the IDoc metadata. The UniqueId of the IDoc type is: IDOCTYP/3/DESADV01/ZASNEXT1/640. For Receive operations, the SAP adapter does not support unreleased segments.   Our guess is that when the WCF-SAP adaptor tries to down load the data it retrieves a data schema from SAP. For some reason the schema does not match the data. This may be due to the version of SAP we are running or due to a customization. Either way resolving this problem did not look easy. When doing some research on this problem I found an article showing me how to get the data from SAP using the WCF-SAP adaptor without any XML tags. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/adapters/archive/2007/10/05/receiving-idocs-getting-the-raw-idoc-data.aspx Reproduction of Mustansir blog: Since the WCF based SAP Adapter is ... well, WCF based, all data flowing in and out of the adapter is encapsulated within a SOAP message. Which means there are those pesky xml tags all over the place. If you want to receive an Idoc from SAP, you can receive it in "Typed" format (in which case each column in each segment of the idoc appears within its own xml tag), or you can receive it in "String" format (in which case there are just 2 xml tags at the top, the raw xml data in string/flat file format, and the 2 closing xml tags). In "String" format, an incoming idoc (for ORDERS05, containing 5 data records) would look like: <ReceiveIdoc ><idocData>EDI_DC40 8000000000001064985620 E2EDK01005 800000000000106498500000100000001 E2EDK14 8000000000001064985000002000000020111000 E2EDK14 8000000000001064985000003000000020081000 E2EDK14 80000000000010649850000040000000200710 E2EDK14 80000000000010649850000050000000200600</idocData></ReceiveIdoc> (I have trimmed part of the control record so that it fits cleanly here on one line). Now, you're only interested in the IDOC data, and don't care much for the XML tags. It isn't that difficult to write your own pipeline component, or even some logic in the orchestration to remove the tags, right? Well, you don't need to write any extra code at all - the WCF Adapter can help you here! During the configuration of your one-way Receive Location using WCF-Custom, navigate to the Messages tab. Under the section "Inbound BizTalk Messge Body", select the "Path" radio button, and: (a) Enter the body path expression as: /*[local-name()='ReceiveIdoc']/*[local-name()='idocData'] (b) Choose "String" for the Node Encoding. What we've done is, used an XPATH to pull out the value of the "idocData" node from the XML. Your Receive Location will now emit text containing only the idoc data. You can at this point, for example, put the Flat File Pipeline component to convert the flat text into a different xml format based on some other schema you already have, and receive your version of the xml formatted message in your orchestration.   This was potentially a much easier solution than adding the static maps to the orchestrations and overcame the issue with ‘Typed’ delivery documents. Not quite so fast… Note: When I followed Mustansir’s blog the characters at the end of each line disappeared. After configuring the adaptor and passing the iDoc data into the original flat file receive pipelines I was receiving exceptions. There was a failure executing the receive pipeline: "PAPINETPipelines.DeliveryFlatFileReceive, CustomerIntegration2.PAPINET.Pipelines, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=4ca3635fbf092bbb" Source: "Pipeline " Receive Port: "recSAP_Delivery" URI: "D:\CustomerIntegration2\SAP\Delivery\*.xml" Reason: An error occurred when parsing the incoming document: "Unexpected data found while looking for: 'Z2EDPZ7' The current definition being parsed is E2EDP07GRP. The stream offset where the error occured is 8859. The line number where the error occured is 23. The column where the error occured is 0.". Although the new flat file looked the same as the old one there was a differences. In the original file all lines in the document were exactly 1064 character long. In the new file all lines were truncated to the last alphanumeric character. The final piece of the puzzle was to add a custom pipeline component to pad all the lines to 1064 characters. This component was added to the decode node of the custom delivery and invoice flat file disassembler pipelines. Execute method of the custom pipeline component: public IBaseMessage Execute(IPipelineContext pc, IBaseMessage inmsg) { //Convert Stream to a string Stream s = null; IBaseMessagePart bodyPart = inmsg.BodyPart;   // NOTE inmsg.BodyPart.Data is implemented only as a setter in the http adapter API and a //getter and setter for the file adapter. Use GetOriginalDataStream to get data instead. if (bodyPart != null) s = bodyPart.GetOriginalDataStream();   string newMsg = string.Empty; string strLine; try { StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(s); strLine = sr.ReadLine(); while (strLine != null) { //Execute padding code if (strLine != null) strLine = strLine.PadRight(1064, ' ') + "\r\n"; newMsg += strLine; strLine = sr.ReadLine(); } sr.Close(); } catch (IOException ex) { throw new Exception("Error occured trying to pad the message to 1064 charactors"); }   //Convert back to stream and set to Data property inmsg.BodyPart.Data = new MemoryStream(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(newMsg)); ; //reset the position of the stream to zero inmsg.BodyPart.Data.Position = 0; return inmsg; }

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• Running TeamCity from Amazon EC2 - Cloud based scalable build and continuous Integration

  - by RoyOsherove

  I’ve been having fun playing with the amazon EC2 cloud service. I set up a server running TeamCity, and an image of a server that just runs a TeamCity agent. I also setup TeamCity  to automatically instantiate agents on EC2 and shut them down based upon availability of free agents. Here’s how I did it: The first step was setting up the teamcity server. Create an account on amazon EC2 (BTW, amazon’s sites works better in IE than it does in chrome.. who knew!?) Open the EC2 dashboard, and click “Launch Instance” . From the “Quick Start” tab I selected from the list: “Getting Started on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (AMI Id: ami-c5e40dac)” .  it’s good enough to just run teamcity. In the instance details, I used the default (Small instance, 1.7 GB mem). You might want to choose a close availability zone based on where you are. We want to “Launch instances” so click continue. Select the default kernel, RAM disk and all. No need to enable monitoring for now (you can do that later). click continue. If you don’t have a key pair, you will be prompted to create one. Once you do, select it in the list. Now you’ll be prompted to create a security group. I named mine “TC” as in “TeamCity”. each group is a bunch of settings on which ports can be let through into and out of a hosted machine.  keep it as the default settings. We will change them later. Click continue,  review and then click “Launch”. Now you’ll be able to see the new instance in the running instances list on your site. Now, you need to install stuff on that instance (TeamCity!) . To do that, you’ll need to Remote desktop into that instance. To do that, we’ll get the admin password for that instance: Check it on the list, and click “Instance Actions” - “Get Windows Admin Password”. You might have to wait about 10 minutes or so for the password to be generated for you. Once you have the password, you will remote desktop (start-run-‘mstsc’) into the instance. It’s address is a dns address shown below the list under “Public DNS”. it looks something like: ec2-256-226-194-91.compute-1.amazonaws.com Once you’re inside the instance – you’ll need to open IE (it is in hardened mode so you’ll have to relax its security settings to download stuff). I first downloaded chrome and using chrome I downloaded TeamCity. Note that the download speed is FAST. several MBs per second. To be able to see TeamCity from the outside, you will need to open the advanced firewall settings inside the remote machine, and add incoming and outgoing rules for port 80 (HTTP). Once you do that, you should be able to see the machine from the outside. If you still can’t, see the next step. I also enabled ports 9090 since I will use this machine to create an agent image later as well. Now configure the security group (TC) to enable talking to agents: IN the EC2 dashboard click on “Security Groups” and select your group. To add a rule, click on the empty list under the ‘protocol’ header. select TCP. from and ‘to’ ports are 9090. source ip is 0.0.0.0/0 (every ip is allowed). click “Save.  Also make sure you can see “HTTP” tcp 80 in that list. if you can’t see it, add it or you won’t be able to browse to the machine’s teamcity server home page. I also set an elastic IP for the machine: so I always have the same IP for the machine instance. Allocate and set one through the”Elastic IP” link on the EC2 dashboard.   you should now have a working instance of teamcity.   Now let’s create an agent image. Repeat steps 1-9, but this time, make sure you select a machine that fits what an agent might do. I selected Instance type – Hihg-CPU medium machine,  that is much faster. On that machine, I installed what I needed (VS 2010, PostSharp etc..). downloading VS 2010 from MSDN (2 GB took less than 10 min!) Now, instead of installing teamcity, browse using the browser to the teamcity homepage (from within the remote machine). go to the Administration page, and click the upper right link “Install agents”. Install the agent on he local machine – set it to the IP or DNS of the running TeamCity server. That way you’ll be able to check their connectivity live before making this machine your official agent image to reuse. Once the agent is installed, see that the TC server can see it and use it. see steps 13-14 above if they can’t. Once it works, you can take steps to make this image your agent image to be reused. next, here is a copy-paste of several steps to take from http://confluence.jetbrains.net/display/TCD5/Setting+Up+TeamCity+for+Amazon+EC2 Configure system so that agent it is started on machine boot (and make sure TeamCity server is accessible on machine boot). Test the setup by rebooting machine and checking that the agent connects normally to the server. Prepare the Image for bundling: Remove any temporary/history information in the system. Stop the agent (under Windows stop the service but leave it in Automatic startup type) Delete content agent logs and temp directories (not necessary) Delete "<Agent Home>/conf/amazon-*" file (not necessary) Change config/buildAgent.properties to remove properties: name, serverAddress, authToken (not necessary)   Now, we need to: Make AMI from the running instance. Configure TeamCity EC2 support on TeamCity server. Making an AMI: Check the instance of the agent in the EC2 dashboard instance list, and select instance actions->Create Image (EBS AMI) you’ll see the image pending in the APIs list in the EC2 dashboard. this could take 30 minutes or more. meanwhile we can configure the could support in the teamcity server. COPY THE AMI ID to the clipboard (looks like ami-a88aa4ce) Configuring TeamCity for Cloud: In TeamCity, click on “Agents” and then on “Cloud” tab. this is where you will control your cloud agents. to configure new cloud agents based on APIs, click on the right link to the “configuration page” Create a new profile and select AMazon EC2 as cloud type. Use your AMI ID that you copied to the clipboard into the “Images” field. Select an availability zone that is the same as the one your instance is running on for best communication perf between them make sure you select the ‘TC’ security group hopefully, that should be it, and teamcity will try to instantiate new instances on demand. Note that it may take around 10 minutes for an agent to become available to teamcity from the time it’s started.

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• Scripting Language Sessions at Oracle OpenWorld and MySQL Connect, 2012

  - by cj

  This posts highlights some great scripting language sessions coming up at the Oracle OpenWorld and MySQL Connect conferences. These events are happening in San Francisco from the end of September. You can search for other interesting conference sessions in the Content Catalog. Also check out what is happening at JavaOne in that event's Content Catalog (I haven't included sessions from it in this post.) To find the timeslots and locations of each session, click their respective link and check the "Session Schedule" box on the top right. GEN8431 - General Session: What’s New in Oracle Database Application Development This general session takes a look at what’s been new in the last year in Oracle Database application development tools using the latest generation of database technology. Topics range from Oracle SQL Developer and Oracle Application Express to Java and PHP. (Thomas Kyte - Architect, Oracle) BOF9858 - Meet the Developers of Database Access Services (OCI, ODBC, DRCP, PHP, Python) This session is your opportunity to meet in person the Oracle developers who have built Oracle Database access tools and products such as the Oracle Call Interface (OCI), Oracle C++ Call Interface (OCCI), and Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) drivers; Transparent Application Failover (TAF); Oracle Database Instant Client; Database Resident Connection Pool (DRCP); Oracle Net Services, and so on. The team also works with those who develop the PHP, Ruby, Python, and Perl adapters for Oracle Database. Come discuss with them the features you like, your pains, and new product enhancements in the latest database technology. CON8506 - Syndication and Consolidation: Oracle Database Driver for MySQL Applications This technical session presents a new Oracle Database driver that enables you to run MySQL applications (written in PHP, Perl, C, C++, and so on) against Oracle Database with almost no code change. Use cases for such a driver include application syndication such as interoperability across a relationship database management system, application migration, and database consolidation. In addition, the session covers enhancements in database technology that enable and simplify the migration of third-party databases and applications to and consolidation with Oracle Database. Attend this session to learn more and see a live demo. (Srinath Krishnaswamy - Director, Software Development, Oracle. Kuassi Mensah - Director Product Management, Oracle. Mohammad Lari - Principal Technical Staff, Oracle ) CON9167 - Current State of PHP and MySQL Together, PHP and MySQL power large parts of the Web. The developers of both technologies continue to enhance their software to ensure that developers can be satisfied despite all their changing and growing needs. This session presents an overview of changes in PHP 5.4, which was released earlier this year and shows you various new MySQL-related features available for PHP, from transparent client-side caching to direct support for scaling and high-availability needs. (Johannes Schlüter - SoftwareDeveloper, Oracle) CON8983 - Sharding with PHP and MySQL In deploying MySQL, scale-out techniques can be used to scale out reads, but for scaling out writes, other techniques have to be used. To distribute writes over a cluster, it is necessary to shard the database and store the shards on separate servers. This session provides a brief introduction to traditional MySQL scale-out techniques in preparation for a discussion on the different sharding techniques that can be used with MySQL server and how they can be implemented with PHP. You will learn about static and dynamic sharding schemes, their advantages and drawbacks, techniques for locating and moving shards, and techniques for resharding. (Mats Kindahl - Senior Principal Software Developer, Oracle) CON9268 - Developing Python Applications with MySQL Utilities and MySQL Connector/Python This session discusses MySQL Connector/Python and the MySQL Utilities component of MySQL Workbench and explains how to write MySQL applications in Python. It includes in-depth explanations of the features of MySQL Connector/Python and the MySQL Utilities library, along with example code to illustrate the concepts. Those interested in learning how to expand or build their own utilities and connector features will benefit from the tips and tricks from the experts. This session also provides an opportunity to meet directly with the engineers and provide feedback on your issues and priorities. You can learn what exists today and influence future developments. (Geert Vanderkelen - Software Developer, Oracle) BOF9141 - MySQL Utilities and MySQL Connector/Python: Python Developers, Unite! Come to this lively discussion of the MySQL Utilities component of MySQL Workbench and MySQL Connector/Python. It includes in-depth explanations of the features and dives into the code for those interested in learning how to expand or build their own utilities and connector features. This is an audience-driven session, so put on your best Python shirt and let’s talk about MySQL Utilities and MySQL Connector/Python. (Geert Vanderkelen - Software Developer, Oracle. Charles Bell - Senior Software Developer, Oracle) CON3290 - Integrating Oracle Database with a Social Network Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Google Maps. There are many social network sites, each with their own APIs for sharing data with them. Most developers do not realize that Oracle Database has base tools for communicating with these sites, enabling all manner of information, including multimedia, to be passed back and forth between the sites. This technical presentation goes through the methods in PL/SQL for connecting to, and then sending and retrieving, all types of data between these sites. (Marcelle Kratochvil - CTO, Piction) CON3291 - Storing and Tuning Unstructured Data and Multimedia in Oracle Database Database administrators need to learn new skills and techniques when the decision is made in their organization to let Oracle Database manage its unstructured data. They will face new scalability challenges. A single row in a table can become larger than a whole database. This presentation covers the techniques a DBA needs for managing the large volume of data in a standard Oracle Database instance. (Marcelle Kratochvil - CTO, Piction) CON3292 - Using PHP, Perl, Visual Basic, Ruby, and Python for Multimedia in Oracle Database These five programming languages are just some of the most popular ones in use at the moment in the marketplace. This presentation details how you can use them to access and retrieve multimedia from Oracle Database. It covers programming techniques and methods for achieving faster development against Oracle Database. (Marcelle Kratochvil - CTO, Piction) UGF5181 - Building Real-World Oracle DBA Tools in Perl Perl is not normally associated with building mission-critical application or DBA tools. Learn why Perl could be a good choice for building your next killer DBA app. This session draws on real-world experience of building DBA tools in Perl, showing the framework and architecture needed to deal with portability, efficiency, and maintainability. Topics include Perl frameworks; Which Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) modules are good to use; Perl and CPAN module licensing; Perl and Oracle connectivity; Compiling and deploying your app; An example of what is possible with Perl. (Arjen Visser - CEO & CTO, Dbvisit Software Limited) CON3153 - Perl: A DBA’s and Developer’s Best (Forgotten) Friend This session reintroduces Perl as a language of choice for many solutions for DBAs and developers. Discover what makes Perl so successful and why it is so versatile in our day-to-day lives. Perl can automate all those manual tasks and is truly platform-independent. Perl may not be in the limelight the way other languages are, but it is a remarkable language, it is still very current with ongoing development, and it has amazing online resources. Learn what makes Perl so great (including CPAN), get an introduction to Perl language syntax, find out what you can use Perl for, hear how Oracle uses Perl, discover the best way to learn Perl, and take away a small Perl project challenge. (Arjen Visser - CEO & CTO, Dbvisit Software Limited) CON10332 - Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service’s Connect PHP API: Intro, What’s New, and Roadmap Connect PHP is a public API that enables developers to build solutions with the Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service platform. This API is used primarily by developers working within the Oracle RightNow Customer Portal Cloud Service framework who are looking to gain access to data and services hosted by the Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service platform through a backward-compatible API. Connect for PHP leverages the same data model and services as the Connect Web Services for SOAP API. Come to this session to get an introduction and learn what’s new and what’s coming up. (Mark Rhoads - Senior Principal Applications Engineer, Oracle. Mark Ericson - Sr. Principle Product Manager, Oracle) CON10330 - Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service APIs and Frameworks Overview Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service APIs are available in the following areas: desktop UI, Web services, customer portal, PHP, and knowledge. These frameworks provide access to Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service’s Connect Common Object Model and custom objects. This session provides a broad overview of capabilities in all these areas. (Mark Ericson - Sr. Principle Product Manager, Oracle)

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• Parallel LINQ - PLINQ

  - by nmarun

  Turns out now with .net 4.0 we can run a query like a multi-threaded application. Say you want to query a collection of objects and return only those that meet certain conditions. Until now, we basically had one ‘control’ that iterated over all the objects in the collection, checked the condition on each object and returned if it passed. We obviously agree that if we can ‘break’ this task into smaller ones, assign each task to a different ‘control’ and ask all the controls to do their job - in-parallel, the time taken the finish the entire task will be much lower. Welcome to PLINQ. Let’s take some examples. I have the following method that uses our good ol’ LINQ. 1: private static void Linq(int lowerLimit, int upperLimit) 2: { 3: // populate an array with int values from lowerLimit to the upperLimit 4: var source = Enumerable.Range(lowerLimit, upperLimit); 5:  6: // Start a timer 7: Stopwatch stopwatch = new Stopwatch(); 8: stopwatch.Start(); 9:  10: // set the expectation => build the expression tree 11: var evenNumbers =   from num in source 12: where IsDivisibleBy(num, 2) 13: select num; 14: 15: // iterate over and print the returned items 16: foreach (var number in evenNumbers) 17: { 18: Console.WriteLine(string.Format("** {0}", number)); 19: } 20:  21: stopwatch.Stop(); 22:  23: // check the metrics 24: Console.WriteLine(String.Format("Elapsed {0}ms", stopwatch.ElapsedMilliseconds)); 25: } I’ve added comments for the major steps, but the only thing I want to talk about here is the IsDivisibleBy() method. I know I could have just included the logic directly in the where clause. I called a method to add ‘delay’ to the execution of the query - to simulate a loooooooooong operation (will be easier to compare the results). 1: private static bool IsDivisibleBy(int number, int divisor) 2: { 3: // iterate over some database query 4: // to add time to the execution of this method; 5: // the TableB has around 10 records 6: for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) 7: { 8: DataClasses1DataContext dataContext = new DataClasses1DataContext(); 9: var query = from b in dataContext.TableBs select b; 10: 11: foreach (var row in query) 12: { 13: // Do NOTHING (wish my job was like this) 14: } 15: } 16:  17: return number % divisor == 0; 18: } Now, let’s look at how to modify this to PLINQ. 1: private static void Plinq(int lowerLimit, int upperLimit) 2: { 3: // populate an array with int values from lowerLimit to the upperLimit 4: var source = Enumerable.Range(lowerLimit, upperLimit); 5:  6: // Start a timer 7: Stopwatch stopwatch = new Stopwatch(); 8: stopwatch.Start(); 9:  10: // set the expectation => build the expression tree 11: var evenNumbers = from num in source.AsParallel() 12: where IsDivisibleBy(num, 2) 13: select num; 14:  15: // iterate over and print the returned items 16: foreach (var number in evenNumbers) 17: { 18: Console.WriteLine(string.Format("** {0}", number)); 19: } 20:  21: stopwatch.Stop(); 22:  23: // check the metrics 24: Console.WriteLine(String.Format("Elapsed {0}ms", stopwatch.ElapsedMilliseconds)); 25: } That’s it, this is now in PLINQ format. Oh and if you haven’t found the difference, look line 11 a little more closely. You’ll see an extension method ‘AsParallel()’ added to the ‘source’ variable. Couldn’t be more simpler right? So this is going to improve the performance for us. Let’s test it. So in my Main method of the Console application that I’m working on, I make a call to both. 1: static void Main(string[] args) 2: { 3: // set lower and upper limits 4: int lowerLimit = 1; 5: int upperLimit = 20; 6: // call the methods 7: Console.WriteLine("Calling Linq() method"); 8: Linq(lowerLimit, upperLimit); 9: 10: Console.WriteLine(); 11: Console.WriteLine("Calling Plinq() method"); 12: Plinq(lowerLimit, upperLimit); 13:  14: Console.ReadLine(); // just so I get enough time to read the output 15: } YMMV, but here are the results that I got:    It’s quite obvious from the above results that the Plinq() method is taking considerably less time than the Linq() version. I’m sure you’ve already noticed that the output of the Plinq() method is not in order. That’s because, each of the ‘control’s we sent to fetch the results, reported with values as and when they obtained them. This is something about parallel LINQ that one needs to remember – the collection cannot be guaranteed to be undisturbed. This could be counted as a negative about PLINQ (emphasize ‘could’). Nevertheless, if we want the collection to be sorted, we can use a SortedSet (.net 4.0) or build our own custom ‘sorter’. Either way we go, there’s a good chance we’ll end up with a better performance using PLINQ. And there’s another negative of PLINQ (depending on how you see it). This is regarding the CPU cycles. See the usage for Linq() method (used ResourceMonitor): I have dual CPU’s and see the height of the peak in the bottom two blocks and now compare to what happens when I run the Plinq() method. The difference is obvious. Higher usage, but for a shorter duration (width of the peak). Both these points make sense in both cases. Linq() runs for a longer time, but uses less resources whereas Plinq() runs for a shorter time and consumes more resources. Even after knowing all these, I’m still inclined towards PLINQ. PLINQ rocks! (no hard feelings LINQ)

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• Changing an HTML Form's Target with jQuery

  - by Rick Strahl

  This is a question that comes up quite frequently: I have a form with several submit or link buttons and one or more of the buttons needs to open a new Window. How do I get several buttons to all post to the right window? If you're building ASP.NET forms you probably know that by default the Web Forms engine sends button clicks back to the server as a POST operation. A server form has a <form> tag which expands to this: <form method="post" action="default.aspx" id="form1"> Now you CAN change the target of the form and point it to a different window or frame, but the problem with that is that it still affects ALL submissions of the current form. If you multiple buttons/links and they need to go to different target windows/frames you can't do it easily through the <form runat="server"> tag. Although this discussion uses ASP.NET WebForms as an example, realistically this is a general HTML problem although likely more common in WebForms due to the single form metaphor it uses. In ASP.NET MVC for example you'd have more options by breaking out each button into separate forms with its own distinct target tag. However, even with that option it's not always possible to break up forms - for example if multiple targets are required but all targets require the same form data to the be posted. A common scenario here is that you might have a button (or link) that you click where you still want some server code to fire but at the end of the request you actually want to display the content in a new window. A common operation where this happens is report generation: You click a button and the server generates a report say in PDF format and you then want to display the PDF result in a new window without killing the content in the current window. Assuming you have other buttons on the same Page that need to post to base window how do you get the button click to go to a new window? Can't  you just use a LinkButton or other Link Control? At first glance you might think an easy way to do this is to use an ASP.NET LinkButton to do this - after all a LinkButton creates a hyper link that CAN accept a target and it also posts back to the server, right? However, there's no Target property, although you can set the target HTML attribute easily enough. Code like this looks reasonable: <asp:LinkButton runat="server" ID="btnNewTarget" Text="New Target" target="_blank" OnClick="bnNewTarget_Click" /> But if you try this you'll find that it doesn't work. Why? Because ASP.NET creates postbacks with JavaScript code that operates on the current window/frame: <a id="btnNewTarget" target="_blank" href="javascript:__doPostBack(&#39;btnNewTarget&#39;,&#39;&#39;)">New Target</a> What happens with a target tag is that before the JavaScript actually executes a new window is opened and the focus shifts to the new window. The new window of course is empty and has no __doPostBack() function nor access to the old document. So when you click the link a new window opens but the window remains blank without content - no server postback actually occurs. Natch that idea. Setting the Form Target for a Button Control or LinkButton So, in order to send Postback link controls and buttons to another window/frame, both require that the target of the form gets changed dynamically when the button or link is clicked. Luckily this is rather easy to do however using a little bit of script code and jQuery. Imagine you have two buttons like this that should go to another window: <asp:LinkButton runat="server" ID="btnNewTarget" Text="New Target" OnClick="ClickHandler" /> <asp:Button runat="server" ID="btnButtonNewTarget" Text="New Target Button" OnClick="ClickHandler" /> ClickHandler in this case is any routine that generates the output you want to display in the new window. Generally this output will not come from the current page markup but is generated externally - like a PDF report or some report generated by another application component or tool. The output generally will be either generated by hand or something that was generated to disk to be displayed with Response.Redirect() or Response.TransmitFile() etc. Here's the dummy handler that just generates some HTML by hand and displays it: protected void ClickHandler(object sender, EventArgs e) { // Perform some operation that generates HTML or Redirects somewhere else Response.Write("Some custom output would be generated here (PDF, non-Page HTML etc.)"); // Make sure this response doesn't display the page content // Call Response.End() or Response.Redirect() Response.End(); } To route this oh so sophisticated output to an alternate window for both the LinkButton and Button Controls, you can use the following simple script code: <script type="text/javascript"> $("#btnButtonNewTarget,#btnNewTarget").click(function () { $("form").attr("target", "_blank"); }); </script> So why does this work where the target attribute did not? The difference here is that the script fires BEFORE the target is changed to the new window. When you put a target attribute on a link or form the target is changed as the very first thing before the link actually executes. IOW, the link literally executes in the new window when it's done this way. By attaching a click handler, though we're not navigating yet so all the operations the script code performs (ie. __doPostBack()) and the collection of Form variables to post to the server all occurs in the current page. By changing the target from within script code the target change fires as part of the form submission process which means it runs in the correct context of the current page. IOW - the input for the POST is from the current page, but the output is routed to a new window/frame. Just what we want in this scenario. Voila you can dynamically route output to the appropriate window.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in ASP.NET  HTML  jQuery  

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• Using Node.js as an accelerator for WCF REST services

  - by Elton Stoneman

  Node.js is a server-side JavaScript platform "for easily building fast, scalable network applications". It's built on Google's V8 JavaScript engine and uses an (almost) entirely async event-driven processing model, running in a single thread. If you're new to Node and your reaction is "why would I want to run JavaScript on the server side?", this is the headline answer: in 150 lines of JavaScript you can build a Node.js app which works as an accelerator for WCF REST services*. It can double your messages-per-second throughput, halve your CPU workload and use one-fifth of the memory footprint, compared to the WCF services direct.   Well, it can if: 1) your WCF services are first-class HTTP citizens, honouring client cache ETag headers in request and response; 2) your services do a reasonable amount of work to build a response; 3) your data is read more often than it's written. In one of my projects I have a set of REST services in WCF which deal with data that only gets updated weekly, but which can be read hundreds of times an hour. The services issue ETags and will return a 304 if the client sends a request with the current ETag, which means in the most common scenario the client uses its local cached copy. But when the weekly update happens, then all the client caches are invalidated and they all need the same new data. Then the service will get hundreds of requests with old ETags, and they go through the full service stack to build the same response for each, taking up threads and processing time. Part of that processing means going off to a database on a separate cloud, which introduces more latency and downtime potential.   We can use ASP.NET output caching with WCF to solve the repeated processing problem, but the server will still be thread-bound on incoming requests, and to get the current ETags reliably needs a database call per request. The accelerator solves that by running as a proxy - all client calls come into the proxy, and the proxy routes calls to the underlying REST service. We could use Node as a straight passthrough proxy and expect some benefit, as the server would be less thread-bound, but we would still have one WCF and one database call per proxy call. But add some smart caching logic to the proxy, and share ETags between Node and WCF (so the proxy doesn't even need to call the servcie to get the current ETag), and the underlying service will only be invoked when data has changed, and then only once - all subsequent client requests will be served from the proxy cache.   I've built this as a sample up on GitHub: NodeWcfAccelerator on sixeyed.codegallery. Here's how the architecture looks:     The code is very simple. The Node proxy runs on port 8010 and all client requests target the proxy. If the client request has an ETag header then the proxy looks up the ETag in the tag cache to see if it is current - the sample uses memcached to share ETags between .NET and Node. If the ETag from the client matches the current server tag, the proxy sends a 304 response with an empty body to the client, telling it to use its own cached version of the data. If the ETag from the client is stale, the proxy looks for a local cached version of the response, checking for a file named after the current ETag. If that file exists, its contents are returned to the client as the body in a 200 response, which includes the current ETag in the header. If the proxy does not have a local cached file for the service response, it calls the service, and writes the WCF response to the local cache file, and to the body of a 200 response for the client. So the WCF service is only troubled if both client and proxy have stale (or no) caches.   The only (vaguely) clever bit in the sample is using the ETag cache, so the proxy can serve cached requests without any communication with the underlying service, which it does completely generically, so the proxy has no notion of what it is serving or what the services it proxies are doing. The relative path from the URL is used as the lookup key, so there's no shared key-generation logic between .NET and Node, and when WCF stores a tag it also stores the "read" URL against the ETag so it can be used for a reverse lookup, e.g:   Key Value /WcfSampleService/PersonService.svc/rest/fetch/3 "28cd4796-76b8-451b-adfd-75cb50a50fa6" "28cd4796-76b8-451b-adfd-75cb50a50fa6" /WcfSampleService/PersonService.svc/rest/fetch/3    In Node we read the cache using the incoming URL path as the key and we know that "28cd4796-76b8-451b-adfd-75cb50a50fa6" is the current ETag; we look for a local cached response in /caches/28cd4796-76b8-451b-adfd-75cb50a50fa6.body (and the corresponding .header file which contains the original service response headers, so the proxy response is exactly the same as the underlying service). When the data is updated, we need to invalidate the ETag cache – which is why we need the reverse lookup in the cache. In the WCF update service, we don't need to know the URL of the related read service - we fetch the entity from the database, do a reverse lookup on the tag cache using the old ETag to get the read URL, update the new ETag against the URL, store the new reverse lookup and delete the old one.   Running Apache Bench against the two endpoints gives the headline performance comparison. Making 1000 requests with concurrency of 100, and not sending any ETag headers in the requests, with the Node proxy I get 102 requests handled per second, average response time of 975 milliseconds with 90% of responses served within 850 milliseconds; going direct to WCF with the same parameters, I get 53 requests handled per second, mean response time of 1853 milliseconds, with 90% of response served within 3260 milliseconds. Informally monitoring server usage during the tests, Node maxed at 20% CPU and 20Mb memory; IIS maxed at 60% CPU and 100Mb memory.   Note that the sample WCF service does a database read and sleeps for 250 milliseconds to simulate a moderate processing load, so this is *not* a baseline Node-vs-WCF comparison, but for similar scenarios where the  service call is expensive but applicable to numerous clients for a long timespan, the performance boost from the accelerator is considerable.     * - actually, the accelerator will work nicely for any HTTP request, where the URL (path + querystring) uniquely identifies a resource. In the sample, there is an assumption that the ETag is a GUID wrapped in double-quotes (e.g. "28cd4796-76b8-451b-adfd-75cb50a50fa6") – which is the default for WCF services. I use that assumption to name the cache files uniquely, but it is a trivial change to adapt to other ETag formats.

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• SQL SERVER – Data Sources and Data Sets in Reporting Services SSRS

  - by Pinal Dave

  This example is from the Beginning SSRS by Kathi Kellenberger. Supporting files are available with a free download from the www.Joes2Pros.com web site. This example is from the Beginning SSRS. Supporting files are available with a free download from the www.Joes2Pros.com web site. Connecting to Your Data? When I was a child, the telephone book was an important part of my life. Maybe I was just a nerd, but I enjoyed getting a new book every year to page through to learn about the businesses in my small town or to discover where some of my school acquaintances lived. It was also the source of maps to my town’s neighborhoods and the towns that surrounded me. To make a phone call, I would need a telephone number. In order to find a telephone number, I had to know how to use the telephone book. That seems pretty simple, but it resembles connecting to any data. You have to know where the data is and how to interact with it. A data source is the connection information that the report uses to connect to the database. You have two choices when creating a data source, whether to embed it in the report or to make it a shared resource usable by many reports. Data Sources and Data Sets A few basic terms will make the upcoming choses make more sense. What database on what server do you want to connect to? It would be better to just ask… “what is your data source?” The connection you need to make to get your reports data is called a data source. If you connected to a data source (like the JProCo database) there may be hundreds of tables. You probably only want data from just a few tables. This means you want to write a specific query against this data source. A query on a data source to get just the records you need for an SSRS report is called a Data Set. Creating a local Data Source You can connect embed a connection from your report directly to your JProCo database which (let’s say) is installed on a server named Reno. If you move JProCo to a new server named Tampa then you need to update the Data Set. If you have 10 reports in one project that were all pointing to the JProCo database on the Reno server then they would all need to be updated at once. It’s possible to make a project level Data Source and have each report use that. This means one change can fix all 10 reports at once. This would be called a Shared Data Source. Creating a Shared Data Source The best advice I can give you is to create shared data sources. The reason I recommend this is that if a database moves to a new server you will have just one place in Report Manager to make the server name change. That one change will update the connection information in all the reports that use that data source. To get started, you will start with a fresh project. Go to Start > All Programs > SQL Server 2012 > Microsoft SQL Server Data Tools to launch SSDT. Once SSDT is running, click New Project to create a new project. Once the New Project dialog box appears, fill in the form, as shown in. Be sure to select Report Server Project this time – not the wizard. Click OK to dismiss the New Project dialog box. You should now have an empty project, as shown in the Solution Explorer. A report is meant to show you data. Where is the data? The first task is to create a Shared Data Source. Right-click on the Shared Data Sources folder and choose Add New Data Source. The Shared Data Source Properties dialog box will launch where you can fill in a name for the data source. By default, it is named DataSource1. The best practice is to give the data source a more meaningful name. It is possible that you will have projects with more than one data source and, by naming them, you can tell one from another. Type the name JProCo for the data source name and click the Edit button to configure the database connection properties. If you take a look at the types of data sources you can choose, you will see that SSRS works with many data platforms including Oracle, XML, and Teradata. Make sure SQL Server is selected before continuing. For this post, I am assuming that you are using a local SQL Server and that you can use your Windows account to log in to the SQL Server. If, for some reason you must use SQL Server Authentication, choose that option and fill in your SQL Server account credentials. Otherwise, just accept Windows Authentication. If your database server was installed locally and with the default instance, just type in Localhost for the Server name. Select the JProCo database from the database list. At this point, the connection properties should look like. If you have installed a named instance of SQL Server, you will have to specify the server name like this: Localhost\InstanceName, replacing the InstanceName with whatever your instance name is. If you are not sure about the named instance, launch the SQL Server Configuration Manager found at Start > All Programs > Microsoft SQL Server 2012 > Configuration Tools. If you have a named instance, the name will be shown in parentheses. A default instance of SQL Server will display MSSQLSERVER; a named instance will display the name chosen during installation. Once you get the connection properties filled in, click OK to dismiss the Connection Properties dialog box and OK again to dismiss the Shared Data Source properties. You now have a data source in the Solution Explorer. What’s next I really need to thank Kathi Kellenberger and Rick Morelan for sharing this material for this 5 day series of posts on SSRS. To get really comfortable with SSRS you will get to know the different SSDT windows, Build reports on your own (without the wizards),  Add report headers and footers, Accept user input,  create levels, charts, or even maps for visual appeal. You might be surprise to know a small 230 page book starts from the very beginning and covers the steps to do all these items. Beginning SSRS 2012 is a small easy to follow book so you can learn SSRS for less than $20. See Joes2Pros.com for more on this and other books. If you want to learn SSRS in easy to simple words – I strongly recommend you to get Beginning SSRS book from Joes 2 Pros. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL Tagged: Reporting Services, SSRS

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• Android - Create a custom multi-line ListView bound to an ArrayList

  - by Bill Osuch

  The Android HelloListView tutorial shows how to bind a ListView to an array of string objects, but you'll probably outgrow that pretty quickly. This post will show you how to bind the ListView to an ArrayList of custom objects, as well as create a multi-line ListView. Let's say you have some sort of search functionality that returns a list of people, along with addresses and phone numbers. We're going to display that data in three formatted lines for each result, and make it clickable. First, create your new Android project, and create two layout files. Main.xml will probably already be created by default, so paste this in: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"  android:orientation="vertical"  android:layout_width="fill_parent"   android:layout_height="fill_parent">  <TextView   android:layout_height="wrap_content"   android:text="Custom ListView Contents"   android:gravity="center_vertical|center_horizontal"   android:layout_width="fill_parent" />   <ListView    android:id="@+id/ListView01"    android:layout_height="wrap_content"    android:layout_width="fill_parent"/> </LinearLayout> Next, create a layout file called custom_row_view.xml. This layout will be the template for each individual row in the ListView. You can use pretty much any type of layout - Relative, Table, etc., but for this we'll just use Linear: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"  android:orientation="vertical"  android:layout_width="fill_parent"   android:layout_height="fill_parent">   <TextView android:id="@+id/name"   android:textSize="14sp"   android:textStyle="bold"   android:textColor="#FFFF00"   android:layout_width="wrap_content"   android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>  <TextView android:id="@+id/cityState"   android:layout_width="wrap_content"   android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>  <TextView android:id="@+id/phone"   android:layout_width="wrap_content"   android:layout_height="wrap_content"/> </LinearLayout> Now, add an object called SearchResults. Paste this code in: public class SearchResults {  private String name = "";  private String cityState = "";  private String phone = "";  public void setName(String name) {   this.name = name;  }  public String getName() {   return name;  }  public void setCityState(String cityState) {   this.cityState = cityState;  }  public String getCityState() {   return cityState;  }  public void setPhone(String phone) {   this.phone = phone;  }  public String getPhone() {   return phone;  } } This is the class that we'll be filling with our data, and loading into an ArrayList. Next, you'll need a custom adapter. This one just extends the BaseAdapter, but you could extend the ArrayAdapter if you prefer. public class MyCustomBaseAdapter extends BaseAdapter {  private static ArrayList<SearchResults> searchArrayList;    private LayoutInflater mInflater;  public MyCustomBaseAdapter(Context context, ArrayList<SearchResults> results) {   searchArrayList = results;   mInflater = LayoutInflater.from(context);  }  public int getCount() {   return searchArrayList.size();  }  public Object getItem(int position) {   return searchArrayList.get(position);  }  public long getItemId(int position) {   return position;  }  public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent) {   ViewHolder holder;   if (convertView == null) {    convertView = mInflater.inflate(R.layout.custom_row_view, null);    holder = new ViewHolder();    holder.txtName = (TextView) convertView.findViewById(R.id.name);    holder.txtCityState = (TextView) convertView.findViewById(R.id.cityState);    holder.txtPhone = (TextView) convertView.findViewById(R.id.phone);    convertView.setTag(holder);   } else {    holder = (ViewHolder) convertView.getTag();   }      holder.txtName.setText(searchArrayList.get(position).getName());   holder.txtCityState.setText(searchArrayList.get(position).getCityState());   holder.txtPhone.setText(searchArrayList.get(position).getPhone());   return convertView;  }  static class ViewHolder {   TextView txtName;   TextView txtCityState;   TextView txtPhone;  } } (This is basically the same as the List14.java API demo) Finally, we'll wire it all up in the main class file: public class CustomListView extends Activity {     @Override     public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {         super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);         setContentView(R.layout.main);                 ArrayList<SearchResults> searchResults = GetSearchResults();                 final ListView lv1 = (ListView) findViewById(R.id.ListView01);         lv1.setAdapter(new MyCustomBaseAdapter(this, searchResults));                 lv1.setOnItemClickListener(new OnItemClickListener() {          @Override          public void onItemClick(AdapterView<?> a, View v, int position, long id) {           Object o = lv1.getItemAtPosition(position);           SearchResults fullObject = (SearchResults)o;           Toast.makeText(ListViewBlogPost.this, "You have chosen: " + " " + fullObject.getName(), Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();          }          });     }         private ArrayList<SearchResults> GetSearchResults(){      ArrayList<SearchResults> results = new ArrayList<SearchResults>();            SearchResults sr1 = new SearchResults();      sr1.setName("John Smith");      sr1.setCityState("Dallas, TX");      sr1.setPhone("214-555-1234");      results.add(sr1);            sr1 = new SearchResults();      sr1.setName("Jane Doe");      sr1.setCityState("Atlanta, GA");      sr1.setPhone("469-555-2587");      results.add(sr1);            sr1 = new SearchResults();      sr1.setName("Steve Young");      sr1.setCityState("Miami, FL");      sr1.setPhone("305-555-7895");      results.add(sr1);            sr1 = new SearchResults();      sr1.setName("Fred Jones");      sr1.setCityState("Las Vegas, NV");      sr1.setPhone("612-555-8214");      results.add(sr1);            return results;     } } Notice that we first get an ArrayList of SearchResults objects (normally this would be from an external data source...), pass it to the custom adapter, then set up a click listener. The listener gets the item that was clicked, converts it back to a SearchResults object, and does whatever it needs to do. Fire it up in the emulator, and you should wind up with something like this:

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• Anatomy of a .NET Assembly - Custom attribute encoding

  - by Simon Cooper

  In my previous post, I covered how field, method, and other types of signatures are encoded in a .NET assembly. Custom attribute signatures differ quite a bit from these, which consequently affects attribute specifications in C#. Custom attribute specifications In C#, you can apply a custom attribute to a type or type member, specifying a constructor as well as the values of fields or properties on the attribute type: public class ExampleAttribute : Attribute { public ExampleAttribute(int ctorArg1, string ctorArg2) { ... } public Type ExampleType { get; set; } } [Example(5, "6", ExampleType = typeof(string))] public class C { ... } How does this specification actually get encoded and stored in an assembly? Specification blob values Custom attribute specification signatures use the same building blocks as other types of signatures; the ELEMENT_TYPE structure. However, they significantly differ from other types of signatures, in that the actual parameter values need to be stored along with type information. There are two types of specification arguments in a signature blob; fixed args and named args. Fixed args are the arguments to the attribute type constructor, named arguments are specified after the constructor arguments to provide a value to a field or property on the constructed attribute type (PropertyName = propValue) Values in an attribute blob are limited to one of the basic types (one of the number types, character, or boolean), a reference to a type, an enum (which, in .NET, has to use one of the integer types as a base representation), or arrays of any of those. Enums and the basic types are easy to store in a blob - you simply store the binary representation. Strings are stored starting with a compressed integer indicating the length of the string, followed by the UTF8 characters. Array values start with an integer indicating the number of elements in the array, then the item values concatentated together. Rather than using a coded token, Type values are stored using a string representing the type name and fully qualified assembly name (for example, MyNs.MyType, MyAssembly, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=0123456789abcdef). If the type is in the current assembly or mscorlib then just the type name can be used. This is probably done to prevent direct references between assemblies solely because of attribute specification arguments; assemblies can be loaded in the reflection-only context and attribute arguments still processed, without loading the entire assembly. Fixed and named arguments Each entry in the CustomAttribute metadata table contains a reference to the object the attribute is applied to, the attribute constructor, and the specification blob. The number and type of arguments to the constructor (the fixed args) can be worked out by the method signature referenced by the attribute constructor, and so the fixed args can simply be concatenated together in the blob without any extra type information. Named args are different. These specify the value to assign to a field or property once the attribute type has been constructed. In the CLR, fields and properties can be overloaded just on their type; different fields and properties can have the same name. Therefore, to uniquely identify a field or property you need: Whether it's a field or property (indicated using byte values 0x53 and 0x54, respectively) The field or property type The field or property name After the fixed arg values is a 2-byte number specifying the number of named args in the blob. Each named argument has the above information concatenated together, mostly using the basic ELEMENT_TYPE values, in the same way as a method or field signature. A Type argument is represented using the byte 0x50, and an enum argument is represented using the byte 0x55 followed by a string specifying the name and assembly of the enum type. The named argument property information is followed by the argument value, using the same encoding as fixed args. Boxed objects This would be all very well, were it not for object and object[]. Arguments and properties of type object allow a value of any allowed argument type to be specified. As a result, more information needs to be specified in the blob to interpret the argument bytes as the correct type. So, the argument value is simple prepended with the type of the value by specifying the ELEMENT_TYPE or name of the enum the value represents. For named arguments, a field or property of type object is represented using the byte 0x51, with the actual type specified in the argument value. Some examples... All property signatures start with the 2-byte value 0x0001. Similar to my previous post in the series, names in capitals correspond to a particular byte value in the ELEMENT_TYPE structure. For strings, I'll simply give the string value, rather than the length and UTF8 encoding in the actual blob. I'll be using the following enum and attribute types to demonstrate specification encodings: class AttrAttribute : Attribute { public AttrAttribute() {} public AttrAttribute(Type[] tArray) {} public AttrAttribute(object o) {} public AttrAttribute(MyEnum e) {} public AttrAttribute(ushort x, int y) {} public AttrAttribute(string str, Type type1, Type type2) {} public int Prop1 { get; set; } public object Prop2 { get; set; } public object[] ObjectArray; } enum MyEnum : int { Val1 = 1, Val2 = 2 } Now, some examples: Here, the the specification binds to the (ushort, int) attribute constructor, with fixed args only. The specification blob starts off with a prolog, followed by the two constructor arguments, then the number of named arguments (zero): [Attr(42, 84)] 0x0001 0x002a 0x00000054 0x0000 An example of string and type encoding: [Attr("MyString", typeof(Array), typeof(System.Windows.Forms.Form))] 0x0001 "MyString" "System.Array" "System.Windows.Forms.Form, System.Windows.Forms, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" 0x0000 As you can see, the full assembly specification of a type is only needed if the type isn't in the current assembly or mscorlib. Note, however, that the C# compiler currently chooses to fully-qualify mscorlib types anyway. An object argument (this binds to the object attribute constructor), and two named arguments (a null string is represented by 0xff and the empty string by 0x00) [Attr((ushort)40, Prop1 = 12, Prop2 = "")] 0x0001 U2 0x0028 0x0002 0x54 I4 "Prop1" 0x0000000c 0x54 0x51 "Prop2" STRING 0x00 Right, more complicated now. A type array as a fixed argument: [Attr(new[] { typeof(string), typeof(object) })] 0x0001 0x00000002 // the number of elements "System.String" "System.Object" 0x0000 An enum value, which is simply represented using the underlying value. The CLR works out that it's an enum using information in the attribute constructor signature: [Attr(MyEnum.Val1)] 0x0001 0x00000001 0x0000 And finally, a null array, and an object array as a named argument: [Attr((Type[])null, ObjectArray = new object[] { (byte)2, typeof(decimal), null, MyEnum.Val2 })] 0x0001 0xffffffff 0x0001 0x53 SZARRAY 0x51 "ObjectArray" 0x00000004 U1 0x02 0x50 "System.Decimal" STRING 0xff 0x55 "MyEnum" 0x00000002 As you'll notice, a null object is encoded as a null string value, and a null array is represented using a length of -1 (0xffffffff). How does this affect C#? So, we can now explain why the limits on attribute arguments are so strict in C#. Attribute specification blobs are limited to basic numbers, enums, types, and arrays. As you can see, this is because the raw CLR encoding can only accommodate those types. Special byte patterns have to be used to indicate object, string, Type, or enum values in named arguments; you can't specify an arbitary object type, as there isn't a generalised way of encoding the resulting value in the specification blob. In particular, decimal values can't be encoded, as it isn't a 'built-in' CLR type that has a native representation (you'll notice that decimal constants in C# programs are compiled as several integer arguments to DecimalConstantAttribute). Jagged arrays also aren't natively supported, although you can get around it by using an array as a value to an object argument: [Attr(new object[] { new object[] { new Type[] { typeof(string) } }, 42 })] Finally... Phew! That was a bit longer than I thought it would be. Custom attribute encodings are complicated! Hopefully this series has been an informative look at what exactly goes on inside a .NET assembly. In the next blog posts, I'll be carrying on with the 'Inside Red Gate' series.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, May 23, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, May 23, 2010New ProjectsA2Command: Apple 2 port of CBM-Command (http://cbmcommand.codeplex.com)AgUnit: AgUnit is a plugin for Jetbrains ReSharper (R#) that allows you to run and debug Silverlight unit tests from within Visual Studio.BSonPosh Powershell Module: A collection of useful Powershell functions I have written and collected over the years. It is a Powershell v2 Module composed of mostly scripts.DB Restriker: Simple tool for lookup, parsing, searching some standard databases using wildcards and pattern recognition.Entity Framework Repository & Unit of Work Template: T4 Template for Entity Framework 4 for creating a data access layer using the repository and unit of work patterns. Designed to work well with dep...Fiction Catalog: A catalog project designed to store information about fictional literature.Giving a Presentation: Useful for people doing presentations, this application hides desktop icons, disables screensaver, closes chosen programs when presentation starts,...glueless: Glueless is a local message bus which allows architect to design highly decoupled systems and applications. Glueless is a step beyond dependency i...HtmlCodeIt: Take any code and format it so that it can be viewed properly on a web browser, blog post or website.just testproject :): just have a test!KanbanTaskboard: The aim of the project is to design and implement a functional prototype for visualizing and operating a multi-platform virtual "Kanban Taskboard”Life System: Life SystemOaSys Project: Project Oasys is a project that aims to help solve desertification. Scoring of pingPong Game: Scoring of pingPong GameSilverlight Web Comic: The Silverlight Web Comic makes easier for the people create your own comic with your own pictures o drawings, and add the globes of text like the ...TickSharp: C# Wrapper for http://TickSpot.com RESTful API.Traductor: El Traductor es una aplicación de escritorio para traducción de frases entre distintos idiomas basada en la plataforma Silverlight Out Of Browser y...WatchersNET.SkinObjects.ModulActionsMenu: Displays the Module Actions Menu as a Unsorted CSS Menu.xxfd1r4w96: testingNew ReleasesAgUnit: AgUnit 0.1: Initial release of AgUnit. Copy the extracted files from AgUnit-0.1.zip into the "Bin\Plugins\" folder of your ReSharper installation (default C:...ASP.NET MVC | SCAFFOLD: ASP.NET MVC SCAFFOLD - Beta 1.0: Release versão betaBizTalk Server 2006 Documenter: Documenter_v3.4.0.0: This is the new release of the documenter which has the following highlights Support for 64 bit systems Support for SxS scenarios (so now the sys...CassiniDev - Cassini 3.5/4.0 Developers Edition: CassiniDev 3.5.1 Beta 2- VS 2008 Replacement: The CassiniDev Visual Studio build is a fully compatibly Visual Studio 2008/2010 Development server drop-in replacement with all CassiniDev enhance...CBM-Command: 2010-05-22 Beta: Release Notes - 2010-05-22 BetaNew Features Simple text file viewer. Now when you use SHIFT-RETURN to open a file, it will ask if you want to view...Easy Validation: Documentation: Documentation for easyVal was created and presented at University of Texas at Austin in May of 2010.Entity Framework Repository & Unit of Work Template: 1.0: Initial ReleaseFrotz.NET: FrotzNet 1.0 beta: Many, many changes, including: - Got Adaptive Palette working for graphics - Got undo working - Implemented all zcodes - Added scripting as well as...Giving a Presentation: CTP: This release includes basic extensibility infrastructure and three extensions: hides desktop icons, disables screensaver, closes chosen programs wh...Gov 2.0 Kit: SharePoint 2010 MyPeeps Mysite Accelerators: SharePoint 2010 MyPeeps Mysite Accelerators. Attached are the installation and documentations files.HKGolden Express: HKGoldenExpress (Build 201005221900): New features: (None) Bug fix: Hong Kong special characters now can be posted without encoding problem. Improvements: (None) Other changes: (None) K...Intellibox - A WPF auto complete textbox search control: Beta 2: Updated the namespace of the Intellibox control from "System.Windows.Controls" to "FeserWard.Controls". Empty binding Path properties now work on...MDownloader: MDownloader-0.15.14.59111: Fixed DepositFile provider. Fixed FileFactory provider. Added simple fakeness detector (can check if .rar, .zip, .7z files have valid signature...Mute4: V1: Initial version of Mute4NLog - Advanced .NET Logging: Nightly Build 2010.05.22.003: Changes since the last build:No changes. Unit test results:Passed 191/191 (100%) Passed 191/191 (100%) Passed 214/214 (100%) Passed 216/216 (100%)...NSIS Autorun: NSIS Autorun 0.1.9: This release includes source code, executable binaries and example materials.Silverlight Gantt Chart: Silverlight Gantt Chart 1.3 (SL4): The latest release mainly makes the Gantt Chart useful in Silverlight 4 applications.SqlServerExtensions: V 0.2 beta: V 0.2 Beta release: New features available TrimStart - trim leading characters TrimEnd - trim trailing characters Remove - remove characters f...Traductor: Version 3.1: Nuevo en esta versión: El Traductor ahora permite escoger entre los motores de Microsoft y Google. El Text to Speech is es ahora habilitado por...VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30522.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVDialer Add-In for Outlook 2007 & 2010 - Dial your Vonage phone from Outlook: VDialer Add-In 1.0.3: This release adds new features related to Journal and use of Vonage API Changes in version 1.0.3 Added configurable option to automatically open J...WatchersNET.SkinObjects.ModulActionsMenu: ModulActionsMenu 01.00.00: First Release For Informations How To Install, the Skin Object Read the DocumentationMost Popular ProjectsCodeComment.NETRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)patterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryPHPExcelMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesMost Active ProjectsRawrpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryCaliburn: An Application Framework for WPF and Silverlightpatterns & practices: Windows Azure Security GuidanceCassiniDev - Cassini 3.5/4.0 Developers EditionGMap.NET - Great Maps for Windows Forms & PresentationNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModuleSQL Server PowerShell ExtensionsBlogEngine.NETCodeReview

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• Silverlight MEF – Download On Demand

  - by PeterTweed

  Take the Slalom Challenge at www.slalomchallenge.com! A common challenge with building complex applications in Silverlight is the initial download size of the xap file.  MEF enables us to build composable applications that allows us to build complex composite applications.  Wouldn’t it be great if we had a mechanism to spilt out components into different Silverlight applications in separate xap files and download the separate xap file only if needed?   MEF gives us the ability to do this.  This post will cover the basics needed to build such a composite application split between different silerlight applications and download the referenced silverlight application only when needed. Steps: 1.     Create a Silverlight 4 application 2.     Add references to the following assemblies: System.ComponentModel.Composition.dll System.ComponentModel.Composition.Initialization.dll 3.     Add a new Silverlight 4 application called ExternalSilverlightApplication to the solution that was created in step 1.  Ensure the new application is hosted in the web application for the solution and choose to not create a test page for the new application. 4.     Delete the App.xaml and MainPage.xaml files – they aren’t needed. 5.     Add references to the following assemblies in the ExternalSilverlightApplication project: System.ComponentModel.Composition.dll System.ComponentModel.Composition.Initialization.dll 6.     Ensure the two references above have their Copy Local values set to false.  As we will have these two assmblies in the original Silverlight application, we will have no need to include them in the built ExternalSilverlightApplication build. 7.     Add a new user control called LeftControl to the ExternalSilverlightApplication project. 8.     Replace the LayoutRoot Grid with the following xaml:     <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" Background="Beige" Margin="40" >         <Button Content="Left Content" Margin="30"></Button>     </Grid> 9.     Add the following statement to the top of the LeftControl.xaml.cs file using System.ComponentModel.Composition; 10.   Add the following attribute to the LeftControl class     [Export(typeof(LeftControl))]   This attribute tells MEF that the type LeftControl will be exported – i.e. made available for other applications to import and compose into the application. 11.   Add a new user control called RightControl to the ExternalSilverlightApplication project. 12.   Replace the LayoutRoot Grid with the following xaml:     <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" Background="Green" Margin="40"  >         <TextBlock Margin="40" Foreground="White" Text="Right Control" FontSize="16" VerticalAlignment="Center" HorizontalAlignment="Center" ></TextBlock>     </Grid> 13.   Add the following statement to the top of the RightControl.xaml.cs file using System.ComponentModel.Composition; 14.   Add the following attribute to the RightControl class     [Export(typeof(RightControl))] 15.   In your original Silverlight project add a reference to the ExternalSilverlightApplication project. 16.   Change the reference to the ExternalSilverlightApplication project to have it’s Copy Local value = false.  This will ensure that the referenced ExternalSilverlightApplication Silverlight application is not included in the original Silverlight application package when it it built.  The ExternalSilverlightApplication Silverlight application therefore has to be downloaded on demand by the original Silverlight application for it’s controls to be used. 1.     In your original Silverlight project add the following xaml to the LayoutRoot Grid in MainPage.xaml:         <Grid.RowDefinitions>             <RowDefinition Height="65*" />             <RowDefinition Height="235*" />         </Grid.RowDefinitions>         <Button Name="LoaderButton" Content="Download External Controls" Click="Button_Click"></Button>         <StackPanel Grid.Row="1" Orientation="Horizontal" HorizontalAlignment="Center" >             <Border Name="LeftContent" Background="Red" BorderBrush="Gray" CornerRadius="20"></Border>             <Border Name="RightContent" Background="Red" BorderBrush="Gray" CornerRadius="20"></Border>         </StackPanel>       The borders will hold the controls that will be downlaoded, imported and composed via MEF when the button is clicked. 2.     Add the following statement to the top of the MainPage.xaml.cs file using System.ComponentModel.Composition; 3.     Add the following properties to the MainPage class:         [Import(typeof(LeftControl))]         public LeftControl LeftUserControl { get; set; }         [Import(typeof(RightControl))]         public RightControl RightUserControl { get; set; }   This defines properties accepting LeftControl and RightControl types.  The attrributes are used to tell MEF the discovered type that should be applied to the property when composition occurs. 17.   Add the following event handler for the button click to the MainPage.xaml.cs file:         private void Button_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)         {                   DeploymentCatalog deploymentCatalog =     new DeploymentCatalog("ExternalSilverlightApplication.xap");                   CompositionHost.Initialize(deploymentCatalog);                   deploymentCatalog.DownloadCompleted += (s, i) =>                 {                     if (i.Error == null)                     {                         CompositionInitializer.SatisfyImports(this);                           LeftContent.Child = LeftUserControl;                         RightContent.Child = RightUserControl;                         LoaderButton.IsEnabled = false;                     }                 };                   deploymentCatalog.DownloadAsync();         } This is where the magic happens!  The deploymentCatalog object is pointed to the ExternalSilverlightApplication.xap file.  It is then associated with the CompositionHost initialization.  As the download will be asynchronous, an eventhandler is created for the DownloadCompleted event.  The deploymentCatalog object is then told to start the asynchronous download. The event handler that executes when the download is completed uses the CompositionInitializer.SatisfyImports() function to tell MEF to satisfy the Imports for the current class.  It is at this point that the LeftUserControl and RightUserControl properties are initialized with composed objects from the downloaded ExternalSilverlightApplication.xap package. 18.   Run the application click the Download External Controls button and see the controls defined in the ExternalSilverlightApplication application loaded into the original Silverlight application. Congratulations!  You have implemented download on demand capabilities for composite applications using the MEF DeploymentCatalog class.  You are now able to segment your applications into separate xap file for deployment.

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• How to Use the Signature Editor in Outlook 2013

  - by Lori Kaufman

  The Signature Editor in Outlook 2013 allows you to create a custom signature from text, graphics, or business cards. We will show you how to use the various features of the Signature Editor to customize your signatures. To open the Signature Editor, click the File tab and select Options on the left side of the Account Information screen. Then, click Mail on the left side of the Options dialog box and click the Signatures button. For more details, refer to one of the articles mentioned above. Changing the font for your signature is pretty self-explanatory. Select the text for which you want to change the font and select the desired font from the drop-down list. You can also set the justification (left, center, right) for each line of text separately. The drop-down list that reads Automatic by default allows you to change the color of the selected text. Click OK to accept your changes and close the Signatures and Stationery dialog box. To see your signature in an email, click Mail on the Navigation Bar. Click New Email on the Home tab. The Message window displays and your default signature is inserted into the body of the email. NOTE: You shouldn’t use fonts that are not common in your signatures. In order for the recipient to see your signature as you intended, the font you choose also needs to be installed on the recipient’s computer. If the font is not installed, the recipient would see a different font, the wrong characters, or even placeholder characters, which are empty square boxes. Close the Message window using the File tab or the X button in the upper, right corner of the Message window. You can save it as a draft if you want, but it’s not necessary. If you decide to use a font that is not common, a better way to do so would be to create a signature as an image, or logo. Create your image or logo in an image editing program making it the exact size you want to use in your signature. Save the image in a file size as small as possible. The .jpg format works well for pictures, the .png format works well for detailed graphics, and the .gif format works well for simple graphics. The .gif format generally produces the smallest files. To insert an image in your signature, open the Signatures and Stationery dialog box again. Either delete the text currently in the editor, if any, or create a new signature. Then, click the image button on the editor’s toolbar. On the Insert Picture dialog box, navigate to the location of your image, select the file, and click Insert. If you want to insert an image from the web, you must enter the full URL for the image in the File name edit box (instead of the local image filename). For example, http://www.somedomain.com/images/signaturepic.gif. If you want to link to the image at the specified URL, you must also select Link to File from the Insert drop-down list to maintain the URL reference. The image is inserted into the Edit signature box. Click OK to accept your changes and close the Signatures and Stationery dialog box. Create a new email message again. You’ll notice the image you inserted into the signature displays in the body of the message. Close the Message window using the File tab or the X button in the upper, right corner of the Message window. You may want to put a link to a webpage or an email link in your signature. To do this, open the Signatures and Stationery dialog box again. Enter the text to display for the link, highlight the text, and click the Hyperlink button on the editor’s toolbar. On the Insert Hyperlink dialog box, select the type of link from the list on the left and enter the webpage, email, or other type of address in the Address edit box. You can change the text that will display in the signature for the link in the Text to display edit box. Click OK to accept your changes and close the dialog box. The link displays in the editor with the default blue, underlined text. Click OK to accept your changes and close the Signatures and Stationery dialog box. Here’s an example of an email message with a link in the signature. Close the Message window using the File tab or the X button in the upper, right corner of the Message window. You can also insert your contact information into your signature as a Business Card. To do so, click Business Card on the editor’s toolbar. On the Insert Business Card dialog box, select the contact you want to insert as a Business Card. Select a size for the Business Card image from the Size drop-down list. Click OK. The Business Card image displays in the Signature Editor. Click OK to accept your changes and close the Signatures and Stationery dialog box. When you insert a Business Card into your signature, the Business Card image displays in the body of the email message and a .vcf file containing your contact information is attached to the email. This .vcf file can be imported into programs like Outlook that support this format. Close the Message window using the File tab or the X button in the upper, right corner of the Message window. You can also insert your Business Card into your signature without the image or without the .vcf file attached. If you want to provide recipients your contact info in a .vcf file, but don’t want to attach it to every email, you can upload the .vcf file to a location on the internet and add a link to the file, such as “Get my vCard,” in your signature. NOTE: If you want to edit your business card, such as applying a different template to it, you must select a different View other than People for your Contacts folder so you can open the full contact editing window.     

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• Network Access: I can't access 192.168.1.101 from 192.168.1.102.

  - by takpar

  Hi, I'm running Ubuntu 10.04 on my PC with IP 192.168.1.101. every thing work fine, e.g. my web server is running and I can see http://localhost/ or http://192.168.1.101 properly. But the problem is that I cannot see my PC from my laptop at 192.168.1.102 e.g. at my laptop http://192.168.1.101 gives Connection timed out in browser. or trying to telnet on any port leads to: telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection timed out laptop is running a fresh install of Ubuntu as well and there is no setup for firewall stuff in both computers. PS: Both computers can ping each other well. The router is a cicso linksys wireless ADSL modem. Currently, I can connect to FTP server on the Windows running on 192.168.1.102 from 192.168.1.101 without problem. Theses are commands ran on my PC, 192.168.1.101: ifconfig: adp@adp-desktop:~$ ifconfig eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:26:18:e1:8e:cf inet addr:192.168.1.101 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe70::226:18ff:fee1:8ecf/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:1831935 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:1493786 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:1996855925 (1.9 GB) TX bytes:215288238 (215.2 MB) Interrupt:27 Base address:0xa000 lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1 RX packets:951742 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:951742 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:494351095 (494.3 MB) TX bytes:494351095 (494.3 MB) vmnet1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:50:46:c0:00:01 inet addr:192.168.91.1 Bcast:192.168.91.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe70::250:56ff:fec0:1/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:50 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B) vmnet8 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:50:46:c0:00:08 inet addr:192.168.156.1 Bcast:192.168.156.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe70::250:56ff:fec0:8/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:51 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B) port 80 is set to 0.0.0.0 well: adp@adp-desktop:~$ netstat -ln | grep 'LISTEN ' tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:52815 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:4559 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:80 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:4369 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:7634 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:21 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:5269 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:631 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:25 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:5280 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 127.0.1.1:7777 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:33601 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:5222 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:3306 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN tcp6 0 0 :::139 :::* LISTEN tcp6 0 0 ::1:631 :::* LISTEN tcp6 0 0 :::445 :::* LISTEN /etc/hosts.deny is empty: adp@adp-desktop:~$ cat /etc/hosts.deny # /etc/hosts.deny: list of hosts that are _not_ allowed to access the system. # See the manual pages hosts_access(5) and hosts_options(5). # # Example: ALL: some.host.name, .some.domain # ALL EXCEPT in.fingerd: other.host.name, .other.domain # # If you're going to protect the portmapper use the name "portmap" for the # daemon name. Remember that you can only use the keyword "ALL" and IP # addresses (NOT host or domain names) for the portmapper, as well as for # rpc.mountd (the NFS mount daemon). See portmap(8) and rpc.mountd(8) # for further information. # # The PARANOID wildcard matches any host whose name does not match its # address. # # You may wish to enable this to ensure any programs that don't # validate looked up hostnames still leave understandable logs. In past # versions of Debian this has been the default. # ALL: PARANOID netstat -l: adp@adp-desktop:~$ netstat -l Active Internet connections (only servers) Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State tcp 0 0 localhost:52815 *:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 *:hylafax *:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 *:www *:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 *:4369 *:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 localhost:7634 *:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 *:ftp *:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 *:xmpp-server *:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 localhost:ipp *:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 *:smtp *:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 *:5280 *:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 adp-desktop:7777 *:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 *:33601 *:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 *:xmpp-client *:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 localhost:mysql *:* LISTEN tcp6 0 0 [::]:netbios-ssn [::]:* LISTEN tcp6 0 0 localhost:ipp [::]:* LISTEN tcp6 0 0 [::]:microsoft-ds [::]:* LISTEN udp 0 0 *:bootpc *:* udp 0 0 *:mdns *:* udp 0 0 *:47467 *:* udp 0 0 192.168.1.10:netbios-ns *:* udp 0 0 192.168.91.1:netbios-ns *:* udp 0 0 192.168.156.:netbios-ns *:* udp 0 0 *:netbios-ns *:* udp 0 0 192.168.1.1:netbios-dgm *:* udp 0 0 192.168.91.:netbios-dgm *:* udp 0 0 192.168.156:netbios-dgm *:* udp 0 0 *:netbios-dgm *:* raw 0 0 *:icmp *:* 7 netstat -rn: adp@adp-desktop:~$ netstat -rn Kernel IP routing table Destination Gateway Genmask Flags MSS Window irtt Iface 192.168.1.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0 192.168.91.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 vmnet1 192.168.156.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 vmnet8 169.254.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.0.0 U 0 0 0 eth0 0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth0 commands on the laptop, 192.168.1.102: ifconfig: root@fakeuser-laptop:~# ifconfig eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1c:33:a2:31:15 UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B) Interrupt:21 eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:2d:d9:3e:1f:6c inet addr:192.168.1.102 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe70::21d:d9ff:fe3e:1f6c/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:5681 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:10313 TX packets:6717 errors:6 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:4055251 (4.0 MB) TX bytes:779308 (779.3 KB) Interrupt:18 lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1 RX packets:206 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:206 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:15172 (15.1 KB) TX bytes:15172 (15.1 KB) netstat -rn: root@fakeuser-laptop:~# netstat -rn Kernel IP routing table Destination Gateway Genmask Flags MSS Window irtt Iface 192.168.1.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth1 169.254.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.0.0 U 0 0 0 eth1 0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth1

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• Using Sitecore RenderingContext Parameters as MVC controller action arguments

  - by Kyle Burns

  I have been working with the Technical Preview of Sitecore 6.6 on a project and have been for the most part happy with the way that Sitecore (which truly is an MVC implementation unto itself) has been expanded to support ASP.NET MVC. That said, getting up to speed with the combined platform has not been entirely without stumbles and today I want to share one area where Sitecore could have really made things shine from the "it just works" perspective. A couple days ago I was asked by a colleague about the usage of the "Parameters" field that is defined on Sitecore's Controller Rendering data template. Based on the standard way that Sitecore handles a field named Parameters, I was able to deduce that the field expected key/value pairs separated by the "&" character, but beyond that I wasn't sure and didn't see anything from a documentation perspective to guide me, so it was time to dig and find out where the data in the field was made available. My first thought was that it would be really nice if Sitecore handled the parameters in this field consistently with the way that ASP.NET MVC handles the various parameter collections on the HttpRequest object and automatically maps them to parameters of the action method executing. Being the hopeful sort, I configured a name/value pair on one of my renderings, added a parameter with matching name to the controller action and fired up the bugger to see... that the parameter was not populated. Having established that the field's value was not going to be presented to me the way that I had hoped it would, the next assumption that I would work on was that Sitecore would handle this field similar to how they handle other similar data and would plug it into some ambient object that I could reference from within the controller method. After a considerable amount of guessing, testing, and cracking code open with Redgate's Reflector (a must-have companion to Sitecore documentation), I found that the most direct way to access the parameter was through the ambient RenderingContext object using code similar to: string myArgument = string.Empty; var rc = Sitecore.Mvc.Presentation.RenderingContext.CurrentOrNull; if (rc != null) {     var parms = rc.Rendering.Parameters;     myArgument = parms["myArgument"]; } At this point, we know how this field is used out of the box from Sitecore and can provide information from Sitecore's Content Editor that will be available when the controller action is executing, but it feels a little dirty. In order to properly test the action method I would have to do a lot of setup work and possible use an isolation framework such as Pex and Moles to get at a value that my action method is dependent upon. Notice I said that my method is dependent upon the value but in order to meet that dependency I've accepted another dependency upon Sitecore's RenderingContext.  I'm a big believer in, when possible, ensuring that any piece of code explicitly advertises dependencies using the method signature, so I found myself still wanting this to work the same as if the parameters were in the request route, querystring, or form by being able to add a myArgument parameter to the action method and have this parameter populated by the framework. Lucky for us, the ASP.NET MVC framework is extremely flexible and provides some easy to grok and use extensibility points. ASP.NET MVC is able to provide information from the request as input parameters to controller actions because it uses objects which implement an interface called IValueProvider and have been registered to service the application. The most basic statement of responsibility for an IValueProvider implementation is "I know about some data which is indexed by key. If you hand me the key for a piece of data that I know about I give you that data". When preparing to invoke a controller action, the framework queries registered IValueProvider implementations with the name of each method argument to see if the ValueProvider can supply a value for the parameter. (the rest of this post will assume you're working along and make a lot more sense if you do) Let's pull Sitecore out of the equation for a second to simplify things and create an extremely simple IValueProvider implementation. For this example, I first create a new ASP.NET MVC3 project in Visual Studio, selecting "Internet Application" and otherwise taking defaults (I'm assuming that anyone reading this far in the post either already knows how to do this or will need to take a quick run through one of the many available basic MVC tutorials such as the MVC Music Store). Once the new project is created, go to the Index action of HomeController.  This action sets a Message property on the ViewBag to "Welcome to ASP.NET MVC!" and invokes the View, which has been coded to display the Message. For our example, we will remove the hard coded message from this controller (although we'll leave it just as hard coded somewhere else - this is sample code). For the first step in our exercise, add a string parameter to the Index action method called welcomeMessage and use the value of this argument to set the ViewBag.Message property. The updated Index action should look like: public ActionResult Index(string welcomeMessage) {     ViewBag.Message = welcomeMessage;     return View(); } This represents the entirety of the change that you will make to either the controller or view.  If you run the application now, the home page will display and no message will be presented to the user because no value was supplied to the Action method. Let's now write a ValueProvider to ensure this parameter gets populated. We'll start by creating a new class called StaticValueProvider. When the class is created, we'll update the using statements to ensure that they include the following: using System.Collections.Specialized; using System.Globalization; using System.Web.Mvc; With the appropriate using statements in place, we'll update the StaticValueProvider class to implement the IValueProvider interface. The System.Web.Mvc library already contains a pretty flexible dictionary-like implementation called NameValueCollectionValueProvider, so we'll just wrap that and let it do most of the real work for us. The completed class looks like: public class StaticValueProvider : IValueProvider {     private NameValueCollectionValueProvider _wrappedProvider;     public StaticValueProvider(ControllerContext controllerContext)     {         var parameters = new NameValueCollection();         parameters.Add("welcomeMessage", "Hello from the value provider!");         _wrappedProvider = new NameValueCollectionValueProvider(parameters, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);     }     public bool ContainsPrefix(string prefix)     {         return _wrappedProvider.ContainsPrefix(prefix);     }     public ValueProviderResult GetValue(string key)     {         return _wrappedProvider.GetValue(key);     } } Notice that the only entry in the collection matches the name of the argument to our HomeController's Index action.  This is the important "secret sauce" that will make things work. We've got our new value provider now, but that's not quite enough to be finished. Mvc obtains IValueProvider instances using factories that are registered when the application starts up. These factories extend the abstract ValueProviderFactory class by initializing and returning the appropriate implementation of IValueProvider from the GetValueProvider method. While I wouldn't do so in production code, for the sake of this example, I'm going to add the following class definition within the StaticValueProvider.cs source file: public class StaticValueProviderFactory : ValueProviderFactory {     public override IValueProvider GetValueProvider(ControllerContext controllerContext)     {         return new StaticValueProvider(controllerContext);     } } Now that we have a factory, we can register it by adding the following line to the end of the Application_Start method in Global.asax.cs: ValueProviderFactories.Factories.Add(new StaticValueProviderFactory()); If you've done everything right to this point, you should be able to run the application and be presented with the home page reading "Hello from the value provider!". Now that you have the basics of the IValueProvider down, you have everything you need to enhance your Sitecore MVC implementation by adding an IValueProvider that exposes values from the ambient RenderingContext's Parameters property. I'll provide the code for the IValueProvider implementation (which should look VERY familiar) and you can use the work we've already done as a reference to create and register the factory: public class RenderingContextValueProvider : IValueProvider {     private NameValueCollectionValueProvider _wrappedProvider = null;     public RenderingContextValueProvider(ControllerContext controllerContext)     {         var collection = new NameValueCollection();         var rc = RenderingContext.CurrentOrNull;         if (rc != null && rc.Rendering != null)         {             foreach(var parameter in rc.Rendering.Parameters)             {                 collection.Add(parameter.Key, parameter.Value);             }         }         _wrappedProvider = new NameValueCollectionValueProvider(collection, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);         }     public bool ContainsPrefix(string prefix)     {         return _wrappedProvider.ContainsPrefix(prefix);     }     public ValueProviderResult GetValue(string key)     {         return _wrappedProvider.GetValue(key);     } } In this post I've discussed the MVC IValueProvider used to map data to controller action method arguments and how this can be integrated into your Sitecore 6.6 MVC solution.

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• SQL SERVER – Using expressor Composite Types to Enforce Business Rules

  - by pinaldave

  One of the features that distinguish the expressor Data Integration Platform from other products in the data integration space is its concept of composite types, which provide an effective and easily reusable way to clearly define the structure and characteristics of data within your application.  An important feature of the composite type approach is that it allows you to easily adjust the content of a record to its ultimate purpose.  For example, a record used to update a row in a database table is easily defined to include only the minimum set of columns, that is, a value for the key column and values for only those columns that need to be updated. Much like a class in higher level programming languages, you can also use the composite type as a way to enforce business rules onto your data by encapsulating a datum’s name, data type, and constraints (for example, maximum, minimum, or acceptable values) as a single entity, which ensures that your data can not assume an invalid value.  To what extent you use this functionality is a decision you make when designing your application; the expressor design paradigm does not force this approach on you. Let’s take a look at how these features are used.  Suppose you want to create a group of applications that maintain the employee table in your human resources database. Your table might have a structure similar to the HumanResources.Employee table in the AdventureWorks database.  This table includes two columns, EmployeID and rowguid, that are maintained by the relational database management system; you cannot provide values for these columns when inserting new rows into the table. Additionally, there are columns such as VacationHours and SickLeaveHours that you might choose to update for all employees on a monthly basis, which justifies creation of a dedicated application. By creating distinct composite types for the read, insert and update operations against this table, you can more easily manage this table’s content. When developing this application within expressor Studio, your first task is to create a schema artifact for the database table.  This process is completely driven by a wizard, only requiring that you select the desired database schema and table.  The resulting schema artifact defines the mapping of result set records to a record within the expressor data integration application.  The structure of the record within the expressor application is a composite type that is given the default name CompositeType1.  As you can see in the following figure, all columns from the table are included in the result set and mapped to an identically named attribute in the default composite type. If you are developing an application that needs to read this table, perhaps to prepare a year-end report of employees by department, you would probably not be interested in the data in the rowguid and ModifiedDate columns.  A typical approach would be to drop this unwanted data in a downstream operator.  But using an alternative composite type provides a better approach in which the unwanted data never enters your application. While working in expressor  Studio’s schema editor, simply create a second composite type within the same schema artifact, which you could name ReadTable, and remove the attributes corresponding to the unwanted columns. The value of an alternative composite type is even more apparent when you want to insert into or update the table.  In the composite type used to insert rows, remove the attributes corresponding to the EmployeeID primary key and rowguid uniqueidentifier columns since these values are provided by the relational database management system. And to update just the VacationHours and SickLeaveHours columns, use a composite type that includes only the attributes corresponding to the EmployeeID, VacationHours, SickLeaveHours and ModifiedDate columns. By specifying this schema artifact and composite type in a Write Table operator, your upstream application need only deal with the four required attributes and there is no risk of unintentionally overwriting a value in a column that does not need to be updated. Now, what about the option to use the composite type to enforce business rules?  If you review the composition of the default composite type CompositeType1, you will note that the constraints defined for many of the attributes mirror the table column specifications.  For example, the maximum number of characters in the NationaIDNumber, LoginID and Title attributes is equivalent to the maximum width of the target column, and the size of the MaritalStatus and Gender attributes is limited to a single character as required by the table column definition.  If your application code leads to a violation of these constraints, an error will be raised.  The expressor design paradigm then allows you to handle the error in a way suitable for your application.  For example, a string value could be truncated or a numeric value could be rounded. Moreover, you have the option of specifying additional constraints that support business rules unrelated to the table definition. Let’s assume that the only acceptable values for marital status are S, M, and D.  Within the schema editor, double-click on the MaritalStatus attribute to open the Edit Attribute window.  Then click the Allowed Values checkbox and enter the acceptable values into the Constraint Value text box. The schema editor is updated accordingly. There is one more option that the expressor semantic type paradigm supports.  Since the MaritalStatus attribute now clearly specifies how this type of information should be represented (a single character limited to S, M or D), you can convert this attribute definition into a shared type, which will allow you to quickly incorporate this definition into another composite type or into the description of an output record from a transform operator. Again, double-click on the MaritalStatus attribute and in the Edit Attribute window, click Convert, which opens the Share Local Semantic Type window that you use to name this shared type.  There’s no requirement that you give the shared type the same name as the attribute from which it was derived.  You should supply a name that makes it obvious what the shared type represents. In this posting, I’ve overviewed the expressor semantic type paradigm and shown how it can be used to make your application development process more productive.  The beauty of this feature is that you choose when and to what extent you utilize the functionality, but I’m certain that if you opt to follow this approach your efforts will become more efficient and your work will progress more quickly.  As always, I encourage you to download and evaluate expressor Studio for your current and future data integration needs. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: CodeProject, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Documentation, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• Java collision detection and player movement: tips

  - by Loris

  I have read a short guide for game develompent (java, without external libraries). I'm facing with collision detection and player (and bullets) movements. Now i put the code. Most of it is taken from the guide (should i link this guide?). I'm just trying to expand and complete it. This is the class that take care of updates movements and firing mechanism (and collision detection): public class ArenaController { private Arena arena; /** selected cell for movement */ private float targetX, targetY; /** true if droid is moving */ private boolean moving = false; /** true if droid is shooting to enemy */ private boolean shooting = false; private DroidController droidController; public ArenaController(Arena arena) { this.arena = arena; this.droidController = new DroidController(arena); } public void update(float delta) { Droid droid = arena.getDroid(); //droid movements if (moving) { droidController.moveDroid(delta, targetX, targetY); //check if arrived if (droid.getX() == targetX && droid.getY() == targetY) moving = false; } //firing mechanism if(shooting) { //stop shot if there aren't bullets if(arena.getBullets().isEmpty()) { shooting = false; } for(int i = 0; i < arena.getBullets().size(); i++) { //current bullet Bullet bullet = arena.getBullets().get(i); System.out.println(bullet.getBounds()); //angle calculation double angle = Math.atan2(bullet.getEnemyY() - bullet.getY(), bullet.getEnemyX() - bullet.getX()); //increments x and y bullet.setX((float) (bullet.getX() + (Math.cos(angle) * bullet.getSpeed() * delta))); bullet.setY((float) (bullet.getY() + (Math.sin(angle) * bullet.getSpeed() * delta))); //collision with obstacles for(int j = 0; j < arena.getObstacles().size(); j++) { Obstacle obs = arena.getObstacles().get(j); if(bullet.getBounds().intersects(obs.getBounds())) { System.out.println("Collision detect!"); arena.removeBullet(bullet); } } //collisions with enemies for(int j = 0; j < arena.getEnemies().size(); j++) { Enemy ene = arena.getEnemies().get(j); if(bullet.getBounds().intersects(ene.getBounds())) { System.out.println("Collision detect!"); arena.removeBullet(bullet); } } } } } public boolean onClick(int x, int y) { //click on empty cell if(arena.getGrid()[(int)(y / Arena.TILE)][(int)(x / Arena.TILE)] == null) { //coordinates targetX = x / Arena.TILE; targetY = y / Arena.TILE; //enables movement moving = true; return true; } //click on enemy: fire if(arena.getGrid()[(int)(y / Arena.TILE)][(int)(x / Arena.TILE)] instanceof Enemy) { //coordinates float enemyX = x / Arena.TILE; float enemyY = y / Arena.TILE; //new bullet Bullet bullet = new Bullet(); //start coordinates bullet.setX(arena.getDroid().getX()); bullet.setY(arena.getDroid().getY()); //end coordinates (enemie) bullet.setEnemyX(enemyX); bullet.setEnemyY(enemyY); //adds bullet to arena arena.addBullet(bullet); //enables shooting shooting = true; return true; } return false; } As you can see for collision detection i'm trying to use Rectangle object. Droid example: import java.awt.geom.Rectangle2D; public class Droid { private float x; private float y; private float speed = 20f; private float rotation = 0f; private float damage = 2f; public static final int DIAMETER = 32; private Rectangle2D rectangle; public Droid() { rectangle = new Rectangle2D.Float(x, y, DIAMETER, DIAMETER); } public float getX() { return x; } public void setX(float x) { this.x = x; //rectangle update rectangle.setRect(x, y, DIAMETER, DIAMETER); } public float getY() { return y; } public void setY(float y) { this.y = y; //rectangle update rectangle.setRect(x, y, DIAMETER, DIAMETER); } public float getSpeed() { return speed; } public void setSpeed(float speed) { this.speed = speed; } public float getRotation() { return rotation; } public void setRotation(float rotation) { this.rotation = rotation; } public float getDamage() { return damage; } public void setDamage(float damage) { this.damage = damage; } public Rectangle2D getRectangle() { return rectangle; } } For now, if i start the application and i try to shot to an enemy, is immediately detected a collision and the bullet is removed! Can you help me with this? If the bullet hit an enemy or an obstacle in his way, it must disappear. Ps: i know that the movements of the bullets should be managed in another class. This code is temporary. update I realized what happens, but not why. With those for loops (which checks collisions) the movements of the bullets are instantaneous instead of gradual. In addition to this, if i add the collision detection to the Droid, the method intersects returns true ALWAYS while the droid is moving! public void moveDroid(float delta, float x, float y) { Droid droid = arena.getDroid(); int bearing = 1; if (droid.getX() > x) { bearing = -1; } if (droid.getX() != x) { droid.setX(droid.getX() + bearing * droid.getSpeed() * delta); //obstacles collision detection for(Obstacle obs : arena.getObstacles()) { if(obs.getRectangle().intersects(droid.getRectangle())) { System.out.println("Collision detected"); //ALWAYS HERE } } //controlla se è arrivato if ((droid.getX() < x && bearing == -1) || (droid.getX() > x && bearing == 1)) droid.setX(x); } bearing = 1; if (droid.getY() > y) { bearing = -1; } if (droid.getY() != y) { droid.setY(droid.getY() + bearing * droid.getSpeed() * delta); if ((droid.getY() < y && bearing == -1) || (droid.getY() > y && bearing == 1)) droid.setY(y); } }

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• SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #050

  - 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 Executing Remote Stored Procedure – Calling Stored Procedure on Linked Server In this example we see two different methods of how to call Stored Procedures remotely.  Connection Property of SQL Server Management Studio SSMS A very simple example of the how to build connection properties for SQL Server with the help of SSMS. Sample Example of RANKING Functions – ROW_NUMBER, RANK, DENSE_RANK, NTILE SQL Server has a total of 4 ranking functions. Ranking functions return a ranking value for each row in a partition. All the ranking functions are non-deterministic. T-SQL Script to Add Clustered Primary Key Jr. DBA asked me three times in a day, how to create Clustered Primary Key. I gave him following sample example. That was the last time he asked “How to create Clustered Primary Key to table?” 2008 2008 – TRIM() Function – User Defined Function SQL Server does not have functions which can trim leading or trailing spaces of any string at the same time. SQL does have LTRIM() and RTRIM() which can trim leading and trailing spaces respectively. SQL Server 2008 also does not have TRIM() function. User can easily use LTRIM() and RTRIM() together and simulate TRIM() functionality. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-hhApy6MHM 2009 Earlier I have written two different articles on the subject Remove Bookmark Lookup. This article is as part 3 of original article. Please read the first two articles here before continuing reading this article. Query Optimization – Remove Bookmark Lookup – Remove RID Lookup – Remove Key Lookup Query Optimization – Remove Bookmark Lookup – Remove RID Lookup – Remove Key Lookup – Part 2 Query Optimization – Remove Bookmark Lookup – Remove RID Lookup – Remove Key Lookup – Part 3 Interesting Observation – Query Hint – FORCE ORDER SQL Server never stops to amaze me. As regular readers of this blog already know that besides conducting corporate training, I work on large-scale projects on query optimizations and server tuning projects. In one of the recent projects, I have noticed that a Junior Database Developer used the query hint Force Order; when I asked for details, I found out that the basic concept was not properly understood by him. Queries Waiting for Memory Allocation to Execute In one of the recent projects, I was asked to create a report of queries that are waiting for memory allocation. The reason was that we were doubtful regarding whether the memory was sufficient for the application. The following query can be useful in similar cases. Queries that do not have to wait on a memory grant will not appear in the result set of following query. 2010 Quickest Way to Identify Blocking Query and Resolution – Dirty Solution As the title suggests, this is quite a dirty solution; it’s not as elegant as you expect. However, it works totally fine. Simple Explanation of Data Type Precedence While I was working on creating a question for SQL SERVER – SQL Quiz – The View, The Table and The Clustered Index Confusion, I had actually created yet another question along with this question. However, I felt that the one which is posted on the SQL Quiz is much better than this one because what makes that more challenging question is that it has a multiple answer. Encrypted Stored Procedure and Activity Monitor I recently had received questionable if any stored procedure is encrypted can we see its definition in Activity Monitor.Answer is - No. Let us do a quick test. Let us create following Stored Procedure and then launch the Activity Monitor and check the text. Indexed View always Use Index on Table A single table can have maximum 249 non clustered indexes and 1 clustered index. In SQL Server 2008, a single table can have maximum 999 non clustered indexes and 1 clustered index. It is widely believed that a table can have only 1 clustered index, and this belief is true. I have some questions for all of you. Let us assume that I am creating view from the table itself and then create a clustered index on it. In my view, I am selecting the complete table itself. 2011 Detecting Database Case Sensitive Property using fn_helpcollations() I received a question on how to determine the case sensitivity of the database. The quick answer to this is to identify the collation of the database and check the properties of the collation. I have previously written how one can identify database collation. Once you have figured out the collation of the database, you can put that in the WHERE condition of the following T-SQL and then check the case sensitivity from the description. Server Side Paging in SQL Server CE (Compact Edition) SQL Server Denali is coming up with new T-SQL of Paging. I have written about the same earlier.SQL SERVER – Server Side Paging in SQL Server Denali – A Better Alternative,  SQL SERVER – Server Side Paging in SQL Server Denali Performance Comparison, SQL SERVER – Server Side Paging in SQL Server Denali – Part2 What is very interesting is that SQL Server CE 4.0 have the same feature introduced. Here is the quick example of the same. To run the script in the example, you will have to do installWebmatrix 4.0 and download sample database. Once done you can run following script. Why I am Going to Attend PASS Summit Unite 2011 The four-day event will be marked by a lot of learning, sharing, and networking, which will help me increase both my knowledge and contacts. Every year, PASS Summit provides me a golden opportunity to build my network as well as to identify and meet potential customers or employees. 2012 Manage Help Settings – CTRL + ALT + F1 This is very interesting read as my daughter once accidently came across a screen in SQL Server Management Studio. It took me 2-3 minutes to figure out how she has created the same screen. Recover the Accidentally Renamed Table “I accidentally renamed table in my SSMS. I was scrolling very fast and I made mistakes. It was either because I double clicked or clicked on F2 (shortcut key for renaming). However, I have made the mistake and now I have no idea how to fix this. If you have renamed the table, I think you pretty much is out of luck. Here are few things which you can do which can give you an idea about what your table name can be if you are lucky. Identify Numbers of Non Clustered Index on Tables for Entire Database Here is the script which will give you numbers of non clustered indexes on any table in entire database. Identify Most Resource Intensive Queries – SQL in Sixty Seconds #029 – Video Here is the complete complete script which I have used in the SQL in Sixty Seconds Video. Thanks Harsh for important Tip in the comment. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kDHC_Tjrns Advanced Data Quality Services with Melissa Data – Azure Data Market For the purposes of the review, I used a database I had in an Excel spreadsheet with name and address information. Upon a cursory inspection, there are miscellaneous problems with these records; some addresses are missing ZIP codes, others missing a city, and some records are slightly misspelled or have unparsed suites. With DQS, I can easily add a knowledge base to help standardize my values, such as for state abbreviations. But how do I know that my address is correct? 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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• Configuration "diff" across Oracle WebCenter Sites instances

  - by Mark Fincham-Oracle

  Problem Statement With many Oracle WebCenter Sites environments - how do you know if the various configuration assets and settings are in sync across all of those environments? Background At Oracle we typically have a "W" shaped set of environments.  For the "Production" environments we typically have a disaster recovery clone as well and sometimes additional QA environments alongside the production management environment. In the case of www.java.com we have 10 different environments. All configuration assets/settings (CSElements, Templates, Start Menus etc..) start life on the Development Management environment and are then published downstream to other environments as part of the software development lifecycle. Ensuring that each of these 10 environments has the same set of Templates, CSElements, StartMenus, TreeTabs etc.. is impossible to do efficiently without automation. Solution Summary  The solution comprises of two components. A JSON data feed from each environment. A simple HTML page that consumes these JSON data feeds.  Data Feed: Create a JSON WebService on each environment. The WebService is no more than a SiteEntry + CSElement. The CSElement queries various DB tables to obtain details of the assets/settings returning this data in a JSON feed. Report: Create a simple HTML page that uses JQuery to fetch the JSON feed from each environment and display the results in a table. Since all assets (CSElements, Templates etc..) are published between environments they will have the same last modified date. If the last modified date of an asset is different in the JSON feed or is mising from an environment entirely then highlight that in the report table. Example Solution Details Step 1: Create a Site Entry + CSElement that outputs JSON Site Entry & CSElement Setup  The SiteEntry should be uncached so that the most recent configuration information is returned at all times. In the CSElement set the contenttype accordingly: Step 2: Write the CSElement Logic The basic logic, that we repeat for each asset or setting that we are interested in, is to query the DB using <ics:sql> and then loop over the resultset with <ics:listloop>. For example: <ics:sql sql="SELECT name,updateddate FROM Template WHERE status != 'VO'" listname="TemplateList" table="Template" /> "templates": [ <ics:listloop listname="TemplateList"> {"name":"<ics:listget listname="TemplateList"  fieldname="name"/>", "modified":"<ics:listget listname="TemplateList"  fieldname="updateddate"/>"}, </ics:listloop> ], A comprehensive list of SQL queries to fetch each configuration asset/settings can be seen in the appendix at the end of this article. For the generation of the JSON data structure you could use Jettison (the library ships with the 11.1.1.8 version of the product), native Java 7 capabilities or (as the above example demonstrates) you could roll-your-own JSON output but that is not advised. Step 3: Create an HTML Report The JavaScript logic looks something like this.. 1) Create a list of JSON feeds to fetch: ENVS['dev-mgmngt'] = 'http://dev-mngmnt.example.com/sites/ContentServer?d=&pagename=settings.json'; ENVS['dev-dlvry'] = 'http://dev-dlvry.example.com/sites/ContentServer?d=&pagename=settings.json';  ENVS['test-mngmnt'] = 'http://test-mngmnt.example.com/sites/ContentServer?d=&pagename=settings.json';  ENVS['test-dlvry'] = 'http://test-dlvry.example.com/sites/ContentServer?d=&pagename=settings.json';   2) Create a function to get the JSON feeds: function getDataForEnvironment(url){ return $.ajax({ type: 'GET', url: url, dataType: 'jsonp', beforeSend: function (jqXHR, settings){ jqXHR.originalEnv = env; jqXHR.originalUrl = url; }, success: function(json, status, jqXHR) { console.log('....success fetching: ' + jqXHR.originalUrl); // store the returned data in ALLDATA ALLDATA[jqXHR.originalEnv] = json; }, error: function(jqXHR, status, e) { console.log('....ERROR: Failed to get data from [' + url + '] ' + status + ' ' + e); } }); } 3) Fetch each JSON feed: for (var env in ENVS) { console.log('Fetching data for env [' + env +'].'); var promisedData = getDataForEnvironment(ENVS[env]); promisedData.success(function (data) {}); }  4) For each configuration asset or setting create a table in the report For example, CSElements: 1) Get a list of unique CSElement names from all of the returned JSON data. 2) For each unique CSElement name, create a row in the table  3) Select 1 environment to represent the master or ideal state (e.g. "Everything should be like Production Delivery") 4) For each environment, compare the last modified date of this envs CSElement to the master. Highlight any differences in last modified date or missing CSElements. 5) Repeat...    Appendix This section contains various SQL statements that can be used to retrieve configuration settings from the DB.  Templates  <ics:sql sql="SELECT name,updateddate FROM Template WHERE status != 'VO'" listname="TemplateList" table="Template" /> CSElements <ics:sql sql="SELECT name,updateddate FROM CSElement WHERE status != 'VO'" listname="CSEList" table="CSElement" /> Start Menus <ics:sql sql="select sm.id, sm.cs_name, sm.cs_description, sm.cs_assettype, sm.cs_assetsubtype, sm.cs_itemtype, smr.cs_rolename, p.name from StartMenu sm, StartMenu_Sites sms, StartMenu_Roles smr, Publication p where sm.id=sms.ownerid and sm.id=smr.cs_ownerid and sms.pubid=p.id order by sm.id" listname="startList" table="Publication,StartMenu,StartMenu_Roles,StartMenu_Sites"/>  Publishing Configurations <ics:sql sql="select id, name, description, type, dest, factors from PubTarget" listname="pubTargetList" table="PubTarget" /> Tree Tabs <ics:sql sql="select tt.id, tt.title, tt.tooltip, p.name as pubname, ttr.cs_rolename, ttsect.name as sectname from TreeTabs tt, TreeTabs_Roles ttr, TreeTabs_Sect ttsect,TreeTabs_Sites ttsites LEFT JOIN Publication p  on p.id=ttsites.pubid where p.id is not null and tt.id=ttsites.ownerid and ttsites.pubid=p.id and tt.id=ttr.cs_ownerid and tt.id=ttsect.ownerid order by tt.id" listname="treeTabList" table="TreeTabs,TreeTabs_Roles,TreeTabs_Sect,TreeTabs_Sites,Publication" />  Filters <ics:sql sql="select name,description,classname from Filters" listname="filtersList" table="Filters" /> Attribute Types <ics:sql sql="select id,valuetype,name,updateddate from AttrTypes where status != 'VO'" listname="AttrList" table="AttrTypes" /> WebReference Patterns <ics:sql sql="select id,webroot,pattern,assettype,name,params,publication from WebReferencesPatterns" listname="WebRefList" table="WebReferencesPatterns" /> Device Groups <ics:sql sql="select id,devicegroupsuffix,updateddate,name from DeviceGroup" listname="DeviceList" table="DeviceGroup" /> Site Entries <ics:sql sql="select se.id,se.name,se.pagename,se.cselement_id,se.updateddate,cse.rootelement from SiteEntry se LEFT JOIN CSElement cse on cse.id = se.cselement_id where se.status != 'VO'" listname="SiteList" table="SiteEntry,CSElement" /> Webroots <ics:sql sql="select id,name,rooturl,updatedby,updateddate from WebRoot" listname="webrootList" table="WebRoot" /> Page Definitions <ics:sql sql="select pd.id, pd.name, pd.updatedby, pd.updateddate, pd.description, pdt.attributeid, pa.name as nameattr, pdt.requiredflag, pdt.ordinal from PageDefinition pd, PageDefinition_TAttr pdt, PageAttribute pa where pd.status != 'VO' and pa.id=pdt.attributeid and pdt.ownerid=pd.id order by pd.id,pdt.ordinal" listname="pageDefList" table="PageDefinition,PageAttribute,PageDefinition_TAttr" /> FW_Application <ics:sql sql="select id,name,updateddate from FW_Application where status != 'VO'" listname="FWList" table="FW_Application" /> Custom Elements <ics:sql sql="select elementname from ElementCatalog where elementname like 'CustomElements%'" listname="elementList" table="ElementCatalog" />

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• ASP.NET MVC: Using ProfileRequiredAttribute to restrict access to pages

  - by DigiMortal

  If you are using AppFabric Access Control Services to authenticate users when they log in to your community site using Live ID, Google or some other popular identity provider, you need more than AuthorizeAttribute to make sure that users can access the content that is there for authenticated users only. In this posting I will show you hot to extend the AuthorizeAttribute so users must also have user profile filled. Semi-authorized users When user is authenticated through external identity provider then not all identity providers give us user name or other information we ask users when they join with our site. What all identity providers have in common is unique ID that helps you identify the user. Example. Users authenticated through Windows Live ID by AppFabric ACS have no name specified. Google’s identity provider is able to provide you with user name and e-mail address if user agrees to publish this information to you. They both give you unique ID of user when user is successfully authenticated in their service. There is logical shift between ASP.NET and my site when considering user as authorized. For ASP.NET MVC user is authorized when user has identity. For my site user is authorized when user has profile and row in my users table. Having profile means that user has unique username in my system and he or she is always identified by this username by other users. My solution is simple: I created my own action filter attribute that makes sure if user has profile to access given method and if user has no profile then browser is redirected to join page. Illustrating the problem Usually we restrict access to page using AuthorizeAttribute. Code is something like this. [Authorize] public ActionResult Details(string id) {     var profile = _userRepository.GetUserByUserName(id);     return View(profile); } If this page is only for site users and we have user profiles then all users – the ones that have profile and all the others that are just authenticated – can access the information. It is okay because all these users have successfully logged in in some service that is supported by AppFabric ACS. In my site the users with no profile are in grey spot. They are on half way to be users because they have no username and profile on my site yet. So looking at the image above again we need something that adds profile existence condition to user-only content. [ProfileRequired] public ActionResult Details(string id) {     var profile = _userRepository.GetUserByUserName(id);     return View(profile); } Now, this attribute will solve our problem as soon as we implement it. ProfileRequiredAttribute: Profiles are required to be fully authorized Here is my implementation of ProfileRequiredAttribute. It is pretty new and right now it is more like working draft but you can already play with it. public class ProfileRequiredAttribute : AuthorizeAttribute {     private readonly string _redirectUrl;       public ProfileRequiredAttribute()     {         _redirectUrl = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["JoinUrl"];         if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(_redirectUrl))             _redirectUrl = "~/";     }              public override void OnAuthorization(AuthorizationContext filterContext)     {         base.OnAuthorization(filterContext);           var httpContext = filterContext.HttpContext;         var identity = httpContext.User.Identity;           if (!identity.IsAuthenticated || identity.GetProfile() == null)             if(filterContext.Result == null)                 httpContext.Response.Redirect(_redirectUrl);          } } All methods with this attribute work as follows: if user is not authenticated then he or she is redirected to AppFabric ACS identity provider selection page, if user is authenticated but has no profile then user is by default redirected to main page of site but if you have application setting with name JoinUrl then user is redirected to this URL. First case is handled by AuthorizeAttribute and the second one is handled by custom logic in ProfileRequiredAttribute class. GetProfile() extension method To get user profile using less code in places where profiles are needed I wrote GetProfile() extension method for IIdentity interface. There are some more extension methods that read out user and identity provider identifier from claims and based on this information user profile is read from database. If you take this code with copy and paste I am sure it doesn’t work for you but you get the idea. public static User GetProfile(this IIdentity identity) {     if (identity == null)         return null;       var context = HttpContext.Current;     if (context.Items["UserProfile"] != null)         return context.Items["UserProfile"] as User;       var provider = identity.GetIdentityProvider();     var nameId = identity.GetNameIdentifier();       var rep = ObjectFactory.GetInstance<IUserRepository>();     var profile = rep.GetUserByProviderAndNameId(provider, nameId);       context.Items["UserProfile"] = profile;       return profile; } To avoid round trips to database I cache user profile to current request because the chance that profile gets changed meanwhile is very minimal. The other reason is maybe more tricky – profile objects are coming from Entity Framework context and context has also HTTP request as lifecycle. Conclusion This posting gave you some ideas how to finish user profiles stuff when you use AppFabric ACS as external authentication provider. Although there was little shift between us and ASP.NET MVC with interpretation of “authorized” we were easily able to solve the problem by extending AuthorizeAttribute to get all our requirements fulfilled. We also write extension method for IIdentity that returns as user profile based on username and caches the profile in HTTP request scope.

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• Get Application Title from Windows Phone

  - by psheriff

  In a Windows Phone application that I am currently developing I needed to be able to retrieve the Application Title of the phone application. You can set the Deployment Title in the Properties of your Windows Phone Application, however getting to this value programmatically can be a little tricky. This article assumes that you have Visual Studio 2010 and the Windows Phone tools installed along with it. The Windows Phone tools must be downloaded separately and installed with Visual Studio2010. You may also download the free Visual Studio2010 Express for Windows Phone developer environment. The WMAppManifest.xml File First off you need to understand that when you set the Deployment Title in the Properties windows of your Windows Phone application, this title actually gets stored into an XML file located under the \Properties folder of your application. This XML file is named WMAppManifest.xml. A portion of this file is shown in the following listing. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><Deployment  http://schemas.microsoft.com/windowsphone/2009/deployment"http://schemas.microsoft.com/windowsphone/2009/deployment"  AppPlatformVersion="7.0">  <App xmlns=""       ProductID="{71d20842-9acc-4f2f-b0e0-8ef79842ea53}"       Title="Mobile Time Track"       RuntimeType="Silverlight"       Version="1.0.0.0"       Genre="apps.normal"       Author="PDSA, Inc."       Description="Mobile Time Track"       Publisher="PDSA, Inc."> ... ...  </App></Deployment> Notice the “Title” attribute in the <App> element in the above XML document. This is the value that gets set when you modify the Deployment Title in your Properties Window of your Phone project. The only value you can set from the Properties Window is the Title. All of the other attributes you see here must be set by going into the XML file and modifying them directly. Note that this information duplicates some of the information that you can also set from the Assembly Information… button in the Properties Window. Why Microsoft did not just use that information, I don’t know. Reading Attributes from WMAppManifest I searched all over the namespaces and classes within the Windows Phone DLLs and could not find a way to read the attributes within the <App> element. Thus, I had to resort to good old fashioned XML processing. First off I created a WinPhoneCommon class and added two static methods as shown in the snippet below: public class WinPhoneCommon{  /// <summary>  /// Returns the Application Title   /// from the WMAppManifest.xml file  /// </summary>  /// <returns>The application title</returns>  public static string GetApplicationTitle()  {    return GetWinPhoneAttribute("Title");  }   /// <summary>  /// Returns the Application Description   /// from the WMAppManifest.xml file  /// </summary>  /// <returns>The application description</returns>  public static string GetApplicationDescription()  {    return GetWinPhoneAttribute("Description");  }   ... GetWinPhoneAttribute method here ...} In your Windows Phone application you can now simply call WinPhoneCommon.GetApplicationTitle() or WinPhone.GetApplicationDescription() to retrieve the Title or Description properties from the WMAppManifest.xml file respectively. You notice that each of these methods makes a call to the GetWinPhoneAttribute method. This method is shown in the following code snippet: /// <summary>/// Gets an attribute from the Windows Phone WMAppManifest.xml file/// To use this method, add a reference to the System.Xml.Linq DLL/// </summary>/// <param name="attributeName">The attribute to read</param>/// <returns>The Attribute's Value</returns>private static string GetWinPhoneAttribute(string attributeName){  string ret = string.Empty;   try  {    XElement xe = XElement.Load("WMAppManifest.xml");    var attr = (from manifest in xe.Descendants("App")                select manifest).SingleOrDefault();    if (attr != null)      ret = attr.Attribute(attributeName).Value;  }  catch  {    // Ignore errors in case this method is called    // from design time in VS.NET  }   return ret;} I love using the new LINQ to XML classes contained in the System.Xml.Linq.dll. When I did a Bing search the only samples I found for reading attribute information from WMAppManifest.xml used either an XmlReader or XmlReaderSettings objects. These are fine and work, but involve a little extra code. Instead of using these, I added a reference to the System.Xml.Linq.dll, then added two using statements to the top of the WinPhoneCommon class: using System.Linq;using System.Xml.Linq; Now, with just a few lines of LINQ to XML code you can read to the App element and extract the appropriate attribute that you pass into the GetWinPhoneAttribute method. Notice that I added a little bit of exception handling code in this method. I ignore the exception in case you call this method in the Loaded event of a user control. In design-time you cannot access the WMAppManifest file and thus an exception would be thrown. Summary In this article you learned how to retrieve the attributes from the WMAppManifest.xml file. I use this technique to grab information that I would otherwise have to hard-code in my application. Getting the Title or Description for your Windows Phone application is easy with just a little bit of LINQ to XML code. NOTE: You can download the complete sample code at my website. http://www.pdsa.com/downloads. Choose Tips & Tricks, then "Get Application Title from Windows Phone" from the drop-down. Good Luck with your Coding,Paul Sheriff ** SPECIAL OFFER FOR MY BLOG READERS **Visit http://www.pdsa.com/Event/Blog for a free video on Silverlight entitled Silverlight XAML for the Complete Novice - Part 1.  

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• SQL SERVER – Windows File/Folder and Share Permissions – Notes from the Field #029

  - by Pinal Dave

  [Note from Pinal]: This is a 29th episode of Notes from the Field series. Security is the task which we should give it to the experts. If there is a small overlook or misstep, there are good chances that security of the organization is compromised. This is very true, but there are always devils’s advocates who believe everyone should know the security. As a DBA and Administrator, I often see people not taking interest in the Windows Security hiding behind the reason of not expert of Windows Server. We all often miss the important mission statement for the success of any organization – Teamwork. In this blog post Brian tells the story in very interesting lucid language. Read On! In this episode of the Notes from the Field series database expert Brian Kelley explains a very crucial issue DBAs and Developer faces on their production server. Linchpin People are database coaches and wellness experts for a data driven world. Read the experience of Brian in his own words. When I talk security among database professionals, I find that most have at least a working knowledge of how to apply security within a database. When I talk with DBAs in particular, I find that most have at least a working knowledge of security at the server level if we’re speaking of SQL Server. One area I see continually that is weak is in the area of Windows file/folder (NTFS) and share permissions. The typical response is, “I’m a database developer and the Windows system administrator is responsible for that.” That may very well be true – the system administrator may have the primary responsibility and accountability for file/folder and share security for the server. However, if you’re involved in the typical activities surrounding databases and moving data around, you should know these permissions, too. Otherwise, you could be setting yourself up where someone is able to get to data he or she shouldn’t, or you could be opening the door where human error puts bad data in your production system. File/Folder Permission Basics: I wrote about file/folder permissions a few years ago to give the basic permissions that are most often seen. Here’s what you must know as a minimum at the file/folder level: Read - Allows you to read the contents of the file or folder. Having read permissions allows you to copy the file or folder. Write  – Again, as the name implies, it allows you to write to the file or folder. This doesn’t include the ability to delete, however, nothing stops a person with this access from writing an empty file. Delete - Allows the file/folder to be deleted. If you overwrite files, you may need this permission. Modify - Allows read, write, and delete. Full Control - Same as modify + the ability to assign permissions. File/Folder permissions aggregate, unless there is a DENY (where it trumps, just like within SQL Server), meaning if a person is in one group that gives Read and antoher group that gives Write, that person has both Read and Write permissions. As you might expect me to say, always apply the Principle of Least Privilege. This likely means that any additional permission you might add does not need Full Control. Share Permission Basics: At the share level, here are the permissions. Read - Allows you to read the contents on the share. Change - Allows you to read, write, and delete contents on the share. Full control - Change + the ability to modify permissions. Like with file/folder permissions, these permissions aggregate, and DENY trumps. So What Access Does a Person / Process Have? Figuring out what someone or some process has depends on how the location is being accessed: Access comes through the share (\\ServerName\Share) – a combination of permissions is considered. Access is through a drive letter (C:\, E:\, S:\, etc.) – only the file/folder permissions are considered. The only complicated one here is access through the share. Here’s what Windows does: Figures out what the aggregated permissions are at the file/folder level. Figures out what the aggregated permissions are at the share level. Takes the most restrictive of the two sets of permissions. You can test this by granting Full Control over a folder (this is likely already in place for the Users local group) and then setting up a share. Give only Read access through the share, and that includes to Administrators (if you’re creating a share, likely you have membership in the Administrators group). Try to read a file through the share. Now try to modify it. The most restrictive permission is the Share level permissions. It’s set to only allow Read. Therefore, if you come through the share, it’s the most restrictive. Does This Knowledge Really Help Me? In my experience, it does. I’ve seen cases where sensitive files were accessible by every authenticated user through a share. Auditors, as you might expect, have a real problem with that. I’ve also seen cases where files to be imported as part of the nightly processing were overwritten by files intended from development. And I’ve seen cases where a process can’t get to the files it needs for a process because someone changed the permissions. If you know file/folder and share permissions, you can spot and correct these types of security flaws. Given that there are a lot of database professionals that don’t understand these permissions, if you know it, you set yourself apart. And if you’re able to help on critical processes, you begin to set yourself up as a linchpin (link to .pdf) for your organization. If you want to get started with performance tuning and database security with the help of experts, read more over at Fix Your SQL Server. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: Notes from the Field, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Security, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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• Automating deployments with the SQL Compare command line

  - by Jonathan Hickford

  In my previous article, “Five Tips to Get Your Organisation Releasing Software Frequently” I looked at how teams can automate processes to speed up release frequency. In this post, I’m looking specifically at automating deployments using the SQL Compare command line. SQL Compare compares SQL Server schemas and deploys the differences. It works very effectively in scenarios where only one deployment target is required – source and target databases are specified, compared, and a change script is automatically generated and applied. But if multiple targets exist, and pressure to increase the frequency of releases builds, this solution quickly becomes unwieldy.   This is where SQL Compare’s command line comes into its own. I’ve put together a PowerShell script that loops through the Servers table and pulls out the server and database, these are then passed to sqlcompare.exe to be used as target parameters. In the example the source database is a scripts folder, a folder structure of scripted-out database objects used by both SQL Source Control and SQL Compare. The script can easily be adapted to use schema snapshots.     -- Create a DeploymentTargets database and a Servers table CREATE DATABASE DeploymentTargets GO USE DeploymentTargets GO CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Servers]( [id] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL, [serverName] [nvarchar](50) NULL, [environment] [nvarchar](50) NULL, [databaseName] [nvarchar](50) NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK_Servers] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ([id] ASC) ) GO -- Now insert your target server and database details INSERT INTO dbo.Servers ( serverName , environment , databaseName) VALUES ( N'myserverinstance' , N'myenvironment1' , N'mydb1') INSERT INTO dbo.Servers ( serverName , environment , databaseName) VALUES ( N'myserverinstance' , N'myenvironment2' , N'mydb2') Here’s the PowerShell script you can adapt for yourself as well. # We're holding the server names and database names that we want to deploy to in a database table. # We need to connect to that server to read these details $serverName = "" $databaseName = "DeploymentTargets" $authentication = "Integrated Security=SSPI" #$authentication = "User Id=xxx;PWD=xxx" # If you are using database authentication instead of Windows authentication. # Path to the scripts folder we want to deploy to the databases $scriptsPath = "SimpleTalk" # Path to SQLCompare.exe $SQLComparePath = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Red Gate\SQL Compare 10\sqlcompare.exe" # Create SQL connection string, and connection $ServerConnectionString = "Data Source=$serverName;Initial Catalog=$databaseName;$authentication" $ServerConnection = new-object system.data.SqlClient.SqlConnection($ServerConnectionString); # Create a Dataset to hold the DataTable $dataSet = new-object "System.Data.DataSet" "ServerList" # Create a query $query = "SET NOCOUNT ON;" $query += "SELECT serverName, environment, databaseName " $query += "FROM dbo.Servers; " # Create a DataAdapter to populate the DataSet with the results $dataAdapter = new-object "System.Data.SqlClient.SqlDataAdapter" ($query, $ServerConnection) $dataAdapter.Fill($dataSet) | Out-Null # Close the connection $ServerConnection.Close() # Populate the DataTable $dataTable = new-object "System.Data.DataTable" "Servers" $dataTable = $dataSet.Tables[0] #For every row in the DataTable $dataTable | FOREACH-OBJECT { "Server Name: $($_.serverName)" "Database Name: $($_.databaseName)" "Environment: $($_.environment)" # Compare the scripts folder to the database and synchronize the database to match # NB. Have set SQL Compare to abort on medium level warnings. $arguments = @("/scripts1:$($scriptsPath)", "/server2:$($_.serverName)", "/database2:$($_.databaseName)", "/AbortOnWarnings:Medium") # + @("/sync" ) # Commented out the 'sync' parameter for safety, write-host $arguments & $SQLComparePath $arguments "Exit Code: $LASTEXITCODE" # Some interesting variations # Check that every database matches a folder. # For example this might be a pre-deployment step to validate everything is at the same baseline state. # Or a post deployment script to validate the deployment worked. # An exit code of 0 means the databases are identical. # # $arguments = @("/scripts1:$($scriptsPath)", "/server2:$($_.serverName)", "/database2:$($_.databaseName)", "/Assertidentical") # Generate a report of the difference between the folder and each database. Generate a SQL update script for each database. # For example use this after the above to generate upgrade scripts for each database # Examine the warnings and the HTML diff report to understand how the script will change objects # #$arguments = @("/scripts1:$($scriptsPath)", "/server2:$($_.serverName)", "/database2:$($_.databaseName)", "/ScriptFile:update_$($_.environment+"_"+$_.databaseName).sql", "/report:update_$($_.environment+"_"+$_.databaseName).html" , "/reportType:Interactive", "/showWarnings", "/include:Identical") } It’s worth noting that the above example generates the deployment scripts dynamically. This approach should be problem-free for the vast majority of changes, but it is still good practice to review and test a pre-generated deployment script prior to deployment. An alternative approach would be to pre-generate a single deployment script using SQL Compare, and run this en masse to multiple targets programmatically using sqlcmd, or using a tool like SQL Multi Script.  You can use the /ScriptFile, /report, and /showWarnings flags to generate change scripts, difference reports and any warnings.  See the commented out example in the PowerShell: #$arguments = @("/scripts1:$($scriptsPath)", "/server2:$($_.serverName)", "/database2:$($_.databaseName)", "/ScriptFile:update_$($_.environment+"_"+$_.databaseName).sql", "/report:update_$($_.environment+"_"+$_.databaseName).html" , "/reportType:Interactive", "/showWarnings", "/include:Identical") There is a drawback of running a pre-generated deployment script; it assumes that a given database target hasn’t drifted from its expected state. Often there are (rightly or wrongly) many individuals within an organization who have permissions to alter the production database, and changes can therefore be made outside of the prescribed development processes. The consequence is that at deployment time, the applied script has been validated against a target that no longer represents reality. The solution here would be to add a check for drift prior to running the deployment script. This is achieved by using sqlcompare.exe to compare the target against the expected schema snapshot using the /Assertidentical flag. Should this return any differences (sqlcompare.exe Exit Code 79), a drift report is outputted instead of executing the deployment script.  See the commented out example. # $arguments = @("/scripts1:$($scriptsPath)", "/server2:$($_.serverName)", "/database2:$($_.databaseName)", "/Assertidentical") Any checks and processes that should be undertaken prior to a manual deployment, should also be happen during an automated deployment. You might think about triggering backups prior to deployment – even better, automate the verification of the backup too.   You can use SQL Compare’s command line interface along with PowerShell to automate multiple actions and checks that you need in your deployment process. Automation is a practical solution where multiple targets and a higher release cadence come into play. As we know, with great power comes great responsibility – responsibility to ensure that the necessary checks are made so deployments remain trouble-free.  (The code sample supplied in this post automates the simple dynamic deployment case – if you are considering more advanced automation, e.g. the drift checks, script generation, deploying to large numbers of targets and backup/verification, please email me at [email protected] for further script samples or if you have further questions)

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• How to store generated eigen faces for future face recognition?

  - by user3237134

  My code works in the following manner: 1.First, it obtains several images from the training set 2.After loading these images, we find the normalized faces,mean face and perform several calculation. 3.Next, we ask for the name of an image we want to recognize 4.We then project the input image into the eigenspace, and based on the difference from the eigenfaces we make a decision. 5.Depending on eigen weight vector for each input image we make clusters using kmeans command. Source code i tried: clear all close all clc % number of images on your training set. M=1200; %Chosen std and mean. %It can be any number that it is close to the std and mean of most of the images. um=60; ustd=32; %read and show images(bmp); S=[]; %img matrix for i=1:M str=strcat(int2str(i),'.jpg'); %concatenates two strings that form the name of the image eval('img=imread(str);'); [irow icol d]=size(img); % get the number of rows (N1) and columns (N2) temp=reshape(permute(img,[2,1,3]),[irow*icol,d]); %creates a (N1*N2)x1 matrix S=[S temp]; %X is a N1*N2xM matrix after finishing the sequence %this is our S end %Here we change the mean and std of all images. We normalize all images. %This is done to reduce the error due to lighting conditions. for i=1:size(S,2) temp=double(S(:,i)); m=mean(temp); st=std(temp); S(:,i)=(temp-m)*ustd/st+um; end %show normalized images for i=1:M str=strcat(int2str(i),'.jpg'); img=reshape(S(:,i),icol,irow); img=img'; end %mean image; m=mean(S,2); %obtains the mean of each row instead of each column tmimg=uint8(m); %converts to unsigned 8-bit integer. Values range from 0 to 255 img=reshape(tmimg,icol,irow); %takes the N1*N2x1 vector and creates a N2xN1 matrix img=img'; %creates a N1xN2 matrix by transposing the image. % Change image for manipulation dbx=[]; % A matrix for i=1:M temp=double(S(:,i)); dbx=[dbx temp]; end %Covariance matrix C=A'A, L=AA' A=dbx'; L=A*A'; % vv are the eigenvector for L % dd are the eigenvalue for both L=dbx'*dbx and C=dbx*dbx'; [vv dd]=eig(L); % Sort and eliminate those whose eigenvalue is zero v=[]; d=[]; for i=1:size(vv,2) if(dd(i,i)>1e-4) v=[v vv(:,i)]; d=[d dd(i,i)]; end end %sort, will return an ascending sequence [B index]=sort(d); ind=zeros(size(index)); dtemp=zeros(size(index)); vtemp=zeros(size(v)); len=length(index); for i=1:len dtemp(i)=B(len+1-i); ind(i)=len+1-index(i); vtemp(:,ind(i))=v(:,i); end d=dtemp; v=vtemp; %Normalization of eigenvectors for i=1:size(v,2) %access each column kk=v(:,i); temp=sqrt(sum(kk.^2)); v(:,i)=v(:,i)./temp; end %Eigenvectors of C matrix u=[]; for i=1:size(v,2) temp=sqrt(d(i)); u=[u (dbx*v(:,i))./temp]; end %Normalization of eigenvectors for i=1:size(u,2) kk=u(:,i); temp=sqrt(sum(kk.^2)); u(:,i)=u(:,i)./temp; end % show eigenfaces; for i=1:size(u,2) img=reshape(u(:,i),icol,irow); img=img'; img=histeq(img,255); end % Find the weight of each face in the training set. omega = []; for h=1:size(dbx,2) WW=[]; for i=1:size(u,2) t = u(:,i)'; WeightOfImage = dot(t,dbx(:,h)'); WW = [WW; WeightOfImage]; end omega = [omega WW]; end % Acquire new image % Note: the input image must have a bmp or jpg extension. % It should have the same size as the ones in your training set. % It should be placed on your desktop ed_min=[]; srcFiles = dir('G:\newdatabase\*.jpg'); % the folder in which ur images exists for b = 1 : length(srcFiles) filename = strcat('G:\newdatabase\',srcFiles(b).name); Imgdata = imread(filename); InputImage=Imgdata; InImage=reshape(permute((double(InputImage)),[2,1,3]),[irow*icol,1]); temp=InImage; me=mean(temp); st=std(temp); temp=(temp-me)*ustd/st+um; NormImage = temp; Difference = temp-m; p = []; aa=size(u,2); for i = 1:aa pare = dot(NormImage,u(:,i)); p = [p; pare]; end InImWeight = []; for i=1:size(u,2) t = u(:,i)'; WeightOfInputImage = dot(t,Difference'); InImWeight = [InImWeight; WeightOfInputImage]; end noe=numel(InImWeight); % Find Euclidean distance e=[]; for i=1:size(omega,2) q = omega(:,i); DiffWeight = InImWeight-q; mag = norm(DiffWeight); e = [e mag]; end ed_min=[ed_min MinimumValue]; theta=6.0e+03; %disp(e) z(b,:)=InImWeight; end IDX = kmeans(z,5); clustercount=accumarray(IDX, ones(size(IDX))); disp(clustercount); QUESTIONS: 1.It is working fine for M=50(i.e Training set contains 50 images) but not for M=1200(i.e Training set contains 1200 images).It is not showing any error.There is no output.I waited for 10 min still there is no output. I think it is going infinite loop.What is the problem?Where i was wrong? 2.Instead of running the training set everytime how eigen faces generated are stored so that stored eigen faces are used for future face recoginition for a new input image.So it reduces wastage of time.

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• Setup Guide for updating local system and the repository with the incremental Solaris 11.1 SRU

  - by Gurubalan

  This guide covers the steps to implement the following setup. I. Updating the local system from Solaris 11.1 to Solaris 11.1 SRU 16.5II. Setting up local system as an IPS Repository Server (HTTP interface)III. Updating the local repository with the incremental Solaris 11.1 SRU 16.5I. Updating the local system from Solaris 11.1 to Solaris 11.1 SRU 16.5We assume that the local system is currently installed with Solaris 11.1 GA and the system doesn't have internet connectivity.What I have:1. Two parts of full repo iso files downloaded from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/solaris11/downloads/index.html. Both files are concatenated to a single file using the following command. $ cat sol-11_1-repo-full.iso-a sol-11_1-repo-full.iso-b > sol-11_1-repo-full.iso I suggest to verify the downloaded file against its md5checksum value [http://download.oracle.com/otn/solaris/11_1/md5sum.txt] using the following command digest -a md5 <file-name>  // the output of this command should match the original checksum value for that file.2. Incremental repo sol-11_1_16_5_0-incr-repo.iso downloaded from MOS [Patch 18269379: ORACLE SOLARIS 11.1.16.5.0 REPO ISO IMAGE (SPARC/X86 (64-BIT)]. You can get the checksum value of incremental repo iso by clicking the check box "show digest details" when you download the file.3. The local system IP is 192.168.10.10 & port 81 is reserved for repo serverPlease note that this repo file (either full or incremental) is common for both SPARC and X86(64BIT).Steps to update the local system: 1. #mounting s11.1 full repo iso to mnt        $ mount -F hsfs /soft/sol-11_1-repo-full.iso /mnt 2. Setting the pkg publisher to full repo source         $ pkg set-publisher -g file:///mnt/repo solaris 3. Perform the update of the packages.        $ pkg updateII. Setting up local system (Oracle Solaris 11.1) as an IPS Repository Server(HTTP interface):Please note that we have already mounted the full repo iso at /mnt    1. # copying /mnt permanently to the disk location at /s11.1        #zfs create -o atime=off -o mountpoint=/s11.1 rpool/s11.1        #rsync -aP /mnt/* /s11.1     2. #unmounting mnt         #umount /mnt3. To allow clients to access the local repository via HTTP, enable the application/pkg/server Service Management Facility (SMF) service.        svccfg -s application/pkg/server setprop pkg/inst_root=<data_source>/repo        eg: $svccfg -s application/pkg/server setprop pkg/inst_root=/s11.1/repo4. Setting port# to 81      svccfg -s application/pkg/server setprop pkg/port=<port_number>      eg: svccfg -s application/pkg/server setprop pkg/port="81"5a. Enable the pkg/server service (if the service is disabled)     $svcs pkg/server     STATE          STIME    FMRI     disabled        19:55:03 svc:/application/pkg/server:default      $svcadm enable pkg/server5b. Refresh/Restart the service, if it is already online       $svcadm refresh application/pkg/server       $svcadm restart application/pkg/server6. Setting pkg publisher on repo server and repo clients:      pkg set-publisher -G '*' -g http://<ip>:<port> solaris      eg: $pkg set-publisher -G '*' -g 'http://192.168.10.10:81' solaris7. Verify the Solaris 11.1 version from the repository         $pkgrepo list -s http://192.168.10.10:81 | grep entire         solaris   entire     0.5.11,5.11-0.175.1.0.0.24.2:20120919T190135Z You will have multiple row entries if the repository is setup with incremental SRUs.III. Updating the local repository with the incremental Solaris 11.1 SRU 16.51. #mounting s11.1 incremental SRU repo iso to mnt        $ mount -F hsfs <full_path_to>/sol-11_1_sruN_bldnum_respinnum-incr-repo.iso  /mnt        $ mount -F hsfs /soft/sol-11_1_16_5_0-incr-repo.iso /mnt2. Updating the local repository        $pkgrecv -s  /mnt/repo -d /s11.1/repo '*'3. Building a Search Index    $pkgrepo -s /s11.1/repo refresh     Initiating repository refresh.4. Refresh/Restart the service       $svcadm refresh svc:/application/pkg/server       $svcadm restart svc:/application/pkg/server5. Verify the repo has the incremental SRU as well.       # pkgrepo list -s http://192.168.10.10:81 | grep entire        solaris   entire      0.5.11,5.11-0.175.1.16.0.5.0:20140218T165248Z       solaris   entire      0.5.11,5.11-0.175.1.0.0.24.2:20120919T190135Z

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