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• Exploring the Excel Services REST API

  - by jamiet

  Over the last few years Analysis Services guru Chris Webb and I have been on something of a crusade to enable better access to data that is locked up in countless Excel workbooks that litter the hard drives of enterprise PCs. The most prominent manifestation of that crusade up to now has been a forum thread that Chris began on Microsoft Answers entitled Excel Web App API? Chris began that thread with: I was wondering whether there was an API for the Excel Web App? Specifically, I was wondering if it was possible (or if it will be possible in the future) to expose data in a spreadsheet in the Excel Web App as an OData feed, in the way that it is possible with Excel Services? Up to recently the last 10 words of that paragraph "in the way that it is possible with Excel Services" had completely washed over me however a comment on my recent blog post Thoughts on ExcelMashup.com (and a rant) by Josh Booker in which Josh said: Excel Services is a service application built for sharepoint 2010 which exposes a REST API for excel documents. We're looking forward to pros like you giving it a try now that Office365 makes sharepoint more easily accessible.  Can't wait for your future blog about using REST API to load data from Excel on Offce 365 in SSIS. made me think that perhaps the Excel Services REST API is something I should be looking into and indeed that is what I have been doing over the past few days. And you know what? I'm rather impressed with some of what Excel Services' REST API has to offer. Unfortunately Excel Services' REST API also has one debilitating aspect that renders this blog post much less useful than it otherwise would be; namely that it is not publicly available from the Excel Web App on SkyDrive. Therefore all I can do in this blog post is show you screenshots of what the REST API provides in Sharepoint rather than linking you directly to those REST resources; that's a great shame because one of the benefits of a REST API is that it is easily and ubiquitously demonstrable from a web browser. Instead I am hosting a workbook on Sharepoint in Office 365 because that does include Excel Services' REST API but, again, all I can do is show you screenshots. N.B. If anyone out there knows how to make Office-365-hosted spreadsheets publicly-accessible (i.e. without requiring a username/password) please do let me know (because knowing which forum on which to ask the question is an exercise in futility). In order to demonstrate Excel Services' REST API I needed some decent data and for that I used the World Tourism Organization Statistics Database and Yearbook - United Nations World Tourism Organization dataset hosted on Azure Datamarket (its free, by the way); this dataset "provides comprehensive information on international tourism worldwide and offers a selection of the latest available statistics on international tourist arrivals, tourism receipts and expenditure" and you can explore the data for yourself here. If you want to play along at home by viewing the data as it exists in Excel then it can be viewed here. Let's dive in.   The root of Excel Services' REST API is the model resource which resides at: http://server/_vti_bin/ExcelRest.aspx/Documents/TourismExpenditureInMillionsOfUSD.xlsx/model Note that this is true for every workbook hosted in a Sharepoint document library - each Excel workbook is a RESTful resource. (Update: Mark Stacey on Twitter tells me that "It's turned off by default in onpremise Sharepoint (1 tickbox to turn on though)". Thanks Mark!) The data is provided as an ATOM feed but I have Firefox's feed reading ability turned on so you don't see the underlying XML goo. As you can see there are four top level resources, Ranges, Charts, Tables and PivotTables; exploring one of those resources is where things get interesting. Let's take a look at the Tables Resource: http://server/_vti_bin/ExcelRest.aspx/Documents/TourismExpenditureInMillionsOfUSD.xlsx/model/Tables Our workbook contains only one table, called ‘Table1’ (to reiterate, you can explore this table yourself here). Viewing that table via the REST API is pretty easy, we simply append the name of the table onto our previous URI: http://server/_vti_bin/ExcelRest.aspx/Documents/TourismExpenditureInMillionsOfUSD.xlsx/model/Tables('Table1') As you can see, that quite simply gives us a representation of the data in that table. What you cannot see from this screenshot is that this is pure HTML that is being served up; that is all well and good but actually we can do more interesting things. If we specify that the data should be returned not as HTML but as: http://server/_vti_bin/ExcelRest.aspx/Documents/TourismExpenditureInMillionsOfUSD.xlsx/model/Tables('Table1')?$format=image then that data comes back as a pure image and can be used in any web page where you would ordinarily use images. This is the thing that I really like about Excel Services’ REST API – we can embed an image in any web page but instead of being a copy of the data, that image is actually live – if the underlying data in the workbook were to change then hitting refresh will show a new image. Pretty cool, no? The same is true of any Charts or Pivot Tables in your workbook - those can be embedded as images too and if the underlying data changes, boom, the image in your web page changes too. There is a lot of data in the workbook so the image returned by that previous URI is too large to show here so instead let’s take a look at a different resource, this time a range: http://server/_vti_bin/ExcelRest.aspx/Documents/TourismExpenditureInMillionsOfUSD.xlsx/model/Ranges('Data!A1|C15') That URI returns cells A1 to C15 from a worksheet called “Data”: And if we ask for that as an image again: http://server/_vti_bin/ExcelRest.aspx/Documents/TourismExpenditureInMillionsOfUSD.xlsx/model/Ranges('Data!A1|C15')?$format=image Were this image resource not behind a username/password then this would be a live image of the data in the workbook as opposed to one that I had to copy and upload elsewhere. Nonetheless I hope this little wrinkle doesn't detract from the inate value of what I am trying to articulate here; that an existing image in a web page can be changed on-the-fly simply by inserting some data into an Excel workbook. I for one think that that is very cool indeed! I think that's enough in the way of demo for now as this shows what is possible using Excel Services' REST API. Of course, not all features work quite how I would like and here is a bulleted list of some of my more negative feedback: The URIs are pig-ugly. Are "_vti_bin" & "ExcelRest.aspx" really necessary as part of the URI? Would this not be better: http://server/Documents/TourismExpenditureInMillionsOfUSD.xlsx/Model/Tables(‘Table1’) That URI provides the necessary addressability and is a lot easier to remember. Discoverability of these resources is not easy, we essentially have to handcrank a URI ourselves. Take the example of embedding a chart into a blog post - would it not be better if I could browse first through the document library to an Excel workbook and THEN through the workbook to the chart/range/table that I am interested in? Call it a wizard if you like. That would be really cool and would, I am sure, promote this feature and cut down on the copy-and-paste disease that the REST API is meant to alleviate. The resources that I demonstrated can be returned as feeds as well as images or HTML simply by changing the format parameter to ?$format=atom however for some inexplicable reason they don't return OData and no-one on the Excel Services team can tell me why (believe me, I have asked). $format is an OData parameter however other useful parameters such as $top and $filter are not supported. It would be nice if they were. Although I haven't demonstrated it here Excel Services' REST API does provide a makeshift way of altering the data by changing the value of specific cells however what it does not allow you to do is add new data into the workbook. Google Docs allows this and was one of the motivating factors for Chris Webb's forum post that I linked to above. None of this works for Excel workbooks hosted on SkyDrive This blog post is as long as it needs to be for a short introduction so I'll stop now. If you want to know more than I recommend checking out a few links: Excel Services REST API documentation on MSDNSo what does REST on Excel Services look like??? by Shahar PrishExcel Services in SharePoint 2010 REST API Syntax by Christian Stich. Any thoughts? Let's hear them in the comments section below! @Jamiet 

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• Feedback Filtration&ndash;Processing Negative Comments for Positive Gains

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  After doing 7 conferences, 5 code camps, and countless user group events, I feel that this is a post I need to write. I actually toyed with other names for this post, however those names would just lend itself to the type of behaviour I want people to avoid – the reactionary, emotional response that speaks to some deeper issue beyond immediate facts and context. Humans are incredibly complex creatures. We’re also emotional, which serves us well in certain situations but can hinder us in others. Those of us in leadership build up a thick skin because we tend to encounter those reactionary, emotional responses more often, and we’re held to a higher standard because of our positions. While we could react with emotion ourselves, as the saying goes – fighting fire with fire just makes a bigger fire. So in this post I’ll share my thought process for dealing with negative feedback/comments and how you can still get value from them. The Thought Process Let’s take a real-world example. This week I held the Prairie IT Pro & Dev Con event. We’ve gotten a lot of session feedback already, most of it overwhelmingly positive. But some not so much – and some to an extreme I rarely see but isn’t entirely surprising to me. So here’s the example from a person we’ll refer to as Mr. Horrible: How was the speaker? Horrible! Worst speaker ever! Did the session meet your expectations? Hard to tell, speaker ruined it. Other Comments: DO NOT bring this speaker back! He was at this conference last year and I hoped enough negative feedback would have taught you to not bring him back...obviously not...I will not return to this conference next year if this speaker is brought back. Now those are very strong words. “Worst speaker ever!” “Speaker ruined it” “I will not return to this conference next year if the speaker is brought back”. The speakers I invite to speak at my conference are not just presenters but friends and colleagues. When I see this, my initial reaction is of course very emotional: I get defensive, I get angry, I get offended. So that’s where the process kicks in. Step 1 – Take a Deep Breath Take a deep breath, calm down, and walk away from the keyboard. I didn’t do that recently during an email convo between some colleagues and it ended up in my reacting emotionally on Twitter – did I mention those colleagues follow my Twitter feed? Yes, I ate some crow. Ok, now that we’re calm, let’s move on to step 2. Step 2 – Strip off the Emotion We need to take off the emotion that people wrap their words in and identify the root issues. For instance, if I see: “I hated this session, the presenter was horrible! He spoke so fast I couldn’t make out what he was saying!” then I drop off the personal emoting (“I hated…”) and the personal attack (“the presenter was horrible”) and focus on the real issue this person had – that the speaker was talking too fast. Now we have a root cause of the displeasure. However, we’re also dealing with humans who are all very different. Before I call up the speaker to talk about his speaking pace, I need to do some other things first. Back to our Mr. Horrible example, I don’t really have much to go on. There’s no details of how the speaker “ruined” the session or why he’s the “worst speaker ever”. In this case, the next step is crucial. Step 3 – Validate the Feedback When I tell people that we really like getting feedback for the sessions, I really really mean it. Not just because we want to hear what individuals have to say but also because we want to know what the group thought. When a piece of negative feedback comes in, I validate it against the group. So with the speaker Mr. Horrible commented on, I go to the feedback and look at other people’s responses: 2 x Excellent 1 x Alright 1 x Not Great 1 x Horrible (our feedback guy) That’s interesting, it’s a bit all over the board. If we look at the comments more we find that the people who rated the speaker excellent liked the presentation style and found the content valuable. The one guy who said “Not Great” even commented that there wasn’t anything really wrong with the presentation, he just wasn’t excited about it. In that light, I can try to make a few assumptions: - Mr. Horrible didn’t like the speakers presentation style - Mr. Horrible was expecting something else that wasn’t communicated properly in the session description - Mr. Horrible, for whatever reason, just didn’t like this presenter Now if the feedback was overwhelmingly negative, there’s a different pattern – one that validates the negative feedback. Regardless, I never take something at face value. Even if I see really good feedback, I never get too happy until I see that there’s a group trend towards the positive. Step 4 – Action Plan Once I’ve validated the feedback, then I need to come up with an action plan around it. Let’s go back to the other example I gave – the one with the speaker going too fast. I went and looked at the feedback and sure enough, other people commented that the speaker had spoken too quickly. Now I can go back to the speaker and let him know so he can get better. But what if nobody else complained about it? I’d still mention it to the speaker, but obviously one person’s opinion needs to be weighed as such. When we did PrDC Winnipeg in 2011, I surveyed the attendees about the food. Everyone raved about it…except one person. Am I going to change the menu next time for that one person while everyone else loved it? Of course not. There’s a saying – A sure way to fail is to try to please everyone. Let’s look at the Mr. Horrible example. What can I communicate to the speaker with such limited information provided in the feedback from Mr. Horrible? Well looking at the groups feedback, I can make a few suggestions: - Ensure that people understand in the session description the style of the talk - Ensure that people understand the level of detail/complexity of the talk and what prerequisite knowledge they should have I’m looking at it as possibly Mr. Horrible assumed a much more advanced talk and was disappointed, while the positive feedback by people who – from their comments – suggested this was all new to them, were thrilled with the session level. Step 5 – Follow Up For some feedback, I follow up personally. Especially with negative or constructive feedback, its important to let the person know you heard them and are making changes because of their comments. Even if their comments were emotionally charged and overtly negative, it’s still important to reach out personally and professionally. When you remove the emotion, negative comments can be the best feedback you get. Also, people have bad days. We’ve all had one of “those days” where we talked more sternly than normal to someone, or got angry at something we’d normally shrug off. We have various stresses in our lives and sometimes they seep out in odd ways. I always try to give some benefit of the doubt, and re-evaluate my view of the person after they’ve responded to my communication. But, there is such a thing as garbage feedback. What Mr. Horrible wrote is garbage. It’s mean spirited. It’s hateful. It provides nothing constructive at all. And a tell-tale sign that feedback is garbage – the person didn’t leave their name even though there was a field for it. Step 6 – Delete It Feedback must be processed in its raw form, and the end products should drive improvements. But once you’ve figured out what those things are, you shouldn’t leave raw feedback lying around. They are snapshots in time that taken alone can be damaging. Also, you should never rest on past praise. In a future blog post, I’m going to talk about how we can provide great feedback that, even when its critical, can still be constructive.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, October 10, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, October 10, 2012Popular ReleasesA C# 4.0 Push Notification Helper Library for WP7.0 & WP7.1: Easy Notification 1.0.0: New Feature - Send Tile, Toast & Raw Notifications to Windows Phone Devices. New Feature - Supports Windows Phone 7.0 & Windows Phone 7.1. New Feature - Validation rules are in-built for Push Notification Messages. New Feature - Strongly typed interfaces. New Feature - Supports synchronous & asynchronous methods to send notifications. New Feature - Supports authenticated notifications using X509 Certificates. New Feature - Supports Callback Registration Requests. New Feature - S...D3 Loot Tracker: 1.5.4: Fixed a bug where the server ip was not logged properly in the stats file.Captcha MVC: Captcha Mvc 2.1.2: v 2.1.2: Fixed problem with serialization. Made all classes from a namespace Jetbrains.Annotaions as the internal. Added autocomplete attribute and autocorrect attribute for captcha input element. Minor changes. v 2.1.1: Fixed problem with serialization. Minor changes. v 2.1: Added support for storing captcha in the session or cookie. See the updated example. Updated example. Minor changes. v 2.0.1: Added support for a partial captcha. Now you can easily customize the layout, s...DotNetNuke® Community Edition CMS: 06.02.04: Major Highlights Fixed issue where the module printing function was only visible to administrators Fixed issue where pane level skinning was being assigned to a default container for any content pane Fixed issue when using password aging and FB / Google authentication Fixed issue that was causing the DateEditControl to not load the assigned value Fixed issue that stopped additional profile properties to be displayed in the member directory after modifying the template Fixed er...Online Image Editor: Online Image Editor v1.1: If you have problems with this tool, please email me at amisouvikdas@gmail.com or You can also participate this project to improve this.Advanced DataGridView with Excel-like auto filter: 1.0.0.0: ?????? ??????Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.69: Fix for issue #18766: build task should not build the output if it's newer than all the input files. Fix for Issue #18764: build taks -res switch not working. update build task to concatenate input source and then minify, rather than minify and then concatenate. include resource string-replacement root name in the assumed globals list. Stop replacing new Date().getTime() with +new Date -- the latter is smaller, but turns out it executes up to 45% slower. add CSS support for single-...WinRT XAML Toolkit: WinRT XAML Toolkit - 1.3.3: WinRT XAML Toolkit based on the Windows 8 RTM SDK. Download the latest source from the SOURCE CODE page. For compiled version use NuGet. You can add it to your project in Visual Studio by going to View/Other Windows/Package Manager Console and entering: PM> Install-Package winrtxamltoolkit Features Attachable Behaviors AwaitableUI extensions Controls Converters Debugging helpers Extension methods Imaging helpers IO helpers VisualTree helpers Samples Recent changes NOTE:...DevLib: 69721 binary dll: 69721 binary dllVidCoder: 1.4.4 Beta: Fixed inability to create new presets with "Save As".MCEBuddy 2.x: MCEBuddy 2.3.2: Changelog for 2.3.2 (32bit and 64bit) 1. Added support for generating XBMC XML NFO files for files in the conversion queue (store it along with the source video with source video name.nfo). Right click on the file in queue and select generate XML 2. UI bugifx, start and end trim box locations interchanged 3. Added support for removing commercials from non DVRMS/WTV files (MP4, AVI etc) 4. Now checking for Firewall port status before enabling (might help with some firewall problems) 5. User In...DotNetNuke Boards: 01.00.00: This beta release represents the end of training session 1, based on jQuery and Knockout integration in DotNetNuke 6.2.3. It is designed to allow a single user or multiple users to add/edit/delete cards but no cards can be assigned to anyone at this point. This release is not intended for production use!Sandcastle Help File Builder: SHFB v1.9.5.0 with Visual Studio Package: General InformationIMPORTANT: On some systems, the content of the ZIP file is blocked and the installer may fail to run. Before extracting it, right click on the ZIP file, select Properties, and click on the Unblock button if it is present in the lower right corner of the General tab in the properties dialog. This release supports the Sandcastle October 2012 Release (v2.7.1.0). It includes full support for generating, installing, and removing MS Help Viewer files. This new release suppor...ClosedXML - The easy way to OpenXML: ClosedXML 0.68.0: ClosedXML now resolves formulas! Yes it finally happened. If you call cell.Value and it has a formula the library will try to evaluate the formula and give you the result. For example: var wb = new XLWorkbook(); var ws = wb.AddWorksheet("Sheet1"); ws.Cell("A1").SetValue(1).CellBelow().SetValue(1); ws.Cell("B1").SetValue(1).CellBelow().SetValue(1); ws.Cell("C1").FormulaA1 = "\"The total value is: \" & SUM(A1:B2)"; var...Json.NET: Json.NET 4.5 Release 10: New feature - Added Portable build to NuGet package New feature - Added GetValue and TryGetValue with StringComparison to JObject Change - Improved duplicate object reference id error message Fix - Fixed error when comparing empty JObjects Fix - Fixed SecAnnotate warnings Fix - Fixed error when comparing DateTime JValue with a DateTimeOffset JValue Fix - Fixed serializer sometimes not using DateParseHandling setting Fix - Fixed error in JsonWriter.WriteToken when writing a DateT...Readable Passphrase Generator: KeePass Plugin 0.7.2: Changes: Tested against KeePass 2.20.1 Tested under Ubuntu 12.10 (and KeePass 2.20) Added GenerateAsUtf8 method returning the encrypted passphrase as a UTF8 byte array.JSLint for Visual Studio 2010: 1.4.2: 1.4.2patterns & practices: Prism: Prism for .NET 4.5: This is a release does not include any functionality changes over Prism 4.1 Desktop. These assemblies target .NET 4.5. These assemblies also were compiled against updated dependencies: Unity 3.0 and Common Service Locator (Portable Class Library).Snoop, the WPF Spy Utility: Snoop 2.8.0: Snoop 2.8.0Announcing Snoop 2.8.0! It's been exactly six months since the last release, and this one has a bunch of goodies in it. In particular, there is now a PowerShell scripting tab, compliments of Bailey Ling. With this tab, the possibilities are limitless. It basically lets you automate/script the application that you are Snooping. Bailey has a couple blog posts (one and two) on his tab already, and I am sure more is to come. Please note that if you do not have PowerShell installed, y....NET Micro Framework: .NET MF 4.3 (Beta): This is the 4.3 Beta version of the .NET Micro Framework. Feature List for v4.3 Support for Visual Studio 2012 (including the Windows Desktop Express version) All v4.2 QFEs features and bug fixes (PWM enhancements, lwIP and network driver reliability improvements, Analog Output, WinUSB and latest GCC support) Improved diagnostic information for deployment Decreased boot time Bug fixes Work Item 1736 - Create link for MFDeploy under start menu Work Item 1504 - Customizing lwIP o...New Projectsadcc2: adccAP.Framework: This a asp.net mvc3 of test web site .EFCodeFirst: Projeto criado para experimentos e estudos com o Entity FrameworkEXPS-RAT: HelloFiskalizacija za developere: Projekt je namijenjen razvojnim inženjerima, programerima, developerima i svima ostalima koji se bave razvojem programskih rješenja za fiskalne blagajne.Galleriffic App for SharePoint 2013: Galleriffic App is an app part for SharePoint 2013 to display a picture gallery with cool JQuery animations and effects. Hack.net: Hack.net is a Roguelike clone similar to NetHack or Roguelike.Inno Setup For .NET Application: This is a simple inno setup for .net developerJava Special Functions Library: Java Special Functions Library implemented as a public class part of my larger mathematical package.LocalFileOpener: The LocalFileOpener plugin opens an intent to help you easily open local files on the device under installed applications.localizr - .NET Collaborative Translation & Localization: Localizr is a platform for collaborative localization and translation of .NET projects.Metro UI CSS: Metro UI CSS a set of styles to create a site with an interface similar to Windows 8 Metro UI. MoskieDotNet: A sandbox for me learn some new technologies.Mouse Automation: Allows a user to automate repetitive clicking within EverQuestMS SQL DB Schema Updater: Simple tool for updating MS SQL database schema based on "ideal" database model.n8design Tools: Tools any Source Code by Stefan Bauer.NasosCS: ???? ?? ??????Pokemonochan: ALright this is a Pokemon MMo bound to come out someday!PotatoSoft: ?????????????!Power Mirrors: Leverage the usefulness of SQL Server mirrors using PowerShell and SMO. Create mirrors from scratch, assign witnesses and test failovers, all from PowerShell! Project13251010: sdfdReal Time Data Bus: A collection of real time data bus implementations.Ricky Tailor's ASP.NET Web 2.0 Project: 7COM0203 Web Scripting And Content Creation Task 1. SampleTFS2: Sample Projectslotcarduino - An Arduino based slotcar timing project: Slotcar timing project based on Arduino Uno/Mega 2560. Standalone system with serial enabled graphic display.System.Data.Entity.Repository: Entity framework code first framework wrapper with support for generic repository pattern, N-Tier application and Transaction Management for rapid developmentTest Marron: This project is a test to explore codeplexTmib Video Downloader: A small youtube video downloader. Created in C#Web Scripting & Content Creation: Fhame Rashid MSc Software Engineering Module Log: Web-Scripting and Content Creationwebbase: webbaseWebScriptingandContentCreation: This project is for the MSc module Web Scripting and Content Creation.Zuordnung: Zuordnung

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• Operator of the week - Assert

  - by Fabiano Amorim

  Well my friends, I was wondering how to help you in a practical way to understand execution plans. So I think I'll talk about the Showplan Operators. Showplan Operators are used by the Query Optimizer (QO) to build the query plan in order to perform a specified operation. A query plan will consist of many physical operators. The Query Optimizer uses a simple language that represents each physical operation by an operator, and each operator is represented in the graphical execution plan by an icon. I'll try to talk about one operator every week, but so as to avoid having to continue to write about these operators for years, I'll mention only of those that are more common: The first being the Assert. The Assert is used to verify a certain condition, it validates a Constraint on every row to ensure that the condition was met. If, for example, our DDL includes a check constraint which specifies only two valid values for a column, the Assert will, for every row, validate the value passed to the column to ensure that input is consistent with the check constraint. Assert  and Check Constraints: Let's see where the SQL Server uses that information in practice. Take the following T-SQL: IF OBJECT_ID('Tab1') IS NOT NULL   DROP TABLE Tab1 GO CREATE TABLE Tab1(ID Integer, Gender CHAR(1))  GO  ALTER TABLE TAB1 ADD CONSTRAINT ck_Gender_M_F CHECK(Gender IN('M','F'))  GO INSERT INTO Tab1(ID, Gender) VALUES(1,'X') GO To the command above the SQL Server has generated the following execution plan: As we can see, the execution plan uses the Assert operator to check that the inserted value doesn't violate the Check Constraint. In this specific case, the Assert applies the rule, 'if the value is different to "F" and different to "M" than return 0 otherwise returns NULL'. The Assert operator is programmed to show an error if the returned value is not NULL; in other words, the returned value is not a "M" or "F". Assert checking Foreign Keys Now let's take a look at an example where the Assert is used to validate a foreign key constraint. Suppose we have this  query: ALTER TABLE Tab1 ADD ID_Genders INT GO  IF OBJECT_ID('Tab2') IS NOT NULL   DROP TABLE Tab2 GO CREATE TABLE Tab2(ID Integer PRIMARY KEY, Gender CHAR(1))  GO  INSERT INTO Tab2(ID, Gender) VALUES(1, 'F') INSERT INTO Tab2(ID, Gender) VALUES(2, 'M') INSERT INTO Tab2(ID, Gender) VALUES(3, 'N') GO  ALTER TABLE Tab1 ADD CONSTRAINT fk_Tab2 FOREIGN KEY (ID_Genders) REFERENCES Tab2(ID) GO  INSERT INTO Tab1(ID, ID_Genders, Gender) VALUES(1, 4, 'X') Let's look at the text execution plan to see what these Assert operators were doing. To see the text execution plan just execute SET SHOWPLAN_TEXT ON before run the insert command. |--Assert(WHERE:(CASE WHEN NOT [Pass1008] AND [Expr1007] IS NULL THEN (0) ELSE NULL END))      |--Nested Loops(Left Semi Join, PASSTHRU:([Tab1].[ID_Genders] IS NULL), OUTER REFERENCES:([Tab1].[ID_Genders]), DEFINE:([Expr1007] = [PROBE VALUE]))           |--Assert(WHERE:(CASE WHEN [Tab1].[Gender]<>'F' AND [Tab1].[Gender]<>'M' THEN (0) ELSE NULL END))           |    |--Clustered Index Insert(OBJECT:([Tab1].[PK]), SET:([Tab1].[ID] = RaiseIfNullInsert([@1]),[Tab1].[ID_Genders] = [@2],[Tab1].[Gender] = [Expr1003]), DEFINE:([Expr1003]=CONVERT_IMPLICIT(char(1),[@3],0)))           |--Clustered Index Seek(OBJECT:([Tab2].[PK]), SEEK:([Tab2].[ID]=[Tab1].[ID_Genders]) ORDERED FORWARD) Here we can see the Assert operator twice, first (looking down to up in the text plan and the right to left in the graphical plan) validating the Check Constraint. The same concept showed above is used, if the exit value is "0" than keep running the query, but if NULL is returned shows an exception. The second Assert is validating the result of the Tab1 and Tab2 join. It is interesting to see the "[Expr1007] IS NULL". To understand that you need to know what this Expr1007 is, look at the Probe Value (green text) in the text plan and you will see that it is the result of the join. If the value passed to the INSERT at the column ID_Gender exists in the table Tab2, then that probe will return the join value; otherwise it will return NULL. So the Assert is checking the value of the search at the Tab2; if the value that is passed to the INSERT is not found  then Assert will show one exception. If the value passed to the column ID_Genders is NULL than the SQL can't show a exception, in that case it returns "0" and keeps running the query. If you run the INSERT above, the SQL will show an exception because of the "X" value, but if you change the "X" to "F" and run again, it will show an exception because of the value "4". If you change the value "4" to NULL, 1, 2 or 3 the insert will be executed without any error. Assert checking a SubQuery: The Assert operator is also used to check one subquery. As we know, one scalar subquery can't validly return more than one value: Sometimes, however, a  mistake happens, and a subquery attempts to return more than one value . Here the Assert comes into play by validating the condition that a scalar subquery returns just one value. Take the following query: INSERT INTO Tab1(ID_TipoSexo, Sexo) VALUES((SELECT ID_TipoSexo FROM Tab1), 'F')    INSERT INTO Tab1(ID_TipoSexo, Sexo) VALUES((SELECT ID_TipoSexo FROM Tab1), 'F')    |--Assert(WHERE:(CASE WHEN NOT [Pass1016] AND [Expr1015] IS NULL THEN (0) ELSE NULL END))        |--Nested Loops(Left Semi Join, PASSTHRU:([tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[ID_TipoSexo] IS NULL), OUTER REFERENCES:([tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[ID_TipoSexo]), DEFINE:([Expr1015] = [PROBE VALUE]))              |--Assert(WHERE:([Expr1017]))             |    |--Compute Scalar(DEFINE:([Expr1017]=CASE WHEN [tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[Sexo]<>'F' AND [tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[Sexo]<>'M' THEN (0) ELSE NULL END))              |         |--Clustered Index Insert(OBJECT:([tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[PK__Tab1__3214EC277097A3C8]), SET:([tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[ID_TipoSexo] = [Expr1008],[tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[Sexo] = [Expr1009],[tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[ID] = [Expr1003]))              |              |--Top(TOP EXPRESSION:((1)))              |                   |--Compute Scalar(DEFINE:([Expr1008]=[Expr1014], [Expr1009]='F'))              |                        |--Nested Loops(Left Outer Join)              |                             |--Compute Scalar(DEFINE:([Expr1003]=getidentity((1856985942),(2),NULL)))              |                             |    |--Constant Scan              |                             |--Assert(WHERE:(CASE WHEN [Expr1013]>(1) THEN (0) ELSE NULL END))              |                                  |--Stream Aggregate(DEFINE:([Expr1013]=Count(*), [Expr1014]=ANY([tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[ID_TipoSexo])))             |                                       |--Clustered Index Scan(OBJECT:([tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[PK__Tab1__3214EC277097A3C8]))              |--Clustered Index Seek(OBJECT:([tempdb].[dbo].[Tab2].[PK__Tab2__3214EC27755C58E5]), SEEK:([tempdb].[dbo].[Tab2].[ID]=[tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[ID_TipoSexo]) ORDERED FORWARD)  You can see from this text showplan that SQL Server as generated a Stream Aggregate to count how many rows the SubQuery will return, This value is then passed to the Assert which then does its job by checking its validity. Is very interesting to see that  the Query Optimizer is smart enough be able to avoid using assert operators when they are not necessary. For instance: INSERT INTO Tab1(ID_TipoSexo, Sexo) VALUES((SELECT ID_TipoSexo FROM Tab1 WHERE ID = 1), 'F') INSERT INTO Tab1(ID_TipoSexo, Sexo) VALUES((SELECT TOP 1 ID_TipoSexo FROM Tab1), 'F')  For both these INSERTs, the Query Optimiser is smart enough to know that only one row will ever be returned, so there is no need to use the Assert. Well, that's all folks, I see you next week with more "Operators". Cheers, Fabiano

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• Software Engineering Practices &ndash; Different Projects should have different maturity levels

  - by Dylan Smith

  I’ve had a lot of discussions at the office lately about the drastically different sets of software engineering practices used on our various projects, if what we are doing is appropriate, and what factors should you be considering when determining what practices are most appropriate in a given context. I wanted to write up my thoughts in a little more detail on this subject, so here we go: If you compare any two software projects (specifically comparing their codebases) you’ll often see very different levels of maturity in the software engineering practices employed. By software engineering practices, I’m specifically referring to the quality of the code and the amount of technical debt present in the project. Things such as Test Driven Development, Domain Driven Design, Behavior Driven Development, proper adherence to the SOLID principles, etc. are all practices that you would expect at the mature end of the spectrum. At the other end of the spectrum would be the quick-and-dirty solutions that are done using something like an Access Database, Excel Spreadsheet, or maybe some quick “drag-and-drop coding”. For this blog post I’m going to refer to this as the Software Engineering Maturity Spectrum (SEMS). I believe there is a time and a place for projects at every part of that SEMS. The risks and costs associated with under-engineering solutions have been written about a million times over so I won’t bother going into them again here, but there are also (unnecessary) costs with over-engineering a solution. Sometimes putting multiple layers, and IoC containers, and abstracting out the persistence, etc is complete overkill if a one-time use Access database could solve the problem perfectly well. A lot of software developers I talk to seem to automatically jump to the very right-hand side of this SEMS in everything they do. A common rationalization I hear is that it may seem like a small trivial application today, but these things always grow and stick around for many years, then you’re stuck maintaining a big ball of mud. I think this is a cop-out. Sure you can’t always anticipate how an application will be used or grow over its lifetime (can you ever??), but that doesn’t mean you can’t manage it and evolve the underlying software architecture as necessary (even if that means having to toss the code out and re-write it at some point…maybe even multiple times). My thoughts are that we should be making a conscious decision around the start of each project approximately where on the SEMS we want the project to exist. I believe this decision should be based on 3 factors: 1. Importance - How important to the business is this application? What is the impact if the application were to suddenly stop working? 2. Complexity - How complex is the application functionality? 3. Life-Expectancy - How long is this application expected to be in use? Is this a one-time use application, does it fill a short-term need, or is it more strategic and is expected to be in-use for many years to come? Of course this isn’t an exact science. You can’t say that Project X should be at the 73% mark on the SEMS and expect that to be helpful. My point is not that you need to precisely figure out what point on the SEMS the project should be at then translate that into some prescriptive set of practices and techniques you should be using. Rather my point is that we need to be aware that there is a spectrum, and that not everything is going to be (or should be) at the edges of that spectrum, indeed a large number of projects should probably fall somewhere within the middle; and different projects should adopt a different level of software engineering practices and maturity levels based on the needs of that project. To give an example of this way of thinking from my day job: Every couple of years my company plans and hosts a large event where ~400 of our customers all fly in to one location for a multi-day event with various activities. We have some staff whose job it is to organize the logistics of this event, which includes tracking which flights everybody is booked on, arranging for transportation to/from airports, arranging for hotel rooms, name tags, etc The last time we arranged this event all these various pieces of data were tracked in separate spreadsheets and reconciliation and cross-referencing of all the data was literally done by hand using printed copies of the spreadsheets and several people sitting around a table going down each list row by row. Obviously there is some room for improvement in how we are using software to manage the event’s logistics. The next time this event occurs we plan to provide the event planning staff with a more intelligent tool (either an Excel spreadsheet or probably an Access database) that can track all the information in one location and make sure that the various pieces of data are properly linked together (so for example if a person cancels you only need to delete them from one place, and not a dozen separate lists). This solution would fall at or near the very left end of the SEMS meaning that we will just quickly create something with very little attention paid to using mature software engineering practices. If we examine this project against the 3 criteria I listed above for determining it’s place within the SEMS we can see why: Importance – If this application were to stop working the business doesn’t grind to a halt, revenue doesn’t stop, and in fact our customers wouldn’t even notice since it isn’t a customer facing application. The impact would simply be more work for our event planning staff as they revert back to the previous way of doing things (assuming we don’t have any data loss). Complexity – The use cases for this project are pretty straightforward. It simply needs to manage several lists of data, and link them together appropriately. Precisely the task that access (and/or Excel) can do with minimal custom development required. Life-Expectancy – For this specific project we’re only planning to create something to be used for the one event (we only hold these events every 2 years). If it works well this may change (see below). Let’s assume we hack something out quickly and it works great when we plan the next event. We may decide that we want to make some tweaks to the tool and adopt it for planning all future events of this nature. In that case we should examine where the current application is on the SEMS, and make a conscious decision whether something needs to be done to move it further to the right based on the new objectives and goals for this application. This may mean scrapping the access database and re-writing it as an actual web or windows application. In this case, the life-expectancy changed, but let’s assume the importance and complexity didn’t change all that much. We can still probably get away with not adopting a lot of the so-called “best practices”. For example, we can probably still use some of the RAD tooling available and might have an Autonomous View style design that connects directly to the database and binds to typed datasets (we might even choose to simply leave it as an access database and continue using it; this is a decision that needs to be made on a case-by-case basis). At Anvil Digital we have aspirations to become a primarily product-based company. So let’s say we use this tool to plan a handful of events internally, and everybody loves it. Maybe a couple years down the road we decide we want to package the tool up and sell it as a product to some of our customers. In this case the project objectives/goals change quite drastically. Now the tool becomes a source of revenue, and the impact of it suddenly stopping working is significantly less acceptable. Also as we hold focus groups, and gather feedback from customers and potential customers there’s a pretty good chance the feature-set and complexity will have to grow considerably from when we were using it only internally for planning a small handful of events for one company. In this fictional scenario I would expect the target on the SEMS to jump to the far right. Depending on how we implemented the previous release we may be able to refactor and evolve the existing codebase to introduce a more layered architecture, a robust set of automated tests, introduce a proper ORM and IoC container, etc. More likely in this example the jump along the SEMS would be so large we’d probably end up scrapping the current code and re-writing. Although, if it was a slow phased roll-out to only a handful of customers, where we collected feedback, made some tweaks, and then rolled out to a couple more customers, we may be able to slowly refactor and evolve the code over time rather than tossing it out and starting from scratch. The key point I’m trying to get across is not that you should be throwing out your code and starting from scratch all the time. But rather that you should be aware of when and how the context and objectives around a project changes and periodically re-assess where the project currently falls on the SEMS and whether that needs to be adjusted based on changing needs. Note: There is also the idea of “spectrum decay”. Since our industry is rapidly evolving, what we currently accept as mature software engineering practices (the right end of the SEMS) probably won’t be the same 3 years from now. If you have a project that you were to assess at somewhere around the 80% mark on the SEMS today, but don’t touch the code for 3 years and come back and re-assess its position, it will almost certainly have changed since the right end of the SEMS will have moved farther out (maybe the project is now only around 60% due to decay). Developer Skills Another important aspect to this whole discussion is around the skill sets of your architects and lead developers. When talking about the progression of a developers skills from junior->intermediate->senior->… they generally start by only being able to write code that belongs on the left side of the SEMS and as they gain more knowledge and skill they become capable of working at a higher and higher level along the SEMS. We all realize that the learning never stops, but eventually you’ll get to the point where you can comfortably develop at the right-end of the SEMS (the exact practices and techniques that translates to is constantly changing, but that’s not the point here). A critical skill that I’d love to see more evidence of in our industry is the most senior guys not only being able to work at the right-end of the SEMS, but more importantly be able to consciously work at any point along the SEMS as project needs dictate. An even more valuable skill would be if you could make the conscious decision to move a projects code further right on the SEMS (based on changing needs) and do so in an incremental manner without having to start from scratch. An exercise that I’m planning to go through with all of our projects here at Anvil in the near future is to map out where I believe each project currently falls within this SEMS, where I believe the project *should* be on the SEMS based on the business needs, and for those that don’t match up (i.e. most of them) come up with a plan to improve the situation.

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• Exchange 2010 PST-Export fails

  - by Chake

  I'm horribly failing at exporting Exchnange Mailboxes to PST files. Perhaps You are able to help me? The System I'm running some legacy machines here. The one I'm currently working on (CurrentDC) is a Windows 2008 R2 Server with Exchange 2010 on it. Exchange seems to be poorly patched: [PS] C:\>get-exchangeserver Name Site ServerRole Edition AdminDisplayVersion ---- ---- ---------- ------- ------------------- OldDC None Enterprise Version 6.5 (Bui... CurrentDC company.local Mailbox,... Enterprise Version 14.0 (Bu... The Problem After some trouble I managed to get the Export-Mailbox command run: [PS] C:\>Export-Mailbox -Identity marco -PSTFolderPath C:\ExchangeExport According to several Websites that seems to be the right command to export the mailbox of the user "marco" to "C:\ExchangeExport". But after running the command an error occurs (I'm sorry, it is the german version of Windows 2008 - but if you translate Fehler with error and Vorgang with process you should be prepared enough to go ;)) [PS] C:\Export-Mailbox -Identity marco -PSTFolderPath C:\ExchangeExport Fehler für Marco S ([email protected]). Ursache: Fehler bei diesem Vorgang., Fehlercode: -2147467259. + CategoryInfo : InvalidOperation: (0:Int32) [Export-Mailbox], RecipientTaskException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : 2317FD3A,Microsoft.Exchange.Management.RecipientTasks.ExportMailbox RunspaceId : 44415363-371e-44a1-a682-61e6a9b90c86 Identity : company.local/Company User/Marco S DistinguishedName : CN=Marco S,OU=Company User,DC=company,DC=local DisplayName : Marco S Alias : marco LegacyExchangeDN : /o=Erste Organisation/ou=Erste administrative Gruppe/cn=Recipients/cn=marco PrimarySmtpAddress : [email protected] SourceServer : CurrentDC.company.local SourceDatabase : Mailbox Database 0279110169 SourceGlobalCatalog : CurrentDC SourceDomainController : TargetGlobalCatalog : CurrentDC TargetDomainController : TargetMailbox : TargetServer : TargetDatabase : MailboxSize : 0 B (0 bytes) IsResourceMailbox : False SIDUsedInMatch : SMTPProxies : SourceManager : SourceDirectReports : SourcePublicDelegates : SourcePublicDelegatesBL : SourceAltRecipient : SourceAltRecipientBL : SourceDeliverAndRedirect : MatchedTargetNTAccountDN : IsMatchedNTAccountMailboxEnabled : MatchedContactsDNList : TargetNTAccountDNToCreate : TargetManager : TargetDirectReports : TargetPublicDelegates : TargetPublicDelegatesBL : TargetAltRecipient : TargetAltRecipientBL : TargetDeliverAndRedirect : Options : Default SourceForestCredential : TargetForestCredential : TargetFolder : PSTFilePath : C:\ExchangeExport\marco.pst RecoveryMailboxGuid : RecoveryMailboxLegacyExchangeDN : RecoveryMailboxDisplayName : RecoveryDatabaseGuid : StandardMessagesDeleted : 0 AssociatedMessagesDeleted : 0 DumpsterMessagesDeleted : 0 MoveType : ExportToPST MoveStage : Validation StartTime : 05.10.2012 13:55:46 EndTime : 05.10.2012 13:55:46 StatusCode : -2147467259 StatusMessage : Fehler bei diesem Vorgang. ReportFile : C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\Logging\MigrationLogs\export-Mailbox20121005-135545-8170000.xml ServerName : CurrentDC.company.local What I have done Well, I must say I'm quite clueless. I was wondering why MailboxSize is 0 - so I checked it: [PS] C:\>Get-MailboxStatistics marco | ft DisplayName, TotalItemSize, ItemCount DisplayName TotalItemSize ItemCount ----------- ------------- --------- Marco S 473 MB (496,011,572 bytes) 4173 Well, this i not 0 bytes - but I don't know what to do with this information. Also I had a look at the ReportFile mentioned in the output: <?xml version="1.0"?> <export-Mailbox> <TaskHeader> <RunningAs>NT-AUTORITÄT\SYSTEM</RunningAs> <Name>export-Mailbox</Name> <Type>ExportToPST</Type> <MaxBadItems>0</MaxBadItems> <Version>14.0.639.21</Version> <StartTime>10.05.2012 14:19:12</StartTime> <Options Identity="marco" PSTFolderPath="C:\ExchangeExport" DeleteContent="False" DeleteAssociatedMessages="False" GlobalCatalog="CurrentDC" MaxThreads="4" BadItemLimit="0" ValidateOnly="False" IncludeFolders="" ExcludeFolders="" StartDate="01.01.0001 00:00:00" EndDate="31.12.9999 23:59:59" SubjectKeywords="" ContentKeywords="" AllContentKeywords="" AttachmentFilenames="" SenderKeywords="" RecipientKeywords="" Locale="" /> </TaskHeader> <TaskDetails> <Item MailboxName="Marco S"> <Source> <Identity>company.local/Company User/Marco S</Identity> <DistinguishName>CN=Marco Sc,OU=Company User,DC=company,DC=local</DistinguishName> <DisplayName>Marco S</DisplayName> <Alias>marco</Alias> <LegacyExchangeDN>/o=Erste Organisation/ou=Erste administrative Gruppe/cn=Recipients/cn=marco</LegacyExchangeDN> <PrimarySmtpAddress>[email protected]</PrimarySmtpAddress> <SourceServer>CurrentDC.company.local</SourceServer> <SourceDatabase>Mailbox Database 0279110169</SourceDatabase> <IsResourceMailbox>False</IsResourceMailbox> <SourceGlobalCatalog>CurrentDC</SourceGlobalCatalog> </Source> <Target> <PSTFilePath>C:\ExchangeExport\marco.pst</PSTFilePath> </Target> <MailboxSize>0 B (0 bytes)</MailboxSize> <Duration>00:00:00</Duration> <Result IsWarning="False" ErrorCode="-2147467259">Fehler bei diesem Vorgang.</Result> </Item> </TaskDetails> <TaskFooter> <EndTime>10.05.2012 14:19:13</EndTime> <TotalSize>0 B (0 bytes)</TotalSize> <StandardMessagesDeleted>0</StandardMessagesDeleted> <AssociatedMessagesDeleted>0</AssociatedMessagesDeleted> <DumpsterMessagesDeleted>0</DumpsterMessagesDeleted> <Result ErrorCount="1" CompletedCount="0" WarningCount="0" /> </TaskFooter> </export-Mailbox> Do you have any clue? <UPDATE> Regarding to the answer from downthepub I tried to use UNC paths - no change. Also I tried installing the management tools to a client and run the scripts from there - no way, too. </UPDATE> Thanks a lot for reading this mess!

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, October 01, 2013

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, October 01, 2013Popular ReleasesDotNetNuke® Form and List: 06.00.06: DotNetNuke Form and List 06.00.06 Changes to 6.0.6•Add in Sql to remove 'text on row' setting for UserDefinedTable to make SQL Azure compatible. •Add new azureCompatible element to manifest. •Added a fix for importing templates. Changes to 6.0.2•Fix: MakeThumbnail was broken if the application pool was configured to .Net 4 •Change: Data is now stored in nvarchar(max) instead of ntext Changes to 6.0.1•Scripts now compatible with SQL Azure. Changes to 6.0.0•Icons are shown in module action b...BlackJumboDog: Ver5.9.6: 2013.09.30 Ver5.9.6 (1)SMTP???????、???????????????? (2)WinAPI??????? (3)Web???????CGI???????????????????????Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 5.2: Mostly internal code tweaks. added -nosize switch to turn off the size- and gzip-calculations done after minification. removed the comments in the build targets script for the old AjaxMin build task (discussion #458831). Fixed an issue with extended Unicode characters encoded inside a string literal with adjacent \uHHHH\uHHHH sequences. Fixed an IndexOutOfRange exception when encountering a CSS identifier that's a single underscore character (_). In previous builds, the net35 and net20...AJAX Control Toolkit: September 2013 Release: AJAX Control Toolkit Release Notes - September 2013 Release Version 7.0930September 2013 release of the AJAX Control Toolkit. AJAX Control Toolkit .NET 4.5 – AJAX Control Toolkit for .NET 4.5 and sample site (Recommended). AJAX Control Toolkit .NET 4 – AJAX Control Toolkit for .NET 4 and sample site (Recommended). AJAX Control Toolkit .NET 3.5 – AJAX Control Toolkit for .NET 3.5 and sample site (Recommended). Notes: - Instructions for using the AJAX Control Toolkit with ASP.NET 4.5 can b...WDTVHubGen - Adds Metadata, thumbnails and subtitles to WDTV Live Hubs: WDTVHubGen.v2.1.4.apifix-alpha: WDTVHubGen.v2.1.4.apifix-alpha is for testers to figure out if we got the NEW api plugged in ok. thanksVisual Log Parser: VisualLogParser: Portable Visual Log Parser for Dotnet 4.0Random searcher i pochodne: Generatorek playlisty: Generuje playlisty w formacie .m3u. Na razie beta z bety - ale juz dziala i mozna uzywac.sb0t v.5: sb0t 5.15: Fixed bug in join filter. Fixed bug in pm blocking. Added new Crypto and Entities static classes to scripting. Updated the default node list.Trace Reader for Microsoft Dynamics CRM: Trace Reader (1.2013.9.29): Initial releaseAudioWordsDownloader: AudioWordsDownloader 1.1 build 88: New features list of words (mp3 files) is available upon typing when a download path is defined list of download paths is added paths history settings added Bug fixed case mismatch in word search field fixed path not exist bug fixed when history has been used path, when filled from dialog, not stored refresh autocomplete list after path change word sought is deleted when path is changed at the end sought word list is deleted word list not refreshed download ends. word lis...HD-Trailers.NET Downloader: HD-Trailer.Net Downloader v 2.1.5: This started out as an effort to improve the search for the corr3ct IMDB page for the movie. I think I have done that here. I have run about 200 movies and the correct movie was identified in all cases including some entries that were problematic in the past. I also swatted several bugs that popped up under special circumstances and resulted in exceptions. This version should be quite a bit better than previous versions. Let me know if there are any issues.Wsus Package Publisher: Release v1.3.1309.28: Fix a bug, where WPP crash when running on a computer where Windows was installed in another language than Fr, En or De, and launching the Update Creation Wizard. Fix a bug, where WPP crash if some Multi-Thread job are launch with more than 64 items. Add a button to abort "Install This Update" wizard. Allow WPP to remember which columns are shown last time. Make URL clickable on the Update Information Tab. Add a new feature, when Double-Clicking on an update, the default action exec...Tweetinvi a friendly Twitter C# API: Alpha 0.8.3.0: Version 0.8.3.0 emphasis on the FIlteredStream and ease how to manage Exceptions that can occur due to the network or any other issue you might encounter. Will be available through nuget the 29/09/2013. FilteredStream Features provided by the Twitter Stream API - Ability to track specific keywords - Ability to track specific users - Ability to track specific locations Additional features - Detect the reasons the tweet has been retrieved from the Filtered API. You have access to both the ma...AcDown?????: AcDown????? v4.5: ??●AcDown??????????、??、??、???????。????，????，?????????????????????????。???????????Acfun、????(Bilibili)、??、??、YouTube、??、???、??????、SF????、????????????。 ●??????AcPlay?????，??????、????????????????。 ● AcDown???????C#??，????.NET Framework 2.0??。?????"Acfun?????"。 ??v4.5 ???? AcPlay????????v3.5 ????????，???????????30% ?? ???????GoodManga.net???? ?? ?????????? ?? ??Acfun?????????? ??Bilibili??????????? ?????????flvcd???????? ??SfAcg????????????? ???????????? ???????????????? ????32...C# Intellisense for Notepad++: Release v1.0.6.0: Added support for classless scripts To avoid the DLLs getting locked by OS use MSI file for the installation.SimpleExcelReportMaker: Serm 0.02: SourceCode and SampleMagick.NET: Magick.NET 6.8.7.001: Magick.NET linked with ImageMagick 6.8.7.0. Breaking changes: - ToBitmap method of MagickImage returns a png instead of a bmp. - Changed the value for full transparency from 255(Q8)/65535(Q16) to 0. - MagickColor now uses floats instead of Byte/UInt16.Media Companion: Media Companion MC3.578b: With the feedback received over the renaming of Movie Folders, and files, there has been some refinement done. As well as I would like to introduce Blu-Ray movie folder support, for Pre-Frodo and Frodo onwards versions of XBMC. To start with, Context menu option for renaming movies, now has three sub options: Movie & Folder, Movie only & Folder only. The option Manual Movie Rename needs to be selected from Movie Preferences, but the autoscrape boxes do not need to be selected. Blu Ray Fo...FFXIV Crafting Simulator: Crafting Simulator 2.3: - Major refactoring of the code behind. - Added a current durability and a current CP textbox.DNN CMS Platform: 07.01.02: Major HighlightsAdded the ability to manage the Vanity URL prefix Added the ability to filter members in the member directory by role Fixed issue where the user could inadvertently click the login button multiple times Fixed issues where core classes could not be used in out of process cache provider Fixed issue where profile visibility submenu was not displayed correctly Fixed issue where the member directory was broken when Convert URL to lowercase setting was enabled Fixed issu...New Projects.netProject: .Net Project 3TINafs-m: Secure file storageASP.NET dhtmlxChart Class: Create different types of charts and render them to webforms.ASP.NET dhtmxGantt Class: Add tasks Add dependencies Use lighboxBestCodeTrainer: Project BestCode is for Training. Black Dragon Online Shop: An online shop with basic functionalities implemented with ASP.NET MVC as a team project in Telerik Academy 2012/2013.Central fovea -X: ????: 1.???????????Cell,??RGB,HSL,X,Y 2.???????? 3.???????????? 4.????????，???????? 5.????????CorvusSKK: SKK-like Japanese Input Method for Windowsdaneshjoo: ?? ??? ???????DBA Toolbox: A tool for the production DBA. A place to store all those scripts, tools, references and queries that make your job as a DBA easier.Devpad IDE: Basic integrated development environment.DXUT for Direct3D 11: Latest version of the Microsoft DXUT framework for Direct3D 11 Win32 desktop applications formerly in the now legacy DirectX SDK.Dynamics CRM Messaging Integration: This project shows how to implement a simple custom messaging solution using Microsoft Dynamics CRM and based on its standard development components.Kockafölde: Kliens program.Medusa's Ebay: Teamwork assignment @ TelerikAcademy 2012/2013. Project is for creating simple (or more complicated) interneTeamwork assignment @ TelerikAcademy 2012/2013.Nauplius.PAS: Nauplius.PAS allows end users to leverage the PowerPoint Conversion Services within SharePoint 2013 to convert PowerPoint documents from one format to another.PayBox payment gateway provider for NB_Store: PayBox payment provider for NB_StorePet passport: This is a teamwork projectProject Euler solutions: Solutions to the ProjectEuler problemsRoboSubSync: Fixes an unsynchronized subtitle in any language according to an already synced subtitle in english, with the help of some advanced algorithm magic... ShopBook: Shopbooksliders: jQuery slidersSQLite to JSON: A simple program to convert SQLite data to JSON.Super64: This is a Commodore 64 emulator that is determined to have extremely unnecessary accuracy.TeamProject1: This is just Demo ProjectXnaHelper: A collection of tools for making 2D XNA Games

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• How to configure VPN in Windows XP

  - by SAMIR BHOGAYTA

  VPN Overview A VPN is a private network created over a public one. It’s done with encryption, this way, your data is encapsulated and secure in transit – this creates the ‘virtual’ tunnel. A VPN is a method of connecting to a private network by a public network like the Internet. An internet connection in a company is common. An Internet connection in a Home is common too. With both of these, you could create an encrypted tunnel between them and pass traffic, safely - securely. If you want to create a VPN connection you will have to use encryption to make sure that others cannot intercept the data in transit while traversing the Internet. Windows XP provides a certain level of security by using Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) or Layer Two Tunneling Protocol (L2TP). They are both considered tunneling protocols – simply because they create that virtual tunnel just discussed, by applying encryption. Configure a VPN with XP If you want to configure a VPN connection from a Windows XP client computer you only need what comes with the Operating System itself, it's all built right in. To set up a connection to a VPN, do the following: 1. On the computer that is running Windows XP, confirm that the connection to the Internet is correctly configured. • You can try to browse the internet • Ping a known host on the Internet, like yahoo.com, something that isn’t blocking ICMP 2. Click Start, and then click Control Panel. 3. In Control Panel, double click Network Connections 4. Click Create a new connection in the Network Tasks task pad 5. In the Network Connection Wizard, click Next. 6. Click Connect to the network at my workplace, and then click Next. 7. Click Virtual Private Network connection, and then click Next. 8. If you are prompted, you need to select whether you will use a dialup connection or if you have a dedicated connection to the Internet either via Cable, DSL, T1, Satellite, etc. Click Next. 9. Type a host name, IP or any other description you would like to appear in the Network Connections area. You can change this later if you want. Click Next. 10. Type the host name or the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the computer that you want to connect to, and then click Next. 11. You may be asked if you want to use a Smart Card or not. 12. You are just about done, the rest of the screens just verify your connection, click Next. 13. Click to select the Add a shortcut to this connection to my desktop check box if you want one, if not, then leave it unchecked and click finish. 14. You are now done making your connection, but by default, it may try to connect. You can either try the connection now if you know its valid, if not, then just close it down for now. 15. In the Network Connections window, right-click the new connection and select properties. Let’s take a look at how you can customize this connection before it’s used. 16. The first tab you will see if the General Tab. This only covers the name of the connection, which you can also rename from the Network Connection dialog box by right clicking the connection and selecting to rename it. You can also configure a First connect, which means that Windows can connect the public network (like the Internet) before starting to attempt the ‘VPN’ connection. This is a perfect example as to when you would have configured the dialup connection; this would have been the first thing that you would have to do. It's simple, you have to be connected to the Internet first before you can encrypt and send data over it. This setting makes sure that this is a reality for you. 17. The next tab is the Options Tab. It is The Options tab has a lot you can configure in it. For one, you have the option to connect to a Windows Domain, if you select this check box (unchecked by default), then your VPN client will request Windows logon domain information while starting to work up the VPN connection. Also, you have options here for redialing. Redial attempts are configured here if you are using a dial up connection to get to the Internet. It is very handy to redial if the line is dropped as dropped lines are very common. 18. The next tab is the Security Tab. This is where you would configure basic security for the VPN client. This is where you would set any advanced IPSec configurations other security protocols as well as requiring encryption and credentials. 19. The next tab is the Networking Tab. This is where you can select what networking items are used by this VPN connection. 20. The Last tab is the Advanced Tab. This is where you can configure options for configuring a firewall, and/or sharing. Connecting to Corporate Now that you have your XP VPN client all set up and ready, the next step is to attempt a connection to the Remote Access or VPN server set up at the corporate office. To use the connection follow these simple steps. To open the client again, go back to the Network Connections dialog box. 1. One you are in the Network Connection dialog box, double-click, or right click and select ‘Connect’ from the menu – this will initiate the connection to the corporate office. 2. Type your user name and password, and then click Connect. Properties bring you back to what we just discussed in this article, all the global settings for the VPN client you are using. 3. To disconnect from a VPN connection, right-click the icon for the connection, and then click “Disconnect” Summary In this article we covered the basics of building a VPN connection using Windows XP. This is very handy when you have a VPN device but don’t have the ‘client’ that may come with it. If the VPN Server doesn’t use highly proprietary protocols, then you can use the XP client to connect with. In a future article I will get into the nuts and bolts of both IPSec and more detail on how to configure the advanced options in the Security tab of this client. 678: The remote computer did not respond. 930: The authentication server did not respond to authentication requests in a timely fashion. 800: Unable to establish the VPN connection. 623: The system could not find the phone book entry for this connection. 720: A connection to the remote computer could not be established. More on : http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles/Configure-VPN-Connection-Windows-XP.html

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• 401 Using Multiple Authentication methods IE 10 only

  - by jon3laze

  I am not sure if this is more of a coding issue or server setup issue so I've posted it on stackoverflow and here... On our production site we've run into an issue that is specific to Internet Explorer 10. I am using jQuery doing an ajax POST to a web service on the same domain and in IE10 I am getting a 401 response, IE9 works perfectly fine. I should mention that we have mirrored code in another area of our site and it works perfectly fine in IE10. The only difference between the two areas is that one is under a subdomain and the other is at the root level. www.my1stdomain.com vs. portal.my2nddomain.com The directory structure on the server for these are: \my1stdomain\webservice\name\service.aspx \portal\webservice\name\service.aspx Inside of the \portal\ and \my1stdomain\ folders I have a page that does an ajax call, both pages are identical. $.ajax({ type: 'POST', url: '/webservice/name/service.aspx/function', cache: false, contentType: 'application/json; charset=utf-8', dataType: 'json', data: '{ "json": "data" }', success: function() { }, error: function() { } }); I've verified permissions are the same on both folders on the server side. I've applied a workaround fix of placing the <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" value="IE=9"> to force compatibility view (putting IE into compatibility mode fixes the issue). This seems to be working in IE10 on Windows 7, however IE 10 on Windows 8 still sees the same issue. These pages are classic asp with the headers that are being included, also there are no other meta tags being used. The doctype is being specified as <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> on the portal page and <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> on the main domain. UPDATE1 I used Microsoft Network Monitor 3.4 on the server to capture the request. I used the following filter to capture the 401: Property.HttpStatusCode.StringToNumber == 401 This was the response - Http: Response, HTTP/1.1, Status: Unauthorized, URL: /webservice/name/service.aspx/function Using Multiple Authetication Methods, see frame details ProtocolVersion: HTTP/1.1 StatusCode: 401, Unauthorized Reason: Unauthorized - ContentType: application/json; charset=utf-8 - MediaType: application/json; charset=utf-8 MainType: application/json charset: utf-8 Server: Microsoft-IIS/7.0 jsonerror: true - WWWAuthenticate: Negotiate - Authenticate: Negotiate WhiteSpace: AuthenticateData: Negotiate - WWWAuthenticate: NTLM - Authenticate: NTLM WhiteSpace: AuthenticateData: NTLM XPoweredBy: ASP.NET Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2013 21:13:39 GMT ContentLength: 105 HeaderEnd: CRLF - payload: HttpContentType = application/json; charset=utf-8 HTTPPayloadLine: {"Message":"Authentication failed.","StackTrace":null,"ExceptionType":"System.InvalidOperationException"} The thing here that really stands out is Unauthorized, URL: /webservice/name/service.aspx/function Using Multiple Authentication Methods With this I'm still confused as to why this only happens in IE10 if it's a permission/authentication issue. What was added to 10, or where should I be looking for the root cause of this? UPDATE2 Here are the headers from the client machine from fiddler (server information removed): Main SESSION STATE: Done. Request Entity Size: 64 bytes. Response Entity Size: 9 bytes. == FLAGS ================== BitFlags: [ServerPipeReused] 0x10 X-EGRESSPORT: 44537 X-RESPONSEBODYTRANSFERLENGTH: 9 X-CLIENTPORT: 44770 UI-COLOR: Green X-CLIENTIP: 127.0.0.1 UI-OLDCOLOR: WindowText UI-BOLD: user-marked X-SERVERSOCKET: REUSE ServerPipe#46 X-HOSTIP: ***.***.***.*** X-PROCESSINFO: iexplore:2644 == TIMING INFO ============ ClientConnected: 14:43:08.488 ClientBeginRequest: 14:43:08.488 GotRequestHeaders: 14:43:08.488 ClientDoneRequest: 14:43:08.488 Determine Gateway: 0ms DNS Lookup: 0ms TCP/IP Connect: 0ms HTTPS Handshake: 0ms ServerConnected: 14:40:28.943 FiddlerBeginRequest: 14:43:08.488 ServerGotRequest: 14:43:08.488 ServerBeginResponse: 14:43:08.592 GotResponseHeaders: 14:43:08.592 ServerDoneResponse: 14:43:08.592 ClientBeginResponse: 14:43:08.592 ClientDoneResponse: 14:43:08.592 Overall Elapsed: 0:00:00.104 The response was buffered before delivery to the client. == WININET CACHE INFO ============ This URL is not present in the WinINET cache. [Code: 2] Portal SESSION STATE: Done. Request Entity Size: 64 bytes. Response Entity Size: 105 bytes. == FLAGS ================== BitFlags: [ClientPipeReused, ServerPipeReused] 0x18 X-EGRESSPORT: 44444 X-RESPONSEBODYTRANSFERLENGTH: 105 X-CLIENTPORT: 44439 X-CLIENTIP: 127.0.0.1 X-SERVERSOCKET: REUSE ServerPipe#7 X-HOSTIP: ***.***.***.*** X-PROCESSINFO: iexplore:7132 == TIMING INFO ============ ClientConnected: 14:37:59.651 ClientBeginRequest: 14:38:01.397 GotRequestHeaders: 14:38:01.397 ClientDoneRequest: 14:38:01.397 Determine Gateway: 0ms DNS Lookup: 0ms TCP/IP Connect: 0ms HTTPS Handshake: 0ms ServerConnected: 14:37:57.880 FiddlerBeginRequest: 14:38:01.397 ServerGotRequest: 14:38:01.397 ServerBeginResponse: 14:38:01.464 GotResponseHeaders: 14:38:01.464 ServerDoneResponse: 14:38:01.464 ClientBeginResponse: 14:38:01.464 ClientDoneResponse: 14:38:01.464 Overall Elapsed: 0:00:00.067 The response was buffered before delivery to the client. == WININET CACHE INFO ============ This URL is not present in the WinINET cache. [Code: 2]

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, March 24, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, March 24, 2010New ProjectsC++ Sparse Matrix Package: This is a package containing sparse matrix operations like multiplication, addition, Cholesky decomposition, inversions and so on. It is a simple, ...Change Password Web Part for FBA-ADAM User: This web part enables users to change ADAM (Active Directory Application Mode) password from within a SharePoint Site Collection. It is compatible ...DAMAJ Investigator: The Purpose (Mission) The purpose of this project is to build a tool to help developers do rationale investigations. The tool should synthesize...DotNetWinService: DotNetWinService offers a very simple framework to declaratively implement scheduled task inside a Windows Service.internshipgameloft: <project name> makes it easier for <target user group> to <activity>. You'll no longer have to <activity>. It's developed in <programming language>.JavaScript Grid: JavaScript grid make it easiser to display tabular data on web pages. Main benefits 1 - Smart scrolling: you can handle scrolling events to load...Mirror Testing Software: Program určený pre správu zariadenia na testovanie automobilových zrkadiel po opustení výrobnej linky. (tiež End of Line Tester). Vývoj prebieha v ...NPipeline: NPipeline is a .NET port of the Apache Commons Pipeline components. It is a lightweight set of utilities that make it simple to implement paralleli...Portable Contacts: .net implementation of the Portable Contacts 1.0 Draft C specification Random Projects: Some projects that I will be doing from now and on to next year.SmartInspect Unity Interception Extension: This a library to integrate and use the SmartInspect logging tool with the Unity dependency injection and AOP framework. Various attributes help yo...Table2Class: Table2Class is a solution to create .NET class files (in C# or VB.NET) from tables in database (Microsoft SQL Server or MySQL databases)UploadTransform: A project for the uploading and trasnformation of client data to a database backend Wikiplexcontrib: This is the contrib project for wikiplex.zevenseas Notifier: Little project that displays a notification on every page within a WebApplication of SharePoint. The message of the notification is centrally manag...New ReleasesAcceptance Test Excel Addin: 1.0.0.1: Fixed two bugs: 1) highlight incorrectly when data table has filter 2) crash when named range is invalidC++ Sparse Matrix Package: v1.0: Initial release. Read the README.txt file for more information.Change Password Web Part for FBA-ADAM User: Change Password Web Part for FBA-ADAM User: Usage Instruction Add following in your web.config under <appSettings> <add key="AdamServerName" value="Your Server Name" /> <add key="AdamSourc...CollectAndCrop: spring release: This release includes the YUI compressor for .net http://yuicompressor.codeplex.com/ There are 2 new properties: CompressCss a boolean that turns...EnhSim: Release v1.9.8.0: Release v1.9.8.0Flame Shock dots can now produce critical strikes Flame Shock dots are now affected by spell haste Searing Totem and Magma Totem we...EPiServer CMS Page Type Builder: Page Type Builder 1.2 Beta 1: First release that targets EPiServer CMS version 6. While it is most likely stable further testing is needed.EPPlus-Create advanced Excel 2007 spreadsheets on the server: EPPlus 2.6.0.1: EPPlus-Create advanced Excel 2007 spreadsheets on the server New Features Improved performance. Named ranges Font-styling added to charts and ...Image Ripper: Image Ripper: Fetch HD photos from specific web galleries like a charm.IronRuby: 1.0 RC4: The IronRuby team is pleased to announce version 1.0 RC4! As IronRuby approaches the final 1.0, these RCs will contain crucial bug fixes and enhanc...IST435: AJAX Demo: Demo of AJAX Control Toolkit extenders.IST435: Representing Friendships: This sample is a quick'n'dirty demo of how you can implement the general concept of setting up Friendships among users based on the Membership Fram...JavaScript Grid: Initial release: Initial release contains all source codes and two exampleskdar: KDAR 0.0.17: KDAR - Kernel Debugger Anti Rootkit - npfs.sys, msfs.sys, mup.sys checks added - fastfat.sys FAST I/O table check addedMicrosoft - DDD NLayerApp .NET 4.0 Example (Microsoft Spain): V0.6 - N-Layer DDD Sample App: Required Software (Microsoft Base Software needed for Development environment) Unity Application Block 1.2 - October 2008 http://www.microsoft.com/...Mytrip.Mvc: Mytrip 1.0 preview 2: Article Manager Blog Manager EF Membership(.NET Framework 4) User Manager File Manager Localization Captcha ClientValidation ThemeNetBuildConfigurator: Using NetBuildConfigurator Screencast: A demo and Screencast of using BuildConfigurator.NodeXL: Network Overview, Discovery and Exploration for Excel: NodeXL Excel 2007 Template, version 1.0.1.120: The NodeXL Excel 2007 template displays a network graph using edge and vertex lists stored in an Excel 2007 workbook. What's NewThis version provi...NoteExpress User Tools (NEUT) - Do it by ourselves!: NoteExpress User Tools 1.9.0: 1.9.0 测试版本：NoteExpress 2.5.0.1147 #针对1147的改动Open NFe: DANFe v1.9.7: Envio de e-mailpatterns & practices - Windows Azure Guidance: Code drop 2: This is the first step in taking a-Expense to Windows Azure. Highlights of this release are: Use of SQL Azure as the backend store for applicatio...patterns & practices - Windows Azure Guidance: Music Store sample application: Music Store is the sample application included in the Web Client Guidance project. We modified it so it now has a real data access layer, uses most...Quick Anime Renamer: Quick Anime Renamer v0.2: Quick Anime Renamer v0.2 - updated 3/23/2010Fixed some painting errorsFixed tab orderRandom Projects: Simple Chat Script: This contains chat commands for CONSTRUCTION serversRapidshare Episode Downloader: RED v0.8.1: - Fixed numerous bugs - Added Next Episode feature - Made episode checking run in background thread - Extended both API's to be more versatile - Pr...Rapidshare Episode Downloader: RED v0.8.2: - Fixed the list to update air date automatically when checking for episodes availabilitySelection Maker: Selection Maker 1.3: New Features:Now the ListView can show Icon of files. Better performance while showing files in ListViewSprite Sheet Packer: 2.2 Release: Made generation of map file optional in sspack and UI Fixed bug with image/map files being locked after first build requiring a restart to build ...Table Storage Backup & Restore for Windows Azure: TableStorageBackup: Table Storage Backup & RestoreTable2Class: Table2Class v1.0: Download do Solution do Visual Studio 2008 com os seguintes projetos: Table2Class.ClassMaker Projeto Windows Form que contempla o Class Maker. Ta...VBScript Login Script Creator: Login Script Creator 1.5: Removed IE7 option. Removed Internet Explorer temporary internet files option. Added overlay option. Added additional redirects for My Photos, My ...VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30323.0: Automatic drop of latest buildXAML Code Snippets addin for Visual Studio 2010: First release: This version targets Visual Studio 2010 Release Candidate. Please consider this release as a Beta. Also provide feedback so that it can be improve...Zeta Long Paths: Release 2010-03-24: Added functions to get file owner, creation time, last access time, last write time.ZZZ CMS: Release 3.0.0: With mobile version of frontend.Most Popular ProjectsMetaSharpRawrWBFS ManagerSilverlight ToolkitASP.NET Ajax LibraryMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseAJAX Control ToolkitLiveUpload to FacebookWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)ASP.NETMost Active ProjectsRawrjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesFarseer Physics EngineBlogEngine.NETLINQ to TwitterFacebook Developer ToolkitNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModulePHPExcelTable2Classpatterns & practices: Composite WPF and Silverlight

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, March 21, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, March 21, 2010New ProjectsAdaptCMS: AdaptCMS is an open source CMS that is made for complete control of your website, easiness of use and easily adaptable to any type of website. It's...Aura: Aura is a application that calculates average color of desktop background image or whole screen and sets it as Aero Glass color.Boxee Launcher: Boxee Launcher is a simple Windows Media Center add-in that attempts to launch Boxee and manage the windows as seamlessly as possible.ClothingSMS: ClothingSMSEasySL3ColorPicker: Silverlight 3 color picker user control.Fluent Moq Builder: Gives a fluent interface to help with building complex mock objects with Moq, such as mocks of HttpContextBase for help in unit testing ASP.NET MVC.Folder Bookmarks: A simple folder/file bookmark manager. Simple and easy to use. No need to navigate large folder directories, just double-click the bookmark to open...GeocodeThe.Net: GeoCodeThe.Net seeks to promote geographic tagging for all content on the web. It is our belief that anything on the web can and should be geocoded...GNF: GNF is a open source WPF based GPS library controlsHKGolden Express: HKGolden Express is a web application to generate simplified layout of HKGolden forum. HKGolden Express is written in Java EE, it can be deployed o...Informant: Informant provides people with the desire to send mass SMS to specific groups with the ability to do so using Google Voice. Included with Informant...JSON Object Serializer .Net 1.1: JSON serializer is used to created javascript object notation strings. It was written in the .NET 1.1 framework, and has capabilities of serializ...LightWeight Application Server: LWAS aims to provide the means for non-technical developers using just a web browser to create data-centered applications from user interface desig...MicroHedge: Quant FiNerd Clock: NerdClock is my windows phone 7 test app. A clock for nerds, time reads in binary.PhotoHelper: PhotoHelper makes it easier to organize the photoes, if your photoes are put into different locations, but you think they are the same category, yo...Pylor: An ASP.NET MVC custom attribute that allows the configuration of role based security access rules with similar functionality to the System.Web.Mvc....radiogaga: Access an online data source of internet streaming media and present it using a mixed paradigm of embedded web browser and rich client functionalit...Register WCF LOB Adapter MSBuild Task: If you would like to use MSBuild to register a WCF LOB Adapter in a given server, the custom tasks: RegisterWCFLOBAdapter and UnregisterWCFLOBAdapt...Restart Explorer: Utility to start, stop and restart Windows Explorer.Silverlight 4 Netflix Browser: Demonstrates using a WCF Data Client in Silverlight 4 to browse movie titles with the Netflix OData API announced at MIX 10.trayTwittr: With trayTwittr you can easily update your Twitterstatus right from the Systray. The GUI is designed like the Notificationpanels in Windows 7 (e.g....Warensoft Socket Server: Warensoft Socket Server is a solo server, which never cares about the real logical business. While you could process your socket message with IronP...Weka - Message Serialization: Message serialization framework for .net, including Compact Framework.New Releases[Tool] Vczh Visual Studio UnitTest Coverage Analyzer: Coverage Analyzer (beta): Done features: Load Visual Studio Code Coverage XML File (get this file by clicking "Export Results" in "Test->Windows->Code Coverage Results" in V...Aura: Aura Beta 1: Initial releaseBoxee Launcher: BoxeeLauncher Release 1.0.1.0: BoxeeLauncher Release 1.0.1.0 is the initial, barely-tested release of this Windows Media Center add-in. It should work in Vista Media Center and 7...Controlled Vocabulary: 1.0.0.2: System Requirements Outlook 2007 / 2010 .Net Framework 3.5 Installation 1. Close Outlook (Use Task Manager to ensure no running instances in the b...CycleMania Starter Kit EAP - ASP.NET 4 Problem - Design - Solution: Cyclemania 0.08.33: removed ASP.NET Menu from admin module applied security role filtering to Dashboard panels/tabsDDDSample.Net: 0.7: This is the next major release of DDDSample. This time I give you 4 different versions of the application: Classic (vanilla) with synchronous inter...DirectoryInfoEx: DirectoryInfoEx 0.16: 03-14-10 Version 0.13 o Fixed FileSystemWaterEx ignore remove directory event. o Fixed Removed IDisposable ...Employee Scheduler: Employee Scheduler [2.6]: Fixed clear data methods to handle holiday modification Added buttons to allow holiday and add time exceptions Updated drag/drop and resize of holi...Enovatics Foundation Library: Enovatics Foundation Library V1.4: This version provides the following components : Strongly Typed cache management, CSV management Base classes for SQL Server data access laye...Fluent Moq Builder: Version 0.1: Intial release. Contains (incomplete) builders for HttpRequestBase, HttpContextBase and ControllerContext. Mock methods so far focus around request...Folder Bookmarks: Folder Bookmarks 1.4: This is the latest version of Folder Bookmarks (1.4). It has an installer - it will create a directory 'CPascoe' in My Documents. Once you have ex...Folder Bookmarks: Source Code: This has the all the code for Folder Bookmarks in a Text file.Genesis Smart Client Framework: Genesis Smart Client Framework v1.60.1024.1: This release features the first installer for the Genesis Smart Client Framework. The installer creates the database and set's up the Internet Info...HKGolden Express: HKGoldenExpress (Build 201003201725): New features: (None) Bug fix: (None) Improvements: Added <meta> tag to optimize screen layout for different screen size. Added drop-down li...Home Access Plus+: v3.1.5.0: Version 3.1.5.0 Release Change Log: Fixed CSS for My Computer in List View Ability to remember which view mode you have selected Added HA+ home...IT Tycoon: IT Tycoon 0.2.0: Started refactoring toward more formatted and documented code and XAML.JSON Object Serializer .Net 1.1: jsonSerializer: Basic jsonSerializer binary. Now only handles an object model using reflection. There's no optimization added to the codebase handling .Net Refle...LightWeight Application Server: 0.4.0: 2010-03-20 lwas 0.4.0 This release is intended for c# developers audience only. Developed with MS vWD 2008 Express with .NET 3.5 and writen in c#....Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Marketing List Member Importer: Nocelab ExcelAddin - Release 2.0: Release note: - new installation procedure - fix some bugs related with the import procedure - errors during the import are displayed in red bold ...MSBuild Mercurial Tasks: 0.2.1 Stable: This release realises the Scenario 2 and provides two MSBuild tasks: HgCommit and HgPush. This task allows to create a new changeset in the current...NetSockets: NetBox (Example): Example application using the NetSockets library.NetSockets: NetSockets: The NetSockets library (DLL)Open Dotnet CMS: Open Dotnet CMS 1.6.2: This release update Open Dotnet CMS Console which now uses the modulare client application framework provided by Viking.Windows.Form library. The ...Open Portal Foundation: Open Portal Foundation V1.4: This release updates templates and theming library, and templates are now thematizable. This release also provides a better sample site and online ...PHPWord: PHPWord 0.6.0 Beta: Changelog: Added support for hyperlinks (inserting and formatting) Added support for GD images (created by PHP) Added support for Full-Table-St...Plurk.NET API and Client Applications: Plurk API Component: Plurk API Component is a wrapper of Plurk HTTP API.Register WCF LOB Adapter MSBuild Task: Register WCF LOB Adapter MSBuild Task 1.0: Register WCF LOB Adapter MSBuild Task Version 1.0 For more information visit: http://whiteboardworks.com/2010/02/installing-wcf-lob-adapters-wit...SCSI Interface for Multimedia and Block Devices: Release 11 - Complete User-Friendly Burning App!: I made numerous internal and external changes in this release of the program, the most important ones of which are: An intermediate buffer to make ...SharePoint LogViewer: SharePoint LogViewer 1.5.2: This release has following improvements: Scroll position is maintained when log is refreshed Filtering/Sorting performance has been significantly ...ShellLight: ShellLight 0.2.0.0: This is the first feature complete and full functional version of ShellLight. It is still a very simple framework with a limited set of features, b...Silverlight Media Player (3.0): Silverlight Media Player v.02: Silverlight Media Player (2.0/3.0/4.0) major upgrade: initial settings and media elements are stored in external XML filesStardust: Stardust Binaries: Stardust BinariesToolkit.forasp.net Multipurpose Tools for Asp.net written in C#: Beta 1: Beta 1 of csToolkit.dllToolkitVB.net is a set of Multipurpose Tools for Asp.net written in VB: Beta 1: Beta 1 of ToolKitVB.dllTransparent Persistence.Net: TP.Net 0.1.1: This is a minor update that produces separate 2.0 and 3.5 builds. Additionally type to persistence store naming has been enhanced.VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30320.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVisual Studio DSite: Screen Capture Program (Visual C++ 2008): This screen capture program can capture the whole screen of your computer and save it in any picture format you want including gif, bmp, jpg and pn...WPF Dialogs: Version 0.1.3 for .Net 3.5: This is a special version of the "Version 0.1.3" for the .Net-framework 3.5. You can use these library like the .Net 4.0 version. The changes are o...Most Popular ProjectsMetaSharpSavvy DateTimeRawrWBFS ManagerSilverlight ToolkitASP.NET Ajax LibraryMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseAJAX Control ToolkitLiveUpload to FacebookWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)Most Active ProjectsLINQ to TwitterRawrOData SDK for PHPjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesDirectQPHPExcelFarseer Physics Enginepatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryBlogEngine.NETNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog Module

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, April 15, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, April 15, 2010New ProjectsApplication Logging Repository (ALR): The ALR is a light-weight logging framework that allows applications to log events and exceptions to a central repository.Arkane.FileProperties.DSS: Arkane.FileProperties.Dss is a library for parsing the file header of a .DSS file (as used by Olympus digital dictaphone systems) to obtain time, v...B in conTrol project: This project enables controling log-in and locking your workstation automatically, identifyng you bluetooth.DarkBook: DarkBook is a personal library project.Direct2D for Microsoft .Net: Direct2D, DirectWrite and Windows Imaging wrappers for .Net. This library allows to access Direct2D, DirectWrite and Windows Imaging Windows API f...DJ Ware: DJ Ware is an extensible music player with plugin support and innovative features to organize and explore music files. It is developed with C#, WPF...gpsMe: gpsMe is a Windows Mobile 6.x mapping solution allowing to place the user on a personnalized map. The screen requirements are VGA or WVGA but, you ...jErrorLog: jErrorLog is an error logging component for use in DotNet 2.0 or later applications. It can log error messages to any of the following: database, e...KEMET_API: Java Library (open - source). This library is a help to study egyptian hieroglyphs.Meadow: A web site project for a Swedish floorball team called Slackers. Home page built with ASP.NET 2.0, ASP.NET AJAX and SQL Server 2005.Mustang Math: Mustang Math makes it easier for young children to practice basic math facts on the computer. No keyboard or mouse required - just say the answer!...Net.Formats.oEmbed: oEmbed format implementation in c#. oEmbed is a format for allowing an embedded representation of a URL on third party sites. The simple API allows...Normlize O/R Mapper: Open source O/RM tool that participates with traditional inheritance object models as well as Hibernate/nHibernate style class shells. As I have t...N-Twill Twitter Client for VB.NET: Proyecto de cliente twitter hecho con la libreria TwitterVB2 y hecho en VB.net 2008.SIQM: Spatial Information Quality Management Toolset TIMETABLEASY Web: Under developmentTweetSharp: TweetSharp is a complete .NET library for micro-blogging platforms that allows you to write short and sweet expressions that fly to Twitter, Yammer...UISandbox: UISandbox is a sample C# source code showing how to deal with plugins requiring sandbox, when those plugins must interact with WPF application inte...WinForm SharePoint Web Part Manager: The SharePoint Web Part Manager is a WinForm tool using the SharePoint object model that enables developers and power users to add, update, delete,...WoW Character Viewer: View your World of Warcraft character (or anyone else's character), using this application. Written using Visual Basic Express 2008, then ported t...Xrns2XMod: Xrns2XMod converts from Renoise format (xrns) to mod or xm, which are more compatible formats playable from xmplay or vlc.New ReleasesArkane.FileProperties.DSS: 1.0 stable release: Executables and merge module for 1.0. (See documentation.)Bluetooth Radar: Version 2.0: Add IrDA reference for Bluetooth sending using Obex Add Project icon Add Bluetooth detection mode (Auto close application is there is no blueto...BUtil: BUtil 5.0 Alpha: Backup tasks adding.... in progressChronos WPF: Chronos v1.0 RC 1: Chronos v1.0 RC 1. Development will be feature frozen after this release, only bug fixes will be allowed. Updated nRoute assembly to v0.4 (http:...clipShow: Version 2.5: Release that addresses the canonical syntax issues in search discoverd by Tschachim (thanks again!). Also, the play list and play all menu items s...DarkBook: DarkBook alpha: Hi, here comes the alpha version of Darkbook. It has all the functions already but is still in developing. I hope it's helpful for you, at least it...DirectQ: Release 1.8.3a: Improvements to 1.8.2, which will be shortly be removed. This replaces the original 1.8.3 release from earlier today which had some late-breaking ...Effect Custom Tool for Visual Studio: Effect Custom Tool v1.1: Effect Custom Tool for Visual Studio is a visual studio 2008 extension that helps you generate c# classes from effect (*.fx) files for use with Xna...Folder Bookmarks: Folder Bookmarks 1.4.3: This is the latest version of Folder Bookmarks (1.4.3), with general improvements. It has an installer - it will create a directory 'CPascoe' in My...gpsMe: gpsMe v0.3: Required Hardware Windows Mobile 6 .Net Compact Framework 3.5 integrated gps device VGA or WVGA screen (normally works on others)IST435: Lab 4 - Enterprise Level CMS with DotNetNuke: Lab 4 - Enterprise Level CMS with DotNetNukeThis is the "starter kit" that you must base your Lab 4 on. This lab must be completed in-class.Mouse Jiggler: MouseJiggle-1.1: 1.1 release of Mouse Jiggler, now with x64 compatibility and the ability to start jiggling on run with the --jiggle or -j command-line switch.Mustang Math: MustangMath.exe: This is a quick and dirty "0.1" prototype to demonstrate the speech recognition idea. It starts asking you questions automatically on launch and k...MvcContrib: a Codeplex Foundation project: 2.0.36.0 for MVC2 (RTW): Please see the Change Log for a complete list of changes. MVC BootCamp Description of the releases: MvcContrib.Release.zip MvcContrib.dll MvcC...Nito.LINQ: Beta (v0.3): New features for this release: Several new supported platforms (see below). PDBs that are source-indexed to the appropriate CodePlex changeset. ...OpenIdPortableArea: 0.1.0.2 OpenIdPortableArea: OpenIdPortableArea.Release: DotNetOpenAuth.dll DotNetOpenAuth.xml MvcContrib.dll MvcContrib.xml OpenIdPortableArea.dll OpenIdPortableAre...PokeIn Comet Ajax Library: PokeIn Sample with Library v0.2: New version of PokeIn library with sample. v0.2 There are new features in this release and no bug detected yet.Project Tru Tiên: Elements-test V1-fix (v2): Là EL test được fix tiếp theo bản fix V1, tạm gọi đây là bản fix V2 của ELtest Trong bản fix này EL được fix thêm vụ Quest, Quest chỉnh sửa đúng t...Rule 18 - Love your clipboard: Rule 18: This is the third public beta for the first version of Rule 18. This version has been updated to support Visual Studio 2010 RTM and .NET 4.0 RTM. ...SevenZipSharp: SevenZipSharp 0.62: Added: Extraction from SFX archives. Now it is possible to unrar RAR self-extractors, unzip ZIP self-extractors, etc. Extraction from DOC, XLS, (...SharePoint Labs: SPLab3001A-FRA-Level200: SPLab3001A-FRA-Level200 This SharePoint Lab will teach the persistence object layer that SharePoint uses to centraly store configuration data and o...TTXPathNavigator: TTXPathNavigator for VS2010: Version for Visual Studio 2010turing machine simulator: SDS: SDS documentVecDraw: VecDraw_0.2.25: Alpha release for test purposesWinForm SharePoint Web Part Manager: Beta 1: First release of the WinForm SharePoitn web part manager toolXrns2XMod: Xrns2XMod 0.5.1: Mod and XM conversion format - No sample data conversion at momentZip Solution: ZipSolution 5.3: Features: 1. Added WaitMsec for visual studio support with getting access to files in post build event; 2. Added ShowTextInToolbars to app.config ...Most Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)ASP.NETMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesPHPExcelpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryMost Active ProjectsRawrpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryGMap.NET - Great Maps for Windows Forms & PresentationFarseer Physics EngineIonics Isapi Rewrite FilterNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModuleBlogEngine.NETjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesDotRasFacebook Developer Toolkit

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, October 15, 2013

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, October 15, 2013Popular ReleasesFFXIV Crafting Simulator: Crafting Simulator 2.4.1: -Fixed the offset for the new patch (Auto Loading function)iBoxDB.EX - Fast Transactional NoSQL Database Resources: iBoxDB.net fast transactional nosql database 1.5.2: Easily process objects and documents, zero configuration. fast embeddable transactional nosql document database, includes CURD, QueryLanguage, Master-Master-Slave Replication, MVCC, etc. supports .net2, .net4, windows phone, mono, unity3d, node.js , copy and run. http://download-codeplex.sec.s-msft.com/Download?ProjectName=iboxdb&DownloadId=737783 Benchmark with MongoDB Compatibility more platforms for java versionneurogoody: slicebox: this is the slice box jsEvent-Based Components AppBuilder: AB3.AppDesigner.55: Iteration 55 (Feature): Moving of TargetEdge (simple wires only) by mouse.Sandcastle Help File Builder: SHFB v1.9.8.0 with Visual Studio Package: General InformationIMPORTANT: On some systems, the content of the ZIP file is blocked and the installer may fail to run. Before extracting it, right click on the ZIP file, select Properties, and click on the Unblock button if it is present in the lower right corner of the General tab in the properties dialog. This new release contains bug fixes and feature enhancements. There are some potential breaking changes in this release as some features of the Help File Builder have been moved into...SharpConfig: SharpConfig 1.2: Implemented comment parsing. Comments are now part of settings and setting categories. New properties: Setting: Comment PreComments SettingCategory: Comment PreCommentsC++ REST SDK (codename "Casablanca"): C++ REST SDK 1.3.0: This release fixes multiple customer reported issues as well as the following: Full support for Dev12 binaries and project files Full support for Windows XP New sample highlighting the Client and Server APIs : BlackJack Expose underlying native handle to set custom options on http_client Improvements to Listener Library Note: Dev10 binaries have been dropped as of this release, however the Dev10 project files are still available in the Source CodeAD ACL Scanner: 1.3.2: Minor bug fixed: Powershell 4.0 will report: Select—Object: Parameter cannot be processed because the parameter name p is ambiguous.Json.NET: Json.NET 5.0 Release 7: New feature - Added support for Immutable Collections New feature - Added WriteData and ReadData settings to DataExtensionAttribute New feature - Added reference and type name handling support to extension data New feature - Added default value and required support to constructor deserialization Change - Extension data is now written when serializing Fix - Added missing casts to JToken Fix - Fixed parsing large floating point numbers Fix - Fixed not parsing some ISO date ...RESX Manager: ResxManager 0.2.1: FIXED: Many critical bugs have been fixed. New Features Error logging for improved exception handling New toolbar Improvements of user interfaceFast YouTube Downloader: YouTube Downloader 2.2.0: YouTube Downloader 2.2.0VidCoder: 1.5.8 Beta: Added hardware acceleration options: Bicubic OpenCL scaling algorithm, QSV decoding/encoding and DXVA decoding. Updated HandBrake core to SVN 5834. Updated VidCoder setup icon. Fixed crash when choosing the mp4v2 container on x86 and opening on x64. Warning: the hardware acceleration features require specific hardware or file types to work correctly: QSV: Need an Intel processor that supports Quick Sync Video encoding, with a monitor hooked up to the Intel HD Graphics output and the lat...ASP.net MVC Awesome - jQuery Ajax Helpers: 3.5.2: version 3.5.2 - fix for setting single value to multivalue controls - datepicker min max date offset fix - html encoding for keys fix - enable Column.ClientFormatFunc to be a function call that will return a function version 3.5.1 - fixed html attributes rendering - fixed loading animation rendering - css improvements version 3.5 ========================== - autosize for all popups ( can be turned off by calling in js awe.autoSize = false ) - added Parent, Paremeter extensions ...Wsus Package Publisher: Release v1.3.1310.12: Allow the Update Creation Wizard to be set in full screen mode. Fix a bug which prevent WPP to Reset Remote Sus Client ID. Change the behavior of links in the Update Detail Viewer. Left-Click to open, Right-Click to copy to the Clipboard.TerrariViewer: TerrariViewer v7 [Terraria Inventory Editor]: This is a complete overhaul but has the same core style. I hope you enjoy it. This version is compatible with 1.2.0.3 Please send issues to my Twitter or https://github.com/TJChap2840WDTVHubGen - Adds Metadata, thumbnails and subtitles to WDTV Live Hubs: WDTVHubGen.v2.1.6.maint: I think this covers all of the issues. new additions: fixed the thumbnail problem for backgrounds. general clean up and error checking. need to get this put through the wringer and all feedback is welcome.BIDS Helper: BIDS Helper 1.6.4: This BIDS Helper release brings the following new features and fixes: New Features: A new Bus Matrix style report option when you run the Printer Friendly Dimension Usage report for an SSAS cube. The Biml engine is now fully in sync with the supported subset of Varigence Mist 3.4. This includes a large number of language enhancements, bugfixes, and project deployment support. Fixed Issues: Fixed Biml execution for project connections fixing a bug with Tabular Translations Editor not a...MoreTerra (Terraria World Viewer): MoreTerra 1.11.3: =========== =New Features= =========== New Markers added for Plantera's Bulb, Heart Fruits and Gold Cache. Markers now correctly display for the gems found in rock debris on the floor. =========== =Compatibility= =========== Fixed header changes found in Terraria 1.0.3.1Media Companion: Media Companion MC3.581b: Fix in place for TVDB xml issue. New* Movie - General Preferences, allow saving of ignored 'The' or 'A' to end of movie title, stored in sorttitle field. * Movie - New Way for Cropping Posters. Fixed* Movie - Rename of folders/filename. caught error message. * Movie - Fixed Bug in Save Cropped image, only saving in Pre-Frodo format if Both model selected. * Movie - Fixed Cropped image didn't take zoomed ratio into effect. * Movie - Separated Folder Renaming and File Renaming fuctions durin...SmartStore.NET - Free ASP.NET MVC Ecommerce Shopping Cart Solution: SmartStore.NET 1.2.0: HighlightsMulti-store support "Trusted Shops" plugins Highly improved SmartStore.biz Importer plugin Add custom HTML content to pages Performance optimization New FeaturesMulti-store-support: now multiple stores can be managed within a single application instance (e.g. for building different catalogs, brands, landing pages etc.) Added 3 new Trusted Shops plugins: Seal, Buyer Protection, Store Reviews Added Display as HTML Widget to CMS Topics (store owner now can add arbitrary HT...New ProjectsArtezio SharePoint 2013 Workflow Activities: SharePoint Workflow 2013 doesn’t provide activities to work with permissions, we've fixed it using HttpSend activity that makes REST API calls.Dependency.Injection: An attempt to write a really simple dependency injection framework. Does property-based and recursive dependency injection. Handles singletons. Yay!DHGMS SUO Killer: SUO Killer is a Visual Studio extension to deal with the removal of SUO file to mitigate SUO related issues in Visual Studio. This project is written in C#.dynamicsheet: dynamicsheetExcel Comparator: Excel Comparator is an add-in for Microsoft Excel that allows the user to compare a range between two sheets. FetchAIP: FetchAIP is a utility to download the various sections of the Aeronautical Information Publication (AIP) for New Zealand.Fluent Method and Type Builder: Still working on the summary.getboost: NuGet package for Boost framework.Goldstone Forum: WebForms Forum - TelerikAcademy Team ProjectGroupMe Software Development Kit: .NET Software Development Kit for http://groupme.com/ chat service.GSLMS: ----Import Excel Files Into SQL Server: Load Excel files into SQL Database without schema changes.Inaction: ?????????? jBegin: Learning ASP.net MVC from beginning, then here will be the source code for jbegin.comKDG's Statistical Quality Control Solver: This tool will include methods that can solve sample standard deviation, sample variance, median, mode, moving average, percentiles, margin of error, etc.kpi: Key Performance Indicator (KPI)????; visual studio 2010 with .NET 4.0 runtimeLECO Remote Control Client Application: Sample code and binaries are provided to demonstrate the remote control capability of a LECO Cornerstone instrument.LinkPad: My first Windows Store app intended for student to sketch up thoughts and concepts in quick diagrams.Modler.NET - Automating Graphical Data Model Co-Evolution: Modler.NET was the tool created for a Master's thesis project, which automates the co-evolution of graphical data models and the database that they represent.MyFileManager1: SummaryNever Lotto: Korean 465 Lotto Analyzer and Simulator. The real purpose of this project is to show that this kind of lotto things are just shit.NHibernate: The purpose of this project is to demo CRUD operations using NHibernate with Mono in Visual Studio 2012 using C# language. OAuth2 Authorizer: OAuth2 Authorizer helps you get the access code for a standard OAuth2 REST service that implements 3-legged authentication.Regular Expression for Excel: Regular Expression For Excel is an Excel Plugin. It provides a regular expressions EXCEL support. We can use it in the EXCEL function.Service Tester: Service Tester is an Azure Cloud based load testing application targeted at Soap Web Services which allows you to invoke your Web Service by random parameters.Simple TypeScript and C# Class Generator: Simple GUI application to generate compatible class source code for C# and TypeScript for communications between C# and TypeScript. Soccer team management: ---Spanner: No more stringly-typed web development! Build statically typed single page web applications in C#, automatically generating all HTML, JavaScript, and Knockout.

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• A DirectoryCatalog class for Silverlight MEF (Managed Extensibility Framework)

  - by Dixin

  In the MEF (Managed Extension Framework) for .NET, there are useful ComposablePartCatalog implementations in System.ComponentModel.Composition.dll, like: System.ComponentModel.Composition.Hosting.AggregateCatalog System.ComponentModel.Composition.Hosting.AssemblyCatalog System.ComponentModel.Composition.Hosting.DirectoryCatalog System.ComponentModel.Composition.Hosting.TypeCatalog While in Silverlight, there is a extra System.ComponentModel.Composition.Hosting.DeploymentCatalog. As a wrapper of AssemblyCatalog, it can load all assemblies in a XAP file in the web server side. Unfortunately, in silverlight there is no DirectoryCatalog to load a folder. Background There are scenarios that Silverlight application may need to load all XAP files in a folder in the web server side, for example: If the Silverlight application is extensible and supports plug-ins, there would be a /ClinetBin/Plugins/ folder in the web server, and each pluin would be an individual XAP file in the folder. In this scenario, after the application is loaded and started up, it would like to load all XAP files in /ClinetBin/Plugins/ folder. If the aplication supports themes, there would be a /ClinetBin/Themes/ folder, and each theme would be an individual XAP file too. The application would qalso need to load all XAP files in /ClinetBin/Themes/. It is useful if we have a DirectoryCatalog: DirectoryCatalog catalog = new DirectoryCatalog("/Plugins"); catalog.DownloadCompleted += (sender, e) => { }; catalog.DownloadAsync(); Obviously, the implementation of DirectoryCatalog is easy. It is just a collection of DeploymentCatalog class. Retrieve file list from a directory Of course, to retrieve file list from a web folder, the folder’s “Directory Browsing” feature must be enabled: So when the folder is requested, it responses a list of its files and folders: This is nothing but a simple HTML page: <html> <head> <title>localhost - /Folder/</title> </head> <body> <h1>localhost - /Folder/</h1> <hr> <pre> <a href="/">[To Parent Directory]</a><br> <br> 1/3/2011 7:22 PM 185 <a href="/Folder/File.txt">File.txt</a><br> 1/3/2011 7:22 PM &lt;dir&gt; <a href="/Folder/Folder/">Folder</a><br> </pre> <hr> </body> </html> For the ASP.NET Deployment Server of Visual Studio, directory browsing is enabled by default: The HTML <Body> is almost the same: <body bgcolor="white"> <h2><i>Directory Listing -- /ClientBin/</i></h2> <hr width="100%" size="1" color="silver"> <pre> <a href="/">[To Parent Directory]</a> Thursday, January 27, 2011 11:51 PM 282,538 <a href="Test.xap">Test.xap</a> Tuesday, January 04, 2011 02:06 AM &lt;dir&gt; <a href="TestFolder/">TestFolder</a> </pre> <hr width="100%" size="1" color="silver"> <b>Version Information:</b>&nbsp;ASP.NET Development Server 10.0.0.0 </body> The only difference is, IIS’s links start with slash, but here the links do not. Here one way to get the file list is read the href attributes of the links: [Pure] private IEnumerable<Uri> GetFilesFromDirectory(string html) { Contract.Requires(html != null); Contract.Ensures(Contract.Result<IEnumerable<Uri>>() != null); return new Regex( "<a href=\"(?<uriRelative>[^\"]*)\">[^<]*</a>", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase | RegexOptions.CultureInvariant) .Matches(html) .OfType<Match>() .Where(match => match.Success) .Select(match => match.Groups["uriRelative"].Value) .Where(uriRelative => uriRelative.EndsWith(".xap", StringComparison.Ordinal)) .Select(uriRelative => { Uri baseUri = this.Uri.IsAbsoluteUri ? this.Uri : new Uri(Application.Current.Host.Source, this.Uri); uriRelative = uriRelative.StartsWith("/", StringComparison.Ordinal) ? uriRelative : (baseUri.LocalPath.EndsWith("/", StringComparison.Ordinal) ? baseUri.LocalPath + uriRelative : baseUri.LocalPath + "/" + uriRelative); return new Uri(baseUri, uriRelative); }); } Please notice the folders’ links end with a slash. They are filtered by the second Where() query. The above method can find files’ URIs from the specified IIS folder, or ASP.NET Deployment Server folder while debugging. To support other formats of file list, a constructor is needed to pass into a customized method: /// <summary> /// Initializes a new instance of the <see cref="T:System.ComponentModel.Composition.Hosting.DirectoryCatalog" /> class with <see cref="T:System.ComponentModel.Composition.Primitives.ComposablePartDefinition" /> objects based on all the XAP files in the specified directory URI. /// </summary> /// <param name="uri"> /// URI to the directory to scan for XAPs to add to the catalog. /// The URI must be absolute, or relative to <see cref="P:System.Windows.Interop.SilverlightHost.Source" />. /// </param> /// <param name="getFilesFromDirectory"> /// The method to find files' URIs in the specified directory. /// </param> public DirectoryCatalog(Uri uri, Func<string, IEnumerable<Uri>> getFilesFromDirectory) { Contract.Requires(uri != null); this._uri = uri; this._getFilesFromDirectory = getFilesFromDirectory ?? this.GetFilesFromDirectory; this._webClient = new Lazy<WebClient>(() => new WebClient()); // Initializes other members. } When the getFilesFromDirectory parameter is null, the above GetFilesFromDirectory() method will be used as default. Download the directory’s XAP file list Now a public method can be created to start the downloading: /// <summary> /// Begins downloading the XAP files in the directory. /// </summary> public void DownloadAsync() { this.ThrowIfDisposed(); if (Interlocked.CompareExchange(ref this._state, State.DownloadStarted, State.Created) == 0) { this._webClient.Value.OpenReadCompleted += this.HandleOpenReadCompleted; this._webClient.Value.OpenReadAsync(this.Uri, this); } else { this.MutateStateOrThrow(State.DownloadCompleted, State.Initialized); this.OnDownloadCompleted(new AsyncCompletedEventArgs(null, false, this)); } } Here the HandleOpenReadCompleted() method is invoked when the file list HTML is downloaded. Download all XAP files After retrieving all files’ URIs, the next thing becomes even easier. HandleOpenReadCompleted() just uses built in DeploymentCatalog to download the XAPs, and aggregate them into one AggregateCatalog: private void HandleOpenReadCompleted(object sender, OpenReadCompletedEventArgs e) { Exception error = e.Error; bool cancelled = e.Cancelled; if (Interlocked.CompareExchange(ref this._state, State.DownloadCompleted, State.DownloadStarted) != State.DownloadStarted) { cancelled = true; } if (error == null && !cancelled) { try { using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(e.Result)) { string html = reader.ReadToEnd(); IEnumerable<Uri> uris = this._getFilesFromDirectory(html); Contract.Assume(uris != null); IEnumerable<DeploymentCatalog> deploymentCatalogs = uris.Select(uri => new DeploymentCatalog(uri)); deploymentCatalogs.ForEach( deploymentCatalog => { this._aggregateCatalog.Catalogs.Add(deploymentCatalog); deploymentCatalog.DownloadCompleted += this.HandleDownloadCompleted; }); deploymentCatalogs.ForEach(deploymentCatalog => deploymentCatalog.DownloadAsync()); } } catch (Exception exception) { error = new InvalidOperationException(Resources.InvalidOperationException_ErrorReadingDirectory, exception); } } // Exception handling. } In HandleDownloadCompleted(), if all XAPs are downloaded without exception, OnDownloadCompleted() callback method will be invoked. private void HandleDownloadCompleted(object sender, AsyncCompletedEventArgs e) { if (Interlocked.Increment(ref this._downloaded) == this._aggregateCatalog.Catalogs.Count) { this.OnDownloadCompleted(e); } } Exception handling Whether this DirectoryCatelog can work only if the directory browsing feature is enabled. It is important to inform caller when directory cannot be browsed for XAP downloading. private void HandleOpenReadCompleted(object sender, OpenReadCompletedEventArgs e) { Exception error = e.Error; bool cancelled = e.Cancelled; if (Interlocked.CompareExchange(ref this._state, State.DownloadCompleted, State.DownloadStarted) != State.DownloadStarted) { cancelled = true; } if (error == null && !cancelled) { try { // No exception thrown when browsing directory. Downloads the listed XAPs. } catch (Exception exception) { error = new InvalidOperationException(Resources.InvalidOperationException_ErrorReadingDirectory, exception); } } WebException webException = error as WebException; if (webException != null) { HttpWebResponse webResponse = webException.Response as HttpWebResponse; if (webResponse != null) { // Internally, WebClient uses WebRequest.Create() to create the WebRequest object. Here does the same thing. WebRequest request = WebRequest.Create(Application.Current.Host.Source); Contract.Assume(request != null); if (request.CreatorInstance == WebRequestCreator.ClientHttp && // Silverlight is in client HTTP handling, all HTTP status codes are supported. webResponse.StatusCode == HttpStatusCode.Forbidden) { // When directory browsing is disabled, the HTTP status code is 403 (forbidden). error = new InvalidOperationException( Resources.InvalidOperationException_ErrorListingDirectory_ClientHttp, webException); } else if (request.CreatorInstance == WebRequestCreator.BrowserHttp && // Silverlight is in browser HTTP handling, only 200 and 404 are supported. webResponse.StatusCode == HttpStatusCode.NotFound) { // When directory browsing is disabled, the HTTP status code is 404 (not found). error = new InvalidOperationException( Resources.InvalidOperationException_ErrorListingDirectory_BrowserHttp, webException); } } } this.OnDownloadCompleted(new AsyncCompletedEventArgs(error, cancelled, this)); } Please notice Silverlight 3+ application can work either in client HTTP handling, or browser HTTP handling. One difference is: In browser HTTP handling, only HTTP status code 200 (OK) and 404 (not OK, including 500, 403, etc.) are supported In client HTTP handling, all HTTP status code are supported So in above code, exceptions in 2 modes are handled differently. Conclusion Here is the whole DirectoryCatelog’s looking: Please click here to download the source code, a simple unit test is included. This is a rough implementation. And, for convenience, some design and coding are just following the built in AggregateCatalog class and Deployment class. Please feel free to modify the code, and please kindly tell me if any issue is found.

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• So&hellip; What is a SharePoint Developer?

  - by Mark Rackley

  A few days ago Stacy Draper and I were chatting about what it means to be a SharePoint Developer. That actually turns about to be a conversation with lots of shades of grey. Stacy thought it would make a good blog post… well, I can’t promise this to be a GOOD blog post… So, anyway, I decided to let off a little bomb this morning by posting the following tweet on Twitter: @mrackley: Can someone be considered a SharePoint Developer if all they know how to do is work in SPD? Now, I knew this is a debate that has been going on since the first SharePoint Designer User put SharePoint Developer on their resume. There are probably several blogs out there on the subject, but with the wildfire that is jQuery and a few other new features out there I believe it is an important subject to tackle again. I got a lot of great feedback as well on Twitter. The entire twitter conversation is at the end of this blog posting. Thanks everyone for their opinions. Who cares? Why does it matter? Can’t we all just get along? Yes it matters… everything must be labeled and put in it’s proper place. Pigeon holing is the only way to go!  Just kidding.. I’m not near that anal, but yes! It is important to be able to properly identify the skill set of those people on your team and correctly identify the role you are wanting to hire. Saying you are a “SharePoint Developer” is just too vague and just barely begins to answer the question. Also, knowing who’s on your team and what they can do will ensure you give your clients the best people for the job. A Developer writes code right? So, a Developer uses Visual Studio! Whoa, hold on there Sparky. Even if I concede that to be a developer you have to write code then you still can’t say a SharePoint Developer has to use Visual Studio.  So, you can spell C#, how well can you write XSLT? How’s your jQuery? Sorry bud, that’s code whether you like it or not. There are many ways to write code in SharePoint that have nothing to do with cracking open Visual Studio. So, what are the different ways to develop in SharePoint then? How many different ways can you “develop” in SharePoint?? A lot… Out of the box features In SharePoint you can create a site, create a custom list on that site, do basic calculations in a calculated column, set up alerts, and add all sorts of web parts to a page. Let’s face it.. that IS development! javaScript/jQuery Perhaps you’ve heard by now about this thing called jQuery? It’s all over the place and the answer to a lot of people’s prayers. However be careful, with great power comes great responsibility. Remember, javaScript is executed on the client side and if you abuse it your performance could be affected. Also, Marc Anderson (@sympmarc) wrote a pretty awesome javaScript library called SPServices.  This allows you to access SharePoint’s Web Services using jQuery. How freakin cool is that? With these tools at your disposal the number of things you CAN’T do without Visual Studio grows smaller and smaller. This is definitely development no matter what anyone else says and there is no Visual Studio involved. SharePoint Designer Ahhh.. The cause of and the answer to all of your SharePoint development problems. With SharePoint Designer you can use DataView Web Parts, develop (there’s that word again) your branding, and even connect to external datasources.  There’s a lot you can do in SharePoint Designer. It’s got it’s shortcomings, but it is an invaluable tool in the SharePoint developers toolbox. InfoPath So, can InfoPath development really be considered SharePoint development? I would say yes. You can connect to SharePoint lists, populate fields in a SharePoint list, and even write code in InfoPath. Sounds like SharePoint development to me. Visual Studio – Web Services/WCF So, get this. You can write code for SharePoint and not have a clue what the 12 hive is, what “site actions” means, or know how to do ANYTHING in SharePoint? Poppycock! You say? SharePoint Web Services I say… With SharePoint Web Services you can totally interact with SharePoint without knowing anything about SharePoint. I don’t recommend it of course, but it’s possible. What can you write using SharePoint Web Services? How about a little application called SharePoint Designer? Visual Studio – Object Model And here we are finally:  the SharePoint Object Model.  When you hear “SharePoint Developer” most people think of someone opening Visual Studio and creating a custom web part, workflow, event receiver, etc.. etc.. but I hope that by now I have made the point that this is NOT the only form of SharePoint Development! Again… Who cares? Just crack open Visual Studio for everything! Problem solved! Let’s ponder for a moment, shall we? The business comes to you with a requirement that involves some pretty fancy business calculations, and a complicated view that they do NOT want to look like SharePoint. “No Problem” you proclaim you mighty SharePoint Developer. You go back to your cube, chuckle at the latest Dilbert comic, and crack open Visual Studio. Then you build your custom web part… fight with all the deployment, migration, and UAT that you must go through and proclaim victory two weeks later!!!! Well done my good sir/ma’am! Oh wait… it turns out Sally who is not a “developer” did the exact same thing with a Dataview web part and some jQuery and it’s been in production for two weeks? #CockinessFail I know there are many ASP.NET developers out there that can create a custom control and wrap it to be a SharePoint Web Part.  That does NOT mean they are SharePoint Developers though as far as I’m concerned and I personally would much rather have someone on my team that can manipulate the heck (yes, I said ‘heck’) out of SharePoint using Dataview Web Parts, jQuery, and a roll of duct tape. Just because you know how to write code in Visual Studio does not mean you are a SharePoint Developer. What’s the conclusion here? How do we define ‘it’ and what ‘it’ is called? Fortunately, this is MY blog. I don’t have to give answers, I can stir the pot, laugh and leave you to ponder what it means! There is obviously no right or wrong answer here (unless you disagree with me,then you are flat out wrong). Anyway, there are many opinions.  Here’s mine.  If you put SharePoint Developer on your resume make sure to clearly specify HOW you develop in SharePoint and what tools you use. If we must label these gurus of jQuery and SPD, how about “SharePoint Client Developer” or “SharePoint Front End Developer”? Just throwing out an idea. Whatever we call them, to say they are not developers is short-sighted, arrogant, and unfair. Of course, then we need to figure out what to call all those other SharePoint development types.  Twitter Conversation @next_connect: RT @mrackley: Can someone be considered a SharePoint Developer if all they know how to do is work in SPD? | I say no.... @mikegil:  @mrackley re: yr Developer question: SPD expert <> SP Developer. Can be "sous-developer," though. #SharePoint #SPD @WonderLaura:  Rt @mrackley Can someone be considered a SharePoint Dev if all they know how to do is work in SPD? -- My opinion is that devs write code. @exnav29:  Rt @mrackley Can someone be considered a SharePoint Dev if all they know how to do is work in SPD? => I think devs would use VS as well @ssKevin:  @WonderLaura @mrackley does that mean strictly vb and c# when it comes to #SharePoint ? @jimmywim:  @exnav29 @mrackley nah, I'd say they were a power user. Devs know their way around the 12 hive ;) @sympmarc:  RT @mrackley: Can someone be considered a SharePoint Developer if all they know how to do is work in SPD? -> Fighting words. @sympmarc:  @next_connect @mrackley Besides, we prefer to be called "hacks". ;+) @next_connect:  @sympmarc The important thing is that you don't have to develop code to solve problems and create solutions. @mrackley @mrackley:  @sympmarc @next_connect not tryin to pick fight.. just try and find consensus on definition @usher:  @mrackley I'd still argue that you have a DevLite title that's out there for the collaboration engineers (@sympmarc @next_connect) @next_connect: @usher I agree. I've called it Light Dev/ Configuration before. @sympmarc @mrackley @usher:  @next_connect I like DevLite, low calorie but still same great taste :) @mrackley @sympmarc @mrackley:  @next_connect @usher @sympmarc I don't think there's any "lite" to someone who can bend jQuery and XSLT to their will. @usher:  @mrackley okay, so would you refer to someone that writes user controls and assemblies something different (@next_connect @sympmarc) @usher:  @mrackley when looking for a developer that can write .net code, it's a bit different than an XSLT/jQuery designer. @sympmarc @next_connect @jimmywim:  @mrackley @sympmarc @next_connect I reckon a "dev" does managed code and works in the 12 hive @sympmarc:  @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect We had a similar debate a few days ago @toddbleeker et al @sympmarc:  @sympmarc @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect @toddbleeker @stevenmfowler More abt my Middle Tier term, but still connected. Meet bus need. @toddbleeker:  @sympmarc @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect I used "No Assembly Required" in the past. I also suggested "Supplimenting the SharePoint DOM" @toddbleeker:  @sympmarc @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect Others suggested Information Worker Solutions/Enhancements @toddbleeker:  @sympmarc @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect @stevenmfowler I also like "SharePoint Scripting Solutions". All the technologies are script. @jimmywim:  @toddbleeker @sympmarc @mrackley @next_connect I like the IW solutions one... @toddbleeker:  @sympmarc @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect @stevenmfowler This is like the debate that never ends: it is definitely not called Middle Tier. @jimmywim:  @toddbleeker @sympmarc @mrackley @next_connect @stevenmfowler "Scripting" these days makes me think PowerShell... @sympmarc:  @toddbleeker @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect @stevenmfowler If it forces a debate on h2 best solve bus probs, I'll keep sayin Middle Tier. @usher:  @sympmarc so we know what we're looking for, we just can't define a name? @toddbleeker @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect @stevemfowler @sympmarc:  @usher @sympmarc @toddbleeker @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect @stevemfowler The naming seems to matter more than the substance. :-( @jimmywim:  @sympmarc @usher @toddbleeker @mrackley @next_connect @stevemfowler work brkdn defines tasks, defines tools needed, can then b grp'd by user @WonderLaura:  @mrackley @toddbleeker @jimmywim @sympmarc @usher @next_connect Funny you're asking. @johnrossjr and I spent hours this week on the subject. @stevenmfowler:  RT @toddbleeker: @sympmarc @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect @stevenmfowler it is definitely not called Middle Tier. < I'm with Todd

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• Using rounded corners in modern websites with CSS3

  - by nikolaosk

  This is going to be the sixth post in a series of posts regarding HTML 5. You can find the other posts here , here, here , here and here.In this post I will provide a hands-on example on how to use rounded corners (rounded corners in CSS3) in your website. I think this is the feature that is most required in the new modern websites.Most websites look great with their lovely round panels and rounded corner tab style menus. We could achieve that effect earlier but we should resort to complex CSS rules and images. I will show you how to accomplish this great feature with the power of CSS 3.We will not use Javascript.Javascript is required for IE 7, IE 8 and the notorious IE 6. The best solution for implementing corners using CSS and Javascript without using images is Nifty corners cube. There are detailed information how to achieve this in the link I provided. This solution is tested in earlier vesrions of IE (IE 6,IE 7,IE 8) and Opera,Firefox,Safari. In order to be absolutely clear this is not (and could not be) a detailed tutorial on HTML 5. There are other great resources for that.Navigate to the excellent interactive tutorials of W3School.Another excellent resource is HTML 5 Doctor.Two very nice sites that show you what features and specifications are implemented by various browsers and their versions are http://caniuse.com/ and http://html5test.com/. At this times Chrome seems to support most of HTML 5 specifications.Another excellent way to find out if the browser supports HTML 5 and CSS 3 features is to use the Javascript lightweight library Modernizr.In this hands-on example I will be using Expression Web 4.0.This application is not a free application. You can use any HTML editor you like.You can use Visual Studio 2012 Express edition. You can download it here.Before I go on with the actual demo I will use the (http://www.caniuse.com) to see the support for web fonts from the latest versions of modern browsers.Please have a look at the picture below. We see that all the latest versions of modern browsers support this feature.We can see that even IE 9 supports this feature.  Let's move on with the actual demo. This is going to be a rather simple demo.I create a simple HTML 5 page. The markup follows and it is very easy to use and understand <!DOCTYPE html><html lang="en">  <head>    <title>HTML 5, CSS3 and JQuery</title>    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" >    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css">       </head>  <body>      <div id="header">      <h1>Learn cutting edge technologies</h1>    </div>        <div id="main">          <h2>HTML 5</h2>                        <p id="panel1">            HTML5 is the latest version of HTML and XHTML. The HTML standard defines a single language that can be written in HTML and XML. It attempts to solve issues found in previous iterations of HTML and addresses the needs of Web Applications, an area previously not adequately covered by HTML.          </p>      </div>             </body>  </html>Then I need to write the various CSS rules that style this markup. I will name it style.css   body{        line-height: 38px;        width: 1024px;        background-color:#eee;        text-align:center;      }#panel1 { margin:auto; text-align:left; background-color:#77cdef;width:400px; height:250px; padding:15px;font-size:16px;font-family:tahoma;color:#fff;border-radius: 20px;}Have a look below to see what my page looks like in IE 10. This is possible through the border-radious property. The colored panel has all four corners rounded with the same radius.We can add a border to the rounded corner panel by adding this property declaration in the #panel1,  border:4px #000 solid;We can have even better visual effects if we specify a radius for each corner.This is the updated version of the style.css. body{        line-height: 38px;        width: 1024px;        background-color:#eee;        text-align:center;      }#panel1 { margin:auto; text-align:left; background-color:#77cdef;border:4px #000 solid;width:400px; height:250px; padding:15px;font-size:16px;font-family:tahoma;color:#fff;border-top-left-radius: 20px;border-top-right-radius: 70px;border-bottom-right-radius: 20px;border-bottom-left-radius: 70px;} This is how my page looks in Firefox 15.0.1  In this final example I will show you how to style with CSS 3 (rounded corners) a horizontal navigation menu. This is the new version of the HTML markup<!DOCTYPE html><html lang="en">  <head>    <title>HTML 5, CSS3 and JQuery</title>    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" >    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css">       </head>  <body>      <div id="header">      <h1>Learn cutting edge technologies</h1>    </div>        <div id="nav"><ul><li><a class="mymenu" id="activelink" href="http://weblogs.asp.net/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts§ionid=1153&postid=8934038#">Main</a></li><li><a class="mymenu" href="http://weblogs.asp.net/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts§ionid=1153&postid=8934038#">HTML 5</a></li><li><a class="mymenu" href="http://weblogs.asp.net/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts§ionid=1153&postid=8934038#">CSS 3</a></li><li><a class="mymenu" href="http://weblogs.asp.net/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts§ionid=1153&postid=8934038#">JQuery</a></li></ul></div>        <div id="main">          <h2>HTML 5</h2>                        <p id="panel1">            HTML5 is the latest version of HTML and XHTML. The HTML standard defines a single language that can be written in HTML and XML. It attempts to solve issues found in previous iterations of HTML and addresses the needs of Web Applications, an area previously not adequately covered by HTML.          </p>      </div>             </body>  </html> This is the updated version of style.css body{        line-height: 38px;        width: 1024px;        background-color:#eee;        text-align:center;      }#panel1 { margin:auto; text-align:left; background-color:#77cdef;border:4px #000 solid;width:400px; height:250px; padding:15px;font-size:16px;font-family:tahoma;color:#fff;border-top-left-radius: 20px;border-top-right-radius: 70px;border-bottom-right-radius: 20px;border-bottom-left-radius: 70px;}#nav ul {width:900px; position:relative;top:24px;}ul li { text-decoration:none; display:inline;}ul li a.mymenu { font-family:Tahoma; color:black; font-size:14px;font-weight:bold;background-color:#77cdef; color:#fff;border-top-left-radius:18px; border-top-right-radius:18px; border:1px solid black; padding:15px; padding-bottom:10px;margin :2px; text-decoration:none; border-bottom:none;}.mymenu:hover { background-color:#e3781a; color:black;} The CSS rules are the classic rules that are extensively used for styling menus.The border-radius property is still responsible for the rounded corners in the menu.This is how my page looks in Chrome version 21.  Hope it helps!!!

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• Confirm disk is broken when it passes all diagnostics

  - by Halfgaar

  I have a system with a potentially broken disk, but the disk passes all manner of diagnostics. I have been unable to confirm that the disk is broken. What are my options? I could just replace the disk, but because this situation is very similar to another more severe situation I have (long story), I'd like to actually make a proper diagnosis as opposed to randomly binning hardware. The issue and history is this: I had a Debian Linux PC (500 MHz P3) acting as router, nagios and munin. It crashed every couple of weeks. No logs or dmesg could be obtained (because it's an old Compaq that only boots when you configure it as keyboardless, making connecting a keyboard later, once it's booted, impossible). At the time, I just replaced the computer with another Compaq (P4 2.4 GHz) because I thought the hardware was faulty. However, it still crashed every couple of weeks. the difference is that on this computer, I can still SSH into it. It gives all kinds of errors on hda. I'd like to confirm that the disk is broken, but nothing I do confirms this: SMART error logs shows no errors. Normally when a disk starts acting up, SMART my pass, but it still records a read-error in the error log. SMART self-test (smartctl -t long /dev/sda) completes without errors. re-allocated sector count (a tell-tale parameter) has been 31 all its life, even when the disk was still in use in my desktop PC years ago, and it still is. The figure never changed. dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/null bs=4096 passes with flying colors. What else can I do to assess the health of the drive? Again, this is not about making this router fully functional again, this is a disk forensic question, because it just so happens that I have another server that potentially has the same problem, and knowing the answer to this will possibly help me greatly. For the record, below are logs and such. This is the smartctl -a output: smartctl 5.40 2010-07-12 r3124 [i686-pc-linux-gnu] (local build) Copyright (C) 2002-10 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net === START OF INFORMATION SECTION === Model Family: Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 and 7200.7 Plus family Device Model: ST3120026A Serial Number: 5JT1CLQM Firmware Version: 3.06 User Capacity: 120,034,123,776 bytes Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show] ATA Version is: 6 ATA Standard is: ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D revision 2 Local Time is: Mon Jul 1 21:18:33 2013 CEST SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability. SMART support is: Enabled === START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION === SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED General SMART Values: Offline data collection status: (0x82) Offline data collection activity was completed without error. Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled. Self-test execution status: ( 24) The self-test routine was aborted by the host. Total time to complete Offline data collection: ( 430) seconds. Offline data collection capabilities: (0x5b) SMART execute Offline immediate. Auto Offline data collection on/off support. Suspend Offline collection upon new command. Offline surface scan supported. Self-test supported. No Conveyance Self-test supported. Selective Self-test supported. SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering power-saving mode. Supports SMART auto save timer. Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported. No General Purpose Logging support. Short self-test routine recommended polling time: ( 1) minutes. Extended self-test routine recommended polling time: ( 85) minutes. SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10 Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds: ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000f 050 046 006 Pre-fail Always - 47766662 3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0003 097 096 000 Pre-fail Always - 0 4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age Always - 10 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 036 Pre-fail Always - 31 7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 084 060 030 Pre-fail Always - 820305 9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 048 048 000 Old_age Always - 46373 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 097 Pre-fail Always - 0 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age Always - 605 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 036 065 000 Old_age Always - 36 195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x001a 050 046 000 Old_age Always - 47766662 197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0010 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 0 199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 200 196 000 Old_age Always - 6 200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0000 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0 202 Data_Address_Mark_Errs 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age Always - 0 SMART Error Log Version: 1 No Errors Logged SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1 Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error # 1 Extended offline Aborted by host 80% 46361 - # 2 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 46358 - # 3 Short offline Completed without error 00% 12046 - # 4 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 10472 - # 5 Short offline Completed without error 00% 10471 - # 6 Short offline Completed without error 00% 10471 - # 7 Short offline Completed without error 00% 6770 - # 8 Extended offline Aborted by host 90% 5958 - # 9 Extended offline Aborted by host 90% 5951 - #10 Short offline Completed without error 00% 5024 - #11 Extended offline Aborted by host 80% 5024 - #12 Short offline Completed without error 00% 3697 - #13 Short offline Completed without error 00% 237 - #14 Short offline Completed without error 00% 145 - #15 Short offline Completed without error 00% 69 - #16 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 68 - #17 Short offline Completed without error 00% 66 - #18 Short offline Completed without error 00% 49 - #19 Short offline Completed without error 00% 29 - #20 Short offline Completed without error 00% 29 - SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1 SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS 1 0 0 Not_testing 2 0 0 Not_testing 3 0 0 Not_testing 4 0 0 Not_testing 5 0 0 Not_testing Selective self-test flags (0x0): After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk. If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay. And this is the dmesg error when it has crashed (which repeats for a bunch of different sectors): [1755091.211136] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Unhandled error code [1755091.211144] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Result: hostbyte=DID_BAD_TARGET driverbyte=DRIVER_OK [1755091.211151] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] CDB: Read(10): 28 00 08 fe ad 38 00 00 08 00 [1755091.211166] end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 150908216

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• Creating an SMF service for mercurial web server

  - by Chris W Beal

  I'm working on a project at the moment, which has a number of contributers. We're managing the project gate (which is stand alone) with mercurial. We want to have an easy way of seeing the changelog, so we can show management what is going on.  Luckily mercurial provides a basic web server which allows you to see the changes, and drill in to change sets. This can be run as a daemon, but as it was running on our build server, every time it was rebooted, someone needed to remember to start the process again. This is of course a classic usage of SMF. Now I'm not an experienced person at writing SMF services, so it took me 1/2 an hour or so to figure it out the first time. But going forward I should know what I'm doing a bit better. I did reference this doc extensively. Taking a step back, the command to start the mercurial web server is $ hg serve -p <port number> -d So we somehow need to get SMF to run that command for us. In the simplest form, SMF services are really made up of two components. The manifest Usually lives in /var/svc/manifest somewhere Can be imported from any location The method Usually live in /lib/svc/method I simply put the script straight in that directory. Not very repeatable, but it worked Can take an argument of start, stop, or refresh Lets start with the manifest. This looks pretty complex, but all it's doing is describing the service name, the dependencies, the start and stop methods, and some properties. The properties can be by instance, that is to say I could have multiple hg serve processes handling different mercurial projects, on different ports simultaneously Here is the manifest I wrote. I stole extensively from the examples in the Documentation. So my manifest looks like this $ cat hg-serve.xml <?xml version="1.0"?> <!DOCTYPE service_bundle SYSTEM "/usr/share/lib/xml/dtd/service_bundle.dtd.1"> <service_bundle type='manifest' name='hg-serve'> <service name='application/network/hg-serve' type='service' version='1'> <dependency name='network' grouping='require_all' restart_on='none' type='service'> <service_fmri value='svc:/milestone/network:default' /> </dependency> <exec_method type='method' name='start' exec='/lib/svc/method/hg-serve %m' timeout_seconds='2' /> <exec_method type='method' name='stop' exec=':kill' timeout_seconds='2'> </exec_method> <instance name='project-gate' enabled='true'> <method_context> <method_credential user='root' group='root' /> </method_context> <property_group name='hg-serve' type='application'> <propval name='path' type='astring' value='/src/project-gate'/> <propval name='port' type='astring' value='9998' /> </property_group> </instance> <stability value='Evolving' /> <template> <common_name> <loctext xml:lang='C'>hg-serve</loctext> </common_name> <documentation> <manpage title='hg' section='1' /> </documentation> </template> </service> </service_bundle> So the only things I had to decide on in this are the service name "application/network/hg-serve" the start and stop methods (more of which later) and the properties. This is the information I need to pass to the start method script. In my case the port I want to start the web server on "9998", and the path to the source gate "/src/project-gate". These can be read in to the start method. So now lets look at the method scripts $ cat /lib/svc/method/hg-serve #!/sbin/sh # # # Copyright (c) 2012, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. # # Standard prolog # . /lib/svc/share/smf_include.sh if [ -z $SMF_FMRI ]; then echo "SMF framework variables are not initialized." exit $SMF_EXIT_ERR fi # # Build the command line flags # # Get the port and directory from the SMF properties port=`svcprop -c -p hg-serve/port $SMF_FMRI` dir=`svcprop -c -p hg-serve/path $SMF_FMRI` echo "$1" case "$1" in 'start') cd $dir /usr/bin/hg serve -d -p $port ;; *) echo "Usage: $0 {start|refresh|stop}" exit 1 ;; esac exit $SMF_EXIT_OK This is all pretty self explanatory, we read the port and directory using svcprop, and use those simply to run a command in the start case. We don't need to implement a stop case, as the manifest says to use "exec=':kill'for the stop method. Now all we need to do is import the manifest and start the service, but first verify the manifest # svccfg verify /path/to/hg-serve.xml If that doesn't give an error try importing it # svccfg import /path/to/hg-serve.xml If like me you originally put the hg-serve.xml file in /var/svc/manifest somewhere you'll get an error and told to restart the import service svccfg: Restarting svc:/system/manifest-import The manifest being imported is from a standard location and should be imported with the command : svcadm restart svc:/system/manifest-import # svcadm restart svc:/system/manifest-import and you're nearly done. You can look at the service using svcs -l # svcs -l hg-serve fmri svc:/application/network/hg-serve:project-gate name hg-serve enabled false state disabled next_state none state_time Thu May 31 16:11:47 2012 logfile /var/svc/log/application-network-hg-serve:project-gate.log restarter svc:/system/svc/restarter:default contract_id 15749 manifest /var/svc/manifest/network/hg/hg-serve.xml dependency require_all/none svc:/milestone/network:default (online) And look at the interesting properties # svcprop hg-serve hg-serve/path astring /src/project-gate hg-serve/port astring 9998 ...stuff deleted.... Then simply enable the service and if every things gone right, you can point your browser at http://server:9998 and get a nice graphical log of project activity. # svcadm enable hg-serve # svcs -l hg-serve fmri svc:/application/network/hg-serve:project-gate name hg-serve enabled true state online next_state none state_time Thu May 31 16:18:11 2012 logfile /var/svc/log/application-network-hg-serve:project-gate.log restarter svc:/system/svc/restarter:default contract_id 15858 manifest /var/svc/manifest/network/hg/hg-serve.xml dependency require_all/none svc:/milestone/network:default (online) None of this is rocket science, but a bit fiddly. Hence I thought I'd blog it. It might just be you see this in google and it clicks with you more than one of the many other blogs or how tos about it. Plus I can always refer back to it myself in 3 weeks, when I want to add another project to the server, and I've forgotten how to do it.

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• Running TeamCity from Amazon EC2 - Cloud based scalable build and continuous Integration

  - by RoyOsherove

  I’ve been having fun playing with the amazon EC2 cloud service. I set up a server running TeamCity, and an image of a server that just runs a TeamCity agent. I also setup TeamCity  to automatically instantiate agents on EC2 and shut them down based upon availability of free agents. Here’s how I did it: The first step was setting up the teamcity server. Create an account on amazon EC2 (BTW, amazon’s sites works better in IE than it does in chrome.. who knew!?) Open the EC2 dashboard, and click “Launch Instance” . From the “Quick Start” tab I selected from the list: “Getting Started on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (AMI Id: ami-c5e40dac)” .  it’s good enough to just run teamcity. In the instance details, I used the default (Small instance, 1.7 GB mem). You might want to choose a close availability zone based on where you are. We want to “Launch instances” so click continue. Select the default kernel, RAM disk and all. No need to enable monitoring for now (you can do that later). click continue. If you don’t have a key pair, you will be prompted to create one. Once you do, select it in the list. Now you’ll be prompted to create a security group. I named mine “TC” as in “TeamCity”. each group is a bunch of settings on which ports can be let through into and out of a hosted machine.  keep it as the default settings. We will change them later. Click continue,  review and then click “Launch”. Now you’ll be able to see the new instance in the running instances list on your site. Now, you need to install stuff on that instance (TeamCity!) . To do that, you’ll need to Remote desktop into that instance. To do that, we’ll get the admin password for that instance: Check it on the list, and click “Instance Actions” - “Get Windows Admin Password”. You might have to wait about 10 minutes or so for the password to be generated for you. Once you have the password, you will remote desktop (start-run-‘mstsc’) into the instance. It’s address is a dns address shown below the list under “Public DNS”. it looks something like: ec2-256-226-194-91.compute-1.amazonaws.com Once you’re inside the instance – you’ll need to open IE (it is in hardened mode so you’ll have to relax its security settings to download stuff). I first downloaded chrome and using chrome I downloaded TeamCity. Note that the download speed is FAST. several MBs per second. To be able to see TeamCity from the outside, you will need to open the advanced firewall settings inside the remote machine, and add incoming and outgoing rules for port 80 (HTTP). Once you do that, you should be able to see the machine from the outside. If you still can’t, see the next step. I also enabled ports 9090 since I will use this machine to create an agent image later as well. Now configure the security group (TC) to enable talking to agents: IN the EC2 dashboard click on “Security Groups” and select your group. To add a rule, click on the empty list under the ‘protocol’ header. select TCP. from and ‘to’ ports are 9090. source ip is 0.0.0.0/0 (every ip is allowed). click “Save.  Also make sure you can see “HTTP” tcp 80 in that list. if you can’t see it, add it or you won’t be able to browse to the machine’s teamcity server home page. I also set an elastic IP for the machine: so I always have the same IP for the machine instance. Allocate and set one through the”Elastic IP” link on the EC2 dashboard.   you should now have a working instance of teamcity.   Now let’s create an agent image. Repeat steps 1-9, but this time, make sure you select a machine that fits what an agent might do. I selected Instance type – Hihg-CPU medium machine,  that is much faster. On that machine, I installed what I needed (VS 2010, PostSharp etc..). downloading VS 2010 from MSDN (2 GB took less than 10 min!) Now, instead of installing teamcity, browse using the browser to the teamcity homepage (from within the remote machine). go to the Administration page, and click the upper right link “Install agents”. Install the agent on he local machine – set it to the IP or DNS of the running TeamCity server. That way you’ll be able to check their connectivity live before making this machine your official agent image to reuse. Once the agent is installed, see that the TC server can see it and use it. see steps 13-14 above if they can’t. Once it works, you can take steps to make this image your agent image to be reused. next, here is a copy-paste of several steps to take from http://confluence.jetbrains.net/display/TCD5/Setting+Up+TeamCity+for+Amazon+EC2 Configure system so that agent it is started on machine boot (and make sure TeamCity server is accessible on machine boot). Test the setup by rebooting machine and checking that the agent connects normally to the server. Prepare the Image for bundling: Remove any temporary/history information in the system. Stop the agent (under Windows stop the service but leave it in Automatic startup type) Delete content agent logs and temp directories (not necessary) Delete "<Agent Home>/conf/amazon-*" file (not necessary) Change config/buildAgent.properties to remove properties: name, serverAddress, authToken (not necessary)   Now, we need to: Make AMI from the running instance. Configure TeamCity EC2 support on TeamCity server. Making an AMI: Check the instance of the agent in the EC2 dashboard instance list, and select instance actions->Create Image (EBS AMI) you’ll see the image pending in the APIs list in the EC2 dashboard. this could take 30 minutes or more. meanwhile we can configure the could support in the teamcity server. COPY THE AMI ID to the clipboard (looks like ami-a88aa4ce) Configuring TeamCity for Cloud: In TeamCity, click on “Agents” and then on “Cloud” tab. this is where you will control your cloud agents. to configure new cloud agents based on APIs, click on the right link to the “configuration page” Create a new profile and select AMazon EC2 as cloud type. Use your AMI ID that you copied to the clipboard into the “Images” field. Select an availability zone that is the same as the one your instance is running on for best communication perf between them make sure you select the ‘TC’ security group hopefully, that should be it, and teamcity will try to instantiate new instances on demand. Note that it may take around 10 minutes for an agent to become available to teamcity from the time it’s started.

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• C#/.NET &ndash; Finding an Item&rsquo;s Index in IEnumerable&lt;T&gt;

  - by James Michael Hare

  Sorry for the long blogging hiatus.  First it was, of course, the holidays hustle and bustle, then my brother and his wife gave birth to their son, so I’ve been away from my blogging for two weeks. Background: Finding an item’s index in List<T> is easy… Many times in our day to day programming activities, we want to find the index of an item in a collection.  Now, if we have a List<T> and we’re looking for the item itself this is trivial: 1: // assume have a list of ints: 2: var list = new List<int> { 1, 13, 42, 64, 121, 77, 5, 99, 132 }; 3:  4: // can find the exact item using IndexOf() 5: var pos = list.IndexOf(64); This will return the position of the item if it’s found, or –1 if not.  It’s easy to see how this works for primitive types where equality is well defined.  For complex types, however, it will attempt to compare them using EqualityComparer<T>.Default which, in a nutshell, relies on the object’s Equals() method. So what if we want to search for a condition instead of equality?  That’s also easy in a List<T> with the FindIndex() method: 1: // assume have a list of ints: 2: var list = new List<int> { 1, 13, 42, 64, 121, 77, 5, 99, 132 }; 3:  4: // finds index of first even number or -1 if not found. 5: var pos = list.FindIndex(i => i % 2 == 0);   Problem: Finding an item’s index in IEnumerable<T> is not so easy... This is all well and good for lists, but what if we want to do the same thing for IEnumerable<T>?  A collection of IEnumerable<T> has no indexing, so there’s no direct method to find an item’s index.  LINQ, as powerful as it is, gives us many tools to get us this information, but not in one step.  As with almost any problem involving collections, there are several ways to accomplish the same goal.  And once again as with almost any problem involving collections, the choice of the solution somewhat depends on the situation. So let’s look at a few possible alternatives.  I’m going to express each of these as extension methods for simplicity and consistency. Solution: The TakeWhile() and Count() combo One of the things you can do is to perform a TakeWhile() on the list as long as your find condition is not true, and then do a Count() of the items it took.  The only downside to this method is that if the item is not in the list, the index will be the full Count() of items, and not –1.  So if you don’t know the size of the list beforehand, this can be confusing. 1: // a collection of extra extension methods off IEnumerable<T> 2: public static class EnumerableExtensions 3: { 4: // Finds an item in the collection, similar to List<T>.FindIndex() 5: public static int FindIndex<T>(this IEnumerable<T> list, Predicate<T> finder) 6: { 7: // note if item not found, result is length and not -1! 8: return list.TakeWhile(i => !finder(i)).Count(); 9: } 10: } Personally, I don’t like switching the paradigm of not found away from –1, so this is one of my least favorites.  Solution: Select with index Many people don’t realize that there is an alternative form of the LINQ Select() method that will provide you an index of the item being selected: 1: list.Select( (item,index) => do something here with the item and/or index... ) This can come in handy, but must be treated with care.  This is because the index provided is only as pertains to the result of previous operations (if any).  For example: 1: // assume have a list of ints: 2: var list = new List<int> { 1, 13, 42, 64, 121, 77, 5, 99, 132 }; 3:  4: // you'd hope this would give you the indexes of the even numbers 5: // which would be 2, 3, 8, but in reality it gives you 0, 1, 2 6: list.Where(item => item % 2 == 0).Select((item,index) => index); The reason the example gives you the collection { 0, 1, 2 } is because the where clause passes over any items that are odd, and therefore only the even items are given to the select and only they are given indexes. Conversely, we can’t select the index and then test the item in a Where() clause, because then the Where() clause would be operating on the index and not the item! So, what we have to do is to select the item and index and put them together in an anonymous type.  It looks ugly, but it works: 1: // extensions defined on IEnumerable<T> 2: public static class EnumerableExtensions 3: { 4: // finds an item in a collection, similar to List<T>.FindIndex() 5: public static int FindIndex<T>(this IEnumerable<T> list, Predicate<T> finder) 6: { 7: // if you don't name the anonymous properties they are the variable names 8: return list.Select((item, index) => new { item, index }) 9: .Where(p => finder(p.item)) 10: .Select(p => p.index + 1) 11: .FirstOrDefault() - 1; 12: } 13: }     So let’s look at this, because i know it’s convoluted: First Select() joins the items and their indexes into an anonymous type. Where() filters that list to only the ones matching the predicate. Second Select() picks the index of the matches and adds 1 – this is to distinguish between not found and first item. FirstOrDefault() returns the first item found from the previous clauses or default (zero) if not found. Subtract one so that not found (zero) will be –1, and first item (one) will be zero. The bad thing is, this is ugly as hell and creates anonymous objects for each item tested until it finds the match.  This concerns me a bit but we’ll defer judgment until compare the relative performances below. Solution: Convert ToList() and use FindIndex() This solution is easy enough.  We know any IEnumerable<T> can be converted to List<T> using the LINQ extension method ToList(), so we can easily convert the collection to a list and then just use the FindIndex() method baked into List<T>. 1: // a collection of extension methods for IEnumerable<T> 2: public static class EnumerableExtensions 3: { 4: // find the index of an item in the collection similar to List<T>.FindIndex() 5: public static int FindIndex<T>(this IEnumerable<T> list, Predicate<T> finder) 6: { 7: return list.ToList().FindIndex(finder); 8: } 9: } This solution is simplicity itself!  It is very concise and elegant and you need not worry about anyone misinterpreting what it’s trying to do (as opposed to the more convoluted LINQ methods above). But the main thing I’m concerned about here is the performance hit to allocate the List<T> in the ToList() call, but once again we’ll explore that in a second. Solution: Roll your own FindIndex() for IEnumerable<T> Of course, you can always roll your own FindIndex() method for IEnumerable<T>.  It would be a very simple for loop which scans for the item and counts as it goes.  There’s many ways to do this, but one such way might look like: 1: // extension methods for IEnumerable<T> 2: public static class EnumerableExtensions 3: { 4: // Finds an item matching a predicate in the enumeration, much like List<T>.FindIndex() 5: public static int FindIndex<T>(this IEnumerable<T> list, Predicate<T> finder) 6: { 7: int index = 0; 8: foreach (var item in list) 9: { 10: if (finder(item)) 11: { 12: return index; 13: } 14:  15: index++; 16: } 17:  18: return -1; 19: } 20: } Well, it’s not quite simplicity, and those less familiar with LINQ may prefer it since it doesn’t include all of the lambdas and behind the scenes iterators that come with deferred execution.  But does having this long, blown out method really gain us much in performance? Comparison of Proposed Solutions So we’ve now seen four solutions, let’s analyze their collective performance.  I took each of the four methods described above and run them over 100,000 iterations of lists of size 10, 100, 1000, and 10000 and here’s the performance results.  Then I looked for targets at the begining of the list (best case), middle of the list (the average case) and not in the list (worst case as must scan all of the list). Each of the times below is the average time in milliseconds for one execution as computer over the 100,000 iterations: Searches Matching First Item (Best Case)   10 100 1000 10000 TakeWhile 0.0003 0.0003 0.0003 0.0003 Select 0.0005 0.0005 0.0005 0.0005 ToList 0.0002 0.0003 0.0013 0.0121 Manual 0.0001 0.0001 0.0001 0.0001   Searches Matching Middle Item (Average Case)   10 100 1000 10000 TakeWhile 0.0004 0.0020 0.0191 0.1889 Select 0.0008 0.0042 0.0387 0.3802 ToList 0.0002 0.0007 0.0057 0.0562 Manual 0.0002 0.0013 0.0129 0.1255   Searches Where Not Found (Worst Case)   10 100 1000 10000 TakeWhile 0.0006 0.0039 0.0381 0.3770 Select 0.0012 0.0081 0.0758 0.7583 ToList 0.0002 0.0012 0.0100 0.0996 Manual 0.0003 0.0026 0.0253 0.2514   Notice something interesting here, you’d think the “roll your own” loop would be the most efficient, but it only wins when the item is first (or very close to it) regardless of list size.  In almost all other cases though and in particular the average case and worst case, the ToList()/FindIndex() combo wins for performance, even though it is creating some temporary memory to hold the List<T>.  If you examine the algorithm, the reason why is most likely because once it’s in a ToList() form, internally FindIndex() scans the internal array which is much more efficient to iterate over.  Thus, it takes a one time performance hit (not including any GC impact) to create the List<T> but after that the performance is much better. Summary If you’re concerned about too many throw-away objects, you can always roll your own FindIndex() method, but for sheer simplicity and overall performance, using the ToList()/FindIndex() combo performs best on nearly all list sizes in the average and worst cases.    Technorati Tags: C#,.NET,Litte Wonders,BlackRabbitCoder,Software,LINQ,List

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, July 01, 2013

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, July 01, 2013Popular ReleasesQuickMon: Version 2.10.3: Mainly just a service release - no major changes. Toolbar buttons on main and config window can now be re-arrange (using ALT key) Added property to disable corrective scriptsDotNetNuke® IFrame: IFrame 04.05.00: New DNN6/7 Manifest file and Azure Compatibility.VidCoder: 1.5.2 Beta: Fixed crash on presets with an invalid bitrate.Roadkill - .NET Wiki engine: Roadkill v1.7: New features in 1.7: New file manager: Multiple file uploads Drag and drop uploads Delete folders (admins only) Delete files (admins only) (Experimental) Syntaxhighlighting custom variable (using https://github.com/alexgorbatchev/SyntaxHighlighter) - use [[[code lang=c#|your code here]]] (Experimental) MathJax custom variable - use [[[Mathjax]]] and $$your tex$$ on the page. Improved black bar theme Site speed improvements for Javascript/CSS files - now just two files files ea...Download Sharepoint Solution package: Release 4: version updated for SP2013WinRT XAML Toolkit: WinRT XAML Toolkit - 1.5: WinRT XAML Toolkit based on the Windows 8.0 and 8.1 Preview SDKs. Do not download the source code from here if you are looking for latest updates! You can download the latest source from the SOURCE CODE page. For compiled version use NuGet. You can add it to your project in Visual Studio by going to View/Other Windows/Package Manager Console and entering: PM> Install-Package winrtxamltoolkit Features Attachable Behaviors AwaitableUI extensions Composition library for visual tree rende...Gardens Point LEX: Gardens Point LEX version 1.2.1: The main distribution is a zip file. This contains the binary executable, documentation, source code and the examples. ChangesVersion 1.2.1 has new facilities for defining and manipulating character classes. These changes make the construction of large Unicode character classes more convenient. The runtime code for performing automaton backup has been re-implemented, and is now faster for scanners that need backup. Source CodeThe distribution contains a complete VS2010 project for the appli...ZXMAK2: Version 2.7.5.7: - fix TZX emulation (Bruce Lee, Zynaps) - fix ATM 16 colors for border - add memory module PROFI 512K; add PROFI V03 rom image; fix PROFI 3.XX configTwitter image Downloader: Twitter Image Downloader 2 with Installer: Application file with Install shield and Dot Net 4.0 redistributableUltimate Music Tagger: Ultimate Music Tagger 1.0.0.0: First release of Ultimate Music TaggerBlackJumboDog: Ver5.9.2: 2013.06.28 Ver5.9.2 (1) ??????????(????SMTP?????)?????????? (2) HTTPS???????????Outlook 2013 Add-In: Configuration Form: This new version includes the following changes: - Refactored code a bit. - Removing configuration from main form to gain more space to display items. - Moved configuration to separate form. You can click the little "gear" icon to access the configuration form (still very simple). - Added option to show past day appointments from the selected day (previous in time, that is). - Added some tooltips. You will have to uninstall the previous version (add/remove programs) if you had installed it ...Terminals: Version 3.0 - Release: Changes since version 2.0:Choose 100% portable or installed version Removed connection warning when running RDP 8 (Windows 8) client Fixed Active directory search Extended Active directory search by LDAP filters Fixed single instance mode when running on Windows Terminal server Merged usage of Tags and Groups Added columns sorting option in tables No UAC prompts on Windows 7 Completely new file persistence data layer New MS SQL persistence layer (Store data in SQL database)...NuGet: NuGet 2.6: Released June 26, 2013. Release notes: http://docs.nuget.org/docs/release-notes/nuget-2.6Python Tools for Visual Studio: 2.0 Beta: We’re pleased to announce the release of Python Tools for Visual Studio 2.0 Beta. Python Tools for Visual Studio (PTVS) is an open-source plug-in for Visual Studio which supports programming with the Python language. PTVS supports a broad range of features including CPython/IronPython, Edit/Intellisense/Debug/Profile, Cloud, HPC, IPython, and cross platform debugging support. For a quick overview of the general IDE experience, please watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuewiStN...Player Framework by Microsoft: Player Framework for Windows 8 and WP8 (v1.3 beta): Preview: New MPEG DASH adaptive streaming plugin for Windows Azure Media Services Preview: New Ultraviolet CFF plugin. Preview: New WP7 version with WP8 compatibility. (source code only) Source code is now available via CodePlex Git Misc bug fixes and improvements: WP8 only: Added optional fullscreen and mute buttons to default xaml JS only: protecting currentTime from returning infinity. Some videos would cause currentTime to be infinity which could cause errors in plugins expectin...AssaultCube Reloaded: 2.5.8: SERVER OWNERS: note that the default maprot has changed once again. Linux has Ubuntu 11.10 32-bit precompiled binaries and Ubuntu 10.10 64-bit precompiled binaries, but you can compile your own as it also contains the source. If you are using Mac or other operating systems, please wait while we continue to try to package for those OSes. Or better yet, try to compile it. If it fails, download a virtual machine. The server pack is ready for both Windows and Linux, but you might need to compi...Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.95: update parser to allow for CSS3 calc( function to nest. add recognition of -pponly (Preprocess-Only) switch in AjaxMinManifestTask build task. Fix crashing bug in EXE when processing a manifest file using the -xml switch and an error message needs to be displayed (like a missing input file). Create separate Clean and Bundle build tasks for working with manifest files (AjaxMinManifestCleanTask and AjaxMinBundleTask). Removed the IsCleanOperation from AjaxMinManifestTask -- use AjaxMinMan...VG-Ripper & PG-Ripper: VG-Ripper 2.9.44: changes NEW: Added Support for "ImgChili.net" links FIXED: Auto UpdaterDocument.Editor: 2013.25: What's new for Document.Editor 2013.25: Improved Spell Check support Improved User Interface Minor Bug Fix's, improvements and speed upsNew ProjectsAerCloud.net Client - Java, Linux & Windows: This project source code provides a step by step guide for using AerCloud.net Framework as a Service API. For more information please visit http://www.aercloudAmiClient – Asterisk Manager Interface (AMI) client based on the Rx Framework: Asterisk Manager Interface (AMI) client based on the Rx Frameworkbaidupan: cdcddddC#??????: C#??????ImageHelper: imagehelperIP switcher: IP switcher is a simple tool for switching settings, and store presets, on networkadapters.MastersProject: A MS project with a goal of creating a fully Code Contracts verified physics engine and a relatively simple game that uses it.Multiplatform card game: Example multipatform project.PhoneTools: A collection of tools designed to help developers create beautiful Windows Phone 8 apps.rodidexter: lllSharePoint 2013 List Item Encryption: This coding exercise project enables you to encrypt/decrypt list item text field in the browser using industry standard algorithms.tvaSoft: simulation, rotor dynamics, Finite Element Analisys, FEM, ODE, torsional vibration, flexural vibrationX3DML Project: X3DML is an xml-based markup language that defines rules for modeling 3D scenes from a tag-based document. It may be usefull in 3D web design and VR.zhuang-tfs: zhuang tfs

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• Tools of the Trade

  - by Ajarn Mark Caldwell

  I got pretty excited a couple of days ago when my new laptop arrived. “The new phone books are here!  The new phone books are here!  I’m a somebody!” - Steve Martin in The Jerk It is a Dell Precision M4500 with an Intel i7 Core 2.8 GHZ running 64-bit Windows 7 with a 15.6” widescreen, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD.  For some of you high fliers, this may be nothing to write home about, but compared to the 32–bit Windows XP laptop with 2 GB of RAM and a regular hard disk that I’m coming from, it’s a really nice step forward.  I won’t even bore you with the details of the desktop PC I was first given when I started here 5 1/2 years ago.  Let’s just say that things have improved.  One really nice thing is that while we are definitely running a lean and mean department in terms of staffing, my boss believes in supporting that lean staff with good tools in order to stay lean instead of having to spend even more money on additional employees.  Of course, that only goes so far, and at some point you have to add more people in order to get more work done, which is why we are bringing on-board a new employee and a new contract developer next week.  But that’s a different story for a different time. But the main topic for this post is to highlight the variety of tools that I use in my job and that you might find useful, too.  This is easy to do right now because the process of building up my new laptop from scratch has forced me to assemble a list of software that had to be installed and configured.  Keep in mind as you look through this list that I play many roles in our company.  My official title is Software Engineering Manager, but in addition to managing the team, I am also an active ASP.NET and SQL developer, the Database Administrator, and 50% of the SAN Administrator team.  So, without further ado, here are the tools and some comments about why I use them: Tool Purpose Virtual Clone Drive Easily mount an ISO image as a DVD Drive.  This is particularly handy when you are downloading disk images from Microsoft for your tools. SQL Server 2008 R2 Developer Edition We are migrating all of our active systems to SQL 2008 R2.  Developer Edition has all the features of Enterprise Edition, but intended for development use. SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition (BIDS ONLY) The migration to SSRS 2008 R2 is just getting started, and in the meantime, maintenance work still has to be done on the reports on our SQL 2005 server.  For some reason, you can’t use BIDS from 2008 to write reports for a 2005 server.  There is some different format and when you open 2005 reports in 2008 BIDS, it forces you to upgrade, and they can no longer be uploaded to a 2005 server.  Hopefully Microsoft will fix this soon in some manner similar to Visual Studio now allows you to pick which version of the .NET Framework you are coding against. Visual Studio 2010 Premium All of our application development is in ASP.NET, and we might as well use the tool designed for it. I’ve used a version of Visual Studio going all the way back to VB 6.0 and Visual Interdev. Vault Professional Client Several years ago we replaced Visual Source Safe with SourceGear Vault (then Fortress, and now Vault Pro), and I love it.  It is very reliable with low overhead - perfect for a small to medium size development team.  And being a small ISV, their support is exceptional. Red-Gate Developer Bundle with the SQL Source Control update for Vault I first used, and fell in love with, SQL Prompt shortly before Red-Gate bought it, and then Red-Gate’s first release made me love it even more.  SQL Refactor (which has since been rolled into the latest version of SQL Prompt) has saved me many hours and migraine’s trying to understand somebody else’s code when their indenting was nonexistant, or worse, irrational.  SQL Compare has been awesome for troubleshooting potential schema issues between different instances of system databases.  SQL Data Compare helped us identify the cause behind a bug which appeared in PROD but could not be reproduced in a nearly (but not quite exactly) identical copy in UAT.  And the newest tool we are embracing: SQL Source Control.  I blogged about it here (and here, and here) last December.  This is really going to help us keep each developer’s copy of the database in sync with one another. Fiddler Helps you watch the whole traffic stream on web visits.  Haven’t used it a lot, but it did help me track down some odd 404 errors we were finding in our own application logs.  Has some other JavaScript troubleshooting capabilities, but some of its usefulness has been supplanted by the Developer Tools option in IE8. Funduc Search & Replace Find any string anywhere in a mound of source code really, really fast.  Does RegEx searches, if you understand that foreign language.  Has really helped with some refactoring work to pinpoint, for example, everywhere a particular stored procedure is referenced, whether in .NET code or other SQL procedures (which we have in script files).  Provides in-context preview of the search results.  Fantastic tool, and a bargain price. SciTE SciTE is a Scintilla based Text Editor and it is a fantastic, light-weight tool for quickly reviewing (or writing) program code, SQL scripts, and extract files.  It has language-specific syntax highlighting.  I used it to write several batch and CMD programs a year ago, and to examine data extract files for exchanging information with other systems.  Extremely handy are the options to View End of Line and View Whitespace.  Ever receive a file that is supposed to use CRLF as an end-of-line marker, but really only has CRs?  SciTE will quickly make that visible. Infragistics Controls We do a lot of ASP.NET development, and frequently use the WebGrid, WebTab, and date picker controls.  We will likely be implementing the Hierarchical Data Grid soon.  Infragistics has control suites for WebForms, WinForms, Silverlight, and coming soon MVC/JQuery. WinZip - WITH Command-Line add-in The classic compression program with a great command-line interface that allows me to build those CMD (and soon PowerShell) programs for automated compression jobs.  Our versioned Build packages are zip files. XML Notepad Haven’t used this a lot myself, but one of my team really likes it for examining large XML files. LINQPad Again, haven’t used this one a lot, but it was recommended to me for learning and practicing my LINQ skills which will come in handy as we implement Entity Framework. SQL Sentry Plan Explorer SQL Server Show Plan on steroids.  Great for helping you focus on the parts of a large query that are of most importance.  Also great for just compressing the graphical plan into more readable layout. Araxis Merge A great DIFF and Merge tool.  SourceGear provides a great tool called DiffMerge that we use all the time, but occasionally, I like the cross-edit capabilities of Araxis Merge.  For a while, we also produced DIFF reports in HTML that showed all the changes that occurred between two releases.  This was most important when we were putting out very small, but very important hot fixes on a very politically hot system.  The reports produced by Araxis Merge gave the Director of IS assurance that we were not accidentally introducing ripples throughout the system with our releases. Idera SQL Admin Toolset A great collection of tools including a password checker to help analyze your SQL Server for weak user passwords, a Backup Status tool to quickly scan a large list of servers and databases to identify any that are overdue for backups.  Particularly helpful for highlighting new databases that have been deployed without getting included in your backup processing.  I also like Space Analyzer to keep an eye on disk space consumed by database files. Idera SQL Job Manager This free tool provides a nice calendar view of SQL Server Job Schedules, but to a degree, you also get what you pay for.  We will be purchasing SQL Sentry Event Manager later this year as an even better job schedule reviewer/manager.  But in the meantime, this at least gives me a good view on potential resource conflicts across multiple instances of SQL Server. DBFViewer 2000 I inherited a couple of FoxPro databases that I have to keep an eye on occasionally and have not yet been able to migrate them to SQL Server. Balsamiq Mockups We are still in evaluation-mode on this tool, but I really like it as a quick UI mockup tool that does not require Visual Studio, so someone other than a programmer can do UI design.  The interface looks hand-drawn which definitely has some psychological benefits when communicating to users, too. FeedDemon I have to stay on top of my WAY TOO MANY blog subscriptions somehow.  I may read blogs on a couple of different computers, and FeedDemon’s integration with Google Reader allows me to keep them all in sync.  I don’t particularly like the Google Reader interface, or the fact that it always wanted to mark articles as read just because I scrolled past them.  FeedDemon solves this problem for me, and provides a multi-tabbed interface which is good because fairly frequently one blog will link to something else I want to read, and I can end up with a half-dozen open tabs all from one article. Synergy+ In my office, I run four monitors across two computers all with one mouse and keyboard.  Synergy is the magic software that makes this work. TweetDeck I’m not the most active Tweeter in the world, but when I want to check-in with the Twitterverse, this really helps.  I have found the #sqlhelp and #PoshHelp hash tags particularly useful, and I also have columns setup to make it easy to monitor #sqlpass, #PASSProfDev, and short term events like #sqlsat68.   Whew!  That’s a lot.  No wonder it took me a couple of days to get everything setup the way I wanted it.  Oh, that and actually getting some work accomplished at the same time.  Anyway, I know that is a huge dump of info, and most people never make it here to the end, so for those who did, let me say, CONGRATULATIONS, you made it! I hope you’ll find a new tool or two to make your work life a little easier.

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• Physical Directories vs. MVC View Paths

  - by Rick Strahl

  This post falls into the bucket of operator error on my part, but I want to share this anyway because it describes an issue that has bitten me a few times now and writing it down might keep it a little stronger in my mind. I've been working on an MVC project the last few days, and at the end of a long day I accidentally moved one of my View folders from the MVC Root Folder to the project root. It must have been at the very end of the day before shutting down because tests and manual site navigation worked fine just before I quit for the night. I checked in changes and called it a night. Next day I came back, started running the app and had a lot of breaks with certain views. Oddly custom routes to these controllers/views worked, but stock /{controller}/{action} routes would not. After a bit of spelunking I realized that "Hey one of my View Folders is missing", which made some sense given the error messages I got. I looked in the recycle bin - nothing there, so rather than try to figure out what the hell happened, just restored from my last SVN checkin. At this point the folders are back… but… view access  still ends up breaking for this set of views. Specifically I'm getting the Yellow Screen of Death with: CS0103: The name 'model' does not exist in the current context Here's the full error: Server Error in '/ClassifiedsWeb' Application. Compilation ErrorDescription: An error occurred during the compilation of a resource required to service this request. Please review the following specific error details and modify your source code appropriately.Compiler Error Message: CS0103: The name 'model' does not exist in the current contextSource Error: Line 1: @model ClassifiedsWeb.EntryViewModel Line 2: @{ Line 3: ViewBag.Title = Model.Entry.Title + " - " + ClassifiedsBusiness.App.Configuration.ApplicationName; Source File: c:\Projects2010\Clients\GorgeNet\Classifieds\ClassifiedsWeb\Classifieds\Show.cshtml    Line: 1 Compiler Warning Messages: Show Detailed Compiler Output: Show Complete Compilation Source: Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:4.0.30319; ASP.NET Version:4.0.30319.272 Here's what's really odd about this error: The views now do exist in the /Views/Classifieds folder of the project, but it appears like MVC is trying to execute the views directly. This is getting pretty weird, man! So I hook up some break points in my controllers to see if my controller actions are getting fired - and sure enough it turns out they are not - but only for those views that were previously 'lost' and then restored from SVN. WTF? At this point I'm thinking that I must have messed up one of the config files, but after some more spelunking and realizing that all the other Controller views work, I give up that idea. Config's gotta be OK if other controllers and views are working. Root Folders and MVC Views don't mix As I mentioned the problem was the fact that I inadvertantly managed to drag my View folder to the root folder of the project. Here's what this looks like in my FUBAR'd project structure after I copied back /Views/Classifieds folder from SVN: There's the actual root folder in the /Views folder and the accidental copy that sits of the root. I of course did not notice the /Classifieds folder at the root because it was excluded and didn't show up in the project. Now, before you call me a complete idiot remember that this happened by accident - an accidental drag probably just before shutting down for the night. :-) So why does this break? MVC should be happy with views in the /Views/Classifieds folder right? While MVC might be happy, IIS is not. The fact that there is a physical folder on disk takes precedence over MVC's routing. In other words if a URL exists that matches a route the pysical path is accessed first. What happens here is that essentially IIS is trying to execute the .cshtml pages directly without ever routing to the Controller methods. In the error page I showed above my clue should have been that the view was served as: c:\Projects2010\Clients\GorgeNet\Classifieds\ClassifiedsWeb\Classifieds\Show.cshtml rather than c:\Projects2010\Clients\GorgeNet\Classifieds\ClassifiedsWeb\Views\Classifieds\Show.cshtml But of course I didn't notice that right away, just skimming to the end and looking at the file name. The reason that /classifieds/list actually fires that file is that the ASP.NET Web Pages engine looks for physical files on disk that match a path. IOW, when calling Web Pages you drop the .cshtml off the Razor page and IIS will serve that just fine. So: /classifieds/list looks and tries to find /classifieds/list.cshtml and executes that script. And that is exactly what's happening. Web Pages is trying to execute the .cshtml file and it fails because Web Pages knows nothing about the @model tag which is an MVC specific template extension. This is why my breakpoints in the controller methods didn't fire and it also explains why the error mentions that the @model key word is invalid (@model is an MVC provided template enhancement to the Razor Engine). The solution of course is super simple: Delete the accidentally created root folder and the problem is solved. Routing and Physical Paths I've run into problems with this before actually. In the past I've had a number of applications that had a physical /Admin folder which also would conflict with an MVC Admin controller. More than once I ended up wondering why the index route (/Admin/) was not working properly. If a physical /Admin folder exists /Admin will not route to the Index action (or whatever default action you have set up, but instead try to list the directory or show the default document in the folder. The only way to force the index page through MVC is to explicitly use /Admin/Index. Makes perfect sense once you realize the physical folder is there, but that's easy to forget in an MVC application. As you might imagine after a few times of running into this I gave up on the Admin folder and moved everything into MVC views to handle those operations. Still it's one of those things that can easily bite you, because the behavior and error messages seem to point at completely different  problems. Moral of the story is: If you see routing problems where routes are not reaching obvious controller methods, always check to make sure there's isn't a physical path being mapped by IIS instead. That way you won't feel stupid like I did after trying a million things for about an hour before discovering my sloppy mousing behavior :-)© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in MVC   IIS7   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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• Windows Azure Mobile Services: New support for iOS apps, Facebook/Twitter/Google identity, Emails, SMS, Blobs, Service Bus and more

  - by ScottGu

  A few weeks ago I blogged about Windows Azure Mobile Services - a new capability in Windows Azure that makes it incredibly easy to connect your client and mobile applications to a scalable cloud backend. Earlier today we delivered a number of great improvements to Windows Azure Mobile Services.  New features include: iOS support – enabling you to connect iPhone and iPad apps to Mobile Services Facebook, Twitter, and Google authentication support with Mobile Services Blob, Table, Queue, and Service Bus support from within your Mobile Service Sending emails from your Mobile Service (in partnership with SendGrid) Sending SMS messages from your Mobile Service (in partnership with Twilio) Ability to deploy mobile services in the West US region All of these improvements are now live in production and available to start using immediately. Below are more details on them: iOS Support This week we delivered initial support for connecting iOS based devices (including iPhones and iPads) to Windows Azure Mobile Services.  Like the rest of our Windows Azure SDK, we are delivering the native iOS libraries to enable this under an open source (Apache 2.0) license on GitHub.  We’re excited to get your feedback on this new library through our forum and GitHub issues list, and we welcome contributions to the SDK. To create a new iOS app or connect an existing iOS app to your Mobile Service, simply select the “iOS” tab within the Quick Start view of a Mobile Service within the Windows Azure Portal – and then follow either the “Create a new iOS app” or “Connect to an existing iOS app” link below it: Clicking either of these links will expand and display step-by-step instructions for how to build an iOS application that connects with your Mobile Service: Read this getting started tutorial to walkthrough how you can build (in less than 5 minutes) a simple iOS “Todo List” app that stores data in Windows Azure.  Then follow the below tutorials to explore how to use the iOS client libraries to store data and authenticate users. Get Started with data in Mobile Services for iOS Get Started with authentication in Mobile Services for iOS Facebook, Twitter, and Google Authentication Support Our initial preview of Mobile Services supported the ability to authenticate users of mobile apps using Microsoft Accounts (formerly called Windows Live ID accounts).  This week we are adding the ability to also authenticate users using Facebook, Twitter, and Google credentials.  These are now supported with both Windows 8 apps as well as iOS apps (and a single app can support multiple forms of identity simultaneously – so you can offer your users a choice of how to login). The below tutorials walkthrough how to register your Mobile Service with an identity provider: How to register your app with Microsoft Account How to register your app with Facebook How to register your app with Twitter How to register your app with Google The tutorials above walkthrough how to obtain a client ID and a secret key from the identity provider. You can then click on the “Identity” tab of your Mobile Service (within the Windows Azure Portal) and save these values to enable server-side authentication with your Mobile Service: You can then write code within your client or mobile app to authenticate your users to the Mobile Service.  For example, below is the code you would write to have them login to the Mobile Service using their Facebook credentials: Windows Store App (using C#): var user = await App.MobileService                     .LoginAsync(MobileServiceAuthenticationProvider.Facebook); iOS app (using Objective C): UINavigationController *controller = [self.todoService.client     loginViewControllerWithProvider:@"facebook"     completion:^(MSUser *user, NSError *error) {        //... }]; Learn more about authenticating Mobile Services using Microsoft Account, Facebook, Twitter, and Google from these tutorials: Get started with authentication in Mobile Services for Windows Store (C#) Get started with authentication in Mobile Services for Windows Store (JavaScript) Get started with authentication in Mobile Services for iOS Using Windows Azure Blob, Tables and ServiceBus with your Mobile Services Mobile Services provide a simple but powerful way to add server logic using server scripts. These scripts are associated with the individual CRUD operations on your mobile service’s tables. Server scripts are great for data validation, custom authorization logic (e.g. does this user participate in this game session), augmenting CRUD operations, sending push notifications, and other similar scenarios.   Server scripts are written in JavaScript and are executed in a secure server-side scripting environment built using Node.js.  You can edit these scripts and save them on the server directly within the Windows Azure Portal: In this week’s release we have added the ability to work with other Windows Azure services from your Mobile Service server scripts.  This is supported using the existing “azure” module within the Windows Azure SDK for Node.js.  For example, the below code could be used in a Mobile Service script to obtain a reference to a Windows Azure Table (after which you could query it or insert data into it):     var azure = require('azure');     var tableService = azure.createTableService("<< account name >>",                                                 "<< access key >>"); Follow the tutorials on the Windows Azure Node.js dev center to learn more about working with Blob, Tables, Queues and Service Bus using the azure module. Sending emails from your Mobile Service In this week’s release we have also added the ability to easily send emails from your Mobile Service, building on our partnership with SendGrid. Whether you want to add a welcome email upon successful user registration, or make your app alert you of certain usage activities, you can do this now by sending email from Mobile Services server scripts. To get started, sign up for SendGrid account at http://sendgrid.com . Windows Azure customers receive a special offer of 25,000 free emails per month from SendGrid. To sign-up for this offer, or get more information, please visit http://www.sendgrid.com/azure.html . One you signed up, you can add the following script to your Mobile Service server scripts to send email via SendGrid service:     var sendgrid = new SendGrid('<< account name >>', '<< password >>');       sendgrid.send({         to: '<< enter email address here >>',         from: '<< enter from address here >>',         subject: 'New to-do item',         text: 'A new to-do was added: ' + item.text     }, function (success, message) {         if (!success) {             console.error(message);         }     }); Follow the Send email from Mobile Services with SendGrid tutorial to learn more. Sending SMS messages from your Mobile Service SMS is a key communication medium for mobile apps - it comes in handy if you want your app to send users a confirmation code during registration, allow your users to invite their friends to install your app or reach out to mobile users without a smartphone. Using Mobile Service server scripts and Twilio’s REST API, you can now easily send SMS messages to your app.  To get started, sign up for Twilio account. Windows Azure customers receive 1000 free text messages when using Twilio and Windows Azure together. Once signed up, you can add the following to your Mobile Service server scripts to send SMS messages:     var httpRequest = require('request');     var account_sid = "<< account SID >>";     var auth_token = "<< auth token >>";       // Create the request body     var body = "From=" + from + "&To=" + to + "&Body=" + message;       // Make the HTTP request to Twilio     httpRequest.post({         url: "https://" + account_sid + ":" + auth_token +              "@api.twilio.com/2010-04-01/Accounts/" + account_sid + "/SMS/Messages.json",         headers: { 'content-type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded' },         body: body     }, function (err, resp, body) {         console.log(body);     }); I’m excited to be speaking at the TwilioCon conference this week, and will be showcasing some of the cool scenarios you can now enable with Twilio and Windows Azure Mobile Services. Mobile Services availability in West US region Our initial preview of Windows Azure Mobile Services was only supported in the US East region of Windows Azure.  As with every Windows Azure service, overtime we will extend Mobile Services to all Windows Azure regions. With this week’s preview update we’ve added support so that you can now create your Mobile Service in the West US region as well: Summary The above features are all now live in production and are available to use immediately.  If you don’t already have a Windows Azure account, you can sign-up for a free trial and start using Mobile Services today. Visit the Windows Azure Mobile Developer Center to learn more about how to build apps with Mobile Services. We’ll have even more new features and enhancements coming later this week – including .NET 4.5 support for Windows Azure Web Sites.  Keep an eye out on my blog for details as new features become available. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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• Active Directory Password Policy Problem

  - by Will

  To Clarify: my question is why isn't my password policy applying to people in the domain. Hey guys, having trouble with our password policy in Active Directory. Sometimes it just helps me to type out what I’m seeing It appears to not be applying properly across the board. I am new to this environment and AD in general but I think I have a general grasp of what should be going on. It’s a pretty simple AD setup without too many Group Policies being applied. It looks something like this DOMAIN Default Domain Policy (link enabled) Password Policy (link enabled and enforce) Personal OU Force Password Change (completely empty nothing in this GPO) IT OU Lockout Policy (link enabled and enforced) CS OU Lockout Policy Accouting OU Lockout Policy The password policy and default domain policy both define the same things under Computer ConfigWindows seetings sec settings Account Policies / Password Policy Enforce password History : 24 passwords remembered Maximum Password age : 180 days Min password age: 14 days Minimum Password Length: 6 characters Password must meet complexity requirements: Enabled Store Passwords using reversible encryption: Disabled Account Policies / Account Lockout Policy Account Lockout Duration 10080 Minutes Account Lockout Threshold: 5 invalid login attempts Reset Account Lockout Counter after : 30 minutes IT lockout This just sets the screen saver settings to lock computers when the user is Idle. After running Group Policy modeling it seems like the password policy and default domain policy is getting applied to everyone. Here is the results of group policy modeling on MO-BLANCKM using the mblanck account, as you can see the policies are both being applied , with nothing important being denied Group Policy Results NCLGS\mblanck on NCLGS\MO-BLANCKM Data collected on: 12/29/2010 11:29:44 AM Summary Computer Configuration Summary General Computer name NCLGS\MO-BLANCKM Domain NCLGS.local Site Default-First-Site-Name Last time Group Policy was processed 12/29/2010 10:17:58 AM Group Policy Objects Applied GPOs Name Link Location Revision Default Domain Policy NCLGS.local AD (15), Sysvol (15) WSUS-52010 NCLGS.local/WSUS/Clients AD (54), Sysvol (54) Password Policy NCLGS.local AD (58), Sysvol (58) Denied GPOs Name Link Location Reason Denied Local Group Policy Local Empty Security Group Membership when Group Policy was applied BUILTIN\Administrators Everyone S-1-5-21-507921405-1326574676-682003330-1003 BUILTIN\Users NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK NT AUTHORITY\Authenticated Users NCLGS\MO-BLANCKM$ NCLGS\Admin-ComputerAccounts-GP NCLGS\Domain Computers WMI Filters Name Value Reference GPO(s) None Component Status Component Name Status Last Process Time Group Policy Infrastructure Success 12/29/2010 10:17:59 AM EFS recovery Success (no data) 10/28/2010 9:10:34 AM Registry Success 10/28/2010 9:10:32 AM Security Success 10/28/2010 9:10:34 AM User Configuration Summary General User name NCLGS\mblanck Domain NCLGS.local Last time Group Policy was processed 12/29/2010 11:28:56 AM Group Policy Objects Applied GPOs Name Link Location Revision Default Domain Policy NCLGS.local AD (7), Sysvol (7) IT-Lockout NCLGS.local/Personal/CS AD (11), Sysvol (11) Password Policy NCLGS.local AD (5), Sysvol (5) Denied GPOs Name Link Location Reason Denied Local Group Policy Local Empty Force Password Change NCLGS.local/Personal Empty Security Group Membership when Group Policy was applied NCLGS\Domain Users Everyone BUILTIN\Administrators BUILTIN\Users NT AUTHORITY\INTERACTIVE NT AUTHORITY\Authenticated Users LOCAL NCLGS\MissingSkidEmail NCLGS\Customer_Service NCLGS\Email_Archive NCLGS\Job Ticket Users NCLGS\Office Staff NCLGS\CUSTOMER SERVI-1 NCLGS\Prestige_Jobs_Email NCLGS\Telecommuters NCLGS\Everyone - NCL WMI Filters Name Value Reference GPO(s) None Component Status Component Name Status Last Process Time Group Policy Infrastructure Success 12/29/2010 11:28:56 AM Registry Success 12/20/2010 12:05:51 PM Scripts Success 10/13/2010 10:38:40 AM Computer Configuration Windows Settings Security Settings Account Policies/Password Policy Policy Setting Winning GPO Enforce password history 24 passwords remembered Password Policy Maximum password age 180 days Password Policy Minimum password age 14 days Password Policy Minimum password length 6 characters Password Policy Password must meet complexity requirements Enabled Password Policy Store passwords using reversible encryption Disabled Password Policy Account Policies/Account Lockout Policy Policy Setting Winning GPO Account lockout duration 10080 minutes Password Policy Account lockout threshold 5 invalid logon attempts Password Policy Reset account lockout counter after 30 minutes Password Policy Local Policies/Security Options Network Security Policy Setting Winning GPO Network security: Force logoff when logon hours expire Enabled Default Domain Policy Public Key Policies/Autoenrollment Settings Policy Setting Winning GPO Enroll certificates automatically Enabled [Default setting] Renew expired certificates, update pending certificates, and remove revoked certificates Disabled Update certificates that use certificate templates Disabled Public Key Policies/Encrypting File System Properties Winning GPO [Default setting] Policy Setting Allow users to encrypt files using Encrypting File System (EFS) Enabled Certificates Issued To Issued By Expiration Date Intended Purposes Winning GPO SBurns SBurns 12/13/2007 5:24:30 PM File Recovery Default Domain Policy For additional information about individual settings, launch Group Policy Object Editor. Public Key Policies/Trusted Root Certification Authorities Properties Winning GPO [Default setting] Policy Setting Allow users to select new root certification authorities (CAs) to trust Enabled Client computers can trust the following certificate stores Third-Party Root Certification Authorities and Enterprise Root Certification Authorities To perform certificate-based authentication of users and computers, CAs must meet the following criteria Registered in Active Directory only Administrative Templates Windows Components/Windows Update Policy Setting Winning GPO Allow Automatic Updates immediate installation Enabled WSUS-52010 Allow non-administrators to receive update notifications Enabled WSUS-52010 Automatic Updates detection frequency Enabled WSUS-52010 Check for updates at the following interval (hours): 1 Policy Setting Winning GPO Configure Automatic Updates Enabled WSUS-52010 Configure automatic updating: 4 - Auto download and schedule the install The following settings are only required and applicable if 4 is selected. Scheduled install day: 0 - Every day Scheduled install time: 03:00 Policy Setting Winning GPO No auto-restart with logged on users for scheduled automatic updates installations Disabled WSUS-52010 Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations Enabled WSUS-52010 Wait the following period before prompting again with a scheduled restart (minutes): 30 Policy Setting Winning GPO Reschedule Automatic Updates scheduled installations Enabled WSUS-52010 Wait after system startup (minutes): 1 Policy Setting Winning GPO Specify intranet Microsoft update service location Enabled WSUS-52010 Set the intranet update service for detecting updates: http://lavender Set the intranet statistics server: http://lavender (example: http://IntranetUpd01) User Configuration Administrative Templates Control Panel/Display Policy Setting Winning GPO Hide Screen Saver tab Enabled IT-Lockout Password protect the screen saver Enabled IT-Lockout Screen Saver Enabled IT-Lockout Screen Saver executable name Enabled IT-Lockout Screen Saver executable name sstext3d.scr Policy Setting Winning GPO Screen Saver timeout Enabled IT-Lockout Number of seconds to wait to enable the Screen Saver Seconds: 1800 System/Power Management Policy Setting Winning GPO Prompt for password on resume from hibernate / suspend Enabled IT-Lockout

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