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• error insert text in papervision typography class

  - by safeDomain

  hi evryone , i am encounter with a small problem i want to make a 3d rtl text animation with papervision this code generet a problem to this : [Fault] exception, information=TypeError: Error #1009: Cannot access a property or method of a null object reference. but when using a english text this error dont genereta my code : package { import flash.display.Sprite; import flash.events.Event; import org.papervision3d.scenes.Scene3D import org.papervision3d.view.Viewport3D import org.papervision3d.cameras.Camera3D import org.papervision3d.render.BasicRenderEngine import org.papervision3d.typography.Font3D import org.papervision3d.typography.fonts.HelveticaBold import org.papervision3d.typography.Text3D import org.papervision3d.materials.special.Letter3DMaterial import flash.text.engine.FontDescription import flash.text.engine.ElementFormat import flash.text.engine.TextElement import flash.text.engine.TextBlock import flash.text.engine.TextLine /** * ... * @author vahid */ public class Main extends Sprite { private var fd:FontDescription private var ef:ElementFormat private var te:TextElement protected var st:String; private var scene:Scene3D private var view:Viewport3D private var camera:Camera3D private var render:BasicRenderEngine private var vpWidth:Number = stage.stageWidth; private var vpHeight:Number = stage.stageHeight; private var text3d:Text3D private var font3d:Font3D //private var font:HelveticaBold private var textMaterial:Letter3DMaterial private var text:String public function Main():void { if (stage) init(); else addEventListener(Event.ADDED_TO_STAGE, init); } private function init(e:Event = null):void { removeEventListener(Event.ADDED_TO_STAGE, init); // rtl block fd = new FontDescription () ef = new ElementFormat (fd) te = new TextElement ("?????? ?????? ???? ?????? ?? papervision", ef) text = te.text //3d block scene = new Scene3D () view = new Viewport3D (vpWidth,vpHeight,true,true,false,false) camera = new Camera3D () render = new BasicRenderEngine() addChild (view) this.addEventListener (Event.ENTER_FRAME , renderThis) textMaterial = new Letter3DMaterial(0xFF0000,1) font3d = new HelveticaBold() text3d = new Text3D (text, font3d, textMaterial) scene.addChild (text3d) } protected function renderThis(e:Event):void { text3d.rotationY +=5 render.renderScene(scene,camera,view) } } } i am using flashdevelop. please help me thank's

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• Certain transformations in Open Inventor(Coin3D)

  - by Marc

  Hi, I am quite new to Open Inventor(Coin3D) and have the following problem: I have a SoSelection holding a root node(also SoSeparator). And the root node holds a number of SoSeparator nodes. Each of these SoSeparator nodes holds a SoTransform node and a SoCube node. When I select one cube node I want all other cubes within a certain distance to the selected cube to arrange in a circle arround the selected cube. (Moreover all of the cubes should be on a plane than) An additional information: My cubes are always oriented in the camera direction with (cubeTransform_-rotation.connectFrom(&camera_-orientation) Assuming the selected cube is the center of the circle, how do I translate the other cubes in a circle on a plane(perpendicular to the vector between the selected cube and the camera)? Especially how do I find coordinates on the plain on which the circle should be which have a certain distance from the Axis (from center cube to camera). What I already did is to search for the for all cubes within a certain distance as soon as one cube is selected. As a result I already have the required separators (which are holding the according SoTransforms and SoCubes) in a SoPathList. Now I want to arrange the cubes by modifing the according SoTransform-translation values. Regards Mark

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• Programmatically talking to a Serial Port in OS X or Linux

  - by deadprogrammer

  I have a Prolite LED sign that I like to set up to show scrolling search queries from a apache logs and other fun statistics. The problem is, my G5 does not have a serial port, so I have to use a usb to serial dongle. It shows up as /dev/cu.usbserial and /dev/tty.usbserial . When i do this everything seems to be hunky-dory: stty -f /dev/cu.usbserial speed 9600 baud; lflags: -icanon -isig -iexten -echo iflags: -icrnl -ixon -ixany -imaxbel -brkint oflags: -opost -onlcr -oxtabs cflags: cs8 -parenb Everything also works when I use the serial port tool to talk to it. If I run this piece of code while the above mentioned serial port tool, everthing also works. But as soon as I disconnect the tool the connection gets lost. #!/usr/bin/python import serial ser = serial.Serial('/dev/cu.usbserial', 9600, timeout=10) ser.write("<ID01><PA> \r\n") read_chars = ser.read(20) print read_chars ser.close() So the question is, what magicks do I need to perform to start talking to the serial port without the serial port tool? Is that a permissions problem? Also, what's the difference between /dev/cu.usbserial and /dev/tty.usbserial?

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• Programming tips for writing document editors?

  - by Tesserex

  I'm asking this because I'm in the process of writing two such editors for my Mega Man engine, one a tileset editor, and another a level editor. When I say document editor, I mean the superset application type for things like image editors and text editors. All of these share things like toolbars, menu options, and in the case of image editors, and my apps, tool panes. We all know there's tons of advice out there for interface design in these apps, but I'm wondering about programming advice. Specifically, I'm doubting my code designs with the following things: Many menu options toggle various behaviors. What's the proper way to reliably tie the checked state of the option with the status of the behavior? Sometimes it's more complicated, like options being disabled when there's no document loaded. More and more consensus seems to be against using MDI, but how should I control tool panes? For example, I can't figure out how to get the panels to minimize and maximize along with the main window, like Photoshop does. When tool panels are responsible for a particular part of the document, who actually owns that thing? The main window, or the panel class? How do you do communication between the tool panels and the main window? Currently mine is all event based but it seems like there could be a better way. This seems to be a common class of gui application, but I've never seen specific pointers on code design for them. Could you please offer whatever advice or experience you have for writing them?

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• AuthorizationExecuteWithPrivileges and osascript failing

  - by cygnl7

  I'm attempting to execute an uninstaller (written in AppleScript) through AuthorizationExecuteWithPrivileges. I'm setting up my rights after creating an empty auth ref like so: char *tool = "/usr/bin/osascript"; AuthorizationItem items = {kAuthorizationRightExecute, strlen(tool), tool, 0}; AuthorizationRights rights = {sizeof(items)/sizeof(AuthorizationItem), &items}; AuthorizationFlags flags = kAuthorizationFlagDefaults | kAuthorizationFlagExtendRights | kAuthorizationFlagPreAuthorize | kAuthorizationFlagInteractionAllowed; status = AuthorizationCopyRights(authorizationRef, &rights, NULL, flags, NULL); Later I call: status = AuthorizationExecuteWithPrivileges(authorizationRef, tool, kAuthorizationFlagDefaults, (char *const *)args, NULL); On Snow Leopard this works fine, but on Leopard I get the following in syslog.log: Apr 19 15:30:09 hostname /usr/bin/osascript[39226]: OpenScripting.framework - 'gdut' event blocked in process with mixed credentials (issetugid=0 uid=501 euid=0 gid=20 egid=20) Apr 19 15:30:12: --- last message repeated 1 time --- ... Apr 19 15:30:12 hostname [0x0-0x2e92e9].com.example.uninstaller[39219]: /var/folders/vm/vmkIi0nYG8mHMrllaXaTgk+++TI/-Tmp-/TestApp_tmpfiles/Uninstall.scpt: Apr 19 15:30:12 hostname [0x0-0x2e92e9].com.example.uninstaller[39219]: execution error: «constant afdmasup» doesn’t understand the «event earsffdr» message. (-1708) Am I going about this all wrong? I just want to run the equivalent of "sudo /usr/bin/osascript ..."

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• Django tests failing on invalid keyword argument

  - by Darwin Tech

  I have a models.py like so: from django.db import models from django.contrib.auth.models import User from datetime import datetime class UserProfile(models.Model): user = models.OneToOneField(User) def __unicode__(self): return self.user.username class Project(models.Model): user = models.ForeignKey(UserProfile) created = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True) updated = models.DateTimeField(auto_now=True) product = models.ForeignKey('tool.product') module = models.ForeignKey('tool.module') model = models.ForeignKey('tool.model') zipcode = models.IntegerField(max_length=5) def __unicode__(self): return unicode(self.id) And my tests.py: from django.test import TestCase, Client # --- import app models from django.contrib.auth.models import User from tool.models import Module, Model, Product from user_profile.models import Project, UserProfile # --- unit tests --- # class UserProjectTests(TestCase): fixtures = ['admin_user.json'] def setUp(self): self.product1 = Product.objects.create( name='bar', ) self.module1 = Module.objects.create( name='foo', enable=True ) self.model1 = Model.objects.create( module=self.module1, name='baz', enable=True ) self.user1 = User.objects.get(pk=1) ... def test_can_create_project(self): self.project1 = Model.objects.create( user=self.user1, product=self.product1, module=self.module1, model=self.model1, zipcode=90210 ) self.assertEquals(self.project1.zipcode, 90210) But I get a TypeError: 'product' is an invalid keyword argument for this function error. I'm not sure what is failing but I'm guessing something to do with the FK relationships... Any help would be much appreciated.

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• Run AppleScript with Elevated Privileges from Objective C

  - by cygnl7

  I'm attempting to execute an uninstaller (written in AppleScript) through AuthorizationExecuteWithPrivileges. I'm setting up my rights after creating an empty auth ref like so: char *tool = "/usr/bin/osascript"; AuthorizationItem items = {kAuthorizationRightExecute, strlen(tool), tool, 0}; AuthorizationRights rights = {sizeof(items)/sizeof(AuthorizationItem), &items}; AuthorizationFlags flags = kAuthorizationFlagDefaults | kAuthorizationFlagExtendRights | kAuthorizationFlagPreAuthorize | kAuthorizationFlagInteractionAllowed; status = AuthorizationCopyRights(authorizationRef, &rights, NULL, flags, NULL); Later I call: status = AuthorizationExecuteWithPrivileges(authorizationRef, tool, kAuthorizationFlagDefaults, (char *const *)args, NULL); On Snow Leopard this works fine, but on Leopard I get the following in syslog.log: Apr 19 15:30:09 hostname /usr/bin/osascript[39226]: OpenScripting.framework - 'gdut' event blocked in process with mixed credentials (issetugid=0 uid=501 euid=0 gid=20 egid=20) Apr 19 15:30:12: --- last message repeated 1 time --- ... Apr 19 15:30:12 hostname [0x0-0x2e92e9].com.example.uninstaller[39219]: /var/folders/vm/vmkIi0nYG8mHMrllaXaTgk+++TI/-Tmp-/TestApp_tmpfiles/Uninstall.scpt: Apr 19 15:30:12 hostname [0x0-0x2e92e9].com.example.uninstaller[39219]: execution error: «constant afdmasup» doesn’t understand the «event earsffdr» message. (-1708) After researching this for a few hours my first guess is that Leopard somehow doesn't want to do what I'm doing because it knows it's in a setuid situation and blocks calls that ask about user-specific things in the applescript. Am I going about this all wrong? I just want to run the equivalent of "sudo /usr/bin/osascript ..." Edit: FWIW, the first line that causes the "execution error" is: set userAppSupportPath to (POSIX path of (path to application support folder from user domain)) However, even with an empty script (on run argv, end run and that's it) I still get the 'gdut' message.

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• Alternative to as3isolib?

  - by tedw4rd

  Hi everyone, I've been working on a Flash game that involves an isometric space. I've been using as3isolib for a while now, and I'm less than impressed with how easy it is to use. Whether I'm approaching it the wrong way or it's just not that great to use is a question for another post. Anyways, I've been thinking of a different way to approach the problem of isometric positions, and I think I've got an idea that might work. Essentially, each object that is to be rendered to the iso-space maintains a 3-coordinate position. Those items are then registered with a camera that projects that 3-coordinate position to a 2-coordinate point on the screen according to the math on this Wikipedia article. Then, the MovieClip is added to the stage (or to the camera's MovieClip, perhaps) at that point, and at a child index of the point's y-value. That way, I figure objects that are closer to the camera will be "above" the objects further away, and will get rendered over them. So my question, then, is two-fold: Do you think this idea will work the way I think it will? Are there any existing 3D matrix/vector packages that I should look at? I know there's a Matrix3 class in Flex 3, but we're not using Flex for this game. Thanks!

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• Visual Studio: How to attach a debugger dynamically to a specific process

  - by Jeff Cyr

  I am building an internal dev tool to manage different processes commonly used in our development environment. The tool show the list the monitored processes, indicate their running state and allow to start or stop each process. I'd like to add the functionality of attaching a debugger to a monitored process from my tool instead of going in 'Debug-Attach to process' in visual studio and finding the process. My goal is to have something like Debugger.Launch() that would show a list of the available visual studio. I can't use Debugger.Launch() because it lauches the debugger on the process that make the call. I would need something like Debugger.Launch(processId). Does anyone know how to acheive this functionality? A solution could be to implement a command in each monitored process to call Debugger.Launch() when the command is received from the monitoring tool, but I would prefer something that does not require to modify the code of the monitored processes. Side question: When using Debugger.Launch(), instances of Visual Studio that already have a debugger attached are not listed. Visual Studio is not limited to one attached debugger, you can attach on multiple process when using 'Debug - Attach to process'. Anyone know how to bypass this limitation when using Debugger.Launch() or an alternative?

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• Loading 2 Singletons With Dependencies when an app is opened (appDelegate / appDidBecomeActive) iPhone SDK

  - by taber

  I'm trying to load two standard-issue style singletons: http://cocoawithlove.com/2008/11/singletons-appdelegates-and-top-level.html when my iPhone app is loaded. Here's my code: - (void) applicationDidFinishLaunching:(UIApplication *)application { // first, restore user prefs [AppState loadState]; // then, initialize the camera [[CameraModule sharedCameraModule] initCamera]; } My "camera module" has code that checks a property of the AppState singleton. But I think what's happening is a race condition where the camera module singleton is trying to access the AppState property while it's in the middle of being initialized (so the property is nil, and it's re-initializing AppState). I'd really like to keep these separate, instead of just throwing one (or both) into the App Delegate. Has anyone else seen something like this? What kind of workaround did you use, or what would you suggest? Thanks in advance! Here's the loadState method: + (void)loadState { @synchronized([AppState class]) { NSArray *paths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES); NSString *documentsDirectory = [paths objectAtIndex:0]; NSString *file = [documentsDirectory stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"prefs.archive"]; Boolean saveFileExists = [[NSFileManager defaultManager] fileExistsAtPath:file]; if(saveFileExists) { sharedAppState = [[NSKeyedUnarchiver unarchiveObjectWithFile:file] retain]; } else { [AppState sharedAppState]; } } }

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• Tools\addin's for formating or cleaning up xaml?

  - by cody

  I'm guessing these don't exist since I searched around for these but I'm looking for a few tools: 1) A tool that cleans up my xaml so that the properties of elements are consistent through a file. I think enforcing that consistence would make the xaml easier to read. Maybe there could be a hierarchy of what comes first but if not alphabetical might work. Example before: TextBox Name="myTextBox1" Grid.Row="3" Grid.Column="1" Margin="4" TextBox Grid.Column="1" Margin="4" Name="t2" Grid.Row="3" Example after: TextBox Name="myTextBox1" Grid.Row="3" Grid.Column="1" Margin="4" TextBox Name="t2" Grid.Row="3" Grid.Column="1" Margin="4" (note < / has been remove from the above since control seem to have issues parsing whe the after section was added) 2) Along the same lines as above, to increase readability, a tool to align properties, so from the above code example similar props would start in the same place. <TextBox Name="myTextBox1" Grid.Row="3" Grid.Column="1" Margin="4"/> <TextBox Name="t2" Grid.Row="3" Grid.Column="1" Margin="4"/> I know VS has default settings for XAML documents so props can be on one line or separate lines so maybe if there was a tool as described in (1) this would not be needed...but it would still be nice if you like your props all on one line. 3) A tool that adds X to the any of the Grid.Row values and Y to any of the Grid.Column values in the selected text. Every time I add a new row\column I have to go manually fix these. From my understanding Expression Blend can help with this but seem excessive to open Blend just to increment some numbers (and just don't grok Blend). Maybe vs2010 with the designer will help but right now I'm on VS08 and Silverlight. Any one know of any tools to help with this? Anyone planning to write something like this...I'm looking at you JetBrains and\or DevExpress. Thanks.

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• Large scale perspective lights casting shadow maps, in the most optimized way?

  - by meds

  I'm using projected texture shadows coupled with lights to light a large sports field at night. To do this I'm using shadow cameras which I place in the position of the stadiums lights and shine it down on the field at the appropriate angle. The problem with this method is the textures to which I render the shadows into have to be very large so they can keep sufficient detail over the entire stadium. This is incredibly under optimized since at any given point the players attention is only directed on a small portion of the field meaning large chunks of the texture just take up space wit no benefits. However the issue is the lights need to be perspective based as they come from actual directional lights hovering over the stadium. The way to solve this, I believe, is to figure out in the shadow cameras view matrix it would be to place the actual camera to render from, and adjust the view matrix accordingly to the position it is. So my question is, how can I calculate the optimal position to put the shadow camera and calculate its view matrix such that the shadows it projects will appear to be coming from the light source rather than the camera?

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• Static code analysis for new language. Where to start?

  - by tinny

  I just been given a new assignment which looks like its going to be an interesting challenge. The customer is wanting a code style checking tool to be developed for their internal (soon to be open sourced) programming language which runs on the JVM. The language syntax is very Java like. The customer basically wants me to produce something like checkstyle. So my question is this, how would you approach this problem? Given a clean slate what recommendations would you make to the customer? I think I have 3 options Write something from scratch. Id prefer not to do this as it seems like this sort of code analysis tool problem has been solved so many times that there must be a more "framework" or "platform" orientated approach. Fork an existing code style checking tool and modify the parsing to fit with this new language etc etc Extend or plug into an existing static code analysis tool. (maybe write a plugin for Yasca?) Maybe you would like to share your experiences in this area? Thanks for reading

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• determining if value is in range with 0=360 degree problem.

  - by Raven

  Hi, I am making a piece of code for DirectX app. It's meaning is to not show faces that are not visible. Normaly it would be just using Z-buffer, but I'm making many moves and rotations of mesh, so I would like to not do them and save computing power. I will describe this on cube. You are looking from the front so you see just one face and you don't need to rotate the 5 that left. If you would have one side of cube from 100*100 meshes, it would be great to not have to turn around 50k meshes that you really don't need. So I have stored X,Y,Z rotation of camera(the Z rotation I'm not using), and also X,Y,Z rotation of faces. In this cube simplified I would see faces that makes this statement true: cRot //camera rotation in degrees oRot //face rotation in degrees if(oRot.x > cRot.x-90 && oRot.x < cRot.x+90 && oRot.y > cRot.y-90 && oRot.y < cRot.y+90) But there comes a problem. If I will rotate arround, the camera can get to value 330 for exapmple. In this state, I would see front and right side of cube. Right side have rotation 270 so that's allright in IF statement. Problem is with 0 rotation of front face, which is also 360 degrees. So my question is how to make this statement to work, because when I use modulo, it will be failing for that right side and in this way it won't work for 0=360.

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• auto-document exceptions on methods in C#/.NET

  - by Sarah Vessels

  I would like some tool, preferably one that plugs into VS 2008/2010, that will go through my methods and add XML comments about the possible exceptions they can throw. I don't want the <summary> or other XML tags to be generated for me because I'll fill those out myself, but it would be nice if even on private/protected methods I could see which exceptions could be thrown. Otherwise I find myself going through the methods and hovering on all the method calls within them to see the list of exceptions, then updating that method's <exception list to include those. Maybe a VS macro could do this? From this: private static string getConfigFilePath() { return Path.Combine(Environment.CurrentDirectory, CONFIG_FILE); } To this: /// <exception cref="System.ArgumentException"/> /// <exception cref="System.ArgumentNullException"/> /// <exception cref="System.IO.IOException"/> /// <exception cref="System.IO.DirectoryNotFoundException"/> /// <exception cref="System.Security.SecurityException"/> private static string getConfigFilePath() { return Path.Combine(Environment.CurrentDirectory, CONFIG_FILE); } Update: it seems like the tool would have to go through the methods recursively, e.g., method1 calls method2 which calls method3 which is documented as throwing NullReferenceException, so both method2 and method1 are documented by the tool as also throwing NullReferenceException. The tool would also need to eliminate duplicates, like if two calls within a method are documented as throwing DirectoryNotFoundException, the method would only list <exception cref="System.IO.DirectoryNotFoundException"/> once.

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• Week in Geek: US Govt E-card Scam Siphons Confidential Data Edition

  - by Asian Angel

  This week we learned how to “back up photos to Flickr, automate repetitive tasks, & normalize MP3 volume”, enable “stereo mix” in Windows 7 to record audio, create custom papercraft toys, read up on three alternatives to Apple’s flaky iOS alarm clock, decorated our desktops & app docks with Google icon packs, and more. Photo by alexschlegel. Random Geek Links It has been a busy week on the security & malware fronts and we have a roundup of the latest news to help keep you updated. Photo by TopTechWriter.US. US govt e-card scam hits confidential data A fake U.S. government Christmas e-card has managed to siphon off gigabytes of sensitive data from a number of law enforcement and military staff who work on cybersecurity matters, many of whom are involved in computer crime investigations. Security tool uncovers multiple bugs in every browser Michal Zalewski reports that he discovered the vulnerability in Internet Explorer a while ago using his cross_fuzz fuzzing tool and reported it to Microsoft in July 2010. Zalewski also used cross_fuzz to discover bugs in other browsers, which he also reported to the relevant organisations. Microsoft to fix Windows holes, but not ones in IE Microsoft said that it will release two security bulletins next week fixing three holes in Windows, but it is still investigating or working on fixing holes in Internet Explorer that have been reportedly exploited in attacks. Microsoft warns of Windows flaw affecting image rendering Microsoft has warned of a Windows vulnerability that could allow an attacker to take control of a computer if the user is logged on with administrative rights. Windows 7 Not Affected by Critical 0-Day in the Windows Graphics Rendering Engine While confirming that details on a Critical zero-day vulnerability have made their way into the wild, Microsoft noted that customers running the latest iteration of Windows client and server platforms are not exposed to any risks. Microsoft warns of Office-related malware Microsoft’s Malware Protection Center issued a warning this week that it has spotted malicious code on the Internet that can take advantage of a flaw in Word and infect computers after a user does nothing more than read an e-mail. *Refers to a flaw that was addressed in the November security patch releases. Make sure you have all of the latest security updates installed. Unpatched hole in ImgBurn disk burning application According to security specialist Secunia, a highly critical vulnerability in ImgBurn, a lightweight disk burning application, can be used to remotely compromise a user’s system. Hole in VLC Media Player Virtual Security Research (VSR) has identified a vulnerability in VLC Media Player. In versions up to and including 1.1.5 of the VLC Media Player. Flash Player sandbox can be bypassed Flash applications run locally can read local files and send them to an online server – something which the sandbox is supposed to prevent. Chinese auction site touts hacked iTunes accounts Tens of thousands of reportedly hacked iTunes accounts have been found on Chinese auction site Taobao, but the company claims it is unable to take action unless there are direct complaints. What happened in the recent Hotmail outage Mike Schackwitz explains the cause of the recent Hotmail outage. DOJ sends order to Twitter for Wikileaks-related account info The U.S. Justice Department has obtained a court order directing Twitter to turn over information about the accounts of activists with ties to Wikileaks, including an Icelandic politician, a legendary Dutch hacker, and a U.S. computer programmer. Google gets court to block Microsoft Interior Department e-mail win The U.S. Federal Claims Court has temporarily blocked Microsoft from proceeding with the $49.3 million, five-year DOI contract that it won this past November. Google Apps customers get email lockdown Companies and organisations using Google Apps are now able to restrict the email access of selected users. LibreOffice Is the Default Office Suite for Ubuntu 11.04 Matthias Klose has announced some details regarding the replacement of the old OpenOffice.org 3.2.1 packages with the new LibreOffice 3.3 ones, starting with the upcoming Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) Alpha 2 release. Sysadmin Geek Tips Photo by Filomena Scalise. How to Setup Software RAID for a Simple File Server on Ubuntu Do you need a file server that is cheap and easy to setup, “rock solid” reliable, and has Email Alerting? This tutorial shows you how to use Ubuntu, software RAID, and SaMBa to accomplish just that. How to Control the Order of Startup Programs in Windows While you can specify the applications you want to launch when Windows starts, the ability to control the order in which they start is not available. However, there are a couple of ways you can easily overcome this limitation and control the startup order of applications. Random TinyHacker Links Using Opera Unite to Send Large Files A tutorial on using Opera Unite to easily send huge files from your computer. WorkFlowy is a Useful To-do List Tool A cool to-do list tool that lets you integrate multiple tasks in one single list easily. Playing Flash Videos on iOS Devices Yes, you can play flash videos on jailbroken iPhones. Here’s a tutorial. Clear Safari History and Cookies On iPhone A tutorial on clearing your browser history on iPhone and other iOS devices. Monitor Your Internet Usage Here’s a cool, cross-platform tool to monitor your internet bandwidth. Super User Questions See what the community had to say on these popular questions from Super User this week. Why is my upload speed much less than my download speed? Where should I find drivers for my laptop if it didn’t come with a driver disk? OEM Office 2010 without media – how to reinstall? Is there a point to using theft tracking software like Prey on my laptop, if you have login security? Moving an “all-in-one” PC when turned on/off How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Get caught up on your HTG reading with our hottest articles from this past week. How to Combine Rescue Disks to Create the Ultimate Windows Repair Disk How To Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive What is Camera Raw, and Why Would a Professional Prefer it to JPG? Did You Know Facebook Has Built-In Shortcut Keys? The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: The Basics One Year Ago on How-To Geek Enjoy looking through our latest gathering of retro article goodness. Learning Windows 7: Create a Homegroup & Join a New Computer To It How To Disconnect a Machine from a Homegroup Use Remote Desktop To Access Other Computers On a Small Office or Home Network How To Share Files and Printers Between Windows 7 and Vista Allow Users To Run Only Specified Programs in Windows 7 The Geek Note That is all we have for you this week and we hope your first week back at work or school has gone very well now that the holidays are over. Know a great tip? Send it in to us at [email protected]. Photo by Pamela Machado. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC HTG Projects: How to Create Your Own Custom Papercraft Toy How to Combine Rescue Disks to Create the Ultimate Windows Repair Disk What is Camera Raw, and Why Would a Professional Prefer it to JPG? The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: The Basics How To Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 Arctic Theme for Windows 7 Gives Your Desktop an Icy Touch Install LibreOffice via PPA and Receive Auto-Updates in Ubuntu Creative Portraits Peek Inside the Guts of Modern Electronics Scenic Winter Lane Wallpaper to Create a Relaxing Mood Access Your Web Apps Directly Using the Context Menu in Chrome The Deep – Awesome Use of Metal Objects as Deep Sea Creatures [Video]

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• Getting Started with Media Browser for Windows Media Center

  - by DigitalGeekery

  If you are a Windows Media Center user, you’ll really want to check out Media Browser. The Media Browser plug-in for Windows Media Center takes your digital media files and displays them in a visually appealing, user friendly interface, complete with images and metadata. Requirements Windows 7 or Vista Microsoft .Net 3.5 Framework  Preparing your Media Files For Media Browser to be able to automatically download images and metadata for your media libraries, your files will have to be correctly named. For example, if you have an mp4 file of the movie Batman Begins, it needs to be named Batman Begins.mp4. It cannot be Batmanbegins.mp4 or Batman-begins.mp4. Otherwise, it’s unlikely that Media Browser will display images and metadata. If you find some of your files aren’t pulling cover art or metadata, double-check the official title of the media on a site like IMBD.com. TV Show files TV show files are handled a bit differently. Every TV series in your collection must have a main folder with the show’s name and individual subfolders for each season. Here is an example of folder structure and supported naming conventions. TV Shows\South Park\Season 1\s01e01 – episode 1.mp4 TV Shows\South Park\Season 1\South Park 1×01 – episode 1.mp4 TV Shows\South Park\Season 1\101 – episode 1.mp4  Note: You need to always have a Season 1 folder even if the show only has only one season. If you have several seasons of a particular show, but don’t happen to have Season 1, simply create a blank season 1 folder. Without a season 1 folder, other seasons will not display properly. Installation and Configuration Download and run the latest Media Browser .msi file by taking the defaults. (Download link below) When you reach the final window, leave the “Configure initial settings” box checked, and click “Finish.” You may get a pop up window informing you that folder permissions are not set correctly for Media Browser. Click “Yes.” Adding Your Media The Browser Configuration Tool should have opened automatically. If not, you can open it by going to Start > All Programs > Media Browser > Media Browser Configuration Wizard. To begin adding media files, click “Add.” Browse for a folder that contains media files and click “OK.” Here we are adding a folder with a group of movie files. You can add multiple folders to each media library. For example, if you have movie files stored in 4 or 5 different folders, you can add them all under a single library in Media Browser.  To add additional folders, click the “Add” button on the right side under your currently added folder. The “Add” button to the left will add an additional Media Library, such as one for TV Shows. When you are finished, close out of the Media Browser Configuration Tool. Open Windows Media Center. You will see Media Browser tile on the main interface. Click to open it. When you initially open Media Browser, you will be prompted to run the initial configuration. Click “OK.” You will see a few general configuration options. The important option is the Metadata. Leave this option checked (it is by default) if you wish to pull images & other metadata for your media. When finished, click “Continue,” and then “OK” to restart Media Browser. When you re-enter Media Browser you’ll see your Media Categories listed below, and recently added files in the main display. Click on a Media Library to view the files.   Click “View” at the top to check out some of the different display options to choose from. Below you see can “Detail.” This presents your videos in a list to the left. When you hover over a title, the synopsis and cover art is displayed to the right. “Cover Flow” displays your titles in a right to left format with mirror cover art. “Thumb Strip” displays your titles in a strip along the bottom with a synopsis, image, and movie data above. Configurations Settings and options can be changed through the Media Browser Configuration Tool, or directly in Media Browser by clicking on the “Wrench” at the bottom right of the main Media Browser page. Certain settings may only be available in one location or the other. Some will be available in both places.   Plug-ins and Themes Media Browser features a variety of Plug-ins and Themes that can add optional customization and slick visual appeal. To install plug-ins or themes, open the Media Browser Configuration Tool. Click on the “plug-ins” tab, and then the “More Plug-ins…” button. Note: Clicking on “Advanced” at the top will reveal several additional configuration tabs. Browse the list of plug-ins on the left. When you find want you like, select it and then click “Install.” When the install is complete, you’ll see them listed under “Installed Plug-ins.” To activate any installed theme, click on the “Display” tab. Select it from the Visual Theme drop down list. Close out of the Media Browser Configuration Tool when finished. Some themes, such as the “Diamond” theme shown below, include optional views and settings which can be accessed through a configuration button at the top of the screen. Clicking on the movie gives you additional images and information such as a synopsis, runtime, IMDB rating…   … and even actors and character names.   All that’s left is to hit “Play” when you’re ready to watch.   Conclusion Media Browser is a fantastic plug-in that brings an entirely different level of media management and aesthetics to Windows Media Center. There are numerous additional customizations and configurations we have not covered here such as adding film trailers, music support, and integrating Recorded TV. Media Browser will run on both Windows 7 and Vista. Extenders are also supported but may require additional configuration. Download Media Browser Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Using Netflix Watchnow in Windows Vista Media Center (Gmedia)Schedule Updates for Windows Media CenterIntegrate Hulu Desktop and Windows Media Center in Windows 7Add Color Coding to Windows 7 Media Center Program GuideIntegrate Boxee with Media Center in Windows 7 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 If it were only this easy SyncToy syncs Files and Folders across Computers on a Network (or partitions on the same drive) Classic Cinema Online offers 100’s of OnDemand Movies OutSync will Sync Photos of your Friends on Facebook and Outlook Windows 7 Easter Theme YoWindoW, a real time weather screensaver

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, March 22, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, March 22, 2010New Projects[Tool] Vczh Non-public DLL Classes Caller: Generate C# code for you to call non-public classes in DLLs very easily.Artefact Animator: Artefact Animator provides an easy to use framework for procedural time-based animations in Silverlight and WPF.cacheroo: Cacheroo is a social networking community that will make it easier for people who love geocaching to get connected.Data Processing Toolkit: An utility app to collected data from different sources (i.e. bugzilla bug reports) in a structured way. We are currently setting up the site. Mo...eXternal SQL Bridge (PHP): The eXternal SQL Bridge (XSB) allows you to bridge two websites together in a secure manner through pre-shared keys. XSB is resilient against repla...'G' - Language to Define Gestures for Touch Based Applications: A cross plat form multi-touch application framework with a language to define gestures. The application is build on Silverlight 4.0 and the languag...IIS Network Diagnostic Tools: Web implementation of "looking glass" like services (ping, traceroute) as HTTP modules for Internet Information Services.Interop Router: This project establishes a communication framework and job dispatcher for a mixed operating system cluster environment.L2 Commander: L2Commander makes it easier for both new and old l2j users to manage your server.You no longer have to waste time on finding the files you need and...MediaHelper: A utility to help clean up empty/unwanted files and folders in your filesystem.mhinze: matt hinze stuffOneMan: Focus on Silverlight and WCF technology.Rss Photo Frame Android Widget: RSS Photo Frame Android Widget permits showing pictures from any RSS feed on your Android device's desktopSingle Web Session: Web Tool Kits Current project provide developer with different tools that help to enhance web site performance, security, and other common functio...Work Item Visualization: Use DGML to visualize and analyze your TFS Work Items. Included is the ability to perform basic risk/impact analysis. It helps answer the question,...New Releases[Tool] Vczh Non-public DLL Classes Caller: Wrapper Coder (beta): Click "<Click Me To Open Assembly File>", WrapperCoder will load the assembly and referenced assembly. Check the non-public classes that you want...APS - Automatic Print Screen: APS 1.0: APS automatizes the tasks of paste the image in Paint and save it after print screen or alt+print screen. Choose directory, name and file extension...BTP Tools: e-Sword generator build 20100321: 1. Modify the indent after subtitle. 2. Add 2 spaces after subtitle.Combres - WebForm & MVC Client-side Resource Combine Library: Combres 2.0: Changes since last version (1.2) Support ignore Combres pipeline in debug mode - see issue #6088 Debug mode generates comment helping identify in...Desafio Office 2010 Brasil: DesafioOutlook: Controlando um robo com o Outlook 2010dylan.NET: dylan.NET v. 9.4: Adding Platform Invocation Services Support, full Managed Pointer Support, Charset,Dllimport,Callconv setting for P/Invoke, MarshalAs for parametersFamily Tree Analyzer: Version 1.3.2.0: Version 1.3.2.0 Add open folder button to IGI Search Form Fixes to Fact Location processing - IGIName renamed to RegionID Fix if Region ID not fou...Fasterflect - A Fast and Simple Reflection API: Fasterflect 2.0: We are pleased to release version 2.0 of Fasterflect, which contains a lot of additions and improvements from the previous version. Please refer t...IIS Network Diagnostic Tools: 1.0: Initial public release.Informant: Informant (Desktop) v0.1: This release allows users to send sms messages to 1-Many Groups or 1-Many contacts. It is a very basic release of the application. No styling has b...InfoService: InfoService v1.5 - MPE1 Package: InfoService Release v1.5.0.65 Please read Plugin installation for installation instructions.InfoService: InfoService v1.5 - RAR Package: InfoService Release v1.5.0.65 Please read Plugin installation for installation instructions.L2 Commander: Source Code Link: Where to find our source.ModularCMS: ModularCMS 1.2: Minor bug fixes.NMTools: NMTools-v40b0-20100321-0: The most noticeable aspect of this release is that NMTools is now an independent project. It will no longer tied to OpenSLIM. Nevertheless, OpenSLI...SharePoint LogViewer: SharePoint LogViewer 1.5.3: Log loading performance enhanced. Search text box now has auto complete feature.Single Web Session: Single Web Session: !Single Web Session! <httpModules> <add name="SingleSession" type="SingleWebSession.Model.WebSessionModule, SingleWebSession"/> </httpModules>Sprite Sheet Packer: 2.1 Release: Made a few crucial fixes from 2.0: - Fixed error with paths having spaces. - Fixed error with UI not unlocking. - Fixed NullReferenceException on ...uManage - AD Self-Service Portal: uManage v1.1 (.NET 4.0 RC): Updated Releasev1.1 Adds the primary ability to setup and configure the application through a setup wizard. The setup wizard will continue to evol...VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30321.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVS ChessMania: VS ChessMania V2 March Beta: Second Beta Release with move correction and making application more safe for user. New features will be added soon.WatchersNET CKEditor™ Provider for DotNetNuke: CKEditor Provider 1.9.00: Whats New Added New Toolbar Plugin (By Kent Safransk) 'MediaEmbed' to Include Embed Media from Youtube, Vimeo, etc. Media Embed Plugin Added New ...WeatherBar: WeatherBar 1.0 [No Installation]: Extract the ZIP archive and run WeatherBar.exe. Current release contains some bugs that will be fixed in the next version. Check the Issue Tracker...Work Item Visualization: Release 1.0: This is the initial release of the Work Item Visualization tool. There are no known issues when it comes to the visualization aspects of the tool b...WPF Application Framework (WAF): WPF Application Framework (WAF) 1.0.0.10: Version: 1.0.0.10 (Milestone 10): This release contains the source code of the WPF Application Framework (WAF) and the sample applications. Requi...WPF AutoComplete TextBox Control: Version 1.2: What's Newadds AutoAppend feature adds a new provider: UrlHistoryDataProvider sample application is updated to reflect the new things Bug Fixe...ZoomBarPlus: V2 (Beta): - Fixed bug: if the active window changed while you were in the middle of a single tap delay, long tap delay, or swipe-repeat, it would continue re...Most Popular ProjectsMetaSharpSavvy DateTimeRawrWBFS ManagerSilverlight ToolkitASP.NET Ajax LibraryMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseAJAX Control ToolkitLiveUpload to FacebookWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)Most Active ProjectsLINQ to TwitterRawrOData SDK for PHPjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesDirectQPHPExcelFarseer Physics Enginepatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryBlogEngine.NETNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog Module

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• Windows Azure Evolution &ndash; Welcome to VS2012

  - by Shaun

  When the Microsoft released the first preview version of Windows 8 and Visual Studio, many people in the community were asking if the windows azure tool is available to it. The answer was “NO”. Microsoft promised that the windows azure tool will only support the Visual Studio 2010 but when the 2012 was final released, windows azure tool should be work. But now alone with the new windows azure platform was published we got the latest Windows Azure SDK 1.7, which is compatible to the Visual Studio 2012 RC.   You can retrieve the latest version of the Windows Azure SDK through Web Platform Installer, which I think it’s the easiest and simplest way to download and install, since besides the SDK itself it also needs some other components. To download the latest windows azure SDK from Web Platform Installer, just go to the windows azure website and clicked the Develop, .NET and click the blue “install” button. Then you need to select which version of Visual Studio you want to use, Visual Studio 2010 or Visual Studio 2012 RC. After selected the current version you will download an EXE file. This file will lead you to install the Web Platform Installer 4.0 (if you haven’t installed) and the latest windows azure SDK. You can see the version name is June 2012, 1.7. Finally the WebPI will detect the dependent components you need to download and begin to install. But if you want to challenge yourself you can download the components and install them manually. The standalone installations are listed in this page with the instruction on how to install them with necessary pre-requirements.   Once you finished the installation you can open the Visual Studio 2012 RC and as usual, it need to be run as administrator. If you clicked the New Project link from the start page, navigated to Cloud category you will find that there no project template available. Is there anything wrong? So, if you changed the target framework from the default .NET 4.5 to .NET 4 you will see the azure project template. This is because, currently the windows azure instance does not support .NET 4.5. After clicked OK you will see the role creation window, which is similar as what you have seen before. But there are some new role templates in this SDK. Firstly you will have ASP.NET MVC 4 web role available, which means you can create ASP.NET MVC 4 applications for internet, intranet, mobile and WebAPI on the cloud. Then there are two new worker role templates, “Cache Worker Role” and “Worker Role with Service Bus Queue”. “Worker Role with Service Bus Queue” is a worker role which had added necessary references to access the Windows Azure Service Bus Queue. It also have some basic sample code in the worker role class which could read messages from the queue when started. The “Cache Worker Role” is a worker role which has the in-memory distributed cache feature enabled by default. This feature is different than the Windows Azure Caching. It allows the role instance to use its memory as a in-memory distributed cache clusters. By using this feature you can have one or more worker roles as some dedicate cache clusters. Alternatively, you can make part of your web role and worker role’s memory as the cache clusters as well. Let’s just create an ASP.NET MVC 4 Web Role, and click F5 to run it under the local emulator. If you have been working with azure for a while you should know that I need to setup the local storage emulator before running locally if it’s a fresh azure SDK installation. But in this version when we started our azure project the Visual Studio will check if the storage emulator had been initialized. If not, it will run the initializer automatically. And as you can see, in this version the storage emulator relies on the SQL Server 2012 Local DB feature. It will create the emulator database and tables in the default local database. You can set the storage emulator to use a standard SQL Server default instance by using the command “dsinit /instance:.”. The “dsinit” tool now is located at %PROGRAM FILES%\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Azure\Emulator\devstore After the Visual Studio complied and deployed the package our website should be shown in the browser. This is the MVC 4 Web Role home page on my Windows 8 machine in IE10. Another thing you might notice is that, in this version the compute emulator utilizes IIS Express to host the web roles instead of the full IIS. You can add breakpoint in the code and debug, and you can use the local storage emulator to test your code for accessing the storage service. All of them are same as what your are doing now on SDK 1.6. You can switch to use IIS to run your web role in local emulator. Just open the windows azure porject property windows, in the Web page select “Use IIS Web Server”. For more information about this please have a look on Nuno’s blog post. In the role property page in Visual Studio there’s no massive changes. You can configure your role settings such as the endpoints, certificates and local storage, etc.. One thing was added is the Caching tab. Here you can specify enable the caching feature or not, and how much memory you want to use as the cache cluster. I will introduce more details about it in the future posts. The publish and package feature are also no change. You can publish your project to azure directly through Visual Studio 2012, while you can create the package and upload manually. Below is the SDK version of my deployment which is 1.7.30602.1703 in the developer portal.   Summary In this post I introduced about the new Windows Azure SDK 1.7 especially on how it works on the latest Visual Studio 2012 RC. There’s no significant changes in the visual studio tool in this version but some small enhancement such as ASP.NET MVC 4, Cache Worker Role, using SQL 2012 Local DB and IIS Express, etc..   Hope this helps, Shaun All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, May 02, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, May 02, 2010New ProjectsAdventureWorks in Access: AdventureWorks database in Access format. Data has been ported in Access starting from Adventure Works database for SQL Server 2008.amplifi: This project is still under construction. We will add more information here as soon as it is available.ASP.NET MVC Bug Tracker: Bug Track written in C# ASP.NET MVC 2BigDecimal: BigDecimal is an attempt to create a number class that can have large precision. It is developed in vb.net (.net 4).CBM-Command: Coming soon....Chuyou: ChuyouCMinus: A C Minus Compiler!Complex and advanced mathematical functions: Mathematics toolkit is a Class Library Project which help Programmers to Calculate Mathematics Functions easily.Confuser: Confuser is a obfuscator for .NET. It is developed in C# and using Mono.Cecil for assembly manipulation.easypos: Micro punto de venta que permite ventas express de ropa, que se acopla fácil y transaparente con el ERP Click OneElmech Address Book: Web based Address Book for maintaining details of your business clients. This project targets Suppliers - Traders - Manufacturers - users. Applicat...Feed Viewer: Feed Viewer is able to synchronize subscribed feed and red news among all computers you are using. It understands both RSS and Atom format. It can ...Google URL Shortener, C#: Implementation in C# of generating short URLs by Goo.gl service (Google URL Shortener)MARS - Medical Assistant Record System: MARS - Medical Assistant Record SystemRx Contrib: Rx Contrib is a library which contain extensions for the Rx frameworkSimple Service Administration Tool: A simple tool to start/stop/restart a service of a WinNT based system. The tool is placed in the task bar as a notify icon, so the specified servic...Vis3D: Visual 3D controls for Silverlight.VisContent: XML content controls for ASP.NET.Windows Phone 7 database: This project implements a Isolated Storage (IsolatedStorage) based database for Windows Phone 7. The database consists of table object, each one s...New Releases$log$ / Keyword Substitution / Expansion Check-In Policy (TFS - LogSubstPol): LogSubstPol_v1.2010.0.4 (VS2010): LogSubstPol is a TFS check-in policy which insertes the check-in comments and other keywords into your source code, so you can keep track of the ch...Bojinx: Bojinx Core V4.5.1: The following new features were added: You can now use either BojinxMXMLContext or ContextModule to configure your application or module context. ...CBM-Command: Initial Public Demonstration: Initial public demonstration version. Can browse attached drives and display directory of any attached drive. A common question is "How does it w...Confuser: Confuser v1.0: It is the Confuser v1.0 that used to confuse the reverse-engineers :)Font Family Name Retrieval: 2nd Release: Added New MKV Font Extractor application to showcase the library. MKV Font Extractor depends on MKVToolnix to be installed before it will work. R...Google URL Shortener, C#: Goo.gl-CS v1 Beta: Extract the ZIP file to any location. Two files have to be in the same folder!HouseFly controls: HouseFly controls alpha 0.9.6.1: HouseFly controls release 0.9.6.1 alphaIsWiX: IsWiX 1.0.261.0: Build 1.0.261.0 - built against Fireworks 1.0.264.0. Adds support for VS2010 Integration to support WiX 3.5 beta releases.Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) Contrib: MefContrib 0.9.2.0: Added conventions based catalog (read more at http://www.thecodejunkie.com/2010/03/bringing-convention-based-registration.html) MEF + Unity integ...MARS - Medical Assistant Record System: license: licenseNSIS Autorun: NSIS Autorun 0.1.5: This release includes source code, executable binary, files and example materials.PHP.net: Release 0.0.0.1: This is the first release of PHP.Net. The features available in this release are: new File Save File Save As Open File In the rar file is th...Rx Contrib: V1: Rx Contrib is ongoing effort for community additions for Rx. Current features are: ReactiveQueue: ISubject that does not loose values if there are ...Silverlight 4.0 Popup Menu: Context Menu for Silverlight 4 v1.0: - Added a margin for icon display. - Added the PopupMenuItem class which is a derivative of the DockPanel. - Find* methods can now drill down the v...Silverlight 4.0 Popup Menu: Context Menu for Silverlight 4 v1.1 Beta: - Added a margin for icon display. - Added the PopupMenuItem class which is a derivative of the DockPanel. - Added a AddSeperator method. - The Fin...Simple Service Administration Tool: SSATool 0.1.3: New Simple Service Administration Tool Version 0.1.3 compiled with Visual Studio .NET 2010.sMAPedit: sMAPedit v0.7a + Map-Pack: Required Additional Map-Pack Added: height setting by color picker (shift+leftclick)sMAPedit: sMAPedit v0.7b: Fixed: force a gargabe collection update to prevent pictureBox's memory leaksqwarea: Sqwarea 0.0.228.0 (alpha): This release corrects a critical bug in ConnexityNotifier service. We strongly recommend you to upgrade to this version. Known bugs : if you open...StackOverflow Desktop Client in C# and WPF: StackOverflow Client 0.1: Source code for the sample.TortoiseHg: TortoiseHg 1.0.2: This is a bug fix release, we recommend all users upgrade to 1.0.2VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30501.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVidCoder: 0.4.0: Changes: Added ability to queue up multiple video files or titles at once. These queued jobs will use the currently selected encoding settings. Mul...WabbitStudio Z80 Software Tools: Wabbitemu 32-bit Test Release: Wabbitemu Visual Studio build for testing purposesWindows Phone 7 database: Initial Release v1.0: This project implements a Isolated Storage (IsolatedStorage) based database for Windows Phone 7. The usage of this software is very simple. You cre...YouTubeEmbeddedVideo WebControl for ASP.NET: VideoControls version 1: This zip file contains the VideoControls.dll, version 1.Most Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control Toolkitpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)iTuner - The iTunes CompanionASP.NETDotNetNuke® Community EditionMost Active Projectspatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryRawrIonics Isapi Rewrite FilterHydroServer - CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System Serverpatterns & practices: Azure Security GuidanceTinyProjectNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModuleBlogEngine.NETDambach Linear Algebra FrameworkFacebook Developer Toolkit

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, April 15, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, April 15, 2010New ProjectsApplication Logging Repository (ALR): The ALR is a light-weight logging framework that allows applications to log events and exceptions to a central repository.Arkane.FileProperties.DSS: Arkane.FileProperties.Dss is a library for parsing the file header of a .DSS file (as used by Olympus digital dictaphone systems) to obtain time, v...B in conTrol project: This project enables controling log-in and locking your workstation automatically, identifyng you bluetooth.DarkBook: DarkBook is a personal library project.Direct2D for Microsoft .Net: Direct2D, DirectWrite and Windows Imaging wrappers for .Net. This library allows to access Direct2D, DirectWrite and Windows Imaging Windows API f...DJ Ware: DJ Ware is an extensible music player with plugin support and innovative features to organize and explore music files. It is developed with C#, WPF...gpsMe: gpsMe is a Windows Mobile 6.x mapping solution allowing to place the user on a personnalized map. The screen requirements are VGA or WVGA but, you ...jErrorLog: jErrorLog is an error logging component for use in DotNet 2.0 or later applications. It can log error messages to any of the following: database, e...KEMET_API: Java Library (open - source). This library is a help to study egyptian hieroglyphs.Meadow: A web site project for a Swedish floorball team called Slackers. Home page built with ASP.NET 2.0, ASP.NET AJAX and SQL Server 2005.Mustang Math: Mustang Math makes it easier for young children to practice basic math facts on the computer. No keyboard or mouse required - just say the answer!...Net.Formats.oEmbed: oEmbed format implementation in c#. oEmbed is a format for allowing an embedded representation of a URL on third party sites. The simple API allows...Normlize O/R Mapper: Open source O/RM tool that participates with traditional inheritance object models as well as Hibernate/nHibernate style class shells. As I have t...N-Twill Twitter Client for VB.NET: Proyecto de cliente twitter hecho con la libreria TwitterVB2 y hecho en VB.net 2008.SIQM: Spatial Information Quality Management Toolset TIMETABLEASY Web: Under developmentTweetSharp: TweetSharp is a complete .NET library for micro-blogging platforms that allows you to write short and sweet expressions that fly to Twitter, Yammer...UISandbox: UISandbox is a sample C# source code showing how to deal with plugins requiring sandbox, when those plugins must interact with WPF application inte...WinForm SharePoint Web Part Manager: The SharePoint Web Part Manager is a WinForm tool using the SharePoint object model that enables developers and power users to add, update, delete,...WoW Character Viewer: View your World of Warcraft character (or anyone else's character), using this application. Written using Visual Basic Express 2008, then ported t...Xrns2XMod: Xrns2XMod converts from Renoise format (xrns) to mod or xm, which are more compatible formats playable from xmplay or vlc.New ReleasesArkane.FileProperties.DSS: 1.0 stable release: Executables and merge module for 1.0. (See documentation.)Bluetooth Radar: Version 2.0: Add IrDA reference for Bluetooth sending using Obex Add Project icon Add Bluetooth detection mode (Auto close application is there is no blueto...BUtil: BUtil 5.0 Alpha: Backup tasks adding.... in progressChronos WPF: Chronos v1.0 RC 1: Chronos v1.0 RC 1. Development will be feature frozen after this release, only bug fixes will be allowed. Updated nRoute assembly to v0.4 (http:...clipShow: Version 2.5: Release that addresses the canonical syntax issues in search discoverd by Tschachim (thanks again!). Also, the play list and play all menu items s...DarkBook: DarkBook alpha: Hi, here comes the alpha version of Darkbook. It has all the functions already but is still in developing. I hope it's helpful for you, at least it...DirectQ: Release 1.8.3a: Improvements to 1.8.2, which will be shortly be removed. This replaces the original 1.8.3 release from earlier today which had some late-breaking ...Effect Custom Tool for Visual Studio: Effect Custom Tool v1.1: Effect Custom Tool for Visual Studio is a visual studio 2008 extension that helps you generate c# classes from effect (*.fx) files for use with Xna...Folder Bookmarks: Folder Bookmarks 1.4.3: This is the latest version of Folder Bookmarks (1.4.3), with general improvements. It has an installer - it will create a directory 'CPascoe' in My...gpsMe: gpsMe v0.3: Required Hardware Windows Mobile 6 .Net Compact Framework 3.5 integrated gps device VGA or WVGA screen (normally works on others)IST435: Lab 4 - Enterprise Level CMS with DotNetNuke: Lab 4 - Enterprise Level CMS with DotNetNukeThis is the "starter kit" that you must base your Lab 4 on. This lab must be completed in-class.Mouse Jiggler: MouseJiggle-1.1: 1.1 release of Mouse Jiggler, now with x64 compatibility and the ability to start jiggling on run with the --jiggle or -j command-line switch.Mustang Math: MustangMath.exe: This is a quick and dirty "0.1" prototype to demonstrate the speech recognition idea. It starts asking you questions automatically on launch and k...MvcContrib: a Codeplex Foundation project: 2.0.36.0 for MVC2 (RTW): Please see the Change Log for a complete list of changes. MVC BootCamp Description of the releases: MvcContrib.Release.zip MvcContrib.dll MvcC...Nito.LINQ: Beta (v0.3): New features for this release: Several new supported platforms (see below). PDBs that are source-indexed to the appropriate CodePlex changeset. ...OpenIdPortableArea: 0.1.0.2 OpenIdPortableArea: OpenIdPortableArea.Release: DotNetOpenAuth.dll DotNetOpenAuth.xml MvcContrib.dll MvcContrib.xml OpenIdPortableArea.dll OpenIdPortableAre...PokeIn Comet Ajax Library: PokeIn Sample with Library v0.2: New version of PokeIn library with sample. v0.2 There are new features in this release and no bug detected yet.Project Tru Tiên: Elements-test V1-fix (v2): Là EL test được fix tiếp theo bản fix V1, tạm gọi đây là bản fix V2 của ELtest Trong bản fix này EL được fix thêm vụ Quest, Quest chỉnh sửa đúng t...Rule 18 - Love your clipboard: Rule 18: This is the third public beta for the first version of Rule 18. This version has been updated to support Visual Studio 2010 RTM and .NET 4.0 RTM. ...SevenZipSharp: SevenZipSharp 0.62: Added: Extraction from SFX archives. Now it is possible to unrar RAR self-extractors, unzip ZIP self-extractors, etc. Extraction from DOC, XLS, (...SharePoint Labs: SPLab3001A-FRA-Level200: SPLab3001A-FRA-Level200 This SharePoint Lab will teach the persistence object layer that SharePoint uses to centraly store configuration data and o...TTXPathNavigator: TTXPathNavigator for VS2010: Version for Visual Studio 2010turing machine simulator: SDS: SDS documentVecDraw: VecDraw_0.2.25: Alpha release for test purposesWinForm SharePoint Web Part Manager: Beta 1: First release of the WinForm SharePoitn web part manager toolXrns2XMod: Xrns2XMod 0.5.1: Mod and XM conversion format - No sample data conversion at momentZip Solution: ZipSolution 5.3: Features: 1. Added WaitMsec for visual studio support with getting access to files in post build event; 2. 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• Big Visible Charts

  - by Robert May

  An important part of Agile is the concept of transparency and visibility. In proper functioning teams, stakeholders can look at any team at any time in the iteration or release and see how that team is doing by simply looking at what we call Big Visible Charts. If you’ve done Scrum, you’ve seen these charts. However, interpreting these charts can often be an art form. There are several different charts that can be useful. In this newsletter, I’ll focus on the Iteration Burndown and Cumulative Flow charts. I’ve included a copy of the spreadsheet that I used to create the charts, and if you don’t have a tool that creates them for you, you can use this spreadsheet to do so. Our preferred tool for managing Scrum projects is Rally. Rally creates all of these charts for you, saving you quite a bit of time. The Iteration Burndown and Cumulative Flow Charts This is the main chart that teams use. Although less useful to stakeholders, this chart is critical to the team and provides quite a bit of information to the team about how their iteration is going. Most charts are a combination of the charts below, so you may need to combine aspects of each section to understand what is happening in your iterations. Ideal Ah, isn’t that a pretty picture? Unfortunately, it’s also very unrealistic. I’ve seen iterations that come close to ideal, but never that match perfectly. If your iteration matches perfectly, chances are, someone is playing with the numbers. Reality is just too difficult to have a burndown chart that matches this exactly. Late Planning Iteration started, but the team didn’t. You can tell this by the fact that the real number of estimated hours didn’t appear until day two. In the cumulative flow, you can also see that nothing was defined in Day one and two. You want to avoid situations like this. You’ll note that the team had to burn faster than is ideal to meet the iteration because of the late planning. This often results in long weeks and days. Testing Starved Determining whether or not testing is starved is difficult without the cumulative flow. The pattern in the burndown could be nothing more that developers not completing stories early enough or could be caused by stories being too big. With the cumulative flow, however, you see that only small bites are in progress and stories were completed early, but testing didn’t start testing until the end of the iteration, and didn’t complete testing all stories in the iteration. When this happens, question whether or not your testing resources are sufficient for your team and whether or not acceptance is adequately defined. No Testing With this one, both graphs show the same thing; the team needs testers and testing! Without testing, what was completed cannot be verified to make sure that it is acceptable to the business. If you find yourself in this situation, review your testing practices and acceptance testing process and make changes today. Late Development With this situation, both graphs tell a story. In the top graph, you can see that the hours failed to burn down as quickly as the team expected. This could be caused by the team not correctly estimating their hours or the team could have had illness or some other issue that affected them. Often, when teams are tackling something that is more unknown, they’ll run into technical barriers that cause the burn down to happen slower than expected. In the cumulative flow graph, you can see that not much was completed in the first few days. This could be because of illness or technical barriers or simply poor estimation. Testing was able to keep up with everything that was completed, however. No Tool Updating When you see graphs that look like this, you can be assured that it’s because the team is not updating the tool that generates the graphs. Review your policy for when they are to update. On the teams that I run, I require that each team member updates the tool at least once daily. You should also check to see how well the team is breaking down stories into tasks. If they’re creating few large tasks, graphs can look similar to this. As a general rule, I never allow tasks, other than Unit Testing and Uncertainty, to be greater than eight hours in duration. Scope Increase I always encourage team members to enter in however much time they think they have left on a task, even if that means increasing the total amount of time left to do. You get a much better and more realistic picture this way. Increasing time remaining could explain the burndown graph, but by looking at the cumulative flow graph, we can see that stories were added to the iteration and scope was increased. Since planning should consume all of the hours in the iteration, this is almost always a bad thing. If the scope change happened late in the iteration and the hours remaining were well below the ideal burn, then increasing scope is probably o.k., but estimation needs to get better. However, with the charts above, that’s clearly not what happened and the team was required to do extra work to make the iteration. If you find this happening, your product owner and ScrumMasters need training. The team also needs to learn to say no. Scope Decrease Scope decreases are just as bad as scope increases. Usually, graphs above show that the team did a poor job of estimating their stories and part way through had to reduce scope to change the iteration. This will happen once in a while, but if you find it’s a pattern on your team, you need to re-evaluate planning. Some teams are hopelessly optimistic. In those cases, I’ll introduce a task I call “Uncertainty.” With Uncertainty, the team estimates how many hours they might need if things don’t go well with the tasks they’ve defined. They try to estimate things that could go poorly and increase the time appropriately. Having an Uncertainty task allows them to have a low and high estimate. Uncertainty should not just be an arbitrary buffer. It must correlate to real uncertainty in the tasks that have been defined. Stories are too Big Often, we see graphs like the ones above. Note that the burndown looks fairly good, other than the chunky acceptance of stories. However, when you look at cumulative flow, you can see that at one point, everything is in progress. This is a bad thing. When you see graphs like this, you’re in one of two states. You may just have a very small team and can only handle one or two stories in your iteration. If you have more than one or two people, then the most likely problem is that your stories are far too big. To combat this, break large high hour stories into smaller pieces that can be completed independently and accepted independently. If you don’t, you’ll likely be requiring your testers to do heroic things to complete testing on the last day of the iteration and you’re much more likely to have the entire iteration fail, because of the limited amount of things that can be completed. Summary There are other charts that can be useful when doing scrum. If you don’t have any big visible charts, you really need to evaluate your process and change. These charts can provide the team a wealth of information and help you write better software. If you have any questions about charts that you’re seeing on your team, contact me with a screen capture of the charts and I’ll tell you what I’m seeing in those charts. I always want this information to be useful, so please let me know if you have other questions. Technorati Tags: Agile

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• Testing Workflows &ndash; Test-After

  - by Timothy Klenke

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TimothyK/archive/2014/05/30/testing-workflows-ndash-test-after.aspxIn this post I’m going to outline a few common methods that can be used to increase the coverage of of your test suite.  This won’t be yet another post on why you should be doing testing; there are plenty of those types of posts already out there.  Assuming you know you should be testing, then comes the problem of how do I actual fit that into my day job.  When the opportunity to automate testing comes do you take it, or do you even recognize it? There are a lot of ways (workflows) to go about creating automated tests, just like there are many workflows to writing a program.  When writing a program you can do it from a top-down approach where you write the main skeleton of the algorithm and call out to dummy stub functions, or a bottom-up approach where the low level functionality is fully implement before it is quickly wired together at the end.  Both approaches are perfectly valid under certain contexts. Each approach you are skilled at applying is another tool in your tool belt.  The more vectors of attack you have on a problem – the better.  So here is a short, incomplete list of some of the workflows that can be applied to increasing the amount of automation in your testing and level of quality in general.  Think of each workflow as an opportunity that is available for you to take. Test workflows basically fall into 2 categories:  test first or test after.  Test first is the best approach.  However, this post isn’t about the one and only best approach.  I want to focus more on the lesser known, less ideal approaches that still provide an opportunity for adding tests.  In this post I’ll enumerate some test-after workflows.  In my next post I’ll cover test-first. Bug Reporting When someone calls you up or forwards you a email with a vague description of a bug its usually standard procedure to create or verify a reproduction plan for the bug via manual testing and log that in a bug tracking system.  This can be problematic.  Often reproduction plans when written down might skip a step that seemed obvious to the tester at the time or they might be missing some crucial environment setting. Instead of data entry into a bug tracking system, try opening up the test project and adding a failing unit test to prove the bug.  The test project guarantees that all aspects of the environment are setup properly and no steps are missing.  The language in the test project is much more precise than the English that goes into a bug tracking system. This workflow can easily be extended for Enhancement Requests as well as Bug Reporting. Exploratory Testing Exploratory testing comes in when you aren’t sure how the system will behave in a new scenario.  The scenario wasn’t planned for in the initial system requirements and there isn’t an existing test for it.  By definition the system behaviour is “undefined”. So write a new unit test to define that behaviour.  Add assertions to the tests to confirm your assumptions.  The new test becomes part of the living system specification that is kept up to date with the test suite. Examples This workflow is especially good when developing APIs.  When you are finally done your production API then comes the job of writing documentation on how to consume the API.  Good documentation will also include code examples.  Don’t let these code examples merely exist in some accompanying manual; implement them in a test suite. Example tests and documentation do not have to be created after the production API is complete.  It is best to write the example code (tests) as you go just before the production code. Smoke Tests Every system has a typical use case.  This represents the basic, core functionality of the system.  If this fails after an upgrade the end users will be hosed and they will be scratching their heads as to how it could be possible that an update got released with this core functionality broken. The tests for this core functionality are referred to as “smoke tests”.  It is a good idea to have them automated and run with each build in order to avoid extreme embarrassment and angry customers. Coverage Analysis Code coverage analysis is a tool that reports how much of the production code base is exercised by the test suite.  In Visual Studio this can be found under the Test main menu item. The tool will report a total number for the code coverage, which can be anywhere between 0 and 100%.  Coverage Analysis shouldn’t be used strictly for numbers reporting.  Companies shouldn’t set minimum coverage targets that mandate that all projects must have at least 80% or 100% test coverage.  These arbitrary requirements just invite gaming of the coverage analysis, which makes the numbers useless. The analysis tool will break down the coverage by the various classes and methods in projects.  Instead of focusing on the total number, drill down into this view and see which classes have high or low coverage.  It you are surprised by a low number on a class this is an opportunity to add tests. When drilling through the classes there will be generally two types of reaction to a surprising low test coverage number.  The first reaction type is a recognition that there is low hanging fruit to be picked.  There may be some classes or methods that aren’t being tested, which could easy be.  The other reaction type is “OMG”.  This were you find a critical piece of code that isn’t under test.  In both cases, go and add the missing tests. Test Refactoring The general theme of this post up to this point has been how to add more and more tests to a test suite.  I’ll step back from that a bit and remind that every line of code is a liability.  Each line of code has to be read and maintained, which costs money.  This is true regardless whether the code is production code or test code. Remember that the primary goal of the test suite is that it be easy to read so that people can easily determine the specifications of the system.  Make sure that adding more and more tests doesn’t interfere with this primary goal. Perform code reviews on the test suite as often as on production code.  Hold the test code up to the same high readability standards as the production code.  If the tests are hard to read then change them.  Look to remove duplication.  Duplicate setup code between two or more test methods that can be moved to a shared function.  Entire test methods can be removed if it is found that the scenario it tests is covered by other tests.  Its OK to delete a test that isn’t pulling its own weight anymore. Remember to only start refactoring when all the test are green.  Don’t refactor the tests and the production code at the same time.  An automated test suite can be thought of as a double entry book keeping system.  The unchanging, passing production code serves as the tests for the test suite while refactoring the tests. As with all refactoring, it is best to fit this into your regular work rather than asking for time later to get it done.  Fit this into the standard red-green-refactor cycle.  The refactor step no only applies to production code but also the tests, but not at the same time.  Perhaps the cycle should be called red-green-refactor production-refactor tests (not quite as catchy).   That about covers most of the test-after workflows I can think of.  In my next post I’ll get into test-first workflows.

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• Are IE 9 will have a place in heart of user ?

  - by anirudha

  in a advertisement of IE 9 MSFT compare two product first is their IE9 and second is chrome 6. I know 6 is not currently [9] but no objection because may be they make ads when 6 is currently version and have RC or beta in their hands. on IE 9 test-drive website they show many of people ads to show the user that IE9 is performance better or other chrome or Firefox not. well they not compare with Firefox because last days firefox not still in news and search trends like before RC release many of user googling for them. Well I myself found IE9 perform smoother then chrome. but what MSFT do after IE9 nothing they waiting for IE 10 not for give updates not as well as Google chrome and Firefox. Are IE9 have anything new for Developer even a small or big. well they tell you blah or useless things everytime when they make for next version no matter for you but a matter for them because they add a new thing even useless for developer. I am not have any feeling with IE bad but I like to make reviews as well as I can make. I show you something who I experience with IE and someother browser like Chrome and Firefox. IE 9 still have no plugin as well as other provided like Firefox have Firebug a great utilities who is best option for developer to debug their code. IE9 developer tool is good but still you never customize them or readymade customization available to work as in firefox many of person make customization for firebug like example :- firepicker for picking color in firebug , firebug autocomplete for intellisense like feature when you write JavaScript inside console panel , pixelperfect , firequery , sitepoint reference and many other great example we all love to use. as other things that Firefox give many things customizable like themes , ui and many thing customization means more thing user or developer want to make themselves and more contribution make them better software so Firefox is great because customization is a great thing inside firefox and chrome. if you read some post of developer on MSDN to what’s new in IE 9 developer tool that you feel they are joking whenever you see some other things of Firefox and chrome. in a Firefox a plugin perform many much things but in IE still use IE 9 developer tool no other option like in Firefox use Firebug and many other utilities to make development easier and time saving and best as we can do.if you see Firefox page on mozilla that sublines of firefox is high performance easy customization advanced security well you can say what’s performance but there is no comparison with IE because IE have only performance and nothing else. but Firefox have these three thing to make product love. and third thing I really love that security yeah security. from long time before whenever IE6 is no hackproff and many other easily hack IE6 whenever Firefox is secure. I found myself that many of website install a software on client’s computer and they still not know about them so they track everything. sometime they hijack the homepage and make their website as their homepage. sometime they do something and you trying  to go to  any website then they go to their site first. the problem I telling about not long before it’s time of late in 2008 whenever Firefox is much better then IE6. if someone have bad experience with anyone of these software share with us I like to hear your voice. whenever IE still not for use Firefox is a good option for us even user or developer. I not know why someone make next version of IE. IE still have time to go away from Web. Firefox not rude as IE they still believe in user feedback and chrome is also open the door for feedback on their product gooogle Chrome. but what thing they made in IE on user feedback nothing. they still thing to teach what they maked not thing about what user need. if you spent some hour on firefox and chrome then you found what’s matter. what thing you have whenever you use IE or other browser like google chrome and Firefox :- as a user IE give you nothing even tell you blah blah and more blah but still next version of IE means next IE6 for the web. as in Google chrome you find plugins addons or customization to make experience better but in IE9 you can’t customize anything even the themes they have by default. Firefox already have a great list of plugins or addons to make experience better with Web but IE9 have nothing. this means IE9 not for user and other like chrome and firefox give you much better experience then IE. next thing after user is developer. first thing is that all developer want smooth development who save their time not take too perhaps saving.posts on IE9 show that a list of thing improved in IE 9 developer tool but are one developer tool enough for web development so developer need more utilities to solve different different type of puzzle who IE 9 never give like in Firefox you have utilities to do a task even small or big one. in chrome same experience you have but IE9 never give any plugin or utilities to make our work faster even they are new headache for developer because IE not give update as soon as other because in Firefox and in chrome if a bug is reported then they solve them fast and distribute them in next version of software very soon but in IE wait for a long time like IE 9 and IE 8 have no official release between them as update. As my conclusion there is no reason to use IE and adopt 9 again. it’s really not for Developer or user even newbie or smart people. as a rule I want to beware you with IE because it’s my responsibilities to move the thing in good way as I can make. well are you sure that there is no reason or profit they thing to have with IE9  if not why they forget luna [windows xp] user. because they are old nothing they want to force user to give them some money by purchasing a new version of OS. so this a thing why they marketed their software. if you thing about what firefox and chrome want to make : Mozilla's mission is to promote openness, innovation and opportunity on the web. chrome mission we all see whenever we use them. but IE9 is a trick they promote because they want to add something to next version of windows. if somebody like IE9 [even surprised by ads they see or post they read] then they purchase windows soon as they possible. Well you feel that I am opposition of IE9 and favor of chrome and Firefox yeah you feel right I hate IE from a heart not from a pencil. well you get same thing when you have trying three product major I described here Chrome firefox and IE. well don’t believe on the blogs , posts or article who are provided by the merchant or vender’s website. open the eyes read and thing what they talk and feel are they really true. if you confused that compare with some other. now you know the true because no one telling so badly as a user can described who use them not only one who make their feature. always open the eyes don’t believe use your mind and find the truth. thanks for reading my post good bye and take care

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• Real tortoises keep it slow and steady. How about the backups?

  - by Maria Zakourdaev

    … Four tortoises were playing in the backyard when they decided they needed hibiscus flower snacks. They pooled their money and sent the smallest tortoise out to fetch the snacks. Two days passed and there was no sign of the tortoise. "You know, she is taking a lot of time", said one of the tortoises. A little voice from just out side the fence said, "If you are going to talk that way about me I won't go." Is it too much to request from the quite expensive 3rd party backup tool to be a way faster than the SQL server native backup? Or at least save a respectable amount of storage by producing a really smaller backup files?  By saying “really smaller”, I mean at least getting a file in half size. After Googling the internet in an attempt to understand what other “sql people” are using for database backups, I see that most people are using one of three tools which are the main players in SQL backup area:  LiteSpeed by Quest SQL Backup by Red Gate SQL Safe by Idera The feedbacks about those tools are truly emotional and happy. However, while reading the forums and blogs I have wondered, is it possible that many are accustomed to using the above tools since SQL 2000 and 2005.  This can easily be understood due to the fact that a 300GB database backup for instance, using regular a SQL 2005 backup statement would have run for about 3 hours and have produced ~150GB file (depending on the content, of course).  Then you take a 3rd party tool which performs the same backup in 30 minutes resulting in a 30GB file leaving you speechless, you run to management persuading them to buy it due to the fact that it is definitely worth the price. In addition to the increased speed and disk space savings you would also get backup file encryption and virtual restore -  features that are still missing from the SQL server. But in case you, as well as me, don’t need these additional features and only want a tool that performs a full backup MUCH faster AND produces a far smaller backup file (like the gain you observed back in SQL 2005 days) you will be quite disappointed. SQL Server backup compression feature has totally changed the market picture. Medium size database. Take a look at the table below, check out how my SQL server 2008 R2 compares to other tools when backing up a 300GB database. It appears that when talking about the backup speed, SQL 2008 R2 compresses and performs backup in similar overall times as all three other tools. 3rd party tools maximum compression level takes twice longer. Backup file gain is not that impressive, except the highest compression levels but the price that you pay is very high cpu load and much longer time. Only SQL Safe by Idera was quite fast with it’s maximum compression level but most of the run time have used 95% cpu on the server. Note that I have used two types of destination storage, SATA 11 disks and FC 53 disks and, obviously, on faster storage have got my backup ready in half time. Looking at the above results, should we spend money, bother with another layer of complexity and software middle-man for the medium sized databases? I’m definitely not going to do so.  Very large database As a next phase of this benchmark, I have moved to a 6 terabyte database which was actually my main backup target. Note, how multiple files usage enables the SQL Server backup operation to use parallel I/O and remarkably increases it’s speed, especially when the backup device is heavily striped. SQL Server supports a maximum of 64 backup devices for a single backup operation but the most speed is gained when using one file per CPU, in the case above 8 files for a 2 Quad CPU server. The impact of additional files is minimal.  However, SQLsafe doesn’t show any speed improvement between 4 files and 8 files. Of course, with such huge databases every half percent of the compression transforms into the noticeable numbers. Saving almost 470GB of space may turn the backup tool into quite valuable purchase. Still, the backup speed and high CPU are the variables that should be taken into the consideration. As for us, the backup speed is more critical than the storage and we cannot allow a production server to sustain 95% cpu for such a long time. Bottomline, 3rd party backup tool developers, we are waiting for some breakthrough release. There are a few unanswered questions, like the restore speed comparison between different tools and the impact of multiple backup files on restore operation. Stay tuned for the next benchmarks.    Benchmark server: SQL Server 2008 R2 sp1 2 Quad CPU Database location: NetApp FC 15K Aggregate 53 discs Backup statements: No matter how good that UI is, we need to run the backup tasks from inside of SQL Server Agent to make sure they are covered by our monitoring systems. I have used extended stored procedures (command line execution also is an option, I haven’t noticed any impact on the backup performance). SQL backup LiteSpeed SQL Backup SQL safe backup database <DBNAME> to disk= '\\<networkpath>\par1.bak' , disk= '\\<networkpath>\par2.bak', disk= '\\<networkpath>\par3.bak' with format, compression EXECUTE master.dbo.xp_backup_database @database = N'<DBName>', @backupname= N'<DBName> full backup', @desc = N'Test', @compressionlevel=8, @filename= N'\\<networkpath>\par1.bak', @filename= N'\\<networkpath>\par2.bak', @filename= N'\\<networkpath>\par3.bak', @init = 1 EXECUTE master.dbo.sqlbackup '-SQL "BACKUP DATABASE <DBNAME> TO DISK= ''\\<networkpath>\par1.sqb'', DISK= ''\\<networkpath>\par2.sqb'', DISK= ''\\<networkpath>\par3.sqb'' WITH DISKRETRYINTERVAL = 30, DISKRETRYCOUNT = 10, COMPRESSION = 4, INIT"' EXECUTE master.dbo.xp_ss_backup @database = 'UCMSDB', @filename = '\\<networkpath>\par1.bak', @backuptype = 'Full', @compressionlevel = 4, @backupfile = '\\<networkpath>\par2.bak', @backupfile = '\\<networkpath>\par3.bak' If you still insist on using 3rd party tools for the backups in your production environment with maximum compression level, you will definitely need to consider limiting cpu usage which will increase the backup operation time even more: RedGate : use THREADPRIORITY option ( values 0 – 6 ) LiteSpeed : use  @throttle ( percentage, like 70%) SQL safe :  the only thing I have found was @Threads option.   Yours, Maria

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