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• What is the preferred way in C++ for converting a builtin type (int) to bool?

  - by Martin

  When programming with Visual C++, I think every developer is used to see the warning warning C4800: 'BOOL' : forcing value to bool 'true' or 'false' from time to time. The reason obviously is that BOOL is defined as int and directly assigning any of the built-in numerical types to bool is considered a bad idea. So my question is now, given any built-in numerical type (int, short, ...) that is to be interpreted as a boolean value, what is the/your preferred way of actually storing that value into a variable of type bool? Note: While mixing BOOL and bool is probably a bad idea, I think the problem will inevitably pop up whether on Windows or somewhere else, so I think this question is neither Visual-C++ nor Windows specific. Given int nBoolean; I prefer this style: bool b = nBoolean?true:false; The following might be alternatives: bool b = !!nBoolean; bool b = (nBoolean != 0); Is there a generally preferred way? Rationale? I should add: Since I only work with Visual-C++ I cannot really say if this is a VC++ specific question or if the same problem pops up with other compilers. So it would be interesting to specifically hear from g++ or users how they handle the int-bool case. Regarding Standard C++: As David Thornley notes in a comment, the C++ Standard does not require this behavior. In fact it seems to explicitly allow this, so one might consider this a VC++ weirdness. To quote the N3029 draft (which is what I have around atm.): 4.12 Boolean conversions [conv.bool] A prvalue of arithmetic, unscoped enumeration, pointer, or pointer to member type can be converted to a prvalue of type bool. A zero value, null pointer value, or null member pointer value is converted to false; any other value is converted to true. (...)

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• fullcalendar events from REST-ful php server.

  - by biagidp

  I've written a very simple RESTful php server (my first experiment with REST, so feel free to make suggestions) to respond to the fullcalendar events callback. It produces exactly the same string output as the json-events.php file in the fullcalendar json example, but for some reason fullcalendar will not accept my server's output. I've tried messing with the headers because they're different from the ones produced by json-events.php, but I'm not really sure what's awry there, if anything. The code for the server is below: <?php class Listener{ function __construct() { $this->getResource(); $this->buildResponse(); } function getResource(){ $parts = explode('/', $_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"]); $script_name = end(explode('/', $_SERVER["SCRIPT_NAME"])); $this->resource = $parts[array_search($script_name, $parts) + 1]; $this->resource_id = $parts[array_search($script_name, $parts) + 2]; } function buildResponse(){ $method = strtolower($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"]); $this->response_string = $method . ucwords($this->resource); } function getResponse(){ return $this->response_string; } } $listener = new Listener(); $thing = $listener->getResponse(); #$thing(); function getEvents(){ $year = date('Y'); $month = date('m'); echo json_encode(array( array( 'id' => 111, 'title' => "Event1", 'start' => "$year-$month-10", 'url' => "http://yahoo.com/" ), array( 'id' => 222, 'title' => "Event2", 'start' => "$year-$month-20", 'end' => "$year-$month-22", 'url' => "http://yahoo.com/" ) )); } ?> Any input, help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks, David

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• Return value from Object match

  - by Hito_kun

  I'm, by no means, JS fluent, so forgive me if im asking for some really basic stuff, but I've not being able to find a proper answer to my question. Im writting my first Node.js (plus Extra Framework and Socket.io) app and Im having some fun setting up the server side of a FB-like messenger (surprise!!!). So, let's say I have this data structure to store online users(This is a JSON Array, but I'm not sure it is the best way to do it or should I go with Javascript Objects): [ { "site": 45, "users": [ { "idUser": 5, "idSocket": "qwe87r7w8qwe", "name": "Carlos Ray Norris" }, { "idUser": 6, "idSocket": "v8d9d0fgfs7d", "name": "John Connor" } ] }, { "site": 48, "users": [ { "idUser": 22, "idSocket": "qwe87r7w8qwe", "name": "David Bowie" }, { "idUser": 23, "idSocket": "v8d9d0fgfs7d", "name": "Barack H. Obama" } ] } ] What I want to do is to search in the array for x value given y. In this case, retrieving the idSocket knowing the idUser WITHOUT having to run through the array values. So I have basically 2 questions: first, what would be the proper way to store users online? and secondly, how to find values matching with the values I already know (find the idSocket that has a given idUser). I would like a pure JS approach(or using some of the tools given by Node, Socket.io or Express), but if that's not possible then I can look for some JQuery.

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• Internet Explorer not incrementing number for non-sibling <li> elements

  - by biagidp

  I've got some html that looks like this: <ol> <div> <li>one</li> </div> <div> <li>two</li> </div> <div> <li>three</li> </div> </ol> Which looks like this in Chrome/Firefox: 1. one 2. two 3. three But looks like this in IE: 1. one 1. two 1. three If I change the code so that the li element is the parent of the div element instead of the other way around (so that all the li elements are siblings) IE renders it correctly. Anyone know what causes this or if this is the intended working behavior of IE? Furthermore is one way technically more correct than the other? <div><li></li></div> VS. <li><div></div></li> Thanks, David

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• What is the benefit of using ONLY OpenID authentication on a site?

  - by Peter

  From my experience with OpenID, I see a number of significant downsides: Adds a Single Point of Failure to the site It is not a failure that can be fixed by the site even if detected. If the OpenID provider is down for three days, what recourse does the site have to allow its users to login and access the information they own? Takes a user to another sites content and every time they logon to your site Even if the OpenID provider does not have an error, the user is re-directed to their site to login. The login page has content and links. So there is a chance a user will actually be drawn away from the site to go down the Internet rabbit hole. Why would I want to send my users to another company's website? [ Note: my provider no longer does this and seems to have fixed this problem (for now).] Adds a non-trivial amount of time to the signup To sign up with the site a new user is forced to read a new standard, chose a provider, and signup. Standards are something that the technical people should agree to in order to make a user experience frictionless. They are not something that should be thrust on the users. It is a Phisher's Dream OpenID is incredibly insecure and stealing the person's ID as they log in is trivially easy. [ taken from David Arno's Answer below ] For all of the downside, the one upside is to allow users to have fewer logins on the Internet. If a site has opt-in for OpenID then users who want that feature can use it. What I would like to understand is: What benefit does a site get for making OpenID mandatory?

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• WPF: Binding an integer to a TextBlock with TemplateBinding

  - by haagel

  I have a custom control in WPF. In this I have a DependencyProperty of the type integer. In the template for the custom control I have a TextBlock, I and would like to show the value of the integer in the TextBlock. But I can't get it to work. I'm using TemplateBinding. If I use the same code but change the type of the DependencyProperty to string it works fine. But I really want it to be an integer for the rest of my application to work. How can I do this? I've written simplified code that shows the problem. First the custom control: public class MyCustomControl : Control { static MyCustomControl() { DefaultStyleKeyProperty.OverrideMetadata(typeof(MyCustomControl), new FrameworkPropertyMetadata(typeof(MyCustomControl))); MyIntegerProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("MyInteger", typeof(int), typeof(MyCustomControl), new FrameworkPropertyMetadata(0)); } public int MyInteger { get { return (int)GetValue(MyCustomControl.MyIntegerProperty); } set { SetValue(MyCustomControl.MyIntegerProperty, value); } } public static readonly DependencyProperty MyIntegerProperty; } And this is my default template: <Style TargetType="{x:Type local:MyCustomControl}"> <Setter Property="Template"> <Setter.Value> <ControlTemplate TargetType="{x:Type local:MyCustomControl}"> <Border BorderThickness="1" CornerRadius="4" BorderBrush="Black" Background="Azure"> <StackPanel Orientation="Vertical"> <TextBlock Text="{TemplateBinding MyInteger}" HorizontalAlignment="Center" /> </StackPanel> </Border> </ControlTemplate> </Setter.Value> </Setter> </Style> What am I doing wrong? Thanks // David

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• VB.net XML Parser loop

  - by StealthRT

  Hey all i am new to XML parsing on VB.net. This is the code i am using to parse an XML file i have: Dim output As StringBuilder = New StringBuilder() Dim xmlString As String = _ "<ip_list>" & _ "<ip>" & _ "<ip>192.168.1.1</ip>" & _ "<ping>9 ms</ping>" & _ "<hostname>N/A</hostname>" & _ "</ip>" & _ "<ip>" & _ "<ip>192.168.1.6</ip>" & _ "<ping>0 ms</ping>" & _ "<hostname>N/A</hostname>" & _ "</ip>" & _ "</ip_list>" Using reader As XmlReader = XmlReader.Create(New StringReader(xmlString)) Do Until reader.EOF reader.ReadStartElement("ip_list") reader.ReadStartElement("ip") reader.ReadStartElement("ip") reader.MoveToFirstAttribute() Dim theIP As String = reader.Value.ToString reader.ReadToFollowing("ping") Dim thePing As String = reader.ReadElementContentAsString().ToString reader.ReadToFollowing("hostname") Dim theHN As String = reader.ReadElementContentAsString().ToString MsgBox(theIP & " " & thePing & " " & theHN) Loop End Using I put the "do until reader.EOF" myself but it does not seem to work. It keeps giving an error after the first go around. I must be missing something? David

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• Querying calender events even if they do not have any for the day

  - by StealthRT

  Hey everyone, i am trying to figure out a way of query my mysql server so that even if a company does not have anything posted for the day the user clicks on their logo, it still adds them to the list. That sounds a little confusing so let me try to explain it another way. Say i have 3 company's in my database: Comp1 Comp2 Comp3 And Comp1 & Comp3 have something for today on the calender but Comp2 does not. I still need it to populate and place that company on the page but have something along the lines of "nothing on the calender for today". The other 2 companys (Comp1 & Comp3) would show the calender posting for that day. This is the code i have right now: SELECT clientinfo.id, clientinfo.theCompName, clientinfo.theURL, clientinfo.picURL, clientinfo.idNumber, clientoffers.idNumber, clientoffers.theDateStart, clientoffers.theDateEnd FROM clientinfo, clientoffers WHERE clientinfo.accountStats = 'OPEN' AND clientinfo.idNumber = clientinfo.idNumber AND '2010-05-08' BETWEEN clientoffers.theDateStart AND clientoffers.theDateEnd GROUP BY clientinfo.idNumber ORDER BY clientinfo.theCompName ASC That executes just fine but for Comp2, it just places the calender info from Comp1 into it when it really doesn't have anything. The output looks like this: Comp1 | 2010-05-08 | this is the calender event 1 | etc etc Comp2 | 2010-05-08 | this is the calender event 1 | etc etc comp3 | 2010-05-09 | this is the calender event 2 | etc etc Any help would be great :o) David

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• Problem accessing private variables in jQuery like chainable design pattern

  - by novogeek

  Hi folks, I'm trying to create my custom toolbox which imitates jQuery's design pattern. Basically, the idea is somewhat derived from this post: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2061501/jquery-plugin-design-pattern-common-practice-for-dealing-with-private-function (Check the answer given by "David"). So here is my toolbox function: (function(window){ var mySpace=function(){ return new PrivateSpace(); } var PrivateSpace=function(){ var testCache={}; }; PrivateSpace.prototype={ init:function(){ console.log('init this:', this); return this; }, ajax:function(){ console.log('make ajax calls here'); return this; }, cache:function(key,selector){ console.log('cache selectors here'); testCache[key]=selector; console.log('cached selector: ',testCache); return this; } } window.hmis=window.m$=mySpace(); })(window) Now, if I execute this function like: console.log(m$.cache('firstname','#FirstNameTextbox')); I get an error 'testCache' is not defined. I'm not able to access the variable "testCache" inside my cache function of the prototype. How should I access it? Basically, what I want to do is, I want to cache all my jQuery selectors into an object and use this object in the future.

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• Detect modification of variable at runtime in C/C++

  - by YuppieNetworking

  Hello, I am developing a library in C++ where users/programmer will extend a class BaseClass that has a method initArray. This method should be implemented by the user/programmer and it should normally initialize all elements of the array m_arr. Here is a snipplet, modified to this example: class BaseClass { public: BaseClass(int n) { m_arr = new double[n]; size = n; }; virtual ~BaseClass(); int size; double* m_arr; virtual int initArray(); }; Sometimes, the user/programmer implements a initArray that does not initialize some elements of m_arr. What I would like is to create a function in my library that checks if initArray did initialize all elements of m_arr. This function should be called by a sanity-check rutine at runtime. My question: is it possible to detect changes on this array? I can only think of initializing the array with some invalid values (like NaN or Inf), call initArray and check that all values have changed. Thanks for your ideas, David

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• Error with zoomStartTime and AnnotatedTimeLine

  - by user973025

  I'm a bit of a beginner with Javascript, but last month I had a working Google chart linked to a Google Docs file, which uses a start date for the graph at 90 days before the current date. I checked the page today and in Chrome I get the message "Object # has no method 'getTime'", and in Firefox I get the message "b.zoomStartTime[y] is not a function". Both stop the graph from loading. I have simplified the code to help me with the error, but I'm not getting anywhere... Here's the code: <script type="text/javascript"> var oldDate = new Date(); oldDate.setDate(oldDate.getDate() - 90); </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/static/modules/gviz/1.0/chart.js"> { "dataSourceUrl": "//docs.google.com/spreadsheet/tq?key=0AkQH6d2CUv_qdDhwd3gtZzdTVFlNX3AwX2xUSUVuclE&transpose=0&headers=-1&range=A1%3AB2436&gid=0&pub=1", "options": { "zoomStartTime": oldDate, "width": 650, "height": 371 }, "chartType": "AnnotatedTimeLine", } </script> Any ideas would be hugely appreciated. David.

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• Aliasing `T*` with `char*` is allowed. Is it also allowed the other way around?

  - by StackedCrooked

  Note: This question has been renamed and reduced to make it more focused and readable. Most of the comments refer to the old text. According to the standard objects of different type may not share the same memory location. So this would not be legal: int i = 0; short * s = reinterpret_cast<short*>(&i); // BAD! The standard however allows an exception to this rule: any object may be accessed through a pointer to char or unsigned char: int i = 0; char * c = reinterpret_cast<char*>(&i); // OK However, it is not clear to me if this is also allowed the other way around. For example: char * c = read_socket(...); unsigned * u = reinterpret_cast<unsigned*>(c); // huh? Summary of the answers The answer is NO for two reasons: You an only access an existing object as char*. There is no object in my sample code, only a byte buffer. The pointer address may not have the right alignment for the target object. In that case dereferencing it would result in undefined behavior. On the Intel and AMD platforms it will result performance overhead. On ARM it will trigger a CPU trap and your program will be terminated! This is a simplified explanation. For more detailed information see answers by @Luc Danton, @Cheers and hth. - Alf and @David Rodríguez.

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• Session in php are not enough clear to me

  - by Lulzim

  I find sessions in php kind of confusing, can anybody of you explain those to me. I have an example which is not working in my case: I register sessions this way, would you please tell me is this the right way of registering sessions //this is the page from where i register myusername in sessions if($count==1){ session_start(); $_SESSION['myusername'] = $_POST['myusername']; include("enterpincover.php"); } else { echo "Wrong Pin"; } here i check first whether the username is registered in sessions in oder to open his account , otherwise open again login. It works, if user is not loged in, it will show login page which is right, if user is loged it shows welcome message but not the Welcome the name of the user as I want. for ex: Welcome David <?php session_start(); if(isset($_SESSION['myusername'])) { echo 'Welcome '.$_SESSION['myusername']; } else { include("leftmodules.php"); include("rightmodules.php"); include("login.php"); } ?>

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• What is a good solution to log the deletion of a row in MySQL?

  - by hobodave

  Background I am currently logging deletion of rows from my tickets table at the application level. When a user deletes a ticket the following SQL is executed: INSERT INTO alert_log (user_id, priority, priorityName, timestamp, message) VALUES (9, 4, 'WARN', NOW(), "TICKET: David A. deleted ticket #6 from Foo"); Please do not offer schema suggestions for the alert_log table. Fields: user_id - User id of the logged in user performing the deletion priority - Always 4 priorityName - Always 'WARN' timestamp - Always NOW() message - Format: "[NAMESPACE]: [FullName] deleted ticket #[TicketId] from [CompanyName]" NAMESPACE - Always TICKET FullName - Full name of user identified by user_id above TicketId - Primary key ID of the ticket being deleted CompanyName - Ticket has a Company via tickets.company_id Situation/Questions Obviously this solution does not work if a ticket is deleted manually from the mysql command line client. However, now I need to. The issues I'm having are as follows: Should I use a PROCEDURE, FUNCTION, or TRIGGER? -- Analysis: TRIGGER - I don't think this will work because I can't pass parameters to it, and it would trigger when my application deleted the row too. PROCEDURE or FUNCTION - Not sure. Should I return the number of deleted rows? If so, that would require a FUNCTION right? How should I account for the absence of a logged in user? -- Possibilities: Using either a PROC or FUNC, require the invoker to pass in a valid user_id Require the user to pass in a string with the name Use the CURRENT_USER - meh Hard code the FullName to just be "Database Administrator" Could the name be an optional parameter? I'm rather green when it comes to sprocs. Assuming I went with the PROC/FUNC approach, is it possible to outright restrict regular DELETE calls to this table, yet still allow users to call this PROC/FUNC to do the deletion for them? Ideally the solution is usable by my application as well, so that my code is DRY.

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• Update php 5.2.0 to 5.2.4 with aptitude

  - by Kiva

  Hi guy, I would like to update my php 5 in my server. At this moment, I use php 5.2.0 so I want to update it to php 5.2.4 (not php 5.3). I tried to do this: aptitude update aptitude upgrade 63 packets were updated but not php which is always in 5.0 How can I update my php please ? Here is the output of commands asked by David in another post: aptitude search php5 p libapache-mod-php5 - server-side, HTML-embedded scripting langu i A libapache2-mod-php5 - server-side, HTML-embedded scripting langu i php5 - server-side, HTML-embedded scripting langu p php5-apache2-mod-bt - PHP bindings for mod_bt p php5-auth-pam - A PHP5 extension for PAM authentication i php5-cgi - server-side, HTML-embedded scripting langu p php5-clamavlib - PHP ClamAV Lib - ClamAV Interface for PHP5 p php5-cli - command-line interpreter for the php5 scri i A php5-common - Common files for packages built from the p i php5-curl - CURL module for php5 p php5-dev - Files for PHP5 module development i A php5-gd - GD module for php5 p php5-idn - PHP api for the IDNA library p php5-imagick - ImageMagick module for php5 p php5-imap - IMAP module for php5 p php5-interbase - interbase/firebird module for php5 p php5-json - JSON serialiser for PHP5 p php5-ldap - LDAP module for php5 p php5-mapscript - module for php5-cgi to use mapserver p php5-maxdb - PHP extension to access MaxDB databases fo i A php5-mcrypt - MCrypt module for php5 p php5-memcache - memcache extension module for PHP5 p php5-mhash - MHASH module for php5 p php5-ming - Ming module for php5 i A php5-mysql - MySQL module for php5 p php5-odbc - ODBC module for php5 p php5-pgsql - PostgreSQL module for php5 p php5-ps - ps module for PHP 5 p php5-pspell - pspell module for php5 p php5-radius - PECL radius module for PHP 5 p php5-recode - recode module for php5 p php5-snmp - SNMP module for php5 p php5-sqlite - SQLite module for php5 p php5-sqlite3 - SQLite3 module for php5 p php5-sqlrelay - SQL Relay PHP API p php5-suhosin - advanced protection module for php5 p php5-sybase - Sybase / MS SQL Server module for php5 p php5-tidy - tidy module for php5 p php5-uuid - OSSP uuid module for php5 p php5-xapian - Xapian search engine interface for PHP5 p php5-xcache - Fast, stable PHP opcode cacher p php5-xmlrpc - XML-RPC module for php5 p php5-xsl - XSL module for php5 aptitude show php5 | grep Version Version : 5.2.0-8+etch13 aptitude show php5-cgi | grep Version Version : 5.2.0-8+etch13 php5 --version -bash: php5: command not found php-cgi --version PHP 5.2.0-8+etch13 (cgi-fcgi) (built: Oct 2 2008 08:21:17) Copyright (c) 1997-2006 The PHP Group Zend Engine v2.2.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2006 Zend Technologies

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• l2tp server always 'sent [CCP ResetReq id=0x3]' when got compressed data request

  - by wilbur

  I have built a xl2tpd/ipsec server on my ubuntu 12.04.3, and I managed to make a l2tp vpn connection to the xl2tpd server from my android phone. The xl2tpd log said xl2tpd[10828]: Enabling IPsec SAref processing for L2TP transport mode SAs xl2tpd[10828]: IPsec SAref does not work with L2TP kernel mode yet, enabling forceuserspace=yes xl2tpd[10828]: setsockopt recvref[22]: Protocol not available xl2tpd[10828]: This binary does not support kernel L2TP. xl2tpd[10828]: xl2tpd version xl2tpd-1.2.8 started on atime.me PID:10828 xl2tpd[10828]: Written by Mark Spencer, Copyright (C) 1998, Adtran, Inc. xl2tpd[10828]: Forked by Scott Balmos and David Stipp, (C) 2001 xl2tpd[10828]: Inherited by Jeff McAdams, (C) 2002 xl2tpd[10828]: Forked again by Xelerance (www.xelerance.com) (C) 2006 xl2tpd[10828]: Listening on IP address 0.0.0.0, port 1701 xl2tpd[10828]: control_finish: Peer requested tunnel 39154 twice, ignoring second one. xl2tpd[10828]: Connection established to 117.136.8.59, 43149. Local: 25339, Remote: 39154 (ref=0/0). LNS session is 'default' However I cannot access the web in my browser. The pppd log said rcvd [Compressed data] 00 1d 82 c4 7c 04 d8 09 ... sent [CCP ResetReq id=0x7] I have googled a lot and found that this was mostly caused by a mppe decompression error. I have disabled BSD-Compress compression with nobsdcomp in /etc/ppp/xl2tpd-options but it did not work. I used openswan-2.6.33 and xl2tpd-1.2.8 which were built from source. And my configurations: /etc/ipsec.conf version 2.0 config setup nat_traversal=yes virtual_private=%v4:10.0.0.0/8,%v4:192.168.0.0/16,%v4:172.16.0.0/12 oe=off protostack=netkey conn L2TP-PSK-NAT rightsubnet=vhost:%priv also=L2TP-PSK-noNAT conn L2TP-PSK-noNAT authby=secret pfs=no auto=add keyingtries=3 rekey=no ikelifetime=8h keylife=1h type=transport left=106.186.121.214 leftprotoport=17/1701 right=%any rightprotoport=17/%any /etc/xl2tpd/xl2tpd.conf [global] ipsec saref = yes [lns default] local ip = 10.10.11.1 ip range = 10.10.11.2-10.10.11.245 refuse chap = yes refuse pap = yes require authentication = yes ppp debug = yes pppoptfile = /etc/ppp/xl2tpd-options length bit = yes /etc/ppp/xl2tpd-options require-mschap-v2 ms-dns 8.8.8.8 ms-dns 8.8.4.4 asyncmap 0 auth crtscts lock hide-password modem name l2tpd proxyarp lcp-echo-interval 30 lcp-echo-failure 4 debug nobsdcomp Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

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• Looking for personal scheduling software / todo list with rather particular requirements

  - by Cthulhu

  I've been scouring the web for a couple of (my boss') hours, looking for a piece of software that can organize my tasks in two ways. First, I have a list of bullet points / todo items I can do at any given time. Think of stuff like solve issue X, ask X about Y, write documentation about Z, etcetera. Second, I have a number of running projects I'd like to organize better, as in schedule for a certain part of a day of the week. Ideally (I think), my day would be organized as 50% spent on projects and 50% on the other small things. Now, I don't like most calendar applications (such as Outlook & friends), their UI is too 'official', not really easy to move stuff around (in my experience). I don't like most todo lists either, too static and things. I like new, fast and hip software. I've looked at GTD versions of Tiddlywiki, and I like mGSD for one particular feature. You can make lists of tasks and basically give them one of three statusses - Now (nothing required, you can do it right away), Waiting (you need someone or something before you can work on this), or the most gratifying of all, Done. I like that feature because it's a simple todo list, but indicates more accurately the things you can do right now and the things you depend on someone else for to do. Anyways, that's just a small aspect of that program - most of the other things in there I can't find a particularly good use for. If there's something like that (maybe something that works even snappier, cleaner UI), combined with an easy to use bit of scheduling software (optionally separated into two applications, but preferrably not), I think I'd like that. (Besides something like that, I also use several instances of Trac to monitor tasks and bugs and things for the various clients and projects I have to serve, and TaskCoach to monitor the amount of time I spend on each task / each client. An easy / low-maintenance time tracking software would be neat too) Of course, the software has to be free to use. I don't like shareware, trials, limited software and the like. I could develop my own too, but I'm lazy like that and there's a dozen other projects I'd like to do in my free time (neither of which I actually do). Edit: I like David Seah's printable CEO stuff, if something like that (with some video game / instant achievement / gratification) exists in software, it'd be awesome.

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• understanding my site's DNS records

  - by DaveM

  firstly apologies for using the word 'pointage' this is the word my french domain registrar uses so I may have used to wrong term. OK I would like to better understand what is going on on my 'pointage' record on my domain registrars site. for my (currently empty) web site it reports the following details... Type : Host : Destination A : www.mydomain.org : 62.210.176.146 A : mail.mydomain.org : 84.246.225.176 Mx : .mydomain.org : mail.mydomain.org I think I understand the MX record, that simply relays anything onto the mail.mydomain.org location. However why are the destination for the www and mail domains different. Even more confusing (for me) is the fact that if I ping either of www.mydomain.org or mail.mydomain.org the ping returns a different IP address. This IP address is consistent with that of my server (ie 92.39.247.92). So what exactly is going on ? I'm sure I could find the information on the web,I've read a few thing on the debianhelp site regarding DNS records, and it seems to suggest that the record should be a reverse lookup, but certains isn't the reverse of my servers IP ? but I don't what I should be looking for, so links to docs and search terms for google will be happily accepteed (even though they go against the grain of SO answers to question). thanks in advance. David. ps. I should add that everything seems to work just fine, and I've just descovered this part of the management page of my registrar. Edit: Addition of DNS records and ping results. The DNS record for the site. From what I've read there should only realy be a single 'A' record, so has something gone wrong ? should I change it (remove the extras and then just point www.facilitee.org - .facilitee.org and mail.facilitee.org - .facilitee.org here is the DNS record A www.facilitee.org ? 92.39.247.92 A .facilitee.org ? 92.39.247.92 A mail.facilitee.org ? 92.39.247.92 A webmail.facilitee.org ? 92.39.247.92 MX .facilitee.org ? mail.facilitee.org ping results... ~$ ping www.facilitee.org PING www.facilitee.org (92.39.247.92) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from vps4576-cloud.dns26.com (92.39.247.92): ~$ ping mail.facilitee.org PING mail.facilitee.org (92.39.247.92) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from vps4576-cloud.dns26.com (92.39.247.92): So the DNS and the ping correspond, but the 'pointage' doesn't. ~ how can I get a report of the pointage records other than from my registrar ?

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• SQL SERVER – Guest Post – Jonathan Kehayias – Wait Type – Day 16 of 28

  - by pinaldave

  Jonathan Kehayias (Blog | Twitter) is a MCITP Database Administrator and Developer, who got started in SQL Server in 2004 as a database developer and report writer in the natural gas industry. After spending two and a half years working in TSQL, in late 2006, he transitioned to the role of SQL Database Administrator. His primary passion is performance tuning, where he frequently rewrites queries for better performance and performs in depth analysis of index implementation and usage. Jonathan blogs regularly on SQLBlog, and was a coauthor of Professional SQL Server 2008 Internals and Troubleshooting. On a personal note, I think Jonathan is extremely positive person. In every conversation with him I have found that he is always eager to help and encourage. Every time he finds something needs to be approved, he has contacted me without hesitation and guided me to improve, change and learn. During all the time, he has not lost his focus to help larger community. I am honored that he has accepted to provide his views on complex subject of Wait Types and Queues. Currently I am reading his series on Extended Events. Here is the guest blog post by Jonathan: SQL Server troubleshooting is all about correlating related pieces of information together to indentify where exactly the root cause of a problem lies. In my daily work as a DBA, I generally get phone calls like, “So and so application is slow, what’s wrong with the SQL Server.” One of the funny things about the letters DBA is that they go so well with Default Blame Acceptor, and I really wish that I knew exactly who the first person was that pointed that out to me, because it really fits at times. A lot of times when I get this call, the problem isn’t related to SQL Server at all, but every now and then in my initial quick checks, something pops up that makes me start looking at things further. The SQL Server is slow, we see a number of tasks waiting on ASYNC_IO_COMPLETION, IO_COMPLETION, or PAGEIOLATCH_* waits in sys.dm_exec_requests and sys.dm_exec_waiting_tasks. These are also some of the highest wait types in sys.dm_os_wait_stats for the server, so it would appear that we have a disk I/O bottleneck on the machine. A quick check of sys.dm_io_virtual_file_stats() and tempdb shows a high write stall rate, while our user databases show high read stall rates on the data files. A quick check of some performance counters and Page Life Expectancy on the server is bouncing up and down in the 50-150 range, the Free Page counter consistently hits zero, and the Free List Stalls/sec counter keeps jumping over 10, but Buffer Cache Hit Ratio is 98-99%. Where exactly is the problem? In this case, which happens to be based on a real scenario I faced a few years back, the problem may not be a disk bottleneck at all; it may very well be a memory pressure issue on the server. A quick check of the system spec’s and it is a dual duo core server with 8GB RAM running SQL Server 2005 SP1 x64 on Windows Server 2003 R2 x64. Max Server memory is configured at 6GB and we think that this should be enough to handle the workload; or is it? This is a unique scenario because there are a couple of things happening inside of this system, and they all relate to what the root cause of the performance problem is on the system. If we were to query sys.dm_exec_query_stats for the TOP 10 queries, by max_physical_reads, max_logical_reads, and max_worker_time, we may be able to find some queries that were using excessive I/O and possibly CPU against the system in their worst single execution. We can also CROSS APPLY to sys.dm_exec_sql_text() and see the statement text, and also CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_query_plan() to get the execution plan stored in cache. Ok, quick check, the plans are pretty big, I see some large index seeks, that estimate 2.8GB of data movement between operators, but everything looks like it is optimized the best it can be. Nothing really stands out in the code, and the indexing looks correct, and I should have enough memory to handle this in cache, so it must be a disk I/O problem right? Not exactly! If we were to look at how much memory the plan cache is taking by querying sys.dm_os_memory_clerks for the CACHESTORE_SQLCP and CACHESTORE_OBJCP clerks we might be surprised at what we find. In SQL Server 2005 RTM and SP1, the plan cache was allowed to take up to 75% of the memory under 8GB. I’ll give you a second to go back and read that again. Yes, you read it correctly, it says 75% of the memory under 8GB, but you don’t have to take my word for it, you can validate this by reading Changes in Caching Behavior between SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005 RTM and SQL Server 2005 SP2. In this scenario the application uses an entirely adhoc workload against SQL Server and this leads to plan cache bloat, and up to 4.5GB of our 6GB of memory for SQL can be consumed by the plan cache in SQL Server 2005 SP1. This in turn reduces the size of the buffer cache to just 1.5GB, causing our 2.8GB of data movement in this expensive plan to cause complete flushing of the buffer cache, not just once initially, but then another time during the queries execution, resulting in excessive physical I/O from disk. Keep in mind that this is not the only query executing at the time this occurs. Remember the output of sys.dm_io_virtual_file_stats() showed high read stalls on the data files for our user databases versus higher write stalls for tempdb? The memory pressure is also forcing heavier use of tempdb to handle sorting and hashing in the environment as well. The real clue here is the Memory counters for the instance; Page Life Expectancy, Free List Pages, and Free List Stalls/sec. The fact that Page Life Expectancy is fluctuating between 50 and 150 constantly is a sign that the buffer cache is experiencing constant churn of data, once every minute to two and a half minutes. If you add to the Page Life Expectancy counter, the consistent bottoming out of Free List Pages along with Free List Stalls/sec consistently spiking over 10, and you have the perfect memory pressure scenario. All of sudden it may not be that our disk subsystem is the problem, but is instead an innocent bystander and victim. Side Note: The Page Life Expectancy counter dropping briefly and then returning to normal operating values intermittently is not necessarily a sign that the server is under memory pressure. The Books Online and a number of other references will tell you that this counter should remain on average above 300 which is the time in seconds a page will remain in cache before being flushed or aged out. This number, which equates to just five minutes, is incredibly low for modern systems and most published documents pre-date the predominance of 64 bit computing and easy availability to larger amounts of memory in SQL Servers. As food for thought, consider that my personal laptop has more memory in it than most SQL Servers did at the time those numbers were posted. I would argue that today, a system churning the buffer cache every five minutes is in need of some serious tuning or a hardware upgrade. Back to our problem and its investigation: There are two things really wrong with this server; first the plan cache is excessively consuming memory and bloated in size and we need to look at that and second we need to evaluate upgrading the memory to accommodate the workload being performed. In the case of the server I was working on there were a lot of single use plans found in sys.dm_exec_cached_plans (where usecounts=1). Single use plans waste space in the plan cache, especially when they are adhoc plans for statements that had concatenated filter criteria that is not likely to reoccur with any frequency.  SQL Server 2005 doesn’t natively have a way to evict a single plan from cache like SQL Server 2008 does, but MVP Kalen Delaney, showed a hack to evict a single plan by creating a plan guide for the statement and then dropping that plan guide in her blog post Geek City: Clearing a Single Plan from Cache. We could put that hack in place in a job to automate cleaning out all the single use plans periodically, minimizing the size of the plan cache, but a better solution would be to fix the application so that it uses proper parameterized calls to the database. You didn’t write the app, and you can’t change its design? Ok, well you could try to force parameterization to occur by creating and keeping plan guides in place, or we can try forcing parameterization at the database level by using ALTER DATABASE <dbname> SET PARAMETERIZATION FORCED and that might help. If neither of these help, we could periodically dump the plan cache for that database, as discussed as being a problem in Kalen’s blog post referenced above; not an ideal scenario. The other option is to increase the memory on the server to 16GB or 32GB, if the hardware allows it, which will increase the size of the plan cache as well as the buffer cache. In SQL Server 2005 SP1, on a system with 16GB of memory, if we set max server memory to 14GB the plan cache could use at most 9GB  [(8GB*.75)+(6GB*.5)=(6+3)=9GB], leaving 5GB for the buffer cache.  If we went to 32GB of memory and set max server memory to 28GB, the plan cache could use at most 16GB [(8*.75)+(20*.5)=(6+10)=16GB], leaving 12GB for the buffer cache. Thankfully we have SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2, 3, and 4 these days which include the changes in plan cache sizing discussed in the Changes to Caching Behavior between SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005 RTM and SQL Server 2005 SP2 blog post. In real life, when I was troubleshooting this problem, I spent a week trying to chase down the cause of the disk I/O bottleneck with our Server Admin and SAN Admin, and there wasn’t much that could be done immediately there, so I finally asked if we could increase the memory on the server to 16GB, which did fix the problem. It wasn’t until I had this same problem occur on another system that I actually figured out how to really troubleshoot this down to the root cause.  I couldn’t believe the size of the plan cache on the server with 16GB of memory when I actually learned about this and went back to look at it. SQL Server is constantly telling a story to anyone that will listen. As the DBA, you have to sit back and listen to all that it’s telling you and then evaluate the big picture and how all the data you can gather from SQL about performance relate to each other. One of the greatest tools out there is actually a free in the form of Diagnostic Scripts for SQL Server 2005 and 2008, created by MVP Glenn Alan Berry. Glenn’s scripts collect a majority of the information that SQL has to offer for rapid troubleshooting of problems, and he includes a lot of notes about what the outputs of each individual query might be telling you. When I read Pinal’s blog post SQL SERVER – ASYNC_IO_COMPLETION – Wait Type – Day 11 of 28, I noticed that he referenced Checking Memory Related Performance Counters in his post, but there was no real explanation about why checking memory counters is so important when looking at an I/O related wait type. I thought I’d chat with him briefly on Google Talk/Twitter DM and point this out, and offer a couple of other points I noted, so that he could add the information to his blog post if he found it useful.  Instead he asked that I write a guest blog for this. I am honored to be a guest blogger, and to be able to share this kind of information with the community. The information contained in this blog post is a glimpse at how I do troubleshooting almost every day of the week in my own environment. SQL Server provides us with a lot of information about how it is running, and where it may be having problems, it is up to us to play detective and find out how all that information comes together to tell us what’s really the problem. This blog post is written by Jonathan Kehayias (Blog | Twitter). Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: MVP, Pinal Dave, PostADay, Readers Contribution, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology

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• WPA2 authentication fails using USB network devices (Linksys and Rosewill)

  - by Greg Youtz

  Decided to reduce the clutter in the house and replace a wired connection with a wireless one on my wife's system using USB network device Rosewill RNX-X1. I can see and connect to unprotected network, but WPA2 authentication repeatedly fails. Tried the same with a Linksys USB network adapter. Both failed to authenticate. Worth noting that I recently switched from Comcast to CenturyLink and so switched routers. The system connected successfully to previous router (Linksys EA4500) using WPA2. Would think it is the router (Actiontec C1000A) but all other devices (TV, iPad, Windows, Blackberry, and Squeezebox) connect ok. Would appreciate some diagnostic guidance and insight (phrased for a newbie!) Tests to date: sudo lshw -class network *-network description: Ethernet interface product: RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0 logical name: eth0 version: 01 serial: 00:e0:4d:30:40:a1 size: 10Mbit/s capacity: 1Gbit/s width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm vpd msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list rom ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=half firmware=N/A latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=MII speed=10Mbit/s resources: irq:47 ioport:ac00(size=256) memory:fdcff000-fdcfffff memory:fdb00000-fdb1ffff *-network description: Wireless interface physical id: 1 bus info: usb@1:2 logical name: wlan1 serial: 00:02:6f:bd:30:a0 capabilities: ethernet physical wireless configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rt2800usb driverversion=3.2.0-31-generic firmware=0.29 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn sudo lspci -v 00:00.0 RAM memory: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 Memory Controller (rev a2) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 3409 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0 Capabilities: [44] HyperTransport: Slave or Primary Interface Capabilities: [dc] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable+ Fixed- 00:01.0 ISA bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 ISA Bridge (rev a2) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 3409 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0 00:01.1 SMBus: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 SMBus (rev a2) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 3409 Flags: 66MHz, fast devsel, IRQ 11 I/O ports at fc00 [size=64] I/O ports at 1c00 [size=64] I/O ports at 1c40 [size=64] Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2 Kernel driver in use: nForce2_smbus Kernel modules: i2c-nforce2 00:01.2 RAM memory: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 Memory Controller (rev a2) Flags: 66MHz, fast devsel 00:02.0 USB controller: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 OHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev a2) (prog-if 10 [OHCI]) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 3409 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 23 Memory at fe02f000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K] Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2 Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd 00:02.1 USB controller: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 EHCI USB 2.0 Controller (rev a2) (prog-if 20 [EHCI]) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 3409 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 22 Memory at fe02e000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256] Capabilities: [44] Debug port: BAR=1 offset=0098 Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2 Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd 00:04.0 USB controller: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 OHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev a2) (prog-if 10 [OHCI]) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 3409 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 21 Memory at fe02d000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K] Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2 Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd 00:04.1 USB controller: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 EHCI USB 2.0 Controller (rev a2) (prog-if 20 [EHCI]) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 3409 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 20 Memory at fe02c000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256] Capabilities: [44] Debug port: BAR=1 offset=0098 Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2 Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd 00:06.0 IDE interface: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 IDE Controller (rev a1) (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP]) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 3409 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0 [virtual] Memory at 000001f0 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8] [virtual] Memory at 000003f0 (type 3, non-prefetchable) [size=1] [virtual] Memory at 00000170 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8] [virtual] Memory at 00000370 (type 3, non-prefetchable) [size=1] I/O ports at f000 [size=16] Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2 Kernel driver in use: pata_amd Kernel modules: pata_amd 00:07.0 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 High Definition Audio (rev a1) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 820c Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 22 Memory at fe024000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K] Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable+ 64bit+ Capabilities: [6c] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed+ Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel 00:08.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 PCI Bridge (rev a2) (prog-if 01 [Subtractive decode]) Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=32 I/O behind bridge: 0000c000-0000cfff Memory behind bridge: fdf00000-fdffffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: fd000000-fd0fffff Capabilities: [b8] Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device cb84 Capabilities: [8c] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed- 00:09.0 IDE interface: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 AHCI Controller (rev a2) (prog-if 85 [Master SecO PriO]) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 5407 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 23 I/O ports at 09f0 [size=8] I/O ports at 0bf0 [size=4] I/O ports at 0970 [size=8] I/O ports at 0b70 [size=4] I/O ports at dc00 [size=16] Memory at fe02a000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K] Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [8c] SATA HBA v1.0 Capabilities: [b0] MSI: Enable- Count=1/8 Maskable- 64bit+ Capabilities: [cc] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed+ Kernel driver in use: ahci 00:0b.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 PCI Express Bridge (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=02, subordinate=02, sec-latency=0 I/O behind bridge: 0000b000-0000bfff Memory behind bridge: fde00000-fdefffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000fdd00000-00000000fddfffff Capabilities: [40] Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0000 Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/2 Maskable- 64bit+ Capabilities: [60] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed- Capabilities: [80] Express Root Port (Slot+), MSI 00 Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:0c.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 PCI Express Bridge (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=03, subordinate=03, sec-latency=0 I/O behind bridge: 0000a000-0000afff Memory behind bridge: fdc00000-fdcfffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000fdb00000-00000000fdbfffff Capabilities: [40] Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0000 Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/2 Maskable- 64bit+ Capabilities: [60] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed- Capabilities: [80] Express Root Port (Slot+), MSI 00 Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:0d.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 PCI Express Bridge (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=04, subordinate=04, sec-latency=0 I/O behind bridge: 00009000-00009fff Memory behind bridge: fda00000-fdafffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000fd900000-00000000fd9fffff Capabilities: [40] Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0000 Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/2 Maskable- 64bit+ Capabilities: [60] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed- Capabilities: [80] Express Root Port (Slot+), MSI 00 Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:0e.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 PCI Express Bridge (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=05, subordinate=05, sec-latency=0 I/O behind bridge: 00008000-00008fff Memory behind bridge: fd800000-fd8fffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000fd700000-00000000fd7fffff Capabilities: [40] Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0000 Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/2 Maskable- 64bit+ Capabilities: [60] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed- Capabilities: [80] Express Root Port (Slot+), MSI 00 Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:0f.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 PCI Express Bridge (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=06, subordinate=06, sec-latency=0 I/O behind bridge: 00007000-00007fff Memory behind bridge: fd600000-fd6fffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000fd500000-00000000fd5fffff Capabilities: [40] Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0000 Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/2 Maskable- 64bit+ Capabilities: [60] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed- Capabilities: [80] Express Root Port (Slot+), MSI 00 Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:10.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 PCI Express Bridge (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=07, subordinate=07, sec-latency=0 I/O behind bridge: 00006000-00006fff Memory behind bridge: fd400000-fd4fffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000fd300000-00000000fd3fffff Capabilities: [40] Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0000 Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/2 Maskable- 64bit+ Capabilities: [60] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed- Capabilities: [80] Express Root Port (Slot+), MSI 00 Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:11.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP67 PCI Express Bridge (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=08, subordinate=08, sec-latency=0 I/O behind bridge: 00005000-00005fff Memory behind bridge: fd200000-fd2fffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000fd100000-00000000fd1fffff Capabilities: [40] Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0000 Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/2 Maskable- 64bit+ Capabilities: [60] HyperTransport: MSI Mapping Enable- Fixed- Capabilities: [80] Express Root Port (Slot+), MSI 00 Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:12.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation C68 [GeForce 7050 PV / nForce 630a] (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller]) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 1406 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 21 Memory at fb000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M] Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M] Memory at fc000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M] [virtual] Expansion ROM at 80000000 [disabled] [size=128K] Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+ Kernel driver in use: nvidia Kernel modules: nvidia_current, nouveau, nvidiafb 00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration Flags: fast devsel Capabilities: [80] HyperTransport: Host or Secondary Interface 00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map Flags: fast devsel 00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller Flags: fast devsel 00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control Flags: fast devsel Capabilities: [f0] Secure device <?> Kernel driver in use: k8temp Kernel modules: k8temp 03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 01) Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 2305 Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 47 I/O ports at ac00 [size=256] Memory at fdcff000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K] [virtual] Expansion ROM at fdb00000 [disabled] [size=128K] Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [48] Vital Product Data Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/2 Maskable- 64bit+ Capabilities: [60] Express Endpoint, MSI 00 Capabilities: [84] Vendor Specific Information: Len=4c <?> Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting Capabilities: [12c] Virtual Channel Capabilities: [148] Device Serial Number 32-00-00-00-10-ec-81-68 Capabilities: [154] Power Budgeting <?> Kernel driver in use: r8169 Kernel modules: r8169 sudo rfkill list all 2: phy2: Wireless LAN Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: no Would appreciate insight on how to chase this down.

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• Game AI: Pattern for implementing Sense-Think-Act components?

  - by Rosarch

  I'm developing a game. Each entity in the game is a GameObject. Each GameObject is composed of a GameObjectController, GameObjectModel, and GameObjectView. (Or inheritants thereof.) For NPCs, the GameObjectController is split into: IThinkNPC: reads current state and makes a decision about what to do IActNPC: updates state based on what needs to be done ISenseNPC: reads current state to answer world queries (eg "am I being in the shadows?") My question: Is this ok for the ISenseNPC interface? public interface ISenseNPC { // ... /// <summary> /// True if `dest` is a safe point to which to retreat. /// </summary> /// <param name="dest"></param> /// <param name="angleToThreat"></param> /// <param name="range"></param> /// <returns></returns> bool IsSafeToRetreat(Vector2 dest, float angleToThreat, float range); /// <summary> /// Finds a new location to which to retreat. /// </summary> /// <param name="angleToThreat"></param> /// <returns></returns> Vector2 newRetreatDest(float angleToThreat); /// <summary> /// Returns the closest LightSource that illuminates the NPC. /// Null if the NPC is not illuminated. /// </summary> /// <returns></returns> ILightSource ClosestIlluminatingLight(); /// <summary> /// True if the NPC is sufficiently far away from target. /// Assumes that target is the only entity it could ever run from. /// </summary> /// <returns></returns> bool IsSafeFromTarget(); } None of the methods take any parameters. Instead, the implementation is expected to maintain a reference to the relevant GameObjectController and read that. However, I'm now trying to write unit tests for this. Obviously, it's necessary to use mocking, since I can't pass arguments directly. The way I'm doing it feels really brittle - what if another implementation comes along that uses the world query utilities in a different way? Really, I'm not testing the interface, I'm testing the implementation. Poor. The reason I used this pattern in the first place was to keep IThinkNPC implementation code clean: public BehaviorState RetreatTransition(BehaviorState currentBehavior) { if (sense.IsCollidingWithTarget()) { NPCUtils.TraceTransitionIfNeeded(ToString(), BehaviorState.ATTACK.ToString(), "is colliding with target"); return BehaviorState.ATTACK; } if (sense.IsSafeFromTarget() && sense.ClosestIlluminatingLight() == null) { return BehaviorState.WANDER; } if (sense.ClosestIlluminatingLight() != null && sense.SeesTarget()) { NPCUtils.TraceTransitionIfNeeded(ToString(), BehaviorState.ATTACK.ToString(), "collides with target"); return BehaviorState.CHASE; } return currentBehavior; } Perhaps the cleanliness isn't worth it, however. So, if ISenseNPC takes all the params it needs every time, I could make it static. Is there any problem with that?

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• Dec 5th Links: ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, jQuery, Silverlight, Visual Studio

  - by ScottGu

  Here is the latest in my link-listing series.  Also check out my VS 2010 and .NET 4 series for another on-going blog series I’m working on. [In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu] ASP.NET ASP.NET Code Samples Collection: J.D. Meier has a great post that provides a detailed round-up of ASP.NET code samples and tutorials from a wide variety of sources.  Lots of useful pointers. Slash your ASP.NET compile/load time without any hard work: Nice article that details a bunch of optimizations you can make to speed up ASP.NET project load and compile times. You might also want to read my previous blog post on this topic here. 10 Essential Tools for Building ASP.NET Websites: Great article by Stephen Walther on 10 great (and free) tools that enable you to more easily build great ASP.NET Websites.  Highly recommended reading. Optimize Images using the ASP.NET Sprite and Image Optimization Framework: A nice article by 4GuysFromRolla that discusses how to use the open-source ASP.NET Sprite and Image Optimization Framework (one of the tools recommended by Stephen in the previous article).  You can use this to significantly improve the load-time of your pages on the client. Formatting Dates, Times and Numbers in ASP.NET: Scott Mitchell has a great article that discusses formatting dates, times and numbers in ASP.NET.  A very useful link to bookmark.  Also check out James Michael’s DateTime is Packed with Goodies blog post for other DateTime tips. Examining ASP.NET’s Membership, Roles and Profile APIs (Part 18): Everything you could possibly want to known about ASP.NET’s built-in Membership, Roles and Profile APIs must surely be in this tutorial series. Part 18 covers how to store additional user info with Membership. ASP.NET with jQuery An Introduction to jQuery Templates: Stephen Walther has written an outstanding introduction and tutorial on the new jQuery Template plugin that the ASP.NET team has contributed to the jQuery project. Composition with jQuery Templates and jQuery Templates, Composite Rendering, and Remote Loading: Dave Ward has written two nice posts that talk about composition scenarios with jQuery Templates and some cool scenarios you can enable with them. Using jQuery and ASP.NET to Build a News Ticker: Scott Mitchell has a nice tutorial that demonstrates how to build a dynamically updated “news ticker” style UI with ASP.NET and jQuery. Checking All Checkboxes in a GridView using jQuery: Scott Mitchell has a nice post that covers how to use jQuery to enable a checkbox within a GridView’s header to automatically check/uncheck all checkboxes contained within rows of it. Using jQuery to POST Form Data to an ASP.NET AJAX Web Service: Rick Strahl has a nice post that discusses how to capture form variables and post them to an ASP.NET AJAX Web Service (.asmx). ASP.NET MVC ASP.NET MVC Diagnostics Using NuGet: Phil Haack has a nice post that demonstrates how to easily install a diagnostics page (using NuGet) that can help identify and diagnose common configuration issues within your apps. ASP.NET MVC 3 JsonValueProviderFactory: James Hughes has a nice post that discusses how to take advantage of the new JsonValueProviderFactory support built into ASP.NET MVC 3.  This makes it easy to post JSON payloads to MVC action methods. Practical jQuery Mobile with ASP.NET MVC: James Hughes has another nice post that discusses how to use the new jQuery Mobile library with ASP.NET MVC to build great mobile web applications. Credit Card Validator for ASP.NET MVC 3: Benjii Me has a nice post that demonstrates how to build a [CreditCard] validator attribute that can be used to easily validate credit card numbers are in the correct format with ASP.NET MVC. Silverlight Silverlight FireStarter Keynote and Sessions: A great blog post from John Papa that contains pointers and descriptions of all the great Silverlight content we published last week at the Silverlight FireStarter.  You can watch all of the talks online.  More details on my keynote and Silverlight 5 announcements can be found here. 31 Days of Windows Phone 7: 31 great tutorials on how to build Windows Phone 7 applications (using Silverlight).  Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit Update: David Anson has a nice post that discusses some of the additional controls provided with the Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit. Visual Studio JavaScript Editor Extensions: A nice (and free) Visual Studio plugin built by the web tools team that significantly improves the JavaScript intellisense support within Visual Studio. HTML5 Intellisense for Visual Studio: Gil has a blog post that discusses a new extension my team has posted to the Visual Studio Extension Gallery that adds HTML5 schema support to Visual Studio 2008 and 2010. Team Build + Web Deployment + Web Deploy + VS 2010 = Goodness: Visual blogs about how to enable a continuous deployment system with VS 2010, TFS 2010 and the Microsoft Web Deploy framework.  Visual Studio 2010 Emacs Emulation Extension and VIM Emulation Extension: Check out these two extensions if you are fond of Emacs and VIM key bindings and want to enable them within Visual Studio 2010. Hope this helps, Scott

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• Form, function and complexity in rule processing

  - by Charles Young

  Tim Bass posted on ‘Orwellian Event Processing’. I was involved in a heated exchange in the comments, and he has more recently published a post entitled ‘Disadvantages of Rule-Based Systems (Part 1)’. Whatever the rights and wrongs of our exchange, it clearly failed to generate any agreement or understanding of our different positions. I don't particularly want to promote further argument of that kind, but I do want to take the opportunity of offering a different perspective on rule-processing and an explanation of my comments. For me, the ‘red rag’ lay in Tim’s claim that “...rules alone are highly inefficient for most classes of (not simple) problems” and a later paragraph that appears to equate the simplicity of form (‘IF-THEN-ELSE’) with simplicity of function.   It is not the first time Tim has expressed these views and not the first time I have responded to his assertions.   Indeed, Tim has a long history of commenting on the subject of complex event processing (CEP) and, less often, rule processing in ‘robust’ terms, often asserting that very many other people’s opinions on this subject are mistaken.   In turn, I am of the opinion that, certainly in terms of rule processing, which is an area in which I have a specific interest and knowledge, he is often mistaken. There is no simple answer to the fundamental question ‘what is a rule?’ We use the word in a very fluid fashion in English. Likewise, the term ‘rule processing’, as used widely in IT, is equally difficult to define simplistically. The best way to envisage the term is as a ‘centre of gravity’ within a wider domain. That domain contains many other ‘centres of gravity’, including CEP, statistical analytics, neural networks, natural language processing and so much more. Whole communities tend to gravitate towards and build themselves around some of these centres. The term 'rule processing' is associated with many different technology types, various software products, different architectural patterns, the functional capability of many applications and services, etc. There is considerable variation amongst these different technologies, techniques and products. Very broadly, a common theme is their ability to manage certain types of processing and problem solving through declarative, or semi-declarative, statements of propositional logic bound to action-based consequences. It is generally important to be able to decouple these statements from other parts of an overall system or architecture so that they can be managed and deployed independently.  As a centre of gravity, ‘rule processing’ is no island. It exists in the context of a domain of discourse that is, itself, highly interconnected and continuous.   Rule processing does not, for example, exist in splendid isolation to natural language processing.   On the contrary, an on-going theme of rule processing is to find better ways to express rules in natural language and map these to executable forms.   Rule processing does not exist in splendid isolation to CEP.   On the contrary, an event processing agent can reasonably be considered as a rule engine (a theme in ‘Power of Events’ by David Luckham).   Rule processing does not live in splendid isolation to statistical approaches such as Bayesian analytics. On the contrary, rule processing and statistical analytics are highly synergistic.   Rule processing does not even live in splendid isolation to neural networks. For example, significant research has centred on finding ways to translate trained nets into explicit rule sets in order to support forms of validation and facilitate insight into the knowledge stored in those nets. What about simplicity of form?   Many rule processing technologies do indeed use a very simple form (‘If...Then’, ‘When...Do’, etc.)   However, it is a fundamental mistake to equate simplicity of form with simplicity of function.   It is absolutely mistaken to suggest that simplicity of form is a barrier to the efficient handling of complexity.   There are countless real-world examples which serve to disprove that notion.   Indeed, simplicity of form is often the key to handling complexity. Does rule processing offer a ‘one size fits all’. No, of course not.   No serious commentator suggests it does.   Does the design and management of large knowledge bases, expressed as rules, become difficult?   Yes, it can do, but that is true of any large knowledge base, regardless of the form in which knowledge is expressed.   The measure of complexity is not a function of rule set size or rule form.  It tends to be correlated more strongly with the size of the ‘problem space’ (‘search space’) which is something quite different.   Analysis of the problem space and the algorithms we use to search through that space are, of course, the very things we use to derive objective measures of the complexity of a given problem. This is basic computer science and common practice. Sailing a Dreadnaught through the sea of information technology and lobbing shells at some of the islands we encounter along the way does no one any good.   Building bridges and causeways between islands so that the inhabitants can collaborate in open discourse offers hope of real progress.

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• L2TP connection fails!

  - by a.toraby

  I've installed l2tp-ipsec-vpn but when I try to connect to the vpn server I get error 500. Here are the logs: Jun 17 12:54:37.449 ipsec_setup: Stopping Openswan IPsec... Jun 17 12:54:38.858 Stopping xl2tpd: xl2tpd. Jun 17 12:54:38.859 xl2tpd[1511]: death_handler: Fatal signal 15 received Jun 17 12:54:38.872 ipsec_setup: Starting Openswan IPsec U2.6.37/K3.2.0-23-generic... Jun 17 12:54:39.027 ipsec__plutorun: Starting Pluto subsystem... Jun 17 12:54:39.033 ipsec__plutorun: adjusting ipsec.d to /etc/ipsec.d Jun 17 12:54:39.037 recvref[30]: Protocol not available Jun 17 12:54:39.038 xl2tpd[2442]: This binary does not support kernel L2TP. Jun 17 12:54:39.038 xl2tpd[2444]: xl2tpd version xl2tpd-1.3.1 started on atp-ThinkPad-SL410 PID:2444 Jun 17 12:54:39.038 xl2tpd[2444]: Written by Mark Spencer, Copyright (C) 1998, Adtran, Inc. Jun 17 12:54:39.038 xl2tpd[2444]: Forked by Scott Balmos and David Stipp, (C) 2001 Jun 17 12:54:39.038 xl2tpd[2444]: Inherited by Jeff McAdams, (C) 2002 Jun 17 12:54:39.039 xl2tpd[2444]: Forked again by Xelerance (www.xelerance.com) (C) 2006 Jun 17 12:54:39.039 xl2tpd[2444]: Listening on IP address 0.0.0.0, port 1701 Jun 17 12:54:39.040 Starting xl2tpd: xl2tpd. Jun 17 12:54:39.062 ipsec__plutorun: 002 added connection description "L2TP" Jun 17 12:55:30.753 104 "L2TP" #1: STATE_MAIN_I1: initiate Jun 17 12:55:30.754 010 "L2TP" #1: STATE_MAIN_I1: retransmission; will wait 20s for response Jun 17 12:55:30.754 010 "L2TP" #1: STATE_MAIN_I1: retransmission; will wait 40s for response Jun 17 12:55:30.754 003 "L2TP" #1: ignoring Vendor ID payload [MS NT5 ISAKMPOAKLEY 00000008] Jun 17 12:55:30.754 003 "L2TP" #1: received Vendor ID payload [RFC 3947] method set to=109 Jun 17 12:55:30.754 003 "L2TP" #1: received Vendor ID payload [draft-ietf-ipsec-nat-t-ike-02_n] meth=106, but already using method 109 Jun 17 12:55:30.755 003 "L2TP" #1: ignoring Vendor ID payload [FRAGMENTATION] Jun 17 12:55:30.755 003 "L2TP" #1: ignoring Vendor ID payload [MS-Negotiation Discovery Capable] Jun 17 12:55:30.755 003 "L2TP" #1: ignoring Vendor ID payload [IKE CGA version 1] Jun 17 12:55:30.755 106 "L2TP" #1: STATE_MAIN_I2: sent MI2, expecting MR2 Jun 17 12:55:30.755 010 "L2TP" #1: STATE_MAIN_I2: retransmission; will wait 20s for response Jun 17 12:55:30.755 003 "L2TP" #1: NAT-Traversal: Result using RFC 3947 (NAT-Traversal): i am NATed Jun 17 12:55:30.755 108 "L2TP" #1: STATE_MAIN_I3: sent MI3, expecting MR3 Jun 17 12:55:30.756 004 "L2TP" #1: STATE_MAIN_I4: ISAKMP SA established {auth=OAKLEY_PRESHARED_KEY cipher=oakley_3des_cbc_192 prf=oakley_sha group=modp1024} Jun 17 12:55:30.756 117 "L2TP" #2: STATE_QUICK_I1: initiate Jun 17 12:55:30.756 010 "L2TP" #2: STATE_QUICK_I1: retransmission; will wait 20s for response Jun 17 12:55:30.756 003 "L2TP" #2: ignoring informational payload, type IPSEC_RESPONDER_LIFETIME msgid=6b03ff69 Jun 17 12:55:30.756 003 "L2TP" #2: NAT-Traversal: received 2 NAT-OA. ignored because peer is not NATed Jun 17 12:55:30.756 003 "L2TP" #2: our client subnet returned doesn't match my proposal - us:192.168.1.3/32 vs them:109.162.174.235/32 Jun 17 12:55:30.757 003 "L2TP" #2: Allowing questionable proposal anyway [ALLOW_MICROSOFT_BAD_PROPOSAL] Jun 17 12:55:30.757 004 "L2TP" #2: STATE_QUICK_I2: sent QI2, IPsec SA established transport mode {ESP=>0x23af21f8 <0xdb4a87b6 xfrm=AES_128-HMAC_SHA1 NATOA=none NATD=none DPD=none} Jun 17 12:55:31.759 xl2tpd[2444]: Connecting to host x.x.x.x, port 1701 Jun 17 12:55:32.021 xl2tpd[2444]: Connection established to x.x.x.x, 1701. Local: 4720, Remote: 200 (ref=0/0). Jun 17 12:55:32.023 xl2tpd[2444]: Calling on tunnel 4720 Jun 17 12:55:32.454 xl2tpd[2444]: Call established with x.x.x.x, Local: 9667, Remote: 3, Serial: 1 (ref=0/0) Jun 17 12:55:32.456 xl2tpd[2444]: start_pppd: I'm running: Jun 17 12:55:32.456 xl2tpd[2444]: "/usr/sbin/pppd" Jun 17 12:55:32.457 xl2tpd[2444]: "passive" Jun 17 12:55:32.458 xl2tpd[2444]: "nodetach" Jun 17 12:55:32.458 xl2tpd[2444]: ":" Jun 17 12:55:32.459 xl2tpd[2444]: "file" Jun 17 12:55:32.459 xl2tpd[2444]: "/etc/ppp/L2TP.options.xl2tpd" Jun 17 12:55:32.460 xl2tpd[2444]: "ipparam" Jun 17 12:55:32.461 xl2tpd[2444]: "x.x.x.x" Jun 17 12:55:32.462 xl2tpd[2444]: "/dev/pts/1" Jun 17 12:55:32.583 pppd[2711]: Plugin passprompt.so loaded. Jun 17 12:55:32.583 pppd[2711]: pppd 2.4.5 started by root, uid 0 Jun 17 12:55:32.619 pppd[2711]: Using interface ppp0 Jun 17 12:55:32.620 pppd[2711]: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/pts/1 Jun 17 12:55:33.693 pppd[2711]: /usr/bin/L2tpIPsecVpn exited with code 0 Jun 17 12:55:34.454 [ERROR 404] Authentication failed: closing connection to 'L2TP' Jun 17 12:55:34.456 pppd[2711]: MS-CHAP authentication failed: E=691 Authentication failure Jun 17 12:55:34.457 pppd[2711]: CHAP authentication failed Jun 17 12:55:34.461 Stopping xl2tpd: xl2tpd. Jun 17 12:55:34.462 xl2tpd[2444]: death_handler: Fatal signal 15 received Jun 17 12:55:34.463 pppd[2711]: Modem hangup Jun 17 12:55:34.463 pppd[2711]: Connection terminated. Jun 17 12:55:34.474 ipsec_setup: Stopping Openswan IPsec... Jun 17 12:55:34.482 pppd[2711]: Exit. Jun 17 12:55:35.587 ipsec_setup: ERROR: Module xfrm4_mode_transport is in use Jun 17 12:55:35.665 ipsec_setup: ERROR: Module esp4 is in use I had this problem by ubuntu 11.10 though I can easily connect to the server from windows. I use ubuntu 12.0 64bit

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• ODI 12c's Mapping Designer - Combining Flow Based and Expression Based Mapping

  - by Madhu Nair

  post by David Allan ODI is renowned for its declarative designer and minimal expression based paradigm. The new ODI 12c release has extended this even further to provide an extended declarative mapping designer. The ODI 12c mapper is a fusion of ODI's new declarative designer with the familiar flow based designer while retaining ODI’s key differentiators of: Minimal expression based definition, The ability to incrementally design an interface and to extract/load data from any combination of sources, and most importantly Backed by ODI’s extensible knowledge module framework. The declarative nature of the product has been extended to include an extensible library of common components that can be used to easily build simple to complex data integration solutions. Big usability improvements through consistent interactions of components and concepts all constructed around the familiar knowledge module framework provide the utmost flexibility. Here is a little taster: So what is a mapping? A mapping comprises of a logical design and at least one physical design, it may have many. A mapping can have many targets, of any technology and can be arbitrarily complex. You can build reusable mappings and use them in other mappings or other reusable mappings. In the example below all of the information from an Oracle bonus table and a bonus file are joined with an Oracle employees table before being written to a target. Some things that are cool include the one-click expression cross referencing so you can easily see what's used where within the design. The logical design in a mapping describes what you want to accomplish  (see the animated GIF here illustrating how the above mapping was designed) . The physical design lets you configure how it is to be accomplished. So you could have one logical design that is realized as an initial load in one physical design and as an incremental load in another. In the physical design below we can customize how the mapping is accomplished by picking Knowledge Modules, in ODI 12c you can pick multiple nodes (on logical or physical) and see common properties. This is useful as we can quickly compare property values across objects - below we can see knowledge modules settings on the access points between execution units side by side, in the example one table is retrieved via database links and the other is an external table. In the logical design I had selected an append mode for the integration type, so by default the IKM on the target will choose the most suitable/default IKM - which in this case is an in-built Oracle Insert IKM (see image below). This supports insert and select hints for the Oracle database (the ANSI SQL Insert IKM does not support these), so by default you will get direct path inserts with Oracle on this statement. In ODI 12c, the mapper is just that, a mapper. Design your mapping, write to multiple targets, the targets can be in the same data server, in different data servers or in totally different technologies - it does not matter. ODI 12c will derive and generate a plan that you can use or customize with knowledge modules. Some of the use cases which are greatly simplified include multiple heterogeneous targets, multi target inserts for Oracle and writing of XML. Let's switch it up now and look at a slightly different example to illustrate expression reuse. In ODI you can define reusable expressions using user functions. These can be reused across mappings and the implementations specialized per technology. So you can have common expressions across Oracle, SQL Server, Hive etc. shielding the design from the physical aspects of the generated language. Another way to reuse is within a mapping itself. In ODI 12c expressions can be defined and reused within a mapping. Rather than replicating the expression text in larger expressions you can decompose into smaller snippets, below you can see UNIT_TAX AMOUNT has been defined and is used in two downstream target columns - its used in the TOTAL_TAX_AMOUNT plus its used in the UNIT_TAX_AMOUNT (a recording of the calculation).  You can see the columns that the expressions depend on (upstream) and the columns the expression is used in (downstream) highlighted within the mapper. Also multi selecting attributes is a convenient way to see what's being used where, below I have selected the TOTAL_TAX_AMOUNT in the target datastore and the UNIT_TAX_AMOUNT in UNIT_CALC. You can now see many expressions at once now and understand much more at the once time without needlessly clicking around and memorizing information. Our mantra during development was to keep it simple and make the tool more powerful and do even more for the user. The development team was a fusion of many teams from Oracle Warehouse Builder, Sunopsis and BEA Aqualogic, debating and perfecting the mapper in ODI 12c. This was quite a project from supporting the capabilities of ODI in 11g to building the flow based mapping tool to support the future. I hope this was a useful insight, there is so much more to come on this topic, this is just a preview of much more that you will see of the mapper in ODI 12c.

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