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• Searching for the Perfect Developer&rsquo;s Laptop.

  - by mbcrump

  I have been in the market for a new computer for several months. I set out with a budget of around $1200. I knew up front that the machine would be used for developing applications and maybe some light gaming. I kept switching between buying a laptop or a desktop but the laptop won because: With a Laptop, I can carry it everywhere and with a desktop I can’t. I searched for about 2 weeks and narrowed it down to a list of must-have’s : i7 Processor (I wasn’t going to settle for an i5 or AMD. I wanted a true Quad-core machine, not 2 dual-core fused together). 15.6” monitor SSD 128GB or Larger. – It’s almost 2011 and I don’t want an old standard HDD in this machine. 8GB of DDR3 Ram. – The more the better, right? 1GB Video Card (Prefer NVidia) – I might want to play games with this. HDMI Port – Almost a standard on new Machines. This would be used when I am on the road and want to stream Netflix to the HDTV in the Hotel room. Webcam Built-in – This would be to video chat with the wife and kids if I am on the road. 6-Cell Battery. – I’ve read that an i7 in a laptop really kills the battery. A 6-cell or 9-cell is even better. That is a pretty long list for a budget of around $1200. I searched around the internet and could not buy this machine prebuilt for under $1200. That was even with coupons and my company’s 10% Dell discount. The only way that I would get a machine like this was to buy a prebuilt and replace parts. I chose the  Lenovo Y560 on Newegg to start as my base. Below is a top-down picture of it.   Part 1: The Hardware The Specs for this machine: Color :  GrayOperating System : Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bitCPU Type : Intel Core i7-740QM(1.73GHz)Screen : 15.6" WXGAMemory Size : 4GB DDR3Hard Disk : 500GBOptical Drive : DVD±R/RWGraphics Card : ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730Video Memory : 1GBCommunication : Gigabit LAN and WLANCard slot : 1 x Express Card/34Battery Life : Up to 3.5 hoursDimensions : 15.20" x 10.00" x 0.80" - 1.30"Weight : 5.95 lbs. This computer met most of the requirements above except that it didn’t come with an SSD or have 8GB of DDR3 Memory. So, I needed to start shopping except this time for an SSD. I asked around on twitter and other hardware forums and everyone pointed me to the Crucial C300 SSD. After checking prices of the drive, it was going to cost an extra $275 bucks and I was going from a spacious 500GB drive to 128GB. After watching some of the SSD videos on YouTube I started feeling better. Below is a pic of the Crucial C300 SSD. The second thing that I needed to upgrade was the RAM. It came with 4GB of DDR3 RAM, but it was slow. I decided to buy the Crucial 8GB (4GB x 2) Kit from Newegg. This RAM cost an extra $120 and had a CAS Latency of 7. In the end this machine delivered everything that I wanted and it cost around $1300. You are probably saying, well your budget was $1200. I have spare parts that I’m planning on selling on eBay or Anandtech.  =) If you are interested then shoot me an email and I will give you a great deal mbcrump[at]gmail[dot]com. 500GB Laptop 7200RPM HDD 4GB of DDR3 RAM (2GB x 2) faceVision HD 720p Camera – Unopened In the end my Windows Experience Rating of the SSD was 7.7 and the CPU 7.1. The max that you can get is a 7.9. Part 2: The Software I’m very lucky that I get a lot of software for free. When choosing a laptop, the OS really doesn’t matter because I would never keep the bloatware pre-installed or Windows 7 Home Premium on my main development machine. Matter of fact, as soon as I got the laptop, I immediately took out the old HDD without booting into it. After I got the SSD into the machine, I installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit. The BIOS was out of date, so I updated that to the latest version and started downloading drivers off of Lenovo’s site. I had to download the Wireless Networking Drivers to a USB-Key before I could get my machine on my wireless network. I also discovered that if the date on your computer is off then you cannot join the Windows 7 Homegroup until you fix it. I’m aware that most people like peeking into what programs other software developers use and I went ahead and listed my “essentials” of a fresh build. I am a big Silverlight guy, so naturally some of the software listed below is specific to Silverlight. You should also check out my master list of Tools and Utilities for the .NET Developer. See a killer app that I’m missing? Feel free to leave it in the comments below. My Software Essential List. CPU-Z Dropbox Everything Search Tool Expression Encoder Update Expression Studio 4 Ultimate Foxit Reader Google Chrome Infragistics NetAdvantage Ultimate Edition Keepass Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 Microsoft Security Essentials 2  Mindscape Silverlight Elements Notepad 2 (with shell extension) Precode Code Snippet Manager RealVNC Reflector ReSharper v5.1.1753.4 Silverlight 4 Toolkit Silverlight Spy Snagit 10 SyncFusion Reporting Controls for Silverlight Telerik Silverlight RadControls TweetDeck Virtual Clone Drive Visual Studio 2010 Feature Pack 2 Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate VS KB2403277 Update to get Feature Pack 2 to work. Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit Windows Live Essentials 2011 Windows Live Writer Backup. Windows Phone Development Tools That is pretty much it, I have a new laptop and am happy with the purchase. If you have any questions then feel free to leave a comment below.  Subscribe to my feed

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• Create Advanced Panoramas with Microsoft Image Composite Editor

  - by Matthew Guay

  Do you enjoy making panoramas with your pictures, but want more features than tools like Live Photo Gallery offer?  Here’s how you can create amazing panoramas for free with the Microsoft Image Composite Editor. Yesterday we took a look at creating panoramic photos in Windows Live Photo Gallery. Today we take a look at a free tool from Microsoft that will give you more advanced features to create your own masterpiece. Getting Started Download Microsoft Image Composite Editor from Microsoft Research (link below), and install as normal.  Note that there are separate version for 32 & 64-bit editions of Windows, so make sure to download the correct one for your computer. Once it’s installed, you can proceed to create awesome panoramas and extremely large image combinations with it.  Microsoft Image Composite Editor integrates with Live Photo Gallery, so you can create more advanced panoramic pictures directly.  Select the pictures you want to combine, click Extras in the menu bar, and select Create Image Composite. You can also create a photo stitch directly from Explorer.  Select the pictures you want to combine, right-click, and select Stitch Images… Or, simply launch the Image Composite Editor itself and drag your pictures into its editor.  Either way you start a image composition, the program will automatically analyze and combine your images.  This application is optimized for multiple cores, and we found it much faster than other panorama tools such as Live Photo Gallery. Within seconds, you’ll see your panorama in the top preview pane. From the bottom of the window, you can choose a different camera motion which will change how the program stitches the pictures together.  You can also quickly crop the picture to the size you want, or use Automatic Crop to have the program select the maximum area with a continuous picture.   Here’s how our panorama looked when we switched the Camera Motion to Planar Motion 2. But, the real tweaking comes in when you adjust the panorama’s projection and orientation.  Click the box button at the top to change these settings. The panorama is now overlaid with a grid, and you can drag the corners and edges of the panorama to change its shape. Or, from the Projection button at the top, you can choose different projection modes. Here we’ve chosen Cylinder (Vertical), which entirely removed the warp on the walls in the image.  You can pan around the image, and get the part you find most important in the center.  Click the Apply button on the top when you’re finished making changes, or click Revert if you want to switch to the default view settings. Once you’ve finished your masterpiece, you can export it easily to common photo formats from the Export panel on the bottom.  You can choose to scale the image or set it to a maximum width and height as well.  Click Export to disk to save the photo to your computer, or select Publish to Photosynth to post your panorama online. Alternately, from the File menu you can choose to save the panorama as .spj file.  This preserves all of your settings in the Image Composite Editor so you can edit it more in the future if you wish.   Conclusion Whether you’re trying to capture the inside of a building or a tall tree, the extra tools in Microsoft Image Composite Editor let you make nicer panoramas than you ever thought possible.  We found the final results surprisingly accurate to the real buildings and objects, especially after tweaking the projection modes.  This tool can be both fun and useful, so give it a try and let us know what you’ve found it useful for. Works with 32 & 64-bit versions of XP, Vista, and Windows 7 Link Download Microsoft Image Composite Editor Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Change or Set the Greasemonkey Script Editor in FirefoxNew Vista Syntax for Opening Control Panel Items from the Command-lineTune Your ClearType Font Settings in Windows VistaChange the Default Editor From Nano on Ubuntu LinuxMake MSE Create a Restore Point Before Cleaning Malware 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 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 Get a free copy of WinUtilities Pro 2010 World Cup Schedule Boot Snooze – Reboot and then Standby or Hibernate Customize Everything Related to Dates, Times, Currency and Measurement in Windows 7 Google Earth replacement Icon (Icons we like) Build Great Charts in Excel with Chart Advisor

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• JQuery + WCF + HTTP 404 Error

  - by hangar18

  HI All, I've searched high and low and finally decided to post a query here. I'm writing a very basic HTML page from which I'm trying to call a WCF service using jQuery and parse it using JSON. Service: IMyDemo.cs [ServiceContract] public interface IMyDemo { [WebInvoke(Method = "POST", BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.WrappedRequest, ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json)] Employee DoWork(); [OperationContract] [WebInvoke(Method = "POST", BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.WrappedRequest, ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json)] Employee GetEmp(int age, string name); } [DataContract] public class Employee { [DataMember] public int EmpId { get; set; } [DataMember] public string EmpName { get; set; } [DataMember] public int EmpSalary { get; set; } } MyDemo.svc.cs public Employee DoWork() { // Add your operation implementation here Employee obj = new Employee() { EmpSalary = 12, EmpName = "SomeName" }; return obj; } public Employee GetEmp(int age, string name) { Employee emp = new Employee(); if (age > 0) emp.EmpSalary = 12 + age; if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(name)) emp.EmpName = "Server" + name; return emp; } WEb.Config <system.serviceModel> <services> <service behaviorConfiguration="EmployeesBehavior" name="MySample.MyDemo"> <endpoint address="" binding="webHttpBinding" contract="MySample.IMyDemo" behaviorConfiguration="EmployeesBehavior"/> </service> </services> <behaviors> <serviceBehaviors> <behavior name="EmployeesBehavior"> <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" /> <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="true" /> </behavior> </serviceBehaviors> <endpointBehaviors> <behavior name="EmployeesBehavior"> <webHttp/> </behavior> </endpointBehaviors> </behaviors> <serviceHostingEnvironment multipleSiteBindingsEnabled="true" /> </system.serviceModel> MyDemo.htm <head> <title></title> <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="Scripts/jquery-1.4.1.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="Scripts/json.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> //create a global javascript object for the AJAX defaults. debugger; var ajaxDefaults = {}; ajaxDefaults.base = { type: "POST", timeout : 1000, dataFilter: function (data) { //see http://encosia.com/2009/06/29/never-worry-about-asp-net-ajaxs-d-again/ data = JSON.parse(data); //use the JSON2 library if you aren’t using FF3+, IE8, Safari 3/Google Chrome return data.hasOwnProperty("d") ? data.d : data; }, error: function (xhr) { //see if (!xhr) return; if (xhr.responseText) { var response = JSON.parse(xhr.responseText); //console.log works in FF + Firebug only, replace this code if (response) alert(response); else alert("Unknown server error"); } } }; ajaxDefaults.json = $.extend(ajaxDefaults.base, { //see http://encosia.com/2008/03/27/using-jquery-to-consume-aspnet-json-web-services/ contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8", dataType: "json" }); var ops = { baseUrl: "/MyService/MySample/MyDemo.svc/", doWork: function () { //see http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.extend/ var ajaxOptions = $.extend(ajaxDefaults.json, { url: ops.baseUrl + "DoWork", data: "{}", success: function (msg) { console.log("success"); console.log(typeof msg); if (typeof msg !== "undefined") { console.log(msg); } } }); $.ajax(ajaxOptions); return false; }, getEmp: function () { var ajaxOpts = $.extend(ajaxDefaults.json, { url: ops.baseUrl + "GetEmp", data: JSON.stringify({ age: 12, name: "NameName" }), success: function (msg) { $("span#lbl").html("age: " + msg.Age + "name:" + msg.Name); } }); $.ajax(ajaxOpts); return false; } } </script> </head> <body> <span id="lbl">abc</span> <br /><br /> <input type="button" value="GetEmployee" id="btnGetEmployee" onclick="javascript:ops.getEmp();" /> </body> I'm just not able to get this running. When I debug, I see the error being returned from the call is " Server Error in '/jQuerySample' Application. <h2> <i>HTTP Error 404 - Not Found.</i> </h2></span> " Looks like I'm missing something basic here. My sample is based on this I've been trying to fix the code for sometime now so I'd like you to take a look and see if you can figure out what is it that I'm doing wrong here. I'm able to see that the service is created when I browse the service in IE. I've also tried changing the setting as mentioned here Appreciate your help. I'm gonna blog about this as soon as the issue is resolved for the benefit of other devs Thanks -Soni

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• The clock hands of the buffer cache

  - by Tony Davis

  Over a leisurely beer at our local pub, the Waggon and Horses, Phil Factor was holding forth on the esoteric, but strangely poetic, language of SQL Server internals, riddled as it is with 'sleeping threads', 'stolen pages', and 'memory sweeps'. Generally, I remain immune to any twinge of interest in the bowels of SQL Server, reasoning that there are certain things that I don't and shouldn't need to know about SQL Server in order to use it successfully. Suddenly, however, my attention was grabbed by his mention of the 'clock hands of the buffer cache'. Back at the office, I succumbed to a moment of weakness and opened up Google. He wasn't lying. SQL Server maintains various memory buffers, or caches. For example, the plan cache stores recently-used execution plans. The data cache in the buffer pool stores frequently-used pages, ensuring that they may be read from memory rather than via expensive physical disk reads. These memory stores are classic LRU (Least Recently Updated) buffers, meaning that, for example, the least frequently used pages in the data cache become candidates for eviction (after first writing the page to disk if it has changed since being read into the cache). SQL Server clearly needs some mechanism to track which pages are candidates for being cleared out of a given cache, when it is getting too large, and it is this mechanism that is somewhat more labyrinthine than I previously imagined. Each page that is loaded into the cache has a counter, a miniature "wristwatch", which records how recently it was last used. This wristwatch gets reset to "present time", each time a page gets updated and then as the page 'ages' it clicks down towards zero, at which point the page can be removed from the cache. But what is SQL Server is suffering memory pressure and urgently needs to free up more space than is represented by zero-counter pages (or plans etc.)? This is where our 'clock hands' come in. Each cache has associated with it a "memory clock". Like most conventional clocks, it has two hands; one "external" clock hand, and one "internal". Slava Oks is very particular in stressing that these names have "nothing to do with the equivalent types of memory pressure". He's right, but the names do, in that peculiar Microsoft tradition, seem designed to confuse. The hands do relate to memory pressure; the cache "eviction policy" is determined by both global and local memory pressures on SQL Server. The "external" clock hand responds to global memory pressure, in other words pressure on SQL Server to reduce the size of its memory caches as a whole. Global memory pressure – which just to confuse things further seems sometimes to be referred to as physical memory pressure – can be either external (from the OS) or internal (from the process itself, e.g. due to limited virtual address space). The internal clock hand responds to local memory pressure, in other words the need to reduce the size of a single, specific cache. So, for example, if a particular cache, such as the plan cache, reaches a defined "pressure limit" the internal clock hand will start to turn and a memory sweep will be performed on that cache in order to remove plans from the memory store. During each sweep of the hands, the usage counter on the cache entry is reduced in value, effectively moving its "last used" time to further in the past (in effect, setting back the wrist watch on the page a couple of hours) and increasing the likelihood that it can be aged out of the cache. There is even a special Dynamic Management View, sys.dm_os_memory_cache_clock_hands, which allows you to interrogate the passage of the clock hands. Frequently turning hands equates to excessive memory pressure, which will lead to performance problems. Two hours later, I emerged from this rather frightening journey into the heart of SQL Server memory management, fascinated but still unsure if I'd learned anything that I'd put to any practical use. However, I certainly began to agree that there is something almost Tolkeinian in the language of the deep recesses of SQL Server. Cheers, Tony.

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• Becoming A Great Developer

  - by Lee Brandt

  Image via Wikipedia I’ve been doing the whole programming thing for awhile and reading and watching some of the best in the business. I have come to notice that the really great developers do a few things that (I think) makes them great. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that I am one of these few. I still struggle with doing some of the things that makes one great at development. Coincidently, many of these things also make you a better person period. Believe That Guidance Is Better Than Answers This is one I have no problem with. I prefer guidance any time I am learning from another developer. Answers may get you going, but guidance will leave you stranded. At some point, you will come across a problem that can only be solved by thinking for yourself and this is where that guidance will really come in handy. You can use that guidance and extrapolate whatever technology to salve that problem (if it’s the right tool for solving that problem). The problem is, lots of developers simply want someone to tell them, “Do this, then this, then set that, and write this.” Favor thinking and learn the guidance of doing X and don’t ask someone to show you how to do X, if that makes sense. Read, Read and Read If you don’t like reading, you’re probably NOT going to make it into the Great Developer group. Great developers read books, they read magazines and they read code. Open source playgrounds like SourceForge, CodePlex and GitHub, have made it extremely easy to download code from developers you admire and see how they do stuff. Chances are, if you read their blog too, they’ll even explain WHY they did what they did (see “Guidance” above). MSDN and Code Magazine have not only code samples, but explanations of how to use certain technologies and sometimes even when NOT to use that same technology. Books are also out on just about every topic. I still favor the less technology centric books. For instance, I generally don’t buy books like, “Getting Started with Jiminy Jappets”. I look for titles like, “How To Write More Effective Code” (again, see guidance). The Addison-Wesley Signature Series is a great example of these types of books. They teach technology-agnostic concepts. Head First Design Patterns is another great guidance book. It teaches the "Gang Of Four" Design Patterns in a very easy-to-understand, picture-heavy way (I LIKE pictures). Hang Your Balls Out There Even though the advice came from a 3rd-shift Kinko’s attendant, doesn’t mean it’s not sound advice. Write some code and put it out for others to read, criticize and castigate you for. Understand that there are some real jerks out there who are absolute geniuses. Don’t be afraid to get some great advice wrapped in some really nasty language. Try to take what’s good about it and leave what’s not. I have a tough time with this myself. I don’t really have any code out there that is available for review (other than my demo code). It takes some guts to do, but in the end, there is no substitute for getting a community of developers to critique your code and give you ways to improve. Get Involved Speaking of community, the local and online user groups and discussion forums are a great place to hear about technologies and techniques you might never come across otherwise. Mostly because you might not know to look. But, once you sit down with a bunch of other developers and start discussing what you’re interested in, you may open up a whole new perspective on it. Don’t just go to the UG meetings and watch the presentations either, get out there and talk, socialize. I realize geeks weren’t meant to necessarily be social creatures, but if you’re amongst other geeks, it’s much easier. I’ve learned more in the last 3-4 years that I have been involved in the community that I did in my previous 8 years of coding without it. Socializing works, even if socialism doesn’t. Continuous Improvement Lean proponents might call this “Kaizen”, but I call it progress. We all know, especially in the technology realm, if you’re not moving ahead, you’re falling behind. It may seem like drinking from a fire hose, but step back and pick out the technologies that speak to you. The ones that may you’re little heart go pitter-patter. Concentrate on those. If you’re still overloaded, pick the best of the best. Just know that if you’re not looking at the code you wrote last week or at least last year with some embarrassment, you’re probably stagnating. That’s about all I can say about that, cause I am all out of clichés to throw at it. :0) Write Code Great painters paint, great writers write, and great developers write code. The most sure-fire way to improve your coding ability is to continue writing code. Don’t just write code that your work throws on you, pick that technology you love or are curious to know more about and walk through some blog demo examples. Take the language you use everyday and try to get it to do something crazy. Who knows, you might create the next Google search algorithm! All in all, being a great developer is about finding yourself in all this code. If it is just a job to you, you will probably never be one of the “Great Developers”, but you’re probably okay with that. If, on the other hand, you do aspire to greatness, get out there and GET it. No one’s going hand it to you.

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• Problems with opening CHM Help files from Network or Internet

  - by Rick Strahl

  As a publisher of a Help Creation tool called Html Help Help Builder, I’ve seen a lot of problems with help files that won't properly display actual topic content and displays an error message for topics instead. Here’s the scenario: You go ahead and happily build your fancy, schmanzy Help File for your application and deploy it to your customer. Or alternately you've created a help file and you let your customers download them off the Internet directly or in a zip file. The customer downloads the file, opens the zip file and copies the help file contained in the zip file to disk. She then opens the help file and finds the following unfortunate result:     The help file  comes up with all topics in the tree on the left, but a Navigation to the WebPage was cancelled or Operation Aborted error in the Help Viewer's content window whenever you try to open a topic. The CHM file obviously opened since the topic list is there, but the Help Viewer refuses to display the content. Looks like a broken help file, right? But it's not - it's merely a Windows security 'feature' that tries to be overly helpful in protecting you. The reason this happens is because files downloaded off the Internet - including ZIP files and CHM files contained in those zip files - are marked as as coming from the Internet and so can potentially be malicious, so do not get browsing rights on the local machine – they can’t access local Web content, which is exactly what help topics are. If you look at the URL of a help topic you see something like this:   mk:@MSITStore:C:\wwapps\wwIPStuff\wwipstuff.chm::/indexpage.htm which points at a special Microsoft Url Moniker that in turn points the CHM file and a relative path within that HTML help file. Try pasting a URL like this into Internet Explorer and you'll see the help topic pop up in your browser (along with a warning most likely). Although the URL looks weird this still equates to a call to the local computer zone, the same as if you had navigated to a local file in IE which by default is not allowed.  Unfortunately, unlike Internet Explorer where you have the option of clicking a security toolbar, the CHM viewer simply refuses to load the page and you get an error page as shown above. How to Fix This - Unblock the Help File There's a workaround that lets you explicitly 'unblock' a CHM help file. To do this: Open Windows Explorer Find your CHM file Right click and select Properties Click the Unblock button on the General tab Here's what the dialog looks like:   Clicking the Unblock button basically, tells Windows that you approve this Help File and allows topics to be viewed.   Is this insecure? Not unless you're running a really old Version of Windows (XP pre-SP1). In recent versions of Windows Internet Explorer pops up various security dialogs or fires script errors when potentially malicious operations are accessed (like loading Active Controls), so it's relatively safe to run local content in the CHM viewer. Since most help files don't contain script or only load script that runs pure JavaScript access web resources this works fine without issues. How to avoid this Problem As an application developer there's a simple solution around this problem: Always install your Help Files with an Installer. The above security warning pop up because Windows can't validate the source of the CHM file. However, if the help file is installed as part of an installation the installation and all files associated with that installation including the help file are trusted. A fully installed Help File of an application works just fine because it is trusted by Windows. Summary It's annoying as all hell that this sort of obtrusive marking is necessary, but it's admittedly a necessary evil because of Microsoft's use of the insecure Internet Explorer engine that drives the CHM Html Engine's topic viewer. Because help files are viewing local content and script is allowed to execute in CHM files there's potential for malicious code hiding in CHM files and the above precautions are supposed to avoid any issues. © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012 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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• Must-see sessions at TCUK11

  - by Roger Hart

  Technical Communication UK is probably the best professional conference I've been to. Last year, I spoke there on content strategy, and this year I'll be co-hosting a workshop on embedded user assistance. Obviously, I'd love people to come along to that; but there are some other sessions I'd like to flag up for anybody thinking of attending. Tuesday 20th Sept - workshops This will be my first year at the pre-conference workshop day, and I'm massively glad that our workshop hasn't been scheduled along-side the one I'm really interested in. My picks: It looks like you're embedding user assistance. Would you like help? My colleague Dom and I are presenting this one. It's our paen to Clippy, to the brilliant idea he represented, and the crashing failure he was. Less precociously, we'll be teaching embedded user assistance, Red Gate style. Statistics without maths: acquiring, visualising and interpreting your data This doesn't need to do anything apart from what it says on the tin in order to be gold dust. But given the speakers, I suspect it will. A data-informed approach is a great asset to technical communications, so I'd recommend this session to anybody event faintly interested. The speakers here have a great track record of giving practical, accessible introductions to big topics. Go along. Wednesday 21st Sept - day one There's no real need to recommend the keynote for a conference, but I will just point out that this year it's Google's Patrick Hofmann. That's cool. You know what else is cool: Focus on the user, the rest follows An intro to modelling customer experience. This is a really exciting area for tech comms, and potentially touches on one of my personal hobby-horses: the convergence of technical communication and marketing. It's all part of delivering customer experience, and knowing what your users need lets you help them, sell to them, and delight them. Content strategy year 1: a tale from the trenches It's often been observed that content strategy is great at banging its own drum, but not so hot on compelling case studies. Here you go, folks. This is the presentation I'm most excited about so far. On a mission to communicate! Skype help their users communicate, but how do they communicate with them? I guess we'll find out. Then there's the stuff that I'm not too excited by, but you might just be. The standards geeks and agile freaks can get together in a presentation on the forthcoming ISO standards for agile authoring. Plus, there's a session on VBA for tech comms. I do have one gripe about day 1. The other big UK tech comms conference, UA Europe, have - I think - netted the more interesting presentation from Ellis Pratt. While I have no doubt that his TCUK case study on producing risk assessments will be useful, I'd far rather go to his talk on game theory for tech comms. Hopefully UA Europe will record it. Thursday 22nd Sept - day two Day two has a couple of slots yet to be confirmed. The rumour is that one of them will be the brilliant "Questions and rants" session from last year. I hope so. It's not ranting, but I'll be going to: RTFMobile: beyond stating the obvious Ultan O'Broin is an engaging speaker with a lot to say, and mobile is one of the most interesting and challenging new areas for tech comms. Even if this weren't a research-based presentation from a company with buckets of technology experience, I'd be going. It is, and you should too. Pattern recognition for technical communicators One of the best things about TCUK is the tendency to include sessions that tackle the theoretical and bring them towards the practical. Kai and Chris delivered cracking and well-received talks last year, and I'm looking forward to seeing what they've got for us on some of the conceptual underpinning of technical communication. Developing an interactive non-text learning programme Annoyingly, this clashes with Pattern Recognition, so I hope at least one of the streams is recorded again this year. The idea of communicating complex information without words us fascinating and this sounds like a great example of this year's third stream: "anything but text". For the localization and DITA crowds, there's rich pickings on day two, though I'm not sure how many of those sessions I'm interested in. In the 13:00 - 13:40 slot, there's an interesting clash between Linda Urban on re-use and training content, and a piece on minimalism I'm sorely tempted by. That's my pick of #TCUK11. I'll be doing a round-up blog after the event, and probably talking a bit more about it beforehand. I'm also reliably assured that there are still plenty of tickets.

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• Blank screen after installing nvidia restricted driver

  - by LaMinifalda

  I have a new machine with a MSI N560GTX Ti Twin Frozr II/OC graphic card and MSI PH67A-C43 (B3) main board. If i install the current nvidia restricted driver and reboot the machine on Natty (64-bit), then i only get a black screen after reboot and my system does not respond. I can´t see the login screen. On nvidia web page i saw that the current driver is 270.41.06. Is that driver used as current driver? Btw, i am an ubuntu/linux beginner and therefore not very familiar with ubuntu. What can i do to solve the black screen problem? EDIT: Setting the nomodeset parameter does not solve the problem. After ubuntu start, first i see the ubuntu logo, then strange pixels and at the end the black screen. HELP! EDIT2: Thank you, but setting the "video=vesa:off gfxpayload=text" parameters do no solve the problem too. Same result as in last edit. HELP. I would like to see Unity. This is my grub: GRUB_DEFAULT=0 GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0 GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true GRUB_TIMEOUT=10 GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian` GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="video=vesa:off gfxpayload=text nomodeset quiet splash" GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=" vga=794" EDIT3: I dont know if it is important. If this edit is unnecessary and helpless I will delete it. There are some log files (Xorg.0.log - Xorg.4.log). I dont know how these log files relate to each other. Please, check the errors listed below. In Xorg.1.log I see the following error: [ 20.603] (EE) Failed to initialize GLX extension (ComIatible NVIDIA X driver not found) In Xorg.2.log I see the following error: [ 25.971] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libfb.so [ 25.971] (**) NVIDIA(0): Depth 24, (--) framebuffer bpp 32 [ 25.971] (==) NVIDIA(0): RGB weight 888 [ 25.971] (==) NVIDIA(0): Default visual is TrueColor [ 25.971] (==) NVIDIA(0): Using gamma correction (1.0, 1.0, 1.0) [ 26.077] (EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to initialize the NVIDIA GPU at PCI:1:0:0. Please [ 26.078] (EE) NVIDIA(0): check your system's kernel log for additional error [ 26.078] (EE) NVIDIA(0): messages and refer to Chapter 8: Common Problems in the [ 26.078] (EE) NVIDIA(0): README for additional information. [ 26.078] (EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to initialize the NVIDIA graphics device! [ 26.078] (II) UnloadModule: "nvidia" [ 26.078] (II) Unloading nvidia [ 26.078] (II) UnloadModule: "wfb" [ 26.078] (II) Unloading wfb [ 26.078] (II) UnloadModule: "fb" [ 26.078] (II) Unloading fb [ 26.078] (EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration. [ 26.078] Fatal server error: [ 26.078] no screens found [ 26.078] Please consult the The X.Org Found [...] In Xorg.4.log I see the following errors: [ 15.437] (**) NVIDIA(0): Depth 24, (--) framebuffer bpp 32 [ 15.437] (==) NVIDIA(0): RGB weight 888 [ 15.437] (==) NVIDIA(0): Default visual is TrueColor [ 15.437] (==) NVIDIA(0): Using gamma correction (1.0, 1.0, 1.0) [ 15.703] (II) NVIDIA(0): NVIDIA GPU GeForce GTX 560 Ti (GF114) at PCI:1:0:0 (GPU-0) [ 15.703] (--) NVIDIA(0): Memory: 1048576 kBytes [ 15.703] (--) NVIDIA(0): VideoBIOS: 70.24.11.00.00 [ 15.703] (II) NVIDIA(0): Detected PCI Express Link width: 16X [ 15.703] (--) NVIDIA(0): Interlaced video modes are supported on this GPU [ 15.703] (--) NVIDIA(0): Connected display device(s) on GeForce GTX 560 Ti at [ 15.703] (--) NVIDIA(0): PCI:1:0:0 [ 15.703] (--) NVIDIA(0): none [ 15.706] (EE) NVIDIA(0): No display devices found for this X screen. [ 15.943] (II) UnloadModule: "nvidia" [ 15.943] (II) Unloading nvidia [ 15.943] (II) UnloadModule: "wfb" [ 15.943] (II) Unloading wfb [ 15.943] (II) UnloadModule: "fb" [ 15.943] (II) Unloading fb [ 15.943] (EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration. [ 15.943] Fatal server error: [ 15.943] no screens found EDIT4 There was a file /etc/X11/xorg.conf. As fossfreedom suggested I executed sudo mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup However, there is still the black screen after reboot. EDIT5 Neutro's advice (reinstalling the headers) did not solve the problem, too. :-( Any further help is appreciated! EDIT6 I just installed driver 173.xxx. After reboot the system shows me only "Checking battery state". Just for information. I will google the problem, but help is also appreciated! ;-) EDIT7 When using the free driver (Ubuntu says that the free driver is in use and activated), Xorg.0.log shows the following errors: [ 9.267] (II) LoadModule: "nouveau" [ 9.267] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/nouveau_drv.so [ 9.267] (II) Module nouveau: vendor="X.Org Foundation" [ 9.267] compiled for 1.10.0, module version = 0.0.16 [ 9.267] Module class: X.Org Video Driver [ 9.267] ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 10.0 [ 9.267] (II) LoadModule: "nv" [ 9.267] (WW) Warning, couldn't open module nv [ 9.267] (II) UnloadModule: "nv" [ 9.267] (II) Unloading nv [ 9.267] (EE) Failed to load module "nv" (module does not exist, 0) [ 9.267] (II) LoadModule: "vesa" [...] [ 9.399] drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card14 [ 9.402] drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card15 [ 9.406] (EE) [drm] failed to open device [ 9.406] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/vesa_drv.so [ 9.406] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for fbdev [ 9.406] (II) Loading sub module "fbdevhw" [ 9.406] (II) LoadModule: "fbdevhw" EDIT8 In the meanwhile i tried to install WIN7 64 bit on my machine. As a result i got a BSOD after installing the nvidia driver. :-) For this reason i sent my new machine back to the hardware reseller. I will inform you as soon as i have a new system. Thank you all for the great help and support. EDIT9 In the meanwhile I have a complete new system with "only" a MSI N460GTX Hawk, but more RAM. The system works perfect. :-) The original N560GTX had a hardware defect. Is is possible to close this question? THX!

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• Productivity vs Security [closed]

  - by nerijus

  Really do not know is this right place to ask such a questions. But it is about programming in a different light. So, currently contracting with company witch pretends to be big corporation. Everyone is so important that all small issues like developers are ignored. Give you a sample: company VPN is configured so that if you have VPN then HTTP traffic is banned. Bearing this in mind can you imagine my workflow: Morning. Ok time to get latest source. Ups, no VPN. Let’s connect. Click-click. 3 sec. wait time. Ok getting source. Do I have emails? Ups. VPN is on, can’t check my emails. Need to wait for source to come up. Finally here it is! Ok Click-click VPN is gone. What is in my email. Someone reported a bug. Good, let’s track it down. It is in TFS already. Oh, dam, I need VPN. Click-click. Ok, there is description. Yea, I have seen this issue in stachoverflow.com. Let’s go there. Ups, no internet. Click-click. No internet. What? IPconfig… DHCP server kicked me out. Dam. Renew ip. 1..2..3. Ok internet is back. Google: site: stachoverflow.com 3 min. I have solution. Great I love stackoverflow.com. Don’t want to remember days where there was no stackoveflow.com. Ok. Copy paste this like to studio. Dam, studio is stalled, can’t reach files on TFS. Click-click. VPN is back. Get source out, paste my code. Grand. Let’s see what other comments about an issue in stackoverflow.com tells. Hmm.. There is a link. Click. Dammit! No internet. Click-click. No internet. DHCP kicked me out. Dammit. Now it is even worse: this happens 3-4 times a day. After certain amount of VPN connections open\closed my internet goes down solid. Only way to get internet back is reboot. All my browser tabs/SQL windows/studio will be gone. This happened just now when I am typing this. Back to issue I am solving right now: I am getting frustrated - I do not care about better solution for this issue. Let’s do it somehow and forget. This Click-click barrier between internet and TFS kills me… Sounds familiar? You could say there are VPN settings to change. No! This is company laptop, not allowed to do changes. I am very very lucky to have admin privileges on my machine. Most of developers don’t. So just learned to live with this frustration. It takes away 40-60 minutes daily. Tried to email company support, admins. They are too important ant too busy with something that just ignored my little man’s problem. Politely ignored. Question is: Is this normal in corporate world? (Have been in States, Canada, Germany. Never seen this.)

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• How To Get Web Site Thumbnail Image In ASP.NET

  - by SAMIR BHOGAYTA

  Overview One very common requirement of many web applications is to display a thumbnail image of a web site. A typical example is to provide a link to a dynamic website displaying its current thumbnail image, or displaying images of websites with their links as a result of search (I love to see it on Google). Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 makes it quite easier to do it in a ASP.NET application. Background In order to generate image of a web page, first we need to load the web page to get their html code, and then this html needs to be rendered in a web browser. After that, a screen shot can be taken easily. I think there is no easier way to do this. Before .NET framework 2.0 it was quite difficult to use a web browser in C# or VB.NET because we either have to use COM+ interoperability or third party controls which becomes headache later. WebBrowser control in .NET framework 2.0 In .NET framework 2.0 we have a new Windows Forms WebBrowser control which is a wrapper around old shwdoc.dll. All you really need to do is to drop a WebBrowser control from your Toolbox on your form in .NET framework 2.0. If you have not used WebBrowser control yet, it's quite easy to use and very consistent with other Windows Forms controls. Some important methods of WebBrowser control are. public bool GoBack(); public bool GoForward(); public void GoHome(); public void GoSearch(); public void Navigate(Uri url); public void DrawToBitmap(Bitmap bitmap, Rectangle targetBounds); These methods are self explanatory with their names like Navigate function which redirects browser to provided URL. It also has a number of useful overloads. The DrawToBitmap (inherited from Control) draws the current image of WebBrowser to the provided bitmap. Using WebBrowser control in ASP.NET 2.0 The Solution Let's start to implement the solution which we discussed above. First we will define a static method to get the web site thumbnail image. public static Bitmap GetWebSiteThumbnail(string Url, int BrowserWidth, int BrowserHeight, int ThumbnailWidth, int ThumbnailHeight) { WebsiteThumbnailImage thumbnailGenerator = new WebsiteThumbnailImage(Url, BrowserWidth, BrowserHeight, ThumbnailWidth, ThumbnailHeight); return thumbnailGenerator.GenerateWebSiteThumbnailImage(); } The WebsiteThumbnailImage class will have a public method named GenerateWebSiteThumbnailImage which will generate the website thumbnail image in a separate STA thread and wait for the thread to exit. In this case, I decided to Join method of Thread class to block the initial calling thread until the bitmap is actually available, and then return the generated web site thumbnail. public Bitmap GenerateWebSiteThumbnailImage() { Thread m_thread = new Thread(new ThreadStart(_GenerateWebSiteThumbnailImage)); m_thread.SetApartmentState(ApartmentState.STA); m_thread.Start(); m_thread.Join(); return m_Bitmap; } The _GenerateWebSiteThumbnailImage will create a WebBrowser control object and navigate to the provided Url. We also register for the DocumentCompleted event of the web browser control to take screen shot of the web page. To pass the flow to the other controls we need to perform a method call to Application.DoEvents(); and wait for the completion of the navigation until the browser state changes to Complete in a loop. private void _GenerateWebSiteThumbnailImage() { WebBrowser m_WebBrowser = new WebBrowser(); m_WebBrowser.ScrollBarsEnabled = false; m_WebBrowser.Navigate(m_Url); m_WebBrowser.DocumentCompleted += new WebBrowserDocument CompletedEventHandler(WebBrowser_DocumentCompleted); while (m_WebBrowser.ReadyState != WebBrowserReadyState.Complete) Application.DoEvents(); m_WebBrowser.Dispose(); } The DocumentCompleted event will be fired when the navigation is completed and the browser is ready for screen shot. We will get screen shot using DrawToBitmap method as described previously which will return the bitmap of the web browser. Then the thumbnail image is generated using GetThumbnailImage method of Bitmap class passing it the required thumbnail image width and height. private void WebBrowser_DocumentCompleted(object sender, WebBrowserDocumentCompletedEventArgs e) { WebBrowser m_WebBrowser = (WebBrowser)sender; m_WebBrowser.ClientSize = new Size(this.m_BrowserWidth, this.m_BrowserHeight); m_WebBrowser.ScrollBarsEnabled = false; m_Bitmap = new Bitmap(m_WebBrowser.Bounds.Width, m_WebBrowser.Bounds.Height); m_WebBrowser.BringToFront(); m_WebBrowser.DrawToBitmap(m_Bitmap, m_WebBrowser.Bounds); m_Bitmap = (Bitmap)m_Bitmap.GetThumbnailImage(m_ThumbnailWidth, m_ThumbnailHeight, null, IntPtr.Zero); } One more example here : http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/Website_URL_Screenshot.aspx

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• SQL SERVER – Curious Case of Disappearing Rows – ON UPDATE CASCADE and ON DELETE CASCADE – Part 1 of 2

  - by pinaldave

  Social media has created an Always Connected World for us. Recently I enrolled myself to learn new technologies as a student. I had decided to focus on learning and decided not to stay connected on the internet while I am in the learning session. On the second day of the event after the learning was over, I noticed lots of notification from my friend on my various social media handle. He had connected with me on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube as well SMS, WhatsApp on the phone, Skype messages and not to forget with a few emails. I right away called him up. The problem was very unique – let us hear the problem in his own words. “Pinal – we are in big trouble we are not able to figure out what is going on. Our product details table is continuously loosing rows. Lots of rows have disappeared since morning and we are unable to find why the rows are getting deleted. We have made sure that there is no DELETE command executed on the table as well. The matter of the fact, we have removed every single place the code which is referencing the table. We have done so many crazy things out of desperation but no luck. The rows are continuously deleted in a random pattern. Do you think we have problems with intrusion or virus?” After describing the problems he had pasted few rants about why I was not available during the day. I think it will be not smart to post those exact words here (due to many reasons). Well, my immediate reaction was to get online with him. His problem was unique to him and his team was all out to fix the issue since morning. As he said he has done quite a lot out in desperation. I started asking questions from audit, policy management and profiling the data. Very soon I realize that I think this problem was not as advanced as it looked. There was no intrusion, SQL Injection or virus issue. Well, long story short first - It was a very simple issue of foreign key created with ON UPDATE CASCADE and ON DELETE CASCADE.  CASCADE allows deletions or updates of key values to cascade through the tables defined to have foreign key relationships that can be traced back to the table on which the modification is performed. ON DELETE CASCADE specifies that if an attempt is made to delete a row with a key referenced by foreign keys in existing rows in other tables, all rows containing those foreign keys are also deleted. ON UPDATE CASCADE specifies that if an attempt is made to update a key value in a row, where the key value is referenced by foreign keys in existing rows in other tables, all of the foreign key values are also updated to the new value specified for the key. (Reference: BOL) In simple words – due to ON DELETE CASCASE whenever is specified when the data from Table A is deleted and if it is referenced in another table using foreign key it will be deleted as well. In my friend’s case, they had two tables, Products and ProductDetails. They had created foreign key referential integrity of the product id between the table. Now the as fall was up they were updating their catalogue. When they were updating the catalogue they were deleting products which are no more available. As the changes were cascading the corresponding rows were also deleted from another table. This is CORRECT. The matter of the fact, there is no error or anything and SQL Server is behaving how it should be behaving. The problem was in the understanding and inappropriate implementations of business logic.  What they needed was Product Master Table, Current Product Catalogue, and Product Order Details History tables. However, they were using only two tables and without proper understanding the relation between them was build using foreign keys. If there were only two table, they should have used soft delete which will not actually delete the record but just hide it from the original product table. This workaround could have got them saved from cascading delete issues. I will be writing a detailed post on the design implications etc in my future post as in above three lines I cannot cover every issue related to designing and it is also not the scope of the blog post. More about designing in future blog posts. Once they learn their mistake, they were happy as there was no intrusion but trust me sometime we are our own enemy and this is a great example of it. In tomorrow’s blog post we will go over their code and workarounds. Feel free to share your opinions, experiences and comments. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• How to Customize Fonts and Colors for Gnome Panels in Ubuntu Linux

  - by The Geek

  Earlier this week we showed you how to make the Gnome Panels totally transparent, but you really need some customized fonts and colors to make the effect work better. Here’s how to do it. This article is the first part of a multi-part series on how to customize the Ubuntu desktop, written by How-To Geek reader and ubergeek, Omar Hafiz. Changing the Gnome Colors the Easy Way You’ll first need to install Gnome Color Chooser which is available in the default repositories (the package name is gnome-color-chooser). Then go to System > Preferences > Gnome Color Chooser to launch the program. When you see all these tabs you immediately know that Gnome Color Chooser does not only change the font color of the panel, but also the color of the fonts all over Ubuntu, desktop icons, and many other things as well. Now switch to the panel tab, here you can control every thing about your panels. You can change font, font color, background and background color of the panels and start menus. Tick the “Normal” option and choose the color you want for the panel font. If you want you can change the hover color of the buttons on the panel by too. A little below the color option is the font options, this includes the font, font size, and the X and Y positioning of the font. The first two options are pretty straight forward, they change the typeface and the size. The X-Padding and Y-Padding may confuse you but they are interesting, they may give a nice look for your panels by increasing the space between items on your panel like this: X-Padding:   Y-Padding:   The bottom half of the window controls the look of your start menus which is the Applications, Places, and Systems menus. You can customize them just the way you did with the panel.   Alright, this was the easy way to change the font of your panels. Changing the Gnome Theme Colors the Command-Line Way The other hard (not so hard really) way will be changing the configuration files that tell your panel how it should look like. In your Home Folder, press Ctrl+H to show the hidden files, now find the file “.gtkrc-2.0”, open it and insert this line in it. If there are any other lines in the file leave them intact. include “/home/<username>/.gnome2/panel-fontrc” Don’t forget to replace the <user_name> with you user account name. When done close and save the file. Now navigate the folder “.gnome2” from your Home Folder and create a new file and name it “panel-fontrc”. Open the file you just created with a text editor and paste the following in it: style “my_color”{fg[NORMAL] = “#FF0000”}widget “*PanelWidget*” style “my_color”widget “*PanelApplet*” style “my_color” This text will make the font red. If you want other colors you’ll need to replace the Hex value/HTML Notation (in this case #FF0000) with the value of the color you want. To get the hex value you can use GIMP, Gcolor2 witch is available in the default repositories or you can right-click on your panel > Properties > Background tab then click to choose the color you want and copy the Hex value. Don’t change any other thing in the text. When done, save and close. Now press Alt+F2 and enter “killall gnome-panel” to force it to restart or you can log out and login again. Most of you will prefer the first way of changing the font and color for it’s ease of applying and because it gives you much more options but, some may not have the ability/will to download and install a new program on their machine or have reasons of their own for not to using it, that’s why we provided the two way. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How to Enable User-Specific Wireless Networks in Windows 7 How to Use Google Chrome as Your Default PDF Reader (the Easy Way) How To Remove People and Objects From Photographs In Photoshop Ask How-To Geek: How Can I Monitor My Bandwidth Usage? Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware The Splendiferous Array of Culinary Tools [Infographic] Add a Real-Time Earth Wallpaper App to Ubuntu with xplanetFX The Citroen GT – An Awesome Video Game Car Brought to Life [Video] Final Man vs. Machine Round of Jeopardy Unfolds; Watson Dominates Give Chromium-Based Browser Desktop Notifications a Native System Look in Ubuntu Chrome Time Track Is a Simple Task Time Tracker

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• Beginner Guide to User Styles for Firefox

  - by Asian Angel

  While the default styles for most websites are nice there may be times when you would love to tweak how things look. See how easy it can be to change how websites look with the Stylish Extension for Firefox. Note: Scripts from Userstyles.org can also be added to Greasemonkey if you have it installed. Getting Started After installing the extension you will be presented with a first run page. You may want to keep it open so that you can browse directly to the Userstyles.org website using the link in the upper left corner. In the lower right corner you will have a new Status Bar Icon. If you have used Greasemonkey before this icon works a little differently. It will be faded out due to no user style scripts being active at the moment. You can use either a left or right click to access the Context Menu. The user style script management section is also added into your Add-ons Management Window instead of being separate. When you reach the user style scripts homepage you can choose to either learn more about the extension & scripts or… Start hunting for lots of user style script goodness. There will be three convenient categories to get you jump-started if you wish. You could also conduct a search if you have something specific in mind. Here is some information directly from the website provided for your benefit. Notice the reference to using these scripts with Greasemonkey… This section shows you how the scripts have been categorized and can give you a better idea of how to search for something more specific. Finding & Installing Scripts For our example we decided to look at the Updated Styles Section”first. Based on the page number listing at the bottom there are a lot of scripts available to look through. Time to refine our search a little bit… Using the drop-down menu we selected site styles and entered Yahoo in the search blank. Needless to say 5 pages was a lot easier to look through than 828. We decided to install the Yahoo! Result Number Script. When you do find a script (or scripts) that you like simply click on the Install with Stylish Button. A small window will pop up giving you the opportunity to preview, proceed with the installation, edit the code, or cancel the process. Note: In our example the Preview Function did not work but it may be something particular to the script or our browser’s settings. If you decide to do some quick editing the window shown above will switch over to this one. To return to the previous window and install the user style script click on the Switch to Install Button. After installing the user style the green section in the script’s webpage will actually change to this message… Opening up the Add-ons Manager Window shows our new script ready to go. The script worked perfectly when we conducted a search at Yahoo…the Status Bar Icon also changed from faded out to full color (another indicator that everything is running nicely). Conclusion If you prefer a custom look for your favorite websites then you can have a lot of fun experimenting with different user style scripts. Note: See our article here for specialized How-To Geek User Style Scripts that can be added to your browser. Links Download the Stylish Extension (Mozilla Add-ons) Visit the Userstyles.org Website Install the Yahoo! Result Number User Style Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Spice Up that Boring about:blank Page in FirefoxExpand the Add Bookmark Dialog in Firefox by DefaultEnjoy How-To Geek User Style Script GoodnessAuto-Hide Your Cluttered Firefox Status Bar ItemsBeginner Geek: Delete User Accounts in Windows 7 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 VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Bypass Waiting Time On Customer Service Calls With Lucyphone MELTUP – "The Beginning Of US Currency Crisis And Hyperinflation" Enable or Disable the Task Manager Using TaskMgrED Explorer++ is a Worthy Windows Explorer Alternative Error Goblin Explains Windows Error Codes Twelve must-have Google Chrome plugins

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• I, Android

  - by andrewbrust

  I’m just back from the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES).  I go to CES to get a sense of what Microsoft is doing in the consumer space, and how people are reacting to it.  When I first went to CES 2 years ago, Steve Ballmer announced the beta of Windows 7 at his keynote address, and the crowd went wild.  When I went again last year, everyone was hoping for a Windows tablet announcement at the Ballmer keynote.  Although they didn’t get one (unless you count the unreleased HP Slate running Windows 7), people continued to show anticipation around Project Natal (which became Xbox 360 Kinect) and around Windows Phone 7.  On the show floor last year, there were machines everywhere running Windows 7, including lots of netbooks.  Microsoft had a serious influence at the show both years. But this year, one brand, one product, one operating system evidenced itself over and over again: Android.  Whether in the multitude of tablet devices that were shown across the show, or the burgeoning number of smartphones shown (including all four forthcoming 4G-LTE handsets at Verizon Wireless’ booth) or the Google TV set top box from Logitech and the embedded implementation in new Sony TV models, Android was was there. There was excitement in the ubiquity of Android 2.2 (Froyo) and the emergence of Android 2.3 (Gingerbread).  There was anticipation around the tablet-optimized Android 3.0 (Honeycomb).  There were highly customized skins.  There was even an official CES Android app for navigating the exhibit halls and planning events.  Android was so ubiquitous, in fact, that it became surprising to find a device that was running anything else.  It was as if Android had become the de facto Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM) operating system. Motorola’s booth was nothing less than an Android showcase.  And it was large, and it was packed.  Clearly Moto’s fortunes have improved dramatically in the last year and change.  The fact that the company morphed from being a core Windows Mobile OEM to an Android poster child seems non-coincidental to their improved fortunes. Even erstwhile WinMo OEMs who now do produce Windows Phone 7 devices were not pushing them.  Perhaps I missed them, but I couldn’t find WP7 handsets at Samsung’s booth, nor at LG’s.  And since the only carrier exhibiting at the show was Verizon Wireless, which doesn’t yet have WP7 devices, this left Microsoft’s booth as the only place to see the phones. Why is Android so popular with consumer electronics manufacturers in Japan, South Korea, China and Taiwan?  Yes, it’s free, but there’s more to it than that.  Android seems to have succeeded as an OEM OS because it’s directed at OEMs who are permitted to personalize it and extend it, and it provides enough base usability and touch-friendliness that OEMs want it.  In the process, it has become a de facto standard (which makes OEMs want it even more), and has done so in a remarkably short time: the OS was launched on a single phone in the US just 2 1/4 years ago. Despite its success and popularity, Apple’s iOS would never be used by OEMs, because it’s not meant to be embedded and customized, but rather to provide a fully finished experience.  Ironically, Windows Phone 7 is likewise disqualified from such embedded use.  Windows Mobile (6.x and earlier) may have been a candidate had it not atrophied so much in its final 5 years of life. What can Microsoft do?  It could start by developing a true touch-centric OS for tablets, whether that be within Windows 8, or derived from Windows Phone 7.  It would then need to deconstruct that finished product into components, via a new or altered version of Windows Embedded or Windows Embedded Compact.  And if Microsoft went that far, it would only make sense to work with its OEMs and mobile carriers to make certain they showcase their products using the OS at CES, and other consumer electronics venues, prominently. Mostly though, Microsoft would need to decide if it were really committed to putting sustained time, effort and money into a commodity product, especially given the far greater financial return that it now derives from its core Windows and Office franchises. Microsoft would need to see an OEM OS for what it is: a loss leader that helps build brand and platform momentum for up-level products.  Is that enough to make the investment worthwhile?  One thing is certain: if that question is not acknowledged and answered honestly, then any investment will be squandered.

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• JavaOne 2011: Content review process and Tips for submissions

  - by arungupta

  The Technical Sessions, Birds of Feather, Panels, and Hands-on labs (basically all the content delivered at JavaOne) forms the backbone of the conference. At this year's JavaOne conference you'll have access to the rock star speakers, the ability to engage with luminaries in the hallways, and have beer (or 2) with community peers in designated areas. Even though the conference is Oct 2-6, 2011, and will be bigger and better than last year's conference, the Call for Paper submission and review/selection evaluation started much earlier.In previous years, I've participated in the review process and this year I was honored to serve as co-lead for the "Enterprise Service Architecture and Cloud" track with Ludovic Champenois. We had a stellar review team with an equal mix of Oracle and external community reviewers. The review process is very overwhelming with the reviewers going through multiple voting iterations on each submission in order to ensure that the selected content is the BEST of the submitted lot. Our ultimate goal was to ensure that the content best represented the track, and most importantly would draw interest and excitement from attendees. As always, the number and quality of submissions were just superb, making for a truly challenging (and rewarding) experience for the reviewers. As co-lead I tried to ensure that I applied a fair and balanced process in the evaluation of content in my track. . Here are some key steps followed by all track leads: Vote on sessions - Each reviewer is required to vote on the sessions on a scale of 1-5 - and also provide a justifying comment. Create buckets - Divide the submissions into different buckets to ensure a fair representation of different topics within a track. This ensures that if a particular bucket got higher votes then the track is not exclusively skewed towards it. Top 7 - The review committee provides a list of the top 7 talks that can be used in the promotional material by the JavaOne team. Generally these talks are easy to identify and a consensus is reached upon them fairly quickly. First cut - Each track is allocated a total number of sessions (including panels), BoFs, and Hands-on labs that can be approved. The track leads then start creating the first cut of the approvals using the casted votes coupled with their prior experience in the subject matter. In our case, Ludo and I have been attending/speaking at JavaOne (and other popular Java-focused conferences) for double digit years. The Grind - The first cut is then refined and refined and refined using multiple selection criteria such as sorting on the bucket, speaker quality, topic popularity, cumulative vote total, and individual vote scale. The sessions that don't make the cut are reviewed again as well to ensure if they need to replace one of the selected one as a potential alternate. I would like to thank the entire Java community for all the submissions and many thanks to the reviewers who spent countless hours reading each abstract, voting on them, and helping us refine the list. I think approximately 3-4 hours cumulative were spent on each submission to reach an evaluation, specifically the border line cases. We gave our recommendations to the JavaOne Program Committee Chairperson (Sharat Chander) and accept/decline notifications should show up in submitter inboxes in the next few weeks. Here are some points to keep in mind when submitting a session to JavaOne next time: JavaOne is a technology-focused conference so any product, marketing or seemingly marketish talk are put at the bottom of the list.Oracle Open World and Oracle Develop are better options for submitting product specific talks. Make your title catchy. Remember the attendees are more likely to read the abstract if they like the title. We try our best to recategorize the talk to a different track if it needs to but please ensure that you are filing in the right track to have all the right eyeballs looking at it. Also, it does not hurt marking an alternate track if your talk meets the criteria. Make sure to coordinate within your team before the submission - multiple sessions from the same team or company does not ensure that the best speaker is picked. In such case we rely upon your "google presence" and/or review committee's prior knowledge of the speaker. The reviewers may not know you or your product at all and you get 750 characters to pitch your idea. Make sure to use all of them, to the last 750th character. Make sure to read your abstract multiple times to ensure that you are giving all the relevant information ? Think through your presentation and see if you are leaving out any important aspects.Also look if the abstract has any redundant information that will not required by the reviewers. There are additional sections that allow you to share information about the speaker and the presentation summary. Use them to blow the horn about yourself and any other relevant details. Please don't say "call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx to find out the details" :-) The review committee enjoyed reviewing the submissions and we certainly hope you'll have a great time attending them. Happy JavaOne!

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• JavaOne 2011: Content review process and Tips for submissions

  - by arungupta

  The Technical Sessions, Birds of Feather, Panels, and Hands-on labs (basically all the content delivered at JavaOne) forms the backbone of the conference. At this year's JavaOne conference you'll have access to the rock star speakers, the ability to engage with luminaries in the hallways, and have beer (or 2) with community peers in designated areas. Even though the conference is Oct 2-6, 2011, and will be bigger and better than last year's conference, the Call for Paper submission and review/selection evaluation started much earlier.In previous years, I've participated in the review process and this year I was honored to serve as co-lead for the "Enterprise Service Architecture and Cloud" track with Ludovic Champenois. We had a stellar review team with an equal mix of Oracle and external community reviewers. The review process is very overwhelming with the reviewers going through multiple voting iterations on each submission in order to ensure that the selected content is the BEST of the submitted lot. Our ultimate goal was to ensure that the content best represented the track, and most importantly would draw interest and excitement from attendees. As always, the number and quality of submissions were just superb, making for a truly challenging (and rewarding) experience for the reviewers. As co-lead I tried to ensure that I applied a fair and balanced process in the evaluation of content in my track. . Here are some key steps followed by all track leads: Vote on sessions - Each reviewer is required to vote on the sessions on a scale of 1-5 - and also provide a justifying comment. Create buckets - Divide the submissions into different buckets to ensure a fair representation of different topics within a track. This ensures that if a particular bucket got higher votes then the track is not exclusively skewed towards it. Top 7 - The review committee provides a list of the top 7 talks that can be used in the promotional material by the JavaOne team. Generally these talks are easy to identify and a consensus is reached upon them fairly quickly. First cut - Each track is allocated a total number of sessions (including panels), BoFs, and Hands-on labs that can be approved. The track leads then start creating the first cut of the approvals using the casted votes coupled with their prior experience in the subject matter. In our case, Ludo and I have been attending/speaking at JavaOne (and other popular Java-focused conferences) for double digit years. The Grind - The first cut is then refined and refined and refined using multiple selection criteria such as sorting on the bucket, speaker quality, topic popularity, cumulative vote total, and individual vote scale. The sessions that don't make the cut are reviewed again as well to ensure if they need to replace one of the selected one as a potential alternate. I would like to thank the entire Java community for all the submissions and many thanks to the reviewers who spent countless hours reading each abstract, voting on them, and helping us refine the list. I think approximately 3-4 hours cumulative were spent on each submission to reach an evaluation, specifically the border line cases. We gave our recommendations to the JavaOne Program Committee Chairperson (Sharat Chander) and accept/decline notifications should show up in submitter inboxes in the next few weeks. Here are some points to keep in mind when submitting a session to JavaOne next time: JavaOne is a technology-focused conference so any product, marketing or seemingly marketish talk are put at the bottom of the list.Oracle Open World and Oracle Develop are better options for submitting product specific talks. Make your title catchy. Remember the attendees are more likely to read the abstract if they like the title. We try our best to recategorize the talk to a different track if it needs to but please ensure that you are filing in the right track to have all the right eyeballs looking at it. Also, it does not hurt marking an alternate track if your talk meets the criteria. Make sure to coordinate within your team before the submission - multiple sessions from the same team or company does not ensure that the best speaker is picked. In such case we rely upon your "google presence" and/or review committee's prior knowledge of the speaker. The reviewers may not know you or your product at all and you get 750 characters to pitch your idea. Make sure to use all of them, to the last 750th character. Make sure to read your abstract multiple times to ensure that you are giving all the relevant information ? Think through your presentation and see if you are leaving out any important aspects.Also look if the abstract has any redundant information that will not required by the reviewers. There are additional sections that allow you to share information about the speaker and the presentation summary. Use them to blow the horn about yourself and any other relevant details. Please don't say "call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx to find out the details" :-) The review committee enjoyed reviewing the submissions and we certainly hope you'll have a great time attending them. Happy JavaOne!

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• Manage Your Amazon S3 Account with CloudBerry Explorer

  - by Mysticgeek

  If you have an Amazon S3 account you’re using to backup your data, you might want an easy way to manage it. CloudBerry Explorer is a free app that runs on your desktop an provides an easy way to manage your S3 account. Installation and Setup Just download and install the application with the defaults. When the application launches you’ll be prompted to enter in your username and email to get a registration key. Or you can continue on by clicking Register later. Now you will want to set up your Amazon S3 account. Click on File \ Amazon S3 Accounts. Double-click on the New Account icon.   Next enter in your Amazon account Access and Secret keys, select SSL if you want, then click the Test Connection button. Provided everything was entered correctly, you’ll see the Connection Success screen, just close out of it. Browse and Manage files Once you have your account setup through the Explorer, you can start viewing and managing your files on S3. The left pane shows your S3 buckets and stored files, while the right side shows your local computer. This allows you to manage your files in your Amazon S3 buckets directly from your desktop! It’s very easy to use, and you can drag and drop files from your computer to the S3 account or vice versa. There is also the ability to transfer files between Amazon S3 accounts from within the explorer. Go into Tools and Content Types and you can control the file types by adding, removing, or editing them. If you end up messing something up along the lines, you can always select Reset to defaults and everything will be back to normal. There is a multiple tabbed view so you can easily keep track of your different accounts and local machine. It allows the ability to create new storage buckets directly in the Explorer. Or you can delete buckets as well… Different actions can be accessed from the toolbars or by right-clicking and selecting from the context menu. Here we see a cool option that lets you move your data inside Amazon S3. It is faster and doesn’t cost money by moving the files to your computer first, then to another account. However, if you want data moved to your local machine first, you have that option as well.   Not all features are available in the free version, and if it’s not, you’ll be prompted to purchase a license for the Pro version. We will have a comprehensive review of the Pro version in the near future.    If you ever need help with CloudBerry Explorer, go to Tools \ Diagnostics. It will run a quick diagnostics check and you can send the information to the CloudBerry team for assistance. Delete Files from Amazon S3 To delete a file from you Amazon S3 account, simply highlight the files or folder you want to get rid of then click Delete on the toolbar. You can also right-click the file and select Delete from the Context Menu. Click Yes to the confirmation dialog box… Then you can watch the progress as your files are deleted in the bottom section of the explorer. Conclusion CloudBerry Explorer free version has several neat features that will allow you easy and basic control over you Amazon S3 account. The free version may be enough for basic users, but power users will want to upgrade to the pro version, as it includes a lot more features. Using the free version allows you to get a feel for what CloudBerry Explorer has to offer, and is a good starting point. Keep in mind that Amazon S3 is introducing Reduced Redundancy Storage which will lower the price of data stored. The price drops from $0.15 per GB to only $0.10 per GB. If you’re a Windows Home Server user, check out our review of CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for WHS. Download CloudBerry Explorer Free for Amazon S3 Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home ServerReopen Closed Tabs in Internet ExplorerPreview and Purchase Ebooks with Kindle for PCTroubleshoot and Manage Addons in Internet Explorer 8Beginner Geek: Delete User Accounts in Windows 7 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 All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 VMware Workstation 7 Google TV The iPod Revolution Ultimate Boot CD can help when disaster strikes Windows Firewall with Advanced Security – How To Guides Sculptris 1.0, 3D Drawing app AceStock, a Tiny Desktop Quote Monitor

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• How to draw textures on a model

  - by marc wellman

  The following code is a complete XNA 3.1 program almost unaltered to that code skeleton Visual Studio is creating when creating a new project. The only things I have changed are imported a .x model to the content folder of the VS solution. (the model is a simple square with a texture spanning over it - made in Google Sketchup and exported with several .x exporters) in the Load() method I am loading the .x model into the game. The Draw() method uses a BasicEffect to render the model. Except these three things I haven't added any code. Why does the model does not show the texture ? What can I do to make the texture visible ? This is the texture file (a standard SketchUp texture from the palette): And this is what my program looks like - as you can see: No texture! Find below the complete source code of the program AND the complete .x file: namespace WindowsGame1 { /// <summary> /// This is the main type for your game /// </summary> public class Game1 : Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game { GraphicsDeviceManager graphics; SpriteBatch spriteBatch; public Game1() { graphics = new GraphicsDeviceManager(this); Content.RootDirectory = "Content"; } /// <summary> /// Allows the game to perform any initialization it needs to before starting to run. /// This is where it can query for any required services and load any non-graphic /// related content. Calling base.Initialize will enumerate through any components /// and initialize them as well. /// </summary> protected override void Initialize() { // TODO: Add your initialization logic here base.Initialize(); } Model newModel; /// <summary> /// LoadContent will be called once per game and is the place to load /// all of your content. /// </summary> protected override void LoadContent() { // Create a new SpriteBatch, which can be used to draw textures. spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice); // TODO: usse this.Content to load your game content here newModel = Content.Load<Model>(@"aau3d"); foreach (ModelMesh mesh in newModel.Meshes) { foreach (ModelMeshPart meshPart in mesh.MeshParts) { meshPart.Effect = new BasicEffect(this.GraphicsDevice, null); } } } /// <summary> /// UnloadContent will be called once per game and is the place to unload /// all content. /// </summary> protected override void UnloadContent() { // TODO: Unload any non ContentManager content here } /// <summary> /// Allows the game to run logic such as updating the world, /// checking for collisions, gathering input, and playing audio. /// </summary> /// <param name="gameTime">Provides a snapshot of timing values.</param> protected override void Update(GameTime gameTime) { // Allows the game to exit if (GamePad.GetState(PlayerIndex.One).Buttons.Back == ButtonState.Pressed) this.Exit(); // TODO: Add your update logic here base.Update(gameTime); } /// <summary> /// This is called when the game should draw itself. /// </summary> /// <param name="gameTime">Provides a snapshot of timing values.</param> protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { if (newModel != null) { GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue); Matrix[] transforms = new Matrix[newModel.Bones.Count]; newModel.CopyAbsoluteBoneTransformsTo(transforms); foreach (ModelMesh mesh in newModel.Meshes) { foreach (BasicEffect effect in mesh.Effects) { effect.EnableDefaultLighting(); effect.TextureEnabled = true; effect.World = transforms[mesh.ParentBone.Index] * Matrix.CreateRotationY(0) * Matrix.CreateTranslation(new Vector3(0, 0, 0)); effect.View = Matrix.CreateLookAt(new Vector3(200, 1000, 200), Vector3.Zero, Vector3.Up); effect.Projection = Matrix.CreatePerspectiveFieldOfView(MathHelper.ToRadians(45.0f), 0.75f, 1.0f, 10000.0f); } mesh.Draw(); } } base.Draw(gameTime); } } } This is the model I am using (.x): xof 0303txt 0032 // SketchUp 6 -> DirectX (c)2008 edecadoudal, supports: faces, normals and textures Material Default_Material{ 1.0;1.0;1.0;1.0;; 3.2; 0.000000;0.000000;0.000000;; 0.000000;0.000000;0.000000;; } Material _Groundcover_RiverRock_4inch_{ 0.568627450980392;0.494117647058824;0.427450980392157;1.0;; 3.2; 0.000000;0.000000;0.000000;; 0.000000;0.000000;0.000000;; TextureFilename { "aau3d.xGroundcover_RiverRock_4inch.jpg"; } } Mesh mesh_0{ 4; -81.6535;0.0000;74.8031;, -0.0000;0.0000;0.0000;, -81.6535;0.0000;0.0000;, -0.0000;0.0000;74.8031;; 2; 3;0,1,2, 3;1,0,3;; MeshMaterialList { 2; 2; 1, 1; { Default_Material } { _Groundcover_RiverRock_4inch_ } } MeshTextureCoords { 4; -2.1168,-3.4022; 1.0000,-0.0000; 1.0000,-3.4022; -2.1168,-0.0000;; } MeshNormals { 4; 0.0000;1.0000;-0.0000; 0.0000;1.0000;-0.0000; 0.0000;1.0000;-0.0000; 0.0000;1.0000;-0.0000;; 2; 3;0,1,2; 3;1,0,3;; } }

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• XNA RTS A* pathfinding issues

  - by Slayter

  I'm starting to develop an RTS game using the XNA framework in C# and am still in the very early prototyping stage. I'm working on the basics. I've got unit selection down and am currently working on moving multiple units. I've implemented an A* pathfinding algorithm which works fine for moving a single unit. However when moving multiple units they stack on top of each other. I tried fixing this with a variation of the boids flocking algorithm but this has caused units to sometimes freeze and get stuck trying to move but going no where. Ill post the related methods for moving the units below but ill only post a link to the pathfinding class because its really long and i don't want to clutter up the page. These parts of the code are in the update method for the main controlling class: if (selectedUnits.Count > 0) { int indexOfLeader = 0; for (int i = 0; i < selectedUnits.Count; i++) { if (i == 0) { indexOfLeader = 0; } else { if (Vector2.Distance(selectedUnits[i].position, destination) < Vector2.Distance(selectedUnits[indexOfLeader].position, destination)) indexOfLeader = i; } selectedUnits[i].leader = false; } selectedUnits[indexOfLeader].leader = true; foreach (Unit unit in selectedUnits) unit.FindPath(destination); } foreach (Unit unit in units) { unit.Update(gameTime, selectedUnits); } These three methods control movement in the Unit class: public void FindPath(Vector2 destination) { if (path != null) path.Clear(); Point startPoint = new Point((int)position.X / 32, (int)position.Y / 32); Point endPoint = new Point((int)destination.X / 32, (int)destination.Y / 32); path = pathfinder.FindPath(startPoint, endPoint); pointCounter = 0; if (path != null) nextPoint = path[pointCounter]; dX = 0.0f; dY = 0.0f; stop = false; } private void Move(List<Unit> units) { if (nextPoint == position && !stop) { pointCounter++; if (pointCounter <= path.Count - 1) { nextPoint = path[pointCounter]; if (nextPoint == position) stop = true; } else if (pointCounter >= path.Count) { path.Clear(); pointCounter = 0; stop = true; } } else { if (!stop) { map.occupiedPoints.Remove(this); Flock(units); // Move in X ********* TOOK OUT SPEED ********** if ((int)nextPoint.X > (int)position.X) { position.X += dX; } else if ((int)nextPoint.X < (int)position.X) { position.X -= dX; } // Move in Y if ((int)nextPoint.Y > (int)position.Y) { position.Y += dY; } else if ((int)nextPoint.Y < (int)position.Y) { position.Y -= dY; } if (position == nextPoint && pointCounter >= path.Count - 1) stop = true; map.occupiedPoints.Add(this, position); } if (stop) { path.Clear(); pointCounter = 0; } } } private void Flock(List<Unit> units) { float distanceToNextPoint = Vector2.Distance(position, nextPoint); foreach (Unit unit in units) { float distance = Vector2.Distance(position, unit.position); if (unit != this) { if (distance < space && !leader && (nextPoint != position)) { // create space dX += (position.X - unit.position.X) * 0.1f; dY += (position.Y - unit.position.Y) * 0.1f; if (dX > .05f) nextPoint.X = nextPoint.X - dX; else if (dX < -.05f) nextPoint.X = nextPoint.X + dX; if (dY > .05f) nextPoint.Y = nextPoint.Y - dY; else if (dY < -.05f) nextPoint.Y = nextPoint.Y + dY; if ((dX < .05f && dX > -.05f) && (dY < .05f && dY > -.05f)) stop = true; path[pointCounter] = nextPoint; Console.WriteLine("Make Space: " + dX + ", " + dY); } else if (nextPoint != position && !stop) { dX = speed; dY = speed; Console.WriteLine(dX + ", " + dY); } } } } And here's the link to the pathfinder: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_Cqt6txUDkddU40QXBMeTR1djA I hope this post wasn't too long. Also please excuse the messiness of the code. As I said before this is early prototyping. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

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• Oracle CRM On Demand Release 24 is Generally Available

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 We are pleased to announce that Oracle CRM On Demand Release 24 is Generally Available as of October 25, 2013 Get smarter, more productive and the best value with Oracle CRM On Demand Release 24. Oracle CRM On Demand continues to be the most complete Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) CRM solution available. Now, with Release 24, organizations of all types and sizes benefit from actionable insight anywhere, anytime, as well as key enhancements in mobility, embedded social, analytics, integration and extensibility, and ease of use.Next Generation Mobile and Desktop Solutions : Oracle CRM On Demand Release 24 offers a complete set of mobile and desktop solutions that improve productivity by enabling reps to access and update information anywhere, anytime. Capabilities include: Oracle CRM On Demand Disconnected Mobile Sales (DMS) – A disconnected native iPad solution, DMS has been further streamlined mobile sales process by adding Structured Product Messaging to record brand specific call objectives, enhancements in HTML5 eDetailing including message response tracking and improvements in administration and configuration such as more field management options for read only fields, role management and enhanced logging. Oracle CRM On Demand Connected Mobile Sales. This add-on mobile service provides a configurable mobile solution on iOS, BlackBerry and now Android devices. You can access data from CRM On Demand in real time with a rich, native user experience, that is comfortable and familiar to current iOS, BlackBerry and Android users. New features also include Single Sign On to enhance security for mobile users.  Oracle CRM On Demand Desktop: This application centralizes essential CRM information in the familiar Microsoft Outlook environment,increasing user adoption and decreasing training costs. Users can manage CRM data while disconnected, then synchronize bi-directionally when they are back on the network. New in Oracle CRM On Demand Desktop Version 3 is the ability to synchronize by Books of Business, and improved Online Lookup. Mobile Browser Support: The following mobile device browsers are now supported: Apple iPhone, Apple iPad, Windows 8 Tablets, and Google Android. Leverage the Social Enterprise Engaging customers via social channels is rapidly becoming a significant key to enhanced customer experience as it provides proactive customer service, targeted messaging and greater intimacy throughout the entire customer lifecycle. Listening to customers on the social channels can identify a customers’ sphere of influence and the real value they bring to their organization, or the impact they can have on the opportunity. Servicing the customer’s need is the first step towards loyalty to a brand, integrating with social channels allows us to maximize brand affinity and virally expand customer engagements thus increasing revenue. Oracle CRM On Demand is leveraging the Social Enterprise through its integration with Oracle’s Social Relationship Management (SRM) product suite by providing out-of-the-box integration with Social Engagement and Monitoring (SEM), Social Marketing (SM) and Oracle Social Network (OSN). With Oracle CRM On Demand Release 24, users are able to create a service request from a social post via SEM and have leads entered on a SM lead form automatically entered into Oracle CRM On Demand along with the campaign, streamlining the lead qualification process. Get Smarter with Actionable Insight The difference between making good decisions and great decisions depends heavily upon the quality, structure, and availability of information at hand. Oracle CRM On Demand Release 24 expands upon its industry-leading analytics capabilities to provide greater business insight than ever before. New capabilities include flexible permissions on analytics reports folders, allowing for read only access to reports, and additional field and object coverage. Get More Productive with Powerful Tools Oracle CRM On Demand Release 24 introduces a new set of powerful capabilities designed to maximize productivity. A significant new feature for customizing Oracle CRM On Demand is a JavaScript API. The JS API allows customers to add new buttons, suppress existing buttons and even change what happens when a user clicks an existing button. Other usability enhancements, such as personalized related information applets, extended case insensitive search provide users with better, more intuitive, experience. Additional privileges for viewing private activities and notes allow administrators to reassign records as needed, and Custom Object management. Workflow has been added to the Order Item object; and now tasks can be assigned to a relative user, such as an Account Owner, allowing more complex business processes to be automated and adhered to. Get the Best Value Oracle CRM On Demand delivers unprecedented value with the broadest set of capabilities from a single-provider solution, the industry’s lowest total cost of ownership, the most on-demand deployment options, the deepest CRM expertise and experience of any CRM provider, and the most secure CRM in the cloud. With Release 24, Oracle CRM On Demand now includes even more enterprise-grade security, integration, and extensibility features, along with enhanced industry editions to save you time and money. New features include: Business Process Administration: A new privilege has been added that allows administrators to override a Business Process Administration rule.This privilege permits users to edit a locked record, or unlock a record, in the event of a material change that needs to be reflected per corporatepolicy. Additionally, the Products Detailed object has been added to Business Process Administration, enabling record locking and logic to be applied. Expanded Integration: Oracle continues to improve Web Services each release, by adding more object coverage enabling customers and partners to easily integrate with CRM On Demand. Bottom Line Oracle CRM On Demand Release 24 enables organizations to get smarter, get more productive, and get the best value, period. For more information on Oracle CRM On Demand Release 24, please visit oracle.com/crmondemand

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• Silverlight Cream Monday WP7 App Review # 2

  - by Dave Campbell

  Today's Review (alphabetic order): GooNews, Grocery Shopping List, Need for Speed, SurfCube, and United Nations News. I'm a day late if these are going to be 'Monday' posts, but there are lots of apps, lots of goodness, and lots of email, so I might try to do 2 a week, we'll see. So once again I've got a small review of 5 apps that are either on my phone or have been. Disclaimers at the end. In this Issue:   GooNews is a very cool app from Shawn Wildermuth (AgiliTrain). I don't know if he uses this as a demo during his instruction, but it definitely serves a purpose... wanna pick up the top news items from Google on a never-ending basis? ... this is it. You can add your own keyword searches, and send stories to InstaPaper or share via email. I like this because it brings me the news quickly and updated, and works great. GooNews is by AgiliTrain and is Free This was a request by the author, and actually surprised me. I'm a big one for lists, but I would have just done a OneNote list to SkyDrive and to my phone. This app is a lot more than that, but will take you some setup to make it be 'yours'. For obvious reasons, there are no unit prices on things, so you have to set that up to get some idea of the cost of what you're shopping for. But if you do that, you'll get a nice total. Lots of thought went into the various categories and you can add your own. There's a bit of animation on the category selection that's nice. He seems to have covered all the bases necessary to use this, even shopping 'plans' that can be saved, and emailing of lists. As I said, I'm more of a raw list person, but if you take the time to set this up, it should work very nicely for you. Grocery Shopping List is by Grocery Shopper and is $0.99 ($1.99 after Feb 1) with a free trial. This was my 2nd commercial game I bought, and the one I've played the most. I ran the trial, thought it worked great, and bought it. I've had a lot of fun with this... there's no gas pedal.. your foot is in the carbeurator from the GO!, and unless you wanna tap the screen and brake like a little girl, just hang onto the steering wheel (the phone), and guide your way through. Hours of fun and challenges here. I like this because it's got some challenge to it, and the cars seem to be very realistic in their reactions. Need for Speed Undercover is by Electronic Arts is $4.99 and has a free trial. SurfCube Browser is another app by the folks that did the GuitarTuner I reviewed on Monday. You have to see SurfCube to believe it. You've probably seen the YouTube video, if not check SilverlightCream number 1017. The app works very solid, and just as the video demonstrates. I downloaded and tried this, and it immediately did 2 things: bought it, and pinned it to my start page. I like this because it's fun to work with, and it works great as a browser. I'm about *this* close to replacing the IE tile on my front page with SurfCube. SurfCube Browser is by Kinabalu Innovation Limited and is $1.99 and has a free trial. Coming in with another News app is United Nations News by Justin Angel. This is definitely a news aggregator for 'grown ups'... news, photos, videos, and radio broadcsts from the international community all in one very slick app. This is an amazingly well thought-out and complete app. Even better yet, Justin has the code on CodePlex. A very well-done International news aggregator. United Nations News is by Justin Angel and is Free. A few disclaimers: Feel free to write me about your app and tell me about it. While it would be very cool to receive a whole bunch of xap files to review, at this point, for technical reasons, I'm unable to side-load my device. Since I plan on only doing this one day a week (twice if I find time), and only 5, I may never get caught up, so if you send me some info, be patient. Re: games ... remember I'm old... I'm from the era of Colossal Cave and Zork. Duke-Nukem 2D and Captain Comic were awesome. I don't own an XBOX or any other game system, so take game reviews from my perspective -- who knows, it may be refreshing :) I won't pay for an app or game just to try it. If you expect me to test-drive your app, it's going to have to have a Free Trial. I'm still playing with the format, comments are welcome. I decided I should alphabetize the list today... so there's no order implied Let me know what you think of the idea of doing reviews, or the layout/whatever, and Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• XmlWriter and lower ASCII characters

  - by Rick Strahl

  Ran into an interesting problem today on my CodePaste.net site: The main RSS and ATOM feeds on the site were broken because one code snippet on the site contained a lower ASCII character (CHR(3)). I don't think this was done on purpose but it was enough to make the feeds fail. After quite a bit of debugging and throwing in a custom error handler into my actual feed generation code that just spit out the raw error instead of running it through the ASP.NET MVC and my own error pipeline I found the actual error. The lovely base exception and error trace I got looked like this: Error: '', hexadecimal value 0x03, is an invalid character. at System.Xml.XmlUtf8RawTextWriter.InvalidXmlChar(Int32 ch, Byte* pDst, Boolean entitize)at System.Xml.XmlUtf8RawTextWriter.WriteElementTextBlock(Char* pSrc, Char* pSrcEnd)at System.Xml.XmlUtf8RawTextWriter.WriteString(String text)at System.Xml.XmlWellFormedWriter.WriteString(String text)at System.Xml.XmlWriter.WriteElementString(String localName, String ns, String value)at System.ServiceModel.Syndication.Rss20FeedFormatter.WriteItemContents(XmlWriter writer, SyndicationItem item, Uri feedBaseUri)at System.ServiceModel.Syndication.Rss20FeedFormatter.WriteItem(XmlWriter writer, SyndicationItem item, Uri feedBaseUri)at System.ServiceModel.Syndication.Rss20FeedFormatter.WriteItems(XmlWriter writer, IEnumerable`1 items, Uri feedBaseUri)at System.ServiceModel.Syndication.Rss20FeedFormatter.WriteFeed(XmlWriter writer)at System.ServiceModel.Syndication.Rss20FeedFormatter.WriteTo(XmlWriter writer)at CodePasteMvc.Controllers.ApiControllerBase.GetFeed(Object instance) in C:\Projects2010\CodePaste\CodePasteMvc\Controllers\ApiControllerBase.cs:line 131 XML doesn't like extended ASCII Characters It turns out the issue is that XML in general does not deal well with lower ASCII characters. According to the XML spec it looks like any characters below 0x09 are invalid. If you generate an XML document in .NET with an embedded &#x3; entity (as mine did to create the error above), you tend to get an XML document error when displaying it in a viewer. For example, here's what the result of my  feed output looks like with the invalid character embedded inside of Chrome which displays RSS feeds as raw XML by default: Other browsers show similar error messages. The nice thing about Chrome is that you can actually view source and jump down to see the line that causes the error which allowed me to track down the actual message that failed. If you create an XML document that contains a 0x03 character the XML writer fails outright with the error: '', hexadecimal value 0x03, is an invalid character. The good news is that this behavior is overridable so XML output can at least be created by using the XmlSettings object when configuring the XmlWriter instance. In my RSS configuration code this looks something like this:MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream(); var settings = new XmlWriterSettings() { CheckCharacters = false }; XmlWriter writer = XmlWriter.Create(ms,settings); and voila the feed now generates. Now generally this is probably NOT a good idea, because as mentioned above these characters are illegal and if you view a raw XML document you'll get validation errors. Luckily though most RSS feed readers however don't care and happily accept and display the feed correctly, which is good because it got me over an embarrassing hump until I figured out a better solution. How to handle extended Characters? I was glad to get the feed fixed for the time being, but now I was still stuck with an interesting dilemma. CodePaste.net accepts user input for code snippets and those code snippets can contain just about anything. This means that ASP.NET's standard request filtering cannot be applied to this content. The code content displayed is encoded before display so for the HTML end the CHR(3) input is not really an issue. While invisible characters are hardly useful in user input it's not uncommon that odd characters show up in code snippets. You know the old fat fingering that happens when you're in the middle of a coding session and those invisible characters do end up sometimes in code editors and then end up pasted into the HTML textbox for pasting as a Codepaste.net snippet. The question is how to filter this text? Looking back at the XML Charset Spec it looks like all characters below 0x20 (space) except for 0x09 (tab), 0x0A (LF), 0x0D (CR) are illegal. So applying the following filter with a RegEx should work to remove invalid characters:string code = Regex.Replace(item.Code, @"[\u0000-\u0008,\u000B,\u000C,\u000E-\u001F]", ""); Applying this RegEx to the code snippet (and title) eliminates the problems and the feed renders cleanly.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in .NET  XML   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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• A Visual Studio Release Grows in Brooklyn

  - by andrewbrust

  Yesterday, Microsoft held its flagship launch event for Office 2010 in Manhattan.  Today, the Redmond software company is holding a local launch event for Visual Studio (VS) 2010, in Brooklyn.  How come information workers get the 212 treatment and developers are relegated to 718? Well, here’s the thing: the Brooklyn Marriott is actually a great place for an event, but you need some intimate knowledge of New York City to know that.  NBC’s Studio 8H, where the Office launch was held yesterday (and from where SNL is broadcast) is a pretty small venue, but you’d need some inside knowledge to recognize that.  Likewise, while Office 2010 is a product whose value is apparent.  Appreciating VS 2010’s value takes a bit more savvy.  Setting aside its year-based designation, this release of VS, counting the old Visual Basic releases, is the 10th version of the product.  How can a developer audience get excited about an integrated development environment when it reaches double-digit version numbers?  Well, it can be tough.  Luckily, Microsoft sent Jay Schmelzer, a Group Program Manager from the Visual Studio team in Redmond, to come tell the Brooklyn audience why they should be excited. Turns out there’s a lot of reasons.  Support fro SharePoint development is a big one.  In previous versions of VS, that support has been anemic, at best.  Shortage of SharePoint developers is a huge issue in the industry, and this should help.  There’s also built in support for Windows Azure (Microsoft’s cloud platform) and, through a download, support for the forthcoming Windows Phone 7 platform.  ASP.NET MVC, a “close-to-the-metal” Web development option that does away with the Web Forms abstraction layer, has a first-class presence in VS.  So too does jQuery, the Open Source environment that makes JavaScript development a breeze.  The jQuery support is so good that Microsoft now contributes to that Open Source project and offers IntelliSense support for it in the code editor. Speaking of the VS code editor, it now supports multi-monitor setups, zoom-in, and block selection.  If you’re not a developer, this may sound confusing and minute.  I’ll just say that for people who are developers these are little things that really contribute to productivity, and that translates into lower development costs. The really cool demo, though, was around Visual Studio 2010’s new debugging features.  This stuff is hard to showcase, but I believe it’s truly breakthrough technology: imagine being able to step backwards in time to see what might have caused a bug.  Cool?  Now imagine being able to do that, even if you weren’t the tester and weren’t present while the testing was being done.  Then imagine being able to see a video screen capture of what the tester was doing with your app when the bug occurred.  VS 2010 allows all that.  This could be the demise of the IWOMM (“it works on my machine”) syndrome. After the keynote, I asked Schmelzer if any of Microsoft’s competitors have debugging tools that come close to VS 2010’s.  His answer was an earnest “we don’t think so.”  If that’s true, that’s a big deal, and a huge advantage for developer teams who adopt it.  It will make software development much cheaper and more efficient.  Kind of like holding a launch event at the Brooklyn Marriott instead of 30 Rock in Manhattan! VS 2010 (version 10) and Office 2010 (version 14) aren’t the only new product versions Microsoft is releasing right now.  There’s also SQL Server 2008 R2 (version 10.5), Exchange 2010 (version 8, I believe), SharePoint 2010 (version 4) and, of course, Windows 7.  With so many new versions at such levels of maturity, I think it’s fair to say Microsoft has reached middle-age.  How does a company stave off a potential mid-life crisis, especially when with young Turks like Google coming along and competing so fiercely?  Hard to say.  But if focusing on core value, including value that’s hard to play into a sexy demo, is part oft the answer, then Microsoft’s doing OK.  And if some new tricks, like Windows Phone 7, can gain some traction, that might round things out nicely. Are the legacy products old tricks, or are they revised classics?  I honestly don’t know, because it’s the market’s prerogative to pass that judgement.  I can say this though: based on today’s show, I think Microsoft’s been doing its homework.

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• T-SQL Tuesday #34: Help! I Need Somebody!

  - by Most Valuable Yak (Rob Volk)

  Welcome everyone to T-SQL Tuesday Episode 34!  When last we tuned in, Mike Fal (b|t) hosted Trick Shots.  These highlighted techniques or tricks that you figured out on your own which helped you understand SQL Server better. This month, I'm asking you to look back this past week, year, century, or hour...to a time when you COULDN'T figure it out.  When you were stuck on a SQL Server problem and you had to seek help. In the beginning... SQL Server has changed a lot since I started with it.  <Cranky Old Guy> Back in my day, Books Online was neither.  There were no blogs. Google was the third-place search site. There were perhaps two or three community forums where you could ask questions.  (Besides the Microsoft newsgroups...which you had to access with Usenet.  And endure the wrath of...Celko.)  Your "training" was reading a book, made from real dead trees, that you bought from your choice of brick-and-mortar bookstore. And except for your local user groups, there were no conferences, seminars, SQL Saturdays, or any online video hookups where you could interact with a person. You'd have to call Microsoft Support...on the phone...a LANDLINE phone.  And none of this "SQL Family" business!</Cranky Old Guy> Even now, with all these excellent resources available, it's still daunting for a beginner to seek help for SQL Server.  The product is roughly 1247.4523 times larger than it was 15 years ago, and it's simply impossible to know everything about it.*  So whether you are a beginner, or a seasoned pro of over a decade's experience, what do you do when you need help on SQL Server? That's so meta... In the spirit of offering help, here are some suggestions for your topic: Tell us about a person or SQL Server community who have been helpful to you.  It can be about a technical problem, or not, e.g. someone who volunteered for your local SQL Saturday.  Sing their praises!  Let the world know who they are! Do you have any tricks for using Books Online?  Do you use the locally installed product, or are you completely online with BOL/MSDN/Technet, and why? If you've been using SQL Server for over 10 years, how has your help-seeking changed? Are you using Twitter, StackOverflow, MSDN Forums, or another resource that didn't exist when you started? What made you switch? Do you spend more time helping others than seeking help? What motivates you to help, and how do you contribute? Structure your post along the lyrics to The Beatles song Help! Audio or video renditions are particularly welcome! Lyrics must include reference to SQL Server terminology or community, and performances must be in your voice or include you playing an instrument. These are just suggestions, you are free to write whatever you like.  Bonus points if you can incorporate ALL of these into a single post.  (Or you can do multiple posts, we're flexible like that.)  Help us help others by showing how others helped you! Legalese, Your Rights, Yada yada... If you would like to participate in T-SQL Tuesday please be sure to follow the rules below: Your blog post must be published between Tuesday, September 11, 2012 00:00:00 GMT and Wednesday, September 12, 2012 00:00:00 GMT. Include the T-SQL Tuesday logo (above) and hyperlink it back to this post. If you don’t see your post in trackbacks, add the link to the comments below. If you are on Twitter please tweet your blog using the #TSQL2sDay hashtag.  I can be contacted there as @sql_r, in case you have questions or problems with comments/trackback.  I'll have a follow-up post listing all the contributions as soon as I can. Thank you all for participating, and special thanks to Adam Machanic (b|t) for all his help and for continuing this series!

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• yield – Just yet another sexy c# keyword?

  - by George Mamaladze

  yield (see NSDN c# reference) operator came I guess with .NET 2.0 and I my feeling is that it’s not as wide used as it could (or should) be.   I am not going to talk here about necessarity and advantages of using iterator pattern when accessing custom sequences (just google it).   Let’s look at it from the clean code point of view. Let's see if it really helps us to keep our code understandable, reusable and testable.   Let’s say we want to iterate a tree and do something with it’s nodes, for instance calculate a sum of their values. So the most elegant way would be to build a recursive method performing a classic depth traversal returning the sum.           private int CalculateTreeSum(Node top)         {             int sumOfChildNodes = 0;             foreach (Node childNode in top.ChildNodes)             {                 sumOfChildNodes += CalculateTreeSum(childNode);             }             return top.Value + sumOfChildNodes;         }     “Do One Thing” Nevertheless it violates one of the most important rules “Do One Thing”. Our  method CalculateTreeSum does two things at the same time. It travels inside the tree and performs some computation – in this case calculates sum. Doing two things in one method is definitely a bad thing because of several reasons: ·          Understandability: Readability / refactoring ·          Reuseability: when overriding - no chance to override computation without copying iteration code and vice versa. ·          Testability: you are not able to test computation without constructing the tree and you are not able to test correctness of tree iteration.   I want to spend some more words on this last issue. How do you test the method CalculateTreeSum when it contains two in one: computation & iteration? The only chance is to construct a test tree and assert the result of the method call, in our case the sum against our expectation. And if the test fails you do not know wether was the computation algorithm wrong or was that the iteration? At the end to top it all off I tell you: according to Murphy’s Law the iteration will have a bug as well as the calculation. Both bugs in a combination will cause the sum to be accidentally exactly the same you expect and the test will PASS. J   Ok let’s use yield! That’s why it is generally a very good idea not to mix but isolate “things”. Ok let’s use yield!           private int CalculateTreeSumClean(Node top)         {             IEnumerable<Node> treeNodes = GetTreeNodes(top);             return CalculateSum(treeNodes);         }             private int CalculateSum(IEnumerable<Node> nodes)         {             int sumOfNodes = 0;             foreach (Node node in nodes)             {                 sumOfNodes += node.Value;             }             return sumOfNodes;         }           private IEnumerable<Node> GetTreeNodes(Node top)         {             yield return top;             foreach (Node childNode in top.ChildNodes)             {                 foreach (Node currentNode in GetTreeNodes(childNode))                 {                     yield return currentNode;                 }             }         }   Two methods does not know anything about each other. One contains calculation logic another jut the iteration logic. You can relpace the tree iteration algorithm from depth traversal to breath trevaersal or use stack or visitor pattern instead of recursion. This will not influence your calculation logic. And vice versa you can relace the sum with product or do whatever you want with node values, the calculateion algorithm is not aware of beeng working on some tree or graph.  How about not using yield? Now let’s ask the question – what if we do not have yield operator? The brief look at the generated code gives us an answer. The compiler generates a 150 lines long class to implement the iteration logic.       [CompilerGenerated]     private sealed class <GetTreeNodes>d__0 : IEnumerable<Node>, IEnumerable, IEnumerator<Node>, IEnumerator, IDisposable     {         ...        150 Lines of generated code        ...     }   Often we compromise code readability, cleanness, testability, etc. – to reduce number of classes, code lines, keystrokes and mouse clicks. This is the human nature - we are lazy. Knowing and using such a sexy construct like yield, allows us to be lazy, write very few lines of code and at the same time stay clean and do one thing in a method. That's why I generally welcome using staff like that.   Note: The above used recursive depth traversal algorithm is possibly the compact one but not the best one from the performance and memory utilization point of view. It was taken to emphasize on other primary aspects of this post.

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