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• Como Exportar Crystal Reports a Excel, Word, Rich Text, PDF ó HTML

  - by jaullo

  Cuando trabajamos con reportes siempre requerimos la funcionalidad de exportación. En crystal reports para asp.net, realizar esta tarea es sumamente sencillo. Sin embargo la pregunta más grande que salta siempre, es como realizarlo utilizando código Behind. Para poder acceder a las librerias de crystal y sus componentes, primero debemos importar los espacios de nombres: Normal 0 21 false false false ES X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tabla normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Imports CrystalDecisions.CrystalReports.Engine Imports CrystalDecisions.Shared  CrystalDecisions.CrystalReports.Engine, nos servirá para poder manejar nuestro reportDocument y CrystalDecisions.Shared, será el medio que utilicemos para la exportación. Así que, veamos como podemos exportar nuestro informe sin tener que enviarlo a la impresora, recordemos que por defecto crystal reports ya tiene la opcion de exportar a PDF sin embargo debemos hacerlo tal como si fueramos a imprimir y que es lo que evitaremos acá. Colocamos un botón en nuestra pagina asp Normal 0 21 false false false ES X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tabla normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} <asp:Button ID="btntopdf" runat="server" Text="Exportar a PDF" /> Y en nuestro boton deberemos ejecutar la siguiente rutina: Normal 0 21 false false false ES X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tabla normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Protected Sub btntodpf_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btntopdf.Click          'Cargar reporte. Enlazando a la fuente de datos.        LoadReporte()          'Mas adelante veremos que estas lineas las podemos obviar        Response.Buffer = False        Response.Clear()  'ClearContent, ClearHeaders          reporteDoc.ExportToHttpResponse(ExportFormatType.PortableDocFormat, Response, True, "NombreArchivo")       End Sub LoadReport, es el encargado de llenar nuestro crystal con la fuente de datos. Está fue la primer forma de exporta nuestro crystal reports, pero no es la única, así que vamos a ver otra forma en la cual utilizaremos el metodo v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false 21 false false false ES X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tabla normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} ExportToHttpResponse  Para este metodo, nuestro código en el botón cambia relativamente, pero antes de ello, daremos un repaso a los metodos utilizados. Nuestro primer parametro FormatType es un valor de tipo ExportFormatType, que puede corresponder a cualquiera de los metodos que enumeramos a continuación: CrystalReport: El formato al cual se exporta es de Tipo CrystalReport. Excel: El formato al cual se exporta es de tipo Excel ExcelRecord: El formato al cual se exporta es de Tipo Excel Record. NoFormat: No se ha especificado un formato de exportación. PortableDocFormat: El formato al cual se exporta es de Tipo PDF.  No voy a enumerar todos, pues me imagino que ya sabrán la idea de cada uno de los formatos, los numerados arriba son los mas importantes. Nuestro segundo parametro el objeto response nos permite adozar el archivo. Y por último, nuestro tercer parametro, definirá si debe ir como un objeto adjunto o no. Si lo colocamos en TRUE, estaremos enviando nuestro archivo como parametro, esto hará que no necesitemos las siguientes líneas de código: Normal 0 21 false false false ES X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tabla normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Response.Buffer = False Response.Clear()   Con esto realizado, ya contamos con la posibilidad de enviar el archivo directamente al cliente.   Ahora si, veamos cuanto se ha reducido nuestro código: Unicamente nos quedan dos líneas de código en nuestro botón Normal 0 21 false false false ES X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tabla normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}        'Cargar reporte. Enlazando a la fuente de datos.        LoadReport()          reporteDoc.ExportToHttpResponse(ExportFormatType.PortableDocFormat, Response, True, "NombreArchivo")   Para finalizar, nada mas decir que espero esto les sea de ayuda y por supuesto,  que les facilite la vida con el uso de crystal reports.

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• Parallelism in .NET – Part 2, Simple Imperative Data Parallelism

  - by Reed

  In my discussion of Decomposition of the problem space, I mentioned that Data Decomposition is often the simplest abstraction to use when trying to parallelize a routine.  If a problem can be decomposed based off the data, we will often want to use what MSDN refers to as Data Parallelism as our strategy for implementing our routine.  The Task Parallel Library in .NET 4 makes implementing Data Parallelism, for most cases, very simple. Data Parallelism is the main technique we use to parallelize a routine which can be decomposed based off data.  Data Parallelism refers to taking a single collection of data, and having a single operation be performed concurrently on elements in the collection.  One side note here: Data Parallelism is also sometimes referred to as the Loop Parallelism Pattern or Loop-level Parallelism.  In general, for this series, I will try to use the terminology used in the MSDN Documentation for the Task Parallel Library.  This should make it easier to investigate these topics in more detail. Once we’ve determined we have a problem that, potentially, can be decomposed based on data, implementation using Data Parallelism in the TPL is quite simple.  Let’s take our example from the Data Decomposition discussion – a simple contrast stretching filter.  Here, we have a collection of data (pixels), and we need to run a simple operation on each element of the pixel.  Once we know the minimum and maximum values, we most likely would have some simple code like the following: for (int row=0; row < pixelData.GetUpperBound(0); ++row) { for (int col=0; col < pixelData.GetUpperBound(1); ++col) { pixelData[row, col] = AdjustContrast(pixelData[row, col], minPixel, maxPixel); } } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } This simple routine loops through a two dimensional array of pixelData, and calls the AdjustContrast routine on each pixel. As I mentioned, when you’re decomposing a problem space, most iteration statements are potentially candidates for data decomposition.  Here, we’re using two for loops – one looping through rows in the image, and a second nested loop iterating through the columns.  We then perform one, independent operation on each element based on those loop positions. This is a prime candidate – we have no shared data, no dependencies on anything but the pixel which we want to change.  Since we’re using a for loop, we can easily parallelize this using the Parallel.For method in the TPL: Parallel.For(0, pixelData.GetUpperBound(0), row => { for (int col=0; col < pixelData.GetUpperBound(1); ++col) { pixelData[row, col] = AdjustContrast(pixelData[row, col], minPixel, maxPixel); } }); Here, by simply changing our first for loop to a call to Parallel.For, we can parallelize this portion of our routine.  Parallel.For works, as do many methods in the TPL, by creating a delegate and using it as an argument to a method.  In this case, our for loop iteration block becomes a delegate creating via a lambda expression.  This lets you write code that, superficially, looks similar to the familiar for loop, but functions quite differently at runtime. We could easily do this to our second for loop as well, but that may not be a good idea.  There is a balance to be struck when writing parallel code.  We want to have enough work items to keep all of our processors busy, but the more we partition our data, the more overhead we introduce.  In this case, we have an image of data – most likely hundreds of pixels in both dimensions.  By just parallelizing our first loop, each row of pixels can be run as a single task.  With hundreds of rows of data, we are providing fine enough granularity to keep all of our processors busy. If we parallelize both loops, we’re potentially creating millions of independent tasks.  This introduces extra overhead with no extra gain, and will actually reduce our overall performance.  This leads to my first guideline when writing parallel code: Partition your problem into enough tasks to keep each processor busy throughout the operation, but not more than necessary to keep each processor busy. Also note that I parallelized the outer loop.  I could have just as easily partitioned the inner loop.  However, partitioning the inner loop would have led to many more discrete work items, each with a smaller amount of work (operate on one pixel instead of one row of pixels).  My second guideline when writing parallel code reflects this: Partition your problem in a way to place the most work possible into each task. This typically means, in practice, that you will want to parallelize the routine at the “highest” point possible in the routine, typically the outermost loop.  If you’re looking at parallelizing methods which call other methods, you’ll want to try to partition your work high up in the stack – as you get into lower level methods, the performance impact of parallelizing your routines may not overcome the overhead introduced. Parallel.For works great for situations where we know the number of elements we’re going to process in advance.  If we’re iterating through an IList<T> or an array, this is a typical approach.  However, there are other iteration statements common in C#.  In many situations, we’ll use foreach instead of a for loop.  This can be more understandable and easier to read, but also has the advantage of working with collections which only implement IEnumerable<T>, where we do not know the number of elements involved in advance. As an example, lets take the following situation.  Say we have a collection of Customers, and we want to iterate through each customer, check some information about the customer, and if a certain case is met, send an email to the customer and update our instance to reflect this change.  Normally, this might look something like: foreach(var customer in customers) { // Run some process that takes some time... DateTime lastContact = theStore.GetLastContact(customer); TimeSpan timeSinceContact = DateTime.Now - lastContact; // If it's been more than two weeks, send an email, and update... if (timeSinceContact.Days > 14) { theStore.EmailCustomer(customer); customer.LastEmailContact = DateTime.Now; } } Here, we’re doing a fair amount of work for each customer in our collection, but we don’t know how many customers exist.  If we assume that theStore.GetLastContact(customer) and theStore.EmailCustomer(customer) are both side-effect free, thread safe operations, we could parallelize this using Parallel.ForEach: Parallel.ForEach(customers, customer => { // Run some process that takes some time... DateTime lastContact = theStore.GetLastContact(customer); TimeSpan timeSinceContact = DateTime.Now - lastContact; // If it's been more than two weeks, send an email, and update... if (timeSinceContact.Days > 14) { theStore.EmailCustomer(customer); customer.LastEmailContact = DateTime.Now; } }); Just like Parallel.For, we rework our loop into a method call accepting a delegate created via a lambda expression.  This keeps our new code very similar to our original iteration statement, however, this will now execute in parallel.  The same guidelines apply with Parallel.ForEach as with Parallel.For. The other iteration statements, do and while, do not have direct equivalents in the Task Parallel Library.  These, however, are very easy to implement using Parallel.ForEach and the yield keyword. Most applications can benefit from implementing some form of Data Parallelism.  Iterating through collections and performing “work” is a very common pattern in nearly every application.  When the problem can be decomposed by data, we often can parallelize the workload by merely changing foreach statements to Parallel.ForEach method calls, and for loops to Parallel.For method calls.  Any time your program operates on a collection, and does a set of work on each item in the collection where that work is not dependent on other information, you very likely have an opportunity to parallelize your routine.

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• Conversation as User Assistance

  - by ultan o'broin

  Applications User Experience members (Erika Web, Laurie Pattison, and I) attended the User Assistance Europe Conference in Stockholm, Sweden. We were impressed with the thought leadership and practical application of ideas in Anne Gentle's keynote address "Social Web Strategies for Documentation". After the conference, we spoke with Anne to explore the ideas further. Anne Gentle (left) with Applications User Experience Senior Director Laurie Pattison In Anne's book called Conversation and Community: The Social Web for Documentation, she explains how user assistance is undergoing a seismic shift. The direction is away from the old print manuals and online help concept towards a web-based, user community-driven solution using social media tools. User experience professionals now have a vast range of such tools to start and nurture this "conversation": blogs, wikis, forums, social networking sites, microblogging systems, image and video sharing sites, virtual worlds, podcasts, instant messaging, mashups, and so on. That user communities are a rich source of user assistance is not a surprise, but the extent of available assistance is. For example, we know from the Consortium for Service Innovation that there has been an 'explosion' of user-generated content on the web. User-initiated community conversations provide as much as 30 times the number of official help desk solutions for consortium members! The growing reliance on user community solutions is clearly a user experience issue. Anne says that user assistance as conversation "means getting closer to users and helping them perform well. User-centered design has been touted as one of the most important ideas developed in the last 20 years of workplace writing. Now writers can take the idea of user-centered design a step further by starting conversations with users and enabling user assistance in interactions." Some of Anne's favorite examples of this paradigm shift from the world of traditional documentation to community conversation include: Writer Bob Bringhurst's blog about Adobe InDesign and InCopy products and Adobe's community help The Microsoft Development Network Community Center ·The former Sun (now Oracle) OpenDS wiki, NetBeans Ruby and other community approaches to engage diverse audiences using screencasts, wikis, and blogs. Cisco's customer support wiki, EMC's community, as well as Symantec and Intuit's approaches The efforts of Ubuntu, Mozilla, and the FLOSS community generally Adobe Writer Bob Bringhurst's Blog Oracle is not without a user community conversation too. Besides the community discussions and blogs around documentation offerings, we have the My Oracle Support Community forums, Oracle Technology Network (OTN) communities, wiki, blogs, and so on. We have the great work done by our user groups and customer councils. Employees like David Haimes reach out, and enthusiastic non-employee gurus like Chet Justice (OracleNerd), Floyd Teter and Eddie Awad provide great "how-to" information too. But what does this paradigm shift mean for existing technical writers as users turn away from the traditional printable PDF manual deliverables? We asked Anne after the conference. The writer role becomes one of conversation initiator or enabler. The role evolves, along with the process, as the users define their concept of user assistance and terms of engagement with the product instead of having it pre-determined. It is largely a case now of "inventing the job while you're doing it, instead of being hired for it" Anne said. There is less emphasis on formal titles. Anne mentions that her own title "Content Stacker" at OpenStack; others use titles such as "Content Curator" or "Community Lead". However, the role remains one essentially about communications, "but of a new type--interacting with users, moderating, curating content, instead of sitting down to write a manual from start to finish." Clearly then, this role is open to more than professional technical writers. Product managers who write blogs, developers who moderate forums, support professionals who update wikis, rock star programmers with a penchant for YouTube are ideal. Anyone with the product knowledge, empathy for the user, and flair for relationships on the social web can join in. Some even perform these roles already but do not realize it. Anne feels the technical communicator space will move from hiring new community conversation professionals (who are already active in the space through blogging, tweets, wikis, and so on) to retraining some existing writers over time. Our own research reveals that the established proponents of community user assistance even set employee performance objectives for internal content curators about the amount of community content delivered by people outside the organization! To take advantage of the conversations on the web as user assistance, enterprises must first establish where on the spectrum their community lies. "What is the line between community willingness to contribute and the enterprise objectives?" Anne asked. "The relationship with users must be managed and also measured." Anne believes that the process can start with a "just do it" approach. Begin by reaching out to existing user groups, individual bloggers and tweeters, forum posters, early adopter program participants, conference attendees, customer advisory board members, and so on. Use analytical tools to measure the level of conversation about your products and services to show a return on investment (ROI), winning management support. Anne emphasized that success with the community model is dependent on lowering the technical and motivational barriers so that users can readily contribute to the conversation. Simple tools must be provided, and guidelines, if any, must be straightforward but not mandatory. The conversational approach is one where traditional style and branding guides do not necessarily apply. Tools and infrastructure help users to create content easily, to search and find the information online, read it, rate it, translate it, and participate further in the content's evolution. Recognizing contributors by using ratings on forums, giving out Twitter kudos, conference invitations, visits to headquarters, free products, preview releases, and so on, also encourages the adoption of the conversation model. The move to conversation as user assistance is not free, but there is a business ROI. The conversational model means that customer service is enhanced, as user experience moves from a functional to a valued, emotional level. Studies show a positive correlation between loyalty and financial performance (Consortium for Service Innovation, 2010), and as customer experience and loyalty become key differentiators, user experience professionals cannot explore the model's possibilities. The digital universe (measured at 1.2 million petabytes in 2010) is doubling every 12 to 18 months, and 70 percent of that universe consists of user-generated content (IDC, 2010). Conversation as user assistance cannot be ignored but must be embraced. It is a time to manage for abundance, not scarcity. Besides, the conversation approach certainly sounds more interesting, rewarding, and fun than the traditional model! I would like to thank Anne for her time and thoughts, and recommend that all user assistance professionals read her book. You can follow Anne on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/annegentle. Oracle's Acrolinx IQ deployment was used to author this article.

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• ASP.NET GZip Encoding Caveats

  - by Rick Strahl

  GZip encoding in ASP.NET is pretty easy to accomplish using the built-in GZipStream and DeflateStream classes and applying them to the Response.Filter property.  While applying GZip and Deflate behavior is pretty easy there are a few caveats that you have watch out for as I found out today for myself with an application that was throwing up some garbage data. But before looking at caveats let’s review GZip implementation for ASP.NET. ASP.NET GZip/Deflate Basics Response filters basically are applied to the Response.OutputStream and transform it as data is written to it through the ASP.NET Response object. So a Response.Write eventually gets written into the output stream which if a filter is also written through the filter stream’s interface. To perform the actual GZip (and Deflate) encoding typically used by Web pages .NET includes the GZipStream and DeflateStream stream classes which can be readily assigned to the Repsonse.OutputStream. With these two stream classes in place it’s almost trivially easy to create a couple of reusable methods that allow you to compress your HTTP output. In my standard WebUtils utility class (from the West Wind West Wind Web Toolkit) created two static utility methods – IsGZipSupported and GZipEncodePage – that check whether the client supports GZip encoding and then actually encodes the current output (note that although the method includes ‘Page’ in its name this code will work with any ASP.NET output). /// <summary> /// Determines if GZip is supported /// </summary> /// <returns></returns> public static bool IsGZipSupported() { string AcceptEncoding = HttpContext.Current.Request.Headers["Accept-Encoding"]; if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(AcceptEncoding) && (AcceptEncoding.Contains("gzip") || AcceptEncoding.Contains("deflate"))) return true; return false; } /// <summary> /// Sets up the current page or handler to use GZip through a Response.Filter /// IMPORTANT: /// You have to call this method before any output is generated! /// </summary> public static void GZipEncodePage() { HttpResponse Response = HttpContext.Current.Response; if (IsGZipSupported()) { string AcceptEncoding = HttpContext.Current.Request.Headers["Accept-Encoding"]; if (AcceptEncoding.Contains("deflate")) { Response.Filter = new System.IO.Compression.DeflateStream(Response.Filter, System.IO.Compression.CompressionMode.Compress); Response.Headers.Remove("Content-Encoding"); Response.AppendHeader("Content-Encoding", "deflate"); } else { Response.Filter = new System.IO.Compression.GZipStream(Response.Filter, System.IO.Compression.CompressionMode.Compress); Response.Headers.Remove("Content-Encoding"); Response.AppendHeader("Content-Encoding", "gzip"); } } } As you can see the actual assignment of the Filter is as simple as: Response.Filter = new DeflateStream(Response.Filter, System.IO.Compression.CompressionMode.Compress); which applies the filter to the OutputStream. You also need to ensure that your response reflects the new GZip or Deflate encoding and ensure that any pages that are cached in Proxy servers can differentiate between pages that were encoded with the various different encodings (or no encoding). To use this utility function now is trivially easy: In any ASP.NET code that wants to compress its Response output you simply use: protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { WebUtils.GZipEncodePage(); Entry = WebLogFactory.GetEntry(); var entries = Entry.GetLastEntries(App.Configuration.ShowEntryCount, "pk,Title,SafeTitle,Body,Entered,Feedback,Location,ShowTopAd", "TEntries"); if (entries == null) throw new ApplicationException("Couldn't load WebLog Entries: " + Entry.ErrorMessage); this.repEntries.DataSource = entries; this.repEntries.DataBind(); } Here I use an ASP.NET page, but the above WebUtils.GZipEncode() method call will work in any ASP.NET application type including HTTP Handlers. The only requirement is that the filter needs to be applied before any other output is sent to the OutputStream. For example, in my CallbackHandler service implementation by default output over a certain size is GZip encoded. The output that is generated is JSON or XML and if the output is over 5k in size I apply WebUtils.GZipEncode(): if (sbOutput.Length > GZIP_ENCODE_TRESHOLD) WebUtils.GZipEncodePage(); Response.ContentType = ControlResources.STR_JsonContentType; HttpContext.Current.Response.Write(sbOutput.ToString()); Ok, so you probably get the idea: Encoding GZip/Deflate content is pretty easy. Hold on there Hoss –Watch your Caching Or is it? There are a few caveats that you need to watch out for when dealing with GZip content. The fist issue is that you need to deal with the fact that some clients don’t support GZip or Deflate content. Most modern browsers support it, but if you have a programmatic Http client accessing your content GZip/Deflate support is by no means guaranteed. For example, WinInet Http clients don’t support GZip out of the box – it has to be explicitly implemented. Other low level HTTP clients on other platforms too don’t support GZip out of the box. The problem is that your application, your Web Server and Proxy Servers on the Internet might be caching your generated content. If you return content with GZip once and then again without, either caching is not applied or worse the wrong type of content is returned back to the client from a cache or proxy. The result is an unreadable response for *some clients* which is also very hard to debug and fix once in production. You already saw the issue of Proxy servers addressed in the GZipEncodePage() function: // Allow proxy servers to cache encoded and unencoded versions separately Response.AppendHeader("Vary", "Content-Encoding"); This ensures that any Proxy servers also check for the Content-Encoding HTTP Header to cache their content – not just the URL. The same thing applies if you do OutputCaching in your own ASP.NET code. If you generate output for GZip on an OutputCached page the GZipped content will be cached (either by ASP.NET’s cache or in some cases by the IIS Kernel Cache). But what if the next client doesn’t support GZip? She’ll get served a cached GZip page that won’t decode and she’ll get a page full of garbage. Wholly undesirable. To fix this you need to add some custom OutputCache rules by way of the GetVaryByCustom() HttpApplication method in your global_ASAX file: public override string GetVaryByCustomString(HttpContext context, string custom) { // Override Caching for compression if (custom == "GZIP") { string acceptEncoding = HttpContext.Current.Response.Headers["Content-Encoding"]; if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(acceptEncoding)) return ""; else if (acceptEncoding.Contains("gzip")) return "GZIP"; else if (acceptEncoding.Contains("deflate")) return "DEFLATE"; return ""; } return base.GetVaryByCustomString(context, custom); } In a page that use Output caching you then specify: <%@ OutputCache Duration="180" VaryByParam="none" VaryByCustom="GZIP" %> To use that custom rule. It’s all Fun and Games until ASP.NET throws an Error Ok, so you’re up and running with GZip, you have your caching squared away and your pages that you are applying it to are jamming along. Then BOOM, something strange happens and you get a lovely garbled page that look like this: Lovely isn’t it? What’s happened here is that I have WebUtils.GZipEncode() applied to my page, but there’s an error in the page. The error falls back to the ASP.NET error handler and the error handler removes all existing output (good) and removes all the custom HTTP headers I’ve set manually (usually good, but very bad here). Since I applied the Response.Filter (via GZipEncode) the output is now GZip encoded, but ASP.NET has removed my Content-Encoding header, so the browser receives the GZip encoded content without a notification that it is encoded as GZip. The result is binary output. Here’s what Fiddler says about the raw HTTP header output when an error occurs when GZip encoding was applied: HTTP/1.1 500 Internal Server Error Cache-Control: private Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 22:21:08 GMT Content-Length: 2138 Connection: close ?`I?%&/m?{J?J??t??` … binary output striped here Notice: no Content-Encoding header and that’s why we’re seeing this garbage. ASP.NET has stripped the Content-Encoding header but left our filter intact. So how do we fix this? In my applications I typically have a global Application_Error handler set up and in this case I’ve been using that. One thing that you can do in the Application_Error handler is explicitly clear out the Response.Filter and set it to null at the top: protected void Application_Error(object sender, EventArgs e) { // Remove any special filtering especially GZip filtering Response.Filter = null; … } And voila I get my Yellow Screen of Death or my custom generated error output back via uncompressed content. BTW, the same is true for Page level errors handled in Page_Error or ASP.NET MVC Error handling methods in a controller. Another and possibly even better solution is to check whether a filter is attached just before the headers are sent to the client as pointed out by Adam Schroeder in the comments: protected void Application_PreSendRequestHeaders() { // ensure that if GZip/Deflate Encoding is applied that headers are set // also works when error occurs if filters are still active HttpResponse response = HttpContext.Current.Response; if (response.Filter is GZipStream && response.Headers["Content-encoding"] != "gzip") response.AppendHeader("Content-encoding", "gzip"); else if (response.Filter is DeflateStream && response.Headers["Content-encoding"] != "deflate") response.AppendHeader("Content-encoding", "deflate"); } This uses the Application_PreSendRequestHeaders() pipeline event to check for compression encoding in a filter and adjusts the content accordingly. This is actually a better solution since this is generic – it’ll work regardless of how the content is cleaned up. For example, an error Response.Redirect() or short error display might get changed and the filter not cleared and this code actually handles that. Sweet, thanks Adam. It’s unfortunate that ASP.NET doesn’t natively clear out Response.Filters when an error occurs just as it clears the Response and Headers. I can’t see where leaving a Filter in place in an error situation would make any sense, but hey - this is what it is and it’s easy enough to fix as long as you know where to look. Riiiight! IIS and GZip I should also mention that IIS 7 includes good support for compression natively. If you can defer encoding to let IIS perform it for you rather than doing it in your code by all means you should do it! Especially any static or semi-dynamic content that can be made static should be using IIS built-in compression. Dynamic caching is also supported but is a bit more tricky to judge in terms of performance and footprint. John Forsyth has a great article on the benefits and drawbacks of IIS 7 compression which gives some detailed performance comparisons and impact reviews. I’ll post another entry next with some more info on IIS compression since information on it seems to be a bit hard to come by. Related Content Built-in GZip/Deflate Compression in IIS 7.x HttpWebRequest and GZip Responses © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in ASP.NET   IIS7  

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• Parallelism in .NET – Part 4, Imperative Data Parallelism: Aggregation

  - by Reed

  In the article on simple data parallelism, I described how to perform an operation on an entire collection of elements in parallel.  Often, this is not adequate, as the parallel operation is going to be performing some form of aggregation. Simple examples of this might include taking the sum of the results of processing a function on each element in the collection, or finding the minimum of the collection given some criteria.  This can be done using the techniques described in simple data parallelism, however, special care needs to be taken into account to synchronize the shared data appropriately.  The Task Parallel Library has tools to assist in this synchronization. The main issue with aggregation when parallelizing a routine is that you need to handle synchronization of data.  Since multiple threads will need to write to a shared portion of data.  Suppose, for example, that we wanted to parallelize a simple loop that looked for the minimum value within a dataset: double min = double.MaxValue; foreach(var item in collection) { double value = item.PerformComputation(); min = System.Math.Min(min, value); } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } This seems like a good candidate for parallelization, but there is a problem here.  If we just wrap this into a call to Parallel.ForEach, we’ll introduce a critical race condition, and get the wrong answer.  Let’s look at what happens here: // Buggy code! Do not use! double min = double.MaxValue; Parallel.ForEach(collection, item => { double value = item.PerformComputation(); min = System.Math.Min(min, value); }); This code has a fatal flaw: min will be checked, then set, by multiple threads simultaneously.  Two threads may perform the check at the same time, and set the wrong value for min.  Say we get a value of 1 in thread 1, and a value of 2 in thread 2, and these two elements are the first two to run.  If both hit the min check line at the same time, both will determine that min should change, to 1 and 2 respectively.  If element 1 happens to set the variable first, then element 2 sets the min variable, we’ll detect a min value of 2 instead of 1.  This can lead to wrong answers. Unfortunately, fixing this, with the Parallel.ForEach call we’re using, would require adding locking.  We would need to rewrite this like: // Safe, but slow double min = double.MaxValue; // Make a "lock" object object syncObject = new object(); Parallel.ForEach(collection, item => { double value = item.PerformComputation(); lock(syncObject) min = System.Math.Min(min, value); }); This will potentially add a huge amount of overhead to our calculation.  Since we can potentially block while waiting on the lock for every single iteration, we will most likely slow this down to where it is actually quite a bit slower than our serial implementation.  The problem is the lock statement – any time you use lock(object), you’re almost assuring reduced performance in a parallel situation.  This leads to two observations I’ll make: When parallelizing a routine, try to avoid locks. That being said: Always add any and all required synchronization to avoid race conditions. These two observations tend to be opposing forces – we often need to synchronize our algorithms, but we also want to avoid the synchronization when possible.  Looking at our routine, there is no way to directly avoid this lock, since each element is potentially being run on a separate thread, and this lock is necessary in order for our routine to function correctly every time. However, this isn’t the only way to design this routine to implement this algorithm.  Realize that, although our collection may have thousands or even millions of elements, we have a limited number of Processing Elements (PE).  Processing Element is the standard term for a hardware element which can process and execute instructions.  This typically is a core in your processor, but many modern systems have multiple hardware execution threads per core.  The Task Parallel Library will not execute the work for each item in the collection as a separate work item. Instead, when Parallel.ForEach executes, it will partition the collection into larger “chunks” which get processed on different threads via the ThreadPool.  This helps reduce the threading overhead, and help the overall speed.  In general, the Parallel class will only use one thread per PE in the system. Given the fact that there are typically fewer threads than work items, we can rethink our algorithm design.  We can parallelize our algorithm more effectively by approaching it differently.  Because the basic aggregation we are doing here (Min) is communitive, we do not need to perform this in a given order.  We knew this to be true already – otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to parallelize this routine in the first place.  With this in mind, we can treat each thread’s work independently, allowing each thread to serially process many elements with no locking, then, after all the threads are complete, “merge” together the results. This can be accomplished via a different set of overloads in the Parallel class: Parallel.ForEach<TSource,TLocal>.  The idea behind these overloads is to allow each thread to begin by initializing some local state (TLocal).  The thread will then process an entire set of items in the source collection, providing that state to the delegate which processes an individual item.  Finally, at the end, a separate delegate is run which allows you to handle merging that local state into your final results. To rewriting our routine using Parallel.ForEach<TSource,TLocal>, we need to provide three delegates instead of one.  The most basic version of this function is declared as: public static ParallelLoopResult ForEach<TSource, TLocal>( IEnumerable<TSource> source, Func<TLocal> localInit, Func<TSource, ParallelLoopState, TLocal, TLocal> body, Action<TLocal> localFinally ) The first delegate (the localInit argument) is defined as Func<TLocal>.  This delegate initializes our local state.  It should return some object we can use to track the results of a single thread’s operations. The second delegate (the body argument) is where our main processing occurs, although now, instead of being an Action<T>, we actually provide a Func<TSource, ParallelLoopState, TLocal, TLocal> delegate.  This delegate will receive three arguments: our original element from the collection (TSource), a ParallelLoopState which we can use for early termination, and the instance of our local state we created (TLocal).  It should do whatever processing you wish to occur per element, then return the value of the local state after processing is completed. The third delegate (the localFinally argument) is defined as Action<TLocal>.  This delegate is passed our local state after it’s been processed by all of the elements this thread will handle.  This is where you can merge your final results together.  This may require synchronization, but now, instead of synchronizing once per element (potentially millions of times), you’ll only have to synchronize once per thread, which is an ideal situation. Now that I’ve explained how this works, lets look at the code: // Safe, and fast! double min = double.MaxValue; // Make a "lock" object object syncObject = new object(); Parallel.ForEach( collection, // First, we provide a local state initialization delegate. () => double.MaxValue, // Next, we supply the body, which takes the original item, loop state, // and local state, and returns a new local state (item, loopState, localState) => { double value = item.PerformComputation(); return System.Math.Min(localState, value); }, // Finally, we provide an Action<TLocal>, to "merge" results together localState => { // This requires locking, but it's only once per used thread lock(syncObj) min = System.Math.Min(min, localState); } ); Although this is a bit more complicated than the previous version, it is now both thread-safe, and has minimal locking.  This same approach can be used by Parallel.For, although now, it’s Parallel.For<TLocal>.  When working with Parallel.For<TLocal>, you use the same triplet of delegates, with the same purpose and results. Also, many times, you can completely avoid locking by using a method of the Interlocked class to perform the final aggregation in an atomic operation.  The MSDN example demonstrating this same technique using Parallel.For uses the Interlocked class instead of a lock, since they are doing a sum operation on a long variable, which is possible via Interlocked.Add. By taking advantage of local state, we can use the Parallel class methods to parallelize algorithms such as aggregation, which, at first, may seem like poor candidates for parallelization.  Doing so requires careful consideration, and often requires a slight redesign of the algorithm, but the performance gains can be significant if handled in a way to avoid excessive synchronization.

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• C++ FBX Animation Importer Using the FBX SDK

  - by Mike Sawayda

  Does anyone have any experience using the FBX SDK to load in animations. I got the meshes loaded in correctly with all of their verts, indices, UV's, and normals. I am just now trying to get the Animations working correctly. I have looked at the FBX SDK documentation with little help. If someone could just help me get started or point me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it. I added some code so you can kinda get an idea of what I am doing. I should be able to place that code anywhere in the load FBX function and have it work. //GETTING ANIMAION DATA for(int i = 0; i < scene->GetSrcObjectCount<FbxAnimStack>(); ++i) { FbxAnimStack* lAnimStack = scene->GetSrcObject<FbxAnimStack>(i); FbxString stackName = "Animation Stack Name: "; stackName += lAnimStack->GetName(); string sStackName = stackName; int numLayers = lAnimStack->GetMemberCount<FbxAnimLayer>(); for(int j = 0; j < numLayers; ++j) { FbxAnimLayer* lAnimLayer = lAnimStack->GetMember<FbxAnimLayer>(j); FbxString layerName = "Animation Stack Name: "; layerName += lAnimLayer->GetName(); string sLayerName = layerName; queue<FbxNode*> nodes; FbxNode* tempNode = scene->GetRootNode(); while(tempNode != NULL) { FbxAnimCurve* lAnimCurve = tempNode->LclTranslation.GetCurve(lAnimLayer, FBXSDK_CURVENODE_COMPONENT_X); if(lAnimCurve != NULL) { //I know something needs to be done here but I dont know what. } for(int i = 0; i < tempNode->GetChildCount(false); ++i) { nodes.push(tempNode->GetChild(i)); } if(nodes.size() > 0) { tempNode = nodes.front(); nodes.pop(); } else { tempNode = NULL; } } } } Here is the full function bool FBXLoader::LoadFBX(ParentMeshObject* _parentMesh, char* _filePath, bool _hasTexture) { FbxManager* fbxManager = FbxManager::Create(); if(!fbxManager) { printf( "ERROR %s : %d failed creating FBX Manager!\n", __FILE__, __LINE__ ); } FbxIOSettings* ioSettings = FbxIOSettings::Create(fbxManager, IOSROOT); fbxManager->SetIOSettings(ioSettings); FbxString filePath = FbxGetApplicationDirectory(); fbxManager->LoadPluginsDirectory(filePath.Buffer()); FbxScene* scene = FbxScene::Create(fbxManager, ""); int fileMinor, fileRevision; int sdkMajor, sdkMinor, sdkRevision; int fileFormat; FbxManager::GetFileFormatVersion(sdkMajor, sdkMinor, sdkRevision); FbxImporter* importer = FbxImporter::Create(fbxManager, ""); if(!fbxManager->GetIOPluginRegistry()->DetectReaderFileFormat(_filePath, fileFormat)) { //Unrecognizable file format. Try to fall back on FbxImorter::eFBX_BINARY fileFormat = fbxManager->GetIOPluginRegistry()->FindReaderIDByDescription("FBX binary (*.fbx)"); } bool importStatus = importer->Initialize(_filePath, fileFormat, fbxManager->GetIOSettings()); importer->GetFileVersion(fileMinor, fileMinor, fileRevision); if(!importStatus) { printf( "ERROR %s : %d FbxImporter Initialize failed!\n", __FILE__, __LINE__ ); return false; } importStatus = importer->Import(scene); if(!importStatus) { printf( "ERROR %s : %d FbxImporter failed to import the file to the scene!\n", __FILE__, __LINE__ ); return false; } FbxAxisSystem sceneAxisSystem = scene->GetGlobalSettings().GetAxisSystem(); FbxAxisSystem axisSystem( FbxAxisSystem::eYAxis, FbxAxisSystem::eParityOdd, FbxAxisSystem::eLeftHanded ); if(sceneAxisSystem != axisSystem) { axisSystem.ConvertScene(scene); } TriangulateRecursive(scene->GetRootNode()); FbxArray<FbxMesh*> meshes; FillMeshArray(scene, meshes); unsigned short vertexCount = 0; unsigned short triangleCount = 0; unsigned short faceCount = 0; unsigned short materialCount = 0; int numberOfVertices = 0; for(int i = 0; i < meshes.GetCount(); ++i) { numberOfVertices += meshes[i]->GetPolygonVertexCount(); } Face face; vector<Face> faces; int indicesCount = 0; int ptrMove = 0; float wValue = 0.0f; if(!_hasTexture) { wValue = 1.0f; } for(int i = 0; i < meshes.GetCount(); ++i) { int vertexCount = 0; vertexCount = meshes[i]->GetControlPointsCount(); if(vertexCount == 0) continue; VertexType* vertices; vertices = new VertexType[vertexCount]; int triangleCount = meshes[i]->GetPolygonVertexCount() / 3; indicesCount = meshes[i]->GetPolygonVertexCount(); FbxVector4* fbxVerts = new FbxVector4[vertexCount]; int arrayIndex = 0; memcpy(fbxVerts, meshes[i]->GetControlPoints(), vertexCount * sizeof(FbxVector4)); for(int j = 0; j < triangleCount; ++j) { int index = 0; FbxVector4 fbxNorm(0, 0, 0, 0); FbxVector2 fbxUV(0, 0); bool texCoordFound = false; face.indices[0] = index = meshes[i]->GetPolygonVertex(j, 0); vertices[index].position.x = (float)fbxVerts[index][0]; vertices[index].position.y = (float)fbxVerts[index][1]; vertices[index].position.z = (float)fbxVerts[index][2]; vertices[index].position.w = wValue; meshes[i]->GetPolygonVertexNormal(j, 0, fbxNorm); vertices[index].normal.x = (float)fbxNorm[0]; vertices[index].normal.y = (float)fbxNorm[1]; vertices[index].normal.z = (float)fbxNorm[2]; texCoordFound = meshes[i]->GetPolygonVertexUV(j, 0, "map1", fbxUV); vertices[index].texture.x = (float)fbxUV[0]; vertices[index].texture.y = (float)fbxUV[1]; face.indices[1] = index = meshes[i]->GetPolygonVertex(j, 1); vertices[index].position.x = (float)fbxVerts[index][0]; vertices[index].position.y = (float)fbxVerts[index][1]; vertices[index].position.z = (float)fbxVerts[index][2]; vertices[index].position.w = wValue; meshes[i]->GetPolygonVertexNormal(j, 1, fbxNorm); vertices[index].normal.x = (float)fbxNorm[0]; vertices[index].normal.y = (float)fbxNorm[1]; vertices[index].normal.z = (float)fbxNorm[2]; texCoordFound = meshes[i]->GetPolygonVertexUV(j, 1, "map1", fbxUV); vertices[index].texture.x = (float)fbxUV[0]; vertices[index].texture.y = (float)fbxUV[1]; face.indices[2] = index = meshes[i]->GetPolygonVertex(j, 2); vertices[index].position.x = (float)fbxVerts[index][0]; vertices[index].position.y = (float)fbxVerts[index][1]; vertices[index].position.z = (float)fbxVerts[index][2]; vertices[index].position.w = wValue; meshes[i]->GetPolygonVertexNormal(j, 2, fbxNorm); vertices[index].normal.x = (float)fbxNorm[0]; vertices[index].normal.y = (float)fbxNorm[1]; vertices[index].normal.z = (float)fbxNorm[2]; texCoordFound = meshes[i]->GetPolygonVertexUV(j, 2, "map1", fbxUV); vertices[index].texture.x = (float)fbxUV[0]; vertices[index].texture.y = (float)fbxUV[1]; faces.push_back(face); } meshes[i]->Destroy(); meshes[i] = NULL; int indexCount = faces.size() * 3; unsigned long* indices = new unsigned long[faces.size() * 3]; int indicie = 0; for(unsigned int i = 0; i < faces.size(); ++i) { indices[indicie++] = faces[i].indices[0]; indices[indicie++] = faces[i].indices[1]; indices[indicie++] = faces[i].indices[2]; } faces.clear(); _parentMesh->AddChild(vertices, indices, vertexCount, indexCount); } return true; }

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• The HTG Guide to Using a Bluetooth Keyboard with Your Android Device

  - by Matt Klein

  Android devices aren’t usually associated with physical keyboards. But, since Google is now bundling their QuickOffice app with the newly-released Kit-Kat, it appears inevitable that at least some Android tablets (particularly 10-inch models) will take on more productivity roles. In recent years, physical keyboards have been rendered obsolete by swipe style input methods such as Swype and Google Keyboard. Physical keyboards tend to make phones thick and plump, and that won’t fly today when thin (and even flexible and curved) is in vogue. So, you’ll be hard-pressed to find smartphone manufacturers launching new models with physical keyboards, thus rendering sliders to a past chapter in mobile phone evolution. It makes sense to ditch the clunky keyboard phone in favor of a lighter, thinner model. You’re going to carry around in your pocket or purse all day, why have that extra bulk and weight? That said, there is sound logic behind pairing tablets with keyboards. Microsoft continues to plod forward with its Surface models, and while critics continue to lavish praise on the iPad, its functionality is obviously enhanced and extended when you add a physical keyboard. Apple even has an entire page devoted specifically to iPad-compatible keyboards. But an Android tablet and a keyboard? Does such a thing even exist? They do actually. There are docking keyboards and keyboard/case combinations, there’s the Asus Transformer family, Logitech markets a Windows 8 keyboard that speaks “Android”, and these are just to name a few. So we know that keyboard products that are designed to work with Android exist, but what about an everyday Bluetooth keyboard you might use with Windows or OS X? How-To Geek wanted look at how viable it is to use such a keyboard with Android. We conducted some research and examined some lists of Android keyboard shortcuts. Most of what we found was long outdated. Many of the shortcuts don’t even apply anymore, while others just didn’t work. Regardless, after a little experimentation and a dash of customization, it turns out using a keyboard with Android is kind of fun, and who knows, maybe it will catch on. Setting things up Setting up a Bluetooth keyboard with Android is very easy. First, you’ll need a Bluetooth keyboard and of course an Android device, preferably running version 4.1 (Jelly Bean) or higher. For our test, we paired a second-generation Google Nexus 7 running Android 4.3 with a Samsung Series 7 keyboard. In Android, enable Bluetooth if it isn’t already on. We’d like to note that if you don’t normally use Bluetooth accessories and peripherals with your Android device (or any device really), it’s best practice to leave Bluetooth off because, like GPS, it drains the device’s battery more quickly. To enable Bluetooth, simply go to “Settings” -> “Bluetooth” and tap the slider button to “On”. To set up the keyboard, make sure it is on and then tap “Bluetooth” in the Android settings. On the resulting screen, your Android device should automatically search for and hopefully find your keyboard. If you don’t get it right the first time, simply turn the keyboard on again and then tap “Search for Devices” to try again. If it still doesn’t work, make sure you have fresh batteries and the keyboard isn’t paired to another device. If it is, you will need to unpair it before it will work with your Android device (consult your keyboard manufacturer’s documentation or Google if you don’t know how to do this). When Android finds your keyboard, select it under “Available Devices” … … and you should be prompted to type in a code: If successful, you will see that device is now “Connected” and you’re ready to go. If you want to test things out, try pressing the “Windows” key (“Apple” or “Command”) + ESC, and you will be whisked to your Home screen. So, what can you do? Traditional Mac and Windows users know there’s usually a keyboard shortcut for just about everything (and if there isn’t, there’s all kinds of ways to remap keys to do a variety of commands, tasks, and functions). So where does Android fall in terms of baked-in keyboard commands? There answer to that is kind of enough, but not too much. There are definitely established combos you can use to get around, but they aren’t clear and there doesn’t appear to be any one authority on what they are. Still, there is enough keyboard functionality in Android to make it a viable option, if only for those times when you need to get something done (long e-mail or important document) and an on-screen keyboard simply won’t do. It’s important to remember that Android is, and likely always will be a touch-first interface. That said, it does make some concessions to physical keyboards. In other words, you can get around Android fairly well without having to lift your hands off the keys, but you will still have to tap the screen regularly, unless you add a mouse. For example, you can wake your device by tapping a key rather than pressing its power button. However, if your device is slide or pattern-locked, then you’ll have to use the touchscreen to unlock it – a password or PIN however, works seamlessly with a keyboard – other things like widgets and app controls and features, have to be tapped. You get the idea. Keyboard shortcuts and navigation As we said, baked-in keyboard shortcut combos aren’t necessarily abundant nor apparent. The one thing you can always do is search. Any time you want to Google something, start typing from the Home screen and the search screen will automatically open and begin displaying results. Other than that, here is what we were able to figure out: ESC = go back CTRL + ESC = menu CTRL + ALT + DEL = restart (no questions asked) ALT + SPACE = search page (say “OK Google” to voice search) ALT + TAB (ALT + SHIFT + TAB) = switch tasks Also, if you have designated volume function keys, those will probably work too. There’s also some dedicated app shortcuts like calculator, Gmail, and a few others: CMD + A = calculator CMD + C = contacts CMD + E = e-mail CMD + G = Gmail CMD + L = Calendar CMD + P = Play Music CMD + Y = YouTube Overall, it’s not a long comprehensive list and there’s no dedicated keyboard combos for the full array of Google’s products. Granted, it’s hard to imagine getting a lot of mileage out of a keyboard with Maps but with something like Keep, you could type out long, detailed lists on your tablet, and then view them on your smartphone when you go out shopping. You can also use the arrow keys to navigate your Home screen over shortcuts and open the app drawer. When something on the screen is selected, it will be highlighted in blue. Press “Enter” to open your selection. Additionally, if an app has its own set of shortcuts, e.g. Gmail has quite a few unique shortcuts to it, as does Chrome, some – though not many – will work in Android (not for YouTube though). Also, many “universal” shortcuts such as Copy (CTRL + C), Cut (CTRL + X), Paste (CTRL + V), and Select All (CTRL + A) work where needed – such as in instant messaging, e-mail, social media apps, etc. Creating custom application shortcuts What about custom shortcuts? When we were researching this article, we were under the impression that it was possible to assign keyboard combinations to specific apps, such as you could do on older Android versions such as Gingerbread. This no long seems to be the case and nowhere in “Settings” could we find a way to assign hotkey combos to any of our favorite, oft-used apps or functions. If you do want custom keyboard shortcuts, what can you do? Luckily, there’s an app on Google Play that allows you to, among other things, create custom app shortcuts. It is called External Keyboard Helper (EKH) and while there is a free demo version, the pay version is only a few bucks. We decided to give EKH a whirl and through a little experimentation and finally reading the developer’s how-to, we found we could map custom keyboard combos to just about anything. To do this, first open the application and you’ll see the main app screen. Don’t worry about choosing a custom layout or anything like that, you want to go straight to the “Advanced settings”: In the “Advanced settings” select “Application shortcuts” to continue: You can have up to 16 custom application shortcuts. We are going to create a custom shortcut to the Facebook app. We choose “A0”, and from the resulting list, Facebook. You can do this for any number of apps, services, and settings. As you can now see, the Facebook app has now been linked to application-zero (A0): Go back to the “Advanced settings” and choose “Customize keyboard mappings”: You will be prompted to create a custom keyboard layout so we choose “Custom 1”: When you choose to create a custom layout, you can do a great many more things with your keyboard. For example, many keyboards have predefined function (Fn) keys, which you can map to your tablet’s brightness controls, toggle WiFi on/off, and much more. A word of advice, the application automatically remaps certain keys when you create a custom layout. This might mess up some existing keyboard combos. If you simply want to add some functionality to your keyboard, you can go ahead and delete EKH’s default changes and start your custom layout from scratch. To create a new combo, select “Add new key mapping”: For our new shortcut, we are going to assign the Facebook app to open when we key in “ALT + F”. To do this, we press the “F” key while in the “Scancode” field and we see it returns a value of “33”. If we wanted to use a different key, we can press “Change” and scan another key’s numerical value. We now want to assign the “ALT” key to application “A0”, previously designated as the Facebook app. In the “AltGr” field, we enter “A0” and then “Save” our custom combo. And now we see our new application shortcut. Now, as long as we’re using our custom layout, every time we press “ALT + F”, the Facebook app will launch: External Keyboard Helper extends far beyond simple application shortcuts and if you are looking for deeper keyboard customization options, you should definitely check it out. Among other things, EKH also supports dozens of languages, allows you to quickly switch between layouts using a key or combo, add up to 16 custom text shortcuts, and much more! It can be had on Google Play for $2.53 for the full version, but you can try the demo version for free. More extensive documentation on how to use the app is also available. Android? Keyboard? Sure, why not? Unlike traditional desktop operating systems, you don’t need a physical keyboard and mouse to use a mobile operating system. You can buy an iPad or Nexus 10 or Galaxy Note, and never need another accessory or peripheral – they work as intended right out of the box. It’s even possible you can write the next great American novel on one these devices, though that might require a lot of practice and patience. That said, using a keyboard with Android is kind of fun. It’s not revelatory but it does elevate the experience. You don’t even need to add customizations (though they are nice) because there are enough existing keyboard shortcuts in Android to make it usable. Plus, when it comes to inputting text such as in an editor or terminal application, we fully advocate big, physical keyboards. Bottom line, if you’re looking for a way to enhance your Android tablet, give a keyboard a chance. Do you use your Android device for productivity? Is a physical keyboard an important part of your setup? Do you have any shortcuts that we missed? Sound off in the comments and let us know what you think.     

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• The How-To Geek Holiday Gift Guide (Geeky Stuff We Like)

  - by The Geek

  Welcome to the very first How-To Geek Holiday Gift Guide, where we’ve put together a list of our absolute favorites to help you weed through all of the junk out there to pick the perfect gift for anybody. Though really, it’s just a list of the geeky stuff we want. We’ve got a whole range of items on the list, from cheaper gifts that most anybody can afford, to the really expensive stuff that we’re pretty sure nobody is giving us. Stocking Stuffers Here’s a couple of ideas for items that won’t break the bank. LED Keychain Micro-Light   Magcraft 1/8-Inch Rare Earth Cube Magnets Best little LED keychain light around. If they don’t need the penknife of the above item this is the perfect gift. I give them out by the handfuls and nobody ever says anything but good things about them. I’ve got ones that are years old and still running on the same battery.  Price: $8   Geeks cannot resist magnets. Jason bought this pack for his fridge because he was sick of big clunky magnets… these things are amazing. One tiny magnet, smaller than an Altoid mint, can practically hold a clipboard right to the fridge. Amazing. I spend more time playing with them on the counter than I do actually hanging stuff.  Price: $10 Lots of Geeky Mugs   Astronomy Powerful Green Laser Pointer There’s loads of fun, geeky mugs you can find on Amazon or anywhere else—and they are great choices for the geek who loves their coffee. You can get the Caffeine mug pictured here, or go with an Atari one, Canon Lens, or the Aperture mug based on Portal. Your choice. Price: $7   No, it’s not a light saber, but it’s nearly bright enough to be one—you can illuminate low flying clouds at night or just blind some aliens on your day off. All that for an extremely low price. Loads of fun. Price: $15       Geeky TV Shows and Books Sometimes you just want to relax and enjoy a some TV or a good book. Here’s a few choices. The IT Crowd Fourth Season   Doctor Who, Complete Fifth Series Ridiculous, funny show about nerds in the IT department, loved by almost all the geeks here at HTG. Justin even makes this required watching for new hires in his office so they’ll get his jokes. You can pre-order the fourth season, or pick up seasons one, two, or three for even cheaper. Price: $13   It doesn’t get any more nerdy than Eric’s pick, the fifth all-new series of Doctor Who, where the Daleks are hatching a new master plan from the heart of war-torn London. There’s also alien vampires, humanoid reptiles, and a lot more. Price: $52 Battlestar Galactica Complete Series   MAKE: Electronics: Learning Through Discovery Watch the epic fight to save the human race by finding the fabled planet Earth while being hunted by the robotic Cylons. You can grab the entire series on DVD or Blu-ray, or get the seasons individually. This isn’t your average sci-fi TV show. Price: $150 for Blu-ray.   Want to learn the fundamentals of electronics in a fun, hands-on way? The Make:Electronics book helps you build the circuits and learn how it all works—as if you had any more time between all that registry hacking and loading software on your new PC. Price: $21       Geeky Gadgets for the Gadget-Loving Geek Here’s a few of the items on our gadget list, though lets be honest: geeks are going to love almost any gadget, especially shiny new ones. Klipsch Image S4i Premium Noise-Isolating Headset with 3-Button Apple Control   GP2X Caanoo MAME/Console Emulator If you’re a real music geek looking for some serious quality in the headset for your iPhone or iPod, this is the pair that Alex recommends. They aren’t terribly cheap, but you can get the less expensive S3 earphones instead if you prefer. Price: $50-100   Eric says: “As an owner of an older version, I can say the GP2X is one of my favorite gadgets ever. Touted a “Retro Emulation Juggernaut,” GP2X runs Linux and may be the only open source software console available. Sounds too good to be true, but isn’t.” Price: $150 Roku XDS Streaming Player 1080p   Western Digital WD TV Live Plus HD Media Player If you do a lot of streaming over Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon’s Video on Demand, Pandora, and others, the Roku box is a great choice to get your content on your TV without paying a lot of money.  It’s also got Wireless-N built in, and it supports full 1080P HD. Price: $99   If you’ve got a home media collection sitting on a hard drive or a network server, the Western Digital box is probably the cheapest way to get that content on your TV, and it even supports Netflix streaming too. It’ll play loads of formats in full HD quality. Price: $99 Fujitsu ScanSnap S300 Color Mobile Scanner   Doxie, the amazing scanner for documents Trevor said: “This wonderful little scanner has become absolutely essential to me. My desk used to just be a gigantic pile of papers that I didn’t need at the moment, but couldn’t throw away ‘just in case.’ Now, every few weeks, I’ll run that paper pile through this and then happily shred the originals!” Price: $300   If you don’t scan quite as often and are looking for a budget scanner you can throw into your bag, or toss into a drawer in your desk, the Doxie scanner is a great alternative that I’ve been using for a while. It’s half the price, and while it’s not as full-featured as the Fujitsu, it might be a better choice for the very casual user. Price: $150       (Expensive) Gadgets Almost Anybody Will Love If you’re not sure that one of the more geeky presents is gonna work, here’s some gadgets that just about anybody is going to love, especially if they don’t have one already. Of course, some of these are a bit on the expensive side—but it’s a wish list, right? Amazon Kindle       The Kindle weighs less than a paperback book, the screen is amazing and easy on the eyes, and get ready for the kicker: the battery lasts at least a month. We aren’t kidding, either—it really lasts that long. If you don’t feel like spending money for books, you can use it to read PDFs, and if you want to get really geeky, you can hack it for custom screensavers. Price: $139 iPod Touch or iPad       You can’t go wrong with either of these presents—the iPod Touch can do almost everything the iPhone can do, including games, apps, and music, and it has the same Retina display as the iPhone, HD video recording, and a front-facing camera so you can use FaceTime. Price: $229+, depending on model. The iPad is a great tablet for playing games, browsing the web, or just using on your coffee table for guests. It’s well worth buying one—but if you’re buying for yourself, keep in mind that the iPad 2 is probably coming out in 3 months. Price: $500+ MacBook Air  The MacBook Air comes in 11” or 13” versions, and it’s an amazing little machine. It’s lightweight, the battery lasts nearly forever, and it resumes from sleep almost instantly. Since it uses an SSD drive instead of a hard drive, you’re barely going to notice any speed problems for general use. So if you’ve got a lot of money to blow, this is a killer gift. Price: $999 and up. Stuck with No Idea for a Present? Gift Cards! Yeah, you’re not going to win any “thoughtful present” awards with these, but you might just give somebody what they really want—the new Angry Birds HD for their iPad, Cut the Rope, or anything else they want. ITunes Gift Card   Amazon.com Gift Card Somebody in your circle getting a new iPod, iPhone, or iPad? You can get them an iTunes gift card, which they can use to buy music, games or apps. Yep, this way you can gift them a copy of Angry Birds if they don’t already have it. Or even Cut the Rope.   No clue what to get somebody on your list? Amazon gift cards let them buy pretty much anything they want, from organic weirdberries to big screen TVs. Yeah, it’s not as thoughtful as getting them a nice present, but look at the bright side: maybe they’ll get you an Amazon gift card and it’ll balance out. That’s the highlights from our lists—got anything else to add? Share your geeky gift ideas in the comments. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The How-To Geek Holiday Gift Guide (Geeky Stuff We Like) LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 8: Filters Improve Digital Photography by Calibrating Your Monitor Our Favorite Tech: What We’re Thankful For at How-To Geek The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 7: Design and Typography Happy Snow Bears Theme for Chrome and Iron [Holiday] Download Full Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun Game for Free Scorched Cometary Planet Wallpaper Quick Fix: Add the RSS Button Back to the Firefox Awesome Bar Dropbox Desktop Client 1.0.0 RC for Windows, Linux, and Mac Released Hang in There Scrat! – Ice Age Wallpaper

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• Wishful Thinking: Why can't HTML fix Script Attacks at the Source?

  - by Rick Strahl

  The Web can be an evil place, especially if you're a Web Developer blissfully unaware of Cross Site Script Attacks (XSS). Even if you are aware of XSS in all of its insidious forms, it's extremely complex to deal with all the issues if you're taking user input and you're actually allowing users to post raw HTML into an application. I'm dealing with this again today in a Web application where legacy data contains raw HTML that has to be displayed and users ask for the ability to use raw HTML as input for listings. The first line of defense of course is: Just say no to HTML input from users. If you don't allow HTML input directly and use HTML Encoding (HttyUtility.HtmlEncode() in .NET or using standard ASP.NET MVC output @Model.Content) you're fairly safe at least from the HTML input provided. Both WebForms and Razor support HtmlEncoded content, although Razor makes it the default. In Razor the default @ expression syntax:@Model.UserContent automatically produces HTML encoded content - you actually have to go out of your way to create raw HTML content (safe by default) using @Html.Raw() or the HtmlString class. In Web Forms (V4) you can use:<%: Model.UserContent %> or if you're using a version prior to 4.0:<%= HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(Model.UserContent) %> This works great as a hedge against embedded <script> tags and HTML markup as any HTML is turned into text that displays as HTML but doesn't render the HTML. But it turns any embedded HTML markup tags into plain text. If you need to display HTML in raw form with the markup tags rendering based on user input this approach is worthless. If you do accept HTML input and need to echo the rendered HTML input back, the task of cleaning up that HTML is a complex task. In the projects I work on, customers are frequently asking for the ability to post raw HTML quite frequently.  Almost every app that I've built where there's document content from users we start out with text only input - possibly using something like MarkDown - but inevitably users want to just post plain old HTML they created in some other rich editing application. See this a lot with realtors especially who often want to reuse their postings easily in multiple places. In my work this is a common problem I need to deal with and I've tried dozens of different methods from sanitizing, simple rejection of input to custom markup schemes none of which have ever felt comfortable to me. They work in a half assed, hacked together sort of way but I always live in fear of missing something vital which is *really easy to do*. My Wishlist Item: A <restricted> tag in HTML Let me dream here for a second on how to address this problem. It seems to me the easiest place where this can be fixed is: In the browser. Browsers are actually executing script code so they have a lot of control over the script code that resides in a page. What if there was a way to specify that you want to turn off script code for a block of HTML? The main issue when dealing with HTML raw input isn't that we as developers are unaware of the implications of user input, but the fact that we sometimes have to display raw HTML input the user provides. So the problem markup is usually isolated in only a very specific part of the document. So, what if we had a way to specify that in any given HTML block, no script code could execute by wrapping it into a tag that disables all script functionality in the browser? This would include <script> tags and any document script attributes like onclick, onfocus etc. and potentially also disallow things like iFrames that can potentially be scripted from the within the iFrame's target. I'd like to see something along these lines:<article> <restricted allowscripts="no" allowiframes="no"> <div>Some content</div> <script>alert('go ahead make my day, punk!");</script> <div onfocus="$.getJson('http://evilsite.com/')">more content</div> </restricted> </article> A tag like this would basically disallow all script code from firing from any HTML that's rendered within it. You'd use this only on code that you actually render from your data only and only if you are dealing with custom data. So something like this:<article> <restricted> @Html.Raw(Model.UserContent) </restricted> </article> For browsers this would actually be easy to intercept. They render the DOM and control loading and execution of scripts that are loaded through it. All the browser would have to do is suspend execution of <script> tags and not hookup any event handlers defined via markup in this block. Given all the crazy XSS attacks that exist and the prevalence of this problem this would go a long way towards preventing at least coded script attacks in the DOM. And it seems like a totally doable solution that wouldn't be very difficult to implement by vendors. There would also need to be some logic in the parser to not allow an </restricted> or <restricted> tag into the content as to short-circuit the rstricted section (per James Hart's comment). I'm sure there are other issues to consider as well that I didn't think of in my off-the-back-of-a-napkin concept here but the idea overall seems worth consideration I think. Without code running in a user supplied HTML block it'd be pretty hard to compromise a local HTML document and pass information like Cookies to a server. Or even send data to a server period. Short of an iFrame that can access the parent frame (which is another restriction that should be available on this <restricted> tag) that could potentially communicate back, there's not a lot a malicious site could do. The HTML could still 'phone home' via image links and href links potentially and basically say this site was accessed, but without the ability to run script code it would be pretty tough to pass along critical information to the server beyond that. Ahhhh… one can dream… Not holding my breath of course. The design by committee that is the W3C can't agree on anything in timeframes measured less than decades, but maybe this is one place where browser vendors can actually step up the pressure. This is something in their best interest to reduce the attack surface for vulnerabilities on their browser platforms significantly. Several people commented on Twitter today that there isn't enough discussion on issues like this that address serious needs in the web browser space. Realistically security has to be a number one concern with Web applications in general - there isn't a Web app out there that is not vulnerable. And yet nothing has been done to address these security issues even though there might be relatively easy solutions to make this happen. It'll take time, and it's probably not going to happen in our lifetime, but maybe this rambling thought sparks some ideas on how this sort of restriction can get into browsers in some way in the future.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in ASP.NET  HTML5  HTML  Security   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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• December release of Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework is available now.

  - by Jialiang

  The code samples in Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework are updated on 2010-12-13. Download address: http://1code.codeplex.com/releases/view/57459#DownloadId=185534 Updated code sample index categorized by technologies: http://1code.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=All-In-One%20Code%20Framework%20Sample%20Catalog (it also allows you to download individual code samples instead of the entire All-In-One Code Framework sample package.) If it’s the first time that you hear about Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework, please watch the introduction video on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO5Li3APU58, or read the introduction on our homepage http://1code.codeplex.com/,  and this Port25 article http://port25.technet.com/archive/2010/01/18/the-all-in-one-code-framework.aspx.  -------------- New ASP.NET Code Samples VBASPNETAJAXWebChat and CSASPNETAJAXWebChat Most of you have some experience in chatting with friends on the web. So you may want to know how to make a web chat application, it seems to be quite complicated. But ASP.NET gives you the power to buiild a chat room easily. In this code sample, we will construct our own web chat room with the amazing AJAX feature. The principle is simple relatively. As we all know, a base chat application need 4 base controls: one List control to show the chat room members, one List control to show the message list, one TextBox control to input messages and one button to send message. User inputs his message in the textbox first and then presses Send button, it will send the message to the server. The message list will update every 2 seconds to get the newest message list in the chat room from the server. We need to know, it is hard for us to make an AJAX web chat application like a windows form application because we cannot keep the connection after one web request ended. So a lot of events which communicates between client side and server side cannot be realized. The common workaround is to make web requests in every some seconds to check whether the server side has been updated. But another technique called COMET makes it possible. But it is different with AJAX and will not be talked in details in this KB. For more details about COMET, we can get some clues from the Reference.   CSASPNETCurrentOnlineUserList and VBASPNETCurrentOnlineUserList This sample demos a system that needs to display a list of current online users' information. As a matter of fact, Membership.GetNumberOfUsersOnline Method  can get the number of online users and there is a convenient approach to check whether the user is online by using Membership.GetUser(string userName).IsOnline property,however many asp.net projects are not using membership.So in this case,the sample shows how to display a list of current online users' information without using membership provider. It is not difficult to check whether the user is online by using session.Many projects tend to be used “Session_End” event to mark a user as “Offline”,however ,it may not be a good idea,because it can’t detect the user status accurately. In addition, "Session_End" event is only available in the "InProc" session mode. If you are storing session states in the State Server or SQL Server, "Session_End" event will never fire. To handle this issue, we need to save the user online status to a  global DataTable or  DataBase. In the sample application, define a global DataTable to store the information of online users.Use XmlHttpRequest in the pages to update and check user's last active time at intervals and also retrieve information on how many users are still online. The sample project can auto delete offline users' information from a global DataTable by checking users’ last active time. A step-by-step guide illustrating how to display a list of current online users' information without using membership provider: 1. Login page. Let user sign in and add current user’s information to a global datatable while Initialize the global datatable which used to store information of current online users. 2. Current online user list page. Use XmlHttpRequest in this page to update and check user's last active time at intervals and also retrieve information on how many users are still online. 3. If user closes the page without clicking  the sign out link button ,the sample project can auto mark the user as offline and delete offline users' information from a global DataTable which used to store information of current online users  by checking users’ last active time. Then the current online user list will be like this:   CSASPNETIPtoLocation This sample demonstrates how to find the geographical location from an IP address. As we know, it is not hard for us to get the IP address of visitors via Request.ServerVariable property, but it is really difficult for us to know where they come from. To achieve this feature, the sample uses a free third party web service from http://freegeoip.appspot.com/, which returns the information about an IP address we send to the server in the format of XML, JSON or CSV. It makes all things easier.   CSASPNETBackgroundWorker Sometimes we do an operation which needs long time to complete. It will stop the response and the page is blank until the operation finished. In this case, we want the operation to run in the background, and in the page, we want to display the progress of the running operation. Therefore, the user can know the operation is running and can know the progress. CSASPNETInheritingFromTreeNode In windows forms TreeView, each tree node has a property called "Tag" which can be used to store a custom object. Many customers want to implement the same tag feature in ASP.NET TreeView. This project creates a custom TreeView control named "CustomTreeView" to achieve this goal. CSASPNETRemoteUploadAndDownload and VBASPNETRemoteUploadAndDownload This code sample was created in response to a code sample request in our new code sample request frunction for customers. The code samples demonstrate uploading files to and downloading files from a remote HTTP or FTP server. In .NET Framework 2.0 and higher versions, there are some lightweight class libraries which support HTTP and FTP protocol transmission. By using these classes, we can achieve this programming requirement.   CSASPNETImageEditUpload and VBASPNETImageEditUpload This demo will shows how to insert, edit and update a common image with the type of "jpg", "png", "gif" or "bmp" . We mainly use two different SqlDataSources with the same database to bind to GridView and FormView in order to establish the “cascading” effort. Besides we apply our self-made ImageHanlder to encoding or decoding images of different types, and use context to output the stream of images. We will explicitly assign the binary streams of images through the event of “FormView_ItemInserting” or “Form_ItemUpdating” to synchronize the stream both in what we can see on an aspx page as well as in what’s really stored in the database.   WebBrowser Control, Network and other Windows General New Code Samples   CSWebBrowserSuppressError and VBWebBrowserSuppressError The sample demonstrates how to make WebBrowser suppress errors, such as script error, navigation error and so on.   CSWebBrowserWithProxy and VBWebBrowserWithProxy The sample demonstrates how to make WebBrowser use a proxy server.   CSWebDownloadProgress and VBWebDownloadProgress The sample demonstrates how to show progress during the download. It also supplies the features to Start, Pause, Resume and Cancel a download.   CppSetDesktopWallpaper, CSSetDesktopWallpaper and VBSetDesktopWallpaper This code sample application allows you select an image, view a preview (resized smaller to fit if necessary), select a display style among Tile, Center, Stretch, Fit (Windows 7 and later) and Fill (Windows 7 and later), and set the image as the Desktop wallpaper. CSWindowsServiceRecoveryProperty and VBWindowsServiceRecoveryProperty CSWindowsServiceRecoveryProperty example demonstrates how to use ChangeServiceConfig2 to configure the service "Recovery" properties in C#. This example operates all the options you can see on the service "Recovery" tab, including setting the "Enable actions for stops with errors" option in Windows Vista and later operating systems. This example also include how to grant the shut down privilege to the process, so that we can configure a special option in the "Recovery" tab - "Restart Computer Options...".   New Office Development Code Samples   CSOneNoteRibbonAddIn and VBOneNoteRibbonAddIn The code sample demonstrates a OneNote 2010 COM add-in that implements IDTExtensibility2. The add-in also supports customizing the Ribbon by implementing the IRibbonExtensibility interface. It is a skeleton OneNote add-in that developers can extend it to implement more functions. The code sample was requested by a customer in our code sample request service. We expect that this could help developers in the community.   New Windows Shell Code Samples   CppShellExtPreviewHandler, CSShellExtPreviewHandler and VBShellExtPreviewHandler In the past two months, we released the code samples of Windows Context Menu Handler, Infotip Handler, and Thumbnail Handler. This is the fourth part of the shell extension series: Preview Handler. The code samples demo the C++, C# and VB.NET implementation of a preview handler for a new file type registered with the .recipe extension. Preview handlers are called when an item is selected to show a lightweight, rich, read-only preview of the file's contents in the view's reading pane. This is done without launching the file's associated application. Windows Vista and later operating systems support preview handlers. To be a valid preview handler, several interfaces must be implemented. This includes IPreviewHandler (shobjidl.h); IInitializeWithFile, IInitializeWithStream, or IInitializeWithItem (propsys.h); IObjectWithSite (ocidl.h); and IOleWindow (oleidl.h). There are also optional interfaces, such as IPreviewHandlerVisuals (shobjidl.h), that a preview handler can implement to provide extended support. Windows API Code Pack for Microsoft .NET Framework makes the implementation of these interfaces very easy in .NET. The example preview handler provides previews for .recipe files. The .recipe file type is simply an XML file registered as a unique file name extension. It includes the title of the recipe, its author, difficulty, preparation time, cook time, nutrition information, comments, an embedded preview image, and so on. The preview handler extracts the title, comments, and the embedded image, and display them in a preview window.   In response to many customers' request, we added setup projects in every shell extension samples in this release. Those setup projects allow you to deploy the shell extensions to your end users' machines. ---------- Download address: http://1code.codeplex.com/releases/view/57459#DownloadId=185534 Updated code sample index categorized by technologies: http://1code.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=All-In-One%20Code%20Framework%20Sample%20Catalog (it also allows you to download individual code samples instead of the entire All-In-One Code Framework sample package.) If you have any feedback for us, please email: [email protected]. We look forward to your comments.

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• Integrate Bing Search API into ASP.Net application

  - by sreejukg

  Couple of months back, I wrote an article about how to integrate Bing Search engine (API 2.0) with ASP.Net website. You can refer the article here http://weblogs.asp.net/sreejukg/archive/2012/04/07/integrate-bing-api-for-search-inside-asp-net-web-application.aspx Things are changing rapidly in the tech world and Bing has also changed! The Bing Search API 2.0 will work until August 1, 2012, after that it will not return results. Shocked? Don’t worry the API has moved to Windows Azure market place and available for you to sign up and continue using it and there is a free version available based on your usage. In this article, I am going to explain how you can integrate the new Bing API that is available in the Windows Azure market place with your website. You can access the Windows Azure market place from the below link https://datamarket.azure.com/ There is lot of applications available for you to subscribe and use. Bing is one of them. You can find the new Bing Search API from the below link https://datamarket.azure.com/dataset/5BA839F1-12CE-4CCE-BF57-A49D98D29A44 To get access to Bing Search API, first you need to register an account with Windows Azure market place. Sign in to the Windows Azure market place site using your windows live account. Once you sign in with your windows live account, you need to register to Windows Azure Market place account. From the Windows Azure market place, you will see the sign in button it the top right of the page. Clicking on the sign in button will take you to the Windows live ID authentication page. You can enter a windows live ID here to login. Once logged in you will see the Registration page for the Windows Azure market place as follows. You can agree or disagree for the email address usage by Microsoft. I believe selecting the check box means you will get email about what is happening in Windows Azure market place. Click on continue button once you are done. In the next page, you should accept the terms of use, it is not optional, you must agree to terms and conditions. Scroll down to the page and select the I agree checkbox and click on Register Button. Now you are a registered member of Windows Azure market place. You can subscribe to data applications. In order to use BING API in your application, you must obtain your account Key, in the previous version of Bing you were required an API key, the current version uses Account Key instead. Once you logged in to the Windows Azure market place, you can see “My Account” in the top menu, from the Top menu; go to “My Account” Section. From the My Account section, you can manage your subscriptions and Account Keys. Account Keys will be used by your applications to access the subscriptions from the market place. Click on My Account link, you can see Account Keys in the left menu and then Add an account key or you can use the default Account key available. Creating account key is very simple process. Also you can remove the account keys you create if necessary. The next step is to subscribe to BING Search API. At this moment, Bing Offers 2 APIs for search. The available options are as follows. 1. Bing Search API - https://datamarket.azure.com/dataset/5ba839f1-12ce-4cce-bf57-a49d98d29a44 2. Bing Search API – Web Results only - https://datamarket.azure.com/dataset/8818f55e-2fe5-4ce3-a617-0b8ba8419f65 The difference is that the later will give you only web results where the other you can specify the source type such as image, video, web, news etc. Carefully choose the API based on your application requirements. In this article, I am going to use Web Results Only API, but the steps will be similar to both. Go to the API page https://datamarket.azure.com/dataset/8818f55e-2fe5-4ce3-a617-0b8ba8419f65, you can see the subscription options in the right side. And in the bottom of the page you can see the free option Since I am going to use the free options, just Click the Sign Up link for that. Just select I agree check box and click on the Sign Up button. You will get a recipt pagethat detail your subscription. Now you are ready Bing Search API – Web results. The next step is to integrate the API into your ASP.Net application. Now if you go to the Search API page (as well as in the Receipt page), you can see a .Net C# Class Library link, click on the link, you will get a code file named “BingSearchContainer.cs”. In the following sections I am going to demonstrate the use of Bing Search API from an ASP.Net application. Create an empty ASP.Net web application. In the solution explorer, the application will looks as follows. Now add the downloaded code file (“BingSearchContainer.cs”) to the project. Right click your project in solution explorer, Add -> existing item, then browse to the downloaded location, select the “BingSearchContainer.cs” file and add it to the project. To build the code file you need to add reference to the following library. System.Data.Services.Client You can find the library in the .Net tab, when you select Add -> Reference Try to build your project now; it should build without any errors. Add an ASP.Net page to the project. I have included a text box and a button, then a Grid View to the page. The idea is to Search the text entered and display the results in the gridview. The page will look in the Visual Studio Designer as follows. The markup of the page is as follows. In the button click event handler for the search button, I have used the following code. Now run your project and enter some text in the text box and click the Search button, you will see the results coming from Bing, cool. I entered the text “Microsoft” in the textbox and clicked on the button and I got the following results. Searching Specific Websites If you want to search a particular website, you pass the site url with site:<site url name> and if you have more sites, use pipe (|). e.g. The following search query site:microsoft.com | site:adobe.com design will search the word design and return the results from Microsoft.com and Adobe.com See the sample code that search only Microsoft.com for the text entered for the above sample. var webResults = bingContainer.Web("site:www.Microsoft.com " + txtSearch.Text, null, null, null, null, null, null); Paging the results returned by the API By default the BING API will return 100 results based on your query. The default code file that you downloaded from BING doesn’t include any option for this. You can modify the downloaded code to perform this paging. The BING API supports two parameters $top (for number of results to return) and $skip (for number of records to skip). So if you want 3rd page of results with page size = 10, you need to pass $top = 10 and $skip=20. Open the BingSearchContainer.cs in the editor. You can see the Web method in it as follows. public DataServiceQuery<WebResult> Web(String Query, String Market, String Adult, Double? Latitude, Double? Longitude, String WebFileType, String Options) {  In the method signature, I have added two more parameters public DataServiceQuery<WebResult> Web(String Query, String Market, String Adult, Double? Latitude, Double? Longitude, String WebFileType, String Options, int resultCount, int pageNo) { and in the method, you need to pass the parameters to the query variable. query = query.AddQueryOption("$top", resultCount); query = query.AddQueryOption("$skip", (pageNo -1)*resultCount); return query; Note that I didn’t perform any validation, but you need to check conditions such as resultCount and pageCount should be greater than or equal to 1. If the parameters are not valid, the Bing Search API will throw the error. The modified method is as follows. The changes are highlighted. Now see the following code in the SearchPage.aspx.cs file protected void btnSearch_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {     var bingContainer = new Bing.BingSearchContainer(new Uri(https://api.datamarket.azure.com/Bing/SearchWeb/));     // replace this value with your account key     var accountKey = "your key";     // the next line configures the bingContainer to use your credentials.     bingContainer.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(accountKey, accountKey);     var webResults = bingContainer.Web("site:microsoft.com" +txtSearch.Text , null, null, null, null, null, null,3,2);     lstResults.DataSource = webResults;     lstResults.DataBind(); } The following code will return 3 results starting from second page (by skipping first 3 results). See the result page as follows. Bing provides complete integration to its offerings. When you develop search based applications, you can use the power of Bing to perform the search. Integrating Bing Search API to ASP.Net application is a simple process and without investing much time, you can develop a good search based application. Make sure you read the terms of use before designing the application and decide which API usage is suitable for you. Further readings BING API Migration Guide http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=248077 Bing API FAQ http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=252146 Bing API Schema Guide http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=252151

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• Twitter traffic might not be what it seems

  - by Piet

  Are you using bit.ly stats to measure interest in the links you post on twitter? I’ve been hearing for a while about people claiming to get the majority of their traffic originating from twitter these days. Now, I’ve been playing with the twitter ruby gem recently, doing various experiments which I’ll not go into detail here because they could be regarded as spamming… if I’d conduct them on a large scale, that is. It’s scary to see people actually engaging with @replies crafted with some regular expressions and eliza-like trickery on status updates found using the twitter api. I’m wondering how Twitter is going to contain the coming spam-flood. When posting links I used bit.ly as url shortener, since this one seems to be the de-facto standard on twitter. A nice thing about bit.ly is that it shows some basic stats about the redirects it performs for your shortened links. To my surprise, most links posted almost immediately resulted in several visitors. Now, seeing that I was posting the links together with some information concerning what the link is about, I concluded that the people who were actually clicking the links should be very targeted visitors. This felt a bit like free adwords, and I suddenly started to understand why everyone was raving about getting traffic from twitter. How wrong I was! (and I think several 1000 online marketers with me) On the destination site I used a traffic logging solution that works by including a little javascript snippet in your pages. It seemed that somehow all visitors disappeared after the bit.ly redirect and before getting to the site, because I was hardly seeing any visitors there. So I started investigating what was happening: by looking at the logfiles of the destination site, and by making my own ’shortened’ urls by doing redirects using a very short domain name I own. This way, I could check the apache access_log before the redirects. Most user agents turned out to be bots without a doubt. Here’s an excerpt of user-agents awk’ed from apache’s access_log for a time period of about one hour, right after posting some links: AideRSS 2.0 (postrank.com) Java/1.6.0_13 Java/1.6.0_14 libwww-perl/5.816 MLBot (www.metadatalabs.com/mlbot) Mozilla/4.0 (compatible;MSIE 5.01; Windows -NT 5.0 - real-url.org) Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Twitturls; +http://twitturls.com) Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Viralheat Bot/1.0; +http://www.viralheat.com/) Mozilla/5.0 (Danger hiptop 4.6; U; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050920 Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-us; rv:1.9.0.2) Gecko/2008092313 Ubuntu/9.04 (jaunty) Firefox/3.5 OpenCalaisSemanticProxy PycURL/7.18.2 PycURL/7.19.3 Python-urllib/1.17 Twingly Recon twitmatic Twitturly / v0.6 Wget/1.10.2 (Red Hat modified) Wget/1.11.1 (Red Hat modified) Of the few user-agents that seem ‘real’ at first, half are originating from an ip-address used by Amazon EC2. And I doubt people are setting op proxies on there. Oh yeah, Googlebot (the real deal, from a legit google owned address) is sucking up posted links like fresh oysters. I guess google is trying to make sure in advance to never be beaten by twitter in the ‘realtime search’ department. Actually, I think it’d be almost stupid NOT to post any new pages/posts/websites on Twitter, it must be one of the fastest ways to get a Googlebot visit. Same experiment with a real, established twitter account Now, because I was posting the url’s either as ’status’ messages or directed @people, on a test-account with hardly any (human) followers, I checked again using the twitter accounts from a commercial site I’m involved with. These accounts all have between 500 and 1000 targeted (I think) followers. I checked the destination access_logs and also added ‘my’ redirect after the bit.ly redirect: same results, although seemingly a bit higher real visitor/bot ratio. Btw: one of these account was ‘punished’ with a 1 week lock recently because the same (1 one!) status update was sent that was sent right before using another account. They got an email explaining the lock because the account didn’t act according to their TOS. I can’t find anything in their TOS about it, can you? I don’t think Twitter is on the right track punishing a legit account, knowing the trickery I had been doing with it’s api went totally unpunished. I might be wrong though, I often am. On the other hand: this commercial site reported targeted traffic and actual signups from visitors coming from Twitter. The ones that are really real visitors are also very targeted. I’m just not sure if the amount of work involved could hold up against an adwords campaign. Reposting the same link over and over again helps On thing I noticed: It helps to keep on reposting the same links with regular intervals. I guess most people only look at their first page when checking out recent posts of the ones they’re following, or don’t look too far back when performing a search. Now, this probably isn’t according to the twitter TOS. Actually, it might be spamming but no-one is obligated to follow anyone else of course. This way, I was getting more real visitors and less bots. To my surprise (when my programmer’s hat is on) there were still repeated visits from the same bots coming from the same ip-addresses. Did they expect to find something else when visiting for a 2nd or 3rd time? (actually,this gave me an idea: you can’t change a link once it’s posted, but you can change where it redirects to) Most bots were smart enough not to follow the same link again though. Are you successful in getting real visitors from Twitter? Are you only relying on bit.ly to provide traffic stats?

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• Fitting it together, database, reporting, applications in C#

  - by alvonellos

  Introduction Preamble I was hesitant to post this, since it's an application whose intricate details are defined elsewhere, and answers may not be helpful to others. Within the past few weeks (I was actually going to write a blog post about this after I finished) I've discovered that the barrier I'm encountering is one that's actually quite common for newer developers. This question is not so much about a specific thing as it is about piecing those things together. I've searched the internet far and wide, and found many tutorials on how to create applications that are kind of similar to what I'm looking for. I've also looked at hiring another, more experienced, developer to help me along, but all I've gotten are unqualified candidates that don't have the experience necessary and won't take care of the client or project like I will. I'd rather have the project never transpire than to release a solution that is half-baked. I've asked professors at my school, but they've not turned up answers to my question. I'm an experienced developer, and I've written many applications that are -- very abstractly -- close to what I'm doing, but my experiences from those applications aren't giving me enough leverage to solve this particular problem. I just hope that posting this article isn't a mistake for me to write. Project Description I have a project I'm working on for a client that is a rewrite of an application, originally written in Foxpro 2.6 by someone before me, that performs some analysis (which, sadly, I'm not allowed to disclose as per of my employment contract) on financial data. One day, after a long talk between the client and I -- where he intimately described his frustrations with all the bugs I've been hacking out of this code for 6 months now -- he told me to just rewrite it and gave me a month to write a good 1/8 of this 65k LOC Foxpro monstrosity. this 65k line of code foxpro monstrosity. It'll take me a good 3 - 6 months to rewrite this software (I know things the original programmer did not, like inheritance) going as I am right now, but I'm quickly discovering that I'm going to need to use databases. Prior to this contract I didn't even know about foxpro, and so I've had to learn foxpro on the fly, write procedures and make modifications to the database. I've actually come to like it, and this project would be rewritten in Foxpro if it were still a supported language, because over the past few months, I've come to like the features of Foxpro that make it so easy to develop data-driven applications. I once perfomed an experiment, comparing C# to Foxpro. What took me 45 minutes in C# took me two in Foxpro, and I knew C# prior to Foxpro. I was hoping to leverage the power of C#, but it intimidates me that in foxpro, you can have one line of code and be using a database. Prior to this, I have never written any serious database development from scratch. All the applications that I've written are in a different league. They are either completely data-naive or data-naive enough that I can get away with not using a database through serialization or by designing algorithms that work with the data in a manner that is stateless, so there is no need to worry about databases. I've come to realize, very quickly, that serialization and my efficacy with data structures has been my crutch all these years that's prevented me from adventuring into databases, and has consequently hindered my success in real-world programming. Sure, I've written some database stuff in Perl and Python, and I've done forms and worked with relational databases and tables, I'm a wizard in Access and Excel (seriously) and can do just about anything, but it just feels unnatural writing SQL code in another language... I don't mind writing SQL, and I don't It's that bridge between the database and the program code that drives me absolutely bonkers. I hope I'm not the only one to think this, but it bothers me that I have to create statements like the following string sSql = "SELECT * from tablename" When there's really no reason for that kind of unchecked language binding between two languages and two API's. Don't get my wrong, SQL is great, but I don't like the idea that, when executing commands on a SQL database, that one must intermix database and application software, and there's no database independence, which means that different versions of different databases can break code. This isn't very nice. The nicest thing about Foxpro is the cohesiveness between programming language and database. It's so easy, and Foxpro makes it easy, because the tool just fits the task. I can see why so many developers have created a career with this language, because it lowered the barrier of entry to data-driven applications that so many businesses need. It was wonderful. For my purposes today, with the demands and need for community support, extensibility, and language features, Foxpro isn't a solution that I feel would be the right tool for the job. I'm also worried about working too heavy with the database, because I've seen data-driven .NET applications have issues with database caches, running out of memory, and objects in the database not being collected. (Memory leaks) And OH the queries. Which one, how, and why? There are a plethora of different ways that a database can be setup, I think I counted 5 or 6 different kinds of database applications alone that I can chose from. That is a great mountain for me to climb when I don't even know where to begin when it comes to writing data-driven applications. The problem isn't that I don't know SQL or that I don't know C#. I know both and have worked with both extensively. It's making them work together that's the problem, and it's something I've never done in C# before. Reports The client likes paper. The data needs to be printed out in a format that is extensible, layered, and easy to use. I have never done reporting before, and so this is a bit of a problem. From the data source comes crystal reports, and so there's a dependency on the database, from what I understand. Code reuse A large part of the design decision that I've gone through so far is to break the task of writing a piece of this software into routines and modular DLL's and so forth such that much of the code can be reused. For example, when I setup this database, I want to be able to reuse the same database code over and over again. I also want to make sure that when the day comes that another developer is here, that he/she will be able to pick up just where I left off. The quicker I develop these applications, the better off I am. Tasks & Goals In my project, I need to write routines that apply algorithms and look for predefined patterns in financial data. Additionally, I need to simulate trading based on predefined algorithms and data. Then I need to prepare reports on that data. Additionally, I need to have a way to change the code base for this application quickly and effectively, without hacking together some band-aid solution for a problem that really needs a trauma ward. Special Considerations The solution must be fast, run quickly on existing hardware, and not be too much of a pain to maintain and write. I understand that anything I write I'm married to -- I'm responsible for the things that I write because my reputation and livelihood is dependent on it. Do I really need a database? What about performance? Performance was such a big issue that I hand wrote a data structure that is capable of performing 2 billion operations, using a total of 4 gigs of memory in under 1/4 of a second using the standard core two duo processor. I could not find a similar, pre-written data structure in C# to perform this task. What setup do I use in terms of database? What about reporting? I'd prefer to have PDF's generated, but I'd like to be able to visually sketch those reports and then just have a ReportFactory of some sort, that when I pass some variables in, it just does that data. About Me I'm a lone developer for a small business in this area. This is the first time I've done this and I've never had the breadth and depth of my knowledge tested. I'm incredibly frustrated with this project because I feel incredibly overwhelmed with the task at hand. I'm looking for that entry level point where I can draw a line and say "this is what I need to do" Conclusion I may have not been clear enough on my post. I'm still new to this whole thing, and I've been doing my best to contribute back to the community that I've leached so much knowledge from. I'd be glad to edit my post and add more information if possible. I'm looking for a big-picture solution or design process that helps me get off the ground in this world of data-driven applications, because I have a feeling that it's going to be concentric to my entire career as a programmer for some time. Specifically, if you didn't get it from the rest of the post (I may not have been clear enough) I really need some guidance as to where to go in terms of the design decisions for this project. Some things that'll be useful will be a pro/con list for the different kinds of database projects available in VS2010. I've tried, but generating that list has been as hard as solving the problem itself... If you could walk a developer writing a data-driven application for the first time in C#, how would you do that? Where would you point them to?

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• Juniper SSG-5 subinterface vlan routing to the internet

  - by catfish

  I'm unable to get a brand new Juniper SSG-5 with latest 6.3.0r05 firmware routing to the internet from a subinterface I created on bgroup0 setup as vlan2 (bgroup0.1 on "wifi" zone). When connected on the default vlan it gets on the internet just fine. When I switch to vlan2 I'm unable to get to the internet. I am able to get the correct ip address (10.150.0.0/24) from dhcp, able to get to the juniper management page, etc but nothing past the firewall, can't ping 4.2.2.2 or the internet gateway. Even setting up logging on the wifi-to-untrust policy and it does shows the attempts (it's it's timeouts). 172.31.16.0/24 is the untrusted lan, it's already nat'ed but works fine for testing. Can ping this ip from the default vlan but not from vlan2 192.168.1.0/24 is the trusted main lan 10.150.0.0/24 is the wifi isolated lan on vlan2 The idea is to setup an AP with lan and guest access (AP supports multiple ssid's on different vlans). I know I can setup the juniper to use different ports for the wifi lan and use their procurve switch to do the vlan separation, but I never used vlan'ing on a Juniper firewall and I would like to try it out this way. Here is the complete config file: unset key protection enable set clock timezone -5 set vrouter trust-vr sharable set vrouter "untrust-vr" exit set vrouter "trust-vr" unset auto-route-export exit set alg appleichat enable unset alg appleichat re-assembly enable set alg sctp enable set auth-server "Local" id 0 set auth-server "Local" server-name "Local" set auth default auth server "Local" set auth radius accounting port 1646 set admin name "netscreen" set admin password "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" set admin auth web timeout 10 set admin auth dial-in timeout 3 set admin auth server "Local" set admin format dos set zone "Trust" vrouter "trust-vr" set zone "Untrust" vrouter "trust-vr" set zone "DMZ" vrouter "trust-vr" set zone "VLAN" vrouter "trust-vr" set zone id 100 "Wifi" set zone "Untrust-Tun" vrouter "trust-vr" set zone "Trust" tcp-rst set zone "Untrust" block unset zone "Untrust" tcp-rst set zone "MGT" block unset zone "V1-Trust" tcp-rst unset zone "V1-Untrust" tcp-rst set zone "DMZ" tcp-rst unset zone "V1-DMZ" tcp-rst unset zone "VLAN" tcp-rst unset zone "Wifi" tcp-rst set zone "Untrust" screen tear-drop set zone "Untrust" screen syn-flood set zone "Untrust" screen ping-death set zone "Untrust" screen ip-filter-src set zone "Untrust" screen land set zone "V1-Untrust" screen tear-drop set zone "V1-Untrust" screen syn-flood set zone "V1-Untrust" screen ping-death set zone "V1-Untrust" screen ip-filter-src set zone "V1-Untrust" screen land set interface "ethernet0/0" zone "Untrust" set interface "ethernet0/1" zone "Untrust" set interface "bgroup0" zone "Trust" set interface "bgroup0.1" tag 2 zone "Wifi" set interface "bgroup1" zone "DMZ" set interface bgroup0 port ethernet0/2 set interface bgroup0 port ethernet0/3 set interface bgroup0 port ethernet0/4 set interface bgroup0 port ethernet0/5 set interface bgroup0 port ethernet0/6 unset interface vlan1 ip set interface ethernet0/0 ip 172.31.16.243/24 set interface ethernet0/0 route set interface bgroup0 ip 192.168.1.1/24 set interface bgroup0 nat set interface bgroup0.1 ip 10.150.0.1/24 set interface bgroup0.1 nat set interface bgroup0.1 mtu 1500 unset interface vlan1 bypass-others-ipsec unset interface vlan1 bypass-non-ip set interface ethernet0/0 ip manageable set interface bgroup0 ip manageable set interface bgroup0.1 ip manageable set interface ethernet0/0 manage ping set interface ethernet0/1 manage ping set interface bgroup0.1 manage ping set interface bgroup0.1 manage telnet set interface bgroup0.1 manage web unset interface bgroup1 manage ping set interface bgroup0 dhcp server service set interface bgroup0.1 dhcp server service set interface bgroup0 dhcp server auto set interface bgroup0.1 dhcp server enable set interface bgroup0 dhcp server option gateway 192.168.1.1 set interface bgroup0 dhcp server option netmask 255.255.255.0 set interface bgroup0 dhcp server option dns1 8.8.8.8 set interface bgroup0.1 dhcp server option lease 1440 set interface bgroup0.1 dhcp server option gateway 10.150.0.1 set interface bgroup0.1 dhcp server option netmask 255.255.255.0 set interface bgroup0.1 dhcp server option dns1 8.8.8.8 set interface bgroup0 dhcp server ip 192.168.1.33 to 192.168.1.126 set interface bgroup0.1 dhcp server ip 10.150.0.50 to 10.150.0.100 unset interface bgroup0 dhcp server config next-server-ip unset interface bgroup0.1 dhcp server config next-server-ip set interface "serial0/0" modem settings "USR" init "AT&F" set interface "serial0/0" modem settings "USR" active set interface "serial0/0" modem speed 115200 set interface "serial0/0" modem retry 3 set interface "serial0/0" modem interval 10 set interface "serial0/0" modem idle-time 10 set flow tcp-mss unset flow no-tcp-seq-check set flow tcp-syn-check unset flow tcp-syn-bit-check set flow reverse-route clear-text prefer set flow reverse-route tunnel always set pki authority default scep mode "auto" set pki x509 default cert-path partial set crypto-policy exit set ike respond-bad-spi 1 set ike ikev2 ike-sa-soft-lifetime 60 unset ike ikeid-enumeration unset ike dos-protection unset ipsec access-session enable set ipsec access-session maximum 5000 set ipsec access-session upper-threshold 0 set ipsec access-session lower-threshold 0 set ipsec access-session dead-p2-sa-timeout 0 unset ipsec access-session log-error unset ipsec access-session info-exch-connected unset ipsec access-session use-error-log set url protocol websense exit set policy id 1 from "Trust" to "Untrust" "Any" "Any" "ANY" permit set policy id 1 exit set policy id 2 from "Wifi" to "Untrust" "Any" "Any" "ANY" permit log set policy id 2 exit set nsmgmt bulkcli reboot-timeout 60 set ssh version v2 set config lock timeout 5 unset license-key auto-update set telnet client enable set snmp port listen 161 set snmp port trap 162 set snmpv3 local-engine id "0162122009006149" set vrouter "untrust-vr" exit set vrouter "trust-vr" unset add-default-route set route 0.0.0.0/0 interface ethernet0/0 gateway 172.31.16.1 exit set vrouter "untrust-vr" exit set vrouter "trust-vr" exit

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, May 21, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, May 21, 2010New Projects.Net wrapper around the Neo4j Rest Server: Neo4jRestSharp is a .Net API wrapper for the Neo4j Rest Server. Neo4j is an open sourced java based transactional graph database that stores data ...3D Editor Application Framework: A starting point for building 3D editing applications, such as video game editors, particle system editors, 3D modelling tools, visualization tools...Bulk Actions for SharePoint: This project aims to provide some essential and generic bulk actions for SharePoint lists. Idea is to include any custom actions that can be applie...CineRemote - The hometheater control board: CineRemote's purpose is to offer an alternative to expensive control system for dedicated hometheater rooms. CrmContrib: CrmContrib is a collection of useful items for developers and customizers working with the Dynamics CRM platform.db2xls: OleDb,Sql Server,Sqlite,....to excel, from sqlHappyNet - Silverlight reference application: HappyNet is a project using best practices to build an e-commerce web site. It is a full Silverlight application based on a solid architecture (PR...IP Multicast Library: IP Multicast Library makes it easier for developers to add Multicast, messaging to projects.Linkbutton Web Part: This Link Button Web Part can be installed in any SharePoint 2007 web site. You can onfigure a URL with query string that will be used by the Link...Majordomus pro Windows: Nástroj určený pro správce a vývojáře slouží k řízenému spuštění používaných a vypnutí nepotřebných služeb, procesů a aplikací ve Windows. Pomocí s...MRDS Samples: The MRDS Samples site hosts a variety of code samples for Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio (RDS).Mute4: Mute4 is a simple application that allows you to set a mute/vibration profile and it will switch back to your normal profile automatically after a ...Niko Neko Pureya: Niko Neko Pureya is a media player designed for people who watches a series of videos (like anime). It is very simple and easy to use & learn. And ...NVPX - VP8 Video Codec for .Net: NVPx allows you to use the now open-source VP8 codec on the .Net platform.openrs: openrs is an open-source RuneScape 2 emulator designed to be used with newer engine clients.Prism Evaluation: prism evaluationProj4Net: Proj4Net is a C#/.Net library to transform point coordinates from one geographic coordinate system to another, including datum transformation. The ...Read it to me!: Read it to me will allow you to load txt and rtf files and then speak them using SAPI 5 voices that are installed on your computer with an option t...sGSHOPedit: -SilverDice: SilverDice...SilverDude Toolkit for Silverlight: SilverDude Toolkit for Silverlight contains a collection of silverlight controls making life easier for developers. You'll no longer have to worry ...Silverlight Report: Open-Source Silverlight Reporting Engine. This project allows you to create and print reports using Silverlight 4.SimTrain5000: Train simulation project on University College of Northern Denmark.Springshield Sample Site for EPiServer CMS: City of Springshield - The accessible sample site for EPiServer CMS 6.Teach.Net: Teach.Net is a library/framework that can be used to create applications for testing and learning.The Amoeba Project: The Amoeba Project is a platform to be developed to embrace most of the latest Microsoft Technologies. Still in a conceptual stage however, it loo...The Fastcopy Helper: The Fastcopy Helper is a auxiliary tool for fastcopy.vow: vowWCF Client Generator: This code generator avoids the shortcomings of svcutil when generating proxies for services with a large number of methods.WebCycle: WebCycle is a screensaver application that cycles through web pages. This was originally created to cycle through Reporting Services reports so th...XGate2D - XNA 2D Game Engine: XGate2D is 2D game engine built using XNA Framework. XGate2D currently has 8 features: input handler, animation, Graphical User Interface (GUI), ...XNA Catapult Minigame for XNA 4: XNA 4 implementation of the Catapult Minigame Sample from XNA Creators Club.New ReleasesADefHelpDesk: ADefHelpDesk (Standard ASP.NET Version) 01.00.00: ADefHelpDesk a Help Desk / Ticket Tracker module * NOTE: This version is NOT a DotNetNuke module - It is a standard ASP.NET Application * SQL 2005...Bulk Actions for SharePoint: First Release: First Release - Includes following bulk list actions: *Delete *Checkin/Checkout *Publish/Unpublish *Move *Update MetadataCheck-in Wizard for ArenaChMS: v1.2.1: v 1.2.0 updated to work with Arena 2009.2 (see notes below). Added support for "At Kiosk" and "At Location" printing. Added support for print l...ConfigTray: 1.5: Version 1.5 will have a new UI for managing ConfigTray config. Instead of manually editing configtray.exe.config to add/delete/edit settings and fi...CrmContrib: CrmContribWorkflow 1.0 ALPHA1: This is an initial release of the CrmContribWorkflow 1.0 components. At the moment there are only two activities included in this release. Add Cont...DemotToolkit: DemotToolkit-0.1.0.50830: Initial release.DemotToolkit: DemotToolkit-0.1.1.51107: Fixed crashing in some circumstances.Dot Game: Dot Game Stable Release: Dot Game This is latest stable release without network play mode. (Network play mode is under development)Dynamic Survey Forms - SharePoint Web Part: Fix for missing dlls and documentation: Added missing assemblies to setup.zip. Installation instructions.EnhSim: V1.9.8.7: Added Sharpened Twilight ScaleEvent Scavenger: Viewer 3.2.2: Fixed a bug in the viewer where the previous view 'Top x' filter was not restored after the application was reopened.F# Project Extender: V0.9.2.0 (VS2008,VS2010): F# project extender for Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2010. Fixed bugs: -VS2010 crash on MoveUp(MoveDown) of renamed file -Adding files brea...FlickrNet API Library: 3.0 Beta 2: The final Beta for the 3.0 release. Fixes a major issue with Photosets.GetList as well as a number of smaller bugs, and adds the new Usage extras ...Folder Bookmarks: Folder Bookmarks 1.5.7: The latest version of Folder Bookmarks (1.5.7), with the new Help feature - all the instructions needed to use the software (If you have any sugges...Linkbutton Web Part: V1.1: Use WinZip to unzip. See docs folder for installation instructions.Live-Exchange Calendar Sync: Live-Exchange Calendar Sync Final: Live-Exchange Calendar Sync Beta May 14, 2010 release of Live-Exchange Calendar Sync 1.0 . (Version 46127) Getting StartedInfo about installation ...MEFedMVVM: MEFedMVVM: This version contains the MEFedMVVM ViewModelLocator and also some basic services such as Mediator and StateManager. You can download the code fr...Mentor Text Database: May 2010 Release with instrumentation: This should function the same as the previous version. Some enhancements have been made, and additional instrumentation has been added to help anal...Merthin: SSF 2010: Code and documentation presented at the Student Science Fair of the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Habana. The ma...NB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog Module: NB_Store_02.01.00: NB_Store v2.1.0 THIS IS AN ALPHA RELEASE FOR TESTING ONLY......DO NOT USE IT ON A LIVE SYSTEM.NerdDinner.com - Where Geeks Eat: NerdDinner - Four Database Access Samples: Chris Sells worked with Nick Muhonen from Useable Concepts and Nick created four samples exploring how an ASP.NET MVC application can access databa...openrs: Devstart: Trunk release, empty project.Over Store: OverStore 1.19.0.0: - Version number is increased. - Add methods for specifying custom callback methods to TableMappingRepositoryConfiguration. - Object attaching fu...Rnwood.SmtpServer: Rnwood.SmtpServer 2.0: SmtpServer 2.0 is a .NET SMTP server component written in pure c#. It was written to power http://smtp4dev.codeplex.com/ but can easily be used by ...Scrum Sprint Monitor: v1.0.0.48524 (.NET 4-TFS 2010): What is new in this release? #6132 - Bug with open work hours; Added untested support for MSF for Agile process template; Improved data reporti...SharePoint Rsync List: 1.0.0.0: This initial 1.0 release includes a new feature which manages timer jobs on your sync listShould: Beta 1.1: Updated the namespaces. The extension methods are now in the root Should namespace. The other classes are not in child namespaces.SilverDude Toolkit for Silverlight: SilverDude Toolkit for Silverlight: Kindly give your comments about this project and tell how you feel about it. I'm still new in creating controls, hopefully you guys can support me....Silverlight Report: SilverlightReport_v0.1_alpha_bin: SilverlightReport v0.1 alphaSLARToolkit - Silverlight Augmented Reality Toolkit: SLARToolkit 1.0.2.0: Fixed a problem with long referenced DetectionResults that might have caused an IndexOutOfRangeException Added Marker.LoadFromResource to get rid...The Fastcopy Helper: My Fastcopy Helper 1.0: This Source Code Is use a method to run it . The method is thinked by my bain. So , The Performance maybe lower.Thinktecture.DataObjectModel: Thinktecture.DataObjectModel v0.12: Some bugs fixed. See ChangeLog.txt for more infos.Umbraco CMS: Umbraco 4.0.4.1: A stability release fixing 13 issues based on feedback from 4.0.3 users. Most importantly is a fix to a serious date bug where day and month could ...Usa*Usa Libraly: Smart.Web.Mobile ver 0.2: Smart.Web.Mobile pictgram convert library for japanese galapagos k-tai( ﾟдﾟ) ver 0.2. - Custom encoding for HttpRequest.ContentEncoding / HttpResp...VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30520.0: Automatic drop of latest buildvow: dream: I have a dreamvow: test: testWCF Client Generator: Version 0.9.1.42927: Initial feature set complete. Detailed UI pending.WebCycle: WebCycle 1.0.20: Initial CodePlex releaseWebCycle: WebCycle 1.0.21: Added Uri validataion before saving settingsWhois Application: 1.5 release: - uses the whois.iana.org to dynamically lookup the whois server for each top level domain - enables enter key press for searchWing Beats: Wing Beats 0.9: This first release is focused on the core functionality and XHTML 1.0 strict generation in Asp.NET MVC.Most Popular ProjectsWeb Service Software FactoryPlasmaAquisição de Sinais Vitais em Tempo Real (Vital signs realtime data acquisition)Octtree XNA-GS DrawableGameComponentRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)Most Active ProjectsRawrpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryGMap.NET - Great Maps for Windows Forms & PresentationPHPExcelBlogEngine.NETSQL Server PowerShell ExtensionsCaliburn: An Application Framework for WPF and SilverlightNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog Modulepatterns & practices: Windows Azure Security GuidanceFluent Ribbon Control Suite

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, March 05, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, March 05, 2010New Projects.svn Folders Cleanup Tool: dotSVN Cleanup is a tool that allows you to remove the .svn folders . Just click, browse, say abracadabra ...and the magic is done. Have fun with...Accord: The Accord framework creates an easy we to integrate any Dependency Injection framework into your project, while abstracting the details of your im...Asp.net MVC Lab: Try asp.net mvc outASP.NET Themes management with Webforms: The provided source is an example for how to use themes in ASP.NET Webforms. this source is the "up to date" support for the article I wroteB&W Port Scanner: B&W Port Scanner (formerly Net Inspector) is a fast TCP Port scan utility. The main idea is support of customizable operations to be performed f...BizTalk SWAT - Simple Web Activity Tracker: This is a web based version of BizTalk HAT. The concept is designed to be able to share and enable sharing of orchestration info easily. Some of th...C# Linear Hash Table: A C# dictionary-like implementation of a linear hash table. It is more memory efficiant than the .NET dictionary, and also almost as fast. NOTE: On...DBF Import Export Wizard: DBF Import Export Wizard is a tool for anyone needing to import DBF files into SQL Server or to export SQL Server tables to a DBF file. This proje...Domain as XML - Driven Development: Visual Studio Code Samples: Domain as XML - Driven Development: Visual Studio Code SamplesEasyDownload: This application allows to manage downloads handling an stack of files and several useful configurationsEos2: .FlightTickets: This application allows to buy flight ticketsFotofly PhotoViewer: A Silverlight control that uses the Fotofly metadata library to show the people in a photo (using Windows Live Photo Gallery People metadata) and a...Fujiy source code: Source code examplesGameSet: This application allows to play games with distributed users.Injectivity (Dependency Injection): Injectivity is a dependency injection framework (written in C#) with a strong focus on the ease of configuration and performance. Having been writt...Inventory: Keep track of inputs, materias and salesLoanTin.Com Source Code: LoanTin.Com - a Social Networking Website as same as Tumblr.com, based on source code of Loantiner Project, allow anyone can share anything to anyo...mysln: my solutions.NumTextBox: TextBox控件重写 之NumTextBox，主要实现的功能是，只允许输入数字，或String,Numeric,Currency,Decimal,Float,Double,Short,Int,Long 修改自：http://www.codeproject.com/KB/edit/num...Quick Performance Monitor: This small utility helps to monitor performance counters without using the full blown perfmon tool from Windows. It supports a number of command li...Runo: Runo ResearchSales: This application allows to manage a hardware storeScrewWiki Form Auth Provider: Enables your ASP.NET site to use Forms Authentication to integrate with your ScrewWiki. User management is performed on a parent site, and cookie i...SDS: Scientific DataSet library and tools: The SDS library makes it easy for .Net developers to read, write and share scalars, vectors, matrices and multidimensional grids which are very com...ShapeSweeper: Minesweeper-like game for the Zune HD. Each hidden object has three properties to discover--location, color, and shape--and all three must be corre...SilverlightExcel: an Excel file viewer in Silverlight 4: SilverlightExcel is a Silverlight application allowing you to open and view Excel files and also create graphs.sPWadmin: pwAdmin is an Web Interface based on JSP that uses the PW-Java API to control an PW-Server.Video Player control in Silverlight: A control for playing video in Silverlight 4 with chapters on timeline control. This player will be easily skinnable and customizable. More Featur...XNA Light Pre Pass Renderer: A demo/sample that shows how to write a light pre pass renderer in XNA.Zimms: Collaboration Site for friends, a code depot, and scratch padNew Releases.svn Folders Cleanup Tool: dotSVN Cleanup Tool: dotSVN Cleanup Tool executableAccord: Alpha: Initial build of the Accord framework.AcPrac: AcPrac Ver 0.1: The first version of AcPrac. It is not fully functional, but rather a version to get the bugs out. Please report all bugs.ASP.NET: ASP.NET Browser Definition Files: This download contains: ASP.NET 4 Browser Definition Files -- You can use the new ASP.NET 4 browser definition files with earlier versions of ASP....B&W Port Scanner: Black`n`White Port Scanner 1.0: B&W Port Scanner 1.0 Final Release Date: 03.03.2010 Black`n`WhiteBizTalk SWAT - Simple Web Activity Tracker: BizTalk SWAT: This is a web based version of BizTalk HAT. The concept is designed to be able to share and enable sharing of orchestration info easily. It uses th...BTP Tools: CSB+CUV+HCSB dict files 2010-03-04: 5. is now missing a space between the Strong’s number and the Count: >CSB Translation: 圣所 7, 至圣所G39+G394 it should be: CSB Translation: 圣所 7, 至圣所G...C# Linear Hash Table: Linear Hash Table: First working version of the Linear Hash Table.Cassiopeia: WinTools 1.0 beta: First ReleaseComposure: Caliburn-44007-trunk-vs2010.net40: This is a very simple conversion of the Caliburn trunk (rev 44007) for use in Visual Studio 2010 RC1 built against .NET40. Because the conversion w...Cover Creator: CoverCreator 1.3.0: English and Polish version. Functionality to add image to the front page. Load / save covers.DBF Import Export Wizard: DBF Import Export Wizard Source Code: Version 0.1.0.3DBF Import Export Wizard: DBF_Import_Export_Wizard Setup 0.1.0.3: Zip file contains Setup.exeESB Toolkit Extensions: Tellago BizTalk ESB 2.0 Toolkit Extensions v0.2: Windows Installer file that installs Library on a BizTalk ESB 2.0 system. This Install automatically configures the esb.config to use the new compo...Fotofly PhotoViewer: Fotofly Photoview v0.1: The first public release. Based on a Silverlight application I have been using for over a year at www.tassography.com. This version uses Fotofly v0...HPC with GPUs applied to CG: Cuda Soft Bodies simulation: Cuda src for soft bodiesHPC with GPUs applied to CG: Full Soft Bodies src: full src code for soft bodies simulationInjectivity (Dependency Injection): 2.8.166.2135: Release 2.8.166.2135 of the Injectivity dependency injection framework.Line Counter: 1.5 (Code Outline Preview): This version contains preview of the code outline feature, you can now view C# code outline within Line Counter. Note that the code outline now onl...Micajah Mindtouch Deki Wiki Copier: MicajahWikiCopier: You should use the following line arguments: WikiCopier.exe "http://oldwikiwithdata.wik.is/@api/deki" "login" "password" "http://newwiki.somename.l...ncontrols: Alpha 0.4.0.1: Added some example on the Console Project.NumTextBox: NumTextBox初始版本: TextBox控件重写 之NumTextBox，主要实现的功能是，只允许输入数字，或String,Numeric,Currency,Decimal,Float,Double,Short,Int,Long 此为初始版本PSCodeplex: PS CodePlex 0.2: PS CodePlex 0.2 has some breaking changes to the parameters. A few of the parameters are renamed and a few are made as switch parameters. Add-Rele...Quick Performance Monitor: QPerfMon First release - Version 1.0.0: The first release of the utility.RapidWebDev - .NET Enterprise Software Development Infrastructure: ProductManagement Quick Sample 0.2: This is a sample product management application to demonstrate how to develop enterprise software in RapidWebDev. The glossary of the system are ro...ScrewWiki Form Auth Provider: ScrewWiki Forms Authentication: Initial ReleaseSee.Sharper: See.Sharper.Docs-1.10.3.4: HTML documentation (including Doxygen project)See.Sharper: See.Sharper-1.10.3.4: Solution (Source files, debug and release binaries)Solar.Generic: Solar.Generic 0.8.0.0 Beta (Revised, Renamed): Solar.Generic 0.8.0.0 (Revised & Renamed) Renamed project from Solar.Commons to Solar.Generic. Project solution file is now in format of Visual ...Solar.Security: Solar.Security 1.1.0.0: Performed several major refactorings of code base. Stripped In-Memory implementation of IConfiguration interface of transactional behavior due to...sPWadmin: pwAdmin v0.7: -Star System Simulator: Star System Simulator 2.3: Changes in this release: Fixed several localisation issues. Features in this release: Model star systems in 3D. Euler-Cromer method. Improved...SysI: sysi, stable and ready: This time for sure.TheWhiteAmbit: TheWhiteAmbit - Demo: Two little demos demonstrating: - fast realtime raytracing - generating bent normals for shading (CUDA capable GPU needed = nVidia GeForce >8x00)VsTortoise - a TortoiseSVN add-in for Microsoft Visual Studio: VsTortoise Build 22 Beta: Build 22 (beta) New: Visual Studio 2010 RC support (VsTortoise for Visual Studio 2010 RC screenshots) New: VsTortoise integrates in to Solution E...WinMergeFS: WinMergeFS 0.1.42128alpha: WinMergeFS provides AuFS functionality for windows. With WinMergeFS users can mount multiple directories into a virtual drive. Plugin based root se...WSDLGenerator: WSDLGenerator 0.0.0.2: - Bugs fixed - Code refactored - Added support for custom typesXNA Light Pre Pass Renderer: LightPrePassRendererXNA: Zipped source code for the light pre pass renderer made with XNA.Most Popular ProjectsMetaSharpRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)LiveUpload to FacebookASP.NETMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesMost Active ProjectsUmbraco CMSRawrBlogEngine.NETSDS: Scientific DataSet library and toolsMapWindow GISpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesIonics Isapi Rewrite FilterMDT Web FrontEndDiffPlex - a .NET Diff Generator

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• A Nondeterministic Engine written in VB.NET 2010

  - by neil chen

  When I'm reading SICP (Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs) recently, I'm very interested in the concept of an "Nondeterministic Algorithm". According to wikipedia:  In computer science, a nondeterministic algorithm is an algorithm with one or more choice points where multiple different continuations are possible, without any specification of which one will be taken. For example, here is an puzzle came from the SICP: Baker, Cooper, Fletcher, Miller, and Smith live on different floors of an apartment housethat contains only five floors. Baker does not live on the top floor. Cooper does not live onthe bottom floor. Fletcher does not live on either the top or the bottom floor. Miller lives ona higher floor than does Cooper. Smith does not live on a floor adjacent to Fletcher's.Fletcher does not live on a floor adjacent to Cooper's. Where does everyone live? After reading this I decided to build a simple nondeterministic calculation engine with .NET. The rough idea is that we can use an iterator to track each set of possible values of the parameters, and then we implement some logic inside the engine to automate the statemachine, so that we can try one combination of the values, then test it, and then move to the next. We also used a backtracking algorithm to go back when we are running out of choices at some point. Following is the core code of the engine itself: Code highlighting produced by Actipro CodeHighlighter (freeware)http://www.CodeHighlighter.com/--Public Class NonDeterministicEngine Private _paramDict As New List(Of Tuple(Of String, IEnumerator)) 'Private _predicateDict As New List(Of Tuple(Of Func(Of Object, Boolean), IEnumerable(Of String))) Private _predicateDict As New List(Of Tuple(Of Object, IList(Of String))) Public Sub AddParam(ByVal name As String, ByVal values As IEnumerable) _paramDict.Add(New Tuple(Of String, IEnumerator)(name, values.GetEnumerator())) End Sub Public Sub AddRequire(ByVal predicate As Func(Of Object, Boolean), ByVal paramNames As IList(Of String)) CheckParamCount(1, paramNames) _predicateDict.Add(New Tuple(Of Object, IList(Of String))(predicate, paramNames)) End Sub Public Sub AddRequire(ByVal predicate As Func(Of Object, Object, Boolean), ByVal paramNames As IList(Of String)) CheckParamCount(2, paramNames) _predicateDict.Add(New Tuple(Of Object, IList(Of String))(predicate, paramNames)) End Sub Public Sub AddRequire(ByVal predicate As Func(Of Object, Object, Object, Boolean), ByVal paramNames As IList(Of String)) CheckParamCount(3, paramNames) _predicateDict.Add(New Tuple(Of Object, IList(Of String))(predicate, paramNames)) End Sub Public Sub AddRequire(ByVal predicate As Func(Of Object, Object, Object, Object, Boolean), ByVal paramNames As IList(Of String)) CheckParamCount(4, paramNames) _predicateDict.Add(New Tuple(Of Object, IList(Of String))(predicate, paramNames)) End Sub Public Sub AddRequire(ByVal predicate As Func(Of Object, Object, Object, Object, Object, Boolean), ByVal paramNames As IList(Of String)) CheckParamCount(5, paramNames) _predicateDict.Add(New Tuple(Of Object, IList(Of String))(predicate, paramNames)) End Sub Public Sub AddRequire(ByVal predicate As Func(Of Object, Object, Object, Object, Object, Object, Boolean), ByVal paramNames As IList(Of String)) CheckParamCount(6, paramNames) _predicateDict.Add(New Tuple(Of Object, IList(Of String))(predicate, paramNames)) End Sub Public Sub AddRequire(ByVal predicate As Func(Of Object, Object, Object, Object, Object, Object, Object, Boolean), ByVal paramNames As IList(Of String)) CheckParamCount(7, paramNames) _predicateDict.Add(New Tuple(Of Object, IList(Of String))(predicate, paramNames)) End Sub Public Sub AddRequire(ByVal predicate As Func(Of Object, Object, Object, Object, Object, Object, Object, Object, Boolean), ByVal paramNames As IList(Of String)) CheckParamCount(8, paramNames) _predicateDict.Add(New Tuple(Of Object, IList(Of String))(predicate, paramNames)) End Sub Sub CheckParamCount(ByVal count As Integer, ByVal paramNames As IList(Of String)) If paramNames.Count <> count Then Throw New Exception("Parameter count does not match.") End If End Sub Public Property IterationOver As Boolean Private _firstTime As Boolean = True Public ReadOnly Property Current As Dictionary(Of String, Object) Get If IterationOver Then Return Nothing Else Dim _nextResult = New Dictionary(Of String, Object) For Each item In _paramDict Dim iter = item.Item2 _nextResult.Add(item.Item1, iter.Current) Next Return _nextResult End If End Get End Property Function MoveNext() As Boolean If IterationOver Then Return False End If If _firstTime Then For Each item In _paramDict Dim iter = item.Item2 iter.MoveNext() Next _firstTime = False Return True Else Dim canMoveNext = False Dim iterIndex = _paramDict.Count - 1 canMoveNext = _paramDict(iterIndex).Item2.MoveNext If canMoveNext Then Return True End If Do While Not canMoveNext iterIndex = iterIndex - 1 If iterIndex = -1 Then Return False IterationOver = True End If canMoveNext = _paramDict(iterIndex).Item2.MoveNext If canMoveNext Then For i = iterIndex + 1 To _paramDict.Count - 1 Dim iter = _paramDict(i).Item2 iter.Reset() iter.MoveNext() Next Return True End If Loop End If End Function Function GetNextResult() As Dictionary(Of String, Object) While MoveNext() Dim result = Current If Satisfy(result) Then Return result End If End While Return Nothing End Function Function Satisfy(ByVal result As Dictionary(Of String, Object)) As Boolean For Each item In _predicateDict Dim pred = item.Item1 Select Case item.Item2.Count Case 1 Dim p1 = DirectCast(pred, Func(Of Object, Boolean)) Dim v1 = result(item.Item2(0)) If Not p1(v1) Then Return False End If Case 2 Dim p2 = DirectCast(pred, Func(Of Object, Object, Boolean)) Dim v1 = result(item.Item2(0)) Dim v2 = result(item.Item2(1)) If Not p2(v1, v2) Then Return False End If Case 3 Dim p3 = DirectCast(pred, Func(Of Object, Object, Object, Boolean)) Dim v1 = result(item.Item2(0)) Dim v2 = result(item.Item2(1)) Dim v3 = result(item.Item2(2)) If Not p3(v1, v2, v3) Then Return False End If Case 4 Dim p4 = DirectCast(pred, Func(Of Object, Object, Object, Object, Boolean)) Dim v1 = result(item.Item2(0)) Dim v2 = result(item.Item2(1)) Dim v3 = result(item.Item2(2)) Dim v4 = result(item.Item2(3)) If Not p4(v1, v2, v3, v4) Then Return False End If Case 5 Dim p5 = DirectCast(pred, Func(Of Object, Object, Object, Object, Object, Boolean)) Dim v1 = result(item.Item2(0)) Dim v2 = result(item.Item2(1)) Dim v3 = result(item.Item2(2)) Dim v4 = result(item.Item2(3)) Dim v5 = result(item.Item2(4)) If Not p5(v1, v2, v3, v4, v5) Then Return False End If Case 6 Dim p6 = DirectCast(pred, Func(Of Object, Object, Object, Object, Object, Object, Boolean)) Dim v1 = result(item.Item2(0)) Dim v2 = result(item.Item2(1)) Dim v3 = result(item.Item2(2)) Dim v4 = result(item.Item2(3)) Dim v5 = result(item.Item2(4)) Dim v6 = result(item.Item2(5)) If Not p6(v1, v2, v3, v4, v5, v6) Then Return False End If Case 7 Dim p7 = DirectCast(pred, Func(Of Object, Object, Object, Object, Object, Object, Object, Boolean)) Dim v1 = result(item.Item2(0)) Dim v2 = result(item.Item2(1)) Dim v3 = result(item.Item2(2)) Dim v4 = result(item.Item2(3)) Dim v5 = result(item.Item2(4)) Dim v6 = result(item.Item2(5)) Dim v7 = result(item.Item2(6)) If Not p7(v1, v2, v3, v4, v5, v6, v7) Then Return False End If Case 8 Dim p8 = DirectCast(pred, Func(Of Object, Object, Object, Object, Object, Object, Object, Object, Boolean)) Dim v1 = result(item.Item2(0)) Dim v2 = result(item.Item2(1)) Dim v3 = result(item.Item2(2)) Dim v4 = result(item.Item2(3)) Dim v5 = result(item.Item2(4)) Dim v6 = result(item.Item2(5)) Dim v7 = result(item.Item2(6)) Dim v8 = result(item.Item2(7)) If Not p8(v1, v2, v3, v4, v5, v6, v7, v8) Then Return False End If Case Else Throw New NotSupportedException End Select Next Return True End FunctionEnd Class    And now we can use the engine to solve the problem we mentioned above:   Code highlighting produced by Actipro CodeHighlighter (freeware)http://www.CodeHighlighter.com/--Sub Test2() Dim engine = New NonDeterministicEngine() engine.AddParam("baker", {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}) engine.AddParam("cooper", {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}) engine.AddParam("fletcher", {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}) engine.AddParam("miller", {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}) engine.AddParam("smith", {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}) engine.AddRequire(Function(baker) As Boolean Return baker <> 5 End Function, {"baker"}) engine.AddRequire(Function(cooper) As Boolean Return cooper <> 1 End Function, {"cooper"}) engine.AddRequire(Function(fletcher) As Boolean Return fletcher <> 1 And fletcher <> 5 End Function, {"fletcher"}) engine.AddRequire(Function(miller, cooper) As Boolean 'Return miller = cooper + 1 Return miller > cooper End Function, {"miller", "cooper"}) engine.AddRequire(Function(smith, fletcher) As Boolean Return smith <> fletcher + 1 And smith <> fletcher - 1 End Function, {"smith", "fletcher"}) engine.AddRequire(Function(fletcher, cooper) As Boolean Return fletcher <> cooper + 1 And fletcher <> cooper - 1 End Function, {"fletcher", "cooper"}) engine.AddRequire(Function(a, b, c, d, e) As Boolean Return a <> b And a <> c And a <> d And a <> e And b <> c And b <> d And b <> e And c <> d And c <> e And d <> e End Function, {"baker", "cooper", "fletcher", "miller", "smith"}) Dim result = engine.GetNextResult() While Not result Is Nothing Console.WriteLine(String.Format("baker: {0}, cooper: {1}, fletcher: {2}, miller: {3}, smith: {4}", result("baker"), result("cooper"), result("fletcher"), result("miller"), result("smith"))) result = engine.GetNextResult() End While Console.WriteLine("Calculation ended.")End Sub   Also, this engine can solve the classic 8 queens puzzle and find out all 92 results for me.   Code highlighting produced by Actipro CodeHighlighter (freeware)http://www.CodeHighlighter.com/--Sub Test3() ' The 8-Queens problem. Dim engine = New NonDeterministicEngine() ' Let's assume that a - h represents the queens in row 1 to 8, then we just need to find out the column number for each of them. engine.AddParam("a", {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8}) engine.AddParam("b", {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8}) engine.AddParam("c", {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8}) engine.AddParam("d", {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8}) engine.AddParam("e", {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8}) engine.AddParam("f", {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8}) engine.AddParam("g", {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8}) engine.AddParam("h", {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8}) Dim NotInTheSameDiagonalLine = Function(cols As IList) As Boolean For i = 0 To cols.Count - 2 For j = i + 1 To cols.Count - 1 If j - i = Math.Abs(cols(j) - cols(i)) Then Return False End If Next Next Return True End Function engine.AddRequire(Function(a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h) As Boolean Return a <> b AndAlso a <> c AndAlso a <> d AndAlso a <> e AndAlso a <> f AndAlso a <> g AndAlso a <> h AndAlso b <> c AndAlso b <> d AndAlso b <> e AndAlso b <> f AndAlso b <> g AndAlso b <> h AndAlso c <> d AndAlso c <> e AndAlso c <> f AndAlso c <> g AndAlso c <> h AndAlso d <> e AndAlso d <> f AndAlso d <> g AndAlso d <> h AndAlso e <> f AndAlso e <> g AndAlso e <> h AndAlso f <> g AndAlso f <> h AndAlso g <> h AndAlso NotInTheSameDiagonalLine({a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h}) End Function, {"a", "b", "c", "d", "e", "f", "g", "h"}) Dim result = engine.GetNextResult() While Not result Is Nothing Console.WriteLine("(1,{0}), (2,{1}), (3,{2}), (4,{3}), (5,{4}), (6,{5}), (7,{6}), (8,{7})", result("a"), result("b"), result("c"), result("d"), result("e"), result("f"), result("g"), result("h")) result = engine.GetNextResult() End While Console.WriteLine("Calculation ended.")End Sub (Chinese version of the post: http://www.cnblogs.com/RChen/archive/2010/05/17/1737587.html) Cheers,  

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• Use an Ubuntu Live CD to Securely Wipe Your PC’s Hard Drive

  - by Trevor Bekolay

  Deleting files or quickly formatting a drive isn’t enough for sensitive personal information. We’ll show you how to get rid of it for good using a Ubuntu Live CD. When you delete a file in Windows, Ubuntu, or any other operating system, it doesn’t actually destroy the data stored on your hard drive, it just marks that data as “deleted.” If you overwrite it later, then that data is generally unrecoverable, but if the operating system don’t happen to overwrite it, then your data is still stored on your hard drive, recoverable by anyone who has the right software. By securely delete files or entire hard drives, your data will be gone for good. Note: Modern hard drives are extremely sophisticated, as are the experts who recover data for a living. There is no guarantee that the methods covered in this article will make your data completely unrecoverable; however, they will make your data unrecoverable to the majority of recovery methods, and all methods that are readily available to the general public. Shred individual files Most of the data stored on your hard drive is harmless, and doesn’t reveal anything about you. If there are just a few files that you know you don’t want someone else to see, then the easiest way to get rid of them is a built-in Linux utility called shred. Open a terminal window by clicking on Applications at the top-left of the screen, then expanding the Accessories menu and clicking on Terminal. Navigate to the file that you want to delete using cd to change directories and ls to list the files and folders in the current directory. As an example, we’ve got a file called BankInfo.txt on a Windows NTFS-formatted hard drive. We want to delete it securely, so we’ll call shred by entering the following in the terminal window: shred <file> which is, in our example: shred BankInfo.txt Notice that our BankInfo.txt file still exists, even though we’ve shredded it. A quick look at the contents of BankInfo.txt make it obvious that the file has indeed been securely overwritten. We can use some command-line arguments to make shred delete the file from the hard drive as well. We can also be extra-careful about the shredding process by upping the number of times shred overwrites the original file. To do this, in the terminal, type in: shred –remove –iterations=<num> <file> By default, shred overwrites the file 25 times. We’ll double this, giving us the following command: shred –remove –iterations=50 BankInfo.txt BankInfo.txt has now been securely wiped on the physical disk, and also no longer shows up in the directory listing. Repeat this process for any sensitive files on your hard drive! Wipe entire hard drives If you’re disposing of an old hard drive, or giving it to someone else, then you might instead want to wipe your entire hard drive. shred can be invoked on hard drives, but on modern file systems, the shred process may be reversible. We’ll use the program wipe to securely delete all of the data on a hard drive. Unlike shred, wipe is not included in Ubuntu by default, so we have to install it. Open up the Synaptic Package Manager by clicking on System in the top-left corner of the screen, then expanding the Administration folder and clicking on Synaptic Package Manager. wipe is part of the Universe repository, which is not enabled by default. We’ll enable it by clicking on Settings > Repositories in the Synaptic Package Manager window. Check the checkbox next to “Community-maintained Open Source software (universe)”. Click Close. You’ll need to reload Synaptic’s package list. Click on the Reload button in the main Synaptic Package Manager window. Once the package list has been reloaded, the text over the search field will change to “Rebuilding search index”. Wait until it reads “Quick search,” and then type “wipe” into the search field. The wipe package should come up, along with some other packages that perform similar functions. Click on the checkbox to the left of the label “wipe” and select “Mark for Installation”. Click on the Apply button to start the installation process. Click the Apply button on the Summary window that pops up. Once the installation is done, click the Close button and close the Synaptic Package Manager window. Open a terminal window by clicking on Applications in the top-left of the screen, then Accessories > Terminal. You need to figure our the correct hard drive to wipe. If you wipe the wrong hard drive, that data will not be recoverable, so exercise caution! In the terminal window, type in: sudo fdisk -l A list of your hard drives will show up. A few factors will help you identify the right hard drive. One is the file system, found in the System column of  the list – Windows hard drives are usually formatted as NTFS (which shows up as HPFS/NTFS). Another good identifier is the size of the hard drive, which appears after its identifier (highlighted in the following screenshot). In our case, the hard drive we want to wipe is only around 1 GB large, and is formatted as NTFS. We make a note of the label found under the the Device column heading. If you have multiple partitions on this hard drive, then there will be more than one device in this list. The wipe developers recommend wiping each partition separately. To start the wiping process, type the following into the terminal: sudo wipe <device label> In our case, this is: sudo wipe /dev/sda1 Again, exercise caution – this is the point of no return! Your hard drive will be completely wiped. It may take some time to complete, depending on the size of the drive you’re wiping. Conclusion If you have sensitive information on your hard drive – and chances are you probably do – then it’s a good idea to securely delete sensitive files before you give away or dispose of your hard drive. The most secure way to delete your data is with a few swings of a hammer, but shred and wipe from a Ubuntu Live CD is a good alternative! Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Reset Your Ubuntu Password Easily from the Live CDScan a Windows PC for Viruses from a Ubuntu Live CDRecover Deleted Files on an NTFS Hard Drive from a Ubuntu Live CDCreate a Bootable Ubuntu 9.10 USB Flash DriveCreate a Bootable Ubuntu USB Flash Drive the Easy Way TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Office 2010 Product Guides Google Maps Place marks – Pizza, Guns or Strip Clubs Monitor Applications With Kiwi LocPDF is a Visual PDF Search Tool Download Free iPad Wallpapers at iPad Decor Get Your Delicious Bookmarks In Firefox’s Awesome Bar

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• Maintaining shared service in ASP.NET MVC Application

  - by kazimanzurrashid

  Depending on the application sometimes we have to maintain some shared service throughout our application. Let’s say you are developing a multi-blog supported blog engine where both the controller and view must know the currently visiting blog, it’s setting , user information and url generation service. In this post, I will show you how you can handle this kind of case in most convenient way. First, let see the most basic way, we can create our PostController in the following way: public class PostController : Controller { public PostController(dependencies...) { } public ActionResult Index(string blogName, int? page) { BlogInfo blog = blogSerivce.FindByName(blogName); if (blog == null) { return new NotFoundResult(); } IEnumerable<PostInfo> posts = postService.FindPublished(blog.Id, PagingCalculator.StartIndex(page, blog.PostPerPage), blog.PostPerPage); int count = postService.GetPublishedCount(blog.Id); UserInfo user = null; if (HttpContext.User.Identity.IsAuthenticated) { user = userService.FindByName(HttpContext.User.Identity.Name); } return View(new IndexViewModel(urlResolver, user, blog, posts, count, page)); } public ActionResult Archive(string blogName, int? page, ArchiveDate archiveDate) { BlogInfo blog = blogSerivce.FindByName(blogName); if (blog == null) { return new NotFoundResult(); } IEnumerable<PostInfo> posts = postService.FindArchived(blog.Id, archiveDate, PagingCalculator.StartIndex(page, blog.PostPerPage), blog.PostPerPage); int count = postService.GetArchivedCount(blog.Id, archiveDate); UserInfo user = null; if (HttpContext.User.Identity.IsAuthenticated) { user = userService.FindByName(HttpContext.User.Identity.Name); } return View(new ArchiveViewModel(urlResolver, user, blog, posts, count, page, achiveDate)); } public ActionResult Tag(string blogName, string tagSlug, int? page) { BlogInfo blog = blogSerivce.FindByName(blogName); if (blog == null) { return new NotFoundResult(); } TagInfo tag = tagService.FindBySlug(blog.Id, tagSlug); if (tag == null) { return new NotFoundResult(); } IEnumerable<PostInfo> posts = postService.FindPublishedByTag(blog.Id, tag.Id, PagingCalculator.StartIndex(page, blog.PostPerPage), blog.PostPerPage); int count = postService.GetPublishedCountByTag(tag.Id); UserInfo user = null; if (HttpContext.User.Identity.IsAuthenticated) { user = userService.FindByName(HttpContext.User.Identity.Name); } return View(new TagViewModel(urlResolver, user, blog, posts, count, page, tag)); } } As you can see the above code heavily depends upon the current blog and the blog retrieval code is duplicated in all of the action methods, once the blog is retrieved the same blog is passed in the view model. Other than the blog the view also needs the current user and url resolver to render it properly. One way to remove the duplicate blog retrieval code is to create a custom model binder which converts the blog from a blog name and use the blog a parameter in the action methods instead of the string blog name, but it only helps the first half in the above scenario, the action methods still have to pass the blog, user and url resolver etc in the view model. Now lets try to improve the the above code, first lets create a new class which would contain the shared services, lets name it as BlogContext: public class BlogContext { public BlogInfo Blog { get; set; } public UserInfo User { get; set; } public IUrlResolver UrlResolver { get; set; } } Next, we will create an interface, IContextAwareService: public interface IContextAwareService { BlogContext Context { get; set; } } The idea is, whoever needs these shared services needs to implement this interface, in our case both the controller and the view model, now we will create an action filter which will be responsible for populating the context: public class PopulateBlogContextAttribute : FilterAttribute, IActionFilter { private static string blogNameRouteParameter = "blogName"; private readonly IBlogService blogService; private readonly IUserService userService; private readonly BlogContext context; public PopulateBlogContextAttribute(IBlogService blogService, IUserService userService, IUrlResolver urlResolver) { Invariant.IsNotNull(blogService, "blogService"); Invariant.IsNotNull(userService, "userService"); Invariant.IsNotNull(urlResolver, "urlResolver"); this.blogService = blogService; this.userService = userService; context = new BlogContext { UrlResolver = urlResolver }; } public static string BlogNameRouteParameter { [DebuggerStepThrough] get { return blogNameRouteParameter; } [DebuggerStepThrough] set { blogNameRouteParameter = value; } } public void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext) { string blogName = (string) filterContext.Controller.ValueProvider.GetValue(BlogNameRouteParameter).ConvertTo(typeof(string), Culture.Current); if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(blogName)) { context.Blog = blogService.FindByName(blogName); } if (context.Blog == null) { filterContext.Result = new NotFoundResult(); return; } if (filterContext.HttpContext.User.Identity.IsAuthenticated) { context.User = userService.FindByName(filterContext.HttpContext.User.Identity.Name); } IContextAwareService controller = filterContext.Controller as IContextAwareService; if (controller != null) { controller.Context = context; } } public void OnActionExecuted(ActionExecutedContext filterContext) { Invariant.IsNotNull(filterContext, "filterContext"); if ((filterContext.Exception == null) || filterContext.ExceptionHandled) { IContextAwareService model = filterContext.Controller.ViewData.Model as IContextAwareService; if (model != null) { model.Context = context; } } } } As you can see we are populating the context in the OnActionExecuting, which executes just before the controllers action methods executes, so by the time our action methods executes the context is already populated, next we are are assigning the same context in the view model in OnActionExecuted method which executes just after we set the  model and return the view in our action methods. Now, lets change the view models so that it implements this interface: public class IndexViewModel : IContextAwareService { // More Codes } public class ArchiveViewModel : IContextAwareService { // More Codes } public class TagViewModel : IContextAwareService { // More Codes } and the controller: public class PostController : Controller, IContextAwareService { public PostController(dependencies...) { } public BlogContext Context { get; set; } public ActionResult Index(int? page) { IEnumerable<PostInfo> posts = postService.FindPublished(Context.Blog.Id, PagingCalculator.StartIndex(page, Context.Blog.PostPerPage), Context.Blog.PostPerPage); int count = postService.GetPublishedCount(Context.Blog.Id); return View(new IndexViewModel(posts, count, page)); } public ActionResult Archive(int? page, ArchiveDate archiveDate) { IEnumerable<PostInfo> posts = postService.FindArchived(Context.Blog.Id, archiveDate, PagingCalculator.StartIndex(page, Context.Blog.PostPerPage), Context.Blog.PostPerPage); int count = postService.GetArchivedCount(Context.Blog.Id, archiveDate); return View(new ArchiveViewModel(posts, count, page, achiveDate)); } public ActionResult Tag(string blogName, string tagSlug, int? page) { TagInfo tag = tagService.FindBySlug(Context.Blog.Id, tagSlug); if (tag == null) { return new NotFoundResult(); } IEnumerable<PostInfo> posts = postService.FindPublishedByTag(Context.Blog.Id, tag.Id, PagingCalculator.StartIndex(page, Context.Blog.PostPerPage), Context.Blog.PostPerPage); int count = postService.GetPublishedCountByTag(tag.Id); return View(new TagViewModel(posts, count, page, tag)); } } Now, the last thing where we have to glue everything, I will be using the AspNetMvcExtensibility to register the action filter (as there is no better way to inject the dependencies in action filters). public class RegisterFilters : RegisterFiltersBase { private static readonly Type controllerType = typeof(Controller); private static readonly Type contextAwareType = typeof(IContextAwareService); protected override void Register(IFilterRegistry registry) { TypeCatalog controllers = new TypeCatalogBuilder() .Add(GetType().Assembly) .Include(type => controllerType.IsAssignableFrom(type) && contextAwareType.IsAssignableFrom(type)); registry.Register<PopulateBlogContextAttribute>(controllers); } } Thoughts and Comments?

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• SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Introduction – Day 1 of 31

  - by pinaldave

  List of all the Interview Questions and Answers Series blogs Posts covering interview questions and answers always make for interesting reading.  Some people like the subject for their helpful hints and thought provoking subject, and others dislike these posts because they feel it is nothing more than cheating.  I’d like to discuss the pros and cons of a Question and Answer format here. Interview Questions and Answers are Helpful Just like blog posts, books, and articles, interview Question and Answer discussions are learning material.  The popular Dummy’s books or Idiots Guides are not only for “dummies,” but can help everyone relearn the fundamentals.  Question and Answer discussions can serve the same purpose.  You could call this SQL Server Fundamentals or SQL Server 101. I have administrated hundreds of interviews during my career and I have noticed that sometimes an interviewee with several years of experience lacks an understanding of the fundamentals.  These individuals have been in the industry for so long, usually working on a very specific project, that the ABCs of the business have slipped their mind. Or, when a college graduate is looking to get into the industry, he is not expected to have experience since he is just graduated. However, the new grad is expected to have an understanding of fundamentals and theory.  Sometimes after the stress of final exams and graduation, it can be difficult to remember the correct answers to interview questions, though. An interview Question and Answer discussion can be very helpful to both these individuals.  It is simply a way to go back over the building blocks of a topic.  Many times a simple review like this will help “jog” your memory, and all those previously-memorized facts will come flooding back to you.  It is not a way to re-learn a topic, but a way to remind yourself of what you already know. A Question and Answer discussion can also be a way to go over old topics in a more interesting manner.  Especially if you have been working in the industry, or taking lots of classes on the topic, everything you read can sound like a repeat of what you already know.  Going over a topic in a new format can make the material seem fresh and interesting.  And an interested mind will be more engaged and remember more in the end. Interview Questions and Answers are Harmful A common argument against a Question and Answer discussion is that it will give someone a “cheat sheet.” A new guy with relatively little experience can read the interview questions and answers, and then memorize them. When an interviewer asks him the same questions, he will repeat the answers and get the job. Honestly, is he good hire because he memorized the interview questions? Wouldn’t it be better for the interviewer to hire someone with actual experience?  The answer is not as easy as it seems – there are many different factors to be considered. If the interviewer is asking fundamentals-related questions only, he gets the answers he wants to hear, and then hires this first candidate – there is a good chance that he is hiring based on personality rather than experience.  If the interviewer is smart he will ask deeper questions, have more than one person on the interview team, and interview a variety of candidates.  If one interviewee happens to memorize some answers, it usually doesn’t mean he will automatically get the job at the expense of more qualified candidates. Another argument against interview Question and Answers is that it will give candidates a false sense of confidence, and that they will appear more qualified than they are. Well, if that is true, it will not last after the first interview when the candidate is asked difficult questions and he cannot find the answers in the list of interview Questions and Answers.  Besides, confidence is one of the best things to walk into an interview with! In today’s competitive job market, there are often hundreds of candidates applying for the same position.  With so many applicants to choose from, interviewers must make decisions about who to call back and who to hire based on their gut feeling.  One drawback to reading an interview Question and Answer article is that you might sound very boring in your interview – saying the same thing as every single candidate, and parroting answers that sound like someone else wrote them for you – because they did.  However, it is definitely better to go to an interview prepared, just make sure that you give a lot of thought to your answers to make them sound like your own voice.  Remember that you will be hired based on your skills as well as your personality, so don’t think that having all the right answers will make get you hired.  A good interviewee will be prepared, confident, and know how to stand out. My Opinion A list of interview Questions and Answers is really helpful as a refresher or for beginners. To really ace an interview, one needs to have real-world, hands-on experience with SQL Server as well. Interview questions just serve as a starter or easy read for experienced professionals. When I have to learn new technology, I often search online for interview questions and get an idea about the breadth and depth of the technology. Next Action I am going to write about interview Questions and Answers for next 30 days. I have previously written a series of interview questions and answers; now I have re-written them keeping the latest version of SQL Server and current industry progress in mind. If you have faced interesting interview questions or situations, please write to me and I will publish them as a guest post. If you want me to add few more details, leave a comment and I will make sure that I do my best to accommodate. Tomorrow we will start the interview Questions and Answers series, with a few interesting stories, best practices and guest posts. We will have a prize give-away and other awards when the series ends. List of all the Interview Questions and Answers Series blogs Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Interview Questions and Answers, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Agile Awakenings and the Rules of Agile

  - by Robert May

  For those that care, you can read my history of management and technology to understand why I think I’m qualified to talk about this at all.  It’s boring, so feel free to skip it. Awakenings I first started to play around with the idea of “agile” in 2004 or 2005.  I found a book on the Rational Unified Process that I thought was good, and attempted to implement parts of it.  I thought I was agile, but really, it wasn’t.   I still didn’t understand the concept of a team.  I still wanted to tell the team what to do and how to get it done.  I still thought I was smarter than the team. After that job, I started work on another project and began helping that team.  The first few months were really rough.  We were implementing Scrum, which was relatively new to everyone on the team, and, quite frankly, I was doing a poor job of it.  I was trying to micro-manage every aspect of the teams work, and we were all miserable. The moment of change came when the senior architect bailed on the project.  His comment to me was: “This isn’t Agile.  Where are the stand-ups?  Where are the stories?”  He was dead on, and I finally woke up.  I finally realized that I was the problem!  I wasn’t trusting the team.  I wasn’t helping the team.  I was being a manager. Like many (most?), I was claiming to be Agile and use Scrum, but I wasn’t in fact following the rules Scrum.  Since then, I’ve done a lot of studying, hands on practice, coaching of many different teams, and other learning around Scrum, and I have discovered that Scrum has some rules that must be followed for success, even though the process is about continuous improvement. I’ve been practicing Scrum right for about 4 years now and have helped multiple teams implement it successfully, so what you’re about to get is based on experience, rather than just theory. The Rules of Scrum In my experience, what I’ve found is that most companies that claim to be doing Scrum or Agile are actually NOT doing either.  This stems largely because they think that they can “adopt the rules of Agile that fit their organization.”  Sadly, many of them think that this means they can adopt iterations (sprints) and not much else.  Either that, or they think they can do whatever they want, or were doing before, and call it Scrum.  This is simply not true. Here are some rules that must be followed for you to really be doing Scrum.  I’ll go into detail on each one of these posts in future blog posts and update links here.  My intent is that this will help other teams implementing scrum to see more success. Agile does not allow you to do whatever you want A Product Owner is required A ScrumMaster is required The team must function as a Team, and QA must be part of the team Support from upper management is required A prioritized product backlog is required A prioritized sprint backlog is required Release planning is required Complete spring planning is required Showcases are required Velocity must be measured Retrospectives are required Daily stand-ups are required Visibility is absolutely required For now, I think that’s enough, although I reserve the right to add more.  If you’re breaking any of these rules, you’re probably not doing Scrum.  There are exceptions to these rules, but until you have practiced Scrum for a while, you don’t know what those exceptions are. Breaking the Rules Many teams break these rules because they are the ones that expose the most pain.  Scrum is not Advil.  It’s not intended to mask the pain, its intended to cure it.  Let me explain that analogy a bit more.  Recently, my 7 year old son broke his arm, quite severely (see the X-Ray to the right).  That caused him a great deal of pain.  We went first to one doctor, and after viewing the X-Ray, they determined that there was no way that they’d cast the arm at their location.  It was simply too bad of a break for them to deal with.  They did, however, give him some Advil for the pain and put a splint on his arm to stabilize the broken bones.  Within minutes, he was feeling much better.  Had we been stupid, we could have gone home and he’d have been just as happy as ever . . . until the pain medication wore off or one of his siblings touched the splint.  Then, all of that pain would come right back to the top.  Sure, he could make it go away by just taking more Advil and moving the splint out of the way, but that wasn’t going to fix the problem permanently. We ended up in an emergency room with a doctor who could fix his arm.  However, we were warned that the fix was going to be VERY painful, and it was.  Even with heavy sedation (Propofol), my son was in enough pain that he squirmed and wiggled trying to get his arm away from the doctor.  He had to endure this pain in order to have a functional arm. But the setting wasn’t the end.  He had to have several casts, had to have it re-broken once, since the first setting didn’t take and finally was given a clean bill of health. Agile implementation is much like this story.  Agile was developed as a result of people recognizing that the development methodologies that were currently in place simply were ineffective.  However, the fix to the broken development that’s been festering for many years is not painless.  Many people start Agile thinking that things will be wonderful.  They won’t!  Agile is about visibility, and often, it brings great pain to surface.  It causes all of the missed deadlines, the cowboy coders, the coasters, the micro-managers, the lazy, and all of the other problems that are really part of your development process now to become painfully visible to EVERYONE.  Many people don’t like this exposure.  Agile will make the pain better, but not if you remove the cast (the rules above) prematurely and start breaking the rules that expose the most pain.  The healing will take time and is not instant (like Advil).  Figuring out what the true source of pain and fixing it is very valuable to you, your team, and your company.  Remember as you’re doing this that Agile isn’t the source of the pain, it’s really just exposing it.  Find the source. My recommendation is that ALL of these rules are followed for a minimum of six months, and preferably for an entire year, before you decide to break any of these rules.  Get a few good releases under your belt.  Figure out what your velocity is and start firing as a team.  Chances are, after you see agile really in action, you won’t want to break the rules because you’ll see their value. More Reading Jean Tabaka recently published a list of 78 Things I Have Learned in 6 Years of Agile Coaching.  Highly recommended. Technorati Tags: Agile,Scrum,Rules

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• SQL SERVER – Guest Posts – Feodor Georgiev – The Context of Our Database Environment – Going Beyond the Internal SQL Server Waits – Wait Type – Day 21 of 28

  - by pinaldave

  This guest post is submitted by Feodor. Feodor Georgiev is a SQL Server database specialist with extensive experience of thinking both within and outside the box. He has wide experience of different systems and solutions in the fields of architecture, scalability, performance, etc. Feodor has experience with SQL Server 2000 and later versions, and is certified in SQL Server 2008. In this article Feodor explains the server-client-server process, and concentrated on the mutual waits between client and SQL Server. This is essential in grasping the concept of waits in a ‘global’ application plan. Recently I was asked to write a blog post about the wait statistics in SQL Server and since I had been thinking about writing it for quite some time now, here it is. It is a wide-spread idea that the wait statistics in SQL Server will tell you everything about your performance. Well, almost. Or should I say – barely. The reason for this is that SQL Server is always a part of a bigger system – there are always other players in the game: whether it is a client application, web service, any other kind of data import/export process and so on. In short, the SQL Server surroundings look like this: This means that SQL Server, aside from its internal waits, also depends on external waits and settings. As we can see in the picture above, SQL Server needs to have an interface in order to communicate with the surrounding clients over the network. For this communication, SQL Server uses protocol interfaces. I will not go into detail about which protocols are best, but you can read this article. Also, review the information about the TDS (Tabular data stream). As we all know, our system is only as fast as its slowest component. This means that when we look at our environment as a whole, the SQL Server might be a victim of external pressure, no matter how well we have tuned our database server performance. Let’s dive into an example: let’s say that we have a web server, hosting a web application which is using data from our SQL Server, hosted on another server. The network card of the web server for some reason is malfunctioning (think of a hardware failure, driver failure, or just improper setup) and does not send/receive data faster than 10Mbs. On the other end, our SQL Server will not be able to send/receive data at a faster rate either. This means that the application users will notify the support team and will say: “My data is coming very slow.” Now, let’s move on to a bit more exciting example: imagine that there is a similar setup as the example above – one web server and one database server, and the application is not using any stored procedure calls, but instead for every user request the application is sending 80kb query over the network to the SQL Server. (I really thought this does not happen in real life until I saw it one day.) So, what happens in this case? To make things worse, let’s say that the 80kb query text is submitted from the application to the SQL Server at least 100 times per minute, and as often as 300 times per minute in peak times. Here is what happens: in order for this query to reach the SQL Server, it will have to be broken into a of number network packets (according to the packet size settings) – and will travel over the network. On the other side, our SQL Server network card will receive the packets, will pass them to our network layer, the packets will get assembled, and eventually SQL Server will start processing the query – parsing, allegorizing, generating the query execution plan and so on. So far, we have already had a serious network overhead by waiting for the packets to reach our Database Engine. There will certainly be some processing overhead – until the database engine deals with the 80kb query and its 20 subqueries. The waits you see in the DMVs are actually collected from the point the query reaches the SQL Server and the packets are assembled. Let’s say that our query is processed and it finally returns 15000 rows. These rows have a certain size as well, depending on the data types returned. This means that the data will have converted to packages (depending on the network size package settings) and will have to reach the application server. There will also be waits, however, this time you will be able to see a wait type in the DMVs called ASYNC_NETWORK_IO. What this wait type indicates is that the client is not consuming the data fast enough and the network buffers are filling up. Recently Pinal Dave posted a blog on Client Statistics. What Client Statistics does is captures the physical flow characteristics of the query between the client(Management Studio, in this case) and the server and back to the client. As you see in the image, there are three categories: Query Profile Statistics, Network Statistics and Time Statistics. Number of server roundtrips–a roundtrip consists of a request sent to the server and a reply from the server to the client. For example, if your query has three select statements, and they are separated by ‘GO’ command, then there will be three different roundtrips. TDS Packets sent from the client – TDS (tabular data stream) is the language which SQL Server speaks, and in order for applications to communicate with SQL Server, they need to pack the requests in TDS packets. TDS Packets sent from the client is the number of packets sent from the client; in case the request is large, then it may need more buffers, and eventually might even need more server roundtrips. TDS packets received from server –is the TDS packets sent by the server to the client during the query execution. Bytes sent from client – is the volume of the data set to our SQL Server, measured in bytes; i.e. how big of a query we have sent to the SQL Server. This is why it is best to use stored procedures, since the reusable code (which already exists as an object in the SQL Server) will only be called as a name of procedure + parameters, and this will minimize the network pressure. Bytes received from server – is the amount of data the SQL Server has sent to the client, measured in bytes. Depending on the number of rows and the datatypes involved, this number will vary. But still, think about the network load when you request data from SQL Server. Client processing time – is the amount of time spent in milliseconds between the first received response packet and the last received response packet by the client. Wait time on server replies – is the time in milliseconds between the last request packet which left the client and the first response packet which came back from the server to the client. Total execution time – is the sum of client processing time and wait time on server replies (the SQL Server internal processing time) Here is an illustration of the Client-server communication model which should help you understand the mutual waits in a client-server environment. Keep in mind that a query with a large ‘wait time on server replies’ means the server took a long time to produce the very first row. This is usual on queries that have operators that need the entire sub-query to evaluate before they proceed (for example, sort and top operators). However, a query with a very short ‘wait time on server replies’ means that the query was able to return the first row fast. However a long ‘client processing time’ does not necessarily imply the client spent a lot of time processing and the server was blocked waiting on the client. It can simply mean that the server continued to return rows from the result and this is how long it took until the very last row was returned. The bottom line is that developers and DBAs should work together and think carefully of the resource utilization in the client-server environment. From experience I can say that so far I have seen only cases when the application developers and the Database developers are on their own and do not ask questions about the other party’s world. I would recommend using the Client Statistics tool during new development to track the performance of the queries, and also to find a synchronous way of utilizing resources between the client – server – client. Here is another example: think about similar setup as above, but add another server to the game. Let’s say that we keep our media on a separate server, and together with the data from our SQL Server we need to display some images on the webpage requested by our user. No matter how simple or complicated the logic to get the images is, if the images are 500kb each our users will get the page slowly and they will still think that there is something wrong with our data. Anyway, I don’t mean to get carried away too far from SQL Server. Instead, what I would like to say is that DBAs should also be aware of ‘the big picture’. I wrote a blog post a while back on this topic, and if you are interested, you can read it here about the big picture. And finally, here are some guidelines for monitoring the network performance and improving it: Run a trace and outline all queries that return more than 1000 rows (in Profiler you can actually filter and sort the captured trace by number of returned rows). This is not a set number; it is more of a guideline. The general thought is that no application user can consume that many rows at once. Ask yourself and your fellow-developers: ‘why?’. Monitor your network counters in Perfmon: Network Interface:Output queue length, Redirector:Network errors/sec, TCPv4: Segments retransmitted/sec and so on. Make sure to establish a good friendship with your network administrator (buy them coffee, for example J ) and get into a conversation about the network settings. Have them explain to you how the network cards are setup – are they standalone, are they ‘teamed’, what are the settings – full duplex and so on. Find some time to read a bit about networking. In this short blog post I hope I have turned your attention to ‘the big picture’ and the fact that there are other factors affecting our SQL Server, aside from its internal workings. As a further reading I would still highly recommend the Wait Stats series on this blog, also I would recommend you have the coffee break conversation with your network admin as soon as possible. This guest post is written by Feodor Georgiev. Read all the post in the Wait Types and Queue series. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, Readers Contribution, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL

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• ASP.NET Web Forms Extensibility: Providers

  - by Ricardo Peres

  Introduction This will be the first of a number of posts on ASP.NET extensibility. At this moment I don’t know exactly how many will be and I only know a couple of subjects that I want to talk about, so more will come in the next days. I have the sensation that the providers offered by ASP.NET are not widely know, although everyone uses, for example, sessions, they may not be aware of the extensibility points that Microsoft included. This post won’t go into details of how to configure and extend each of the providers, but will hopefully give some pointers on that direction. Canonical These are the most widely known and used providers, coming from ASP.NET 1, chances are, you have used them already. Good support for invoking client side, either from a .NET application or from JavaScript. Lots of server-side controls use them, such as the Login control for example. Membership The Membership provider is responsible for managing registered users, including creating new ones, authenticating them, changing passwords, etc. ASP.NET comes with two implementations, one that uses a SQL Server database and another that uses the Active Directory. The base class is Membership and new providers are registered on the membership section on the Web.config file, as well as parameters for specifying minimum password lengths, complexities, maximum age, etc. One reason for creating a custom provider would be, for example, storing membership information in a different database engine. 1: <membership defaultProvider="MyProvider"> 2: <providers> 3: <add name="MyProvider" type="MyClass, MyAssembly"/> 4: </providers> 5: </membership> Role The Role provider assigns roles to authenticated users. The base class is Role and there are three out of the box implementations: XML-based, SQL Server and Windows-based. Also registered on Web.config through the roleManager section, where you can also say if your roles should be cached on a cookie. If you want your roles to come from a different place, implement a custom provider. 1: <roleManager defaultProvider="MyProvider"> 2: <providers> 3: <add name="MyProvider" type="MyClass, MyAssembly" /> 4: </providers> 5: </roleManager> Profile The Profile provider allows defining a set of properties that will be tied and made available to authenticated or even anonymous ones, which must be tracked by using anonymous authentication. The base class is Profile and the only included implementation stores these settings in a SQL Server database. Configured through profile section, where you also specify the properties to make available, a custom provider would allow storing these properties in different locations. 1: <profile defaultProvider="MyProvider"> 2: <providers> 3: <add name="MyProvider" type="MyClass, MyAssembly"/> 4: </providers> 5: </profile> Basic OK, I didn’t know what to call these, so Basic is probably as good as a name as anything else. Not supported client-side (doesn’t even make sense). Session The Session provider allows storing data tied to the current “session”, which is normally created when a user first accesses the site, even when it is not yet authenticated, and remains all the way. The base class and only included implementation is SessionStateStoreProviderBase and it is capable of storing data in one of three locations: In the process memory (default, not suitable for web farms or increased reliability); A SQL Server database (best for reliability and clustering); The ASP.NET State Service, which is a Windows Service that is installed with the .NET Framework (ok for clustering). The configuration is made through the sessionState section. By adding a custom Session provider, you can store the data in different locations – think for example of a distributed cache. 1: <sessionState customProvider=”MyProvider”> 2: <providers> 3: <add name=”MyProvider” type=”MyClass, MyAssembly” /> 4: </providers> 5: </sessionState> Resource A not so known provider, allows you to change the origin of localized resource elements. By default, these come from RESX files and are used whenever you use the Resources expression builder or the GetGlobalResourceObject and GetLocalResourceObject methods, but if you implement a custom provider, you can have these elements come from some place else, such as a database. The base class is ResourceProviderFactory and there’s only one internal implementation which uses these RESX files. Configuration is through the globalization section. 1: <globalization resourceProviderFactoryType="MyClass, MyAssembly" /> Health Monitoring Health Monitoring is also probably not so well known, and actually not a good name for it. First, in order to understand what it does, you have to know that ASP.NET fires “events” at specific times and when specific things happen, such as when logging in, an exception is raised. These are not user interface events and you can create your own and fire them, nothing will happen, but the Health Monitoring provider will detect it. You can configure it to do things when certain conditions are met, such as a number of events being fired in a certain amount of time. You define these rules and route them to a specific provider, which must inherit from WebEventProvider. Out of the box implementations include sending mails, logging to a SQL Server database, writing to the Windows Event Log, Windows Management Instrumentation, the IIS 7 Trace infrastructure or the debugger Trace. Its configuration is achieved by the healthMonitoring section and a reason for implementing a custom provider would be, for example, locking down a web application in the event of a significant number of failed login attempts occurring in a small period of time. 1: <healthMonitoring> 2: <providers> 3: <add name="MyProvider" type="MyClass, MyAssembly"/> 4: </providers> 5: </healthMonitoring> Sitemap The Sitemap provider allows defining the site’s navigation structure and associated required permissions for each node, in a tree-like fashion. Usually this is statically defined, and the included provider allows it, by supplying this structure in a Web.sitemap XML file. The base class is SiteMapProvider and you can extend it in order to supply you own source for the site’s structure, which may even be dynamic. Its configuration must be done through the siteMap section. 1: <siteMap defaultProvider="MyProvider"> 2: <providers><add name="MyProvider" type="MyClass, MyAssembly" /> 3: </providers> 4: </siteMap> Web Part Personalization Web Parts are better known by SharePoint users, but since ASP.NET 2.0 they are included in the core Framework. Web Parts are server-side controls that offer certain possibilities of configuration by clients visiting the page where they are located. The infrastructure handles this configuration per user or globally for all users and this provider is responsible for just that. The base class is PersonalizationProvider and the only included implementation stores settings on SQL Server. Add new providers through the personalization section. 1: <webParts> 2: <personalization defaultProvider="MyProvider"> 3: <providers> 4: <add name="MyProvider" type="MyClass, MyAssembly"/> 5: </providers> 6: </personalization> 7: </webParts> Build The Build provider is responsible for compiling whatever files are present on your web folder. There’s a base class, BuildProvider, and, as can be expected, internal implementations for building pages (ASPX), master pages (Master), user web controls (ASCX), handlers (ASHX), themes (Skin), XML Schemas (XSD), web services (ASMX, SVC), resources (RESX), browser capabilities files (Browser) and so on. You would write a build provider if you wanted to generate code from any kind of non-code file so that you have strong typing at development time. Configuration goes on the buildProviders section and it is per extension. 1: <buildProviders> 2: <add extension=".ext" type="MyClass, MyAssembly” /> 3: </buildProviders> New in ASP.NET 4 Not exactly new since they exist since 2010, but in ASP.NET terms, still new. Output Cache The Output Cache for ASPX pages and ASCX user controls is now extensible, through the Output Cache provider, which means you can implement a custom mechanism for storing and retrieving cached data, for example, in a distributed fashion. The base class is OutputCacheProvider and the only implementation is private. Configuration goes on the outputCache section and on each page and web user control you can choose the provider you want to use. 1: <caching> 2: <outputCache defaultProvider="MyProvider"> 3: <providers> 4: <add name="MyProvider" type="MyClass, MyAssembly"/> 5: </providers> 6: </outputCache> 7: </caching> Request Validation A big change introduced in ASP.NET 4 (and refined in 4.5, by the way) is the introduction of extensible request validation, by means of a Request Validation provider. This means we are not limited to either enabling or disabling event validation for all pages or for a specific page, but we now have fine control over each of the elements of the request, including cookies, headers, query string and form values. The base provider class is RequestValidator and the configuration goes on the httpRuntime section. 1: <httpRuntime requestValidationType="MyClass, MyAssembly" /> Browser Capabilities The Browser Capabilities provider is new in ASP.NET 4, although the concept exists from ASP.NET 2. The idea is to map a browser brand and version to its supported capabilities, such as JavaScript version, Flash support, ActiveX support, and so on. Previously, this was all hardcoded in .Browser files located in %WINDIR%\Microsoft.NET\Framework(64)\vXXXXX\Config\Browsers, but now you can have a class inherit from HttpCapabilitiesProvider and implement your own mechanism. Register in on the browserCaps section. 1: <browserCaps provider="MyClass, MyAssembly" /> Encoder The Encoder provider is responsible for encoding every string that is sent to the browser on a page or header. This includes for example converting special characters for their standard codes and is implemented by the base class HttpEncoder. Another implementation takes care of Anti Cross Site Scripting (XSS) attacks. Build your own by inheriting from one of these classes if you want to add some additional processing to these strings. The configuration will go on the httpRuntime section. 1: <httpRuntime encoderType="MyClass, MyAssembly" /> Conclusion That’s about it for ASP.NET providers. It was by no means a thorough description, but I hope I managed to raise your interest on this subject. There are lots of pointers on the Internet, so I only included direct references to the Framework classes and configuration sections. Stay tuned for more extensibility!

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• Customize the Windows Media Center Start Menu with Media Center Studio

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Do you ever wish you could change the WMC start menu? Maybe move some of the tiles and strips around to different locations, add new ones, or eliminate some altogether? Today we look at how to do it using Media Center Studio. Download and install Media Center Studio. (Download link below) You’ll also want to make sure you have Windows Media Center closed before running Media Center Studio. Many of the actions cannot be performed with Media Center open. Once installed, you can open Media Center Studio from the Windows Start Menu. When you first open Media Center Studio you’ll be on the Themes tab. Click on the Start Menu tab. It should be noted that Media Center Studio is a Beta application, and it did crash on us a few times, so it’s a good idea to save your work frequently. You can save your changes by selecting Save on the Home tab, or by clicking the small disk icon at the top left. We also found that that trying to launch Media Center from the Start Media Center button on the application ribbon typically didn’t work. Opening Windows Media Center from the Windows Start Menu is preferred.   When you’re on the Start Menu tab you will see the Windows Media Center menu strips and tiles. Click the arrows located at the right, left, top, and bottom of the screen to scroll through the various menu strips.   Hiding and Removing Tiles and Menu Strips. If there is an entire menu strip that you never use and would like to remove from Media Center, simply uncheck the box to the left of the the title above that menu strip. If you’d like to hide individual tiles, uncheck the box next to the name of the individual tile. Renaming Tiles and Strips To rename a tile or menu strip, click on the small notepad icon next to the title. Note: If you do not see a small notepad icon next to the title, then the title is not editable. This applies to many of the “Promo” tiles. The title will turn into a text input box so that you can edit the name. Click away from the text box when finished. Here we will change the title of the default Movie strip to “Flicks.” Change the Default Tile and Menu Strip The Default menu strip is the strip that is highlighted, or on focus, when you open Media Center.   To change the default strip, simply click once on another strip to highlight it, and then save your work. In our example, I’m going to make our newly renamed “Flicks” strip the default.   Each menu strip has a default tile. This is the tile that is active, or on focus, when you select the menu strip. To change the default tile on a strip, click once on the tile. You will see it outlined in light blue. Now just simply save your changes. In our example below, we’ve changed the default tile on the TV strip to “guide.”   Moving Tiles and Menu Strips You can move an entire Menu Strip up or down on the screen. When you hover your mouse over the a menu strip, you will see up and down arrows appear to the right and left of the title. Click on the arrows to move the strip up or down.   You will see the menu strip appear in it’s new position.   To move a tile to a new menu strip, click and drag the tile you’d like to move. When you begin to drag the tile, green plus (+) signs will appear in between the tiles. Drag and drop the tile onto to any of these green plus signs to move it to that location. When you’ve dragged the tile over an acceptable position, you’ll see the  red “Move” label next to your cursor turn to a blue “Move to” label. Now you can drop the tile into position. You’ll see the tile located in it’s new position.   Adding a New Custom Menu Strip Click on the Start Menu tab and then select the Menu Strip button.   You will see a new Custom Menu strip appear on your Start Menu with the default name of Custom menu. You can change the name by clicking on the notepad icon just as we did earlier. For our example, we’ll change the name of the new strip to Add-ins. To add a new tile, click on Entry Points at the lower left of the application window. This will reveal all of your available Entry Points that can be added to the Media Center Menu. You should see the built-in Media Center Games and any Media Center Plug-ins you have added to your system. You can then drag and drop any of the Entry Points onto any of the Menu Strips. Below we’ve added Media Browser to our custom Add-ins menu strip. You can also add additional applications to launch directly from Media Center. Click on the Application button on the Start Menu tab. Note: Many applications may not work with your remote, but with keyboard and mouse only.    Type in a title which will appear under the tile in Media Center, and then type the path to the application. In our example, we will add Internet Explorer 8. Note: Be sure to add the actual path to the application and not just a link on the desktop. Click any of the check boxes to select any options under Required Capabilities. You can also browse to choose an image if you don’t care for the image that appears automatically.   Next, you can select keyboard strokes to press to exit the application and return to Media Center. Click the green plus (+) button. When prompted, press a key you’ll use to close the program. Repeat the process if you’d also like to select a keystroke to kill the program.   You’ll see your button programs listed below. When you’re finished, save your work and close out of Media Center Studio.   Now your new program entry point will appear in the Entry Points section. Drag the icon to the desired position on the Start Menu and save again before exiting Media Center Studio. When you open Media Center you will see your new application on the start menu. Click the tile to open the application just as you would any other tile. The application will open and minimize Media Center. When you press the key you choose to close the program, Windows Media Center will automatically be restored. Note: You can also exit the application through normal methods by clicking the red “X” or File > Exit. Conclusion Media Center Studio is a Beta application which the developer freely admits still has some bugs. Despite it’s flaws Media Center Studio is a powerful tool, and when it comes to customizing your Media Center start menu, it’s pretty much the only game in town. It works with both Vista and Windows 7, and according to the developer, has not been officially tested with extenders. Media Center Studio can also be used to add custom themes to Windows 7 Media Center and we’ll be covering that in a future article. Looking for more ways to customize your Media Center experience? Be sure to check out our earlier posts on Media Browser, as well as how to add Hulu, Boxee, and weather conditions your Windows 7 Media Center. Download Media Center Studio Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Using Netflix Watchnow in Windows Vista Media Center (Gmedia)How To Rip a Music CD in Windows 7 Media CenterSchedule Updates for Windows Media CenterStartup Customizations for Media Center in Windows 7Automatically Start Windows 7 Media Center in Live TV Mode 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 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows Video Toolbox is a Superb Online Video Editor Fun with 47 charts and graphs Tomorrow is Mother’s Day Check the Average Speed of YouTube Videos You’ve Watched OutlookStatView Scans and Displays General Usage Statistics How to Add Exceptions to the Windows Firewall

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• SQLAuthority Book Review – DBA Survivor: Become a Rock Star DBA

  - by pinaldave

  DBA Survivor: Become a Rock Star DBA – Thomas LaRock Link to Amazon Link to Flipkart First of all, I thank all my readers when I wrote that I could not get this book in any local book stores, because they offered me to send a copy of this good book. A very special mention goes to Sripada and Jayesh for they gave so much effort in finding my home address and sending me the hard copy. Before, I did not have the copy of the book, but now I have two of it already! It surprises me how my readers were able to find my home address, which I have not publicly shared. Quick Review: This is indeed a one easy-to-read and fun book. We all work day and night with technology yet we should not forget to show our love and care for our family at home. For our souls that starve for peace and guidance, this one book is the “it” book for all the technology enthusiasts. Though this book was specifically written for DBAs, the reach is not limited to DBAs only because the lessons incorporated in it actually applies to all. This is one of the most motivating technical books I have read. Detailed Review: Let us go over a few questions first: Who wants to be as famous as rockstars in the field of Database Administration? How can one learn what it takes to become a top notch software developer? If you are a beginner in your field, how will you go to next level? Your boss may be very kind or like Dilbert’s Boss, what will you do? How do you keep growing when Eco-system around you does not support you? You are almost at top but there is someone else at the TOP, what do you do and how do you avoid office politics? As a database developer what should be your basic responsibility? and many more… I was able to completely read book in one sitting and I loved it. Before I continue with my opinion, I want to echo the opinion of Kevin Kline who has written the Forward of the book. He has truly suggested that “You hold in your hands a collection of insights and wisdom on the topic of database administration gained through many years of hard-won experience, long nights of study, and direct mentorship under some of the industry’s most talented database professionals and information technology (IT) experts.” Today, IT field is getting bigger and better, while talking about terabytes of the database becomes “more” normal every single day. The gods and demigods of database professionals are taking care of these large scale databases and are carefully maintaining them. In this world, there are only a few beginnings on the first step. There are many experts in different technology fields who are asked to address the issues with databases. There is YOU and ME, who is just new to this work. So we ask ourselves WHERE to begin and HOW to begin. We adore and follow the religion of our rockstars, but oftentimes we really have no idea about their background and their struggles. Every rockstar has his success story which needs to be digested before learning his tricks and tips. This book starts with the same note and teaches the two most important lessons for anybody who wants to be a DBA Rockstar –  to focus on their single goal of learning and to excel the technology. The story starts with three simple guidelines – Get Prepared, Get Trained, Get Certified. Once a person learns the skills, and then, it would be about time that he needs to enrich or to improve those skills you have learned. I am sure that the right opportunity will come finding themselves and they will not have to go run behind it. However, the real challenge for any person is the first day or first week. A new employee, no matter how much experienced he is, sometimes has no clue about what should one do at new job. Chapter 2 and chapter 3 precisely talk about what one should do as soon as the new job begins. It is also written with keeping the fact in focus that each job can be very much different but there are few infrastructure setups and programming concepts are the same. Learning basics of database was really interesting. I like to focus on the roots of any technology. It is important to understand the structure of the database before suggesting what indexes needs to be created, the same way this book covers the most essential knowledge one must learn by most database developers. I think the title of the fourth chapter is my favorite sentence in this book. I can see that I will be saying this again and again in the future – “A Development Server Is a Production Server to a Developer“. I have worked in the software industry for almost 8 years now and I have seen so many developers sitting on their chairs and waiting for instructions from their lead about how to improve the code or what to do the next. When I talk to them, I suggest that the experiment with their server and try various techniques. I think they all should understand that for them, a development server is their production server and needs to pay proper attention to the code from the beginning. There should be NO any inappropriate code from the beginning. One has to fully focus and give their best, if they are not sure they should ask but should do something and stay active. Chapter 5 and 6 talks about two essential skills for any developer and database administration – what are the ethics of developers when they are working with production server and how to support software which is running on the production server. I have met many people who know the theory by heart but when put in front of keyboard they do not know where to start. The first thing they do opening the browser and searching online, instead of opening SQL Server Management Studio. This can very well happen to anybody who is experienced as well. Chapter 5 and 6 addresses that situation as well includes the handy scripts which can solve almost all the basic trouble shooting issues. “Where’s the Buffet?” By far, this is the best chapter in this book. If you have ever met me, you would know that I love food. I think after reading this chapter, I felt Thomas has written this just keeping me in mind. I think there will be many other people who feel the same way, too. Even my wife who read this chapter thought this was specifically written for me. I will not talk any more about this chapter as this is one must read chapter. And of course this is about real ‘FOOD‘. I am an SQL Server Trainer and Consultant and I totally agree with the point made in the chapter 8 of this book. Yes, it says here that what is necessary to train employees and people. Millions of dollars worth the labor is continuously done in the world which has faults and incorrect. Once something goes wrong, very expensive consultant comes in and fixes the problem. This whole cycle which can be stopped and improved if proper training is done. There is plenty of free trainings available as well, if one cannot afford paid training. “Connect. Learn. Share” – I think this is a great summary and bird’s eye view of this book. Networking is the key. Everything which is discussed in this book can be taken to next level if one properly uses this tips and continuously grow with it. Connecting with others, helping learn each other and building the good knowledge sharing environment should be the goal of everyone. Before I end the review I want to share a real experience. I have personally met one DBA who has worked in a single department in a company for so long that when he was put in a different department in his company due to closing that department, he could not adjust and quit the job despite the same people and company around him. Adjusting in the new environment gets much tougher as one person gets more and more experienced. This book precisely addresses the same issue along with their solutions. I just cannot stop comparing the book with my personal journey. I found so many things which are coincidently in the book is written as how we developer and DBA think. I must express special thanks to Thomas for taking time in his personal life and write this book for us. This book is indeed a book for everybody who wants to grow healthy in the tough and competitive environment. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Book Review, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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