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• Oracle Fusion Applications: Changing the Game

  - by kellsey.ruppel(at)oracle.com

  Originally posted in the Oracle Profit Magazine, November 2010 Edition. When the order processing system red-flags a customer's credit status, the IT department doesn't get the customer's call. When a supplier misses a delivery date for a key automotive assembly, it's not the CIO who has to answer for the error. Knowledge workers (known in IT circles as "users") are on the front lines when an exception occurs in an established business process. They're also the ones who study sales trends to decide when to open a new store in an up-and-coming neighborhood, which products are most profitable, how employee skill sets are evolving, and which suppliers are most efficient. In short, knowledge workers are masters of business as unusual. Traditional enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and other familiar enterprise applications excel at automating, managing, and executing standard business processes. These programs shine when everything goes as planned. Life gets even trickier when a traditional application needs to be extended with a new service or an extra step is added to a business process when new products are brought to market, divisions are merged, or companies are acquired. Monolithic applications often need the IT department to step in and make the necessary adjustments--incurring additional costs and delays. Until now. When Oracle unveiled the much-anticipated family of Oracle Fusion Applications at Oracle OpenWorld in September 2010, knowledge workers in particular had a lot to cheer about. Business users will soon have ready access to analytical information and collaboration tools in the context of what they are working on, so they can make better decisions when problems or opportunities arise. Additionally, the Oracle Fusion Applications platform will make it easy for business users to tweak processes, create new capabilities, and find information, often without the need for IT department assistance and while still following company guidelines. And IT leaders will be happy to hear about new deployment options, guided implementation and setup tools, and cost-saving management capabilities. Just as important, the underlying technologies in Oracle Fusion Applications will allow organizations to choose among their existing investments and next-generation enterprise applications so they can introduce innovations at a pace that makes the most business and financial sense. "Oracle Fusion Applications are architected so you don't have to do rip and replace," says Jim Hayes, managing director of the consulting firm Accenture. "That's very important for creating a business case that will get through the steering committee and be approved by the board. It shows you can drive value and make a difference in the near term." For these and other reasons, analysts and early adopters are calling Oracle Fusion Applications a game changer for enterprise customers. The differences become apparent in three key areas: the way we innovate, work, and adopt technology. Game Changer #1: New Standard for InnovationChange is a constant challenge for most businesses, whether the catalysts are market dynamics, new competition, or the ever-expanding regulatory environment. And, in an ongoing effort to differentiate, business leaders are constantly looking for new ways to do business, serve constituents, and bring new products and services to market. In addition, companies face significant costs to keep their applications up-to-date. For example, when a company adds new suppliers to a procurement system, the IT shop typically has to invest time, effort, and even consulting fees for custom integrations that allow various ERP systems to communicate with each other. Oracle Fusion Applications were built on Web services and a modular SOA foundation to ease customizations and integration activities among all applications--whether from Oracle or another vendor. Interfaces and updates written in ubiquitous Java, rather than a proprietary coding language, allow organizations to tap into existing in-house technical skills rather than seek expensive outside specialists. And with SOA, organizations can extend a feature set or integrate with other SOA environments by combining Web services such as "look up customer" into a new business process managed by the BPEL orchestration engine. Flexibility like this has long-term implications. "Because users capture these changes at a higher metadata layer, not in the application's code, changes and additions are protected even as new versions of Oracle Fusion Applications are released," says Steve Miranda, senior vice president of applications development at Oracle. "This is a much more sustainable approach because you don't incur costly customizations that prevent upgrades and other innovations." And changes are easier to make: if one change is made in the metadata, that change is automatically reflected throughout the application interface, business intelligence, business process, and business logic. Game Changer #2: New Standard for WorkBoosting productivity comes down to doing the basics right: running business processes more efficiently and managing exceptions more effectively, so users can accomplish more in the course of a day or spend more quality time with the most profitable customers. The fastest way to improve process efficiency is to reduce the number of steps it takes to execute common tasks, such as ordering office equipment from an internal procurement system. Oracle Fusion Applications will deliver a complete role-based user experience with business intelligence and collaboration capabilities provided in the context of the work at hand. "We created every Oracle Fusion Applications screen by asking 'What does the user need to know?' 'What does he or she need to do?' and 'Who do they need to work with to get the job done?'" Miranda explains. So when the sales department heads need new laptops, the self-service procurement screen will not only display a list of approved vendors and configurations, but also a running list of reviews by coworkers who recently purchased the various models. Embedded intelligence may also display prevailing delivery lead times based on actual order histories, not the generic shipping dates vendors may quote. The pervasive business intelligence serves many other business activities across all areas of the enterprise. For example, a manager considering whether to promote a direct report can see the person's employee profile, with a salary history, appraisal summaries, and a rundown of skills and training. This approach to business intelligence also has implications for supply chain management. "One of the challenges at Ingersoll Rand is lack of visibility in our supply chain," says Mike Macrie, global director of enterprise applications for global industrial firm Ingersoll Rand. "Oracle Fusion Applications are going to provide the embedded intelligence to give us that visibility and give us the ability to analyze those orders at any point in our supply chain." Oracle Fusion Applications will also create a "role-based user experience" that displays a work list of events that need attention, based on user job function. Role awareness guides users with daily lists of action items and exceptions. So a credit manager may see seven invoices with discounts that are about to expire or 12 suppliers that have been put on hold because credit memos are awaiting approval. Individualization extends to the search capabilities of Oracle Fusion Applications. The platform uses Web-style search screens powered by an Oracle enterprise search engine, with a security framework that filters search results so individuals will only see the internal information they're authorized to access. A further aid to productivity is Oracle Fusion Applications' integration with Web 2.0 collaboration and social networking resources for business environments. Hover-over text will reveal relevant contact information whenever the name of a person appears in an Oracle Fusion Application. Users can connect via an online chat, phone call, or instant message without leaving the main application, reducing the time required for an accounts payable staffer to resolve a mismatch between an invoiced charge and the service record, for example. Addresses of suppliers, customers, or partners will also initiate hover-over text to show contact details and Web-based maps. Finally, Oracle Fusion Applications will promote a new way of working with purpose-driven communities that can bring new efficiencies to everything from cultivating sales leads to managing new projects. As soon as a lead or project materializes, the applications will automatically gather relevant participants into an online community that shares member contact information, schedules, discussion forums, and Wiki pages. "Oracle Fusion Applications will allow us to take it to the next level with embedded Web 2.0 tools and the embedded analytics," says Steve Printz, CIO and vice president, supply chain management, at window-and-door manufacturer Pella. "[This] allows those employees today who are processing transactions to really contribute to the success of the company and become decision-makers." Game Changer #3: New Standard for Technology AdoptionAs IT becomes a dominant component of how businesses run and compete, organizations need to lower the cost of implementing applications and introducing new application features. In the past, rolling out new code often required creating a test bed system, moving beta code to a separate system for user feedback, and--once all the revisions were made--moving version one of the software onto production systems, where business users could finally get the needed new features. Oracle Fusion Applications will use a dedicated setup manager application to streamline this process. First, the setup manager will help scope out the project, querying users about their requirements. "From those questions and answers we determine the steps and the order of those steps that will enable that task," Miranda says. Next, system utilities will assign tasks to owners, track completion status, and monitor the overall status of a programming effort. Oracle Fusion Applications can then recommend Web services that allow users to migrate setup choices and steps across all the various deployments of the application. Those setup capabilities automate the migration from test systems to production systems, as well as between different business units that may be using the same application. "The self-service ability of the setup manager helps business users change setups with very little intervention from the IT team," says Ravi Kumar, vice president at IT services company Infosys. "That to me is a big difference from how we've viewed enterprise applications before." For additional flexibility, organizations will be able to adopt Oracle Fusion Applications modules in either of two modes: a single-instance alternative uses one database for all Oracle Fusion Applications, while a "pillar mode" creates separate databases to underpin each application. This means IT departments running any one of Oracle's applications or even third-party applications can plug Oracle Fusion Applications modules into their environment and see additional business value created on top of their existing systems. And Oracle Fusion Applications offer a hybrid approach to deployment. The applications are all software-as-a-service-ready, so customers can choose on-premises, public or private cloud, or a combination of these to suit their business needs. It's that combination of flexibility and a roadmap for the future that may be the biggest game changer of all. "The Oracle Fusion Applications architecture allows us to migrate our company at a pace that's consistent with our business strategy, whereas before we might have had to do it with a massive upgrade," says Macrie of Ingersoll Rand. "We're looking forward to that architecture to really give us more flexibility in how we migrate over time." For More InformationUser Input Key to the Success of Oracle Fusion ApplicationsTransforming Coexistence into Strategic ValueUnder the HoodOracle Fusion ApplicationsOracle Service-Oriented Architecture  

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, May 11, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, May 11, 2010New ProjectsASP.NET MVC Extensions: ASP.NET MVC Extensions is developed on top of ASP.NET MVC extensibility point, which allows your IoC Container to rule everywhere.Best practices in .NET: NMA is a collection of knowledges that I learned from my co-worker and Internet. It's built on Domain Driven Design theories. I used Struture Map,...BioRider: Project participant of the 1st National Award for InteroperabilityBSoft: that's the project for bsoftClosedXML - The easy way to OpenXML: ClosedXML makes it easier for developers to create OpenXML files for Excel 2007. It provides a nice object oriented way to manipulate the files (si...Dragon Master: A tool for all D&D masters that need to create Dragon NPCsFacturator - Create invoices easy and fast: Windows forms application for creating invoices based on a Word template. Including a simple workflow for send, payed and finished invoices and a q...FreeEPG: An Australian EPG using the Freeview online guide. All Freeview regions are supported and data can be exported in either XMLTV or Microsoft Media ...GreedyRSS: Convert everything to RSS FeedHByte: In honor of the heisenberg uncertainty principle. This is an implementation of a type who has byte semantics, but who's value and location can not...JSON RPC 2.0 - Javascript/.NET Implementation: JSON RPC 2.0 - Javascript/.NET Implementation - NOT READY YETMjollnir - Supplemental Library for BCL: Mjollnir is Supplements Library for BCL. Mjollnir is Compatible with .NET Framework 4 (or maybe later).Money Spinner: MoneySpinnerMSPY 2010 Open Extended Dictionary Building Tool: A tool to create Open Extend Dictionary for Microsoft Pinyin IME 2010, it is develped in C#Sharepoint Data Store: This is a small library that lets SharePoint developers store and manage custom application information in SharePoint.SharePointSlim: We are going to use it in conjunction with the PowerSlim projectSSTA: A Tool to Compare SQL Database Schema Versionstbeasy: tbeasyNew Releases8085 Microprocessor simulator: 8085 Instruction Set Simulator with source code: 8085 Instruction set simulator with windows installer plus complete source code and examplesAutoArchive: Site Template...: Slightly off topic, but take a looK!BioRider: Uptiva Dreams IT Entry: ==================================== National Interoperability Award ==================================== TEAM: Uptiva Dreams IT PROJECT: BioRide...C# Developer Utility Library: ScrimpNet.Core Library May 2010: Initial upload of project library. Contains only source files. Recommend adding extracted files to your project as a project reference.Coot: Beta 1: To install the screen saver: Extract the contents of the zip file (all three files) to C:\Windows\System32 Go to screen saver properties, select ...Deploy Workflow Manager: Deploy Workflow Manager v1: Recommend you test on your development environment first before implementing into production. Criteria to run the workflow is assumed to be inclu...Expression Encoder 3 Visual Basic Samples: Encoder 3 VB Samples: Zip file contains the Encoder 3 samples written in Visual Basic.FreeEPG: Debug Release: Initial Release. Run the application from the command line for options. If you choose to run the client as a Windows Service, then you will need t...FSharpChess: Alpha Release 0.197: This is just the latest version of the binaries. Note that there are two excecutables: FSharpChess includes a UI partially written in C# FSharpCh...GreedyRSS: GreedyRSS V2: V2与V1相比： 改进了插件架构 用数据库取代XML配置文件 用Web Services暴露了部分功能Headspring Labs: ASP.NET MVC 2 tips and tricks (code): Contains example app that demonstrates techniques in the Tips & Tricks powerpointHeadspring Labs: ASP.NET MVC tips and tricks PPT: Powerpoint file for the ASP.NET MVC tips and tricks talk.HouseFly controls: HouseFly controls beta 1.0.0.0: HouseFly controls release 1.0.0.0 betaiTuner - The iTunes Companion: iTuner 1.2.3782: This production release of iTuner 1.2 allows you to synchronize one or more iTunes playlists to a USB MP3 player. It also provides the ability to ...JSON RPC 2.0 - Javascript/.NET Implementation: v0.7: Protocol implemented. Most of the extra features implemented.MapWindow6: MapWindow 6.0 msi May 10, 2010: This version fixes a reproject bug where false_easting from .prj files was not being correctly converted into meters when the projection was in feet.Mouse Zoom - Visual Studio Extension: MouseZoom 1.7: Version 1.7 fixes a bug that can cause the keys to stick when leaving focus (e.g. opening a VS dialog box).Mouse Zoom - Visual Studio Extension: MouseZoom 1.8: Override mouse wheel scroll functionality to always scroll 25% no matter what zoom level you are on (by default, scrolling with the mouse wheel bec...MSPY 2010 Open Extended Dictionary Building Tool: 20100511build: First release. 1. Installation After you download it to your local disk, create a new folder and unzip it to the new folder, that's it. 2. run ...MSPY 2010 Open Extended Dictionary Building Tool: 20100511build2: First release. 1. Installation After you download it to your local disk, create a new folder and unzip it to the new folder, that's it. 2. run ...Multiwfn: multiwfn1.3.2: multiwfn1.3.2NASA Space Shuttle TV Schedule Transfer to Outlook Calendar: NASA Space Shuttle TV Schedule Release v1.4.132.1: Warning!There is a problem with the latest version of the program and rev 0 of STS-132 mission schedule. I am looking into the problem when the yea...NASA Space Shuttle TV Schedule Transfer to Outlook Calendar: NASA Space Shuttle TV Schedule Release v1.4.132.2: This release fixes a problem with rev 0 of the STS-132 mission schedule in recognizing the year of launch. NASA changed the year of launch to a fo...Object/Relational Mapper & Code Generator in Net 2.0 for Relational & XML Schema: 2.8: Switched compliation options to always run in 32-bit mode, to ensure it can connect to MSAccess & MSExcel on 64-bit machines. Updated parameterised...Open NFSe: OpenNFSe-Salvador v1.0.0: Atualização do OpenNFSe-Salvador para o novo schema utilizado pela prefeitura de Salvador.OpenSLIM: OpenSLIM-v373b0-20100509-0: Here is the list of new additions and improvements that this new major release incorporates: Systems Decommissioning Management. Improvements on...Pcap.Net: Pcap.Net 0.6.0 (44468): Pcap.Net - May 2010 Release Pcap.Net is a .NET wrapper for WinPcap written in C++/CLI and C#. It Features almost all WinPcap features and includes ...PowerShell Community Extensions: 2.0 Production: PowerShell Community Extensions 2.0 Release NotesMay 10, 2010 The primary purpose of the Pscx 2.0 release is to convert from the previous approach...Scrum Sprint Monitor: v1.0.0.47921 (.NET 4-TFS 2010): What is new in this release? Minor version over 1.0.0.47911 introducing CEIP (Customer Experience Improvement Program). This is taking advantage of...Sharepoint Data Store: 1.0: First ReleaseSPVisualDev - SharePoint Developer Tool: Version 2.2.0: Visual Studio 2010 is now supported. Note that this is only intended to be used for MOSS 2007 / WSS 3.0 development and not for SP 2010. Package SP...SQL Server PowerShell Extensions: 2.2.1 Production: Release 2.2 re-implements SQLPSX as PowersShell version 2.0 modules. SQLPSX consists of 9 modules with 133 advanced functions, 2 cmdlets and 7 scri...VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30510.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVCC: Latest build, v2.1.30510.1: Automatic drop of latest buildVCC: Latest build, v2.1.30510.2: Automatic drop of latest buildVolumeMaster: Volume Master 2.0 Beta: First release of VolumeMaster. So if you're running Windows Vista / 7 you can have a handy Volume OSD and control your volume with the following sh...WabbitStudio Z80 Software Tools: SPASM2 32-Bit: A test release for SPASM2.Web Camera Shooter: 1.0.0.1: Video capturing: Touchless SDK -> AForge.Video. Main window shown in taskbar and not top most. Native images generated for all assemblies. Sm...Most Popular ProjectsWBFS ManagerRawrAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)patterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesASP.NETPHPExcelMost Active Projectspatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryMirror Testing SystemThe Information Literacy Education Learning Environment (ILE)RawrCaliburn: An Application Framework for WPF and SilverlightwhiteBlogEngine.NETTweetSharpjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesIonics Isapi Rewrite Filter

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, December 23, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, December 23, 2010Popular ReleasesSSH.NET Library: 2010.12.23: This release includes some bug fixes and few new fetures. Fixes Allow to retrieve big directory structures ssh-dss algorithm is fixed Populate sftp file attributes New Features Support for passhrase when private key is used Support added for diffie-hellman-group14-sha1,diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha256 and diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha1 key exchange algorithms Allow to provide multiple key files for authentication Add support for "keyboard-interactive" authentication method...ASP.NET MVC SiteMap provider: MvcSiteMapProvider 2.3.0: Using NuGet?MvcSiteMapProvider is also listed in the NuGet feed. Learn more... Like the project? Consider a donation!Donate via PayPal via PayPal. Release notesThis will be the last release targeting ASP.NET MVC 2 and .NET 3.5. MvcSiteMapProvider 3.0.0 will be targeting ASP.NET MVC 3 and .NET 4 Web.config setting skipAssemblyScanOn has been deprecated in favor of excludeAssembliesForScan and includeAssembliesForScan ISiteMapNodeUrlResolver is now completely responsible for generating th...SuperSocket, an extensible socket application framework: SuperSocket 1.3 beta 2: Compared with SuperSocket 1.3 beta 1, the changes listed below have been done in SuperSocket 1.3 beta 2: added supports for .NET 3.5 replaced Logging Application Block of EntLib with Log4Net improved the code about logging fixed a bug in QuickStart sample project added IPv6 supportTibiaPinger: TibiaPinger v1.0: TibiaPinger v1.0Media Companion: Media Companion 3.400: Extract the entire archive to a folder which has user access rights, eg desktop, documents etc. A manual is included to get you startedPackage that minifies and combines JavaScript and CSS files: Release 1.1: Bug fixes. The package now correctly handles inlined images and image urls in CSS files surrounded by quotes. CombineAndMinify can now be used in conjunction with Microsoft's Sprite and Image Optimization Framework. That framework combines several small images into one, reducing overall load times.Multicore Task Framework: MTF 1.0.1: Release 1.0.1 of Multicore Task Framework.SQL Monitor - tracking sql server activities: SQL Monitor 3.0 alpha 7: 1. added script save/load in user query window 2. fixed problem with connection dialog when choosing windows auth but still ask for user name 3. auto open user table when double click one table node 4. improved alert message, added log only methodOpen NFe: Open NFe 2.0 (Beta): Última versão antes da versão final a ser lançada nos próximos dias.EnhSim: EnhSim 2.2.6 ALPHA: 2.2.6 ALPHAThis release supports WoW patch 4.03a at level 85 To use this release, you must have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=A7B7A05E-6DE6-4D3A-A423-37BF0912DB84 To use the GUI you must have the .NET 4.0 Framework installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9cfb2d51-5ff4-4491-b0e5-b386f32c0992 - Fixing up some r...ASP.NET MVC Project Awesome (jQuery Ajax helpers): 1.4.3: Helpers (controls) that you can use to build highly responsive and interactive Ajax-enabled Web applications. These helpers include Autocomplete, AjaxDropdown, Lookup, Confirm Dialog, Popup Form, Popup and Pager new stuff: Improvements for confirm, popup, popup form RenderView controller extension the user experience for crud in live demo has been substantially improved + added search all the features are shown in the live demoGanttPlanner: GanttPlanner V1.0: GanttPlanner V1.0 include GanttPlanner.dll and also a Demo application.N2 CMS: 2.1 release candidate 3: * Web platform installer support available N2 is a lightweight CMS framework for ASP.NET. It helps you build great web sites that anyone can update. Major Changes Support for auto-implemented properties ({get;set;}, based on contribution by And Poulsen) A bunch of bugs were fixed File manager improvements (multiple file upload, resize images to fit) New image gallery Infinite scroll paging on news Content templates First time with N2? Try the demo site Download one of the templ...TweetSharp: TweetSharp v2.0.0.0 - Preview 6: Documentation for this release may be found at http://tweetsharp.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=UserGuide&referringTitle=Documentation. Note: This code is currently preview quality. Preview 6 ChangesMaintenance release with user reported fixes Preview 5 ChangesMaintenance release with user reported fixes Preview 4 ChangesReintroduced fluent interface support via satellite assembly Added entities support, entity segmentation, and ITweetable/ITweeter interfaces for client development Numer...Team Foundation Server Administration Tool: 2.1: TFS Administration Tool 2.1, is the first version of the TFS Administration Tool which is built on top of the Team Foundation Server 2010 object model. TFS Administration Tool 2.1 can be installed on machines that are running either Team Explorer 2010, or Team Foundation Server 2010.SubtitleTools: SubtitleTools 1.3: - Added .srt FileAssociation & Win7 ShowRecentCategory feature. - Applied UnifiedYeKe to fix Persian search problems. - Reduced file size of Persian subtitles for uploading @OSDB.Facebook C# SDK: 4.1.0: - Lots of bug fixes - Removed Dynamic Runtime Language dependencies from non-dynamic platforms. - Samples included in release for ASP.NET, MVC, Silverlight, Windows Phone 7, WPF, WinForms, and one Visual Basic Sample - Changed internal serialization to use Json.net - BREAKING CHANGE: Canvas Session is no longer support. Use Signed Request instead. Canvas Session has been deprecated by Facebook. - BREAKING CHANGE: Some renames and changes with Authorizer, CanvasAuthorizer, and Authorization ac...NuGet: NuGet 1.0 build 11217.102: Note: this release is slightly newer than RC1, and fixes a couple issues relating to updating packages to newer versions. NuGet is a free, open source developer focused package management system for the .NET platform intent on simplifying the process of incorporating third party libraries into a .NET application during development. This release is a Visual Studio 2010 extension and contains the the Package Manager Console and the Add Package Dialog. This new build targets the newer feed (h...WCF Community Site: WCF Web APIs 10.12.17: Welcome to the second release of WCF Web APIs on codeplex Here is what is new in this release. WCF Support for jQuery - create WCF web services that are easy to consume from JavaScript clients, in particular jQuery. Better support for using JsonValue as dynamic Support for JsonValue change notification events for databinding and other purposes Support for going between JsonValue and CLR types WCF HTTP - create HTTP / REST based web services. This is a minor release which contains fixe...Orchard Project: Orchard 0.9: Orchard Release Notes Build: 0.9.253 Published: 12/16/2010 How to Install OrchardTo install the Orchard tech preview using Web PI, follow these instructions: http://www.orchardproject.net/docs/Installing-Orchard-Using-Web-PI.ashx Web PI will detect your hardware environment and install the application. --OR-- Alternatively, to install the release manually, download the Orchard.Web.0.9.253.zip file. The zip contents are pre-built and ready-to-run. Simply extract the contents of the Orch...New ProjectsArabic Silverlight IE8 Web Slices: Group of IE8 web slices built on SilverlightAssaultCube Special Edition: Making the classic better!Blazonisation: If have emblem of some state, but don't know anything about it, you can use this tool to resolve your problem. Content Maintenance Dashboard: Content Maintenance Dashboard is a package for Umbraco which lets you bulk publlish, unpublish, move and delete of content items.DFTBASP: Drop files on the window choose permissions or Just backup option DMNarrator Manager: A tool for RPG Narrators (and dungeon masters). First version is focused to old Wolrd of DarknessdnnGr2 - Free DotNetNuke Skin: A free DotNetNuke skin initially created for the DotNetNuke Skinning Presentation at the 2nd meeting of the DNN Greek Community.Duplicate File Explorer: File search utility, that also shows what files are duplicate by name. Supports searching up to 3 different folders at one time, excluding folders or extensions and multiple search patterns.Elmax: Yet another easy to use C++ XML parsing library on Windows! Tutorial coming soon!Firemap: Generates a html page which displays key performance statistics of chosen computers. Jumony Guide: Guide for Jumony Milestone 1Loc Tracker: Location tracking system for android and a php server for managing setup of triggers and events to be notified.MBDeveloper: This is my personal project.MECMS: Its an self-developed ecms.Media Companion: Media Companion is a windows program that allows people to catalogue and browse movie and tv episode collections. Folders are scanned and information is automatically gathered from various sources, including posters, fanart and episode screenshots. MOSS 2007 WebPart for SSO to BlackBoard: This project includes a MOSS 2007 WebPart for Single Sign On (SSO) to a Blackboard 9 Learning Management System. Existing projects and code samples do not include resources for SharePoint 2007 (MOSS) or C#. The goal of to provide these missing resources.MutitouchTest Flash AS3 on IOS (iPhone iPad): MutitouchTest Flash AS3 on IOS (iPhone iPad) www.fbair.net ??????Ipad ????? ??, ???????????????????, ???11?. iTouch4 ????5?? ??????? ? ? ??? ???????????. iPad??????????????Netropya XCogen: XCogen is an xml file config generator for Castle, Unity Spring and StructureMap containers. It's a simple console application for post-build action.Nota Algoritmica EUI: Programa que obtiene del moodle de la asignatura las notas y calcula la media final.Powershell CmdLets for Citrix NetScaler: Powershell CmdLets for the Citrix Netscaler product. This enables for querying & modifying the netscaler configuration through powershell.Scenario Framework - BPM Suite: Business Process Management SystemSchool Authorization System: School Authorization SystemSharePoint Delete Dead Users: This is a small WPF Application that presents all dead users it finds and allows the user to delete them from SharePoint. dead users are users that are not found inside active directory. There is also an LDAP Filter to speed up the query from active directorySugataTools: SugataTools are the helper classes that I usually use in my projects.The Phoenix Foundation - OSAL: Another OSAL for Windows (desktop/mobile) & Linux support.TibiaPinger: Tibia Pinger, Tools, Bot, ArkBot, Tibia, NeoBot, TibiaAuto, NG, ElfBottracer: Modernizes the System.Diagnostics trace infrastructure APIs to bring dynamism, testability and composability to .NET logging.uQR: uQR is an Umbraco package which adds the ability to generate dynamic QR Codes to an Umbraco website.User Account Picture Manager: This little app will try to fetch a users picture from active directory (thumbnailPhoto) and sets this picture on Windows Vista/2008/7/2008 R2 as User Account PictureVirtual Shell Service: Virtual Shell Service, is a service that runs on your server allowing trusted users to interact with the system via a sand boxed environment. The service has been designed to support mapping terminal commands in different ways via plugins and XML mappingWindows Live Writer Codehighlighting Plugin For Alex Gorbatchev's SyntaxHighligh: Windows Live Writer Codehighlighting Plugin For Alex Gorbatchev's SyntaxHighlighter. More information about the proect please visit http://tugberkugurlu.com/41

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• How Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server enable Compliance

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  One of the things that makes Team Foundation Server (TFS) the most powerful Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) platform is the traceability it provides to those that use it. This traceability is crucial to enable many companies to adhere to many of the Compliance regulations to which they are bound (e.g. CFR 21 Part 11 or Sarbanes–Oxley.)   From something as simple as relating Tasks to Check-in’s or being able to see the top 10 files in your codebase that are causing the most Bugs, to identifying which Bugs and Requirements are in which Release. All that information is available and more in TFS. Although all of this tradability is available within TFS you do need to understand that it is not for free. Well… I say that, but if you are using TFS properly you will have this information with no additional work except for firing up the reporting. Using Visual Studio ALM and Team Foundation Server you can relate every line of code changes all the way up to requirements and back down through Test Cases to the Test Results. Figure: The only thing missing is Build In order to build the relationship model below we need to examine how each of the relationships get there. Each member of your team from programmer to tester and Business Analyst to Business have their roll to play to knit this together. Figure: The relationships required to make this work can get a little confusing If Build is added to this to relate Work Items to Builds and with knowledge of which builds are in which environments you can easily identify what is contained within a Release. Figure: How are things progressing Along with the ability to produce the progress and trend reports the tractability that is built into TFS can be used to fulfil most audit requirements out of the box, and augmented to fulfil the rest. In order to understand the relationships, lets look at each of the important Artifacts and how they are associated with each other… Requirements – The root of all knowledge Requirements are the thing that the business cares about delivering. These could be derived as User Stories or Business Requirements Documents (BRD’s) but they should be what the Business asks for. Requirements can be related to many of the Artifacts in TFS, so lets look at the model: Figure: If the centre of the world was a requirement We can track which releases Requirements were scheduled in, but this can change over time as more details come to light. Figure: Who edited the Requirement and when There is also the ability to query Work Items based on the History of changed that were made to it. This is particularly important with Requirements. It might not be enough to say what Requirements were completed in a given but also to know which Requirements were ever assigned to a particular release. Figure: Some magic required, but result still achieved As an augmentation to this it is also possible to run a query that shows results from the past, just as if we had a time machine. You can take any Query in the system and add a “Asof” clause at the end to query historical data in the operational store for TFS. select <fields> from WorkItems [where <condition>] [order by <fields>] [asof <date>] Figure: Work Item Query Language (WIQL) format In order to achieve this you do need to save the query as a *.wiql file to your local computer and edit it in notepad, but one imported into TFS you run it any time you want. Figure: Saving Queries locally can be useful All of these Audit features are available throughout the Work Item Tracking (WIT) system within TFS. Tasks – Where the real work gets done Tasks are the work horse of the development team, but they only as useful as Excel if you do not relate them properly to other Artifacts. Figure: The Task Work Item Type has its own relationships Requirements should be broken down into Tasks that the development team work from to build what is required by the business. This may be done by a small dedicated group or by everyone that will be working on the software team but however it happens all of the Tasks create should be a Child of a Requirement Work Item Type. Figure: Tasks are related to the Requirement Tasks should be used to track the day-to-day activities of the team working to complete the software and as such they should be kept simple and short lest developers think they are more trouble than they are worth. Figure: Task Work Item Type has a narrower purpose Although the Task Work Item Type describes the work that will be done the actual development work involves making changes to files that are under Source Control. These changes are bundled together in a single atomic unit called a Changeset which is committed to TFS in a single operation. During this operation developers can associate Work Item with the Changeset. Figure: Tasks are associated with Changesets   Changesets – Who wrote this crap Changesets themselves are just an inventory of the changes that were made to a number of files to complete a Task. Figure: Changesets are linked by Tasks and Builds   Figure: Changesets tell us what happened to the files in Version Control Although comments can be changed after the fact, the inventory and Work Item associations are permanent which allows us to Audit all the way down to the individual change level. Figure: On Check-in you can resolve a Task which automatically associates it Because of this we can view the history on any file within the system and see how many changes have been made and what Changesets they belong to. Figure: Changes are tracked at the File level What would be even more powerful would be if we could view these changes super imposed over the top of the lines of code. Some people call this a blame tool because it is commonly used to find out which of the developers introduced a bug, but it can also be used as another method of Auditing changes to the system. Figure: Annotate shows the lines the Annotate functionality allows us to visualise the relationship between the individual lines of code and the Changesets. In addition to this you can create a Label and apply it to a version of your version control. The problem with Label’s is that they can be changed after they have been created with no tractability. This makes them practically useless for any sort of compliance audit. So what do you use? Branches – And why we need them Branches are a really powerful tool for development and release management, but they are most important for audits. Figure: One way to Audit releases The R1.0 branch can be created from the Label that the Build creates on the R1 line when a Release build was created. It can be created as soon as the Build has been signed of for release. However it is still possible that someone changed the Label between this time and its creation. Another better method can be to explicitly link the Build output to the Build. Builds – Lets tie some more of this together Builds are the glue that helps us enable the next level of tractability by tying everything together. Figure: The dashed pieces are not out of the box but can be enabled When the Build is called and starts it looks at what it has been asked to build and determines what code it is going to get and build. Figure: The folder identifies what changes are included in the build The Build sets a Label on the Source with the same name as the Build, but the Build itself also includes the latest Changeset ID that it will be building. At the end of the Build the Build Agent identifies the new Changesets it is building by looking at the Check-ins that have occurred since the last Build. Figure: What changes have been made since the last successful Build It will then use that information to identify the Work Items that are associated with all of the Changesets Changesets are associated with Build and change the “Integrated In” field of those Work Items . Figure: Find all of the Work Items to associate with The “Integrated In” field of all of the Work Items identified by the Build Agent as being integrated into the completed Build are updated to reflect the Build number that successfully integrated that change. Figure: Now we know which Work Items were completed in a build Now that we can link a single line of code changed all the way back through the Task that initiated the action to the Requirement that started the whole thing and back down to the Build that contains the finished Requirement. But how do we know wither that Requirement has been fully tested or even meets the original Requirements? Test Cases – How we know we are done The only way we can know wither a Requirement has been completed to the required specification is to Test that Requirement. In TFS there is a Work Item type called a Test Case Test Cases enable two scenarios. The first scenario is the ability to track and validate Acceptance Criteria in the form of a Test Case. If you agree with the Business a set of goals that must be met for a Requirement to be accepted by them it makes it both difficult for them to reject a Requirement when it passes all of the tests, but also provides a level of tractability and validation for audit that a feature has been built and tested to order. Figure: You can have many Acceptance Criteria for a single Requirement It is crucial for this to work that someone from the Business has to sign-off on the Test Case moving from the  “Design” to “Ready” states. The Second is the ability to associate an MS Test test with the Test Case thereby tracking the automated test. This is useful in the circumstance when you want to Track a test and the test results of a Unit Test designed to test the existence of and then re-existence of a a Bug. Figure: Associating a Test Case with an automated Test Although it is possible it may not make sense to track the execution of every Unit Test in your system, there are many Integration and Regression tests that may be automated that it would make sense to track in this way. Bug – Lets not have regressions In order to know wither a Bug in the application has been fixed and to make sure that it does not reoccur it needs to be tracked. Figure: Bugs are the centre of their own world If the fix to a Bug is big enough to require that it is broken down into Tasks then it is probably a Requirement. You can associate a check-in with a Bug and have it tracked against a Build. You would also have one or more Test Cases to prove the fix for the Bug. Figure: Bugs have many associations This allows you to track Bugs / Defects in your system effectively and report on them. Change Request – I am not a feature In the CMMI Process template Change Requests can also be easily tracked through the system. In some cases it can be very important to track Change Requests separately as an Auditor may want to know what was changed and who authorised it. Again and similar to Bugs, if the Change Request is big enough that it would require to be broken down into Tasks it is in reality a new feature and should be tracked as a Requirement. Figure: Make sure your Change Requests only Affect Requirements and not rewrite them Conclusion Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server together provide an exceptional Application Lifecycle Management platform that can help your team comply with even the harshest of Compliance requirements while still enabling them to be Agile. Most Audits are heavy on required documentation but most of that information is captured for you as long a you do it right. You don’t even need every team member to understand it all as each of the Artifacts are relevant to a different type of team member. Business Analysts manage Requirements and Change Requests Programmers manage Tasks and check-in against Change Requests and Bugs Testers manage Bugs and Test Cases Build Masters manage Builds Although there is some crossover there are still rolls or “hats” that are worn. Do you thing this is all achievable? Have I missed anything that you think should be there?

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, August 12, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, August 12, 2012Popular ReleasesThisismyusername's codeplex page.: Run! Thunderstorm! Classic Multiplatform: The classic edition now on any device, you don't have to get the touch edition for touch screens!SharePoint Developers & Admins: SPTaxCleaner Tool - Cleaner Taxonomy Data: For more information on the tool and how to use it: SPTaxCleaner Run the tool at your own risk!BugNET Issue Tracker: BugNET 1.1: This release includes bug fixes from the 1.0 release for email notifications, RSS feeds, and several other issues. Please see the change log for a full list of changes. http://support.bugnetproject.com/Projects/ReleaseNotes.aspx?pid=1&m=76 Upgrade Notes The following changes to the web.config in the profile section have occurred: Removed <add name="NotificationTypes" type="String" defaultValue="Email" customProviderData="NotificationTypes;nvarchar;255" />Added <add name="ReceiveEmailNotifi...Virtual Keyboard: Virtual Keyboard v2.0 Source Code: This release has a few added keys that were missing in the earlier versions.????: ????2.0.5: 1、?????????????。RiP-Ripper & PG-Ripper: PG-Ripper 1.4.01: changes NEW: Added Support for Clipboard Function in Mono Version NEW: Added Support for "ImgBox.com" links FIXED: "PixHub.eu" links FIXED: "ImgChili.com" links FIXED: Kitty-Kats Forum loginPlayer Framework by Microsoft: Player Framework for Windows 8 (Preview 5): Support for Smooth Streaming SDK beta 2 Support for live playback New bitrate meter and SD/HD indicators Auto smooth streaming track restriction for snapped mode to conserve bandwidth New "Go Live" button and SeekToLive API Support for offset start times Support for Live position unique from end time Support for multiple audio streams (smooth and progressive content) Improved intellisense in JS version Support for Windows 8 RTM ADDITIONAL DOWNLOADSSmooth Streaming Client SD...Media Companion: Media Companion 3.506b: This release includes an update to the XBMC scrapers, for those who prefer to use this method. There were a number of behind-the-scene tweaks to make Media Companion compatible with the new TMDb-V3 API, so it was considered important to get it out to the users to try it out. Please report back any important issues you might find. For this reason, unless you use the XBMC scrapers, there probably isn't any real necessity to download this one! The only other minor change was one to allow the mc...Avian Mortality Detection Entry Application: Detection Entry: The most recent and up-to-date version of the Detection Entry application. Please click on the CLICKONCE link above to install.NVorbis: NVorbis v0.3: Fix Ogg page reader to correctly handle "split" packets Fix "zero-energy" packet handling Fix packet reader to always merge packets when needed Add statistics properties to VorbisReader.Stats Add multi-stream API (for Ogg files containing multiple Vorbis streams)The Ftp Library - Most simple, full-featured .NET Ftp Library: TheFtpLibrary v1.0: First version. Please report any bug and discuss how to improve this library in 'Discussion' section.VisioAutomation: Visio Power Tools 2010 (Beta): Visio Power Tools 2010 An Add-in for Visio 2010. In Beta but should be very stable. Some Cool Features Import Colors - From Kuler, ColourLovers, or manually enter RGB values Create a Document containing images of all masters in multiple stencils Toggle text case Copy All text from all shapes Export document to XHTML (with embedded SVG) Export document to XAML Updates2012-08-10 - Fixed path handling when generating the HTML stencil catalogXBMC for LCDSmartie: v 0.7.1: Changes: Version 0.7.1 - Removed unused configuration options: You can remove the user and pass section from your LCDSmartie.exe.config Version 0.7.0 - Changed JSON-Protocol to TCP: This means the plugin will run much faster and chances that LCDSmartie will stutter are minimized Note: You will have to change some settings in your LCDSmartie.exe.config, as TCP uses a different port than HTTP (9090 is default in XBMC)WPF RSS Feed Reader: WPF RSS Feed Reader 4.1: WPF RSS Feed Reader 4.1.x This application has been developed using Visual Studio 2010 with .NET 4.0 and Microsoft Expression Blend. It makes use of the MVVM Light Toolkit, more information can be found here Fixed bug when first installed - handle null reference on _proxySetting Fixed bug if trying to open error log but error log doesn't exist yet Added strings to resources Moved AsssemblyInfo centrally and linked to other projectsScutex: Scutex 4th Preview Release 0.4: This is the fourth preview release for the new Scutex 0.4 Beta. This preview release is unstable and contains some UI issues that are being worked on due to an installation of a brand new GUI. The stable version of the 0.4 Beta will be out shortly as soon as this release passes QA. The following were fixed in this release *Fixed an issue with the Upload Product dialog that would cause it to throw an exception. Known Issues *The download service logs grid does not display properlySystem.Net.FtpClient: System.Net.FtpClient 2012.08.08: 2012.08.08 Release. Several changes, see commit notes in source code section. CHM help as well as source for this release are included in the download. Remember that Windows 7 by default (and possibly older versions) will block you from opening the CHM by default due to trust settings. To get around the problem, right click on the CHM, choose properties and click the Un-block button. Please note that this will be the last release tested to compile with the .net 2.0 framework. I will be remov...Isis2 Cloud Computing Library: Isis2 Alpha V1.1.967: This is an alpha pre-release of the August 2012 version of the system. I've been testing and fixing many problems and have also added a new group "lock" API (g.Lock("lock name")/g.Unlock/g.Holder/g.SetLockPolicy); with this, Isis2 can mimic Chubby, Google's locking service. I wouldn't say that the system is entirely stable yet, and I haven't rechecked every single problem I had seen in May/June, but I think it might be good to get some additional use of this release. By now it does seem to...JSON C# Class Generator: JSON CSharp Class Generator 1.3: Support for native JSON.net serializer/deserializer (POCO) New classes layout option: nested classes Better handling of secondary classesAxiom 3D Rendering Engine: v0.8.3376.12322: Changes Since v0.8.3102.12095 ===================================================================== Updated ndoc3 binaries to fix bug Added uninstall.ps1 to nuspec packages fixed revision component in version numbering Fixed sln referencing VS 11 Updated OpenTK Assemblies Added CultureInvarient to numeric parsing Added First Visual Studio 2010 Project Template (DirectX9) Updated SharpInputSystem Assemblies Backported fix for OpenGL Auto-created window not responding to input Fixed freeInterna...DotSpatial: DotSpatial 1.3: This is a Minor Release. See the changes in the issue tracker. Minimal -- includes DotSpatial core and essential extensions Extended -- includes debugging symbols and additional extensions Tutorials are available. Just want to run the software? End user (non-programmer) version available branded as MapWindow Want to add your own feature? Develop a plugin, using the template and contribute to the extension feed (you can also write extensions that you distribute in other ways). Components ...New ProjectsAppFabric Cache Admin Tool: Appfabric Admin tool is a GUI tool provided for Cache Administration. This tool can be used for both Appfabric 1.0 and 1.1 versions.Bootstrap XML Navigation: Bootstrap XML Navigation is an ASP.NET Server Control which provide the ability to off-load your Bootstrap navigation structure to external XML files.Classic MVC: Classic MVC is an MVC framework written entirely in JScript for Microsoft's Classic ASP. Separation of concerns, controllers, partial views and more.Component Spectrum: Component Spectrum is an E-Commerce Application project.Developments in Java: Free Develop JavaDongGPrj: DongGPrjEsShop: ???????，????。。。F# Indent Visual Studio addon: The addon to show how to use SmartIndent and change the indent behavior in F# content.FizzBuzzAssignment: This is HeadSpring assignment.hotfighter: a act game!!!iSoilHotel: It is a hotel management system that using Microsoft N-Layer Architecture as the primary thoughts.KVBL (K's VB6 library) VB6????,????????.: KVBL??VB6??????、???????，????????，??????，????VB????，??????????。????：??????、???、??、????、??、????、??、??、?????、?????、???????，???????……Meteorite: c# game 3d wp7 space ship meteoriteMetro App Helpers: Helper classes for building Metro style app on Windows 8.MobileShop: Mobile shop for Iphone & AndroidMomentum: this is q project pqrticipqtion between meir and david concerning student university project on physics.OneLine: dfgfdgPreflight: Summary HereResilient FileSystemWatcher for monitoring network folders: Drop in replacement for FileSystemWatcher that works for network folders and compensate for network outages, server restarts ect.SkyPoint: A Windows Phone 7 app aimed at novice astronomers.test20120811: summary of this projectVS Unbind Source Control: Remove Source Control bindings from Visual Studio Solution and Project FilesWcf SWA (SFTI) implementation: First releasewebstart: new web tech testwinform_framework: winform_frameworkwtopenapi: wtopen sina weibo sdk txweibosdk qzone sdk

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• Software development is (mostly) a trade, and what to do about it

  - by Jeff

  (This is another cross-post from my personal blog. I don’t even remember when I first started to write it, but I feel like my opinion is well enough baked to share.) I've been sitting on this for a long time, particularly as my opinion has changed dramatically over the last few years. That I've encountered more crappy code than maintainable, quality code in my career as a software developer only reinforces what I'm about to say. Software development is just a trade for most, and not a huge academic endeavor. For those of you with computer science degrees readying your pitchforks and collecting your algorithm interview questions, let me explain. This is not an assault on your way of life, and if you've been around, you know I'm right about the quality problem. You also know the HR problem is very real, or we wouldn't be paying top dollar for mediocre developers and importing people from all over the world to fill the jobs we can't fill. I'm going to try and outline what I see as some of the problems, and hopefully offer my views on how to address them. The recruiting problem I think a lot of companies are doing it wrong. Over the years, I've had two kinds of interview experiences. The first, and right, kind of experience involves talking about real life achievements, followed by some variation on white boarding in pseudo-code, drafting some basic system architecture, or even sitting down at a comprooder and pecking out some basic code to tackle a real problem. I can honestly say that I've had a job offer for every interview like this, save for one, because the task was to debug something and they didn't like me asking where to look ("everyone else in the company died in a plane crash"). The other interview experience, the wrong one, involves the classic torture test designed to make the candidate feel stupid and do things they never have, and never will do in their job. First they will question you about obscure academic material you've never seen, or don't care to remember. Then they'll ask you to white board some ridiculous algorithm involving prime numbers or some kind of string manipulation no one would ever do. In fact, if you had to do something like this, you'd Google for a solution instead of waste time on a solved problem. Some will tell you that the academic gauntlet interview is useful to see how people respond to pressure, how they engage in complex logic, etc. That might be true, unless of course you have someone who brushed up on the solutions to the silly puzzles, and they're playing you. But here's the real reason why the second experience is wrong: You're evaluating for things that aren't the job. These might have been useful tactics when you had to hire people to write machine language or C++, but in a world dominated by managed code in C#, or Java, people aren't managing memory or trying to be smarter than the compilers. They're using well known design patterns and techniques to deliver software. More to the point, these puzzle gauntlets don't evaluate things that really matter. They don't get into code design, issues of loose coupling and testability, knowledge of the basics around HTTP, or anything else that relates to building supportable and maintainable software. The first situation, involving real life problems, gives you an immediate idea of how the candidate will work out. One of my favorite experiences as an interviewee was with a guy who literally brought his work from that day and asked me how to deal with his problem. I had to demonstrate how I would design a class, make sure the unit testing coverage was solid, etc. I worked at that company for two years. So stop looking for algorithm puzzle crunchers, because a guy who can crush a Fibonacci sequence might also be a guy who writes a class with 5,000 lines of untestable code. Fashion your interview process on ways to reveal a developer who can write supportable and maintainable code. I would even go so far as to let them use the Google. If they want to cut-and-paste code, pass on them, but if they're looking for context or straight class references, hire them, because they're going to be life-long learners. The contractor problem I doubt anyone has ever worked in a place where contractors weren't used. The use of contractors seems like an obvious way to control costs. You can hire someone for just as long as you need them and then let them go. You can even give them the work that no one else wants to do. In practice, most places I've worked have retained and budgeted for the contractor year-round, meaning that the $90+ per hour they're paying (of which half goes to the person) would have been better spent on a full-time person with a $100k salary and benefits. But it's not even the cost that is an issue. It's the quality of work delivered. The accountability of a contractor is totally transient. They only need to deliver for as long as you keep them around, and chances are they'll never again touch the code. There's no incentive for them to get things right, there's little incentive to understand your system or learn anything. At the risk of making an unfair generalization, craftsmanship doesn't matter to most contractors. The education problem I don't know what they teach in college CS courses. I've believed for most of my adult life that a college degree was an essential part of being successful. Of course I would hold that bias, since I did it, and have the paper to show for it in a box somewhere in the basement. My first clue that maybe this wasn't a fully qualified opinion comes from the fact that I double-majored in journalism and radio/TV, not computer science. Eventually I worked with people who skipped college entirely, many of them at Microsoft. Then I worked with people who had a masters degree who sucked at writing code, next to the high school diploma types that rock it every day. I still think there's a lot to be said for the social development of someone who has the on-campus experience, but for software developers, college might not matter. As I mentioned before, most of us are not writing compilers, and we never will. It's actually surprising to find how many people are self-taught in the art of software development, and that should reveal some interesting truths about how we learn. The first truth is that we learn largely out of necessity. There's something that we want to achieve, so we do what I call just-in-time learning to meet those goals. We acquire knowledge when we need it. So what about the gaps in our knowledge? That's where the most valuable education occurs, via our mentors. They're the people we work next to and the people who write blogs. They are critical to our professional development. They don't need to be an encyclopedia of jargon, but they understand the craft. Even at this stage of my career, I probably can't tell you what SOLID stands for, but you can bet that I practice the principles behind that acronym every day. That comes from experience, augmented by my peers. I'm hell bent on passing that experience to others. Process issues If you're a manager type and don't do much in the way of writing code these days (shame on you for not messing around at least), then your job is to isolate your tradespeople from nonsense, while bringing your business into the realm of modern software development. That doesn't mean you slap up a white board with sticky notes and start calling yourself agile, it means getting all of your stakeholders to understand that frequent delivery of quality software is the best way to deal with change and evolving expectations. It also means that you have to play technical overlord to make sure the education and quality issues are dealt with. That's why I make the crack about sticky notes, because without the right technique being practiced among your code monkeys, you're just a guy with sticky notes. You're asking your business to accept frequent and iterative delivery, now make sure that the folks writing the code can handle the same thing. This means unit testing, the right instrumentation, integration tests, automated builds and deployments... all of the stuff that makes it easy to see when change breaks stuff. The prognosis I strongly believe that education is the most important part of what we do. I'm encouraged by things like The Starter League, and it's the kind of thing I'd love to see more of. I would go as far as to say I'd love to start something like this internally at an existing company. Most of all though, I can't emphasize enough how important it is that we mentor each other and share our knowledge. If you have people on your staff who don't want to learn, fire them. Seriously, get rid of them. A few months working with someone really good, who understands the craftsmanship required to build supportable and maintainable code, will change that person forever and increase their value immeasurably.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, October 25, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, October 25, 2011Popular ReleasesScrum Task Board Card Creator: TaskCardCreator 2.5.0.0: What's New: UX improvement: Loading of work items is done in a worker thread Use memory, not the file system, when creating reports for better performance UI improvement: Better parent/child relation between the TeamProjectPicker and MainWindow Microsoft Visual Studio Scrum 1.0: Dedicated Impediment card added Supported Templates: Microsoft Visual Studio Scrum 1.0 Product Backlog Item, Task, Impediment, and Bug MSF for Agile Software Development v5.0 User Story, Task, and BugSubtitleTools: SubtitleTools 1.9: - Improved: Some DVD players need a mandatory UTF8-BOM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byteordermark) at the beginning of the file to show RTL subtitles correctly.THE NVL Maker: The NVL Maker Ver 3.06: 3.06 ??? ??3.04，???CG MODE?? ??3.05—— ??????????????????????????????? ?????????config.tjs????????（??????????????????????????） ????config.tjs???，????????????，????????????Config.tjs。（???????，?????????，???KAGConfig??） ???????“????”??，??????????????????（Data） ??????????????????? ???????????，????????，??????????? ?fadeoutbgm?????????，???????????????，?????????? ????????，???“??????”??。（??????????macro_edu.ks??） ????????，????????A??????，???“??????”。 ?????????????，???????B??????，???“...Xomega Framework: Xomega.Framework 1.2: Release 1.2 of Xomega Framework refactors projects to allow generating assemblies for different target frameworks and profiles and allows deploying it as a NuGet package. It also includes some small fixes to the service and presentation layer classes.People's Note: People's Note 0.31: Added note tag editing. Changed note edit conflict resolution to keep the latest version. To install: copy the appropriate CAB file onto your WM device and run it.Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone: Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone v1.3.1: Upgraded Windows Azure projects to Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 1.5 – September 2011 Upgraded the tools tools to support the Windows Phone Developer Tools RTW Update SQL Azure only scenarios to use ASP.NET Universal Providers (through the System.Web.Providers v1.0.1 NuGet package) Changed Shared Access Signature service interface to support more operations Refactored Blobs API to have a similar interface and usage to that provided by the Windows Azure SDK Stor...xUnit.net Contrib: xunitcontrib-resharper 0.4.4 (dotCover): xunitcontrib release 0.4.4 (ReSharper runner) This release provides a test runner plugin for Resharper 6.0 RTM, targetting all versions of xUnit.net. (See the xUnit.net project to download xUnit.net itself.) This release addresses the following issues:Support for dotCover code coverage 4132 Note that this build work against ALL VERSIONS of xunit. The files are compiled against xunit.dll 1.8 - DO NOT REPLACE THIS FILE. Thanks to xunit's version independent runner system, this package can r...BookShop: BookShop: BookShop WP7 clientRibbon Editor for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: Ribbon Editor (0.1.2122.266): Added CodePlex and PayPal links New icon Bug fix: can't connect to an IFD deployment when the discovery service url has been customizedDotNet.Framework.Common: DotNet.Framework.Common 4.0: ??????????，????????????XML Explorer: XML Explorer 4.0.5: Changes in 4.0.5: Added 'Copy Attribute XPath to Address Bar' feature. Added methods for decoding node text and value from Base64 encoded strings, and copying them to the clipboard. Added 'ChildNodeDefinitions' to the options, which allows for easier navigation of parent-child and ID-IDREF relationships. Discovery happens on-demand, as nodes are expanded and child nodes are added. Nodes can now have 'virtual' child nodes, defined by an xpath to select an identifier (usually relative to ...Media Companion: MC 3.419b Weekly: A couple of minor bug fixes, but the important fix in this release is to tackle the extremely long load times for users with large TV collections (issue #130). A note has been provided by developer Playos: "One final note, you will have to suffer one final long load and then it should be fixed... alternatively you can delete the TvCache.xml and rebuild your library... The fix was to include the file extension so it doesn't have to look for the video file (checking to see if a file exists is a...CODE Framework: 4.0.11021.0: This build adds a lot of our WPF components, including our MVVC and MVC components as well as a "Metro" and "Battleship" style.GridLibre para Visual FoxPro: GridLibre para Visual FoxPro v3.5: GridLibre Para Visual FoxPro: esta herramienta ayudara a los usuarios y programadores en los manejos de los datos, como Filtrar, multiseleccion y el autoformato a las columnas como la asignacion del controlsource.WiX Toolset: WiX v3.6 Beta: First beta release of WiX v3.6. The primary focus is on Burn but there are also many small bug fixes to the core toolset. For more information see: http://robmensching.com/blog/posts/2011/10/24/WiX-v3.6-Beta-releasedUmbraco CMS: Umbraco 5.0 CMS Alpha 3: Umbraco 5 Alpha 3Umbraco 5 (aka Jupiter) will be the next version of everyone's favourite, friendly ASP.NET CMS that already powers over 100,000 websites worldwide. Try out the Alpha of v5 today! If you're new to Umbraco and would like to get a low-down on our popular and easy-to-learn approach to content management, check out our intro video. What's Alpha 3?This is our third Alpha release. It's intended for developers looking to become familiar with the codebase & architecture, or for thos...Vkontakte WP: Vkontakte: source codeWay2Sms Applications for Android, Desktop/Laptop & Java enabled phones: Way2SMS Desktop App v2.0: 1. Fixed issue with sending messages due to changes to Way2Sms site 2. Updated the character limit to 160 from 140GART - Geo Augmented Reality Toolkit: 1.0.1: About Release 1.0.1 Release 1.0.1 is a service release that addresses several issues and improves performance. As always, check the Documentation tab for instructions on how to get started. If you don't have the Windows Phone SDK yet, grab it here. Breaking Change Please note: There is a breaking change in this release. As noted below, the WorldCalculationMode property of ARItem has been replaced by a user-definable function. ARItem is now automatically wired up with a function that perform...Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.32: Fix for issue #16710 - string literals in "constant literal operations" which contain ASP.NET substitutions should not be considered "constant." Move the JS1284 error (Misplaced Function Declaration) so it only fires when in strict mode. I got a couple complaints that people didn't like that error popping up in their existing code when they could verify that the location of that function, although not strict JS, still functions as expected cross-browser.New ProjectsApiDiff.Net: API Difference/Reporting project written in C# using the wonderful Cecil engine (http://www.mono-project.com/Cecil) to show differences between versions of a public API. Something like the unsupported MS tool "libcheck"Aspect Oriented Programming with .Net: Demo project using PostSharp for AOP in .Net.CCBBAA: CCBBAACdf.Iris.MiniProjetCalculateur: Application Client / Serveur calculateur en langage CCmjSiverlight: a silverlight libraryCSharpKaartSpel: Super Kaart Spel.Developer Team Article System Management: Developer Team Article System Management Makes it easier for Authors to publish their articles . It developed in VB.NET .DirectoryMonitor: DirectoryMonitorDNN Administrador de Tareas: Un Proyecto de codigo abierto Domek: Taki sobie domekEDXGraphics: This is Edward(Shiqiu) Liu's personal code repository. Projects here are primarily about Graphics, AI and Algorithms. For more introduction, please visit [url:www.edxgraphics.com] Enterprise SSIS Framework: The Enterprise SSIS Framework is a project intended to simplify the management of an organization’s administration and ETL assets by abstracting the coordination and control flow into metadata. This project consists of the four parts: - Core SSIS Packages: A set of packages that are responsible for workflow within the framework - SQL Server 2008 DB: Holds all the metadata necessary to drive the application - Administration App: A web-based front end to facilitate managing assets running ...FIM Task Sequencer "RunJob": Runjob is a simple batch controller for FIM (MIIS and ILM) for starting and monitoring the execution of FIM Run Profiles that allows for complex (looping and branching) sequences to be put together with a simple XML 'task' file. Key features include: * Works with MIIS / ILM / FIM * Optionally Connects to the SQL database to verify that run profiles exist * Can execute arbitrary tasks via a command line. * Based on the results of command line or previous run history can loop and jump ...Ham Bone Soup amateur radio software and electronic log: Ham Bone Soup is a open source software written for satisfying the needs of Amateur Radio operators. The central feature is an especially flexible logging system for acommodating contests and general purpose logs, but will grow to include many other vital Amateur radio features. It doesn't do anything yet, we are just geting started.H? th?ng qu?n lý chi tiêu - windows phone: H? th?ng qu?n lý chi tiêu - windows phoneJavascript Editor for SharePoint: Javascript Editor for SharePoint is a lightweight, in-browser editor that lets you quickly prototype and test custom javascript code in SharePointLegoWeb: Open source Web CMS base on ASP.NET Webparts + MARCXML metadata: LegoWeb is an open source web content management solution developed base on combination of ASP.NET 2.0 Webparts and MARCXML Metadata. It is very simple and very flexible. LuaXna: An simple engine that allow to devolop in LUA for XNA. It have logging feature and cycles.Manager Game: Student project for game developement course. Using XNA 4.0 for Windows platform.Metroed: A Metro version of the PhoneyTools (a WP7 toolkit) for use with C#/VB WinRT applications.My Masters Sample Project for Sharepoint 2010: The feature stabling example project which is provide to deploy custom master page to personel sites on Sharepoint 2010 The solution is anwering fallowing questions : * How to deploy a custom master page ? * How to customize a masterpage ? * How to attach custom master page to personal sites using stabling feature ? NDepend TFS 2010 integration: NDepend TFS 2010 integration provides build activities, a build report customization addin, and extends the TFS Warehouse in order to leverage NDepend quality statistics for your projects. Open Source Renderer: Open Source RendererPearTunes: Peartunes is a university project.Plugin Framework Web: Lighweight plugin framework for web applicationsQTP TFS Generic Test Integration: In Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 there is a Generic Test type that allows you to integrate with automation tools like QTP. I have created a pretty simple solution that allows you to use your existing QTP automation scripts within the Microsoft Visual Studio testing framework and here's a sample below. The key part of this solution is transforming HP's QTP format to Microsoft’s Generic Test format so that you can publish the results to TFS. The added benefit of this integration is that you c...RequiemDream: the project for manage workflow records reexecute to helping developers for debugging.Rift Addon Studio 2010: Rift AddOn Studio (AOS) is an open source development environment designed to bring a Visual Studio-like experience to building Rift AddOns. For more information on exactly what AOS does, check out the list of features below. Small Database Tools: This is a project for me to create small tools I created for database related functions.SQL Azure Membership, Profile, Role provider starter kit for MVC3 project: When you use out of box MVC 3 site template the Membership, Profile and Role provider DB is created as attached MDF file by the name AspNetDB.mdf. This project has needed steps to easily migrate this DB into SQL Azure. This is a complete MVC3 Starter site project and could be used for your next 'Big Thing' as soon as properly setup. Enjoy :)SQL Server BareMetal Hands-on-Labs: The SQL Server BareMetal Hands-on-Labs project allows you to build a SQL Server Hands-on-Lab Enviroment from scratch, using Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Hyper-V. State Theater Website: Building a website designed to provide information about live theater throughout a state. Basically, it a port of NJTheater.com from classic ASP to Asp.Net making it customizable to any state along the way.Static web generator: Zoltar let you generate your website (blog, personl website,etc) from a set of md files. Ukulele Chord Finder: Ukulele Chord FinderUser Profile Cleaner: This application allows you to manage via GUI or command line user profiles, removed the profiles no longer used by a number of days. The application allows you to set a list of profiles that can be excluded from deletion. Virtual Visit: This project have made the virtual visite for your siteWP7 Open source project collection by eLite: ??Windows Phone????????zebrawebservice: ??AWB，??OPS??

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, June 04, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, June 04, 2011Popular ReleasesSublightCmd: SublightCmd 1.1.0: -added guessTitle switch -improved console output -updated Sublight.Lib -updated SharpZipLib library -added new command: batch (same as downloadbatch) -added waitForExit switch for batch/downloadbatch commandpatterns & practices: Project Silk: Project Silk Community Drop 10 - June 3, 2011: Changes from previous drop: Many code changes: please see the readme.mht for details. New "Application Notifications" chapter. Updated "Server-Side Implementation" chapter. Guidance Chapters Ready for Review The Word documents for the chapters are included with the source code in addition to the CHM to help you provide feedback. The PDF is provided as a separate download for your convenience. Installation Overview To install and run the reference implementation, you must perform the fol...Claims Based Identity & Access Control Guide: Release Candidate: Highlights of this release This is the release candidate drop of the new "Claims Identity Guide" edition. In this release you will find: All code samples, including all ACS v2: ACS as a Federation Provider - Showing authentication with LiveID, Google, etc. ACS as a FP with Multiple Business Partners. ACS and REST endpoints. Using a WP7 client with REST endpoints. All ACS specific chapters. Two new chapters on SharePoint (SSO and Federation) All revised v1 chapters We are now ...Media Companion: MC 3.404b Weekly: Extract the entire archive to a folder which has user access rights, eg desktop, documents etc. Refer to the documentation on this site for the Installation & Setup Guide Important! *** Due to an issue where the date added & the full genre information was not being read into the Movie cache, it is highly recommended that you perform a Rebuild Movies when first running this latest version. This will read in the information from the nfo's & repopulate the cache used by MC during operation. Fi...Terraria Map Generator: TerrariaMapTool 1.0.0.4 Beta: 1) Fixed the generated map.html file so that the file:/// is included in the base path. 2) Added the ability to use parallelization during generation. This will cause the program to use as many threads as there are physical cores. 3) Fixed some background overdraw.DotRas: DotRas v1.2 (Version 1.2.4168): This release includes compiled (and signed) versions of the binaries, PDBs, CHM help documentation, along with both C# and VB.NET examples. Please don't forget to rate the release! If you find a bug, please open a work item and give as much description as possible. Stack traces, which operating system(s) you're targeting, and build type is also very helpful for bug hunting. If you find something you believe to be a bug but are not sure, create a new discussion on the discussions board. Thank...Caliburn Micro: WPF, Silverlight and WP7 made easy.: Caliburn.Micro v1.1 RTW: Download ContentsDebug and Release Assemblies Samples Changes.txt License.txt Release Highlights For WP7A new Tombstoning API based on ideas from Fluent NHibernate A new Launcher/Chooser API Strongly typed Navigation SimpleContainer included The full phone lifecycle is made easy to work with ie. we figure out whether your app is actually Resurrecting or just Continuing for you For WPFSupport for the Client Profile Better support for WinForms integration All PlatformsA power...VidCoder: 0.9.1: Added color coding to the Log window. Errors are highlighted in red, HandBrake logs are in black and VidCoder logs are in dark blue. Moved enqueue button to the right with the other control buttons. Added logic to report failures when errors are logged during the encode or when the encode finishes prematurely. Added Copy button to Log window. Adjusted audio track selection box to always show the full track name. Changed encode job progress bar to also be colored yellow when the enco...AutoLoL: AutoLoL v2.0.1: - Fixed a small bug in Auto Login - Fixed the updaterEPPlus-Create advanced Excel 2007 spreadsheets on the server: EPPlus 2.9.0.1: EPPlus-Create advanced Excel 2007 spreadsheets on the server This version has been updated to .Net Framework 3.5 New Features Data Validation. PivotTables (Basic functionalliy...) Support for worksheet data sources. Column, Row, Page and Data fields. Date and Numeric grouping Build in styles. ...and more And some minor new features... Ranges Text-Property|Get the formated value AutofitColumns-method to set the column width from the content of the range LoadFromCollection-metho...jQuery ASP.Net MVC Controls: Version 1.4.0.0: Version 1.4.0.0 contains the following additions: Upgraded to MVC 3.0 Upgraded to jQuery 1.6.1 (Though the project supports all jQuery version from 1.4.x onwards) Upgraded to jqGrid 3.8 Better Razor View-Engine support Better Pager support, includes support for custom pagers Added jqGrid toolbar buttons support Search module refactored, with full suport for multiple filters and ordering And Code cleanup, bug-fixes and better controller configuration support.Nearforums - ASP.NET MVC forum engine: Nearforums v6.0: Version 6.0 of Nearforums, the ASP.NET MVC Forum Engine, containing new features: Authentication using Membership Provider for SQL Server and MySql Spam prevention: Flood Control Moderation: Flag messages Content management: Pages: Create pages (about us/contact/texts) through web administration Allow nearforums to run as an IIS subapp Migrated Facebook Connect to OAuth 2.0 Visit the project Roadmap for more details.NetOffice - The easiest way to use Office in .NET: NetOffice Release 0.8b: Changes: - fix critical issue 15922(AccessViolationException) once and for all ...update is strongly recommended Known Issues: - some addin ribbon examples has a COM Register function with missing codebase entry(win32 registry) ...the problem is only affected to c# examples. fixed in latest source code. NetOffice\ReleaseTags\NetOffice Release 0.8.rar Includes: - Runtime Binaries and Source Code for .NET Framework:......v2.0, v3.0, v3.5, v4.0 - Tutorials in C# and VB.Net:...................Facebook Graph Toolkit: Facebook Graph Toolkit 1.5.4186: Updates the API in response to Facebook's recent change of policy: All Graph Api accessing feeds or posts must provide a AccessToken.Serviio for Windows Home Server: Beta Release 0.5.2.0: Ready for widespread beta. Synchronized build number to Serviio version to avoid confusion.AcDown????? - Anime&Comic Downloader: AcDown????? v3.0 Beta4: ??AcDown?????????????，??????????????，????、????。?????Acfun????? ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7 ????????????? ??：????????Windows XP???,?????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86)?.NET Framework 2.0???(x64)，?????"?????????"??? ??v3.0 Beta4 2011-5-31?? ???Bilibili.us????? ???? ?? ???"????" ???Bilibili.us??? ??????? ?? ??????? ?? ???????? ?? ?? ???Bilibili.us?????(??????????????????) ??????(6.cn)?????(????) ?? ?????Acfun?????????? ?????????????? ???QQ???????? ????????????Discussion...CodeCopy Auto Code Converter: Code Copy v0.1: Full add-in, setup project source code and setup fileTerrariViewer: TerrariViewer v2.4.1: Added Piggy Bank editor and fixed some minor bugs.Kooboo CMS: Kooboo CMS 3.02: Updated the Kooboo_CMS.zip at 2011-06-02 11:44 GMT 1.Fixed: Adding data rule issue on page. 2.Fixed: Caching issue for higher performance. Updated the Kooboo_CMS.zip at 2011-06-01 10:00 GMT 1. Fixed the published package throwed a compile error under WebSite mode. 2. Fixed the ContentHelper.NewMediaFolderObject return TextFolder issue. 3. Shorten the name of ContentHelper API. NewMediaFolderObject=>MediaFolder, NewTextFolderObject=> TextFolder, NewSchemaObject=>Schema. Also update the C...mojoPortal: 2.3.6.6: see release notes on mojoportal.com http://www.mojoportal.com/mojoportal-2366-released Note that we have separate deployment packages for .NET 3.5 and .NET 4.0 The deployment package downloads on this page are pre-compiled and ready for production deployment, they contain no C# source code. To download the source code see the Source Code Tab I recommend getting the latest source code using TortoiseHG, you can get the source code corresponding to this release here.New ProjectsCampaign Portfolio Manager: This is a light-weight organizer for GMs and Players of Table-Top RPGs. It allows quick access to basic notes regarding PCs, NPCs, and planned Stories. Written in C#eMarketplace: eMarketPlace is a website project for buyer and sellers for marketing any type of goodsEstudo de Realidade Aumentada usando Balder: Estudo de Realidade Aumentada usando desenhos 3D e Processamento de Imagem.Hex Vitals Calculator: Hex Vitals will help game masters understand their hex maps better. If you have one of seven measurements for a hex, you can use it to derive the other six. This program was written in C#.Internet Programming with Asp.NET 4: This project based on lesson in my college , Ma Chung University which is located at Malang, Indonesia. We (team = 2person) created this with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 ( Visual Basic.NET). This project site about cooking club (www.hostingmm.com) at my university.kekkoooLibs: my tests.Moira Project: Moira project is a configurable, extensible and pluggable software for file management. Its core is a component that watches the file system and is capable of running different tasks based on files properties analysis. OOP: OOP is a C++ framework, which provides many utilities to make easier for C++ programmers to develop C++ programOsProject: this project is a sample of company routine to call technical. PowerShell Patch Audit/Installation GUI: PoshPAIG allows you to easily audit and install patches on your servers in the network by providing a graphical interface to select which servers to audit/install and to generate reports for the systems.RiordanWebSite: ??web??SelvinListSyncSample: My sample for Microsoft Sync Framework 4.0 CTP on Android deviceSharePoint 2010 XML Managed Metadata Migrator: The SP2010 Managed Metadata Migrator allows the export of a metadata service configuration from a source SP2010 farm, then re-import into a target SP2010 farm with options to re-associate your content type definitions with the defined term sets. Developed in C#SharePoint Foundation QueryString Filter WebPart: SharePoint foundation web part to provide out of the box components the capability to filter information based on a url querystring parameterSitePounder: Send infinite requests to specified URL target; join with others to wage distributed denial of service attacks against the deserving and overly self-serving.Snaky: A Simple Snake Game in C++ using SFML 2.0SOL Polar Explorer: A performance polar viewer and data explorer for sailonline.org polar files.SPEventReceiverWebpart: A SharePoint Webpart which allows you to add or delete EventReceivers to or from Lists in the current web.VS.NET Deployment Project Updater: VDProjectUpdater is a command line utility that will update a VS.NET setup project (vdproj) version and product/package/upgrade/module identifiers. This allows the setup projects to be integrated into automated builds that generate versioned setup outputs.?????? For Silverlight 5: ?????Silverlight ?RIA Service ???????????，??????EsaySL???，????????????，??????Silverlight

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• Down Tools Week Cometh: Kissing Goodbye to CVs/Resumes and Cover Letters

  - by Bart Read

  I haven't blogged about what I'm doing in my (not so new) temporary role as Red Gate's technical recruiter, mostly because it's been routine, business as usual stuff, and because I've been trying to understand the role by doing it. I think now though the time has come to get a little more radical, so I'm going to tell you why I want to largely eliminate CVs/resumes and cover letters from the application process for some of our technical roles, and why I think that might be a good thing for candidates (and for us). I have a terrible confession to make, or at least it's a terrible confession for a recruiter: I don't really like CV sifting, or reading cover letters, and, unless I've misread the mood around here, neither does anybody else. It's dull, it's time-consuming, and it's somewhat soul destroying because, when all is said and done, you're being paid to be incredibly judgemental about people based on relatively little information. I feel like I've dirtied myself by saying that - I mean, after all, it's a core part of my job - but it sucks, it really does. (And, of course, the truth is I'm still a software engineer at heart, and I'm always looking for ways to do things better.) On the flip side, I've never met anyone who likes writing their CV. It takes hours and hours of faffing around and massaging it into shape, and the whole process is beset by a gnawing anxiety, frustration, and insecurity. All you really want is a chance to demonstrate your skills - not just talk about them - and how do you do that in a CV or cover letter? Often the best candidates will include samples of their work (a portfolio, screenshots, links to websites, product downloads, etc.), but sometimes this isn't possible, or may not be appropriate, or you just don't think you're allowed because of what your school/university careers service has told you (more commonly an issue with grads, obviously). And what are we actually trying to find out about people with all of this? I think the common criteria are actually pretty basic: Smart Gets things done (thanks for these two Joel) Not an a55hole* (sorry, have to get around Simple Talk's swear filter - and thanks to Professor Robert I. Sutton for this one) *Of course, everyone has off days, and I don't honestly think we're too worried about somebody being a bit grumpy every now and again. We can do a bit better than this in the context of the roles I'm talking about: we can be more specific about what "gets things done" means, at least in part. For software engineers and interns, the non-exhaustive meaning of "gets things done" is: Excellent coder For test engineers, the non-exhaustive meaning of "gets things done" is: Good at finding problems in software Competent coder Team player, etc., to me, are covered by "not an a55hole". I don't expect people to be the life and soul of the party, or a wild extrovert - that's not what team player means, and it's not what "not an a55hole" means. Some of our best technical staff are quiet, introverted types, but they're still pleasant to work with. My problem is that I don't think the initial sift really helps us find out whether people are smart and get things done with any great efficacy. It's better than nothing, for sure, but it's not as good as it could be. It's also contentious, and potentially unfair/inequitable - if you want to get an idea of what I mean by this, check out the background information section at the bottom. Before I go any further, let's look at the Red Gate recruitment process for technical staff* as it stands now: (LOTS of) People apply for jobs. All these applications go through a brutal process of manual sifting, which eliminates between 75 and 90% of them, depending upon the role, and the time of year**. Depending upon the role, those who pass the sift will be sent an assessment or telescreened. For the purposes of this blog post I'm only interested in those that are sent some sort of programming assessment, or bug hunt. This means software engineers, test engineers, and software interns, which are the roles for which I receive the most applications. The telescreen tends to be reserved for project or product managers. Those that pass the assessment are invited in for first interview. This interview is mostly about assessing their technical skills***, although we're obviously on the look out for cultural fit red flags as well. If the first interview goes well we'll invite candidates back for a second interview. This is where team/cultural fit is really scoped out. We also use this interview to dive more deeply into certain areas of their skillset, and explore any concerns that may have come out of the first interview (these obviously won't have been serious or obvious enough to cause a rejection at that point, but are things we do need to look into before we'd consider making an offer). We might subsequently invite them in for lunch before we make them an offer. This tends to happen when we're recruiting somebody for a specific team and we'd like them to meet all the people they'll be working with directly. It's not an interview per se, but can prove pivotal if they don't gel with the team. Anyone who's made it this far will receive an offer from us. *We have a slightly quirky definition of "technical staff" as it relates to the technical recruiter role here. It includes software engineers, test engineers, software interns, user experience specialists, technical authors, project managers, product managers, and development managers, but does not include product support or information systems roles. **For example, the quality of graduate applicants overall noticeably drops as the academic year wears on, which is not to say that by now there aren't still stars in there, just that they're fewer and further between. ***Some organisations prefer to assess for team fit first, but I think assessing technical skills is a more effective initial filter - if they're the nicest person in the world, but can't cut a line of code they're not going to work out. Now, as I suggested in the title, Red Gate's Down Tools Week is upon us once again - next week in fact - and I had proposed as a project that we refactor and automate the first stage of marking our programming assessments. Marking assessments, and in fact organising the marking of them, is a somewhat time-consuming process, and we receive many assessment solutions that just don't make the cut, for whatever reason. Whilst I don't think it's possible to fully automate marking, I do think it ought to be possible to run a suite of automated tests over each candidate's solution to see whether or not it behaves correctly and, if it does, move on to a manual stage where we examine the code for structure, decomposition, style, readability, maintainability, etc. Obviously it's possible to use tools to generate potentially helpful metrics for some of these indices as well. This would obviously reduce the marking workload, and would provide candidates with quicker feedback about whether they've been successful - though I do wonder if waiting a tactful interval before sending a (nicely written) rejection might be wise. I duly scrawled out a picture of my ideal process, which looked like this: The problem is, as soon as I'd roughed it out, I realised that fundamentally it wasn't an ideal process at all, which explained the gnawing feeling of cognitive dissonance I'd been wrestling with all week, whilst I'd been trying to find time to do this. Here's what I mean. Automated assessment marking, and the associated infrastructure around that, makes it much easier for us to deal with large numbers of assessments. This means we can be much more permissive about who we send assessments out to or, in other words, we can give more candidates the opportunity to really demonstrate their skills to us. And this leads to a question: why not give everyone the opportunity to demonstrate their skills, to show that they're smart and can get things done? (Two or three of us even discussed this in the down tools week hustings earlier this week.) And isn't this a lot simpler than the alternative we'd been considering? (FYI, this was automated CV/cover letter sifting by some form of textual analysis to ideally eliminate the worst 50% or so of applications based on an analysis of the 20,000 or so historical applications we've received since 2007 - definitely not the basic keyword analysis beloved of recruitment agencies, since this would eliminate hardly anyone who was awful, but definitely would eliminate stellar Oxbridge candidates - #fail - or some nightmarishly complex Google-like system where we profile all our currently employees, only to realise that we're never going to get representative results because we don't have a statistically significant sample size in any given role - also #fail.) No, I think the new way is better. We let people self-select. We make them the masters (or mistresses) of their own destiny. We give applicants the power - we put their fate in their hands - by giving them the chance to demonstrate their skills, which is what they really want anyway, instead of requiring that they spend hours and hours creating a CV and cover letter that I'm going to evaluate for suitability, and make a value judgement about, in approximately 1 minute (give or take). It doesn't matter what university you attended, it doesn't matter if you had a bad year when you took your A-levels - here's your chance to shine, so take it and run with it. (As a side benefit, we cut the number of applications we have to sift by something like two thirds.) WIN! OK, yeah, sounds good, but will it actually work? That's an excellent question. My gut feeling is yes, and I'll justify why below (and hopefully have gone some way towards doing that above as well), but what I'm proposing here is really that we run an experiment for a period of time - probably a couple of months or so - and measure the outcomes we see: How many people apply? (Wouldn't be surprised or alarmed to see this cut by a factor of ten.) How many of them submit a good assessment? (More/less than at present?) How much overhead is there for us in dealing with these assessments compared to now? What are the success and failure rates at each interview stage compared to now? How many people are we hiring at the end of it compared to now? I think it'll work because I hypothesize that, amongst other things: It self-selects for people who really want to work at Red Gate which, at the moment, is something I have to try and assess based on their CV and cover letter - but if you're not that bothered about working here, why would you complete the assessment? Candidates who would submit a shoddy application probably won't feel motivated to do the assessment. Candidates who would demonstrate good attention to detail in their CV/cover letter will demonstrate good attention to detail in the assessment. In general, only the better candidates will complete and submit the assessment. Marking assessments is much less work so we'll be able to deal with any increase that we see (hopefully we will see). There are obviously other questions as well: Is plagiarism going to be a problem? Is there any way we can detect/discourage potential plagiarism? How do we assess candidates' education and experience? What about their ability to communicate in writing? Do we still want them to submit a CV afterwards if they pass assessment? Do we want to offer them the opportunity to tell us a bit about why they'd like the job when they submit their assessment? How does this affect our relationship with recruitment agencies we might use to hire for these roles? So, what's the objective for next week's Down Tools Week? Pretty simple really - we want to implement this process for the Graduate Software Engineer and Software Engineer positions that you can find on our website. I will be joined by a crack team of our best developers (Kevin Boyle, and new Red-Gater, Sam Blackburn), and recruiting hostess with the mostest Laura McQuillen, and hopefully a couple of others as well - if I can successfully twist more arms before Monday.* Hopefully by next Friday our experiment will be up and running, and we may have changed the way Red Gate recruits software engineers for good! Stay tuned and we'll let you know how it goes! *I'm going to play dirty by offering them beer and chocolate during meetings. Some background information: how agonising over the initial CV/cover letter sift helped lead us to bin it off entirely The other day I was agonising about the new university/good degree grade versus poor A-level results issue, and decided to canvas for other opinions to see if there was something I could do that was fairer than my current approach, which is almost always to reject. This generated quite an involved discussion on our Yammer site: I'm sure you can glean a pretty good impression of my own educational prejudices from that discussion as well, although I'm very open to changing my opinion - hopefully you've already figured that out from reading the rest of this post. Hopefully you can also trace a logical path from agonising about sifting to, "Uh, hang on, why on earth are we doing this anyway?!?" Technorati Tags: recruitment,hr,developers,testers,red gate,cv,resume,cover letter,assessment,sea change

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• Tips on Migrating from AquaLogic .NET Accelerator to WebCenter WSRP Producer for .NET

  - by user647124

  This year I embarked on a journey to migrate a group of ASP.NET web applications developed to integrate with WebLogic Portal 9.2 via the AquaLogic® Interaction .NET Application Accelerator 1.0 to instead use the Oracle WebCenter WSRP Producer for .NET and integrated with WebLogic Portal 10.3.4. It has been a very winding path and this blog entry is intended to share both the lessons learned and relevant approaches that led to those learnings. Like most journeys of discovery, it was not a direct path, and there are notes to let you know when it is practical to skip a section if you are in a hurry to get from here to there. For the Curious From the perspective of necessity, this section would be better at the end. If it were there, though, it would probably be read by far fewer people, including those that are actually interested in these types of sections. Those in a hurry may skip past and be none the worst for it in dealing with the hands-on bits of performing a migration from .NET Accelerator to WSRP Producer. For others who want to talk about why they did what they did after they did it, or just want to know for themselves, enjoy. A Brief (and edited) History of the WSRP for .NET Technologies (as Relevant to the this Post) Note: This section is for those who are curious about why the migration path is not as simple as many other Oracle technologies. You can skip this section in its entirety and still be just as competent in performing a migration as if you had read it. The currently deployed architecture that was to be migrated and upgraded achieved initial integration between .NET and J2EE over the WSRP protocol through the use of The AquaLogic Interaction .NET Application Accelerator. The .NET Accelerator allowed the applications that were written in ASP.NET and deployed on a Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) to interact with a WebLogic Portal application deployed on a WebLogic (J2EE application) Server (both version 9.2, the state of the art at the time of its creation). At the time this architectural decision for the application was made, both the AquaLogic and WebLogic brands were owned by BEA Systems. The AquaLogic brand included products acquired by BEA through the acquisition of Plumtree, whose flagship product was a portal platform available in both J2EE and .NET versions. As part of this dual technology support an adaptor was created to facilitate the use of WSRP as a communication protocol where customers wished to integrate components from both versions of the Plumtree portal. The adapter evolved over several product generations to include a broad array of both standard and proprietary WSRP integration capabilities. Later, BEA Systems was acquired by Oracle. Over the course of several years Oracle has acquired a large number of portal applications and has taken the strategic direction to migrate users of these myriad (and formerly competitive) products to the Oracle WebCenter technology stack. As part of Oracle’s strategic technology roadmap, older portal products are being schedule for end of life, including the portal products that were part of the BEA acquisition. The .NET Accelerator has been modified over a very long period of time with features driven by users of that product and developed under three different vendors (each a direct competitor in the same solution space prior to merger). The Oracle WebCenter WSRP Producer for .NET was introduced much more recently with the key objective to specifically address the needs of the WebCenter customers developing solutions accessible through both J2EE and .NET platforms utilizing the WSRP specifications. The Oracle Product Development Team also provides these insights on the drivers for developing the WSRP Producer: ***************************************** Support for ASP.NET AJAX. Controls using the ASP.NET AJAX script manager do not function properly in the Application Accelerator for .NET. Support 2 way SSL in WLP. This was not possible with the proxy/bridge set up in the existing Application Accelerator for .NET. Allow developers to code portlets (Web Parts) using the .NET framework rather than a proprietary framework. Developers had to use the Application Accelerator for .NET plug-ins to Visual Studio to manage preferences and profile data. This is now replaced with the .NET Framework Personalization (for preferences) and Profile providers. The WSRP Producer for .NET was created as a new way of developing .NET portlets. It was never designed to be an upgrade path for the Application Accelerator for .NET. .NET developers would create new .NET portlets with the WSRP Producer for .NET and leave any existing .NET portlets running in the Application Accelerator for .NET. ***************************************** The advantage to creating a new solution for WSRP is a product that is far easier for Oracle to maintain and support which in turn improves quality, reliability and maintainability for their customers. No changes to J2EE applications consuming the WSRP portlets previously rendered by the.NET Accelerator is required to migrate from the Aqualogic WSRP solution. For some customers using the .NET Accelerator the challenge is adapting their current .NET applications to work with the WSRP Producer (or any other WSRP adapter as they are proprietary by nature). Part of this adaptation is the need to deploy the .NET applications as a child to the WSRP producer web application as root. Differences between .NET Accelerator and WSRP Producer Note: This section is for those who are curious about why the migration is not as pluggable as something such as changing security providers in WebLogic Server. You can skip this section in its entirety and still be just as competent in performing a migration as if you had read it. The basic terminology used to describe the participating applications in a WSRP environment are the same when applied to either the .NET Accelerator or the WSRP Producer: Producer and Consumer. In both cases the .NET application serves as what is referred to as a WSRP environment as the Producer. The difference lies in how the two adapters create the WSRP translation of the .NET application. The .NET Accelerator, as the name implies, is meant to serve as a quick way of adding WSRP capability to a .NET application. As such, at a high level, the .NET Accelerator behaves as a proxy for requests between the .NET application and the WSRP Consumer. A WSRP request is sent from the consumer to the .NET Accelerator, the.NET Accelerator transforms this request into an ASP.NET request, receives the response, then transforms the response into a WSRP response. The .NET Accelerator is deployed as a stand-alone application on IIS. The WSRP Producer is deployed as a parent application on IIS and all ASP.NET modules that will be made available over WSRP are deployed as children of the WSRP Producer application. In this manner, the WSRP Producer acts more as a Request Filter than a proxy in the WSRP transactions between Producer and Consumer. Highly Recommended Enabling Logging Note: You can skip this section now, but you will most likely want to come back to it later, so why not just read it now? Logging is very helpful in tracking down the causes of any anomalies during testing of migrated portlets. To enable the WSRP Producer logging, update the Application_Start method in the Global.asax.cs for your .NET application by adding log4net.Config.XmlConfigurator.Configure(); IIS logs will usually (in a standard configuration) be in a sub folder under C:\WINDOWS\system32\LogFiles\W3SVC. WSRP Producer logs will be found at C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdefault\Logs\WSRPProducer.log InputTrace.webinfo and OutputTrace.webinfo are located under C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdefault and can be useful in debugging issues related to markup transformations. Things You Must Do Merge Web.Config Note: If you have been skipping all the sections that you can, now is the time to stop and pay attention J Because the existing .NET application will become a sub-application to the WSRP Producer, you will want to merge required settings from the existing Web.Config to the one in the WSRP Producer. Use the WSRP Producer Master Page The Master Page installed for the WSRP Producer provides common, hiddenform fields and JavaScripts to facilitate portlet instance management and display configuration when the child page is being rendered over WSRP. You add the Master Page by including it in the <@ Page declaration with MasterPageFile="~/portlets/Resources/MasterPages/WSRP.Master" . You then replace: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" > <HTML> <HEAD> With <asp:Content ID="ContentHead1" ContentPlaceHolderID="wsrphead" Runat="Server"> And </HEAD> <body> <form id="theForm" method="post" runat="server"> With </asp:Content> <asp:Content ID="ContentBody1" ContentPlaceHolderID="Main" Runat="Server"> And finally </form> </body> </HTML> With </asp:Content> In the event you already use Master Pages, adapt your existing Master Pages to be sub masters. See Nested ASP.NET Master Pages for a detailed reference of how to do this. It Happened to Me, It Might Happen to You…Or Not Watch for Use of Session or Request in OnInit In the event the .NET application being modified has pages developed to assume the user has been authenticated in an earlier page request there may be direct or indirect references in the OnInit method to request or session objects that may not have been created yet. This will vary from application to application, so the recommended approach is to test first. If there is an issue with a page running as a WSRP portlet then check for potential references in the OnInit method (including references by methods called within OnInit) to session or request objects. If there are, the simplest solution is to create a new method and then call that method once the necessary object(s) is fully available. I find doing this at the start of the Page_Load method to be the simplest solution. Case Sensitivity .NET languages are not case sensitive, but Java is. This means it is possible to have many variations of SRC= and src= or .JPG and .jpg. The preferred solution is to make these mark up instances all lower case in your .NET application. This will allow the default Rewriter rules in wsrp-producer.xml to work as is. If this is not practical, then make duplicates of any rules where an issue is occurring due to upper or mixed case usage in the .NET application markup and match the case in use with the duplicate rule. For example: <RewriterRule> <LookFor>(href=\"([^\"]+)</LookFor> <ChangeToAbsolute>true</ChangeToAbsolute> <ApplyTo>.axd,.css</ApplyTo> <MakeResource>true</MakeResource> </RewriterRule> May need to be duplicated as: <RewriterRule> <LookFor>(HREF=\"([^\"]+)</LookFor> <ChangeToAbsolute>true</ChangeToAbsolute> <ApplyTo>.axd,.css</ApplyTo> <MakeResource>true</MakeResource> </RewriterRule> While it is possible to write a regular expression that will handle mixed case usage, it would be long and strenous to test and maintain, so the recommendation is to use duplicate rules. Is it Still Relative? Some .NET applications base relative paths with a fixed root location. With the introduction of the WSRP Producer, the root has moved up one level. References to ~/ will need to be updated to ~/portlets and many ../ paths will need another ../ in front. I Can See You But I Can’t Find You This issue was first discovered while debugging modules with code that referenced the form on a page from the code-behind by name and/or id. The initial error presented itself as run-time error that was difficult to interpret over WSRP but seemed clear when run as straight ASP.NET as it indicated that the object with the form name did not exist. Since the form name was no longer valid after implementing the WSRP Master Page, the likely fix seemed to simply update the references in the code. However, as the WSRP Master Page is external to the code, a compile time error resulted: Error      155         The name 'form1' does not exist in the current context                C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdefault\portlets\legacywebsite\module\Screens \Reporting.aspx.cs                51           52           legacywebsite.module Much hair-pulling research later it was discovered that it was the use of the FindControl method causing the issue. FindControl doesn’t work quite as expected once a Master Page has been introduced as the controls become embedded in controls, require a recursion to find them that is not part of the FindControl method. In code where the page form is referenced by name, there are two steps to the solution. First, the form needs to be referenced in code generically with Page.Form. For example, this: ToggleControl ctrl = new ToggleControl(frmManualEntry, FunctionLibrary.ParseArrayLst(userObj.Roles)); Becomes this: ToggleControl ctrl = new ToggleControl(Page.Form, FunctionLibrary.ParseArrayLst(userObj.Roles)); Generally the form id is referenced in most ASP.NET applications as a path to a control on the form. To reach the control once a MasterPage has been added requires an additional method to recurse through the controls collections within the form and find the control ID. The following method (found at Rick Strahl's Web Log) corrects this very nicely: public static Control FindControlRecursive(Control Root, string Id) { if (Root.ID == Id) return Root; foreach (Control Ctl in Root.Controls) { Control FoundCtl = FindControlRecursive(Ctl, Id); if (FoundCtl != null) return FoundCtl; } return null; } Where the form name is not referenced, simply using the FindControlRecursive method in place of FindControl will be all that is necessary. Following the second part of the example referenced earlier, the method called with Page.Form changes its value extraction code block from this: Label lblErrMsg = (Label)frmRef.FindControl("lblBRMsg" To this: Label lblErrMsg = (Label) FunctionLibrary.FindControlRecursive(frmRef, "lblBRMsg" The Master That Won’t Step Aside In most migrations it is preferable to make as few changes as possible. In one case I ran across an existing Master Page that would not function as a sub-Master Page. While it would probably have been educational to trace down why, the expedient process of updating it to take the place of the WSRP Master Page is the route I took. The changes are highlighted below: … <asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="wsrphead" runat="server"></asp:ContentPlaceHolder> </head> <body leftMargin="0" topMargin="0"> <form id="TheForm" runat="server"> <input type="hidden" name="key" id="key" value="" /> <input type="hidden" name="formactionurl" id="formactionurl" value="" /> <input type="hidden" name="handle" id="handle" value="" /> <asp:ScriptManager ID="ScriptManager1" runat="server" EnablePartialRendering="true" > </asp:ScriptManager> This approach did not work for all existing Master Pages, but fortunately all of the other existing Master Pages I have run across worked fine as a sub-Master to the WSRP Master Page. Moving On In Enterprise Portals, even after you get everything working, the work is not finished. Next you need to get it where everyone will work with it. Migration Planning Providing that the server where IIS is running is adequately sized, it is possible to run both the .NET Accelerator and the WSRP Producer on the same server during the upgrade process. The upgrade can be performed incrementally, i.e., one portlet at a time, if server administration processes support it. Those processes would include the ability to manage a second producer in the consuming portal and to change over individual portlet instances from one provider to the other. If processes or requirements demand that all portlets be cut over at the same time, it needs to be determined if this cut over should include a new producer, updating all of the portlets in the consumer, or if the WSRP Producer portlet configuration must maintain the naming conventions used by the .NET Accelerator and simply change the WSRP end point configured in the consumer. In some enterprises it may even be necessary to maintain the same WSDL end point, at which point the IIS configuration will be where the updates occur. The downside to such a requirement is that it makes rolling back very difficult, should the need arise. Location, Location, Location Not everyone wants the web application to have the descriptively obvious wsrpdefault location, or needs to create a second WSRP site on the same server. The instructions below are from the product team and, while targeted towards making a second site, will work for creating a site with a different name and then remove the old site. You can also change just the name in IIS. Manually Creating a WSRP Producer Site Instructions (NOTE: all executables used are the same ones used by the installer and “wsrpdev” will be the name of the new instance): 1. Copy C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdefault to C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdev. 2. Bring up a command window as an administrator 3. Run C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\uninstall_resources\IISAppAccelSiteCreator.exe install WSRPProducers wsrpdev "C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdev" 8678 2.0.50727 4. Run C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\uninstall_resources\PermManage.exe add FileSystem C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdev "NETWORK SERVICE" 3 1 5. Run C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\uninstall_resources\PermManage.exe add FileSystem C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdev EVERYONE 1 1 6. Open up C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsdl\1.0\WSRPService.wsdl and replace wsrpdefault with wsrpdev 7. Open up C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsdl\2.0\WSRPService.wsdl and replace wsrpdefault with wsrpdev Tests: 1. Bring up a browser on the host itself and go to http://localhost:8678/wsrpdev/wsdl/1.0/WSRPService.wsdl and make sure that the URLs in the XML returned include the wsrpdev changes you made in step 6. 2. Bring up a browser on the host itself and see if the default sample comes up: http://localhost:8678/wsrpdev/portlets/ASPNET_AJAX_sample/default.aspx 3. Register the producer in WLP and test the portlet. Changing the Port used by WSRP Producer The pre-configured port for the WSRP Producer is 8678. You can change this port by updating both the IIS configuration and C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\[WSRP_APP_NAME]\wsdl\1.0\WSRPService.wsdl. Do You Need to Migrate? Oracle Premier Support ended in November of 2010 for AquaLogic Interaction .NET Application Accelerator 1.x and Extended Support ends in November 2012 (see http://www.oracle.com/us/support/lifetime-support/lifetime-support-software-342730.html for other related dates). This means that integration with products released after November of 2010 is not supported. If having such support is the policy within your enterprise, you do indeed need to migrate. If changes in your enterprise cause your current solution with the .NET Accelerator to no longer function properly, you may need to migrate. Migration is a choice, and if the goals of your enterprise are to take full advantage of newer technologies then migration is certainly one activity you should be planning for.

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• BIND returns serverfail when querying for its authoriative domain

  - by estol

  Hi there Serverfault folks! First of all: sorry about the title, I had some problem coming up with the proper title. I have a little home server set up, for internet sharing, samba, basic http, dlna mediaserver and what not, and I happend to have a domain at hand, so I thought why not direct it to this computer? I have a BIND 9.8.0 installed, and - afaik - configured it properly. For a few days, the public view did not worked, and I really did not cared, since the local view worked. But now suddenly, even the local view fails. If I try to query the nameserver for anything in my domain, it returns the following error: $ nslookup andromeda.dafaces.com ;; Got SERVFAIL reply from ::1, trying next server ;; Got SERVFAIL reply from ::1, trying next server Server: 127.0.0.1 Address: 127.0.0.1#53 ** server can't find andromeda.dafaces.com.dafaces.com: SERVFAIL Also, the public view points to the old ip address of the domain, probably because of the same error. Some information about the system: $ uname -a Linux tressis 2.6.37-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Mar 15 09:21:17 CET 2011 x86_64 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+ AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux $ named -v BIND 9.8.0 And the named.conf file: # cat /etc/named.conf // // /etc/named.conf // include "/etc/rndc.key"; #controls { # inet 127.0.0.1 allow {localhost; } keys { "dnskulcs"; }; #}; options { directory "/var/named"; pid-file "/var/run/named/named.pid"; auth-nxdomain yes; datasize default; // Uncomment these to enable IPv6 connections support // IPv4 will still work: listen-on-v6 { any; }; listen-on { any; }; // Add this for no IPv4: // listen-on { none; }; // Default security settings. // allow-recursion { 127.0.0.1; ::1; 192.168.1.0/24; }; // allow-recursion { any; }; allow-query { any; }; allow-transfer { 127.0.0.1; ::1; 92.243.14.172; 87.98.164.164; 88.191.64.64; }; allow-update { key "dnskulcs"; }; version none; hostname none; server-id none; zone-statistics yes; forwarders { 213.46.246.53; 213.26.246.54; 8.8.8.8; 8.8.4.4; 192.188.242.65; 193.227.196.3; 2001:470:20::2; }; }; view "local" { match-clients { 192.168.1.0/24; 127.0.0.1; ::1; fec0:0:0:ffff::/64; }; recursion yes; zone "localhost" IN { type master; file "localhost.zone"; allow-transfer { any; }; }; zone "0.0.127.in-addr.arpa" IN { type master; file "127.0.0.zone"; allow-transfer { any; }; }; zone "." IN { type hint; file "root.hint"; }; zone "dafaces.com" IN { type master; file "internal/dafaces.com.fw"; allow-update { key "dnskulcs"; }; }; zone "1.168.192.in-addr.arpa" IN { type master; file "internal/dafaces.com.rev"; allow-update { key "dnskulcs"; }; }; }; view "public" { match-clients { any;}; recursion no; zone "dafaces.com" IN { type master; file "external/dafaces.com.fw"; allow-transfer { 87.98.164.164; 195.234.42.1; 88.191.64.64; }; }; }; //zone "example.org" IN { // type slave; // file "example.zone"; // masters { // 192.168.1.100; // }; // allow-query { any; }; // allow-transfer { any; }; //}; logging { channel xfer-log { file "/var/log/named.log"; print-category yes; print-severity yes; print-time yes; severity info; }; category xfer-in { xfer-log; }; category xfer-out { xfer-log; }; category notify { xfer-log; }; }; All help would be highly appreciated! EDIT: Zone files: # cat /var/named/internal/dafaces.com.fw $ORIGIN . $TTL 3600 ; 1 hour dafaces.com IN SOA tressis.dafaces.com. postmaster.dafaces.com. ( 2011032201 ; serial 28800 ; refresh (8 hours) 7200 ; retry (2 hours) 2419200 ; expire (4 weeks) 3600 ; minimum (1 hour) ) NS tressis.dafaces.com. A 192.168.1.1 MX 10 mail.dafaces.com. $ORIGIN _tcp.dafaces.com. _http SRV 0 5 80 www.dafaces.com. _ssh SRV 0 5 22 tressis.dafaces.com. $ORIGIN dafaces.com. acrisius A 192.168.1.230 andromeda A 192.168.1.7 andromeda-win7 CNAME andromeda aspasia A 192.168.1.233 athena A 192.168.1.232 callisto A 192.168.1.102 db A 192.168.1.1 management A 192.168.1.1 ; web management for the router functions haley A 192.168.1.5 hoth A 192.168.1.101 mail A 192.168.1.1 satelite A 192.168.1.20 sony-player A 192.168.1.103 TXT "310f16de2d2712dfc4ae6e5c54f60f828e" torrent A 192.168.1.1 tracker A 192.168.1.1 tressis A 192.168.1.1 www A 192.168.1.1 zeus A 192.168.1.231 and # cat /var/named/external/dafaces.com.fw $ORIGIN . $TTL 3600 dafaces.com IN SOA ns.dafaces.com. postmaster.dafaces.com. ( 2011032405; serial 28800; refresh 7200; retry 2419200; expire 3600; minimum ) NS ns.dafaces.com. NS ns0.xname.org. NS ns1.xname.org. NS ns2.xname.org. A 89.135.129.37 MX 10 mail.dafaces.com. $ORIGIN dafaces.com. ;Szolgaltatasok _ssh._tcp SRV 0 5 22 tressis _http._tcp SRV 0 5 80 www ns A 89.135.129.37 hoth A 89.135.129.37 www A 89.135.129.37 mail A 89.135.129.37 db A 89.135.129.37 torrent A 89.135.129.37 tracker A 89.135.129.37 Edit: Ohh, hell I almost forgot. Since the node is connected to the internet via a residential connection, there is a possibility, that the public ipv4 address will change(but thank god, it is a very rare case), so I daily update the external IP address in the zone file with a shellscript: # cat /etc/cron.daily/dnsupdate #!/bin/sh FILE="/var/named/external/dafaces.com.fw" SERIAL=$(date +%Y%m%d05) PUBLIC_IP=$(ifconfig internet |sed -n "/inet addr:.*255.255.255.255/{s/.*inet addr://; s/ .*//; p}") cat $FILE | sed --posix 's/^.* serial$/\t\t\t\t\t'$SERIAL'; serial/' | sed --posix 's/[0-9]*\.[0-9]*\.[0-9]*\.[0-9]*/'$PUBLIC_IP'/' > /tmp/ujzona mv /tmp/ujzona $FILE /etc/rc.d/named reload

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• Why should you choose Oracle WebLogic 12c instead of JBoss EAP 6?

  - by Ricardo Ferreira

  In this post, I will cover some technical differences between Oracle WebLogic 12c and JBoss EAP 6, which was released a couple days ago from Red Hat. This article claims to help you in the evaluation of key points that you should consider when choosing for an Java EE application server. In the following sections, I will present to you some important aspects that most customers ask us when they are seriously evaluating for an middleware infrastructure, specially if you are considering JBoss for some reason. I would suggest that you keep the following question in mind while you are reading the points: "Why should I choose JBoss instead of WebLogic?" 1) Multi Datacenter Deployment and Clustering - D/R ("Disaster & Recovery") architecture support is embedded on the WebLogic Server 12c product. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no direct D/R support included, Red Hat relies on third-part tools with higher prices. When you consider a middleware solution to host your business critical application, you should worry with every architectural aspect that are related with the solution. Fail-over support is one little aspect of a truly reliable solution. If you do not worry about D/R, your solution will not be reliable. Having said that, with Red Hat and JBoss EAP 6, you have this extra cost that will increase considerably the total cost of ownership of the solution. As we commonly hear from analysts, open-source are not so cheaper when you start seeing the big picture. - WebLogic Server 12c supports advanced LAN clustering, detection of death servers and have a common alert framework. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has limited LAN clustering support with no server death detection. They do not generate any alerts when servers goes down (only if you buy JBoss ON which is a separated technology, but until now does not support JBoss EAP 6) and manual intervention are required when servers goes down. In most cases, admin people must rely on "kill -9", "tail -f someFile.log" and "ps ax | grep java" commands to manage failures and clustering anomalies. - WebLogic Server 12c supports the concept of Node Manager, which is a separated process that runs on the physical | virtual servers that allows extend the administration of the cluster to WebLogic managed servers that are often distributed across multiple machines and geographic locations. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no equivalent technology. Whole server instances must be managed individually. - WebLogic Server 12c Node Manager supports Coherence to boost performance when managing servers. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no similar technology. There is no way to coordinate JBoss and infiniband instances provided by JBoss using high throughput and low latency protocols like InfiniBand. The Node Manager feature also allows another very important feature that JBoss EAP lacks: secure the administration. When using WebLogic Node Manager, all the administration tasks are sent to the managed servers in a secure tunel protected by a certificate, which means that the transport layer that separates the WebLogic administration console from the managed servers are secured by SSL. - WebLogic Server 12c are now integrated with OTD ("Oracle Traffic Director") which is a web server technology derived from the former Sun iPlanet Web Server. This software complements the web server support offered by OHS ("Oracle HTTP Server"). Using OTD, WebLogic instances are load-balanced by a high powerful software that knows how to handle SDP ("Socket Direct Protocol") over InfiniBand, which boost performance when used with engineered systems technologies like Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand only offers support to Apache Web Server with custom modules created to deal with JBoss clusters, but only across standard TCP/IP networks.  2) Application and Runtime Diagnostics - WebLogic Server 12c have diagnostics capabilities embedded on the server called WLDF ("WebLogic Diagnostic Framework") so there is no need to rely on third-part tools. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no diagnostics capabilities. Their only diagnostics tool is the log generated by the application server. Admin people are encouraged to analyse thousands of log lines to find out what is going on. - WebLogic Server 12c complement WLDF with JRockit MC ("Mission Control"), which provides to administrators and developers a complete insight about the JVM performance, behavior and possible bottlenecks. WebLogic Server 12c also have an classloader analysis tool embedded, and even a log analyzer tool that enables administrators and developers to view logs of multiple servers at the same time. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand relies on third-part tools to do something similar. Again, only log searching are offered to find out whats going on. - WebLogic Server 12c offers end-to-end traceability and monitoring available through Oracle EM ("Enterprise Manager"), including monitoring of business transactions that flows through web servers, ESBs, application servers and database servers, all of this with high deep JVM analysis and diagnostics. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand, even using JBoss ON ("Operations Network"), which is a separated technology, does not support those features. Red Hat relies on third-part tools to provide direct Oracle database traceability across JVMs. One of those tools are Oracle EM for non-Oracle middleware that manage JBoss, Tomcat, Websphere and IIS transparently. - WebLogic Server 12c with their JRockit support offers a tool called JRockit Flight Recorder, which can give developers a complete visibility of a certain period of application production monitoring with zero extra overhead. This automatic recording allows you to deep analyse threads latency, memory leaks, thread contention, resource utilization, stack overflow damages and GC ("Garbage Collection") cycles, to observe in real time stop-the-world phenomenons, generational, reference count and parallel collects and mutator threads analysis. JBoss EAP 6 don't even dream to support something similar, even because they don't have their own JVM. 3) Application Server Administration - WebLogic Server 12c offers a complete administration console complemented with scripting and macro-like recording capabilities. A single WebLogic console can managed up to hundreds of WebLogic servers belonging to the same domain. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has a limited console and provides a XML centric administration. JBoss, after ten years, started the development of a rudimentary centralized administration that still leave a lot of administration tasks aside, so admin people and developers must touch scripts and XML configuration files for most advanced and even simple administration tasks. This lead applications to error prone and risky deployments. Even using JBoss ON, JBoss EAP are not able to offer decent administration features for admin people which must be high skilled in JBoss internal architecture and its managing capabilities. - Oracle EM is available to manage multiple domains, databases, application servers, operating systems and virtualization, with a complete end-to-end visibility. JBoss ON does not provide management capabilities across the complete architecture, only basic monitoring. Even deployment must be done aside JBoss ON which does no integrate well with others softwares than JBoss. Until now, JBoss ON does not supports JBoss EAP 6, so even their minimal support for JBoss are not available for JBoss EAP 6 leaving customers uncovered and subject to high skilled JBoss admin people. - WebLogic Server 12c has the same administration model whatever is the topology selected by the customer. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand differentiates between two operational models: standalone-mode and domain-mode, that are not consistent with each other. Depending on the mode used, the administration skill is different. - WebLogic Server 12c has no point-of-failures processes, and it does not need to define any specialized server. Domain model in WebLogic is available for years (at least ten years or more) and is production proven. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand needs special processes to garantee JBoss integrity, the PC ("Process-Controller") and the HC ("Host-Controller"). Different from WebLogic, the domain model in JBoss is quite new (one year at tops) of maturity, and need to mature considerably until start doing things like WebLogic domain model does. - WebLogic Server 12c supports parallel deployment model which enables some artifacts being deployed at the same time. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand does not have any similar feature. Every deployment are done atomically in the containers. This means that if you have a huge EAR (an EAR of 120 MB of size for instance) and deploy onto JBoss EAP 6, this EAR will take some minutes in order to starting accept thread requests. The same EAR deployed onto WebLogic Server 12c will reduce the deployment time at least in 2X compared to JBoss. 4) Support and Upgrades - WebLogic Server 12c has patch management available. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no patch management available, each JBoss EAP instance should be patched manually. To achieve such feature, you need to buy a separated technology called JBoss ON ("Operations Network") that manage this type of stuff. But until now, JBoss ON does not support JBoss EAP 6 so, in practice, JBoss EAP 6 does not have this feature. - WebLogic Server 12c supports previuous WebLogic domains without any reconfiguration since its kernel is robust and mature since its creation in 1995. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has a proven lack of supportability between JBoss AS 4, 5, 6 and 7. Different kernels and messaging engines were implemented in JBoss stack in the last five years reveling their incapacity to create a well architected and proven middleware technology. - WebLogic Server 12c has patch prescription based on customer configuration. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no such capability. People need to create ticket supports and have their installations revised by Red Hat support guys to gain some patch prescription from them. - Oracle WebLogic Server independent of the version has 8 years of support of new patches and has lifetime release of existing patches beyond that. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand provides patches for a specific application server version up to 5 years after the release date. JBoss EAP 4 and previous versions had only 4 years. A good question that Red Hat will argue to answer is: "what happens when you find issues after year 5"?  5) RAC ("Real Application Clusters") Support - WebLogic Server 12c ships with a specific JDBC driver to leverage Oracle RAC clustering capabilities (Fast-Application-Notification, Transaction Affinity, Fast-Connection-Failover, etc). Oracle JDBC thin driver are also available. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand ships only the standard Oracle JDBC thin driver. Load balancing with Oracle RAC are not supported. Manual intervention in case of planned or unplanned RAC downtime are necessary. In JBoss EAP 6, situation does not reestablish automatically after downtime. - WebLogic Server 12c has a feature called Active GridLink for Oracle RAC which provides up to 3X performance on OLTP applications. This seamless integration between WebLogic and Oracle database enable more value added to critical business applications leveraging their investments in Oracle database technology and Oracle middleware. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no performance gains at all, even when admin people implement some kind of connection-pooling tuning. - WebLogic Server 12c also supports transaction and web session affinity to the Oracle RAC, which provides aditional gains of performance. This is particularly interesting if you are creating a reliable solution that are distributed not only in an LAN cluster, but into a different data center. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no such support. 6) Standards and Technology Support - WebLogic Server 12c is fully Java EE 6 compatible and production ready since december of 2011. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand became fully compatible with Java EE 6 only in the community version after three months, and production ready only in a few days considering that this article was written in June of 2012. Red Hat says that they are the masters of innovation and technology proliferation, but compared with Oracle and even other proprietary vendors like IBM, they historically speaking are lazy to deliver the most newest technologies and standards adherence. - Oracle is the steward of Java, driving innovation into the platform from commercial and open-source vendors. Red Hat on the other hand does not have its own JVM and relies on third-part JVMs to complete their application server offer. 95% of Red Hat customers are using Oracle HotSpot as JVM, which means that without Oracle involvement, their support are limited exclusively to the application server layer and we all know that most problems are happens in the JVM layer. - WebLogic Server 12c supports natively JDK 7, which empower developers to explore the maximum of the Java platform productivity when writing code. This feature differentiate WebLogic from others application servers (except GlassFish that are also managed by Oracle) because the usage of JDK 7 introduce such remarkable productivity features like the "try-with-resources" enhancement, catching multiple exceptions with one try block, Strings in the switch statements, JVM improvements in terms of JDBC, I/O, networking, security, concurrency and of course, the most important feature of Java 7: native support for multiple non-Java languages. More features regarding JDK 7 can be found here. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand does not support JDK 7 officially, they comment in their community version that "Java SE 7 can be used with JBoss 7" which does not gives you any guarantees of enterprise support for JDK 7. - Oracle WebLogic Server 12c supports integration with Spring framework allowing Spring applications to use WebLogic special transaction manager, exposing bean interfaces to WebLogic MBeans to take advantage of all WebLogic monitoring and administration advantages. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no special integration with Spring. In fact, Red Hat offers a suspicious package called "JBoss Web Platform" that in theory supports Spring, but in practice this package does not offers any special integration. It is just a facility for Red Hat customers to have support from both JBoss and Spring technology using the same customer support. 7) Lightweight Development - Oracle WebLogic Server 12c and Oracle GlassFish are completely integrated and can share applications without any modifications. Starting with the 12c version, WebLogic now understands natively GlassFish deployment descriptors and specific configurations in order to offer you a truly and reliable migration path from a community Java EE application server to a enterprise middleware product like WebLogic. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no support to natively reuse an existing (or still in development) application from JBoss AS community server. Users of JBoss suffer of critical issues during deployment time that includes: changing the libraries and dependencies of the application, patching the DTD or XSD deployment descriptors, refactoring of the application layers due classloading issues and anomalies, rebuilding of persistence, business and web layers due issues with "usage of the certified version of an certain dependency" or "frameworks that Red Hat potentially does not recommend" etc. If you have the culture or enterprise IT directive of developing Java EE applications using community middleware to in a certain future, transition to enterprise (supported by a vendor) middleware, Oracle WebLogic plus Oracle GlassFish offers you a more sustainable solution. - WebLogic Server 12c has a very light ZIP distribution (less than 165 MB). JBoss EAP 6 ZIP size is around 130 MB, together with JBoss ON you have more 100 MB resulting in a higher download footprint. This is particularly interesting if you plan to use automated setup of application server instances (for example, to rapidly setup a development or staging environment) using Maven or Hudson. - WebLogic Server 12c has a complete integration with Maven allowing developers to setup WebLogic domains with few commands. Tasks like downloading WebLogic, installation, domain creation, data sources deployment are completely integrated. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has a limited offer integration with those tools.  - WebLogic Server 12c has a startup mode called WLX that turns-off EJB, JMS and JCA containers leaving enabled only the web container with Java EE 6 web profile. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no such feature, you need to disable manually the containers that you do not want to use. - WebLogic Server 12c supports fastswap, which enables you to change classes without redeployment. This is particularly interesting if you are developing patches for the application that is already deployed and you do not want to redeploy the entire application. This is the same behavior that most application servers offers to JSP pages, but with WebLogic Server 12c, you have the same feature for Java classes in general. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no such support. Even JBoss EAP 5 does not support this until now. 8) JMS and Messaging - WebLogic Server 12c has a proven and high scalable JMS implementation since its initial release in 1995. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has a still immature technology called HornetQ, which was introduced in JBoss EAP 5 replacing everything that was implemented in the previous versions. Red Hat loves to introduce new technologies across JBoss versions, playing around with customers and their investments. And when they are asked about why they have changed the implementation and caused such a mess, their answer is always: "the previous implementation was inadequate and not aligned with the community strategy so we are creating a new a improved one". This Red Hat practice leads to uncomfortable investments that in a near future (sometimes less than a year) will be affected in someway. - WebLogic Server 12c has troubleshooting and monitoring features included on the WebLogic console and WLDF. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no direct monitoring on the console, activity is reflected only on the logs, no debug logs available in case of JMS issues. - WebLogic Server 12c has extremely good performance and scalability. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has a JMS storage mechanism relying on Oracle database or MySQL. This means that if an issue in production happens and Red Hat affirms that an performance issue is happening due to database problems, they will not support you on the performance issue. They will orient you to call Oracle instead. - WebLogic Server 12c supports messaging enterprise features like SAF ("Store and Forward"), Distributed Queues/Topics and Foreign JMS providers support that leverage JMS implementations without compromise developer code making things completely transparent. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand do not even dream to support such features. 9) Caching and Grid - Coherence, which is the leading and most mature data grid technology from Oracle, is available since early 2000 and was integrated with WebLogic in 2009. Coherence and WebLogic clusters can be both managed from WebLogic administrative console. Even Node Manager supports Coherence. JBoss on the other hand discontinued JBoss Cache, which was their caching implementation just like they did with the messaging implementation (JBossMQ) which was a issue for long term customers. JBoss EAP 6 ships InfiniSpan version 1.0 which is immature and lack a proven record of successful cases and reliability. - WebLogic Server 12c has a feature called ActiveCache which uses Coherence to, without any code changes, replicate HTTP sessions from both WebLogic and other application servers like JBoss, Tomcat, Websphere, GlassFish and even Microsoft IIS. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand does have such support and even when they do in the future, they probably will support only their own application server. - Coherence can be used to manage both L1 and L2 cache levels, providing support to Oracle TopLink and others JPA compliant implementations, even Hibernate. JBoss EAP 6 and Infinispan on the other hand supports only Hibernate. And most important of all: Infinispan does not have any successful case of L1 or L2 caching level support using Hibernate, which lead us to reflect about its viability. 10) Performance - WebLogic Server 12c is certified with Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud and can run unchanged applications at this engineered system. This approach can benefit customers from Exalogic optimization's of both kernel and JVM layers to boost performance in terms of 10X for web, OLTP, JMS and grid applications. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no investment on engineered systems: customers do not have the choice to deploy on a Java ultra fast system if their project becomes relevant and performance issues are detected. - WebLogic Server 12c maintains a performance gain across each new release: starting on WebLogic 5.1, the overall performance gain has been close to 4X, which close to a 20% gain release by release. JBoss on the other hand does not provide SPECJAppServer or SPECJEnterprise performance benchmarks. Their so called "performance gains" remains hidden in their customer environments, which lead us to think if it is true or not since we will never get access to those environments. - WebLogic Server 12c has industry performance benchmarks with submissions across platforms and configurations leading SPECJ. Oracle WebLogic leads SPECJAppServer performance in multiple categories, fitting all customer topologies like: dual-node, single-node, multi-node and multi-node with RAC. JBoss... again, does not provide any SPECJAppServer performance benchmarks. - WebLogic Server 12c has a feature called work manager which allows your application to embrace new performance levels based on critical resource utilization of the CPUs usage. Work managers prioritizes work and allocates threads based on an execution model that takes into account administrator-defined parameters and actual run-time performance and throughput. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no compared feature and probably they never will. Not supporting such feature like work managers, JBoss EAP 6 forces admin people and specially developers to uncover performance gains in a intrusive way, rewriting the code and doing performance refactorings. 11) Professional Services Support - WebLogic Server 12c and any other technology sold by Oracle give customers the possibility of hire OCS ("Oracle Consulting Services") to manage critical scenarios, deployment assistance of new applications, high skilled consultancy of architecture, best practices and people allocation together with customer teams. All OCS services are available without any restrictions, having the customer bought software from Oracle or just starting their implementation before any acquisition. JBoss EAP 6 or Red Hat to be more specifically, only offers professional services if you buy subscriptions from them. If you are developing a new critical application for your business and need the help of Red Hat for a serious issue or architecture decision, they will probably say: "OK... I can help you but after you buy subscriptions from me". Red Hat also does not allows their professional services consultants to manage environments that uses community based software. They will probably force you to first buy a subscription, download their "enterprise" version and them, optionally hire their consultants. - Oracle provides you our university to educate your team into our technologies, including of course specialized trainings of WebLogic application server. At any time and location, you can hire Oracle to train your team so you get trustful knowledge according to your specific needs. Certifications for the products are also available if your technical people desire to differentiate themselves as professionals. Red Hat on the other hand have a limited pool of resources to train your team in their technologies. Basically they are selling training and certification for RHEL ("Red Hat Enterprise Linux") but if you demand more specialized training in JBoss middleware, they will probably connect you to some "certified" partner localized training since they are apparently discontinuing their education center, at least here in Brazil. They were not able to reproduce their success with RHEL education to their middleware division since they need first sell the subscriptions to after gives you specialized training. And again, they only offer you specialized training based on their enterprise version (EAP in the case of JBoss) which means that the courses will be a quite outdated. There are reports of developers that took official training's from Red Hat at this year (2012) and in a certain JBoss advanced course, Red Hat supposedly covered JBossMQ as the messaging subsystem, and even the printed material provided was based on JBossMQ since the training was created for JBoss EAP 4.3. 12) Encouraging Transparency without Ulterior Motives - WebLogic Server 12c like any other software from Oracle can be downloaded any time from anywhere, you should only possess an OTN ("Oracle Technology Network") credential and you can download any enterprise software how many times you want. And is not some kind of "trial" version. It is the official binaries that will be running for ever in your data center. Oracle does not encourages the usage of "specific versions" of our software. The binaries you buy from Oracle are the same binaries anyone in the world could download and use for testing and personal education. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand are not available for download unless you buy a subscription and get access to the Red Hat enterprise repositories. If you need to test, learn or just start creating your application using Red Hat's middleware software, you should download it from the community website. You are not allowed to download the enterprise version that, according to Red Hat are more secure, reliable and robust. But no one of us want to start the development of a software with an unsecured, unreliable and not scalable middleware right? So what you do? You are "invited" by Red Hat to buy subscriptions from them to get access to the "cool" version of the software. - WebLogic Server 12c prices are publicly available in the Oracle website. If you want to know right now how much WebLogic will cost to your organization, just click here and get access to our price list. In the case of WebLogic, check out the "US Oracle Technology Commercial Price List". Oracle also encourages you to get in touch with a sales representative to discuss discounts that would make possible the investment into our technology. But you are not required to do this, only if you are interested in buying our technology or maybe you want to discuss some discount scenarios. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand does not have its cost publicly available in Red Hat's website or in any other media, at least is not so easy to get such information. The only link you will possibly find in their website is a "Contact a Sales Representative" link. This is not a very good relationship between an customer and an vendor. This is not an example of transparency, mainly when the software are sold as open. In this situations, customers expects to see the software prices publicly available, so they can have the chance to decide, based on the existing features of the software, if the cost is fair or not. Conclusion Oracle WebLogic is the most mature, secure, reliable and scalable Java EE application server of the market, and have a proven record of success around the globe to prove it's majority. Don't lose the chance to discover today how WebLogic could fit your needs and sustain your global IT middleware strategy, no matter if your strategy are completely based on the Cloud or not.

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• Windows-1251 file inside UTF-8 site?

  - by Spoonk

  Hello everyone Masters Of Web Delevopment :) I have a piece of PHP script that fetches last 10 played songs from my winamp. This script is inside file (lets call it "lastplayed.php") which is included in my site with php include function inside a "div". My site is on UTF-8 encoding. The problem is that some songs titles are in Windows-1251 encoding. And in my site they displays like "??????"... Is there any known way to tell to this div with included "lastplayed.php" in it, to be with windows-1251 encoding? Or any other suggestions? P.S: The file with fetching script a.k.a. "lastplayed.php", is converted to UTF-8. But if it is ANCII it's the same result. I try to put and meta tag with windows-1251 between head tag but nothing happens again. P.P.S: Script that fetches the Winamp's data (lastplayed.php): <?php /****** * You may use and/or modify this script as long as you: * 1. Keep my name & webpage mentioned * 2. Don't use it for commercial purposes * * If you want to use this script without complying to the rules above, please contact me first at: [email protected] * * Author: Martijn Korse * Website: http://devshed.excudo.net * * Date: 08-05-2006 ***/ /** * version 2.0 */ class Radio { var $fields = array(); var $fieldsDefaults = array("Server Status", "Stream Status", "Listener Peak", "Average Listen Time", "Stream Title", "Content Type", "Stream Genre", "Stream URL", "Current Song"); var $very_first_str; var $domain, $port, $path; var $errno, $errstr; var $trackLists = array(); var $isShoutcast; var $nonShoutcastData = array( "Server Status" => "n/a", "Stream Status" => "n/a", "Listener Peak" => "n/a", "Average Listen Time" => "n/a", "Stream Title" => "n/a", "Content Type" => "n/a", "Stream Genre" => "n/a", "Stream URL" => "n/a", "Stream AIM" => "n/a", "Stream IRC" => "n/a", "Current Song" => "n/a" ); var $altServer = False; function Radio($url) { $parsed_url = parse_url($url); $this->domain = isset($parsed_url['host']) ? $parsed_url['host'] : ""; $this->port = !isset($parsed_url['port']) || empty($parsed_url['port']) ? "80" : $parsed_url['port']; $this->path = empty($parsed_url['path']) ? "/" : $parsed_url['path']; if (empty($this->domain)) { $this->domain = $this->path; $this->path = ""; } $this->setOffset("Current Stream Information"); $this->setFields(); // setting default fields $this->setTableStart("<table border=0 cellpadding=2 cellspacing=2>"); $this->setTableEnd("</table>"); } function setFields($array=False) { if (!$array) $this->fields = $this->fieldsDefaults; else $this->fields = $array; } function setOffset($string) { $this->very_first_str = $string; } function setTableStart($string) { $this->tableStart = $string; } function setTableEnd($string) { $this->tableEnd = $string; } function getHTML($page=False) { if (!$page) $page = $this->path; $contents = ""; $domain = (substr($this->domain, 0, 7) == "http://") ? substr($this->domain, 7) : $this->domain; if (@$fp = fsockopen($domain, $this->port, $this->errno, $this->errstr, 2)) { fputs($fp, "GET ".$page." HTTP/1.1\r\n". "User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows 98)\r\n". "Accept: */*\r\n". "Host: ".$domain."\r\n\r\n"); $c = 0; while (!feof($fp) && $c <= 20) { $contents .= fgets($fp, 4096); $c++; } fclose ($fp); preg_match("/(Content-Type:)(.*)/i", $contents, $matches); if (count($matches) > 0) { $contentType = trim($matches[2]); if ($contentType == "text/html") { $this->isShoutcast = True; return $contents; } else { $this->isShoutcast = False; $htmlContent = substr($contents, 0, strpos($contents, "\r\n\r\n")); $dataStr = str_replace("\r", "\n", str_replace("\r\n", "\n", $contents)); $lines = explode("\n", $dataStr); foreach ($lines AS $line) { if ($dp = strpos($line, ":")) { $key = substr($line, 0, $dp); $value = trim(substr($line, ($dp+1))); if (preg_match("/genre/i", $key)) $this->nonShoutcastData['Stream Genre'] = $value; if (preg_match("/name/i", $key)) $this->nonShoutcastData['Stream Title'] = $value; if (preg_match("/url/i", $key)) $this->nonShoutcastData['Stream URL'] = $value; if (preg_match("/content-type/i", $key)) $this->nonShoutcastData['Content Type'] = $value; if (preg_match("/icy-br/i", $key)) $this->nonShoutcastData['Stream Status'] = "Stream is up at ".$value."kbps"; if (preg_match("/icy-notice2/i", $key)) { $this->nonShoutcastData['Server Status'] = "This is <span style=\"color: red;\">not</span> a Shoutcast server!"; if (preg_match("/ultravox/i", $value)) $this->nonShoutcastData['Server Status'] .= " But an <a href=\"http://ultravox.aol.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Ultravox</a> Server"; $this->altServer = $value; } } } return nl2br($htmlContent); } } else return $contents; } else { return False; } } function getServerInfo($display_array=null, $very_first_str=null) { if (!isset($display_array)) $display_array = $this->fields; if (!isset($very_first_str)) $very_first_str = $this->very_first_str; if ($html = $this->getHTML()) { // parsing the contents $data = array(); foreach ($display_array AS $key => $item) { if ($this->isShoutcast) { $very_first_pos = stripos($html, $very_first_str); $first_pos = stripos($html, $item, $very_first_pos); $line_start = strpos($html, "<td>", $first_pos); $line_end = strpos($html, "</td>", $line_start) + 4; $difference = $line_end - $line_start; $line = substr($html, $line_start, $difference); $data[$key] = strip_tags($line); } else { $data[$key] = $this->nonShoutcastData[$item]; } } return $data; } else { return $this->errstr." (".$this->errno.")"; } } function createHistoryArray($page) { if (!in_array($page, $this->trackLists)) { $this->trackLists[] = $page; if ($html = $this->getHTML($page)) { $fromPos = stripos($html, $this->tableStart); $toPos = stripos($html, $this->tableEnd, $fromPos); $tableData = substr($html, $fromPos, ($toPos-$fromPos)); $lines = explode("</tr><tr>", $tableData); $tracks = array(); $c = 0; foreach ($lines AS $line) { $info = explode ("</td><td>", $line); $time = trim(strip_tags($info[0])); if (substr($time, 0, 9) != "Copyright" && !preg_match("/Tag Loomis, Tom Pepper and Justin Frankel/i", $info[1])) { $this->tracks[$c]['time'] = $time; $this->tracks[$c++]['track'] = trim(strip_tags($info[1])); } } if (count($this->tracks) > 0) { unset($this->tracks[0]); if (isset($this->tracks[1])) $this->tracks[1]['track'] = str_replace("Current Song", "", $this->tracks[1]['track']); } } else { $this->tracks[0] = array("time"=>$this->errno, "track"=>$this->errstr); } } } function getHistoryArray($page="/played.html") { if (!in_array($page, $this->trackLists)) $this->createHistoryArray($page); return $this->tracks; } function getHistoryTable($page="/played.html", $trackColText=False, $class=False) { $title_utf8 = mb_convert_encoding($trackArr ,"utf-8" ,"auto"); if (!in_array($page, $this->trackLists)) $this->createHistoryArray($page); if ($trackColText) $output .= " <div class='lastplayed_top'></div> <div".($class ? " class=\"".$class."\"" : "").">"; foreach ($this->tracks AS $title_utf8) $output .= "<div style='padding:2px 0;'>".$title_utf8['track']."</div>"; $output .= "</div><div class='lastplayed_bottom'></div> <div class='lastplayed_title'>".$trackColText."</div> \n"; return $output; } } // this is needed for those with a php version < 5 // the function is copied from the user comments @ php.net (http://nl3.php.net/stripos) if (!function_exists("stripos")) { function stripos($haystack, $needle, $offset=0) { return strpos(strtoupper($haystack), strtoupper($needle), $offset); } } ?> And the calling script outside the lastplayed.php: include "lastplayed.php"; $radio = new Radio($ip.":".$port); echo $radio->getHistoryTable("/played.html", "<b>Last played:</b>", "lastplayed_content");

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• BAD DC transfering FSMO Roles to ADC

  - by Suleman

  I have a DC (FQDN:server.icmcpk.local) and an ADC (FQDN:file-server.icmcpk.local). Recently my DC is facing a bad sector problem so I changed the Operation Masters to file-server for all five roles. but when ever i turn off the OLD DC the file-server also stops wroking with AD and GPMC further i m also unable to join any other computer to this domain. For Test purpose i also added a new ADC (FQDN:wds-server.icmcpk.local) but no succes with the old DC off i had to turn the old DC on and then joined it. I m attaching the Dcdiags for all three servers. Kindly help me so that i b able to reinstall new HDD and it can go online again. --------------------------------------- Server --------------------------------------- C:\Program Files\Support Tools>dcdiag Domain Controller Diagnosis Performing initial setup: Done gathering initial info. Doing initial required tests Testing server: Default-First-Site-Name\SERVER Starting test: Connectivity ......................... SERVER passed test Connectivity Doing primary tests Testing server: Default-First-Site-Name\SERVER Starting test: Replications [Replications Check,SERVER] A recent replication attempt failed: From FILE-SERVER to SERVER Naming Context: DC=ForestDnsZones,DC=icmcpk,DC=local The replication generated an error (1908): Could not find the domain controller for this domain. The failure occurred at 2012-05-04 14:07:13. The last success occurred at 2012-05-04 13:48:39. 1 failures have occurred since the last success. Kerberos Error. A KDC was not found to authenticate the call. Check that sufficient domain controllers are available. [Replications Check,SERVER] A recent replication attempt failed: From WDS-SERVER to SERVER Naming Context: DC=ForestDnsZones,DC=icmcpk,DC=local The replication generated an error (1908): Could not find the domain controller for this domain. The failure occurred at 2012-05-04 14:07:13. The last success occurred at 2012-05-04 13:48:39. 1 failures have occurred since the last success. Kerberos Error. A KDC was not found to authenticate the call. Check that sufficient domain controllers are available. [Replications Check,SERVER] A recent replication attempt failed: From FILE-SERVER to SERVER Naming Context: DC=DomainDnsZones,DC=icmcpk,DC=local The replication generated an error (1908): Could not find the domain controller for this domain. The failure occurred at 2012-05-04 14:07:13. The last success occurred at 2012-05-04 13:48:39. 1 failures have occurred since the last success. Kerberos Error. A KDC was not found to authenticate the call. Check that sufficient domain controllers are available. [Replications Check,SERVER] A recent replication attempt failed: From WDS-SERVER to SERVER Naming Context: DC=DomainDnsZones,DC=icmcpk,DC=local The replication generated an error (1908): Could not find the domain controller for this domain. The failure occurred at 2012-05-04 14:07:13. The last success occurred at 2012-05-04 13:48:39. 1 failures have occurred since the last success. Kerberos Error. A KDC was not found to authenticate the call. Check that sufficient domain controllers are available. [Replications Check,SERVER] A recent replication attempt failed: From FILE-SERVER to SERVER Naming Context: CN=Schema,CN=Configuration,DC=icmcpk,DC=local The replication generated an error (1908): Could not find the domain controller for this domain. The failure occurred at 2012-05-04 14:07:13. The last success occurred at 2012-05-04 13:48:39. 1 failures have occurred since the last success. Kerberos Error. A KDC was not found to authenticate the call. Check that sufficient domain controllers are available. [Replications Check,SERVER] A recent replication attempt failed: From WDS-SERVER to SERVER Naming Context: CN=Schema,CN=Configuration,DC=icmcpk,DC=local The replication generated an error (1908): Could not find the domain controller for this domain. The failure occurred at 2012-05-04 14:07:13. The last success occurred at 2012-05-04 13:48:39. 1 failures have occurred since the last success. Kerberos Error. A KDC was not found to authenticate the call. Check that sufficient domain controllers are available. [Replications Check,SERVER] A recent replication attempt failed: From WDS-SERVER to SERVER Naming Context: DC=icmcpk,DC=local The replication generated an error (1908): Could not find the domain controller for this domain. The failure occurred at 2012-05-04 14:07:13. The last success occurred at 2012-05-04 13:48:39. 1 failures have occurred since the last success. Kerberos Error. A KDC was not found to authenticate the call. Check that sufficient domain controllers are available. ......................... SERVER passed test Replications Starting test: NCSecDesc ......................... SERVER passed test NCSecDesc Starting test: NetLogons ......................... SERVER passed test NetLogons Starting test: Advertising ......................... SERVER passed test Advertising Starting test: KnowsOfRoleHolders ......................... SERVER passed test KnowsOfRoleHolders Starting test: RidManager ......................... SERVER passed test RidManager Starting test: MachineAccount ......................... SERVER passed test MachineAccount Starting test: Services ......................... SERVER passed test Services Starting test: ObjectsReplicated ......................... SERVER passed test ObjectsReplicated Starting test: frssysvol ......................... SERVER passed test frssysvol Starting test: frsevent There are warning or error events within the last 24 hours after the SYSVOL has been shared. Failing SYSVOL replication problems may cause Group Policy problems. ......................... SERVER failed test frsevent Starting test: kccevent ......................... SERVER passed test kccevent Starting test: systemlog An Error Event occured. EventID: 0x80001778 Time Generated: 05/04/2012 14:05:39 Event String: The previous system shutdown at 1:26:31 PM on An Error Event occured. EventID: 0x825A0011 Time Generated: 05/04/2012 14:07:45 (Event String could not be retrieved) An Error Event occured. EventID: 0x00000457 Time Generated: 05/04/2012 14:13:40 (Event String could not be retrieved) An Error Event occured. EventID: 0x00000457 Time Generated: 05/04/2012 14:14:25 (Event String could not be retrieved) An Error Event occured. EventID: 0x00000457 Time Generated: 05/04/2012 14:14:25 (Event String could not be retrieved) An Error Event occured. EventID: 0x00000457 Time Generated: 05/04/2012 14:14:38 (Event String could not be retrieved) An Error Event occured. EventID: 0xC1010020 Time Generated: 05/04/2012 14:16:14 Event String: Dependent Assembly Microsoft.VC80.MFCLOC could An Error Event occured. EventID: 0xC101003B Time Generated: 05/04/2012 14:16:14 Event String: Resolve Partial Assembly failed for An Error Event occured. EventID: 0xC101003B Time Generated: 05/04/2012 14:16:14 Event String: Generate Activation Context failed for An Error Event occured. EventID: 0xC1010020 Time Generated: 05/04/2012 14:16:14 Event String: Dependent Assembly Microsoft.VC80.MFCLOC could An Error Event occured. EventID: 0xC101003B Time Generated: 05/04/2012 14:16:14 Event String: Resolve Partial Assembly failed for An Error Event occured. EventID: 0xC101003B Time Generated: 05/04/2012 14:16:14 Event String: Generate Activation Context failed for An Error Event occured. EventID: 0x825A0011 Time Generated: 05/04/2012 14:22:57 (Event String could not be retrieved) An Error Event occured. EventID: 0xC1010020 Time Generated: 05/04/2012 14:22:59 Event String: Dependent Assembly Microsoft.VC80.MFCLOC could An Error Event occured. EventID: 0xC101003B Time Generated: 05/04/2012 14:22:59 Event String: Resolve Partial Assembly failed for An Error Event occured. EventID: 0xC101003B Time Generated: 05/04/2012 14:22:59 Event String: Generate Activation Context failed for An Error Event occured. EventID: 0xC1010020 Time Generated: 05/04/2012 14:22:59 Event String: Dependent Assembly Microsoft.VC80.MFCLOC could An Error Event occured. EventID: 0xC101003B Time Generated: 05/04/2012 14:22:59 Event String: Resolve Partial Assembly failed for An Error Event occured. EventID: 0xC101003B Time Generated: 05/04/2012 14:22:59 Event String: Generate Activation Context failed for ......................... SERVER failed test systemlog Starting test: VerifyReferences ......................... SERVER passed test VerifyReferences Running partition tests on : ForestDnsZones Starting test: CrossRefValidation ......................... ForestDnsZones passed test CrossRefValidation Starting test: CheckSDRefDom ......................... ForestDnsZones passed test CheckSDRefDom Running partition tests on : DomainDnsZones Starting test: CrossRefValidation ......................... DomainDnsZones passed test CrossRefValidation Starting test: CheckSDRefDom ......................... DomainDnsZones passed test CheckSDRefDom Running partition tests on : Schema Starting test: CrossRefValidation ......................... Schema passed test CrossRefValidation Starting test: CheckSDRefDom ......................... Schema passed test CheckSDRefDom Running partition tests on : Configuration Starting test: CrossRefValidation ......................... Configuration passed test CrossRefValidation Starting test: CheckSDRefDom ......................... Configuration passed test CheckSDRefDom Running partition tests on : icmcpk Starting test: CrossRefValidation ......................... icmcpk passed test CrossRefValidation Starting test: CheckSDRefDom ......................... icmcpk passed test CheckSDRefDom Running enterprise tests on : icmcpk.local Starting test: Intersite ......................... icmcpk.local passed test Intersite Starting test: FsmoCheck ......................... icmcpk.local passed test FsmoCheck ---------------------- File-Server ---------------------- C:\Users\Administrator.ICMCPK>dcdiag Directory Server Diagnosis Performing initial setup: Trying to find home server... Home Server = FILE-SERVER * Identified AD Forest. Done gathering initial info. Doing initial required tests Testing server: Default-First-Site-Name\FILE-SERVER Starting test: Connectivity ......................... FILE-SERVER passed test Connectivity Doing primary tests Testing server: Default-First-Site-Name\FILE-SERVER Starting test: Advertising Warning: DsGetDcName returned information for \\Server.icmcpk.local, when we were trying to reach FILE-SERVER. SERVER IS NOT RESPONDING or IS NOT CONSIDERED SUITABLE. ......................... FILE-SERVER failed test Advertising Starting test: FrsEvent ......................... FILE-SERVER passed test FrsEvent Starting test: DFSREvent ......................... FILE-SERVER passed test DFSREvent Starting test: SysVolCheck ......................... FILE-SERVER passed test SysVolCheck Starting test: KccEvent ......................... FILE-SERVER passed test KccEvent Starting test: KnowsOfRoleHolders ......................... FILE-SERVER passed test KnowsOfRoleHolders Starting test: MachineAccount ......................... FILE-SERVER passed test MachineAccount Starting test: NCSecDesc Error NT AUTHORITY\ENTERPRISE DOMAIN CONTROLLERS doesn't have Replicating Directory Changes In Filtered Set access rights for the naming context: DC=ForestDnsZones,DC=icmcpk,DC=local Error NT AUTHORITY\ENTERPRISE DOMAIN CONTROLLERS doesn't have Replicating Directory Changes In Filtered Set access rights for the naming context: DC=DomainDnsZones,DC=icmcpk,DC=local ......................... FILE-SERVER failed test NCSecDesc Starting test: NetLogons Unable to connect to the NETLOGON share! (\\FILE-SERVER\netlogon) [FILE-SERVER] An net use or LsaPolicy operation failed with error 67, The network name cannot be found.. ......................... FILE-SERVER failed test NetLogons Starting test: ObjectsReplicated ......................... FILE-SERVER passed test ObjectsReplicated Starting test: Replications ......................... FILE-SERVER passed test Replications Starting test: RidManager ......................... FILE-SERVER passed test RidManager Starting test: Services ......................... FILE-SERVER passed test Services Starting test: SystemLog An Error Event occurred. EventID: 0x00000469 Time Generated: 05/04/2012 14:01:10 Event String: The processing of Group Policy failed because of lack of network con nectivity to a domain controller. This may be a transient condition. A success m essage would be generated once the machine gets connected to the domain controll er and Group Policy has succesfully processed. If you do not see a success messa ge for several hours, then contact your administrator. An Warning Event occurred. EventID: 0x8000A001 Time Generated: 05/04/2012 14:07:11 Event String: The Security System could not establish a secured connection with th e server ldap/icmcpk.local/[email protected]. No authentication protocol was available. An Warning Event occurred. EventID: 0x00000BBC Time Generated: 05/04/2012 14:30:34 Event String: Windows Defender Real-Time Protection agent has detected changes. Mi crosoft recommends you analyze the software that made these changes for potentia l risks. You can use information about how these programs operate to choose whet her to allow them to run or remove them from your computer. Allow changes only if you trust the program or the software publisher. Windows Defender can't undo changes that you allow. An Warning Event occurred. EventID: 0x00000BBC Time Generated: 05/04/2012 14:30:36 Event String: Windows Defender Real-Time Protection agent has detected changes. Mi crosoft recommends you analyze the software that made these changes for potentia l risks. You can use information about how these programs operate to choose whet her to allow them to run or remove them from your computer. Allow changes only if you trust the program or the software publisher. Windows Defender can't undo changes that you allow. ......................... FILE-SERVER failed test SystemLog Starting test: VerifyReferences ......................... FILE-SERVER passed test VerifyReferences Running partition tests on : ForestDnsZones Starting test: CheckSDRefDom ......................... ForestDnsZones passed test CheckSDRefDom Starting test: CrossRefValidation ......................... ForestDnsZones passed test CrossRefValidation Running partition tests on : DomainDnsZones Starting test: CheckSDRefDom ......................... DomainDnsZones passed test CheckSDRefDom Starting test: CrossRefValidation ......................... DomainDnsZones passed test CrossRefValidation Running partition tests on : Schema Starting test: CheckSDRefDom ......................... Schema passed test CheckSDRefDom Starting test: CrossRefValidation ......................... Schema passed test CrossRefValidation Running partition tests on : Configuration Starting test: CheckSDRefDom ......................... Configuration passed test CheckSDRefDom Starting test: CrossRefValidation ......................... Configuration passed test CrossRefValidation Running partition tests on : icmcpk Starting test: CheckSDRefDom ......................... icmcpk passed test CheckSDRefDom Starting test: CrossRefValidation ......................... icmcpk passed test CrossRefValidation Running enterprise tests on : icmcpk.local Starting test: LocatorCheck ......................... icmcpk.local passed test LocatorCheck Starting test: Intersite ......................... icmcpk.local passed test Intersite --------------------- WDS-Server --------------------- C:\Users\Administrator.ICMCPK>dcdiag Directory Server Diagnosis Performing initial setup: Trying to find home server... Home Server = WDS-SERVER * Identified AD Forest. Done gathering initial info. Doing initial required tests Testing server: Default-First-Site-Name\WDS-SERVER Starting test: Connectivity ......................... WDS-SERVER passed test Connectivity Doing primary tests Testing server: Default-First-Site-Name\WDS-SERVER Starting test: Advertising Warning: DsGetDcName returned information for \\Server.icmcpk.local, when we were trying to reach WDS-SERVER. SERVER IS NOT RESPONDING or IS NOT CONSIDERED SUITABLE. ......................... WDS-SERVER failed test Advertising Starting test: FrsEvent There are warning or error events within the last 24 hours after the SYSVOL has been shared. Failing SYSVOL replication problems may cause Group Policy problems. ......................... WDS-SERVER passed test FrsEvent Starting test: DFSREvent ......................... WDS-SERVER passed test DFSREvent Starting test: SysVolCheck ......................... WDS-SERVER passed test SysVolCheck Starting test: KccEvent ......................... WDS-SERVER passed test KccEvent Starting test: KnowsOfRoleHolders ......................... WDS-SERVER passed test KnowsOfRoleHolders Starting test: MachineAccount ......................... WDS-SERVER passed test MachineAccount Starting test: NCSecDesc Error NT AUTHORITY\ENTERPRISE DOMAIN CONTROLLERS doesn't have Replicating Directory Changes In Filtered Set access rights for the naming context: DC=ForestDnsZones,DC=icmcpk,DC=local Error NT AUTHORITY\ENTERPRISE DOMAIN CONTROLLERS doesn't have Replicating Directory Changes In Filtered Set access rights for the naming context: DC=DomainDnsZones,DC=icmcpk,DC=local ......................... WDS-SERVER failed test NCSecDesc Starting test: NetLogons Unable to connect to the NETLOGON share! (\\WDS-SERVER\netlogon) [WDS-SERVER] An net use or LsaPolicy operation failed with error 67, The network name cannot be found.. ......................... WDS-SERVER failed test NetLogons Starting test: ObjectsReplicated ......................... WDS-SERVER passed test ObjectsReplicated Starting test: Replications ......................... WDS-SERVER passed test Replications Starting test: RidManager ......................... WDS-SERVER passed test RidManager Starting test: Services ......................... WDS-SERVER passed test Services Starting test: SystemLog An Error Event occurred. EventID: 0x0000041E Time Generated: 05/04/2012 14:02:55 Event String: The processing of Group Policy failed. Windows could not obtain the name of a domain controller. This could be caused by a name resolution failure. Verify your Domain Name Sysytem (DNS) is configured and working correctly. An Error Event occurred. EventID: 0x0000041E Time Generated: 05/04/2012 14:08:33 Event String: The processing of Group Policy failed. Windows could not obtain the name of a domain controller. This could be caused by a name resolution failure. Verify your Domain Name Sysytem (DNS) is configured and working correctly. ......................... WDS-SERVER failed test SystemLog Starting test: VerifyReferences ......................... WDS-SERVER passed test VerifyReferences Running partition tests on : ForestDnsZones Starting test: CheckSDRefDom ......................... ForestDnsZones passed test CheckSDRefDom Starting test: CrossRefValidation ......................... ForestDnsZones passed test CrossRefValidation Running partition tests on : DomainDnsZones Starting test: CheckSDRefDom ......................... DomainDnsZones passed test CheckSDRefDom Starting test: CrossRefValidation ......................... DomainDnsZones passed test CrossRefValidation Running partition tests on : Schema Starting test: CheckSDRefDom ......................... Schema passed test CheckSDRefDom Starting test: CrossRefValidation ......................... Schema passed test CrossRefValidation Running partition tests on : Configuration Starting test: CheckSDRefDom ......................... Configuration passed test CheckSDRefDom Starting test: CrossRefValidation ......................... Configuration passed test CrossRefValidation Running partition tests on : icmcpk Starting test: CheckSDRefDom ......................... icmcpk passed test CheckSDRefDom Starting test: CrossRefValidation ......................... icmcpk passed test CrossRefValidation Running enterprise tests on : icmcpk.local Starting test: LocatorCheck ......................... icmcpk.local passed test LocatorCheck Starting test: Intersite ......................... icmcpk.local passed test Intersite

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