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Podcast: Advanced MVVM with Josh Smith

- by craigshoemaker

Author, Microsoft MVP and accomplished pianist Josh Smith, Sr. UX Developer at IdentityMine, joins the show to discuss some of Model View ViewModel’s more advanced scenarios. Full Speed: download Fast Version: download Josh shares is experience using MVVM gives some real-world advice on: Using modal dialogs Evils and virtues of code behind in views Use of attached behaviors Undo/redo strategies Working with animations Building a task based architecture for managing communication between View and ViewModel Frameworks in the MVVM space The Book Get first-hand experience implementing the solutions to the challenges discussed in the show by reading Josh’s new book ‘Advanced MVVM’. Resources The following resources are mentioned in the show: Laurent Bugnion's mix talk ‘Understanding the Model-View-ViewModel Pattern Josh Smith’s MVVM Foundation Laurent Bugnion’s MVVM Light framework Rob Eisenberg's Caliburn

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HSDPA modem only working on certain USB ports

- by nabulke

Depending on which USB port I use to connect my HSDPA modem, the network manager will connect to the internet or not. I used to work (i.e. established a internet connection automatically) on all ports, but over time it simply stopped on some ports. lsusb output in all cases looks like that (Device ID varies depending on USB port): Bus 001 Device 009: ID 12d1:1003 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. E220 HSDPA Modem / E270 HSDPA/HSUPA Modem Any ideas what could cause this behaviour? What can I do to fix this? ADDED One additional information about the modem: if connected via USB it will be available as as harddrive AND as a HSDPA modem (kind of a duality...). In the error case, it will only be shown as a harddrive. ADDITIONAL INFO AS REQUESTED MODEM NOT WORKING Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 002 Device 002: ID 413c:8000 Dell Computer Corp. BC02 Bluetooth Adapter Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 001 Device 007: ID 12d1:1003 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. E220 HSDPA Modem / E270 HSDPA/HSUPA Modem Bus 001 Device 005: ID 046d:c00c Logitech, Inc. Optical Wheel Mouse Bus 001 Device 004: ID 05e3:0608 Genesys Logic, Inc. USB-2.0 4-Port HUB Bus 001 Device 003: ID 413c:0058 Dell Computer Corp. Port Replicator Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub laptop:~$ dmesg | grep 'usb' [ 0.225371] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs [ 0.225387] usbcore: registered new interface driver hub [ 0.225418] usbcore: registered new device driver usb [ 0.504291] usb usb1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice [ 0.504767] usb usb2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice [ 0.505046] usb usb3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice [ 0.505601] usb usb4: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice [ 1.061064] usb 1-6: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3 [ 1.192636] usb 1-6: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice [ 1.447006] usb 2-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2 [ 1.634908] usb 2-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice [ 1.708164] usb 1-6.1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4 [ 1.801668] usb 1-6.1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice [ 2.076279] usb 1-6.1.1: new low speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 5 [ 2.174932] usb 1-6.1.1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice [ 6.580315] usb 1-6.1.2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address6 [ 6.683479] usb 1-6.1.2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice [ 20.018671] usbcore: registered new interface driver btusb [ 20.131703] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage [ 20.131988] usb-storage: device found at 6 [ 20.131991] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning [ 20.207981] usb 1-6.1.2: USB disconnect, address 6 [ 20.291499] usbcore: registered new interface driver hiddev [ 20.297052] input: Logitech USB Mouse as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb1/1-6/1-6.1/1-6.1.1/1-6.1.1:1.0/input/input6 [ 20.297465] generic-usb 0003:046D:C00C.0001: input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.10 Mouse [Logitech USB Mouse] on usb-0000:00:1d.7-6.1.1/input0 [ 20.297534] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbhid [ 20.297803] usbhid: v2.6:USB HID core driver [ 26.552360] usb 1-6.1.2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 7 [ 26.663506] usb 1-6.1.2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice [ 26.709628] usb-storage: device found at 7 [ 26.709631] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning [ 26.732387] usb-storage: device found at 7 [ 26.732390] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning [ 31.709568] usb-storage: device scan complete [ 31.733676] usb-storage: device scan complete MODEM WORKING Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 003 Device 002: ID 046d:c00c Logitech, Inc. Optical Wheel Mouse Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 002 Device 002: ID 413c:8000 Dell Computer Corp. BC02 Bluetooth Adapter Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 001 Device 004: ID 12d1:1003 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. E220 HSDPA Modem / E270 HSDPA/HSUPA Modem Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub dmesg | grep 'usb' [ 0.134811] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs [ 0.134826] usbcore: registered new interface driver hub [ 0.134858] usbcore: registered new device driver usb [ 0.360327] usb usb1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice [ 0.360783] usb usb2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice [ 0.361061] usb usb3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice [ 0.361611] usb usb4: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice [ 1.144122] usb 2-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2 [ 1.346896] usb 2-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice [ 1.588072] usb 3-1: new low speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2 [ 1.761204] usb 3-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice [ 5.972042] usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4 [ 6.115438] usb 1-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice [ 19.990565] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial [ 19.991429] usb-storage: device found at 4 [ 19.991432] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning [ 20.017260] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage [ 20.017305] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial_generic [ 20.017308] usbserial: USB Serial Driver core [ 20.017817] usb-storage: device found at 4 [ 20.017820] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning [ 20.070796] usbcore: registered new interface driver btusb [ 20.229525] usb 1-1: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB0 [ 20.229776] usb 1-1: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB1 [ 20.229843] usbcore: registered new interface driver option [ 20.230396] usbcore: registered new interface driver hiddev [ 20.246280] input: Logitech USB Mouse as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.1/usb3/3-1/3-1:1.0/input/input6 [ 20.246438] generic-usb 0003:046D:C00C.0001: input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.10 Mouse [Logitech USB Mouse] on usb-0000:00:1d.1-1/input0 [ 20.246479] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbhid [ 20.246483] usbhid: v2.6:USB HID core driver [ 25.436579] usb-storage: device scan complete [ 25.437674] usb-storage: device scan complete

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SQL Developer Blitz at ODTUG Kscope12

- by thatjeffsmith

Oracle Development Tools User Group (ODTUG) puts on an outstanding event, and I enjoy that the content comes FIRST. Yes, the after-event parties and entertainment are first class, but I look forward most to sitting in on some excellent sessions. For Kscope12 one would expect Oracle to have a large presence, and you would be absolutely correct! The APEX team will be there in full force, and we’ll have sessions on JDeveloper, ADF, and .NET. But what I want to talk about today is our awesome line-up of coverage for Oracle SQL Developer (Surprise!) DB and Developer’s Toolbox Symposium Kris Rice or @krisrice, Product Development Manager for SQL Developer, will speak at 10AM Sunday about SQL Developer Data Modeler. Our free data modeling solution allows one to reverse engineer a data dictionary to a model, modify it, and create a script of the changes. Collaboration is an important part of any development team; with built-in subversion support, the modeler makes collaboration easy, not just possible. After the morning break, I’ll be talking about SQL Developer’s PL/SQL support. From creating your code, to debugging, tuning, testing, and documenting PL/SQL – SQL Developer fits the bill. Since I have a full hour, I should have time to do a little riff on using source control to version and manage your revisions too! At 3:15 Jagan Athreya will talk about the new integration between SQL Developer and Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c. Enabling developers to define changes in SQLDeveloper and allowing DBAs to promote these changes to Test and Production via Enterprise Manager will reduce errors, accelerate productivity, and help eliminate unplanned downtime. Get your SQL Developer groove on at ODTUG Kscope12! Presentations SQL Developer Tips and Tricks Monday June 25, Session 5, 4:15 pm – 5:15 pm I’ll take you through my favorite keyboard shortcuts, top 10 preferences every user should tweak, and spotlight features that the average user probably hasn’t discovered yet. My goal for this session is for everyone to take 1-2 tips they can implement immediately to save mucho time. I enjoy interacting with the audience so no two versions of this presentation are the same. Oracle SQL Developer and Data Modeler New Features When: Tuesday June 26, Session 6, 8:30 am – 9:30 am Ashley Chen, my PM-partner-in-crime, will be covering all the new features from our two latest updates. So if you’re new to SQL Developer, or you’ve been using an older version, stop by and see what new toys you have to play with. I also have a bet with Ashley that she will have more attendees than me, so be sure to show up so I can collect. Debugging PL/SQL With SQL Developer When: Wednesday June 27, Session 16, 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm Me again – sorry. This time I have an entire hour to JUST talk about PL/SQL and debugging! Should you use a watch with a break condition, or a breakpoint with a passcount? How does external debugging with a Perl script work? Can I just debug an anonymous PL/SQL block. So if debugging to you is just a DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE() call, stop by and see how our IDE can help you take things to the next level! Or is that level++? Hands-on-Training SQL Developer Soup to Nuts When: Tuesday, 8:00 AM – 9:30 AM If you learn by doing, this is the session for you. Bring your own laptop or use one of the lab machines. We’ll give you a VirtualBox OEL image running 11gR2 EE Database with all the fixin’s (that’s Southern speak for Partitioning, Advanced Compression, Tuning & Diagnostic Packs, etc), TimesTen, APEX and much more. All you have to do is login and run through our lab exercises. You can start with a model and work your way up to debugging and testing your own appliction, or you can pick and choose your lessons to suit your needs. We’ll have people on hand to help you out and answer your questions. Booth Hours We’ll be in the vendor area and have our very own ‘demo pod’ for SQL Developer. Between Kris, Ashley, and I we should be able to answer your questions or show you how to ‘do that thing’ in the tool. Or just stop by and say hello! We’ll be around the following hours’ish: Sunday, June 24, 2012 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM Monday, June 25, 2012 9:00 AM – 4:30 PM Tuesday, June 26, 2012 9:30 AM – 3:30 PM Wednesday, June 27, 2012 10:15 AM – 2:00 PM No Excuses – If You Have Questions, This is Your Chance to Get Your Answers! We’re doing just about everything outside of a scavenger hunt to bring information and value to our users. Let us know what you like, what you don’t like, and we’ll do our best to do more of the former and less of the latter!

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SQL Pre-Con…at the Beach

- by Argenis

Building upon the success of SQL Rally 2012 (where we packed a room full of DBAs), my friend Robert Davis [Twitter|Blog] and yours truly will be again delivering our day-long Pre-Conference “Demystifying Database Administration Best Practices” this Friday (6/8/2012) – right before SQLSaturday #132 in Pensacola, FL. If you are in the vicinity of Pensacola, come join us! We had tons of fun at Rally. Robert and I love sharing tips and stories that will help you on your day to day duties as a DBA. Some of the topics that we’ll touch on (this is by no means a comprehensive list) Active Directory configuration for SQL Server Deployments Windows Server Deployments Storage and I/O High Availability / Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity Replication Day-To-Day Operations Maintenance TempDB Code Reviews Other Database and Server Settings Follow this link to sign up for the Pre-Con at Pensacola: http://demystifyingdba.eventbrite.com/ Here’s a blog post that Robert made on the subject of Best Practices. Hope to see you there!

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Translator by Moth v2

- by Daniel Moth

If you are looking for the full manual for this Windows Phone app you can find it here: "Translator by Moth". While the manual has no images (just text), in this post I will share images and if you like them, go get "Translator by Moth" from the Windows Phone marketplace. open the app from the app list or through a pinned tile (including secondary tiles for specific translations) language picker (~40 languages) "current" page "saved" page "about" page Like? Go get Translator by Moth! Comments about this post by Daniel Moth welcome at the original blog.

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Configuring Fed Authentication Methods in OIF / IdP

- by Damien Carru

In this article, I will provide examples on how to configure OIF/IdP to map OAM Authentication Schemes to Federation Authentication Methods, based on the concepts introduced in my previous entry. I will show examples for the three protocols supported by OIF: SAML 2.0 SSO SAML 1.1 SSO OpenID 2.0 Enjoy the reading! Configuration As I mentioned in my previous article, mapping Federation Authentication Methods to OAM Authentication Schemes is protocol dependent, since the methods are defined in the various protocols (SAML 2.0, SAML 1.1, OpenID 2.0). As such, the WLST commands to set those mappings will involve: Either the SP Partner Profile and affect all Partners referencing that profile, which do not override the Federation Authentication Method to OAM Authentication Scheme mappings Or the SP Partner entry, which will only affect the SP Partner It is important to note that if an SP Partner is configured to define one or more Federation Authentication Method to OAM Authentication Scheme mappings, then all the mappings defined in the SP Partner Profile will be ignored. WLST Commands The two OIF WLST commands that can be used to define mapping Federation Authentication Methods to OAM Authentication Schemes are: addSPPartnerProfileAuthnMethod() to define a mapping on an SP Partner Profile, taking as parameters: The name of the SP Partner Profile The Federation Authentication Method The OAM Authentication Scheme name addSPPartnerAuthnMethod() to define a mapping on an SP Partner , taking as parameters: The name of the SP Partner The Federation Authentication Method The OAM Authentication Scheme name Note: I will discuss in a subsequent article the other parameters of those commands. In the next sections, I will show examples on how to use those methods: For SAML 2.0, I will configure the SP Partner Profile, that will apply all the mappings to SP Partners referencing this profile, unless they override mapping definition For SAML 1.1, I will configure the SP Partner. For OpenID 2.0, I will configure the SP/RP Partner SAML 2.0 Test Setup In this setup, OIF is acting as an IdP and is integrated with a remote SAML 2.0 SP partner identified by AcmeSP. In this test, I will perform Federation SSO with OIF/IdP configured to: Use LDAPScheme as the Authentication Scheme Use BasicScheme as the Authentication Scheme Map BasicSessionScheme to the urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:Password Federation Authentication Method Use OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme as the Authentication Scheme Map OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme to the urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:PasswordProtectedTransport Federation Authentication Method LDAPScheme as Authentication Scheme Using the OOTB settings regarding user authentication in OAM, the user will be challenged via a FORM based login page based on the LDAPScheme. Also the default Federation Authentication Method mappings configuration maps only the urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:PasswordProtectedTransport to LDAPScheme (also marked as the default scheme used for authentication), FAAuthScheme, BasicScheme and BasicFAScheme. After authentication via FORM, OIF/IdP would issue an Assertion similar to: <samlp:Response ...> <saml:Issuer ...>https://idp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer> <samlp:Status> <samlp:StatusCode Value="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:status:Success"/> </samlp:Status> <saml:Assertion ...> <saml:Issuer ...>https://idp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer> <dsig:Signature> ... </dsig:Signature> <saml:Subject> <saml:NameID ...>[email protected]</saml:NameID> <saml:SubjectConfirmation Method="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:cm:bearer"> <saml:SubjectConfirmationData .../> </saml:SubjectConfirmation> </saml:Subject> <saml:Conditions ...> <saml:AudienceRestriction> <saml:Audience>https://acme.com/sp</saml:Audience> </saml:AudienceRestriction> </saml:Conditions> <saml:AuthnStatement AuthnInstant="2014-03-21T20:53:55Z" SessionIndex="id-6i-Dm0yB-HekG6cejktwcKIFMzYE8Yrmqwfd0azz" SessionNotOnOrAfter="2014-03-21T21:53:55Z"> <saml:AuthnContext> <saml:AuthnContextClassRef> urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:PasswordProtectedTransport </saml:AuthnContextClassRef> </saml:AuthnContext> </saml:AuthnStatement> </saml:Assertion></samlp:Response> BasicScheme as Authentication Scheme For this test, I will switch the default Authentication Scheme for the SP Partner Profile to BasicScheme instead of LDAPScheme. I will use the OIF WLST setSPPartnerProfileDefaultScheme() command and specify which scheme to be used as the default for the SP Partner Profile referenced by AcmeSP (which is saml20-sp-partner-profile in this case: getFedPartnerProfile("AcmeSP", "sp") ): 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 setSPPartnerProfileDefaultScheme() command:setSPPartnerProfileDefaultScheme("saml20-sp-partner-profile", "BasicScheme") Exit the WLST environment:exit() The user will now be challenged via HTTP Basic Authentication defined in the BasicScheme for AcmeSP. Also, as noted earlier, the default Federation Authentication Method mappings configuration maps only the urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:PasswordProtectedTransport to LDAPScheme (also marked as the default scheme used for authentication), FAAuthScheme, BasicScheme and BasicFAScheme. After authentication via HTTP Basic Authentication, OIF/IdP would issue an Assertion similar to: <samlp:Response ...> <saml:Issuer ...>https://idp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer> <samlp:Status> <samlp:StatusCode Value="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:status:Success"/> </samlp:Status> <saml:Assertion ...> <saml:Issuer ...>https://idp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer> <dsig:Signature> ... </dsig:Signature> <saml:Subject> <saml:NameID ...>[email protected]</saml:NameID> <saml:SubjectConfirmation Method="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:cm:bearer"> <saml:SubjectConfirmationData .../> </saml:SubjectConfirmation> </saml:Subject> <saml:Conditions ...> <saml:AudienceRestriction> <saml:Audience>https://acme.com/sp</saml:Audience> </saml:AudienceRestriction> </saml:Conditions> <saml:AuthnStatement AuthnInstant="2014-03-21T20:53:55Z" SessionIndex="id-6i-Dm0yB-HekG6cejktwcKIFMzYE8Yrmqwfd0azz" SessionNotOnOrAfter="2014-03-21T21:53:55Z"> <saml:AuthnContext> <saml:AuthnContextClassRef> urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:PasswordProtectedTransport </saml:AuthnContextClassRef> </saml:AuthnContext> </saml:AuthnStatement> </saml:Assertion></samlp:Response> Mapping BasicScheme To change the Federation Authentication Method mapping for the BasicScheme to urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:Password instead of urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:PasswordProtectedTransport for the saml20-sp-partner-profile SAML 2.0 SP Partner Profile (the profile to which my AcmeSP Partner is bound to), I will execute the addSPPartnerProfileAuthnMethod() method: 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 addSPPartnerProfileAuthnMethod() command:addSPPartnerProfileAuthnMethod("saml20-sp-partner-profile", "urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:Password", "BasicScheme") Exit the WLST environment:exit() After authentication via HTTP Basic Authentication, OIF/IdP would now issue an Assertion similar to (see that the AuthnContextClassRef was changed from PasswordProtectedTransport to Password): <samlp:Response ...> <saml:Issuer ...>https://idp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer> <samlp:Status> <samlp:StatusCode Value="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:status:Success"/> </samlp:Status> <saml:Assertion ...> <saml:Issuer ...>https://idp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer> <dsig:Signature> ... </dsig:Signature> <saml:Subject> <saml:NameID ...>[email protected]</saml:NameID> <saml:SubjectConfirmation Method="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:cm:bearer"> <saml:SubjectConfirmationData .../> </saml:SubjectConfirmation> </saml:Subject> <saml:Conditions ...> <saml:AudienceRestriction> <saml:Audience>https://acme.com/sp</saml:Audience> </saml:AudienceRestriction> </saml:Conditions> <saml:AuthnStatement AuthnInstant="2014-03-21T20:53:55Z" SessionIndex="id-6i-Dm0yB-HekG6cejktwcKIFMzYE8Yrmqwfd0azz" SessionNotOnOrAfter="2014-03-21T21:53:55Z"> <saml:AuthnContext> <saml:AuthnContextClassRef> urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:Password </saml:AuthnContextClassRef> </saml:AuthnContext> </saml:AuthnStatement> </saml:Assertion></samlp:Response> OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme as Authentication Scheme For this test, I will switch the default Authentication Scheme for the SP Partner Profile to OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme instead of BasicScheme. I will use the OIF WLST setSPPartnerProfileDefaultScheme() command and specify which scheme to be used as the default for the SP Partner Profile referenced by AcmeSP (which is saml20-sp-partner-profile in this case: getFedPartnerProfile("AcmeSP", "sp") ): 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 setSPPartnerProfileDefaultScheme() command:setSPPartnerProfileDefaultScheme("saml20-sp-partner-profile", "OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme") Exit the WLST environment:exit() The user will now be challenged via FORM defined in the OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme for AcmeSP. Contrarily to LDAPScheme and BasicScheme, the OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme is not mapped by default to any Federation Authentication Methods. As such, OIF/IdP will not be able to find a Federation Authentication Method and will set the method in the SAML Assertion to the OAM Authentication Scheme name. After authentication via FORM, OIF/IdP would issue an Assertion similar to (see the AuthnContextClassRef set to OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme): <samlp:Response ...> <saml:Issuer ...>https://idp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer> <samlp:Status> <samlp:StatusCode Value="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:status:Success"/> </samlp:Status> <saml:Assertion ...> <saml:Issuer ...>https://idp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer> <dsig:Signature> ... </dsig:Signature> <saml:Subject> <saml:NameID ...>[email protected]</saml:NameID> <saml:SubjectConfirmation Method="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:cm:bearer"> <saml:SubjectConfirmationData .../> </saml:SubjectConfirmation> </saml:Subject> <saml:Conditions ...> <saml:AudienceRestriction> <saml:Audience>https://acme.com/sp</saml:Audience> </saml:AudienceRestriction> </saml:Conditions> <saml:AuthnStatement AuthnInstant="2014-03-21T20:53:55Z" SessionIndex="id-6i-Dm0yB-HekG6cejktwcKIFMzYE8Yrmqwfd0azz" SessionNotOnOrAfter="2014-03-21T21:53:55Z"> <saml:AuthnContext> <saml:AuthnContextClassRef> OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme </saml:AuthnContextClassRef> </saml:AuthnContext> </saml:AuthnStatement> </saml:Assertion></samlp:Response> Mapping OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme To add the OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme to the Federation Authentication Method urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:PasswordProtectedTransport mapping, I will execute the addSPPartnerProfileAuthnMethod() method: 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 addSPPartnerProfileAuthnMethod() command:addSPPartnerProfileAuthnMethod("saml20-sp-partner-profile", "urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:PasswordProtectedTransport", "OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme") Exit the WLST environment:exit() After authentication via FORM, OIF/IdP would now issue an Assertion similar to (see that the method was changed from OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme to PasswordProtectedTransport): <samlp:Response ...> <saml:Issuer ...>https://idp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer> <samlp:Status> <samlp:StatusCode Value="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:status:Success"/> </samlp:Status> <saml:Assertion ...> <saml:Issuer ...>https://idp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer> <dsig:Signature> ... </dsig:Signature> <saml:Subject> <saml:NameID ...>[email protected]</saml:NameID> <saml:SubjectConfirmation Method="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:cm:bearer"> <saml:SubjectConfirmationData .../> </saml:SubjectConfirmation> </saml:Subject> <saml:Conditions ...> <saml:AudienceRestriction> <saml:Audience>https://acme.com/sp</saml:Audience> </saml:AudienceRestriction> </saml:Conditions> <saml:AuthnStatement AuthnInstant="2014-03-21T20:53:55Z" SessionIndex="id-6i-Dm0yB-HekG6cejktwcKIFMzYE8Yrmqwfd0azz" SessionNotOnOrAfter="2014-03-21T21:53:55Z"> <saml:AuthnContext> <saml:AuthnContextClassRef> urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:PasswordProtectedTransport </saml:AuthnContextClassRef> </saml:AuthnContext> </saml:AuthnStatement> </saml:Assertion></samlp:Response> SAML 1.1 Test Setup In this setup, OIF is acting as an IdP and is integrated with a remote SAML 1.1 SP partner identified by AcmeSP. In this test, I will perform Federation SSO with OIF/IdP configured to: Use LDAPScheme as the Authentication Scheme Use OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme as the Authentication Scheme Map OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme to the urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:PasswordProtectedTransport Federation Authentication Method Use LDAPScheme as the Authentication Scheme Map LDAPScheme to the urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:PasswordProtectedTransport Federation Authentication Method LDAPScheme as Authentication Scheme Using the OOTB settings regarding user authentication in OAM, the user will be challenged via a FORM based login page based on the LDAPScheme. Also the default Federation Authentication Method mappings configuration maps only the urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:am:password to LDAPScheme (also marked as the default scheme used for authentication), FAAuthScheme, BasicScheme and BasicFAScheme. After authentication via FORM, OIF/IdP would issue an Assertion similar to: <samlp:Response ...> <samlp:Status> <samlp:StatusCode Value="samlp:Success"/> </samlp:Status> <saml:Assertion Issuer="https://idp.com/oam/fed" ...> <saml:Conditions ...> <saml:AudienceRestriction> <saml:Audience>https://acme.com/sp/ssov11</saml:Audience> </saml:AudienceRestriction> </saml:Conditions> <saml:AuthnStatement AuthenticationInstant="2014-03-21T20:53:55Z" AuthenticationMethod="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:am:password"> <saml:Subject> <saml:NameIdentifier ...>[email protected]</saml:NameIdentifier> <saml:SubjectConfirmation> <saml:ConfirmationMethod> urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:cm:bearer </saml:ConfirmationMethod> </saml:SubjectConfirmation> </saml:Subject> </saml:AuthnStatement> <dsig:Signature> ... </dsig:Signature> </saml:Assertion></samlp:Response> OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme as Authentication Scheme For this test, I will switch the default Authentication Scheme for the SP Partner to OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme instead of LDAPScheme. I will use the OIF WLST setSPPartnerDefaultScheme() command and specify which scheme to be used as the default for the SP Partner: Enter the WLST environment by executing:$IAM_ORACLE_HOME/common/bin/wlst.sh Connect to the WLS Admin server:connect() Navigate to the Domain Runtime branch:domainRuntime() Execute the setSPPartnerDefaultScheme() command:setSPPartnerDefaultScheme("AcmeSP", "OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme") Exit the WLST environment:exit() The user will be challenged via FORM defined in the OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme for AcmeSP. Contrarily to LDAPScheme, the OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme is not mapped by default to any Federation Authentication Methods (in the SP Partner Profile). As such, OIF/IdP will not be able to find a Federation Authentication Method and will set the method in the SAML Assertion to the OAM Authentication Scheme name. After authentication via FORM, OIF/IdP would issue an Assertion similar to (see the AuthenticationMethod set to OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme): <samlp:Response ...> <samlp:Status> <samlp:StatusCode Value="samlp:Success"/> </samlp:Status> <saml:Assertion Issuer="https://idp.com/oam/fed" ...> <saml:Conditions ...> <saml:AudienceRestriction> <saml:Audience>https://acme.com/sp/ssov11</saml:Audience> </saml:AudienceRestriction> </saml:Conditions> <saml:AuthnStatement AuthenticationInstant="2014-03-21T20:53:55Z" AuthenticationMethod="OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme"> <saml:Subject> <saml:NameIdentifier ...>[email protected]</saml:NameIdentifier> <saml:SubjectConfirmation> <saml:ConfirmationMethod> urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:cm:bearer </saml:ConfirmationMethod> </saml:SubjectConfirmation> </saml:Subject> </saml:AuthnStatement> <dsig:Signature> ... </dsig:Signature> </saml:Assertion></samlp:Response> Mapping OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme To map the OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme to the Federation Authentication Method urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:am:password for this SP Partner only, I will execute the addSPPartnerAuthnMethod() method: Enter the WLST environment by executing:$IAM_ORACLE_HOME/common/bin/wlst.sh Connect to the WLS Admin server:connect() Navigate to the Domain Runtime branch:domainRuntime() Execute the addSPPartnerAuthnMethod() command:addSPPartnerAuthnMethod("AcmeSP", "urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:am:password", "OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme") Exit the WLST environment:exit() After authentication via FORM, OIF/IdP would now issue an Assertion similar to (see that the method was changed from OAMLDAPPluginAuthnScheme to password): <samlp:Response ...> <samlp:Status> <samlp:StatusCode Value="samlp:Success"/> </samlp:Status> <saml:Assertion Issuer="https://idp.com/oam/fed" ...> <saml:Conditions ...> <saml:AudienceRestriction> <saml:Audience>https://acme.com/sp/ssov11</saml:Audience> </saml:AudienceRestriction> </saml:Conditions> <saml:AuthnStatement AuthenticationInstant="2014-03-21T20:53:55Z" AuthenticationMethod="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:am:password"> <saml:Subject> <saml:NameIdentifier ...>[email protected]</saml:NameIdentifier> <saml:SubjectConfirmation> <saml:ConfirmationMethod> urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:cm:bearer </saml:ConfirmationMethod> </saml:SubjectConfirmation> </saml:Subject> </saml:AuthnStatement> <dsig:Signature> ... </dsig:Signature> </saml:Assertion></samlp:Response> LDAPScheme as Authentication Scheme I will now show that by defining a Federation Authentication Mapping at the Partner level, this now ignores all mappings defined at the SP Partner Profile level. For this test, I will switch the default Authentication Scheme for this SP Partner back to LDAPScheme, and the Assertion issued by OIF/IdP will not be able to map this LDAPScheme to a Federation Authentication Method anymore, since A Federation Authentication Method mapping is defined at the SP Partner level and thus the mappings defined at the SP Partner Profile are ignored The LDAPScheme is not listed in the mapping at the Partner level I will use the OIF WLST setSPPartnerDefaultScheme() command and specify which scheme to be used as the default for this SP Partner: Enter the WLST environment by executing:$IAM_ORACLE_HOME/common/bin/wlst.sh Connect to the WLS Admin server:connect() Navigate to the Domain Runtime branch:domainRuntime() Execute the setSPPartnerDefaultScheme() command:setSPPartnerDefaultScheme("AcmeSP", "LDAPScheme") Exit the WLST environment:exit() After authentication via FORM, OIF/IdP would issue an Assertion similar to (see the AuthenticationMethod set to LDAPScheme): <samlp:Response ...> <samlp:Status> <samlp:StatusCode Value="samlp:Success"/> </samlp:Status> <saml:Assertion Issuer="https://idp.com/oam/fed" ...> <saml:Conditions ...> <saml:AudienceRestriction> <saml:Audience>https://acme.com/sp/ssov11</saml:Audience> </saml:AudienceRestriction> </saml:Conditions> <saml:AuthnStatement AuthenticationInstant="2014-03-21T20:53:55Z" AuthenticationMethod="LDAPScheme"> <saml:Subject> <saml:NameIdentifier ...>[email protected]</saml:NameIdentifier> <saml:SubjectConfirmation> <saml:ConfirmationMethod> urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:cm:bearer </saml:ConfirmationMethod> </saml:SubjectConfirmation> </saml:Subject> </saml:AuthnStatement> <dsig:Signature> ... </dsig:Signature> </saml:Assertion></samlp:Response> Mapping LDAPScheme at Partner Level To fix this issue, we will need to add the LDAPScheme to the Federation Authentication Method urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:am:password mapping for this SP Partner only. I will execute the addSPPartnerAuthnMethod() method: Enter the WLST environment by executing:$IAM_ORACLE_HOME/common/bin/wlst.sh Connect to the WLS Admin server:connect() Navigate to the Domain Runtime branch:domainRuntime() Execute the addSPPartnerAuthnMethod() command:addSPPartnerAuthnMethod("AcmeSP", "urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:am:password", "LDAPScheme") Exit the WLST environment:exit() After authentication via FORM, OIF/IdP would now issue an Assertion similar to (see that the method was changed from LDAPScheme to password): <samlp:Response ...> <samlp:Status> <samlp:StatusCode Value="samlp:Success"/> </samlp:Status> <saml:Assertion Issuer="https://idp.com/oam/fed" ...> <saml:Conditions ...> <saml:AudienceRestriction> <saml:Audience>https://acme.com/sp/ssov11</saml:Audience> </saml:AudienceRestriction> </saml:Conditions> <saml:AuthnStatement AuthenticationInstant="2014-03-21T20:53:55Z" AuthenticationMethod="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:am:password"> <saml:Subject> <saml:NameIdentifier ...>[email protected]</saml:NameIdentifier> <saml:SubjectConfirmation> <saml:ConfirmationMethod> urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.0:cm:bearer </saml:ConfirmationMethod> </saml:SubjectConfirmation> </saml:Subject> </saml:AuthnStatement> <dsig:Signature> ... </dsig:Signature> </saml:Assertion></samlp:Response> OpenID 2.0 In the OpenID 2.0 flows, the RP must request use of PAPE, in order for OIF/IdP/OP to include PAPE information. For OpenID 2.0, the configuration will involve mapping a list of OpenID 2.0 policies to a list of Authentication Schemes. The WLST command will take a list of policies, delimited by the ',' character, instead of SAML 2.0 or SAML 1.1 where a single Federation Authentication Method had to be specified. Test Setup In this setup, OIF is acting as an IdP/OP and is integrated with a remote OpenID 2.0 SP/RP partner identified by AcmeRP. In this test, I will perform Federation SSO with OIF/IdP configured to: Use LDAPScheme as the Authentication Scheme Map LDAPScheme to the http://schemas.openid.net/pape/policies/2007/06/phishing-resistant and http://openid-policies/password-protected policies Federation Authentication Methods (the second one is a custom for this use case) LDAPScheme as Authentication Scheme Using the OOTB settings regarding user authentication in OAM, the user will be challenged via a FORM based login page based on the LDAPScheme. No Federation Authentication Method is defined OOTB for OpenID 2.0, so if the IdP/OP issue an SSO response with a PAPE Response element, it will specify the scheme name instead of Federation Authentication Methods After authentication via FORM, OIF/IdP would issue an SSO Response similar to: https://acme.com/openid?refid=id-9PKVXZmRxAeDYcgLqPm36ClzOMA-&openid.ns=http%3A%2F%2Fspecs.openid.net%2Fauth%2F2.0&openid.mode=id_res&openid.op_endpoint=https%3A%2F%2Fidp.com%2Fopenid&openid.claimed_id=https%3A%2F%2Fidp.com%2Fopenid%3Fid%3Did-38iCmmlAVEXPsFjnFVKArfn5RIiF75D5doorhEgqqPM%3D&openid.identity=https%3A%2F%2Fidp.com%2Fopenid%3Fid%3Did-38iCmmlAVEXPsFjnFVKArfn5RIiF75D5doorhEgqqPM%3D&openid.return_to=https%3A%2F%2Facme.com%2Fopenid%3Frefid%3Did-9PKVXZmRxAeDYcgLqPm36ClzOMA-&openid.response_nonce=2014-03-24T19%3A20%3A06Zid-YPa2kTNNFftZkgBb460jxJGblk2g--iNwPpDI7M1&openid.assoc_handle=id-6a5S6zhAKaRwQNUnjTKROREdAGSjWodG1el4xyz3&openid.ns.ax=http%3A%2F%2Fopenid.net%2Fsrv%2Fax%2F1.0&openid.ax.mode=fetch_response&openid.ax.type.attr0=http%3A%2F%2Fsession%2Fcount&openid.ax.value.attr0=1&openid.ax.type.attr1=http%3A%2F%2Fopenid.net%2Fschema%2FnamePerson%2Ffriendly&openid.ax.value.attr1=My+name+is+Bobby+Smith&openid.ax.type.attr2=http%3A%2F%2Fschemas.openid.net%2Fax%2Fapi%2Fuser_id&openid.ax.value.attr2=bob&openid.ax.type.attr3=http%3A%2F%2Faxschema.org%2Fcontact%2Femail&openid.ax.value.attr3=bob%40oracle.com&openid.ax.type.attr4=http%3A%2F%2Fsession%2Fipaddress&openid.ax.value.attr4=10.145.120.253&openid.ns.pape=http%3A%2F%2Fspecs.openid.net%2Fextensions%2Fpape%2F1.0&openid.pape.auth_time=2014-03-24T19%3A20%3A05Z&openid.pape.auth_policies=LDAPScheme&openid.signed=op_endpoint%2Cclaimed_id%2Cidentity%2Creturn_to%2Cresponse_nonce%2Cassoc_handle%2Cns.ax%2Cax.mode%2Cax.type.attr0%2Cax.value.attr0%2Cax.type.attr1%2Cax.value.attr1%2Cax.type.attr2%2Cax.value.attr2%2Cax.type.attr3%2Cax.value.attr3%2Cax.type.attr4%2Cax.value.attr4%2Cns.pape%2Cpape.auth_time%2Cpape.auth_policies&openid.sig=mYMgbGYSs22l8e%2FDom9NRPw15u8%3D Mapping LDAPScheme To map the LDAP Scheme to the http://schemas.openid.net/pape/policies/2007/06/phishing-resistant and http://openid-policies/password-protected policies Federation Authentication Methods, I will execute the addSPPartnerAuthnMethod() method (the policies will be comma separated): 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 addSPPartnerAuthnMethod() command:addSPPartnerAuthnMethod("AcmeRP", "http://schemas.openid.net/pape/policies/2007/06/phishing-resistant,http://openid-policies/password-protected", "LDAPScheme") Exit the WLST environment:exit() After authentication via FORM, OIF/IdP would now issue an Assertion similar to (see that the method was changed from LDAPScheme to the two policies): https://acme.com/openid?refid=id-9PKVXZmRxAeDYcgLqPm36ClzOMA-&openid.ns=http%3A%2F%2Fspecs.openid.net%2Fauth%2F2.0&openid.mode=id_res&openid.op_endpoint=https%3A%2F%2Fidp.com%2Fopenid&openid.claimed_id=https%3A%2F%2Fidp.com%2Fopenid%3Fid%3Did-38iCmmlAVEXPsFjnFVKArfn5RIiF75D5doorhEgqqPM%3D&openid.identity=https%3A%2F%2Fidp.com%2Fopenid%3Fid%3Did-38iCmmlAVEXPsFjnFVKArfn5RIiF75D5doorhEgqqPM%3D&openid.return_to=https%3A%2F%2Facme.com%2Fopenid%3Frefid%3Did-9PKVXZmRxAeDYcgLqPm36ClzOMA-&openid.response_nonce=2014-03-24T19%3A20%3A06Zid-YPa2kTNNFftZkgBb460jxJGblk2g--iNwPpDI7M1&openid.assoc_handle=id-6a5S6zhAKaRwQNUnjTKROREdAGSjWodG1el4xyz3&openid.ns.ax=http%3A%2F%2Fopenid.net%2Fsrv%2Fax%2F1.0&openid.ax.mode=fetch_response&openid.ax.type.attr0=http%3A%2F%2Fsession%2Fcount&openid.ax.value.attr0=1&openid.ax.type.attr1=http%3A%2F%2Fopenid.net%2Fschema%2FnamePerson%2Ffriendly&openid.ax.value.attr1=My+name+is+Bobby+Smith&openid.ax.type.attr2=http%3A%2F%2Fschemas.openid.net%2Fax%2Fapi%2Fuser_id&openid.ax.value.attr2=bob&openid.ax.type.attr3=http%3A%2F%2Faxschema.org%2Fcontact%2Femail&openid.ax.value.attr3=bob%40oracle.com&openid.ax.type.attr4=http%3A%2F%2Fsession%2Fipaddress&openid.ax.value.attr4=10.145.120.253&openid.ns.pape=http%3A%2F%2Fspecs.openid.net%2Fextensions%2Fpape%2F1.0&openid.pape.auth_time=2014-03-24T19%3A20%3A05Z&openid.pape.auth_policies=http%3A%2F%2Fschemas.openid.net%2Fpape%2Fpolicies%2F2007%2F06%2Fphishing-resistant+http%3A%2F%2Fopenid-policies%2Fpassword-protected&openid.signed=op_endpoint%2Cclaimed_id%2Cidentity%2Creturn_to%2Cresponse_nonce%2Cassoc_handle%2Cns.ax%2Cax.mode%2Cax.type.attr0%2Cax.value.attr0%2Cax.type.attr1%2Cax.value.attr1%2Cax.type.attr2%2Cax.value.attr2%2Cax.type.attr3%2Cax.value.attr3%2Cax.type.attr4%2Cax.value.attr4%2Cns.pape%2Cpape.auth_time%2Cpape.auth_policies&openid.sig=mYMgbGYSs22l8e%2FDom9NRPw15u8%3D In the next article, I will cover how OIF/IdP can be configured so that an SP can request a specific Federation Authentication Method to challenge the user during Federation SSO.Cheers,Damien Carru

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Oracle President Mark Hurd Highlights How Data-driven HR Decisions Help Maximize Business Performance

- by Scott Ewart

HR Intelligence Can Help Companies Win the Race for Talent Today during a keynote at Taleo World 2012, Oracle President Mark Hurd outlined the ways that executives can use HR intelligence to help them make better business decisions, shape the future of their organizations and improve the bottom line. He highlighted that talent management is one of the top three focus areas for CEOs, and explained how HR intelligence can help drive decisions to meet business objectives. Hurd urged HR leaders to use data to make fact-based decisions about hiring, talent management and succession to drive strategic growth. To win the race for talent, Hurd explained that organizations need powerful technology that provides fact-based valuable insight that is needed to proactively manage talent, drive strategic initiatives that promote innovation, and enhance business performance. To view the full story and press release, click here.

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Test Drive Windows 7 Online with Virtual Labs

- by Matthew Guay

Did you miss out on the Windows 7 public beta and want to try it out before you actually make the leap and upgrade? Maybe you want to learn how to deploy new features in a business environment. Here’s how you can test drive Windows 7 directly from your browser. Whether you manage 10,000 desktops or simply manage your own laptop, it’s usually best to test out a new OS before installing it. If you’re upgrading from Windows XP you may find many things unfamiliar. Microsoft has setup a special Windows 7 Test Drive website with resources to help IT professionals test and deploy Windows 7 in their workplaces. This is a great resource to try out Windows 7 from the comfort of your browser, and look at some of the new features without even installing it. Please note that the online version is not nearly as responsive as a full standard install of Windows 7. It also does not run the full Aero interface or desktop effects, and may refresh slowly depending on your Internet connection. So don’t judge Windows 7’s performance based on this virtual lab, but use it as a way to learn more about Windows 7 without installing it. Getting Started To test drive Windows 7, visit Microsoft’s Windows 7 Test Drive website (link below). You will need to run the Windows 7 Test Drive in Internet Explorer, as it requires Active X support. We received this error when attempting to run the Test Drive in Firefox: Now, click the “Take a Test Drive” link on the bottom left of the page. This site includes several test drives to demonstrate different features of Windows 7 and its related ecosystem of products including Windows Server 2008 R2, some of which, including the XP Mode test drive, are not yet ready. For this test, we selected the MED-V Test drive, as this includes Office 2007 and 2010 so you can test them in Windows 7 as well. Simply select the test drive you want, and click “Try it now!” If you haven’t run a Windows test drive before, you will be asked to install an ActiveX control. Click the link to install. Click the yellow bar at the top of the page in Internet Explorer, and select to Install the add-on. You may have to approve a UAC prompt to finish the install. Once this is finished, click the link on the bottom of the page to return to your test drive. The test drive page should automatically refresh; if it doesn’t, click refresh to reload it. Now the test drive will load the components. Once its fully loaded, click the link to launch Windows 7 in a new window. You may see a prompt warning that the server may have been impersonated. Simply click Yes to proceed. The test lab will give you some getting started directions; click Close Window when you’re ready to try out Windows 7. Here’s the default desktop in the Windows 7 test drive. You can use it just like a normal Windows computer, but do note that it may function slowly depending on your internet connection. This test drive includes both Office 2007 and Office 2010 Tech Preview, so you can try out both in Windows 7 as well. You can try out the new Windows 7 applications such as the reworked Paint with the Ribbon interface from Office. Or you can even test the newest version of Media Center, though it will warn you that it may not function good with the down-scaled graphics in the test drive. Most importantly, you can try out the new features in Windows 7, such as Jumplists and even Aero Snap. Once again, these features will not function the quickest, but it does let you test them out. While working with the Virtual Lab, there are different tasks it walks you through. You can also download a copy of the lab manual in PDF format to help you navigate through the various objectives. The test drive system is running Microsoft Forefront Security, the enterprise security solution from which Microsoft Security Essentials has adapted components from. Conclusion These virtual labs are great for tech students, or those of you who want to get a first-hand trial of the new features. Also, if you’re not sure on how to deploy something and want to practice in a virtual environment, these labs are quite valuable.While these labs are geared toward IT professionals, it’s a good way for anyone to try out Windows 7 features from the comfort of your current computer. Test Drive Windows 7 Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Mount Multiple ISO Images Using Virtual CloneDriveHow To Delete a VHD in Windows 7Keyboard Shortcuts for VMware WorkstationMount an ISO image in Windows 7 or VistaHow To Turn a Physical Computer Into A Virtual Machine with Disk2vhd 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 If it were only this easy SyncToy syncs Files and Folders across Computers on a Network (or partitions on the same drive) Classic Cinema Online offers 100’s of OnDemand Movies OutSync will Sync Photos of your Friends on Facebook and Outlook Windows 7 Easter Theme YoWindoW, a real time weather screensaver

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What is the best email address for a personal website with my name as the .com domain name?

- by Travis Pflanz

I convinced one of my creative friends to finally purchase his own name as a domain name and start a portfolio. It has been years coming, but mission finally accomplished. Now I am helping him build his website. For my own personal website, I registered pflanz.me and my personal website is travis.pflanz.me. My email address is travis AT pflanz.me. I really like this idea for a personal website. I also have travispflanz.com which redirects to travis.pflanz.me, as does pflanz.me (pflanz.com was not available). While I really like this idea, he did not, and only wanted the .com, so his domain is FirstnameLastname.com. One of the main reasons I went the route I did is because I couldn't come up with a suitable @travispflanz.com email address, travis AT travispflanz.com just seems odd, as does me AT travispflanz.com. My question, what are the best personal email addresses to use for personal full-name .com domain names? Thanks!

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BSOD Dump - EXCEPTION_DOUBLE_FAULT - ON Windows 2008 Server 64bit

- by Mark K

Hello, my windows 2008 server (datacenter ed) 64bit , have recently created a series of BSOD on a different applications. the error message is in general EXCEPTION_DOUBLE_FAULT. Can anyone please help with the analysis of the dump file bellow- Best regards, Mark 2: kd !analyze -v * Bugcheck Analysis * * UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP (7f) This means a trap occurred in kernel mode, and it's a trap of a kind that the kernel isn't allowed to have/catch (bound trap) or that is always instant death (double fault). The first number in the bugcheck params is the number of the trap (8 = double fault, etc) Consult an Intel x86 family manual to learn more about what these traps are. Here is a portion of those codes: If kv shows a taskGate use .tss on the part before the colon, then kv. Else if kv shows a trapframe use .trap on that value Else .trap on the appropriate frame will show where the trap was taken (on x86, this will be the ebp that goes with the procedure KiTrap) Endif kb will then show the corrected stack. Arguments: Arg1: 0000000000000008, EXCEPTION_DOUBLE_FAULT Arg2: 0000000080050033 Arg3: 00000000000006f8 Arg4: fffff800018b1678 Debugging Details: BUGCHECK_STR: 0x7f_8 CUSTOMER_CRASH_COUNT: 1 DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID: DRIVER_FAULT_SERVER_MINIDUMP PROCESS_NAME: CustomerService. CURRENT_IRQL: 1 EXCEPTION_RECORD: fffffa6004e45568 -- (.exr 0xfffffa6004e45568) ExceptionAddress: fffff800018a0150 (nt!RtlVirtualUnwind+0x0000000000000250) ExceptionCode: 10000004 ExceptionFlags: 00000000 NumberParameters: 2 Parameter[0]: 0000000000000000 Parameter[1]: 00000000000000d8 TRAP_FRAME: fffffa6004e45610 -- (.trap 0xfffffa6004e45610) NOTE: The trap frame does not contain all registers. Some register values may be zeroed or incorrect. rax=0000000000000050 rbx=0000000000000000 rcx=0000000000000004 rdx=00000000000000d8 rsi=0000000000000000 rdi=0000000000000000 rip=fffff800018a0150 rsp=fffffa6004e457a0 rbp=fffffa6004e459e0 r8=0000000000000006 r9=fffff8000181e000 r10=ffffffffffffff88 r11=fffff80001a1c000 r12=0000000000000000 r13=0000000000000000 r14=0000000000000000 r15=0000000000000000 iopl=0 nv up ei pl zr na po nc nt!RtlVirtualUnwind+0x250: fffff800018a0150 488b02 mov rax,qword ptr [rdx] ds:00000000000000d8=???????????????? Resetting default scope LAST_CONTROL_TRANSFER: from fffff800018781ee to fffff80001878450 STACK_TEXT: fffffa6001768a68 fffff800018781ee : 000000000000007f 0000000000000008 0000000080050033 00000000000006f8 : nt!KeBugCheckEx fffffa6001768a70 fffff80001876a38 : 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 : nt!KiBugCheckDispatch+0x6e fffffa6001768bb0 fffff800018b1678 : 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 : nt!KiDoubleFaultAbort+0xb8 fffffa6004e44e30 fffff800018782a9 : fffffa6004e45568 0000000000000001 fffffa6004e45610 000000000000023b : nt!KiDispatchException+0x34 fffffa6004e45430 fffff800018770a5 : 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000001 : nt!KiExceptionDispatch+0xa9 fffffa6004e45610 fffff800018a0150 : fffffa6004e46638 fffffa6004e46010 fffff80001965190 fffff8000181e000 : nt!KiPageFault+0x1e5 fffffa6004e457a0 fffff800018a3f78 : fffffa6000000001 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 ffffffffffffff88 : nt!RtlVirtualUnwind+0x250 fffffa6004e45810 fffff800018b1706 : fffffa6004e46638 fffffa6004e46010 fffffa6000000000 0000000000000000 : nt!RtlDispatchException+0x118 fffffa6004e45f00 0000000000000000 : 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 : nt!KiDispatchException+0xc2 STACK_COMMAND: kb FOLLOWUP_IP: nt!KiDoubleFaultAbort+b8 fffff800`01876a38 90 nop SYMBOL_STACK_INDEX: 2 SYMBOL_NAME: nt!KiDoubleFaultAbort+b8 FOLLOWUP_NAME: MachineOwner MODULE_NAME: nt IMAGE_NAME: ntkrnlmp.exe DEBUG_FLR_IMAGE_TIMESTAMP: 4a7801eb FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: X64_0x7f_8_nt!KiDoubleFaultAbort+b8 BUCKET_ID: X64_0x7f_8_nt!KiDoubleFaultAbort+b8 Followup: MachineOwner

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Dependency Replication with TFS 2010 Build

- by Jakob Ehn

Some time ago, I wrote a post about how to implement dependency replication using TFS 2008 Build. We use this for Library builds, where we set up a build definition for a common library, and have the build check the resulting assemblies back into source control. The folder is then branched to the applications that need to reference the common library. See the above post for more details. Of course, we have reimplemented this feature in TFS 2010 Build, which results in a much nicer experience for the developer who wants to setup a new library build. Here is how it looks: There is a separate build process template for library builds registered in all team projects The following properties are used to configure the library build: Deploy Folder in Source Control is the server path where the assemblies should be checked in DeploymentFiles is a list of files and/or extensions to what files to check in. Default here is *.dll;*.pdb which means that all assemblies and debug symbols will be checked in. We can also type for example CommonLibrary.*;SomeOtherAssembly.dll in order to exclude other assemblies You can also see that we are versioning the assemblies as part of the build. This is important, since the resulting assemblies will be deployed together with the referencing application. When the build executes, it will see of the matching assemblies exist in source control, if not, it will add the files automatically: After the build has finished, we can see in the history of the TestDeploy folder that the build service account has in fact checked in a new version: Nice! The implementation of the library build process template is not very complicated, it is a combination of customization of the build process template and some custom activities. We use the generic TFActivity (http://geekswithblogs.net/jakob/archive/2010/11/03/performing-checkins-in-tfs-2010-build.aspx) to check in and out files, but for the part that checks if a file exists and adds it to source control, it was easier to do this in a custom activity: public sealed class AddFilesToSourceControl : BaseCodeActivity { // Files to add to source control [RequiredArgument] public InArgument<IEnumerable<string>> Files { get; set; } [RequiredArgument] public InArgument<Workspace> Workspace { get; set; } // If your activity returns a value, derive from CodeActivity<TResult> // and return the value from the Execute method. protected override void Execute(CodeActivityContext context) { foreach (var file in Files.Get(context)) { if (!File.Exists(file)) { throw new ApplicationException("Could not locate " + file); } var ws = this.Workspace.Get(context); string serverPath = ws.TryGetServerItemForLocalItem(file); if( !String.IsNullOrEmpty(serverPath)) { if (!ws.VersionControlServer.ServerItemExists(serverPath, ItemType.File)) { TrackMessage(context, "Adding file " + file); ws.PendAdd(file); } else { TrackMessage(context, "File " + file + " already exists in source control"); } } else { TrackMessage(context, "No server path for " + file); } } } } This build template is a very nice tool that makes it easy to do dependency replication with TFS 2010. Next, I will add funtionality for automatically merging the assemblies (using ILMerge) as part of the build, we do this to keep the number of references to a minimum.

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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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Did you think I wasn’t going to show up?

- by Ratman21

Well Monday was not good for me Job wise or Dare wise. Why? The Census job ended (after only two weeks!). It seems our group was too good at working our blocks and ran out of blocks in our area to work. Out of work again! Well at lest, they gave us a full days pay for Monday. As to dare wise, “Love Is Kind”. As I said, not saying any thing negative was and is easy for me (Love Is Patient). Kindness is Love in action, no I don’t have problem with doing this (Which is Gentleness, Helpfulness, Willingness or Initiative; well maybe little with the initiative part). It was the dare part “In Addition To Saying Nothing Negative To Your Spouse Again Today, Do At Least One Unexpected Gesture As An Act Of Kindness”. It was the finding or waiting for something I could do. Well I will keep on trying on that but; will move on to the next day/dare “Love is not selfish”. Stay tuned.

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Desktop Fun: Halloween 2013 Wallpaper Collection [Bonus Edition]

- by Akemi Iwaya

Halloween is quickly approaching, so why not get your favorite system ready for the holiday? Make your desktop the spookiest one of all with our Halloween 2013 Wallpaper collection. Halloween 2013 Note: Click on the picture to see the full-size image—these wallpapers vary in size so you may need to crop, stretch, or place them on a colored background in order to best match them to your screen’s resolution. More Halloween Goodness for Your Desktop Desktop Fun: Halloween 2012 Wallpaper Collection [Bonus Edition] Desktop Fun: Halloween 2011 Wallpaper Collection [Bonus Edition] Desktop Fun: Halloween Wallpaper Collection [Bonus Edition] Desktop Fun: Halloween 2011 Icon Packs Desktop Fun: Halloween Icon Packs Desktop Fun: Halloween 2011 Fonts Desktop Fun: Halloween Fonts Awesome Desktop Wallpapers: Halloween Edition For more great wallpapers make sure to look through our terrific collections in the Desktop Fun section.

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Download the ‘Artwork by Georgian Constantin’ Theme for Windows 7 and 8

- by Asian Angel

Do you prefer a desktop with a bit of a moody look to it? Then you may want to download the ‘Artwork by Georgian Constantin’ Theme for Windows 7 and 8. The theme comes with six images featuring Autumn, mysterious looking nights, and more. Uncovering Artists Through Windows Themes – Georgian Constantin [7 Tutorials] 6 Ways Windows 8 Is More Secure Than Windows 7 HTG Explains: Why It’s Good That Your Computer’s RAM Is Full 10 Awesome Improvements For Desktop Users in Windows 8

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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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Coldfusion on VPS, how much JVM heap memory?

- by Steven Filipowicz

Recently I got a VPS server and I'm running Coldfusion, the website was running fine until it got more and more traffic and I started to encounter 'OutOfMemory' exceptions. I thought simply to rise the memory of the VPS server, but this didn't help. After doing some Google searches I found a setting in de CF Admin settings to set the JVM Heap memory. It was on the standard: Max Heap size 512MB and Min Heap size was empty. After playing around a bit I have now set it to Min 50MB and Max 200MB, good things is that I'm not getting the 'OutOfMemory' exceptions anymore. So far so good! But with about 50 active visitors on the website, the website starts to get slow. The CPU usage is only about 8% (Windows Taskmanager), also the taskmanager show only about 30% of the 3GB RAM in use. So I'm thinking that my values could be tweaked to use more of the RAM. Honestly I don't understand these JVM Memory heap settings, so I have no clue what is a good setting for me. I found a CF script that displays the memory usage, the details are: Heap Memory Usage - Committed 194 MB Heap Memory Usage - Initial 50.0 MB Heap Memory Usage - Max 194 MB Heap Memory Usage - Used 163 MB JVM - Free Memory 31.2 MB JVM - Max Memory 194 MB JVM - Total Memory 194 MB JVM - Used Memory 163 MB Memory Pool - Code Cache - Used 13.0 MB Memory Pool - PS Eden Space - Used 6.75 MB Memory Pool - PS Old Gen - Used 155 MB Memory Pool - PS Perm Gen - Used 64.2 MB Memory Pool - PS Survivor Space - Used 1.07 MB Non-Heap Memory Usage - Committed 77.4 MB Non-Heap Memory Usage - Initial 18.3 MB Non-Heap Memory Usage - Max 240 MB Non-Heap Memory Usage - Used 77.2 MB Free Allocated Memory: 30mb Total Memory Allocated: 194mb Max Memory Available to JVM: 194mb % of Free Allocated Memory: 16% % of Available Memory Allocated: 100% My JVM arguments are: -server -Dsun.io.useCanonCaches=false -XX:MaxPermSize=192m -XX:+UseParallelGC - Dcoldfusion.rootDir={application.home}/../ -Dcoldfusion.libPath={application.home}/../lib Can I give the JVM more memory? If so, what settings should I use? Thanks very much!!

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Creating PDF documents dynamically using Umbraco and XSL-FO part 2

- by Vizioz Limited

Since my last post I have made a few modifications to the PDF generation, the main one being that the files are now dynamically renamed so that they reflect the name of the case study instead of all being called PDF.PDF which was not a very helpful filename, I just wanted to get something live last week, so decided that something was better than nothing :)The issue with the filenames comes down to the way that the PDF's are being generated by using an alternative template in Umbraco, this means that all you need to do is add " /pdf " to the end of a case study URL and it will create a PDF version of the case study. The down side is that your browser will merrily download the file and save it as PDF.PDF because that is the name of the last part of the URL.What you need to do is set the content-disposition header to be equal to the name you would like the file use, Darren Ferguson mentioned this on the Change the name of the PDF forum post.We have used the same technique for downloading dynamically generated excel files, so I thought it would be useful to create a small macro to set both this header and also to set the caching headers to prevent any caching issues, I think in the past we have experienced all possible issues, including various issues where IE behaves differently to other browsers when you are using SSL and so the below code should work in all situations!The template for the PDF alternative template is very simple:<%@ Master Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/umbraco/masterpages/default.master" AutoEventWireup="true" %><asp:Content ID="Content1" ContentPlaceHolderID="ContentPlaceHolderDefault" runat="server"> <umbraco:Macro Alias="PDFHeaders" runat="server"></umbraco:Macro> <umbraco:Macro xsl="FO-CaseStudy.xslt" Alias="PDFXSLFO" runat="server"></umbraco:Macro></asp:Content>The following code snippet is the XSLT macro that simply creates our file name and then passes the file name into the helper function:<xsl:template match="/"> <xsl:variable name="fileName"> <xsl:text>Vizioz_</xsl:text> <xsl:value-of select="$currentPage/@nodeName" /> <xsl:text>_case_study.pdf</xsl:text> </xsl:variable> <xsl:value-of select="Vizioz.Helper:AddDocumentDownloadHeaders('application/pdf', $fileName)"/> </xsl:template>And the following code is the helper function that clears the current response and adds all the appropriate headers:public static void AddDocumentDownloadHeaders(string contentType, string fileName){ HttpResponse response = HttpContext.Current.Response; HttpRequest request = HttpContext.Current.Request; response.Clear(); response.ClearHeaders(); if (request.IsSecureConnection & request.Browser.Browser == "IE") { // Don't use the caching headers if the browser is IE and it's a secure connection // see: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/323308 } else { // force not using the cache response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "no-cache"); response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "private"); response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "no-store"); response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "must-revalidate"); response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "max-stale=0"); response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "post-check=0"); response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "pre-check=0"); response.AppendHeader("Pragma", "no-cache"); response.Cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.NoCache); response.Cache.SetNoStore(); response.Cache.SetExpires(DateTime.UtcNow.AddMinutes(-1)); } response.AppendHeader("Expires", DateTime.Now.AddMinutes(-1).ToLongDateString()); response.AppendHeader("Keep-Alive", "timeout=3, max=993"); response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "attachment; filename=\"" + fileName + "\""); response.ContentType = contentType;}I will write another blog soon with some more details about XSL-FO and how to create the PDF's dynamically.Please do re-tweet if you find this interest :)

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Using C# 4.0’s DynamicObject as a Stored Procedure Wrapper

- by EltonStoneman

[Source: http://geekswithblogs.net/EltonStoneman] Overview Ignoring the fashion, I still make a lot of use of DALs – typically when inheriting a codebase with an established database schema which is full of tried and trusted stored procedures. In the DAL a collection of base classes have all the scaffolding, so the usual pattern is to create a wrapper class for each stored procedure, giving typesafe access to parameter values and output. DAL calls then looks like instantiate wrapper-populate parameters-execute call: using (var sp = new uspGetManagerEmployees()) { sp.ManagerID = 16; using (var reader = sp.Execute()) { //map entities from the output } } Or rolling it all into a fluent DAL call – which is nicer to read and implicitly disposes the resources: This is fine, the wrapper classes are very simple to handwrite or generate. But as the codebase grows, you end up with a proliferation of very small wrapper classes: The wrappers don't add much other than encapsulating the stored procedure call and giving you typesafety for the parameters. With the dynamic extension in .NET 4.0 you have the option to build a single wrapper class, and get rid of the one-to-one stored procedure to wrapper class mapping. In the dynamic version, the call looks like this: dynamic getUser = new DynamicSqlStoredProcedure("uspGetManagerEmployees", Database.AdventureWorks); getUser.ManagerID = 16; var employees = Fluently.Load<List<Employee>>() .With<EmployeeMap>() .From(getUser); The important difference is that the ManagerId property doesn't exist in the DynamicSqlStoredProcedure class. Declaring the getUser object with the dynamic keyword allows you to dynamically add properties, and the DynamicSqlStoredProcedure class intercepts when properties are added and builds them as stored procedure parameters. When getUser.ManagerId = 16 is executed, the base class adds a parameter call (using the convention that parameter name is the property name prefixed by "@"), specifying the correct SQL Server data type (mapping it from the type of the value the property is set to), and setting the parameter value. Code Sample This is worked through in a sample project on github – Dynamic Stored Procedure Sample – which also includes a static version of the wrapper for comparison. (I'll upload this to the MSDN Code Gallery once my account has been resurrected). Points worth noting are: DynamicSP.Data – database-independent DAL that has all the data plumbing code. DynamicSP.Data.SqlServer – SQL Server DAL, thin layer on top of the generic DAL which adds SQL Server specific classes. Includes the DynamicSqlStoredProcedure base class. DynamicSqlStoredProcedure.TrySetMember. Invoked when a dynamic member is added. Assumes the property is a parameter named after the SP parameter name and infers the SqlDbType from the framework type. Adds a parameter to the internal stored procedure wrapper and sets its value. uspGetManagerEmployees – the static version of the wrapper. uspGetManagerEmployeesTest – test fixture which shows usage of the static and dynamic stored procedure wrappers. The sample uses stored procedures from the AdventureWorks database in the SQL Server 2008 Sample Databases. Discussion For this scenario, the dynamic option is very favourable. Assuming your DAL is itself wrapped by a higher layer, the stored procedure wrapper classes have very little reuse. Even if you're codegening the classes and test fixtures, it's still additional effort for very little value. The main consideration with dynamic classes is that the compiler ignores all the members you use, and evaluation only happens at runtime. In this case where scope is strictly limited that's not an issue – but you're relying on automated tests rather than the compiler to find errors, but that should just encourage better test coverage. Also you can codegen the dynamic calls at a higher level. Performance may be a consideration, as there is a first-time-use overhead when the dynamic members of an object are bound. For a single run, the dynamic wrapper took 0.2 seconds longer than the static wrapper. The framework does a good job of caching the effort though, so for 1,000 calls the dynamc version still only takes 0.2 seconds longer than the static: You don't get IntelliSense on dynamic objects, even for the declared members of the base class, and if you've been using class names as keys for configuration settings, you'll lose that option if you move to dynamics. The approach may make code more difficult to read, as you can't navigate through dynamic members, but you do still get full debugging support. var employees = Fluently.Load<List<Employee>>() .With<EmployeeMap>() .From<uspGetManagerEmployees> ( i => i.ManagerID = 16, x => x.Execute() );

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Trace File Source Adapter

The Trace File Source adapter is a useful addition to your SSIS toolbox. It allows you to read 2005 and 2008 profiler traces stored as .trc files and read them into the Data Flow. From there you can perform filtering and analysis using the power of SSIS. There is no need for a SQL Server connection this just uses the trace file. Example Usages Cache warming for SQL Server Analysis Services Reading the flight recorder Find out the longest running queries on a server Analyze statements for CPU, memory by user or some other criteria you choose Properties The Trace File Source adapter has two properties, both of which combine to control the source trace file that is read at runtime. SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 trace files are supported for both the Database Engine (SQL Server) and Analysis Services. The properties are managed by the Editor form or can be set directly from the Properties Grid in Visual Studio. Property Type Description AccessMode Enumeration This property determines how the Filename property is interpreted. The values available are: DirectInput Variable Filename String This property holds the path for trace file to load (*.trc). The value is either a full path, or the name of a variable which contains the full path to the trace file, depending on the AccessMode property. Trace Column Definition Hopefully the majority of you can skip this section entirely, but if you encounter some problems processing a trace file this may explain it and allow you to fix the problem. The component is built upon the trace management API provided by Microsoft. Unfortunately API methods that expose the schema of a trace file have known issues and are unreliable, put simply the data often differs from what was specified. To overcome these limitations the component uses some simple XML files. These files enable the trace column data types and sizing attributes to be overridden. For example SQL Server Profiler or TMO generated structures define EventClass as an integer, but the real value is a string. TraceDataColumnsSQL.xml - SQL Server Database Engine Trace Columns TraceDataColumnsAS.xml - SQL Server Analysis Services Trace Columns The files can be found in the %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SQL Server\100\DTS\PipelineComponents folder, e.g. "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\DTS\PipelineComponents\TraceDataColumnsSQL.xml" "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\DTS\PipelineComponents\TraceDataColumnsAS.xml" If at runtime the component encounters a type conversion or sizing error it is most likely due to a discrepancy between the column definition as reported by the API and the actual value encountered. Whilst most common issues have already been fixed through these files we have implemented specific exception traps to direct you to the files to enable you to fix any further issues due to different usage or data scenarios that we have not tested. An example error that you can fix through these files is shown below. Buffer exception writing value to column 'Column Name'. The string value is 999 characters in length, the column is only 111. Columns can be overridden by the TraceDataColumns XML files in "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\DTS\PipelineComponents\TraceDataColumnsAS.xml". Installation The component is provided as an MSI file which you can download and run to install it. This simply places the files on disk in the correct locations and also installs the assemblies in the Global Assembly Cache as per Microsoft’s recommendations. You may need to restart the SQL Server Integration Services service, as this caches information about what components are installed, as well as restarting any open instances of Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) / Visual Studio that you may be using to build your SSIS packages. Finally you will have to add the transformation to the Visual Studio toolbox manually. Right-click the toolbox, and select Choose Items.... Select the SSIS Data Flow Items tab, and then check the Trace File Source transformation in the Choose Toolbox Items window. This process has been described in detail in the related FAQ entry for How do I install a task or transform component? We recommend you follow best practice and apply the current Microsoft SQL Server Service pack to your SQL Server servers and workstations. Please note that the Microsoft Trace classes used in the component are not supported on 64-bit platforms. To use the Trace File Source on a 64-bit host you need to ensure you have the 32-bit (x86) tools available, and the way you execute your package is setup to use them, please see the help topic 64-bit Considerations for Integration Services for more details. Downloads Trace Sources for SQL Server 2005 -- Trace Sources for SQL Server 2008 Version History SQL Server 2008 Version 2.0.0.382 - SQL Sever 2008 public release. (9 Apr 2009) SQL Server 2005 Version 1.0.0.321 - SQL Server 2005 public release. (18 Nov 2008) -- Screenshots

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Microsoft Windows HPC Server R2 Beta2

- by Daniel Moth

Internally and unofficially we refer to this as "HPC Server v3" and its Beta2 became available last week. Read the full story on this blog post from Ryan and this one from Don. There has been a lot of excitement on the web for this release with coverage from last Wednesday here, here, here, here, here and here. Don't forget that Visual Studio 2010 makes it easy to develop for HPC Server including the MPI Cluster Debugger integration that I explained here and here. Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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Microsoft Windows HPC Server R2 Beta2

Internally and unofficially we refer to this as "HPC Server v3" and its Beta2 became available last week. Read the full story on this blog post from Ryan and this one from Don. There has been a lot of excitement on the web for this release with coverage from last Wednesday here, here, here, here, here and here. Don't forget that Visual Studio 2010 makes it easy to develop for HPC Server including the MPI Cluster Debugger integration that I explained here and here. Comments about this...Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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The Best Tips and Tricks for Getting the Most out of Internet Explorer 10

- by Lori Kaufman

Now that Windows 8 is available, you might have started playing around with Internet Explorer 10. It comes in two different versions: the minimalist Modern UI/Metro version accessed from the Start screen and the traditional, full-featured Desktop version accessed from the Taskbar. In this article, we provide some useful tips and tricks to help you get to know both versions of Internet Explorer, especially the new Modern UI/Metro version. HTG Explains: Is ReadyBoost Worth Using? HTG Explains: What The Windows Event Viewer Is and How You Can Use It HTG Explains: How Windows Uses The Task Scheduler for System Tasks

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Error 2013: Lost connection to MySQL server during query when executing CHECK TABLE FOR UPGRADE

- by Dean Richardson

I just upgraded Ubuntu from 11.10 to 12.04. My rails app now returns the (passenger) error "Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (111) (Mysql2::Error)". I get a similar error when I try to access mysql at the command line on my Ubuntu server using mysql -u root -p. I have mysql-server 5.5 installed. I've checked and mysql is not running. When I try to restart it, it fails. Here are some key lines from the tail of /var/log/syslog after an attempted restart: dean@dgwjasonfried:/etc/mysql$ tail -f /var/log/syslog Mar 7 08:55:27 dgwjasonfried /etc/mysql/debian-start[5107]: Looking for 'mysqlcheck' as: /usr/bin/mysqlcheck Mar 7 08:55:27 dgwjasonfried /etc/mysql/debian-start[5107]: Running 'mysqlcheck' with connection arguments: '--port=3306' '--socket=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' '--host=localhost' '--socket=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' '--host=localhost' '--socket=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' Mar 7 08:55:27 dgwjasonfried /etc/mysql/debian-start[5107]: Running 'mysqlcheck' with connection arguments: '--port=3306' '--socket=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' '--host=localhost' '--socket=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' '--host=localhost' '--socket=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' Mar 7 08:55:27 dgwjasonfried /etc/mysql/debian-start[5107]: /usr/bin/mysqlcheck: Got error: 2013: Lost connection to MySQL server during query when executing 'CHECK TABLE ... FOR UPGRADE' Mar 7 08:55:27 dgwjasonfried /etc/mysql/debian-start[5107]: FATAL ERROR: Upgrade failed Mar 7 08:55:27 dgwjasonfried /etc/mysql/debian-start[5107]: molex_app_development.assets OK Mar 7 08:55:27 dgwjasonfried /etc/mysql/debian-start[5107]: molex_app_development.ecd_types OK Mar 7 08:55:27 dgwjasonfried /etc/mysql/debian-start[5124]: Checking for insecure root accounts. Mar 7 08:55:27 dgwjasonfried kernel: [ 7551.769657] init: mysql main process (5064) terminated with status 1 Mar 7 08:55:27 dgwjasonfried kernel: [ 7551.769697] init: mysql respawning too fast, stopped Here is most of /etc/mysql/my.cnf: Remember to edit /etc/mysql/debian.cnf when changing the socket location. [client] port = 3306 socket = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock Here is entries for some specific programs The following values assume you have at least 32M ram This was formally known as [safe_mysqld]. Both versions are currently parsed. [mysqld_safe] socket = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock nice = 0 [mysqld] Basic Settings user = mysql pid-file = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid socket = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock port = 3306 basedir = /usr datadir = /var/lib/mysql tmpdir = /tmp lc-messages-dir = /usr/share/mysql skip-external-locking Instead of skip-networking the default is now to listen only on localhost which is more compatible and is not less secure. bind-address = 127.0.0.1 And here are permissions for var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock: srwxrwxrwx 1 mysql mysql 0 Mar 7 09:18 mysqld.sock I'd be grateful for any suggestions the community might have. I reviewed the related questions here and attempted some of the fixes offered but to no avail. Thanks! Dean Richardson Update: Thanks to quanta's suggestion, I looked at the /var/log/mysql/error.log file. I found error messages relating to pointers, fatal signals, and more stuff that I really couldn't make much sense of. I also found mysql man page references, however. One suggested that I try starting mysqld with the --innodb_force_recovery=# option, then attempt to dump (or drop) the offending/corrupted database or table. I worked through the escalating option levels one-by-one (innodb_force_recovery=1, innodb_force_recovery=2, etc.) This allowed me to successfully run mysql -u root -p from the command line and execute several commands. I was able to run queries on my production database, but any attempt to query, dump, or even drop my development database raised an error and led to me losing the connection to mysql. So I've made progress, but until I'm somehow able to drop or repair my development db I'm still unable to get my app to load. Any further advice or suggestions? Thanks! Dean Update: Right after running sudo mysqld --innodb_force_recover=1 from the command line, the error.log contains this: Right after retrying sudo mysqld --innodb_force_recover=1, The error.log file shows this: 130308 4:55:39 [Note] Plugin 'FEDERATED' is disabled. 130308 4:55:39 InnoDB: The InnoDB memory heap is disabled 130308 4:55:39 InnoDB: Mutexes and rw_locks use GCC atomic builtins 130308 4:55:39 InnoDB: Compressed tables use zlib 1.2.3.4 130308 4:55:39 InnoDB: Initializing buffer pool, size = 128.0M 130308 4:55:39 InnoDB: Completed initialization of buffer pool 130308 4:55:39 InnoDB: highest supported file format is Barracuda. InnoDB: The log sequence number in ibdata files does not match InnoDB: the log sequence number in the ib_logfiles! 130308 4:55:39 InnoDB: Database was not shut down normally! InnoDB: Starting crash recovery. InnoDB: Reading tablespace information from the .ibd files... InnoDB: Restoring possible half-written data pages from the doublewrite InnoDB: buffer... 130308 4:55:40 InnoDB: Waiting for the background threads to start 130308 4:55:41 InnoDB: 1.1.8 started; log sequence number 10259220 130308 4:55:41 InnoDB: !!! innodb_force_recovery is set to 1 !!! 130308 4:55:41 [Note] Server hostname (bind-address): '127.0.0.1'; port: 3306 130308 4:55:41 [Note] - '127.0.0.1' resolves to '127.0.0.1'; 130308 4:55:41 [Note] Server socket created on IP: '127.0.0.1'. 130308 4:55:41 [Note] Event Scheduler: Loaded 0 events 130308 4:55:41 [Note] mysqld: ready for connections. Version: '5.5.29-0ubuntu0.12.04.2' socket: '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' port: 3306 (Ubuntu) Then after mysql -u root -p and mysql> drop database molex_app_development; ERROR 2013 (HY000): Lost connection to MySQL server during query mysql> the error.log contains: dean@dgwjasonfried:/var/log/mysql$ tail -f error.log /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(clone+0x6d)[0x7f6a3ff9ecbd] Trying to get some variables. Some pointers may be invalid and cause the dump to abort. Query (7f6a1c004bd8): is an invalid pointer Connection ID (thread ID): 1 Status: NOT_KILLED The manual page at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/crashing.html contains information that should help you find out what is causing the crash. 130308 4:55:39 [Note] Plugin 'FEDERATED' is disabled. 130308 4:55:39 InnoDB: The InnoDB memory heap is disabled 130308 4:55:39 InnoDB: Mutexes and rw_locks use GCC atomic builtins 130308 4:55:39 InnoDB: Compressed tables use zlib 1.2.3.4 130308 4:55:39 InnoDB: Initializing buffer pool, size = 128.0M 130308 4:55:39 InnoDB: Completed initialization of buffer pool 130308 4:55:39 InnoDB: highest supported file format is Barracuda. InnoDB: The log sequence number in ibdata files does not match InnoDB: the log sequence number in the ib_logfiles! 130308 4:55:39 InnoDB: Database was not shut down normally! InnoDB: Starting crash recovery. InnoDB: Reading tablespace information from the .ibd files... InnoDB: Restoring possible half-written data pages from the doublewrite InnoDB: buffer... 130308 4:55:40 InnoDB: Waiting for the background threads to start 130308 4:55:41 InnoDB: 1.1.8 started; log sequence number 10259220 130308 4:55:41 InnoDB: !!! innodb_force_recovery is set to 1 !!! 130308 4:55:41 [Note] Server hostname (bind-address): '127.0.0.1'; port: 3306 130308 4:55:41 [Note] - '127.0.0.1' resolves to '127.0.0.1'; 130308 4:55:41 [Note] Server socket created on IP: '127.0.0.1'. 130308 4:55:41 [Note] Event Scheduler: Loaded 0 events 130308 4:55:41 [Note] mysqld: ready for connections. Version: '5.5.29-0ubuntu0.12.04.2' socket: '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' port: 3306 (Ubuntu) 130308 4:58:23 [ERROR] Incorrect definition of table mysql.proc: expected column 'comment' at position 15 to have type text, found type char(64). 130308 4:58:23 InnoDB: Assertion failure in thread 140168992810752 in file fsp0fsp.c line 3639 InnoDB: We intentionally generate a memory trap. InnoDB: Submit a detailed bug report to http://bugs.mysql.com. InnoDB: If you get repeated assertion failures or crashes, even InnoDB: immediately after the mysqld startup, there may be InnoDB: corruption in the InnoDB tablespace. Please refer to InnoDB: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/forcing-innodb-recovery.html InnoDB: about forcing recovery. 10:58:23 UTC - mysqld got signal 6 ; This could be because you hit a bug. It is also possible that this binary or one of the libraries it was linked against is corrupt, improperly built, or misconfigured. This error can also be caused by malfunctioning hardware. We will try our best to scrape up some info that will hopefully help diagnose the problem, but since we have already crashed, something is definitely wrong and this may fail. key_buffer_size=16777216 read_buffer_size=131072 max_used_connections=1 max_threads=151 thread_count=1 connection_count=1 It is possible that mysqld could use up to key_buffer_size + (read_buffer_size + sort_buffer_size)*max_threads = 346681 K bytes of memory Hope that's ok; if not, decrease some variables in the equation. Thread pointer: 0x7f7ba4f6c2f0 Attempting backtrace. You can use the following information to find out where mysqld died. If you see no messages after this, something went terribly wrong... stack_bottom = 7f7ba3065e60 thread_stack 0x30000 mysqld(my_print_stacktrace+0x29)[0x7f7ba3609039] mysqld(handle_fatal_signal+0x483)[0x7f7ba34cf9c3] /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0(+0xfcb0)[0x7f7ba2220cb0] /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(gsignal+0x35)[0x7f7ba188c425] /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(abort+0x17b)[0x7f7ba188fb8b] mysqld(+0x65e0fc)[0x7f7ba37160fc] mysqld(+0x602be6)[0x7f7ba36babe6] mysqld(+0x635006)[0x7f7ba36ed006] mysqld(+0x5d7072)[0x7f7ba368f072] mysqld(+0x5d7b9c)[0x7f7ba368fb9c] mysqld(+0x6a3348)[0x7f7ba375b348] mysqld(+0x6a3887)[0x7f7ba375b887] mysqld(+0x5c6a86)[0x7f7ba367ea86] mysqld(+0x5ae3a7)[0x7f7ba36663a7] mysqld(_Z15ha_delete_tableP3THDP10handlertonPKcS4_S4_b+0x16d)[0x7f7ba34d3ffd] mysqld(_Z23mysql_rm_table_no_locksP3THDP10TABLE_LISTbbbb+0x568)[0x7f7ba3417f78] mysqld(_Z11mysql_rm_dbP3THDPcbb+0x8aa)[0x7f7ba339780a] mysqld(_Z21mysql_execute_commandP3THD+0x394c)[0x7f7ba33b886c] mysqld(_Z11mysql_parseP3THDPcjP12Parser_state+0x10f)[0x7f7ba33bb28f] mysqld(_Z16dispatch_command19enum_server_commandP3THDPcj+0x1380)[0x7f7ba33bc6e0] mysqld(_Z24do_handle_one_connectionP3THD+0x1bd)[0x7f7ba346119d] mysqld(handle_one_connection+0x50)[0x7f7ba3461200] /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0(+0x7e9a)[0x7f7ba2218e9a] /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(clone+0x6d)[0x7f7ba1949cbd] Trying to get some variables. Some pointers may be invalid and cause the dump to abort. Query (7f7b7c004b60): is an invalid pointer Connection ID (thread ID): 1 Status: NOT_KILLED The manual page at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/crashing.html contains information that should help you find out what is causing the crash. --Dean

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Query Logging in Analysis Services

- by MikeD

On a project I work on, we capture the queries that get executed on our Analysis Services instance (SQL Server 2008 R2) and use the table for helping us to build aggregations and also we aggregate the query log daily into a data warehouse of operational data so we can track usage of our Analysis databases by users over time. We've learned a couple of helpful things about this logging that I'd like to share here.First off, the query log table automatically gets cleaned out by SSAS under a few conditions - schema changes to the analysis database and even regular data and aggregation processing can delete rows in the table. We like to keep these logs longer than that, so we have a trigger on the table that copies all rows into another table with the same structure:Here is our trigger code:CREATE TRIGGER [dbo].[SaveQueryLog] on [dbo].[OlapQueryLog] AFTER INSERT AS INSERT INTO dbo.[OlapQueryLog_History] (MSOLAP_Database, MSOLAP_ObjectPath, MSOLAP_User, Dataset, StartTime, Duration) SELECT MSOLAP_Database, MSOLAP_ObjectPath, MSOLAP_User, Dataset, StartTime, Duration FROM inserted Second, the query logging process is "best effort" - if SSAS cannot connect to the database listed in the QueryLogConnectionString in the Analysis Server properties, it just stops logging - it doesn't generate any errors to the client at all, which is a good thing. Once it stops logging, it doesn't retry later - an hour, a day, a week, or even a month later, so long as the service doesn't restart.That has burned us a couple of times, when we have made changes to the service account that is used for SSAS, and that account doesn't have access to the database we want to log to. The last time this happened, we noticed a while later that no logging was taking place, and I determined that the service account didn't have sufficient permissions, so I made the necessary changes to give that service account access to the logging database. I first tried just the db_datawriter role and that wasn't enough, so I granted the service account membership in the db_owner role. Yes, that's a much bigger set of permissions, but I didn't want to search out the specific permissions at the time. Once I determined that the service account had the appropriate permissions, I wanted to get query logging restarted from SSAS, and I wondered how to do that? Having just used a larger hammer than necessary with the db_owner role membership, I considered just restarting SSAS to get it logging again. However, this was a production server, and it was in the middle of business hours, and there were active users connecting to that SSAS instance, so I thought better of it.As I considered the options, I remembered that the first time I set up query logging, by putting in a valid connection string to the QueryLogConnectionString server property, logging started immediately after I saved the properties. I wondered if I could make some other change to the connection string so that the query logging would start again without restarting the service. I went into the connection string dialog, went to the All page, and looked at the properties I could change that wouldn't affect the actual connection. Aha! The Application Name property would do just nicely - I set it to "SSAS Query Logging" (it was previously blank) and saved the changes to the server properties. And the query logging started up right away. If I need to get this running again in the future, I could just make a small change in the Application Name property again, save it, and even change it back again if I wanted to.The other nice side effect of setting the Application Name property is that now I can see (and possibly filter for or filter out) the SQL activity in that database that is related to the query logging process in Profiler: To sum up:The SSAS Query Logging process will automatically delete rows from the QueryLog table, so if you want to keep them longer, put a trigger on the table to copy the rows to another tableThe SSAS service account requires more than db_datawriter role membership (and probably less than db_owner) in the database specified in the QueryLogConnectionString server property to successfully insert log rows to the QueryLog table.Query logging will stop quietly whenever it encounters an error. Make a change to the QueryLogConnectionString server property (such as the Application Name attribute) to get query logging to restart and you won't have to restart the service.

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