Search Results

Search found 24207 results on 969 pages for 'anonymous users'.

Page 117/969 | < Previous Page | 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124  | Next Page >

  • Website. VoteUp or VoteDown Videos. How to restrict users voting multiple times?

    - by DJDonaL3000
    Im working on a website (html,css,javascript, ajax, php,mysql), and I want to restrict the number of times a particular user votes for a particular video. Its similar to the YouTube system where you can voteUp or voteDown a particular video. Each vote involves adding a row to the video.votes table, which logs the time, vote direction(up or down), the client IPaddress( using PHP: $ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']; ), and of course the ID of the video in question. Adding votes is as simple as; (pseudocode): Javascript:onClick( vote( a,b,c,d ) ), which passes variables to PHP insertion script via ajax, and finally we replace the voteing buttons with a "Thank You For Voting" message. THE PROBLEM: If you reload/refresh the page after voting, you can vote again, and again, and again, you get the point. MY QUESTION: How do you limit the amount of times a particular user votes for a particular video?? MY THOUGHTS: Do you use cookies, and add a new cookie with the id of the video. And check for a cookie before you insert a new vote.? OR Before you insert the vote, do you use the IPaddress and the videoID to see if this same user(IP) has voted for this same video(vidID) in the past 24hrs(mktime), and either allow or dissallow the voteInsertion based on this query? OR Do you just not care? Take the assumption that most users are sane, and have better things to do than refresh pages and vote repeatedly.?? Any suggestions or ideas welcome.

    Read the article

  • ruby on rails has_many through relationship

    - by BennyB
    Hi i'm having a little trouble with a has_many through relationship for my app and was hoping to find some help. So i've got Users & Lectures. Lectures are created by one user but then other users can then "join" the Lectures that have been created. Users have their own profile feed of the Lectures they have created & also have a feed of Lectures friends have created. This question however is not about creating a lecture but rather "Joining" a lecture that has been created already. I've created a "lecturerelationships" model & controller to handle this relationship between Lectures & the Users who have Joined (which i call "actives"). Users also then MUST "Exit" the Lecture (either by clicking "Exit" or navigating to one of the header navigation links). I'm grateful if anyone can work through some of this with me... I've got: Users.rb model Lectures.rb model Users_controller Lectures_controller then the following model lecturerelationship.rb class lecturerelationship < ActiveRecord::Base attr_accessible :active_id, :joinedlecture_id belongs_to :active, :class_name => "User" belongs_to :joinedlecture, :class_name => "Lecture" validates :active_id, :presence => true validates :joinedlecture_id, :presence => true end lecturerelationships_controller.rb class LecturerelationshipsController < ApplicationController before_filter :signed_in_user def create @lecture = Lecture.find(params[:lecturerelationship][:joinedlecture_id]) current_user.join!(@lecture) redirect_to @lecture end def destroy @lecture = Lecturerelationship.find(params[:id]).joinedlecture current_user.exit!(@user) redirect_to @user end end Lectures that have been created (by friends) show up on a users feed in the following file _activity_item.html.erb <li id="<%= activity_item.id %>"> <%= link_to gravatar_for(activity_item.user, :size => 200), activity_item.user %><br clear="all"> <%= render :partial => 'shared/join', :locals => {:activity_item => activity_item} %> <span class="title"><%= link_to activity_item.title, lecture_url(activity_item) %></span><br clear="all"> <span class="user"> Joined by <%= link_to activity_item.user.name, activity_item.user %> </span><br clear="all"> <span class="timestamp"> <%= time_ago_in_words(activity_item.created_at) %> ago. </span> <% if current_user?(activity_item.user) %> <%= link_to "delete", activity_item, :method => :delete, :confirm => "Are you sure?", :title => activity_item.content %> <% end %> </li> Then you see I link to the the 'shared/join' partial above which can be seen in the file below _join.html.erb <%= form_for(current_user.lecturerelationships.build(:joinedlecture_id => activity_item.id)) do |f| %> <div> <%= f.hidden_field :joinedlecture_id %> </div> <%= f.submit "Join", :class => "btn btn-large btn-info" %> <% end %> Some more files that might be needed: config/routes.rb SampleApp::Application.routes.draw do resources :users do member do get :following, :followers, :joined_lectures end end resources :sessions, :only => [:new, :create, :destroy] resources :lectures, :only => [:create, :destroy, :show] resources :relationships, :only => [:create, :destroy] #for users following each other resources :lecturerelationships, :only => [:create, :destroy] #users joining existing lectures So what happens is the lecture comes in my activity_feed with a Join button option at the bottom...which should create a lecturerelationship of an "active" & "joinedlecture" (which obviously are supposed to be coming from the user & lecture classes. But the error i get when i click the join button is as follows: ActiveRecord::StatementInvalid in LecturerelationshipsController#create SQLite3::ConstraintException: constraint failed: INSERT INTO "lecturerelationships" ("active_id", "created_at", "joinedlecture_id", "updated_at") VALUES (?, ?, ?, ?) Also i've included my user model (seems the error is referring to it) user.rb class User < ActiveRecord::Base attr_accessible :email, :name, :password, :password_confirmation has_secure_password has_many :lectures, :dependent => :destroy has_many :lecturerelationships, :foreign_key => "active_id", :dependent => :destroy has_many :joined_lectures, :through => :lecturerelationships, :source => :joinedlecture before_save { |user| user.email = email.downcase } before_save :create_remember_token validates :name, :presence => true, :length => { :maximum => 50 } VALID_EMAIL_REGEX = /\A[\w+\-.]+@[a-z\d\-.]+\.[a-z]+\z/i validates :email, :presence => true, :format => { :with => VALID_EMAIL_REGEX }, :uniqueness => { :case_sensitive => false } validates :password, :presence => true, :length => { :minimum => 6 } validates :password_confirmation, :presence => true def activity # This feed is for "My Activity" - basically lectures i've started Lecture.where("user_id = ?", id) end def friendactivity Lecture.from_users_followed_by(self) end # lECTURE TO USER (JOINING) RELATIONSHIPS def joined?(selected_lecture) lecturerelationships.find_by_joinedlecture_id(selected_lecture.id) end def join!(selected_lecture) lecturerelationships.create!(:joinedlecture_id => selected_lecture.id) end def exit!(selected_lecture) lecturerelationships.find_by_joinedlecture_id(selected_lecture.id).destroy end end Thanks for any and all help - i'll be on here for a while so as mentioned i'd GREATLY appreciate someone who may have the time to work through my issues with me...

    Read the article

  • Double Inner Join generates unexpected error

    - by Itamar Marom
    In my database I have three tables: Users: UserID (Auto Numbering), UserName, UserPassword and a few other unimportant fields. PrivateMessages: MessageID (Auto Numbering), SenderID and a few other fields defining the message content. MessageStatus: MessageID, ReceiverID, MessageWasRead (Boolean) What I need is a query to which I input a user's id and I get all the private messages he has received. In addition, I also need to receive each message's sender UserName. For this I wrote the following query: SELECT Users.*, PrivateMessages.*, MessageStatus.* FROM PrivateMessages INNER JOIN Users ON PrivateMessages.SenderID = Users.UserID INNER JOIN MessageStatus ON PrivateMessages.MessageID = MessageStatus.MessageID WHERE MessageStatus.ReceiverID=[@userid]; But for some reason when I try saving it in my Access database, I get the following error (translated to English by me, since my office is in a different language): Syntax error (missing operator) at expression: "PrivateMessages.SenderID = Users.UserID INNER JOIN MessageStatus ON PrivateMessages.MessageID = MessageStatus.MessageI". Any ideas what could cause this? Thanks.

    Read the article

  • undefined method `events' for #<ActiveRecord::Relation:0x4177518> -rails 3.0.3

    - by brg
    I am having this unexplained NoMethodError with undefined method `events' for #. I don't know why since my model association are well defined and the event table has the foreign keys for the user table. I tried using this fix but it failed: Rails 3 ActiveRecord::Relation random associations behavior event.rb class Event < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :user attr_accessible :event_name, :Starts_at, :finish, :tracks end user.rb class User < ActiveRecord::Base has_many :events, :dependent = :destroy attr_accessible :name, :event_attributes accepts_nested_attributes_for :events, :allow_destroy = true end schema.rb ActiveRecord::Schema.define(:version = 20101201180355) do create_table "events", :force = true do |t| t.string "event_name" t.string "tracks" t.datetime "starts_at" t.datetime "finish" t.datetime "created_at" t.datetime "updated_at" t.integer "user_id" end end error message NoMethodError in Users#index undefined method `events' for # Extracted source (around line #10): 7: <%= sortable "Tracks" % 8: 10: <% @users.events.each do |event| % 11: <% debugger % 12: 13: <%= event.starts_at % Trace of template inclusion: app/views/users/index.html.erb Rails.root: C:/rails_project1/events_manager Application Trace | Framework Trace | Full Trace app/views/users/_event_user.html.erb:10:in _app_views_users__event_user_html_erb__412443848_34308540_1390678' app/views/users/index.html.erb:7:in_app_views_users_index_html_erb___603337143_34316016_0'

    Read the article

  • asp.net refresh part of page whit jquery when application state change

    - by Jeson Park
    i use Application property to count number of online users Application["OnlineUsers"] = (int)Application["OnlineUsers"] + 1; and then bind Application property value to HTML tag <div id="OnlineUser" > <span>Number of Online Users is <%=Application["OnlineUsers"].ToString() %></span> </div> when for example "user1" visit page,DIV tag show "Number of Online Users is 1" and "user2" visit page,DIV tag show "Number of Online Users is 2" but user1 still "Number of Online Users is 1" how do i refresh user1 page when user2 change application peroperty?

    Read the article

  • Grails - showing page processing/render debug information in development mode

    - by ovokinder
    I've been experimenting with Grails for the past two days and, so far, I'm really happy with it. Coming from Rails, the only thing I've really been missing here is the dev-mode debug information shown after the page has been served. This is what I mean: Processing UsersController#show (for 127.0.0.1 at 2010-06-14 10:28:44) [GET] Parameters: {"id"=>"2"} User Load (0.0ms) SELECT * FROM "users" WHERE ("users"."id" = 2) Rendering template within layouts/users Rendering users/show Completed in 24ms (View: 5, DB: 0) | 200 OK [http://localhost/users/2] Is there any way to get something similar in Grails? I've tried the "debug" plugin but its not very useful as it only shows the total processing time. I know it's not hard too roll something of my own (except for that database stats part), I just wanted to make sure I wasn't unnecessarily reinventing the wheel.

    Read the article

  • devise forgot password function not working when creating own user controller?

    - by ragupathi
    I use devise for authentication and i have created a user controller and specified as shown below in my routes which lets me to create users,edit and delete users, devise_for :users do resources :users, :only => [:index, :new, :create, :edit, :update, :destroy] end but i cannot able to make the forgot password functionality work using this but in case i specify as devise_for :users then i can able to use the forgot password function that comes with devise and i could not able to create , edit or delete when i specify like this. So how can i make both to work ? please help me

    Read the article

  • Similar SQL queries returning different results...

    - by Pablo
    Here are the SQL Queries: $sql1 = "SELECT count(thread) AS total FROM comments WHERE thread=1 AND parent_id=0 "; $sql2 = "SELECT count(thread) AS total FROM comments, users WHERE thread=1 AND parent_id=0 AND users.user_id=comments.user_id "; $sql3 = "SELECT comments.*, users.username AS username FROM comments, users WHERE thread=1 AND parent_id=0 AND users.user_id=comments.user_id ORDER BY date LIMIT 10, 5 "; My question is why would $sql1 and $sql2 would return two different results? $sql1 returns 61 rows $sql2 returns 56 rows The 5th line in $sql2 is just for testing, is not required, is just a variation of $sql1 which gets the total rows for a pagination.

    Read the article

  • Json, Timer, Ajax, What is faster (for shared cronometer) ?

    - by Felipe
    Hi everybody, I'm developing an application using ASP.Net. For first the idea: "My WebApp needs an cronometer to be shared by users and all users will se the same value in cronometer. When a user clicks on a button, the cronometer needs to be restarted and all users will need to see that!" All right, now I'd like to know what's the best choose to improve more performace an make sure that all users will see the same value in cronometer ? Need I use JSon (with jquery in client side), Timer with UpdatePanel of Ajax Extensions, pure Ajax (with JQuery) or any idea to suggested ? Any suggestion for how to shared a cronometer for all users in C# (put information in Cache or database) ? Thanks all Cheers

    Read the article

  • wanted to get all dates in mysql result

    - by PankajK
    I have mysql table called user(id, name, join_on) join on is a date field what I want is to show in each day how many uses has been created I can use group by but it will only give me the dates when users get added like if date 4/12/10 5 users added 4/13/10 2 users added 4/15/10 7 users added here date 4/14/10 is missing and I want listing of all dates in one month. I have one solution for it by creating another table only for adding date and that table will left join my users table on join_on and will give total result but I don't want to do that as for creating that I need to create and add entries in date table please suggest the different approach for doing so. Thank you.

    Read the article

  • Select distinct ... inner join vs. select ... where id in (...)

    - by Tonio
    I'm trying to create a subset of a table (as a materialized view), defined as those records which have a matching record in another materialized view. For example, let's say I have a Users table with user_id and name columns, and a Log table, with entry_id, user_id, activity, and timestamp columns. First I create a materialized view of the Log table, selecting only those rows with timestamp some_date. Now I want a materliazed view of the Users referenced in my snapshot of the Log table. I can either create it as select * from Users where user_id in (select user_id from Log_mview), or I can do select distinct u.* from Users u inner join Log_mview l on u.user_id = l.user_id (need the distinct to avoid multiple hits from users with multiple log entries). The former seems cleaner and more elegant, but takes much longer. Am I missing something? Is there a better way to do this?

    Read the article

  • curl FTPS with client certificate to a vsftpd

    - by weeheavy
    I'd like to authenticate FTP clients either via username+password or a client certificate. Only FTPS is allowed. User/password works, but while testing with curl (I don't have another option) and a client certificate, I need to pass a user. Isn't it technically possible to authenticate only by providing a certificate? vsftpd.conf passwd_chroot_enable=YES chroot_local_user=YES ssl_enable=YES rsa_cert_file=usrlocal/ssl/certs/vsftpd.pem force_local_data_ssl=YES force_local_logins_ssl=YES Tested with curl -v -k -E client-crt.pem --ftp-ssl-reqd ftp://server:21/testfile the output is: * SSLv3, TLS handshake, Client hello (1): * SSLv3, TLS handshake, Server hello (2): * SSLv3, TLS handshake, CERT (11): * SSLv3, TLS handshake, Request CERT (13): * SSLv3, TLS handshake, Server finished (14): * SSLv3, TLS handshake, CERT (11): * SSLv3, TLS handshake, Client key exchange (16): * SSLv3, TLS handshake, CERT verify (15): * SSLv3, TLS change cipher, Client hello (1): * SSLv3, TLS handshake, Finished (20): * SSLv3, TLS change cipher, Client hello (1): * SSLv3, TLS handshake, Finished (20): * SSL connection using DES-CBC3-SHA * Server certificate: * SSL certificate verify result: self signed certificate (18), continuing anyway. > USER anonymous < 530 Anonymous sessions may not use encryption. * Access denied: 530 * Closing connection #0 * SSLv3, TLS alert, Client hello (1): curl: (67) Access denied: 530 This is theoretically ok, as i forbid anonymous access. If I specify a user with -u username:pass it works, but it would without a certificate too. The client certificate seems to be ok, it looks like this: client-crt.pem -----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY----- content -----END RSA PRIVATE KEY----- -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- content -----END CERTIFICATE----- What am I missing? Thanks in advance. (The OS is Solaris 10 SPARC).

    Read the article

  • Solaris ldap Authentication

    - by Tman
    Iv been having a trouble trying to get my Solaris 10 server to authenticate against an eDir server.im managed to Set up my linux(RHeL,SLES) servers to authenticate against the ldap Server.which works fine. Here is my configuration Files. ldapclient list: NS_LDAP_FILE_VERSION= 2.0 NS_LDAP_BINDDN= cn=proxyuser,o=AEDev NS_LDAP_BINDPASSWD= {NS1}ecfa88f3a945c22222233 NS_LDAP_SERVERS= 192.168.0.19 NS_LDAP_SEARCH_BASEDN= ou=auth,o=AEDev NS_LDAP_AUTH= simple NS_LDAP_SEARCH_SCOPE= sub NS_LDAP_CACHETTL= 0 NS_LDAP_CREDENTIAL_LEVEL= anonymous NS_LDAP_SERVICE_SEARCH_DESC= group:ou=Groups,ou=auth,o=AEDev NS_LDAP_SERVICE_SEARCH_DESC= shadow:ou=users,ou=auth,o=AEDev?sub?objectClass=shadowAccount NS_LDAP_SERVICE_SEARCH_DESC= passwd:ou=auth,o=AEDev?sub?objectClass=posixAccount NS_LDAP_BIND_TIME= 10 NS_LDAP_SERVICE_AUTH_METHOD= pam_ldap:simple getent passwd works fine: root:x:0:0:Super-User:/:/sbin/sh daemon:x:1:1::/: bin:x:2:2::/usr/bin: sys:x:3:3::/: adm:x:4:4:Admin:/var/adm: lp:x:71:8:Line Printer Admin:/usr/spool/lp: uucp:x:5:5:uucp Admin:/usr/lib/uucp: nuucp:x:9:9:uucp Admin:/var/spool/uucppublic:/usr/lib/uucp/uucico smmsp:x:25:25:SendMail Message Submission Program:/: listen:x:37:4:Network Admin:/usr/net/nls: gdm:x:50:50:GDM Reserved UID:/: webservd:x:80:80:WebServer Reserved UID:/: postgres:x:90:90:PostgreSQL Reserved UID:/:/usr/bin/pfksh svctag:x:95:12:Service Tag UID:/: nobody:x:60001:60001:NFS Anonymous Access User:/: noaccess:x:60002:60002:No Access User:/: nobody4:x:65534:65534:SunOS 4.x NFS Anonymous Access User:/: tlla:x:2012:100::/home/tlla: test:x:2011:100::/home/test: thato:x:2010:100::/home/thato: pam.conf login auth sufficient pam_unix_auth.so.1 #server_policy login auth sufficient /usr/lib/security/pam_ldap.so.1 try_first_pass login auth required pam_dial_auth.so.1 rlogin auth sufficient pam_rhosts_auth.so.1 rlogin auth requisite pam_authtok_get.so.1 rlogin auth required pam_dhkeys.so.1 rlogin auth required pam_unix_cred.so.1 rlogin auth sufficient pam_unix_auth.so.1 rlogin auth sufficient /usr/lib/security/pam_ldap.so.1 try_first_pass rsh auth sufficient pam_rhosts_auth.so.1 rsh auth required pam_unix_cred.so.1 rsh auth sufficient pam_unix_auth.so.1 #server_policy rsh auth sufficient /usr/lib/security/pam_ldap.so.1 try_first_pass other auth requisite pam_authtok_get.so.1 other auth required pam_dhkeys.so.1 other auth required pam_unix_cred.so.1 other auth sufficient pam_unix_auth.so.1 other auth sufficient /usr/lib/security/pam_ldap.so.1 try_first_pass passwd auth required pam_passwd_auth.so.1 passwd auth sufficient pam_unix_auth.so.1 ssh account sufficient pam_unix.so.1 ssh account sufficient /usr/lib/security/pam_ldap.so.1 try_first_pass other account requisite pam_roles.so.1 other account sufficient pam_unix_account.so.1 other account sufficient /usr/lib/security/pam_ldap.so.1 try_first_pass other password required pam_dhkeys.so.1 other password requisite pam_authtok_get.so.1 other password requisite pam_authtok_check.so.1 other password required pam_authtok_store.so.1 other password sufficient pam_unix.so.1 other password sufficient /usr/lib/security/pam_ldap.so.1 try_first_pass Local Authentication Works But LDAP Authentication Doesn't Work.

    Read the article

  • LDAP ACLs with ldapmodify & .ldif file grand user access only

    - by plaetzchen
    I want to change the settings my new LDAP server let only users of the server read entries and not anonymous. Currently my olcAccess looks like this: olcAccess: {0} to attrs=userPassword,shadowLastChange by self write by anonymous auth by dn="cn=admin,dc=example,dc=com" write by * none olcAccess: {1} to * by self write by dn="cn=admin,dc=example,dc=com" write by * read I tried to change it like so: olcAccess: {0}to attrs=userPassword,shadowLastChange by self write by anonymous auth by dn="cn=admin,dc=example,dc=com" write by * none olcAccess: {1} to * by self write by dn="cn=admin,dc=exampme,dc=com" write by users read But that gives me no access at all. Can someone help me on this? thanks UPDATE: This is the log read after the changes mentioned by userxxx Sep 30 10:47:21 j16354 slapd[11805]: conn=1437 fd=28 ACCEPT from IP=87.149.169.6:64121 (IP=0.0.0.0:389) Sep 30 10:47:21 j16354 slapd[11805]: conn=1437 op=0 do_bind: invalid dn (pbrechler) Sep 30 10:47:21 j16354 slapd[11805]: conn=1437 op=0 RESULT tag=97 err=34 text=invalid DN Sep 30 10:47:21 j16354 slapd[11805]: conn=1437 op=1 UNBIND Sep 30 10:47:21 j16354 slapd[11805]: conn=1437 fd=28 closed Sep 30 10:47:21 j16354 slapd[11805]: conn=1438 fd=28 ACCEPT from IP=87.149.169.6:64122 (IP=0.0.0.0:389) Sep 30 10:47:21 j16354 slapd[11805]: conn=1438 op=0 do_bind: invalid dn (pbrechler) Sep 30 10:47:21 j16354 slapd[11805]: conn=1438 op=0 RESULT tag=97 err=34 text=invalid DN Sep 30 10:47:21 j16354 slapd[11805]: conn=1438 op=1 UNBIND Sep 30 10:47:21 j16354 slapd[11805]: conn=1438 fd=28 closed pbrechler should be a valid user but has no system user (we don't need it) admin does't work also List item

    Read the article

  • Installing WindowsAuthentication breaks authentication / web.config?

    - by Ian Quigley
    I have a clean Windows 2008 R2 box (on a VM) and have installed IIS 7.5 with default options. I then copied a website to it (from Windows 7, IIS 7) and after a little tweaking the website is working fine. The website is currently using and working with Anonymous Authentication. I have gone back to the Windows Components/Sever Manager, Roles - Security and ticked and installed Windows Authentication. When I check my server in IIS (top level above sites) - Authentication, I see Anonymous Authentication (enabled) ASP.NET Impersonation (disabled) Forms Authentication (disbaled) Windows Authentication (enabled) When I check my default website - Authentication, I see as above but "Retrieving status" and an error dialog saying There was an error while performing this operation. Details: Filename c:\inetpub\wwwroot\screwturnwiki\web.config Line number: 96 Error: This configuration section cannot be used in this path. This happens when the section is being locked at the parent level. Locking is either by default (overriderModeDefault="Deny"), or set explicity by a location tag with overrideMode="Deny" or the legacy allowOverride="False". I have tried hand editing the web.config with no success. UN-installing Windows Authentication happily returns my site to working with Anonymous Authentication, and allows me to enable/disable these three options. FYI. I am using ScrewTurnWiki with the Active Directory plug in.

    Read the article

  • Windows authentication to SQL Server via IIS and PHP

    - by Jeff
    We're running a PHP 5.4 application on Server 2008 R2. We would like to connect to a SQL Server 2008 database, on a separate server, using Windows authentication (must be Windows authentication--the DB admins won't let us connect any other way). I have downloaded the SQL Server drivers for PHP and installed them. IIS is configured for Windows authentication, and anonymous authentication has been disabled. $_SERVER['AUTH_USER'] reports our currently logged on Windows account. In php.ini, we have set fastcgi.impersonate = 1. When we setup a connection using the following code from Microsoft: $serverName = "sqlserver\sqlserver"; $connectionInfo = array( "Database"=>"some_db"); /* Connect using Windows Authentication. */ $conn = sqlsrv_connect( $serverName, $connectionInfo); if( $conn === false ) { echo "Unable to connect.</br>"; die( print_r( sqlsrv_errors(), true)); } We are presented with the following error message: Unable to connect. Array ( [0] => Array ( [0] => 28000 [SQLSTATE] => 28000 [1] => 18456 [code] => 18456 [2] => [Microsoft][SQL Server Native Client 11.0][SQL Server]Login failed for user 'NT AUTHORITY\ANONYMOUS LOGON'. [message] => [Microsoft][SQL Server Native Client 11.0][SQL Server]Login failed for user 'NT AUTHORITY\ANONYMOUS LOGON'. ) Is it possible to connect to SQL Server 2008 via PHP using Windows authentication? Are there any additional required settings we need to make on IIS, SQL Server, or any other component (like a domain controller)?

    Read the article

  • Webcast Q&A: Los Angeles Department of Building & Safety Lowers Customer Service Costs with Oracle WebCenter

    - by Kellsey Ruppel
    This week we had the fifth webcast in our WebCenter in Action webcast series, "Los Angeles Department of Building & Safety Lowers Customer Service Costs with Oracle WebCenter", where customers Giovani Dacumos and Minh Ong from the Los Angeles Department of Building & Safety (LADBS), and Sheetal Paranjpye and Rajiv Desai from Oracle Partner 3Di, shared how Oracle WebCenter is powering LADBS' externally facing website and providing a superior self-service experience for their customers. We asked the speakers to provide some dialogue for Q&A.   Giovani Dacumos, Director of Systems and Minh Ong, LADBS Q: Did you run into any issues when integrating all of the different applications together?A: Yes. We did have issues integrating a secure sign on between the portal and other legacy applications. We used portlets and iframes to overcome those.  This is a new technology for us and we are also learning as we go so there were a lot of challenges in developing and implementing our vision. Q: What has been the biggest benefit your end users have seen?A: The biggest benefit for our ends users is ease-of-use. We've given them a system that provided a new and improved source of information, as well as a very organized flow of transaction processing. It has made our online service very user friendly. Q: Was there any resistance internally when implementing the solution? If so, how did you overcome that?A: There was no internal resistance during the implementation, only challenges. As mentioned earlier, this is a new technology for us. We've come across issues that needed assistance from Oracle. Working with 3Di and Oracle has helped us tremendously to find solutions to our implementation issues. Q: Given the performance, what do you estimate to be the top end capacity of the system? A: With the current performance and architecture we have, we are able to support approx 300-400 concurrent users.  We would need more hardware to support additional user load. Q: What's the overview or summary of feedback from the users interacting with the site?A: LADBS has a wide spectrum of customers, from simple users like homeowners to large construction firms. Anything new that we offer could be a little bit challenging for some, but overall, the customers liked it. They saw a huge improvement on the usability. Q: Can you describe the impressions about the site before and after the project within LADBS?A: The old site was using old technology and it was hard for us to keep on building into it as we got more business requirements. It made our application seem a bit complicated.  It was confusing for our new customers to use and we've improved on this with the new site. It's now easier for them to complete their transactions and, at the same time, allowed us to provide more useful information. Sheetal Paranjpye and Rajiv Desai, 3Di Q: Did you run into any obstacles when implementing the solution?A: Yes we did run into some obstacles. One of the key show stoppers was the issue with portlet to portal communication. The GIS viewer (portlet) needed information to be passed  to and from Permit LA (Portal), but we were able to get everything configured and up and working quickly! Q: Was there a lot of custom work that needed to be done for this particular solution?A: We have done some customizations where workflows/ Task flows are involved.  Q: What do you think were the keys to success for rolling out WebCenter?A: Having a service oriented architecture and using portlets have been the key areas for rolling out Oracle WebCenter at LADBS. The Oracle WebCenter Content integration allows the flexibility to business users to maintain the content, which has really cut down on the reliance of IT, and employee productivity has increased as a result. If you missed the webcast, be sure to catch the replay to see a live demonstration of WebCenter in action! Los Angeles Department of Building & Safety Lowers Customer Service Costs with Oracle WebCenter from Oracle WebCenter

    Read the article

  • New security options in UCM Patch Set 3

    - by kyle.hatlestad
    While the Patch Set 3 (PS3) release was mostly focused on bug fixes and such, some new features sneaked in there. One of those new features is to the security options. In 10gR3 and prior versions, UCM had a component called Collaboration Manager which allowed for project folders to be created and groups of users assigned as members to collaborate on documents. With this component came access control lists (ACL) for content and folders. Users could assign specific security rights on each and every document and folder within a project. And it was even possible to enable these ACL's without having the Collaboration Manager component enabled (see technote# 603148.1). When 11g came out, Collaboration Manager was no longer available. But the configuration settings to turn on ACLs were still there. Well, in PS3 they're implemented slightly differently. And there is a new component available which adds an additional dimension to define security on the object, Roles. So now instead of selecting individual users or groups of users (defined as an Alias in User Admin), you can select a particular role. And if a user has that role, they are granted that level of access. This can allow for a much more flexible and manageable security model instead of trying to manage with just user and group access as people come and go in the organization. The way that it is enabled is still through configuration entries. First log in as an administrator and go to Administration -> Admin Server. On the Component Manager page, click the 'advanced component manager' link in the description paragraph at the top. In the list of Disabled Components, enable the RoleEntityACL component. Then click the General Configuration link on the left. In the Additional Configuration Variables text area, enter the new configuration values: UseEntitySecurity=true SpecialAuthGroups=<comma separated list of Security Groups to honor ACLs> The SpecialAuthGroups should be a list of Security Groups that honor the ACL fields. If an ACL is applied to a content item with a Security Group outside this list, it will be ignored. Save the settings and restart the instance. Upon restart, three new metadata fields will be created: xClbraUserList, xClbraAliasList, xClbraRoleList. If you are using OracleTextSearch as the search indexer, be sure to run a Fast Rebuild on the collection. On the Check In, Search, and Update pages, values are added by simply typing in the value and getting a type-ahead list of possible values. Select the value, click Add and then set the level of access (Read, Write, Delete, or Admin). If all of the fields are blank, then it simply falls back to just Security Group and Account access. For Users and Groups, these values are automatically picked up from the corresponding database tables. In the case of Roles, this is an explicitly defined list of choices that are made available. These values must match the role that is being defined from WebLogic Server or you LDAP/AD repository. To add these values, go to Administration -> Admin Applets -> Configuration Manager. On the Views tab, edit the values for the ExternalRolesView. By default, 'guest' and 'authenticated' are added. Once added to through the view, they will be available to select from for the Roles Access List. As for how they are stored in the metadata fields, each entry starts with it's identifier: ampersand (&) symbol for users, "at" (@) symbol for groups, and colon (:) for roles. Following that is the entity name. And at the end is the level of access in paranthesis. e.g. (RWDA). And each entry is separated by a comma. So if you were populating values through batch loader or an external source, the values would be defined this way. Detailed information on Access Control Lists can be found in the Oracle Fusion Middleware System Administrator's Guide for Oracle Content Server.

    Read the article

  • How to make software development decisions based on facts

    - by Laila
    We love to hear stories about the many and varied ways our customers use the tools that we develop, but in our earnest search for stories and feedback, we'd rather forgotten that some of our keenest users are fellow RedGaters, in the same building. It was almost by chance that we discovered how the SQL Source Control team were using SmartAssembly. As it happens, there is a separate account (here on Simple-Talk) of how SmartAssembly was used to support the Early Access program; by providing answers to specific questions about how the SQL Source Control product was used. But what really got us all grinning was how valuable the SQL Source Control team found the reports that SmartAssembly was quickly and painlessly providing. So gather round, my friends, and I'll tell you the Tale Of The Framework Upgrade . <strange mirage effect to denote a flashback. A subtle background string of music starts playing in minor key> Kevin and his team were undecided. They weren't sure whether they could move their software product from .NET 2 to .NET 3.5 , let alone to .NET 4. You see, they were faced with having to guess what version of .NET was already installed on the average user's machine, which I'm sure you'll agree is no easy task. Upgrading their code to .NET 3.5 might put a barrier to people trying the tool, which was the last thing Kevin wanted: "what if our users have to download X, Y, and Z before being able to open the application?" he asked. That fear of users having to do half an hour of downloads (.followed by at least ten minutes of installation. followed by a five minute restart) meant that Kevin's team couldn't take advantage of WCF (Windows Communication Foundation). This made them sad, because WCF would have allowed them to write their code in a much simpler way, and in hours instead of days (as was the case with .NET 2). Oh sure, they had a gut feeling that this probably wasn't the case, 3.5 had been out for so many years, but they weren't sure. <background music switches to major key> SmartAssembly Feature Usage Reporting gave Kevin and his team exactly what they needed: hard data on their users' systems, both hardware and software. I was there, I saw it happen, and that's not the sort of thing a woman quickly forgets. I'll always remember his last words (before he went to lunch): "You get lots of free information by just checking a box in SmartAssembly" is what he said. For example, they could see how many CPU cores their customers were using, and found out that they should be making use of parallelism to take advantage of available cores. But crucially, (and this is the moral of my tale, dear reader), Kevin saw that 99% of SQL Source Control's users were on .NET 3.5 or above.   So he knew that they could make the switch and that is was safe to do so. With this reassurance, they could use WCF to not only make development easier, but to also give them a really nice way to do inter-process communication between the Source Control and the SQL Compare products. To have done that on .NET 2.0 was certainly possible <knowing chuckle>, but Microsoft have made it a lot easier with WCF. <strange mirage effect to denote end of flashback> So you see, with Feature Usage Reporting, they finally got the hard evidence they needed to safely make the switch to .NET 3.5, knowing it would not inconvenience their users. And that, my friends, is just the sort of thing we like to hear.

    Read the article

  • Using the ASP.NET Membership API with SQL Server / SQL Azure: The new &ldquo;System.Web.Providers&rdquo; namespace

    - by Harish Ranganathan
    The Membership API came in .NET 2.0 and was a huge enhancement in building web applications with users, managing roles, permissions etc.,  The Membership API by default uses SQL Express and until Visual Studio 2008, it was available only through the ASP.NET Configuration manager screen (Website – ASP.NET Configuration) or (Project – ASP.NET Configuration) and for every application, one has to manually visit this place to start using the Security and other settings.  Upon doing that the default SQL Express database aspnet.mdf is created to store all the user profiles. Starting Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0, the Default Website template includes the Membership API controls as a part of the page i.e. When you create a “File – New – ASP.NET Web Application” or an “ASP.NET MVC Application”, by default the Login/Register controls are enabled in the MasterPage and they are termed under “ApplicationServices” setting in the web.config file with connection string pointed to the SQL Express database. In fact, when you run the default website and click on “Logon” –> “Register”, and enter the details for registration and click “Register”, that is the time the aspnet.mdf file is created with the tables for Users, Roles, UsersInRoles, Profile etc., Now, this uses the default SQL Express database within the App_Data folder.  If you want to move your Membership information to some other database such as SQL Server, SQL CE or SQL Azure, you need to manually run the aspnet_regsql command and specify the destination database name. This would create all the Tables, Procedures and Views required to handle the Membership information.  Thereafter you can change the connection string for “ApplicationServices” to point to the database where you had run all the scripts. Now, enter “System.Web.Providers” Alpha. This is available as a part of the NuGet package library.  Scott Hanselman has a neat post describing the steps required to get it up and running as well as doing the basic changes  at http://www.hanselman.com/blog/IntroducingSystemWebProvidersASPNETUniversalProvidersForSessionMembershipRolesAndUserProfileOnSQLCompactAndSQLAzure.aspx Pretty much, it covers what the new System.Web.Providers do. One thing I wanted to clarify is that, the new “System.Web.Providers” add a lot of new settings which are also marked as the defaults, in the web.config.  Even now, they use SQL Express as the default database.  But, if you change the connection string for “DefaultConnection” under connectionStrings to point to your SQL Server or SQL Azure, Membership API would now be able to create all the tables, procedures and views at the destination specified (i.e. SQL Server or SQL Azure). In my case, I modified the DefaultConneciton to point to my SQL Azure database.  Next, I hit F5 to run the application.  The default view loads.  I clicked on “LogOn” and then “Register” since I knew there are no tables/users as of then.  One thing to note is that, I had put “NewDB” as the database name in the connection string that points to SQL Azure.  NewDB wasn’t existing and I would assume it would be created before the tables/views/procedures for Membership are created. Once I clicked on the “Register” to register my first username, it took a while and then registered as well as logged in me in.  Also, I went to the SQL Azure Management Portal and verified that there exists “NewDB” which has just been created I could also connect to the SQL Azure database “NewDB” from Management Studio and found that the tables now don’t have the aspnet_ prefix.  The tables were simply Users, Roles, UsersInRoles, Profiles etc., So, with a few clicks and configuration change, I could actually set up the user base for my application on SQL Azure and even make the SessionState, Roles, Profiles being stored in SQL Azure database. The new System.Web.Proivders also required MARS (MultipleActiveResultSets=true) setting since it uses Entity Framework for the DAL operations.  Also, the “Project – ASP.NET Configuration” screen can be used to further create/manage users/roles etc., although the data is stored on the remote database. With that, a long pending request from the community to have the ability to configure and use remote databases for Application users management without having to run the scripts from SQL Express is fulfilled. Cheers !!!

    Read the article

  • 9 Ways Facebook Monetization Could Change Your Marketing

    - by Mike Stiles
    Think Facebook monetization isn’t a head game? Imagine creating something so functional, fun and addictive you literally amass about 1/7th of the planet’s population as an audience. You have 1 billion users that use it at least once a month. But analysts and marketers look at what you’ve done and say, “eh…not good enough.” What if you had a TV show that garnered 1/7 of Earth’s population as an audience? How much would a spot cost? And how fast would marketers write that check, even without the targeting and engagement analytics Facebook offers? Having already changed the marketing landscape forever, if you’re Facebook’s creator, you’d have to be scratching your head and asking, “Wow, what more does a product need to do?” Facebook’s been busy answering that very question with products and betas that will likely directly affect your brand’s strategy. Item 1: Users can send physical gifts to friends through Facebook based on suggestions from user data. A giant step toward the potential power of social commerce. Item 2: Users can pay $7 to promote posts for higher visibility. Individual users, not just marketers, are being leveraged as a revenue stream. Not impressive enough? There’s also the potential Craigslist killer Facebook Marketplace. Item 3: Mobile ads. 600 million+ access Facebook on smartphones. According to the company, half of the $1 million a day generated by Sponsored Stories as of late June was coming from mobile. Ads in News Feeds seen on mobile had click-through rates 23x higher than on desktop News Feeds or the right side panel. Item 4: App developers can buy install ads that show up in mobile News Feeds so reliance on discovery in app stores is reduced. Item 5: Want your posts seen by people who never liked your Page? A test began in August where you could appear in non-fans’ News Feeds on both web and mobile. Item 6: How about an ability to use Facebook data to buy ads outside of Facebook? A mobile ad network is being tested to get your targeted messages on non-Facebook apps and sites surfaced on devices. Item 7: Facebook Collections, Facebook’s answer to Pinterest. Users can gather images of desired products and click through to the retailer to buy. Keep focusing on your imagery. Item 8: Facebook Offers, Facebook’s answer to the Groupons and Living Socials of the world. You can send deals to your fans’ News Feeds. Item 9: Facebook Exchange lets you track what fans do on Facebook and across the entire Web. Could lead to a Facebook ad network leveraging Facebook users and data but not limiting exposure to the Facebook platform. Marketers are seeing increasing value in Facebook (and Twitter for that matter).  But as social grows and adjusts, will marketing budgets aimed in that direction grow and adjust accordingly, and within a reasonable time frame? @mikestilesPhoto Christie Merrill/stock.xchng

    Read the article

  • The All New Hotmail Looks Very Impressive [Video Tour]

    - by Gopinath
    With loads of new new features being introduced into GMail every now and then, Microsoft can’t sit and relax any more. Microsoft realized this and worked hard to introduce really impressive features in upcoming version of Windows Live Hotmail that was previewed couple of days ago. Most of the new features announced in the upcoming version are focusing on the important need of email users – de-clutter the mail box and effectively manage email over load easily. Here is the list highlight of new features New Features Sweep away clutter – This is the most impressive in the set of new features. It allows you to manage email overload. If you’ve subscribed to a newsletter but decided to not to allow it into your inbox, you can activate the sweep feature to move all the messages of the newsletter in to a folder other than your inbox. This may sound similar to filters option in GMail but the workflow is very easy in Hotmail. Quickly find message – Easy to use options are provided to see mails in separate views likes mails from contacts, social networking mail, mails from e-mail subscription services, etc. Now it’s easy to prioritize email checking like how you wish to. I prefer to check mails from my contacts first, then social networking messages and then the newsletter subscriptions. Improved spam detection – The span detection rules are tightened for better spam protection and also hotmail learns from user actions to effectively catch spam No more mail box storage restrictions – With a smart decision of Microsoft, users  no longer need to worry about the storage restrictions of their mail box – large attachments of hotmail can be stored in Windows Live SkyDrive. With Hotmail, we’ve combined the simplicity of sending photos through email with the power of Windows Live SkyDrive so that you can send up to 200 photos, each up to 50 MB in size, all in a single email. You can send all your vacation photos at once without worrying about attachment limits, Excellent Integration With Office Web Apps -  View and editing of office documents attached to the emails are made very easy by integrating Office Web Apps with Hotmail. When you receive a document/presentation/spreadsheet in hotmail, you can view it, edit it, save it or even you can send the modified document to original sender – all these without leaving hotmail. Inline viewing options for Photos, Videos, Social Network Messages – You can view photos embedded in the mail as slideshows(with the help of SilverLight), YouTube  & Hulu videos can be played inline  and track shipping notifications. Threaded conversations – emails in Hotmail are grouped just like it happens in GMail Others - enhanced account protection, full-session SSL, multiple email accounts, subfolders, contact management Video Tour Of New Features Here is an impressive video tour of new Hotmail features. When are these new features coming to Hotmail? Majority of the new features announced today are rolled out in coming weeks gradually to all the users. But advanced features like Office Integration with Hotmail is expected to take couple of months for general availability. Will You Switch back to Hotmail? Will these features lure GMail/Yahoo users to switch back to Hotmail? May be not immediately but these features may hold the existing users from leaving Hotmail. I used Hotmail, in the pre GMail era and now I use  Hotmail id only to sign-in to Microsoft websites that requites Hotmail authentication. It’s been years since I composed a new email in Hotmail. Even though the new features announced by Hotmail are very impressive, I like the way how GMail rapidly brings new features at regular intervals. If Hotmail also keeps innovating with new features at regular intervals, then there are good chances for it’s old users to return home. Join us on Facebook to read all our stories right inside your Facebook news feed.

    Read the article

  • Introducing MySQL for Excel

    - by Javier Treviño
    As part of the new product initiatives of the MySQL on Windows group we released a tool that makes the task of getting data in and out of a MySQL Database very friendly and intuitive, and we paired it with one of the preferred applications for data analysis and manipulation in Windows platforms, MS Excel. Welcome to MySQL for Excel, an add-in that is installed and accessed from within the MS Excel’s Data tab offering a wizard-like interface arranged in an elegant yet simple way to help users browse MySQL Schemas, Tables, Views and Procedures and perform data operations against them using MS Excel as the vehicle to drive the data in and out MySQL Databases. One of the coolest features we had in mind designing MySQL for Excel is simplicity. MS Excel is simple and easy to work with, thus liked by many Windows users because they don’t have to be software gurus to use it.  We applied the same principle by targeting MySQL for Excel to any kind of user, so if you are already familiarized with Excel’s interface you will find yourself working with MySQL data in no time. MySQL for Excel is shipped within the MySQL Installer as one of the tools in the suite; if prerequisites are already installed (.NET Framework 4.0, Visual Studio Tools for Office 4.0 and of course MS Office), installing the add-in involves a very few clicks and no further setup to use it. Being an Excel Add-In there is no executable file involved after the installation, running MS Excel and opening the add-in from its Data tab is all that is required. MySQL for Excel automatically integrates with MySQL Workbench (if installed) to share the same connections to MySQL Server installations, that way connections are defined just once in either product saving time.  Opening the Add-In brings the Welcome Panel at the right side of the Excel main window from which connections to MySQL Servers are shown grouped by Local VS Remote connections; then users can open any of those connections by double-clicking it and entering the password of the used account.  Additionally a user can create a connection by clicking on the New Connection action label or edit connections through MySQL Workbench (if installed) by clicking on the Manage Connections action label. Once a connection is opened, the Schema Selection panel is shown, at the top of it the selected connection (connection name, hostname/IP and username). Just below, a list of schemas is displayed where User Schemas are grouped first followed by System Schemas; users can double-click any selected schema to go to the next panel or select a schema and clicking the Next > button. Users can alternatively click on the < Back button to go back to the Welcome Panel to close the current connection and open a new one; also by clicking the Create New Schema action label they can create an empty new schema. Once a schema is opened the DB Object Selection panel is shown, this is actually the place where the fun stuff happens; from here users are able to perform actions against MySQL Tables, Views and Procedures. ">The actions available here are about importing data from a MySQL Table, View or Procedure to Excel, exporting Excel data to a new MySQL Table, appending Excel data to an existing MySQL Table or editing a MySQL Table’s data by using an Excel Worksheet as a user interface to update data in any row/column, insert new rows or delete existing rows in a very easy and friendly way. More blog posts will follow describing all of these actions, so stay tuned! Remember that your feedback is very important for us, so drop us a message: · MySQL on Windows (this) Blog - https://blogs.oracle.com/MySqlOnWindows/ · Forum - http://forums.mysql.com/list.php?172 · Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/mysql Cheers!

    Read the article

  • Partner Blog: Hub City Media Introduces iPad Application for Oracle Identity Analytics

    - by Tanu Sood
    About the Writer:Steve Giovannetti is CTO of Hub City Media, Inc., a company that specializes in implementation and product development on the Oracle Identity Management platform. Recently, Hub City Media announced the introduction of iPad application IdentityCert for Oracle Identity Analytics. This post explore the business use cases and application of IdentityCert.Hub City Media(HCM) has been deploying certification solutions based on Oracle Identity Analytics since it first appeared on the market as Vaau RBACx. With each deployment we've seen the same pattern repeat time and time again:1. Customers suffering under the weight of manual access certification regimens deploy Oracle Identity Analytics (OIA) for automated certification. 2. OIA improves the frequency, speed, accuracy, and participation of certifications across the organization. 3. Then the certifiers, typically managers and supervisors, ask, “Is there any easier way to do these certifications offline?”The current version of OIA has a way to export certification data to a spreadsheet.  For some customers, we've leveraged this feature and combined it with some of our own custom code to provide a solution based on spreadsheet exports and imports.  Customers export the certification to Microsoft Excel, complete it, and then import the spreadsheet to OIA. It worked well for offline certification, but if the user accidentally altered the format of the spreadsheet, the import of the data could fail. We were close to a solution but it wasn’t reliable.Over the past few years, we've seen the proliferation of Apple iOS devices, specifically the iPhone and iPad, in the enterprise.  As our customers were asking for offline certification, we noticed the same population of users traditionally responsible for access certification, were early adopters of the iPad. The environment seemed ideal for us to create an iPad application to support offline certifications using Oracle Identity Analytics. That’s why we created IdentityCert™.IdentityCert allows users to view their analytics dashboard, complete user certifications, and resolve policy violations with OIA, from their iPads.The current IdentityCert analytics dashboard displays the same charts that are available in the Oracle Identity Analytics product. However, we plan to expand the number of available analytics in future releases.The main function of IdentityCert is user certification which can be performed quickly and efficiently using a simple touch interface. Managers tap into a certification, use simple gestures to claim users and certify their access.  Certifications can be securely downloaded to IdentityCert and can be completed with or without a network connection. The user can upload the completed certifications once they are connected to a cellular or wi-fi network.Oracle Identity Analytics can generate policy violation notifications based on detective scans of identity warehouse or via preventative analysis of identity access requests. IdentityCert allows users to view all policy violations, resolve, or delegate them to appropriate users. IdentityCert also analyzes the policy violation expression and produces more human friendly descriptions of the policy violation which improves the ability of users to resolve the violation. IdentityCert can be deployed quickly into a customer's environment. It is deployed with Hub City Media's ID Services to connect Oracle Identity Analytics securely with the iPad application.Oracle Identity Management 11g R2 is an important evolutionary release. Oracle's Identity Management suite has more characteristics of a cohesive platform. This platform provides an integrated set of identity services that can be used to protect, manage, and audit security within the enterprise. At HCM we take the platform concept a step further and see it as an opportunity to create unique solutions for Oracle Identity Management customers. IdentityCert is our commitment to this platform. You can download IdentityCert from the Apple iOS App Store today. It includes a demo dataset that you can use to explore the functions of the product without any server infrastructure. Download it. Give it a try. We would appreciate your interest and welcome any feedback.Resources:Press Release: Hub City Media Introduces iPad Application IdentityCert™ for Oracle Identity AnalyticsApp Store Download: http://bit.ly/IdentityCertOracle Identity Governance Suite

    Read the article

  • Automated Error Reporting = More Robust Software

    - by Laila
    I would like to tell you how to revolutionize your software development process </marketing hyperbole> On a more serious note, we (Red Gate's .NET Development team) recently rolled a new tool into our development process which has made our lives dramatically easier AND improved the quality of our software, and I (& one of our developers, Alex Davies) just wanted to take a quick moment to share the love. I work with a development team that takes pride in what they ship, so we take software testing rather seriously. For every development project we run, we allocate at least one software tester for every two developers, and we never ship software without first shipping early access releases and betas to get user feedback. And therein lies the challenge -encouraging users to provide consistent, useful feedback is a headache, but without that feedback, improving the software is. tricky. Until fairly recently, we used the standard (if long-winded) approach of receiving bug reports of variable quality via email or through our support forums. If that didn't give us enough information to reproduce the problem - which was most of the time - we had to enter into a time-consuming to-and-fro conversation with the end-user, to get scrape together the data we needed to work out where the problem lay. As I'm sure you're aware, this is painfully slow. To the delight of the team, we recently got to work with SmartAssembly, which lets us embed automated exception and error reporting into our software with very little pain, and we decided to do a little dogfooding. As a result, we've have made a really handy (if perhaps slightly obvious) discovery: As soon as we release a beta, or indeed any release of software, we now get tonnes of customer feedback through automated error reports. Making this process easier for our users has dramatically increased the amount (and quality) of feedback we get. From their point of view, they get an experience similar to Microsoft's error reporting, and process is essentially idiot-proof. From our side of things, we can now react much faster to the information we get, fixing the bugs and shipping a new-and-improved release, which our users rather appreciate. Smiles and hugs all round. Even more so because, as we're use SmartAssembly's Automated Error Reporting, we get to avoid having to spend weeks building an exception reporting mechanism. It takes just a few minutes to add reporting to a project, and we get a bunch of useful information back, like a stack trace and the values of all the local variables, which we can use to fix bugs. Happily, "Automated Error Reporting = More Robust Software" can actually be read two ways: we've found that we not only ship higher quality software, but we also release within a shorter time. We can ship stable software that our users are happy to upgrade to, and we then bask in the glory of lots of positive customer feedback. Once we'd starting working with SmartAssembly, we were curious to know how widespread error reporting was as a practice. Our product manager ran a survey in autumn last year, and found that 40% of software developers never really considered deploying error reporting. Considering how we've now got plenty of experience on the subject, one of our dev guys, Alex Davies, thought we should share what we've learnt, and he's kindly offered to host a webinar on delivering robust software with Automated Error Reporting. Drawing on our own in-house development experiences, he'll cover how to add error reporting to your program, how to actually use the error reports to fix bugs (don't snigger, not everyone's as bright as you), how to customize the error report dialog that your users see, and how to automatically get log files from your users' machine. The webinar will take place on Jan 25th (that's next week). It's free to attend, but you'll still need to register to hear Alex's dulcet tones.

    Read the article

< Previous Page | 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124  | Next Page >