geeks with blogs - Page 100

Multithreading in Windows Phone 7 emulator: A bug

Multithreading is supported in Windows Phone 7 Silverlight applications, however the emulator has a bug (which I discovered and was confirmed to me by the dev lead of the emulator team): If you attempt to start a background thread in the MainPage constructor, the thread never starts. The reason is a problem with the emulator UI thread which doesn’t leave any time to the background thread to start. Thankfully there is a workaround (see code below). Also, the bug should be corrected in a future release, so it’s not a big deal, even though it is really confusing when you try to understand why the *%&^$£% thread is not &$%&%$£ starting (that was me in the plane the other day ;) This code does not work: public partial class MainPage : PhoneApplicationPage { public MainPage() { InitializeComponent(); SupportedOrientations = SupportedPageOrientation.Portrait | SupportedPageOrientation.Landscape; var counter = 0; ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(o => { while (true) { Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(() => { textBlockListTitle.Text = (counter++).ToString(); }); } }); } } This code does work: public MainPage() { InitializeComponent(); SupportedOrientations = SupportedPageOrientation.Portrait | SupportedPageOrientation.Landscape; var counter = 0; ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(o => { while (true) { Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(() => { textBlockListTitle.Text = (counter++).ToString(); }); // NOTICE THIS LINE!!! Thread.Sleep(0); } }); } Note that even if the thread is started in a later event (for example Click of a Button), the behavior without the Thread.Sleep(0) is not good in the emulator. As of now, i would recommend always sleeping when starting a new thread. Happy coding: Laurent Laurent Bugnion (GalaSoft) Subscribe | Twitter | Facebook | Flickr | LinkedIn

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Visual Studio Load Testing using Windows Azure

- by Tarun Arora

In my opinion the biggest adoption barrier in performance testing on smaller projects is not the tooling but the high infrastructure and administration cost that comes with this phase of testing. Only if a reusable solution was possible and infrastructure management wasn’t as expensive, adoption would certainly spike. It certainly is possible if you bring Visual Studio and Windows Azure into the equation. It is possible to run your test rig in the cloud without getting tangled in SCVMM or Lab Management. All you need is an active Azure subscription, Windows Azure endpoint enabled developer workstation running visual studio ultimate on premise, windows azure endpoint enabled worker roles on azure compute instances set up to run as test controllers and test agents. My test rig is running SQL server 2012 and Visual Studio 2012 RC agents. The beauty is that the solution is reusable, you can open the azure project, change the subscription and certificate, click publish and *BOOM* in less than 15 minutes you could have your own test rig running in the cloud. In this blog post I intend to show you how you can use the power of Windows Azure to effectively abstract the administration cost of infrastructure management and lower the total cost of Load & Performance Testing. As a bonus, I will share a reusable solution that you can use to automate test rig creation for both VS 2010 agents as well as VS 2012 agents. Introduction The slide show below should help you under the high level details of what we are trying to achive... Leveraging Azure for Performance Testing View more PowerPoint from Avanade Scenario 1 – Running a Test Rig in Windows Azure To start off with the basics, in the first scenario I plan to discuss how to, - Automate deployment & configuration of Windows Azure Worker Roles for Test Controller and Test Agent - Automate deployment & configuration of SQL database on Test Controller on the Test Controller Worker Role - Scaling Test Agents on demand - Creating a Web Performance Test and a simple Load Test - Managing Test Controllers right from Visual Studio on Premise Developer Workstation - Viewing results of the Load Test - Cleaning up - Have the above work in the shape of a reusable solution for both VS2010 and VS2012 Test Rig Scenario 2 – The scaled out Test Rig and sharing data using SQL Azure A scaled out version of this implementation would involve running multiple test rigs running in the cloud, in this scenario I will show you how to sync the load test database from these distributed test rigs into one SQL Azure database using Azure sync. The selling point for this scenario is being able to collate the load test efforts from across the organization into one data store. - Deploy multiple test rigs using the reusable solution from scenario 1 - Set up and configure Windows Azure Sync - Test SQL Azure Load Test result database created as a result of Windows Azure Sync - Cleaning up - Have the above work in the shape of a reusable solution for both VS2010 and VS2012 Test Rig The Ingredients Though with an active MSDN ultimate subscription you would already have access to everything and more, you will essentially need the below to try out the scenarios, 1. Windows Azure Subscription 2. Windows Azure Storage – Blob Storage 3. Windows Azure Compute – Worker Role 4. SQL Azure Database 5. SQL Data Sync 6. Windows Azure Connect – End points 7. SQL 2012 Express or SQL 2008 R2 Express 8. Visual Studio All Agents 2012 or Visual Studio All Agents 2010 9. A developer workstation set up with Visual Studio 2012 – Ultimate or Visual Studio 2010 – Ultimate 10. Visual Studio Load Test Unlimited Virtual User Pack. Walkthrough To set up the test rig in the cloud, the test controller, test agent and SQL express installers need to be available when the worker role set up starts, the easiest and most efficient way is to pre upload the required software into Windows Azure Blob storage. SQL express, test controller and test agent expose various switches which we can take advantage of including the quiet install switch. Once all the 3 have been installed the test controller needs to be registered with the test agents and the SQL database needs to be associated to the test controller. By enabling Windows Azure connect on the machines in the cloud and the developer workstation on premise we successfully create a virtual network amongst the machines enabling 2 way communication. All of the above can be done programmatically, let’s see step by step how… Scenario 1 Video Walkthrough–Leveraging Windows Azure for performance Testing Scenario 2 Work in progress, watch this space for more… Solution If you are still reading and are interested in the solution, drop me an email with your windows live id. I’ll add you to my TFS preview project which has a re-usable solution for both VS 2010 and VS 2012 test rigs as well as guidance and demo performance tests. Conclusion Other posts and resources available here. Possibilities…. Endless!

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Cloud Computing = Elasticity * Availability

- by Herve Roggero

What is cloud computing? Is hosting the same thing as cloud computing? Are you running a cloud if you already use virtual machines? What is the difference between Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and a cloud provider? And the list goes on… these questions keep coming up and all try to fundamentally explain what “cloud” means relative to other concepts. At the risk of over simplification, answering these questions becomes simpler once you understand the primary foundations of cloud computing: Elasticity and Availability. Elasticity The basic value proposition of cloud computing is to pay as you go, and to pay for what you use. This implies that an application can expand and contract on demand, across all its tiers (presentation layer, services, database, security…). This also implies that application components can grow independently from each other. So if you need more storage for your database, you should be able to grow that tier without affecting, reconfiguring or changing the other tiers. Basically, cloud applications behave like a sponge; when you add water to a sponge, it grows in size; in the application world, the more customers you add, the more it grows. Pure IaaS providers will provide certain benefits, specifically in terms of operating costs, but an IaaS provider will not help you in making your applications elastic; neither will Virtual Machines. The smallest elasticity unit of an IaaS provider and a Virtual Machine environment is a server (physical or virtual). While adding servers in a datacenter helps in achieving scale, it is hardly enough. The application has yet to use this hardware. If the process of adding computing resources is not transparent to the application, the application is not elastic. As you can see from the above description, designing for the cloud is not about more servers; it is about designing an application for elasticity regardless of the underlying server farm. Availability The fact of the matter is that making applications highly available is hard. It requires highly specialized tools and trained staff. On top of it, it's expensive. Many companies are required to run multiple data centers due to high availability requirements. In some organizations, some data centers are simply on standby, waiting to be used in a case of a failover. Other organizations are able to achieve a certain level of success with active/active data centers, in which all available data centers serve incoming user requests. While achieving high availability for services is relatively simple, establishing a highly available database farm is far more complex. In fact it is so complex that many companies establish yearly tests to validate failover procedures. To a certain degree certain IaaS provides can assist with complex disaster recovery planning and setting up data centers that can achieve successful failover. However the burden is still on the corporation to manage and maintain such an environment, including regular hardware and software upgrades. Cloud computing on the other hand removes most of the disaster recovery requirements by hiding many of the underlying complexities. Cloud Providers A cloud provider is an infrastructure provider offering additional tools to achieve application elasticity and availability that are not usually available on-premise. For example Microsoft Azure provides a simple configuration screen that makes it possible to run 1 or 100 web sites by clicking a button or two on a screen (simplifying provisioning), and soon SQL Azure will offer Data Federation to allow database sharding (which allows you to scale the database tier seamlessly and automatically). Other cloud providers offer certain features that are not available on-premise as well, such as the Amazon SC3 (Simple Storage Service) which gives you virtually unlimited storage capabilities for simple data stores, which is somewhat equivalent to the Microsoft Azure Table offering (offering a server-independent data storage model). Unlike IaaS providers, cloud providers give you the necessary tools to adopt elasticity as part of your application architecture. Some cloud providers offer built-in high availability that get you out of the business of configuring clustered solutions, or running multiple data centers. Some cloud providers will give you more control (which puts some of that burden back on the customers' shoulder) and others will tend to make high availability totally transparent. For example, SQL Azure provides high availability automatically which would be very difficult to achieve (and very costly) on premise. Keep in mind that each cloud provider has its strengths and weaknesses; some are better at achieving transparent scalability and server independence than others. Not for Everyone Note however that it is up to you to leverage the elasticity capabilities of a cloud provider, as discussed previously; if you build a website that does not need to scale, for which elasticity is not important, then you can use a traditional host provider unless you also need high availability. Leveraging the technologies of cloud providers can be difficult and can become a journey for companies that build their solutions in a scale up fashion. Cloud computing promises to address cost containment and scalability of applications with built-in high availability. If your application does not need to scale or you do not need high availability, then cloud computing may not be for you. In fact, you may pay a premium to run your applications with cloud providers due to the underlying technologies built specifically for scalability and availability requirements. And as such, the cloud is not for everyone. Consistent Customer Experience, Predictable Cost With all its complexities, buzz and foggy definition, cloud computing boils down to a simple objective: consistent customer experience at a predictable cost. The objective of a cloud solution is to provide the same user experience to your last customer than the first, while keeping your operating costs directly proportional to the number of customers you have. Making your applications elastic and highly available across all its tiers, with as much automation as possible, achieves the first objective of a consistent customer experience. And the ability to expand and contract the infrastructure footprint of your application dynamically achieves the cost containment objectives. Herve Roggero is a SQL Azure MVP and co-author of Pro SQL Azure (APress). He is the co-founder of Blue Syntax Consulting (www.bluesyntax.net), a company focusing on cloud computing technologies helping customers understand and adopt cloud computing technologies. For more information contact herve at hroggero @ bluesyntax.net .

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FIX: Visual Studio Post Build Event Returns –1 when it should not.

- by ChrisD

I had written a Console Application that I run as part of my post build for other projects.. The Console application logs a series of messages to the console as it executes. I use the Environment.ExitCode value to specify an error or success condition. When the application executes without issue, the ExitCode is 0, when there is a problem its –1. As part of my logging, I log the value of the exit code right before the application terminates. When I run this executable from the command line, it behaves as it should; error scenarios return –1 and success scenarios return 0. When I run the same command line as part of the post-build event, Visual Studio reports the exit code as –1, even when the application reports the exit code as 0. A snippet of the build output follows: Verbose: Exiting with ExitCode=0 C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Microsoft.Common.targets(3397,13): error MSB3073: The command ""MGC.exe" "-TargetPath=C:\TFS\Solutions\Research\Source\Framework\Services\Identity\STS\_STSBuilder\bin\Debug\_STSBuilder.dll" C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Microsoft.Common.targets(3397,13): error MSB3073: C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Microsoft.Common.targets(3397,13): error MSB3073: " exited with code -1. The Application returns a 0 exit code. But visual studio is reporting an error. Why? The answer is in the way I format my log messages. Apparently Visual Studio watches the messages that get streamed to the the output console. If those messages match a pattern used by visual studio to communicate errors, Visual Studio assumes an error has occurred in the executable and returns a –1. This post details the formats used by Visual Studio to determine error conditions. In my case, the presence of the colon was tripping up Visual studio. I Replaced all occurrences of colon with an equal sign and Visual Studio once again respected the exit code of the application. Verbose= Exiting with ExitCode=0 ========== Build: 3 succeeded or up-to-date, 0 failed, 0 skipped ==========

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Extreme Optimization Numerical Libraries for .NET – Part 1 of n

- by JoshReuben

While many of my colleagues are fascinated in constructing the ultimate ViewModel or ServiceBus, I feel that this kind of plumbing code is re-invented far too many times – at some point in the near future, it will be out of the box standard infra. How many times have you been to a customer site and built a different variation of the same kind of code frameworks? How many times can you abstract Prism or reliable and discoverable WCF communication? As the bar is raised for whats bundled with the framework and more tasks become declarative, automated and configurable, Information Systems will expose a higher level of abstraction, forcing software engineers to focus on more advanced computer science and algorithmic tasks. I've spent the better half of the past decade building skills in .NET and expanding my mathematical horizons by working through the Schaums guides. In this series I am going to examine how these skillsets come together in the implementation provided by ExtremeOptimization. Download the trial version here: http://www.extremeoptimization.com/downloads.aspx Overview The library implements a set of algorithms for: linear algebra, complex numbers, numerical integration and differentiation, solving equations, optimization, random numbers, regression, ANOVA, statistical distributions, hypothesis tests. EONumLib combines three libraries in one - organized in a consistent namespace hierarchy. Mathematics Library - Extreme.Mathematics namespace Vector and Matrix Library - Extreme.Mathematics.LinearAlgebra namespace Statistics Library - Extreme.Statistics namespace System Requirements -.NET framework 4.0 Mathematics Library The classes are organized into the following namespace hierarchy: Extreme.Mathematics – common data types, exception types, and delegates. Extreme.Mathematics.Calculus - numerical integration and differentiation of functions. Extreme.Mathematics.Curves - points, lines and curves, including polynomials and Chebyshev approximations. curve fitting and interpolation. Extreme.Mathematics.Generic - generic arithmetic & linear algebra. Extreme.Mathematics.EquationSolvers - root finding algorithms. Extreme.Mathematics.LinearAlgebra - vectors , matrices , matrix decompositions, solvers for simultaneous linear equations and least squares. Extreme.Mathematics.Optimization – multi-d function optimization + linear programming. Extreme.Mathematics.SignalProcessing - one and two-dimensional discrete Fourier transforms. Extreme.Mathematics.SpecialFunctions

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Assign multiple test categories using TestCategoryAttribute

- by Michael Freidgeim

I am using TestCategoryAttribute to filter which tests to run during builds and wandered, how to -how to assign multiple test categories.According to constructor documentation only single category can be specified. However TestCategories Property (plural!)can return multiple categories.Grouping Tests into Test Categories: You can add an automated test to one or multiple test categories using a test attribute. Each test can belong to multiple test categories.The recommended approach from MSDN How to: Group and Run Automated Tests Using Test Categories is to specify multiple TestCategory attributes like the following[TestCategory("Nightly"), TestCategory("Weekly"), TestCategory("ShoppingCart"), TestMethod()]public Void DebitTest() { }Article http://toddmeinershagen.blogspot.com.au/2010/09/create-custom-test-category-attributes.htmlshows how enums can be used instead of strings.It also explains, that TestCategories Property can be used in derived custom attributes.v

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NHibernate Error - Expression argument must be of type ICollection

- by Liam McLennan

The above error occurred when I executed a linq query using the following expression: (s) => s.Book.Slug.Equals(bookslug) && ids.Contains(s.Id); ids in this case is of type IEnumerable<Guid>. As indicated by the error message the fix is to change ids to ICollection<Guid>, then the query executes successfully.

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Android - Switching Activities with a Tab Layout

- by Bill Osuch

This post is based on the Tab Layout tutorial on the Android developers site, with some modifications. I wanted to get rid of the icons (they take up too much screen real estate), and modify the fonts on the tabs. First, create a new Android project, with an Activity called TabWidget. Then, create two additional Activities called TabOne and TabTwo. Throw a simple TextView on each one with a message identifying the tab, like this: public class TabTwo extends Activity { @Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); TextView tv = new TextView(this); tv.setText("This is tab 2"); setContentView(tv); } } And don't forget to add them to your AndroidManifest.xml file: <activity android:name=".TabOne"></activity> <activity android:name=".TabTwo"></activity> Now we'll create the tab layout - open the res/layout/main.xml file and insert the following: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <TabHost xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:id="@android:id/tabhost" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent"> <LinearLayout android:orientation="vertical" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent"> <TabWidget android:id="@android:id/tabs" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="wrap_content" /> <FrameLayout android:id="@android:id/tabcontent" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent" /> </LinearLayout> </TabHost> Finally, we'll create the code needed to populate the TabHost. Make sure your TabWidget class extends TabActivity rather than Activity, and add code to grab the TabHost and create an Intent to launch a new Activity: TabHost tabHost = getTabHost(); // The activity TabHost TabHost.TabSpec spec; // Reusable TabSpec for each tab Intent intent; // Reusable Intent for each tab // Create an Intent to launch an Activity for the tab (to be reused) intent = new Intent().setClass(this, TabOne.class); Add the first tab to the layout: // Initialize a TabSpec for each tab and add it to the TabHost spec = tabHost.newTabSpec("tabOne"); spec.setContent(intent); spec.setIndicator("Tab One"); tabHost.addTab(spec); It's pretty tall as-is, so we'll shorten it: // Squish the tab a little bit horizontally tabHost.getTabWidget().getChildAt(0).getLayoutParams().height = 40; But the text is a little small, so let's increase the font size: // Bump the text size up LinearLayout ll = (LinearLayout) tabHost.getChildAt(0); android.widget.TabWidget tw = (android.widget.TabWidget) ll.getChildAt(0); RelativeLayout rllf = (RelativeLayout) tw.getChildAt(0); TextView lf = (TextView) rllf.getChildAt(1); lf.setTextSize(20); Do the same for the second tab, and you wind up with this: @Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.main); TabHost tabHost = getTabHost(); // The activity TabHost TabHost.TabSpec spec; // Reusable TabSpec for each tab Intent intent; // Reusable Intent for each tab // Create an Intent to launch an Activity for the tab (to be reused) intent = new Intent().setClass(this, TabOne.class); // Initialize a TabSpec for each tab and add it to the TabHost spec = tabHost.newTabSpec("tabOne"); spec.setContent(intent); spec.setIndicator("Tab One"); tabHost.addTab(spec); // Squish the tab a little bit horizontally tabHost.getTabWidget().getChildAt(0).getLayoutParams().height = 40; // Bump the text size up LinearLayout ll = (LinearLayout) tabHost.getChildAt(0); android.widget.TabWidget tw = (android.widget.TabWidget) ll.getChildAt(0); RelativeLayout rllf = (RelativeLayout) tw.getChildAt(0); TextView lf = (TextView) rllf.getChildAt(1); lf.setTextSize(20); // Do the same for the other tabs intent = new Intent().setClass(this, TabTwo.class); spec = tabHost.newTabSpec("tabTwo"); spec.setContent(intent); spec.setIndicator("Tab Two"); tabHost.addTab(spec); tabHost.getTabWidget().getChildAt(1).getLayoutParams().height = 40; RelativeLayout rlrf = (RelativeLayout) tw.getChildAt(1); TextView rf = (TextView) rlrf.getChildAt(1); rf.setTextSize(20); tabHost.setCurrentTab(0); } Save and fire up the emulator, and you should be able to switch back and forth between your tabs!

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Interop effects by resolving and instantiating types with ArcObjects

- by Marko Apfel

Problem this code does not work Type t = typeof(ESRI.ArcGIS.Framework.AppRefClass); System.Object obj = Activator.CreateInstance(t); but yet this code Type t = Type.GetTypeFromCLSID(typeof(ESRI.ArcGIS.Framework.AppRefClass).GUID); System.Object obj = Activator.CreateInstance(t); Reason In the first variant the runtime tries to cast to AppRefClass . This is not possible. And in the second one, the runtime does not knows anything about AppRefClass. So it leave it as IUnknown. (originally communicated by my co-worker Ralf)

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APress Deal of the Day 23/May/2014 - Pro WPF 4.5 in C#

- by TATWORTH

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TATWORTH/archive/2014/05/23/apress-deal-of-the-day-23may2014---pro-wpf-4.5.aspxToday’s $10 Deal of the Day from APress at http://www.apress.com/9781430243656 is Pro WPF 4.5 in C#. “This book shows you how Windows Presentation Foundation really works. It provides you with the no-nonsense, practical advice that you need in order to build high-quality WPF applications quickly and easily. Pro WPF 4.5 in C# provides a thorough, authoritative guide to how WPF really works. Packed with no-nonsense examples and practical advice you'll learn everything you need to know in order to use WPF in a professional setting. The book begins by building a firm foundation of elementary concepts, using your existing C# skills as a frame of reference, before moving on to discuss advanced concepts and demonstrate them in a hands-on way that emphasizes the time and effort savings that can be gained.”

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13 Mobile Development Questions to Think About

- by Eric Johnson

Why is this important to our business? How is this different than how we develop today? Why now? What new skills and technologies are required? What devices and standards should we target? Is context-awareness important? Where will applications be deployed? What enterprise capabilities are required to support mobile? What is the roadmap? How is this related or not related to the portal? Are we targeting internal apps, external apps, or both? Who will consume the apps and with what? How does this change IT service offerings?

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Get to Know a Candidate (15 of 25): Jerry White–Socialist Equality Party

- by Brian Lanham

DISCLAIMER: This is not a post about “Romney” or “Obama”. This is not a post for whom I am voting. Information sourced for Wikipedia. White (born Jerome White) is an American politician and journalist, reporting for the World Socialist Web Site. White's Presidential campaign keeps four core components: * International unity in the working class * Social equality * Opposition to imperialist militarism and assault on democratic rights * Opposition to the political subordination of the working class to the Democrats and Republicans The White-Scherrer ticket is currently undergoing a review by the Wisconsin election committee concerning the ballot listing of the party for the 2012 Presidential elections. White has visited Canada, Germany, and Sri Lanka to campaign for socialism and an international working class movement. The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) is a Trotskyist political party in the United States, one of several Socialist Equality Parties around the world affiliated to the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). The ICFI publishes daily news articles, perspectives and commentaries on the World Socialist Web Site. The party held public conferences in 2009 and 2010. It led an inquiry into utility shutoffs in Detroit, Michigan earlier in 2010, after which it launched a Committee Against Utility Shutoffs. Recently it sent reporters to West Virginia to report on the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster and the way that Massey Energy has treated its workers. It also sent reporters to the Gulf Coast to report on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. In addition, it has participated in elections with the aim of opposing the American occupation of Iraq and building a mass socialist party with an international perspective. Despite having been active for over a decade, the Socialist Equality Party held its founding congress in 2008, where it adopted a statement of principles and a historical document. White has Ballot Access in: CO, LA, WI Learn more about Jerry White and Socialist Equality Party on Wikipedia

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Error MSB4019: The imported project "C:\Program Files\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" was not found. Confirm that the path in the <Import> declaration is correct, and that the file exists on disk

- by Tim Huffam

This error occurred on our TFS2008 build server which we had upgraded to cater for VS2010 projects (by installing VS2010 on the build server - see this article). Error MSB4019: The imported project "C:\Program Files\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" was not found. Confirm that the path in the <Import> declaration is correct, and that the file exists on disk. However - although we had installed VS2010 on the build server - we had not installed the web development components (Visual Web Developer) - this is what caused the error. To fix - simply add the web development components: Go into Control Panel - Add or Remove Programs Select Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, and click on Change/Remove In the VS Maintenance Mode screens, select Add or Remove Features In the Setup - Options page make sure 'Visual Web Developer' is checked. Click on Update. You shouldn't need to restart your build service. HTH Tim

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Visual Studio 11 Release Candidate now available

- by TATWORTH

Microsoft have released Visual Studio 11 RC at http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/11/en-us/downloads#vsThis is a free download!"The available Visual Studio 2012 RC products and localizations are pre-release versions of the next release of Visual Studio. As such, they are not final and are subject to change prior to release. Before installing this pre-release software, you should review the associated readme files for system requirements and a list of known issues: "You should read the read me for VS11 RC

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Mathemagics - 3 consecutive number

- by PointsToShare

© 2011 By: Dov Trietsch. All rights reserved Three Consecutive numbers When I was young and handsome (OK, OK, just young), my father used to challenge us with riddles and tricks involving Logic, Math and general knowledge. Most of the time, at least after reaching the ripe age of 10, I would see thru his tricks in no time. This one is a bit more subtle. I had to think about it for close to an hour and then when I had the ‘AHA!’ effect, I could not understand why it had taken me so long. So here it is. You select a volunteer from the audience (or a shill, but that would be cheating!) and ask him to select three consecutive numbers, all of them 1 or 2 digits. So {1, 2, 3} would be good, albeit trivial set, as would {8, 9, 10} or {97, 98, 99} but not {99, 99, 100} (why?!). Now, using a calculator – and these days almost every phone has a built in calculator – he is to perform these steps: 1. Select a single digit 2. Multiply it by 3 and write it down 3. Add the 3 consecutive numbers 4. Add the number from step 2 5. Multiply the sum by 67 6. Now tell me the last 2 digits of the result and also the number you wrote down in step 2 I will tell you which numbers you selected. How do I do this? I’ll give you the mechanical answer, but because I like you to have the pleasure of an ‘AHA!’ effect, I will not really explain the ‘why’. So let’s you selected 30, 31, and 32 and also that your 3 multiple was 24, so here is what you get 30 + 31 + 32 = 93 93 + 24 = 117 117 x 67 = 7839, last 2 digits are 39, so you say “the last 2 digits are 39, and the other number is 24.” Now, I divide 24 by 3 getting 8. I subtract 8 from 39 and get 31. I then subtract 1 from this getting 30, and say: “You selected 30, 31, and 32.” This is the ‘how’. I leave the ‘why’ to you! That’s all folks! PS do you really want to know why? Post a feedback below. When 11 people or more will have asked for it, I’ll add a link to the full explanation.

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Microsoft Sync Framework

- by kaleidoscope

Introduction It is a platform that enables collaboration and offline access for applications, services and devices. Sync framework features technologies and tools that enable roaming, data sharing and taking data offline. Moreover, developers can build synchronization ecosystems that integrate any application with data from any store, by using any protocol over any network. Highlights * Add sync support to new and existing applications, services and devices * Enable collaboration and offline capabilities for any application * Roam and share information form any data store, over any protocol and over any network configuration * Leverage sync capabilities exposed in Microsoft technologies to create sync ecosystems * Extend the architecture to support custom data types including files Benefits of using Sync Framework * An extensible model that lets you integrate multiple data sources into a synchronization ecosystems. * A managed API for all components and a native API for select components. * Conflict handling for automatic and custom resolution schemes. * Filters that let you synchronize a subset of data, such as only those files that contain images. * A compact and efficient metadata model that enables synchronization for virtually any participant, without significant changes to the data store: - Any data store Add synchronization to a wide range of applications, services and devices. - Any data type Introduce new data types to synchronize. - Any protocol Use existing architectures and protocols to synchronize data. The transport – agnostic architecture allows integration of synchronization into a variety of protocols, including over-the-air and embedded devices. - Any network configuration Enable synchronization for your applications, devices and services in true peer-to-peer or hub-and-spoke configurations. Easily recover from network interruptions. Reduce network traffic by efficiently selecting changes to synchronize. Technorati Tags: Anish Sharma,Microsoft Sync Framework

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Best Easiest Fastest No Install USB Boot Disk in 4 Simple Steps :)

- by PearlFactory

USB Boot Disk When you look how to create USB Boot Disk on the web it is a nightmare Here is the easiest I use that works for all MS prods At a computer running Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows Server 2008, run a command prompt as administrator and execute the following: Make Sure you have all explorer windows closed and nothing referencing the USB i.e a doc open in Word 1. C:\> diskpart DISKPART> list disk [Identify disk # of the USB key] DISKPART> sel disk 1 [assuming 1 was the # from above] DISKPART> clean [CAUTION—will wipe whichever disk is selected] DISKPART> cre part pri DISKPART> active DISKPART> assign DISKPART> format fs=ntfs quick DISKPART> exit C:\> exit 2. Copy the contents of the Windows Server 2008 R2 or any other MS OS DVD/ISO to the USB key. 3. From the system tray, use the “Safely remove hardware” icon to safely remove the USB key from the computer. This helps ensure that all files have been fully written to the USB key. (Especially after the large file copy) 4. Restart,,,put usb in and Find reference from HP h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA3-1317ENW.pdf

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So you want a French Site?

- by juanlarios

I thought I would write a quick write up of how to create a french site in SharePoint 2007. I'm not talking about a Variation but just a plain French Site from the ground up. There were some gotchas that I felt were worth blogging about. First: go to Microsoft Telnet Article and follow the install instructions. Make sure that when you get to the download page that you select "French" as part of the drop down and you download and install the right language pack. I noticed that if you did not click the "change" button enven though I selected the 'french' language pack, it reverted back to the english language pack. Second: You will notice a couple of things. When you go to central admin you will see the following: Now you can pick between french site or english. You will get this if you install other language packs and they will be listed in the drop down. You will notice that you now have french headings and frech listings of sites. You see "Publishing" as a heading because I have a custom site definition that I deployed as a french site. Third: As you start navigating around and trying to create document libraries or sites you will start getting errors. Errors like the following: "Cannot make a cache safe URL for "SelectorControls.js", file not found. Please verify that the file exists under the layouts directory. " Troubleshoot issues with Windows SharePoint Services. Once you resolve the issue with this "js" file, you will find that there are other js files that are missing. The only problem is that if you are not fluent in French or the language you are trying to deploy, Well, you'll have a tough time understanding error messages as they will all be in the new language you are trying to deploy. So let's just talk about what happened when you installed the language pack. In the 12 Hive: 12/Template you will now see a 1033 folder and a 1036 folder. The 1036 folder is the folder that was created and added as part of the language pack. What the above error is saying is that now that it's looking at the 1036 folder, well, it's missing some files. The nice thing is that these files are included in the 1033 folder (which is the English Language Pack). Simply copy and paste the controls from the one folder to the other. There will be more than one conflict so you will have to move serveral controls over. Can't remember how many but simply add them as error messages come up. I had to add some navigation controls and some content selectors. Now that's all that you need to install the Frech Language pack anc reate site collections that are entirely in a another language. Do not mistake this with Variations, where you can have multiple language sites. For those of you doing a little bit extra with this, let me share what I was doing extra and what I needed to get it working for me. I had had a custom site definition which was obviously not showing up in my selection of french sites. I was under the impression that all sites in English would show up in french and that the sites were simply routed to a new Resource file for french content. And that is the case but there is a little extra that needs to be done if you have a custom site definition deployed: First: Under hive 12/Template/1033/XML there is a listing of site definition files that are deployed to the English side of things. If you navigate to 12/Template/1036/XML and open one of the site definitions you will see that they are similar and reference the existing site definitions installed on the server, except that they have some french added to descriptions and names. Simply copy the xml file of your custom template to the 1036 folder to have it show up as a selection when you select French as the dropdown entry when create a site colleciton. You can go ahead and change the description and name to suit the language it's under. Second: As part of my site definition, I packaed up several list templates, that were saved as STP files. When you navigate to the list template listing, well, the templates are for English sites, not French so I cannot create document libraries based on the template. What now? well here comes KWIzCom to the rescue! They seem to have put out a "STP language converter" where you can take a site template or list template and convert it to any target language you are after. It's a free download, Use it and you're good to go. One thing I will mention is that when I convereted the English documents I whent ahead and converted them to French-Canadien. And it didn't work! so I finally figured out that the French Version it was expecting in the french site was "French-France". Don't know why that is, it's just what needs to be done to get that working. When I did that, I was able to use the List templates that I created in the English site for the French Site. Hope it helps , good luck!

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IE9, HTML5 and truck load of other stuff happening around the web

- by Harish Ranganathan

First of all, I haven’t been updating this blog as regularly as it used to be. Primarily, due to the fact was I was visiting a lot of cities talking about SharePoint, Web Matrix, IE9 and few other stuff. IE9 is my new found love and I simply think we have done great work in improving the browser and browsing experiences for our users. This post would talk about IE, general things happening around the web and few misconceptions around IE (I had earlier written about IE8 and common myths When you think about the way web has transformed, its truly amazing. Rewind back to late 90s and early 2000s, web was a luxury. There were lot of desktop applications running around and web applications was starting to pick up. Primarily reason was not a lot of folks were into web development and the areas of web were confined to HTML and JavaScript. CSS was around here and there but no one took it so seriously. XML, XSLT was fast picking up and contributed to decent web development techniques. So as a web developer all we had to worry about was, building good looking websites which worked well with IE6 and occasionally with Safari. Firefox was not even in the picture then and so was Chrome. But with the various arms of W3C consortium and other bodies working actively on stuff like CSS, SVG and XHTML, few more areas came into picture when it comes to browsers supporting standards. IE6 for sure wasn’t up to the speed and the main issue we were tackling then was privacy and piracy. We did invest a lot of our efforts to curb piracy and one of the steps into it was that, IE7 the next version of IE would install only on genuine windows machines. What this means, is that, people who were running pirated windows xp knowingly/unknowingly could not install IE7 and the limitations of IE6 really hurt them. One more thing of importance is that, if you were running pirated windows, lots of chances that you didn’t get the security updates and thereby were vulnerable to run viruses/trojans on your system. Many of them actually block using IE in the first place and make it difficult to browse. SP2 came as a big boon but again was there only for genuine windows machines. With Firefox coming as a free install and also heavily pushed by Google then, it was natural that people would try an alternative. By then, we had started working on IE8 supporting the best standards (note HTML5, CSS 2.1 and other specs were then work in progress. they are still) Later, Google in their infinite wisdom realized that with Firefox they were going nowhere and they released Chrome. Now, they heavily push Chrome even for Firefox users, which is natural since its their browser. In the meanwhile, these browsers push their updates as mandatory and therefore have a very short lifecycle to add enhancements and support for stuff like CSS etc., Meanwhile, when IE8 came out, it really was the best standards supported browser and a lot of people saw our efforts in improving our browser. HTML5 is the buzz word in the industry and there is a lot of noise being made by many browsers claiming their support for it. IE8 doesn’t have much support for HTML5. But, with IE9 Beta, we have great support for many of HTML5 specifications. Note that, HTML5 is still work under progress and one of the board of members working on the spec has mentioned that these specs might change and relying on them heavily is dangerous. But, some of the advances such as video tag, etc., are indeed supported in IE9 Beta. IE9 Beta also has full hardware acceleration support which other browsers don’t have. IE8 had advanced security features such as smartscreen filter, in-private browsing, anti-phishing and a lot of other stuff. IE9 builds on top of these with the best in town security standards as well as support for HTML5, CSS3, Hardware acceleration, SVG and many other advancements in browser. Read more at http://www.beautyoftheweb.com/#/highlights/html5 To summarize, IE9 Beta is really innovative and you should try it to believe what it provides. You can visit http://www.beautyoftheweb.com/ to install as well as read more on this. Cheers !!!

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ASP.NET MVC 3 Arrived

- by Shaun

The Gu and the Haack had just announced the ASP.NET MVC 3 RTM had been released yesterday. You can download the intall file, release note and source code here. As the Gu said with the ASP.NET MVC 3 there are some other productions released as well NuGet IIS Express 7.5 SQL Server CE 4 Web Deploy & Web Farm Framework 2.0 Orchard 1.0 WebMatrix 1.0 The Orchard is a CMS and blogging system which build from ASP.NET MVC 3 with the new Razor view engine which can be found here and here. Hope this helps, Shaun All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

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Printing problem in Silverlight 4.0 RC - loading images in code behind

- by Jacek Ciereszko

Few days ago I faced a problem with printing in new Silverlight 4 RC. When you try to dynamically load image (in code behind) and print it, it doesn't work. Paper sheet is blank. Problem XAML file: <Image x:Name="image" Stretch="None" /> XAML.cs: image.Source = new BitmapImage(new Uri(imageUri, UriKind.RelativeOrAbsolute)); Print: var pd = new PrintDocument(); pd.PrintPage += (s, args) => { args.PageVisual = image; }; pd.Print(); Result: Blank paper. Solution What you need to do, is forced Silverlight engine to load that image before printing start. To accomplish that I proposed simply checking PixelWith value. Your code will ask about PixelWidth of image so it will have to be loaded. XAML.cs: BitmapImage bImage = new BitmapImage(new Uri(imageUri, UriKind.RelativeOrAbsolute)); image.Source = bImage; InitControl(imageUri, movieUri, isLeft); int w = bImage.PixelWidth; int h = bImage.PixelHeight; DONE! Jacek Ciereszko

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Why Is Faulty Behaviour In The .NET Framework Not Fixed?

- by Alois Kraus

Here is the scenario: You have a Windows Form Application that calls a method via Invoke or BeginInvoke which throws exceptions. Now you want to find out where the error did occur and how the method has been called. Here is the output we do get when we call Begin/EndInvoke or simply Invoke The actual code that was executed was like this: private void cInvoke_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { InvokingFunction(CallMode.Invoke); } [MethodImpl(MethodImplOptions.NoInlining)] void InvokingFunction(CallMode mode) { switch (mode) { case CallMode.Invoke: this.Invoke(new MethodInvoker(GenerateError)); The faulting method is called GenerateError which does throw a NotImplementedException exception and wraps it in a NotSupportedException. [MethodImpl(MethodImplOptions.NoInlining)] void GenerateError() { F1(); } private void F1() { try { F2(); } catch (Exception ex) { throw new NotSupportedException("Outer Exception", ex); } } private void F2() { throw new NotImplementedException("Inner Exception"); } It is clear that the method F2 and F1 did actually throw these exceptions but we do not see them in the call stack. If we directly call the InvokingFunction and catch and print the exception we can find out very easily how we did get into this situation. We see methods F1,F2,GenerateError and InvokingFunction directly in the stack trace and we see that actually two exceptions did occur. Here is for comparison what we get from Invoke/EndInvoke System.NotImplementedException: Inner Exception StackTrace: at System.Windows.Forms.Control.MarshaledInvoke(Control caller, Delegate method, Object[] args, Boolean synchronous) at System.Windows.Forms.Control.Invoke(Delegate method, Object[] args) at WindowsFormsApplication1.AppForm.InvokingFunction(CallMode mode) at WindowsFormsApplication1.AppForm.cInvoke_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e) at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnClick(EventArgs e) at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e) The exception message is kept but the stack starts running from our Invoke call and not from the faulting method F2. We have therefore no clue where this exception did occur! The stack starts running at the method MarshaledInvoke because the exception is rethrown with the throw catchedException which resets the stack trace. That is bad but things are even worse because if previously lets say 5 exceptions did occur .NET will return only the first (innermost) exception. That does mean that we do not only loose the original call stack but all other exceptions and all data contained therein as well. It is a pity that MS does know about this and simply closes this issue as not important. Programmers will play a lot more around with threads than before thanks to TPL, PLINQ that do come with .NET 4. Multithreading is hyped quit a lot in the press and everybody wants to use threads. But if the .NET Framework makes it nearly impossible to track down the easiest UI multithreading issue I have a problem with that. The problem has been reported but obviously not been solved. .NET 4 Beta 2 did not have changed that dreaded GetBaseException call in MarshaledInvoke to return only the innermost exception of the complete exception stack. It is really time to fix this. WPF on the other hand does the right thing and wraps the exceptions inside a TargetInvocationException which makes much more sense. But Not everybody uses WPF for its daily work and Windows forms applications will still be used for a long time. Below is the code to repro the issues shown and how the exceptions can be rendered in a meaningful way. The default Exception.ToString implementation generates a hard to interpret stack if several nested exceptions did occur. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.ComponentModel; using System.Data; using System.Drawing; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.Windows.Forms; using System.Threading; using System.Globalization; using System.Runtime.CompilerServices; namespace WindowsFormsApplication1 { public partial class AppForm : Form { enum CallMode { Direct = 0, BeginInvoke = 1, Invoke = 2 }; public AppForm() { InitializeComponent(); Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = CultureInfo.InvariantCulture; Application.ThreadException += new System.Threading.ThreadExceptionEventHandler(Application_ThreadException); } void Application_ThreadException(object sender, System.Threading.ThreadExceptionEventArgs e) { cOutput.Text = PrintException(e.Exception, 0, null).ToString(); } private void cDirectUnhandled_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { InvokingFunction(CallMode.Direct); } private void cDirectCall_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { try { InvokingFunction(CallMode.Direct); } catch (Exception ex) { cOutput.Text = PrintException(ex, 0, null).ToString(); } } private void cInvoke_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { InvokingFunction(CallMode.Invoke); } private void cBeginInvokeCall_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { InvokingFunction(CallMode.BeginInvoke); } [MethodImpl(MethodImplOptions.NoInlining)] void InvokingFunction(CallMode mode) { switch (mode) { case CallMode.Direct: GenerateError(); break; case CallMode.Invoke: this.Invoke(new MethodInvoker(GenerateError)); break; case CallMode.BeginInvoke: IAsyncResult res = this.BeginInvoke(new MethodInvoker(GenerateError)); this.EndInvoke(res); break; } } [MethodImpl(MethodImplOptions.NoInlining)] void GenerateError() { F1(); } private void F1() { try { F2(); } catch (Exception ex) { throw new NotSupportedException("Outer Exception", ex); } } private void F2() { throw new NotImplementedException("Inner Exception"); } StringBuilder PrintException(Exception ex, int identLevel, StringBuilder sb) { StringBuilder builtStr = sb; if( builtStr == null ) builtStr = new StringBuilder(); if( ex == null ) return builtStr; WriteLine(builtStr, String.Format("{0}: {1}", ex.GetType().FullName, ex.Message), identLevel); WriteLine(builtStr, String.Format("StackTrace: {0}", ShortenStack(ex.StackTrace)), identLevel + 1); builtStr.AppendLine(); return PrintException(ex.InnerException, ++identLevel, builtStr); } void WriteLine(StringBuilder sb, string msg, int identLevel) { foreach (string trimmedLine in SplitToLines(msg) .Select( (line) => line.Trim()) ) { for (int i = 0; i < identLevel; i++) sb.Append('\t'); sb.Append(trimmedLine); sb.AppendLine(); } } string ShortenStack(string stack) { int nonAppFrames = 0; // Skip stack frames not part of our app but include two foreign frames and skip the rest // If our stack frame is encountered reset counter to 0 return SplitToLines(stack) .Where((line) => { nonAppFrames = line.Contains("WindowsFormsApplication1") ? 0 : nonAppFrames + 1; return nonAppFrames < 3; }) .Select((line) => line) .Aggregate("", (current, line) => current + line + Environment.NewLine); } static char[] NewLines = Environment.NewLine.ToCharArray(); string[] SplitToLines(string str) { return str.Split(NewLines, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries); } } }

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Web Camps by Microsoft

- by Shaun

Just knew from Wang Tao that Microsoft will launch the Web Camp event in many cities to share their technologies and experience on web application building. The topics of this Web Camps would focus on ASP.NET, jQuery and Entity Frameworks and how to build a cool web application based on them which I’m very interesting. And another reason is that, it’s FREE. Please have the detail information and register at http://www.webcamps.ms/, which is built on Windows Azure. And the speaker in Beijing would be Scott Hanselam and James Senior – WOW! Hope this helps, Shaun All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

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SQL Azure Service Issues – 10.27.2012 (Restored Now)

- by ToStringTheory

Please note that if you have a Windows Azure website, or use SQL Azure, your site may be experiencing downtime currently. Notice I just called in regarding one of my public facing internet sites, because the site was failing to load anything but its error page, I couldn’t connect to the database to inspect application error logs, and the Windows Azure Management portal won’t load the SQL Azure extension. After speaking to the representative, he also mentioned that they were also having some problems updating the Service Dashboard which shows service up/down time, and for now, they are posting messages at http://account.windowsazure.com. Please note that this issue may only be effecting certain regions. Last, I may have misheard the representative, but he said that the outage was being categorized as a level 8, and if I heard correctly, I think he said that level 8 was the worst level. I can’t say for sure on this though, because the phone connection to their support number was bad – large amounts of white noise. Good Luck! Update It appears that this outage may also be effecting the following services: SQL Database, Service Bus, Datamarket, Windows Azure Marketplace, Shared Caching, Access Control 2.0, and SQL Reporting. The note on the account page says for the South Central US region, however, I believe the representative I spoke to also mentioned North Central. As I said before though, the connection was bad. Update 2 My site regained connectivity about an hour ago, and it appears that the service dashboard is back in operation with correct status and history. It does appear that I misheard on the phone regarding multiple regions, so chances are this only effected a percentage of the platform. All in all, if this WAS their worst level of a problem, they really got it fixed and back up pretty fast. All in all, I understand that it is inherent for a complex system such as Azure to have ups and downs, but at the end of the day, I am still happy to support Azure to its fullest!

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