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• Help with C# program design implementation: multiple array of lists or a better way?

  - by Bob

  I'm creating a 2D tile-based RPG in XNA and am in the initial design phase. I was thinking of how I want my tile engine to work and came up with a rough sketch. Basically I want a grid of tiles, but at each tile location I want to be able to add more than one tile and have an offset. I'd like this so that I could do something like add individual trees on the world map to give more flair. Or set bottles on a bar in some town without having to draw a bunch of different bar tiles with varying bottles. But maybe my reach is greater than my grasp. I went to implement the idea and had something like this in my Map object: List<Tile>[,] Grid; But then I thought about it. Let's say I had a world map of 200x200, which would actually be pretty small as far as RPGs go. That would amount to 40,000 Lists. To my mind I think there has to be a better way. Now this IS pre-mature optimization. I don't know if the way I happen to design my maps and game will be able to handle this, but it seems needlessly inefficient and something that could creep up if my game gets more complex. One idea I have is to make the offset and the multiple tiles optional so that I'm only paying for them when needed. But I'm not sure how I'd do this. A multiple array of objects? object[,] Grid; So here's my criteria: A 2D grid of tile locations Each tile location has a minimum of 1 tile, but can optionally have more Each extra tile can optionally have an x and y offset for pinpoint placement Can anyone help with some ideas for implementing such a design (don't need it done for me, just ideas) while keeping memory usage to a minimum? If you need more background here's roughly what my Map and Tile objects amount to: public struct Map { public Texture2D Texture; public List<Rectangle> Sources; //Source Rectangles for where in Texture to get the sprite public List<Tile>[,] Grid; } public struct Tile { public int Index; //Where in Sources to find the source Rectangle public int X, Y; //Optional offsets }

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• CMake: Mac OS X: ld: unknown option: -soname

  - by Alex Ivasyuv

  I try to build my app with CMake on Mac OS X, I get the following error: Linking CXX shared library libsml.so ld: unknown option: -soname collect2: ld returned 1 exit status make[2]: *** [libsml.so] Error 1 make[1]: *** [CMakeFiles/sml.dir/all] Error 2 make: *** [all] Error 2 This is strange, as Mac has .dylib extension instead of .so. There's my CMakeLists.txt: cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.6) PROJECT (SilentMedia) SET(SourcePath src/libsml) IF (DEFINED OSS) SET(OSS_src ${SourcePath}/Media/Audio/SoundSystem/OSS/DSP/DSP.cpp ${SourcePath}/Media/Audio/SoundSystem/OSS/Mixer/Mixer.cpp ) ENDIF(DEFINED OSS) IF (DEFINED ALSA) SET(ALSA_src ${SourcePath}/Media/Audio/SoundSystem/ALSA/DSP/DSP.cpp ${SourcePath}/Media/Audio/SoundSystem/ALSA/Mixer/Mixer.cpp ) ENDIF(DEFINED ALSA) SET(SilentMedia_src ${SourcePath}/Utils/Base64/Base64.cpp ${SourcePath}/Utils/String/String.cpp ${SourcePath}/Utils/Random/Random.cpp ${SourcePath}/Media/Container/FileLoader.cpp ${SourcePath}/Media/Container/OGG/OGG.cpp ${SourcePath}/Media/PlayList/XSPF/XSPF.cpp ${SourcePath}/Media/PlayList/XSPF/libXSPF.cpp ${SourcePath}/Media/PlayList/PlayList.cpp ${OSS_src} ${ALSA_src} ${SourcePath}/Media/Audio/Audio.cpp ${SourcePath}/Media/Audio/AudioInfo.cpp ${SourcePath}/Media/Audio/AudioProxy.cpp ${SourcePath}/Media/Audio/SoundSystem/SoundSystem.cpp ${SourcePath}/Media/Audio/SoundSystem/libao/AO.cpp ${SourcePath}/Media/Audio/Codec/WAV/WAV.cpp ${SourcePath}/Media/Audio/Codec/Vorbis/Vorbis.cpp ${SourcePath}/Media/Audio/Codec/WavPack/WavPack.cpp ${SourcePath}/Media/Audio/Codec/FLAC/FLAC.cpp ) SET(SilentMedia_LINKED_LIBRARY sml vorbisfile FLAC++ wavpack ao #asound boost_thread-mt boost_filesystem-mt xspf gtest ) INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES( /usr/include /usr/local/include /usr/include/c++/4.4 /Users/alex/Downloads/boost_1_45_0 ${SilentMedia_SOURCE_DIR}/src ${SilentMedia_SOURCE_DIR}/${SourcePath} ) #link_directories( # /usr/lib # /usr/local/lib # /Users/alex/Downloads/boost_1_45_0/stage/lib #) IF(LibraryType STREQUAL "static") ADD_LIBRARY(sml-static STATIC ${SilentMedia_src}) # rename library from libsml-static.a => libsml.a SET_TARGET_PROPERTIES(sml-static PROPERTIES OUTPUT_NAME "sml") SET_TARGET_PROPERTIES(sml-static PROPERTIES CLEAN_DIRECT_OUTPUT 1) ELSEIF(LibraryType STREQUAL "shared") ADD_LIBRARY(sml SHARED ${SilentMedia_src}) # change compile optimization/debug flags # -Werror -pedantic IF(BuildType STREQUAL "Debug") SET_TARGET_PROPERTIES(sml PROPERTIES COMPILE_FLAGS "-pipe -Wall -W -ggdb") ELSEIF(BuildType STREQUAL "Release") SET_TARGET_PROPERTIES(sml PROPERTIES COMPILE_FLAGS "-pipe -Wall -W -O3 -fomit-frame-pointer") ENDIF() SET_TARGET_PROPERTIES(sml PROPERTIES CLEAN_DIRECT_OUTPUT 1) ENDIF() ### TEST ### IF(Test STREQUAL "true") ADD_EXECUTABLE (bin/TestXSPF ${SourcePath}/Test/Media/PlayLists/XSPF/TestXSPF.cpp) TARGET_LINK_LIBRARIES (bin/TestXSPF ${SilentMedia_LINKED_LIBRARY}) ADD_EXECUTABLE (bin/test1 ${SourcePath}/Test/test.cpp) TARGET_LINK_LIBRARIES (bin/test1 ${SilentMedia_LINKED_LIBRARY}) ADD_EXECUTABLE (bin/TestFileLoader ${SourcePath}/Test/Media/Container/FileLoader/TestFileLoader.cpp) TARGET_LINK_LIBRARIES (bin/TestFileLoader ${SilentMedia_LINKED_LIBRARY}) ADD_EXECUTABLE (bin/testMixer ${SourcePath}/Test/testMixer.cpp) TARGET_LINK_LIBRARIES (bin/testMixer ${SilentMedia_LINKED_LIBRARY}) ENDIF (Test STREQUAL "true") ### TEST ### ADD_CUSTOM_TARGET(doc COMMAND doxygen ${SilentMedia_SOURCE_DIR}/doc/Doxyfile) There was no error on Linux. Build process: cmake -D BuildType=Debug -D LibraryType=shared . make I found, that incorrect command generate in CMakeFiles/sml.dir/link.txt. But why, as the goal of CMake is cross-platforming.. How to fix it?

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• Improving performance on data pasting 2000 rows with validations

  - by Lohit

  I have N rows (which could be nothing less than 1000) on an excel spreadsheet. And in this sheet our project has 150 columns like this: Now, our application needs data to be copied (using normal Ctrl+C) and pasted (using Ctrl+V) from the excel file sheet on our GUI sheet. Copy pasting 1000 records takes around 5-6 seconds which is okay for our requirement, but the problem is when we need to make sure the data entered is valid. So we have to validate data in each row generate appropriate error messages and format the data as per requirement. So we need to at runtime parse and evaluate data in each row. Now all the formatting of data and validations come from the back-end database and we have it in a data-table (dtValidateAndFormatConditions). The conditions would be around 50. So you can see how slow this whole process becomes since N X 150 X 50 operations are required to complete this whole process. Initially it took approximately 2-3 minutes but now i have reduced it to 20 - 30 seconds. However i have increased the speed by making an expression parser of my own - and not by any algorithm, is there any other way i can improve performance, by using Divide and Conquer or some other mechanism. Currently i am not really sure how to go about this. Here is what part of my code looks like: public virtual void ValidateAndFormatOnCopyPaste(DataTable DtCopied, int CurRow) { foreach (DataRow dRow in dtValidateAndFormatConditions.Rows) { string Condition = dRow["Condition"]; string FormatValue = Value = dRow["Value"]; GetValidatedFormattedData(DtCopied,ref Condition, ref FormatValue ,iRowIndex); Condition = Parse(Condition); dRow["Condition"] = Condition; FormatValue = Parse(FormatValue ); dRow["Value"] = FormatValue; } } The above code gets called row-wise like this: public override void ValidateAndFormat(DataTable dtChangedRecords, CellRange cr) { int iRowStart = cr.Row, iRowEnd = cr.Row + cr.RowCount; for (int iRow = iRowStart; iRow < iRowEnd; iRow++) { ValidateAndFormatOnCopyPaste(dtChangedRecords,iRow); } } Please know my question needs a more algorithmic solution than code optimization, however any answers containing code related optimizations will be appreciated as well. (Tagged Linq because although not seen i have been using linq in some parts of my code).

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• Scalable Database Tagging Schema

  - by Longpoke

  EDIT: To people building tagging systems. Don't read this. It is not what you are looking for. I asked this when I wasn't aware that RDBMS all have their own optimization methods, just use a simple many to many scheme. I have a posting system that has millions of posts. Each post can have an infinite number of tags associated with it. Users can create tags which have notes, date created, owner, etc. A tag is almost like a post itself, because people can post notes about the tag. Each tag association has an owner and date, so we can see who added the tag and when. My question is how can I implement this? It has to be fast searching posts by tag, or tags by post. Also, users can add tags to posts by typing the name into a field, kind of like the google search bar, it has to fill in the rest of the tag name for you. I have 3 solutions at the moment, but not sure which is the best, or if there is a better way. Note that I'm not showing the layout of notes since it will be trivial once I get a proper solution for tags. Method 1. Linked list tagId in post points to a linked list in tag_assoc, the application must traverse the list until flink=0 post: id, content, ownerId, date, tagId, notesId tag_assoc: id, tagId, ownerId, flink tag: id, name, notesId Method 2. Denormalization tags is simply a VARCHAR or TEXT field containing a tab delimited array of tagId:ownerId. It cannot be a fixed size. post: id, content, ownerId, date, tags, notesId tag: id, name, notesId Method 3. Toxi (from: http://www.pui.ch/phred/archives/2005/04/tags-database-schemas.html, also same thing here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20856/how-do-you-recommend-implementing-tags-or-tagging) post: id, content, ownerId, date, notesId tag_assoc: ownerId, tagId, postId tag: id, name, notesId Method 3 raises the question, how fast will it be to iterate through every single row in tag_assoc? Methods 1 and 2 should be fast for returning tags by post, but for posts by tag, another lookup table must be made. The last thing I have to worry about is optimizing searching tags by name, I have not worked that out yet. I made an ASCII diagram here: http://pastebin.com/f1c4e0e53

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• What is fastest way to convert bool to byte?

  - by Amir Rezaei

  What is fastest way to convert bool to byte? I want this mapping: False=0, True=1 Note: I don't want to use any if statement. Update: I don't want to use conditional statement. I don't want the CPU to halt or guess next statement. I want to optimize this code: private static string ByteArrayToHex(byte[] barray) { char[] c = new char[barray.Length * 2]; byte k; for (int i = 0; i < barray.Length; ++i) { k = ((byte)(barray[i] >> 4)); c[i * 2] = (char)(k > 9 ? k + 0x37 : k + 0x30); k = ((byte)(barray[i] & 0xF)); c[i * 2 + 1] = (char)(k > 9 ? k + 0x37 : k + 0x30); } return new string(c); } Update: The length of the array is very large, it's in terabyte order! Therefore I need to do optimization if possible. I shouldn't need to explain my self. The question is still valid. Update: I'm working on a project and looking at others code. That's why I didn't provide with the function at first place. I didn't want to spend time on explaining for people when they have opinion about the code. I shouldn’y need to provide in my question the background of my work, and a function that is not written by me. I have started to optimize it part by part. If I needed help with the whole function I would asked that in another question. That is why I asked this very simple at the beginning. Unfortunately people couldn’t keep themselves to the question. So please if you want to help answer the question. Update: For dose who want to see the point of this question. This example shows how two if statement are reduced from the code. byte A = k > 9 ; //If it was possible (k>9) == 0 || 1 c[i * 2] = A * (k + 0x30) - (A - 1) * (k + 0x30);

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• Thoughts on streamlining multiple .Net apps

  - by John Virgolino

  We have a series of ASP.Net applications that have been written over the course of 8 years. Mostly in the first 3-4 years. They have been running quite well with little maintenance, but new functionality is being requested and we are running into IDE and platform issues. The apps were written in .Net 1.x and 2.x and run in separate spaces but are presented as a single suite of applications which use a common navigation toolbar (implemented as a user control). Every time we want to add something to a menu in the nav we have to modify it in all the apps which is a pain. Also, the various versions of Crystal reports and that we used tables to organize the visual elements and we end up with a mess, especially with all the multi-platform .Net versions running. We need to streamline the suite of apps and make it easier to add on new apps without a hassle. We also need to bring all these apps under one .Net platform and IDE. In addition, there is a WordPress blog styled to match the style of the application suite "integrated" into the UI and a link to a MediaWiki Wiki application as well. My current thinking is to use an open source content management system (CMS) like Joomla (PHP based unfortunately, but it works well) as the user interface framework for style templating and menu management. Joomla's article management would allow us to migrate the Wiki content into articles which could be published without interfering with the .Net apps. Then essentially use an IFrame within an "article" to "host" the .Net application, then... Upgrade the .Net apps to VS2010, strip out all the common header/footer controls and migrate the styles to use the style sheets used in the CMS. As I write this, I certainly realize this is a lot of work and there are optimization issues which this may cause as well as using IFrames seems a bit like cheating and I've read about issues with IFrames. I know that we could use .Net application styling, but it seems like a lot more work (not sure really). Also, the use of a CMS to handle the blog and wiki also seems appealing, unless there is a .Net CMS out there that can handle all of these requirements. Given this information, I am looking to know if I am totally going in the wrong direction? We tried to use open source and integrate it over time, but not this has become hard to maintain. Am I not aware of some technology out there that will meet our requirements? Did we do this right and should we just focus on getting the .Net streamlined? I understand that no matter what we do, it's going to be a lot of work. The communities considerable experience would be helpful. Thanks!! PS - A complete rewrite is not an option.

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• How to properly preload images, js and css files?

  - by Kenny Bones

  Hi, I'm creating a website from scratch and I was really into this in the late 90's but the web has changed alot since then! And I'm more of a designer so when I started putting this site together, I basically did a system of php includes to make the site more "dynamic" When you first visit the site, you'll be presented to a logon screen, if you're not already logged on (cookies). If you're not logged on, a page called access.php is introdused. I thought I'd preload the most heavy images at this point. So that when the user is done logging on, the images are already cached. And this is working as I want. But I still notice that the biggest image still isn't rendered immediatly anyway. So it's seems kinda pointless. All of this has made me rethink how the site is structured and how scripts and css files are loaded. Using FireBug and YSlow with Firefox I see a few pointers like expires headers and reducing the size of each script. But is this really the culprit? For example, would this be really really stupid in the main index.php? The entire site is basically structured like this <?php require("dbconnect.php"); ?> <?php include ("head.php"); ?> And below this is basically just the body and the content of the site. Head.php however consists of the doctype, head portions, linking of two css style sheets, jQuery library, jQuery validation engine, Cufon and Cufon font file, and then the small Cufon.Replace snippet. The rest of the body comes with the index.php file, but at the bottom of this again is an include of a file called "footer.php" which basically consists of loading of a couple of jsLoader scripts and a slidepanel and then a js function. All of this makes the end page source look like a typical complete webpage, but I'm wondering if any of you can see immediatly that "this is really really stupid" and "don't do that, do this instead" etc. :) Are includes a bad way to go? This site is also pretty image intensive and I can probably do a little more optimization. But I don't think that's its the primary culprit. YSlow gives me a report of what takes up the most space: doc(1) - 5.8K js(5) - 198.7K css(2) - 5.6K cssimage(8) - 634.7K image(6) - 110.8K I know it looks like it's cssimage(8) that weighs the most, but I've already preloaded these images from before and it doesn't really affect the rendering.

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• thread management in nbody code of cuda-sdk

  - by xnov

  When I read the nbody code in Cuda-SDK, I went through some lines in the code and I found that it is a little bit different than their paper in GPUGems3 "Fast N-Body Simulation with CUDA". My questions are: First, why the blockIdx.x is still involved in loading memory from global to share memory as written in the following code? for (int tile = blockIdx.y; tile < numTiles + blockIdx.y; tile++) { sharedPos[threadIdx.x+blockDim.x*threadIdx.y] = multithreadBodies ? positions[WRAP(blockIdx.x + q * tile + threadIdx.y, gridDim.x) * p + threadIdx.x] : //this line positions[WRAP(blockIdx.x + tile, gridDim.x) * p + threadIdx.x]; //this line __syncthreads(); // This is the "tile_calculation" function from the GPUG3 article. acc = gravitation(bodyPos, acc); __syncthreads(); } isn't it supposed to be like this according to paper? I wonder why sharedPos[threadIdx.x+blockDim.x*threadIdx.y] = multithreadBodies ? positions[WRAP(q * tile + threadIdx.y, gridDim.x) * p + threadIdx.x] : positions[WRAP(tile, gridDim.x) * p + threadIdx.x]; Second, in the multiple threads per body why the threadIdx.x is still involved? Isn't it supposed to be a fix value or not involving at all because the sum only due to threadIdx.y if (multithreadBodies) { SX_SUM(threadIdx.x, threadIdx.y).x = acc.x; //this line SX_SUM(threadIdx.x, threadIdx.y).y = acc.y; //this line SX_SUM(threadIdx.x, threadIdx.y).z = acc.z; //this line __syncthreads(); // Save the result in global memory for the integration step if (threadIdx.y == 0) { for (int i = 1; i < blockDim.y; i++) { acc.x += SX_SUM(threadIdx.x,i).x; //this line acc.y += SX_SUM(threadIdx.x,i).y; //this line acc.z += SX_SUM(threadIdx.x,i).z; //this line } } } Can anyone explain this to me? Is it some kind of optimization for faster code?

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• template pass by const reference

  - by 7vies

  Hi, I've looked over a few similar questions, but I'm still confused. I'm trying to figure out how to explicitly (not by compiler optimization etc) and C++03-compatible avoid copying of an object when passing it to a template function. Here is my test code: #include <iostream> using namespace std; struct C { C() { cout << "C()" << endl; } C(const C&) { cout << "C(C)" << endl; } ~C() { cout << "~C()" << endl; } }; template<class T> void f(T) { cout << "f<T>" << endl; } template<> void f(C c) { cout << "f<C>" << endl; } // (1) template<> void f(const C& c) { cout << "f<C&>" << endl; } // (2) int main() { C c; f(c); return 0; } (1) accepts the object of type C, and makes a copy. Here is the output: C() C(C) f<C> ~C() ~C() So I've tried to specialize with a const C& parameter (2) to avoid this, but this simply doesn't work (apparently the reason is explained in this question). Well, I could "pass by pointer", but that's kind of ugly. So is there some trick that would allow to do that somehow nicely? EDIT: Oh, probably I wasn't clear. I already have a templated function template<class T> void f(T) {...} But now I want to specialize this function to accept a const& to another object: template<> void f(const SpecificObject&) {...} But it only gets called if I define it as template<> void f(SpecificObject) {...}

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• Refactor a link and an image

  - by Mihail Stoynov

  I have to write an link with an image inside. Instead of explaining, here's the code I have now: <c:if test="${userSession.loggedUser eq null and company.image != null}"> <a onclick="${rich:component('loginPanel')}.show()"> <img src="/download.do?hash=#{company.image.hash}" /> </a> </c:if> <c:if test="${userSession.loggedUser eq null and company.image == null}"> <a onclick="${rich:component('loginPanel')}.show()"> <img src="${request.contextPath}/img/icons/logo_default.jpg" /> </a> </c:if> <c:if test="${userSession.loggedUser ne null and company.image != null}"> <a href="company.xhtml?${company.name}"> <img src="/download.do?hash=#{company.image.hash}" /> </a> </c:if> <c:if test="#{userSession.loggedUser ne null and company.image == null}"> <a href="company.xhtml?${company.name}"> <img src="${request.contextPath}/img/icons/logo_default.jpg" /> </a> </c:if> This code looks awful - there are two exact links with two exact images but combined in all possible combinations. Is there a better way? Is there a way to avoid c:if - it created tables? Update: Bozho proposes: You can replace <c:if and <a with <h:outputLink rendered="#{..}". Apart from that I don't see any other optimization. But it doesn't work. This does not render correctly: <a href=> <h:outputLink rendered="#{..} <h:outputLink rendered="#{..} </a> (the image is outside the anchor) This does render fine: <h:outputLink value=> <h:outputLink rendered="#{..} <h:outputLink rendered="#{..} </a> , but it always adds href and in two of the cases I don't want href when rendered.

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• Akka framework support for finding duplicate messages

  - by scala_is_awesome

  I'm trying to build a high-performance distributed system with Akka and Scala. If a message requesting an expensive (and side-effect-free) computation arrives, and the exact same computation has already been requested before, I want to avoid computing the result again. If the computation requested previously has already completed and the result is available, I can cache it and re-use it. However, the time window in which duplicate computation can be requested may be arbitrarily small. e.g. I could get a thousand or a million messages requesting the same expensive computation at the same instant for all practical purposes. There is a commercial product called Gigaspaces that supposedly handles this situation. However there seems to be no framework support for dealing with duplicate work requests in Akka at the moment. Given that the Akka framework already has access to all the messages being routed through the framework, it seems that a framework solution could make a lot of sense here. Here is what I am proposing for the Akka framework to do: 1. Create a trait to indicate a type of messages (say, "ExpensiveComputation" or something similar) that are to be subject to the following caching approach. 2. Smartly (hashing etc.) identify identical messages received by (the same or different) actors within a user-configurable time window. Other options: select a maximum buffer size of memory to be used for this purpose, subject to (say LRU) replacement etc. Akka can also choose to cache only the results of messages that were expensive to process; the messages that took very little time to process can be re-processed again if needed; no need to waste precious buffer space caching them and their results. 3. When identical messages (received within that time window, possibly "at the same time instant") are identified, avoid unnecessary duplicate computations. The framework would do this automatically, and essentially, the duplicate messages would never get received by a new actor for processing; they would silently vanish and the result from processing it once (whether that computation was already done in the past, or ongoing right then) would get sent to all appropriate recipients (immediately if already available, and upon completion of the computation if not). Note that messages should be considered identical even if the "reply" fields are different, as long as the semantics/computations they represent are identical in every other respect. Also note that the computation should be purely functional, i.e. free from side-effects, for the caching optimization suggested to work and not change the program semantics at all. If what I am suggesting is not compatible with the Akka way of doing things, and/or if you see some strong reasons why this is a very bad idea, please let me know. Thanks, Is Awesome, Scala

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• Is typeid of type name always evaluated at compile time in c++ ?

  - by cyril42e

  I wanted to check that typeid is evaluated at compile time when used with a type name (ie typeid(int), typeid(std::string)...). To do so, I repeated in a loop the comparison of two typeid calls, and compiled it with optimizations enabled, in order to see if the compiler simplified the loop (by looking at the execution time which is 1us when it simplifies instead of 160ms when it does not). And I get strange results, because sometimes the compiler simplifies the code, and sometimes it does not. I use g++ (I tried different 4.x versions), and here is the program: #include <iostream> #include <typeinfo> #include <time.h> class DisplayData {}; class RobotDisplay: public DisplayData {}; class SensorDisplay: public DisplayData {}; class RobotQt {}; class SensorQt {}; timespec tp1, tp2; const int n = 1000000000; int main() { int avg = 0; clock_gettime(CLOCK_REALTIME, &tp1); for(int i = 0; i < n; ++i) { // if (typeid(RobotQt) == typeid(RobotDisplay)) // (1) compile time // if (typeid(SensorQt) == typeid(SensorDisplay)) // (2) compile time if (typeid(RobotQt) == typeid(RobotDisplay) || typeid(SensorQt) == typeid(SensorDisplay)) // (3) not compile time ???!!! avg++; else avg--; } clock_gettime(CLOCK_REALTIME, &tp2); std::cout << "time (" << avg << "): " << (tp2.tv_sec-tp1.tv_sec)*1000000000+(tp2.tv_nsec-tp1.tv_nsec) << " ns" << std::endl; } The conditions in which this problem appear are not clear, but: - if there is no inheritance involved, no problem (always compile time) - if I do only one comparison, no problem - the problem only appears only with a disjunction of comparisons if all the terms are false So is there something I didn't get with how typeid works (is it always supposed to be evaluated at compilation time when used with type names?) or may this be a gcc bug in evaluation or optimization? About the context, I tracked down the problem to this very simplified example, but my goal is to use typeid with template types (as partial function template specialization is not possible). Thanks for your help!

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• Messing with the stack in assembly and c++

  - by user246100

  I want to do the following: I have a function that is not mine (it really doesn't matter here but just to say that I don't have control over it) and that I want to patch so that it calls a function of mine, preserving the arguments list (jumping is not an option). What I'm trying to do is, to put the stack pointer as it was before that function is called and then call mine (like going back and do again the same thing but with a different function). This doesn't work straight because the stack becomes messed up. I believe that when I do the call it replaces the return address. So, I did a step to preserve the return address saving it in a globally variable and it works but this is not ok because I want it to resist to recursitivy and you know what I mean. Anyway, i'm a newbie in assembly so that's why I'm here. Please, don't tell me about already made software to do this because I want to make things my way. Of course, this code has to be compiler and optimization independent. My code (If it is bigger than what is acceptable please tell me how to post it): // A function that is not mine but to which I have access and want to patch so that it calls a function of mine with its original arguments void real(int a,int b,int c,int d) { } // A function that I want to be called, receiving the original arguments void receiver(int a,int b,int c,int d) { printf("Arguments %d %d %d %d\n",a,b,c,d); } long helper; // A patch to apply in the "real" function and on which I will call "receiver" with the same arguments that "real" received. __declspec( naked ) void patch() { _asm { // This first two instructions save the return address in a global variable // If I don't save and restore, the program won't work correctly. // I want to do this without having to use a global variable mov eax, [ebp+4] mov helper,eax push ebp mov ebp, esp // Make that the stack becomes as it were before the real function was called add esp, 8 // Calls our receiver call receiver mov esp, ebp pop ebp // Restores the return address previously saved mov eax, helper mov [ebp+4],eax ret } } int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[]) { FlushInstructionCache(GetCurrentProcess(),&real,5); DWORD oldProtection; VirtualProtect(&real,5,PAGE_EXECUTE_READWRITE,&oldProtection); // Patching the real function to go to my patch ((unsigned char*)real)[0] = 0xE9; *((long*)((long)(real) + sizeof(unsigned char))) = (char*)patch - (char*)real - 5; // calling real function (I'm just calling it with inline assembly because otherwise it seems to works as if it were un patched // that is strange but irrelevant for this _asm { push 666 push 1337 push 69 push 100 call real add esp, 16 } return 0; }

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• Select options not showing in IE

  - by donkapone

  I have a dynamically generated select with some options and it shows the options fine in normal browsers, but its empty options in IE. Here's the generated HTML: <select name="0" id="custom_0" style="border-bottom: #c0cedb 1px solid; border-left: #c0cedb 1px solid; background-color: #ededed; width: 280px; font-size: 0.87em; border-top: #c0cedb 1px solid; border-right: #c0cedb 1px solid"> <option id="1000" value="0" name="00">1x2GB ECC DDRIII 2GB ECC DDRIII</option> <option id="1001" value="10" name="01">2x2GB ECC DDRIII 4GB ECC DDRIII (+10.00 €)</option> </select> I can't really show you the javascript, since there's so much of it and I would be able to make it simple just for a demo. Maybe you had some of you would've had a similar experience and could figure this one out. Thanks I've added some javascript: $('#custom_order').append('<tr id="custom_'+category+'_row"><td'+padding+'>'+header+'<select id="custom_'+category+'" name="'+category+'" style="background-color:#EDEDED;border:1px solid #C0CEDB;width:280px;font-size:0.87em"></select>'+plusspan+'</td></tr>'); for (var i=0;i<components[category]['value'].length;i++){ $('#custom_'+category).append('<option id="'+components[category]['value'][i]['id']+'" value="'+components[category]['value'][i]['price']+'"></option>'); removals(category,i); dependencies(category,i); selectInput(category); } getDiff(category); getDiff() function adds the values to the options with html() function. The weird thing is, if I alert the html of the option just after the getDiff() function, it shows the value filled out. And it I put the getDiff() function in the for loop where the options are generated, it fills the values and shows them in IE, just not the last one. I'm calling getDiff() outside the loop for optimization, and since I can add the values later after all the options are generated. Well at least I thought I could, since it works on Firefox and Chrome.

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• jquery mouseent/leave to make div appears

  - by Blake

  I am looking to hover over my list item and have an effect similar to something like facebook chat is my best example..I am able to get the first div to appear but I believe this may be a selector issue because I cant get the rest working properly html <ul id="menu_seo" class="menu"> <li id="menu-seo"><span class="arrowout1"></span>SEO</li> <li id="menu-siteaudits"><span class="arrowout2"></span>Site Audits </li> <li id="menu-linkbuilding"><span class="arrowout3"></span>Link-Building</li> <li id="menu-localseo"><span class="arrowout4"></span>Local SEO</li> </ul> <div id="main_content"> <div id="menu-seo-desc"> <p>SEO management begins with a full website diagnosis of current web strategy Adjustments are made to improve your site’s ability to rank higher on search engines and draw more traffic </p> </div> <div id="menu-seo-desc2"> <p>Usability & site architecture review, Search Engine accessibility and indexing, Keyword research & targeting and Conversion rate optimization </p> </div> </div> css #menu-seo-desc { height:125px; width:210px; background-color:red; border-color:#CCC #E8E8E8 #E8E8E8 #CCC; border-style:solid; border-width:1.5px; border-radius:5px; box-shadow: 1px 0 2px 0px #888; -moz-box-shadow: 1px 0 2px 0px #888; -webkit-box-shadow: 1px 0 2px 1px #888; position:absolute; top:220px; left:350px; display:none; } js <script> $(document).ready(function(){ <script> $(document).ready(function(){ $('#menu_seo').on('#menu-seo', { 'mouseenter': function() { $('#menu-seo-desc').fadeIn(600); $('#menu-seo-desc2').fadeIn(600); }, 'mouseleave': function() { $('#menu-seo-desc').fadeOut(300); $('#menu-seo-desc2').fadeOut(300); } }); }); </script> });

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• Why Swift is 100 times slower than C in this image processing test?

  - by xiaobai

  Like many other developers I have been very excited at the new Swift language from Apple. Apple has boasted its speed is faster than Objective C and can be used to write operating system. And from what I learned so far, it's a very type-safe language and able to have precisely control over the exact data type (like integer length). So it does look like having good potential handling performance critical tasks, like image processing, right? That's what I thought before I carried out a quick test. The result really surprised me. Here is a much simplified image alpha blending code snippet in C: test.c: #include <stdio.h> #include <stdint.h> #include <string.h> uint8_t pixels[640*480]; uint8_t alpha[640*480]; uint8_t blended[640*480]; void blend(uint8_t* px, uint8_t* al, uint8_t* result, int size) { for(int i=0; i<size; i++) { result[i] = (uint8_t)(((uint16_t)px[i]) *al[i] /255); } } int main(void) { memset(pixels, 128, 640*480); memset(alpha, 128, 640*480); memset(blended, 255, 640*480); // Test 10 frames for(int i=0; i<10; i++) { blend(pixels, alpha, blended, 640*480); } return 0; } I compiled it on my Macbook Air 2011 with the following command: gcc -O3 test.c -o test The 10 frame processing time is about 0.01s. In other words, it takes the C code 1ms to process one frame: $ time ./test real 0m0.010s user 0m0.006s sys 0m0.003s Then I have a Swift version of the same code: test.swift: let pixels = UInt8[](count: 640*480, repeatedValue: 128) let alpha = UInt8[](count: 640*480, repeatedValue: 128) let blended = UInt8[](count: 640*480, repeatedValue: 255) func blend(px: UInt8[], al: UInt8[], result: UInt8[], size: Int) { for(var i=0; i<size; i++) { var b = (UInt16)(px[i]) * (UInt16)(al[i]) result[i] = (UInt8)(b/255) } } for i in 0..10 { blend(pixels, alpha, blended, 640*480) } The build command line is: xcrun swift -O3 test.swift -o test Here I use the same O3 level optimization flag to make the comparison hopefully fair. However, the resulting speed is 100 time slower: $ time ./test real 0m1.172s user 0m1.146s sys 0m0.006s In other words, it takes Swift ~120ms to processing one frame which takes C just 1 ms. I also verified the memory initialization time in both test code are very small compared to the blend processing function time. What happened?

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• C++ dynamic type construction and detection

  - by KneLL

  There was an interesting problem in C++, but it concerns more likely architecture. There are many (10, 20, 40, etc) classes that describe some characteristics (mix-in classes), for exmaple: struct Base { virtual ~Base() {} }; struct A : virtual public Base { int size; }; struct B : virtual public Base { float x, y; }; struct C : virtual public Base { bool some_bool_state; }; struct D : virtual public Base { string str; } // .... Primary module declares and exports a function (for simplicity just function declarations without classes): // .h file void operate(Base *pBase); // .cpp file void operate(Base *pBase) { // .... } Any other module can has a code like this: #include "mixins.h" #include "primary.h" class obj1_t : public A, public C, public D {}; class obj2_t : public B, public D {}; // ... void Pass() { obj1_t obj1; obj2_t obj2; operate(&obj1); operate(&obj2); } The question is how to know what the real type of given object in operate() without dynamic_cast and any type information in classes (constants, etc)? Function operate() is used with big array of objects in small time periods and dynamic_cast is too slow for it. And I don't want to include constants (enum obj_type { ... }) because this is not OOP-way. // module operate.cpp void some_operate(Base *pBase) { processA(pBase); processB(pBase); } void processA(A *pA) { } void processB(B *pB) { } I cannot directly pass a pBase to these functions. And it's impossible to have all possible combinations of classes, because I can add new classes just by including new .h files. As one of solutions that comed to mind, in editor application I can use a composite container: struct CompositeObject { vector<Base *pBase> parts; }; But editor does not need a time optimization and can use dynamic_cast for parts to determine the exact type. In operate() I cannot use this solution. So, is it possible to not use a dynamic_cast and type information to solve this problem? Or maybe I should use another architecture?

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• SBS 2008 SP2 Backup - Volume Shadow Copy Operation Failed

  - by Robert Ortisi

  Server Setup Exchange 2007 Version: 08.03.0192.001 (Rollup 4) Windows Small Business Server 2008 SP2 (Rollup 5) Exchange set up on D: drive (449 GB / 698 GB Free) 80 GB / 148 GB Free on OS drive. Issue Backup Failure (VSS related) Backup Software Windows Server Backup (ver 1.0) Simplified Error Creation of the shared protection point timed out. Unknown error (0x81000101) The flush and hold writes operation on volume C: timed out while waiting for a release writes command. Volume Shadow Copy Warning: VSS spent 43 seconds trying to flush and hold the volume \?\Volume{b562a5dd-8246-11de-a75b-806e6f6e6963}. This might cause problems when other volumes in the shadow-copy set timeout waiting for the release-writes phase, and it can cause the shadow-copy creation to fail. Trying again when disk activity is lower may solve this problem. What I've tried Server Reboot. Updated Server and Exchange. ReConfigured Sharepoint (Helped resolve last vss error I encountered). registered VSS Dll's (Backups will sometimes work afterwards but VSS writers fail soon after). Tried Implementing Hotfix: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956136 Tried Implementing Hotfix: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972135 I left it for a few days and a few backups came through but then began to fail again. Detailed Information Log Name: Application Source: VSS Date: 16/11/2011 8:02:11 PM Event ID: 12341 Task Category: None Level: Warning Keywords: Classic User: N/A Computer: SERVER.DOMAIN.local Description: Volume Shadow Copy Warning: VSS spent 43 seconds trying to flush and hold the volume \?\Volume{b562a5dd-8246-11de-a75b-806e6f6e6963}. This might cause problems when other volumes in the shadow-copy set timeout waiting for the release-writes phase, and it can cause the shadow-copy creation to fail. Trying again when disk activity is lower may solve this problem. Operation: Executing Asynchronous Operation Context: Current State: flush-and-hold writes Volume Name: \?\Volume{b562a5dd-8246-11de-a75b-806e6f6e6963}\ Event Xml: 12341 3 0 0x80000000000000 1651049 Application SERVER.DOMAIN.local 43 \?\Volume{b562a5dd-8246-11de-a75b-806e6f6e6963}\ Operation: Executing Asynchronous Operation Context: Current State: flush-and-hold writes Volume Name: \?\Volume{b562a5dd-8246-11de-a75b-806e6f6e6963}\ ================================================================================= Log Name: System Source: volsnap Date: 16/11/2011 8:02:11 PM Event ID: 8 Task Category: None Level: Error Keywords: Classic User: N/A Computer: SERVER.DOMAIN.local Description: The flush and hold writes operation on volume C: timed out while waiting for a release writes command. Event Xml: 8 2 0 0x80000000000000 987135 System SERVER.DOMAIN.local ================================================================================== Log Name: Application Source: Microsoft-Windows-Backup Date: 16/11/2011 8:11:18 PM Event ID: 521 Task Category: None Level: Error Keywords: User: SYSTEM Computer: SERVER.DOMAIN.local Description: Backup started at '16/11/2011 9:00:35 AM' failed as Volume Shadow copy operation failed for backup volumes with following error code '2155348001'. Please rerun backup once issue is resolved. Event Xml: 521 0 2 0 0 0x8000000000000000 1651065 Application SERVER.DOMAIN.local 2011-11-16T09:00:35.446Z 2155348001 %%2155348001 ================================================================================== Writer name: 'FRS Writer' Writer Id: {d76f5a28-3092-4589-ba48-2958fb88ce29} Writer Instance Id: {ba047fc6-9ce8-44ba-b59f-f2f8c07708aa} State: [5] Waiting for completion Last error: No error Writer name: 'ASR Writer' Writer Id: {be000cbe-11fe-4426-9c58-531aa6355fc4} Writer Instance Id: {0aace3e2-c840-4572-bf49-7fcc3fbcf56d} State: [1] Stable Last error: No error Writer name: 'Shadow Copy Optimization Writer' Writer Id: {4dc3bdd4-ab48-4d07-adb0-3bee2926fd7f} Writer Instance Id: {054593e2-2086-4480-92e5-30386509ed1b} State: [1] Stable Last error: No error Writer name: 'Registry Writer' Writer Id: {afbab4a2-367d-4d15-a586-71dbb18f8485} Writer Instance Id: {840e6f5f-f35a-4b65-bb20-060cf2ee892a} State: [1] Stable Last error: No error Writer name: 'COM+ REGDB Writer' Writer Id: {542da469-d3e1-473c-9f4f-7847f01fc64f} Writer Instance Id: {9486bedc-f6e8-424b-b563-8b849d51b1e1} State: [1] Stable Last error: No error Writer name: 'BITS Writer' Writer Id: {4969d978-be47-48b0-b100-f328f07ac1e0} Writer Instance Id: {29368bb3-e04b-4404-8fc9-e62dae18da91} State: [1] Stable Last error: No error Writer name: 'Dhcp Jet Writer' Writer Id: {be9ac81e-3619-421f-920f-4c6fea9e93ad} Writer Instance Id: {cfb58c78-9609-4133-8fc8-f66b0d25e12d} State: [5] Waiting for completion Last error: No error ==================================================================================

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• VPS 512 MB RAM with WordPressMU comes to consumes lots of memory

  - by CAPitalZ

  I have googled for days and gathered all optimization suggestions and tried. My sites are not getting any high hits. May be like 100 hits per day [all my sites combined]. Here are my specs I have 512 MB RAM VPS with burstable 1024 MB. Centos 5 32-bit & cPanel/WHM Apache 2.2 MySQL 5.0 PHP 5.3.2 Here is my Configs I have 2 WordPressMU production sites, and 1 test site my.cnf # The following options will be passed to all MySQL clients [client] #password = your_password port = 3306 socket = /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock # Here follows entries for some specific programs # The MySQL server [mysqld] port = 3306 socket = /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock skip-locking skip-bdb skip-innodb key_buffer = 16M max_allowed_packet = 1M table_cache = 64 sort_buffer_size = 512K net_buffer_length = 8K read_buffer_size = 256K read_rnd_buffer_size = 512K myisam_sort_buffer_size = 8M #CAPitalZ thread_cache_size=8 thread_concurrency=4 #query_cache_type=1 #query_cache_limit=1M query_cache_size=16M concurrent_insert=2 low_priority_updates=1 max_connections=50 tmp_table_size=16M max_heap_table_size=16M join_buffer_size=1M interactive_timeout=25 wait_timeout=1000 #connect_timout=10 not able to restart mysql max_connect_errors=10 # Don't listen on a TCP/IP port at all. This can be a security enhancement, # if all processes that need to connect to mysqld run on the same host. # All interaction with mysqld must be made via Unix sockets or named pipes. # Note that using this option without enabling named pipes on Windows # (via the "enable-named-pipe" option) will render mysqld useless! # skip-networking # Disable Federated by default skip-federated # Replication Master Server (default) # binary logging is required for replication log-bin=mysql-bin # required unique id between 1 and 2^32 - 1 # defaults to 1 if master-host is not set # but will not function as a master if omitted server-id = 1 [mysqld_safe] open_files_limit=8192 [mysqldump] quick max_allowed_packet = 16M [mysql] no-auto-rehash # Remove the next comment character if you are not familiar with SQL #safe-updates [isamchk] key_buffer = 20M sort_buffer_size = 20M read_buffer = 2M write_buffer = 2M [myisamchk] key_buffer = 20M sort_buffer_size = 20M read_buffer = 2M write_buffer = 2M [mysqlhotcopy] interactive-timeout httpd.conf I have unselected many modules and recompiled using EasyApache in WHM. Only have the following modules built Deflate Expires Fileprotect Imagemap MPM Prefork Version [default] EAccelerator for PHP Bcmath Calendar CurlSSL [I'm using Curl. But I don't have any https sites] Expat GD [for image cropping] Gettext Imap Mbregex [default] Mbstring [need both Mbregex and Mbstring for utf-8] Mysql of the system MySQL "Improved" extension. Sockets TTF (FreeType) [I'm using custom font] Zlib Under Global Configuration I only have FollowSymLinks enabled I Have TraceEnable, ServerSignature, FileETag OFF ServerTokens ProductOnly DirectoryIndex Priority has index.php as the first one I have removed Clamd [Clam Anti-virus] SpamAssasin is Off Under Tweak Settings Default catch-all/default address behavior for new accounts. This is set to "fail" All stats programs turned off I have eAccelerator installed and checked in phpinfo and its working [Pre VirtualHost Include under WHM] Timeout 20 KeepAlive On MaxKeepAliveRequests 200 KeepAliveTimeout 3 MinSpareServers 1 MaxSpareServers 3 StartServers 1 ServerLimit 50 MaxClients 50 MaxRequestsPerChild 4000 ExtendedStatus Off #ServerType standalone this throws error HostnameLookups Off <Directory "/"> AllowOverride None </Directory> My sites will take ages to load and WHM/CPanel will not even load. adadaa.com/ http://adadaa.net/ kadais.ca/ My average memory consumption is like 1000 MB! [yes always bursting] The process that consumes most CPU and also most memory is mysql But I also get like 15 httpd processes [when its bursting] I already got warning from cpuwatchcheck saying "While processing, the cpu has been maxed out for more than a 6 hour period. The current load/uptime line on the server at the time of this email is 07:00:37 up 11:30, 0 users, load average: 14.64, 16.79, 20.07" I don't know, I have tried switching these config values many different times, but nothing seems to work. Please show some light... Thanks

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• Week in Geek: LastPass Rescues Xmarks Edition

  - by Asian Angel

  This week we learned how to breathe new life into an aging Windows Mobile 6.x device, use filters in Photoshop, backup and move VirtualBox machines, use the BitDefender Rescue CD to clean an infected PC, and had fun setting up a pirates theme on our computers. Photo by _nash. Weekly Feature Do you love using the Faenza icon set on your Ubuntu system but feel that there are a few much needed icons missing (or you desire a different version of a particular icon)? Then you may want to take a look at the Faenza Variants icon pack. The icons are available in the following sizes: 16px, 22px, 32px, 48px and scalable sizes. Photo by Asian Angel. Faenza Variants Random Geek Links Another week with extra link goodness to help keep you on top of the news. Photo by Asian Angel. LastPass acquires Xmarks, premium service announced Xmarks announced that it has been acquired by LastPass, a cross-platform password management service. This also means that Xmarks is now in transition from a “free” to a “freemium” business model. WikiLeaks reappears on European Net domains WikiLeaks has re-emerged on a Swiss Internet domain followed by domains in Germany, Finland, and the Netherlands, sidestepping a move that had in effect taken the controversial site off the Internet. Iran: Yes, Stuxnet hurt our nuclear program The Stuxnet worm got some big play from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who acknowledged that the malware dinged his nuclear program. More Windows Rogues than Just AV – Fake Defragmenter Check Disk Don’t think for a second that rogues are limited to scareware, because as so-called products such as “System Defragmenter”, “Scan Disk” “Check Disk” prove, they’re not. Internet Explorer’s Protected Mode can be bypassed Researchers from Verizon Business have now described a way of bypassing Protected Mode in IE 7 and 8 in order to gain access to user accounts. Can you really see who viewed your Facebook profile? Rogue application spreads virally Once again, a rogue application is spreading virally between Facebook users pretending to offer you a way of seeing who has viewed your profile. More holes in Palm’s WebOS Researchers Orlando Barrera and Daniel Herrera, who both work for security firm SecTheory, have discovered a gaping security hole in Palm’s WebOS smartphone operating system. Next-gen banking Trojans hit APAC With the proliferation of banking Trojans, Web and smartphone users of online banking services have to be on constant alert to avoid falling prey to fraud schemes, warned Etay Maor, project manager for RSA Fraud Action. AVG update cripples 64-bit computers A signature update automatically deployed by the AVG virus scanner Thursday has crippled numerous computers. Article includes link to forums to fix computers affected after a restart. Congress moves to outlaw ‘mystery charges’ for Web shoppers Legislation that makes it illegal for Web merchants and so-called post-transaction marketers to charge credit cards without the card owners’ say-so came closer to becoming law this week. Ballmer Set to “Look Into” Windows Home Server Drive Extender Fiasco Tuesday’s announcement from Microsoft regarding the removal of Drive Extender from Windows Home Server has sent shock waves across the web. Google tweaks search recipe to ding scam artists Google has changed its search algorithm to penalize sites deemed to provide an “extremely poor user experience” following a New York Times story on a merchant who justified abusive behavior towards customers as a search-engine optimization tactic. Geek Video of the Week Watch as our two friends debate back and forth about the early adoption of new technology through multiple time periods (Stone Age to the far future). Will our reluctant friend finally succumb to the temptation? Photo by CollegeHumor. Early Adopters Through History Random TinyHacker Links Fix Issues in Windows 7 Using Reliability Monitor Learn how to analyze Windows 7 errors and then fix them using the built-in reliability monitor. Learn About IE Tab Groups Tab groups is a useful feature in IE 8. Here’s a detailed guide to what it is all about. Google’s Book Helps You Learn About Browsers and Web A cool new online book by the Google Chrome team on browsers and the web. TrustPort Internet Security 2011 – Good Security from a Less Known Provider TrustPort is not exactly a well-known provider of security solutions. At least not in the consumer space. This review tests in detail their latest offering. How the World is Using Cell phones An infographic showing the shocking demographics of cell phone use. Super User Questions See the great answers to these questions from Super User. I am unable to access my C drive. It says it is unable to display current owner. List of Windows special directories/shortcuts like ‘%TEMP%’ Is using multiple passes for wiping a disk really necessary? How can I view two files side by side in Notepad++ Is there any tool that automatically puts screenshots to my Dropbox? How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Look through our hottest articles from this past week at How-To Geek. How to Create a Software RAID Array in Windows 7 9 Alternatives for Windows Home Server’s Drive Extender Why Doesn’t Disk Cleanup Delete Everything from the Temp Folder? Ask the Readers: How Much Do You Customize Your Operating System? How to Upload Really Large Files to SkyDrive, Dropbox, or Email One Year Ago on How-To Geek Enjoy reading through these awesome articles from one year ago. How To Upgrade from Vista to Windows 7 Home Premium Edition How To Fix No Aero Transparency in Windows 7 Troubleshoot Startup Problems with Startup Repair Tool in Windows 7 & Vista Rename the Guest Account in Windows 7 for Enhanced Security Disable Error Reporting in XP, Vista, and Windows 7 The Geek Note That wraps things up here for this week. Regardless of the weather wherever you may be, we hope that you have an opportunity to get outside and have some fun! Remember to keep sending those great tips in to us at [email protected]. Photo by Tony the Misfit. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 8: Filters Get the Complete Android Guide eBook for Only 99 Cents [Update: Expired] Improve Digital Photography by Calibrating Your Monitor The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 7: Design and Typography How to Choose What to Back Up on Your Linux Home Server How To Harmonize Your Dual-Boot Setup for Windows and Ubuntu Hang in There Scrat! – Ice Age Wallpaper How Do You Know When You’ve Passed Geek and Headed to Nerd? On The Tip – A Lamborghini Theme for Chrome and Iron What if Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner were Human? [Video] Peaceful Winter Cabin Wallpaper Store Tabs for Later Viewing in Opera with Tab Vault

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• Using Teleriks new LINQ implementation to create OData feeds

  This week Telerik released a new LINQ implementation that is simple to use and produces domain models very fast. Built on top of the enterprise grade OpenAccess ORM, you can connect to any database that OpenAccess can connect to such as: SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, SQL Azure, VistaDB, etc. While this is a separate LINQ implementation from traditional OpenAccess Entites, you can use the visual designer without ever interacting with OpenAccess, however, you can always hook into the advanced ORM features like caching, fetch plan optimization, etc, if needed. Just to show off how easy our LINQ implementation is to use, I will walk you through building an OData feed using Data Services Update for .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. (Memo to Microsoft: P-L-E-A-S-E hire someone from Apple to name your products.) How easy is it? If you have a fast machine, are skilled with the mouse, and type fast, you can do this in about 60 seconds via three easy steps. (I promise in about 2-3 weeks that you can do this in less then 30 seconds. Stay tuned for that.)  Step 1 (15-20 seconds): Building your Domain Model In your web project in Visual Studio, right click on the project and select Add|New Item and select Telerik OpenAccess Domain Model as your item template. Give the file a meaningful name as well. Select your database type (SQL Server, SQL Azure, Oracle, MySQL, VistaDB, etc) and build the connection string. If you already have a Visual Studio connection string already saved, this step is trivial.  Then select your tables, enter a name for your model and click Finish. In this case I connected to Northwind and selected only Customers, Orders, and Order Details.  I named my model NorthwindEntities and will use that in my DataService. Step 2 (20-25 seconds): Adding and Configuring your Data Service In your web project in Visual Studio, right click on the project and select Add|New Item and select ADO .NET Data Service as your item template and name your service. In the code behind for your Data Service you have to make three small changes. Add the name of your Telerik Domain Model (entered in Step 1) as the DataService name (shown on line 6 below as NorthwindEntities) and uncomment line 11 and add a * to show all entities. Optionally if you want to take advantage of the DataService 3.5 updates, add line 13 (and change IDataServiceConfiguration to DataServiceConfiguration in line 9.) 1: using System.Data.Services; 2: using System.Data.Services.Common; 3:   4: namespace Telerik.RLINQ.Astoria.Web 5: { 6: public class NorthwindService : DataService<NorthwindEntities> 7: { 8: //change the IDataServiceConfigurationto DataServiceConfiguration 9: public static void InitializeService(DataServiceConfiguration config) 10: { 11: config.SetEntitySetAccessRule("*", EntitySetRights.All); 12: //take advantage of the "Astoria3.5 Update" features 13: config.DataServiceBehavior.MaxProtocolVersion = DataServiceProtocolVersion.V2; 14: } 15: } 16: } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; }   Step 3 (~30 seconds): Adding the DataServiceKeys You now have to tell your data service what are the primary keys of each entity. To do this you have to create a new code file and create a few partial classes. If you type fast, use copy and paste from your first entity,  and use a refactoring productivity tool, you can add these 6-8 lines of code or so in about 30 seconds. This is the most tedious step, but dont worry, Ive bribed some of the developers and our next update will eliminate this step completely. Just create a partial class for each entity you have mapped and add the attribute [DataServiceKey] on top of it along with the keys field name. If you have any complex properties, you will need to make them a primitive type, as I do in line 15. Create this as a separate file, dont manipulate the generated data access classes in case you want to regenerate them again later (even thought that would be much faster.) 1: using System.Data.Services.Common; 2:   3: namespace Telerik.RLINQ.Astoria.Web 4: { 5: [DataServiceKey("CustomerID")] 6: public partial class Customer 7: { 8: } 9:   10: [DataServiceKey("OrderID")] 11: public partial class Order 12: { 13: } 14:   15: [DataServiceKey(new string[] { "OrderID", "ProductID" })] 16: public partial class OrderDetail 17: { 18: } 19:   20: } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; }   Done! Time to run the service. Now, lets run the service! Select the svc file and right click and say View in Browser. You will see your OData service and can interact with it in the browser. Now that you have an OData service set up, you can consume it in one of the many ways that OData is consumed: using LINQ, the Silverlight OData client, Excel PowerPivot, or PhP, etc. Happy Data Servicing! Technorati Tags: Telerik,Astoria,Data Services Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Routing Issue in ASP.NET MVC 3 RC 2

  - by imran_ku07

       Introduction:             Two weeks ago, ASP.NET MVC team shipped the ASP.NET MVC 3 RC 2 release. This release includes some new features and some performance optimization. This release also fixes most of the bugs but still some minor issues are present in this release. Some of these issues are already discussed by Scott Guthrie at Update on ASP.NET MVC 3 RC2 (and a workaround for a bug in it). In addition to these issues, I have found another issue in this release regarding routing. In this article, I will show you the issue regarding routing and a simple workaround for this issue.       Description:             The easiest way to understand an issue is to reproduce it in the application. So create a MVC 2 application and a MVC 3 RC 2 application. Then in both applications, just open global.asax file and update the default route as below,     routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}"); routes.MapRoute( "Default", // Route name "{controller}/{action}/{id1}/{id2}", // URL with parameters new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id1 = UrlParameter.Optional, id2 = UrlParameter.Optional } // Parameter defaults );              Then just open Index View and add the following lines,    <%@ Page Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/Views/Shared/Site.Master" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage" %> <asp:Content ID="Content1" ContentPlaceHolderID="TitleContent" runat="server"> Home Page </asp:Content> <asp:Content ID="Content2" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainContent" runat="server"> <% Html.RenderAction("About"); %> </asp:Content>             The above view will issue a child request to About action method. Now run both applications. ASP.NET MVC 2 application will run just fine. But ASP.NET MVC 3 RC 2 application will throw an exception as shown below,                  You may think that this is a routing issue but this is not the case here as both ASP.NET MVC 2 and ASP.NET MVC  3 RC 2 applications(created above) are built with .NET Framework 4.0 and both will use the same routing defined in System.Web. Something is wrong in ASP.NET MVC 3 RC 2. So after digging into ASP.NET MVC source code, I have found that the UrlParameter class in ASP.NET MVC 3 RC 2 overrides the ToString method which simply return an empty string.     public sealed class UrlParameter { public static readonly UrlParameter Optional = new UrlParameter(); private UrlParameter() { } public override string ToString() { return string.Empty; } }             In MVC 2 the ToString method was not overridden. So to quickly fix the above problem just replace UrlParameter.Optional default value with a different value other than null or empty(for example, a single white space) or replace UrlParameter.Optional default value with a new class object containing the same code as UrlParameter class have except the ToString method is not overridden (or with a overridden ToString method that return a string value other than null or empty). But by doing this you will loose the benefit of ASP.NET MVC 2 Optional URL Parameters. There may be many different ways to fix the above problem and not loose the benefit of optional parameters. Here I will create a new class MyUrlParameter with the same code as UrlParameter class have except the ToString method is not overridden. Then I will create a base controller class which contains a constructor to remove all MyUrlParameter route data parameters, same like ASP.NET MVC doing with UrlParameter route data parameters early in the request.     public class BaseController : Controller { public BaseController() { if (System.Web.HttpContext.Current.CurrentHandler is MvcHandler) { RouteValueDictionary rvd = ((MvcHandler)System.Web.HttpContext.Current.CurrentHandler).RequestContext.RouteData.Values; string[] matchingKeys = (from entry in rvd where entry.Value == MyUrlParameter.Optional select entry.Key).ToArray(); foreach (string key in matchingKeys) { rvd.Remove(key); } } } } public class HomeController : BaseController { public ActionResult Index(string id1) { ViewBag.Message = "Welcome to ASP.NET MVC!"; return View(); } public ActionResult About() { return Content("Child Request Contents"); } }     public sealed class MyUrlParameter { public static readonly MyUrlParameter Optional = new MyUrlParameter(); private MyUrlParameter() { } }     routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}"); routes.MapRoute( "Default", // Route name "{controller}/{action}/{id1}/{id2}", // URL with parameters new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id1 = MyUrlParameter.Optional, id2 = MyUrlParameter.Optional } // Parameter defaults );             MyUrlParameter class is a copy of UrlParameter class except that MyUrlParameter class not overrides the ToString method. Note that the default route is modified to use MyUrlParameter.Optional instead of UrlParameter.Optional. Also note that BaseController class constructor is removing MyUrlParameter parameters from the current request route data so that the model binder will not bind these parameters with action method parameters. Now just run the ASP.NET MVC 3 RC 2 application again, you will find that it runs just fine.             In case if you are curious to know that why ASP.NET MVC 3 RC 2 application throws an exception if UrlParameter class contains a ToString method which returns an empty string, then you need to know something about a feature of routing for url generation. During url generation, routing will call the ParsedRoute.Bind method internally. This method includes a logic to match the route and build the url. During building the url, ParsedRoute.Bind method will call the ToString method of the route values(in our case this will call the UrlParameter.ToString method) and then append the returned value into url. This method includes a logic after appending the returned value into url that if two continuous returned values are empty then don't match the current route otherwise an incorrect url will be generated. Here is the snippet from ParsedRoute.Bind method which will prove this statement.       if ((builder2.Length > 0) && (builder2[builder2.Length - 1] == '/')) { return null; } builder2.Append("/"); ........................................................... ........................................................... ........................................................... ........................................................... if (RoutePartsEqual(obj3, obj4)) { builder2.Append(UrlEncode(Convert.ToString(obj3, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture))); continue; }             In the above example, both id1 and id2 parameters default values are set to UrlParameter object and UrlParameter class include a ToString method that returns an empty string. That's why this route will not matched.            Summary:             In this article I showed you the issue regarding routing and also showed you how to workaround this problem. I explained this issue with an example by creating a ASP.NET MVC 2 and a ASP.NET MVC 3 RC 2 application. Finally I also explained the reason for this issue. Hopefully you will enjoy this article too.   SyntaxHighlighter.all()

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• Interview with Lenz Grimmer about MySQL Connect

  - by Keith Larson

  Keith Larson: Thank you for allowing me to do this interview with you.  I have been talking with a few different Oracle ACEs   about the MySQL Connect Conference. I figured the MySQL community might be missing you as well. You have been very busy with Oracle Linux but I know you still have an eye on the MySQL Community. How have things been?Lenz Grimmer: Thanks for including me in this series of interviews, I feel honored! I've read the other interviews, and really liked them. I still try to follow what's going on over in the MySQL community and it's good to see that many of the familiar faces are still around. Over the course of the 9 years that I was involved with MySQL, many colleagues and contacts turned into good friends and we still maintain close relationships.It's been almost 1.5 years ago that I moved into my new role here in the Linux team at Oracle, and I really enjoy working on a Linux distribution again (I worked for SUSE before I joined MySQL AB in 2002). I'm still learning a lot - Linux in the data center has greatly evolved in so many ways and there are a lot of new and exciting technologies to explore. Keith Larson: What were your thoughts when you heard that Oracle was going to deliver the MySQL Connect conference to the MySQL Community?Lenz Grimmer: I think it's testament to the fact that Oracle deeply cares about MySQL, despite what many skeptics may say. What started as "MySQL Sunday" two years ago has now evolved into a full-blown sub-conference, with 80 sessions at one of the largest corporate IT events in the world. I find this quite telling, not many products at Oracle enjoy this level of exposure! So it certainly makes me feel proud to see how far MySQL has come. Keith Larson: Have you had a chance to look over the sessions? What are your thoughts on them?Lenz Grimmer: I did indeed look at the final schedule.The content committee did a great job with selecting these sessions. I'm glad to see that the content selection was influenced by involving well-known and respected members of the MySQL community. The sessions cover a broad range of topics and technologies, both covering established topics as well as recent developments. Keith Larson: When you get a chance, what sessions do you plan on attending?Lenz Grimmer: I will actually be manning the Oracle booth in the exhibition area on one of these days, so I'm not sure if I'll have a lot of time attending sessions. But if I do, I'd love to see the keynotes and catch some of the sessions that talk about recent developments and new features in MySQL, High Availability and Clustering . Quite a lot has happened and it's hard to keep up with this constant flow of new MySQL releases.In particular, the following sessions caught my attention: MySQL Connect Keynote: The State of the Dolphin Evaluating MySQL High-Availability Alternatives CERN’s MySQL “as a Service” Deployment with Oracle VM: Empowering Users MySQL 5.6 Replication: Taking Scalability and High Availability to the Next Level What’s New in MySQL Server 5.6? MySQL Security: Past and Present MySQL at Twitter: Development and Deployment MySQL Community BOF MySQL Connect Keynote: MySQL Perspectives Keith Larson: So I will ask you just like I have asked the others I have interviewed, any tips that you would give to people for handling the long hours at conferences?Lenz Grimmer: Wear comfortable shoes and make sure to drink a lot! Also prepare a plan of the sessions you would like to attend beforehand and familiarize yourself with the venue, so you can get to the next talk in time without scrambling to find the location. The good thing about piggybacking on such a large conference like Oracle OpenWorld is that you benefit from the whole infrastructure. For example, there is a nice schedule builder that helps you to keep track of your sessions of interest. Other than that, bring enough business cards and talk to people, build up your network among your peers and other MySQL professionals! Keith Larson: What features of the MySQL 5.6 release do you look forward to the most ?Lenz Grimmer: There has been solid progress in so many areas like the InnoDB Storage Engine, the Optimizer, Replication or Performance Schema, it's hard for me to really highlight anything in particular. All in all, MySQL 5.6 sounds like a very promising release. I'm confident it will follow the tradition that Oracle already established with MySQL 5.5, which received a lot of praise even from very critical members of the MySQL community. If I had to name a single feature, I'm particularly and personally happy that the precise GIS functions have finally made it into a GA release - that was long overdue. Keith Larson:  In your opinion what is the best reason for someone to attend this event?Lenz Grimmer: This conference is an excellent opportunity to get in touch with the key people in the MySQL community and ecosystem and to get facts and information from the domain experts and developers that work on MySQL. The broad range of topics should attract people from a variety of roles and relations to MySQL, beginning with Developers and DBAs, to CIOs considering MySQL as a viable solution for their requirements. Keith Larson: You will be attending MySQL Connect and have some Oracle Linux Demos, do you see a growing demand for MySQL on Oracle Linux ?Lenz Grimmer: Yes! Oracle Linux is our recommended Linux distribution and we have a good relationship to the MySQL engineering group. They use Oracle Linux as a base Linux platform for development and QA, so we make sure that MySQL and Oracle Linux are well tested together. Setting up a MySQL server on Oracle Linux can be done very quickly, and many customers recognize the benefits of using them both in combination.Because Oracle Linux is available for free (including free bug fixes and errata), it's an ideal choice for running MySQL in your data center. You can run the same Linux distribution on both your development/staging systems as well as on the production machines, you decide which of these should be covered by a support subscription and at which level of support. This gives you flexibility and provides some really attractive cost-saving opportunities. Keith Larson: Since I am a Linux user and fan, what is on the horizon for  Oracle Linux?Lenz Grimmer: We're working hard on broadening the ecosystem around Oracle Linux, building up partnerships with ISVs and IHVs to certify Oracle Linux as a fully supported platform for their products. We also continue to collaborate closely with the Linux kernel community on various projects, to make sure that Linux scales and performs well on large systems and meets the demands of today's data centers. These improvements and enhancements will then rolled into the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel, which is the key ingredient that sets Oracle Linux apart from other distributions. We also have a number of ongoing projects which are making good progress, and I'm sure you'll hear more about this at the upcoming OpenWorld conference :) Keith Larson: What is something that more people should be aware of when it comes to Oracle Linux and MySQL ?Lenz Grimmer: Many people assume that Oracle Linux is just tuned for Oracle products, such as the Oracle Database or our Engineered Systems. While it's of course true that we do a lot of testing and optimization for these workloads, Oracle Linux is and will remain a general-purpose Linux distribution that is a very good foundation for setting up a LAMP-Stack, for example. We also provide MySQL RPM packages for Oracle Linux, so you can easily stay up to date if you need something newer than what's included in the stock distribution.One more thing that is really unique to Oracle Linux is Ksplice, which allows you to apply security patches to the running Linux kernel, without having to reboot. This ensures that your MySQL database server keeps up and running and is not affected by any downtime. Keith Larson: What else would you like to add ?Lenz Grimmer: Thanks again for getting in touch with me, I appreciated the opportunity. I'm looking forward to MySQL Connect and Oracle OpenWorld and to meet you and many other people from the MySQL community that I haven't seen for quite some time! Keith Larson:  Thank you Lenz!

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• Tricks and Optimizations for you Sitecore website

  - by amaniar

  When working with Sitecore there are some optimizations/configurations I usually repeat in order to make my app production ready. Following is a small list I have compiled from experience, Sitecore documentation, communicating with Sitecore Engineers etc. This is not supposed to be technically complete and might not be fit for all environments.   Simple configurations that can make a difference: 1) Configure Sitecore Caches. This is the most straight forward and sure way of increasing the performance of your website. Data and item cache sizes (/databases/database/ [id=web] ) should be configured as needed. You may start with a smaller number and tune them as needed. <cacheSizes hint="setting"> <data>300MB</data> <items>300MB</items> <paths>5MB</paths> <standardValues>5MB</standardValues> </cacheSizes> Tune the html, registry etc cache sizes for your website.   <cacheSizes> <sites> <website> <html>300MB</html> <registry>1MB</registry> <viewState>10MB</viewState> <xsl>5MB</xsl> </website> </sites> </cacheSizes> Tune the prefetch cache settings under the App_Config/Prefetch/ folder. Sample /App_Config/Prefetch/Web.Config: <configuration> <cacheSize>300MB</cacheSize> <!--preload items that use this template--> <template desc="mytemplate">{XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX}</template> <!--preload this item--> <item desc="myitem">{XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX }</item> <!--preload children of this item--> <children desc="childitems">{XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX}</children> </configuration> Break your page into sublayouts so you may cache most of them. Read the caching configuration reference: http://sdn.sitecore.net/upload/sitecore6/sc62keywords/cache_configuration_reference_a4.pdf   2) Disable Analytics for the Shell Site <site name="shell" virtualFolder="/sitecore/shell" physicalFolder="/sitecore/shell" rootPath="/sitecore/content" startItem="/home" language="en" database="core" domain="sitecore" loginPage="/sitecore/login" content="master" contentStartItem="/Home" enableWorkflow="true" enableAnalytics="false" xmlControlPage="/sitecore/shell/default.aspx" browserTitle="Sitecore" htmlCacheSize="2MB" registryCacheSize="3MB" viewStateCacheSize="200KB" xslCacheSize="5MB" />   3) Increase the Check Interval for the MemoryMonitorHook so it doesn’t run every 5 seconds (default). <hook type="Sitecore.Diagnostics.MemoryMonitorHook, Sitecore.Kernel"> <param desc="Threshold">800MB</param> <param desc="Check interval">00:05:00</param> <param desc="Minimum time between log entries">00:01:00</param> <ClearCaches>false</ClearCaches> <GarbageCollect>false</GarbageCollect> <AdjustLoadFactor>false</AdjustLoadFactor> </hook>   4) Set Analytics.PeformLookup (Sitecore.Analytics.config) to false if your environment doesn’t have access to the internet or you don’t intend to use reverse DNS lookup. <setting name="Analytics.PerformLookup" value="false" />   5) Set the value of the “Media.MediaLinkPrefix” setting to “-/media”: <setting name="Media.MediaLinkPrefix" value="-/media" /> Add the following line to the customHandlers section: <customHandlers> <handler trigger="-/media/" handler="sitecore_media.ashx" /> <handler trigger="~/media/" handler="sitecore_media.ashx" /> <handler trigger="~/api/" handler="sitecore_api.ashx" /> <handler trigger="~/xaml/" handler="sitecore_xaml.ashx" /> <handler trigger="~/icon/" handler="sitecore_icon.ashx" /> <handler trigger="~/feed/" handler="sitecore_feed.ashx" /> </customHandlers> Link: http://squad.jpkeisala.com/2011/10/sitecore-media-library-performance-optimization-checklist/   6) Performance counters should be disabled in production if not being monitored <setting name="Counters.Enabled" value="false" />   7) Disable Item/Memory/Timing threshold warnings. Due to the nature of this component, it brings no value in production. <!--<processor type="Sitecore.Pipelines.HttpRequest.StartMeasurements, Sitecore.Kernel" />--> <!--<processor type="Sitecore.Pipelines.HttpRequest.StopMeasurements, Sitecore.Kernel"> <TimingThreshold desc="Milliseconds">1000</TimingThreshold> <ItemThreshold desc="Item count">1000</ItemThreshold> <MemoryThreshold desc="KB">10000</MemoryThreshold> </processor>—>   8) The ContentEditor.RenderCollapsedSections setting is a hidden setting in the web.config file, which by default is true. Setting it to false will improve client performance for authoring environments. <setting name="ContentEditor.RenderCollapsedSections" value="false" />   9) Add a machineKey section to your Web.Config file when using a web farm. Link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff649308.aspx   10) If you get errors in the log files similar to: WARN Could not create an instance of the counter 'XXX.XXX' (category: 'Sitecore.System') Exception: System.UnauthorizedAccessException Message: Access to the registry key 'Global' is denied. Make sure the ApplicationPool user is a member of the system “Performance Monitor Users” group on the server.   11) Disable WebDAV configurations on the CD Server if not being used. More: http://sitecoreblog.alexshyba.com/2011/04/disable-webdav-in-sitecore.html   12) Change Log4Net settings to only log Errors on content delivery environments to avoid unnecessary logging. <root> <priority value="ERROR" /> <appender-ref ref="LogFileAppender" /> </root>   13) Disable Analytics for any content item that doesn’t add value. For example a page that redirects to another page.   14) When using Web User Controls avoid registering them on the page the asp.net way: <%@ Register Src="~/layouts/UserControls/MyControl.ascx" TagName="MyControl" TagPrefix="uc2" %> Use Sublayout web control instead – This way Sitecore caching could be leveraged <sc:Sublayout ID="ID" Path="/layouts/UserControls/MyControl.ascx" Cacheable="true" runat="server" />   15) Avoid querying for all children recursively when all items are direct children. Sitecore.Context.Database.SelectItems("/sitecore/content/Home//*"); //Use: Sitecore.Context.Database.GetItem("/sitecore/content/Home");   16) On IIS — you enable static & dynamic content compression on CM and CD More: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc754668%28WS.10%29.aspx   17) Enable HTTP Keep-alive and content expiration in IIS.   18) Use GUID’s when accessing items and fields instead of names or paths. Its faster and wont break your code when things get moved or renamed. Context.Database.GetItem("{324DFD16-BD4F-4853-8FF1-D663F6422DFF}") Context.Item.Fields["{89D38A8F-394E-45B0-826B-1A826CF4046D}"]; //is better than Context.Database.GetItem("/Home/MyItem") Context.Item.Fields["FieldName"]   Hope this helps.

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• Blogging tips for SQL Server professionals

  - by jamiet

  For some time now I have been intending to put some material together relating my blogging experiences since I began blogging in 2004 and that led to me submitting a session for SQLBits recently where I intended to do just that. That didn’t get enough votes to allow me to present however so instead I resolved to write a blog post about it and Simon Sabin’s recent post Blogging – how do you do it? has prompted me to get around to completing it. So, here I present a compendium of tips that I’ve picked up from authoring a fair few blog posts over the past 6 years. Feedburner Feedburner.com is a service that can consume your blog’s default RSS feed and provide another, replacement, feed that has exactly the same content. You can then supply that replacement feed on your blog site for other people to consume in their RSS readers. Why would you want to do this? Well, two reasons actually: It makes your blog portable. If you ever want to move your blog to a different URL you don’t have to tell your subscribers to move to a different feed. The feedburner feed is a pointer to your blog content rather than being a copy of it. Feedburner will collect stats telling you how many people are subscribed to your feed, which RSS readers they use, stuff like that. Here’s a sample screenshot for http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jamie_thomson/: It also tells you what your most viewed posts are: Web stats like these are notoriously inaccurate but then again the method of measurement here is not important, what IS important is that it gives you a trustworthy ranking of your blog posts and (in my opinion) knowing which are your most popular posts is more important than knowing exactly how many views each post has had. This is just the tip of the iceberg of what Feedburner provides and I recommend every new blogger to try it! Monitor subscribers using Google Reader If for some reason Feedburner is not to your taste or (more likely) you already have an established RSS feed that you do not want to change then Google provide another way in which you can monitor your readership in the shape of their online RSS reader, Google Reader. It provides, for every RSS feed, a collection of stats including the number of Google Reader users that have subscribed to that RSS feed. This is really valuable information and in fact I have been recording this statistic for mine and a number of other blogs for a few years now and as such I can produce the following chart that indicates how readership is trending for those blogs over time: [Good news for my fellow SQLBlog bloggers.] As Stephen Few readily points out, its not the numbers that are important but the trend. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) SEO (or “How do I get my blog to show up in Google”) is a massive area of expertise which I don’t want (and am unable) to cover in much detail here but there are some simple rules of thumb that will help: Tags – If your blog engine offers the ability to add tags to your blog post, use them. Invariably those tags go into the meta section of the page HTML and search engines lap that stuff up. For example, from my recent post Microsoft publish Visual Studio 2010 Database Project Guidance: Title – Search engines take notice of web page titles as well so make them specific and descriptive (e.g. “Configuring dtsConfig connection strings”) rather than esoteric and meaningless in a vain attempt to be humorous (e.g. “Last night a DJ saved my ETL batch”)! Title(2) – Make your title even more search engine friendly by mentioning high level subject areas, not dissimilar to Twitter hashtags. For example, if you look at all of my posts related to SSIS you will notice that nearly all contain the word “SSIS” in the title even if I had to shoehorn it in there by putting it in square brackets or similar. Another tip, if you ARE putting words into your titles in this artificial manner then put them at the end so that they’re not that prominent in search engine results; they’re there for the search engines to consume, not for human beings. Images – Always add titles and alternate text (ALT attribute) to images in your blog post. If you use Windows 7 or Windows Vista then you can use Live Writer (which Simon recommended) makes this easy for you. Headings – If you want to highlight section headings use heading tags (e.g. <H1>, <H2>, <H3> etc…) rather than just formatting the text appropriately – again, Live makes this easy. These tags give your blog posts structure that is understood by search engines and RSS readers alike. (I believe it makes them more amenable to CSS as well – though that’s not something I know too much about). If you check the HTML source for the blog post you’re reading right now you’ll be able to scan through and see where I have used heading tags. Microsoft provide a free tool called the SEO Toolkit that will analyse your blog site (for free) and tell you what things you should change to improve SEO. Go read more and download for free at Search Engine Optimization Toolkit. Did I mention that it was free? Miscellaneous Tips If you are including code in your blog post then ensure it is formatted correctly. Use SQL Server Central’s T-SQL prettifier for formatting T-SQL code. Use images and videos. Personally speaking there’s nothing I like less when reading a blog than paragraph after paragraph of text. Images make your blog more appealing which means people are more likely to read what you have written. Be original. Don’t plagiarise other people’s content and don’t simply rewrite the contents of Books Online. Every time you publish a blog post tweet a link to it. Include hashtags in your tweet that are more likely to grab people’s attention. That’s probably enough for now - I hope this blog post proves useful to someone out there. If you would appreciate a related session at a forthcoming SQLBits conference then please let me know. This will likely be my last blog post for 2010 so I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone that has commented on, linked to or read any of my blog posts in that time. 2011 is shaping up to be a very interesting for SQL Server observers with the impending release of SQL Server code-named Denali and I promise I’ll have lots more content on that as the year progresses. Happy New Year. @Jamiet

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