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• Olympics data available for all on Windows Azure SQL Database and Power View

  - by jamiet

  Are you looking around for some decent test data for your BI demos? Well, if so, Microsoft have provided some data about all medals won at the Olympics Games (1900 to 2008) at OlympicsData workbook - Excel, SSIS, Azure sample; it provides analysis over athletes, countries, medal type, sport, discipline and various other dimensions. The data has been provided in an Excel workbook along with instructions on how to load the data into a Windows Azure SQL Database using SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS). Frankly though, the rigmarole of standing up your own Windows Azure SQL Database ok, SQL Azure database, is both costly (SQL Azure isn’t free) and time consuming (the provided instructions aren’t exactly an idiot’s guide and getting SSIS to work properly with Excel isn’t a barrel of laughs either). To ease the pain for all you BI folks out there that simply want to party on the data I have loaded it all into the SQL Azure database that I use for hosting AdventureWorks on Azure. You can read more about AdventureWorks on Azure below however I’ll summarise here by saying it is a SQL Azure database provided for the use of the SQL Server community and which is supported by voluntary donations. To view the data the credentials you need are: Server mhknbn2kdz.database.windows.net  Database AdventureWorks2012 User sqlfamily Password sqlf@m1ly Type those into SSMS and away you go, the data is provided in four tables [olympics].[Sport], [olympics].[Discipline], [olympics].[Event] & [olympics].[Medalist]: I figured this would be a good candidate for a Power View report so I fired up Excel 2013 and built such a report to slice’n’dice through the data – here are some screenshots that should give you a flavour of what is available: A view of all the available data Where do all the gymastics medals go? Which countries do top ten all-time medal winners come from? You get the idea. There is masses of information here and if you have Excel 2013 handy Power View provides a quick and easy way of surfing through it. To save you the bother of setting up the Power View report yourself you can have the one that I took these screenshots from, it is available on my SkyDrive at OlympicsAnalysis.xlsx so just hit the link and download to play to your heart’s content. Party on, people! As I said above the data is hosted on a SQL Azure database that I use for hosting “AdventureWorks on Azure” which I first announced in March 2013 at AdventureWorks2012 now available for all on SQL Azure. I’ll repeat the pertinent parts of that blog post here: I am pleased to announce that as of today … [AdventureWorks2012] now resides on SQL Azure and is available for anyone, absolutely anyone, to connect to and use for their own means. This database is free for you to use but SQL Azure is of course not free so before I give you the credentials please lend me your ears eyes for a short while longer. AdventureWorks on Azure is being provided for the SQL Server community to use and so I am hoping that that same community will rally around to support this effort by making a voluntary donation to support the upkeep which, going on current pricing, is going to be $119.88 per year. If you would like to contribute to keep AdventureWorks on Azure up and running for that full year please donate via PayPal to [email protected] Any amount, no matter how small, will help. If those 50+ people that retweeted me beforehand all contributed $2 then that would just about be enough to keep this up for a year. If the community contributes more than we need then there are a number of additional things that could be done: Host additional databases (Northwind anyone??) Host in more datacentres (this first one is in Western Europe) Make a charitable donation That last one, a charitable donation, is something I would really like to do. The SQL Community have proved before that they can make a significant contribution to charitable orgnisations through purchasing the SQL Server MVP Deep Dives book and I harbour hopes that AdventureWorks on Azure can continue in that vein. So please, if you think AdventureWorks on Azure is something that is worth supporting please make a contribution. I’d like to emphasize that last point. If my hosting this Olympics data is useful to you please support this initiative by donating. Thanks in advance. @Jamiet

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• How to make Ubuntu recognize an unknown external display (so I can adjust its resolution)?

  - by WagnerAA

  I have a Dell laptop with an external monitor attached (a Samsumg SyncMaster 931c). My laptop display was recognized, and I can adjust its optimum resolution. My external display is still unknown, thus I'm stuck at a lower resolution (1024x768): I tried the "Detect Displays" button, but it didn't work, nothing happens. I recently upgraded from Ubuntu 12.04 to 12.10. Things were working before. I don't know if I can actually change this configuration, or if this is a bug. I searched for an answer here and also in Launchpad's website, but found none. I even tried to install Nvidia drivers, and just messed things up. It seems I wasn't even using nvidia before, as I guessed by looking at my additional drivers configuration: My laptop has an Intel chipset, I guess: $ dpkg --get-selections | grep -i -e nvidia -e intel intel-gpu-tools install libdrm-intel1:amd64 install libdrm-intel1:i386 install nvidia-common install xserver-xorg-video-intel install I don't have an xorg.conf file (I think this is nvidia related, am I right?): $ cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf cat: /etc/X11/xorg.conf: No such file or directory $ ls -l /etc/X11/ total 76 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Out 19 23:41 app-defaults drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Abr 25 2012 cursors -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 18 Abr 25 2012 default-display-manager drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Abr 25 2012 fonts -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 17394 Dez 3 2009 rgb.txt lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Mai 1 03:33 X -> /usr/bin/Xorg drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Out 19 23:41 xinit drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 23 2012 xkb -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Out 24 08:55 xorg.conf.nvidia-xconfig-original -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 709 Abr 1 2010 Xreset drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Out 19 10:08 Xreset.d drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Out 19 10:08 Xresources -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 3730 Jan 20 2012 Xsession drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Out 20 00:11 Xsession.d -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 265 Jul 1 2008 Xsession.options -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 13 Ago 15 06:43 XvMCConfig -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 601 Abr 25 2012 Xwrapper.config Here is some information I gathered by looking at other related posts: $ sudo lshw -C display; lsb_release -a; uname -a *-display:0 description: VGA compatible controller product: Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 2 bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0 version: 07 width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom configuration: driver=i915 latency=0 resources: irq:48 memory:f6800000-f6bfffff memory:d0000000-dfffffff ioport:1800(size=8) *-display:1 UNCLAIMED description: Display controller product: Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 2.1 bus info: pci@0000:00:02.1 version: 07 width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list configuration: latency=0 resources: memory:f6100000-f61fffff LSB Version: core-2.0-amd64:core-2.0-noarch:core-3.0-amd64:core-3.0-noarch:core-3.1-amd64:core-3.1-noarch:core-3.2-amd64:core-3.2-noarch:core-4.0-amd64:core-4.0-noarch:cxx-3.0-amd64:cxx-3.0-noarch:cxx-3.1-amd64:cxx-3.1-noarch:cxx-3.2-amd64:cxx-3.2-noarch:cxx-4.0-amd64:cxx-4.0-noarch:desktop-3.1-amd64:desktop-3.1-noarch:desktop-3.2-amd64:desktop-3.2-noarch:desktop-4.0-amd64:desktop-4.0-noarch:graphics-2.0-amd64:graphics-2.0-noarch:graphics-3.0-amd64:graphics-3.0-noarch:graphics-3.1-amd64:graphics-3.1-noarch:graphics-3.2-amd64:graphics-3.2-noarch:graphics-4.0-amd64:graphics-4.0-noarch:printing-3.2-amd64:printing-3.2-noarch:printing-4.0-amd64:printing-4.0-noarch:qt4-3.1-amd64:qt4-3.1-noarch Distributor ID: Ubuntu Description: Ubuntu 12.10 Release: 12.10 Codename: quantal Linux Batcave 3.5.0-17-generic #28-Ubuntu SMP Tue Oct 9 19:31:23 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux $ xrandr -q Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2304 x 800, maximum 32767 x 32767 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 286mm x 1790mm 1280x800 59.9*+ 1024x768 60.0 800x600 60.3 56.2 640x480 59.9 VGA1 connected 1024x768+1280+32 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 0mm x 0mm 1024x768 60.0* 800x600 60.3 56.2 848x480 60.0 640x480 59.9 DP1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) If there's anything else I can do, any other information I can post here, to help me configure this external display, please let me know. If this is actually a bug, I apologize (I know bugs are not allowed here), but I really wasn't sure. And I will promptly file a bug report in Launchpad if that's the case. Thanks a lot in advance. ;)

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• Calculating for leap year [migrated]

  - by Bradley Bauer

  I've written this program using Java in Eclipse. I was able to utilize a formula I found that I explained in the commented out section. Using the for loop I can iterate through each month of the year, which I feel good about in that code, it seems clean and smooth to me. Maybe I could give the variables full names to make everything more readable but I'm just using the formula in its basic essence :) Well my problem is it doesn't calculate correctly for years like 2008... Leap Years. I know that if (year % 400 == 0 || (year % 4 == 0 && year % 100 != 0)) then we have a leap year. Maybe if the year is a leap year I need to subtract a certain amount of days from a certain month. Any solutions, or some direction would be great thanks :) package exercises; public class E28 { /* * Display the first days of each month * Enter the year * Enter first day of the year * * h = (q + (26 * (m + 1)) / 10 + k + k/4 + j/4 + 5j) % 7 * * h is the day of the week (0: Saturday, 1: Sunday ......) * q is the day of the month * m is the month (3: March 4: April.... January and Feburary are 13 and 14) * j is the century (year / 100) * k is the year of the century (year %100) * */ public static void main(String[] args) { java.util.Scanner input = new java.util.Scanner(System.in); System.out.print("Enter the year: "); int year = input.nextInt(); int j = year / 100; // Find century for formula int k = year % 100; // Find year of century for formula // Loop iterates 12 times. Guess why. for (int i = 1, m = i; i <= 12; i++) { // Make m = i. So loop processes formula once for each month if (m == 1 || m == 2) m += 12; // Formula requires that Jan and Feb are represented as 13 and 14 else m = i; // if not jan or feb, then set m to i int h = (1 + (26 * (m + 1)) / 10 + k + k/4 + j/4 + 5 * j) % 7; // Formula created by a really smart man somewhere // I let the control variable i steer the direction of the formual's m value String day; if (h == 0) day = "Saturday"; else if (h == 1) day = "Sunday"; else if (h == 2) day = "Monday"; else if (h == 3) day = "Tuesday"; else if (h == 4) day = "Wednesday"; else if (h == 5) day = "Thursday"; else day = "Friday"; switch (m) { case 13: System.out.println("January 1, " + year + " is " + day); break; case 14: System.out.println("Feburary 1, " + year + " is " + day); break; case 3: System.out.println("March 1, " + year + " is " + day); break; case 4: System.out.println("April 1, " + year + " is " + day); break; case 5: System.out.println("May 1, " + year + " is " + day); break; case 6: System.out.println("June 1, " + year + " is " + day); break; case 7: System.out.println("July 1, " + year + " is " + day); break; case 8: System.out.println("August 1, " + year + " is " + day); break; case 9: System.out.println("September 1, " + year + " is " + day); break; case 10: System.out.println("October 1, " + year + " is " + day); break; case 11: System.out.println("November 1, " + year + " is " + day); break; case 12: System.out.println("December 1, " + year + " is " + day); break; } } } }

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• Accounts in Work Items after migration to TFS 2010 and to new domain

  - by Clara Oscura

  Lately I’ve been doing some tests on migrating our TFS 2008 installation to TFS 2010, coupled with a machine and domain change. One particular topic that was tricky is user accounts. We installed first a new machine with TFS 2010 and then migrated the projects in the old server. The work items were migrated with the projects. Great, but if I try to edit one of the old work items I cannot save it anymore because some fields contain old user names (ex. OLDDOMAIN\user) which are not known in the new domain (it should be NEWDOMAIN\user). The errors look like this: When I correct the ‘Assigned To’ field value, I get another error regarding another field: Before TFS 2010, we had TFSUsers power tool. It allow you to map an old user name to a new user name. This is not available anymore because WI fields with user accounts are now synchronized with AD display names changes (explained here). The correct way to go about this in TFS 2010 is to use TFSConfig Identities before adding the new domain accounts into the TFS groups (documented here). So, too late for us. I’ve found a (tedious) workaround to change those old account in work items in order to allow people to keep working with them. 1. Install TFS 2010 power tools 2. Export WIT from your project (VS | Tools | Process Editor | Work Item Types). Save the definition, for example: Original_MyProject_Task.xml 3. Copy the xml (NoReadOnly_MyProject_Task.xml) and edit it. From the field definition of ‘Activated By’, ‘Closed By’ and ‘Resolved By’, remove the following:        <WHENNOTCHANGED field="System.State">           <READONLY />         </WHENNOTCHANGED> 4. Import WIT in VS. Choose the new file (NoReadOnly_MyProject_Task.xml) and import it in MyProject 5. Open all tasks in Excel (flat list). Display the following columns: Asssigned To Activated By Closed By Resolved By Change the user accounts to the new ones (I usually sort each column alphabetically to make it easier). 6. Publish. If you get a conflict on a field, tough luck. You will have to manually choose “Local version” for each work item. I told you it was a tedious process. 7. Import original WIT (Original_MyProject_Task.xml) in MyProject. We only changed the WI definition so that we could change some fields. The original definition should be put back. And what about these other fields? Created By Authorized As These fields are not editable by definition (VS | Tools | Process Editor | Work Item Fields Explorer), even if they are not marked as read-only in the WIT. You can leave the old values. It doesn’t seem to matter to TFS. The other four fields are editable by definition, so only the WIT readonly rule prevents us from changing them. Technorati Tags: TFS,Team Foundation Server 2010,Work Item,Domain change

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• Stale statistics on a newly created temporary table in a stored procedure can lead to poor performance

  - by sqlworkshops

  When you create a temporary table you expect a new table with no past history (statistics based on past existence), this is not true if you have less than 6 updates to the temporary table. This might lead to poor performance of queries which are sensitive to the content of temporary tables.I was optimizing SQL Server Performance at one of my customers who provides search functionality on their website. They use stored procedure with temporary table for the search. The performance of the search depended on who searched what in the past, option (recompile) by itself had no effect. Sometimes a simple search led to timeout because of non-optimal plan usage due to this behavior. This is not a plan caching issue rather temporary table statistics caching issue, which was part of the temporary object caching feature that was introduced in SQL Server 2005 and is also present in SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2012. In this customer case we implemented a workaround to avoid this issue (see below for example for workarounds).When temporary tables are cached, the statistics are not newly created rather cached from the past and updated based on automatic update statistics threshold. Caching temporary tables/objects is good for performance, but caching stale statistics from the past is not optimal.We can work around this issue by disabling temporary table caching by explicitly executing a DDL statement on the temporary table. One possibility is to execute an alter table statement, but this can lead to duplicate constraint name error on concurrent stored procedure execution. The other way to work around this is to create an index.I think there might be many customers in such a situation without knowing that stale statistics are being cached along with temporary table leading to poor performance.Ideal solution is to have more aggressive statistics update when the temporary table has less number of rows when temporary table caching is used. I will open a connect item to report this issue.Meanwhile you can mitigate the issue by creating an index on the temporary table. You can monitor active temporary tables using Windows Server Performance Monitor counter: SQL Server: General Statistics->Active Temp Tables. The script to understand the issue and the workaround is listed below:set nocount onset statistics time offset statistics io offdrop table tab7gocreate table tab7 (c1 int primary key clustered, c2 int, c3 char(200))gocreate index test on tab7(c2, c1, c3)gobegin trandeclare @i intset @i = 1while @i <= 50000begininsert into tab7 values (@i, 1, ‘a’)set @i = @i + 1endcommit trangoinsert into tab7 values (50001, 1, ‘a’)gocheckpointgodrop proc test_slowgocreate proc test_slow @i intasbegindeclare @j intcreate table #temp1 (c1 int primary key)insert into #temp1 (c1) select @iselect @j = t7.c1 from tab7 t7 inner join #temp1 t on (t7.c2 = t.c1)endgodbcc dropcleanbuffersset statistics time onset statistics io ongo–high reads as expected for parameter ’1'exec test_slow 1godbcc dropcleanbuffersgo–high reads that are not expected for parameter ’2'exec test_slow 2godrop proc test_with_recompilegocreate proc test_with_recompile @i intasbegindeclare @j intcreate table #temp1 (c1 int primary key)insert into #temp1 (c1) select @iselect @j = t7.c1 from tab7 t7 inner join #temp1 t on (t7.c2 = t.c1)option (recompile)endgodbcc dropcleanbuffersset statistics time onset statistics io ongo–high reads as expected for parameter ’1'exec test_with_recompile 1godbcc dropcleanbuffersgo–high reads that are not expected for parameter ’2'–low reads on 3rd execution as expected for parameter ’2'exec test_with_recompile 2godrop proc test_with_alter_table_recompilegocreate proc test_with_alter_table_recompile @i intasbegindeclare @j intcreate table #temp1 (c1 int primary key)–to avoid caching of temporary tables one can create a constraint–but this might lead to duplicate constraint name error on concurrent usagealter table #temp1 add constraint test123 unique(c1)insert into #temp1 (c1) select @iselect @j = t7.c1 from tab7 t7 inner join #temp1 t on (t7.c2 = t.c1)option (recompile)endgodbcc dropcleanbuffersset statistics time onset statistics io ongo–high reads as expected for parameter ’1'exec test_with_alter_table_recompile 1godbcc dropcleanbuffersgo–low reads as expected for parameter ’2'exec test_with_alter_table_recompile 2godrop proc test_with_index_recompilegocreate proc test_with_index_recompile @i intasbegindeclare @j intcreate table #temp1 (c1 int primary key)–to avoid caching of temporary tables one can create an indexcreate index test on #temp1(c1)insert into #temp1 (c1) select @iselect @j = t7.c1 from tab7 t7 inner join #temp1 t on (t7.c2 = t.c1)option (recompile)endgoset statistics time onset statistics io ondbcc dropcleanbuffersgo–high reads as expected for parameter ’1'exec test_with_index_recompile 1godbcc dropcleanbuffersgo–low reads as expected for parameter ’2'exec test_with_index_recompile 2go

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• Getting Help with 'SEPA' Questions

  - by MargaretW

  What is 'SEPA'? The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) is a self-regulatory initiative for the European banking industry championed by the European Commission (EC) and the European Central Bank (ECB). The aim of the SEPA initiative is to improve the efficiency of cross border payments and the economies of scale by developing common standards, procedures, and infrastructure. The SEPA territory currently consists of 33 European countries -- the 28 EU states, together with Iceland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Norway and Switzerland. Part of that infrastructure includes two new SEPA instruments that were introduced in 2008: SEPA Credit Transfer (a Payables transaction in Oracle EBS) SEPA Core Direct Debit (a Receivables transaction in Oracle EBS) A SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) is an outgoing payment instrument for the execution of credit transfers in Euro between customer payment accounts located in SEPA. SEPA Credit Transfers are executed on behalf of an Originator holding a payment account with an Originator Bank in favor of a Beneficiary holding a payment account at a Beneficiary Bank. In R12 of Oracle applications, the current SEPA credit transfer implementation is based on Version 5 of the "SEPA Credit Transfer Scheme Customer-To-Bank Implementation Guidelines" and the "SEPA Credit Transfer Scheme Rulebook" issued by European Payments Council (EPC). These guidelines define the rules to be applied to the UNIFI (ISO20022) XML message standards for the implementation of the SEPA Credit Transfers in the customer-to-bank space. This format is compliant with SEPA Credit Transfer version 6. A SEPA Core Direct Debit (SDD) is an incoming payment instrument used for making domestic and cross-border payments within the 33 countries of SEPA, wherein the debtor (payer) authorizes the creditor (payee) to collect the payment from his bank account. The payment can be a fixed amount like a mortgage payment, or variable amounts such as those of invoices. The "SEPA Core Direct Debit" scheme replaces various country-specific direct debit schemes currently prevailing within the SEPA zone. SDD is based on the ISO20022 XML messaging standards, version 5.0 of the "SEPA Core Direct Debit Scheme Rulebook", and "SEPA Direct Debit Core Scheme Customer-to-Bank Implementation Guidelines". This format is also compliant with SEPA Core Direct Debit version 6. EU Regulation #260/2012 established the technical and business requirements for both instruments in euro. The regulation is referred to as the "SEPA end-date regulation", and also defines the deadlines for the migration to the new SEPA instruments: Euro Member States: February 1, 2014 Non-Euro Member States: October 31, 2016. Oracle and SEPA Within the Oracle E-Business Suite of applications, Oracle Payables (AP), Oracle Receivables (AR), and Oracle Payments (IBY) provide SEPA transaction capabilities for the following releases, as noted: Release 11.5.10.x -  AP & AR Release 12.0.x - AP & AR & IBY Release 12.1.x - AP & AR & IBY Release 12.2.x - AP & AR & IBY Resources To assist our customers in migrating, using, and troubleshooting SEPA functionality, a number of resource documents related to SEPA are available on My Oracle Support (MOS), including: R11i: AP: White Paper - SEPA Credit Transfer V5 support in Oracle Payables, Doc ID 1404743.1R11i: AR: White Paper - SEPA Core Direct Debit v5.0 support in Oracle Receivables, Doc ID 1410159.1R12: IBY: White Paper - SEPA Credit Transfer v5 support in Oracle Payments, Doc ID 1404007.1R12: IBY: White Paper - SEPA Core Direct Debit v5 support in Oracle Payments, Doc ID 1420049.1R11i/R12: AP/AR/IBY: Get Help Setting Up, Using, and Troubleshooting SEPA Payments in Oracle, Doc ID 1594441.2R11i/R12: Single European Payments Area (SEPA) - UPDATES, Doc ID 1541718.1R11i/R12: FAQs for Single European Payments Area (SEPA), Doc ID 791226.1

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• The Latest Major Release of AutoVue is Now Available!

  - by Pam Petropoulos

  Click here to read the full press release. To learn more about AutoVue 20.2, check out the What's New in AutoVue 20.2 Datasheet AutoVue 20.2 continues to set the standard for enterprise level visualization with Augmented Business Visualization, a new paradigm which reconciles information and business data from multiple sources into a single view, providing rich and actionable visual decision-making environments. The release also includes; capabilities that enhance end-to-end approval workflow; solutions to visually enable the mobile workforce; and support for the latest manufacturing and high tech formats.     New capabilities in release 20.2 include: ·         Enhancements to the Augmented Business Visualization framework o    Creation of 2D hotspots has been extended in 2D drawings, PDF and image files and can now be defined as regional boxes, rather than just text strings o    New 3D Hotspot links in models and drawings. Parts or components of 3D models can be selected to create hotspot links. ·         Enhanced end-to-end approval workflows with digital stamping and batch stamping improvements ·         Solutions that visually enable the mobile workforce and extend enterprise visualization to mobile devices, including iPads through OVDI (Oracle Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) ·         Enhancements to AutoVue enterprise readiness: reliability and performance improvements, as well as security enhancements which adhere to Oracle’s Software Security Assurance standards ·         Timely support for new MCAD, ECAD, and Office formats ·         New 20.2 versions of AutoVue Document Print Services and Integration SDK (iSDK) ·         New Dutch language availability   The press release also contains terrific supporting quotes from AutoVue customers and partners.        “AutoVue’s stamping enhancements will greatly benefit our building permit management processes,” said Ties Kremer, Information Manager, Noordenveld Municipality, Netherlands. “The ability to batch stamp documents will speed up our approval processes, enable us to save time and money, and help us meet our regulatory compliance obligations.”          “AutoVue provides our non-technical teams in marketing and sales with access to customer order requirements and supporting CAD documents and drawings,” said James Lim, Regional Technical Systems Manager at Molex Incorporated. “AutoVue 20.2 has enabled us to refine our quotation process, and reduce order errors.”         “We are excited about our use of AutoVue’s Augmented Business Visualization framework, which will offer Meridian users enhanced access to related technical documentation,” said Edwin van Dijk, Director of Product Management, BlueCielo.  “By including AutoVue’s new regional hotspot capabilities within BlueCielo Meridian Enterprise, the context of engineering information is carried over into the visual representation of complex assets, thereby helping us to improve productivity and operational excellence.”    

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• Passing data between the VirtualBox Host and the Guest

  - by Fat Bloke

  Here's a good question: "How can you figure out the VM name from within the VM itself?" While this data is not automatically available, the general purpose, and very powerful VirtualBox "GuestProperty" APIs can be used from the host and guest to pass arbitrary data, in key/value pairs format, in and out of the guest. Note that this does require that the VirtualBox Guest Additions have been installed in the guest. To play with this, try using the "VBoxManage" command line on your VirtualBox host machine, and "VBoxControl" in the guest. Host syntax VBoxManage guestproperty get <vmname>|<uuid> <property> [--verbose] VBoxManage guestproperty set <vmname>|<uuid> <property> [<value> [--flags <flags>]] VBoxManage guestproperty enumerate <vmname>|<uuid> [--patterns <patterns>] VBoxManage guestproperty wait <vmname>|<uuid> <patterns> [--timeout <msec>] [--fail-on-timeout]   Guest syntax VBoxControl.exe guestproperty        get <property> [-verbose] VBoxControl.exe guestproperty        set <property> [<value> [-flags <flags>]] VBoxControl.exe guestproperty        enumerate [-patterns <patterns>] VBoxControl.exe guestproperty        wait <patterns>                                      [-timestamp <last timestamp>]                                      [-timeout <timeout in ms>  So to solve our problem above, we set the vm name in the Host system on an arbitrary key like this: $ VBoxManage guestproperty set "Windows 7 (x64)" /MyData/VMname "Windows 7 (x64)" And within the guest we can use: C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox Guest Additions>VBoxControl.exe guestproperty get /MyData/VMname Oracle VM VirtualBox Guest Additions Command Line Management Interface Version 4.1.14 (C) 2008-2012 Oracle Corporation All rights reserved. Value: Windows 7 (x64) The GuestProperty API is pretty powerful, so for the interested, get more info in the User Manual. - FB 

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• Migrating VB6 to HTML5 is not a fiction - Customer success story

  - by Webgui

  All of you VB developers in the present or past would probably find it hard to believe that the old VB code can be migrated and modernized into the latest .NET based HTML5 without having to rewrite the application. But we have been working on such tools for the past couple of years and already have several real world applications that were fully 'transposed' from VB6. The solution is called Instant CloudMove and its main tool is called the TranspositionStudio. It is a unique solution that relies on the concept of transposition. Transposition comes from mathematics and music and refers to exchanging elements while everything else remains the same or moving an element as is from one environment to another. This means that we are taking the source code and put it in a modern technological environment with relatively few adjustments.The concept is based on a set of Mapping Expressions which are basically links between an element in the source environment and one in the target environment that has the same functionality. About 95% of the code is usually mapped out-of-the-box and the rest is handled with easy-to-use mapping tools designed for Visual Studio developers providing them with a familiar environment and concepts for completing the mapping and allowing them to extend and customize existing mapping expressions. The solution is also based on a circular workflow that enables developers to make any changes as required until the result is satisfying.As opposed to existing migration solutions that offer automation are usually a “black box” to the user, the transposition concept enables full visibility, flexibility and control over the code and process at all times allowing to also add/change functionalities or upgrade the UI within the process and tools.This is exactly the case with our customer’s aging VB6 PMS (Property Management System) which needed a technological update as well as a design refresh. The decision was to move the VB6 application which had about 1 million lines of code into the latest web technology. Since the application was initially written 13 years ago and had many upgrades since the code must be very patchy and includes unused sections. As a result, the company Mihshuv Group considered rewriting the entire application in Java since it already had the knowledge. Rewrite would allow starting with a clean slate and designing functionality, database architecture, UI without any constraints. On the other hand, rewrite entitles a long and detailed specification work as well as a thorough QA and this translates into a long project with high risk and costs.So the company looked for a migration solution as an alternative; the research lead to Gizmox and after examining the technology it was decided to perform a hybrid project which would include an automatic transposition of the core of the VB6 application (200,000 lines of code) while they redesigning the UI, adding new functionality, deleting unused code and rewriting about 140 reports with Crystal Reports will be done manually using Visual WebGui development tools.The migration part of the project was completed in 65 days by 3 developers from Mihshuv Group guided by Gizmox migration experts while the rewrite and UI upgrade tasks took about the same. So in only a few months period Mihshuv Group generated an up-to-date product, written in the latest Web technology with modern, friendly UI and improved functionality. Guest selection screen of the original VB6 PMS Guest selection screen on the new web–based PMS Compared to the initial plan to rewrite the entire application in Java, the hybrid migration/rewrite approach taken by Mihshuv Group using Gizmox technology proved as a great decision. In terms of time and cost there were substantial savings; from a project that was priced for at least a year (without taking into account the huge risk and uncertainty) it became a few months project only. More about this and other customer stories can be found here

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• Data breakpoints to find points where data gets broken

  - by raccoon_tim

  When working with a large code base, finding reasons for bizarre bugs can often be like finding a needle in a hay stack. Finding out why an object gets corrupted without no apparent reason can be quite daunting, especially when it seems to happen randomly and totally out of context. Scenario Take the following scenario as an example. You have defined the a class that contains an array of characters that is 256 characters long. You now implement a method for filling this buffer with a string passed as an argument. At this point you mistakenly expect the buffer to be 256 characters long. At some point you notice that you require another character buffer and you add that after the previous one in the class definition. You now figure that you don’t need the 256 characters that the first member can hold and you shorten that to 128 to conserve space. At this point you should start thinking that you also have to modify the method defined above to safeguard against buffer overflow. It so happens, however, that in this not so perfect world this does not cross your mind. Buffer overflow is one of the most frequent sources for errors in a piece of software and often one of the most difficult ones to detect, especially when data is read from an outside source. Many mass copy functions provided by the C run-time provide versions that have boundary checking (defined with the _s suffix) but they can not guard against hard coded buffer lengths that at some point get changed. Finding the bug Getting back to the scenario, you’re now wondering why does the second string get modified with data that makes no sense at all. Luckily, Visual Studio provides you with a tool to help you with finding just these kinds of errors. It’s called data breakpoints. To add a data breakpoint, you first run your application in debug mode or attach to it in the usual way, and then go to Debug, select New Breakpoint and New Data Breakpoint. In the popup that opens, you can type in the memory address and the amount of bytes you wish to monitor. You can also use an expression here, but it’s often difficult to come up with an expression for data in an object allocated on the heap when not in the context of a certain stack frame. There are a couple of things to note about data breakpoints, however. First of all, Visual Studio supports a maximum of four data breakpoints at any given time. Another important thing to notice is that some C run-time functions modify memory in kernel space which does not trigger the data breakpoint. For instance, calling ReadFile on a buffer that is monitored by a data breakpoint will not trigger the breakpoint. The application will now break at the address you specified it to. Often you might immediately spot the issue but the very least this feature can do is point you in the right direction in search for the real reason why the memory gets inadvertently modified. Conclusions Data breakpoints are a great feature, especially when doing a lot of low level operations where multiple locations modify the same data. With the exception of some special cases, like kernel memory modification, you can use it whenever you need to check when memory at a certain location gets changed on purpose or inadvertently.

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• Representing Mauritius in the 2013 Bench Games

  Only by chance I came across an interesting option for professionals and enthusiasts in IT, and quite honestly I can't even remember where I caught attention of Brainbench and their 2013 Bench Games event. But having access to 600+ free exams in a friendly international intellectual competition doesn't happen to be available every day. So, it was actually a no-brainer to sign up and browse through the various categories. Most interestingly, Brainbench is not only IT-related. They offer a vast variety of fields in their Test Center, like Languages and Communication, Office Skills, Management, Aptitude, etc., and it can be a little bit messy about how things are organised. Anyway, while browsing through their test offers I added a couple of exams to 'My Plan' which I would give a shot afterwards. Self-assessments Actually, I took the tests based on two major aspects: 'Fun Factor' and 'How good would I be in general'... Usually, you have to pay for any kind of exams and given this unique chance by Brainbench to simply train this kind of tests was already worth the time. Frankly speaking, the tests are very close to the ones you would be asked to do at Prometric or Pearson Vue, ie. Microsoft exams, etc. Go through a set of multiple choice questions in a given time frame. Most of the tests I did during the Bench Games were based on 40 questions, each with a maximum of 3 minutes to answer. Ergo, one test in maximum 2 hours - that sounds feasible, doesn't it? The Measure of Achievement While the 2013 Bench Games are considered a worldwide friendly competition of knowledge I was really eager to get other Mauritians attracted. Using various social media networks and community activities it all looked quite well at the beginning. Mauritius was listed on rank #19 of Most Certified Citizens and rank #10 of Most Master Level Certified Nation - not bad, not bad... Until... the next update of the Bench Games Leaderboard. The downwards trend seemed to be unstoppable and I couldn't understand why my results didn't show up on the Individual Leader Board. First of all, I passed exams that were not even listed and second, I had better results on some exams listed. After some further information from the organiser it turned out that my test transcript wasn't available to the public. Only then results are considered and counted in the competition. During that time, I actually managed to hold 3 test results on the Individuals... Other participants were merciless, eh, more successful than me, produced better test results than I did. But still I managed to stay on the final score board: An 'exotic' combination of exam, test result, country and person itself Representing Mauritius and the Visual FoxPro community in that fun event. And although I mainly develop in Visual FoxPro 9.0 SP2 and C# using .NET Framework from 2.0 to 4.5 since a couple of years I still managed to pass on Master Level. Hm, actually my Microsoft Certified Programmer (MCP) exams are dated back in June 2004 - more than 9 years ago... Look who got lucky... As described above I did a couple of exams as time allowed and without any preparations, but still I received the following mail notification: "Thank you for recently participating in our Bench Games event.  We wanted to inform you that you obtained a top score on our test(s) during this event, and as a result, will receive a free annual Brainbench subscription.  Your annual subscription will give you access to all our tests just like Bench Games, but for an entire year plus additional benefits!" -- Leader Board Notification from Brainbench Even fun activities get rewarded sometimes. Thanks to @Brainbench_com for the free annual subscription based on my passed 2013 Bench Games Master Level exam. It would be interesting to know about the total figures, especially to see how many citizens of Mauritius took part in this year's Bench Games. Anyway, I'm looking forward to be able to participate in other challenges like this in the future.

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• Making it GREAT! Oracle Partners Building Apps Workshop with UX and ADF in UK

  - by ultan o'broin

  Yes, making is what it's all about. This time, Oracle Partners in the UK were making great looking usable apps with the Oracle Applications Development Framework (ADF) and user experience (UX) toolkit. And what an energy-packed and productive event at the Oracle UK, Thames Valley Park, location it was. Partners learned the fundamentals of enterprise applications UX, why it's important, all about visual design, how to wireframe designs, and then how to build their already-proven designs in ADF. There was a whole day on mobile apps, learning about mobile design principles, free mobile UX and ADF resources from Oracle, and then trying it out. The workshop wrapped up with the latest Release 7 simplified UIs, Mobilytics, and other innovations from Oracle, and a live demo of a very neat ADF Mobile Android app built by an Oracle contractor. And, what a fun two days both Grant Ronald of ADF and myself had in running the workshop with such a great audience, too! I particularly enjoyed the wireframing and visual design sessions interaction; and seeing some outstanding work done by partners. Of note from the UK workshop were innovative design features not seen before and made me all the happier that developers were bringing their own ideas from the consumer IT world of mobility, simplicity, and social to the world of work apps in a smart way within an enterprise methodology too.  Partner wireframe exercise. Applying mobile design principles and UX design patterns means you've already productively making great usable apps! Next, over to Oracle ADF Mobile with it! One simple example from the design of a mobile field service app was that participants immediately saw how the UX and device functionality of the super UK-based app Hailo app could influence their designs (the London cabbie influence maybe?), as well as how we all use maps, cameras, barcode scanners and microphones on our phones could be used in work. And, of course, ADF Mobile has the device integration solutions there too! I wonder will U.S. workshops in Silicon Valley see an Uber UX influence (LOL)! That we also had partners experienced with Oracle Forms who could now offer a roadmap from Forms to Simplified UI and Mobile using ADF, and do it through through the cloud, really made this particular workshop go "ZING!" for me. Many thanks to the Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) team for organizing this event with us, and to the representatives of the Oracle Partners that showed and participated so well. That's what I love out this outreach. It's a two-way, solid value-add for all. Interested? Why would partners and developers with ADF skills sign up for this workshop? Here's why: Learn to use the Oracle Applications User Experience design patterns as the usability building blocks for applications development in Oracle Application Development Framework. The workshop enables attendees to build modern and visually compelling desktop and mobile applications that look and behave like Oracle Cloud Applications, and that can co-exist with partner integrations, new, or existing applications deployments. Partners learn to offer customers and clients more than just coded functionality; instead they can provide a complete user experience with a roadmap for continued ROI from applications that also creating more business and attracts the kudos and respect from other makers of apps as they're wowed by the results. So, if you're a partner and interested in attending one of these workshops and benefitting from such learning, as well as having a platform to show off some of your own work, stay well tuned to your OPN channels, to this blog, to the VoX blog, and to the @usableapps Twitter account too. Can't wait? For developers and partners, some key mobile resources to explore now Oracle ADF Mobile UX Patterns and Components Wiki Oracle ADF Academy (Mobile) Oracle ADF Insider Essentials Oracle Applications Mobile User Experience Design Patterns and Guidance

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• Getting Started with Cloud Computing

  - by juanlarios

  You’ve likely heard about how Office 365 and Windows Intune are great applications to get you started with Cloud Computing. Many of you emailed me asking for more info on what Cloud Computing is, including the distinction between "Public Cloud" and "Private Cloud". I want to address these questions and help you get started. Let's begin with a brief set of definitions and some places to find more info; however, an excellent place where you can always learn more about Cloud Computing is the Microsoft Virtual Academy. Public Cloud computing means that the infrastructure to run and manage the applications users are taking advantage of is run by someone else and not you. In other words, you do not buy the hardware or software to run your email or other services being used in your organization – that is done by someone else. Users simply connect to these services from their computers and you pay a monthly subscription fee for each user that is taking advantage of the service. Examples of Public Cloud services include Office 365, Windows Intune, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, Hotmail, and others. Private Cloud computing generally means that the hardware and software to run services used by your organization is run on your premises, with the ability for business groups to self-provision the services they need based on rules established by the IT department. Generally, Private Cloud implementations today are found in larger organizations but they are also viable for small and medium-sized businesses since they generally allow an automation of services and reduction in IT workloads when properly implemented. Having the right management tools, like System Center 2012, to implement and operate Private Cloud is important in order to be successful. So – how do you get started? The first step is to determine what makes the most sense to your organization. The nice thing is that you do not need to pick Public or Private Cloud – you can use elements of both where it makes sense for your business – the choice is yours. When you are ready to try and purchase Public Cloud technologies, the Microsoft Volume Licensing web site is a good place to find links to each of the online services. In particular, if you are interested in a trial for each service, you can visit the following pages: Office 365, CRM Online, Windows Intune, and Windows Azure. For Private Cloud technologies, start with some of the courses on Microsoft Virtual Academy and then download and install the Microsoft Private Cloud technologies including Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and System Center 2012 in your own environment and take it for a spin. Also, keep up to date with the Canadian IT Pro blog to learn about events Microsoft is delivering such as the IT Virtualization Boot Camps and more to get you started with these technologies hands on. Finally, I want to ask for your help to allow the team at Microsoft to continue to provide you what you need. Twice a year through something we call "The Global Relationship Study" – they reach out and contact you to see how they're doing and what Microsoft could do better. If you get an email from "Microsoft Feedback" with the subject line "Help Microsoft Focus on Customers and Partners" between March 5th and April 13th, please take a little time to tell them what you think. Cloud Computing Resources: Microsoft Server and Cloud Computing site – information on Microsoft's overall cloud strategy and products. Microsoft Virtual Academy – for free online training to help improve your IT skillset. Office 365 Trial/Info page – get more information or try it out for yourself. Office 365 Videos – see how businesses like yours have used Office 365 to transition to the cloud. Windows Intune Trial/Info – get more information or try it out for yourself. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online page – information on trying and licensing Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. Additional Resources You May Find Useful: Springboard Series Your destination for technical resources, free tools and expert guidance to ease the deployment and management of your Windows-based client infrastructure. TechNet Evaluation Center Try some of our latest Microsoft products for free, Like System Center 2012 Pre-Release Products, and evaluate them before you buy. AlignIT Manager Tech Talk Series A monthly streamed video series with a range of topics for both infrastructure and development managers. Ask questions and participate real-time or watch the on-demand recording. Tech·Days Online Discover what's next in technology and innovation with Tech·Days session recordings, hands-on labs and Tech·Days TV.

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• Broken Views

  - by Ajarn Mark Caldwell

  “SELECT *” isn’t just hazardous to performance, it can actually return blatantly wrong information. There are a number of blog posts and articles out there that actively discourage the use of the SELECT * FROM …syntax.  The two most common explanations that I have seen are: Performance:  The SELECT * syntax will return every column in the table, but frequently you really only need a few of the columns, and so by using SELECT * your are retrieving large volumes of data that you don’t need, but the system has to process, marshal across tiers, and so on.  It would be much more efficient to only select the specific columns that you need. Future-proof:  If you are taking other shortcuts in your code, along with using SELECT *, you are setting yourself up for trouble down the road when enhancements are made to the system.  For example, if you use SELECT * to return results from a table into a DataTable in .NET, and then reference columns positionally (e.g. myDataRow[5]) you could end up with bad data if someone happens to add a column into position 3 and skewing all the remaining columns’ ordinal position.  Or if you use INSERT…SELECT * then you will likely run into errors when a new column is added to the source table in any position. And if you use SELECT * in the definition of a view, you will run into a variation of the future-proof problem mentioned above.  One of the guys on my team, Mike Byther, ran across this in a project we were doing, but fortunately he caught it while we were still in development.  I asked him to put together a test to prove that this was related to the use of SELECT * and not some other anomaly.  I’ll walk you through the test script so you can see for yourself what happens. We are going to create a table and two views that are based on that table, one of them uses SELECT * and the other explicitly lists the column names.  The script to create these objects is listed below. IF OBJECT_ID('testtab') IS NOT NULL DROP TABLE testtabgoIF OBJECT_ID('testtab_vw') IS NOT NULL DROP VIEW testtab_vwgo IF OBJECT_ID('testtab_vw_named') IS NOT NULL DROP VIEW testtab_vw_namedgo CREATE TABLE testtab (col1 NVARCHAR(5) null, col2 NVARCHAR(5) null)INSERT INTO testtab(col1, col2)VALUES ('A','B'), ('A','B')GOCREATE VIEW testtab_vw AS SELECT * FROM testtabGOCREATE VIEW testtab_vw_named AS SELECT col1, col2 FROM testtabgo Now, to prove that the two views currently return equivalent results, select from them. SELECT 'star', col1, col2 FROM testtab_vwSELECT 'named', col1, col2 FROM testtab_vw_named OK, so far, so good.  Now, what happens if someone makes a change to the definition of the underlying table, and that change results in a new column being inserted between the two existing columns?  (Side note, I normally prefer to append new columns to the end of the table definition, but some people like to keep their columns alphabetized, and for clarity for later people reviewing the schema, it may make sense to group certain columns together.  Whatever the reason, it sometimes happens, and you need to protect yourself and your code from the repercussions.) DROP TABLE testtabgoCREATE TABLE testtab (col1 NVARCHAR(5) null, col3 NVARCHAR(5) NULL, col2 NVARCHAR(5) null)INSERT INTO testtab(col1, col3, col2)VALUES ('A','C','B'), ('A','C','B')goSELECT 'star', col1, col2 FROM testtab_vwSELECT 'named', col1, col2 FROM testtab_vw_named I would have expected that the view using SELECT * in its definition would essentially pass-through the column name and still retrieve the correct data, but that is not what happens.  When you run our two select statements again, you see that the View that is based on SELECT * actually retrieves the data based on the ordinal position of the columns at the time that the view was created.  Sure, one work-around is to recreate the View, but you can’t really count on other developers to know the dependencies you have built-in, and they won’t necessarily recreate the view when they refactor the table. I am sure that there are reasons and justifications for why Views behave this way, but I find it particularly disturbing that you can have code asking for col2, but actually be receiving data from col3.  By the way, for the record, this entire scenario and accompanying test script apply to SQL Server 2008 R2 with Service Pack 1. So, let the developer beware…know what assumptions are in effect around your code, and keep on discouraging people from using SELECT * syntax in anything but the simplest of ad-hoc queries. And of course, let’s clean up after ourselves.  To eliminate the database objects created during this test, run the following commands. DROP TABLE testtabDROP VIEW testtab_vwDROP VIEW testtab_vw_named

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• SQL Saturday 27 (Portland, Oregon)

  - by BuckWoody

  I’m sitting in the Seattle airport, waiting for my flight to Silicon Valley California for the SQL Server 2008 R2 Launch Event. By some quirk of nature, they are asking me to Emcee the event – but that’s another post entirely.   I’m reflecting on the SQL Saturday 27 event that was just held in Portland, Oregon this last Saturday. These are not Microsoft-sponsored events – it’s truly the community at work. Think of a big user-group meeting – I mean REALLY big – held in a central location, like at a college (as ours was) or some larger, inexpensive venue like that. Everyone there is volunteering – it’s my own money and time to drive several hours to a hotel for the night, feed myself and present. It’s their own time and money for the folks that organize the event – unless a vendor or two steps in to help. It’s their own time and money for the attendees to drive a long way, spend the night and their Saturday to listen to the speakers. Why do all this?   Because everybody benefits. Every speaker learns something new, meets new people, and reaches a new audience. Every volunteer does the same. And the attendees? Well, it’s pretty obvious what they get. A 7Am to 10PM extravaganza of knowledge from every corner of the product. In fact, this year the Portland group hooked up with the CodeCamp folks and held a combined event. We had over 850 people, and I had everyone from data professionals to developers in my sessions.   So I’ll take this opportunity to do two things: to say “thank you” to all of the folks who attended, from those who spoke to those who worked and those who came to listen, and to challenge you to attend the next SQL Saturday anywhere near you. You can find the list here: http://www.sqlsaturday.com/. Don’t see anything in your area? Start one! The PASS folks have a package that will show you how. Sure, it’s a big job, but the key is to get as many people helping you as possible. Even if you have only a few dozen folks show up the first time, no worries. The first events I presented at had about 20 in the room. But not this week.   See you at the Launch Event if you’re near the San Francisco area tomorrow, and see you at the Redmond SQL Saturday and TechEd if not.   Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• With a little effort you can &ldquo;SEMI&rdquo;-protect your C# assemblies with obfuscation.

  - by mbcrump

  This method will not protect your assemblies from a experienced hacker. Everyday we see new keygens, cracks, serials being released that contain ways around copy protection from small companies. This is a simple process that will make a lot of hackers quit because so many others use nothing. If you were a thief would you pick the house that has security signs and an alarm or one that has nothing? To so begin: Obfuscation is the concealment of meaning in communication, making it confusing and harder to interpret. Lets begin by looking at the cartoon below:     You are probably familiar with the term and probably ignored this like most programmers ignore user security. Today, I’m going to show you reflection and a way to obfuscate it. Please understand that I am aware of ways around this, but I believe some security is better than no security.  In this sample program below, the code appears exactly as it does in Visual Studio. When the program runs, you get either a true or false in a console window. Sample Program. using System; using System.Diagnostics; using System.Linq;   namespace ObfuscateMe {     class Program     {                static void Main(string[] args)         {               Console.WriteLine(IsProcessOpen("notepad")); //Returns a True or False depending if you have notepad running.             Console.ReadLine();         }             public static bool IsProcessOpen(string name)         {             return Process.GetProcesses().Any(clsProcess => clsProcess.ProcessName.Contains(name));         }     } }   Pretend, that this is a commercial application. The hacker will only have the executable and maybe a few config files, etc. After reviewing the executable, he can determine if it was produced in .NET by examing the file in ILDASM or Redgate’s Reflector. We are going to examine the file using RedGate’s Reflector. Upon launch, we simply drag/drop the exe over to the application. We have the following for the Main method:   and for the IsProcessOpen method:     Without any other knowledge as to how this works, the hacker could export the exe and get vs project build or copy this code in and our application would run. Using Reflector output. using System; using System.Diagnostics; using System.Linq;   namespace ObfuscateMe {     class Program     {                static void Main(string[] args)         {               Console.WriteLine(IsProcessOpen("notepad"));             Console.ReadLine();         }             public static bool IsProcessOpen(string name)         {             return Process.GetProcesses().Any<Process>(delegate(Process clsProcess)             {                 return clsProcess.ProcessName.Contains(name);             });         }       } } The code is not identical, but returns the same value. At this point, with a little bit of effort you could prevent the hacker from reverse engineering your code so quickly by using Eazfuscator.NET. Eazfuscator.NET is just one of many programs built for this. Visual Studio ships with a community version of Dotfoscutor. So download and load Eazfuscator.NET and drag/drop your exectuable/project into the window. It will work for a few minutes depending if you have a quad-core or not. After it finishes, open the executable in RedGate Reflector and you will get the following: Main After Obfuscation IsProcessOpen Method after obfuscation: As you can see with the jumbled characters, it is not as easy as the first example. I am aware of methods around this, but it takes more effort and unless the hacker is up for the challenge, they will just pick another program. This is also helpful if you are a consultant and make clients pay a yearly license fee. This would prevent the average software developer from jumping into your security routine after you have left. I hope this article helped someone. If you have any feedback, please leave it in the comments below.

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• Setting up your project

  - by ssoolsma

  Before any coding we first make sure that the project is setup correctly. (Please note, that this blog is all about how I do it, and incase i forget, i can return here and read how i used to do it. Maybe you come up with some idea’s for yourself too.) In these series we will create a minigolf scoring cart. Please note that we eventually create a fully functional application which you cannot use unless you pay me alot of money! (And i mean alot!)   1. Download and install the appropriate tools. Download the following: - TestDriven.Net (free version on the bottom of the download page) - nUnit TestDriven is a visual studio plugin for many unittest frameworks, which allows you to run  / test code very easily with a right click –> run test. nUnit is the test framework of choice, it works seamless with TestDriven.   2. Create your project Fire up visual studio and create your DataAccess project:  MidgetWidget.DataAccess is it’s name. (I choose MidgetWidget as name for the solution). Also, make sure that the MidgetWidget.DataAccess project is a c# ClassLibary Hit OK to create the solution. (in the above example the checkbox Create directory for solution is checked, because i’m pointing the location to the root of c:\development where i want MidgetWidget to be created.   3. Setup the database. You should have thought about a database when you reach this point. Let’s assume that you’ve created a database as followed: Table name: LoginKey Fields: Id (PK), KeyName (uniqueidentifier), StartDate (datetime), EndDate (datetime) Table name:  Party Fields: Id (PK), Key (uniqueidentifier, Created (datetime) Table name:  Person Fields: Id(PK),  PartyId (int), Name (varchar) Tablename: Score Fields: Id (PK), Trackid (int), PersonId (int), Strokes (int) Tablename: Track Fields: Id (PK), Name (varchar) A few things to take note about the database setup. I’ve singularized all tablenames (not “Persons“ but “Person”. This is because in a few minutes, when this is in our code, we refer to the database objects as single rows. We retrieve a single Person not a single “Persons” from the database.   4. Create the entity framework In your solution tree create a new folder and call it “DataModel”. Inside this folder: Add new item –> and choose ADO.NET Entity Data Model. Name it “Entities.edmx” and hit  “Add”. Once the edmx is added, open it (double click) and right click the white area and choose “Update model from database…". Now, point it to your database (i include sensitive data in the connectionstring) and select all the tables. After that hit “Finish” and let the entity framework do it’s code generation. Et Voila, after a few seconds you have set up your entity model. Next post we will start building the data-access! I’m off to the beach.

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• Why is the framerate (fps) capped at 60?

  - by dennmat

  ISSUE I recently moved a project from my laptop to my desktop(machine info below). On my laptop the exact same code displays the fps(and ms/f) correctly. On my desktop it does not. What I mean by this is on the laptop it will display 300 fps(for example) where on my desktop it will show only up to 60. If I add 100 objects to the game on the laptop I'll see my frame rate drop accordingly; the same test on the desktop results in no change and the frames stay at 60. It takes a lot(~300) entities before I'll see a frame drop on the desktop, then it will descend. It seems as though its "theoretical" frames would be 400 or 500 but will never actually get to that and only do 60 until there's too much to handle at 60. This 60 frame cap is coming from no where. I'm not doing any frame limiting myself. It seems like something external is limiting my loop iterations on the desktop, but for the last couple days I've been scratching my head trying to figure out how to debug this. SETUPS Desktop: Visual Studio Express 2012 Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit Laptop: Visual Studio Express 2010 Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit The libraries(allegro, box2d) are the same versions on both setups. CODE Main Loop: while(!abort) { frameTime = al_get_time(); if (frameTime - lastTime >= 1.0) { lastFps = fps/(frameTime - lastTime); lastTime = frameTime; avgMspf = cumMspf/fps; cumMspf = 0.0; fps = 0; } /** DRAWING/UPDATE CODE **/ fps++; cumMspf += al_get_time() - frameTime; } Note: There is no blocking code in the loop at any point. Where I'm at My understanding of al_get_time() is that it can return different resolutions depending on the system. However the resolution is never worse than seconds, and the double is represented as [seconds].[finer-resolution] and seeing as I'm only checking for a whole second al_get_time() shouldn't be responsible. My project settings and compiler options are the same. And I promise its the same code on both machines. My googling really didn't help me much, and although technically it's not that big of a deal. I'd really like to figure this out or perhaps have it explained, whichever comes first. Even just an idea of how to go about figuring out possible causes, because I'm out of ideas. Any help at all is greatly appreciated. EDIT: Thanks All. For any others that find this to disable vSync(windows only) in opengl: First get "wglext.h". It's all over the web. Then you can use a tool like GLee or just write your own quick extensions manager like: bool WGLExtensionSupported(const char *extension_name) { PFNWGLGETEXTENSIONSSTRINGEXTPROC _wglGetExtensionsStringEXT = NULL; _wglGetExtensionsStringEXT = (PFNWGLGETEXTENSIONSSTRINGEXTPROC) wglGetProcAddress("wglGetExtensionsStringEXT"); if (strstr(_wglGetExtensionsStringEXT(), extension_name) == NULL) { return false; } return true; } and then create and setup your function pointers: PFNWGLSWAPINTERVALEXTPROC wglSwapIntervalEXT = NULL; PFNWGLGETSWAPINTERVALEXTPROC wglGetSwapIntervalEXT = NULL; if (WGLExtensionSupported("WGL_EXT_swap_control")) { // Extension is supported, init pointers. wglSwapIntervalEXT = (PFNWGLSWAPINTERVALEXTPROC) wglGetProcAddress("wglSwapIntervalEXT"); // this is another function from WGL_EXT_swap_control extension wglGetSwapIntervalEXT = (PFNWGLGETSWAPINTERVALEXTPROC) wglGetProcAddress("wglGetSwapIntervalEXT"); } Then just call wglSwapIntervalEXT(0) to disable vSync and 1 to enable vSync. I found the reason this is windows only is that openGl actually doesn't deal with anything other than rendering it leaves the rest up to the OS and Hardware. Thanks everyone saved me a lot of time!

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• Searching for context in Silverlight applications

  - by PeterTweed

  A common behavior in business applications that have developed through the ages is for a user to be able to get information or execute commands in relation to some information/function displayed by right clicking the object in question and popping up a context menu that offers relevant options to choose. The Silverlight Toolkit April 2010 release introduced the context menu object.  This can be added to other UI objects and display options for the user to choose.  The menu items can be enabled or disabled as per your application logic and icons can be added to the menu items to add visual effect.  This post will walk you through how to use the context menu object from the Silverlight Toolkit. Steps: 1. Create a new Silverlight 4 application 2. Copy the following namespace definition to the user control object of the MainPage.xaml file: xmlns:my="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Input.Toolkit"   3. Copy the following XAML into the LayoutRoot grid in MainPage.xaml:          <Border CornerRadius="15" Background="Blue" Width="400" Height="100">             <TextBlock Foreground="White" FontSize="20" Text="Context Menu In This Border...." HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Center" >             </TextBlock>             <my:ContextMenuService.ContextMenu>                 <my:ContextMenu >                     <my:MenuItem                 Header="Copy"                 Click="CopyMenuItem_Click" Name="copyMenuItem">                         <my:MenuItem.Icon>                             <Image Source="copy-icon-small.png"/>                         </my:MenuItem.Icon>                     </my:MenuItem>                     <my:Separator/>                     <my:MenuItem Name="pasteMenuItem"                 Header="Paste"                 Click="PasteMenuItem_Click">                         <my:MenuItem.Icon>                             <Image Source="paste-icon-small.png"/>                         </my:MenuItem.Icon>                     </my:MenuItem>                 </my:ContextMenu>             </my:ContextMenuService.ContextMenu>         </Border>   The above code associates a context menu with two menu items and a separator between them to the border object.  The menu items has icons associated with them to add visual appeal.  The menu items have click event handlers that will be added in the MainPage.xaml.cs code behind in a later step. 4. Add two icon sized images to the ClientBin directory of the web project hosting the Silverlight application, named copy-icon-small.png and paste-icon-small.jpg respectively.  I used copy and paste icons as the names suggest. 5. Add the following code to the class in MainPage.xaml.cs file:         private void CopyMenuItem_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)         {             MessageBox.Show("Copy selected");         }           private void PasteMenuItem_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)         {             MessageBox.Show("Paste selected");         }   This code adds the event handlers for the menu items defined in step 3. 6. Run the application, right click on the border and select a menu option and see the appropriate message box displayed. Congratulations it’s that easy!   Take the Slalom Challenge at www.slalomchallenge.com!

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• Best way to process a queue in C# (PDF treatment)

  - by Bartdude

  First of all let me expose what I would like to do : I already dispose of a long-time running webapp developed in ASP.NET (C#) 2.0. In this app, users can upload standard PDF files (text+pics). The app is running in production on a Windows Server 2003 and has a dedicated database server (SQL server 2008) also running Windows Server 2003. I myself am a quite experienced web developer, but never actually programmed anything non-web (or at least nothing serious). I plan on adding a functionality to the webapp for which I would need a jpg snapshot of each page of the PDF. Creating these "thumbnails" isn't the big deal as such, I already do it inside my webapp using ghostscript. I've only done it on 1 page documents for now though, and the new functionality will need to process bigger documents. In order for this process to be transparent aswell for the admins as the final users, I would like to implement some kind of queue to delay the processing of the thumbnails. There again, no problem to create the queue, it will consist of records in a table, with enough info to find the pdf document back. Then I will need to process this queue, and that's were my interrogations start. Obviously the best solution to process it isn't an ASP script or so, so I will have to get out of my known environment. No problem, but I have no idea which direction to go. Therefore, a few questions : What should I develop ? I presumably need something that is "standby" on the server, runs when needed, then returns to idle state until further notice.Should I be looking into Windows service ? Is there another more appropriate type of project ? Depending on the first answer, what will be the approach ? Should I have somehow SQL server "tell" the program/service/... to process the queue, or should I have that program/service/... periodically check the state of the queue and treat new items. In both case, which functionality can I use ? we're not talking about hundreds of PDF a day (max 50 maybe), I can totally afford to treat the queue 1 item at a time. Can you confirm I don't have to look much further on threads and so ? (I found a lot of answers talking about threads in queue treatment, but it looks quite overkill for my needs) Maybe linked to the previous question : what about concurrent call to the program, whatever it is ? Let's suppose it is currently running, and a new record comes in the queue, what should be the behaviour ? I don't need much detailed answers and would already be happy with answers like "You can do the processing with a service, and yes it's possible to have sqlserver on machine A trigger a service start on machine B" or "You have to develop xxx and then use the scheduler to run it every xxx minutes". I don't mind reading articles and so, but I can hardly afford to spend too much time learning stuff to finally realize I went the wrong way for this project, so basically I'm trying to narrow down the scope of matters I need to investigate. Thanks for reading me, I hope I'll find some helping hands on here :-)

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• Oracle 11g R2 1???????~?????????????

  - by Yusuke.Yamamoto

  ??2010?11?17???Oracle Database 11g Release2(R2) ???????1???? ????Oracle Database 11g R2 ?????????????????????????? ???98?????????1????????? ???????98?????????????????·?????·??????????! ???? 2010/11/17:????? 2011/01/07:???????(??) ?? Oracle Database 11g R2 ??????? Oracle Database 11g ?????????(????) ??????? Oracle Database 11g R2(???/????) Oracle Database 11g R2 ??????? ?? ??? 2009?11?11? Oracle Exadata Database Machine Version 2 ???? 2009?11?17? Oracle Database 11g R2 ???? 2010?02?01? ?????????????????????????????? 2010?03?31? SAP ? Oracle Database 11g R2 ??????????ISV????????·??????????? 2010?05?18? Windows Server 2008 R2 / Windows 7 ?????????Oracle Database 10g R2 ??? 2010?06?23? Oracle Application Express 4.0 ????(??) 2010?07?09? IDC Japan:2009???? Windows RDBMS ?????????????? 2010?08?17? TPC-C Benchmark Price/Performance ????????(??) 2010?09?13? Patch Set 11.2.0.2 for Linux ????(??) 2010?10?20? Oracle Exadata Database Machine X2 ???? 2010?11?17? Oracle Database 11g R2 ????1?? Oracle Database 11g ?????????(????) ????????????????????????????????(????)? ???? ????? ????(???) ?????·???????·??? ????? ??????????? ???? ??? ????????(???) ?????? Oracle Exadata Database Machine ????? Oracle Database 11g ??(????)? ???? ?????·???????·??? ?? ????????? ?????????? ???? ?????? ????(????·????????) ??????????? ???????????? ????? ???? Customer Voice ????:????IT?????24??365????????????????????? ?Oracle9i Database ?????????????????????Oracle Database 11g ???????????????????????? Oracle9i Database ???????????????? Customer Voice ??????:Oracle Database 11g????????????????????? ?Oracle ASM ???????????????????I/O????????????????????????????????????? ??????? Oracle Database 11g R2(???/????) ???????????????? Oracle 11g R2 ????????? - IT Leaders ??????????11g R2?5???? - ??SE????Oracle??? - Think IT ??????????? Oracle Database 11g Release 2(11gR2) ???????|???????????

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• Managed c++ std::string not accessible in unmanaged c++

  - by Radhesham

  In unmanaged c++ dll i have a function which takes constant std::string as argument Prototype : void read ( const std::string &amp;imageSpec_ ) I call this function from managed c++ dll by passing a std::string. When i debug the unmanaged c++ code the parameter imageSpec_ shows the value correctly but does not allow me to copy that value in other variable. imageSpec_.copy( sFilename, 4052 ); It shows length of imageSpec_ as 0(zero). If i try copying like std::string sTempFileName(imageSpec_); this statement string new string is a empty string. But for std::string sTempFileName(imageSpec_.c_str()); this statement string gets copied correctly. i.e. with charpointer string is copied correctly. Copying this way will need a major change in unmanaged c++ code. I am building unmanaged code in Visual studio 6.0 and managed c++ in Visual studio 2008. Is there any specific setting or code change in managed c++ that will solve the issue?

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• SSL authentication error: RemoteCertificateChainErrors on ASP.NET on Ubuntu

  - by Frank Krueger

  I am trying to access Gmail's SMTP service from an ASP.NET MVC site running under Mono 2.4.2.3. But I keep getting this error: System.InvalidOperationException: SSL authentication error: RemoteCertificateChainErrors at System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient.m__3 (System.Object sender, System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Certificate certificate, System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Chain chain, SslPolicyErrors sslPolicyErrors) [0x00000] at System.Net.Security.SslStream+c__AnonStorey9.m__9 (System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Certificate cert, System.Int32[] certErrors) [0x00000] at Mono.Security.Protocol.Tls.SslClientStream.OnRemoteCertificateValidation (System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Certificate certificate, System.Int32[] errors) [0x00000] at Mono.Security.Protocol.Tls.SslStreamBase.RaiseRemoteCertificateValidation (System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Certificate certificate, System.Int32[] errors) [0x00000] at Mono.Security.Protocol.Tls.SslClientStream.RaiseServerCertificateValidation (System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Certificate certificate, System.Int32[] certificateErrors) [0x00000] at Mono.Security.Protocol.Tls.Handshake.Client.TlsServerCertificate.validateCertificates (Mono.Security.X509.X509CertificateCollection certificates) [0x00000] at Mono.Security.Protocol.Tls.Handshake.Client.TlsServerCertificate.ProcessAsTls1 () [0x00000] at Mono.Security.Protocol.Tls.Handshake.HandshakeMessage.Process () [0x00000] at (wrapper remoting-invoke-with-check) Mono.Security.Protocol.Tls.Handshake.HandshakeMessage:Process () at Mono.Security.Protocol.Tls.ClientRecordProtocol.ProcessHandshakeMessage (Mono.Security.Protocol.Tls.TlsStream handMsg) [0x00000] at Mono.Security.Protocol.Tls.RecordProtocol.InternalReceiveRecordCallback (IAsyncResult asyncResult) [0x00000] I have installed certificates using: certmgr -ssl -m smtps://smtp.gmail.com:465 with this output: Mono Certificate Manager - version 2.4.2.3 Manage X.509 certificates and CRL from stores. Copyright 2002, 2003 Motus Technologies. Copyright 2004-2008 Novell. BSD licensed. X.509 Certificate v3 Issued from: C=US, O=Equifax, OU=Equifax Secure Certificate Authority Issued to: C=US, O=Google Inc, CN=Google Internet Authority Valid from: 06/08/2009 20:43:27 Valid until: 06/07/2013 19:43:27 *** WARNING: Certificate signature is INVALID *** Import this certificate into the CA store ?yes X.509 Certificate v3 Issued from: C=US, O=Google Inc, CN=Google Internet Authority Issued to: C=US, S=California, L=Mountain View, O=Google Inc, CN=smtp.gmail.com Valid from: 04/22/2010 20:02:45 Valid until: 04/22/2011 20:12:45 Import this certificate into the AddressBook store ?yes 2 certificates added to the stores. In fact, this worked for a month but mysteriously stopped working on May 5. I installed these new certs today, but I am still getting these errors.

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• Could not load file or assembly FSharp.Core, Version=4.0.0.0

  - by Ken

  I'm trying to deploy a web application which uses F# 4.0 on Windows Server 2008. It works on my computer where VS2010 is installed but it doesn't work on the server. Everytime you open the page you'll get this error message: Could not load file or assembly 'FSharp.Core, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified. I've installed .NET 4 using the web platform installer. F# PowerPack is installed too. I found this page: http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/507202/error-in-working-with-f It suggests you to reinstall F#, but the link to download F# seems to be broken. And it might not be the same problem I have. I've also tried to install Microsoft F# 2.0.0.0 since it's the only F# redistribution I could find. But it doesn't help at all. Has anyone get something like this to work? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

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• Cannot import the following keyfile: blah.pfx. The keyfile may be password protected.

  - by JasonD

  We just upgraded our Visual Studio 2008 projects to VS2010. All of our assemblies were strong signed using a Verisign code signing certificate. Since the upgrade we continuously get the following error: Cannot import the following key file: companyname.pfx. The key file may be password protected. To correct this, try to import the certificate again or manually install the certificate to the Strong Name CSP with the following key container name: VS_KEY_3E185446540E7F7A This happens on some developer machines and not others. Some methods used to fix this that worked some of the time include: re-installing the key file from Windows Explorer (right click on the PFX file and click Install) installing VS2010 on a fresh machine for the first time prompts you for the password the first time you open the project, and then it works. On machines upgraded from VS2008, you don't get this option. I've tried using the SN.EXE utility to register the key with the Strong Name CSP as the error message suggests, but whenever I run the tool with any options using the version that came with VS2010, SN.EXE just lists its command line arguments instead of doing anything. This happens regardless of what arguments I supply. Does anyone know WHY this is happening, and have clear steps to fix it? I'm about to give up on Click Once installs and Microsoft Code Signing. Thanks for any help!

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