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• Setting up a new Silverlight 4 Project with WCF RIA Services

  - by Kevin Grossnicklaus

  Many of my clients are actively using Silverlight 4 and RIA Services to build powerful line of business applications.  Getting things set up correctly is critical to being to being able to take full advantage of the RIA services plumbing and when developers struggle with the setup they tend to shy away from the solution as a whole.  I’m a big proponent of RIA services and wanted to take the opportunity to share some of my experiences in setting up these types of projects.  In late 2010 I presented a RIA Services Master Class here in St. Louis, MO through my firm (ArchitectNow) and the information shared in this post was promised during that presentation. One other thing I want to mention before diving in is the existence of a number of other great posts on this subject.  I’ve learned a lot from many of them and wanted to call out a few of them.  The purpose of my post is to point out some of the gotchas that people get caught up on in the process but I would still encourage you to do as much additional research as you can to find the perfect setup for your needs. Here are a few additional blog posts and articles you should check out on the subject: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee707351(VS.91).aspx http://adam-thompson.com/post/2010/07/03/Getting-Started-with-WCF-RIA-Services-for-Silverlight-4.aspx Technologies I don’t intend for this post to turn into a full WCF RIA Services tutorial but I did want to point out what technologies we will be using: Visual Studio.NET 2010 Silverlight 4.0 WCF RIA Services for Visual Studio 2010 Entity Framework 4.0 I also wanted to point out that the screenshots came from my personal development box which has a number of additional plug-ins and frameworks loaded so a few of the screenshots might not match 100% with what you see on your own machines. If you do not have Visual Studio 2010 you can download the express version from http://www.microsoft.com/express.  The Silverlight 4.0 tools and the WCF RIA Services components are installed via the Web Platform Installer (http://www.microsoft.com/web/download). Also, the examples given in this post are done in C#…sorry to you VB folks but the concepts are 100% identical. Setting up anew RIA Services Project This section will provide a step-by-step walkthrough of setting up a new RIA services project using a shared DLL for server side code and a simple Entity Framework model for data access.  All projects are created with the consistent ArchitectNow.RIAServices filename prefix and default namespace.  This would be modified to match your companies standards. First, open Visual Studio and open the new project window via File->New->Project.  In the New Project window, select the Silverlight folder in the Installed Templates section on the left and select “Silverlight Application” as your project type.  Verify your solution name and location are set appropriately.  Note that the project name we specified in the example below ends with .Client.  This indicates the name which will be given to our Silverlight project. I consider Silverlight a client-side technology and thus use this name to reflect that.  Click Ok to continue. During the creation on a new Silverlight 4 project you will be prompted with the following dialog to create a new web ASP.NET web project to host your Silverlight content.  As we are demonstrating the setup of a WCF RIA Services infrastructure, make sure the “Enable WCF RIA Services” option is checked and click OK.  Obviously, there are some other options here which have an effect on your solution and you are welcome to look around.  For our example we are going to leave the ASP.NET Web Application Project selected.  If you are interested in having your Silverlight project hosted in an MVC 2 application or a Web Site project these options are available as well.  Also, whichever web project type you select, the name can be modified here as well.  Note that it defaults to the same name as your Silverlight project with the addition of a .Web suffix. At this point, your full Silverlight 4 project and host ASP.NET Web Application should be created and will now display in your Visual Studio solution explorer as part of a single Visual Studio solution as follows: Now we want to add our WCF RIA Services projects to this same solution.  To do so, right-click on the Solution node in the solution explorer and select Add->New Project.  In the New Project dialog again select the Silverlight folder under the Visual C# node on the left and, in the main area of the screen, select the WCF RIA Services Class Library project template as shown below.  Make sure your project name is set appropriately as well.  For the sample below, we will name the project “ArchitectNow.RIAServices.Server.Entities”.   The .Server.Entities suffix we use is meant to simply indicate that this particular project will contain our WCF RIA Services entity classes (as you will see below).  Click OK to continue. Once you have created the WCF RIA Services Class Library specified above, Visual Studio will automatically add TWO projects to your solution.  The first will be an project called .Server.Entities (using our naming conventions) and the other will have the same name with a .Web extension.  The full solution (with all 4 projects) is shown in the image below.  The .Entities project will essentially remain empty and is actually a Silverlight 4 class library that will contain generated RIA Services domain objects.  It will be referenced by our front-end Silverlight project and thus allow for simplified sharing of code between the client and the server.   The .Entities.Web project is a .NET 4.0 class library into which we will put our data access code (via Entity Framework).  This is our server side code and business logic and the RIA Services plumbing will maintain a link between this project and the front end.  Specific entities such as our domain objects and other code we set to be shared will be copied automatically into the .Entities project to be used in both the front end and the back end. At this point, we want to do a little cleanup of the projects in our solution and we will do so by deleting the “Class1.cs” class from both the .Entities project and the .Entities.Web project.  (Has anyone ever intentionally named a class “Class1”?) Next, we need to configure a few references to make RIA Services work.  THIS IS A KEY STEP THAT CAUSES MANY HEADACHES FOR DEVELOPERS NEW TO THIS INFRASTRUCTURE! Using the Add References dialog in Visual Studio, add a project reference from the *.Client project (our Silverlight 4 client) to the *.Entities project (our RIA Services class library).  Next, again using the Add References dialog in Visual Studio, add a project reference from the *.Client.Web project (our ASP.NET host project) to the *.Entities.Web project (our back-end data services DLL).  To get to the Add References dialog, simply right-click on the project you with to add a reference to in the Visual Studio solution explorer and select “Add Reference” from the resulting context menu.  You will want to make sure these references are added as “Project” references to simplify your future debugging.  To reiterate the reference direction using the project names we have utilized in this example thus far:  .Client references .Entities and .Client.Web reference .Entities.Web.  If you have opted for a different naming convention, then the Silverlight project must reference the RIA Services Silverlight class library and the ASP.NET host project must reference the server-side class library. Next, we are going to add a new Entity Framework data model to our data services project (.Entities.Web).  We will do this by right clicking on this project (ArchitectNow.Server.Entities.Web in the above diagram) and selecting Add->New Project.  In the New Project dialog we will select ADO.NET Entity Data Model as in the following diagram.  For now we will call this simply SampleDataModel.edmx and click OK. It is worth pointing out that WCF RIA Services is in no way tied to the Entity Framework as a means of accessing data and any data access technology is supported (as long as the server side implementation maps to the RIA Services pattern which is a topic beyond the scope of this post).  We are using EF to quickly demonstrate the RIA Services concepts and setup infrastructure, as such, I am not providing a database schema with this post but am instead connecting to a small sample database on my local machine.  The following diagram shows a simple EF Data Model with two tables that I reverse engineered from a local data store.   If you are putting together your own solution, feel free to reverse engineer a few tables from any local database to which you have access. At this point, once you have an EF data model generated as an EDMX into your .Entites.Web project YOU MUST BUILD YOUR SOLUTION.  I know it seems strange to call that out but it important that the solution be built at this point for the next step to be successful.  Obviously, if you have any build errors, these must be addressed at this point. At this point we will add a RIA Services Domain Service to our .Entities.Web project (our server side code).  We will need to right-click on the .Entities.Web project and select Add->New Item.  In the Add New Item dialog, select Domain Service Class and verify the name of your new Domain Service is correct (ours is called SampleService.cs in the image below).  Next, click "Add”. After clicking “Add” to include the Domain Service Class in the selected project, you will be presented with the following dialog.  In it, you can choose which entities from the selected EDMX to include in your services and if they should be allowed to be edited (i.e. inserted, updated, or deleted) via this service.  If the “Available DataContext/ObjectContext classes” dropdown is empty, this indicates you have not yes successfully built your project after adding your EDMX.  I would also recommend verifying that the “Generate associated classes for metadata” option is selected.  Once you have selected the appropriate options, click “OK”. Once you have added the domain service class to the .Entities.Web project, the resulting solution should look similar to the following: Note that in the solution you now have a SampleDataModel.edmx which represents your EF data mapping to your database and a SampleService.cs which will contain a large amount of generated RIA Services code which RIA Services utilizes to access this data from the Silverlight front-end.  You will put all your server side data access code and logic into the SampleService.cs class.  The SampleService.metadata.cs class is for decorating the generated domain objects with attributes from the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace for validation purposes. FINAL AND KEY CONFIGURATION STEP!  One key step that causes significant headache to developers configuring RIA Services for the first time is the fact that, when we added the EDMX to the .Entities.Web project for our EF data access, a connection string was generated and placed within a newly generated App.Context file within that project.  While we didn’t point it out at the time you can see it in the image above.  This connection string will be required for the EF data model to successfully locate it’s data.  Also, when we added the Domain Service class to the .Entities.Web project, a number of RIA Services configuration options were added to the same App.Config file.   Unfortunately, when we ultimately begin to utilize the RIA Services infrastructure, our Silverlight UI will be making RIA services calls through the ASP.NET host project (i.e. .Client.Web).  This host project has a reference to the .Entities.Web project which actually contains the code so all will pass through correctly EXCEPT the fact that the host project will utilize it’s own Web.Config for any configuration settings.  For this reason we must now merge all the sections of the App.Config file in the .Entities.Web project into the Web.Config file in the .Client.Web project.  I know this is a bit tedious and I wish there were a simpler solution but it is required for our RIA Services Domain Service to be made available to the front end Silverlight project.  Much of this manual merge can be achieved by simply cutting and pasting from App.Config into Web.Config.  Unfortunately, the <system.webServer> section will exist in both and the contents of this section will need to be manually merged.  Fortunately, this is a step that needs to be taken only once per solution.  As you add additional data structures and Domain Services methods to the server no additional changes will be necessary to the Web.Config. Next Steps At this point, we have walked through the basic setup of a simple RIA services solution.  Unfortunately, there is still a lot to know about RIA services and we have not even begun to take advantage of the plumbing which we just configured (meaning we haven’t even made a single RIA services call).  I plan on posting a few more introductory posts over the next few weeks to take us to this step.  If you have any questions on the content in this post feel free to reach out to me via this Blog and I’ll gladly point you in (hopefully) the right direction. Resources Prior to closing out this post, I wanted to share a number or resources to help you get started with RIA services.  While I plan on posting more on the subject, I didn’t invent any of this stuff and wanted to give credit to the following areas for helping me put a lot of these pieces into place.   The books and online resources below will go a long way to making you extremely productive with RIA services in the shortest time possible.  The only thing required of you is the dedication to take advantage of the resources available. Books Pro Business Applications with Silverlight 4 http://www.amazon.com/Pro-Business-Applications-Silverlight-4/dp/1430272074/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1291048751&sr=8-2 Silverlight 4 in Action http://www.amazon.com/Silverlight-4-Action-Pete-Brown/dp/1935182374/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1291048751&sr=8-1 Pro Silverlight for the Enterprise (Books for Professionals by Professionals) http://www.amazon.com/Pro-Silverlight-Enterprise-Books-Professionals/dp/1430218673/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1291048751&sr=8-3 Web Content RIA Services http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/RobBagby/NET-RIA-Services-in-5-Minutes http://silverlight.net/riaservices/ http://www.silverlight.net/learn/videos/all/net-ria-services-intro/ http://www.silverlight.net/learn/videos/all/ria-services-support-visual-studio-2010/ http://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/Silverlight4/SL4BusinessModule2/SL4LOB_02_01_RIAServices http://www.myvbprof.com/MainSite/index.aspx#/zSL4_RIA_01 http://channel9.msdn.com/blogs/egibson/silverlight-firestarter-ria-services http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee707336%28v=VS.91%29.aspx Silverlight www.silverlight.net http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/silverlight4trainingcourse.aspx http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/silverlighttv

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• Continuous Integration for SQL Server Part II – Integration Testing

  - by Ben Rees

  My previous post, on setting up Continuous Integration for SQL Server databases using GitHub, Bamboo and Red Gate’s tools, covered the first two parts of a simple Database Continuous Delivery process: Putting your database in to a source control system, and, Running a continuous integration process, each time changes are checked in. However there is, of course, a lot more to to Continuous Delivery than that. Specifically, in addition to the above: Putting some actual integration tests in to the CI process (otherwise, they don’t really do much, do they!?), Deploying the database changes with a managed, automated approach, Monitoring what you’ve just put live, to make sure you haven’t broken anything. This post will detail how to set up a very simple pipeline for implementing the first of these (continuous integration testing). NB: A lot of the setup in this post is built on top of the configuration from before, so it might be difficult to implement this post without running through part I first. There’ll then be a third post on automated database deployment followed by a final post dealing with the last item – monitoring changes on the live system. In the previous post, I used a mixture of Red Gate products and other 3rd party software – GitHub and Atlassian Bamboo specifically. This was partly because I believe most people work in an heterogeneous environment, using software from different vendors to suit their purposes and I wanted to show how this could work for this process. For example, you could easily substitute Atlassian’s BitBucket or Stash for GitHub, depending on your needs, or use an alternative CI server such as TeamCity, TFS or Jenkins. However, in this, post, I’ll be mostly using Red Gate products only (other than tSQLt). I would do this, firstly because I work for Red Gate. However, I also think that in the area of Database Delivery processes, nobody else has the offerings to implement this process fully – so I didn’t have any choice!   Background on Continuous Delivery For me, a great source of information on what makes a proper Continuous Delivery process is the Jez Humble and David Farley classic: Continuous Delivery – Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation This book is not of course, primarily about databases, and the process I outline here and in the previous article is a gross simplification of what Jez and David describe (not least because it’s that much harder for databases!). However, a lot of the principles that they describe can be equally applied to database development and, I would argue, should be. As I say however, what I describe here is a very simple version of what would be required for a full production process. A couple of useful resources on handling some of these complexities can be found in the following two references: Refactoring Databases – Evolutionary Database Design, by Scott J Ambler and Pramod J. Sadalage Versioning Databases – Branching and Merging, by Scott Allen In particular, I don’t deal at all with the issues of multiple branches and merging of those branches, an issue made particularly acute by the use of GitHub. The other point worth making is that, in the words of Martin Fowler: Continuous Delivery is about keeping your application in a state where it is always able to deploy into production.   I.e. we are not talking about continuously delivery updates to the production database every time someone checks in an amendment to a stored procedure. That is possible (and what Martin calls Continuous Deployment). However, again, that’s more than I describe in this article. And I doubt I need to remind DBAs or Developers to Proceed with Caution!   Integration Testing Back to something practical. The next stage, building on our set up from the previous article, is to add in some integration tests to the process. As I say, the CI process, though interesting, isn’t enormously useful without some sort of test process running. For this we’ll use the tSQLt framework, an open source framework designed specifically for running SQL Server tests. tSQLt is part of Red Gate’s SQL Test found on http://www.red-gate.com/products/sql-development/sql-test/ or can be downloaded separately from www.tsqlt.org - though I’ll provide a step-by-step guide below for setting this up. Getting tSQLt set up via SQL Test Click on the link http://www.red-gate.com/products/sql-development/sql-test/ and click on the blue Download button to download the Red Gate SQL Test product, if not already installed. Follow the install process for SQL Test to install the SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) plugin on to your machine, if not already installed. Open SSMS. You should now see SQL Test under the Tools menu:   Clicking this link will give you the basic SQL Test dialogue: As yet, though we’ve installed the SQL Test product we haven’t yet installed the tSQLt test framework on to any particular database. To do this, we need to add our RedGateApp database using this dialogue, by clicking on the + Add Database to SQL Test… link, selecting the RedGateApp database and clicking the Add Database link:   In the next screen, SQL Test describes what will be installed on the database for the tSQLt framework. Also in this dialogue, uncheck the “Add SQL Cop tests” option (shown below). SQL Cop is a great set of pre-defined tests that work within the tSQLt framework to check the general health of your SQL Server database. However, we won’t be using them in this particular simple example: Once you’ve clicked on the OK button, the changes described in the dialogue will be made to your database. Some of these are shown in the left-hand-side below: We’ve now installed the framework. However, we haven’t actually created any tests, so this will be the next step. But, before we proceed, we’ve made an update to our database so should, again check this in to source control, adding comments as required:   Also worth a quick check that your build still runs with the new additions!: (And a quick check of the RedGateAppCI database shows that the changes have been made).   Creating and Testing a Unit Test There are, of course, a lot of very interesting unit tests that you could and should set up for a database. The great thing about the tSQLt framework is that you can write these in SQL. The example I’m going to use here is pretty Mickey Mouse – our database table is going to include some email addresses as reference data and I want to check whether these are all in a correct email format. Nothing clever but it illustrates the process and hopefully shows the method by which more interesting tests could be set up. Adding Reference Data to our Database To start, I want to add some reference data to my database, and have this source controlled (as well as the schema). First of all I need to add some data in to my solitary table – this can be done a number of ways, but I’ll do this in SSMS for simplicity: I then add some reference data to my table: Currently this reference data just exists in the database. For proper integration testing, this needs to form part of the source-controlled version of the database – and so needs to be added to the Git repository. This can be done via SQL Source Control, though first a Primary Key needs to be added to the table. Right click the table, select Design, then right-click on the first “id” row. Then click on “Set Primary Key”: NB: once this change is made, click Save to save the change to the table. Then, to source control this reference data, right click on the table (dbo.Email) and selecting the following option:   In the next screen, link the data in the Email table, by selecting it from the list and clicking “save and close”: We should at this point re-commit the changes (both the addition of the Primary Key, and the data) to the Git repo. NB: From here on, I won’t show screenshots for the GitHub side of things – it’s the same each time: whenever a change is made in SQL Source Control and committed to your local folder, you then need to sync this in the GitHub Windows client (as this is where the build server, Bamboo is taking it from). An interesting point to note here, when these changes are committed in SQL Source Control (right-click database and select “Commit Changes to Source Control..”): The display gives a warning about possibly needing a migration script for the “Add Primary Key” step of the changes. This isn’t actually necessary in this case, but this mechanism would allow you to create override scripts to replace the default change scripts created by the SQL Compare engine (which runs underneath SQL Source Control). Ignoring this message (!), we add a comment and commit the changes to Git. I then sync these, run a build (or the build gets run automatically), and check that the data is being deployed over to the target RedGateAppCI database:   Creating and Running the Test As I mention, the test I’m going to use here is a very simple one - are the email addresses in my reference table valid? This isn’t of course, a full test of email validation (I expect the email addresses I’ve chosen here aren’t really the those of the Fab Four) – but just a very basic check of format used. I’ve taken the relevant SQL from this Stack Overflow article. In SSMS select “SQL Test” from the Tools menu, then click on + New Test: In the next screen, give your new test a name, and also enter a name in the Test Class box (test classes are schemas that help you keep things organised). Also check that the database in which the test is going to be created is correct – RedGateApp in this example: Click “Create Test”. After closing a couple of subsequent dialogues, you’ll see a dummy script for the test, that needs filling in:   We now need to define the SQL for our test. As mentioned before, tSQLt allows you to write your unit tests in T-SQL, and the code I’m going to use here is as below. This needs to be copied and pasted in to the query window, to replace the default given by tSQLt: –  Basic email check test ALTER PROCEDURE [MyChecks].[test Check Email Addresses] AS BEGIN SET NOCOUNT ON         Declare @Output VarChar(max)     Set @Output = ”       SELECT  @Output = @Output + Email +Char(13) + Char(10) FROM dbo.Email WHERE email NOT LIKE ‘%_@__%.__%’       If @Output > ”         Begin             Set @Output = Char(13) + Char(10)                           + @Output             EXEC tSQLt.Fail@Output         End   END;   Once this script is entered, hit execute to add the Stored Procedure to the database. Before committing the test to source control,  it’s worth just checking that it works! For a positive test, click on “SQL Test” from the Tools menu, then click Run Tests. You should see output like the following: - a green tick to indicate success! But of course, what we also need to do is test that this is actually doing something by showing a failed test. Edit one of the email addresses in your table to an incorrect format: Now, re-run the same SQL Test as before and you’ll see the following: Great – we now know that our test is really doing something! You’ll also see a useful error message at the bottom of SSMS: (leave the email address as invalid for now, for the next steps). The next stage is to check this new test in to source control again, by right-clicking on the database and checking in the changes with a commit message (and not forgetting to sync in the GitHub client):   Checking that the Tests are Running as Integration Tests After the changes above are made, and after a build has run on Bamboo (manual or automatic), looking at the Stored Procedures for the RedGateAppCI, the SPROC for the new test has been moved over to the database. However this is not exactly what we were after. We didn’t want to just copy objects from one database to another, but actually run the tests as part of the build/integration test process. I.e. we’re continuously checking any changes we make (in this case, to the reference data emails), to ensure we’re not breaking a test that we’ve set up. The behaviour we want to see is that, if we check in static data that is incorrect (as we did in step 9 above) and we have the tSQLt test set up, then our build in Bamboo should fail. However, re-running the build shows the following: - sadly, a successful build! To make sure the tSQLt tests are run as part of the integration test, we need to amend a switch in the Red Gate CI config file. First, navigate to file sqlCI.targets in your working folder: Edit this document, make the following change, save the document, then commit and sync this change in the GitHub client: <!-- tSQLt tests --> <!-- Optional --> <!-- To run tSQLt tests in source control for the database, enter true. --> <enableTsqlt>true</enableTsqlt> Now, if we re-run the build in Bamboo (NB: I’ve moved to a new server here, hence different address and build number): - superb, a broken build!! The error message isn’t great here, so to get more detailed info, click on the full build log link on this page (below the fold). The interesting part of the log shown is towards the bottom. Pulling out this part:   21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 Build FAILED. 21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 "C:\Users\Administrator\bamboo-home\xml-data\build-dir\RGA-RGP-JOB1\sqlCI.proj" (default target) (1) -> 21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 (sqlCI target) -> 21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 EXEC : sqlCI error occurred: RedGate.Deploy.SqlServerDbPackage.Shared.Exceptions.InvalidSqlException: Test Case Summary: 1 test case(s) executed, 0 succeeded, 1 failed, 0 errored. [C:\Users\Administrator\bamboo-home\xml-data\build-dir\RGA-RGP-JOB1\sqlCI.proj] 21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 EXEC : sqlCI error occurred: [MyChecks].[test Check Email Addresses] failed: [C:\Users\Administrator\bamboo-home\xml-data\build-dir\RGA-RGP-JOB1\sqlCI.proj] 21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 EXEC : sqlCI error occurred: ringo.starr@beatles [C:\Users\Administrator\bamboo-home\xml-data\build-dir\RGA-RGP-JOB1\sqlCI.proj] 21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 EXEC : sqlCI error occurred: [C:\Users\Administrator\bamboo-home\xml-data\build-dir\RGA-RGP-JOB1\sqlCI.proj] 21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 EXEC : sqlCI error occurred: +----------------------+ [C:\Users\Administrator\bamboo-home\xml-data\build-dir\RGA-RGP-JOB1\sqlCI.proj] 21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 EXEC : sqlCI error occurred: |Test Execution Summary| [C:\Users\Administrator\bamboo-home\xml-data\build-dir\RGA-RGP-JOB1\sqlCI.proj]   As a final check, we should make sure that, if we now fix this error, the build succeeds. So in SSMS, I’m going to correct the invalid email address, then check this change in to SQL Source Control (with a comment), commit to GitHub, and re-run the build:   This should have fixed the build: It worked! Summary This has been a very quick run through the implementation of CI for databases, including tSQLt tests to test whether your database updates are working. The next post in this series will focus on automated deployment – we’ve tested our database changes, how can we now deploy these to target sites?  

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• How To Run XP Mode in VirtualBox on Windows 7 (sort of)

  - by Matthew Guay

  A few weeks ago we showed you how to run XP Mode on a Windows 7 computer without Hardware Virtualization using VMware. Some of you have been asking if it can be done in Virtual Box as well. The answer is “Yes!” and here we’ll show you how. Editor Update: Apparently there isn’t a way to activate XP Mode through VirtualBox using this method. You will however, be able to run it for 30 days. We have a new updated article on how to Install XP Mode with VirtualBox Using the VMLite Plugin.   Earlier we showed you how to run XP mode on windows 7 machines without hardware virtualization capability. Since then, a lot of you have been asking to a write up a tutorial about doing the same thing using VirtualBox.  This makes it another great way to run XP Mode if your computer does not have hardware virtualization.  Here we’ll see how to import the XP Mode from Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate into VirtualBox so you can run XP in it for free. Note: You need to have Windows 7 Professional or above to use XP Mode in this manner. In our tests we were able to get it to run on Home Premium as well, but you’ll be breaking Windows 7 licensing agreements. Getting Started First, download and install XP Mode (link below).  There is no need to download Virtual PC if your computer cannot run it, so just download the XP Mode from the link on the left. Install XP mode; just follow the default prompts as usual. Now, download and install VirtualBox 3.1.2 or higher(link below).  Install as normal, and simply follow the default prompts. VirtualBox may notify you that your network connection will be reset during the installation.  Press Yes to continue. During the install, you may see several popups asking you if you wish to install device drivers for USB and Network interfaces.  Simply click install, as these are needed for VirtualBox to run correctly. Setup only took a couple minutes, and doesn’t require a reboot. Setup XP Mode in VirtualBox: First we need to copy the default XP Mode so VirtualBox will not affect the original copy.  Browse to C:\Program Files\Windows XP Mode, and copy the file “Windows XP Mode base.vhd”.  Paste it in another folder of your choice, such as your Documents folder. Once you’ve copied the file, right-click on it and click Properties. Uncheck the “Read-only” box in this dialog, and then click Ok. Now, in VirtualBox, click New to create a new virtual machine. Enter the name of your virtual machine, and make sure the operating system selected is Windows XP. Choose how much memory you want to allow the virtual machine to use.  VirtualBox’ default is 192 Mb ram, but for better performance you can select 256 or 512Mb. Now, select the hard drive for the virtual machine.  Select “Use existing hard disk”, then click the folder button to choose the XP Mode virtual drive. In this window, click Add, and then browse to find the copy of XP Mode you previously made. Make sure the correct virtual drive is selected, then press Select. After selecting the VHD your screen should look like the following then click Next. Verify the settings you made are correct. If not, you can go back and make any changes. When everything looks correct click Finish. Setup XP Mode Now, in VirtualBox, click start to run XP Mode. The Windows XP in this virtual drive is not fully setup yet, so you will have to go through the setup process.   If you didn’t uncheck the “Read-only” box in the VHD properties before, you may see the following error.  If you see it, go back and check the file to makes sure it is not read-only. When you click in the virtual machine, it will capture your mouse by default.  Simply press the right Ctrl key to release your mouse so you can go back to using Windows 7.  This will only be the case during the setup process; after the Guest Additions are installed, the mouse will seamlessly move between operating systems. Now, accept the license agreement in XP.   Choose your correct locale and keyboard settings. Enter a name for your virtual XP, and an administrative password. Check the date, time, and time zone settings, and adjust them if they are incorrect.  The time and date are usually correct, but the time zone often has to be corrected. XP will now automatically finish setting up your virtual machine, and then will automatically reboot. After rebooting, select your automatic update settings. You may see a prompt to check for drivers; simply press cancel, as all the drivers we need will be installed later with the Guest Additions. Your last settings will be finalized, and finally you will see your XP desktop in VirtualBox. Please note that XP Mode may not remain activated after importing it into VirtualBox. When you activate it, use the key that is located at C:\Program Files\Windows XP Mode\key.txt.  Note: During our tests we weren’t able to get the activation to go through. We are looking into the issue and will have a revised article showing the correct way to get XP Mode in VirutalBox working correctly soon.    Now we have one final thing to install – the VirtualBox Guest Additions.  In the VirtualBox window, click “Devices” and then select “Install Guest Additions”. This should automatically launch in XP; if it doesn’t, click Start, then My Computer, and finally double-click on the CD drive which should say VirtualBox Guest Additions. Simply install with the normal presets. You can select to install an experimental 3D graphics driver if you wish to try to run games in XP in VirtualBox; however, do note that this is not fully supported and is currently a test feature. You may see a prompt informing you that the drivers have not passed Logo testing; simply press “Continue Anyway” to proceed with the installation.   When installation has completed, you will be required to reboot your virtual machine. Now, you can move your mouse directly from Windows XP to Windows 7 without pressing Ctrl. Integrating with Windows 7 Once your virtual machine is rebooted, you can integrate it with your Windows 7 desktop.  In the VirtualBox window, click Machine and then select “Seamless Mode”.   In Seamless mode you’ll have the XP Start menu and taskbar sit on top of your Windows 7 Start and Taskbar. Here we see XP running on Virtual Box in Seamless Mode. We have the old XP WordPad sitting next to the new Windows 7 version of WordPad. Another view of everything running seamlessly together on the same Windows 7 desktop. Hover the pointer over the XP taskbar to pull up the Virtual Box menu items. You can exit out of Seamless Mode from the VirtualBox menu or using “Ctrl+L”. Then you go back to having it run separately on your desktop again. Conclusion Running XP Mode in a Virtual Machine is a great way to experience the feature on computers without Hardware Virtualization capabilities. If you prefer VMware Player, then you’ll want to check out our articles on how to run XP Mode on Windows 7 machines without Hardware Virtualization, and how to create an XP Mode for Windows 7 Home Premium and Vista. Download VirtualBox Download XP Mode Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Install XP Mode with VirtualBox Using the VMLite PluginUsing Windows 7 or Vista Compatibility ModeMake Safari Stop Crashing Every 20 Seconds on Windows VistaForce Windows 7 / Vista to Boot Into Safe Mode Without Using the F8 KeyHow To Run Chrome OS in VirtualBox TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Enable Check Box Selection in Windows 7 OnlineOCR – Free OCR Service Betting on the Blind Side, a Vanity Fair article 30 Minimal Logo Designs that Say More with Less LEGO Digital Designer – Free Create a Personal Website Quickly using Flavors.me

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• How To Run XP Mode in VirtualBox on Windows 7 (sort of)

  - by Matthew Guay

  A few weeks ago we showed you how to run XP Mode on a Windows 7 computer without Hardware Virtualization using VMware. Some of you have been asking if it can be done in Virtual Box as well. The answer is “Yes!” and here we’ll show you how. Editor Update: Apparently there isn’t a way to activate XP Mode through VirtualBox using this method. You will however, be able to run it for 30 days. We have a new updated article on how to Install XP Mode with VirtualBox Using the VMLite Plugin.   Earlier we showed you how to run XP mode on windows 7 machines without hardware virtualization capability. Since then, a lot of you have been asking to a write up a tutorial about doing the same thing using VirtualBox.  This makes it another great way to run XP Mode if your computer does not have hardware virtualization.  Here we’ll see how to import the XP Mode from Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate into VirtualBox so you can run XP in it for free. Note: You need to have Windows 7 Professional or above to use XP Mode in this manner. In our tests we were able to get it to run on Home Premium as well, but you’ll be breaking Windows 7 licensing agreements. Getting Started First, download and install XP Mode (link below).  There is no need to download Virtual PC if your computer cannot run it, so just download the XP Mode from the link on the left. Install XP mode; just follow the default prompts as usual. Now, download and install VirtualBox 3.1.2 or higher(link below).  Install as normal, and simply follow the default prompts. VirtualBox may notify you that your network connection will be reset during the installation.  Press Yes to continue. During the install, you may see several popups asking you if you wish to install device drivers for USB and Network interfaces.  Simply click install, as these are needed for VirtualBox to run correctly. Setup only took a couple minutes, and doesn’t require a reboot. Setup XP Mode in VirtualBox: First we need to copy the default XP Mode so VirtualBox will not affect the original copy.  Browse to C:\Program Files\Windows XP Mode, and copy the file “Windows XP Mode base.vhd”.  Paste it in another folder of your choice, such as your Documents folder. Once you’ve copied the file, right-click on it and click Properties. Uncheck the “Read-only” box in this dialog, and then click Ok. Now, in VirtualBox, click New to create a new virtual machine. Enter the name of your virtual machine, and make sure the operating system selected is Windows XP. Choose how much memory you want to allow the virtual machine to use.  VirtualBox’ default is 192 Mb ram, but for better performance you can select 256 or 512Mb. Now, select the hard drive for the virtual machine.  Select “Use existing hard disk”, then click the folder button to choose the XP Mode virtual drive. In this window, click Add, and then browse to find the copy of XP Mode you previously made. Make sure the correct virtual drive is selected, then press Select. After selecting the VHD your screen should look like the following then click Next. Verify the settings you made are correct. If not, you can go back and make any changes. When everything looks correct click Finish. Setup XP Mode Now, in VirtualBox, click start to run XP Mode. The Windows XP in this virtual drive is not fully setup yet, so you will have to go through the setup process.   If you didn’t uncheck the “Read-only” box in the VHD properties before, you may see the following error.  If you see it, go back and check the file to makes sure it is not read-only. When you click in the virtual machine, it will capture your mouse by default.  Simply press the right Ctrl key to release your mouse so you can go back to using Windows 7.  This will only be the case during the setup process; after the Guest Additions are installed, the mouse will seamlessly move between operating systems. Now, accept the license agreement in XP.   Choose your correct locale and keyboard settings. Enter a name for your virtual XP, and an administrative password. Check the date, time, and time zone settings, and adjust them if they are incorrect.  The time and date are usually correct, but the time zone often has to be corrected. XP will now automatically finish setting up your virtual machine, and then will automatically reboot. After rebooting, select your automatic update settings. You may see a prompt to check for drivers; simply press cancel, as all the drivers we need will be installed later with the Guest Additions. Your last settings will be finalized, and finally you will see your XP desktop in VirtualBox. Please note that XP Mode may not remain activated after importing it into VirtualBox. When you activate it, use the key that is located at C:\Program Files\Windows XP Mode\key.txt.  Note: During our tests we weren’t able to get the activation to go through. We are looking into the issue and will have a revised article showing the correct way to get XP Mode in VirutalBox working correctly soon.    Now we have one final thing to install – the VirtualBox Guest Additions.  In the VirtualBox window, click “Devices” and then select “Install Guest Additions”. This should automatically launch in XP; if it doesn’t, click Start, then My Computer, and finally double-click on the CD drive which should say VirtualBox Guest Additions. Simply install with the normal presets. You can select to install an experimental 3D graphics driver if you wish to try to run games in XP in VirtualBox; however, do note that this is not fully supported and is currently a test feature. You may see a prompt informing you that the drivers have not passed Logo testing; simply press “Continue Anyway” to proceed with the installation.   When installation has completed, you will be required to reboot your virtual machine. Now, you can move your mouse directly from Windows XP to Windows 7 without pressing Ctrl. Integrating with Windows 7 Once your virtual machine is rebooted, you can integrate it with your Windows 7 desktop.  In the VirtualBox window, click Machine and then select “Seamless Mode”.   In Seamless mode you’ll have the XP Start menu and taskbar sit on top of your Windows 7 Start and Taskbar. Here we see XP running on Virtual Box in Seamless Mode. We have the old XP WordPad sitting next to the new Windows 7 version of WordPad. Another view of everything running seamlessly together on the same Windows 7 desktop. Hover the pointer over the XP taskbar to pull up the Virtual Box menu items. You can exit out of Seamless Mode from the VirtualBox menu or using “Ctrl+L”. Then you go back to having it run separately on your desktop again. Conclusion Running XP Mode in a Virtual Machine is a great way to experience the feature on computers without Hardware Virtualization capabilities. If you prefer VMware Player, then you’ll want to check out our articles on how to run XP Mode on Windows 7 machines without Hardware Virtualization, and how to create an XP Mode for Windows 7 Home Premium and Vista. Download VirtualBox Download XP Mode Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Install XP Mode with VirtualBox Using the VMLite PluginUsing Windows 7 or Vista Compatibility ModeMake Safari Stop Crashing Every 20 Seconds on Windows VistaForce Windows 7 / Vista to Boot Into Safe Mode Without Using the F8 KeyHow To Run Chrome OS in VirtualBox TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Enable Check Box Selection in Windows 7 OnlineOCR – Free OCR Service Betting on the Blind Side, a Vanity Fair article 30 Minimal Logo Designs that Say More with Less LEGO Digital Designer – Free Create a Personal Website Quickly using Flavors.me

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• OBIEE 11.1.1 - OBIEE 11g Full Sample App on VMware Player 4

  - by user809526

  The Full Sample App is designed to run on Virtual Box. Let's describe how to run it on VMware Player 4. Open Virtualization Format Tool http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/server/vsphere/automationtools/ovf VMware Player Documentation https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/player_pubs.html Full Sample App Deployment Guide sampleapp107-vbimage-deployguide-453583.pdf INSTALL VMplayer 4.0.0 as root LINUX # sh VMware-Player-4.0.0-471780.x86_64.bundle (A new VM is not needed and can be deleted later after that installation is completed. "I will install OS later" - blank hard disk Guest: linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5-64bits => rename to RHEL target: eg /a/root/vmware/ Max disk size: 5 GB (will be deleted) Disk: Single file Dummy RHEL.vmk, RHEL.vmdk is generated. "Delete VM from Disk" in VM Player.) Copy Full Sample App files to target /a/root/vmware/ WARNING: Select a target eg /a/root/vmware/ with lots of free space, 95 GB. Check checksums (md5sum). Please do it! ff85c7eacf7fb8c382e98da875e879e1  Sampleapp_v107_GA-disk1.vmdk 973258cb3c7d64ab03ae853278cf2233  Sampleapp_v107_GA-disk2.vmdk e576be16e36d810479736bfb15d050f5  Sampleapp_v107_GA-disk3.vmdk 3455df77279e53e07d5fee6712f1597d  Sampleapp_v107_GA-disk4.vmdk OVF FILE   Sampleapp_v107_GA.ovf CONVERSION $ cd /a/root/vmware/ LINUX $ /usr/bin/ovftool -tt=ovf --compress=1 -dm=monolithicSparse Sampleapp_v107_GA.ovf .  [dot] Opening OVF source: Sampleapp_v107_GA.ovf Warning: No manifest file Opening OVF target: . Writing OVF package: Sampleapp_v107_GA/Sampleapp_v107_GA.ovf Disk Transfer Completed                   Completed successfully WINDOWS CYGWIN $ /cygdrive/c/VMwarePlayer/OVFTool/ovftool.exe -tt=ovf --compress=1 -dm=monolithicSparse Sampleapp_v107_GA.ovf .  [dot] Opening OVF source: Sampleapp_v107_GA.ovf Warning: No manifest file Opening OVF target: . Writing OVF package: Sampleapp_v107_GA\Sampleapp_v107_GA.ovf Disk Transfer Completed Completed successfully /a/root/vmware$ du -sk 49095328    .   [50 GB already occupied] IMPORT - First start of VM Player 4: /usr/bin/vmplayer "Open a Virtual Machine" Browse to /a/root/vmware/Sampleapp_v107_GA/Sampleapp_v107_GA.ovf [the new generated .ovf] "Import Virtual Machine" dialog Name: Sampleapp_v107_GA Location: /a/root/vmware/Sampleapp_v107_GA/storage [was /home/tdubois/vmware/Sampleapp_v107_GA] "Import" "The import failed because /a/root/vmware/Sampleapp_v107_GA/Sampleapp_v107_GA.ovf did not pass OVF specification conformance or virtual hardware compliance checks. Click Retry to relax OVF specification..." "Retry" ; Long import /a/root/vmware/Sampleapp_v107_GA/storage/Sampleapp_v107_GA.vmx and new .vmdk files are created. /a/root/vmware$ du -sk 95551384    .   [95 GB occupied] Full Sample App GUEST SETUP "Edit VM settings" min 3GB, 2+ processors, network bridged. For OBIEE + Essbase testing use 8 GB RAM hardware. At first time lauch of Full Sample App, leave OEL booting for several minutes undisturbed. Problem with X display server may occur [/usr/bin/Xorg ; man Xorg]. "Failed to start the X server.... Would you like to view the X server output to diagnose the problem?" "No" [tab key] "Would you like to try to configure the X server? Note that you will need the root password for this." "Yes" [oracle] X Display Settings 800x600 saved in /etc/X11/xorg.conf "Trying to restart the X server" Login as root/oracle in guest OEL. In guest OEL, Virtual Machine > Install VMware Tools... Extract archive VMwareTools-8.8.0-471268.tar.gz all files in writable local directory eg /root In Terminal run Perl script # cd /root/vmware-tools-distrib ; ./vmware-install.pl [keep all default answers] Set keyboard layout System > Preferences > Keyboard > Layouts Restart X server eg System > Log Out root... , relogin Modify X resolution System > Preferences > Screen Resolution Full Sample App OEL login: oracle/oracle ; root/oracle [default US keyboard layout] Credentials are described in the 'sampleapp107-vbimage-deployguide-453583.pdf' The large files in /a/root/vmware/ /a/root/vmware/Sampleapp_v107_GA/ may be removed. FAILURE REMARK: Adding the 4 original Sampleapp_v107_GA-disks[1234].vmdk to VM Player does NOT work as described below. "Edit VM settings" "Remove" "Hard Disk" "Edit VM settings" "Add" "Hard Disk" "Next" "Use an existing virtual disk" "Browse" "Finish" "Keep existing format" "Ok" for each 4 disks settings one by one. Start VM Player 4. "You do not have write access to a partition" Allow all Sampleapp_v107 OEL linux launches. OEL stalls silently after 'Checking filesystems'.

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• Azure Grid Computing - Worker Roles as HPC Compute Nodes

  - by JoshReuben

  Overview ·        With HPC 2008 R2 SP1 You can add Azure worker roles as compute nodes in a local Windows HPC Server cluster. ·        The subscription for Windows Azure like any other Azure Service - charged for the time that the role instances are available, as well as for the compute and storage services that are used on the nodes. ·        Win-Win ? - Azure charges the computer hour cost (according to vm size) amortized over a month – so you save on purchasing compute node hardware. Microsoft wins because you need to purchase HPC to have a local head node for managing this compute cluster grid distributed in the cloud. ·        Blob storage is used to hold input & output files of each job. I can see how Parametric Sweep HPC jobs can be supported (where the same job is run multiple times on each node against different input units), but not MPI.NET (where different HPC Job instances function as coordinated agents and conduct master-slave inter-process communication), unless Azure is somehow tunneling MPI communication through inter-WorkerRole Azure Queues. ·        this is not the end of the story for Azure Grid Computing. If MS requires you to purchase a local HPC license (and administrate it), what's to stop a 3rd party from doing this and encapsulating exposing HPC WCF Broker Service to you for managing compute nodes? If MS doesn’t  provide head node as a service, someone else will! Process ·        requires creation of a worker node template that specifies a connection to an existing subscription for Windows Azure + an availability policy for the worker nodes. ·        After worker nodes are added to the cluster, you can start them, which provisions the Windows Azure role instances, and then bring them online to run HPC cluster jobs. ·        A Windows Azure worker role instance runs a HPC compatible Azure guest operating system which runs on the VMs that host your service. The guest operating system is updated monthly. You can choose to upgrade the guest OS for your service automatically each time an update is released - All role instances defined by your service will run on the guest operating system version that you specify. see Windows Azure Guest OS Releases and SDK Compatibility Matrix (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=190549). ·        use the hpcpack command to upload file packages and install files to run on the worker nodes. see hpcpack (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=205514). Requirements ·        assuming you have an azure subscription account and the HPC head node installed and configured. ·        Install HPC Pack 2008 R2 SP 1 -  see Microsoft HPC Pack 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 Release Notes (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=202812). ·        Configure the head node to connect to the Internet - connectivity is provided by the connection of the head node to the enterprise network. You may need to configure a proxy client on the head node. Any cluster network topology (1-5) is supported). ·        Configure the firewall - allow outbound TCP traffic on the following ports: 80,       443, 5901, 5902, 7998, 7999 ·        Note: HPC Server  uses Admin Mode (Elevated Privileges) in Windows Azure to give the service administrator of the subscription the necessary privileges to initialize HPC cluster services on the worker nodes. ·        Obtain a Windows Azure subscription certificate - the Windows Azure subscription must be configured with a public subscription (API) certificate -a valid X.509 certificate with a key size of at least 2048 bits. Generate a self-sign certificate & upload a .cer file to the Windows Azure Portal Account page > Manage my API Certificates link. see Using the Windows Azure Service Management API (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=205526). ·        import the certificate with an associated private key on the HPC cluster head node - into the trusted root store of the local computer account. Obtain Windows Azure Connection Information for HPC Server ·        required for each worker node template ·        copy from azure portal - Get from: navigation pane > Hosted Services > Storage Accounts & CDN ·        Subscription ID - a 32-char hex string in the form xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx. In Properties pane. ·        Subscription certificate thumbprint - a 40-char hex string (you need to remove spaces). In Management Certificates > Properties pane. ·        Service name - the value of <ServiceName> configured in the public URL of the service (http://<ServiceName>.cloudapp.net). In Hosted Services > Properties pane. ·        Blob Storage account name - the value of <StorageAccountName> configured in the public URL of the account (http://<StorageAccountName>.blob.core.windows.net). In Storage Accounts > Properties pane. Import the Azure Subscription Certificate on the HPC Head Node ·        enable the services for Windows HPC Server  to authenticate properly with the Windows Azure subscription. ·        use the Certificates MMC snap-in to import the certificate to the Trusted Root Certification Authorities store of the local computer account. The certificate must be in PFX format (.pfx or .p12 file) with a private key that is protected by a password. ·        see Certificates (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=163918). ·        To open the certificates snapin: Run > mmc. File > Add/Remove Snap-in > certificates > Computer account > Local Computer ·        To import the certificate via wizard - Certificates > Trusted Root Certification Authorities > Certificates > All Tasks > Import ·        After the certificate is imported, it appears in the details pane in the Certificates snap-in. You can open the certificate to check its status. Configure a Proxy Client on the HPC Head Node ·        the following Windows HPC Server services must be able to communicate over the Internet (through the firewall) with the services for Windows Azure: HPCManagement, HPCScheduler, HPCBrokerWorker. ·        Create a Windows Azure Worker Node Template ·        Edit HPC node templates in HPC Node Template Editor. ·        Specify: 1) Windows Azure subscription connection info (unique service name) for adding a set of worker nodes to the cluster + 2)worker node availability policy – rules for deploying / removing worker role instances in Windows Azure o   HPC Cluster Manager > Configuration > Navigation Pane > Node Templates > Actions pane > New à Create Node Template Wizard or Edit à Node Template Editor o   Choose Node Template Type page - Windows Azure worker node template o   Specify Template Name page – template name & description o   Provide Connection Information page – Azure Subscription ID (text) & Subscription certificate (browse) o   Provide Service Information page - Azure service name + blob storage account name (optionally click Retrieve Connection Information to get list of available from azure – possible LRT). o   Configure Azure Availability Policy page - how Windows Azure worker nodes start / stop (online / offline the worker role instance -  add / remove) – manual / automatic o   for automatic - In the Configure Windows Azure Worker Availability Policy dialog -select days and hours for worker nodes to start / stop. ·        To validate the Windows Azure connection information, on the template's Connection Information tab > Validate connection information. ·        You can upload a file package to the storage account that is specified in the template - eg upload application or service files that will run on the worker nodes. see hpcpack (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=205514). Add Azure Worker Nodes to the HPC Cluster ·        Use the Add Node Wizard – specify: 1) the worker node template, 2) The number of worker nodes   (within the quota of role instances in the azure subscription), and 3)           The VM size of the worker nodes : ExtraSmall, Small, Medium, Large, or ExtraLarge.  ·        to add worker nodes of different sizes, must run the Add Node Wizard separately for each size. ·        All worker nodes that are added to the cluster by using a specific worker node template define a set of worker nodes that will be deployed and managed together in Windows Azure when you start the nodes. This includes worker nodes that you add later by using the worker node template and, if you choose, worker nodes of different sizes. You cannot start, stop, or delete individual worker nodes. ·        To add Windows Azure worker nodes o   In HPC Cluster Manager: Node Management > Actions pane > Add Node à Add Node Wizard o   Select Deployment Method page - Add Azure Worker nodes o   Specify New Nodes page - select a worker node template, specify the number and size of the worker nodes ·        After you add worker nodes to the cluster, they are in the Not-Deployed state, and they have a health state of Unapproved. Before you can use the worker nodes to run jobs, you must start them and then bring them online. ·        Worker nodes are numbered consecutively in a naming series that begins with the root name AzureCN – this is non-configurable. Deploying Windows Azure Worker Nodes ·        To deploy the role instances in Windows Azure - start the worker nodes added to the HPC cluster and bring the nodes online so that they are available to run cluster jobs. This can be configured in the HPC Azure Worker Node Template – Azure Availability Policy -  to be automatic or manual. ·        The Start, Stop, and Delete actions take place on the set of worker nodes that are configured by a specific worker node template. You cannot perform one of these actions on a single worker node in a set. You also cannot perform a single action on two sets of worker nodes (specified by two different worker node templates). ·        ·          Starting a set of worker nodes deploys a set of worker role instances in Windows Azure, which can take some time to complete, depending on the number of worker nodes and the performance of Windows Azure. ·        To start worker nodes manually and bring them online o   In HPC Node Management > Navigation Pane > Nodes > List / Heat Map view - select one or more worker nodes. o   Actions pane > Start – in the Start Azure Worker Nodes dialog, select a node template. o   the state of the worker nodes changes from Not Deployed to track the provisioning progress – worker node Details Pane > Provisioning Log tab. o   If there were errors during the provisioning of one or more worker nodes, the state of those nodes is set to Unknown and the node health is set to Unapproved. To determine the reason for the failure, review the provisioning logs for the nodes. o   After a worker node starts successfully, the node state changes to Offline. To bring the nodes online, select the nodes that are in the Offline state > Bring Online. ·        Troubleshooting o   check node template. o   use telnet to test connectivity: telnet <ServiceName>.cloudapp.net 7999 o   check node status - Deployment status information appears in the service account information in the Windows Azure Portal - HPC queries this -  see  node status information for any failed nodes in HPC Node Management. ·        When role instances are deployed, file packages that were previously uploaded to the storage account using the hpcpack command are automatically installed. You can also upload file packages to storage after the worker nodes are started, and then manually install them on the worker nodes. see hpcpack (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=205514). ·        to remove a set of role instances in Windows Azure - stop the nodes by using HPC Cluster Manager (apply the Stop action). This deletes the role instances from the service and changes the state of the worker nodes in the HPC cluster to Not Deployed. ·        Each time that you start a set of worker nodes, two proxy role instances (size Small) are configured in Windows Azure to facilitate communication between HPC Cluster Manager and the worker nodes. The proxy role instances are not listed in HPC Cluster Manager after the worker nodes are added. However, the instances appear in the Windows Azure Portal. The proxy role instances incur charges in Windows Azure along with the worker node instances, and they count toward the quota of role instances in the subscription.

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• Best of "The Moth" 2009

  Not wanting to break the tradition (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008) below are some blog posts I picked from my blogging last year. As you can see by comparing with the links above, 2009 marks my lowest output yet with only 64 posts, but hopefully the quality has not been lowered ;-) 1. Parallel Computing was a strong focus of course. You can find links to most of that content aggregated in the post where I shared my entire parallelism session. Related to that was the link to the screencast I shared of the Parallel Computing Features Tour.2. Parallel Debugging is obviously part of the parallel computing links above, but I created more in depth content around that area of Visual Studio 2010 since it is the one I directly own. I aggregated all the links to that content in my post: Parallel Debugging.3. High Performance Computing through clusters is an area I'll be focusing more next year (besides parallelism on a single node on the client captured above) and I started introducing the topic on my blog this year. Read the (currently) 6 posts bottom up from my category on HPC.4. Windows 7 Task Manager. In April I shared a screenshot which was the most "borrowed" item from my blog (I should have watermarked it ;-)5. Windows Phone non-support in VS2010. Did my bit to spread clarification of the story.6. Window positions in Visual Studio is a long post, but one that I strongly advise all VS users to read and benefit from.7. Bug Triage gives you a glimpse into one thing all (Microsoft) product teams do.If you haven't yet, you can subscribe via one of the options on the left. Either way, thank you for staying tuned… Happy New Year! Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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• Windows HPC Server links

  I've already described how to setup a Windows HPC Server for development. Before you dive into developing for the cluster, if you are new to this it is probably a good idea to learn the basics by reading some overview material. Below is a list of links.Direct Links to Windows HPC content1. Windows HPC Server 2008 Overview Datasheet (4 page pdf).2. Windows HPC Server 2008 Technical Overview (32 page doc).3. Windows HPC Server 2008 Getting Started Guide (26 page doc) which actually is available online as part of the TechNet technical library section on Windows HPC Server 2008, which includes much more useful data.4. Windows HPC Server 2008 Job Scheduler (38 page doc).5. Windows HPC Server 2008 Job Templates (56 page doc).6. Developing for the Windows HPC Server 2008 Platform (16 page doc or pdf version).Windows HPC sites7. Windows HPC Forums.8. HPC Developer Resources.9. Windows HPC Server 2008 Resource Kit - Developer.10. Windows HPC Server 2008 - TechNet.11. The Windows HPC Team Blog.HPC Course12. High-Performance Computing Fundamentals Course (pluralisight)13. Classic HPC Development using Visual C++ (course slides and materials in a ZIP). Author's blog post.14. From sequential to parallel code (course slides and materials in a ZIP). Author's blog post. Next time I will post resources specific to the most popular programming models for the cluster today: MPI and Cluster SOA - until then, happy reading! Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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• Linux Server hacked?

  - by user115848

  I'm trying to determine if this linex webserver/openfire server has been compromised by some form of malware or a hacker. Can you please help me determine if this server has been hacked? The snippet of logs below are from the linux server running apache. A few days ago the moodle site, which is installed on the server, started to render the apache default page. Also the access logs show some activity im not sure of. Please see logs below. 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:13:31:01 -0600] "CONNECT 213.92.8.7:31204 HTTP/1.0" 405 303 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:13:31:01 -0600] "CONNECT 213.92.8.7:31204 HTTP/1.0" 405 303 "-" "-" 99.41.69.92 - - [02/Apr/2012:13:33:35 -0600] "GET /files/externallibs.php HTTP/1.1" 404 306 "-" "curl/7.18.0 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) libcurl/7.18.0 OpenSSL/0.9.8g zlib/1.2.3.3 libidn/1.1" 212.34.151.92 - - [02/Apr/2012:14:01:46 -0600] "GET /phpmyadmin/scripts/setup.php HTTP/1.1" 404 305 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 5.1) Opera 7.01 [en]" 212.34.151.92 - - [02/Apr/2012:14:01:46 -0600] "POST /phpmyadmin/scripts/setup.php HTTP/1.1" 404 305 "http://173.164.35.181/phpmyadmin/scripts/setup.php\r" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 5.1) Opera 7.01 [en]" 82.223.140.4 - - [02/Apr/2012:14:05:03 -0600] "GET /phpmyadmin/scripts/setup.php HTTP/1.1" 404 305 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 5.1) Opera 7.01 [en]" 82.223.140.4 - - [02/Apr/2012:14:05:04 -0600] "POST /phpmyadmin/scripts/setup.php HTTP/1.1" 404 305 "_http://173.164.35.181/phpmyadmin/scripts/setup.php\r" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 5.1) Opera 7.01 [en]" 10.0.0.100 - - [02/Apr/2012:14:25:35 -0600] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 403 5043 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.15) Gecko/20110330 CentOS/3.6-1.el5.centos Firefox/3.6.15" 10.0.0.100 - - [02/Apr/2012:14:25:38 -0600] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 295 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.15) Gecko/20110330 CentOS/3.6-1.el5.centos Firefox/3.6.15" 50.17.41.60 - - [02/Apr/2012:14:27:29 -0600] "HEAD /icons/apache_pb.gif HTTP/1.0" 200 - "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; NetcraftSurveyAgent/1.0; [email protected])" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:14:42:33 -0600] "CONNECT 213.92.8.7:31204 HTTP/1.0" 405 303 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:14:42:33 -0600] "POST _http://vlad-tepes.bofh.it/freenode-proxy-checker.txt HTTP/1.0" 404 307 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:14:42:33 -0600] "GET _http://vlad-tepes.bofh.it/freenode-proxy-checker.txt HTTP/1.0" 404 307 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:14:42:36 -0600] "CONNECT 213.92.8.7:31204 HTTP/1.0" 405 303 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:15:03:48 -0600] "POST _http://vlad-tepes.bofh.it/freenode-proxy-checker.txt HTTP/1.0" 404 307 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:15:03:48 -0600] "GET _http://vlad-tepes.bofh.it/freenode-proxy-checker.txt HTTP/1.0" 404 307 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:15:03:48 -0600] "CONNECT 213.92.8.7:31204 HTTP/1.0" 405 303 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:15:03:48 -0600] "CONNECT 213.92.8.7:31204 HTTP/1.0" 405 303 "-" "-" 66.233.63.54 - - [02/Apr/2012:15:12:19 -0600] "GET /files/externallibs.php HTTP/1.1" 404 306 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; rv:11.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/11.0" 70.114.161.135 - - [02/Apr/2012:15:17:12 -0600] "GET /files/externallibs.php HTTP/1.1" 404 306 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:11.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/11.0" 99.41.69.231 - - [02/Apr/2012:15:52:21 -0600] "GET /files/externallibs.php HTTP/1.1" 404 306 "-" "curl/7.18.0 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) libcurl/7.18.0 OpenSSL/0.9.8g zlib/1.2.3.3 libidn/1.1" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:15:55:40 -0600] "GET _http://vlad-tepes.bofh.it/freenode-proxy-checker.txt HTTP/1.0" 404 307 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:15:55:40 -0600] "POST _http://vlad-tepes.bofh.it/freenode-proxy-checker.txt HTTP/1.0" 404 307 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:15:55:40 -0600] "CONNECT 213.92.8.7:31204 HTTP/1.0" 405 303 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:15:55:40 -0600] "CONNECT 213.92.8.7:31204 HTTP/1.0" 405 303 "-" "-" 10.0.0.253 - - [02/Apr/2012:16:01:45 -0600] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 403 5043 "-" "WWW-Mechanize/1.0.0 (http://rubyforge.org/projects/mechanize/)" 10.0.0.253 - - [02/Apr/2012:16:02:27 -0600] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 403 5043 "-" "WWW-Mechanize/1.0.0 (http://rubyforge.org/projects/mechanize/)" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:16:13:40 -0600] "POST _http://vlad-tepes.bofh.it/freenode-proxy-checker.txt HTTP/1.0" 404 307 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:16:13:40 -0600] "CONNECT 213.92.8.7:31204 HTTP/1.0" 405 303 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:16:13:40 -0600] "GET _http://vlad-tepes.bofh.it/freenode-proxy-checker.txt HTTP/1.0" 404 307 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:16:13:40 -0600] "CONNECT 213.92.8.7:31204 HTTP/1.0" 405 303 "-" "-" 89.135.124.125 - - [02/Apr/2012:16:20:47 -0600] "GET /phpmyadmin/scripts/setup.php HTTP/1.1" 404 305 "_http://173.164.35.181/phpmyadmin/scripts/setup.php" "Opera" 89.135.124.125 - - [02/Apr/2012:16:20:48 -0600] "POST /phpmyadmin/scripts/setup.php HTTP/1.1" 404 305 "_http://173.164.35.181/phpmyadmin/scripts/setup.php" "Opera" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:16:29:59 -0600] "CONNECT 213.92.8.7:31204 HTTP/1.0" 405 303 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:16:29:59 -0600] "GET http://vlad-tepes.bofh.it/freenode-proxy-checker.txt HTTP/1.0" 404 307 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:16:29:59 -0600] "CONNECT 213.92.8.7:31204 HTTP/1.0" 405 303 "-" "-" 85.190.0.3 - - [02/Apr/2012:16:29:59 -0600] "POST http://vlad-tepes.bofh.it/freenode-proxy-checker.txt HTTP/1.0" 404 307 "-" "-"

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• SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #033

  - by Pinal Dave

  Here is the list of selected articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2007 Spatial Database Definition and Research Documents Here is the definition from Wikipedia about spatial database : A spatial database is a database that is optimized to store and query data related to objects in space, including points, lines and polygons. While typical databases can understand various numeric and character types of data, additional functionality needs to be added for databases to process spatial data types. Select Only Date Part From DateTime – Best Practice A very common question which I receive is how to only get Date or Time part from datetime value. In this blog post I explain the same in very simple words. T-SQL Paging Query Technique Comparison (OVER and ROW_NUMBER()) – CTE vs. Derived Table I have received few emails and comments about my post SQL SERVER – T-SQL Paging Query Technique Comparison – SQL 2000 vs SQL 2005. The main question was is this can be done using CTE? Absolutely! What about Performance? It is identical! Please refer above mentioned article for the history of paging. SQL SERVER – Cannot resolve collation conflict for equal to operation One of the very first error I ever encountered in my career was to resolve this conflict. I have blogged about it and I have realized that many others like me who are facing this error. LEN and DATALENGTH of NULL Simple Example Here is the question for you what is the LEN of NULL value? Well it is very easy – just read the blog. Recovery Models and Selection Very simple and easy explanation of the Database Backup Recovery Model and how to select the best option for you. Explanation SQL SERVER Hash Join Hash join gives best performance when two more join tables are joined and at-least one of them have no index or is not sorted. It is also expected that smaller of the either of table can be read in memory completely (though not necessary). Easy Sequence of SELECT FROM JOIN WHERE GROUP BY HAVING ORDER BY SELECT yourcolumns FROM tablenames JOIN tablenames WHERE condition GROUP BY yourcolumns HAVING aggregatecolumn condition ORDER BY yourcolumns NorthWind Database or AdventureWorks Database – Samples Databases In this blog post we learn how to install Northwind database. I also shared the source where one can download this database as that is used in many examples on MSDN help files. sp_HelpText for sp_HelpText – Puzzle A simple quick puzzle – do you know the answer of it? If not, go ahead and read the blog. 2008 SQL SERVER – 2008 – Step By Step Installation Guide With Images When SQL Server 2008 was newly introduced lots of people had no clue how to install SQL Server 2008 and the amount of the question which I used to receive were so much. I wrote this blog post with the spirit that this will help all the newbies to install SQL Server 2008 with the help of images. Still today this blog post has been bible for all of the people who are confused with SQL Server installation. Inline Variable Assignment I loved this feature. I have always wanted this feature to be present in SQL Server. The last time when I met developers from Microsoft SQL Server, I had talked about this feature. I think this feature saves some time but make the code more readable. Introduction to Policy Management – Enforcing Rules on SQL Server If our company policy is to create all the Stored Procedure with prefix ‘usp’ that developers should be just prevented to create Stored Procedure with any other prefix. Let us see a small tutorial how to create conditions and policy which will prevent any future SP to be created with any other prefix. 2009 Performance Counters from System Views – By Kevin Mckenna Many of you are not aware of this fact that access to performance information is readily available in SQL Server and that too without querying performance counters using a custom application or via perfmon. Till now, this fact has remained undisclosed but through this post I would like to explain you can easily access SQL Server performance counter information. Without putting much effort you will come across the system viewsys.dm_os_performance_counters. As the name suggests, this provides you easy access to the SQL Server performance counter information that is passed on to perfmon, but you can get at it via tsql. Customize Toolbar – Remove Debug Button from Toolbar I was fond of SQL Server Debugger feature in SQL Server 2000. To my utter disappointment, this feature was withdrawn from SQL Server 2005. The button of the debugger is similar to a play button and is used to run debugging commands of Visual Studio. Because of this reason, it gets very much infuriating for developers when they are developing on both – Visual Studio and SSMS. Let us now see how we can remove debugging button from SQL Server Management Studio. Effect of Normalization on Index and Performance A very interesting conversation which started from twitter. If you want to read one link this is the link I encourage you to read it. SSMS Feature – Multi-server Queries Using SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) DBAs can now query multiple servers from one window. It is quite common for DBAs with large amount of servers to maintain and gather information from multiple SQL Servers and create report. This feature is a blessing for the DBAs, as they can now assemble all the information instantaneously without going anywhere. Query Optimizer Hint ROBUST PLAN – Question to You “ROBUST PLAN” is a kind of query hint which works quite differently than other hints. It does not improve join or force any indexes to use; it just makes sure that a query does not crash due to over the limit size of row. Let me elaborate upon it in the blog post. 2010 Do you really know the difference between various date functions available in SQL Server 2012? Here is a three part story where we explored the same with examples: Fastest Way to Restore the Database Difference Between DATETIME and DATETIME2 Difference Between DATETIME and DATETIME2 – WITH GETDATE Shrinking NDF and MDF Files – Readers’ Opinion Shrinking Database always creates performance degradation and increases fragmentation in the database. I suggest that you keep that in mind before you start reading the following comment. If you are going to say Shrinking Database is bad and evil, here I am saying it first and loud. Now, the comment of Imran is written while keeping in mind only the process showing how the Shrinking Database Operation works. Imran has already explained his understanding and requests further explanation. I have removed the Best Practices section from Imran’s comments, as there are a few corrections. 2011 Solution – Puzzle – SELECT * vs SELECT COUNT(*) This is very interesting question and I am very confident that not every one knows the answer to this question. Let me ask you again – Which will be faster SELECT* or SELECT COUNT (*) or do you think this is apples and oranges comparison. 2012 Service Broker and CAP_CPU_PERCENT – Limiting SQL Server Instances to CPU Usage In SQL Server 2012 there are a few enhancements with regards to SQL Server Resource Governor. One of the enhancement is how the resources are allocated. Let me explain you with examples. Let us understand the entire discussion with the help of three different examples. Finding Size of a Columnstore Index Using DMVs One of the very common question I often see is need of the list of columnstore index along with their size and corresponding table name. I quickly re-wrote a script using DMVs sys.indexes and sys.dm_db_partition_stats. This script gives the size of the columnstore index on disk only. I am sure there will be advanced script to retrieve details related to components associated with the columnstore index. However, I believe following script is sufficient to start getting an idea of columnstore index size. Developer Training Resources and Summary Roundup Developer Training - Importance and Significance - Part 1 In this part we discussed the importance of training in the real world. The most important and valuable resource any company is its employee. Employees who have been well-trained will be better at their jobs and produce a better product.  An employee who is well trained obviously knows more about their job and all the technical aspects. I have a very high opinion about training employees and it is the most important task. Developer Training – Employee Morals and Ethics – Part 2 In this part we discussed the most crucial components of training. Often employees are expecting the company to pay for their training and the company expresses no interest in training the employee. Quite often training expenses are the real issue for both the employee and employer. Developer Training – Difficult Questions and Alternative Perspective - Part 3 This part was the most difficult to write as I tried to address a few difficult questions and answers. Training is such a sensitive issue that many developers when not receiving chance for training think about leaving the organization. Developer Training – Various Options for Developer Training – Part 4 In this part I tried to explore a few methods and options for training. The generic feedback I received on this blog post was short and I should have explored each of the subject of the training in details. I believe there are two big buckets of training 1) Instructor Lead Training and 2) Self Lead Training. Developer Training – A Conclusive Summary- Part 5 There is no better motivation than a personal desire to learn new technology. Honestly there is nothing more personal learning. That “change is the only constant” and “adapt & overcome” are the essential lessons of life. One cannot stop the learning and resist the change. In the IT industry “ego of knowing all” and the “resistance to change” are the most challenging issues. A Quick Look at Logging and Ideas around Logging Question: What is the first thing comes to your mind when you hear the word “Logging”? Strange enough I got a different answer every single time. Let me just list what answer I got from my friends. Let us go over them one by one. Beginning Performance Tuning with SQL Server Execution Plan Solution of Puzzle – Swap Value of Column Without Case Statement Earlier this week I asked a question where I asked how to Swap Values of the column without using CASE Statement. Read here: SQL SERVER – A Puzzle – Swap Value of Column Without Case Statement. I have proposed 3 different solutions in the blog posts itself. I had requested the help of the community to come up with alternate solutions and honestly I am stunned and amazed by the qualified entries. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• "Oracle Fusion Is Worth Your Consideration," States Mark Smith of Ventana Research

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  After attending OOW 2012, Mark Smith of Ventana Research has written a great blog post on Oct 4th, 2012 titled "Oracle Fusion for CRM and HCM Ready with a Mobile Tap." In this blog post, Mark goes on to say: "It was a great opportunity to get close to the Oracle Fusion Applications, which the company presented as proven and ready, with customers using them on-premises and in private and public cloud computing usage methods. In keynotes from executives Larry Ellison, Mark Hurd and Thomas Kurian and application-focused sessions with executives Steve Miranda and Chris Leone, Oracle repeated the message that Fusion Applications are not just for cloud computing and web services but are also accessible through mobile technology called Oracle Fusion Tap that operates natively on the Apple iPad. The company left no confusion about its applications' readiness for cloud and mobile computing, and provided insight into future advancements." Mark also states: " After two days of Oracle and customer sessions, along with a visit to the demonstration stands in the exposition area, it was clear that Oracle has made an important change in its approach to the market and its executive-level commitment to Fusion Applications. I saw more dialogue with partners to complement its applications, and many announcements, including Oracle's on partners in Fusion CRM, who were also visible during presentations and demonstrations." In closing, Mark makes the following proclamation: "Oracle Fusion is worth your consideration whether you are considering a move to cloud computing or still run applications on-premises or use a hybrid approach which provides more choices to customers than just a cloud computing only approach. We are now in a renaissance of business driving what it needs from business applications, and vendors that convince business they can be trusted will be at the center of a new world of cloud, mobile and social computing." This post is really worth a read. You can find the entire post here.

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• A BYOD World in Mobile Enterprise Brings the Need to Adapt

  - by Webgui

  Yesterday brought a lot of news coverage that Cisco has stopped funding and planning its Cius enterprise-grade tablet.  Citing “market transitions” in which an increasing number of people b ring their own smartphones and tablets to work, Cisco General Manager OJ Winge said in a post on the company's official blog that “Cisco will no longer invest in the Cisco Cius tablet form factor, and no further enhancements will be made to the current Cius endpoint beyond what’s available today.”  Employees are “bringing their preferences to work” and collaboration “has to happen beyond a walled garden,” he said.The blog post also cited a recently released Cisco study which found that 95% of organizations surveyed allow employee-owned devices in some way, shape or form in the office, and, 36% of surveyed enterprises provide full support for employee-owned devices.   How is Cisco planning to move forward to adapt to this changing business environment?  Instead of focusing on tablets for enterprise customers, Cisco will instead "double down" on software that works across a variety of operating systems and smart phones and tablets, Winge said.See the post from the Cisco blog here - http://blogs.cisco.com/collaboration/empowering-choice-in-collaboration/ We at Gizmox recognize this need to adapt to the changing environment.  Our Enterprise Mobile solution is designed and built for that post-PC, BYOD business world.  We recognized the importance of providing a cross-platform solution that can easily target different devices and operating systems. We went with a web-based mobile application approach in order to achieve that and we decided to go with the new open web standard - HTML5.Our solution however provides both client and the server side programming and its uniqueness is that it allows those cross-platform HTML5 mobile applications while developing within Visual Studio using classic visual form based development. As a result, .NET developers can build secure, efficient, data-centric enterprise mobile application for cross platform mobile devices with their existing skills and tools.  See our new video about our EnterpriseMobile solution Enterprise applications today need to work on all devices, across different platforms and OS’s.  It’s just a fact of life.  How about you – do you bring your own device to work?  What’s your company’s BYOD policy?

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• Silverlight Cream for June 12, 2010 -- #880

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Michael Washington, Diego Poza, Viktor Larsson, Brian Noyes, Charles Petzold, Laurent Bugnion, Anjaiah Keesari, David Anson, and Jeremy Likness. From SilverlightCream.com: My MEF Rant Read Michael Washington's discussion about MEF from someone that's got some experience, but not enough to remember the pain points... how it works, and what he'd like to see. Prism 4: What’s new and what’s next Diego Poza Why Office Hub is important for WP7 Viktor Larsson has another WP7 post up and he's talking about the Office Hub ... good description and maybe the first I've seen on the Office Hub. WCF RIA Services Part 1: Getting Started Brian Noyes has part 1 of a 10-part tutorial series on WCF RIA Services up at SilverlightShow. This first is the intro, but it's a good one. CompositionTarget.Rendering and RenderEventArgs Charles Petzold talks about CompositionTarget.Rendering and using it for calculating time span ... and it works in WPF and WP7 too... cool example from his WPF book, and all the code. Two small issues with Windows Phone 7 ApplicationBar buttons (and workaround) Laurent Bugnion has a post up from earlier this week that I missed describing problems with the WP7 ApplicationBar ... oh, and a workaround for it :) Animation in Silverlight Anjaiah Keesari has a really extensive post up on Silverlight animation, and this is an all-XAML thing... so buckle up we're going old-school :) Two fixes for my Silverlight SplitButton/MenuButton implementation - and true WPF support David Anson revisits and revises his SplitButton code based on a couple problem reports he received. Source for the button and the test project is included. Tips and Tricks for INotifyPropertyChanged Jeremy Likness is discussing INotifyPropertyChanged and describes an extension method. He does bring up a problem associated with this, so check that out. He finishes the post off with a discussion of "Observable Enumerables" Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• Computer starts, POSTs normal, no video

  - by Annath

  So, I recently tried to start up an old computer of mine. It would not power on, so I replaced the PSU. When I powered it on, all the fans spun up and the POST beeps indicated a normal startup. The problem was there was no video output. Every couple of minutes, I hear the post code again. I think it is restarting after POST, but without video I have no idea why. Does anyone have an idea as to why this is happening, and how to fix it? EDIT: The video card is a PCI-e card. There is no integrated graphics on the motherboard. If I remove the video card, the POST indicates a missing card. When I put it back, it goes back to normal, so I know that it recognizes that the card exists.

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• Best of "The Moth" 2012

  - by Daniel Moth

  As with previous years (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011) I’d like to wish you a Happy New Year and share a quick review of my blog posts from 2012 (plus speculate on my 2013 blog focus). 1. Like 2011, my professional energy in 2012 was dominated by C++ AMP including articles, blog posts, demos, slides, and screencasts. I summarized that over two posts on the official team blog that I linked to from my blog post here titled: “The last word on C++ AMP”, which also subtly hinted at my change of role which I confirmed in my other post titled “Visual Studio Continued Excitement”. 2. Even before I moved to the Visual Studio Diagnostics team in September, earlier in the year I had started sharing blog posts with my thoughts on that space, something I expect to continue in the new year. You can read some of that in these posts: The way I think about Diagnostic tools, Live Debugging, Attach to Process in Visual Studio, Start Debugging in Visual Studio, Visual Studio Exceptions dialogs. 3. What you should also expect to see more of is thoughts, tips, checklists, etc around Professional Communication and on how to be more efficient and effective with that, e.g. Link instead of Attaching, Sending Outlook Invites, Responding to Invites, and OOF checklist. 4. As always, I sometimes share random information, and noteworthy from 2012 is the one where I outlined the Visual Studio versioning story (“Visual Studio 11 not 2011”, and after that post VS 11 was officially baptized VS2012) and the one on “How I Record Screencasts”. Looking back, unlike 2011 there were no posts in 2012 related to device development, e.g. for Windows Phone. Expect that to be rectified in 2013 as I hope to find more time for such coding… stay tuned by subscribing using the link on the left. Comments about this post by Daniel Moth welcome at the original blog.

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• Silverlight Cream for November 24, 2011 -- #1173

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Thanksgiving Day Issue: Andrea Boschin, Samidip Basu, Ollie Riches, WindowsPhoneGeek, Sumit Dutta, Dhananjay Kumar, Daniel Egan, Doug Mair, Chris Woodruff, and Debal Saha.Happy Thanksgiving Everybody! Above the Fold: Silverlight: "Silverlight CommandBinding with Simple MVVM Toolkit" Debal Saha WP7: "How many pins can Bing Maps handle in a WP7 app - part 3" Ollie Riches Shoutouts: Michael Palermo's latest Desert Mountain Developers is up Michael Washington's latest Visual Studio #LightSwitch Daily is up From SilverlightCream.com:Windows Phone 7.5 - Play with musicAndrea Boschin's latest WP7 post is up on SilverlightShow... he's talking about the improvements in the music hub and also the programmability of musicOData caching in Windows PhoneSamidip Basu has an OData post up on SilverlightShow also, and he's talking about data caching strategies on WP7How many pins can Bing Maps handle in a WP7 app - part 3Ollie Riches has part 3 of his series on Bing Maps and pins... sepecifically how to deal with a large number of them... after going through discussing pins, he is suggesting using a heat map which looks pretty darn good, and renders fast... except when on a device :(Improvements in the LongListSelector Selection with Nov `11 release of WP ToolkitWindowsPhoneGeek's latest is this tutorial on the LongListSelector in the WP Toolkit... check out the previous info in his free eBook to get ready then dig into this tutorial for improvements in the control.Part 25 - Windows Phone 7 - Device StatusSumit Dutta's latest post is number 25 in his WP7 series, and time out he's digging into device status in the Microsoft.Phone.Info namespaceVideo on How to work with Picture in Windows Phone 7Dhananjay Kumar's latest video tutorial on WP7 is up, and he's talking about working with Photos.Live Tiles–Windows Phone WorkshopDaniel Egan has the video up of a Windows Phone Workshop done earlier this week on Live Tiles31 Days of Mango | Day #15: The Progress BarDoug Mair shares the show with Jeff Blankenburg in Jeff's Day 15 in his 31 Day quest of Mango, talking about the progressbar: Indeterminate and Determinate Modes abound31 Days of Mango | Day #14: Using ODataChris Woodruff has a guest spot on Jeff Blankenburg's 31 Days series with this post on OData... long detailed tutorial with all the codeSilverlight CommandBinding with Simple MVVM ToolkitDebal Saha has a nice detailed tutorial up on CommandBinding.. he's using the SimpleMVVM Toolkit and shows downloading and installing itStay in the 'Light!Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCreamJoin me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User GroupTechnorati Tags:Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows PhoneMIX10

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• Dryad and DryadLINQ from MSR

  - by Daniel Moth

  Microsoft Research (MSR) researches technologies, incubates projects which many times result in technology that looks like a ready-to-use product (but it is important to understand that these are not the same as products built by the various… actual product teams here at Microsoft). A very popular MSR project has been DryadLINQ, which itself builds on Dryad. To learn more follow the project pages I just linked to and I also recommend this 1-hour channel 9 video. If you only have 3 minutes, watch this great elevator pitch instead. You can also stay tuned on the official blog, which includes a post that refers to internal adoption e.g by Bing, a quick DryadLINQ code example, and some history on how DryadLINQ generalizes the MapReduce pattern and makes it accessible to regular programmers (see this post and that post). Essentially, the DryadLINQ framework (building on the Dryad runtime) allows developers to re-use their LINQ skills for creating/generating programs that process large multi-gigabyte/terabyte datasets across 100s-1000s of machines. One way to think about it is that just as Parallel LINQ allows LINQ developers to seamlessly use multiple cores from a single process on a single machine, DryadLINQ allows LINQ developers to seamlessly use multiple machines for their data parallel algorithms. In the former scenario the motivation was speed of execution, in the latter it is speed of execution AND processing large datasets that simply don't fit on a single machine. Whenever I hear about execution of parallel code on multiple machines on the Microsoft platform, I immediately think of Windows HPC Server. Indeed Dryad and DryadLINQ were made available for Windows HPC Server and I encourage you to watch the PDC session on this topic: Data-Intensive Computing on Windows HPC Server with the DryadLINQ Framework. Watch this space… Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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• Black screen when running xubuntu 13.10 after upgrade

  - by user213030

  I have a xubuntu v12 that I updated to v13.10. Sice the upgrade I get the black screen at a startup. I can get to the console and login. How can I run it in graphic mode? I run it on Oracle Virtualbox. Starting the VirtualBox Guest Additions ...done. Starting VirtualBox Guest Addition service ...done. saned disabled; edit /etc/default/saned; * Restoring resolver state... [ OK ] And it hangs on this.

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• How to get IIS6 to respond to the OPTIONS verb?

  - by puffpio

  I have a WCF webservice hosted in IIS6 that another site will POST to in a cross domain manner using jquery. Because it is a cross domain POST, the browser first sends an OPTIONS verb with Access-Control-Request-Method: POST However, IIS6 does not respond back with anything. Is this something that I need to handle at a web service level or something at the IIS level?

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• Posting to Facebook Page using C# SDK from "offline" app

  - by James Crowley

  If you want to post to a facebook page using the Facebook Graph API and the Facebook C# SDK, from an "offline" app, there's a few steps you should be aware of. First, you need to get an access token that your windows service or app can permanently use. You can get this by visiting the following url (all on one line), replacing [ApiKey] with your applications Facebook API key. http://www.facebook.com/login.php?api_key=[ApiKey]&connect_display=popup&v=1.0 &next=http://www.facebook.com/connect/login_success.html&cancel_url=http://www.facebook.com/connect/login_failure.html &fbconnect=true&return_session=true&req_perms=publish_stream,offline_access,manage_pages&return_session=1 &sdk=joey&session_version=3 In the parameters of the URL you get redirected to, this will give you an access key. Note however, that this only gives you an access key to post to your own profile page. Next, you need to get a separate access key to post to the specific page you want to access. To do this, go to https://graph.facebook.com/[YourUserId]/accounts?access_token=[AccessTokenFromAbove] You can find your user id in the URL when you click on your profile image. On this page, you will then see a list of page IDs and corresponding access tokens for each facebook page. Using the appropriate pair, you can then use code like this: var app = new Facebook.FacebookApp(_accessToken); var parameters = new Dictionary { { "message" , promotionInfo.TagLine }, { "name" , promotionInfo.Title }, { "description" , promotionInfo.Description }, { "picture", promotionInfo.ImageUrl.ToString() }, { "caption" , promotionInfo.TargetUrl.Host }, { "link" , promotionInfo.TargetUrl.ToString() }, { "type" , "link" }, }; app.Post(_targetId + "/feed", parameters); And you're done!

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• stop-play-pause-button-opening-itunes-in-snow-leopard

  - by hotsawz

  First time on here so forgive me if this is incorrect etiquette but I found this post that has been answered but I have a better solution. As the post was answered I could not post on there. The solution is simple. Pressing Option + Shift + (media keys) does not fire up / alert iTunes. I've tried it with VLC and Spotify on an external keyboard with media keys and it works fine.

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• Silverlight Cream for May 24, 2010 -- #868

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Victor Gaudioso, Weidong Shen, SilverLaw, Alnur Ismail, Damon Payne, and Karl Erickson. Shoutout: Tim Greenfield posted his slides and materials (not the padlock yet) from Portland Code Camp: Rx for Silverlight at Portland CodeCamp András Velvárt posted his material from his User Group talk: 20 Silverlight 4 demos in one zip file From SilverlightCream.com: New Silverilght Video Tutotial: How to Build Your Very Own Tutorial Cam Do you like the video Victor Gaudioso has of himself in his tutorials? well... in this one, he explains how to go about doing just that for yourself! A Sample Silverlight 4 Application Using MEF, MVVM, and WCF RIA Services - Part 1 Weidong Shen has part 1 of a new series up on Code Project about Siverlight, MVVM, MEF, and WCF RIA Services. Silver Spot Light - Silverlight 4 SilverLaw posted a control to the Expression Gallery and I have to agree with his comment "You' ll love to switch it on and off & on and off & on and off ... ;-)" A Distributable (.exe) Silverlight OOB Application Alnur Ismail has a step-by-step post up on building an OOB app deployable in an exe file. You'll need a file from a post by Tim, but there's a link in the post. DataContract based Binary Serialization for Silverlight Damon Payne serves up on a promise to post about a subject he's been discussing: DataContract based Binary Serialization for Silverlight... and he's writing about the process he followed, plus all the code is available. Creating a Custom Out-of-Browser Window in Silverlight 4 Karl Erickson at the Silverlight SDK blog discusses OOB visualization effects... what you can and can't do, and what limitations you're up against. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• VMWare-Tools Installation fails

  - by Ajay

  I am trying to install VMwareTools-8.4.6-385536.tar.gz (VMWare Tools) on the following operating system: Ubuntu 11.04 Linux ubuntu 2.6.38-8-generic #42-Ubuntu SMP Mon Apr 11 03:31:50 UTC 2011 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux I am using VMPlayer version 3.1.4 - build 385536 After starting the installation I am getting the following errors: What is the directory that contains the init scripts? [/etc/init.d] Error opening No such file or directory Distribution provided drivers for Xorg X server are used. Skipping X configuration because X drivers are not included. Creating a new initrd boot image for the kernel.<br> update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.38-8-generic Starting VMware Tools services in the virtual machine: Switching to guest configuration: done Blocking file system: done Guest operating system daemon: failed Virtual Printing daemon: done Unable to start services for VMware Tools Can somebody help in this?

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• extrapolating object state based on updates

  - by user494461

  I have a networked multi-user collaborative application. To maintain a consistent virtual world, I send updates for objects from a master peer to a guest peer. The update state contains x,y,z coordinates of object center and his rotation matrix(CHAI3d api used a 3x3 matrix) with 30Hz frequency. I want to reduce this update rate and want to send with a reduced update rate. I want a predictor on both peers. When the predicted value is outside, say a error value of 10% in comparison to master peers objects original state the master peer triggers a state update. Now for position I used velocity,position updates so that the guest peer can extrapolate position. Like velocity for position what parameter should I use for rotation extrapolition?

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• Configuration Manager Setting Causing Error PRJ0019

  - by Jeff Paterno

  Recently I ran into an issue with a project failing to build on an automated build server using CruiseControl. When I looked into the build log I saw that the Post-Build project was failing with the error message: "error PRJ0019: A tool returned an error code from "Performing Post-Build Event..." This was most frustrating especially since the solution was building without issue on my local development environment. The Post-Build project was a C++ project that basically called several batch files to unregister/register assemblies, copy resources and supporting files, and place other dependencies in the GAC. I decided to run each of the batch files manually to see if that would provide more information as to why this project was failing. This lead me to determine that the batch file that was placing assemblies in the GAC was the culprit and that it was failing to find a particular assembly. The missing assembly was the output of another project. The project that was not producing the expected output was another C++ project that called a batch file. This batch process was actually embedding resource files into an assembly and then copying the assembly to the expected location. The real confusion started when I looked back into my Subversion log and noted that nothing had changed in this project in more than 2 months! It was almost as if the project had stopped building altogether. But what would cause that?! The Configuration Manager, obviously! Checking the solution's Configuration Manager settings, I found that the project that was not producing any output was in fact not selected to be part of the build process when the "Any CPU" platform was selected. This was the problem! I had recently updated the CruiseControl configurations to force the solution to be built targeting the platform "Any CPU". As a result, the project that was at the root of the problem was not configured to be built and the post-build process was failing when it couldn't find what it needed.

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