geeks - Page 101 - Developer IT

Do you know when to send a done email in Scrum?

- by Martin Hinshelwood

At SSW we have always sent done emails to the owner/requestor to let them know that it is done. Others who are dependent on that tasks are CC’ed so they know they can proceed. But how does that fit into Scrum? Update 14th April 2010 Rule added to Rules to better Scrum with TFS If you are working on a task: When you complete a Task that is part of a User Story you need to send a done email to the Owner of that Story. You only need to add the Task #, Summary and link to the item in WIWA. Remember that all your tasks should be under 4 hours, do spending lots of time on a Done Email for a Task would be counter productive. Add more information if required, for example you may have completed the task a different way than previously discussed. Make sure that every User Story has an Owner as per the rules. If you are the owner of a story: When you complete a story you should send a comprehensive done email as per the rules when the story had been completed. Make sure you add a list of all of the Tasks that were completed as part of the story and the Done criteria that you completed. If your done criteria says: Built Successfully 30% Code Coverage All tests passed Then add an illustration to show this. Figure: Show that you have met your Done criteria where possible. This is all designed to help you Scrum Team members (Product Owner, ScrumMaster and Team) validate the quality of the work that has been completed. Remember that you are not DONE until your team says you are done. Technorati Tags: SSW,Scrum,SSW Rules

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FAQ: Highlight GridView Row on Click and Retain Selected Row on Postback

- by Vincent Maverick Durano

A couple of months ago I’ve written a simple demo about “Highlighting GridView Row on MouseOver”. I’ve noticed many members in the forums (http://forums.asp.net) are asking how to highlight row in GridView and retain the selected row across postbacks. So I’ve decided to write this post to demonstrate how to implement it as reference to others who might need it. In this demo I going to use a combination of plain JavaScript and jQuery to do the client-side manipulation. I presumed that you already know how to bind the grid with data because I will not include the codes for populating the GridView here. For binding the gridview you can refer this post: Binding GridView with Data the ADO.Net way or this one: GridView Custom Paging with LINQ. To get started let’s implement the highlighting of GridView row on row click and retain the selected row on postback. For simplicity I set up the page like this: <asp:Content ID="Content2" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainContent" runat="server"> <h2>You have selected Row: (<asp:Label ID="Label1" runat="server" />)</h2> <asp:HiddenField ID="hfCurrentRowIndex" runat="server"></asp:HiddenField> <asp:HiddenField ID="hfParentContainer" runat="server"></asp:HiddenField> <asp:Button ID="Button1" runat="server" onclick="Button1_Click" Text="Trigger Postback" /> <asp:GridView ID="grdCustomer" runat="server" AutoGenerateColumns="false" onrowdatabound="grdCustomer_RowDataBound"> <Columns> <asp:BoundField DataField="Company" HeaderText="Company" /> <asp:BoundField DataField="Name" HeaderText="Name" /> <asp:BoundField DataField="Title" HeaderText="Title" /> <asp:BoundField DataField="Address" HeaderText="Address" /> </Columns> </asp:GridView> </asp:Content> Note: Since the action is done at the client-side, when we do a postback like (clicking on a button) the page will be re-created and you will lose the highlighted row. This is normal because the the server doesn't know anything about the client/browser not unless if you do something to notify the server that something has changed. To persist the settings we will use some HiddenFields control to store the data so that when it postback we can reference the value from there. Now here’s the JavaScript functions below: <asp:content id="Content1" runat="server" contentplaceholderid="HeadContent"> <script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> var prevRowIndex; function ChangeRowColor(row, rowIndex) { var parent = document.getElementById(row); var currentRowIndex = parseInt(rowIndex) + 1; if (prevRowIndex == currentRowIndex) { return; } else if (prevRowIndex != null) { parent.rows[prevRowIndex].style.backgroundColor = "#FFFFFF"; } parent.rows[currentRowIndex].style.backgroundColor = "#FFFFD6"; prevRowIndex = currentRowIndex; $('#<%= Label1.ClientID %>').text(currentRowIndex); $('#<%= hfParentContainer.ClientID %>').val(row); $('#<%= hfCurrentRowIndex.ClientID %>').val(rowIndex); } $(function () { RetainSelectedRow(); }); function RetainSelectedRow() { var parent = $('#<%= hfParentContainer.ClientID %>').val(); var currentIndex = $('#<%= hfCurrentRowIndex.ClientID %>').val(); if (parent != null) { ChangeRowColor(parent, currentIndex); } } </script> </asp:content> The ChangeRowColor() is the function that sets the background color of the selected row. It is also where we set the previous row and rowIndex values in HiddenFields. The $(function(){}); is a short-hand for the jQuery document.ready event. This event will be fired once the page is posted back to the server that’s why we call the function RetainSelectedRow(). The RetainSelectedRow() function is where we referenced the current selected values stored from the HiddenFields and pass these values to the ChangeRowColor() function to retain the highlighted row. Finally, here’s the code behind part: protected void grdCustomer_RowDataBound(object sender, GridViewRowEventArgs e) { if (e.Row.RowType == DataControlRowType.DataRow) { e.Row.Attributes.Add("onclick", string.Format("ChangeRowColor('{0}','{1}');", e.Row.ClientID, e.Row.RowIndex)); } } The code above is responsible for attaching the javascript onclick event for each row and call the ChangeRowColor() function and passing the e.Row.ClientID and e.Row.RowIndex to the function. Here’s the sample output below: That’s it! I hope someone find this post useful! Technorati Tags: jQuery,GridView,JavaScript,TipTricks

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First Impressions of a MacBook (from a PC guy)

- by dgreen

Disclaimer: I've been a PC guy my entire working career. I'd probably characterize myself as a power user. Never afraid to bust out the console line. But working with a Mac is totally foreign to me. So for those Mac guys who are curious, this is how your world appears from the outside to a computer literate person :)My Macbook Air has arrived! And it's a thing of beauty:First, the specs: 13" MacBook Air, 2.0GHz Core i7 processor. Upgraded to 8GB of RAM for an additional $100, SSD flash storage = 256GB. The plan is ultimately to use this baby for some iOS development but also some decent lifting in Windows with Visual Studio. Done a lot of reading and between VMWare Fusion, Parallels and Bootcamp...I'm going to go with VMWare Fusion for $49.99And now my impressions (please re-read disclaimer before proceeding!):I open the box and am trying to understand exactly how the magsafe connector works (and how to disconnect it). Why does it have two socket outlet plugs? Who knows. I feel like Hansel in Zoolander. The files are "in" the computer.Stuck in my external hard drive (usb). So how do I get to the files? To the Googles!Argh...it can't read my external NTFS drive. Fat32 can't support field over 4GB…problematic since some of my existing VMWare image files are much larger than 4GB. Didn't see this coming.Three year old loves iPhoto. Super easy to use. Don't even know what I'm doing but I've already (accidentally) discovered the image filtering options. Fun stuff.First thing I downloaded ever => Chrome. I need something to ground me, something familiar. My token, if you will (sorry, gratuitous Inception joke).Ok, I get it… Finder == windows explorer. But where is my hierarchical structure? I miss the tree :(On that note, yeah…how do I see what "path" my files reside in? I'm afraid to know the answer. You know what scares more though…this notion of a smart folder. Feel like the godfather - just get the job done, I don't care how you handle it, I don't want to know...just get it done. What the hell is AirDrop?Mail…just worked. Still in shock that they have a free client for yahoo mail (please no yahoo jokes).mail -> deleting a message takes 5 seconds. Have they heard of async?"Command" key instead of "Control" ok, then what the $%&^! is the control key for then"aliases" == shortcuts I thinkI don't see the file system. And I'm scared. All these things I'm downloading…these .dmg files (bad name) where are they going? Can't seem to delete when they're doneUgh...realized need to buy a mini-to-vga adaptor if I want to use my external monitor ($13 on ebay, $39 in apple store).Windows docking is trickiest for me…this notion of detached windows with a menu bar at the top. I don't like this paradigm, it's confusing. But maybe because I've been using Windows for too long.Evernote, Dropbox desktop clients seem almost identical…few quirks here and there I need to get used to.iTunes is still a bit gross. In a weird way it's actually worse on a Mac if thats possible. This is not the MacBook's fault…this is a software design issue. Overall: UI will take some getting used to. Can't decide if this represents the future and I'm stuck in the past…or this is the past and I've been spoiled by the future (which would be Windows…don't be hating I happen to be very productive in Win7) So there you go - my 90 minute first impression of the MacBook universe.

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Swapping from NHibernate to Entity Framework – Sanity Check

- by DesigningCode

Now I’m not an expert in either of these techs. I have a nice framework for unit of work / repository built with NHibernate. Works pretty well. I use FluentNhibernate to do the mappings. Works well. Takes very little code to get going with a DB back OO model. So why swap? Linq. In Entity Framework you get much better linq support. Visibility. I have no idea what's really happening with NHibernate….its a cloud of mystery most of the time. You have to read all the blogs, mailing lists, etc to know what's going on. So, EF 4.0 looks like pretty good…. it has reasonably good support for mapping POCOs. Wrapping UnitOfWork and Repository around it seems ok. Only thing I haven’t liked too much is having to explicitly load lazy loading entities. So…. am I sane? is EF the way to go? or is NHibernate going to suddenly release the next generation of coolness? Is there any other major gotchas of using EF over NHibernate?

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My search what the Cloud will mean for my Work

- by Kay Sellenrode

Since I finished my MCM Exchange 2007 training back in April 2009 I’m struggling with the Cloud. I know it will change the way we do things today, but how will it affect my work. My work is Exchange consultancy mostly in the Netherlands, but more and more across the globe. In my job as a consultant I noticed last year that a large percentage of my customers showed interest in the cloud services available today. But in most situations it seemed that it wasn’t the right time for them to switch to a cloud service at this moment. Right now I’m helping one of my customers is exploring Exchange online and it looks like they will switch over from their on-premise Exchange solution. This made me more than ever realize that I need to do something to not miss the boat. With Office 365 coming this year, my idea is that Cloud services will take off from now. Also I’m sure that quite some customers will expect me to help them with their decision between the cloud and the on premise solution. So in the next months I will explore all the possibilities of Office 365, but also some of the competition in this field. In my search for what the cloud will mean for me and my customers, I will go over all the aspects of the offered solutions. Any help in my search is always welcome. I’m looking forward to ideas people have around the cloud and how it will change the IT environment, especially in the Unified communications field. Next week I will post my first article about my experiences with the cloud until now.

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Credentials Not Passed From SharePoint WebPart to WCF Service

- by Jacob L. Adams

I have spent several hours trying to resolve this problem, so I wanted to share my findings in case someone else might have the same problem. I had a web part which was calling out to a WCF service on another server to get some data. The code I had was essentially using System.ServiceModel; using System.ServiceModel.Channels; ... var binding = new CustomBinding( new HttpTransportBindingElement { AuthenticationScheme = System.Net.AuthenticationSchemes.Negotiate } ); var endpoint = new EndpointAddress(new Uri("http://someotherserver/someotherservice.svc")); var someOtherService = new SomeOtherServiceClient(binding, endpoint); string result = someOtherService.SomeServiceMethod(); This code would run fine on my local instance of SharePoint 2010 (Windows 7 64-bit). However, when I would deploy it to the testing environment, I would get a yellow screen of death with the following message: The HTTP request is unauthorized with client authentication scheme 'Negotiate'. The authentication header received from the server was 'Negotiate,NTLM'. I then went through the usual checklist of Windows Authentication problems: Check WCF bindings to make sure authentication is set correctly Check IIS to make sure Windows Authentication is enabled and anonymous authentication was disabled. Check to make sure the SharePoint server trusted the server hosting the WCF service Verify that the account that the IIS application pool is running under has access to the other server I then spend lot of time digging into really obscure IIS, machine.config, and trust settings (as well of lots of time on Google and StackOverflow). Eventually I stumbled upon a blog post by Todd Bleeker describing how to run code under the application pool identity. Wait, what? The code is not already running under application pool identity? Another quick Google search led me to an MSDN page that imply that SharePoint indeed does not run under the app pool credentials by default. Instead SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges is needed to run code under the app pool identity. Therefore, changing my code to the following worked seamlessly using System.ServiceModel; using System.ServiceModel.Channels; using Microsoft.SharePoint; ... var binding = new CustomBinding( new HttpTransportBindingElement { AuthenticationScheme = System.Net.AuthenticationSchemes.Negotiate } ); var endpoint = new EndpointAddress(new Uri("http://someotherserver/someotherservice.svc")); var someOtherService = new SomeOtherServiceClient(binding, endpoint); string result; SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(()=> { result = someOtherService.SomeServiceMethod(); });

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Connect Team Foundation Service/TFS 2012 with Visual Studio 2010 & Visual Studio 2008

- by Vishal

Hello, Microsoft finally released the Team Foundation Service in late October 2012 after its long time in the preview phase. I was already using the TFS Preview which was free but I was happy to see Microsoft releasing the Team Foundation Service also FREE for upto 5 users. Isn't that great news? I know there are bunch of other free source control repositories (Github, Bitbucket, SVN etc.) out there but I somehow like TFS better. Also the other good thing about the final release was that I didn’t had to do any kind of migration of my code from preview to final release version. Just changed the TFS connection URL and it worked like a charm. Anyways, if you are a startup with small team and need some awesome Source Control along with all the good Project Management, Continuous Integration (Build, Test, Deploy), Team Collaboration, Agile/Scrum planning etc. features than Team Foundation Service is your answer. Microsoft has not yet released their pricing for more than 5 users and will be releasing it sometime in early 2013. What if as of now you have a team more than 5 users and you want to use Team Foundation Service, the good news is you can use it for FREE but when they release the final pricing, you will have to transition to the paid plan. Lot of story, getting to the point, connecting to Team Foundation Service with Visual Studio 2012 is straight forward and would work out of the box but it wont for previous versions of Visual Studio. You will have to upgrade to the latest service pack first and than install the forward compatibility pack. (1st : Service Packs & 2nd: Forward Compatibility packs) For Visual Studio 2010: Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1. Visual Studio 2010 forward compatibility for TFS 2012 and Team Foundation Service. For Visual Studio 2008: Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1. Visual Studio 2008 forward compatibility for TFS 2012 & Team Foundation Service. Restart your system. Visual Studio 2008 will not work if you only put https://xxx.visualstudio.com. You will have to put your collection name too as shown below. By the way, it doesn’t matter if you are an Apple Application Developer or Android App Developer, you can still use Team Foundation Service as your source control. Below are few links to connect to Team Foundation Service with other IDEs: Connect Eclipse to Team Foundation Service. Connect XCode to Team Foundation Service. Happy coding. Vishal Mody

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No Clipboard support in Windows Phone 7 Series – iPhone points laughs

- by Sarang

What exactly were you taking of late MSFT? So much for a spanking new mobile OS which wants to emulate the iPhone OS so badly that it even copied and pasted the iPhone’s erstwhile lack of clipboard support as well? The reason given is so lame (shall I say differently able?) that deserves pity rather than lament. According to MSFT people don’t use the clipboard that often. Being a WinMo user for the better part of my life and having developed for the platform for worse part of it I could say with conviction that Clipboard support was one key differentiator which kept me away from “The Phone to have” of 2007-8-9. Let me try to find few use cases I for one have been using the clipboard. Copy files to and from card and phone memory. Copy images, audio files from apps/browsers/explorer to email other apps. Copy text to/from word documents, notes and emails. Copy content from network drives to memory card. Copy links between browsers (Yes i did it for the love of Opera and PIE alike). Others could definitely come up with more. So who are these so called “users” who provided feedback to MSFT that the clipboard is useless? If you are among the lucky few being asked for the “feedback” kindly chime in the comments. Would be interesting to see different views on this. Technorati Tags: Windows Phone 7 Series,Clipboard

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Silverlight Cream Monday WP7 App Review # 1

- by Dave Campbell

I'm going to try something here... if it seems useful, I'll continue, if it doesn't, I'll stop... so give me feedback! There are *lots* of Apps in the WP7 Marketplace, and heaven help me, but the Marketplace sucks for finding stuff. I won't rehash what's already been said in the blogs, but I agree with one and all. I went out last Saturday to find 2 apps that I knew were released, and couldn't do so on my device. Even in the Zune app, it took quite a while to find them... ok, I'll back off a bit, because I just found out I can do 'Search' now if I know the name... I didn't think that was working before. So my thought is on Monday (like today), I will post a review of 5 apps/games I either use or have played with on my device. These are strictly my opinions, you understand, but hey... it's better than a poke in the eye with an iPhone! A few disclaimers: Feel free to write me about your app and tell me about it. While it would be very cool to receive a whole bunch of xap files to review, at this point, for technical reasons, I'm unable to side-load my device. Since I plan on only doing this one day a week, and only 5, I may never get caught up, so if you send me some info, be patient. Re: games ... remember I'm old... I'm from the era of Colossal Cave and Zork. Duke-Nukem 2D and Captain Comic were awesome. I don't own an XBOX or any other game system, so take game reviews from my perspective -- who knows, it may be refreshing :) I won't pay for an app or game just to try it. If you expect me to test-drive your app, it's going to have to have a Free Trial. In this Issue: Jingo! is the first app I bought, just to see what the experience was like. It's very much like a game we used to play in school in the Army in 1971 on paper we passed around. Sort of a cross between hangman and Mastermind, you try to figure out the hidden word in 5 tries. You get really good at 5-letter words after a while. I like this because you have to think, and you're not pressured by a clock Jingo! is by James Furdell and is $1.99 I reviewed René Schulte's Pictures Lab a while back, and have not changed my mind. This is an excellent app for playing with any photo on your device... one you've just taken, one you've synced from your PC, or one you've saved from email. I like this because you can get some cool effects for your photos, and it just works. Pictures Lab is by Schulte Software Development and is $1.99 Since I work as a consultant, and from home, I wanted something I could track my time with. I've test-driven all the contenders I could find so far on the phone, and so far I like ONTRACK! the best. If asked, I have some suggestions, but it's probably just the way I work or think. What I do like is I can tap a project to start/stop/restart a counter, and at the end of the day it shows me how much time I've been working. If there's a way to make an adjustment in case you forget to tap the counter, I don't know how to do it, and that's my biggest complaint. I like this because you can get a daily readout which you can also email as a spreadsheet. The daily results display is very good. ONTRACK! is by Qmino and is $2.99 Remember Item 4 above... I've been playing guitar for 48 years... obviously since before the invention of 'tuners', so I'm not as dependent upon these as some folks are. I've tried some in the past and have always felt I can do just as good by ear (I have perfect relative pitch). So, I gave this app by András Velvárt a dance just to see how it works, and it is surprisingly good. If you're used to one of the stage tuners this may take a little getting used to, but it does the job. The difference with this one is there is no real 'null' point inside which you can think your guitar is in tune. The soundwave stays visible on the device, and if it's moving to the right, your string is flat, if it's moving to the left, your string is sharp. Getting it exact might be tricky, but it is exact! If you need to rely on a tuner, this is a good choice in my opinion, exactly because of the sensitivity.. tune up with this and you're dead-on. Guitar Tuner is by Kinabalu Innovation Limited and is $0.99 Popper 2 is the WP7 version of a wildly popular game by Bill Reiss named Dr. Popper. You can get a trial, or you can now get a free lite version of the game. Popper 2 is a fast-paced bubble breaker game. I find it something fun to play when I just want to buzz out, but maybe the best review is that my daughter didn't want to give my phone back when I showed it to her, and always wants to grab my phone to play 'that game'. A fun distraction with great graphics and a great price Popper 2 is by Blue Rose Systems, LLC and is $1.29 Let me know what you think of the idea of doing reviews, or the layout/whatever, and Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight Silverlight 3 Silverlight 4 Windows Phone MIX10

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Master Page: Dynamically Adding Rows in ASP Table on Button Click event

- by Vincent Maverick Durano

In my previous post here, I wrote an example that demonstrates how are we going to generate table rows dynamically using ASP Table on click of the Button control. Now based on some comments in my previous example and in the forums they wanted to implement it within Masterpage. Unfortunately the code in my previous example doesn't work in Masterpage for the following main reasons: The Table is dynamically added within the Form tag and so the TextBox control will not be generated correcty in the page. The data will not be retained on each and every postbacks because the SetPreviousData() method is looking for the Table element within the Page and not on the MasterPage. The Request.Form key value should be set correctly since all controls within the master page are prefixed with the naming containter ID to prevent duplicate ids on the final rendered HTML. For example the TextBox control with the ID of TextBoxRow will turn to ID to this ctl00$MainBody$TextBoxRow. In order for the previous example to work within Masterpage then we will have to correct those three main reasons above and this post will guide you how to correct it. Suppose we have this content page declaration below: <asp:Content ID="Content1" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainHead" Runat="Server"> </asp:Content> <asp:Content ID="Content2" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainBody" Runat="Server"> <asp:PlaceHolder ID="PlaceHolder1" runat="server"> <asp:Button ID="BTNAdd" runat="server" Text="Add New Row" OnClick="BTNAdd_Click" /> </asp:PlaceHolder> </asp:Content> As you notice I've added a PlaceHolder control within the MainBody ContentPlaceHolder. This is because we are going to generate the Table in the PlaceHolder instead of generating it within the Form element. Now since issue #1 is already corrected then let's proceed to the code beind part. Here are the full code blocks below: using System; using System.Web.UI; using System.Web.UI.WebControls; public partial class DynamicControlDemo : System.Web.UI.Page { private int numOfRows = 1; protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { //Generate the Rows on Initial Load if (!Page.IsPostBack) { GenerateTable(numOfRows); } } protected void BTNAdd_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { if (ViewState["RowsCount"] != null) { numOfRows = Convert.ToInt32(ViewState["RowsCount"].ToString()); GenerateTable(numOfRows); } } private void SetPreviousData(int rowsCount, int colsCount) { Table table = (Table)this.Page.Master.FindControl("MainBody").FindControl("Table1"); // **** if (table != null) { for (int i = 0; i < rowsCount; i++) { for (int j = 0; j < colsCount; j++) { //Extracting the Dynamic Controls from the Table TextBox tb = (TextBox)table.Rows[i].Cells[j].FindControl("TextBoxRow_" + i + "Col_" + j); //Use Request object for getting the previous data of the dynamic textbox tb.Text = Request.Form["ctl00$MainBody$TextBoxRow_" + i + "Col_" + j];//***** } } } } private void GenerateTable(int rowsCount) { //Creat the Table and Add it to the Page Table table = new Table(); table.ID = "Table1"; PlaceHolder1.Controls.Add(table);//****** //The number of Columns to be generated const int colsCount = 3;//You can changed the value of 3 based on you requirements // Now iterate through the table and add your controls for (int i = 0; i < rowsCount; i++) { TableRow row = new TableRow(); for (int j = 0; j < colsCount; j++) { TableCell cell = new TableCell(); TextBox tb = new TextBox(); // Set a unique ID for each TextBox added tb.ID = "TextBoxRow_" + i + "Col_" + j; // Add the control to the TableCell cell.Controls.Add(tb); // Add the TableCell to the TableRow row.Cells.Add(cell); } // And finally, add the TableRow to the Table table.Rows.Add(row); } //Set Previous Data on PostBacks SetPreviousData(rowsCount, colsCount); //Sore the current Rows Count in ViewState rowsCount++; ViewState["RowsCount"] = rowsCount; } } As you observed the code is pretty much similar to the previous example except for the highlighted lines above. That's it! I hope someone find this post usefu! Technorati Tags: Dynamic Controls,ASP.NET,C#,Master Page

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ASP.NET vNext Blog Post Series

- by Soe Tun

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/stun/archive/2014/06/04/asp.net-vnext-blog-post-series.aspxASP.NET vNext Blog Post Series ASP.NET vNext was announced at TechEd 2014, and I have been playing around with it a bit. ASP.NET vNext is an exciting and revolutionary change for the Microsoft .NET development platform. ASP.NET vNext is now open-source, and available on Github at this location: https://github.com/aspnet/Home. I want to start a blog post series on the ASP.NET vNext, and share my experience as I learn more about it. Keeping it simple Each blog post in the series will be short and simple so I can write them in a short amount of time, and keep it focused on one (at most two) topic(s) per post. My goal is to make it easy to absorb the information as there are a ton of great new stuff to cover. Many other people in the community have blogged about the key new features of the ASP.NET vNext. I will link to those blog posts in my next blog post. MVC 6 POCO Controller Today, I want to start this blog post series with a teaser code snippet for those developers familiar with the ASP.NET MVC. Getting Started with ASP.NET MVC 6 article from ASP.NET website shows how to write a lightweight POCO (plain-old CLR object) MVC Controller class in the upcoming ASP.NET MVC 6. However, it doesn't show us how to use the IActionResultHelper interface to render a View. This is how I wrote my POCO MVC Controller based on the https://github.com/aspnet/Home/blob/master/samples/HelloMvc/Controllers/HomeController.cs sample from Github. Note that this may not be the best way to write it, but this is good enough for now. using Microsoft.AspNet.Mvc; using Microsoft.AspNet.Mvc.ModelBinding; using MvcSample.Web.Models; namespace MvcSample.Web { public class HomeController { IActionResultHelper html; IModelMetadataProvider mmp; public HomeController(IActionResultHelper h, IModelMetadataProvider mmp) { this.html = h; this.mmp = mmp; } public IActionResult Index() { var viewData = new ViewDataDictionary<User>(mmp) { Model = User() }; return html.View("Index", viewData); } public User User() { return new User { Name = "My name", Address = "My address" }; } } } Please feel free to give me feedback as this will greatly help me organize the blog posts in this series, and plan head. Thanks for reading!

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Real World Nuget

- by JoshReuben

Why Nuget A higher level of granularity for managing references When you have solutions of many projects that depend on solutions of many projects etc à escape from Solution Hell. Links · Using A GUI (Package Explorer) to build packages - http://docs.nuget.org/docs/creating-packages/using-a-gui-to-build-packages · Creating a Nuspec File - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vs2010trainingcourse_aspnetmvcnuget_topic2.aspx · consuming a Nuget Package - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vs2010trainingcourse_aspnetmvcnuget_topic3 · Nuspec reference - http://docs.nuget.org/docs/reference/nuspec-reference · updating packages - http://nuget.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Updating%20All%20Packages · versioning - http://docs.nuget.org/docs/reference/versioning POC Folder Structure POC Setup Steps · Install package explorer · Source o Create a source solution – configure output directory for projects (Project > Properties > Build > Output Path) · Package o Add assemblies to package from output directory (D&D)- add net folder o File > Export – save .nuspec files and lib contents <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?> <package > <metadata> <id>MyPackage</id> <version>1.0.0.3</version> <title /> <authors>josh-r</authors> <owners /> <requireLicenseAcceptance>false</requireLicenseAcceptance> <description>My package description.</description> <summary /> </metadata> </package> o File > Save – saves .nupkg file · Create Target Solution o In Tools > Options: Configure package source & Add package Select projects: Output from package manager (powershell console) ------- Installing...MyPackage 1.0.0 ------- Added file 'NugetSource.AssemblyA.dll' to folder 'MyPackage.1.0.0\lib'. Added file 'NugetSource.AssemblyA.pdb' to folder 'MyPackage.1.0.0\lib'. Added file 'NugetSource.AssemblyB.dll' to folder 'MyPackage.1.0.0\lib'. Added file 'NugetSource.AssemblyB.pdb' to folder 'MyPackage.1.0.0\lib'. Added file 'MyPackage.1.0.0.nupkg' to folder 'MyPackage.1.0.0'. Successfully installed 'MyPackage 1.0.0'. Added reference 'NugetSource.AssemblyA' to project 'AssemblyX' Added reference 'NugetSource.AssemblyB' to project 'AssemblyX' Added file 'packages.config'. Added file 'packages.config' to project 'AssemblyX' Added file 'repositories.config'. Successfully added 'MyPackage 1.0.0' to AssemblyX. ============================== o Packages folder created at solution level o Packages.config file generated in each project: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <packages> <package id="MyPackage" version="1.0.0" targetFramework="net40" /> </packages> A local Packages folder is created for package versions installed: Each folder contains the downloaded .nupkg file and its unpacked contents – eg of dlls that the project references Note: this folder is not checked in UpdatePackages o Configure Package Manager to automatically check for updates o Browse packages - It automatically picked up the updates Update Procedure · Modify source · Change source version in assembly info · Build source · Open last package in package explorer · Increment package version number and re-add assemblies · Save package with new version number and export its definition · In target solution – Tools > Manage Nuget Packages – click on All to trigger refresh , then click on recent packages to see updates · If problematic, delete packages folder Versioning uninstall-package mypackage install-package mypackage –version 1.0.0.3 uninstall-package mypackage install-package mypackage –version 1.0.0.4 Dependencies · <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?> <package xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/packaging/2012/06/nuspec.xsd"> <metadata> <id>MyDependentPackage</id> <version>1.0.0</version> <title /> <authors>josh-r</authors> <owners /> <requireLicenseAcceptance>false</requireLicenseAcceptance> <description>My package description.</description> <dependencies> <group targetFramework=".NETFramework4.0"> <dependency id="MyPackage" version="1.0.0.4" /> </group> </dependencies> </metadata> </package> Using NuGet without committing packages to source control http://docs.nuget.org/docs/workflows/using-nuget-without-committing-packages Right click on the Solution node in Solution Explorer and select Enable NuGet Package Restore. — Recall that packages folder is not part of solution If you get downloading package ‘Nuget.build’ failed, config proxy to support certificate for https://nuget.org/api/v2/ & allow unrestricted access to packages.nuget.org To test connectivity: get-package –listavailable To test Nuget Package Restore – delete packages folder and open vs as admin. In nugget msbuild: <Import Project="$(SolutionDir)\.nuget\nuget.targets" /> TFSBuild Integration Modify Nuget.Targets file <RestorePackages Condition=" '$(RestorePackages)' == '' "> True </RestorePackages> … <PackageSource Include="\\IL-CV-004-W7D\Packages" /> Add System Environment variable EnableNuGetPackageRestore=true & restart the “visual studio team foundation build service host” service. Important: Ensure Network Service has access to Packages folder Nugetter TFS Build integration Add Nugetter build process templates to TFS source control For Build Controller - Specify location of custom assemblies Generate .nuspec file from Package Explorer: File > Export Edit the file elements – remove path info from src and target attributes <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?> <package xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/packaging/2012/06/nuspec.xsd"> <metadata> <id>Common</id> <version>1.0.0</version> <title /> <authors>josh-r</authors> <owners /> <requireLicenseAcceptance>false</requireLicenseAcceptance> <description>My package description.</description> <dependencies> <group targetFramework=".NETFramework3.5" /> </dependencies> </metadata> <files> <file src="CommonTypes.dll" target="CommonTypes.dll" /> <file src="CommonTypes.pdb" target="CommonTypes.pdb" /> … Add .nuspec file to solution so that it is available for build: Dev\NovaNuget\Common\NuSpec\common.1.0.0.nuspec Add a Build Process Definition based on the Nugetter build process template: Configure the build process – specify: · .sln to build · Base path (output directory) · Nuget.exe file path · .nuspec file path Copy DLLs to a binary folder 1) Set copy local for an assembly reference to false 2) MSBuild Copy Task – modify .csproj file: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/3e54c37h.aspx <ItemGroup> <MySourceFiles Include="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\..\SourceAssemblies\**\*.*" /> </ItemGroup> <Target Name="BeforeBuild"> <Copy SourceFiles="@(MySourceFiles)" DestinationFolder="bin\debug\SourceAssemblies" /> </Target> 3) Set Probing assembly search path from app.config - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/823z9h8w(v=vs.80).aspx - <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <configuration> <runtime> <assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1"> <probing privatePath="SourceAssemblies"/> </assemblyBinding> </runtime> </configuration> Forcing 'copy local = false' The following generic powershell script was added to the packages install.ps1: param($installPath, $toolsPath, $package, $project) if( $project.Object.Project.Name -ne "CopyPackages") { $asms = $package.AssemblyReferences | %{$_.Name} foreach ($reference in $project.Object.References) { if ($asms -contains $reference.Name + ".dll") { $reference.CopyLocal = $false; } } } An empty project named "CopyPackages" was added to the solution - it references all the packages and is the only one set to CopyLocal="true". No MSBuild knowledge required.

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MIX 2010 Covert Operations Day 3

- by GeekAgilistMercenary

I rolled over to the Mandalay for breakfast. There I met a couple guys that were really excited about the new Windows 7 Phone. They, as I, are also hopeful that the phone really gets a big push and some penetration into the market. Not because we don’t like any other of the phones, but because this phone is so much better in many ways. From a developer's perspective creating applications in Windows 7 Mobile will be vastly superior in ease, capabilities, and other aspects. The architectural, existing code base, examples, and provisions to create things on the 7 Mobile Device are already existing as of RIGHT NOW. There is no reason, except for fickle market conditions, for this phone to not just explode onto the market. But alas, I won't hold my breath. Day three keynote had a whole new slew of things provided. It also seemed that things got a lot more technical on this second keynote. The oData was one of the very technical bits, yet it included almost no code. Starting with a Netflix example and all the way to the Codename "Dallas" effort the oData Services provide some expansive possibilities. A mash up going 4 ways was then shown for finding a movie, finding local places to have a viewing, and information about the movie and were to prospectively find and buy additional movie bits. The display was of course, in a Windows 7 Mobile device with literally a click to view each set of data. The backend and the front end of this was beautifully smooth. The Dallas Project has a lot of potential for analytics in dashboard and scorecard creation also. If there is a need or reason to provide data to a vast and wide range of clients, Dallas is a prime example of how to do that. Azure Clouds After the main keynote I checked out (while developing a working WPF & Silverlight Application for work) the session on deploying ASP.NET Applications, services, etc, into the cloud. The session was pretty good, but I'll admit I got a little unfocused from it a few times. It is after all hard to do two things at one time. I did take note that the cloud still is a multiple step process for deploying to. This is a good thing and a bad thing. There needs to be more checks and verifications when deploying something into the cloud just for technical reasons. However, I feel that there should be some streamlining to the process. Going back and forth between web and Visual Studio as the interface also seems kind of clunky. Deployment should be able to be completed from within Visual Studio in my perspective. Overall, the cloud is getting more and more impressive in function as well as theory. That's it from me so far on the third day of MIX. I'll be note taking and studying hard to have more good tidbits to provide. Thanks for reading, if you're curious about more of my writing, check out this original entry at my other blog Agilist Mercenary.

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PublishingWeb.ExcludeFromNavigation Missing

- by Michael Van Cleave

So recently I have had to make the transition from the SharePoint 2007 codebase to SharePoint 2010 codebase. Needless to say there hasn't been much difficulty in the changeover. However in a set of code that I was playing around with and transitioning I did find one change that might cause some pain to others out there that have been programming against the PublishingWeb object in the Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing namespace. The 2007 snippet of code that work just fine in 2007 looks like: using (SPSite site = new SPSite(url)) using (SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb()) { PublishingWeb publishingWeb = PublishingWeb.GetPublishingWeb(web); publishingWeb.ExcludeFromNavigation(true, itemID); publishingWeb.Update(); } The 2010 update to the code looks like: using (SPSite site = new SPSite(url)) using (SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb()) { PublishingWeb publishingWeb = PublishingWeb.GetPublishingWeb(web); publishingWeb.Navigation.ExcludeFromNavigation(true, itemID); //--Had to reference the Navigation object. publishingWeb.Update(); } The purpose of the code is to keep a page from showing up on the global or current navigation when it is added to the pages library. However you see that the update to the 2010 codebase actually makes more "object" sense. It specifies that you are technically affecting the Navigation of the Publishing Web, instead of the Publishing Web itself. I know that this isn't a difficult problem to fix, but I thought it would be something quick to help out the general public. Michael

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Fight for your rights as a video gamer.

- by Chris Williams

Soon, the U.S. Supreme Court may decide whether to hear a case that could have a lasting impact on computer and video games. The case before the Court involves a law passed by the state of California attempting to criminalize the sale of certain computer and video games. Two previous courts rejected the California law as unconstitutional, but soon the Supreme Court could have the final say. Whatever the Court's ruling, we must be prepared to continue defending our rights now and in the future. To do so, we need a large, powerful movement of gamers to speak with one voice and show that we won't sit back while lawmakers try to score political points by scapegoating video games and treating them differently than books, movies, and music. If the Court decides to hear the case, we're going to need thousands of activists like you who can help defend computer and video games by writing letters to editors, calling into talk radio stations, and educating Americans about our passion for and appreciation of computer and video games. You can help build this movement right now by inviting all your friends and fellow gamers to join the Video Game Voters Network. Use our simple tool to send an email to everyone you know asking them to stand up for gaming rights: http://videogamevoters.org/movement You can also help spread the word through Facebook and Twitter, or you can simply forward this email to everyone you know and ask them to sign up at videogamevoters.org. Time after time, courts continue to reject politicians' efforts to restrict the sale of computer and video games. But that doesn't mean the politicians will stop trying anytime soon -- in fact, it means they're likely to ramp up their efforts even more. To stop them, we must make it clear that gamers will continue to stand up for free speech -- and that the numbers are on our side. Help make sure we're ready and able to keep fighting for our gaming rights. Spread the word about the Video Game Voters Network right now: http://videogamevoters.org/movement Thank you. -- Video Game Voters Network

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Do you want to be an ALM Consultant?

- by Martin Hinshelwood

Northwest Cadence is looking for our next great consultant! At Northwest Cadence, we have created a work environment that emphasizes excellence, integrity, and out-of-the-box thinking. Our customers have high expectations (rightfully so) and we wouldn’t have it any other way! Northwest Cadence has some of the most exciting customers I have ever worked with and even though I have only been here just over a month I have already: Provided training/consulting for 3 government departments Created and taught courseware for delivering Scrum to teams within a high profile multinational company Started presenting Microsoft's ALM Engagement Program So if you are interested in helping companies build better software more efficiently, then.. Enquire at [email protected] Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Consultant An ALM Consultant with a minimum of 8 years of relevant experience with Application Lifecycle Management, Visual Studio (including Visual Studio Team System) and software design is needed. Must provide thought leadership on best practices for enterprise architecture, understand the Microsoft technology solution stack, and have a thorough understanding of enterprise application integration. The ALM Practice Lead will play a central role in designing and implementing the overall ALM Practice strategy, including creating, updating, and delivering ALM courseware and consultancy engagements. This person will also provide project support, deliverables, and quality solutions on Visual Studio Team System that exceed client expectations. Engagements will vary and will involve providing expert training, consulting, mentoring, formulating technical strategies and policies and acting as a “trusted advisor” to customers and internal teams. Sound sense of business and technical strategy required. Strong interpersonal skills as well as solid strategic thinking are key. The ideal candidate will be capable of envisioning the solution based on the early client requirements, communicating the vision to both technical and business stakeholders, leading teams through implementation, as well as training, mentoring, and hands-on software development. The ideal candidate will demonstrate successful use of both agile and formal software development methods, enterprise application patterns, and effective leadership on prior projects. Job Requirements Minimum Education: Bachelor’s Degree (computer science, engineering, or math preferred). Locale / Travel: The Practice Lead position requires estimated 50% travel, most of which will be in the Continental US (a valid national Passport must be maintained). This is a full time position and will be based in the Kirkland office. Preferred Education: Master’s Degree in Information Technology or Software Engineering; Premium Microsoft Certifications on .NET (MCSD) or MCPD or relevant experience; Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) or relevant experience. Minimum Experience and Skills: 7+ years experience with business information systems integration or custom business application design and development in a professional technology consulting, corporate MIS or software development environment. Essential Duties & Responsibilities: Provide training, consulting, and mentoring to organizations on topics that include Visual Studio Team System and ALM. Create content, including labs and demonstrations, to be delivered as training classes by Northwest Cadence employees. Lead development teams through the complete ALM and/or Visual Studio Team System solution. Be able to communicate in detail how a solution will integrate into the larger technical problem space for large, complex enterprises. Define technical solution requirements. Provide guidance to the customer and project team with respect to technical feasibility, complexity, and level of effort required to deliver a custom solution. Ensure that the solution is designed, developed and deployed in accordance with the agreed upon development work plan. Create and deliver weekly status reports of training and/or consulting progress. Engagement Responsibilities: · Provide a strong desire to provide thought leadership related to technology and to help grow the business. · Work effectively and professionally with employees at all levels of a customer’s organization. · Have strong verbal and written communication skills. · Have effective presentation, organizational and planning skills. · Have effective interpersonal skills and ability to work in a team environment. Enquire at [email protected]

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First Foray–About timeout

- by SQLMonger

It has been quite a while since I signed up for this blog site and high time that something was posted. I have a list of topics that I will be working through and posting. Some I am sure will have been posted by others, but I will be sticking to the technical problems and challenges that I’ve recently faced, and the solutions that worked for me. My motto when learning something new has always been “My kingdom for an example!”, and I plan on delivering useful examples here so others can learn from my efforts, failures and successes. A bit of background about me… My name is Clayton Groom. I am a founding partner of a consulting firm in St. Louis Missouri, Covenant Technology Partners, LLC and focus on SQL Server Data Warehouse design, Analysis Services and Enterprise Reporting solutions. I have been working with SQL Server since the early nineties, when it still only ran on OS/2. I love solving puzzles and technical challenges. Enough about me… On to a real problem… SSIS Connection Time outs versus Command Time outs Last week, I was working on automating the processing for a large Analysis Services cube. I had reworked an SSIS package and script task originally posted by Vidas Matelis that automates the process of adding new and dropping old partitions to/from an Analysis Services cube. I had the package working great, tested, and ready for deployment. It basically performs a query against the source system to determine if there is new data in the warehouse that will require a new partition to be added to the cube, and it checks the cube to see if there are any partitions that are present that are no longer needed in a rolling 60 month window. My client uses Tivoli for running all their production jobs, and not SQL Agent, so I had to build a command line file for Tivoli to use to run the package. Everything was going great. I had tested the command file from my development workstation using an XML configuration file to pass in server-specific parameters into the package when executed using the DTExec utility. With all the pieces ready, I updated the dtsconfig file to point to the UAT environment and started working with the Tivoli developer to test the job. On the first run, the job failed, and from what I could see in the SSIS log, it had failed because of a timeout. Other errors in the log made me think that perhaps the connection string had not been passed into the package correctly. We bumped the Connection Manager timeout values from 20 seconds to 120 seconds and tried again. The job still failed. After changing the command line to use the /SET option instead of the /CONFIGFILE option, we tested again, and again failure. After a number more failed attempts, and getting the Teradata DBA involved to monitor and see if we were connecting and failing or just failing to connect, we determined that the job was indeed connecting to the server and then disconnecting itself after 30 seconds. This seemed odd, as we had the timeout values for the connection manager set to 180 seconds by then. At this point one of the DBA’s found a post on the Teradata forum that had the clues to the puzzle: There is a separate “CommandTimeout” custom property on the Data source object that may needed to be adjusted for longer running queries. I opened up the SSIS package, opened the data flow task that generated the partition list table and right-clicked on the data source. from the context menu, I selected “Show Advanced Editor” and found the property. Sure enough, it was set to 30 seconds. The CommandTimeout property can also be edited in the SSIS Properties sheet. In order to determine how long the timeout needed to be, I ran the query from the task in the development environment and received a response in a matter of seconds. I then tried the same query against the production database and waited several minutes for a response. This did not seem to be a reasonable response time for the query involved, and indeed it wasn’t. The Teradata DBA’s adjusted the query governor settings for the service account I was testing with, and we were able to get the response back down under a minute. Still, I set the CommandTimeout property to a much higher value in case the job was ever started during a time of high-demand on the production server. With this change in place, the job finally completed successfully. The lesson learned for me was two-fold: Always compare query execution times between development and production environments, and don’t assume that production will always be faster. With higher user demands, query governors, and a whole lot more data, the execution time of even what might seem to be simple queries can vary greatly. SSIS Connection time out settings do not affect command time outs. Connection timeouts control how long the package will wait for a response from the server before assuming the server is not available or is not responding. Command time outs control how long a task will wait for results to start being returned before deciding that the server is not responding. Both lessons seem pretty straight forward, and I felt pretty sheepish once I finally figured out what the issue was. To be fair though, In the 5+ years that I have been working with SSIS, I could only recall one other time where I had to set the CommandTimeout property, and that memory only resurfaced while I was penning this post.

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Essential Links for the SharePoint Client Side Developer

- by Mark Rackley

Front End Developer? Client Side Developer? Middle Tier??? I’m covering all my bases. Regardless, I’m sick and tired of Googling with Bing when I forget where information that I need often is located. I was getting ready to bookmark some of them when it hit me… “Hey Mark… (I don’t actually refer to myself in the third person), Why don’t you put the links in a blog so that it looks like you are being helpful!” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to go back to some of my old blogs to remember how I did something. Seriously people, you need to start a blog, it’s the best way to remember how the frick you got something to work… and it looks like you are being helpful when in reality you are just forgetful. So… where was I? Oh yeah.. essential information that I’ve needed from time to time when I was not using Visual Studio. All of this info has come in handy from time to time. Know about these things and keep them in your tool belt, it’s amazing the stuff you can accomplish with just knowing where to look. What Why SPServices Widely used library written by Marc Anderson used to call SharePoint Web Services with jQuery jQuery For SPServices and other cool stuff Easy Tabs Essential tool for quick page enhancements. This widely used too from Christophe Humbert groups multiple web parts into one tabbed display. Very quick and easy way to get oohs and ahs from End Users. Convert Calculated Columns to HTML Also from Christophe, I use this script all the time to convert html in my calculated columns to actually display as html and not with the tags. Unlocking the Mysteries of Data View Web Part XSL Tags This blog series from Marc Anderson makes it very easy to understand what’s going on with all those weird xsl tags in your data view web parts. Essential to make those things do what you want them to do. Creating Parent / Child list relationships (2007) Creating Parent / Child list relationships (2010) By far my most viewed blog posts (tens and tens of thousands). I have posts for both 2007 and 2010 that walk you through automatically setting the lookup id on a list to its “parent”. Set SharePoint Form fields using Query String Variables Also widely read, this one walks you through taking a variable from your Query String and set a form field to that value. Hmmm… I KNOW there are more, but I’m tired and drawing a blank. I’ll try to add them when I remember them (or need them again and think “Oh, I forgot to add that one”) But it’s a start, and please feel free to add your own in the comments… So, it’s YOUR turn to be helpful. What little tip or trick do you find yourself using ALL the time that you think everyone should know about??

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WCF Operations and Multidimensional Arrays

- by JoshReuben

You cant pass MultiD arrays accross the wire using WCF - you need to pass jagged arrays. heres 2 extension methods that will allow you to convert prior to serialzation and convert back after deserialization: public static T[,] ToMultiD<T>(this T[][] jArray) { int i = jArray.Count(); int j = jArray.Select(x => x.Count()).Aggregate(0, (current, c) => (current > c) ? current : c); var mArray = new T[i, j]; for (int ii = 0; ii < i; ii++) { for (int jj = 0; jj < j; jj++) { mArray[ii, jj] = jArray[ii][jj]; } } return mArray; } public static T[][] ToJagged<T>(this T[,] mArray) { var cols = mArray.GetLength(0); var rows = mArray.GetLength(1); var jArray = new T[cols][]; for (int i = 0; i < cols; i++) { jArray[i] = new T[rows]; for (int j = 0; j < rows; j++) { jArray[i][j] = mArray[i, j]; } } return jArray; } enjoy!

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[Dear Recruiter] I developed in Mo'Fusion

- by refuctored

Forward: Sometimes I really feel like technology recruiters have no experience or knowledge of the field they are recruting for. A warning to those companies hiring technical recruiters -- ensure that the technical recruiters you hire to fill a position are actually technical. Here's proof below, where I make up completely ridiculous technologies, but still have interest from the recruiter for an interview. Letter to me: Hello - Your name came up as a possible match for a long term contract Cold Fusion Developer role I have in Bothell, WA. This role requires you to be onsite in Bothell, WA. This is a tough role to fill so I was hoping you might have someone you can recommend? Unfortunately no telecommute. Thank you! Sincerly, Mindy Recruiter My response: Mindy -- Wow I'm super-excited that you took the time to contact me about this position! Let me tell you, you won't be disappointed with my skill set! Firstly, I've been developing in ColdFusion since 1993 before it was owned by Adobe and it was operating under code name, "Hot-Jack". Recently I started developing under the Domain-View-Driven-Domain-Model (DVDDM), integrating client-side CF on Moobuntu. Not only do I have a boat load of ColdFusion EXP, I also have a ton of experience in the open source communities lesser known derivative of CF, Mo'Fusion (MF). I've also invested thousands of hours of my time learning esoteric programming languages. Look forward to working with you! George And her response: Hi George – just left you a message. Give me a call at your convenience. The role does require someone to be onsite here.. are you able to relocate yourself? Mindy [Sigh]

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Working with packed dates in SSIS

- by Jim Giercyk

One of the challenges recently thrown my way was to read an EBCDIC flat file, decode packed dates, and insert the dates into a SQL table. For those unfamiliar with packed data, it is a way to store data at the nibble level (half a byte), and was often used by mainframe programmers to conserve storage space. In the case of my input file, the dates were 2 bytes long and represented the number of days that have past since 01/01/1950. My first thought was, in the words of Scooby, Hmmmmph? But, I love a good challenge, so I dove in. Reading in the flat file was rather simple. The only difference between reading an EBCDIC and an ASCII file is the Code Page option in the connection manager. In my case, I needed to use Code Page 1140 for EBCDIC (I could have also used Code Page 37). Once the code page is set correctly, SSIS can understand what it is reading and it will convert the output to the default code page, 1252. However, packed data is either unreadable or produces non-alphabetic characters, as we can see in the preview window. Column 1 is actually the packed date, columns 0 and 2 are the values in the rest of the file. We are only interested in Column 1, which is a 2 byte field representing a packed date. We know that 2 bytes of packed data can be stored in 1 byte of character data, so we are working with 4 packed digits in 2 character bytes. If you are confused, stay tuned….this will make sense in a minute. Right-click on your Flat File Source shape and select “Show Advanced Editor”. Here is where the magic begins. By changing the properties of the output columns, we can access the packed digits from each byte. By default, the Output Column data type is DT_STR. Since we want to look at the bytes individually and not the entire string, change the data type to DT_BYTES. Next, and most important, set UseBinaryFormat to TRUE. This will write the HEX VALUES of the output string instead of writing the character values. Now we are getting somewhere! Next, you will need to use a Data Conversion shape in your Data Flow to transform the 2 position byte stream to a 4 position Unicode string containing the packed data. You need the string to be 4 bytes long because it will contain the 4 packed digits. Here is what that should look like in the Data Conversion shape: Direct the output of your data flow to a test table or file to see the results. In my case, I created a test table. The results looked like this: Hold on a second! That doesn't look like a date at all. No, of course not. It is a hex number which represents the days which have passed between 01/01/1950 and the date. We have to convert the Hex value to a decimal value, and use the DATEADD function to get a date value. Luckily, I have created a function to convert Hex to Decimal: -- ============================================= -- Author: Jim Giercyk -- Create date: March, 2012 -- Description: Converts a Hex string to a decimal value -- ============================================= CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[ftn_HexToDec] ( @hexValue NVARCHAR(6) ) RETURNS DECIMAL AS BEGIN -- Declare the return variable here DECLARE @decValue DECIMAL IF @hexValue LIKE '0x%' SET @hexValue = SUBSTRING(@hexValue,3,4) DECLARE @decTab TABLE ( decPos1 VARCHAR(2), decPos2 VARCHAR(2), decPos3 VARCHAR(2), decPos4 VARCHAR(2) ) DECLARE @pos1 VARCHAR(1) = SUBSTRING(@hexValue,1,1) DECLARE @pos2 VARCHAR(1) = SUBSTRING(@hexValue,2,1) DECLARE @pos3 VARCHAR(1) = SUBSTRING(@hexValue,3,1) DECLARE @pos4 VARCHAR(1) = SUBSTRING(@hexValue,4,1) INSERT @decTab VALUES (CASE WHEN @pos1 = 'A' THEN '10' WHEN @pos1 = 'B' THEN '11' WHEN @pos1 = 'C' THEN '12' WHEN @pos1 = 'D' THEN '13' WHEN @pos1 = 'E' THEN '14' WHEN @pos1 = 'F' THEN '15' ELSE @pos1 END, CASE WHEN @pos2 = 'A' THEN '10' WHEN @pos2 = 'B' THEN '11' WHEN @pos2 = 'C' THEN '12' WHEN @pos2 = 'D' THEN '13' WHEN @pos2 = 'E' THEN '14' WHEN @pos2 = 'F' THEN '15' ELSE @pos2 END, CASE WHEN @pos3 = 'A' THEN '10' WHEN @pos3 = 'B' THEN '11' WHEN @pos3 = 'C' THEN '12' WHEN @pos3 = 'D' THEN '13' WHEN @pos3 = 'E' THEN '14' WHEN @pos3 = 'F' THEN '15' ELSE @pos3 END, CASE WHEN @pos4 = 'A' THEN '10' WHEN @pos4 = 'B' THEN '11' WHEN @pos4 = 'C' THEN '12' WHEN @pos4 = 'D' THEN '13' WHEN @pos4 = 'E' THEN '14' WHEN @pos4 = 'F' THEN '15' ELSE @pos4 END) SET @decValue = (CONVERT(INT,(SELECT decPos4 FROM @decTab))) + (CONVERT(INT,(SELECT decPos3 FROM @decTab))*16) + (CONVERT(INT,(SELECT decPos2 FROM @decTab))*(16*16)) + (CONVERT(INT,(SELECT decPos1 FROM @decTab))*(16*16*16)) RETURN @decValue END GO Making use of the function, I found the decimal conversion, added that number of days to 01/01/1950 and FINALLY arrived at my “unpacked relative date”. Here is the query I used to retrieve the formatted date, and the result set which was returned: SELECT [packedDate] AS 'Hex Value', dbo.ftn_HexToDec([packedDate]) AS 'Decimal Value', CONVERT(DATE,DATEADD(day,dbo.ftn_HexToDec([packedDate]),'01/01/1950'),101) AS 'Relative String Date' FROM [dbo].[Output Table] This technique can be used any time you need to retrieve the hex value of a character string in SSIS. The date example may be a bit difficult to understand at first, but with SSIS becoming the preferred tool for enterprise level integration for many companies, there is no doubt that developers will encounter these types of requirements with regularity in the future. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

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The Linux powered LAN Gaming House

- by sachinghalot

LAN parties offer the enjoyment of head to head gaming in a real-life social environment. In general, they are experiencing decline thanks to the convenience of Internet gaming, but Kenton Varda is a man who takes his LAN gaming very seriously. His LAN gaming house is a fascinating project, and best of all, Linux plays a part in making it all work.Varda has done his own write ups (short, long), so I'm only going to give an overview here. The setup is a large house with 12 gaming stations and a single server computer.The client computers themselves are rack mounted in a server room, and they are linked to the gaming stations on the floor above via extension cables (HDMI for video and audio and USB for mouse and keyboard). Each client computer, built into a 3U rack mount case, is a well specced gaming rig in its own right, sporting an Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM and an Nvidia GeForce 560 along with a 60GB SSD drive.Originally, the client computers ran Ubuntu Linux rather than Windows and the games executed under WINE, but Varda had to abandon this scheme. As he explains on his site:"Amazingly, a majority of games worked fine, although many had minor bugs (e.g. flickering mouse cursor, minor rendering artifacts, etc.). Some games, however, did not work, or had bad bugs that made them annoying to play."Subsequently, the gaming computers have been moved onto a more conventional gaming choice, Windows 7. It's a shame that WINE couldn't be made to work, but I can sympathize as it's rare to find modern games that work perfectly and at full native speed. Another problem with WINE is that it tends to suffer from regressions, which is hardly surprising when considering the difficulty of constantly improving the emulation of the Windows API. Varda points out that he preferred working with Linux clients as they were easier to modify and came with less licensing baggage.Linux still runs the server and all of the tools used are open source software. The hardware here is a Intel Xeon E3-1230 with 4GB of RAM. The storage hanging off this machine is a bit more complex than the clients. In addition to the 60GB SSD, it also has 2x1TB drives and a 240GB SDD.When the clients were running Linux, they booted over PXE using a toolchain that will be familiar to anyone who has setup Linux network booting. DHCP pointed the clients to the server which then supplied PXELINUX using TFTP. When booted, file access was accomplished through network block device (NBD). This is a very easy to use system that allows you to serve the contents of a file as a block device over the network. The client computer runs a user mode device driver and the device can be mounted within the file system using the mount command.One snag with offering file access via NBD is that it's difficult to impose any security restrictions on different areas of the file system as the server only sees a single file. The advantage is perfomance as the client operating system simply sees a block device, and besides, these security issues aren't relevant in this setup.Unfortunately, Windows 7 can't use NBD, so, Varda had to switch to iSCSI (which works in both server and client mode under Linux). His network cards are not compliant with this standard when doing a netboot, but fortunately, gPXE came to the rescue, and he boostraps it over PXE. gPXE is also available as an ISO image and is worth knowing about if you encounter an awkward machine that can't manage a network boot. It can also optionally boot from a HTTP server rather than the more traditional TFTP server.According to Varda, booting all 12 machines over the Gigabit Ethernet network is surprisingly fast, and once booted, the machines don't seem noticeably slower than if they were using local storage. Once loaded, most games attempt to load in as much data as possible, filling the RAM, and the the disk and network bandwidth required is small. It's worth noting that these are aspects of this project that might differ from some other thin client scenarios.At time of writing, it doesn't seem as though the local storage of the client machines is being utilized. Instead, the clients boot into Windows from an image on the server that contains the operating system and the games themselves. It uses the copy on write feature of LVM so that any writes from a client are added to a differencing image allocated to that client. As the administrator, Varda can log into the Linux server and authorize changes to the master image for updates etc.SummaryOverall, Varda estimates the total cost of the project at about $40,000, and of course, he needed a property that offered a large physical space in order to house the computers and the gaming workstations. Obviously, this project has stark differences to most thin client projects. The balance between storage, network usage, GPU power and security would not be typical of an office installation, for example. The only letdown is that WINE proved to be insufficiently compatible to run a wide variety of modern games, but that is, perhaps, asking too much of it, and hats off to Varda for trying to make it work.

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Mailbox move issue from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010

- by Ryan Roussel

Today while moving mailboxes between Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2010, I hit an issue with a couple of mailboxes. These mailboxes all popped access denied errors or more exactly: Insufficient Access Rights to perform the operation. The cause was similar to the mail flow issue in that inheritable permissions were not turned on for the user object in Active Directory. This also presented it’s own unique problem in that since the initial move request failed because of permissions, it had to be cleared before a new move request could be created. On top of that, the request did not show up in the EMC. I used the following process to clear the request, assign permission, then create a new request: 1. First you need to know the ExchangeGUID of the mailbox for the remove-moverequest command. To quickly get the GUID for a mailbox simply run: 2. Next we need to clear out the move request using PowerShell by running: [PS] c:\>Remove-moverequest -moverequestqueue "mailbox database 1030639620" -mailboxguid 8525686f-d4d3-42b7-92f1-46d77ea841a3 3. Then to re-establish inheritable permissions. This can be done by using AD Users and Computers, switching to View Advanced Features, then under the Security tab of the object. Click Advanced, then check “allow inheritable permissions of parent to propagate to this object” 4. Once the Inheritable permissions are restored, we need to create a new move request: NOTE: The EMC can also be used to initiate the Move Request once the permissions are corrected. [PS] c:\>New-moverequest –identity jyoung -baditemlimit 100 -targetdatabase "mailbox database 1030639620" And that’s it. The mailbox should move over smoothly with no access denied error.

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How Estimates Became Quotes

- by Lee Brandt

It’s our fault. Well, not completely, but we haven’t helped the situation any. All of what follows comes from my own experiences which, from talking to lots of other developers about it, seems to be pretty much par for the course. Where We Started When we first started estimating, we estimated pretty clearly. We would try to imagine something we’d done that was similar to the project being estimated and we’d toss it about in our heads a bit and see how much bigger or smaller we thought this new thing was, and add or subtract accordingly. We wouldn’t spend too much time on it, because we wanted to get to writing the software. Eventually, we’d come across some huge problem that there was now way we could’ve known about ahead of time. Either we didn’t see this thing or, we didn’t realize that this particular version of a problem would be so… problematic. We usually call this “not knowing what we don’t know”. It’s unavoidable. We just can’t know. Until we wade in and start putting some code together, there are just some things we won’t know… and some things we don’t even know that we don’t know. Y’know? So what happens? We go over budget. Project managers scream and dance the dance of the stressed-out project manager, and there is nothing we can do (or could’ve done) about it. We didn’t know. We thought about it for a bit and we didn’t see this herculean task sitting in the middle of our nice quiet project, and it has bitten us in the rear end. We now know how to handle this in the future, though. We will take some more time to pick around the requirements and discover all those things we don’t know. We’ll do some prototyping, we’ll read some blogs about similar projects, we’ll really grill the customer with questions during the requirements gathering phase. We’ll keeping asking “what else?” until the shove us down the stairs. We’ll take our time and uncover it all. We Learned, But Good The next time comes, and you know what happens? We do it. We grill the customer for weeks and prototype and read and research and we estimate everything down to the last button on the last form. Know what that gets us? It gets us three months of wasted time, and our estimate will still be off. Possibly off by a factor of four. WTF, mate? No way we could be surprised by something! We uncovered every particle. We turned every stone. How is it we still came across unknowns? Because we STILL didn’t know what we didn’t know. How could we? We didn’t know to ask. The worst part is, we’ve now convinced the product that this is NOT an estimate. It is a solid number based on massive research and an endless number of questions that they answered. There is absolutely now way you don’t know everything there is to know about this project now. No way there is anything you haven’t uncovered. And their faith in that “Esti-Quote” goes through the roof. When the project goes over this time, they might even begin to question whether or not you know what you’re doing. Who could blame them? You drilled them for weeks about every little thing, and when they complained about all the questions, you told them you wanted to uncover everything so there would be no surprises. SO we set them up to faile Guess, Then Plan We had a chance. At the beginning we could have just said, “That’s just a gut-feeling estimate, based on my past experience with similar projects. There could still be surprises.” If we spend SOME time doing SOME discovery and then bounce that against our own past experiences, we can come up with a fairly healthy estimate. We can then help the product owner understand that an estimate is a guess. Sure, it’s an educated guess, but it is still a guess. If we get it right it will be almost completely luck. Then, we help them to plan the development by taking that guess (yes, they still need the guess for planning purposes) and start measuring early and often to see if we still think we are right. We should adjust the estimate and alert the product owner as soon as we see problems (bad news does not age well) and we should be able to see any problems immediately if we are constantly measuring our pace. In lean software, we start with that guess and begin measuring cycle times immediately. Then we can make projections based on those cycle times and compare them to our estimate. This constant feedback is the best way to ensure that there are no surprises at the END of the project. There sill still be surprises, but we’ll see them sooner and have a better understanding of how they will affect our overall timeline. What do you think?

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Create a Remote Git Repository from an Existing XCode Repository

- by codeWithoutFear

Introduction Distributed version control systems (VCS’s), like Git, provide a rich set of features for managing source code. Many development tools, including XCode, provide built-in support for various VCS’s. These tools provide simple configuration with limited customization to get you up and running quickly while still providing the safety net of basic version control. I hate losing (and re-doing) work. I have OCD when it comes to saving and versioning source code. Save early, save often, and commit to the VCS often. I also hate merging code. Smaller and more frequent commits enable me to minimize merge time and effort as well. The work flow I prefer even for personal exploratory projects is: Make small local changes to the codebase to create an incrementally improved (and working) system. Commit these changes to the local repository. Local repositories are quick to access, function even while offline, and provides the confidence to continue making bold changes to the system. After all, I can easily recover to a recent working state. Repeat 1 & 2 until the codebase contains “significant” functionality and I have connectivity to the remote repository. Push the accumulated changes to the remote repository. The smaller the change set, the less likely extensive merging will be required. Smaller is better, IMHO. The remote repository typically has a greater degree of fault tolerance and active management dedicated to it. This can be as simple as a network share that is backed up nightly or as complex as dedicated hardware with specialized server-side processing and significant administrative monitoring. XCode’s out-of-the-box Git integration enables steps 1 and 2 above. Time Machine backups of the local repository add an additional degree of fault tolerance, but do not support collaboration or take advantage of managed infrastructure such as on-premises or cloud-based storage. Creating a Remote Repository These are the steps I use to enable the full workflow identified above. For simplicity the “remote” repository is created on the local file system. This location could easily be on a mounted network volume. Create a Test Project My project is called HelloGit and is located at /Users/Don/Dev/HelloGit. Be sure to commit all outstanding changes. XCode always leaves a single changed file for me after the project is created and the initial commit is submitted. Clone the Local Repository We want to clone the XCode-created Git repository to the location where the remote repository will reside. In this case it will be /Users/Don/Dev/RemoteHelloGit. Open the Terminal application. Clone the local repository to the remote repository location: git clone /Users/Don/Dev/HelloGit /Users/Don/Dev/RemoteHelloGit Convert the Remote Repository to a Bare Repository The remote repository only needs to contain the Git database. It does not need a checked out branch or local files. Go to the remote repository folder: cd /Users/Don/Dev/RemoteHelloGit Indicate the repository is “bare”: git config --bool core.bare true Remove files, leaving the .git folder: rm -R * Remove the “origin” remote: git remote rm origin Configure the Local Repository The local repository should reference the remote repository. The remote name “origin” is used by convention to indicate the originating repository. This is set automatically when a repository is cloned. We will use the “origin” name here to reflect that relationship. Go to the local repository folder: cd /Users/Don/Dev/HelloGit Add the remote: git remote add origin /Users/Don/Dev/RemoteHelloGit Test Connectivity Any changes made to the local Git repository can be pushed to the remote repository subject to the merging rules Git enforces. Create a new local file: date > date.txt /li> Add the new file to the local index: git add date.txt Commit the change to the local repository: git commit -m "New file: date.txt" Push the change to the remote repository: git push origin master Now you can save, commit, and push/pull to your OCD hearts’ content! Code without fear! --Don

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