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  • How to Submit Form Given Specific Json Response

    - by dentalhero
    I'm new to Json, so please excuse the newb question. I have a form in which I'm conducting an Ajax post to submit address information to a backend script for validation. Here's the form: <form name="Form" id="Forms" method="post" action="WebCatPageServer.exe" class="uniForm"> <input name="Action" type="hidden" value="SHIPTOVALIDATE"/> <input name="IsAjax" type="hidden" value="Yes"/> <!-- <input name="Action" type="hidden" value="VerifyOrder"/>--> <fieldset class="inlineLabels top"> <h2>Order Details</h2> <div class="ctrlHolder first"> <label for="orderdesc">Order Description</label> <input name="Order Desc" id="OrderDesc" type="text" class="textInput small" tabindex="1" value=""/> </div> <div class="ctrlHolder"> <label for="po">PO # <span class="redasterisk">*</span></label> <input name="Cust Po" id="PoJobNo" type="text" class="textInput small required" maxlength="20" tabindex="2" value="dgnfg"/> </div> <!-- <div class="ctrlHolder"> <label for="jobname">Job Name</label> <input name="Job Name" id="CustJobName" type="text" class="textInput small" maxlength="15" tabindex="3" value=""/> </div> --> <div class="ctrlHolder"> <label for="shipvia">Ship Via <span class="redasterisk">*</span></label> <select name="Ship Via" id="shipvia" class="selectInput small required" tabindex="4"/> <option value="" class="default">Select Ship Method</option> <option value="OT - Our Truck" class="del" selected>Our Truck</option> <option value="WC - Will Call" class="pick">Will Call</option> </select> </div> <div class="ctrlHolder" id="pickupdate"> <label for="datepickup">Requested Pickup Date <span class="redasterisk">*</span></label> <input name="datepickup" id="datepickup" type="text" class="textInput small" tabindex="5" value="11/09/2012"> </div> <div class="ctrlHolder" id="shipdate"> <label for="dateship">Requested Delivery Date <span class="redasterisk">*</span></label> <input name="dateship" id="dateship" type="text" class="textInput small" value="" tabindex="6"> </div> <div class="ctrlHolder" id="shipto"> <label for="ShipTo">Ship To <span class="redasterisk">*</span></label> <select name="ShipTos" id="ShipTos" class="selectInput auto required" tabindex="7"> <option value="">Select an Option</option> <option value="ShipToManual" class="manual">Manually Enter Address</option> <option value="0">A ACTION AIR*, 5241 YANCEYVILLE, COLUMBIA, SC 29214-0001</option> <option value="1">A ACTION AIR*, 649 spring lane, sanford, NC 27330</option> <option value="2">A ACTION AIR*, 1313 south briggs avenue, durham, NC 27703</option> <option value="3">A ACTION AIR*, 112 cricket hill lane, cary, NC 27513</option> <option value="4">A ACTION AIR*, 2911 duke homestead road, durham, NC 27705</option> <option value="5">A ACTION AIR*, chickem poop, atlanta, GA 60609</option> </select> <br /> </div> </fieldset> <fieldset class="inlineLabels" id="shipinfo"> <h2>Shipping Information</h2> <div class="ctrlHolder first"> <label for="YourName">Your Name <span class="redasterisk">*</span></label> <input name="Your Name" id="Your_Name" type="text" class="textInput small required" tabindex="8" value="" /> </div> <div class="ctrlHolder"> <label for="CompanyName">Company Name <span class="redasterisk">*</span></label> <input name="Company Name" id="CompanyName" type="text" class="textInput small required" tabindex="9" value="A ACTION AIR*"/> </div> <div class="ctrlHolder"> <label for="Address1">Address 1 <span class="redasterisk">*</span></label> <input name="Address_1" id="Address_1" type="text" maxlength="30" class="textInput small required" tabindex="10" value="5241 YANCEYVILLE"/> </div> <div class="ctrlHolder"> <label for="Address2">Address 2</label> <input name="Address_2" id="Address_2" type="text" maxlength="30" class="textInput small" tabindex="11" value=""/> </div> <div class="ctrlHolder"> <label for="City">City <span class="redasterisk">*</span></label> <input name="City" id="City" type="text" maxlength="25" class="textInput small required" tabindex="12" value="COLUMBIA"/> </div> <div class="ctrlHolder"> <label for="State">State <span class="redasterisk">*</span></label> <select name="State" id="State" class="selectInput small required" tabindex="13"> <option value="">Select State</option> <option value="AL">Alabama</option> <option value="AK">Alaska</option> <option value="AZ">Arizona</option> <option value="AR">Arkansas</option> <option value="CA">California</option> <option value="CO">Colorado</option> <option value="CT">Connecticut</option> <option value="DE">Delaware</option> <option value="FL">Florida</option> <option value="GA">Georgia</option> <option value="HI">Hawaii</option> <option value="ID">Idaho</option> <option value="IL">Illinois</option> <option value="IN">Indiana</option> <option value="IA">Iowa</option> <option value="KS">Kansas</option> <option value="KY">Kentucky</option> <option value="LA">Louisiana</option> <option value="ME">Maine</option> <option value="MD">Maryland</option> <option value="MA">Massachussetts</option> <option value="MI">Michigan</option> <option value="MN">Minnesota</option> <option value="MS">Mississippi</option> <option value="MO">Missouri</option> <option value="MT">Montana</option> <option value="NE">Nebraska</option> <option value="NV">Nevada</option> <option value="NH">New Hampshire</option> <option value="NJ">New Jersey</option> <option value="NM">New Mexico</option> <option value="NY">New York</option> <option value="NC">North Carolina</option> <option value="ND">North Dakota</option> <option value="OH">Ohio</option> <option value="OK">Oklahoma</option> <option value="OR">Oregon</option> <option value="PA">Pennsylvania</option> <option value="RI">Rhode Island</option> <option value="SC" selected>South Carolina</option> <option value="SD">South Dakota</option> <option value="TN">Tennessee</option> <option value="TX">Texas</option> <option value="UT">Utah</option> <option value="VT">Vermont</option> <option value="VA">Virginia</option> <option value="WA">Washington</option> <option value="WV">West Virginia</option> <option value="WI">Wisconsin</option> <option value="WY">Wyoming</option> </select> </div> <div class="ctrlHolder"> <label for="ZipCode">Zip Code <span class="redasterisk">*</span></label> <input name="Zip" id="Zip" type="text" maxlength="10" class="textInput small required zipcode" tabindex="14" value=""/> </div> <div class="ctrlHolder"> <label for="Phone">Phone <span class="redasterisk">*</span></label> <input name="Phone Number" id="Phone" type="text" class="textInput small required phone" alt="phone-us" tabindex="15" value="(336)954-5009"/> </div> <div class="ctrlHolder"> <label for="Fax">Fax</label> <input name="FaxNumber" id="Fax Number" type="text" class="textInput small fax" alt="phone-us" tabindex="16" value=""/> </div> <div class="ctrlHolder"> <label for="">E-mail <span class="redasterisk">*</span></label> <input name="Email" id="Email" type="text" class="textInput small required email" tabindex="17" value=""/> </div> </fieldset> <fieldset class="inlineLabels"> <h2>Order/Shipping Notes</h2> <div class="ctrlHolder first"> <label for="notes">Order Notes </label> <textarea name="OrderNotes" id="ta" cols="26" rows="7" tabindex="18"></textarea><br /> <p class="formHint"><b>(Maximum characters: 175) &nbsp; <span id="charLeft"></span> &nbsp; Characters left</b><br /> (Cross streets, special instructions, etc.)</p> <br /> </div> </fieldset> <fieldset class="inlineLabels"> <h2>Continue To Next Step</h2> <div class="buttonHolder"> <label for="freightmsg">**Applicable freight charges will be applied at the time of invoicing.**</label> <input name="continuetocheckout" type="submit" class="button red smallrounded" value="Continue &gt;" alt="Continue to Next Step" tabindex="20"/> </div> </fieldset> </form> AJAX Call Here's the AJAX call: $(function() { $("#Forms").submit(function() { $.ajax({ type: 'post', url: 'WebCatPageServer.exe', dataType : 'json', data: $("#Forms").serialize(), complete:function(data){ alert(data); } }); return false; }); }); JSON Response Here's the JSON response: {"DidValidate":true,"Company Name":"A ACTION AIR*","AddrLine1":"5241 YANCEYVILLE","AddrLine2":"","City":"COLUMBIA","State":"SC","Zip":"","Modified":false,"AddressError":false,"ZipError":false} Question: How do I submit the form programatically if both AddressError and ZipError return with a false?

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  • Texture will not apply to my 3d Cube directX

    - by numerical25
    I am trying to apply a texture onto my 3d cube but it is not showing up correctly. I believe that it might some what be working because the cube is all brown which is almost the same complexion as the texture. And I did not originally make the cube brown. These are the steps I've done to add the texture I first declared 2 new varibles ID3D10EffectShaderResourceVariable* pTextureSR; ID3D10ShaderResourceView* textureSRV; I also added a variable and a struct to my shader .fx file Texture2D tex2D; SamplerState linearSampler { Filter = MIN_MAG_MIP_LINEAR; AddressU = Wrap; AddressV = Wrap; }; I then grabbed the image from my local hard drive from within the .cpp file. I believe this was successful, I checked all varibles for errors, everything has a memory address. Plus I pulled resources before and never had a problem. D3DX10CreateShaderResourceViewFromFile(mpD3DDevice,L"crate.jpg",NULL,NULL,&textureSRV,NULL); I grabbed the tex2d varible from my fx file and placed into my resource varible pTextureSR = modelObject.pEffect->GetVariableByName("tex2D")->AsShaderResource(); And added the resource to the varible pTextureSR->SetResource(textureSRV); I also added the extra property to my vertex layout D3D10_INPUT_ELEMENT_DESC layout[] = { {"POSITION",0,DXGI_FORMAT_R32G32B32_FLOAT, 0 , 0, D3D10_INPUT_PER_VERTEX_DATA, 0}, {"COLOR",0,DXGI_FORMAT_R32G32B32A32_FLOAT, 0 , 12, D3D10_INPUT_PER_VERTEX_DATA, 0}, {"NORMAL",0,DXGI_FORMAT_R32G32B32A32_FLOAT, 0 , 24, D3D10_INPUT_PER_VERTEX_DATA, 0}, {"TEXCOORD",0, DXGI_FORMAT_R32G32_FLOAT, 0 , 36, D3D10_INPUT_PER_VERTEX_DATA, 0} }; as well as my struct struct VertexPos { D3DXVECTOR3 pos; D3DXVECTOR4 color; D3DXVECTOR3 normal; D3DXVECTOR2 texCoord; }; Then I created a new pixel shader that adds the texture to it. Below is the code in its entirety matrix Projection; matrix WorldMatrix; Texture2D tex2D; float3 lightSource; float4 lightColor = {0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 0.5}; // PS_INPUT - input variables to the pixel shader // This struct is created and fill in by the // vertex shader struct PS_INPUT { float4 Pos : SV_POSITION; float4 Color : COLOR0; float4 Normal : NORMAL; float2 Tex : TEXCOORD; }; SamplerState linearSampler { Filter = MIN_MAG_MIP_LINEAR; AddressU = Wrap; AddressV = Wrap; }; //////////////////////////////////////////////// // Vertex Shader - Main Function /////////////////////////////////////////////// PS_INPUT VS(float4 Pos : POSITION, float4 Color : COLOR, float4 Normal : NORMAL, float2 Tex : TEXCOORD) { PS_INPUT psInput; // Pass through both the position and the color psInput.Pos = mul( Pos, Projection ); psInput.Normal = Normal; psInput.Tex = Tex; return psInput; } /////////////////////////////////////////////// // Pixel Shader /////////////////////////////////////////////// float4 PS(PS_INPUT psInput) : SV_Target { float4 finalColor = 0; finalColor = saturate(dot(lightSource, psInput.Normal) * lightColor); return finalColor; } float4 textured( PS_INPUT psInput ) : SV_Target { return tex2D.Sample( linearSampler, psInput.Tex ); } // Define the technique technique10 Render { pass P0 { SetVertexShader( CompileShader( vs_4_0, VS() ) ); SetGeometryShader( NULL ); SetPixelShader( CompileShader( ps_4_0, textured() ) ); } } Below is my CPU code. It maybe a little sloppy. But I am just adding code anywhere cause I am just experimenting and playing around. You should find most of the texture code at the bottom createObject #include "MyGame.h" #include "OneColorCube.h" /* This code sets a projection and shows a turning cube. What has been added is the project, rotation and a rasterizer to change the rasterization of the cube. The issue that was going on was something with the effect file which was causing the vertices not to be rendered correctly.*/ typedef struct { ID3D10Effect* pEffect; ID3D10EffectTechnique* pTechnique; //vertex information ID3D10Buffer* pVertexBuffer; ID3D10Buffer* pIndicesBuffer; ID3D10InputLayout* pVertexLayout; UINT numVertices; UINT numIndices; }ModelObject; ModelObject modelObject; // World Matrix D3DXMATRIX WorldMatrix; // View Matrix D3DXMATRIX ViewMatrix; // Projection Matrix D3DXMATRIX ProjectionMatrix; ID3D10EffectMatrixVariable* pProjectionMatrixVariable = NULL; ID3D10EffectMatrixVariable* pWorldMatrixVarible = NULL; ID3D10EffectVectorVariable* pLightVarible = NULL; ID3D10EffectShaderResourceVariable* pTextureSR; bool MyGame::InitDirect3D() { if(!DX3dApp::InitDirect3D()) { return false; } D3D10_RASTERIZER_DESC rastDesc; rastDesc.FillMode = D3D10_FILL_WIREFRAME; rastDesc.CullMode = D3D10_CULL_FRONT; rastDesc.FrontCounterClockwise = true; rastDesc.DepthBias = false; rastDesc.DepthBiasClamp = 0; rastDesc.SlopeScaledDepthBias = 0; rastDesc.DepthClipEnable = false; rastDesc.ScissorEnable = false; rastDesc.MultisampleEnable = false; rastDesc.AntialiasedLineEnable = false; ID3D10RasterizerState *g_pRasterizerState; mpD3DDevice->CreateRasterizerState(&rastDesc, &g_pRasterizerState); //mpD3DDevice->RSSetState(g_pRasterizerState); // Set up the World Matrix D3DXMatrixIdentity(&WorldMatrix); D3DXMatrixLookAtLH(&ViewMatrix, new D3DXVECTOR3(0.0f, 10.0f, -20.0f), new D3DXVECTOR3(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f), new D3DXVECTOR3(0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f)); // Set up the projection matrix D3DXMatrixPerspectiveFovLH(&ProjectionMatrix, (float)D3DX_PI * 0.5f, (float)mWidth/(float)mHeight, 0.1f, 100.0f); if(!CreateObject()) { return false; } return true; } //These are actions that take place after the clearing of the buffer and before the present void MyGame::GameDraw() { static float rotationAngleY = 15.0f; static float rotationAngleX = 0.0f; static D3DXMATRIX rotationXMatrix; static D3DXMATRIX rotationYMatrix; D3DXMatrixIdentity(&rotationXMatrix); D3DXMatrixIdentity(&rotationYMatrix); // create the rotation matrix using the rotation angle D3DXMatrixRotationY(&rotationYMatrix, rotationAngleY); D3DXMatrixRotationX(&rotationXMatrix, rotationAngleX); rotationAngleY += (float)D3DX_PI * 0.0008f; rotationAngleX += (float)D3DX_PI * 0.0005f; WorldMatrix = rotationYMatrix * rotationXMatrix; // Set the input layout mpD3DDevice->IASetInputLayout(modelObject.pVertexLayout); pWorldMatrixVarible->SetMatrix((float*)&WorldMatrix); // Set vertex buffer UINT stride = sizeof(VertexPos); UINT offset = 0; mpD3DDevice->IASetVertexBuffers(0, 1, &modelObject.pVertexBuffer, &stride, &offset); // Set primitive topology mpD3DDevice->IASetPrimitiveTopology(D3D10_PRIMITIVE_TOPOLOGY_TRIANGLELIST); //ViewMatrix._43 += 0.005f; // Combine and send the final matrix to the shader D3DXMATRIX finalMatrix = (WorldMatrix * ViewMatrix * ProjectionMatrix); pProjectionMatrixVariable->SetMatrix((float*)&finalMatrix); // make sure modelObject is valid // Render a model object D3D10_TECHNIQUE_DESC techniqueDescription; modelObject.pTechnique->GetDesc(&techniqueDescription); // Loop through the technique passes for(UINT p=0; p < techniqueDescription.Passes; ++p) { modelObject.pTechnique->GetPassByIndex(p)->Apply(0); // draw the cube using all 36 vertices and 12 triangles mpD3DDevice->Draw(36,0); } } //Render actually incapsulates Gamedraw, so you can call data before you actually clear the buffer or after you //present data void MyGame::Render() { DX3dApp::Render(); } bool MyGame::CreateObject() { //Create Layout D3D10_INPUT_ELEMENT_DESC layout[] = { {"POSITION",0,DXGI_FORMAT_R32G32B32_FLOAT, 0 , 0, D3D10_INPUT_PER_VERTEX_DATA, 0}, {"COLOR",0,DXGI_FORMAT_R32G32B32A32_FLOAT, 0 , 12, D3D10_INPUT_PER_VERTEX_DATA, 0}, {"NORMAL",0,DXGI_FORMAT_R32G32B32A32_FLOAT, 0 , 24, D3D10_INPUT_PER_VERTEX_DATA, 0}, {"TEXCOORD",0, DXGI_FORMAT_R32G32_FLOAT, 0 , 36, D3D10_INPUT_PER_VERTEX_DATA, 0} }; UINT numElements = (sizeof(layout)/sizeof(layout[0])); modelObject.numVertices = sizeof(vertices)/sizeof(VertexPos); for(int i = 0; i < modelObject.numVertices; i += 3) { D3DXVECTOR3 out; D3DXVECTOR3 v1 = vertices[0 + i].pos; D3DXVECTOR3 v2 = vertices[1 + i].pos; D3DXVECTOR3 v3 = vertices[2 + i].pos; D3DXVECTOR3 u = v2 - v1; D3DXVECTOR3 v = v3 - v1; D3DXVec3Cross(&out, &u, &v); D3DXVec3Normalize(&out, &out); vertices[0 + i].normal = out; vertices[1 + i].normal = out; vertices[2 + i].normal = out; } //Create buffer desc D3D10_BUFFER_DESC bufferDesc; bufferDesc.Usage = D3D10_USAGE_DEFAULT; bufferDesc.ByteWidth = sizeof(VertexPos) * modelObject.numVertices; bufferDesc.BindFlags = D3D10_BIND_VERTEX_BUFFER; bufferDesc.CPUAccessFlags = 0; bufferDesc.MiscFlags = 0; D3D10_SUBRESOURCE_DATA initData; initData.pSysMem = vertices; //Create the buffer HRESULT hr = mpD3DDevice->CreateBuffer(&bufferDesc, &initData, &modelObject.pVertexBuffer); if(FAILED(hr)) return false; /* //Create indices DWORD indices[] = { 0,1,3, 1,2,3 }; ModelObject.numIndices = sizeof(indices)/sizeof(DWORD); bufferDesc.ByteWidth = sizeof(DWORD) * ModelObject.numIndices; bufferDesc.BindFlags = D3D10_BIND_INDEX_BUFFER; initData.pSysMem = indices; hr = mpD3DDevice->CreateBuffer(&bufferDesc, &initData, &ModelObject.pIndicesBuffer); if(FAILED(hr)) return false;*/ ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //Set up fx files LPCWSTR effectFilename = L"effect.fx"; modelObject.pEffect = NULL; hr = D3DX10CreateEffectFromFile(effectFilename, NULL, NULL, "fx_4_0", D3D10_SHADER_ENABLE_STRICTNESS, 0, mpD3DDevice, NULL, NULL, &modelObject.pEffect, NULL, NULL); if(FAILED(hr)) return false; pProjectionMatrixVariable = modelObject.pEffect->GetVariableByName("Projection")->AsMatrix(); pWorldMatrixVarible = modelObject.pEffect->GetVariableByName("WorldMatrix")->AsMatrix(); pTextureSR = modelObject.pEffect->GetVariableByName("tex2D")->AsShaderResource(); ID3D10ShaderResourceView* textureSRV; D3DX10CreateShaderResourceViewFromFile(mpD3DDevice,L"crate.jpg",NULL,NULL,&textureSRV,NULL); pLightVarible = modelObject.pEffect->GetVariableByName("lightSource")->AsVector(); //Dont sweat the technique. Get it! LPCSTR effectTechniqueName = "Render"; D3DXVECTOR3 vLight(1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f); pLightVarible->SetFloatVector(vLight); modelObject.pTechnique = modelObject.pEffect->GetTechniqueByName(effectTechniqueName); if(modelObject.pTechnique == NULL) return false; pTextureSR->SetResource(textureSRV); //Create Vertex layout D3D10_PASS_DESC passDesc; modelObject.pTechnique->GetPassByIndex(0)->GetDesc(&passDesc); hr = mpD3DDevice->CreateInputLayout(layout, numElements, passDesc.pIAInputSignature, passDesc.IAInputSignatureSize, &modelObject.pVertexLayout); if(FAILED(hr)) return false; return true; } And here is my cube coordinates. I actually only added coordinates to one side. And that is the front side. To double check I flipped the cube in all directions just to make sure i didnt accidentally place the text on the incorrect side //Create vectors and put in vertices // Create vertex buffer VertexPos vertices[] = { // BACK SIDES { D3DXVECTOR3(-5.0f, 5.0f, 5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(1.0f,0.0f,0.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, { D3DXVECTOR3(-5.0f, -5.0f, 5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(1.0f,0.0f,0.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(1.0,0.0)}, { D3DXVECTOR3(5.0f, 5.0f, 5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(1.0f,0.0f,0.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,1.0)}, { D3DXVECTOR3(5.0f, 5.0f, 5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(1.0f,0.0f,0.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, { D3DXVECTOR3(-5.0f, -5.0f, 5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(1.0f,0.0f,0.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, { D3DXVECTOR3(5.0f, -5.0f, 5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(1.0f,0.0f,0.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, // 2 FRONT SIDE { D3DXVECTOR3(-5.0f, 5.0f, -5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(0.0f,1.0f,0.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, { D3DXVECTOR3(5.0f, 5.0f, -5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(0.0f,1.0f,0.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(2.0,0.0)}, { D3DXVECTOR3(-5.0f, -5.0f, -5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(0.0f,1.0f,0.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,2.0)}, { D3DXVECTOR3(-5.0f, -5.0f, -5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(0.0f,1.0f,0.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,2.0)}, { D3DXVECTOR3(5.0f, 5.0f, -5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(0.0f,1.0f,0.0f,0.0f) , D3DXVECTOR2(2.0,0.0)}, { D3DXVECTOR3(5.0f, -5.0f, -5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(0.0f,1.0f,0.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(2.0,2.0)}, // 3 { D3DXVECTOR3(-5.0f, 5.0f, 5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(0.0f,0.0f,1.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, { D3DXVECTOR3(5.0f, 5.0f, 5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(0.0f,0.0f,1.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, { D3DXVECTOR3(-5.0f, 5.0f, -5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(0.0f,0.0f,1.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, { D3DXVECTOR3(-5.0f, 5.0f, -5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(0.0f,0.0f,1.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, { D3DXVECTOR3(5.0f, 5.0f, 5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(0.0f,0.0f,1.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, { D3DXVECTOR3(5.0f, 5.0f, -5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(0.0f,0.0f,1.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, // 4 { D3DXVECTOR3(-5.0f, -5.0f, 5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(1.0f,0.5f,0.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, { D3DXVECTOR3(-5.0f, -5.0f, -5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(1.0f,0.5f,0.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, { D3DXVECTOR3(5.0f, -5.0f, 5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(1.0f,0.5f,0.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, { D3DXVECTOR3(5.0f, -5.0f, 5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(1.0f,0.5f,0.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, { D3DXVECTOR3(-5.0f, -5.0f, -5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(1.0f,0.5f,0.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, { D3DXVECTOR3(5.0f, -5.0f, -5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(1.0f,0.5f,0.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, // 5 { D3DXVECTOR3(5.0f, 5.0f, -5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(0.0f,1.0f,0.5f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, { D3DXVECTOR3(5.0f, 5.0f, 5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(0.0f,1.0f,0.5f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, { D3DXVECTOR3(5.0f, -5.0f, -5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(0.0f,1.0f,0.5f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, { D3DXVECTOR3(5.0f, -5.0f, -5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(0.0f,1.0f,0.5f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, { D3DXVECTOR3(5.0f, 5.0f, 5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(0.0f,1.0f,0.5f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, { D3DXVECTOR3(5.0f, -5.0f, 5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(0.0f,1.0f,0.5f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, // 6 {D3DXVECTOR3(-5.0f, 5.0f, -5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(0.5f,0.0f,1.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, {D3DXVECTOR3(-5.0f, -5.0f, -5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(0.5f,0.0f,1.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, {D3DXVECTOR3(-5.0f, 5.0f, 5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(0.5f,0.0f,1.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, {D3DXVECTOR3(-5.0f, 5.0f, 5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(0.5f,0.0f,1.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, {D3DXVECTOR3(-5.0f, -5.0f, -5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(0.5f,0.0f,1.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, {D3DXVECTOR3(-5.0f, -5.0f, 5.0f), D3DXVECTOR4(0.5f,0.0f,1.0f,0.0f), D3DXVECTOR2(0.0,0.0)}, };

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  • How to create sprites, programatically without using prefabs?

    - by DemonSOCKET
    I have different types of images for different sprites. and i am not certain that how much different sprites(images) i will have to show. So, i gotta create the sprites and apply textures programatically at runtime. Now, I defiantly can't use prefabs because it will restrict me with the number of different sprites i can use. and also, changing texture on one sprite prefab instance in game, will change all the sprites prefab, that's not acceptable in my case. Is there a way i can create sprites without having to create static prefab ? where ever i looked for the solution every time i got the same answer "create a prefab", which is what can not be done in my case.

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  • /usr/include/stdc-predef.h:30:26: fatal error: bits/predefs.h: No such file or directory

    - by G_T
    Im trying to locally install a program which is written in C++. I have downloaded the program and am attempting to use the "make" command to compile the program as the programs instructions dictate. However when I do I get this error: /usr/include/stdc-predef.h:30:26: fatal error: bits/predefs.h: No such file or directory compilation terminated. Looking around on the internet some people seem to address this problem by sudo apt-get install libc6-dev-i386 I checked to see if this package was installed and it was not. When I try to install it I get E: Unable to locate package libc6-dev-i386 I have already run sudo apt get update Im sure this is a rookie question but any help is appreciated, I'm running 13.10 32-bit.

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  • understanding evaluation function

    - by mish
    I am developing a chess program. And have made use of an alpha beta algorithm and a static evaluation function. I have successfully implemented both but I want to improve the evaluation function by automatically tuning the weights assigned to its features. At this point am totally confused about the policy suitable for updating the weights of the function. One policy I have in mind is to check whether a move is good or bad before updating weights but I really know how to implement it. Thus I need ideas and pseudo code please.

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  • How To Switch Back to Outlook 2007 After the 2010 Beta Ends

    - by Matthew Guay
    Are you switching back to Outlook 2007 after trying out Office 2010 beta?  Here’s how you can restore your Outlook data and keep everything working fine after the switch. Whenever you install a newer version of Outlook, it will convert your profile and data files to the latest format.  This makes them work the best in the newer version of Outlook, but may cause problems if you decide to revert to an older version.  If you installed Outlook 2010 beta, it automatically imported and converted your profile from Outlook 2007.  When the beta expires, you will either have to reinstall Office 2007 or purchase a copy of Office 2010. If you choose to reinstall Office 2007, you may notice an error message each time you open Outlook. Outlook will still work fine and all of your data will be saved, but this error message can get annoying.  Here’s how you can create a new profile, import all of your old data, and get rid of this error message. Banish the Error Message with a New Profile To get rid of this error message, we need to create a new Outlook profile.  First, make sure your Outlook data files are backed up.  Your messages, contacts, calendar, and more are stored in a .pst file in your appdata folder.  Enter the following in the address bar of an Explorer window to open your Outlook data folder, and replace username with your user name: C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook Copy the Outlook Personal Folders (.pst) files that contain your data. Its name is usually your email address, though it may have a different name.  If in doubt, select all of the Outlook Personal Folders files, copy them, and save them in another safe place (such as your Documents folder). Now, let’s remove your old profile.  Open Control Panel, and select Mail.  In Windows Vista or 7, simply enter “Mail” in the search box and select the first entry. Click the “Show Profiles…” button. Now, select your Outlook profile, and click Remove.  This will not delete your data files, but will remove them from Outlook. Press Yes to confirm that you wish to remove this profile. Open Outlook, and you will be asked to create a new profile.  Enter a name for your new profile, and press Ok. Now enter your email account information to setup Outlook as normal. Outlook will attempt to automatically configure your account settings.  This usually works for accounts with popular email systems, but if it fails to find your information you can enter it manually.  Press finish when everything’s done. Outlook will now go ahead and download messages from your email account.  In our test, we used a Gmail account that still had all of our old messages online.  Those files are backed up in our old Outlook data files, so we can save time and not download them.  Click the Send/Receive button on the bottom of the window, and select “Cancel Send/Receive”. Restore Your Old Outlook Data Let’s add our old Outlook file back to Outlook 2007.  Exit Outlook, and then go back to Control Panel, and select Mail as above.  This time, click the Data Files button. Click the Add button on the top left. Select “Office Outlook Personal Folders File (.pst)”, and click Ok. Now, select your old Outlook data file.  It should be in the folder that opens by default; if not, browse to the backup copy we saved earlier, and select it. Press Ok at the next dialog to accept the default settings. Now, select the data file we just imported, and click “Set as Default”. Now, all of your old messages, appointments, contacts, and everything else will be right in Outlook ready for you.  Click Ok, and then open Outlook to see the change. All of the data that was in Outlook 2010 is now ready to use in Outlook 2007.  You won’t have to wait to re-download all of your emails from the server since everything’s still here ready to be used.  And when you open Outlook, you won’t see any error messages, either! Conclusion Migrating your Outlook profile back to Outlook 2007 is fairly easy, and with these steps, you can avoid seeing an error message every time you open Outlook.  With all your data in tact, you’re ready to get back to work instead of getting frustrated with Outlook.  Many of us use webmail and keep all of our messages in the cloud, but even on broadband connections it can take a long time to download several gigabytes of emails. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Opening Attachments in Outlook 2007 by KeyboardQuickly Create Appointments from Tasks with Outlook 2007’s To-Do BarFix For Outlook 2007 Constantly Asking for Password on VistaPin Microsoft Outlook to the Desktop BackgroundOur Look at the LinkedIn Social Connector for Outlook TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Download Free MP3s from Amazon Awe inspiring, inter-galactic theme (Win 7) Case Study – How to Optimize Popular Wordpress Sites Restore Hidden Updates in Windows 7 & Vista Iceland an Insurance Job? Find Downloads and Add-ins for Outlook

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  • Color sprite tint with opacity in MonoGame/XNA

    - by Piotr Walat
    In MonoGame I am using SpriteBatch to draw sprites. I want to create a semi transparent overlay that would 'tint' the sprite with a given color. SpriteBatch.Draw accepts Color parameter that allows to specify the tint, however the alpha channel seems to make the whole sprite transparent (not the tint only). To address the problem i am overlaying my sprites with another white, semitransparent sprite tinted to a given color. It works as expected, but I am not sure if that is the correct (ie. most optimal) approach. Can you suggest better/faster technique?

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  • C# HashSet<T>

    - by Ben Griswold
    I hadn’t done much (read: anything) with the C# generic HashSet until I recently needed to produce a distinct collection.  As it turns out, HashSet<T> was the perfect tool. As the following snippet demonstrates, this collection type offers a lot: // Using HashSet<T>: // http://www.albahari.com/nutshell/ch07.aspx var letters = new HashSet<char>("the quick brown fox");   Console.WriteLine(letters.Contains('t')); // true Console.WriteLine(letters.Contains('j')); // false   foreach (char c in letters) Console.Write(c); // the quickbrownfx Console.WriteLine();   letters = new HashSet<char>("the quick brown fox"); letters.IntersectWith("aeiou"); foreach (char c in letters) Console.Write(c); // euio Console.WriteLine();   letters = new HashSet<char>("the quick brown fox"); letters.ExceptWith("aeiou"); foreach (char c in letters) Console.Write(c); // th qckbrwnfx Console.WriteLine();   letters = new HashSet<char>("the quick brown fox"); letters.SymmetricExceptWith("the lazy brown fox"); foreach (char c in letters) Console.Write(c); // quicklazy Console.WriteLine(); The MSDN documentation is a bit light on HashSet<T> documentation but if you search hard enough you can find some interesting information and benchmarks. But back to that distinct list I needed… // MSDN Add // http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb353005.aspx var employeeA = new Employee {Id = 1, Name = "Employee A"}; var employeeB = new Employee {Id = 2, Name = "Employee B"}; var employeeC = new Employee {Id = 3, Name = "Employee C"}; var employeeD = new Employee {Id = 4, Name = "Employee D"};   var naughty = new List<Employee> {employeeA}; var nice = new List<Employee> {employeeB, employeeC};   var employees = new HashSet<Employee>(); naughty.ForEach(x => employees.Add(x)); nice.ForEach(x => employees.Add(x));   foreach (Employee e in employees) Console.WriteLine(e); // Returns Employee A Employee B Employee C The Add Method returns true on success and, you guessed it, false if the item couldn’t be added to the collection.  I’m using the Linq ForEach syntax to add all valid items to the employees HashSet.  It works really great.  This is just a rough sample, but you may have noticed I’m using Employee, a reference type.  Most samples demonstrate the power of the HashSet with a collection of integers which is kind of cheating.  With value types you don’t have to worry about defining your own equality members.  With reference types, you do. internal class Employee {     public int Id { get; set; }     public string Name { get; set; }       public override string ToString()     {         return Name;     }          public bool Equals(Employee other)     {         if (ReferenceEquals(null, other)) return false;         if (ReferenceEquals(this, other)) return true;         return other.Id == Id;     }       public override bool Equals(object obj)     {         if (ReferenceEquals(null, obj)) return false;         if (ReferenceEquals(this, obj)) return true;         if (obj.GetType() != typeof (Employee)) return false;         return Equals((Employee) obj);     }       public override int GetHashCode()     {         return Id;     }       public static bool operator ==(Employee left, Employee right)     {         return Equals(left, right);     }       public static bool operator !=(Employee left, Employee right)     {         return !Equals(left, right);     } } Fortunately, with Resharper, it’s a snap. Click on the class name, ALT+INS and then follow with the handy dialogues. That’s it. Try out the HashSet<T>. It’s good stuff.

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  • How to fix Monogame WP8 Touch Position bug?

    - by Moses Aprico
    Normally below code will result in X:Infinity, Y:Infinity TouchCollection touchState = TouchPanel.GetState(); foreach (TouchLocation t in touchState) { if (t.State == TouchLocationState.Pressed) { vb.ButtonTouched((int)t.Position.X, (int)t.Position.Y); } } Then, I followed this https://github.com/mono/MonoGame/issues/1046 and added below code at the first line in update method. (I still don't know how it's worked, but it fixed the problem) if (_firstUpdate) { typeof(Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input.Touch.TouchPanel).GetField("_touchScale",System.Reflection.BindingFlags.NonPublic | System.Reflection.BindingFlags.Static).SetValue(null, Vector2.One); _firstUpdate = false; } And then, when I randomly testing something, there are several area that won't read the user touch. The tile with the purple dude is the area which won't receive user input (It don't even detect "Pressed", the TouchCollection.Count = 0) Any idea how to fix this? UPDATE 1 : The second attempt in recompiling The difference is weird. Dunno why the consistent clickable area is just 2/3 area to the left UPDATE 2 : After trying to rotate to landscape and back to portrait to randomly testing, then the outcome become :

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  • Using jQuery to POST Form Data to an ASP.NET ASMX AJAX Web Service

    - by Rick Strahl
    The other day I got a question about how to call an ASP.NET ASMX Web Service or PageMethods with the POST data from a Web Form (or any HTML form for that matter). The idea is that you should be able to call an endpoint URL, send it regular urlencoded POST data and then use Request.Form[] to retrieve the posted data as needed. My first reaction was that you can’t do it, because ASP.NET ASMX AJAX services (as well as Page Methods and WCF REST AJAX Services) require that the content POSTed to the server is posted as JSON and sent with an application/json or application/x-javascript content type. IOW, you can’t directly call an ASP.NET AJAX service with regular urlencoded data. Note that there are other ways to accomplish this. You can use ASP.NET MVC and a custom route, an HTTP Handler or separate ASPX page, or even a WCF REST service that’s configured to use non-JSON inputs. However if you want to use an ASP.NET AJAX service (or Page Methods) with a little bit of setup work it’s actually quite easy to capture all the form variables on the client and ship them up to the server. The basic steps needed to make this happen are: Capture form variables into an array on the client with jQuery’s .serializeArray() function Use $.ajax() or my ServiceProxy class to make an AJAX call to the server to send this array On the server create a custom type that matches the .serializeArray() name/value structure Create extension methods on NameValue[] to easily extract form variables Create a [WebMethod] that accepts this name/value type as an array (NameValue[]) This seems like a lot of work but realize that steps 3 and 4 are a one time setup step that can be reused in your entire site or multiple applications. Let’s look at a short example that looks like this as a base form of fields to ship to the server: The HTML for this form looks something like this: <div id="divMessage" class="errordisplay" style="display: none"> </div> <div> <div class="label">Name:</div> <div><asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="txtName" /></div> </div> <div> <div class="label">Company:</div> <div><asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="txtCompany"/></div> </div> <div> <div class="label" ></div> <div> <asp:DropDownList runat="server" ID="lstAttending"> <asp:ListItem Text="Attending" Value="Attending"/> <asp:ListItem Text="Not Attending" Value="NotAttending" /> <asp:ListItem Text="Maybe Attending" Value="MaybeAttending" /> <asp:ListItem Text="Not Sure Yet" Value="NotSureYet" /> </asp:DropDownList> </div> </div> <div> <div class="label">Special Needs:<br /> <small>(check all that apply)</small></div> <div> <asp:ListBox runat="server" ID="lstSpecialNeeds" SelectionMode="Multiple"> <asp:ListItem Text="Vegitarian" Value="Vegitarian" /> <asp:ListItem Text="Vegan" Value="Vegan" /> <asp:ListItem Text="Kosher" Value="Kosher" /> <asp:ListItem Text="Special Access" Value="SpecialAccess" /> <asp:ListItem Text="No Binder" Value="NoBinder" /> </asp:ListBox> </div> </div> <div> <div class="label"></div> <div> <asp:CheckBox ID="chkAdditionalGuests" Text="Additional Guests" runat="server" /> </div> </div> <hr /> <input type="button" id="btnSubmit" value="Send Registration" /> The form includes a few different kinds of form fields including a multi-selection listbox to demonstrate retrieving multiple values. Setting up the Server Side [WebMethod] The [WebMethod] on the server we’re going to call is going to be very simple and just capture the content of these values and echo then back as a formatted HTML string. Obviously this is overly simplistic but it serves to demonstrate the simple point of capturing the POST data on the server in an AJAX callback. public class PageMethodsService : System.Web.Services.WebService { [WebMethod] public string SendRegistration(NameValue[] formVars) { StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); sb.AppendFormat("Thank you {0}, <br/><br/>", HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(formVars.Form("txtName"))); sb.AppendLine("You've entered the following: <hr/>"); foreach (NameValue nv in formVars) { // strip out ASP.NET form vars like _ViewState/_EventValidation if (!nv.name.StartsWith("__")) { if (nv.name.StartsWith("txt") || nv.name.StartsWith("lst") || nv.name.StartsWith("chk")) sb.Append(nv.name.Substring(3)); else sb.Append(nv.name); sb.AppendLine(": " + HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(nv.value) + "<br/>"); } } sb.AppendLine("<hr/>"); string[] needs = formVars.FormMultiple("lstSpecialNeeds"); if (needs == null) sb.AppendLine("No Special Needs"); else { sb.AppendLine("Special Needs: <br/>"); foreach (string need in needs) { sb.AppendLine("&nbsp;&nbsp;" + need + "<br/>"); } } return sb.ToString(); } } The key feature of this method is that it receives a custom type called NameValue[] which is an array of NameValue objects that map the structure that the jQuery .serializeArray() function generates. There are two custom types involved in this: The actual NameValue type and a NameValueExtensions class that defines a couple of extension methods for the NameValue[] array type to allow for single (.Form()) and multiple (.FormMultiple()) value retrieval by name. The NameValue class is as simple as this and simply maps the structure of the array elements of .serializeArray(): public class NameValue { public string name { get; set; } public string value { get; set; } } The extension method class defines the .Form() and .FormMultiple() methods to allow easy retrieval of form variables from the returned array: /// <summary> /// Simple NameValue class that maps name and value /// properties that can be used with jQuery's /// $.serializeArray() function and JSON requests /// </summary> public static class NameValueExtensionMethods { /// <summary> /// Retrieves a single form variable from the list of /// form variables stored /// </summary> /// <param name="formVars"></param> /// <param name="name">formvar to retrieve</param> /// <returns>value or string.Empty if not found</returns> public static string Form(this NameValue[] formVars, string name) { var matches = formVars.Where(nv => nv.name.ToLower() == name.ToLower()).FirstOrDefault(); if (matches != null) return matches.value; return string.Empty; } /// <summary> /// Retrieves multiple selection form variables from the list of /// form variables stored. /// </summary> /// <param name="formVars"></param> /// <param name="name">The name of the form var to retrieve</param> /// <returns>values as string[] or null if no match is found</returns> public static string[] FormMultiple(this NameValue[] formVars, string name) { var matches = formVars.Where(nv => nv.name.ToLower() == name.ToLower()).Select(nv => nv.value).ToArray(); if (matches.Length == 0) return null; return matches; } } Using these extension methods it’s easy to retrieve individual values from the array: string name = formVars.Form("txtName"); or multiple values: string[] needs = formVars.FormMultiple("lstSpecialNeeds"); if (needs != null) { // do something with matches } Using these functions in the SendRegistration method it’s easy to retrieve a few form variables directly (txtName and the multiple selections of lstSpecialNeeds) or to iterate over the whole list of values. Of course this is an overly simple example – in typical app you’d probably want to validate the input data and save it to the database and then return some sort of confirmation or possibly an updated data list back to the client. Since this is a full AJAX service callback realize that you don’t have to return simple string values – you can return any of the supported result types (which are most serializable types) including complex hierarchical objects and arrays that make sense to your client code. POSTing Form Variables from the Client to the AJAX Service To call the AJAX service method on the client is straight forward and requires only use of little native jQuery plus JSON serialization functionality. To start add jQuery and the json2.js library to your page: <script src="Scripts/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="Scripts/json2.js" type="text/javascript"></script> json2.js can be found here (be sure to remove the first line from the file): http://www.json.org/json2.js It’s required to handle JSON serialization for those browsers that don’t support it natively. With those script references in the document let’s hookup the button click handler and call the service: $(document).ready(function () { $("#btnSubmit").click(sendRegistration); }); function sendRegistration() { var arForm = $("#form1").serializeArray(); $.ajax({ url: "PageMethodsService.asmx/SendRegistration", type: "POST", contentType: "application/json", data: JSON.stringify({ formVars: arForm }), dataType: "json", success: function (result) { var jEl = $("#divMessage"); jEl.html(result.d).fadeIn(1000); setTimeout(function () { jEl.fadeOut(1000) }, 5000); }, error: function (xhr, status) { alert("An error occurred: " + status); } }); } The key feature in this code is the $("#form1").serializeArray();  call which serializes all the form fields of form1 into an array. Each form var is represented as an object with a name/value property. This array is then serialized into JSON with: JSON.stringify({ formVars: arForm }) The format for the parameter list in AJAX service calls is an object with one property for each parameter of the method. In this case its a single parameter called formVars and we’re assigning the array of form variables to it. The URL to call on the server is the name of the Service (or ASPX Page for Page Methods) plus the name of the method to call. On return the success callback receives the result from the AJAX callback which in this case is the formatted string which is simply assigned to an element in the form and displayed. Remember the result type is whatever the method returns – it doesn’t have to be a string. Note that ASP.NET AJAX and WCF REST return JSON data as a wrapped object so the result has a ‘d’ property that holds the actual response: jEl.html(result.d).fadeIn(1000); Slightly simpler: Using ServiceProxy.js If you want things slightly cleaner you can use the ServiceProxy.js class I’ve mentioned here before. The ServiceProxy class handles a few things for calling ASP.NET and WCF services more cleanly: Automatic JSON encoding Automatic fix up of ‘d’ wrapper property Automatic Date conversion on the client Simplified error handling Reusable and abstracted To add the service proxy add: <script src="Scripts/ServiceProxy.js" type="text/javascript"></script> and then change the code to this slightly simpler version: <script type="text/javascript"> proxy = new ServiceProxy("PageMethodsService.asmx/"); $(document).ready(function () { $("#btnSubmit").click(sendRegistration); }); function sendRegistration() { var arForm = $("#form1").serializeArray(); proxy.invoke("SendRegistration", { formVars: arForm }, function (result) { var jEl = $("#divMessage"); jEl.html(result).fadeIn(1000); setTimeout(function () { jEl.fadeOut(1000) }, 5000); }, function (error) { alert(error.message); } ); } The code is not very different but it makes the call as simple as specifying the method to call, the parameters to pass and the actions to take on success and error. No more remembering which content type and data types to use and manually serializing to JSON. This code also removes the “d” property processing in the response and provides more consistent error handling in that the call always returns an error object regardless of a server error or a communication error unlike the native $.ajax() call. Either approach works and both are pretty easy. The ServiceProxy really pays off if you use lots of service calls and especially if you need to deal with date values returned from the server  on the client. Summary Making Web Service calls and getting POST data to the server is not always the best option – ASP.NET and WCF AJAX services are meant to work with data in objects. However, in some situations it’s simply easier to POST all the captured form data to the server instead of mapping all properties from the input fields to some sort of message object first. For this approach the above POST mechanism is useful as it puts the parsing of the data on the server and leaves the client code lean and mean. It’s even easy to build a custom model binder on the server that can map the array values to properties on an object generically with some relatively simple Reflection code and without having to manually map form vars to properties and do string conversions. Keep in mind though that other approaches also abound. ASP.NET MVC makes it pretty easy to create custom routes to data and the built in model binder makes it very easy to deal with inbound form POST data in its original urlencoded format. The West Wind West Wind Web Toolkit also includes functionality for AJAX callbacks using plain POST values. All that’s needed is a Method parameter to query/form value to specify the method to be called on the server. After that the content type is completely optional and up to the consumer. It’d be nice if the ASP.NET AJAX Service and WCF AJAX Services weren’t so tightly bound to the content type so that you could more easily create open access service endpoints that can take advantage of urlencoded data that is everywhere in existing pages. It would make it much easier to create basic REST endpoints without complicated service configuration. Ah one can dream! In the meantime I hope this article has given you some ideas on how you can transfer POST data from the client to the server using JSON – it might be useful in other scenarios beyond ASP.NET AJAX services as well. Additional Resources ServiceProxy.js A small JavaScript library that wraps $.ajax() to call ASP.NET AJAX and WCF AJAX Services. Includes date parsing extensions to the JSON object, a global dataFilter for processing dates on all jQuery JSON requests, provides cleanup for the .NET wrapped message format and handles errors in a consistent fashion. Making jQuery Calls to WCF/ASMX with a ServiceProxy Client More information on calling ASMX and WCF AJAX services with jQuery and some more background on ServiceProxy.js. Note the implementation has slightly changed since the article was written. ww.jquery.js The West Wind West Wind Web Toolkit also includes ServiceProxy.js in the West Wind jQuery extension library. This version is slightly different and includes embedded json encoding/decoding based on json2.js.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in jQuery  ASP.NET  AJAX  

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  • How to deecode your ODI encoded password in SDK

    - by tina.wang
    Someone asked me he want to use SDK to create ODI repository, but latest 11g API in SDK use plain password parameter. But he don't want to use plain text for security reason. So he want to transfer an encoded password, then decode it inside his code. He ask me whether there is a way.  After some investigating, I find com.sunopsis.dwg.DwgObject class has a static method snpsDecypher(String), it can satisfy his requirement. But seems this method is deprecated, I am trying to find the new replaced method. 

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  • Set the Minimum and Maximum Tab Widths in Firefox without an Add-on

    - by Lori Kaufman
    If you tend to have a lot of tabs open in Firefox, there may be times when you can’t see all the tabs you have open, and you need to navigate among your tabs using the tab scrolling arrows. There are add-ons available for Firefox that will make multiple rows of tabs, such as Tab Utilities. However, this still may not be ideal, as it takes a lot of screen real estate when you have a lot of tabs open. There’s an easy way to set the width of the tabs, so they still display text or website icons, and, at the same time, allow more tabs to be visible. To change the width of the tabs, enter “about:config” in the address bar in Firefox and press Enter. HTG Explains: Do You Really Need to Defrag Your PC? Use Amazon’s Barcode Scanner to Easily Buy Anything from Your Phone How To Migrate Windows 7 to a Solid State Drive

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  • C# 4.0: Dynamic Programming

    - by Paulo Morgado
    The major feature of C# 4.0 is dynamic programming. Not just dynamic typing, but dynamic in broader sense, which means talking to anything that is not statically typed to be a .NET object. Dynamic Language Runtime The Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR) is piece of technology that unifies dynamic programming on the .NET platform, the same way the Common Language Runtime (CLR) has been a common platform for statically typed languages. The CLR always had dynamic capabilities. You could always use reflection, but its main goal was never to be a dynamic programming environment and there were some features missing. The DLR is built on top of the CLR and adds those missing features to the .NET platform. The Dynamic Language Runtime is the core infrastructure that consists of: Expression Trees The same expression trees used in LINQ, now improved to support statements. Dynamic Dispatch Dispatches invocations to the appropriate binder. Call Site Caching For improved efficiency. Dynamic languages and languages with dynamic capabilities are built on top of the DLR. IronPython and IronRuby were already built on top of the DLR, and now, the support for using the DLR is being added to C# and Visual Basic. Other languages built on top of the CLR are expected to also use the DLR in the future. Underneath the DLR there are binders that talk to a variety of different technologies: .NET Binder Allows to talk to .NET objects. JavaScript Binder Allows to talk to JavaScript in SilverLight. IronPython Binder Allows to talk to IronPython. IronRuby Binder Allows to talk to IronRuby. COM Binder Allows to talk to COM. Whit all these binders it is possible to have a single programming experience to talk to all these environments that are not statically typed .NET objects. The dynamic Static Type Let’s take this traditional statically typed code: Calculator calculator = GetCalculator(); int sum = calculator.Sum(10, 20); Because the variable that receives the return value of the GetCalulator method is statically typed to be of type Calculator and, because the Calculator type has an Add method that receives two integers and returns an integer, it is possible to call that Sum method and assign its return value to a variable statically typed as integer. Now lets suppose the calculator was not a statically typed .NET class, but, instead, a COM object or some .NET code we don’t know he type of. All of the sudden it gets very painful to call the Add method: object calculator = GetCalculator(); Type calculatorType = calculator.GetType(); object res = calculatorType.InvokeMember("Add", BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, calculator, new object[] { 10, 20 }); int sum = Convert.ToInt32(res); And what if the calculator was a JavaScript object? ScriptObject calculator = GetCalculator(); object res = calculator.Invoke("Add", 10, 20); int sum = Convert.ToInt32(res); For each dynamic domain we have a different programming experience and that makes it very hard to unify the code. With C# 4.0 it becomes possible to write code this way: dynamic calculator = GetCalculator(); int sum = calculator.Add(10, 20); You simply declare a variable who’s static type is dynamic. dynamic is a pseudo-keyword (like var) that indicates to the compiler that operations on the calculator object will be done dynamically. The way you should look at dynamic is that it’s just like object (System.Object) with dynamic semantics associated. Anything can be assigned to a dynamic. dynamic x = 1; dynamic y = "Hello"; dynamic z = new List<int> { 1, 2, 3 }; At run-time, all object will have a type. In the above example x is of type System.Int32. When one or more operands in an operation are typed dynamic, member selection is deferred to run-time instead of compile-time. Then the run-time type is substituted in all variables and normal overload resolution is done, just like it would happen at compile-time. The result of any dynamic operation is always dynamic and, when a dynamic object is assigned to something else, a dynamic conversion will occur. Code Resolution Method double x = 1.75; double y = Math.Abs(x); compile-time double Abs(double x) dynamic x = 1.75; dynamic y = Math.Abs(x); run-time double Abs(double x) dynamic x = 2; dynamic y = Math.Abs(x); run-time int Abs(int x) The above code will always be strongly typed. The difference is that, in the first case the method resolution is done at compile-time, and the others it’s done ate run-time. IDynamicMetaObjectObject The DLR is pre-wired to know .NET objects, COM objects and so forth but any dynamic language can implement their own objects or you can implement your own objects in C# through the implementation of the IDynamicMetaObjectProvider interface. When an object implements IDynamicMetaObjectProvider, it can participate in the resolution of how method calls and property access is done. The .NET Framework already provides two implementations of IDynamicMetaObjectProvider: DynamicObject : IDynamicMetaObjectProvider The DynamicObject class enables you to define which operations can be performed on dynamic objects and how to perform those operations. For example, you can define what happens when you try to get or set an object property, call a method, or perform standard mathematical operations such as addition and multiplication. ExpandoObject : IDynamicMetaObjectProvider The ExpandoObject class enables you to add and delete members of its instances at run time and also to set and get values of these members. This class supports dynamic binding, which enables you to use standard syntax like sampleObject.sampleMember, instead of more complex syntax like sampleObject.GetAttribute("sampleMember").

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  • MVC 2 Editor Template for Radio Buttons

    - by Steve Michelotti
    A while back I blogged about how to create an HTML Helper to produce a radio button list.  In that post, my HTML helper was “wrapping” the FluentHtml library from MvcContrib to produce the following html output (given an IEnumerable list containing the items “Foo” and “Bar”): 1: <div> 2: <input id="Name_Foo" name="Name" type="radio" value="Foo" /><label for="Name_Foo" id="Name_Foo_Label">Foo</label> 3: <input id="Name_Bar" name="Name" type="radio" value="Bar" /><label for="Name_Bar" id="Name_Bar_Label">Bar</label> 4: </div> With the release of MVC 2, we now have editor templates we can use that rely on metadata to allow us to customize our views appropriately.  For example, for the radio buttons above, we want the “id” attribute to be differentiated and unique and we want the “name” attribute to be the same across radio buttons so the buttons will be grouped together and so model binding will work appropriately. We also want the “for” attribute in the <label> element being set to correctly point to the id of the corresponding radio button.  The default behavior of the RadioButtonFor() method that comes OOTB with MVC produces the same value for the “id” and “name” attributes so this isn’t exactly what I want out the the box if I’m trying to produce the HTML mark up above. If we use an EditorTemplate, the first gotcha that we run into is that, by default, the templates just work on your view model’s property. But in this case, we *also* was the list of items to populate all the radio buttons. It turns out that the EditorFor() methods do give you a way to pass in additional data. There is an overload of the EditorFor() method where the last parameter allows you to pass an anonymous object for “extra” data that you can use in your view – it gets put on the view data dictionary: 1: <%: Html.EditorFor(m => m.Name, "RadioButtonList", new { selectList = new SelectList(new[] { "Foo", "Bar" }) })%> Now we can create a file called RadioButtonList.ascx that looks like this: 1: <%@ Control Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl" %> 2: <% 3: var list = this.ViewData["selectList"] as SelectList; 4: %> 5: <div> 6: <% foreach (var item in list) { 7: var radioId = ViewData.TemplateInfo.GetFullHtmlFieldId(item.Value); 8: var checkedAttr = item.Selected ? "checked=\"checked\"" : string.Empty; 9: %> 10: <input type="radio" id="<%: radioId %>" name="<%: ViewData.TemplateInfo.HtmlFieldPrefix %>" value="<%: item.Value %>" <%: checkedAttr %>/> 11: <label for="<%: radioId %>"><%: item.Text %></label> 12: <% } %> 13: </div> There are several things to note about the code above. First, you can see in line #3, it’s getting the SelectList out of the view data dictionary. Then on line #7 it uses the GetFullHtmlFieldId() method from the TemplateInfo class to ensure we get unique IDs. We pass the Value to this method so that it will produce IDs like “Name_Foo” and “Name_Bar” rather than just “Name” which is our property name. However, for the “name” attribute (on line #10) we can just use the normal HtmlFieldPrefix property so that we ensure all radio buttons have the same name which corresponds to the view model’s property name. We also get to leverage the fact the a SelectListItem has a Boolean Selected property so we can set the checkedAttr variable on line #8 and use it on line #10. Finally, it’s trivial to set the correct “for” attribute for the <label> on line #11 since we already produced that value. Because the TemplateInfo class provides all the metadata for our view, we’re able to produce this view that is widely re-usable across our application. In fact, we can create a couple HTML helpers to better encapsulate this call and make it more user friendly: 1: public static MvcHtmlString RadioButtonList<TModel, TProperty>(this HtmlHelper<TModel> htmlHelper, Expression<Func<TModel, TProperty>> expression, params string[] items) 2: { 3: return htmlHelper.RadioButtonList(expression, new SelectList(items)); 4: } 5:   6: public static MvcHtmlString RadioButtonList<TModel, TProperty>(this HtmlHelper<TModel> htmlHelper, Expression<Func<TModel, TProperty>> expression, IEnumerable<SelectListItem> items) 7: { 8: var func = expression.Compile(); 9: var result = func(htmlHelper.ViewData.Model); 10: var list = new SelectList(items, "Value", "Text", result); 11: return htmlHelper.EditorFor(expression, "RadioButtonList", new { selectList = list }); 12: } This allows us to simply the call like this: 1: <%: Html.RadioButtonList(m => m.Name, "Foo", "Bar" ) %> In that example, the values for the radio button are hard-coded and being passed in directly. But if you had a view model that contained a property for the collection of items you could call the second overload like this: 1: <%: Html.RadioButtonList(m => m.Name, Model.FooBarList ) %> The Editor templates introduced in MVC 2 definitely allow for much more flexible views/editors than previously available. By knowing about the features you have available to you with the TemplateInfo class, you can take these concepts and customize your editors with extreme flexibility and re-usability.

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  • Entity Framework Code-First, OData & Windows Phone Client

    - by Jon Galloway
    Entity Framework Code-First is the coolest thing since sliced bread, Windows  Phone is the hottest thing since Tickle-Me-Elmo and OData is just too great to ignore. As part of the Full Stack project, we wanted to put them together, which turns out to be pretty easy… once you know how.   EF Code-First CTP5 is available now and there should be very few breaking changes in the release edition, which is due early in 2011.  Note: EF Code-First evolved rapidly and many of the existing documents and blog posts which were written with earlier versions, may now be obsolete or at least misleading.   Code-First? With traditional Entity Framework you start with a database and from that you generate “entities” – classes that bridge between the relational database and your object oriented program. With Code-First (Magic-Unicorn) (see Hanselman’s write up and this later write up by Scott Guthrie) the Entity Framework looks at classes you created and says “if I had created these classes, the database would have to have looked like this…” and creates the database for you! By deriving your entity collections from DbSet and exposing them via a class that derives from DbContext, you "turn on" database backing for your POCO with a minimum of code and no hidden designer or configuration files. POCO == Plain Old CLR Objects Your entity objects can be used throughout your applications - in web applications, console applications, Silverlight and Windows Phone applications, etc. In our case, we'll want to read and update data from a Windows Phone client application, so we'll expose the entities through a DataService and hook the Windows Phone client application to that data via proxies.  Piece of Pie.  Easy as cake. The Demo Architecture To see this at work, we’ll create an ASP.NET/MVC application which will act as the host for our Data Service.  We’ll create an incredibly simple data layer using EF Code-First on top of SQLCE4 and we’ll expose the data in a WCF Data Service using the oData protocol.  Our Windows Phone 7 client will instantiate  the data context via a URI and load the data asynchronously. Setting up the Server project with MVC 3, EF Code First, and SQL CE 4 Create a new application of type ASP.NET MVC 3 and name it DeadSimpleServer.  We need to add the latest SQLCE4 and Entity Framework Code First CTP's to our project. Fortunately, NuGet makes that really easy. Open the Package Manager Console (View / Other Windows / Package Manager Console) and type in "Install-Package EFCodeFirst.SqlServerCompact" at the PM> command prompt. Since NuGet handles dependencies for you, you'll see that it installs everything you need to use Entity Framework Code First in your project. PM> install-package EFCodeFirst.SqlServerCompact 'SQLCE (= 4.0.8435.1)' not installed. Attempting to retrieve dependency from source... Done 'EFCodeFirst (= 0.8)' not installed. Attempting to retrieve dependency from source... Done 'WebActivator (= 1.0.0.0)' not installed. Attempting to retrieve dependency from source... Done You are downloading SQLCE from Microsoft, the license agreement to which is available at http://173.203.67.148/licenses/SQLCE/EULA_ENU.rtf. Check the package for additional dependencies, which may come with their own license agreement(s). Your use of the package and dependencies constitutes your acceptance of their license agreements. If you do not accept the license agreement(s), then delete the relevant components from your device. Successfully installed 'SQLCE 4.0.8435.1' You are downloading EFCodeFirst from Microsoft, the license agreement to which is available at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=206497. Check the package for additional dependencies, which may come with their own license agreement(s). Your use of the package and dependencies constitutes your acceptance of their license agreements. If you do not accept the license agreement(s), then delete the relevant components from your device. Successfully installed 'EFCodeFirst 0.8' Successfully installed 'WebActivator 1.0.0.0' You are downloading EFCodeFirst.SqlServerCompact from Microsoft, the license agreement to which is available at http://173.203.67.148/licenses/SQLCE/EULA_ENU.rtf. Check the package for additional dependencies, which may come with their own license agreement(s). Your use of the package and dependencies constitutes your acceptance of their license agreements. If you do not accept the license agreement(s), then delete the relevant components from your device. Successfully installed 'EFCodeFirst.SqlServerCompact 0.8' Successfully added 'SQLCE 4.0.8435.1' to EfCodeFirst-CTP5 Successfully added 'EFCodeFirst 0.8' to EfCodeFirst-CTP5 Successfully added 'WebActivator 1.0.0.0' to EfCodeFirst-CTP5 Successfully added 'EFCodeFirst.SqlServerCompact 0.8' to EfCodeFirst-CTP5 Note: We're using SQLCE 4 with Entity Framework here because they work really well together from a development scenario, but you can of course use Entity Framework Code First with other databases supported by Entity framework. Creating The Model using EF Code First Now we can create our model class. Right-click the Models folder and select Add/Class. Name the Class Person.cs and add the following code: using System.Data.Entity; namespace DeadSimpleServer.Models { public class Person { public int ID { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } } public class PersonContext : DbContext { public DbSet<Person> People { get; set; } } } Notice that the entity class Person has no special interfaces or base class. There's nothing special needed to make it work - it's just a POCO. The context we'll use to access the entities in the application is called PersonContext, but you could name it anything you wanted. The important thing is that it inherits DbContext and contains one or more DbSet which holds our entity collections. Adding Seed Data We need some testing data to expose from our service. The simplest way to get that into our database is to modify the CreateCeDatabaseIfNotExists class in AppStart_SQLCEEntityFramework.cs by adding some seed data to the Seed method: protected virtual void Seed( TContext context ) { var personContext = context as PersonContext; personContext.People.Add( new Person { ID = 1, Name = "George Washington" } ); personContext.People.Add( new Person { ID = 2, Name = "John Adams" } ); personContext.People.Add( new Person { ID = 3, Name = "Thomas Jefferson" } ); personContext.SaveChanges(); } The CreateCeDatabaseIfNotExists class name is pretty self-explanatory - when our DbContext is accessed and the database isn't found, a new one will be created and populated with the data in the Seed method. There's one more step to make that work - we need to uncomment a line in the Start method at the top of of the AppStart_SQLCEEntityFramework class and set the context name, as shown here, public static class AppStart_SQLCEEntityFramework { public static void Start() { DbDatabase.DefaultConnectionFactory = new SqlCeConnectionFactory("System.Data.SqlServerCe.4.0"); // Sets the default database initialization code for working with Sql Server Compact databases // Uncomment this line and replace CONTEXT_NAME with the name of your DbContext if you are // using your DbContext to create and manage your database DbDatabase.SetInitializer(new CreateCeDatabaseIfNotExists<PersonContext>()); } } Now our database and entity framework are set up, so we can expose data via WCF Data Services. Note: This is a bare-bones implementation with no administration screens. If you'd like to see how those are added, check out The Full Stack screencast series. Creating the oData Service using WCF Data Services Add a new WCF Data Service to the project (right-click the project / Add New Item / Web / WCF Data Service). We’ll be exposing all the data as read/write.  Remember to reconfigure to control and minimize access as appropriate for your own application. Open the code behind for your service. In our case, the service was called PersonTestDataService.svc so the code behind class file is PersonTestDataService.svc.cs. using System.Data.Services; using System.Data.Services.Common; using System.ServiceModel; using DeadSimpleServer.Models; namespace DeadSimpleServer { [ServiceBehavior( IncludeExceptionDetailInFaults = true )] public class PersonTestDataService : DataService<PersonContext> { // This method is called only once to initialize service-wide policies. public static void InitializeService( DataServiceConfiguration config ) { config.SetEntitySetAccessRule( "*", EntitySetRights.All ); config.DataServiceBehavior.MaxProtocolVersion = DataServiceProtocolVersion.V2; config.UseVerboseErrors = true; } } } We're enabling a few additional settings to make it easier to debug if you run into trouble. The ServiceBehavior attribute is set to include exception details in faults, and we're using verbose errors. You can remove both of these when your service is working, as your public production service shouldn't be revealing exception information. You can view the output of the service by running the application and browsing to http://localhost:[portnumber]/PersonTestDataService.svc/: <service xml:base="http://localhost:49786/PersonTestDataService.svc/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2007/app"> <workspace> <atom:title>Default</atom:title> <collection href="People"> <atom:title>People</atom:title> </collection> </workspace> </service> This indicates that the service exposes one collection, which is accessible by browsing to http://localhost:[portnumber]/PersonTestDataService.svc/People <?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" standalone="yes"?> <feed xml:base=http://localhost:49786/PersonTestDataService.svc/ xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices/metadata" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"> <title type="text">People</title> <id>http://localhost:49786/PersonTestDataService.svc/People</id> <updated>2010-12-29T01:01:50Z</updated> <link rel="self" title="People" href="People" /> <entry> <id>http://localhost:49786/PersonTestDataService.svc/People(1)</id> <title type="text"></title> <updated>2010-12-29T01:01:50Z</updated> <author> <name /> </author> <link rel="edit" title="Person" href="People(1)" /> <category term="DeadSimpleServer.Models.Person" scheme="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices/scheme" /> <content type="application/xml"> <m:properties> <d:ID m:type="Edm.Int32">1</d:ID> <d:Name>George Washington</d:Name> </m:properties> </content> </entry> <entry> ... </entry> </feed> Let's recap what we've done so far. But enough with services and XML - let's get this into our Windows Phone client application. Creating the DataServiceContext for the Client Use the latest DataSvcUtil.exe from http://odata.codeplex.com. As of today, that's in this download: http://odata.codeplex.com/releases/view/54698 You need to run it with a few options: /uri - This will point to the service URI. In this case, it's http://localhost:59342/PersonTestDataService.svc  Pick up the port number from your running server (e.g., the server formerly known as Cassini). /out - This is the DataServiceContext class that will be generated. You can name it whatever you'd like. /Version - should be set to 2.0 /DataServiceCollection - Include this flag to generate collections derived from the DataServiceCollection base, which brings in all the ObservableCollection goodness that handles your INotifyPropertyChanged events for you. Here's the console session from when we ran it: <ListBox x:Name="MainListBox" Margin="0,0,-12,0" ItemsSource="{Binding}" SelectionChanged="MainListBox_SelectionChanged"> Next, to keep things simple, change the Binding on the two TextBlocks within the DataTemplate to Name and ID, <ListBox x:Name="MainListBox" Margin="0,0,-12,0" ItemsSource="{Binding}" SelectionChanged="MainListBox_SelectionChanged"> <ListBox.ItemTemplate> <DataTemplate> <StackPanel Margin="0,0,0,17" Width="432"> <TextBlock Text="{Binding Name}" TextWrapping="Wrap" Style="{StaticResource PhoneTextExtraLargeStyle}" /> <TextBlock Text="{Binding ID}" TextWrapping="Wrap" Margin="12,-6,12,0" Style="{StaticResource PhoneTextSubtleStyle}" /> </StackPanel> </DataTemplate> </ListBox.ItemTemplate> </ListBox> Getting The Context In the code-behind you’ll first declare a member variable to hold the context from the Entity Framework. This is named using convention over configuration. The db type is Person and the context is of type PersonContext, You initialize it by providing the URI, in this case using the URL obtained from the Cassini web server, PersonContext context = new PersonContext( new Uri( "http://localhost:49786/PersonTestDataService.svc/" ) ); Create a second member variable of type DataServiceCollection<Person> but do not initialize it, DataServiceCollection<Person> people; In the constructor you’ll initialize the DataServiceCollection using the PersonContext, public MainPage() { InitializeComponent(); people = new DataServiceCollection<Person>( context ); Finally, you’ll load the people collection using the LoadAsync method, passing in the fully specified URI for the People collection in the web service, people.LoadAsync( new Uri( "http://localhost:49786/PersonTestDataService.svc/People" ) ); Note that this method runs asynchronously and when it is finished the people  collection is already populated. Thus, since we didn’t need or want to override any of the behavior we don’t implement the LoadCompleted. You can use the LoadCompleted event if you need to do any other UI updates, but you don't need to. The final code is as shown below: using System; using System.Data.Services.Client; using System.Windows; using System.Windows.Controls; using DeadSimpleServer.Models; using Microsoft.Phone.Controls; namespace WindowsPhoneODataTest { public partial class MainPage : PhoneApplicationPage { PersonContext context = new PersonContext( new Uri( "http://localhost:49786/PersonTestDataService.svc/" ) ); DataServiceCollection<Person> people; // Constructor public MainPage() { InitializeComponent(); // Set the data context of the listbox control to the sample data // DataContext = App.ViewModel; people = new DataServiceCollection<Person>( context ); people.LoadAsync( new Uri( "http://localhost:49786/PersonTestDataService.svc/People" ) ); DataContext = people; this.Loaded += new RoutedEventHandler( MainPage_Loaded ); } // Handle selection changed on ListBox private void MainListBox_SelectionChanged( object sender, SelectionChangedEventArgs e ) { // If selected index is -1 (no selection) do nothing if ( MainListBox.SelectedIndex == -1 ) return; // Navigate to the new page NavigationService.Navigate( new Uri( "/DetailsPage.xaml?selectedItem=" + MainListBox.SelectedIndex, UriKind.Relative ) ); // Reset selected index to -1 (no selection) MainListBox.SelectedIndex = -1; } // Load data for the ViewModel Items private void MainPage_Loaded( object sender, RoutedEventArgs e ) { if ( !App.ViewModel.IsDataLoaded ) { App.ViewModel.LoadData(); } } } } With people populated we can set it as the DataContext and run the application; you’ll find that the Name and ID are displayed in the list on the Mainpage. Here's how the pieces in the client fit together: Complete source code available here

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  • WPF ListView as a DataGrid – Part 3

    - by psheriff
    I have had a lot of great feedback on the blog post about turning the ListView into a DataGrid by creating GridViewColumn objects on the fly. So, in the last 2 parts, I showed a couple of different methods for accomplishing this. Let’s now look at one more and that is use Reflection to extract the properties from a Product, Customer, or Employee object to create the columns. Yes, Reflection is a slower approach, but you could create the columns one time then cache the View object for re-use. Another potential drawback is you may have columns in your object that you do not wish to display on your ListView. But, just because so many people asked, here is how to accomplish this using Reflection.   Figure 1: Use Reflection to create GridViewColumns. Using Reflection to gather property names is actually quite simple. First you need to pass any type (Product, Customer, Employee, etc.) to a method like I did in my last two blog posts on this subject. Below is the method that I created in the WPFListViewCommon class that now uses reflection. C#public static GridView CreateGridViewColumns(Type anyType){  // Create the GridView  GridView gv = new GridView();  GridViewColumn gvc;   // Get the public properties.  PropertyInfo[] propInfo =          anyType.GetProperties(BindingFlags.Public |                                BindingFlags.Instance);   foreach (PropertyInfo item in propInfo)  {    gvc = new GridViewColumn();    gvc.DisplayMemberBinding = new Binding(item.Name);    gvc.Header = item.Name;    gvc.Width = Double.NaN;    gv.Columns.Add(gvc);  }   return gv;} VB.NETPublic Shared Function CreateGridViewColumns( _  ByVal anyType As Type) As GridView  ' Create the GridView   Dim gv As New GridView()  Dim gvc As GridViewColumn   ' Get the public properties.   Dim propInfo As PropertyInfo() = _    anyType.GetProperties(BindingFlags.Public Or _                          BindingFlags.Instance)   For Each item As PropertyInfo In propInfo    gvc = New GridViewColumn()    gvc.DisplayMemberBinding = New Binding(item.Name)    gvc.Header = item.Name    gvc.Width = [Double].NaN    gv.Columns.Add(gvc)  Next   Return gvEnd Function The key to using Relection is using the GetProperties method on the type you pass in. When you pass in a Product object as Type, you can now use the GetProperties method and specify, via flags, which properties you wish to return. In the code that I wrote, I am just retrieving the Public properties and only those that are Instance properties. I do not want any static/Shared properties or private properties. GetProperties returns an array of PropertyInfo objects. You can loop through this array and build your GridViewColumn objects by reading the Name property from the PropertyInfo object. Build the Product Screen To populate the ListView shown in Figure 1, you might write code like the following: C#private void CollectionSample(){  Product prod = new Product();   // Setup the GridView Columns  lstData.View =      WPFListViewCommon.CreateGridViewColumns(typeOf(Product));  lstData.DataContext = prod.GetProducts();} VB.NETPrivate Sub CollectionSample()  Dim prod As New Product()   ' Setup the GridView Columns  lstData.View = WPFListViewCommon.CreateGridViewColumns( _       GetType(Product))  lstData.DataContext = prod.GetProducts()End Sub All you need to do now is to pass in a Type object from your Product class that you can get by using the typeOf() function in C# or the GetType() function in VB. That’s all there is to it! Summary There are so many different ways to approach the same problem in programming. That is what makes programming so much fun! In this blog post I showed you how to create ListView columns on the fly using Reflection. This gives you a lot of flexibility without having to write extra code as was done previously. NOTE: You can download the complete sample code (in both VB and C#) at my website. http://www.pdsa.com/downloads. Choose Tips & Tricks, then "WPF ListView as a DataGrid – Part 3" 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 eBook on "Fundamentals of N-Tier".  

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  • Computer Networks UNISA - Chap 12 &ndash; Networking Security

    - by MarkPearl
    After reading this section you should be able to Identify security risks in LANs and WANs and design security policies that minimize risks Explain how physical security contributes to network security Discuss hardware and design based security techniques Understand methods of encryption such as SSL and IPSec, that can secure data in storage and in transit Describe how popular authentication protocols such as RADIUS< TACACS,Kerberos, PAP, CHAP, and MS-CHAP function Use network operating system techniques to provide basic security Understand wireless security protocols such as WEP, WPA and 802.11i Security Audits Before spending time and money on network security, examine your networks security risks – rate and prioritize risks. Different organizations have different levels of network security requirements. Security Risks Not all security breaches result from a manipulation of network technology – there are human factors that can play a role as well. The following categories are areas of considerations… Risks associated with People Risks associated with Transmission and Hardware Risks associated with Protocols and Software Risks associated with Internet Access An effective security policy A security policy identifies your security goals, risks, levels of authority, designated security coordinator and team members, responsibilities for each team member, and responsibilities for each employee. In addition it specifies how to address security breaches. It should not state exactly which hardware, software, architecture, or protocols will be used to ensure security, nor how hardware or software will be installed and configured. A security policy must address an organizations specific risks. to understand your risks, you should conduct a security audit that identifies vulnerabilities and rates both the severity of each threat and its likelihood of occurring. Security Policy Content Security policy content should… Policies for each category of security Explain to users what they can and cannot do and how these measures protect the networks security Should define what confidential means to the organization Response Policy A security policy should provide for a planned response in the event of a security breach. The response policy should identify the members of a response team, all of whom should clearly understand the the security policy, risks, and measures in place. Some of the roles concerned could include… Dispatcher – the person on call who first notices the breach Manager – the person who coordinates the resources necessary to solve the problem Technical Support Specialist – the person who focuses on solving the problem Public relations specialist – the person who acts as the official spokesperson for the organization Physical Security An important element in network security is restricting physical access to its components. There are various techniques for this including locking doors, security people at access points etc. You should identify the following… Which rooms contain critical systems or data and must be secured Through what means might intruders gain access to these rooms How and to what extent are authorized personnel granted access to these rooms Are authentication methods such as ID cards easy to forge etc. Security in Network Design The optimal way to prevent external security breaches from affecting you LAN is not to connect your LAN to the outside world at all. The next best protection is to restrict access at every point where your LAN connects to the rest of the world. Router Access List – can be used to filter or decline access to a portion of a network for certain devices. Intrusion Detection and Prevention While denying someone access to a section of the network is good, it is better to be able to detect when an attempt has been made and notify security personnel. This can be done using IDS (intrusion detection system) software. One drawback of IDS software is it can detect false positives – i.e. an authorized person who has forgotten his password attempts to logon. Firewalls A firewall is a specialized device, or a computer installed with specialized software, that selectively filters or blocks traffic between networks. A firewall typically involves a combination of hardware and software and may reside between two interconnected private networks. The simplest form of a firewall is a packet filtering firewall, which is a router that examines the header of every packet of data it receives to determine whether that type of packet is authorized to continue to its destination or not. Firewalls can block traffic in and out of a LAN. NOS (Network Operating System) Security Regardless of the operating system, generally every network administrator can implement basic security by restricting what users are authorized to do on a network. Some of the restrictions include things related to Logons – place, time of day, total time logged in, etc Passwords – length, characters used, etc Encryption Encryption is the use of an algorithm to scramble data into a format that can be read only by reversing the algorithm. The purpose of encryption is to keep information private. Many forms of encryption exist and new ways of cracking encryption are continually being invented. The following are some categories of encryption… Key Encryption PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) SSH (Secure Shell) SCP (Secure CoPy) SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) IPSec (Internet Protocol Security) For a detailed explanation on each section refer to pages 596 to 604 of textbook Authentication Protocols Authentication protocols are the rules that computers follow to accomplish authentication. Several types exist and the following are some of the common authentication protocols… RADIUS and TACACS PAP (Password Authentication Protocol) CHAP and MS-CHAP EAP (Extensible Authentication Protocol) 802.1x (EAPoL) Kerberos Wireless Network Security Wireless transmissions are particularly susceptible to eavesdropping. The following are two wireless network security protocols WEP WPA

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  • Dropbox’s Great Space Race Delivers Additional Space to Students

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    If you’re a student or faculty member (or still have an active .edu email account) now’s the time to cash in on some free cloud storage courtesy of Dropbox’s Great Space Race. Just by linking your .edu address with your Dropbox account you’ll get an extra 3GB of storage for the next two years. The more people from your school that sign up, the higher the total climbs–up to an extra 25GB for two years. The Space Race lasts for the next eight weeks, you can read more about the details here or just jump to the signup page at the link below. The Great Space Race [Dropbox] Why Enabling “Do Not Track” Doesn’t Stop You From Being Tracked HTG Explains: What is the Windows Page File and Should You Disable It? How To Get a Better Wireless Signal and Reduce Wireless Network Interference

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  • The broken Promise of the Mobile Web

    - by Rick Strahl
    High end mobile devices have been with us now for almost 7 years and they have utterly transformed the way we access information. Mobile phones and smartphones that have access to the Internet and host smart applications are in the hands of a large percentage of the population of the world. In many places even very remote, cell phones and even smart phones are a common sight. I’ll never forget when I was in India in 2011 I was up in the Southern Indian mountains riding an elephant out of a tiny local village, with an elephant herder in front riding atop of the elephant in front of us. He was dressed in traditional garb with the loin wrap and head cloth/turban as did quite a few of the locals in this small out of the way and not so touristy village. So we’re slowly trundling along in the forest and he’s lazily using his stick to guide the elephant and… 10 minutes in he pulls out his cell phone from his sash and starts texting. In the middle of texting a huge pig jumps out from the side of the trail and he takes a picture running across our path in the jungle! So yeah, mobile technology is very pervasive and it’s reached into even very buried and unexpected parts of this world. Apps are still King Apps currently rule the roost when it comes to mobile devices and the applications that run on them. If there’s something that you need on your mobile device your first step usually is to look for an app, not use your browser. But native app development remains a pain in the butt, with the requirement to have to support 2 or 3 completely separate platforms. There are solutions that try to bridge that gap. Xamarin is on a tear at the moment, providing their cross-device toolkit to build applications using C#. While Xamarin tools are impressive – and also *very* expensive – they only address part of the development madness that is app development. There are still specific device integration isssues, dealing with the different developer programs, security and certificate setups and all that other noise that surrounds app development. There’s also PhoneGap/Cordova which provides a hybrid solution that involves creating local HTML/CSS/JavaScript based applications, and then packaging them to run in a specialized App container that can run on most mobile device platforms using a WebView interface. This allows for using of HTML technology, but it also still requires all the set up, configuration of APIs, security keys and certification and submission and deployment process just like native applications – you actually lose many of the benefits that  Web based apps bring. The big selling point of Cordova is that you get to use HTML have the ability to build your UI once for all platforms and run across all of them – but the rest of the app process remains in place. Apps can be a big pain to create and manage especially when we are talking about specialized or vertical business applications that aren’t geared at the mainstream market and that don’t fit the ‘store’ model. If you’re building a small intra department application you don’t want to deal with multiple device platforms and certification etc. for various public or corporate app stores. That model is simply not a good fit both from the development and deployment perspective. Even for commercial, big ticket apps, HTML as a UI platform offers many advantages over native, from write-once run-anywhere, to remote maintenance, single point of management and failure to having full control over the application as opposed to have the app store overloads censor you. In a lot of ways Web based HTML/CSS/JavaScript applications have so much potential for building better solutions based on existing Web technologies for the very same reasons a lot of content years ago moved off the desktop to the Web. To me the Web as a mobile platform makes perfect sense, but the reality of today’s Mobile Web unfortunately looks a little different… Where’s the Love for the Mobile Web? Yet here we are in the middle of 2014, nearly 7 years after the first iPhone was released and brought the promise of rich interactive information at your fingertips, and yet we still don’t really have a solid mobile Web platform. I know what you’re thinking: “But we have lots of HTML/JavaScript/CSS features that allows us to build nice mobile interfaces”. I agree to a point – it’s actually quite possible to build nice looking, rich and capable Web UI today. We have media queries to deal with varied display sizes, CSS transforms for smooth animations and transitions, tons of CSS improvements in CSS 3 that facilitate rich layout, a host of APIs geared towards mobile device features and lately even a number of JavaScript framework choices that facilitate development of multi-screen apps in a consistent manner. Personally I’ve been working a lot with AngularJs and heavily modified Bootstrap themes to build mobile first UIs and that’s been working very well to provide highly usable and attractive UI for typical mobile business applications. From the pure UI perspective things actually look very good. Not just about the UI But it’s not just about the UI - it’s also about integration with the mobile device. When it comes to putting all those pieces together into what amounts to a consolidated platform to build mobile Web applications, I think we still have a ways to go… there are a lot of missing pieces to make it all work together and integrate with the device more smoothly, and more importantly to make it work uniformly across the majority of devices. I think there are a number of reasons for this. Slow Standards Adoption HTML standards implementations and ratification has been dreadfully slow, and browser vendors all seem to pick and choose different pieces of the technology they implement. The end result is that we have a capable UI platform that’s missing some of the infrastructure pieces to make it whole on mobile devices. There’s lots of potential but what is lacking that final 10% to build truly compelling mobile applications that can compete favorably with native applications. Some of it is the fragmentation of browsers and the slow evolution of the mobile specific HTML APIs. A host of mobile standards exist but many of the standards are in the early review stage and they have been there stuck for long periods of time and seem to move at a glacial pace. Browser vendors seem even slower to implement them, and for good reason – non-ratified standards mean that implementations may change and vendor implementations tend to be experimental and  likely have to be changed later. Neither Vendors or developers are not keen on changing standards. This is the typical chicken and egg scenario, but without some forward momentum from some party we end up stuck in the mud. It seems that either the standards bodies or the vendors need to carry the torch forward and that doesn’t seem to be happening quickly enough. Mobile Device Integration just isn’t good enough Current standards are not far reaching enough to address a number of the use case scenarios necessary for many mobile applications. While not every application needs to have access to all mobile device features, almost every mobile application could benefit from some integration with other parts of the mobile device platform. Integration with GPS, phone, media, messaging, notifications, linking and contacts system are benefits that are unique to mobile applications and could be widely used, but are mostly (with the exception of GPS) inaccessible for Web based applications today. Unfortunately trying to do most of this today only with a mobile Web browser is a losing battle. Aside from PhoneGap/Cordova’s app centric model with its own custom API accessing mobile device features and the token exception of the GeoLocation API, most device integration features are not widely supported by the current crop of mobile browsers. For example there’s no usable messaging API that allows access to SMS or contacts from HTML. Even obvious components like the Media Capture API are only implemented partially by mobile devices. There are alternatives and workarounds for some of these interfaces by using browser specific code, but that’s might ugly and something that I thought we were trying to leave behind with newer browser standards. But it’s not quite working out that way. It’s utterly perplexing to me that mobile standards like Media Capture and Streams, Media Gallery Access, Responsive Images, Messaging API, Contacts Manager API have only minimal or no traction at all today. Keep in mind we’ve had mobile browsers for nearly 7 years now, and yet we still have to think about how to get access to an image from the image gallery or the camera on some devices? Heck Windows Phone IE Mobile just gained the ability to upload images recently in the Windows 8.1 Update – that’s feature that HTML has had for 20 years! These are simple concepts and common problems that should have been solved a long time ago. It’s extremely frustrating to see build 90% of a mobile Web app with relative ease and then hit a brick wall for the remaining 10%, which often can be show stoppers. The remaining 10% have to do with platform integration, browser differences and working around the limitations that browsers and ‘pinned’ applications impose on HTML applications. The maddening part is that these limitations seem arbitrary as they could easily work on all mobile platforms. For example, SMS has a URL Moniker interface that sort of works on Android, works badly with iOS (only works if the address is already in the contact list) and not at all on Windows Phone. There’s no reason this shouldn’t work universally using the same interface – after all all phones have supported SMS since before the year 2000! But, it doesn’t have to be this way Change can happen very quickly. Take the GeoLocation API for example. Geolocation has taken off at the very beginning of the mobile device era and today it works well, provides the necessary security (a big concern for many mobile APIs), and is supported by just about all major mobile and even desktop browsers today. It handles security concerns via prompts to avoid unwanted access which is a model that would work for most other device APIs in a similar fashion. One time approval and occasional re-approval if code changes or caches expire. Simple and only slightly intrusive. It all works well, even though GeoLocation actually has some physical limitations, such as representing the current location when no GPS device is present. Yet this is a solved problem, where other APIs that are conceptually much simpler to implement have failed to gain any traction at all. Technically none of these APIs should be a problem to implement, but it appears that the momentum is just not there. Inadequate Web Application Linking and Activation Another important piece of the puzzle missing is the integration of HTML based Web applications. Today HTML based applications are not first class citizens on mobile operating systems. When talking about HTML based content there’s a big difference between content and applications. Content is great for search engine discovery and plain browser usage. Content is usually accessed intermittently and permanent linking is not so critical for this type of content.  But applications have different needs. Applications need to be started up quickly and must be easily switchable to support a multi-tasking user workflow. Therefore, it’s pretty crucial that mobile Web apps are integrated into the underlying mobile OS and work with the standard task management features. Unfortunately this integration is not as smooth as it should be. It starts with actually trying to find mobile Web applications, to ‘installing’ them onto a phone in an easily accessible manner in a prominent position. The experience of discovering a Mobile Web ‘App’ and making it sticky is by no means as easy or satisfying. Today the way you’d go about this is: Open the browser Search for a Web Site in the browser with your search engine of choice Hope that you find the right site Hope that you actually find a site that works for your mobile device Click on the link and run the app in a fully chrome’d browser instance (read tiny surface area) Pin the app to the home screen (with all the limitations outline above) Hope you pointed at the right URL when you pinned Even for you and me as developers, there are a few steps in there that are painful and annoying, but think about the average user. First figuring out how to search for a specific site or URL? And then pinning the app and hopefully from the right location? You’ve probably lost more than half of your audience at that point. This experience sucks. For developers too this process is painful since app developers can’t control the shortcut creation directly. This problem often gets solved by crazy coding schemes, with annoying pop-ups that try to get people to create shortcuts via fancy animations that are both annoying and add overhead to each and every application that implements this sort of thing differently. And that’s not the end of it - getting the link onto the home screen with an application icon varies quite a bit between browsers. Apple’s non-standard meta tags are prominent and they work with iOS and Android (only more recent versions), but not on Windows Phone. Windows Phone instead requires you to create an actual screen or rather a partial screen be captured for a shortcut in the tile manager. Who had that brilliant idea I wonder? Surprisingly Chrome on recent Android versions seems to actually get it right – icons use pngs, pinning is easy and pinned applications properly behave like standalone apps and retain the browser’s active page state and content. Each of the platforms has a different way to specify icons (WP doesn’t allow you to use an icon image at all), and the most widely used interface in use today is a bunch of Apple specific meta tags that other browsers choose to support. The question is: Why is there no standard implementation for installing shortcuts across mobile platforms using an official format rather than a proprietary one? Then there’s iOS and the crazy way it treats home screen linked URLs using a crazy hybrid format that is neither as capable as a Web app running in Safari nor a WebView hosted application. Moving off the Web ‘app’ link when switching to another app actually causes the browser and preview it to ‘blank out’ the Web application in the Task View (see screenshot on the right). Then, when the ‘app’ is reactivated it ends up completely restarting the browser with the original link. This is crazy behavior that you can’t easily work around. In some situations you might be able to store the application state and restore it using LocalStorage, but for many scenarios that involve complex data sources (like say Google Maps) that’s not a possibility. The only reason for this screwed up behavior I can think of is that it is deliberate to make Web apps a pain in the butt to use and forcing users trough the App Store/PhoneGap/Cordova route. App linking and management is a very basic problem – something that we essentially have solved in every desktop browser – yet on mobile devices where it arguably matters a lot more to have easy access to web content we have to jump through hoops to have even a remotely decent linking/activation experience across browsers. Where’s the Money? It’s not surprising that device home screen integration and Mobile Web support in general is in such dismal shape – the mobile OS vendors benefit financially from App store sales and have little to gain from Web based applications that bypass the App store and the cash cow that it presents. On top of that, platform specific vendor lock-in of both end users and developers who have invested in hardware, apps and consumables is something that mobile platform vendors actually aspire to. Web based interfaces that are cross-platform are the anti-thesis of that and so again it’s no surprise that the mobile Web is on a struggling path. But – that may be changing. More and more we’re seeing operations shifting to services that are subscription based or otherwise collect money for usage, and that may drive more progress into the Web direction in the end . Nothing like the almighty dollar to drive innovation forward. Do we need a Mobile Web App Store? As much as I dislike moderated experiences in today’s massive App Stores, they do at least provide one single place to look for apps for your device. I think we could really use some sort of registry, that could provide something akin to an app store for mobile Web apps, to make it easier to actually find mobile applications. This could take the form of a specialized search engine, or maybe a more formal store/registry like structure. Something like apt-get/chocolatey for Web apps. It could be curated and provide at least some feedback and reviews that might help with the integrity of applications. Coupled to that could be a native application on each platform that would allow searching and browsing of the registry and then also handle installation in the form of providing the home screen linking, plus maybe an initial security configuration that determines what features are allowed access to for the app. I’m not holding my breath. In order for this sort of thing to take off and gain widespread appeal, a lot of coordination would be required. And in order to get enough traction it would have to come from a well known entity – a mobile Web app store from a no name source is unlikely to gain high enough usage numbers to make a difference. In a way this would eliminate some of the freedom of the Web, but of course this would also be an optional search path in addition to the standard open Web search mechanisms to find and access content today. Security Security is a big deal, and one of the perceived reasons why so many IT professionals appear to be willing to go back to the walled garden of deployed apps is that Apps are perceived as safe due to the official review and curation of the App stores. Curated stores are supposed to protect you from malware, illegal and misleading content. It doesn’t always work out that way and all the major vendors have had issues with security and the review process at some time or another. Security is critical, but I also think that Web applications in general pose less of a security threat than native applications, by nature of the sandboxed browser and JavaScript environments. Web applications run externally completely and in the HTML and JavaScript sandboxes, with only a very few controlled APIs allowing access to device specific features. And as discussed earlier – security for any device interaction can be granted the same for mobile applications through a Web browser, as they can for native applications either via explicit policies loaded from the Web, or via prompting as GeoLocation does today. Security is important, but it’s certainly solvable problem for Web applications even those that need to access device hardware. Security shouldn’t be a reason for Web apps to be an equal player in mobile applications. Apps are winning, but haven’t we been here before? So now we’re finding ourselves back in an era of installed app, rather than Web based and managed apps. Only it’s even worse today than with Desktop applications, in that the apps are going through a gatekeeper that charges a toll and censors what you can and can’t do in your apps. Frankly it’s a mystery to me why anybody would buy into this model and why it’s lasted this long when we’ve already been through this process. It’s crazy… It’s really a shame that this regression is happening. We have the technology to make mobile Web apps much more prominent, but yet we’re basically held back by what seems little more than bureaucracy, partisan bickering and self interest of the major parties involved. Back in the day of the desktop it was Internet Explorer’s 98+%  market shareholding back the Web from improvements for many years – now it’s the combined mobile OS market in control of the mobile browsers. If mobile Web apps were allowed to be treated the same as native apps with simple ways to install and run them consistently and persistently, that would go a long way to making mobile applications much more usable and seriously viable alternatives to native apps. But as it is mobile apps have a severe disadvantage in placement and operation. There are a few bright spots in all of this. Mozilla’s FireFoxOs is embracing the Web for it’s mobile OS by essentially building every app out of HTML and JavaScript based content. It supports both packaged and certified package modes (that can be put into the app store), and Open Web apps that are loaded and run completely off the Web and can also cache locally for offline operation using a manifest. Open Web apps are treated as full class citizens in FireFoxOS and run using the same mechanism as installed apps. Unfortunately FireFoxOs is getting a slow start with minimal device support and specifically targeting the low end market. We can hope that this approach will change and catch on with other vendors, but that’s also an uphill battle given the conflict of interest with platform lock in that it represents. Recent versions of Android also seem to be working reasonably well with mobile application integration onto the desktop and activation out of the box. Although it still uses the Apple meta tags to find icons and behavior settings, everything at least works as you would expect – icons to the desktop on pinning, WebView based full screen activation, and reliable application persistence as the browser/app is treated like a real application. Hopefully iOS will at some point provide this same level of rudimentary Web app support. What’s also interesting to me is that Microsoft hasn’t picked up on the obvious need for a solid Web App platform. Being a distant third in the mobile OS war, Microsoft certainly has nothing to lose and everything to gain by using fresh ideas and expanding into areas that the other major vendors are neglecting. But instead Microsoft is trying to beat the market leaders at their own game, fighting on their adversary’s terms instead of taking a new tack. Providing a kick ass mobile Web platform that takes the lead on some of the proposed mobile APIs would be something positive that Microsoft could do to improve its miserable position in the mobile device market. Where are we at with Mobile Web? It sure sounds like I’m really down on the Mobile Web, right? I’ve built a number of mobile apps in the last year and while overall result and response has been very positive to what we were able to accomplish in terms of UI, getting that final 10% that required device integration dialed was an absolute nightmare on every single one of them. Big compromises had to be made and some features were left out or had to be modified for some devices. In two cases we opted to go the Cordova route in order to get the integration we needed, along with the extra pain involved in that process. Unless you’re not integrating with device features and you don’t care deeply about a smooth integration with the mobile desktop, mobile Web development is fraught with frustration. So, yes I’m frustrated! But it’s not for lack of wanting the mobile Web to succeed. I am still a firm believer that we will eventually arrive a much more functional mobile Web platform that allows access to the most common device features in a sensible way. It wouldn't be difficult for device platform vendors to make Web based applications first class citizens on mobile devices. But unfortunately it looks like it will still be some time before this happens. So, what’s your experience building mobile Web apps? Are you finding similar issues? Just giving up on raw Web applications and building PhoneGap apps instead? Completely skipping the Web and going native? Leave a comment for discussion. Resources Rick Strahl on DotNet Rocks talking about Mobile Web© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2014Posted in HTML5  Mobile   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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  • Google-bot sees “Sorry, we have no imagery here” on pages with Google Maps

    - by friism
    I have a site with Google Maps on most of the pages. When inspecting content keywords in Google Webmaster tools, content keywords identified by Google-bot for the site include "imagery", "sorry" and "here". These turn out to be part of an error message returned by Google Maps: "Sorry, we have no imagery here". I cannot reproduce this error with normal clients, nor does "fetch as Google" show it. The problem is presumably that Google-bot tries to execute some of the Google Maps Javascript but then shoots itself on the foot and records the error message. A Google search for "Sorry, we have no imagery here" shows that this problem is endemic to sites across the internet, including Yelp and many others. I'd like to convince Google that my site is not about imagery and being sorry, but I'd also like to keep the maps in place. I guess one option would be to transition to static maps, but that's not a great alternative. There's some related discussion on Webmaster World, no resolution.

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  • Windows CE Chat Transcript (March 30, 2010)

    - by Bruce Eitman
    For those of you who missed the chat today, here is the raw transcript.   By raw, I mean that I copied and pasted the discussion without any edits. This is divided into two parts, the top part is the answers from the Microsoft Experts and the bottom part is the questions from the audience. Answers from Microsoft:   Karel Danihelka [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:2]: Hi everyone, my name is Karel Danihelka and I am developer in partner response team. Sing Wee [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:2]: Hi, I'm Sing Wee, part of the CoreOS/BSP Test Team. GLanger_MS (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:2]: Hi, I'm Glen Langer, program manager on the Core Team. Karel Danihelka [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:3]: Q: I need to implement hardware timers on my windows CE 6.0 device to trigger events at microsecond intervals. Where should i start? A: Until you are using CPU with GHz frequency your only chance is use interrupt handler and implement all funcionality there. But it will be really tricky and may reduce system performance. If period will be near to millisecond timeframe you can use normal thread wait for event pattern. Karel Danihelka [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:5]: Q: I want to partition my NAND Flash device. One partition to use for hive ragistry and the other for the apps and data. The only way to do it is programmatically or setting some registry values ? A: It need to be set in registry - generally you need mark this partition as boot partition. Karel Danihelka [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:7]: Q: My CPU is Intel celeron M processor 1Ghz. A: In this case you can try use normal approach - in interrupt handler return SYSINTR and start thread in device driver which will spin thread waiting on event attached to this SYSINTR. Karel Danihelka [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:7]: Q: If i need to implement it using interrupt handlers, What are all the files that I should look at? A: Good quesiton - I would recommend documentation and there was BSP development book to download for free. mikehall_ms (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:8]: Q: Hi guys, what's the formal way to report bugs back to the core team / product team? The mechanism of calling the support phone number every time is really onerous and time-consuming. Is there another mechanism? A: Using product support is the formal way to report bugs/issues - Product support can then create an issue that can be tracked. Karel Danihelka [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:9]: Q: But the operation for creating the partitions ? A: This is tricky - if you will make it autopartition & autoformat it will be created by filesystem. But generally it depends on your boot loader. mikehall_ms (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:10]: Q: Is Windows Phone 7 related to Windows CE? If so, can you tell me what version of Windows CE is the basis? Is it in fact the new version of Windows Mobile? A: At MIX 2010 Charlie Kindel presented a session that described some of the core technologies that make up Windows Phone 7 Series, including the underlying operating system (Windows CE) and the new ISV programming model based on Silverlight and .NET - check out the Mix Online Videos to get more information. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:10]: Q: Is Windows Phone 7 related to Windows CE? If so, can you tell me what version of Windows CE is the basis? Is it in fact the new version of Windows Mobile? A: This forum is to discussed released products in the industry. Windows Mobile & Windows CE are based on the same Windows CE Kernel/system. Windows CE is focused on deliverying the OS for embedded customers in the market where Windows Mobile is focused on deliverying compelling Windows Phone platform. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:11]: Q: Is Windows Phone 7 related to Windows CE? If so, can you tell me what version of Windows CE is the basis? Is it in fact the new version of Windows Mobile? A: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_CE Wikipedia gives a good breakdown of the version history. Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:13]: Q: I created a OS design with KITL and kernel debugger enabled. But I am unable to connect to the target for debugging. I am getting the following error when i try to connect with the device. PB Debugger Cannot initialize the Kernel Debugger. PB Debugger Debugger could not initialize connection. PB Debugger The Kernel Debugger is waiting to connect with target. PB Debugger The Kernel Debugger has been disconnected successfully. A: One possibility is that a rogue cesvchost.exe has co-opted the debugger. I am assuming this is CE 6.0? Can you try exiting visual studio and manually killing the cesvchost.exe process from the Task Manager? davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:14]: Q: Hi guys, what's the formal way to report bugs back to the core team / product team? The mechanism of calling the support phone number every time is really onerous and time-consuming. Is there another mechanism? A: For info on contacting Microsoft support refer to the support page on the Embedded website: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsembedded/dd897633.aspx Sing Wee [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:16]: Q: Do u mean ISR/IST implementation? How can i register an interrupt? What kind of interrupt should i register? A: A good introduction to interrupts in WinCE 6.0 can be found here (aside from the documentation on MSDN): http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/c/f/9cffaa58-4000-48d6-a4b2-5fed9e4e6410/Chapter%206%20-%20Developing%20Device%20Drivers.pdf mikehall_ms (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:16]: Q: What will be different in Windows Compact 7 from CE 6.0? A: Unfortunately we cannot discuss unreleased products on this chat - keep an eye on the Windows Embedded web site and blogs to keep up to date with product announcements. Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:16]: Q: I am using CE 6.0. There is no cesvchost process running in my system. A: What operating system are you using? Karel Danihelka [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:16]: Q: So...I have to modify file system code to create 2 partition at system startup ?!! I haven't understood.... A: You don't need to modify code, there are registry settings to achive this (look to documentation). But you may need to create partition table in boot loader. Unfortunatelly there isn't simple way how to do it. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:18]: Q: I would like to get a handle to a Silverlight screen section, is that possiable? A: Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3 includes Sliverlight for Windows Embedded. Refer to New Features overview on the embedded web site. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/en-us/products/windowsce/default.mspx. Silverlight - The power of Silverlight brought to Windows Embedded CE to create rich applications and user interfaces is new part of Windows CE Embedded. mikehall_ms (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:20]: Q: The link for developing device drivers is not working. can u please check that? A: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms923714.aspx davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:20]: Q: I would like to get a handle to a Silverlight screen section, is that possiable? A: Sorry misunderstood the question I thought you were asking if embedded CE could handle Silverlight. Please repost so that the question goes back into the active queue because once answered no way to put the status back to open. Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:21]: Q: sorry! Windows XP SP3 A: Can you try exiting VS2005 and confirming cesvchost.exe is not running, then renaming C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\CoreCon\1.0 to 1.0_backup, then restarting VS2005? Sing Wee [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:24]: Q: Can I have the book's name please? A: I believe the downloadable version is related to the last link I sent. If you go to the following website, I believe you can download the whole thing: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsembedded/ce/cc294468.aspx davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:24]: Q: If one has an image on a Silverlight page, it seems to be cached. How would one refresh that cache after changing the underlying image? A: change the URI of the image or use a writeable bitmap if they want to manually toggle the pixels Sing Wee [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:25]: A: Whoops, hit [ENTER] too early. On the right side, you'll see there an "Exam Preparation Kit" link that can be downloaded in several different languages. Sing Wee [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:25]: Q: Can I have the book's name please? A: Whoops, hit [ENTER] too early. On the right side, you'll see there an "Exam Preparation Kit" link that can be downloaded in several different languages. Karel Danihelka [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:26]: Q: I have a NAND Flash on my target device. On this flash I have the hive registry and an application.I have observed that when the NAND flash is fully, the system startup time is longer....is there a degradation of NAND use that influences the startup time ? Why ? A: Yes - on boot flash abstraction library (old one) read metadata from all sectors to rebuild physical - logical mapping table. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:27]: Q: I would like to get a handle to a Silverlight screen section, is that possiable? A: Need addition info on this question. Can you provide more details on what you are trying to do in Silverlight? davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:27]: Q: If one has an image on a Silverlight page, it seems to be cached. How would one refresh that cache after changing the underlying image? A: Additonal Info: if you want to manually touch the pixels use WriteableBitmap if you want to use the underlying HWND then use IXRVisualHost::GetHWND() davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:28]: Q: Writable bitmap, is there an example of the syntax? A: if you want to manually touch the pixels use WriteableBitmap if you want to use the underlying HWND then use IXRVisualHost::GetHWND() davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:29]: Q: I would like to get a handle to a Silverlight screen section, is that possiable? A: Can I get more information about this question about what you are trying to accomplish in Silverlight? davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:31]: Q: IXRVisualHost::GetHWND() exactly what I needed Thanks, A: Your welcome Sing Wee [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:31]: Q: ok. thanks for the book's link A: No problem. Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:32]: Q: Typically for SoC devices you name your hardware specific libraries in the form "SOCDIRNAME_LIBNAME". In our platform "OMAP35XX_TPS659XX_TI_V1" if you do this we cause the catalog parser to die... For example if we have a library "Musbfn_OMAP35XX_TPS659XX_TI_V1.dll" entering this in the catalogs pbcxml file in a <module> section causes the XML parser to fail with : Error 3 The 'urn:Microsoft.PlatformBuilder/Catalog:Module' element is        invalid - The value '012345678901234567890123456789.dll' is invalid         according to its datatype         'urn:Microsoft.PlatformBuilder/Catalog:CatalogFileName' - The actual         length is greater than the MaxLength value. A: There are a couple workarounds I can think of. I believe the Module element is only used when doing SYSGEN parsing to make sure dependent SYSGENs are present when the item is selected, so I believe it is optional to the catalog. The other obvious workaround is to shorten the soc name. I realize neither of these solutions is ideal. This is not something we anticipated when we tested CE6.0, sorry. Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:33]: Q: I am getting this error only when I select the KdStub as the debugger in Target device connectivity. A: Right, but KdStub is the debugger that you should use. Have you tried the steps I suggested? Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:36]: Q: If I select Active KTIL, My OS doesn't boots. It says "loading NK.EXE at 0x<xxxxx> location" after that nothing comes in the debug log. A: Can you look at the serial debug output and see what is happening there? Often it can give you a clue to the KITL driver malfunctioning. Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:38]: Q: I have tried that and I am getting the same error. A: I am assuming you have a device created in Target -> Connectivity Options in Platform Builder. What are the Kernel download / Kernel transport for your device? Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:40]: Q: KITL: *** Device Name CEPC56059 *** WARN: KITL will run in polling mode VBridge:: built on [Jul 10 2009] time [10:20:14] VBridgeInit()...TX = [16384] bytes -- Rx = [16384] bytes Tx buffer [0xA1B84860] to [0xA1B88860]. Rx buffer [0xA1B88880] to [0xA1B8C880]. VBridge:: NK add MAC: [0-60-65-2-DA-FB] Connecting to Desktop KITL: Connected host IP: 1 Port: 1086 .. this is the output of the serial debug A: This looks reasonable and does not give clues as to why boot would halt at that point. If you capture a network trace or turn on KITL debug zones via dpCurSettings in kitl.dll, do you see KITL active after this? Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:41]: Q: Both is happening via Ethernet. A: Only thing I have left to suggest is a Platform Builder installation Repair, then. Karel Danihelka [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:42]: Q: Hi, I saw that the ATADISK is quite generic and des not have any optimizations. Do you have any advice to consider while tryin to improve the performance of it? A: If I remember correctly sample code has support for some specific hardware controllers (little obsolete now). This should be good start point (if you will not decide take existing driver as sample and write you own). Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:44]: Q: I didn't do that. I have to try. A: I think that's the next valid step. You need to figure out whether KITL is hanging or the device - use instrumented serial debug messages and network trace to determine this. Sing Wee [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:46]: Q: KITL: *** Device Name CEPC56059 *** WARN: KITL will run in polling mode VBridge:: built on [Jul 10 2009] time [10:20:14] VBridgeInit()...TX = [16384] bytes -- Rx = [16384] bytes Tx buffer [0xA1B84860] to [0xA1B88860]. Rx buffer [0xA1B88880] to [0xA1B8C880]. VBridge:: NK add MAC: [0-60-65-2-DA-FB] Connecting to Desktop KITL: Connected host IP: 1 Port: 1086 .. this is the output of the serial debug A: Neo, have you by any chance tried looking into your firewall to see if it might be blocking traffic on any particular ports? Wireshark/netmon might be able to help you here if that's the issue. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:48]: Q: I lost spell check, how can i get it back A: Hello - can you give additional details about your question? Is this related to a Windows CE Embedded application? masatos_MSFT (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:51]: Q: When attempting to run the CETK cellcore tests the documentation states the pre-requisites include "stinger.ini", "ltk.ini" but windows CE doesn't provide these or document what they fully need to contain. Implicitly you also need "datatrans.xml" which isn't supplied. If you get around this error and steal these from Windows Mobile instead, when you try and run the CETK tests you get a data abort in radiometricsdll.dll. How should we invoke the cellcore parts of CETK? A: Hi Pev, what version of Windows CE and CETK are you using? I do not have the expertise to answer this question, but can find somebody who can. Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:52]: Q: I don't see a kitlcore.dll in my OS. is my debug image fails to load because of that? A: kitl.dll should be all that's needed, kitlcore.lib is linked into that. Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:55]: Q: I've got a platform (not developed by myself) where I2C bus support has to be provided through the OAL as the kernel needs to talk to devices such as the power management IC and gas gauge so a 'proper' I2C driver hanging off device manager isn't possible. This happens to be a polled driver, so obviously it hits the system hard when either under lots of traffic or an error condition occurs and the driver constantly polls. I originally thought that there was no straightforward way to make such code interrupt driven in the kernel (as it's a cludge) but I realised that that's exactly what ETHDBG drivers do. Is there any reason why I shouldn't have a go at implementing a similar mechanism for our kernel resident I2C driver? If not, are there any obvious pitfalls - I've not seen any other BSP's do this in the past... A: You can make a 'proper' driver that calls down into the OAL to do the actual I2C transactions. Alternatively you can build an interrupt-based version in the OAL where you handle everything in the ISR. There is nothing wrong with that so long as the rest of your drivers and app threads can handle longer times with interrupts off while you are servicing I2C interrupts. Sing Wee [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:55]: Q: I am having trouble with my mouse, I have the microsoft wireless mobile mouse 3000, when I push the scroll button I am suppose to have autoscroll instead it shows other web pages,Can you help me out tell me what to do!!! A: Sorry, this current chat is about Windows Embedded Compact. Hope you're able to find an answer to your question elsewhere. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:56]: Q: Is the Silverlight Animation "Spline" a BezierSpline? A: Spline - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee501495.aspx<BR< a>>   masatos_MSFT (Expert)[2010-3-30 12:57]: Thanks for the info Pev. I will follow up with the CETK experts here and get back to you. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:59]: Q: Spline- bad link A: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee501495.aspx davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 13:0]: Q: Sorry, got to tirm the ">" A: No Worries http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee501495.aspx davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 13:0]: Hello everyone, we are just about out of time. Thank you for joining us for our Windows Embedded CE 6.0 chat today! <http://www.Microsoft.com/Embedded>; A special thank you to the product group members for coming out. The transcript of today’s chat will be posted online as soon as possible, to <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/chats>;. We’ll see you again for another chat next month. Please check <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/chats>; for the list of upcoming chats. If you still have unanswered questions, let me suggest that you post them on one of our newsgroups on <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsembedded/ce/default.aspx> -Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3 Now Available! <http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/ce/dd630616.aspx>; davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 13:1]: Q: hi everybody. I would like to know if there is something know about a bug in RTC API (VOIP), especially when using SIP. According the to the analysis with application verifyier there is a heap link in rtcdllmedia.dll. All of the unreleased chunks seem to have a size of 6560 bytes. A: I will follow up with the Networking Team for a response. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 13:1]: Q: Hi, we've problems with debugging of applications (= breakpoints in Platform Builder will be ignored) over KITL on Windows CE 5.0, if the PDB files are large (over 60MB). Are there any limitations to size of the PDB files? A: I will follow up with the tools team for a response and post with the transcript. Sing Wee [MS] (Expert)[2010-3-30 13:1]: Q: I am unable to use the target control in my development environment. any ideas? A: Make sure you have SYSGEN_SHELL=1 set in your build environment. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 13:3]: Q: what are the main differences between Object Store and RAM disk ? They are both in RAM...are there performance differences ? access differences ? A: I will follow up with the Core Team and get a response posted with the transcript to MSDN  The Questions   [2010-3-30 12:57]: Thanks for the info Pev. I will follow up with the CETK experts here and get back to you. [2010-3-30 12:59]:   [2010-3-30 13:0]:   [2010-3-30 13:0]: Hello everyone, we are just about out of time. Thank you for joining us for our Windows Embedded CE 6.0 chat today! <http://www.Microsoft.com/Embedded>; A special thank you to the product group members for coming out. The transcript of today’s chat will be posted online as soon as possible, to <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/chats>;. We’ll see you again for another chat next month. Please check <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/chats>; for the list of upcoming chats. If you still have unanswered questions, let me suggest that you post them on one of our newsgroups on <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsembedded/ce/default.aspx> -Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3 Now Available! <http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/ce/dd630616.aspx>; [2010-3-30 13:1]: [2010-3-30 13:1]: [2010-3-30 13:1]: [2010-3-30 13:3]: neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:37]: Hi all KellyG (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:37]: Hi KellyG (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:37]: I have a question unrelated to windows Ce embedded, can you please help me?? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:38]: I need to implement hardware timers on my windows CE 6.0 device to trigger events at microsecond intervals! c neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:38]: yes. post it. May be i cud give a try KellyG (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:38]: My Product key listed on my tower is not the product key I need for microsoft office, but that is the only product key listed. neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:39]: I hope this is a chat for windows embedded. please post ur queries in office forums KellyG (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:39]: it is but i could not find a forum for office neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:40]: I think moderators will help u out. @ davbo-msft: can u help this guy? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:41]: Q: I need to implement hardware timers on my windows CE 6.0 device to trigger events at microsecond intervals. Where should i start? davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 11:50]: Our chat today covers the topic of Windows Embedded CE! 1. This chat will last for one hour. During this hour, our Experts will respond to as many questions as they can. Please understand that there may be some questions we cannot respond to due to lack of information or because the information is not yet public. 2. We encourage you to submit questions for our Experts. To do so, type your questions in the send box, select the “ask the Experts” box and click SEND. Questions sent directly to the Guest Chat room will not be answered by the Experts, but we encourage other community members to assist. 3. We ask that you stay on topic for the duration of the chat. This helps the Guests and Experts follow the conversation more easily. We invite you to ask off topic questions after this chat is over, but not during. 4. Please abide by the Chat Code of Conduct. Chat code of conduct: <http://msdn.microsoft.com/chats/chatroom.aspx?ctl=hlp#Conduct>; Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:54]: Evening! davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 11:54]: Hello everyone this is Dave Boyce - I worked in the Multimedia area for Windows CE. neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:55]: hello dave neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:55]: The chat code of conduct link is not working! Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:56]: Best be polite just in case then ;-) neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 11:56]: davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 11:57]: I'll check out the issue w/ the link paolopat (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:0]: Hello davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 12:0]: We are pleased to welcome our Experts for today’s chat. I will have them introduce themselves now. Chat will begin in a couple of minutes. <http://www.Microsoft.com/Embedded>; paolopat (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:3]: Hello Experts ! neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:3]: Welcome all! paolopat (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:3]: Q: I want to partition my NAND Flash device. One partition to use for hive ragistry and the other for the apps and data. The only way to do it is programmatically or setting some registry values ? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:3]: Q: I need to implement hardware timers on my windows CE 6.0 device to trigger events at microsecond intervals. Where should i start? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:5]: Q: My CPU is Intel celeron M processor 1Ghz. Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:5]: neo: if your silicon has multiple general purpose timers, pick one that's not in use for the system timer / profiler and set it up to trigger irqs for your purpose. You can't guarantee hard realtime type responses though... GarySwalling (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:5]: Q: Is Windows Phone 7 related to Windows CE? If so, can you tell me what version of Windows CE is the basis? Is it in fact the new version of Windows Mobile? Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:6]: Q: Hi guys, what's the formal way to report bugs back to the core team / product team? The mechanism of calling the support phone number every time is really onerous and time-consuming. Is there another mechanism? paolopat (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:6]: Q: But the operation for creating the partitions ? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:6]: Q: If i need to implement it using interrupt handlers, What are all the files that I should look at? GPM (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:6]: Q: I would like to get a handle to a Silverlight screen section, is that possiable? Jhony (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:7]: Q: I created a OS design with KITL and kernel debugger enabled. But I am unable to connect to the target for debugging. I am getting the following error when i try to connect with the device. PB Debugger Cannot initialize the Kernel Debugger. PB Debugger Debugger could not initialize connection. PB Debugger The Kernel Debugger is waiting to connect with target. PB Debugger The Kernel Debugger has been disconnected successfully. Charles (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:7]: What will be different in Windows Compact 7 from CE 6.0? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:8]: Can I have the book's name please? kiefs_dev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:8]: Q: hi everybody. I would like to know if there is something know about a bug in RTC API (VOIP), especially when using SIP. According the to the analysis with application verifyier there is a heap link in rtcdllmedia.dll. All of the unreleased chunks seem to have a size of 6560 bytes. paolopat (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:10]: Q: So...I have to modify file system code to create 2 partition at system startup ?!! I haven't understood.... neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:10]: Q: Do u mean ISR/IST implementation? How can i register an interrupt? What kind of interrupt should i register? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:11]: Q: Can I have the book's name please? Charles (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:11]: Q: What will be different in Windows Compact 7 from CE 6.0? PaulT (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:11]: neo: I'd say that you really need the docs for YOUR BSP, not generic documents for BSPs in general. Each BSP may be architected differently. If you're using the CEPC BSP, then the documentation that comes with Platform Builder is a reasonable place to look. GPM (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:11]: Q: If one has an image on a Silverlight page, it seems to be cached. How would one refresh that cache after changing the underlying image? Elektrobit (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:12]: Q: Hi, we've problems with debugging of applications (= breakpoints in Platform Builder will be ignored) over KITL on Windows CE 5.0, if the PDB files are large (over 60MB). Are there any limitations to size of the PDB files? Jhony (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:15]: Q: I am using CE 6.0. There is no cesvchost process running in my system. alexquisi (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:15]: Q: Hi, I saw that the ATADISK is quite generic and des not have any optimizations. Do you have any advice to consider while tryin to improve the performance of it? Jhony (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:17]: Windows XP service pack 1 Jhony (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:17]: Q: sorry! Windows XP SP3 neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:19]: Q: The link for developing device drivers is not working. can u please check that? paolopat (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:20]: Q: I have a NAND Flash on my target device. On this flash I have the hive registry and an application.I have observed that when the NAND flash is fully, the system startup time is longer....is there a degradation of NAND use that influences the startup time ? Why ? Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:20]: Q: When attempting to run the CETK cellcore tests the documentation states the pre-requisites include "stinger.ini", "ltk.ini" but windows CE doesn't provide these or document what they fully need to contain. Implicitly you also need "datatrans.xml" which isn't supplied. If you get around this error and steal these from Windows Mobile instead, when you try and run the CETK tests you get a data abort in radiometricsdll.dll. How should we invoke the cellcore parts of CETK? Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:21]: Hi all, Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:21]: oops Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:21]: :-D Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:24]: Typically for SoC devices you name your hardware specific libraries in the form "SOCDIRNAME_LIBNAME". In our platform "OMAP35XX_TPS659XX_TI_V1" if you do this we cause the catalog parser to die... For example if we have a library "Musbfn_OMAP35XX_TPS659XX_TI_V1.dll" entering this in the catalogs pbcxml file in a <module> section causes the XML parser to fail with : Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:25]: Q: Error 3 The 'urn:Microsoft.PlatformBuilder/Catalog:Module' element is        invalid - The value '012345678901234567890123456789.dll' is invalid         according to its datatype         'urn:Microsoft.PlatformBuilder/Catalog:CatalogFileName' - The actual         length is greater than the MaxLength value. GPM (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:25]: Q: Writable bitmap, is there an example of the syntax? Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:25]: Q: Typically for SoC devices you name your hardware specific libraries in the form "SOCDIRNAME_LIBNAME". In our platform "OMAP35XX_TPS659XX_TI_V1" if you do this we cause the catalog parser to die... For example if we have a library "Musbfn_OMAP35XX_TPS659XX_TI_V1.dll" entering this in the catalogs pbcxml file in a <module> section causes the XML parser to fail with : Error 3 The 'urn:Microsoft.PlatformBuilder/Catalog:Module' element is        invalid - The value '012345678901234567890123456789.dll' is invalid         according to its datatype         'urn:Microsoft.PlatformBuilder/Catalog:CatalogFileName' - The actual         length is greater than the MaxLength value. Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:25]: sorry, messed up submission there! GPM (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:26]: Q: I would like to get a handle to a Silverlight screen section, is that possiable? GPM (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:28]: Q: IXRVisualHost::GetHWND() exactly what I needed Thanks, PaulT (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:29]: GPM: You don't have to keep submitting the questions. The chat experts have an application that they're using to follow the chat and all Ask the Experts questions are logged. Jhony (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:29]: Q: I am getting this error only when I select the KdStub as the debugger in Target device connectivity. neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:30]: Q: ok. thanks for the book's link Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:31]: Hm, did those two I submitted get picked up by anyone? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:33]: Q: If I select Active KTIL, My OS doesn't boots. It says "loading NK.EXE at 0x<xxxxx> location" after that nothing comes in the debug log. PaulT (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:34]: Pev: PaulT (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:35]: Pev: I'm sure they did. The guys who are actually on the chat may not be experts in that part of things. That's usually the explanation when you don't get an answer in 10 minutes or so. Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:36]: Ah, fair enough Susie (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:36]: My Outlook Express incoming mail is corrput. No ONE has been able to fix the problem, Dell or Norton. I have dial up I'm in a rural area Jhony (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:37]: Q: I have tried that and I am getting the same error. Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:37]: Susie : Use Thunderbird instead :-D PaulT (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:37]: Susie: Sorry, but this chat is not about Windows, but Embedded (like what runs on a phone). Your best chance is to find a local expert or talk to your ISP. paolopat (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:37]: Q: what are the main differences between Object Store and RAM disk ? They are both in RAM...are there performance differences ? access differences ? Susie (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:38]: My computer knowlege is very limited, what is Thunderbird? Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:38]: A different email client :-D neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:39]: Q: KITL: *** Device Name CEPC56059 *** WARN: KITL will run in polling mode VBridge:: built on [Jul 10 2009] time [10:20:14] VBridgeInit()...TX = [16384] bytes -- Rx = [16384] bytes Tx buffer [0xA1B84860] to [0xA1B88860]. Rx buffer [0xA1B88880] to [0xA1B8C880]. VBridge:: NK add MAC: [0-60-65-2-DA-FB] Connecting to Desktop KITL: Connected host IP: 1 Port: 1086 .. this is the output of the serial debug Susie (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:39]: Do I need to uninstall Outlook Express youngboyzie (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:39]: I need to start battery calibration for my new battery for my dell inspiron 1525 laptop and should be able to reach the BIOS screen by hitting f2 but this isnt working... help? Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:39]: Nah, you can run it instead - you'll still need help from your ISP to configure it I expect Jhony (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:39]: Q: Both is happening via Ethernet. PaulT (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:40]: youngboyzie: You're off-topic. This is not a general chat for Windows and certainly not for Dell. You'll have to ask Dell how to get to setup; it's their machine. bill (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:41]: I lost spell check, how can i get et back neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:42]: Q: I didn't do that. I have to try. Jhony (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:43]: Q: Ok. I will do it then. bill (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:43]: Q: I lost spell check, how can i get it back PaulT (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:44]: bill: This isn't a general Windows chat. There are some Web forums that you might try. GarySwalling (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:45]: Q: Thanks, I found the Phone 7 presentation at http://live.visitmix.com/MIX10/Sessions/CL13 GPM (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:45]: Q: Is the Silverlight Animation "Spline" a BezierSpline? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:46]: Q: ok. I'll do it. thanks Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:46]: Whowever was asking about KITL connection : I've had this loads in the past. I think I started debugging last time by using wireshark to see what was happening on the network then setting up the OAL_ETHER and OAL_FUNC and OAL_VERBOSE as well as OAL_KITL flags to see what was actually happening in the driver.... Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:47]: I'd generally make sure that you're testing though a 10baseT hub (instead of anything faster) and forcing Active KITL in polled mode too... neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:48]: Q: I disabled the firewall in my PC. Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:50]: Q: I've got a platform (not developed by myself) where I2C bus support has to be provided through the OAL as the kernel needs to talk to devices such as the power management IC and gas gauge so a 'proper' I2C driver hanging off device manager isn't possible. This happens to be a polled driver, so obviously it hits the system hard when either under lots of traffic or an error condition occurs and the driver constantly polls. I originally thought that there was no straightforward way to make such code interrupt driven in the kernel (as it's a cludge) but I realised that that's exactly what ETHDBG drivers do. Is there any reason why I shouldn't have a go at implementing a similar mechanism for our kernel resident I2C driver? If not, are there any obvious pitfalls - I've not seen any other BSP's do this in the past... neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:51]: Q: I don't see a kitlcore.dll in my OS. is my debug image fails to load because of that? Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:52]: Q: Hi masatos, I'm using Windows Embedded CE 6.0 with R3 and patched to feb 2010's QFE's (with it's associated CETK version) this is a machine with only CE 6.0 on (no conflicts with earlier CE or WM...) neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:54]: ok. Got it neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:54]: Q: ok. Got it Roundman (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:55]: Q: I am having trouble with my mouse, I have the microsoft wireless mobile mouse 3000, when I push the scroll button I am suppose to have autoscroll instead it shows other web pages,Can you help me out tell me what to do!!! Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:55]: Hey neo, debugging kitl issues is really frustrating but dont lose heart :-) neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:55]: @ pev : u fixed the problem of KITL after that? neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:56]: I am getting the same error again and again. I even cleaned my environment and tried in a fresh PC. But didn't succeed yet Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:56]: Well, eventually - my experiences probably won't help you as different platforms have different reasons for doing that neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:56]: I think so PaulT (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:58]: neo: Have you searched the old messages in microsoft.public.windowsce.platbuilder? It seems to me that there was a packet size situation where it was possible to have problems with KITL connections based on a setting on the PC. Google Groups, groups.google.com, Advanced Groups Search will allow you to search a single newsgroup or a set of newsgroups easily. GPM (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:58]: Q: Spline- bad link PaulT (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:58]: GPM: without the > at the end does it work? It seems to for me... neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:58]: But some times if i try to connect to the device again. The Image information is seen in the serial debug. what does that mean?Download BIN file information: ----------------------------------------------------- [0]: Base Address=0x220000 Length=0x18DAADC Received a broadcast message !CheckUDP: Not UDP (proto = 0x00000001) after this i am getting the old errors. PB debugger cannot initialize ... GPM (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:59]: Q: Sorry, got to tirm the ">" neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 12:59]: ok paul. I ll look into that. davbo-msft (Moderator)[2010-3-30 13:0]: Hello everyone, we are just about out of time. Thank you for joining us for our Windows Embedded CE 6.0 chat today! <http://www.Microsoft.com/Embedded>; A special thank you to the product group members for coming out. The transcript of today’s chat will be posted online as soon as possible, to <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/chats>;. We’ll see you again for another chat next month. Please check <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/chats>; for the list of upcoming chats. If you still have unanswered questions, let me suggest that you post them on one of our newsgroups on <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsembedded/ce/default.aspx> -Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3 Now Available! <http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/ce/dd630616.aspx>; neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 13:1]: Q: I am unable to use the target control in my development environment. any ideas? Pev (Guest)[2010-3-30 13:1]: Sure, if KITL isn't connected target control won't work as it runs over kitl... neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 13:1]: ok .thanks pev neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 13:2]: yes. sysgen_shell is set to 1 neo (Guest)[2010-3-30 13:2]: Q: yes. sysgen_shell is set to 1 Marcelovk (Guest)[2010-3-30 13:2]: Q: Is there any way to extract the default command lines of the tests in CETK? I want to have it running unconnected from the desktop.   Copyright © 2010 – Bruce Eitman All Rights Reserved

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  • How to Always Load Internet Explorer 9 in Full Screen Mode

    - by Lori Kaufman
    Internet Explorer 9 has a minimal interface by default, with the tab bar and the toolbar and address bar on the same line. However, you can gain even more viewable space by pressing F11 to go to full screen mode. If you like full screen mode and want to use it most of the time, you can have Internet Explorer open in that mode automatically, by editing a setting in the registry. To begin, enter “regedit” (without the quotes) in the Search box on the Start menu. When the results display, click regedit.exe or press Enter when it’s highlighted. NOTE: Before making changes to the registry, be sure you back it up. We also recommend creating a restore point you can use to restore your system if something goes wrong. HTG Explains: Learn How Websites Are Tracking You Online Here’s How to Download Windows 8 Release Preview Right Now HTG Explains: Why Linux Doesn’t Need Defragmenting

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  • Getting the innermost .NET Exception

    - by Rick Strahl
    Here's a trivial but quite useful function that I frequently need in dynamic execution of code: Finding the innermost exception when an exception occurs, because for many operations (for example Reflection invocations or Web Service calls) the top level errors returned can be rather generic. A good example - common with errors in Reflection making a method invocation - is this generic error: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation In the debugger it looks like this: In this case this is an AJAX callback, which dynamically executes a method (ExecuteMethod code) which in turn calls into an Amazon Web Service using the old Amazon WSE101 Web service extensions for .NET. An error occurs in the Web Service call and the innermost exception holds the useful error information which in this case points at an invalid web.config key value related to the System.Net connection APIs. The "Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation" error is the Reflection APIs generic error message that gets fired when you execute a method dynamically and that method fails internally. The messages basically says: "Your code blew up in my face when I tried to run it!". Which of course is not very useful to tell you what actually happened. If you drill down the InnerExceptions eventually you'll get a more detailed exception that points at the original error and code that caused the exception. In the code above the actually useful exception is two innerExceptions down. In most (but not all) cases when inner exceptions are returned, it's the innermost exception that has the information that is really useful. It's of course a fairly trivial task to do this in code, but I do it so frequently that I use a small helper method for this: /// <summary> /// Returns the innermost Exception for an object /// </summary> /// <param name="ex"></param> /// <returns></returns> public static Exception GetInnerMostException(Exception ex) { Exception currentEx = ex; while (currentEx.InnerException != null) { currentEx = currentEx.InnerException; } return currentEx; } This code just loops through all the inner exceptions (if any) and assigns them to a temporary variable until there are no more inner exceptions. The end result is that you get the innermost exception returned from the original exception. It's easy to use this code then in a try/catch handler like this (from the example above) to retrieve the more important innermost exception: object result = null; string stringResult = null; try { if (parameterList != null) // use the supplied parameter list result = helper.ExecuteMethod(methodToCall,target, parameterList.ToArray(), CallbackMethodParameterType.Json,ref attr); else // grab the info out of QueryString Values or POST buffer during parameter parsing // for optimization result = helper.ExecuteMethod(methodToCall, target, null, CallbackMethodParameterType.Json, ref attr); } catch (Exception ex) { Exception activeException = DebugUtils.GetInnerMostException(ex); WriteErrorResponse(activeException.Message, ( HttpContext.Current.IsDebuggingEnabled ? ex.StackTrace : null ) ); return; } Another function that is useful to me from time to time is one that returns all inner exceptions and the original exception as an array: /// <summary> /// Returns an array of the entire exception list in reverse order /// (innermost to outermost exception) /// </summary> /// <param name="ex">The original exception to work off</param> /// <returns>Array of Exceptions from innermost to outermost</returns> public static Exception[] GetInnerExceptions(Exception ex) {     List<Exception> exceptions = new List<Exception>();     exceptions.Add(ex);       Exception currentEx = ex;     while (currentEx.InnerException != null)     {         exceptions.Add(ex);     }       // Reverse the order to the innermost is first     exceptions.Reverse();       return exceptions.ToArray(); } This function loops through all the InnerExceptions and returns them and then reverses the order of the array returning the innermost exception first. This can be useful in certain error scenarios where exceptions stack and you need to display information from more than one of the exceptions in order to create a useful error message. This is rare but certain database exceptions bury their exception info in mutliple inner exceptions and it's easier to parse through them in an array then to manually walk the exception stack. It's also useful if you need to log errors and want to see the all of the error detail from all exceptions. None of this is rocket science, but it's useful to have some helpers that make retrieval of the critical exception info trivial. Resources DebugUtils.cs utility class in the West Wind Web Toolkit© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in CSharp  .NET  

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  • Determine arc-length of a Catmull-Rom spline

    - by Wouter
    I have a path that is defined by a concatenation of Catmull-Rom splines. I use the static method Vector2.CatmullRom in XNA that allows for interpolation between points with a value going from 0 to 1. Not every spline in this path has the same length. This causes speed differences if I let the weight go at a constant speed for every spline while proceeding along the path. I can remedy this by letting the speed of the weight be dependent on the length of the spline. How can I determine the length of such a spline? Should I just approximate by cutting the spline into 10 straight lines and sum their lengths? I'm using this for dynamic texture mapping on a generated mesh defined by splines.

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  • AuthnRequest Settings in OIF / SP

    - by Damien Carru
    In this article, I will list the various OIF/SP settings that affect how an AuthnRequest message is created in OIF in a Federation SSO flow. The AuthnRequest message is used by an SP to start a Federation SSO operation and to indicate to the IdP how the operation should be executed: How the user should be challenged at the IdP Whether or not the user should be challenged at the IdP, even if a session already exists at the IdP for this user Which NameID format should be requested in the SAML Assertion Which binding (Artifact or HTTP-POST) should be requested from the IdP to send the Assertion Which profile should be used by OIF/SP to send the AuthnRequest message Enjoy the reading! Protocols The SAML 2.0, SAML 1.1 and OpenID 2.0 protocols define different message elements and rules that allow an administrator to influence the Federation SSO flows in different manners, when the SP triggers an SSO operation: SAML 2.0 allows extensive customization via the AuthnRequest message SAML 1.1 does not allow any customization, since the specifications do not define an authentication request message OpenID 2.0 allows for some customization, mainly via the OpenID 2.0 extensions such as PAPE or UI SAML 2.0 OIF/SP allows the customization of the SAML 2.0 AuthnRequest message for the following elements: ForceAuthn: Boolean indicating whether or not the IdP should force the user for re-authentication, even if the user has still a valid session By default set to false IsPassive Boolean indicating whether or not the IdP is allowed to interact with the user as part of the Federation SSO operation. If false, the Federation SSO operation might result in a failure with the NoPassive error code, because the IdP will not have been able to identify the user By default set to false RequestedAuthnContext Element indicating how the user should be challenged at the IdP If the SP requests a Federation Authentication Method unknown to the IdP or for which the IdP is not configured, then the Federation SSO flow will result in a failure with the NoAuthnContext error code By default missing NameIDPolicy Element indicating which NameID format the IdP should include in the SAML Assertion If the SP requests a NameID format unknown to the IdP or for which the IdP is not configured, then the Federation SSO flow will result in a failure with the InvalidNameIDPolicy error code If missing, the IdP will generally use the default NameID format configured for this SP partner at the IdP By default missing ProtocolBinding Element indicating which SAML binding should be used by the IdP to redirect the user to the SP with the SAML Assertion Set to Artifact or HTTP-POST By default set to HTTP-POST OIF/SP also allows the administrator to configure the server to: Set which binding should be used by OIF/SP to redirect the user to the IdP with the SAML 2.0 AuthnRequest message: Redirect or HTTP-POST By default set to Redirect Set which binding should be used by OIF/SP to redirect the user to the IdP during logout with SAML 2.0 Logout messages: Redirect or HTTP-POST By default set to Redirect SAML 1.1 The SAML 1.1 specifications do not define a message for the SP to send to the IdP when a Federation SSO operation is started. As such, there is no capability to configure OIF/SP on how to affect the start of the Federation SSO flow. OpenID 2.0 OpenID 2.0 defines several extensions that can be used by the SP/RP to affect how the Federation SSO operation will take place: OpenID request: mode: String indicating if the IdP/OP can visually interact with the user checkid_immediate does not allow the IdP/OP to interact with the user checkid_setup allows user interaction By default set to checkid_setup PAPE Extension: max_auth_age : Integer indicating in seconds the maximum amount of time since when the user authenticated at the IdP. If MaxAuthnAge is bigger that the time since when the user last authenticated at the IdP, then the user must be re-challenged. OIF/SP will set this attribute to 0 if the administrator configured ForceAuthn to true, otherwise this attribute won't be set Default missing preferred_auth_policies Contains a Federation Authentication Method Element indicating how the user should be challenged at the IdP By default missing Only specified in the OpenID request if the IdP/OP supports PAPE in XRDS, if OpenID discovery is used. UI Extension Popup mode Boolean indicating the popup mode is enabled for the Federation SSO By default missing Language Preference String containing the preferred language, set based on the browser's language preferences. By default missing Icon: Boolean indicating if the icon feature is enabled. In that case, the IdP/OP would look at the SP/RP XRDS to determine how to retrieve the icon By default missing Only specified in the OpenID request if the IdP/OP supports UI Extenstion in XRDS, if OpenID discovery is used. ForceAuthn and IsPassive WLST Command OIF/SP provides the WLST configureIdPAuthnRequest() command to set: ForceAuthn as a boolean: In a SAML 2.0 AuthnRequest, the ForceAuthn field will be set to true or false In an OpenID 2.0 request, if ForceAuthn in the configuration was set to true, then the max_auth_age field of the PAPE request will be set to 0, otherwise, max_auth_age won't be set IsPassive as a boolean: In a SAML 2.0 AuthnRequest, the IsPassive field will be set to true or false In an OpenID 2.0 request, if IsPassive in the configuration was set to true, then the mode field of the OpenID request will be set to checkid_immediate, otherwise set to checkid_setup Test In this test, OIF/SP is integrated with a remote SAML 2.0 IdP Partner, with the OOTB configuration. Based on this setup, when OIF/SP starts a Federation SSO flow, the following SAML 2.0 AuthnRequest would be generated: <samlp:AuthnRequest ProtocolBinding="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:bindings:HTTP-POST" ID="id-E4BOT7lwbYK56lO57dBaqGUFq01WJSjAHiSR60Q4" Version="2.0" IssueInstant="2014-04-01T21:39:14Z" Destination="https://acme.com/saml20/sso">   <saml:Issuer Format="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:entity">https://sp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer>   <samlp:NameIDPolicy AllowCreate="true"/></samlp:AuthnRequest> Let's configure OIF/SP for that IdP Partner, so that the SP will require the IdP to re-challenge the user, even if the user is already authenticated: Enter the WLST environment by executing:$IAM_ORACLE_HOME/common/bin/wlst.sh Connect to the WLS Admin server:connect() Navigate to the Domain Runtime branch:domainRuntime() Execute the configureIdPAuthnRequest() command:configureIdPAuthnRequest(partner="AcmeIdP", forceAuthn="true") Exit the WLST environment:exit() After the changes, the following SAML 2.0 AuthnRequest would be generated: <samlp:AuthnRequest ForceAuthn="true" ProtocolBinding="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:bindings:HTTP-POST" ID="id-E4BOT7lwbYK56lO57dBaqGUFq01WJSjAHiSR60Q4" Version="2.0" IssueInstant="2014-04-01T21:39:14Z" Destination="https://acme.com/saml20/sso">   <saml:Issuer Format="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:entity">https://sp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer>   <samlp:NameIDPolicy AllowCreate="true"/></samlp:AuthnRequest> To display or delete the ForceAuthn/IsPassive settings, perform the following operatons: Enter the WLST environment by executing:$IAM_ORACLE_HOME/common/bin/wlst.sh Connect to the WLS Admin server:connect() Navigate to the Domain Runtime branch:domainRuntime() Execute the configureIdPAuthnRequest() command: To display the ForceAuthn/IsPassive settings on the partnerconfigureIdPAuthnRequest(partner="AcmeIdP", displayOnly="true") To delete the ForceAuthn/IsPassive settings from the partnerconfigureIdPAuthnRequest(partner="AcmeIdP", delete="true") Exit the WLST environment:exit() Requested Fed Authn Method In my earlier "Fed Authentication Method Requests in OIF / SP" article, I discussed how OIF/SP could be configured to request a specific Federation Authentication Method from the IdP when starting a Federation SSO operation, by setting elements in the SSO request message. WLST Command The OIF WLST commands that can be used are: setIdPPartnerProfileRequestAuthnMethod() which will configure the requested Federation Authentication Method in a specific IdP Partner Profile, and accepts the following parameters: partnerProfile: name of the IdP Partner Profile authnMethod: the Federation Authentication Method to request displayOnly: an optional parameter indicating if the method should display the current requested Federation Authentication Method instead of setting it delete: an optional parameter indicating if the method should delete the current requested Federation Authentication Method instead of setting it setIdPPartnerRequestAuthnMethod() which will configure the specified IdP Partner entry with the requested Federation Authentication Method, and accepts the following parameters: partner: name of the IdP Partner authnMethod: the Federation Authentication Method to request displayOnly: an optional parameter indicating if the method should display the current requested Federation Authentication Method instead of setting it delete: an optional parameter indicating if the method should delete the current requested Federation Authentication Method instead of setting it This applies to SAML 2.0 and OpenID 2.0 protocols. See the "Fed Authentication Method Requests in OIF / SP" article for more information. Test In this test, OIF/SP is integrated with a remote SAML 2.0 IdP Partner, with the OOTB configuration. Based on this setup, when OIF/SP starts a Federation SSO flow, the following SAML 2.0 AuthnRequest would be generated: <samlp:AuthnRequest ProtocolBinding="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:bindings:HTTP-POST" ID="id-E4BOT7lwbYK56lO57dBaqGUFq01WJSjAHiSR60Q4" Version="2.0" IssueInstant="2014-04-01T21:39:14Z" Destination="https://acme.com/saml20/sso">   <saml:Issuer Format="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:entity">https://sp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer>   <samlp:NameIDPolicy AllowCreate="true"/></samlp:AuthnRequest> Let's configure OIF/SP for that IdP Partner, so that the SP will request the IdP to use a mechanism mapped to the urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:X509 Federation Authentication Method to authenticate the user: Enter the WLST environment by executing:$IAM_ORACLE_HOME/common/bin/wlst.sh Connect to the WLS Admin server:connect() Navigate to the Domain Runtime branch:domainRuntime() Execute the setIdPPartnerRequestAuthnMethod() command:setIdPPartnerRequestAuthnMethod("AcmeIdP", "urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:X509") Exit the WLST environment:exit() After the changes, the following SAML 2.0 AuthnRequest would be generated: <samlp:AuthnRequest ProtocolBinding="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:bindings:HTTP-POST" ID="id-E4BOT7lwbYK56lO57dBaqGUFq01WJSjAHiSR60Q4" Version="2.0" IssueInstant="2014-04-01T21:39:14Z" Destination="https://acme.com/saml20/sso">   <saml:Issuer Format="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:entity">https://sp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer>   <samlp:NameIDPolicy AllowCreate="true"/>   <samlp:RequestedAuthnContext Comparison="minimum">      <saml:AuthnContextClassRef xmlns:saml="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:assertion">         urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:X509      </saml:AuthnContextClassRef>   </samlp:RequestedAuthnContext></samlp:AuthnRequest> NameID Format The SAML 2.0 protocol allows for the SP to request from the IdP a specific NameID format to be used when the Assertion is issued by the IdP. Note: SAML 1.1 and OpenID 2.0 do not provide such a mechanism Configuring OIF The administrator can configure OIF/SP to request a NameID format in the SAML 2.0 AuthnRequest via: The OAM Administration Console, in the IdP Partner entry The OIF WLST setIdPPartnerNameIDFormat() command that will modify the IdP Partner configuration OAM Administration Console To configure the requested NameID format via the OAM Administration Console, perform the following steps: Go to the OAM Administration Console: http(s)://oam-admin-host:oam-admin-port/oamconsole Navigate to Identity Federation -> Service Provider Administration Open the IdP Partner you wish to modify In the Authentication Request NameID Format dropdown box with one of the values None The NameID format will be set Default Email Address The NameID format will be set urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:emailAddress X.509 Subject The NameID format will be set urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:X509SubjectName Windows Name Qualifier The NameID format will be set urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:WindowsDomainQualifiedName Kerberos The NameID format will be set urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:kerberos Transient The NameID format will be set urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:transient Unspecified The NameID format will be set urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:unspecified Custom In this case, a field would appear allowing the administrator to indicate the custom NameID format to use The NameID format will be set to the specified format Persistent The NameID format will be set urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:persistent I selected Email Address in this example Save WLST Command To configure the requested NameID format via the OIF WLST setIdPPartnerNameIDFormat() command, perform the following steps: Enter the WLST environment by executing:$IAM_ORACLE_HOME/common/bin/wlst.sh Connect to the WLS Admin server:connect() Navigate to the Domain Runtime branch:domainRuntime() Execute the setIdPPartnerNameIDFormat() command:setIdPPartnerNameIDFormat("PARTNER", "FORMAT", customFormat="CUSTOM") Replace PARTNER with the IdP Partner name Replace FORMAT with one of the following: orafed-none The NameID format will be set Default orafed-emailaddress The NameID format will be set urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:emailAddress orafed-x509 The NameID format will be set urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:X509SubjectName orafed-windowsnamequalifier The NameID format will be set urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:WindowsDomainQualifiedName orafed-kerberos The NameID format will be set urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:kerberos orafed-transient The NameID format will be set urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:transient orafed-unspecified The NameID format will be set urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:unspecified orafed-custom In this case, a field would appear allowing the administrator to indicate the custom NameID format to use The NameID format will be set to the specified format orafed-persistent The NameID format will be set urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:persistent customFormat will need to be set if the FORMAT is set to orafed-custom An example would be:setIdPPartnerNameIDFormat("AcmeIdP", "orafed-emailaddress") Exit the WLST environment:exit() Test In this test, OIF/SP is integrated with a remote SAML 2.0 IdP Partner, with the OOTB configuration. Based on this setup, when OIF/SP starts a Federation SSO flow, the following SAML 2.0 AuthnRequest would be generated: <samlp:AuthnRequest ProtocolBinding="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:bindings:HTTP-POST" ID="id-E4BOT7lwbYK56lO57dBaqGUFq01WJSjAHiSR60Q4" Version="2.0" IssueInstant="2014-04-01T21:39:14Z" Destination="https://acme.com/saml20/sso">   <saml:Issuer Format="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:entity">https://sp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer> <samlp:NameIDPolicy AllowCreate="true"/></samlp:AuthnRequest> After the changes performed either via the OAM Administration Console or via the OIF WLST setIdPPartnerNameIDFormat() command where Email Address would be requested as the NameID Format, the following SAML 2.0 AuthnRequest would be generated: <samlp:AuthnRequest ForceAuthn="false" IsPassive="false" ProtocolBinding="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:bindings:HTTP-POST" ID="id-E4BOT7lwbYK56lO57dBaqGUFq01WJSjAHiSR60Q4" Version="2.0" IssueInstant="2014-04-01T21:39:14Z" Destination="https://acme.com/saml20/sso">   <saml:Issuer Format="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:entity">https://sp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer> <samlp:NameIDPolicy Format="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:emailAddress" AllowCreate="true"/></samlp:AuthnRequest> Protocol Binding The SAML 2.0 specifications define a way for the SP to request which binding should be used by the IdP to redirect the user to the SP with the SAML 2.0 Assertion: the ProtocolBinding attribute indicates the binding the IdP should use. It is set to: Either urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:bindings:HTTP-POST for HTTP-POST Or urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:bindings:Artifact for Artifact The SAML 2.0 specifications also define different ways to redirect the user from the SP to the IdP with the SAML 2.0 AuthnRequest message, as the SP can send the message: Either via HTTP Redirect Or HTTP POST (Other bindings can theoretically be used such as Artifact, but these are not used in practice) Configuring OIF OIF can be configured: Via the OAM Administration Console or the OIF WLST configureSAMLBinding() command to set the Assertion Response binding to be used Via the OIF WLST configureSAMLBinding() command to indicate how the SAML AuthnRequest message should be sent Note: the binding for sending the SAML 2.0 AuthnRequest message will also be used to send the SAML 2.0 LogoutRequest and LogoutResponse messages. OAM Administration Console To configure the SSO Response/Assertion Binding via the OAM Administration Console, perform the following steps: Go to the OAM Administration Console: http(s)://oam-admin-host:oam-admin-port/oamconsole Navigate to Identity Federation -> Service Provider Administration Open the IdP Partner you wish to modify Check the "HTTP POST SSO Response Binding" box to request the IdP to return the SSO Response via HTTP POST, otherwise uncheck it to request artifact Save WLST Command To configure the SSO Response/Assertion Binding as well as the AuthnRequest Binding via the OIF WLST configureSAMLBinding() command, perform the following steps: Enter the WLST environment by executing:$IAM_ORACLE_HOME/common/bin/wlst.sh Connect to the WLS Admin server:connect() Navigate to the Domain Runtime branch:domainRuntime() Execute the configureSAMLBinding() command:configureSAMLBinding("PARTNER", "PARTNER_TYPE", binding, ssoResponseBinding="httppost") Replace PARTNER with the Partner name Replace PARTNER_TYPE with the Partner type (idp or sp) Replace binding with the binding to be used to send the AuthnRequest and LogoutRequest/LogoutResponse messages (should be httpredirect in most case; default) httppost for HTTP-POST binding httpredirect for HTTP-Redirect binding Specify optionally ssoResponseBinding to indicate how the SSO Assertion should be sent back httppost for HTTP-POST binding artifactfor for Artifact binding An example would be:configureSAMLBinding("AcmeIdP", "idp", "httpredirect", ssoResponseBinding="httppost") Exit the WLST environment:exit() Test In this test, OIF/SP is integrated with a remote SAML 2.0 IdP Partner, with the OOTB configuration which requests HTTP-POST from the IdP to send the SSO Assertion. Based on this setup, when OIF/SP starts a Federation SSO flow, the following SAML 2.0 AuthnRequest would be generated: <samlp:AuthnRequest ProtocolBinding="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:bindings:HTTP-POST" ID="id-E4BOT7lwbYK56lO57dBaqGUFq01WJSjAHiSR60Q4" Version="2.0" IssueInstant="2014-04-01T21:39:14Z" Destination="https://acme.com/saml20/sso">   <saml:Issuer Format="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:entity">https://sp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer>   <samlp:NameIDPolicy AllowCreate="true"/></samlp:AuthnRequest> In the next article, I will cover the various crypto configuration properties in OIF that are used to affect the Federation SSO exchanges.Cheers,Damien Carru

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