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  • Routing all data through an VPN tunnel with ppp

    - by Oliver
    I'm trying to create a VPN tunnel that forwards all data from the local machine to the VPN server. I'm using ppp-2.4.5 for this with the following configuration: pty "pptp <VPNServer> --nolaunchpppd" name <my login name> remotename PPTP usepeerdns require-mppe-128 file /etc/ppp/options.pptp persist maxfail 0 holdoff 5 I have a script in if-up.d with the following content: route del default eth0 route add default dev ppp0 Before starting the VPN tunnel my routing looks like: Kernel IP routing table Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface 0.0.0.0 192.168.0.1 0.0.0.0 UG 2 0 0 eth0 127.0.0.0 127.0.0.1 255.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 lo 192.168.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.0.0 U 0 0 0 eth0 After starting the tunnel (via pon) it looks like: Kernel IP routing table Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 ppp0 12.34.56.1 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 ppp0 127.0.0.0 127.0.0.1 255.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 lo 192.168.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.0.0 U 0 0 0 eth0 Now the problem is, that the VPN tunnel seems to be looped into itself. If I run ifconfig after a few seconds without any traffic: eth0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 inet 192.168.0.10 netmask 255.255.0.0 broadcast 192.168.255.255 ether 00:01:2e:2f:ff:35 txqueuelen 1000 (Ethernet) RX packets 39931 bytes 6784614 (6.4 MiB) RX errors 0 dropped 90 overruns 0 frame 0 TX packets 34980 bytes 7633181 (7.2 MiB) TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0 device interrupt 20 memory 0xfbdc0000-fbde0000 ppp0: flags=4305<UP,POINTOPOINT,RUNNING,NOARP,MULTICAST> mtu 1496 inet 12.34.56.78 netmask 255.255.255.255 destination 12.34.56.1 ppp txqueuelen 3 (Point-to-Point Protocol) RX packets 7 bytes 94 (94.0 B) RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0 TX packets 782863 bytes 349257986 (333.0 MiB) TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0 It states that already over 300 MiB have been send, ppp0 is only online since a few seconds and the connection isn't working anyway. Can someone please help me to fix the routing table, so that the traffic from ppp0 is not send again through ppp0 but instead goes to the remote server?

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  • What is the probable failure - no BSOD, no event log, monitors sleeping, force reboot required

    - by Tyler
    Every 3 to 15 days, my PC freezes. This typically happens when the computer is idle, I'm coming home from work, back from vacation, etc. It's never happened while using my computer. The monitors are in power save mode The Caps Lock light on the (wireless) keyboard doesn't work Ctrl-alt-del has no effect, mouse (wireless) has no effect The hardware reset button and single press of power putton have no effect Computer does not appear on the network No BSOD, no memory dump Event logs have no errors or indications of problems near the time of crash. Only messages after reboot indicating that there was a reboot without a clean shutdown. Windows is set to never put the computer to sleep (just the display) Here are the vital stats of the build: OS Windows 8 Pro 64-bit CPU Intel i5-2400 Mobo Intel BOXDP67DE Micro ATX GPU MSI N460GTX Cyclone768D5/OC RAM CORSAIR XMS3 8GB (2 x 4GB) CMX8GX3M2A1333C9 PSU SeaSonic X Series X650 Gold System Drive Samsung 840 Pro 256 GB SSD Data Drive 2 x Western Digital WD20EARS 2TB in hardware RAID 1 Optical Lite-On DVD burner IHAS424-98 And here is the story of how the problem developed and what I've done to diagnose: January 2011, system built with Windows 7 64-bit, runs great. March 2011, Intel replaced the mobo because of the bad sata controllers. October 2012, upgrade to Windows 8 (problems start shortly after). January 2013, system freezes and causes network to fail for the whole house. Unplug the network cable and other devices and PCs can use the internet. Plug it back in, internet goes away for everyone. Reboot and everything is fine. March 2013, install Intel Gigabit CT PCI-E NIC, disable mobo nic in bios. Network strangeness goes away. Freezes are less frequent. Memtest shows no problems (20 passes). Early June 2013, replace Antec PSU with SeaSonic PSU. Mid June 2013, replace OCZ Vertex 2 SSD with Samsung SSD. Late June 2013, get frustrated and hope the community has some good ideas (I'm running out of budget to replace parts). My next plan of attack is setting "Turn off display" to Never and using a screen saver to see how that reacts on the next freeze. It makes me sad to waste power for up to 15 days though. Has anyone out there seen a problem like this? Any ideas on what kind of malfunction would act this way? Ideas of other diagnostic steps to take?

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  • Possible HDD malfunction. Need help in diagnosing

    - by Protheus
    Today when using my PC as I did for almost 4 years I experienced the following: during opening new tab in Opera browser screen froze. Music (AIMP 3) continued to play for about 5 minutes and then stopped too. I tried Ctrl+Alt+Del, but win7 lock screen didn't appear. Caps\Scroll or Num locks didn't switch diodes on keyboard. I rebooted my PC and saw that BIOS suggests me to enter it's settings or load by default. I chose default. It don't see proper boot device (old faitful "insert proper boot" something). After second reboot it said that there is no ExpressGate installed (which i turned off in BIOS years ago). I went into BIOS setting to turn off ExpressGate and see configs: time was not set off, all hard drives present, temp and O.C. settings are nominal (no O.C.) I've inserted my Win7 install disk to try recovery. It did load awfully long (about few minutes) and didn't see current installation. PC was utilized in 24/7 mode for almost all these years. Hardware configuration: ASUS P5Q WS Core 2 Quad Q9300 (2.5GHz no O.C.) MSI geForce GTX 460 4x2 Gb GeIL EVO 2 (AFAIR) Seagate something 750Gb (4 years as system HDD 24/7) WD 1Tb (for random stuff, 5 y.o.) Hitachi 500Gb (for even more random stuff, 6 y.o.) NEC DVDRW (ALL DISKS ARE SATA) Cooler Master Silent Pro 700W Software: Windows 7 AND Kubuntu on the same drive with GRUB loader. Sorry I can't remember HDDs and can't see them right now, but I think their models aren't relevant anyway. My idea is that due to some system error or hard drive glitch i've wrecked my primary HDD's MBR. Nevertheless I don't exclude the possibility of other failure. May it's be that motherboard or it's SATA controller? Doubt it, because all drives are seen in BIOS and I could load from DVD. Maybe GRUB got bugged somehow, although I don't see how it's possible from Windows. But I did install KUbuntu from Windows (i wasn't myself then), maybe GRUB did write itself in some windows partition and got rewriteen in process? Right now I am at work with my flash drive with me and I need some advice how to fix MBR or to hear if it's not MBR. I'm going to buy new HDD (Hitachi 7k2000) because I think that my current HDD is compromised and it's unsafe to use it as system drive, especially 24/7.

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  • WCF AuthenticationService in IIS7 Error

    - by germandb
    I have a WCF Server running on IIS 7 using default application pool, with SSL activate, the services is installed in a SBS Server 2008. I implement client application services with wcf and SQL 2005 for setting the access control in my application. The application run under windows vista and is make with WPF. In my developer machine the application and the WCF services run well, the IIS i'm use for the trials is the local IIS 7 and the database is the SQL Server 2005 database hosting in my server. I'm using Visual Studio Project Designer to enable and configure client application services. using https://localhost/WcfServidorFundacion. When i'm change the authentication services location to https://WcfServices:5659/WcfServidorFundacion and recompile the application, the following error show up. Message: The web service returned the error status code: InternalServerError. Details of service failure: {"Message":" Error while processing your request ","StackTrace":"","ExceptionType":""} Stack Trace: en System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetResponse() en System.Web.ClientServices.Providers.ProxyHelper.CreateWebRequestAndGetResponse(String serverUri, CookieContainer& cookies, String username, String connectionString, String connectionStringProvider, String[] paramNames, Object[] paramValues, Type returnType) InnerException: System.Net.WebException Message="Remote Server Error: (500) Interal Server Error." I can access the WCF service from the navigator using the url mentioned above and even make a webReference in my project. I make a capture of the response but I'cant post it because i don't have 10 reputation points I activate the error log in the IIS 7 server, and the result is a Warning in the ManagedPipilineHandler. I appreciate if any one can help me Errors & Warnings No.? Severity Event Module Name 132. view trace Warning -MODULE_SET_RESPONSE_ERROR_STATUS ModuleName ManagedPipelineHandler Notification 128 HttpStatus 500 HttpReason Internal Server Error HttpSubStatus 0 ErrorCode 0 ConfigExceptionInfo Notification EXECUTE_REQUEST_HANDLER ErrorCode La operación se ha completado correctamente. (0x0) Maybe this can help, is the web.config of my service <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <!-- Nota: como alternativa para editar manualmente este archivo, puede utilizar la herramienta Administración de sitios web para configurar los valores de la aplicación. Utilice la opción Sitio Web->Configuración de Asp.Net en Visual Studio. Encontrará una lista completa de valores de configuración y comentarios en machine.config.comments, que se encuentra generalmente en \Windows\Microsoft.Net\Framework\v2.x\Config --> <configuration> <configSections> <sectionGroup name="system.web.extensions" type="System.Web.Configuration.SystemWebExtensionsSectionGroup, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"> <sectionGroup name="scripting" type="System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingSectionGroup, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"> <section name="scriptResourceHandler" type="System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingScriptResourceHandlerSection, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" requirePermission="false" allowDefinition="MachineToApplication" /> <sectionGroup name="webServices" type="System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingWebServicesSectionGroup, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"> <section name="jsonSerialization" type="System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingJsonSerializationSection, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" requirePermission="false" allowDefinition="Everywhere" /> <section name="profileService" type="System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingProfileServiceSection, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" requirePermission="false" allowDefinition="MachineToApplication" /> <section name="authenticationService" type="System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingAuthenticationServiceSection, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" requirePermission="false" allowDefinition="MachineToApplication" /> <section name="roleService" type="System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingRoleServiceSection, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" requirePermission="false" allowDefinition="MachineToApplication" /> </sectionGroup> </sectionGroup> </sectionGroup> </configSections> <appSettings /> <connectionStrings> <remove name="LocalMySqlServer" /> <remove name="LocalSqlServer" /> <add name="fundacionSelfAut" connectionString="Data Source=FUNDACIONSERVER/PRUEBAS;Initial Catalog=fundacion;User ID=wcfBaseDatos;Password=qwerty_2009;" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" /> </connectionStrings> <system.web> <profile enabled="true" defaultProvider="SqlProfileProvider"> <providers> <clear /> <add name="SqlProfileProvider" type="System.Web.Profile.SqlProfileProvider" connectionStringName="fundacionSelfAut" applicationName="fundafe" /> </providers> <properties> <add name="FirstName" type="String" /> <add name="LastName" type="String" /> <add name="PhoneNumber" type="String" /> </properties> </profile> <roleManager enabled="true" defaultProvider="SqlRoleProvider"> <providers> <clear /> <add name="SqlRoleProvider" type="System.Web.Security.SqlRoleProvider" connectionStringName="fundacionSelfAut" applicationName="fundafe" /> </providers> </roleManager> <membership defaultProvider="SqlMembershipProvider"> <providers> <clear /> <add name="SqlMembershipProvider" type="System.Web.Security.SqlMembershipProvider" connectionStringName="fundacionSelfAut" applicationName="fundafe" enablePasswordRetrieval="false" enablePasswordReset="false" requiresQuestionAndAnswer="true" requiresUniqueEmail="true" passwordFormat="Hashed" /> </providers> </membership> <authentication mode="Forms" /> <compilation debug="true" strict="false" explicit="true"> <assemblies> <add assembly="System.Core, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=B77A5C561934E089" /> <add assembly="System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" /> </assemblies> </compilation> <!-- La sección <authentication> permite la configuración del modo de autenticación de seguridad utilizado por ASP.NET para identificar a un usuario entrante. --> <!-- La sección <customErrors> permite configurar las acciones que se deben llevar a cabo/cuando un error no controlado tiene lugar durante la ejecución de una solicitud. Específicamente, permite a los desarrolladores configurar páginas de error html que se mostrarán en lugar de un seguimiento de pila de errores. <customErrors mode="RemoteOnly" defaultRedirect="GenericErrorPage.htm"> <error statusCode="403" redirect="NoAccess.htm" /> <error statusCode="404" redirect="FileNotFound.htm" /> </customErrors> --> <pages> <controls> <add tagPrefix="asp" namespace="System.Web.UI" assembly="System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" /> </controls> </pages> <httpHandlers> <remove verb="*" path="*.asmx" /> <add verb="*" path="*.asmx" validate="false" type="System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptHandlerFactory, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" /> <add verb="*" path="*_AppService.axd" validate="false" type="System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptHandlerFactory, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" /> <add verb="GET,HEAD" path="ScriptResource.axd" type="System.Web.Handlers.ScriptResourceHandler, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" validate="false" /> </httpHandlers> <httpModules> <add name="ScriptModule" type="System.Web.Handlers.ScriptModule, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" /> </httpModules> <sessionState timeout="40" /> </system.web> <system.codedom> <compilers> <compiler language="c#;cs;csharp" extension=".cs" warningLevel="4" type="Microsoft.CSharp.CSharpCodeProvider, System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089"> <providerOption name="CompilerVersion" value="v3.5" /> <providerOption name="WarnAsError" value="false" /> </compiler> </compilers> </system.codedom> <!-- La sección webServer del sistema es necesaria para ejecutar ASP.NET AJAX en Internet Information Services 7.0. Sin embargo, no es necesaria para la versión anterior de IIS. --> <system.webServer> <validation validateIntegratedModeConfiguration="false" /> <modules> <add name="ScriptModule" preCondition="integratedMode" type="System.Web.Handlers.ScriptModule, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" /> </modules> <handlers> <remove name="WebServiceHandlerFactory-Integrated" /> <add name="ScriptHandlerFactory" verb="*" path="*.asmx" preCondition="integratedMode" type="System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptHandlerFactory, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" /> <add name="ScriptHandlerFactoryAppServices" verb="*" path="*_AppService.axd" preCondition="integratedMode" type="System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptHandlerFactory, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" /> <add name="ScriptResource" preCondition="integratedMode" verb="GET,HEAD" path="ScriptResource.axd" type="System.Web.Handlers.ScriptResourceHandler, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" /> </handlers> <tracing> <traceFailedRequests> <add path="*"> <traceAreas> <add provider="ASP" verbosity="Verbose" /> <add provider="ASPNET" areas="Infrastructure,Module,Page,AppServices" verbosity="Verbose" /> <add provider="ISAPI Extension" verbosity="Verbose" /> <add provider="WWW Server" areas="Authentication,Security,Filter,StaticFile,CGI,Compression,Cache,RequestNotifications,Module" verbosity="Verbose" /> </traceAreas> <failureDefinitions statusCodes="401.3,500,403,404,405" /> </add> </traceFailedRequests> </tracing> <security> <authorization> <add accessType="Allow" users="germanbarbosa,informatica" /> </authorization> <authentication> <windowsAuthentication enabled="false" /> </authentication> </security> </system.webServer> <system.web.extensions> <scripting> <webServices> <authenticationService enabled="true" requireSSL="true" /> <profileService enabled="true" readAccessProperties="FirstName,LastName,PhoneNumber" /> <roleService enabled="true" /> </webServices> </scripting> </system.web.extensions> <system.serviceModel> <services> <!-- this enables the WCF AuthenticationService endpoint --> <service behaviorConfiguration="AppServiceBehaviors" name="System.Web.ApplicationServices.AuthenticationService"> <endpoint address="" binding="basicHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="userHttps" bindingNamespace="http://asp.net/ApplicationServices/v200" contract="System.Web.ApplicationServices.AuthenticationService" /> </service> <!-- this enables the WCF RoleService endpoint --> <service behaviorConfiguration="AppServiceBehaviors" name="System.Web.ApplicationServices.RoleService"> <endpoint binding="basicHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="userHttps" bindingNamespace="http://asp.net/ApplicationServices/v200" contract="System.Web.ApplicationServices.RoleService" /> </service> <!-- this enables the WCF ProfileService endpoint --> <service behaviorConfiguration="AppServiceBehaviors" name="System.Web.ApplicationServices.ProfileService"> <endpoint binding="basicHttpBinding" bindingNamespace="http://asp.net/ApplicationServices/v200" bindingConfiguration="userHttps" contract="System.Web.ApplicationServices.ProfileService" /> </service> </services> <bindings> <basicHttpBinding> <!-- Set up a binding that uses Username as the client credential type --> <binding name="userHttps"> <security mode="Transport"> </security> </binding> </basicHttpBinding> </bindings> <behaviors> <serviceBehaviors> <behavior name="AppServiceBehaviors"> <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="false" httpsGetEnabled="true" /> <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="true" /> <serviceAuthorization principalPermissionMode="UseAspNetRoles" roleProviderName="SqlRoleProvider" /> <serviceCredentials> <userNameAuthentication userNamePasswordValidationMode="MembershipProvider" membershipProviderName="SqlMembershipProvider" /> </serviceCredentials> </behavior> </serviceBehaviors> </behaviors> <serviceHostingEnvironment aspNetCompatibilityEnabled="true" /> </system.serviceModel> </configuration>

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  • Where can these be posted besides the Python Cookbook?

    - by Noctis Skytower
    Whitespace Assembler #! /usr/bin/env python """Assembler.py Compiles a program from "Assembly" folder into "Program" folder. Can be executed directly by double-click or on the command line. Give name of *.WSA file without extension (example: stack_calc).""" ################################################################################ __author__ = 'Stephen "Zero" Chappell <[email protected]>' __date__ = '14 March 2010' __version__ = '$Revision: 3 $' ################################################################################ import string from Interpreter import INS, MNEMONIC ################################################################################ def parse(code): program = [] process_virtual(program, code) process_control(program) return tuple(program) def process_virtual(program, code): for line, text in enumerate(code.split('\n')): if not text or text[0] == '#': continue if text.startswith('part '): parse_part(program, line, text[5:]) elif text.startswith(' '): parse_code(program, line, text[5:]) else: syntax_error(line) def syntax_error(line): raise SyntaxError('Line ' + str(line + 1)) ################################################################################ def process_control(program): parts = get_parts(program) names = dict(pair for pair in zip(parts, generate_index())) correct_control(program, names) def get_parts(program): parts = [] for ins in program: if isinstance(ins, tuple): ins, arg = ins if ins == INS.PART: if arg in parts: raise NameError('Part definition was found twice: ' + arg) parts.append(arg) return parts def generate_index(): index = 1 while True: yield index index *= -1 if index > 0: index += 1 def correct_control(program, names): for index, ins in enumerate(program): if isinstance(ins, tuple): ins, arg = ins if ins in HAS_LABEL: if arg not in names: raise NameError('Part definition was never found: ' + arg) program[index] = (ins, names[arg]) ################################################################################ def parse_part(program, line, text): if not valid_label(text): syntax_error(line) program.append((INS.PART, text)) def valid_label(text): if not between_quotes(text): return False label = text[1:-1] if not valid_name(label): return False return True def between_quotes(text): if len(text) < 3: return False if text.count('"') != 2: return False if text[0] != '"' or text[-1] != '"': return False return True def valid_name(label): valid_characters = string.ascii_letters + string.digits + '_' valid_set = frozenset(valid_characters) label_set = frozenset(label) if len(label_set - valid_set) != 0: return False return True ################################################################################ from Interpreter import HAS_LABEL, Program NO_ARGS = Program.NO_ARGS HAS_ARG = Program.HAS_ARG TWO_WAY = tuple(set(NO_ARGS) & set(HAS_ARG)) ################################################################################ def parse_code(program, line, text): for ins, word in enumerate(MNEMONIC): if text.startswith(word): check_code(program, line, text[len(word):], ins) break else: syntax_error(line) def check_code(program, line, text, ins): if ins in TWO_WAY: if text: number = parse_number(line, text) program.append((ins, number)) else: program.append(ins) elif ins in HAS_LABEL: text = parse_label(line, text) program.append((ins, text)) elif ins in HAS_ARG: number = parse_number(line, text) program.append((ins, number)) elif ins in NO_ARGS: if text: syntax_error(line) program.append(ins) else: syntax_error(line) def parse_label(line, text): if not text or text[0] != ' ': syntax_error(line) text = text[1:] if not valid_label(text): syntax_error(line) return text ################################################################################ def parse_number(line, text): if not valid_number(text): syntax_error(line) return int(text) def valid_number(text): if len(text) < 2: return False if text[0] != ' ': return False text = text[1:] if '+' in text and '-' in text: return False if '+' in text: if text.count('+') != 1: return False if text[0] != '+': return False text = text[1:] if not text: return False if '-' in text: if text.count('-') != 1: return False if text[0] != '-': return False text = text[1:] if not text: return False valid_set = frozenset(string.digits) value_set = frozenset(text) if len(value_set - valid_set) != 0: return False return True ################################################################################ ################################################################################ from Interpreter import partition_number VMC_2_TRI = { (INS.PUSH, True): (0, 0), (INS.COPY, False): (0, 2, 0), (INS.COPY, True): (0, 1, 0), (INS.SWAP, False): (0, 2, 1), (INS.AWAY, False): (0, 2, 2), (INS.AWAY, True): (0, 1, 2), (INS.ADD, False): (1, 0, 0, 0), (INS.SUB, False): (1, 0, 0, 1), (INS.MUL, False): (1, 0, 0, 2), (INS.DIV, False): (1, 0, 1, 0), (INS.MOD, False): (1, 0, 1, 1), (INS.SET, False): (1, 1, 0), (INS.GET, False): (1, 1, 1), (INS.PART, True): (2, 0, 0), (INS.CALL, True): (2, 0, 1), (INS.GOTO, True): (2, 0, 2), (INS.ZERO, True): (2, 1, 0), (INS.LESS, True): (2, 1, 1), (INS.BACK, False): (2, 1, 2), (INS.EXIT, False): (2, 2, 2), (INS.OCHR, False): (1, 2, 0, 0), (INS.OINT, False): (1, 2, 0, 1), (INS.ICHR, False): (1, 2, 1, 0), (INS.IINT, False): (1, 2, 1, 1) } ################################################################################ def to_trinary(program): trinary_code = [] for ins in program: if isinstance(ins, tuple): ins, arg = ins trinary_code.extend(VMC_2_TRI[(ins, True)]) trinary_code.extend(from_number(arg)) else: trinary_code.extend(VMC_2_TRI[(ins, False)]) return tuple(trinary_code) def from_number(arg): code = [int(arg < 0)] if arg: for bit in reversed(list(partition_number(abs(arg), 2))): code.append(bit) return code + [2] return code + [0, 2] to_ws = lambda trinary: ''.join(' \t\n'[index] for index in trinary) def compile_wsa(source): program = parse(source) trinary = to_trinary(program) ws_code = to_ws(trinary) return ws_code ################################################################################ ################################################################################ import os import sys import time import traceback def main(): name, source, command_line, error = get_source() if not error: start = time.clock() try: ws_code = compile_wsa(source) except: print('ERROR: File could not be compiled.\n') traceback.print_exc() error = True else: path = os.path.join('Programs', name + '.ws') try: open(path, 'w').write(ws_code) except IOError as err: print(err) error = True else: div, mod = divmod((time.clock() - start) * 1000, 1) args = int(div), '{:.3}'.format(mod)[1:] print('DONE: Comipled in {}{} ms'.format(*args)) handle_close(error, command_line) def get_source(): if len(sys.argv) > 1: command_line = True name = sys.argv[1] else: command_line = False try: name = input('Source File: ') except: return None, None, False, True print() path = os.path.join('Assembly', name + '.wsa') try: return name, open(path).read(), command_line, False except IOError as err: print(err) return None, None, command_line, True def handle_close(error, command_line): if error: usage = 'Usage: {} <assembly>'.format(os.path.basename(sys.argv[0])) print('\n{}\n{}'.format('-' * len(usage), usage)) if not command_line: time.sleep(10) ################################################################################ if __name__ == '__main__': main() Whitespace Helpers #! /usr/bin/env python """Helpers.py Includes a function to encode Python strings into my WSA format. Has a "PRINT_LINE" function that can be copied to a WSA program. Contains a "PRINT" function and documentation as an explanation.""" ################################################################################ __author__ = 'Stephen "Zero" Chappell <[email protected]>' __date__ = '14 March 2010' __version__ = '$Revision: 1 $' ################################################################################ def encode_string(string, addr): print(' push', addr) print(' push', len(string)) print(' set') addr += 1 for offset, character in enumerate(string): print(' push', addr + offset) print(' push', ord(character)) print(' set') ################################################################################ # Prints a string with newline. # push addr # call "PRINT_LINE" """ part "PRINT_LINE" call "PRINT" push 10 ochr back """ ################################################################################ # def print(array): # if len(array) <= 0: # return # offset = 1 # while len(array) - offset >= 0: # ptr = array.ptr + offset # putch(array[ptr]) # offset += 1 """ part "PRINT" # Line 1-2 copy get less "__PRINT_RET_1" copy get zero "__PRINT_RET_1" # Line 3 push 1 # Line 4 part "__PRINT_LOOP" copy copy 2 get swap sub less "__PRINT_RET_2" # Line 5 copy 1 copy 1 add # Line 6 get ochr # Line 7 push 1 add goto "__PRINT_LOOP" part "__PRINT_RET_2" away part "__PRINT_RET_1" away back """ Whitespace Interpreter #! /usr/bin/env python """Interpreter.py Runs programs in "Programs" and creates *.WSO files when needed. Can be executed directly by double-click or on the command line. If run on command line, add "ASM" flag to dump program assembly.""" ################################################################################ __author__ = 'Stephen "Zero" Chappell <[email protected]>' __date__ = '14 March 2010' __version__ = '$Revision: 4 $' ################################################################################ def test_file(path): disassemble(parse(trinary(load(path))), True) ################################################################################ load = lambda ws: ''.join(c for r in open(ws) for c in r if c in ' \t\n') trinary = lambda ws: tuple(' \t\n'.index(c) for c in ws) ################################################################################ def enum(names): names = names.replace(',', ' ').split() space = dict((reversed(pair) for pair in enumerate(names)), __slots__=()) return type('enum', (object,), space)() INS = enum('''\ PUSH, COPY, SWAP, AWAY, \ ADD, SUB, MUL, DIV, MOD, \ SET, GET, \ PART, CALL, GOTO, ZERO, LESS, BACK, EXIT, \ OCHR, OINT, ICHR, IINT''') ################################################################################ def parse(code): ins = iter(code).__next__ program = [] while True: try: imp = ins() except StopIteration: return tuple(program) if imp == 0: # [Space] parse_stack(ins, program) elif imp == 1: # [Tab] imp = ins() if imp == 0: # [Tab][Space] parse_math(ins, program) elif imp == 1: # [Tab][Tab] parse_heap(ins, program) else: # [Tab][Line] parse_io(ins, program) else: # [Line] parse_flow(ins, program) def parse_number(ins): sign = ins() if sign == 2: raise StopIteration() buffer = '' code = ins() if code == 2: raise StopIteration() while code != 2: buffer += str(code) code = ins() if sign == 1: return int(buffer, 2) * -1 return int(buffer, 2) ################################################################################ def parse_stack(ins, program): code = ins() if code == 0: # [Space] number = parse_number(ins) program.append((INS.PUSH, number)) elif code == 1: # [Tab] code = ins() number = parse_number(ins) if code == 0: # [Tab][Space] program.append((INS.COPY, number)) elif code == 1: # [Tab][Tab] raise StopIteration() else: # [Tab][Line] program.append((INS.AWAY, number)) else: # [Line] code = ins() if code == 0: # [Line][Space] program.append(INS.COPY) elif code == 1: # [Line][Tab] program.append(INS.SWAP) else: # [Line][Line] program.append(INS.AWAY) def parse_math(ins, program): code = ins() if code == 0: # [Space] code = ins() if code == 0: # [Space][Space] program.append(INS.ADD) elif code == 1: # [Space][Tab] program.append(INS.SUB) else: # [Space][Line] program.append(INS.MUL) elif code == 1: # [Tab] code = ins() if code == 0: # [Tab][Space] program.append(INS.DIV) elif code == 1: # [Tab][Tab] program.append(INS.MOD) else: # [Tab][Line] raise StopIteration() else: # [Line] raise StopIteration() def parse_heap(ins, program): code = ins() if code == 0: # [Space] program.append(INS.SET) elif code == 1: # [Tab] program.append(INS.GET) else: # [Line] raise StopIteration() def parse_io(ins, program): code = ins() if code == 0: # [Space] code = ins() if code == 0: # [Space][Space] program.append(INS.OCHR) elif code == 1: # [Space][Tab] program.append(INS.OINT) else: # [Space][Line] raise StopIteration() elif code == 1: # [Tab] code = ins() if code == 0: # [Tab][Space] program.append(INS.ICHR) elif code == 1: # [Tab][Tab] program.append(INS.IINT) else: # [Tab][Line] raise StopIteration() else: # [Line] raise StopIteration() def parse_flow(ins, program): code = ins() if code == 0: # [Space] code = ins() label = parse_number(ins) if code == 0: # [Space][Space] program.append((INS.PART, label)) elif code == 1: # [Space][Tab] program.append((INS.CALL, label)) else: # [Space][Line] program.append((INS.GOTO, label)) elif code == 1: # [Tab] code = ins() if code == 0: # [Tab][Space] label = parse_number(ins) program.append((INS.ZERO, label)) elif code == 1: # [Tab][Tab] label = parse_number(ins) program.append((INS.LESS, label)) else: # [Tab][Line] program.append(INS.BACK) else: # [Line] code = ins() if code == 2: # [Line][Line] program.append(INS.EXIT) else: # [Line][Space] or [Line][Tab] raise StopIteration() ################################################################################ MNEMONIC = '\ push copy swap away add sub mul div mod set get part \ call goto zero less back exit ochr oint ichr iint'.split() HAS_ARG = [getattr(INS, name) for name in 'PUSH COPY AWAY PART CALL GOTO ZERO LESS'.split()] HAS_LABEL = [getattr(INS, name) for name in 'PART CALL GOTO ZERO LESS'.split()] def disassemble(program, names=False): if names: names = create_names(program) for ins in program: if isinstance(ins, tuple): ins, arg = ins assert ins in HAS_ARG has_arg = True else: assert INS.PUSH <= ins <= INS.IINT has_arg = False if ins == INS.PART: if names: print(MNEMONIC[ins], '"' + names[arg] + '"') else: print(MNEMONIC[ins], arg) elif has_arg and ins in HAS_ARG: if ins in HAS_LABEL and names: assert arg in names print(' ' + MNEMONIC[ins], '"' + names[arg] + '"') else: print(' ' + MNEMONIC[ins], arg) else: print(' ' + MNEMONIC[ins]) ################################################################################ def create_names(program): names = {} number = 1 for ins in program: if isinstance(ins, tuple) and ins[0] == INS.PART: label = ins[1] assert label not in names names[label] = number_to_name(number) number += 1 return names def number_to_name(number): name = '' for offset in reversed(list(partition_number(number, 27))): if offset: name += chr(ord('A') + offset - 1) else: name += '_' return name def partition_number(number, base): div, mod = divmod(number, base) yield mod while div: div, mod = divmod(div, base) yield mod ################################################################################ CODE = (' \t\n', ' \n ', ' \t \t\n', ' \n\t', ' \n\n', ' \t\n \t\n', '\t ', '\t \t', '\t \n', '\t \t ', '\t \t\t', '\t\t ', '\t\t\t', '\n \t\n', '\n \t \t\n', '\n \n \t\n', '\n\t \t\n', '\n\t\t \t\n', '\n\t\n', '\n\n\n', '\t\n ', '\t\n \t', '\t\n\t ', '\t\n\t\t') EXAMPLE = ''.join(CODE) ################################################################################ NOTES = '''\ STACK ===== push number copy copy number swap away away number MATH ==== add sub mul div mod HEAP ==== set get FLOW ==== part label call label goto label zero label less label back exit I/O === ochr oint ichr iint''' ################################################################################ ################################################################################ class Stack: def __init__(self): self.__data = [] # Stack Operators def push(self, number): self.__data.append(number) def copy(self, number=None): if number is None: self.__data.append(self.__data[-1]) else: size = len(self.__data) index = size - number - 1 assert 0 <= index < size self.__data.append(self.__data[index]) def swap(self): self.__data[-2], self.__data[-1] = self.__data[-1], self.__data[-2] def away(self, number=None): if number is None: self.__data.pop() else: size = len(self.__data) index = size - number - 1 assert 0 <= index < size del self.__data[index:-1] # Math Operators def add(self): suffix = self.__data.pop() prefix = self.__data.pop() self.__data.append(prefix + suffix) def sub(self): suffix = self.__data.pop() prefix = self.__data.pop() self.__data.append(prefix - suffix) def mul(self): suffix = self.__data.pop() prefix = self.__data.pop() self.__data.append(prefix * suffix) def div(self): suffix = self.__data.pop() prefix = self.__data.pop() self.__data.append(prefix // suffix) def mod(self): suffix = self.__data.pop() prefix = self.__data.pop() self.__data.append(prefix % suffix) # Program Operator def pop(self): return self.__data.pop() ################################################################################ class Heap: def __init__(self): self.__data = {} def set_(self, addr, item): if item: self.__data[addr] = item elif addr in self.__data: del self.__data[addr] def get_(self, addr): return self.__data.get(addr, 0) ################################################################################ import os import zlib import msvcrt import pickle import string class CleanExit(Exception): pass NOP = lambda arg: None DEBUG_WHITESPACE = False ################################################################################ class Program: NO_ARGS = INS.COPY, INS.SWAP, INS.AWAY, INS.ADD, \ INS.SUB, INS.MUL, INS.DIV, INS.MOD, \ INS.SET, INS.GET, INS.BACK, INS.EXIT, \ INS.OCHR, INS.OINT, INS.ICHR, INS.IINT HAS_ARG = INS.PUSH, INS.COPY, INS.AWAY, INS.PART, \ INS.CALL, INS.GOTO, INS.ZERO, INS.LESS def __init__(self, code): self.__data = code self.__validate() self.__build_jump() self.__check_jump() self.__setup_exec() def __setup_exec(self): self.__iptr = 0 self.__stck = stack = Stack() self.__heap = Heap() self.__cast = [] self.__meth = (stack.push, stack.copy, stack.swap, stack.away, stack.add, stack.sub, stack.mul, stack.div, stack.mod, self.__set, self.__get, NOP, self.__call, self.__goto, self.__zero, self.__less, self.__back, self.__exit, self.__ochr, self.__oint, self.__ichr, self.__iint) def step(self): ins = self.__data[self.__iptr] self.__iptr += 1 if isinstance(ins, tuple): self.__meth[ins[0]](ins[1]) else: self.__meth[ins]() def run(self): while True: ins = self.__data[self.__iptr] self.__iptr += 1 if isinstance(ins, tuple): self.__meth[ins[0]](ins[1]) else: self.__meth[ins]() def __oint(self): for digit in str(self.__stck.pop()): msvcrt.putwch(digit) def __ichr(self): addr = self.__stck.pop() # Input Routine while msvcrt.kbhit(): msvcrt.getwch() while True: char = msvcrt.getwch() if char in '\x00\xE0': msvcrt.getwch() elif char in string.printable: char = char.replace('\r', '\n') msvcrt.putwch(char) break item = ord(char) # Storing Number self.__heap.set_(addr, item) def __iint(self): addr = self.__stck.pop() # Input Routine while msvcrt.kbhit(): msvcrt.getwch() buff = '' char = msvcrt.getwch() while char != '\r' or not buff: if char in '\x00\xE0': msvcrt.getwch() elif char in '+-' and not buff: msvcrt.putwch(char) buff += char elif '0' <= char <= '9': msvcrt.putwch(char) buff += char elif char == '\b': if buff: buff = buff[:-1] msvcrt.putwch(char) msvcrt.putwch(' ') msvcrt.putwch(char) char = msvcrt.getwch() msvcrt.putwch(char) msvcrt.putwch('\n') item = int(buff) # Storing Number self.__heap.set_(addr, item) def __goto(self, label): self.__iptr = self.__jump[label] def __zero(self, label): if self.__stck.pop() == 0: self.__iptr = self.__jump[label] def __less(self, label): if self.__stck.pop() < 0: self.__iptr = self.__jump[label] def __exit(self): self.__setup_exec() raise CleanExit() def __set(self): item = self.__stck.pop() addr = self.__stck.po

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  • extract data from Plist to array and dictionary

    - by Boaz
    Hi I made a plist that looks like that: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList 1.0.dtd"> <plist version="1.0"> <array> <array> <dict> <key>Company</key> <string>xxx</string> <key>Title</key> <string>VP Marketing</string> <key>Name</key> <string>Alon ddfr</string> </dict> <dict> <key>Name</key> <string>Adam Ben Shushan</string> <key>Title</key> <string>CEO</string> <key>Company</key> <string>Shushan ltd.</string> </dict> </array> <array> <dict> <key>Company</key> <string>xxx</string> <key>Title</key> <string>CTO</string> <key>Name</key> <string>Boaz frf</string> </dict> </array> </array> </plist> Now I want to extract the data like that (all the 'A' for key "Name" to one section and all the 'B' "Name" to other one): NSString *plistpath = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"PeopleData" ofType:@"plist"]; NSMutableArray *attendees = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:plistpath]; listOfPeople = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];//Add items NSDictionary *indexADict = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObject:[[attendees objectAtIndex:0] objectForKey:@"Name"] forKey:@"Profiles"]; NSDictionary *indexBDict = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObject:[[attendees objectAtIndex:1] objectForKey:@"Name"] forKey:@"Profiles"]; [listOfPeople addObject:indexADict]; [listOfPeople addObject:indexBDict]; This in order to view them in sectioned tableView. I know that the problem is here: NSDictionary *indexADict = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObject:[[attendees objectAtIndex:0] objectForKey:@"Name"] forKey:@"Profiles"]; But I just can't figure how to do it right. Thanks.

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  • SignalR recording when a Web Page has closed

    - by Benjamin Rogers
    I am using MassTransit request and response with SignalR. The web site makes a request to a windows service that creates a file. When the file has been created the windows service will send a response message back to the web site. The web site will open the file and make it available for the users to see. I want to handle the scenario where the user closes the web page before the file is created. In that case I want the created file to be emailed to them. Regardless of whether the user has closed the web page or not, the message handler for the response message will be run. What I want to be able to do is have some way of knowing within the response message handler that the web page has been closed. This is what I have done already. It doesnt work but it does illustrate my thinking. On the web page I have $(window).unload(function () { if (event.clientY < 0) { // $.connection.hub.stop(); $.connection.exportcreate.setIsDisconnected(); } }); exportcreate is my Hub name. In setIsDisconnected would I set a property on Caller? Lets say I successfully set a property to indicate that the web page has been closed. How do I find out that value in the response message handler. This is what it does now protected void BasicResponseHandler(BasicResponse message) { string groupName = CorrelationIdGroupName(message.CorrelationId); GetClients()[groupName].display(message.ExportGuid); } private static dynamic GetClients() { return AspNetHost.DependencyResolver.Resolve<IConnectionManager>().GetClients<ExportCreateHub>(); } I am using the message correlation id as a group. Now for me the ExportGuid on the message is very important. That is used to identify the file. So if I am going to email the created file I have to do it within the response handler because I need the ExportGuid value. If I did store a value on Caller in my hub for the web page close, how would I access it in the response handler. Just in case you need to know. display is defined on the web page as exportCreate.display = function (guid) { setTimeout(function () { top.location.href = 'GetExport.ashx?guid=' + guid; }, 500); }; GetExport.ashx opens the file and returns it as a response. Thank you, Regards Ben

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  • MVC Entity Framework Model not returning correct data

    - by quagland
    Hi, Run into a strange problem while writing an ASP.NET MVC site. I have a view in my SQL Server database that returns a few date ranges. The view works fine when running the query in SSMS. When the view data is returned by the Entity Framework Model, It returns the correct number of rows but some of the rows are duplicated. Here is an example of what I have done: SQL Server code: CREATE TABLE [dbo].[A]( [ID] [int] NOT NULL, [PhID] [int] NULL, [FromDate] [datetime] NULL, [ToDate] [datetime] NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK_A] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ([ID] ASC)) ON [PRIMARY] go CREATE TABLE [dbo].[B]( [PhID] [int] NOT NULL, [FromDate] [datetime] NULL, [ToDate] [datetime] NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK_B] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ( [PhID] ASC )) ON [PRIMARY] go CREATE VIEW C as SELECT A.ID, CASE WHEN A.PhID IS NULL THEN A.FromDate ELSE B.FromDate END AS FromDate, CASE WHEN A.PhID IS NULL THEN A.ToDate ELSE B.ToDate END AS ToDate FROM A LEFT OUTER JOIN B ON A.PhID = B.PhID go INSERT INTO B (PhID, FromDate, ToDate) VALUES (100, '20100615', '20100715') INSERT INTO A (ID, PhID, FromDate, ToDate) VALUES (1, NULL, '20100101', '20100201') INSERT INTO A (ID, PhID, FromDate, ToDate) VALUES (1, 100, '20100615', '20100715') INSERT INTO B (PhID, FromDate, ToDate) VALUES (101, '20101201', '20101231') INSERT INTO A (ID, PhID, FromDate, ToDate) VALUES (2, NULL, '20100801', '20100901') INSERT INTO A (ID, PhID, FromDate, ToDate) VALUES (2, 101, '20101201', '20101231') So now, if you select all from C, you get 4 separate date ranges In the Entity Framework Model (which I call 'Core'), the view 'C' is added. in MVC Controller: public class HomeController : Controller { public ActionResult Index() { CoreEntities db = new CoreEntities(); var clist = from c in db.C select c; return View(clist.ToList()); } } in MVC View: @model List<RM.Models.C> @{ foreach (RM.Models.C c in Model) { @String.Format("{0:dd-MMM-yyyy}", c.FromDate) <span>-</span> @String.Format("{0:dd-MMM-yyyy}", c.ToDate) <br /> } } When I run all this, it outputs this: 01-Jan-2010 - 01-Feb-2010 01-Jan-2010 - 01-Feb-2010 01-Aug-2010 - 01-Sep-2010 01-Aug-2010 - 01-Sep-2010 When it should do this (this is what the view returns): 01-Jan-2010 - 01-Feb-2010 15-Jun-2010 - 15-Jul-2010 01-Aug-2010 - 01-Sep-2010 01-Dec-2010 - 31-Dec-2010 Also, I've run the SQL profiler over it and according to that, the query being executed is: SELECT [Extent1].[ID] AS [ID], [Extent1].[FromDate] AS [FromDate], [Extent1].[ToDate] AS [ToDate] FROM (SELECT [C].[ID] AS [ID], [C].[FromDate] AS [FromDate], [C].[ToDate] AS [ToDate] FROM [dbo].[C] AS [C]) AS [Extent1] Which returns the correct data So it seems that the entity framework is doing something to the data in the meantime. To me, everything looks fine! Have I missed something? Cheers, Ben

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  • Helping linqtosql datacontext use implicit conversion between varchar column in the database and tab

    - by user213256
    I am creating an mssql database table, "Orders", that will contain a varchar(50) field, "Value" containing a string that represents a slightly complex data type, "OrderValue". I am using a linqtosql datacontext class, which automatically types the "Value" column as a string. I gave the "OrderValue" class implicit conversion operators to and from a string, so I can easily use implicit conversion with the linqtosql classes like this: // get an order from the orders table MyDataContext db = new MyDataContext(); Order order = db.Orders(o => o.id == 1); // use implicit converstion to turn the string representation of the order // value into the complex data type. OrderValue value = order.Value; // adjust one of the fields in the complex data type value.Shipping += 10; // use implicit conversion to store the string representation of the complex // data type back in the linqtosql order object order.Value = value; // save changes db.SubmitChanges(); However, I would really like to be able to tell the linqtosql class to type this field as "OrderValue" rather than as "string". Then I would be able to avoid complex code and re-write the above as: // get an order from the orders table MyDataContext db = new MyDataContext(); Order order = db.Orders(o => o.id == 1); // The Value field is already typed as the "OrderValue" type rather than as string. // When a string value was read from the database table, it was implicity converted // to "OrderValue" type. order.Value.Shipping += 10; // save changes db.SubmitChanges(); In order to achieve this desired goal, I looked at the datacontext designer and selected the "Value" field of the "Order" table. Then, in properties, I changed "Type" to "global::MyApplication.OrderValue". The "Server Data Type" property was left as "VarChar(50) NOT NULL" The project built without errors. However, when reading from the database table, I was presented with the following error message: Could not convert from type 'System.String' to type 'MyApplication.OrderValue'. at System.Data.Linq.DBConvert.ChangeType(Object value, Type type) at Read_Order(ObjectMaterializer1 ) at System.Data.Linq.SqlClient.ObjectReaderCompiler.ObjectReader2.MoveNext() at System.Linq.Buffer1..ctor(IEnumerable1 source) at System.Linq.Enumerable.ToArray[TSource](IEnumerable`1 source) at Example.OrdersProvider.GetOrders() at ... etc From the stack trace, I believe this error is happening while reading the data from the table. When presented with converting a string to my custom data type, even though the implicit conversion operators are present, the DBConvert class gets confused and throws an error. Is there anything I can do to help it not get confused and do the implicit conversion? Thanks in advance, and apologies if I have posted in the wrong forum. cheers / Ben

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  • Adopting DBVCS

    - by Wes McClure
    Identify early adopters Pick a small project with a small(ish) team.  This can be a legacy application or a green-field application. Strive to find a team of early adopters that will be eager to try something new. Get the team on board! Research Research the tool(s) that you want to use.  Some tools provide all of the features you would need while some only provide a slice of the pie.  DBVCS requires the ability to manage a set of change scripts that update a database from one version to the next.  Ideally a tool can track database versions and automatically apply updates.  The change script generation process can be manual, but having diff tools available to automatically generate it can really reduce the overhead to adoption.  Finally, an automated tool to generate a script file per database object is an added bonus as your version control system can quickly identify what was changed in a commit (add/del/modify), just like with code changes. Don’t settle on just one tool, identify several.  Then work with the team to evaluate the tools.  Have the team do some tests of the following scenarios with each tool: Baseline an existing database: can the migration tool work with legacy databases?  Caution: most migration platforms do not support baselines or have poor support, especially the fad of fluent APIs. Add/drop tables Add/drop procedures/functions/views Alter tables (rename columns, add columns, remove columns) Massage data – migrations sometimes involve changing data types that cannot be implicitly casted and require you to decide how the data is explicitly cast to the new type.  This is a requirement for a migrations platform.  Think about a case where you might want to combine fields, or move a field from one table to another, you wouldn’t want to lose the data. Run the tool via the command line.  If you cannot automate the tool in Continuous Integration what is the point? Create a copy of a database on demand. Backup/restore databases locally. Let the team give feedback and decide together, what tool they would like to try out. My recommendation at this point would be to include TSqlMigrations and RoundHouse as SQL based migration platforms.  In general I would recommend staying away from the fluent platforms as they often lack baseline capabilities and add overhead to learn a new API when SQL is already a very well known DSL.  Code migrations often get messy with procedures/views/functions as these have to be created with SQL and aren’t cross platform anyways.  IMO stick to SQL based migrations. Reconciling Production If your project is a legacy application, you will need to reconcile the current state of production with your development databases.  Find changes in production and bring them down to development, even if they are old and need to be removed.  Once complete, produce a baseline of either dev or prod as they are now in sync.  Commit this to your VCS of choice. Add whatever schema changes tracking mechanism your tool requires to your development database.  This often requires adding a table to track the schema version of that database.  Your tool should support doing this for you.  You can add this table to production when you do your next release. Script out any changes currently in dev.  Remove production artifacts that you brought down during reconciliation.  Add change scripts for any outstanding changes in dev since the last production release.  Commit these to your repository.   Say No to Shared Dev DBs Simply put, you wouldn’t dream of sharing a code checkout, why would you share a development database?  If you have a shared dev database, back it up, distribute the backups and take the shared version offline (including the dev db server once all projects are using DB VCS).  Doing DB VCS with a shared database is bound to cause problems as people won’t be able to easily script out their own changes from those that others are working on.   First prod release Copy prod to your beta/testing environment.  Add the schema changes table (or mechanism) and do a test run of your changes.  If successful you can schedule this to be run on production.   Evaluation After your first release, evaluate the pain points of the process.  Try to find tools or modifications to existing tools to help fix them.  Don’t leave stones unturned, iteratively evolve your tools and practices to make the process as seamless as possible.  This is why I suggest open source alternatives.  Nothing is set in stone, a good example was adding transactional support to TSqlMigrations.  We ran into situations where an update would break a database, so I added a feature to do transactional updates and rollback on errors!  Another good example is generating change scripts.  We have been manually making these for months now.  I found an open source project called Open DB Diff and integrated this with TSqlMigrations.  These were things we just accepted at the time when we began adopting our tool set.  Once we became comfortable with the base functionality, it was time to start automating more of the process.  Just like anything else with development, never be afraid to try to find tools to make your job easier!   Enjoy -Wes

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  • I Didn&rsquo;t Get You Anything&hellip;

    - by Bob Rhubart
    Nearly every day this blog features a  list posts and articles written by members of the OTN architect community. But with Christmas just days away, I thought a break in that routine was in order. After all, if the holidays aren’t excuse enough for an off-topic post, then the terrorists have won. Rather than buy gifts for everyone -- which, given the readership of this blog and my budget could amount to a cash outlay of upwards of $15.00 – I thought I’d share a bit of holiday humor. I wrote the following essay back in the mid-90s, for a “print” publication that used “paper” as a content delivery system.  That was then. I’m older now, my kids are older, but my feelings toward the holidays haven’t changed… It’s New, It’s Improved, It’s Christmas! The holidays are a time of rituals. Some of these, like the shopping, the music, the decorations, and the food, are comforting in their predictability. Other rituals, like the shopping, the  music, the decorations, and the food, can leave you curled into the fetal position in some dark corner, whimpering. How you react to these various rituals depends a lot on your general disposition and credit card balance. I, for one, love Christmas. But there is one Christmas ritual that really tangles my tinsel: the seasonal editorializing about how our modern celebration of the holidays pales in comparison to that of Christmas past. It's not that the old notions of how to celebrate the holidays aren't all cozy and romantic--you can't watch marathon broadcasts of "It's A Wonderful White Christmas Carol On Thirty-Fourth Street Story" without a nostalgic teardrop or two falling onto your plate of Christmas nachos. It's just that the loudest cheerleaders for "old-fashioned" holiday celebrations overlook the fact that way-back-when those people didn't have the option of doing it any other way. Dashing through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh? No thanks. When Christmas morning rolls around, I'm going to be mighty grateful that the family is going to hop into a nice warm Toyota for the ride over to grandma's place. I figure a horse-drawn sleigh is big fun for maybe fifteen minutes. After that you’re going to want Old Dobbin to haul ass back to someplace warm where the egg nog is spiked and the family can gather in the flickering glow of a giant TV and contemplate the true meaning of football. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire? Sorry, no fireplace. We've got a furnace for heat, and stuffing nuts in there voids the warranty. Any of the roasting we do these days is in the microwave, and I'm pretty sure that if you put chestnuts in the microwave they would become little yuletide hand grenades. Although, if you've got a snoot full of Yule grog, watching chestnuts explode in your microwave might be a real holiday hoot. Some people may see microwave ovens as a symptom of creeping non-traditional holiday-ism. But I'll bet you that if there were microwave ovens around in Charles Dickens' day, the Cratchits wouldn't have had to entertain an uncharacteristically giddy Scrooge for six or seven hours while the goose cooked. Holiday entertaining is, in fact, the one area that even the most severe critic of modern practices would have to admit has not changed since Tim was Tiny. A good holiday celebration, then as now, involves lots of food, free-flowing drink, and a gathering of friends and family, some of whom you are about as happy to see as a subpoena. Just as the Cratchit's Christmas was spent with a man who, for all they knew, had suffered some kind of head trauma, so the modern holiday gathering includes relatives or acquaintances who, because they watch too many talk shows, and/or have poor personal hygiene, and/or fail to maintain scheduled medication, you would normally avoid like a plate of frosted botulism. But in the season of good will towards men, you smile warmly at the mystery uncle wandering around half-crocked with a clump of mistletoe dangling from the bill of his N.R.A. cap. Dickens' story wouldn't have become the holiday classic it has if, having spotted on their doorstep an insanely grinning, raw poultry-bearing, fresh-off-a-rough-night Scrooge, the Cratchits had pulled their shades and pretended not to be home. Which is probably what I would have done. Instead, knowing full well his reputation as a career grouch, they welcomed him into their home, and we have a touching story that teaches a valuable lesson about how the Christmas spirit can get the boss to pump up the payroll. Despite what the critics might say, our modern Christmas isn't all that different from those of long ago. Sure, the technology has changed, but that just means a bigger, brighter, louder Christmas, with lasers and holograms and stuff. It's our modern celebration of a season that even the least spiritual among us recognizes as a time of hope that the nutcases of the world will wake up and realize that peace on earth is a win/win proposition for everybody. If Christmas has changed, it's for the better. We should continue making Christmas bigger and louder and shinier until everybody gets it.  *** Happy Holidays, everyone!   del.icio.us Tags: holiday,humor Technorati Tags: holiday,humor

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  • Adventures in Windows 8: Understanding and debugging design time data in Expression Blend

    - by Laurent Bugnion
    One of my favorite features in Expression Blend is the ability to attach a Visual Studio debugger to Blend. First let’s start by answering the question: why exactly do you want to do that? Note: If you are familiar with the creation and usage of design time data, feel free to scroll down to the paragraph titled “When design time data fails”. Creating design time data for your app When a designer works on an app, he needs to see something to design. For “static” UI such as buttons, backgrounds, etc, the user interface elements are going to show up in Blend just fine. If however the data is fetched dynamically from a service (web, database, etc) or created dynamically, most probably Blend is going to show just an empty element. The classical way to design at that stage is to run the application, navigate to the screen that is under construction (which can involve delays, need to log in, etc…), to measure what is on the screen (colors, margins, width and height, etc) using various tools, going back to Blend, editing the properties of the elements, running again, etc. Obviously this is not ideal. The solution is to create design time data. For more information about the creation of design time data by mocking services, you can refer to two talks of mine “Deep dive MVVM” and “MVVM Applied From Silverlight to Windows Phone to Windows 8”. The source code for these talks is here and here. Design time data in MVVM Light One of the main reasons why I developed MVVM Light is to facilitate the creation of design time data. To illustrate this, let’s create a new MVVM Light application in Visual Studio. Install MVVM Light from here: http://mvvmlight.codeplex.com (use the MSI in the Download section). After installing, make sure to read the Readme that opens up in your favorite browser, you will need one more step to install the Project Templates. Start Visual Studio 2012. Create a new MvvmLight (Win8) app. Run the application. You will see a string showing “Welcome to MVVM Light”. In the Solution explorer, right click on MainPage.xaml and select Open in Blend. Now you should see “Welcome to MVVM Light [Design]” What happens here is that Expression Blend runs different code at design time than the application runs at runtime. To do this, we use design-time detection (as explained in a previous article) and use that information to initialize a different data service at design time. To understand this better, open the ViewModelLocator.cs file in the ViewModel folder and see how the DesignDataService is used at design time, while the DataService is used at runtime. In a real-life applicationm, DataService would be used to connect to a web service, for instance. When design time data fails Sometimes however, the creation of design time data fails. It can be very difficult to understand exactly what is happening. Expression Blend is not giving a lot of information about what happened. Thankfully, we can use a trick: Attaching a debugger to Expression Blend and debug the design time code. In WPF and Silverlight (including Windows Phone 7), you could simply attach the debugger to Blend.exe (using the “Managed (v4.5, v4.0) code” option even for Silverlight!!) In Windows 8 however, things are just a bit different. This is because the designer that renders the actual representation of the Windows 8 app runs in its own process. Let’s illustrate that: Open the file DesignDataService in the Design folder. Modify the GetData method to look like this: public void GetData(Action<DataItem, Exception> callback) { throw new Exception(); // Use this to create design time data var item = new DataItem("Welcome to MVVM Light [design]"); callback(item, null); } Go to Blend and build the application. The build succeeds, but now the page is empty. The creation of the design time data failed, but we don’t get a warning message. We need to investigate what’s wrong. Close MainPage.xaml Go to Visual Studio and select the menu Debug, Attach to Process. Update: Make sure that you select “Managed (v4.5, v4.0) code” in the “Attach to” field. Find the process named XDesProc.exe. You should have at least two, one for the Visual Studio 2012 designer surface, and one for Expression Blend. Unfortunately in this screen it is not obvious which is which. Let’s find out in the Task Manager. Press Ctrl-Alt-Del and select Task Manager Go to the Details tab and sort the processes by name. Find the one that says “Blend for Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 XAML UI Designer” and write down the process ID. Go back to the Attach to Process dialog in Visual Studio. sort the processes by ID and attach the debugger to the correct instance of XDesProc.exe. Open the MainViewModel (in the ViewModel folder) Place a breakpoint on the first line of the MainViewModel constructor. Go to Blend and open the MainPage.xaml again. At this point, the debugger breaks in Visual Studio and you can execute your code step by step. Simply step inside the dataservice call, and find the exception that you had placed there. Visual Studio gives you additional information which helps you to solve the issue. More info and Conclusion I want to thank the amazing people on the Expression Blend team for being very fast in guiding me in that matter and encouraging me to blog about it. More information about the XDesProc.exe process can be found here. I had to work on a Windows 8 app for a few days without design time data because of an Exception thrown somewhere in the code, and it was really painful. With the debugger, finding the issue was a simple matter of stepping into the code until it threw the exception.   Laurent Bugnion (GalaSoft) Subscribe | Twitter | Facebook | Flickr | LinkedIn

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  • Microsoft BUILD 2013 Day 1&ndash;Keynote

    - by Tim Murphy
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tmurphy/archive/2013/06/27/microsoft-build-2013-day-1ndashkeynote.aspx This one is going to be a little long because the keynote was jam-packed so bare with me. The keynote for the first day of BUILD 2013 was kicked off by Steve Balmer.  He made it very clear that Microsoft’s focus is on accelerating its time to market with products and product updates.  His quote was that “Rapid release” is the new norm.  He continued by showing off several new Lumias that have been buzzing around the internet for a while and announce that Sprint will now be carrying the HTC 8XT and Samsung ATIV. Balmer is known for repeating words or phrase for affect.  This time it was “Rapid release, rapid release” and “Touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, …”.  This was fun, but even more fun was when he announce that all attendees would receive an Acer Iconia 8” tablet. SCORE! The next subject Balmer focused on is new apps.  The three new ones were Flipboard, Facebook and NFL Fantasy Football.  I liked the first two because these are ones that people coming from other platforms are missing.  The NFL app is great just because it targets a demographic that can be fanatical.  If these types of apps keep coming than the missing app argument goes away. While many Negative Nancy’s are describing Windows 8.1 as Windows 180 Steve Balmer chose to call it a “refined blend” as in a coffee that has been improved with a new mix.  This includes more multi-tasking options and leveraging Bing straight throughout the entire ecosystem. He ended this first section by explaining that this will also bring more Bing development opportunities to the community. Steve Balmer was followed by Julie Larson-Green who spent her time on stage selling us on Windows 8 all over again from my point of view.  Something that I would not have thought was needed until I had listened to some other attendees who had a number of concerns and complaints.  She showed a number of new gestures that will come with Windows 8.1, and while they were cool I was left wondering if they really improved the experience.  I guess only time will tell. I did like the fact that it the UI implementation to bring up “All Apps” now mirrors that of Windows Phone.  The consistency is a big step forward that I hope to see continue.  The cool factor went up from there as she swiped content from a desktop (mega-tablet) to the XBox One.  This seamless experience I believe is what is really needed for any future platform to be relevant. I was much more enthused by the presentation of Antoine Leblond who humbled us by letting us know that there are 5k new API.  How that can be or how anyone would ever use all of them is another question.  His announcement was that the Visual Studio 2013 preview would be available today along with the Windows 8.1 bits.  One of the features of VS2013 that he demonstrated is the power consumption profiler.  With battery life being a key factor with consumer consumption devices this is a welcome addition. He didn’t limit his presentation to VS2013 features though.  He showed how the Store has been redesigned to enable better search and discoverability of apps and how Win 8.1 can perform multiple screen scales depending on the resolution of the device automatically.  The last feature he demoed was the real time video streaming API which he made sure we understood by attaching a Surface to a little robot.  Oh, but there was one more thing.  Antoine and Julie announce that all attendees would also be getting Surface Pros.  BONUS! How much more could there be?  Gurdeep Singh Pall was about to pile on.  He introduced us to Bing as a platform (BaaP?).  He said if they (Microsoft) could do something with and API that is good 3rd party developers can do something that is dynamite and showed us some of the tools they had produced.  These included natural user interface improvements such as voice commands that looked to put Siri to shame.  Add to that 3D, OCR and translation capabilities and the future looks to be full of opportunities. Balmer then came out to show us one last thing.  Project Spark is a game design environment that will be available for Windows 8.1, XBox 360 and XBox One.  All I can say is that if my kids get their hands on this they are going to be able to learn some of what dad does in a much more enjoyable way. At the end of it all I was both exhausted and energized by what I saw.  What could they have possibly left for the day 2 keynote?  I hear it will feature Scott Hanselman.  If that is right we are in for a treat.  See you there. del.icio.us Tags: BUILD 2013,Windows 8.1,Winodws Phone,XAML,Keynote,Bing,Visual Studio 2013,Project Spark

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  • Windows Phone 8 Announcement

    - by Tim Murphy
    As if the Surface announcement on Monday wasn’t exciting enough, today Microsoft announce that Windows Phone 8 will be coming this fall.  That itself is great news, but the features coming were like confetti flying in all different directions.  Given this speed I couldn’t capture every feature they covered.  A summary of what I did capture is listed below starting with their eight main features. Common Core The first thing that they covered is that Windows Phone 8 will share a core OS with Windows 8.  It will also run natively on multiple cores.  They mentioned that they have run it on up to 64 cores to this point.  The phones as you might expect will at least start as dual core.  If you remember there were metrics saying that Windows Phone 7 performed operations faster on a single core than other platforms did with dual cores.  The metrics they showed here indicate that Windows Phone 8 runs faster on comparable dual core hardware than other platforms. New Screen Resolutions Screen resolution has never been an issue for me, but it has been a criticism of Windows Phone 7 in the media.  Windows Phone 8 will supports three screen resolutions: WVGA 800 x 480, WXGA 1280 x 768, and 720 1280x720.  Hopefully this makes pixel counters a little happier. MicroSD Support This was one of my pet peeves when I got my Samsung Focus. With Windows Phone 8 the operating system will support adding MicroSD cards after initial setup.  Of course this is dependent on the hardware company on implementing it, but I think we have seen that even feature phone manufacturers have not had a problem supporting this in the past. NFC NFC has been an anticipated feature for some time.  What Microsoft showed today included the fact that they didn’t just want it to be for the phone.  There is cross platform NFC functionality between Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8.  The demos , while possibly a bit fanciful, showed would could be achieved even in a retail environment.  We are getting closer and closer to a Minority Report world with these technologies. Wallet Windows Phone 8 isn’t the first platform to have a wallet concept.  What they have done to differentiate themselves is to make it sot that it is not dependent on a SIM type chip like other platforms.  They have also expanded the concept beyond just banks to other types of credits such as airline miles. Nokia Mapping People have been envious of the Lumia phones having the Nokia mapping software.  Now all Windows Phone 8 devices will use NavTeq data and will have the capability to run in an offline fashion.  This is a major step forward from the Bing “touch for the next turn” maps. IT Administration The lack of features for enterprise administration and deployment was a complaint even before the Windows Phone 7 was released.  With the Windows Phone 8 release such features as Bitlocker and Secure boot will be baked into the OS. We will also have the ability to privately sign and distribute applications. Changing Start Screen Joe Belfiore made a big deal about this aspect of the new release.  Users will have more color themes available to them and the live tiles will be highly customizable. You will have the ability to resize and organize the tiles in a more dynamic way.  This allows for less important tiles or ones with less information to be made smaller.  And There Is More So what other tidbits came out of the presentation?  Later this summer the API for WP8 will be available.  There will be developer events coming to a city near you.  Another announcement of interest to developers is the ability to write applications at a native code level.  This is a boon for game developers and those who need highly efficient applications. As a topper on the cake there was mention of in app payment. On the consumer side we also found out that all updates will be available over the air.  Along with this came the fact that Microsoft will support all devices with updates for at least 18 month and you will be able to subscribe for early updates.  Update coming for Windows Phone 7.5 customers to WP7.8.  The main enhancement will be the new live tile features.  The big bonus is that the update will bypass the carriers.  I would assume though that you will be brought up to date with all previous patches that your carrier may not have released. There is so much more, but that is enough for one post.  Needless to say, EXCITING! del.icio.us Tags: Windows Phone 8,WP8,Windows Phone 7,WP7,Announcements,Microsoft

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  • How to fix Ubuntu 12.04.3 boot to black screen full of errors in white text, after upgrading on dell inspiron 1501

    - by Ibuntu
    I am running a Dell Inspiron 1501 I use Linux only. No Microsoft or Apple operating systems (or really anything closed-source). I've only been using Linux for a little over a year but I'm starting to gain a comfortable level of familiarity with the system and terminology. I've been having some issues with Quantel Quetzal and Raring Ringtail, especially with older hardware, so I opted to install Ubuntu 12.04.3 Precise Pangolin on the Inspiron 1501. I checked my MD5 sum after downloading my ISO and all was good. I have in fact used this iso/dvd to install Precise Pangolin successfully on a few other systems (some of which are even older than this laptop). Install goes fine. The wireless card doesn't work out of the box but this is a known issue which is fairly easy to fix. So, first thing I did was open up a terminal and run sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade which, part way through, crashed (I assume lightdm and possibly X) and took me to a black screen filled with white lines of text that were either errors or just the ouputs of commands. The reason I say that is because I was unable to gleam any useful information from the output on the screen. I did take a picture however and will post a link. After that, every time I boot the system it goes right to that black screen posting all the error messages or output in white text. I never get a purple Ubuntu splash, so from what I can tell after reading this wiki article: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Troubleshooting/BlankScreen That means that after the kernel is selected, it is unable to correctly implement the settings it needs. If the purple splash never shows, the frame buffer was never set correctly right? This leads me to believe that it could be a kernel issue? The wiki suggested to try and pinpoint the issue by rolling back kernels until I find one that works. Is this my best option? I think I'm going to give it a try anyways and will let everyone know if I am able to solve the issue this way. I have since done a few reinstalls and some trouble-shooting including a couple hours scouring the net for anyone with any kind of similar issue. Most of the issues I could find involved getting a black screen after login and none of them said anything about any information output on this black screen. My reinstalls have taught me that there is no issue updating, but as soon as I run sudo apt-get upgrade my system goes to the black screen and every time I boot it up it does the same thing. The only way to fix is by reinstall. I never get any ability to log in. After a hard power off to the laptop (because I cannot use ctrl+alt+del to reboot) when it boots again it goes to the grub boot menu and I can select between regular boot, recovery mode and the two memtest options. I never tried the memtest options but the other two both lead to the same black screen. Some people having a black/blank screen issue claim to have fixed it by using 12.10 or 13.04 but I believe they were having a different issue where they got a black/blank screen after logging in. I think I will still give these images a try, but mostly figured I would just wait another day or two for 13.10. Other things I figured I would try from the following three articles: After logging in, there's a black screen and my cursor, nothing else! in Ubuntu 12.10 Black Screen on Login After Upgrading to 12.04 I can't get to the login screen include opening a terminal using ctrl+alt+f1 and trying a variety of reseting unity, x settings, lightdm (or switching to gdm); but I doubt this will work or that I will even be able to access a terminal. I'm pretty sure the whole system is stuck after it loads the last line on the black screen. I will try these things and post more information when I have. Hopefully someone has an idea in the meantime and I will keep checking back trying to find a solution. Thank you. Here are 3 different pictures of the error message. I had to take with my phone: http://ubuntuone.com/album/0TBBkxmVajJIQQtoN9mVdN

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  • Key Windows Phone Development Concepts

    - by Tim Murphy
    As I am doing more development in and out of the enterprise arena for Windows Phone I decide I would study for the 70-599 test.  I generally take certification tests as a way to force me to dig deeper into a technology.  Between the development and studying I decided it would be good to put a post together of key development features in Windows Phone 7 environment.  Contrary to popular belief the launch of Windows Phone 8 will not obsolete Windows Phone 7 development.  With the launch of 7.8 coming shortly and people who will remain on 7.X for the foreseeable future there are still consumers needing these apps so don’t throw out the baby with the bath water. PhoneApplicationService This is a class that every Windows Phone developer needs to become familiar with.  When it comes to application state this is your go to repository.  It also contains events that help with management of your application’s lifecycle.  You can access it like the following code sample. 1: PhoneApplicationService.Current.State["ValidUser"] = userResult; DeviceNetworkInformation This class allows you to determine the connectivity of the device and be notified when something changes with that connectivity.  If you are making web service calls you will want to check here before firing off. I have found that this class doesn’t actually work very well for determining if you have internet access.  You are better of using the following code where IsConnectedToInternet is an App level property. private void Application_Launching(object sender, LaunchingEventArgs e){ // Validate user access if (Microsoft.Phone.Net.NetworkInformation.NetworkInterface.NetworkInterfaceType != Microsoft.Phone.Net.NetworkInformation.NetworkInterfaceType.None) { IsConnectedToInternet = true; } else { IsConnectedToInternet = false; } NetworkChange.NetworkAddressChanged += new NetworkAddressChangedEventHandler(NetworkChange_NetworkAddressChanged);}void NetworkChange_NetworkAddressChanged(object sender, EventArgs e){ IsConnectedToInternet = (Microsoft.Phone.Net.NetworkInformation.NetworkInterface.NetworkInterfaceType != Microsoft.Phone.Net.NetworkInformation.NetworkInterfaceType.None);} Push Notification Push notification allows your application to receive notifications in a way that reduces the application’s power needs. This MSDN article is a good place to get the basics of push notification, but you can see the essential concept in the diagram below.  There are three types of push notification: toast, Tile and raw.  The first two work regardless of the state of the application where as raw messages are discarded if your application is not running.   Live Tiles Live tiles are one of the main differentiators of the Windows Phone platform.  They allow users to find information at a glance from their start screen without navigating into individual apps.  Knowing how to implement them can be a great boost to the attractiveness of your application. The simplest step-by-step explanation for creating live tiles is here. Local Database While your application really only has Isolated Storage as a data store there are some ways of giving you database functionality to develop against.  There are a number of open source ORM style solutions.  Probably the best and most native way I have found is to use LINQ to SQL.  It does take a significant amount of setup, but the ease of use once it is configured is worth the cost.  Rather than repeat the full concepts here I will point you to a post that I wrote previously. Tasks (Bing, Email) Leveraging built in features of the Windows Phone platform is an easy way to add functionality that would be expensive to develop on your own.  The classes that you need to make yourself familiar with are BingMapsDirectionsTask and EmailComposeTask.  This will allow your application to supply directions and give the user an email path to relay information to friends and associates. Event model Because of the ability for users to switch quickly to switch to other apps or the home screen is just one reason why knowing the Windows Phone event model is important.  You need to be able to save data so that if a user gets a phone call they can come back to exactly where they were in your application.  This means that you will need to handle such events as Launching, Activated, Deactivated and Closing at an application level.  You will probably also want to get familiar with the OnNavigatedTo and OnNavigatedFrom events at the page level.  These will give you an opportunity to save data as a user navigates through your app. Summary This is just a small portion of the concepts that you will use while building Windows Phone apps, but these are some of the most critical.  With the launch of Windows Phone 8 this list will probably expand.  Take the time to investigate these topics further and try them out in your apps. del.icio.us Tags: Windows Phone 7,Windows Phone,WP7,Software Development,70-599

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  • Building Enterprise Smartphone App &ndash; Part 2: Platforms and Features

    - by Tim Murphy
    This is part 2 in a series of posts based on a talk I gave recently at the Chicago Information Technology Architects Group.  Feel free to leave feedback. In the previous post I discussed what reasons a company might have for creating a smartphone application.  In this installment I will cover some of history and state of the different platforms as well as features that can be leveraged for building enterprise smartphone applications. Platforms Before you start choosing a platform to develop your solutions on it is good to understand how we got here and what features you can leverage. History To my memory we owe all of this to a product called the Apple Newton that came out in 1987. It was the first PDA and back then I was much more of an Apple fan.  I was very impressed with this device even though it never really went anywhere.  The Palm Pilot by US Robotics was the next major advancement in PDA. It had a simple short hand window that allowed for quick stylus entry.. Later, Windows CE came out and started the broadening of the PDA market. After that it was the Palm and CE operating systems that started showing up on cell phones and for some time these were the two dominant operating systems that were distributed with devices from multiple hardware vendors. Current The iPhone was the first smartphone to take away the stylus and give us a multi-touch interface.  It was a revolution in usability and really changed the attractiveness of smartphones for the general public.  This brought us to the beginning of the current state of the market with the concept of an online store that makes it easy for customers to get new features and functionality on demand. With Android, Google made this more than a one horse race.  Not only did they come to compete, their low cost actually made them the leading OS.  Of course what made Android so attractive also is its major fault.  It is so open that it has been a target for malware which leaves consumers exposed.  Fortunately for Google though, most consumers aren’t aware of the threat that they are under. Although Microsoft had put out one of the first smart phone operating systems with CE it had to play catch up and finally came out with the Windows Phone.  They have gone for a market approach between those of iOS and Android.  They support multiple hardware vendors like Google, but they kept a certification process for applications that is similar to Apple.  They also created a user interface that was different enough to give it a clear separation from the other two platforms. The result of all this is hundreds of millions of smartphones being sold monthly across all three platforms giving us a wide range of choices and challenges when it comes to developing solutions. Features So what are the features that make these devices flexible enough be considered for use in the enterprise? The biggest advantage of today's devices is network connectivity.  The ability to access information from multiple sources at a moment’s notice is critical for businesses.  Add to that the ability to communicate over a variety of text, voice and video modes and we have a powerful starting point. Every smartphone has a cameras and they are not just useful for posting to Instagram. We are seeing more applications such as Bing vision that allow us to scan just about any printed code or text to find information.  These capabilities have been made available to developers in the form of standard libraries for reading barcodes of just about an flavor and optical character recognition (OCR) interpretation. Bluetooth give us the ability to communicate with multiple devices. Whether these are headsets, keyboard or printers the wireless communication capabilities are just starting to evolve.  The more these wireless communication protocols grow, the more opportunities we will see to transfer data between users and a variety of devices. Local storage of information that can be called up even when the device cannot reach the network is the other big capability.  This give users the ability to work offline as well and transmit information when connections are restored. These are the tools that we have to work with to build applications that can be leveraged to gain a competitive advantage for companies that implement them. Coming Up In the third installment I will cover key concerns that you face when building enterprise smartphone apps. del.icio.us Tags: smartphones,enterprise smartphone Apps,architecture,iOS,Android,Windows Phone

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  • Windows Phone 8 Launch Event Summary

    - by Tim Murphy
    Today was the official coming out party for Windows Phone 8.  Below is a summary of the launch event.  There is a lot here to stay with me. They started with a commercial staring Joe Belfiore show how his Windows Phone 8 was personal too him which highlights something I think Microsoft has done well over the last couple of event: spotlight how Windows Phone is a different experience from other smartphones.  Joe actually called iPhone and Android “tired old metaphors" and explained that the idea around Windows Phone was to “reinvent the smartphone around you” as “the most personal smartphone operating system”.  The is the message that they need to drive home in their adds. The only real technical aspect we found out was that they have optimized the operating system around the dual core Qualcomm Snapdragon chip set.  It seems like all of the other hardware goodies had already been announced.  The remainder of the event was centered around new features of the OS and app announcements. So what are we getting?  The integrated features included lock screen live tile, Data Sense, Rooms and Kids corner.  There wasn’t a lot of information about it, but Joe also talked about apps not just having live tiles, but being live apps that could integrate with wallet and the hub. The lock screen will now be able to be personalized with live tile data or even a photo slide show.  This gives the lock screen an even better ability to give you the information you want to know before you even unlock the phone. The Kids Corner allows you as a parent to setup an area on your phone that you kids can go into an use it without disturbing your apps.  They can play games or use apps that you have designated and will only see those apps.  It even has a special lock screen gesture just for the kids corner. Rooms allow you to organize your phone around the groups of people in your life.  You get a shared calendar, a room wall as well as shared notes beyond just being able to send messages to a group.  You can also invite people not on the Windows Phone platform to access an online version of the room. Data Sense is a new feature that gives you better control and understanding of your data plan usage.  You can see which applications are using data and it can automatically adjust they way your phone behaves as you get close to your data limit. Add to these features the fact that the entire Windows ecosystem is integrated with SkyDrive and you have an available anywhere experience that is unequaled by any other platform.  Your document, photos and music are available on your Windows Phone, Window 8 device and Xbox.  SkyDrive also doesn’t limit how long you can keep files like the competing cloud platforms and give more free storage. It was interesting the way they made the launch event more personal.  First Joe brought out his own kids to demo the Kids Corner.  They followed this up by bringing out Jessica Alba to discuss her experience on the Windows Phone 8.  They need to keep putting a face on the product instead of just showing features as a cold list. Then we get to apps.  We knew that the new Skype was coming, but we found out that it was created in such a way that it can receive calls without running consistently in the background which would eat up battery.  This announcement was follow by the coming Facebook app that is optimized for Windows Phone 8.  As a matter of fact they indicated that just after launch the marketplace would have 46 out of the top 50 apps used by all smartphone platforms.  In a rational world this tide with over 120,000 apps currently in the marketplace there should be no more argument about the Windows Phone ecosystem. For those of us who develop for Windows Phone and weren’t on the early adoption program will finally get access to the SDK tomorrow after an announcement at Build (more waiting).  Perhaps we will get a few new features then. In the end I wouldn’t say there were any huge surprises, but I am really excited about getting my hands on the devices next month and starting to develop.  Stay tuned. del.icio.us Tags: Windows Phone,Windows Phone 8,Winodws Phone 8 Launch,Joe Belfiore,Jessica Alba

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  • 2012&ndash;The End Of The World Review

    - by Tim Murphy
    The end of the world must be coming.  Not because the Mayan calendar says so, but because Microsoft is innovating more than Apple.  It has been a crazy year, with pundits declaring not that the end of the world is coming, but that the end of Microsoft is coming.  Let’s take a look at what 2012 has brought us. The beginning of year is a blur.  I managed to get to TechEd in June which was the first time that I got to take a deep dive into Windows 8 and many other things that had been announced in 2011.  The promise I saw in these products was really encouraging.  The thought of being able to run Windows 8 from a thumb drive or have Hyper-V native to the OS told me that at least for developers good things were coming. I finally got my feet wet with Windows 8 with the developer preview just prior to the RTM.  While the initial experience was a bit of a culture shock I quickly grew to love it.  The media still seems to hold little love for the “reimagined” platform, but I think that once people spend some time with it they will enjoy the experience and what the FUD mongers say will fade into the background.  With the launch of the OS we finally got a look at the Surface.  I think this is a bold entry into the tablet market.  While I wish it was a little more affordable I am already starting to see them in the wild being used by non-techies. I was waiting for Windows Phone 8 at least as much as Windows 8, probably more.  The new hardware, better marketing and new OS features I think are going to finally push us to the point of having a real presence in the smartphone market.  I am seeing a number of iPhone users picking up a Nokia Lumia 920 and getting rid of their brand new iPhone 5.  The only real debacle that I saw around the launch was when they held back the SDK from general developers. Shortly after the launch events came Build 2012.  I was extremely disappointed that I didn’t make it to this year’s Build.  Even if they weren’t handing out Surface and Lumia devices I think the atmosphere and content were something that really needed to be experience in person.  Hopefully there will be a Build next year and it’s schedule will be announced soon.  As you would expect Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 development were the mainstay of the conference, but improvements in Azure also played a key role.  This movement of services to the cloud will continue and we need to understand where it best fits into the solutions we build. Lower on the radar this year were Office 2013, SQL Server 2012, and Windows Server 2012.  Their glory stolen by the consumer OS and hardware announcements, these new releases are no less important.  Companies will see significant improvements in performance and capabilities if they upgrade.  At TechEd they had shown some of the new features of Windows Server 2012 around hardware integration and Hyper-V performance which absolutely blew me away.  It is our job to bring these important improvements to our company’s attention so that they can be leveraged. Personally, the consulting business in 2012 was the busiest it has been in a long time.  More companies were ready to attack new projects after several years of putting them on the back burner.  I also worked to bring back momentum to the Chicago Information Technology Architects Group.  Both the community and clients are excited about the new technologies that have come out in 2012 and now it is time to deliver. What does 2013 have in store.  I don’t see it be quite as exciting as 2012.  Microsoft will be releasing the Surface Pro in January and it seems that we will see more frequent OS update for Windows.  There are rumors that we may see a Surface phone in 2013.  It has also been announced that there will finally be a rework of the XBox next fall.  The new year will also be a time for us in the development community to take advantage of these new tools and devices.  After all, it is what we build on top of these platforms that will attract more consumers and corporations to using them. Just as I am 99.999% sure that the world is not going to end this year, I am also sure that Microsoft will move on and that most of this negative backlash from the media is actually fear and jealousy.  In the end I think we have a promising year ahead of us. del.icio.us Tags: Microsoft,Pundits,Mayans,Windows 8,Windows Phone 8,Surface

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  • Windows 8/Surface Lunch Event Summary

    - by Tim Murphy
    Today was a big day for Microsoft with two separate launch event.  The first for Windows 8 and all of it’s hardware partners.  The second was specifically to introduce the Microsoft Windows 8 Surface tablet.  Below are some of the take-aways I got from the webcasts. Windows 8 Launch The three general area that Microsoft focused on were the release of the OS itself, the public unveiling of the Windows Store and the new devices available from its hardware partners. The release of the OS focused on the fact that it will be available at mid-night tonight for both new PCs and for upgrades.  I can’t say that this interested me that much since it was already known to most people.  I think what they did show well was how easy the OS really is to use. The Windows Store is also not a new feature to those of us who have been running the pre-release versions of Windows 8 or have owned Windows Phone 7 for the past 2 years.  What was interesting is that the Windows Store launches with more apps available than any other platforms store at their respective launch.  I think this says a lot about how Microsoft focuses on the ability of developers to create software and make it available.  The of course were sure to emphasize that the Windows Store has better monetary terms for developers than its competitors. The also showed off the fact that XBox Music streaming is available for to all Windows 8 user for free.  Couple this with the Bing suite of apps that give you news, weather, sports and finance right out of the box and I think most people will find the environment a joy to use. I think the hardware demo, while quick and furious, really show where Windows shine: CHOICE!  They made a statement that over 1000 devices have been certified for Windows 8.  They showed tablets, laptops, desktops, all-in-ones and convertibles.  Since these devices have industry standard connectors they give a much wider variety of accessories and devices that you can use with them. Steve Balmer then came on stage and tried to see how many times he could use the “magical”.  He focused on how the Windows 8 OS is designed to integrate with SkyDrive, Skype and Outlook.com.  He also enforced that they think Windows 8 is the best choice for the Enterprise when it comes to protecting data and integrating across devices including Windows Phone 8. With that we were left to wait for the second event of the day. Surface Launch The second event of the day started with kids with magnets.  Ok, they were adults, but who doesn’t like playing with magnets.  Steven Sinofsky detached and reattached the Surface keyboard repeatedly, clearly enjoying himself.  It turns out that there are 4 magnets in the cover, 2 for alignment and 2 as connectors. They then went to giving us the details on the display.  The 10.6” display is optically bonded to the case and is optimized to reduce glare.  I think this came through very well in the demonstrations. The properties of the case were also a great selling point.  The VaporMg allowed them to drop the device on stage, on purpose, and continue working.  Of course they had to bring out the skate boards made from Surface devices. “It just has to feel right” was the reason they gave for many of their design decisions from the weight and size of the device to the way the kickstand and camera work together.  While this gave you the feeling that the whole process was trial and error you could tell that a lot of science went into the specs.  This included making sure that the magnets were strong enough to hold the cover on and still have a 3 year old remove the cover without effort. I am glad that they also decided the a USB port would be part of the spec since it give so many options.  They made the point that this allows Surface to leverage over 420 million existing devices.  That works for me. The last feature that I really thought was important was the microSD port.  Begin stuck with the onboard memory has been an aggravation of mine with many of the devices in the market today. I think they did job of really getting the audience to understand why you want this platform and this particular device.  Using personal examples like creating a video of a birthday party and being in it or the fact that the device was being used to live blog the event and control the lights and presentation.  They showed very well that it was not only fun but very capable of getting real work done.  Handing out tablets to the crowd didn’t hurt either.  In the end I really wanted a Surface even though I really have no need for one on a daily basis.  Great job Microsoft! del.icio.us Tags: Windows 8,Win8,Windows 8 Luanch

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  • Local LINQtoSQL Database For Your Windows Phone 7 Application

    - by Tim Murphy
    There aren’t many applications that are of value without having some for of data store.  In Windows Phone development we have a few options.  You can store text directly to isolated storage.  You can also use a number of third party libraries to create or mimic databases in isolated storage.  With Mango we gained the ability to have a native .NET database approach which uses LINQ to SQL.  In this article I will try to bring together the components needed to implement this last type of data store and fill in some of the blanks that I think other articles have left out. Defining A Database The first things you are going to need to do is define classes that represent your tables and a data context class that is used as the overall database definition.  The table class consists of column definitions as you would expect.  They can have relationships and constraints as with any relational DBMS.  Below is an example of a table definition. First you will need to add some assembly references to the code file. using System.ComponentModel;using System.Data.Linq;using System.Data.Linq.Mapping; You can then add the table class and its associated columns.  It needs to implement INotifyPropertyChanged and INotifyPropertyChanging.  Each level of the class needs to be decorated with the attribute appropriate for that part of the definition.  Where the class represents the table the properties represent the columns.  In this example you will see that the column is marked as a primary key and not nullable with a an auto generated value. You will also notice that the in the column property’s set method It uses the NotifyPropertyChanging and NotifyPropertyChanged methods in order to make sure that the proper events are fired. [Table]public class MyTable: INotifyPropertyChanged, INotifyPropertyChanging{ public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged; private void NotifyPropertyChanged(string propertyName) { if(PropertyChanged != null) { PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyName)); } } public event PropertyChangingEventHandler PropertyChanging; private void NotifyPropertyChanging(string propertyName) { if(PropertyChanging != null) { PropertyChanging(this, new PropertyChangingEventArgs(propertyName)); } } private int _TableKey; [Column(IsPrimaryKey = true, IsDbGenerated = true, DbType = "INT NOT NULL Identity", CanBeNull = false, AutoSync = AutoSync.OnInsert)] public int TableKey { get { return _TableKey; } set { NotifyPropertyChanging("TableKey"); _TableKey = value; NotifyPropertyChanged("TableKey"); } } The last part of the database definition that needs to be created is the data context.  This is a simple class that takes an isolated storage location connection string its constructor and then instantiates tables as public properties. public class MyDataContext: DataContext{ public MyDataContext(string connectionString): base(connectionString) { MyRecords = this.GetTable<MyTable>(); } public Table<MyTable> MyRecords;} Creating A New Database Instance Now that we have a database definition it is time to create an instance of the data context within our Windows Phone app.  When your app fires up it should check if the database already exists and create an instance if it does not.  I would suggest that this be part of the constructor of your ViewModel. db = new MyDataContext(connectionString);if(!db.DatabaseExists()){ db.CreateDatabase();} The next thing you have to know is how the connection string for isolated storage should be constructed.  The main sticking point I have found is that the database cannot be created unless the file mode is read/write.  You may have different connection strings but the initial one needs to be similar to the following. string connString = "Data Source = 'isostore:/MyApp.sdf'; File Mode = read write"; Using you database Now that you have done all the up front work it is time to put the database to use.  To make your life a little easier and keep proper separation between your view and your viewmodel you should add a couple of methods to the viewmodel.  These will do the CRUD work of your application.  What you will notice is that the SubmitChanges method is the secret sauce in all of the methods that change data. private myDataContext myDb;private ObservableCollection<MyTable> _viewRecords;public ObservableCollection<MyTable> ViewRecords{ get { return _viewRecords; } set { _viewRecords = value; NotifyPropertyChanged("ViewRecords"); }}public void LoadMedstarDbData(){ var tempItems = from MyTable myRecord in myDb.LocalScans select myRecord; ViewRecords = new ObservableCollection<MyTable>(tempItems);}public void SaveChangesToDb(){ myDb.SubmitChanges();}public void AddMyTableItem(MyTable newScan){ myDb.LocalScans.InsertOnSubmit(newScan); myDb.SubmitChanges();}public void DeleteMyTableItem(MyTable newScan){ myDb.LocalScans.DeleteOnSubmit(newScan); myDb.SubmitChanges();} Updating existing database What happens when you need to change the structure of your database?  Unfortunately you have to add code to your application that checks the version of the database which over time will create some pollution in your codes base.  On the other hand it does give you control of the update.  In this example you will see the DatabaseSchemaUpdater in action.  Assuming we added a “Notes” field to the MyTable structure, the following code will check if the database is the latest version and add the field if it isn’t. if(!myDb.DatabaseExists()){ myDb.CreateDatabase();}else{ DatabaseSchemaUpdater dbUdater = myDb.CreateDatabaseSchemaUpdater(); if(dbUdater.DatabaseSchemaVersion < 2) { dbUdater.AddColumn<MyTable>("Notes"); dbUdater.DatabaseSchemaVersion = 2; dbUdater.Execute(); }} Summary This approach does take a fairly large amount of work, but I think the end product is robust and very native for .NET developers.  It turns out to be worth the investment. del.icio.us Tags: Windows Phone,Windows Phone 7,LINQ to SQL,LINQ,Database,Isolated Storage

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  • Since upgrading to Solaris 11, my ARC size has consistently targeted 119MB, despite having 30GB RAM. What? Why?

    - by growse
    I ran a NAS/SAN box on Solaris 11 Express before Solaris 11 was released. The box is an HP X1600 with an attached D2700. In all, 12x 1TB 7200 SATA disks, 12x 300GB 10k SAS disks in separate zpools. Total RAM is 30GB. Services provided are CIFS, NFS and iSCSI. All was well, and I had a ZFS memory usage graph looking like this: A fairly healthy Arc size of around 23GB - making use of the available memory for caching. However, I then upgraded to Solaris 11 when that came out. Now, my graph looks like this: Partial output of arc_summary.pl is: System Memory: Physical RAM: 30701 MB Free Memory : 26719 MB LotsFree: 479 MB ZFS Tunables (/etc/system): ARC Size: Current Size: 915 MB (arcsize) Target Size (Adaptive): 119 MB (c) Min Size (Hard Limit): 64 MB (zfs_arc_min) Max Size (Hard Limit): 29677 MB (zfs_arc_max) It's targetting 119MB while sitting at 915MB. It's got 30GB to play with. Why? Did they change something? Edit To clarify, arc_summary.pl is Ben Rockwood's, and the relevent lines generating the above stats are: my $mru_size = ${Kstat}->{zfs}->{0}->{arcstats}->{p}; my $target_size = ${Kstat}->{zfs}->{0}->{arcstats}->{c}; my $arc_min_size = ${Kstat}->{zfs}->{0}->{arcstats}->{c_min}; my $arc_max_size = ${Kstat}->{zfs}->{0}->{arcstats}->{c_max}; my $arc_size = ${Kstat}->{zfs}->{0}->{arcstats}->{size}; The Kstat entries are there, I'm just getting odd values out of them. Edit 2 I've just re-measured the arc size with arc_summary.pl - I've verified these numbers with kstat: System Memory: Physical RAM: 30701 MB Free Memory : 26697 MB LotsFree: 479 MB ZFS Tunables (/etc/system): ARC Size: Current Size: 744 MB (arcsize) Target Size (Adaptive): 119 MB (c) Min Size (Hard Limit): 64 MB (zfs_arc_min) Max Size (Hard Limit): 29677 MB (zfs_arc_max) The thing that strikes me is that the Target Size is 119MB. Looking at the graph, it's targeted the exact same value (124.91M according to cacti, 119M according to arc_summary.pl - think the difference is just 1024/1000 rounding issues) ever since Solaris 11 was installed. It looks like the kernel's making zero effort to shift the target size to anything different. The current size is fluctuating as the needs of the system (large) fight with the target size, and it appears equilibrium is between 700 and 1000MB. So the question is now a little more pointed - why is Solaris 11 hard setting my ARC target size to 119MB, and how do I change it? Should I raise the min size to see what happens? I've stuck the output of kstat -n arcstats over at http://pastebin.com/WHPimhfg Edit 3 Ok, weirdness now. I know flibflob mentioned that there was a patch to fix this. I haven't applied this patch yet (still sorting out internal support issues) and I've not applied any other software updates. Last thursday, the box crashed. As in, completely stopped responding to everything. When I rebooted it, it came back up fine, but here's what my graph now looks like. It seems to have fixed the problem. This is proper la la land stuff now. I've literally no idea what's going on. :(

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  • Test All Features of Windows Phone 7 On Your PC

    - by Matthew Guay
    Are you developer or just excited about the upcoming Windows Phone 7, and want to try it out now?  Thanks to free developer tools from Microsoft and a new unlocked emulator rom, you can try out most of the exciting features today from your PC. Last week we showed you how to try out Windows Phone 7 on your PC and get started developing for the upcoming new devices.  We noticed, however, that the emulator only contains Internet Explorer Mobile and some settings.  This is still interesting to play around with, but it wasn’t the full Windows Phone 7 experience. Some enterprising tweakers discovered that more applications were actually included in the emulator, but were simply hidden from users.  Developer Dan Ardelean then figured out how to re-enable these features, and released a tweaked emulator rom so everyone can try out all of the Windows Phone 7 features for themselves.  Here we’ll look at how you can run this new emulator image on your PC, and then look at some interesting features in Windows Phone 7. Editor Note: This modified emulator image is not official, and isn’t sanctioned by Microsoft. Use your own judgment when choosing to download and use the emulator. Setting Up Emulator Rom To test-drive Windows Phone 7 on your PC, you must first download and install the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP (link below).  Follow the steps we showed you last week at: Try out Windows Phone 7 on your PC today.  Once it’s installed, go ahead and run the default emulator as we showed to make sure everything works ok. Once the Windows Phone Developer Tools are installed and running, download the new emulator rom from XDA Forums (link below).  This will be a zip file, so extract it first. Note where you save the file, as you will need the address in the next step. Now, to run our new emulator image, we need to open the emulator in command line and point to the new rom image.  To do this, browse to the correct directory, depending on whether you’re running the 32 bit or 64 bit version of Windows: 32 bit: C:\Program Files\Microsoft XDE\1.0\ 64 bit: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft XDE\1.0\ Hold your Shift key down and right-click in the folder.  Choose Open Command Window here. At the command prompt, enter XDE.exe followed by the location of your new rom image.  Here, we downloaded the rom to our download folder, so at the command prompt we entered: XDE.exe C:\Users\Matthew\Downloads\WM70Full\WM70Full.bin The emulator loads … with the full Windows Phone 7 experience! To make it easier, let’s make a shortcut on our desktop to load the emulator with the new rom directly.  Right-click on your desktop (or any folder you want to create the shortcut in), select New, and then Shortcut. Now, in the box, we need to enter the path for the emulator followed by the location of our rom.  Both items must be in quotes.  So, in our test, we entered the following: 32 bit: “C:\Program Files\Microsoft XDE\1.0\” “C:\Users\Matthew\Downloads\WM70Full\WM70Full.bin” 64 bit: “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft XDE\1.0\” “C:\Users\Matthew\Downloads\WM70Full\WM70Full.bin” Make sure to enter the correct location of the new emulator rom for your computer, and keep both items in separate quotes.  Click next when you’ve entered the location. Name the shortcut; we named it Windows Phone 7, but simply enter whatever you’d like.  Click Finish when you’re done. You should now have a nice Windows Phone icon and your fully functional shortcut!  Double-click it to run the Windows Phone 7 emulator as above. Features in the Unlocked Windows Phone 7 Emulator So let’s look at what you can do with this new emulator.  Almost everything you’ve seen in demos from the Mobile World Conference and Mix’10 are right here for you to play with.  Here’s the application menu, which you can access by clicking on the arrow on the top of the home screen, which shows how much stuff they’ve got in this!   And, of course, even the home screen itself shows much more activity than it did in the original emulator. Let’s check out some of these sections.  Here’s Zune running on Windows Phone 7, and the Zune Marketplace.  The animations are beautiful, so be sure to check this out yourself. The new picture hub is much nicer than any picture viewer included with Windows Mobile in the past…   Stay productive, and on schedule with the new Calendar. The XBOX hub gives us only a hint of things to come, and the links to games now are simply placeholders. Here’s a look at the Office hub.  This doesn’t show up on the homescreen right now, but you can access it in the applications menu.  Office obviously still has a lot of work left on it, but even at a glance here it looks like it includes a lot more functionality than Office Mobile in Windows Mobile 6. Here’s a look at each of the three apps: Word, Excel, and OneNote, and the formatting pallet in Office apps.   This emulator also includes a lot more settings than the default one, including settings for individual applications. You can even activate the screen lock, and try out the lift-to-peek-or-unlock feature… Finally, this version of Windows Phone 7 includes a very nice SystemInfo app with an advanced task manager.  We hope this is still available when the actual phones are released. Conclusion If you’re excited about the upcoming Windows Phone 7 series, or simply want to learn more about what’s coming, this is a great way to test it out.  With these exciting new hubs and applications, there’s something here for everyone.  Let us know what you like most about Windows Phone 7 and what your favorite app or hub is. Links Please note: These roms are not officially supported by Microsoft, and could be taken down. Download the unlocked Windows Phone 7 emulator from XDA Forums – click the link in this post to download How the unlocked emulator image was created Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Try out Windows Phone 7 on your PC todayGet stats on your Ruby on Rails codeDisable Windows Vista’s Built-in CD/DVD Burning FeaturesWeek in Geek – The Slick Windows 7 File Copy Animation EditionGeek Fun: Virtualized Old School Windows – Windows 95 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Get Better Windows Search With UltraSearch Scan News With NY Times Article Skimmer SpeedyFox Claims to Speed up your Firefox Beware Hover Kitties Test Drive Mobile Phones Online With TryPhone Ben & Jerry’s Free Cone Day, 3/23/10

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  • Thursday Community Keynote: "By the Community, For the Community"

    - by Janice J. Heiss
    Sharat Chander, JavaOne Community Chairperson, began Thursday's Community Keynote. As part of the morning’s theme of "By the Community, For the Community," Chander noted that 60% of the material at the 2012 JavaOne conference was presented by Java Community members. "So next year, when the call for papers starts, put-in your submissions," he urged.From there, Gary Frost, Principal Member of Technical Staff, AMD, expanded upon Sunday's Strategy Keynote exploration of Project Sumatra, an OpenJDK project targeted at bringing Java to heterogeneous computing platforms (which combine the CPU and the parallel processor of the GPU into a single piece of silicon). Sumatra entails enhancing the JVM to make maximum use of these advanced platforms. Within this development space, AMD created the Aparapi API, which converts Java bytecode into OpenCL for execution on such GPU devices. The Aparapi API was open sourced in September 2011.Whether it was zooming-in on a Mandelbrot set, "the game of life," or a swarm of 10,000 Dukes in a space-bound gravitational dance, Frost's demos, using an Aparapi/OpenCL implementation, produced stunningly faster display results. He indicated that the Java 9 timeframe is where they see Project Sumatra coming to ultimate fruition, employing the Lamdas of Java 8.Returning to the theme of the keynote, Donald Smith, Director, Java Product Management, Oracle, explored a mind map graphic demonstrating the importance of Community in terms of fostering innovation. "It's the sharing and mixing of culture, the diversity, and the rapid prototyping," he said. Within this topic, Smith, brought up a panel of representatives from Cloudera, Eclipse, Eucalyptus, Perrone Robotics, and Twitter--ideal manifestations of community and innovation in the world of Java.Marten Mickos, CEO, Eucalyptus Systems, explored his company's open source cloud software platform, written in Java, and used by gaming companies, technology companies, media companies, and more. Chris Aniszczyk, Operations Engineering,Twitter, noted the importance of the JVM in terms of their multiple-language development environment. Mike Olson, CEO, Cloudera, described his company's Apache Hadoop-based software, support, and training. Mike Milinkovich, Executive Director, Eclipse Foundation, noted that they have about 270 tools projects at Eclipse, with 267 of them written in Java. Milinkovich added that Eclipse will even be going into space in 2013, as part of the control software on various experiments aboard the International Space Station. Lastly, Paul Perrone, CEO, Perrone Robotics, detailed his company's robotics and automation software platform built 100% on Java, including Java SE and Java ME--"on rat, to cat, to elephant-sized systems." Milinkovic noted that communities are by nature so good at innovation because of their very openness--"The more open you make your innovation process, the more ideas are challenged, and the more developers are focused on justifying their choices all the way through the process."From there, Georges Saab, VP Development Java SE OpenJDK, continued the topic of innovation and helping the Java Community to "Make the Future Java." Martijn Verburg, representing the London Java Community (winner of a Duke's Choice Award 2012 for their activity in OpenJDK and JCP), soon joined Saab onstage. Verburg detailed the LJC's "Adopt a JSR" program--"to get day-to-day developers more involved in the innovation that's happening around them."  From its London launching pad, the innovative program has spread to Brazil, Morocco, Latvia, India, and more.Other active participants in the program joined Verburg onstage--Ben Evans, London Java Community; James Gough, Stackthread; Bruno Souza, SOUJava; Richard Warburton, jClarity; and Cecelia Borg, Oracle--OpenJDK Onboarding. Together, the group explored the goals and tasks inherent in the Adopt a JSR program--from organizing hack days (testing prototype implementations), to managing mailing lists and forums, to triaging issues, to evangelism—all with the goal of fostering greater community/developer involvement, but equally importantly, building better open standards. “Come join us, and make your ecosystem better!" urged Verburg.Paul Perrone returned to profile the latest in his company's robotics work around Java--including the AARDBOTS family of smaller robotic vehicles, running the Perrone MAX platform on top of the Java JVM. Perrone took his "Rumbles" four-wheeled robot out for a spin onstage--a roaming, ARM-based security-bot vehicle, complete with IR, ultrasonic, and "cliff" sensors (the latter, for the raised stage at JavaOne). As an ultimate window into the future of robotics, Perrone displayed a "head-set" controller--a sensor directed at the forehead to monitor brainwaves, for the someday-implementation of brain-to-robot control.Then, just when it seemed this might be the end of the day's futuristic offerings, a mystery voice from offstage pronounced "I've got some toys"--proving to be guest-visitor James Gosling, there to explore his cutting-edge work with Liquid Robotics. While most think of robots as something with wheels or arms or lasers, Gosling explained, the Liquid Robotics vehicle is an entirely new and innovative ocean-going 'bot. Looking like a floating surfboard, with an attached set of underwater wings, the autonomous devices roam the oceans using only the energy of ocean waves to propel them, and a single actuated rudder to steer. "We have to accomplish all guidance just by wiggling the rudder," Gosling said. The devices offer applications from self-installing weather buoy, to pollution monitoring station, to marine mammal monitoring device, to climate change data gathering, to even ocean life genomic sampling. The early versions of the vehicle used C code on very tiny industrial micro controllers, where they had to "count the bytes one at a time."  But the latest generation vehicles, which just hit the water a week or so ago, employ an ARM processor running Linux and the ARM version of JDK 7. Gosling explained that vehicle communication from remote locations is achieved via the Iridium satellite network. But because of the costs of this communication path, the data must be sent in very small bursts--using SBD short burst data. "It costs $1/kb, so that rules everything in the software design,” said Gosling. “If you were trying to stream a Netflix video over this, it would cost a million dollars a movie. …We don't have a 'big data' problem," he quipped. There are currently about 150 Liquid Robotics vehicles out traversing the oceans. Gosling demonstrated real time satellite tracking of several vehicles currently at sea, noting that Java is actually particularly good at AI applications--due to the language having garbage collection, which facilitates complex data structures. To close-out his time onstage, Gosling of course participated in the ceremonial Java tee-shirt toss out to the audience…In parting, Chander passed the JavaOne Community Chairperson baton to Stephen Chin, Java Technology Evangelist, Oracle. Onstage in full motorcycle gear, Chin noted that he'll soon be touring Europe by motorcycle, meeting Java Community Members and streaming live via UStream--the ultimate manifestation of community and technology!  He also reminded attendees of the upcoming JavaOne Latin America 2012, São Paulo, Brazil (December 4-6, 2012), and stated that the CFP (call for papers) at the conference has been extended for one more week. "Remember, December is summer in Brazil!" Chin said.

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  • Summit Time!

    - by Ajarn Mark Caldwell
    Boy, how time flies!  I can hardly believe that the 2011 PASS Summit is just one week away.  Maybe it snuck up on me because it’s a few weeks earlier than last year.  Whatever the cause, I am really looking forward to next week.  The PASS Summit is the largest SQL Server conference in the world and a fantastic networking opportunity thrown in for no additional charge.  Here are a few thoughts to help you maximize the week. Networking As Karen Lopez (blog | @DataChick) mentioned in her presentation for the Professional Development Virtual Chapter just a couple of weeks ago, “Don’t wait until you need a new job to start networking.”  You should always be working on your professional network.  Some people, especially technical-minded people, get confused by the term networking.  The first image that used to pop into my head was the image of some guy standing, awkwardly, off to the side of a cocktail party, trying to shmooze those around him.  That’s not what I’m talking about.  If you’re good at that sort of thing, and you can strike up a conversation with some stranger and learn all about them in 5 minutes, and walk away with your next business deal all but approved by the lawyers, then congratulations.  But if you’re not, and most of us are not, I have two suggestions for you.  First, register for Don Gabor’s 2-hour session on Tuesday at the Summit called Networking to Build Business Contacts.  Don is a master at small talk, and at teaching others, and in just those two short hours will help you with important tips about breaking the ice, remembering names, and smooth transitions into and out of conversations.  Then go put that great training to work right away at the Tuesday night Welcome Reception and meet some new people; which is really my second suggestion…just meet a few new people.  You see, “networking” is about meeting new people and being friendly without trying to “work it” to get something out of the relationship at this point.  In fact, Don will tell you that a better way to build the connection with someone is to look for some way that you can help them, not how they can help you. There are a ton of opportunities as long as you follow this one key point: Don’t stay in your hotel!  At the least, get out and go to the free events such as the Tuesday night Welcome Reception, the Wednesday night Exhibitor Reception, and the Thursday night Community Appreciation Party.  All three of these are perfect opportunities to meet other professionals with a similar job or interest as you, and you never know how that may help you out in the future.  Maybe you just meet someone to say HI to at breakfast the next day instead of eating alone.  Or maybe you cross paths several times throughout the Summit and compare notes on different sessions you attended.  And you just might make new friends that you look forward to seeing year after year at the Summit.  Who knows, it might even turn out that you have some specific experience that will help out that other person a few months’ from now when they run into the same challenge that you just overcame, or vice-versa.  But the point is, if you don’t get out and meet people, you’ll never have the chance for anything else to happen in the future. One more tip for shy attendees of the Summit…if you can’t bring yourself to strike up conversation with strangers at these events, then at the least, after you sit through a good session that helps you out, go up to the speaker and introduce yourself and thank them for taking the time and effort to put together their presentation.  Ideally, when you do this, tell them WHY it was beneficial to you (e.g. “Now I have a new idea of how to tackle a problem back at the office.”)  I know you think the speakers are all full of confidence and are always receiving a ton of accolades and applause, but you’re wrong.  Most of them will be very happy to hear first-hand that all the work they put into getting ready for their presentation is paying off for somebody. Training With over 170 technical sessions at the Summit, training is what it’s all about, and the training is fantastic!  Of course there are the big-name trainers like Paul Randall, Kimberly Tripp, Kalen Delaney, Itzik Ben-Gan and several others, but I am always impressed by the quality of the training put on by so many other “regular” members of the SQL Server community.  It is amazing how you don’t have to be a published author or otherwise recognized as an “expert” in an area in order to make a big impact on others just by sharing your personal experience and lessons learned.  I would rather hear the story of, and lessons learned from, “some guy or gal” who has actually been through an issue and came out the other side, than I would a trained professor who is speaking just from theory or an intellectual understanding of a topic. In addition to the three full days of regular sessions, there are also two days of pre-conference intensive training available.  There is an extra cost to this, but it is a fantastic opportunity.  Think about it…you’re already coming to this area for training, so why not extend your stay a little bit and get some in-depth training on a particular topic or two?  I did this for the first time last year.  I attended one day of extra training and it was well worth the time and money.  One of the best reasons for it is that I am extremely busy at home with my regular job and family, that it was hard to carve out the time to learn about the topic on my own.  It worked out so well last year that I am doubling up and doing two days or “pre-cons” this year. And then there are the DVDs.  I think these are another great option.  I used the online schedule builder to get ready and have an idea of which sessions I want to attend and when they are (much better than trying to figure this out at the last minute every day).  But the problem that I have run into (seems this happens every year) is that nearly every session block has two different sessions that I would like to attend.  And some of them have three!  ACK!  That won’t work!  What is a guy supposed to do?  Well, one option is to purchase the DVDs which are recordings of the audio and projected images from each session so you can continue to attend sessions long after the Summit is officially over.  Yes, many (possibly all) of these also get posted online and attendees can access those for no extra charge, but those are not necessarily all available as quickly as the DVD recording are, and the DVDs are often more convenient than downloading, especially if you want to share the training with someone who was not able to attend in person. Remember, I don’t make any money or get any other benefit if you buy the DVDs or from anything else that I have recommended here.  These are just my own thoughts, trying to help out based on my experiences from the 8 or so Summits I have attended.  There is nothing like the Summit.  It is an awesome experience, fantastic training, and a whole lot of fun which is just compounded if you’ll take advantage of the first part of this article and make some new friends along the way.

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