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• Build Dependencies and Silverlight 4

  - by Kyle Burns

  At my current position, I’ve been doing quite a bit of Silverlight development and have also been working with TFS2010 build services to enable continuous integration.  One of the critical pieces of a successful continuous build setup (and also one of the benefits of having one) is that the build system should be able to “get latest” against the source repository and immediately build with no errors.  This can break down both in an automated build scenario and a “new guy” scenario when the solution has external dependencies that may not be present in the build environment. The method that I use to address the dependency issue is to store all of the binaries upon which my solution depends in a folder under the solution root called “Reference Items”.  I keep this folder as part of the solution and check all of the binaries into source control so when I get the latest version of the solution from source control all of the binaries are downloaded to my machine as well and gets me closer to the ideal where a new developer installs the development IDE, get latest and can immediately build and run unit tests before jumping into coding the feature of the day. This all sounds pretty good (and it is), but a little while back I ran into one of those little hiccups that requires a little manual intervention.  The issue that I ran into is that with Silverlight (at least version 4), the behavior of the “Add Reference” command when adding reference to a DLL that is present in the GAC is to omit the HintPath element that it includes with regular .Net projects, so even if the DLL is setting in the Reference Items folder and downloaded to the build machine it cannot be found at compile time and the build will fail. To work around this behavior, you need to be comfortable editing the XML project files generated by Visual Studio (in my case this is typically a .csproj file).  Simply open the project file in your favorite text editor, find the Reference element that refers to the component, and modify the XML to include the HintPath.  Here’s a before and after example of the component that ultimately led me to the investigation behind this post: Before: <Reference Include="Telerik.Windows.Controls, Version=2011.2.920.1040, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=5803cfa389c90ce7, processorArchitecture=MSIL" /> After: <Reference Include="Telerik.Windows.Controls, Version=2011.2.920.1040, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=5803cfa389c90ce7, processorArchitecture=MSIL">       <HintPath>..\Reference Items\Telerik.Windows.Controls.dll</HintPath>     </Reference>

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• SQL Server-Determine which query is taking a long time to complete

  - by Neil Smith

  Cool little trick to determine which sql query which is taking a long time to execute, first while offending query is running from another machine do EXEC sp_who2 Locate the SPID responsible via Login, DBName and ProgramName columns, then do DBCC INPUTBUFFER (<SPID>) The offending query will be in the EventInfo column.  This is a great little time saver for me, before I found out about this I used to split my concatenated query script in to multiple sql files until I located the problem query

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• Why We Need UX Designers

  - by Tim Murphy

  Ok, so maybe this is really why I need UX designers.  While I have always had an interest in photography and can appreciate a well designed user interface putting one together is an entirely different endeavor.  Being color blind doesn’t help, but coming up with ideas is probably the biggest portion of the issue.  I can spot things that just don’t look like they work right, but what will? UX designers is an area that most companies do not spend much if any resources.  As they say, you only get one chance to make a first impression and and a poorly designed site or application is a bad first impression.  Given that they you would think that companies would invest more in appearance and usability. One of two things need to be done to rectify this issue.  Either we need to start educating our developers on user experience and design or we need to start finding ways to subsidize putting full time designers on our project teams.  Maybe it should be a time share type of situation, but something needs to be done.  As architects we need to impress on our project stakeholders the importance of User Experience and why it should be part of the budget.  If they hear it often enough eventually they may present it to you as their own idea. del.icio.us Tags: User Experience,UX,Application Design

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• MIX 2010 Covert Operations Day 3

  - by GeekAgilistMercenary

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

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• Clear for take off - Azure account setup and ready to go

  - by Rainer

  I completed today the Azure account setup and started working on a project to really test drive the Azure Platform and Azure SQL. Cool stuff! Ready for takeoff into the clear blue sky, where are the clouds?

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• Making your ASP.NET/HTML Websites Indic aware &ndash; accepting Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Hindi and ot

  - by Harish Ranganathan

  Its been a month since I wrote my last post.  Much of work has been happening around planning for Tech Ed India, the upcoming Virtual TechDays this week as well as our Developer content at the Great Indian Developer Summit 2010.  Its going to be one exciting period starting this week and I am glad I would be able to meet a lot of folks who have written to me personally that they would like to catch up at Tech Ed India. For now, I had a chance to meet the Microsoft India Development Centre team that worked on the Microsoft Indic Language Input Tool (erstwhile Akshara). The team updated me that they have also released the scripts  so that the Indic input feature can be encapsulated into your own websites.  For example, if you are having a web page where you collect user information, you can pretty much make your site indic aware i.e. accept inputs in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Hindi etc.,  All you would need to include would be a bunch of scripts onto your web pages and you are ready to make it, like I said, “indic aware” I have built a sample web page that accepts First Name, Last Name, Address and an additional field.  When it comes to accepting indic, sometimes, you may want to avoid the indic input in certain fields and accept it in English.  You can specify the MicrosoftILITWebAttach="false" attribute to the Text Boxes and Text Areas (TextMode=”Multiline” in ASP.NET) so that the particular field automatically switches over to English input.  Similarly, the moment you specify that the TextMode=”Password” to make it as a password field, it automatically ignores all indic recognition and shows the masked dots for the words entered. Note that, this is, when we are going for the Opt-out mode, where we are specifying that by default all the input controls would need indic awareness and we would specify for those controls where it is not required.  The other mode is Opt-in mode where you would need to add a different property to the script definition i.e. attachMode=”optin” .  When we do this, we need to explicitly add the MicrosoftILITWebAttach="true" attribute for every control where we need indic input. I have created a sample web page which accepts First Name, Last Name, Address and an additional input field to demonstrate the “Opt-out”.   You can copy paste this into any of your web pages to check it <form id="form1" runat="server">     <!-- Microsoft Indic Language Input Tool embed code --> <input type="hidden" id="MicrosoftILITWebEmbedInfo" attachMode="optout" value="" /> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ilit.microsoft.com/bookmarklet/script/Tamil.js" defer="defer"></script>     <div>     <h2>         Welcome to the Registration Page     </h2>     <p>         First Name: <asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="txtFirstName" />         <br />         <br />         Last Name: <asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="txtLastName" />         <br />         <br />         Password:         <asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="txtPassword" TextMode="Password" />         <br />         <br />         Address: <asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="txtAddress" TextMode="MultiLine" Height="100" Width="200" />         <br />         <br />         English Text: <asp:TextBox ID="txtEnglishText" runat="server" MicrosoftILITWebAttach="false" />     </p>     <p>         <!-- Microsoft Indic Language Input Tool attribution image link --> <a style="text-decoration: none" href="http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=184205&clcid=0x409"><img style="border: 0px" alt="Transliteration by Microsoft" src="http://ilit.microsoft.com/bookmarklet/images/attribution.png"></a>     </p>     </div>     </form> If you note the code snippet above, I have included the scripts in the top with the attachMode set to “optout” and for the last TextBox, I have mentioned the MicrosoftILITWebAttach="false” attribute to make it accept English input.   Additionally, you also need to add the “Microsoft Indic Language Input Tool attribution image” to your web page as a courtesy to the team that developed this feature.  It would basically add a image saying “Transliteration by Microsoft” similar to a Copy Right image.  You can see the screen shot below where I have typed it in Tamil.  In that you will notice that the password field behaves as expected and the last field accepts English Text.  You can also notice the icon that comes in the first textbox that indicates that, the field is going to accept indic text.   This sample is using Tamil, but you can pretty much do it for Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali etc.,   The website for getting the Indic script and other instructions is http://specials.msn.co.in/ilit/WebEmbed.aspx?language=Tamil You can replace the querystring value “Tamil” to other languages as mentioned above to get the respective script. This also works for plain HTML based websites and doesn’t necessarily need you to use ASP.NET to achieve the functionality. Note that, this form is not completely localized.  This is transliterated.  You can add label controls for FirstName, LastName indication etc., and use the Visual Studio tools to localize and get those values from resource files.  In the resource files, you can enter the text in different languages to make this a truly localized page.  If you just want to download the Indic Tool Desktop version (that can be used for typing in Word, Excel, pretty much any input area), you can download it from http://specials.msn.co.in/ilit/  In the same page, there is also a web version where you can type and get text then and there if you dont want to install the desktop version. So, go ahead, download / use them in your websites and enjoy the power of Indic. Cheers !!!

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• Phones, Nokia, Microsoft and More

  - by Bill Evjen

  The phone revolution that is under way at the moment is insanely interesting and continuously full of buzz about directions, failures, and promises. The movement started with Apple completely reinventing what a smart phone was all about and now we have the followers. Though – don’t dismiss the followers, they are usually the ones that come out with the leap frog products when most of the world is thinking about jumping on. Remember the often used analogy – the USA invented the TV – but it was Japan that took it to the next level and now all TVs are from somewhere else other than the USA. Really there are two camps for the phones – the Cool Kids and other kids that no one wants to hang out with anymore. When it comes to cool – for some reason, the phone is an important part of that factor. Everyone wants to show their phone and its configuration (apps installed, etc) to their friends as a sign of (1) “I have money” and (2) I have smarts/tastes/style/etc when it comes to my applications that are on my phone. For those that don’t know – the Cool Kids include: Apple – this is quite obvious as everything Apple produces is in the cool camp. Just having an Apple product on your person means you can dance. Google – this is one of the more interesting releases as they have created something called Android (which in it’s own right is a major brand in itself). Microsoft – you might be saying “Really, Microsoft is cool?”. I would argue that they are indeed cool as it is now associated with XBOX 360, Kinect, and Windows 7. Gone are the days of Bob and that silly paperclip. Well – that’s it. There is nobody else I would stick in that camp. The other kids that weren’t picked for that dodgeball team include: Nokia Motorola Palm Blackberry and many many more The sad part of all this is that no matter what this second camp does now, it won’t be able to get out of this bucket easily. They will always be associated as yesterday’s technology and that association will drive the sales of the phone purchasers of the world. For those in that group, the only possible way out is to get invited to the cool club by one of the cool club members in the hope that their coolness somehow rubs off. To me, this is the move that Nokia is making. They are at this point where they have realized that they don’t have the full scope of the required end to end solution to make this all work. They have the plants to build the phones and the reach of the retailers that sell what they have. What they are missing is the proper operating system for the new world of multi-touch form factor phones. Even the companies that come up with some sort of new operating system for this type of new device, they are still associated with the yesterday and lack the developer community behind them to be the real wave of adoption that this market needs. Think about that – this is a major different between Nokia/Blackberry when you compare it to the likes of Apple, Google, and Microsoft. These three powerhouses having a very large and strong development community that will eagerly take on new initiatives using the skillsets that they have already cultivated over the years of already working with the company. This then results in a plethora of applications that are then placed on an app store of some kind. The developer gets a cut and then Apple/Google/Microsoft then get their cut. It is definitely a win-win. None of the other phone companies and wannabies can provide the same results. What Microsoft was missing was the major phone manufactures coming on board to create and push forward with the phones that are required to start the wave. This is where Nokia can come in and help Microsoft. They have the ability to promote the Windows Phone operating system on a new wave of phones. This does mean that Nokia will sell phones, but they lose out on the application store that they might have been thinking about making some money on as well as controlling the end to end solution. What is interesting is in questioning to oneself if Microsoft will purchase Nokia. It really depends upon how they want to compete and with whom Microsoft views as the major competitor. For instance, they can purchase Nokia and have their own hardware company and distribution network for phones – thereby taking on a model that is quite similar to Apple. On the other hand, they could just leave it up to the phone hardware companies such as Nokia and others to build and promote phones in a model that is similar to Google. Both ways have pluses and minuses. If they own the phone manufacturer, they really can put some thought into the design and technical specifications of the phone that is really designed to exactly how they want it. Microsoft has shown that they have this ability – especially with the XBOX initiative they have done over the years. Think about how good and powerful they have moved forward with XBOX – and I am not talking about just copying what others are doing, but coming up with leapfrog products that are steps ahead of everyone else. Though, if they didn’t do it themselves, they could then leave it up to the phone manufacturers to drive each other to build better and better phones that run the Microsoft OS – competition drives better products. We have seen this with the Android line of phones that are out there on the market. I have read a lot about Nokia investors really upset about the new Microsoft relationship – but really, this is a great thing. I for one am a fan of this relationship (I am also a Nokia stock holder btw). This will mean better days for Nokia.

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• Be careful when installing the Blend Windows Phone 7 Add-In

  - by Laurent Bugnion

  There was a small issue today with the release of the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP (April 2010 Refresh) refresh. The issue is that the Expression Blend Add-in Preview for Windows Phone (April Refresh) is not compatible with Blend 4.0.20408.0, which was the public RC (release candidate). A few days ago, the Blend team released a fix for an issue that was sometimes causing a crash when Blend was starting up. This new release (V4.0.20421.0) was not very well announced however, and many people (including me) did not install it. After all, Blend did not crash at startup of either of my machines, so I didn’t deem necessary to install yet a new RC. However, it is now clear that the Windows Phone 7 Add-In needs this latest-and-greatest version to work. If you have Blend 4.0.20408.0, you won’t be able to work with Windows Phone 7 in Blend. To add to the confusion, the page where you can download V4.0.20421.0 from has an error, and the wrong version number is wrong (at least at the time of writing). Do not let this confuse you. You must download this version and install it. Hopefully this helps clarify some of the confusion… Happy WinPhone7 coding :) Laurent

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• FREE Windows Azure Boot camp &ndash; Raleigh Wednesday June 23, 2010

  - by Jim Duffy

  Just want to be sure you don’t miss out on an opportunity to take advantage of some free Windows Azure training. Microsoft Developer Evangelist Brian Hitney and I will be presenting a one-day Windows Azure boot camp on June 23rd in Raleigh, NC at the Microsoft RTP offices. For more information on content, what to bring, directions, etc. just click here to go to the information and registration page for the Raleigh event. To find other dates and locations for the Windows Azure boot camps  head over to the Windows Azure Boot Camp page. Brian and I hope to see you there! Have a day. :-|

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• Twin Cities Code Camp 8 (EIGHT?!?)

  - by Chris Williams

  Yep, Twin Cities Code Camp EIGHT is just around the corner (11 days from this writing.) We've got some great sessions lined up, and a mini-mountain of swag to give away. If you haven't registered yet, we're ALMOST at capacity... so don't delay. See you there...

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• FAQ&ndash;Highlight GridView Row on Click and Retain Selected Row on Postback

  - by Vincent Maverick Durano

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

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• Sample Browser Visual Studio Extension is localized and introduced to Japan

  - by Jialiang

  http://blogs.msdn.com/b/codefx/archive/2012/10/14/sample-browser-visual-studio-extension-is-localized-and-introduced-to-japan.aspx  ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????From: Japan MVP   "The Sample Browser is very easy to use thanks to the refined interface.  The categorized menu enables faster search. Highly acclaimed.  But it need localization. It may not be a problem for those who can understand English, but I think localizing Sample Browser into Japanese will promote its use in Japan further." This is a prominent feedback collected from the Japan MVP community since we released the last version of Sample Browser, which was only available in English.  Japan developers like the Sample Browser, but they want localized code samples, localized Sample Browser UI, and the localized search experience.  The Japan MVP lead, Satoru Kitabata, observed these needs and expectations.  He started to engage with all local developer MVPs to translate the UI elements in the Sample Browser.  Lots of MVPs signed up to participate in this work.  They had roundtables and newsletters to track the progress.  In short three weeks, every control, every tooltip, every font on every label, was beautifully tuned for Japanese.  The sample search experience was also optimized for Japan developers - they can directly type Japanese query to search for code samples.  Together with Microsoft Japan MVPs, the sample use experience is localized and improved to a new level!    The Japan MVP Lead, Satoru Kitabata, further worked with MSDN Japan site manager and Japan DPE to introduce the good news of localized Sample Browser to Japan Sample Browser  http://msdn.microsoft.com/ja-jp/jj730399 Sample Browser?????? http://msdn.microsoft.com/ja-jp/jj730398     Thanks to the joint effort and Japan MVPs’ feedback and contributions, the Sample Browser gets the chance to benefit the broader Japan developer audience.

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• Visual Studio 2010 Setup Projects and x64 Support

  - by Shawn Cicoria

  I was taking the Windows Azure CmdLets project and getting it into an MSI just to make it easier to deploy in a nice package.  I ran into problems with the Setup project not being able to properly establish the right registry settings for an x64 environment. Even though you set the target platform on the Setup project to x64 the InstallUtil.lib that get’s run is still x86.  In order to have it work property, you need to follow the steps identified here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/kz0ke5xt.aspx  The section “64-bit managed custom actions throw a System.BadImageFormatException exception” covers the steps you need to follow, using the Orca MSI editor to replace the InstallUtilLib.dll from the one that the Setup Project embeds (x86) to a x64 version. Now, works like a charm… Resultant installer here: http://cicoria.com/Downloads/AzureManagementCmdletsInstall.msi The CmdLets are the same ones from the Training Kit – November 2010 release.

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• MapRedux - PowerShell and Big Data

  - by Dittenhafer Solutions

  MapRedux – #PowerShell and #Big Data Have you been hearing about “big data”, “map reduce” and other large scale computing terms over the past couple of years and been curious to dig into more detail? Have you read some of the Apache Hadoop online documentation and unfortunately concluded that it wasn't feasible to setup a “test” hadoop environment on your machine? More recently, I have read about some of Microsoft’s work to enable Hadoop on the Azure cloud. Being a "Microsoft"-leaning technologist, I am more inclinded to be successful with experimentation when on the Windows platform. Of course, it is not that I am "religious" about one set of technologies other another, but rather more experienced. Anyway, within the past couple of weeks I have been thinking about PowerShell a bit more as the 2012 PowerShell Scripting Games approach and it occured to me that PowerShell's support for Windows Remote Management (WinRM), and some other inherent features of PowerShell might lend themselves particularly well to a simple implementation of the MapReduce framework. I fired up my PowerShell ISE and started writing just to see where it would take me. Quite simply, the ScriptBlock feature combined with the ability of Invoke-Command to create remote jobs on networked servers provides much of the plumbing of a distributed computing environment. There are some limiting factors of course. Microsoft provided some default settings which prevent PowerShell from taking over a network without administrative approval first. But even with just one adjustment, a given Windows-based machine can become a node in a MapReduce-style distributed computing environment. Ok, so enough introduction. Let's talk about the code. First, any machine that will participate as a remote "node" will need WinRM enabled for remote access, as shown below. This is not exactly practical for hundreds of intended nodes, but for one (or five) machines in a test environment it does just fine. C:> winrm quickconfig WinRM is not set up to receive requests on this machine. The following changes must be made: Set the WinRM service type to auto start. Start the WinRM service. Make these changes [y/n]? y Alternatively, you could take the approach described in the Remotely enable PSRemoting post from the TechNet forum and use PowerShell to create remote scheduled tasks that will call Enable-PSRemoting on each intended node. Invoke-MapRedux Moving on, now that you have one or more remote "nodes" enabled, you can consider the actual Map and Reduce algorithms. Consider the following snippet: $MyMrResults = Invoke-MapRedux -MapReduceItem $Mr -ComputerName $MyNodes -DataSet $dataset -Verbose Invoke-MapRedux takes an instance of a MapReduceItem which references the Map and Reduce scriptblocks, an array of computer names which are the remote nodes, and the initial data set to be processed. As simple as that, you can start working with concepts of big data and the MapReduce paradigm. Now, how did we get there? I have published the initial version of my PsMapRedux PowerShell Module on GitHub. The PsMapRedux module provides the Invoke-MapRedux function described above. Feel free to browse the underlying code and even contribute to the project! In a later post, I plan to show some of the inner workings of the module, but for now let's move on to how the Map and Reduce functions are defined. Map Both the Map and Reduce functions need to follow a prescribed prototype. The prototype for a Map function in the MapRedux module is as follows. A simple scriptblock that takes one PsObject parameter and returns a hashtable. It is important to note that the PsObject $dataset parameter is a MapRedux custom object that has a "Data" property which offers an array of data to be processed by the Map function. $aMap = { Param ( [PsObject] $dataset ) # Indicate the job is running on the remote node. Write-Host ($env:computername + "::Map"); # The hashtable to return $list = @{}; # ... Perform the mapping work and prepare the $list hashtable result with your custom PSObject... # ... The $dataset has a single 'Data' property which contains an array of data rows # which is a subset of the originally submitted data set. # Return the hashtable (Key, PSObject) Write-Output $list; } Reduce Likewise, with the Reduce function a simple prototype must be followed which takes a $key and a result $dataset from the MapRedux's partitioning function (which joins the Map results by key). Again, the $dataset is a MapRedux custom object that has a "Data" property as described in the Map section. $aReduce = { Param ( [object] $key, [PSObject] $dataset ) Write-Host ($env:computername + "::Reduce - Count: " + $dataset.Data.Count) # The hashtable to return $redux = @{}; # Return Write-Output $redux; } All Together Now When everything is put together in a short example script, you implement your Map and Reduce functions, query for some starting data, build the MapReduxItem via New-MapReduxItem and call Invoke-MapRedux to get the process started: # Import the MapRedux and SQL Server providers Import-Module "MapRedux" Import-Module “sqlps” -DisableNameChecking # Query the database for a dataset Set-Location SQLSERVER:\sql\dbserver1\default\databases\myDb $query = "SELECT MyKey, Date, Value1 FROM BigData ORDER BY MyKey"; Write-Host "Query: $query" $dataset = Invoke-SqlCmd -query $query # Build the Map function $MyMap = { Param ( [PsObject] $dataset ) Write-Host ($env:computername + "::Map"); $list = @{}; foreach($row in $dataset.Data) { # Write-Host ("Key: " + $row.MyKey.ToString()); if($list.ContainsKey($row.MyKey) -eq $true) { $s = $list.Item($row.MyKey); $s.Sum += $row.Value1; $s.Count++; } else { $s = New-Object PSObject; $s | Add-Member -Type NoteProperty -Name MyKey -Value $row.MyKey; $s | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -Name Sum -Value $row.Value1; $list.Add($row.MyKey, $s); } } Write-Output $list; } $MyReduce = { Param ( [object] $key, [PSObject] $dataset ) Write-Host ($env:computername + "::Reduce - Count: " + $dataset.Data.Count) $redux = @{}; $count = 0; foreach($s in $dataset.Data) { $sum += $s.Sum; $count += 1; } # Reduce $redux.Add($s.MyKey, $sum / $count); # Return Write-Output $redux; } # Create the item data $Mr = New-MapReduxItem "My Test MapReduce Job" $MyMap $MyReduce # Array of processing nodes... $MyNodes = ("node1", "node2", "node3", "node4", "localhost") # Run the Map Reduce routine... $MyMrResults = Invoke-MapRedux -MapReduceItem $Mr -ComputerName $MyNodes -DataSet $dataset -Verbose # Show the results Set-Location C:\ $MyMrResults | Out-GridView Conclusion I hope you have seen through this article that PowerShell has a significant infrastructure available for distributed computing. While it does take some code to expose a MapReduce-style framework, much of the work is already done and PowerShell could prove to be the the easiest platform to develop and run big data jobs in your corporate data center, potentially in the Azure cloud, or certainly as an academic excerise at home or school. Follow me on Twitter to stay up to date on the continuing progress of my Powershell MapRedux module, and thanks for reading! Daniel

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• Opening a new Windows from ASP.NET code behind

  - by TATWORTH

  At http://weblogs.asp.net/infinitiesloop/archive/2007/09/25/response-redirect-into-a-new-window-with-extension-methods.aspx there is an excellent post on how to open a new windows from code behind. The purists may not like it but it helped solve a problem for a client's client. Here is an update for VS2010 users: using System; using System.Web; using System.Web.UI; /// <summary> /// Response Helper for opening popup windo from code behind. /// </summary> public static class ResponseHelper {   /// <summary>   /// Redirect to popup window   /// </summary>   /// <param name="response">The response.</param>   /// <param name="url">URL to open to</param>   /// <param name="target">Target of window _self or _blank</param>   /// <param name="windowFeatures">Features such as window bar</param>   /// <remarks>   ///     <list type="bullet">   ///         <item>   /// From http://weblogs.asp.net/infinitiesloop/archive/2007/09/25/response-redirect-into-a-new-window-with-extension-methods.aspx   /// </item>   /// <item>   /// Note: If you use it outside the context of a Page request, you can't redirect to a new window. The reason is the need to call the ResolveClientUrl method on Page, which I can't do if there is no Page. I could have just built my own version of that method, but it's more involved than you might think to do it right. So if you need to use this from an HttpHandler other than a Page, you are on your own.   /// </item>   ///         <item>   /// Beware of popup blockers.   /// </item>   /// <item>   /// Note: Obviously when you are redirecting to a new window, the current window will still be hanging around. Normally redirects abort the current request -- no further processing occurs. But for these redirects, processing continues, since we still have to serve the response for the current window (which also happens to contain the script to open the new window, so it is important that it completes).   /// </item>   /// <item>   /// Sample call Response.Redirect("popup.aspx", "_blank", "menubar=0,width=100,height=100");   /// </item>   ///     </list>   /// </remarks>   public static void Redirect(this HttpResponse response, string url, string target, string windowFeatures)   {     if ((String.IsNullOrEmpty(target) || target.Equals("_self", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)) && String.IsNullOrEmpty(windowFeatures))     {       response.Redirect(url);     }     else     {       Page page = (Page)HttpContext.Current.Handler;       if (page == null)       {         throw new InvalidOperationException("Cannot redirect to new window outside Page context.");       }       url = page.ResolveClientUrl(url);       string script;       if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(windowFeatures))       {         script = @"window.open(""{0}"", ""{1}"", ""{2}"");";       }       else       {         script = @"window.open(""{0}"", ""{1}"");";       }       script = String.Format(script, url, target, windowFeatures);       ScriptManager.RegisterStartupScript(page, typeof(Page), "Redirect", script, true);     }   } }

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• UDDI vs SO-Aware: Why SO-Aware is the More Efficient and Interoperable Alternative

  - by Vishal

  Hello folks,   If you are implementing a service oriented architecture, and are unsure of the best governance approach to follow, then this webinar is a must-attend event for you.  We will discuss why SO-Aware is the more efficient and interoperable alternative to traditional UDDI-based SOA-governance.   Specifically, we will address the differences between UDDI and SO-Aware in terms of service discovery, configuration, and policy resolution.  Finally, we will address why the REST/Odata based model implemented by SO-Aware enables the most efficient governance not only for WCF but for BizTalk, the Windows Server AppFabric and the Windows Azure AppFabric as well.   Join us on January 26th at 2:00 ET - to register, click here    Thanks,   Vishal

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• Converting LINQ to Twitter to Twitter API v1.1

  - by Joe Mayo

  Twitter recently updated their API to v1.1 (Current status: API v1.1). Naturally, LINQ to Twitter  needed to be updated too. This blog post outlines the changes made to LINQ to Twitter during this conversion and highlights important features that LINQ to Twitter developers will want to know. Overall Impact Generally speaking, Twitter API v1.1 is semantically very much the same as it’s predecessor. The base URL changed and so did a few resource segments, but the resources themselves are still intact. The good news is that LINQ to Twitter has always shielded the developer from this plumbing, so the entities, types, and filters didn’t change much at all.  The following sections describe what did  change. Authentication In Twitter API v1.0 authentication was not required for some resources, such as user timelines and search. However, that’s all changed because *all* queries must be authenticated in Twitter API v1.1. LINQ to Twitter has various types of authorizers you can use, supporting whatever OAuth options are available via Twitter.  You can see the LINQ to Twitter documentation, Securing Your Applications, for more info on OAuth support. The New Search One of the larger changes to the API was Search. To be more specific, the Search entity now contains a List<Status>, named Statuses, to hold results.  Additionally, any meta-data associated with the search is now in a property named SearchMetaData. The change to the Search entity and responses is the big change, but the good news is that your Search query syntax doesn’t change. Different Rate Limits The issue of rate limits itself is contentious, but this discussion is focused on the coding experience and I’ll leave the politics to those who prefer to engage in that activity. What’s important here is that both headers and resources have changed. You should review Twitter’s Rate Limit documentation to understand what the changes mean.  A quick explanation is that rate limits are applied individually to each resource in 15 minute time intervals. In LINQ to Twitter these changes surface on the Help entity, via HelpType.RateLimits. The RateLimits query has a Resources filter where you can specify a comma-separated list of categories to return rate limit info for.  The results materialize in the RateLimits dictionary, keyed on category. The Help entity also has a RateLimitsAuthorizationContext, holding the Access Token for the user performing queries – and to whom the rate limits apply. In addition to the new RateLimits query, there are new RateLimit headers that appear in the query response, whose HTTP header name is of the form X-Rate-Limit… which is different from the previous header name. LINQ to Twitter surfaces these headers via the existing properties of the TwitterContext instance. For anyone who retrieved rate limit information via the Headers property of TwitterContext, you should be aware of the new header names.  I haven’t done anything with Feature rate limit properties yet, but they appear to no longer be available – this will require more follow-up. Error Handling Twitter API v1.1 has a new format for Error Codes & Responses. LINQ to Twitter wraps these messages in the TwitterQueryException, which has been updated appropriately. The Message property of TwitterQueryException now reflects the Twitter error message, when available. There’s also a new ErrorCode that’s populated with the message error code. Parameters Most parameters stayed the same, but one of interest is Include Entities (different from LINQ to Twitter data object entities). Entities are metadata hanging off tweets, that provide start/end position in the tweet and other information for mentions, urls, hash tags, and media. Entities used to not be included unless you specified you wanted them. Now, in v1.1, entities are included by default for all APIs that return a Status.  If you were always setting IncludeEntities to true, then you won’t see a change. However, be aware that you’ll now be receiving additional data in your response from Twitter, which will explain a sudden increase in bandwidth utilization. This might or might not  matter to you  depending on the requirements of your application, but you should be aware of it. Everything Else There might be small changes here and there that I haven’t mentioned, but these were the ones you should be most aware of.  Streams didn’t change, but Twitter will be deprecating username/password authentication on public streams, in favor of OAuth, so you’ll be seeing me make that change some time in the future.  Also, Twitter will continue to evolve the API and you can expect that LINQ to Twitter will change accordingly. Summary The big changes to Twitter API were Authentication, Search, Rate Limits, and Error Handling. All API calls must be authenticated. You’ll need to change your code to read Search results differently, but the query is much the same as you use now. There’s a new RateLimits API, one of the Help queries.  Also, the new error messages are integrated into TwitterQueryException. Besides these changes, I expect  most others to be small or affect a smaller percentage of developers.  You can get the latest version of LINQ to Twitter from NuGet or visit the LINQ to Twitter download page at CodePlex.com.   @JoeMayo

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• Referencing a picture in another DLL in Silverlight and Windows Phone 7

  - by Laurent Bugnion

  This one has burned me a few times, so here is how it works for future reference: Usually, when I add an Image control into a Silverlight application, and the picture it shows is local (as opposed to loaded from the web), I set the picture’s Build Action to Content, and the Copy to Output Directory to Copy if Newer. What the compiler does then is to copy the picture to the bin\Debug folder, and then to pack it into the XAP file. In XAML, the syntax to refer to this local picture is: <Image Source="/Images/mypicture.jpg" Width="100" Height="100" /> And in C#: return new BitmapImage(new Uri( "/Images/mypicture.jpg", UriKind.Relative)); One of the features of Silverlight is to allow referencing content (pictures, resource dictionaries, sound files, movies etc…) located in a DLL directly. This is very handy because just by using the right syntax in the URI, you can do this in XAML directly, for example with: <Image Source="/MyApplication;component/Images/mypicture.jpg" Width="100" Height="100" /> In C#, this becomes: return new BitmapImage(new Uri( "/MyApplication;component/Images/mypicture.jpg", UriKind.Relative)); Side note: This kind of URI is called a pack URI and they have been around since the early days of WPF. There is a good tutorial about pack URIs on MSDN. Even though it refers to WPF, it also applies to Silverlight Side note 2: With the Build Action set to Content, you can rename the XAP file to ZIP, extract all the files, change the picture (but keep the same name), rezip the whole thing and rename again to XAP. This is not possible if the picture is embedded in an assembly! So what’s the catch? Well the catch is that this does not work if you set the Build Action to Content. It’s actually pretty simple to explain: The pack URI above tells the Silverlight runtime to look within an assembly named MyOtherAssembly for a file named MyPicture.jpg in the Images folder. If the file is included as Content, however, it is not in the assembly. Silverlight does not find it, and silently returns nothing. The image is not displayed. And the fix? The fix, for class libraries, is to set the Build Action to Resource. With this, the picture will gets packed into the DLL itself. Of course, this will increase the size of the DLL, and any change to the picture will require recompiling the class library, which is not ideal. But in the cases where you want to distribute pictures (icons etc) together with a plug-in assembly, well, this is a good way to have everything in the same place Happy coding, Laurent   Laurent Bugnion (GalaSoft) Subscribe | Twitter | Facebook | Flickr | LinkedIn

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• BizTalk Server 2010 Beta available

  - by Rajesh Charagandla

  BizTalk Server 2010 Beta - Click Here to Download Overview: BizTalk Server 2010 offers significant enhancements to help integrate heterogeneous Line-of-business systems with Windows .NET and SharePoint based applications to optimize user productivity, gain business efficiency and increase agility . BizTalk Server 2010 allow .Net developers to take advantage of BizTalk services right out of the box to rapidly build solutions that need to integrate transactions and data from applications like SAP, Mainframes, MS Dynamics and Oracle. Similarly SharePoint developers can seamlessly use BizTalk services directly through the new Business Connectivity Services in SharePoint 2010. BizTalk Server 2010 includes new data mapping & transformation tool to dramatically reduce the development time to mediate data exchange between disparate systems. It also provide a new single dashboard to manage performance parameters and streamline deployments from development to test to production. BizTalk 2010 includes new, scalable Trading Partner Management (TPM) model with a graphical interface for flexible management of business partner relationships and efficient on-boarding process.

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• WinToolbar Silverlight widget available on Codeplex

  - by Braulio Díez Botella

  Today we (Sebastian Stehle and my self) have published winToolbar on Codeplex (http://wintoolbar.codeplex.com/). About WinToolbar is a Silverlight library that implements common widgets that allows us to build a rich toolbar control in our applications, it incorporates: group panels, drop down buttons, pickers…

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• Mock RequireJS define dependencies with config.map

  - by Aligned

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/Aligned/archive/2014/08/18/mock-requirejs-define-dependencies-with-config.map.aspxI had a module dependency, that I’m pulling down with RequireJS that I needed to use and write tests against. In this case, I don’t care about the actual implementation of the module (it’s simple enough that I’m just avoiding some AJAX calls). EDIT: make sure you look at the bottom example after the edit before using the config.map approach. I found that there is an easier way. I did not want to change the constructor of the consumer as I had a chain of changes that would have to be made and that would have been to invasive for this task. I found a question on StackOverflow with a short, but helpful answer from “Artem Oboturov”. We can use the config.map from RequireJs to achieve this. Here is some code: A module example (“usefulModule” in Common/Modules/usefulModule.js): define([], function() { "use strict"; var testMethod = function() { ... }; // add more functionality of the module return { testMethod; } }); A consumer of usefulModule example: define([ "Commmon/Modules/usefulModule" ], function(usefulModule) { "use strict"; var consumerModule = function(){ var self = this; // add functionality of the module } }); Using config.map in the html of the test runner page (and in your Karma config –> I’m still trying to figure this out): map: {'*': { // replace usefulModule with a mock 'Common/Modules/usefulModule': '/Tests/Specs/Common/usefulModuleMock.js' } } With the new mapping, Require will load usefulModuleMock.js from Tests/Specs/Common instead of the real implementation. Some of the answers on StackOverflow mentioned Squire.js, which looked interesting, but I wasn’t ready to introduce a new library at this time. That’s all you need to be able to mock a depency in RequireJS. However, there are many good cases when you should pass it in through the constructor instead of this approach.   EDIT: After all that, here’s another, probably better way: The consumer class, updated: define([ "Commmon/Modules/usefulModule" ], function(UsefulModule) { "use strict"; var consumerModule = function(){ var self = this; self.usefulModule = new UsefulModule(); // add functionality of the module } }); Jasmine test: define([ "consumerModule", "/UnitTests/Specs/Common/Mocks/usefulModuleMock.js" ], function(consumerModule, UsefulModuleMock){ describe("when mocking out the module", function(){ it("should probably just override the property", function(){ var consumer = new consumerModule(); consumer.usefulModule = new UsefulModuleMock(); }); }); });   Thanks for letting me think out loud :-).

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• New Geek!

  - by digitaldias

  Hi everyone! New geek on the block, treat me gently :)  My main focus will be developing WPF, Silverlight and SharePoint (2010) solutions with TDD and agile methods.

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• Poor Customer Service Example

  - by MightyZot

  Lately I have been frustrated by examples of poor customer service. At least one is worth writing about because I don’t think companies realize the effects of their service policies on loyal customers. Bad Customer Service Example #1 Recently, I received an offer in the mail from my cable company, suddenLink. The offer was for an updated TiVo for $12/mo. Normally I ignore offers like this one because I already have the service they’re offering and many times advertisers are offering alternatives to what is already an excellent product offering. I tend to exhibit a high level of loyalty to the products and brands that I use. In this case, we were looking to upgrade our TiVo and this deal is attractive for several reasons: I don’t want to pay a huge amount up-front for the device, so paying a monthly amount for the device is attractive to me. My entertainment is almost all on a single invoice. I’m no longer going to be billed by suddenLink and TiVo. TiVo is still involved, so I am still loyal to the brand I love. I have resisted moving to other DVRs and services for over a decade. I called suddenLink to order the new TiVo and was rewarded with great customer service. In fact, I can’t remember ever getting poor customer service from suddenLink. They are always there to answer my technical support questions and they are very responsive to outages. Then I called TiVo. First of all, I chose the option on the phone system to change or cancel my service, which was consequently met by an inordinate hold time. (I’m calling this time inordinate because I get through very quickly if I want to purchase something.) This is a trend that I’ve noticed with companies – if you want me to be loyal to you, it should be just as easy to cancel your service as it is to purchase it. Because, I should never be cancelling because I am unhappy. And, if you ever want my business again, or more importantly a reference, then you’d better make the exit door open just as easy as the enter door. After quite some time on hold, I talked to “Victor” who was very courteous. Victor canceled my service and then told me that I could keep my current TiVo and transfer recorded programs to it from the new TiVo.  Cool I said, but what about the cost?  He said there was no extra cost.  This was also attractive to me because I paid for my TiVo and it would be good to use it for something at least.  That was four months ago. This month I noticed that TiVo was still charging me for my original service. I was a little upset, but I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. After all, I am a loyal TiVo customer and I have resisted moving to other solutions for over a decade. I’m sure they will do whatever it takes to keep my business, through TiVo or through suddenLink. After quite some time on hold, I was able to talk to a customer service representative, “Les”. I explained that I am a loyal TiVo customer, but I purchased this deal through my cable provider. I’m still with TiVo, I just wanted a single bill and to take advantage of the pay-over-time option. “Les” told me that he was very sorry to hear that I’m leaving TiVo, to which I responded again that I wasn’t leaving TiVo, I just want one invoice, and to take advantage of the pay-over-time. So, after explaining that I requested a termination of the non-suddenLink account (TiVo can see both of course), I was put on hold again for quite some time while my refund was “approved”.  “Les” said that he could see my cancellation request back in July. Note that it is now November, so they have billed me inappropriately four times. After quite some time, he came back on the line and told me that he was able to “get me most of my money back.” He got approval to refund 90 days. Even though I requested cancellation of one of my accounts, TiVo has that cancellation request on file and they admit overbilling me, I am going to get “most” of my money back. To top this experience off, when we were ready to hang up, “Les” told me that he was sorry to see me go and that he hoped I would come back to TiVo again. Again, I explained to “Les” that I have not left TiVo. I am just paying them through suddenLink. At that point, he went into a small dissertation about how this is a special arrangement they have with suddenLink and very few others. He made me feel like I was doing something wrong. Why should I feel that way? TiVo made the deal with suddenLink, not me, and the deal seemed like a good compromise for me to be able to get what I need. Here is what TiVo Customer Service accomplished on those two calls – I no longer feel like I need to be loyal to the TiVo brand or service. If I had been treated better on these two calls, I would still be recommending TiVo to my friends. They would still be getting revenue from a loyal customer, who paid the same rate for over a decade, and this article wouldn’t be here for you to read. Interesting… In my opinion, if you want brand loyalty, be loyal to your customers!

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• Specs, Form and Function – What am I Missing?

  - by Barry Shulam

  0 0 1 628 3586 08041 29 8 4206 14.0 Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Friday October 26th the Microsoft Surface RT arrived at the office.  I was summoned to my boss’s office for the grand unpacking.  If I had planned ahead I could have used my iPhone 4 to film the event and post it on YouTube however the desire to hold the device and turn it ON was more inviting than becoming a proxy reviewer for Engadget’s website.  1980 was the first time we had a personal computer in our house.  It was a  Kaypro computer. It weighed 29 pounds more than any persons lap could hold.  Then the term “portable computer” meant you could remove it from the building and take it else where.  Today I am typing on this entry on a Macbook Air which weighs 2.38 pounds. This morning Amazons front page main title is: “Much More for Much Less” I was born at the right time to start with the CPM operating system on the Kaypro thru the DOS, Windows, Linux, Mac OSX and mobile phone operating systems and languages.  If you are not aware Technology is moving at a rapid pace.  The New iPad (those who are keeping score – iPad4) is replacing a 7 month old machine the New iPad (iPad 3) I have used and owned many technology devices in my life.  The main point that most of the reader who are in the USA overlook is the fact that we are in the USA.  The devices we purchase have a great digital garden to support them.  The Kaypro computer had a 7-inch screen.  It was a TV tube with two colors – Black and Green.  You could see the 80-column screen flicker with characters – have you every played Pac-Man emulated on the screen with the ABC characters. Traveling across the world you will find that not all apps on your device will function as they did back home because they are not offered outside of your country of origin. I think the main question a buyer of technology should be asking is Function.  The greatest Specs with out function limit you.  The most beautiful form with out function is the same as a crystal vase on your shelf – not a good cereal bowl in the morning. Microsoft Surface RT, Amazon Kindle Fire and Apple iPad all great devices in their respective customers hands. My advice for those looking to purchase on this year:  If the device is your only technology device you buy what you WANT and LIKE. Consider this parallel universe if its not your only device?  Ever go shopping for clothing, shoes, and accessories with your wife, girlfriend, sister or mother?  If you listen carefully you will hear the little voices coming out of there heads saying:  “This goes well with that and I can use it also with that outfit” ”Do you think this clashes with that?”  “Ohh I love how that combination looks on you”.  Portable devices such as tablets and computers can offer a whole lot more when they are combined with the digital echo system you have at home and the manufacturer offers online. Pros of each Device: Microsoft Surface RT: There is a new functionality named SmartGlass which will let you share the content off your tablet to your XBOX 360.  Microsoft office is loaded on the tablet.  You can have more than one user profile on the tablet if you share it with others.   Amazon Kindle or Kindle HD: If you are an Amazon consumer with an annual Amazon Prime service you can consume videos and read books off the Amazon site.  Its the cheapest device.  Its a step up from the kindle reader in many ways.   Apple Ipad or Ipad mini: Over 270 Thousand applications.  Airplay permits you the ability to share to your TV screen. If you are a cord cutter (a person who gets their entertainment content over the web or air vs Cable Providers) the Airplay or Smart glass are a huge bonus.  iPad mini or not: The mini will fit in a purse where the larger one will not.  Its lighter which makes it nice to hold for prolonged periods.  It has an option for LTE wireless which non of the other sub 9 inch tables offer.  The screen is non retina which means the applications are smaller.  Speaking with individuals who are above 50 in age that wear glasses they retina does not make a difference for them however they prefer the larger iPad over the new mini.   Happy Shopping this Channuka Season.   The Kosher Coder.   Follow me on twitter @KosherCoder

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• WPF: Running code when Window rendering is completed

  - by Ilya Verbitskiy

  WPF is full of surprises. It makes complicated tasks easier, but at the same time overcomplicates easy  task as well. A good example of such overcomplicated things is how to run code when you’re sure that window rendering is completed. Window Loaded event does not always work, because controls might be still rendered. I had this issue working with Infragistics XamDockManager. It continued rendering widgets even when the Window Loaded event had been raised. Unfortunately there is not any “official” solution for this problem. But there is a trick. You can execute your code asynchronously using Dispatcher class.   Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(new Action(() => Trace.WriteLine("DONE!", "Rendering")), DispatcherPriority.ContextIdle, null);   This code should be added to your Window Loaded event handler. It is executed when all controls inside your window are rendered. I created a small application to prove this idea. The application has one window with a few buttons. Each button logs when it has changed its actual size. It also logs when Window Loaded event is raised, and, finally, when rendering is completed. Window’s layout is straightforward.   1: <Window x:Class="OnRendered.MainWindow" 2: xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" 3: xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" 4: Title="Run the code when window rendering is completed." Height="350" Width="525" 5: Loaded="OnWindowLoaded"> 6: <Window.Resources> 7: <Style TargetType="{x:Type Button}"> 8: <Setter Property="Padding" Value="7" /> 9: <Setter Property="Margin" Value="5" /> 10: <Setter Property="HorizontalAlignment" Value="Center" /> 11: <Setter Property="VerticalAlignment" Value="Center" /> 12: </Style> 13: </Window.Resources> 14: <StackPanel> 15: <Button x:Name="Button1" Content="Button 1" SizeChanged="OnSizeChanged" /> 16: <Button x:Name="Button2" Content="Button 2" SizeChanged="OnSizeChanged" /> 17: <Button x:Name="Button3" Content="Button 3" SizeChanged="OnSizeChanged" /> 18: <Button x:Name="Button4" Content="Button 4" SizeChanged="OnSizeChanged" /> 19: <Button x:Name="Button5" Content="Button 5" SizeChanged="OnSizeChanged" /> 20: </StackPanel> 21: </Window>   SizeChanged event handler simply traces that the event has happened.   1: private void OnSizeChanged(object sender, SizeChangedEventArgs e) 2: { 3: Button button = (Button)sender; 4: Trace.WriteLine("Size has been changed", button.Name); 5: }   Window Loaded event handler is slightly more interesting. First it scheduler the code to be executed using Dispatcher class, and then logs the event.   1: private void OnWindowLoaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 2: { 3: Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(new Action(() => Trace.WriteLine("DONE!", "Rendering")), DispatcherPriority.ContextIdle, null); 4: Trace.WriteLine("Loaded", "Window"); 5: }   As the result I had seen these trace messages.   1: Button5: Size has been changed 2: Button4: Size has been changed 3: Button3: Size has been changed 4: Button2: Size has been changed 5: Button1: Size has been changed 6: Window: Loaded 7: Rendering: DONE!   You can find the solution in GitHub.

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