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• SQL: Using a CASE Statement to update 1000 rows at once

  - by SoLoGHoST

  Ok, I would like to use a CASE STATEMENT for this, but I am lost with this. Basically, I need to update a ton of rows, but just on the "position" column. I need to update all "position" values from 0 - count(position) for each id_layout_position column per id_layout column. OK, here is a pic of what the table looks like: Now let's say I delete the circled row, this will remove position = 2 and give me: 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, and 4. But I want to add something at the end now and make sure that it has the last possible position, but the positions are already messed up, so I need to reorder them like so before I insert the new row: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. But it must be ordered by lowest first. So 0 stays at 0, 1 stays at 1, 3 gets changed to 2, the 4 at the end gets changed to a 3, 5 gets changed to 4, 6 gets changed to 5, and 7 gets changed to 6. Hopefully you guys get the picture now. I'm completely lost here. Also, note, this table is tiny compared to how fast it can grow in size, so it needs to be able to do this FAST, thus I was thinking on the CASE STATEMENT for an UPDATE QUERY. Here's what I got for a regular update, but I don't wanna throw this into a foreach loop, as it would take forever to do it. I'm using SMF (Simple Machines Forums), so it might look a little different, but the idea is the same, and CASE statements are supported... $smcFunc['db_query']('', ' UPDATE {db_prefix}dp_positions SET position = {int:position} WHERE id_layout_position = {int:id_layout_position} AND id_layout = {int:id_layout}', array( 'position' => $position++, 'id_layout_position' => (int) $id_layout_position, 'id_layout' => (int) $id_layout, ) ); Anyways, I need to apply some sort of CASE on this so that I can auto-increment by 1 all values that it finds and update to the next possible value. I know I'm doing this wrong, even in this QUERY. But I'm totally lost when it comes to CASES. Here's an example of a CASE being used within SMF, so you can see this and hopefully relate: $conditions = ''; foreach ($postgroups as $id => $min_posts) { $conditions .= ' WHEN posts >= ' . $min_posts . (!empty($lastMin) ? ' AND posts <= ' . $lastMin : '') . ' THEN ' . $id; $lastMin = $min_posts; } // A big fat CASE WHEN... END is faster than a zillion UPDATE's ;). $smcFunc['db_query']('', ' UPDATE {db_prefix}members SET id_post_group = CASE ' . $conditions . ' ELSE 0 END' . ($parameter1 != null ? ' WHERE ' . (is_array($parameter1) ? 'id_member IN ({array_int:members})' : 'id_member = {int:members}') : ''), array( 'members' => $parameter1, ) ); Before I do the update, I actually have a SELECT which throws everything I need into arrays like so: $disabled_sections = array(); $positions = array(); while ($row = $smcFunc['db_fetch_assoc']($request)) { if (!isset($disabled_sections[$row['id_group']][$row['id_layout']])) $disabled_sections[$row['id_group']][$row['id_layout']] = array( 'info' => $module_info[$name], 'id_layout_position' => $row['id_layout_position'] ); // Increment the positions... if (!is_null($row['position'])) { if (!isset($positions[$row['id_layout']][$row['id_layout_position']])) $positions[$row['id_layout']][$row['id_layout_position']] = 1; else $positions[$row['id_layout']][$row['id_layout_position']]++; } else $positions[$row['id_layout']][$row['id_layout_position']] = 0; } Thanks, I know if anyone can help me here it's definitely you guys and gals... Anyways, here is my question: How do I use a CASE statement in the first code example, so that I can update all of the rows in the position column from 0 - total # of rows found, that have that id_layout value and that id_layout_position value, and continue this for all different id_layout values in that table? Can I use the arrays above somehow? I'm sure I'll have to use the id_layout and id_layout_position values for this right? But how can I do this? Ok, guy, I get an error, saying "Hacking Attempt" with the following code: // Updating all positions in here. $smcFunc['db_query']('', ' SET @pos = 0; UPDATE {db_prefix}dp_positions SET position=@pos:=@pos+1 ORDER BY id_layout_position, position', array( ) ); Am I doing something wrong? Perhaps SMF has safeguards against this approach?? Perhaps I need to use a CASE STATEMENT instead?

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• How can I make a table move in JavaScript?

  - by Michal Skrzypek

  My problem is that I was creating a simple website the other day and I needed the content to move according to the button pressed. I managed to do so in CSS3, but the solution did not work for IE whatsoever. Therefore I would like to ask if there is a simple solution for that in js? I don't know js at all but I heard what I need is much easier in js than in css. Details: http://i42.tinypic.com/6yl4ia.png I need the table in the picture to move according to the buttons (which are labels to be exact). The visible area is a div. Here's the relevant code (without animation as I was not satisfied with it): body { background-color: #fff; color: #fff; padding:0px; } #bodywrapperfixed { width: 1248px; margin: 0px auto; position: relative; overflow: hidden; height: 730px; } #bodywrapper { display:block; background-color: #fff; width: 1248px; color: #59595B; padding-top:50px; font-family: 'Roboto', sans-serif; position: absolute; top:0px; left:0px; z-index:1; font-size: 60px; height:730px; } #bodywrapper img { width:400px; padding:15px 0px 20px 0px; } #texten { font-family: 'Roboto', sans-serif; font-size: 35px; padding:5px; } #textpl { font-family: 'Roboto', sans-serif; font-size: 25px; padding:5px; } table#linki { width: 110px; border: none; margin-top:15px; } label { display: block; height: 54px; width: 54px; color:#fff; font-family: 'Roboto', sans-serif; font-weight: 300; font-size: 35px; background-color: #117D10; text-align: center; padding:23px; } label:hover { background-color: #004F00; cursor: pointer; } input#pl { position: absolute; top: -9999px; left: -9999px; } input#en { position: absolute; top: -9999px; left: -9999px; } and the relevant HTML: <div id="bodywrapperfixed"> <div id="bodywrapperfloat"> <table id="ramka"> <tr> <td>random text</td> <td><div id="bodywrapper"> <center> <div id="texten"><div style="font-weight:300; display:inline-block;">Introducing the all-in-one entertainment system.</div><div style="font-weight:500; display:inline-block;">&nbsp;For everyone.</div></div> <div id="textpl"><div style="font-weight:300; display:inline-block;">Przedstawiamy zintegrowany system rozrywki.</div><div style="font-weight:500; display:inline-block;">&nbsp;&nbsp;Dla wszystkich.</div></div> <img src="imgs/xboxone.png"> <div id="texten"><div style="font-weight:300; display:inline-block;">Choose your version of the story:</div></div> <div id="textpl"><div style="font-weight:300; display:inline-block;">Wybierz swoja wersja opowiesci:</div></div> <table id="linki"> <tr> <td><label for="en">en</label><input id="en" type="checkbox"></td> <td><label for="pl">pl</label><input id="pl" type="checkbox"></td> </tr></table> </center> </div></td> <td>random text</td> </tr> </table> </div> </div> Here's what it looks like: http://ingame.lh.pl/thinkone/ Please help me.

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• Accessing local variable doesn't improve performance

  - by NicMagnier

  The short version Why is this code: var index = (Math.floor(y / scale) * img.width + Math.floor(x / scale)) * 4; More performant than this one? var index = Math.floor(ref_index) * 4; The long version This week, the author of Impact js published an article about some rendering issue: http://www.phoboslab.org/log/2012/09/drawing-pixels-is-hard In the article there was the source of a function to scale an image by accessing pixels in the canvas. I wanted to suggest some traditional ways to optimize this kind of code so that the scaling would be shorter at loading time. But after testing it my result was most of the time worst that the original function. Guessing this was the JavaScript engine that was doing some smart optimization I tried to understand a bit more what was going on so I did a bunch of test. But my results are quite confusing and I would need some help to understand what's going on. I have a test page here: http://www.mx981.com/stuff/resize_bench/test.html jsPerf: http://jsperf.com/local-variable-due-to-the-scope-lookup To start the test, click the picture and the results will appear in the console. There are three different versions: The original code: for( var y = 0; y < heightScaled; y++ ) { for( var x = 0; x < widthScaled; x++ ) { var index = (Math.floor(y / scale) * img.width + Math.floor(x / scale)) * 4; var indexScaled = (y * widthScaled + x) * 4; scaledPixels.data[ indexScaled ] = origPixels.data[ index ]; scaledPixels.data[ indexScaled+1 ] = origPixels.data[ index+1 ]; scaledPixels.data[ indexScaled+2 ] = origPixels.data[ index+2 ]; scaledPixels.data[ indexScaled+3 ] = origPixels.data[ index+3 ]; } } jsPerf: http://jsperf.com/so-accessing-local-variable-doesn-t-improve-performance One of my attempt to optimize it: var ref_index = 0; var ref_indexScaled = 0 var ref_step = 1 / scale; for( var y = 0; y < heightScaled; y++ ) { for( var x = 0; x < widthScaled; x++ ) { var index = Math.floor(ref_index) * 4; scaledPixels.data[ ref_indexScaled++ ] = origPixels.data[ index ]; scaledPixels.data[ ref_indexScaled++ ] = origPixels.data[ index+1 ]; scaledPixels.data[ ref_indexScaled++ ] = origPixels.data[ index+2 ]; scaledPixels.data[ ref_indexScaled++ ] = origPixels.data[ index+3 ]; ref_index+= ref_step; } } jsPerf: http://jsperf.com/so-accessing-local-variable-doesn-t-improve-performance The same optimized code but with recalculating the index variable each time (Hybrid) var ref_index = 0; var ref_indexScaled = 0 var ref_step = 1 / scale; for( var y = 0; y < heightScaled; y++ ) { for( var x = 0; x < widthScaled; x++ ) { var index = (Math.floor(y / scale) * img.width + Math.floor(x / scale)) * 4; scaledPixels.data[ ref_indexScaled++ ] = origPixels.data[ index ]; scaledPixels.data[ ref_indexScaled++ ] = origPixels.data[ index+1 ]; scaledPixels.data[ ref_indexScaled++ ] = origPixels.data[ index+2 ]; scaledPixels.data[ ref_indexScaled++ ] = origPixels.data[ index+3 ]; ref_index+= ref_step; } } jsPerf: http://jsperf.com/so-accessing-local-variable-doesn-t-improve-performance The only difference in the two last one is the calculation of the 'index' variable. And to my surprise the optimized version is slower in most browsers (except opera). Results of personal testing (not the jsPerf tests): Opera Original: 8668ms Optimized: 932ms Hybrid: 8696ms Chrome Original: 139ms Optimized: 145ms Hybrid: 136ms Safari Original: 433ms Optimized: 853ms Hybrid: 451ms Firefox Original: 343ms Optimized: 422ms Hybrid: 350ms After digging around, it seems an usual good practice is to access mainly local variable due to the scope lookup. Because The optimized version only call one local variable it should be faster that the Hybrid code which call multiple variable and object in addition to the various operation involved. So why the "optimized" version is slower? I thought that it might be because some JavaScript engine don't optimize the Optimized version because it is not hot enough but after using --trace-opt in chrome, it seems all version are properly compiled by V8. At this point I am a bit clueless and wonder if somebody would know what is going on? I did also some more test cases in this page: http://www.mx981.com/stuff/resize_bench/index.html

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• Problems configuring nameserver in plesk

  - by Saif Bechan

  Hello, i have some troubles with setting up a nameserver in PLESK for months now. I have tried all possible scenario's but i can not get this to work. I am really in need for some help, and if you can i will really appreciate it. Basically what i want is to just set up a nameserver in PLESK. I have a primary IP, and my host gave me a secondary nameserver i can use. My host is leaseweb in the netherlands. I have made some screenshots of the important parts in my opinion, maybe you guys can see some errors in them. To use the secondary nameserver provided by leaseweb i had to enable ACL on that account, i did so and made a screenshot of that too. The DNS recursion is set to localnets. These settings have not changed for months, so the dns should be fully updated everywhere. The check i run is the following: https://www.sidn.nl/over-nl/aanvraag...-server-check/ Domeinnaam (inclusief .nl): rdshosting.nl Eerste Nameserver: ns1.rdshosting.nl Eerste IP: 62.212.66.33 Tweede Nameserver: ns7.leaseweb.net Tweede ip: 62.212.76.50 If i run the dns check of the netherlands it gives me the following errors: primary name server "ns1.rdshosting.nl." Error: specified name server is not listed as NS record. All public name servers for a domain must also be listed as NS records in the zone of the domain. This domain was specified explicitly as a name server, but not found in the zone description of the primary name server. TE.6a rdshosting.nl. 86400 IN SOA ns1.rdspartners.nl. saif2k.hotmail.com. (2010031102 12H 1H 7D 3H) Error: the MNAME in SOA says "ns1.rdspartners.nl." is the primary name server. The MNAME field in the SOA record (first parameter) lists a different primary name server from the one specified for this check. RFC1035 section 3.3.13 rdshosting.nl. 86400 IN NS ns1.rdspartners.nl. Warning: hidden name server "ns1.rdspartners.nl." never used for first contact. The zone contains an NS record for a host which is not in the list of specified name servers. Hence, this name server will not be used to initiate contact to the domain. It may be used in sequential lookups, so it may still be useful. secondary name server "ns1.rdspartners.nl." [BROKEN] [HIDDEN] Failure: name server at 77.232.85.129 cannot be reached: (unknown error) The name server could not be contacted, which may be due to temporary technical problems or global DNS configuration mistakes. The internal error is shown, but not always clear about the cause. secondary name server "ns7.leaseweb.net." Info: name server looks correctly configured. I have the content of the file etc/named.conf also: // $Id: named.conf,v 1.1.1.1 2001/10/15 07:44:36 kap Exp $ // // Refer to the named(8) man page for details. If you are ever going // to setup a primary server, make sure you've understood the hairy // details of how DNS is working. Even with simple mistakes, you can // break connectivity for affected parties, or cause huge amount of // useless Internet traffic. options { allow-recursion { localnets; }; directory "/var"; auth-nxdomain no; pid-file "/var/run/named/named.pid"; // In addition to the "forwarders" clause, you can force your name // server to never initiate queries of its own, but always ask its // forwarders only, by enabling the following line: // // forward only; // If you've got a DNS server around at your upstream provider, enter // its IP address here, and enable the line below. This will make you // benefit from its cache, thus reduce overall DNS traffic in the Internet. /* forwarders { 127.0.0.1; }; */ /* * If there is a firewall between you and nameservers you want * to talk to, you might need to uncomment the query-source * directive below. Previous versions of BIND always asked * questions using port 53, but BIND 8.1 uses an unprivileged * port by default. */ // query-source address * port 53; /* * If running in a sandbox, you may have to specify a different * location for the dumpfile. */ // dump-file "s/named_dump.db"; }; //Use with the following in named.conf, adjusting the allow list as needed: key "rndc-key" { algorithm hmac-md5; secret "CeMgS23y0oWE20nyv0x40Q=="; }; controls { inet 127.0.0.1 port 953 allow { 127.0.0.1; } keys { "rndc-key"; }; }; // Note: the following will be supported in a future release. /* host { any; } { topology { 127.0.0.0/8; }; }; */ // Setting up secondaries is way easier and the rough picture for this // is explained below. // // If you enable a local name server, don't forget to enter 127.0.0.1 // into your /etc/resolv.conf so this server will be queried first. // Also, make sure to enable it in /etc/rc.conf. zone "." { type hint; file "named.root"; }; zone "0.0.127.IN-ADDR.ARPA" { type master; file "localhost.rev"; }; // NB: Do not use the IP addresses below, they are faked, and only // serve demonstration/documentation purposes! // // Example secondary config entries. It can be convenient to become // a secondary at least for the zone where your own domain is in. Ask // your network administrator for the IP address of the responsible // primary. // // Never forget to include the reverse lookup (IN-ADDR.ARPA) zone! // (This is the first bytes of the respective IP address, in reverse // order, with ".IN-ADDR.ARPA" appended.) // // Before starting to setup a primary zone, better make sure you fully // understand how DNS and BIND works, however. There are sometimes // unobvious pitfalls. Setting up a secondary is comparably simpler. // // NB: Don't blindly enable the examples below. :-) Use actual names // and addresses instead. // // NOTE!!! FreeBSD runs bind in a sandbox (see named_flags in rc.conf). // The directory containing the secondary zones must be write accessible // to bind. The following sequence is suggested: // // mkdir /etc/namedb/s // chown bind.bind /etc/namedb/s // chmod 750 /etc/namedb/s zone "rdshosting.nl" { type master; file "rdshosting.nl"; allow-transfer { 77.232.85.129; 62.212.76.50; common-allow-transfer; }; }; zone "66.212.62.in-addr.arpa" { type master; file "66.212.62.in-addr.arpa"; allow-transfer { common-allow-transfer; }; }; acl common-allow-transfer { 62.212.76.50; }; As i mentioned i made some screenshots of some parts: First the dns settings in plesk: http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/2480faed5e.jpg Second the acl settings in plesk: http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/777f5e69b0.jpg Third my settings at leaseweb: http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/de7122b19c.jpg And last the secondary nameserver settings from leaseweb: http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/fd1da38a8f.jpg If someone has anysuggestion at all on this this will be highly appriciated. Thank you for your time! PS. I am dutch so dutch answers are welcome aswell

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• Cisco 881 losing NAT NVI translation config after reload

  - by MasterRoot24

  This is a weird one, so I'll try to explain in as much detail as I can so I'm giving the whole picture. As I've mentioned in my other questions, I'm in the process of setting up a new Cisco 881 as my WAN router and NAT firewall. I'm facing an issue where NAT NVI rules that I have configured are not enabled after a reload of the router, regardless of the fact that they are present in the startup-config. In order to clarify this a little, here's the relevant section of my current running-config: Router1#show running-config | include nat source ip nat source list 1 interface FastEthernet4 overload ip nat source list 2 interface FastEthernet4 overload ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.x 1723 interface FastEthernet4 1723 ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.x 80 interface FastEthernet4 80 ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.x 443 interface FastEthernet4 443 ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.x 25 interface FastEthernet4 25 ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.x 587 interface FastEthernet4 587 ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.x 143 interface FastEthernet4 143 ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.x 993 interface FastEthernet4 993 ...and here's the mappings 'in action': Router1#show ip nat nvi translations | include --- tcp <WAN IP>:25 192.168.1.x:25 --- --- tcp <WAN IP>:80 192.168.1.x:80 --- --- tcp <WAN IP>:143 192.168.1.x:143 --- --- tcp <WAN IP>:443 192.168.1.x:443 --- --- tcp <WAN IP>:587 192.168.1.x:587 --- --- tcp <WAN IP>:993 192.168.1.x:993 --- --- tcp <WAN IP>:1723 192.168.1.x:1723 --- --- ...and here's proof that the mappings are saved to startup-config: Router1#show startup-config | include nat source ip nat source list 1 interface FastEthernet4 overload ip nat source list 2 interface FastEthernet4 overload ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.x 1723 interface FastEthernet4 1723 ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.x 80 interface FastEthernet4 80 ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.x 443 interface FastEthernet4 443 ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.x 25 interface FastEthernet4 25 ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.x 587 interface FastEthernet4 587 ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.x 143 interface FastEthernet4 143 ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.x 993 interface FastEthernet4 993 However, look what happens after a reload of the router: Router1#reload Proceed with reload? [confirm]Connection to router closed by remote host. Connection to router closed. $ ssh joe@router Password: Authorized Access only Router1>en Password: Router1#show ip nat nvi translations | include --- Router1# Router1#show ip nat translations | include --- tcp 188.222.181.173:25 192.168.1.2:25 --- --- tcp 188.222.181.173:80 192.168.1.2:80 --- --- tcp 188.222.181.173:143 192.168.1.2:143 --- --- tcp 188.222.181.173:443 192.168.1.2:443 --- --- tcp 188.222.181.173:587 192.168.1.2:587 --- --- tcp 188.222.181.173:993 192.168.1.2:993 --- --- tcp 188.222.181.173:1723 192.168.1.2:1723 --- --- Router1# Here's proof that the running config should have the mappings setup as NVI: Router1#show running-config | include nat source ip nat source list 1 interface FastEthernet4 overload ip nat source list 2 interface FastEthernet4 overload ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.2 1723 interface FastEthernet4 1723 ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.2 80 interface FastEthernet4 80 ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.2 443 interface FastEthernet4 443 ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.2 25 interface FastEthernet4 25 ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.2 587 interface FastEthernet4 587 ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.2 143 interface FastEthernet4 143 ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.2 993 interface FastEthernet4 993 At this point, the mappings are not working (inbound connections from WAN on the HTTP/IMAP fail). I presume that this is because my interfaces are using ip nat enable for use with NVI mappings, instead of ip nat inside/outside. So, I re-apply the mappings: Router1#configure ter Router1#configure terminal Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z. Router1(config)#ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.2 1723 interface FastEthernet4 1723 Router1(config)#ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.2 80 interface FastEthernet4 80 Router1(config)#ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.2 443 interface FastEthernet4 443 Router1(config)#ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.2 25 interface FastEthernet4 25 Router1(config)#ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.2 587 interface FastEthernet4 587 Router1(config)#ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.2 143 interface FastEthernet4 143 Router1(config)#ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.2 993 interface FastEthernet4 993 Router1(config)#end ... then they show up correctly: Router1#show ip nat nvi translations | include --- tcp 188.222.181.173:25 192.168.1.2:25 --- --- tcp 188.222.181.173:80 192.168.1.2:80 --- --- tcp 188.222.181.173:143 192.168.1.2:143 --- --- tcp 188.222.181.173:443 192.168.1.2:443 --- --- tcp 188.222.181.173:587 192.168.1.2:587 --- --- tcp 188.222.181.173:993 192.168.1.2:993 --- --- tcp 188.222.181.173:1723 192.168.1.2:1723 --- --- Router1# Router1#show ip nat translations | include --- Router1# ... furthermore, now from both WAN and LAN, the services mapped above now work until the next reload. All of the above is required every time I have to reload the router (which is all too often at the moment :-( ). Here's my full current config: ! ! Last configuration change at 20:20:15 UTC Tue Dec 11 2012 by xxx version 15.2 no service pad service timestamps debug datetime msec service timestamps log datetime msec service password-encryption ! hostname xxx ! boot-start-marker boot-end-marker ! ! enable secret 4 xxxx ! aaa new-model ! ! aaa authentication login local_auth local ! ! ! ! ! aaa session-id common ! memory-size iomem 10 ! crypto pki trustpoint TP-self-signed-xxx enrollment selfsigned subject-name cn=IOS-Self-Signed-Certificate-xxx revocation-check none rsakeypair TP-self-signed-xxx ! ! crypto pki certificate chain TP-self-signed-xxx certificate self-signed 01 xxx quit ip gratuitous-arps ip auth-proxy max-login-attempts 5 ip admission max-login-attempts 5 ! ! ! ! ! ip domain list dmz.xxx.local ip domain list xxx.local ip domain name dmz.xxx.local ip name-server 192.168.1.x ip cef login block-for 3 attempts 3 within 3 no ipv6 cef ! ! multilink bundle-name authenticated license udi pid CISCO881-SEC-K9 sn xxx ! ! username admin privilege 15 secret 4 xxx username joe secret 4 xxx ! ! ! ! ! ip ssh time-out 60 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! interface FastEthernet0 no ip address ! interface FastEthernet1 no ip address ! interface FastEthernet2 no ip address ! interface FastEthernet3 switchport access vlan 2 no ip address ! interface FastEthernet4 ip address dhcp ip access-group 101 in ip nat enable duplex auto speed auto ! interface Vlan1 ip address 192.168.1.x 255.255.255.0 no ip redirects no ip unreachables no ip proxy-arp ip nat enable ! interface Vlan2 ip address 192.168.0.x 255.255.255.0 ! ip forward-protocol nd ip http server ip http access-class 1 ip http authentication local ip http secure-server ! ! ip nat source list 1 interface FastEthernet4 overload ip nat source list 2 interface FastEthernet4 overload ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.x 1723 interface FastEthernet4 1723 ! ! access-list 1 permit 192.168.0.0 0.0.0.255 access-list 2 permit 192.168.1.0 0.0.0.255 access-list 101 permit udp 193.x.x.0 0.0.0.255 any eq 5060 access-list 101 deny udp any any eq 5060 access-list 101 permit ip any any ! ! ! ! control-plane ! ! banner motd Authorized Access only ! line con 0 exec-timeout 15 0 login authentication local_auth line aux 0 exec-timeout 15 0 login authentication local_auth line vty 0 4 access-class 2 in login authentication local_auth length 0 transport input all ! ! end I'd appreciate it greatly if anyone can help me find out why these mappings are not setup correctly using the saved config after a reload.

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• What is causing the unusual high load average?

  - by James

  I noticed on Tuesday night of last week, the load average went up sharply and it seemed abnormal since the traffic is small. Usually, the numbers usually average around .40 or lower and my server stuff (mysql, php and apache) are optimized. I noticed that the IOWait is unusually high even though the processes is barely using any CPU. top - 01:44:39 up 1 day, 21:13, 1 user, load average: 1.41, 1.09, 0.86 Tasks: 60 total, 1 running, 59 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie Cpu0 : 0.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni,100.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu1 : 0.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni,100.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu2 : 0.0%us, 0.3%sy, 0.0%ni, 99.7%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu3 : 0.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni,100.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu4 : 0.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni,100.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu5 : 0.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni,100.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu6 : 0.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni,100.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu7 : 0.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni, 91.5%id, 8.5%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Mem: 1048576k total, 331944k used, 716632k free, 0k buffers Swap: 0k total, 0k used, 0k free, 0k cached PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 1 root 15 0 2468 1376 1140 S 0 0.1 0:00.92 init 1656 root 15 0 13652 5212 664 S 0 0.5 0:00.00 apache2 9323 root 18 0 13652 5212 664 S 0 0.5 0:00.00 apache2 10079 root 18 0 3972 1248 972 S 0 0.1 0:00.00 su 10080 root 15 0 4612 1956 1448 S 0 0.2 0:00.01 bash 11298 root 15 0 13652 5212 664 S 0 0.5 0:00.00 apache2 11778 chikorit 15 0 2344 1092 884 S 0 0.1 0:00.05 top 15384 root 18 0 17544 13m 1568 S 0 1.3 0:02.28 miniserv.pl 15585 root 15 0 8280 2736 2168 S 0 0.3 0:00.02 sshd 15608 chikorit 15 0 8280 1436 860 S 0 0.1 0:00.02 sshd Here is the VMStat procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- -system-- ----cpu---- r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa 1 0 0 768644 0 0 0 0 14 23 0 10 1 0 99 0 IOStat - Nothing unusal Total DISK READ: 67.13 K/s | Total DISK WRITE: 0.00 B/s TID PRIO USER DISK READ DISK WRITE SWAPIN IO COMMAND 19496 be/4 chikorit 11.85 K/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 0.00 % apache2 -k start 19501 be/4 mysql 3.95 K/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 0.00 % mysqld 19568 be/4 chikorit 11.85 K/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 0.00 % apache2 -k start 19569 be/4 chikorit 11.85 K/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 0.00 % apache2 -k start 19570 be/4 chikorit 11.85 K/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 0.00 % apache2 -k start 19571 be/4 chikorit 7.90 K/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 0.00 % apache2 -k start 19573 be/4 chikorit 7.90 K/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 0.00 % apache2 -k start 1 be/4 root 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 0.00 % init 11778 be/4 chikorit 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 0.00 % top 19470 be/4 mysql 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 0.00 % mysqld Load Average Chart - http://i.stack.imgur.com/kYsD0.png I want to be sure if this is not a MySQL problem before making sure. Also, this is a Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Server on OpenVZ. Edit: This will probably give a good picture on the IO Wait top - 22:12:22 up 17:41, 1 user, load average: 1.10, 1.09, 0.93 Tasks: 33 total, 1 running, 32 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie Cpu(s): 0.6%us, 0.2%sy, 0.0%ni, 89.0%id, 10.1%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Mem: 1048576k total, 260708k used, 787868k free, 0k buffers Swap: 0k total, 0k used, 0k free, 0k cached PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 1 root 15 0 2468 1376 1140 S 0 0.1 0:00.88 init 5849 root 15 0 12336 4028 668 S 0 0.4 0:00.00 apache2 8063 root 15 0 12336 4028 668 S 0 0.4 0:00.00 apache2 9732 root 16 0 8280 2728 2168 S 0 0.3 0:00.02 sshd 9746 chikorit 18 0 8412 1444 864 S 0 0.1 0:01.10 sshd 9747 chikorit 18 0 4576 1960 1488 S 0 0.2 0:00.24 bash 13706 chikorit 15 0 2344 1088 884 R 0 0.1 0:00.03 top 15745 chikorit 15 0 12968 5108 1280 S 0 0.5 0:00.00 apache2 15751 chikorit 15 0 72184 25m 18m S 0 2.5 0:00.37 php5-fpm 15790 chikorit 18 0 12472 4640 1192 S 0 0.4 0:00.00 apache2 15797 chikorit 15 0 72888 23m 16m S 0 2.3 0:00.06 php5-fpm 16038 root 15 0 67772 2848 592 D 0 0.3 0:00.00 php5-fpm 16309 syslog 18 0 24084 1316 992 S 0 0.1 0:00.07 rsyslogd 16316 root 15 0 5472 908 500 S 0 0.1 0:00.00 sshd 16326 root 15 0 2304 908 712 S 0 0.1 0:00.02 cron 17464 root 15 0 10252 7560 856 D 0 0.7 0:01.88 psad 17466 root 18 0 1684 276 208 S 0 0.0 0:00.31 psadwatchd 17559 root 18 0 11444 2020 732 S 0 0.2 0:00.47 sendmail-mta 17688 root 15 0 10252 5388 1136 S 0 0.5 0:03.81 python 17752 teamspea 19 0 44648 7308 4676 S 0 0.7 1:09.70 ts3server_linux 18098 root 15 0 12336 6380 3032 S 0 0.6 0:00.47 apache2 18099 chikorit 18 0 10368 2536 464 S 0 0.2 0:00.00 apache2 18120 ntp 15 0 4336 1316 984 S 0 0.1 0:00.87 ntpd 18379 root 15 0 12336 4028 668 S 0 0.4 0:00.00 apache2 18387 mysql 15 0 62796 36m 5864 S 0 3.6 1:43.26 mysqld 19584 root 15 0 12336 4028 668 S 0 0.4 0:00.02 apache2 22498 root 16 0 12336 4028 668 S 0 0.4 0:00.00 apache2 24260 root 15 0 67772 3612 1356 S 0 0.3 0:00.22 php5-fpm 27712 root 15 0 12336 4028 668 S 0 0.4 0:00.00 apache2 27730 root 15 0 12336 4028 668 S 0 0.4 0:00.00 apache2 30343 root 15 0 12336 4028 668 S 0 0.4 0:00.00 apache2 30366 root 15 0 12336 4028 668 S 0 0.4 0:00.00 apache2 This is the free ram as of today. total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 1024 302 721 0 0 0 -/+ buffers/cache: 302 721 Swap: 0 0 0 Update: Looking into the logs, particularly the PHP5-FPM, which is causing the CPU spike. I found that its segment faulting for some apparent reason. [03-Jun-2012 06:11:20] NOTICE: [pool www] child 14132 started [03-Jun-2012 06:11:25] WARNING: [pool www] child 13664 exited on signal 11 (SIGSEGV) after 53.686322 seconds from start [03-Jun-2012 06:11:25] NOTICE: [pool www] child 14328 started [03-Jun-2012 06:11:25] WARNING: [pool www] child 14132 exited on signal 11 (SIGSEGV) after 4.708681 seconds from start [03-Jun-2012 06:11:25] NOTICE: [pool www] child 14329 started [03-Jun-2012 06:11:58] WARNING: [pool www] child 14328 exited on signal 11 (SIGSEGV) after 32.981228 seconds from start [03-Jun-2012 06:11:58] NOTICE: [pool www] child 15745 started [03-Jun-2012 06:12:25] WARNING: [pool www] child 15745 exited on signal 11 (SIGSEGV) after 27.442864 seconds from start [03-Jun-2012 06:12:25] NOTICE: [pool www] child 17446 started [03-Jun-2012 06:12:25] WARNING: [pool www] child 14329 exited on signal 11 (SIGSEGV) after 60.411278 seconds from start [03-Jun-2012 06:12:25] NOTICE: [pool www] child 17447 started [03-Jun-2012 06:13:02] WARNING: [pool www] child 17446 exited on signal 11 (SIGSEGV) after 36.746793 seconds from start [03-Jun-2012 06:13:02] NOTICE: [pool www] child 18133 started [03-Jun-2012 06:13:48] WARNING: [pool www] child 17447 exited on signal 11 (SIGSEGV) after 82.710107 seconds from start I'm thinking that this might be causing the problem. If that is the cause, probably switching it off that to fastcgi/fcgid might resolve it... but still, I want to see if something else might be causing it to do this.

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• E-Business Suite Technology Sessions at OpenWorld 2012

  - by Max Arderius

  Oracle OpenWorld 2012 is almost here! We're looking forward to updating you on our products, strategy, and roadmaps. This year, the E-Business Suite Applications Technology Group (ATG) will participate in 25 speaker sessions, two Meet the Experts round-table discussions, five demoground booths and seven Special Interest Group meetings as guest speakers. We hope to see you at our sessions.  Please join us to hear the latest news and connect with senior ATG development staff. Here's a downloadable listing of all Applications Technology Group-related sessions with times and locations: FOCUS ON Oracle E-Business Suite - Applications Tools and Technology (PDF) General Sessions GEN8474 - Oracle E-Business Suite - Strategy, Update, and RoadmapCliff Godwin, SVP, Oracle Monday, Oct 1, 12:15 PM - 1:15 PM - Moscone West 2002/2004 In this session, hear Oracle E-Business Suite General Manager Cliff Godwin deliver an update on the Oracle E-Business Suite product line. This session covers the value delivered by the current release of Oracle E-Business Suite, the momentum, and how Oracle E-Business Suite applications integrate into Oracle’s overall applications strategy. You’ll come away with an understanding of the value Oracle E-Business Suite applications deliver now and will deliver in the future. GEN9173 - Optimize and Extend Oracle Applications - The Path to Oracle Fusion ApplicationsNadia Bendjedou, Oracle; Corre Curtice, Bhavish Madurai (CSC) Tuesday, Oct 2, 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM - Moscone West 3002/3004 One of the main objectives of this session is to help organizations build their IT roadmap for the next five years and be aligned with the Oracle Applications strategy in general and the Oracle Fusion Applications strategy in particular. Come hear about some of the common sense, practical steps you can take to optimize the performance of your Oracle Applications today and prepare your path to Oracle Fusion Applications for when your organization is ready to embrace them. Each step you take in adopting Oracle Fusion technology gets you partway to Oracle Fusion Applications. Conference Sessions CON9024 - Oracle E-Business Suite Technology: Latest Features and Roadmap Lisa Parekh, Oracle Monday, Oct 1, 10:45 AM - 11:45 AM - Moscone West 2016 This Oracle development session provides a comprehensive overview of Oracle’s product strategy for Oracle E-Business Suite technology, the capabilities and associated business benefits of recent releases, and a review of capabilities on the product roadmap. This is the cornerstone session for the Oracle E-Business Suite technology stack. Come hear about the latest new usability enhancements of the user interface; systems administration and configuration management tools; security-related updates; and tools and options for extending, customizing, and integrating Oracle E-Business Suite with other applications. CON9021 - Oracle E-Business Suite Future Directions: Deployment and System AdministrationMax Arderius, Oracle Monday, Oct 1, 3:15 PM - 4:15 PM - Moscone West 2016  What’s coming in the next major version of Oracle E-Business Suite 12? This Oracle Development session covers the latest technology stack, including the use of Oracle WebLogic Server (Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g) and Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2). Topics include an architectural overview of the latest updates, installation and upgrade options, new configuration options, and new tools for hot cloning and automated “lights-out” cloning. Come learn how online patching (based on the Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Edition-Based Redefinition feature) will reduce your database patching downtimes to however long it takes to bounce your database server. CON9017 - Desktop Integration in Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1 Padmaprabodh Ambale, Gustavo Jimenez, Oracle Monday, Oct 1, 4:45 PM - 5:45 PM - Moscone West 2016 This presentation covers the latest functional enhancements in Oracle Web Applications Desktop Integrator and Oracle Report Manager, enhanced Microsoft Office support, and greater support for building custom desktop integration solutions. The session also presents tips and tricks for upgrading from Oracle Applications Desktop Integrator to Oracle Web Applications Desktop Integrator and Oracle Report Manager. CON9023 - Oracle E-Business Suite Technology Certification Primer and Roadmap Steven Chan, Oracle Tuesday, Oct 2, 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM - Moscone West 2016  Is your Oracle E-Business Suite technology stack up to date? Are you taking advantage of all the latest options and capabilities? This Oracle development session summarizes the latest certifications and roadmap for the Oracle E-Business Suite technology stack, including elements such as database releases and options, Java, Oracle Forms, Oracle Containers for J2EE, desktop operating systems, browsers, JRE releases, development and Web authoring tools, user authentication and management, business intelligence, Oracle Application Management Packs, security options, clouds, Oracle VM, and virtualization. The session also covers the most commonly asked questions about tech stack component support dates and upgrade implications. CON9028 - Minimizing Oracle E-Business Suite Maintenance DowntimesSantiago Bastidas, Elke Phelps, Oracle Tuesday, Oct 2, 11:45 AM - 12:45 PM - Moscone West 2016 This Oracle development session features a survey of the best techniques sysadmins can use to minimize patching downtimes. It starts with an architectural-level review of Oracle E-Business Suite fundamentals and then moves to a practical view of the various tools and approaches for downtimes. Topics include patching shortcuts, merging patches, distributing worker processes across multiple servers, running ADPatch in noninteractive mode, staged APPL_TOPs, shared file systems, deferring systemwide database tasks, avoiding resource bottlenecks, and more. An added bonus: hear about the upcoming Oracle E-Business Suite 12 online patching capabilities based on the groundbreaking Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Edition-Based Redefinition feature. CON9116 - Extending the Use of Oracle E-Business Suite with the Oracle Endeca PlatformOsama Elkady, Muhannad Obeidat, Oracle Tuesday, Oct 2, 11:45 AM - 12:45 PM - Moscone West 2018 The Oracle Endeca platform includes a leading unstructured data correlation and analytics engine, together with a best-in class catalog search and guided navigation solution, to improve the productivity of all types of users in your enterprise. This development session focuses on the details behind the Oracle Endeca platform’s integration into Oracle E-Business Suite. It demonstrates how easily you can extend the use of the Oracle Endeca platform into other areas of Oracle E-Business Suite and how you can bring in your own data and build new Oracle Endeca applications for Oracle E-Business Suite. CON9005 - Oracle E-Business Suite Integration Best PracticesVeshaal Singh, Oracle, Jeffrey Hand, Zebra Technologies Tuesday, Oct 2, 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM - Moscone West 2018 Oracle is investing across applications and technologies to make the application integration experience easier for customers. Today Oracle has certified Oracle E-Business Suite on Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g and provides a comprehensive set of integration technologies. Learn about Oracle’s integration offering across data- and process-centric integrations. These technologies can be used to address various application integration challenges and styles. In this session, you will get an understanding of how, when, and where you can leverage Oracle’s integration technologies to connect end-to-end business processes across your enterprise, including your Oracle Applications portfolio.  CON9026 - Latest Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1 User Interface and Usability EnhancementsPadmaprabodh Ambale, Oracle Tuesday, Oct 2, 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM - Moscone West 2016 This Oracle development session details the latest UI enhancements to Oracle Application Framework in Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1. Developers will get a detailed look at new features to enhance usability, offer more capabilities for personalization and extensions, and support the development and use of dashboards and Web services. Topics include new rich UI capabilities such as new home page features, Navigator and Favorites pull-down menus, REST interface, embedded widgets for analytics content, Oracle Application Development Framework (Oracle ADF) task flows, third-party widgets, a look-ahead list of values, inline attachments, pop-ups, personalization and extensibility enhancements, business layer extensions, Oracle ADF integration, and mobile devices. CON8805 - Planning Your Oracle E-Business Suite Upgrade from 11i to Release 12.1 and BeyondAnne Carlson, Oracle Tuesday, Oct 2, 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM - Moscone West 3002/3004 Attend this session to hear the latest Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1 upgrade planning tips from Oracle’s support, consulting, development, and IT organizations. You’ll get specific cross-product advice on how to understand the factors that affect your project’s duration, decide on your project’s scope, develop a robust testing strategy, leverage Oracle Support resources, and more. In a nutshell, this session tells you things you need to know before embarking upon your Release 12.1 upgrade project. CON9053 - Advanced Management of Oracle E-Business Suite with Oracle Enterprise ManagerAngelo Rosado, Oracle Tuesday, Oct 2, 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM - Moscone West 2016 The task of managing and monitoring Oracle E-Business Suite environments can be very challenging. Oracle Enterprise Manager is the only product on the market that is designed to monitor and manage all the different technologies that constitute Oracle E-Business Suite applications, including end user, midtier, configuration, host, and database management—to name just a few. Customers that have implemented Oracle Enterprise Manager have experienced dramatic improvements in system visibility and diagnostic capability as well as administrator productivity. The purpose of this session is to highlight the key features and benefits of Oracle Enterprise Manager and Oracle Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite. CON8809 - Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1 Upgrade Best Practices: Technical InsightIsam Alyousfi, Udayan Parvate, Oracle Wednesday, Oct 3, 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM - Moscone West 3011 This session is ideal for organizations thinking about upgrading to Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1. It covers the fundamentals of upgrading to Release 12.1, including the technology stack components and supported upgrade paths. Hear from Oracle Development about the set of best practices for patching in general and executing the Release 12.1 technical upgrade, with special considerations for minimizing your downtime. Also get to know about relatively recent upgrade resources. CON9032 - Upgrading Your Customizations of Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1Sara Woodhull, Oracle Wednesday, Oct 3, 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM - Moscone West 2016 Have you personalized Oracle Forms or Oracle Application Framework screens in Oracle E-Business Suite? Have you used mod_plsql in Release 11i? Have you extended or customized your Release 11i environment with other tools? The technical options for upgrading these customizations as part of your Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1 upgrade can be bewildering. Come to this Oracle development session to learn about selecting the best upgrade approach for your existing customizations. The session will help you understand customization scenarios and use cases, tools, and technologies to ensure that your Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1 environment fits your users’ needs closely and that any future customizations will be easy to upgrade. CON9259 - Oracle E-Business Suite Internationalization and Multilingual FeaturesMaher Al-Nubani, Oracle Wednesday, Oct 3, 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM - Moscone West 2018 Oracle E-Business Suite supports more countries, languages, and regions than ever. Come to this Oracle development session to get an overview of internationalization features and capabilities and see new Release 12 features such as calendar support for Hijra and Thai, new group separators, lightweight multilingual support (MLS) setup, new character sets such as AL32UTF, newly supported languages, Mac certifications, Oracle iSetup support for moving MLS setups, new file export options for Unicode, new MLS number spelling options, and more. CON7188 - Mobile Apps for Oracle E-Business Suite with Oracle ADF Mobile and Oracle SOA SuiteSrikant Subramaniam, Joe Huang, Veshaal Singh, Oracle Wednesday, Oct 3, 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM - Moscone West 3001 Follow your mobile customers, employees, and partners with Oracle Fusion Middleware. See how native iPhone and iPad applications can easily be built for Oracle E-Business Suite with the new Oracle ADF Mobile and Oracle SOA Suite. Using Oracle ADF Mobile, developers can quickly develop native applications for Apple iOS and other mobile platforms. The Oracle SOA Suite/Oracle ADF Mobile combination can execute business transactions on Oracle E-Business Suite. This session includes a demo in which a mobile user approves a business transaction in Oracle E-Business Suite and a demo of the tools used to build a native on-device solution. These concepts for mobile applications also apply to other Oracle applications.CON9029 - Oracle E-Business Suite Directions: Slashing Downtimes with Online PatchingKevin Hudson, Oracle Wednesday, Oct 3, 11:45 AM - 12:45 PM - Moscone West 2016 Oracle E-Business Suite will soon include online patching (based on the Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Edition-Based Redefinition feature), which will reduce your database patching downtimes to however long it takes to bounce your database server. This Oracle development session details how online patching works, with special attention to what’s happening at a database object level when database patches are applied to an Oracle E-Business Suite environment that’s still running. Come learn about the operational and system management implications for minimizing maintenance downtimes when applying database patches with this new technology and the related impact on customizations you might have built on top of Oracle E-Business Suite. CON8806 - Upgrading to Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1: Technical and Functional PanelAndrew Katz, Komori America Corporation; Sandra Vucinic, VLAD Group, Inc. ;Srini Chavali, Cummins Inc.; Amrita Mehrok, Nadia Bendjedou, Anne Carlson Oracle Wednesday, Oct 3, 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM - Moscone West 2018 In this panel discussion, Oracle experts, customers, and partners share their experiences in upgrading to the latest release of Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12.1. The panelists cover aspects of a typical Release 12 upgrade, technical (upgrading the technical infrastructure) as well as functional (upgrading to the new financial infrastructure). Hear directly from the experts who either develop the product or support, implement, or upgrade it, and find out how to apply their lessons learned to your organization. CON9027 - Personalize and Extend Oracle E-Business Suite Applications with Rich MashupsGustavo Jimenez, Padmaprabodh Ambale, Oracle Wednesday, Oct 3, 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM - Moscone West 2016 This session covers the use of several Oracle Fusion Middleware technologies to personalize and extend your existing Oracle E-Business Suite applications. The Oracle Fusion Middleware technologies covered include Oracle Application Development Framework (Oracle ADF), Oracle WebCenter, Oracle Endeca applications, and Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition with Oracle E-Business Suite Oracle Application Framework applications. CON9036 - Advanced Oracle E-Business Suite Architectures: Maximum Availability, Security, and MoreElke Phelps, Oracle Wednesday, Oct 3, 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM - Moscone West 2016 This session includes architecture diagrams and configuration instructions for building a maximum availability architecture (MAA) that will help you design a disaster recovery solution that fits the needs of your business. Database and application high-availability features it describes include Oracle Data Guard, Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC), Oracle Active Data Guard, load-balancing Web and forms services, parallel concurrent processing, and the use of Oracle Exalogic and Oracle Exadata to provide a highly available environment. The session also covers the latest updates to systems management tools, AutoConfig, cloud computing, virtualization, and Oracle WebLogic Server and provides sneak previews of upcoming functionality. CON9047 - Efficiently Scaling Oracle E-Business Suite on Oracle Exadata and Oracle ExalogicIsam Alyousfi, Nishit Rao, Oracle Wednesday, Oct 3, 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM - Moscone West 2016 Oracle Exadata and Oracle Exalogic are designed from the ground up with optimizations in software and hardware to deliver superfast performance for mission-critical applications such as Oracle E-Business Suite. Oracle E-Business Suite applications run three to eight times as fast on the Oracle Exadata/Oracle Exalogic platform in standard benchmark tests. Besides performance, customers benefit from simplified support, enhanced manageability, and the ability to consolidate multiple Oracle E-Business Suite instances. Attend this session to understand best practices for Oracle E-Business Suite deployment on Oracle Exalogic and Oracle Exadata through customer case studies. Learn how adopting the Exa* platform increases efficiency, simplifies scaling, and boosts performance for peak loads. CON8716 - Web Services and SOA Integration Options for Oracle E-Business SuiteRekha Ayothi, Veshaal Singh, Oracle Thursday, Oct 4, 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM - Moscone West 2016 This Oracle development session provides a deep dive into a subset of the Web services and SOA-related integration options available to Oracle E-Business Suite systems integrators. It offers a technical look at Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway, Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle Application Adapters for Data Integration for Oracle E-Business Suite, and other Web services options for integrating Oracle E-Business Suite with other applications. Systems integrators and developers will get an overview of the latest integration capabilities and technologies available out of the box with Oracle E-Business Suite and possibly a sneak preview of upcoming functionality and features. CON9030 - Recommendations for Oracle E-Business Suite Performance TuningIsam Alyousfi, Samer Barakat, Oracle Thursday, Oct 4, 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM - Moscone West 2018 Need to squeeze more performance out of your existing servers? This packed Oracle development session summarizes practical tips and lessons learned from performance-tuning and benchmarking the world’s largest Oracle E-Business Suite environments. Apps sysadmins will learn concrete tips and techniques for identifying and resolving performance bottlenecks on all layers, with special attention to application- and database-tier servers. Learn about tuning Oracle Forms, Oracle Concurrent Manager, Apache, and Oracle Discoverer. Track down memory leaks and other issues at the Java and JVM layers. The session also covers Oracle E-Business Suite product-level tuning, including Oracle Workflow, Oracle Order Management, Oracle Payroll, and other modules. CON3429 - Using Oracle ADF with Oracle E-Business Suite: The Full Integration ViewSiva Puthurkattil, Lake County; Juan Camilo Ruiz, Sara Woodhull, Oracle Thursday, Oct 4, 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM - Moscone West 3003 Oracle E-Business Suite delivers functionality for handling the core business of your organization. However, user requirements and new technologies are driving an emerging need to implement new types of user interfaces for these applications. This session provides an overview of how to use Oracle Application Development Framework (Oracle ADF) to deliver cutting-edge Web 2.0 and mobile rich user interfaces that front existing Oracle E-Business Suite processes, and it also explores all the existing types of integration between the two worlds. CON9020 - Integrating Oracle E-Business Suite with Oracle Identity Management SolutionsSunil Ghosh, Elke Phelps, Oracle Thursday, Oct 4, 12:45 PM - 1:45 PM - Moscone West 2016 Need to integrate Oracle E-Business Suite with Microsoft Windows Kerberos, Active Directory, CA Netegrity SiteMinder, or other third-party authentication systems? Want to understand your options when Oracle Premier Support for Oracle Single Sign-On ends in December 2011? This Oracle Development session covers the latest certified integrations with Oracle Access Manager 11g and Oracle Internet Directory 11g, which can be used individually or as bridges for integrating with third-party authentication solutions. The session presents an architectural overview of how Oracle Access Manager, its WebGate and AccessGate components, and Oracle Internet Directory work together, with implications for Oracle Discoverer, Oracle Portal, and other Oracle Fusion identity management products. CON9019 - Troubleshooting, Diagnosing, and Optimizing Oracle E-Business Suite TechnologyGustavo Jimenez, Oracle Thursday, Oct 4, 2:15 PM - 3:15 PM - Moscone West 2016 This session covers how you can proactively diagnose Oracle E-Business Suite applications, including extensions built with Oracle Fusion Middleware technologies such as Oracle Application Development Framework (Oracle ADF) and Oracle WebCenter to catch potential issues in the middle tier before they become more serious. Topics include debugging, logging infrastructure, warning signs, performance tuning, information required when logging service requests, general JVM optimization, and an overall picture of all the moving parts that make it possible for Oracle E-Business Suite to isolate and fix problems. Also learn how Oracle Diagnostics Framework will help prevent downtime caused by failures. CON9031 - The Top 10 Things You Can Do to Secure Your Oracle E-Business Suite InstanceEric Bing, Erik Graversen, Oracle Thursday, Oct 4, 2:15 PM - 3:15 PM - Moscone West 2018 Learn the top 10 things you can do to secure your applications and your sensitive data. This Oracle development session for system administrators and security professionals explores some of the most important and overlooked things you can do to secure your Oracle E-Business Suite instance. It also covers data masking and other mechanisms for protecting sensitive data. Special Interest Groups (SIG) Some of our most senior staff have been invited to participate on the following SIG meetings as guest speakers: SIG10525 - OAUG - Archive & Purge SIGBrian Bent - Pre-Sales Engineer, TierData, Inc. Sunday, Sep 30, 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM - Moscone West 3011 The Archive and Purge SIG is an organization in which users can share their experiences and solicit functional and technical advice on archiving and purging data in Oracle E-Business Suite. This session provides an opportunity for users to network and share best practices, tips, and tricks. Guest: Oracle E-Business Suite Database Performance, Archive & Purging - Q&A SessionIsam Alyousfi, Senior Director, Applications Performance, Oracle SIG10547 - OAUG - Oracle E-Business (EBS) Applications Technology SIGSrini Chavali - IT Director, Cummins Inc Sunday, Sep 30, 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM - Moscone West 3018 The general purpose of the EBS Applications Technology SIG is to inform and educate its members about current and future components of the tech stack as they relate to Oracle E-Business Suite. Attend this meeting for networking and education and to share best practices. Guest: Oracle E-Business Suite Technology Certification Roadmap - Presentation and Q&ASteven Chan, Sr. Director, Applications Technology Group, Oracle SIG10559 - OAUG - User Management SIGSusan Behn - VP of Oracle Delivery, Infosemantics, Inc. Sunday, Sep 30, 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM - Moscone West 3024 The E-Business Suite User Management SIG focuses on the components of user management that enable Oracle E-Business Suite users to define administrative functions and manage users’ access to functions and data based on roles within an organization—rather than the user’s individual identity—which is referred to as role-based access control (RBAC). This meeting includes an introduction to Oracle User Management that covers the Oracle User Management building blocks and presents an example of creating a security policy.Guest: Security and User Management - Q&A SessionEric Bing, Sr. Director, EBS Security, OracleSara Woodhull, Principal Product Manager, Applications Technology Group, Oracle SIG10515 - OAUG – Upgrade SIGBarbara Matthews - Consultant, On Call DBASandra Vucinic, VLAD Group, Inc. Sunday, Sep 30, 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM - Moscone West 3009 This Upgrade SIG session starts with a business meeting and then features a Q&A panel discussion on Oracle E-Business Suite upgrade topics. The session• Reviews Upgrade SIG goals and objectives• Provides answers, during the Q&A session, to questions related to Oracle E-Business Suite upgrades• Shares “real world” experiences, tips, and techniques for Oracle E-Business Suite upgrades to Release 12.1. Guest: Oracle E-Business Suite Upgrade - Q&A SessionAnne Carlson - Sr. Director, Oracle E-Business Suite Product Strategy, OracleUdayan Parvate - Director, EBS Release Engineering, OracleSuzana Ferrari, Sr. Principal Consultant, OracleIsam Alyousfi, Sr. Director, Applications Performance, Oracle SIG10552 - OAUG - Oracle E-Business Suite SIGDonna Rosentrater - Manager, Global Sourcing & Procurement Systems, TJX Sunday, Sep 30, 12:15 PM - 1:45 PM - Moscone West 3020 The E-Business Suite SIG, affiliated with OAUG, supports Oracle E-Business Suite users through networking, education, and sharing of best practices. This SIG meeting will feature a general discussion of Oracle E-Business Suite product strategies in Release 12 and migration to Oracle Fusion Applications. Guest: Oracle E-Business Suite - Q&A SessionJeanne Lowell, Vice President, EBS Product Strategy, OracleNadia Bendjedou, Sr. Director, Product Strategy, Oracle SIG10556 - OAUG - SysAdmin SIGRandy Giefer - Sr Systems and Security Architect, Solution Beacon, LLC Sunday, Sep 30, 12:15 PM - 1:45 PM - Moscone West 3022 The SysAdmin SIG provides a forum in which OAUG members and participants can share updates, tips, and successful practices relating to system administration in an Oracle applications environment. The SysAdmin SIG strives to enable system administrators to become more effective and efficient in their jobs by providing them with access to people and information that can increase their system administration knowledge and experience. Attend this meeting to network, share best practices, and benefit from educational content. Guest: Oracle E-Business Suite 12.2 Online Patching- Presentation and Q&AKevin Hudson, Sr. Director, Applications Technology Group, Oracle SIG10553 - OAUG - Database SIGMichael Brown - Senior DBA, COLIBRI LTD LC Sunday, Sep 30, 2:00 PM - 3:15 PM - Moscone West 3020 The OAUG Database SIG provides an opportunity for applications database administrators to learn from and share their experiences with supporting the various Oracle applications environments. This session will include a brief business meeting followed by a short presentation. It will end with an open discussion among the attendees about items of interest to those present. Guest: Oracle E-Business Suite Database Performance - Presentation and Q&AIsam Alyousfi, Sr. Director, Applications Performance, Oracle Meet the Experts We're planning two round-table discussions where you can review your questions with senior E-Business Suite ATG staff: MTE9648 - Meet the Experts for Oracle E-Business Suite: Planning Your Upgrade Jeanne Lowell - VP, EBS Product Strategy, Oracle John Abraham - Sr. Principal Product Manager, Oracle Nadia Bendjedou - Sr. Director - Product Strategy, Oracle Anne Carlson - Sr. Director, Applications Technology Group, Oracle Udayan Parvate - Director, EBS Release Engineering, Oracle Isam Alyousfi, Sr. Director, Applications Performance, Oracle Monday, Oct 1, 3:15 PM - 4:15 PM - Moscone West 2001A Don’t miss this Oracle Applications Meet the Experts session with experts who specialize in Oracle E-Business Suite upgrade best practices. This is the place where attendees can have informal and semistructured but open one-on-one discussions with Strategy and Development regarding Oracle Applications strategy and your specific business and IT strategy. The experts will be available to discuss the value of the latest releases and share insights into the best path for your enterprise, so come ready with your questions. Space is limited, so make sure you register. MTE9649 - Meet the Oracle E-Business Suite Tools and Technology Experts Lisa Parekh - Vice President, Technology Integration, Oracle Steven Chan - Sr. Director, Oracle Elke Phelps - Sr. Principal Product Manager, Applications Technology Group, Oracle Max Arderius - Manager, Applications Technology Group, Oracle Tuesday, Oct 2, 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM - Moscone West 2001A Don’t miss this Oracle Applications Meet the Experts session with experts who specialize in Oracle E-Business Suite technology. This is the place where attendees can have informal and semistructured but open one-on-one discussions with Strategy and Development regarding Oracle Applications strategy and your specific business and IT strategy. The experts will be available to discuss the value of the latest releases and share insights into the best path for your enterprise, so come ready with your questions. Space is limited, so make sure you register. Demos We have five booths in the exhibition demogrounds this year, where you can try ATG technologies firsthand and get your questions answered. Please stop by and meet our staff at the following locations: Advanced Architecture and Technology Stack for Oracle E-Business Suite (W-067) New User Productivity Capabilities in Oracle E-Business Suite (W-065) End-to-End Management of Oracle E-Business Suite (W-063) Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1 Technical Upgrade Best Practices (W-066) SOA-Based Integration for Oracle E-Business Suite (W-064)

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• Metro: Declarative Data Binding

  - by Stephen.Walther

  The goal of this blog post is to describe how declarative data binding works in the WinJS library. In particular, you learn how to use both the data-win-bind and data-win-bindsource attributes. You also learn how to use calculated properties and converters to format the value of a property automatically when performing data binding. By taking advantage of WinJS data binding, you can use the Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) pattern when building Metro style applications with JavaScript. By using the MVVM pattern, you can prevent your JavaScript code from spinning into chaos. The MVVM pattern provides you with a standard pattern for organizing your JavaScript code which results in a more maintainable application. Using Declarative Bindings You can use the data-win-bind attribute with any HTML element in a page. The data-win-bind attribute enables you to bind (associate) an attribute of an HTML element to the value of a property. Imagine, for example, that you want to create a product details page. You want to show a product object in a page. In that case, you can create the following HTML page to display the product details: <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <title>Application1</title> <!-- WinJS references --> <link href="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/css/ui-dark.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/base.js"></script> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/ui.js"></script> <!-- Application1 references --> <link href="/css/default.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="/js/default.js"></script> </head> <body> <h1>Product Details</h1> <div class="field"> Product Name: <span data-win-bind="innerText:name"></span> </div> <div class="field"> Product Price: <span data-win-bind="innerText:price"></span> </div> <div class="field"> Product Picture: <br /> <img data-win-bind="src:photo;alt:name" /> </div> </body> </html> The HTML page above contains three data-win-bind attributes – one attribute for each product property displayed. You use the data-win-bind attribute to set properties of the HTML element associated with the data-win-attribute. The data-win-bind attribute takes a semicolon delimited list of element property names and data source property names: data-win-bind=”elementPropertyName:datasourcePropertyName; elementPropertyName:datasourcePropertyName;…” In the HTML page above, the first two data-win-bind attributes are used to set the values of the innerText property of the SPAN elements. The last data-win-bind attribute is used to set the values of the IMG element’s src and alt attributes. By the way, using data-win-bind attributes is perfectly valid HTML5. The HTML5 standard enables you to add custom attributes to an HTML document just as long as the custom attributes start with the prefix data-. So you can add custom attributes to an HTML5 document with names like data-stephen, data-funky, or data-rover-dog-is-hungry and your document will validate. The product object displayed in the page above with the data-win-bind attributes is created in the default.js file: (function () { "use strict"; var app = WinJS.Application; app.onactivated = function (eventObject) { if (eventObject.detail.kind === Windows.ApplicationModel.Activation.ActivationKind.launch) { var product = { name: "Tesla", price: 80000, photo: "/images/TeslaPhoto.png" }; WinJS.Binding.processAll(null, product); } }; app.start(); })(); In the code above, a product object is created with a name, price, and photo property. The WinJS.Binding.processAll() method is called to perform the actual binding (Don’t confuse WinJS.Binding.processAll() and WinJS.UI.processAll() – these are different methods). The first parameter passed to the processAll() method represents the root element for the binding. In other words, binding happens on this element and its child elements. If you provide the value null, then binding happens on the entire body of the document (document.body). The second parameter represents the data context. This is the object that has the properties which are displayed with the data-win-bind attributes. In the code above, the product object is passed as the data context parameter. Another word for data context is view model.  Creating Complex View Models In the previous section, we used the data-win-bind attribute to display the properties of a simple object: a single product. However, you can use binding with more complex view models including view models which represent multiple objects. For example, the view model in the following default.js file represents both a customer and a product object. Furthermore, the customer object has a nested address object: (function () { "use strict"; var app = WinJS.Application; app.onactivated = function (eventObject) { if (eventObject.detail.kind === Windows.ApplicationModel.Activation.ActivationKind.launch) { var viewModel = { customer: { firstName: "Fred", lastName: "Flintstone", address: { street: "1 Rocky Way", city: "Bedrock", country: "USA" } }, product: { name: "Bowling Ball", price: 34.55 } }; WinJS.Binding.processAll(null, viewModel); } }; app.start(); })(); The following page displays the customer (including the customer address) and the product. Notice that you can use dot notation to refer to child objects in a view model such as customer.address.street. <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <title>Application1</title> <!-- WinJS references --> <link href="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/css/ui-dark.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/base.js"></script> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/ui.js"></script> <!-- Application1 references --> <link href="/css/default.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="/js/default.js"></script> </head> <body> <h1>Customer Details</h1> <div class="field"> First Name: <span data-win-bind="innerText:customer.firstName"></span> </div> <div class="field"> Last Name: <span data-win-bind="innerText:customer.lastName"></span> </div> <div class="field"> Address: <address> <span data-win-bind="innerText:customer.address.street"></span> <br /> <span data-win-bind="innerText:customer.address.city"></span> <br /> <span data-win-bind="innerText:customer.address.country"></span> </address> </div> <h1>Product</h1> <div class="field"> Name: <span data-win-bind="innerText:product.name"></span> </div> <div class="field"> Price: <span data-win-bind="innerText:product.price"></span> </div> </body> </html> A view model can be as complicated as you need and you can bind the view model to a view (an HTML document) by using declarative bindings. Creating Calculated Properties You might want to modify a property before displaying the property. For example, you might want to format the product price property before displaying the property. You don’t want to display the raw product price “80000”. Instead, you want to display the formatted price “$80,000”. You also might need to combine multiple properties. For example, you might need to display the customer full name by combining the values of the customer first and last name properties. In these situations, it is tempting to call a function when performing binding. For example, you could create a function named fullName() which concatenates the customer first and last name. Unfortunately, the WinJS library does not support the following syntax: <span data-win-bind=”innerText:fullName()”></span> Instead, in these situations, you should create a new property in your view model that has a getter. For example, the customer object in the following default.js file includes a property named fullName which combines the values of the firstName and lastName properties: (function () { "use strict"; var app = WinJS.Application; app.onactivated = function (eventObject) { if (eventObject.detail.kind === Windows.ApplicationModel.Activation.ActivationKind.launch) { var customer = { firstName: "Fred", lastName: "Flintstone", get fullName() { return this.firstName + " " + this.lastName; } }; WinJS.Binding.processAll(null, customer); } }; app.start(); })(); The customer object has a firstName, lastName, and fullName property. Notice that the fullName property is defined with a getter function. When you read the fullName property, the values of the firstName and lastName properties are concatenated and returned. The following HTML page displays the fullName property in an H1 element. You can use the fullName property in a data-win-bind attribute in exactly the same way as any other property. <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <title>Application1</title> <!-- WinJS references --> <link href="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/css/ui-dark.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/base.js"></script> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/ui.js"></script> <!-- Application1 references --> <link href="/css/default.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="/js/default.js"></script> </head> <body> <h1 data-win-bind="innerText:fullName"></h1> <div class="field"> First Name: <span data-win-bind="innerText:firstName"></span> </div> <div class="field"> Last Name: <span data-win-bind="innerText:lastName"></span> </div> </body> </html> Creating a Converter In the previous section, you learned how to format the value of a property by creating a property with a getter. This approach makes sense when the formatting logic is specific to a particular view model. If, on the other hand, you need to perform the same type of formatting for multiple view models then it makes more sense to create a converter function. A converter function is a function which you can apply whenever you are using the data-win-bind attribute. Imagine, for example, that you want to create a general function for displaying dates. You always want to display dates using a short format such as 12/25/1988. The following JavaScript file – named converters.js – contains a shortDate() converter: (function (WinJS) { var shortDate = WinJS.Binding.converter(function (date) { return date.getMonth() + 1 + "/" + date.getDate() + "/" + date.getFullYear(); }); // Export shortDate WinJS.Namespace.define("MyApp.Converters", { shortDate: shortDate }); })(WinJS); The file above uses the Module Pattern, a pattern which is used through the WinJS library. To learn more about the Module Pattern, see my blog entry on namespaces and modules: http://stephenwalther.com/blog/archive/2012/02/22/windows-web-applications-namespaces-and-modules.aspx The file contains the definition for a converter function named shortDate(). This function converts a JavaScript date object into a short date string such as 12/1/1988. The converter function is created with the help of the WinJS.Binding.converter() method. This method takes a normal function and converts it into a converter function. Finally, the shortDate() converter is added to the MyApp.Converters namespace. You can call the shortDate() function by calling MyApp.Converters.shortDate(). The default.js file contains the customer object that we want to bind. Notice that the customer object has a firstName, lastName, and birthday property. We will use our new shortDate() converter when displaying the customer birthday property: (function () { "use strict"; var app = WinJS.Application; app.onactivated = function (eventObject) { if (eventObject.detail.kind === Windows.ApplicationModel.Activation.ActivationKind.launch) { var customer = { firstName: "Fred", lastName: "Flintstone", birthday: new Date("12/1/1988") }; WinJS.Binding.processAll(null, customer); } }; app.start(); })(); We actually use our shortDate converter in the HTML document. The following HTML document displays all of the customer properties: <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <title>Application1</title> <!-- WinJS references --> <link href="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/css/ui-dark.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/base.js"></script> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/ui.js"></script> <!-- Application1 references --> <link href="/css/default.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="/js/default.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="js/converters.js"></script> </head> <body> <h1>Customer Details</h1> <div class="field"> First Name: <span data-win-bind="innerText:firstName"></span> </div> <div class="field"> Last Name: <span data-win-bind="innerText:lastName"></span> </div> <div class="field"> Birthday: <span data-win-bind="innerText:birthday MyApp.Converters.shortDate"></span> </div> </body> </html> Notice the data-win-bind attribute used to display the birthday property. It looks like this: <span data-win-bind="innerText:birthday MyApp.Converters.shortDate"></span> The shortDate converter is applied to the birthday property when the birthday property is bound to the SPAN element’s innerText property. Using data-win-bindsource Normally, you pass the view model (the data context) which you want to use with the data-win-bind attributes in a page by passing the view model to the WinJS.Binding.processAll() method like this: WinJS.Binding.processAll(null, viewModel); As an alternative, you can specify the view model declaratively in your markup by using the data-win-datasource attribute. For example, the following default.js script exposes a view model with the fully-qualified name of MyWinWebApp.viewModel: (function () { "use strict"; var app = WinJS.Application; app.onactivated = function (eventObject) { if (eventObject.detail.kind === Windows.ApplicationModel.Activation.ActivationKind.launch) { // Create view model var viewModel = { customer: { firstName: "Fred", lastName: "Flintstone" }, product: { name: "Bowling Ball", price: 12.99 } }; // Export view model to be seen by universe WinJS.Namespace.define("MyWinWebApp", { viewModel: viewModel }); // Process data-win-bind attributes WinJS.Binding.processAll(); } }; app.start(); })(); In the code above, a view model which represents a customer and a product is exposed as MyWinWebApp.viewModel. The following HTML page illustrates how you can use the data-win-bindsource attribute to bind to this view model: <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <title>Application1</title> <!-- WinJS references --> <link href="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/css/ui-dark.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/base.js"></script> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/ui.js"></script> <!-- Application1 references --> <link href="/css/default.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="/js/default.js"></script> </head> <body> <h1>Customer Details</h1> <div data-win-bindsource="MyWinWebApp.viewModel.customer"> <div class="field"> First Name: <span data-win-bind="innerText:firstName"></span> </div> <div class="field"> Last Name: <span data-win-bind="innerText:lastName"></span> </div> </div> <h1>Product</h1> <div data-win-bindsource="MyWinWebApp.viewModel.product"> <div class="field"> Name: <span data-win-bind="innerText:name"></span> </div> <div class="field"> Price: <span data-win-bind="innerText:price"></span> </div> </div> </body> </html> The data-win-bindsource attribute is used twice in the page above: it is used with the DIV element which contains the customer details and it is used with the DIV element which contains the product details. If an element has a data-win-bindsource attribute then all of the child elements of that element are affected. The data-win-bind attributes of all of the child elements are bound to the data source represented by the data-win-bindsource attribute. Summary The focus of this blog entry was data binding using the WinJS library. You learned how to use the data-win-bind attribute to bind the properties of an HTML element to a view model. We also discussed several advanced features of data binding. We examined how to create calculated properties by including a property with a getter in your view model. We also discussed how you can create a converter function to format the value of a view model property when binding the property. Finally, you learned how to use the data-win-bindsource attribute to specify a view model declaratively.

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• Guidance: A Branching strategy for Scrum Teams

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  Having a good branching strategy will save your bacon, or at least your code. Be careful when deviating from your branching strategy because if you do, you may be worse off than when you started! This is one possible branching strategy for Scrum teams and I will not be going in depth with Scrum but you can find out more about Scrum by reading the Scrum Guide and you can even assess your Scrum knowledge by having a go at the Scrum Open Assessment. You can also read SSW’s Rules to Better Scrum using TFS which have been developed during our own Scrum implementations. Acknowledgements Bill Heys – Bill offered some good feedback on this post and helped soften the language. Note: Bill is a VS ALM Ranger and co-wrote the Branching Guidance for TFS 2010 Willy-Peter Schaub – Willy-Peter is an ex Visual Studio ALM MVP turned blue badge and has been involved in most of the guidance including the Branching Guidance for TFS 2010 Chris Birmele – Chris wrote some of the early TFS Branching and Merging Guidance. Dr Paul Neumeyer, Ph.D Parallel Processes, ScrumMaster and SSW Solution Architect – Paul wanted to have feature branches coming from the release branch as well. We agreed that this is really a spin-off that needs own project, backlog, budget and Team. Scenario: A product is developed RTM 1.0 is released and gets great sales.  Extra features are demanded but the new version will have double to price to pay to recover costs, work is approved by the guys with budget and a few sprints later RTM 2.0 is released.  Sales a very low due to the pricing strategy. There are lots of clients on RTM 1.0 calling out for patches. As I keep getting Reverse Integration and Forward Integration mixed up and Bill keeps slapping my wrists I thought I should have a reminder: You still seemed to use reverse and/or forward integration in the wrong context. I would recommend reviewing your document at the end to ensure that it agrees with the common understanding of these terms merge (forward integration) from parent to child (same direction as the branch), and merge  (reverse integration) from child to parent (the reverse direction of the branch). - one of my many slaps on the wrist from Bill Heys.   As I mentioned previously we are using a single feature branching strategy in our current project. The single biggest mistake developers make is developing against the “Main” or “Trunk” line. This ultimately leads to messy code as things are added and never finished. Your only alternative is to NEVER check in unless your code is 100%, but this does not work in practice, even with a single developer. Your ADD will kick in and your half-finished code will be finished enough to pass the build and the tests. You do use builds don’t you? Sadly, this is a very common scenario and I have had people argue that branching merely adds complexity. Then again I have seen the other side of the universe ... branching  structures from he... We should somehow convince everyone that there is a happy between no-branching and too-much-branching. - Willy-Peter Schaub, VS ALM Ranger, Microsoft   A key benefit of branching for development is to isolate changes from the stable Main branch. Branching adds sanity more than it adds complexity. We do try to stress in our guidance that it is important to justify a branch, by doing a cost benefit analysis. The primary cost is the effort to do merges and resolve conflicts. A key benefit is that you have a stable code base in Main and accept changes into Main only after they pass quality gates, etc. - Bill Heys, VS ALM Ranger & TFS Branching Lead, Microsoft The second biggest mistake developers make is branching anything other than the WHOLE “Main” line. If you branch parts of your code and not others it gets out of sync and can make integration a nightmare. You should have your Source, Assets, Build scripts deployment scripts and dependencies inside the “Main” folder and branch the whole thing. Some departments within MSFT even go as far as to add the environments used to develop the product in there as well; although I would not recommend that unless you have a massive SQL cluster to house your source code. We tried the “add environment” back in South-Africa and while it was “phenomenal”, especially when having to switch between environments, the disk storage and processing requirements killed us. We opted for virtualization to skin this cat of keeping a ready-to-go environment handy. - Willy-Peter Schaub, VS ALM Ranger, Microsoft   I think people often think that you should have separate branches for separate environments (e.g. Dev, Test, Integration Test, QA, etc.). I prefer to think of deploying to environments (such as from Main to QA) rather than branching for QA). - Bill Heys, VS ALM Ranger & TFS Branching Lead, Microsoft   You can read about SSW’s Rules to better Source Control for some additional information on what Source Control to use and how to use it. There are also a number of branching Anti-Patterns that should be avoided at all costs: You know you are on the wrong track if you experience one or more of the following symptoms in your development environment: Merge Paranoia—avoiding merging at all cost, usually because of a fear of the consequences. Merge Mania—spending too much time merging software assets instead of developing them. Big Bang Merge—deferring branch merging to the end of the development effort and attempting to merge all branches simultaneously. Never-Ending Merge—continuous merging activity because there is always more to merge. Wrong-Way Merge—merging a software asset version with an earlier version. Branch Mania—creating many branches for no apparent reason. Cascading Branches—branching but never merging back to the main line. Mysterious Branches—branching for no apparent reason. Temporary Branches—branching for changing reasons, so the branch becomes a permanent temporary workspace. Volatile Branches—branching with unstable software assets shared by other branches or merged into another branch. Note   Branches are volatile most of the time while they exist as independent branches. That is the point of having them. The difference is that you should not share or merge branches while they are in an unstable state. Development Freeze—stopping all development activities while branching, merging, and building new base lines. Berlin Wall—using branches to divide the development team members, instead of dividing the work they are performing. -Branching and Merging Primer by Chris Birmele - Developer Tools Technical Specialist at Microsoft Pty Ltd in Australia   In fact, this can result in a merge exercise no-one wants to be involved in, merging hundreds of thousands of change sets and trying to get a consolidated build. Again, we need to find a happy medium. - Willy-Peter Schaub on Merge Paranoia Merge conflicts are generally the result of making changes to the same file in both the target and source branch. If you create merge conflicts, you will eventually need to resolve them. Often the resolution is manual. Merging more frequently allows you to resolve these conflicts close to when they happen, making the resolution clearer. Waiting weeks or months to resolve them, the Big Bang approach, means you are more likely to resolve conflicts incorrectly. - Bill Heys, VS ALM Ranger & TFS Branching Lead, Microsoft   Figure: Main line, this is where your stable code lives and where any build has known entities, always passes and has a happy test that passes as well? Many development projects consist of, a single “Main” line of source and artifacts. This is good; at least there is source control . There are however a couple of issues that need to be considered. What happens if: you and your team are working on a new set of features and the customer wants a change to his current version? you are working on two features and the customer decides to abandon one of them? you have two teams working on different feature sets and their changes start interfering with each other? I just use labels instead of branches? That's a lot of “what if’s”, but there is a simple way of preventing this. Branching… In TFS, labels are not immutable. This does not mean they are not useful. But labels do not provide a very good development isolation mechanism. Branching allows separate code sets to evolve separately (e.g. Current with hotfixes, and vNext with new development). I don’t see how labels work here. - Bill Heys, VS ALM Ranger & TFS Branching Lead, Microsoft   Figure: Creating a single feature branch means you can isolate the development work on that branch.   Its standard practice for large projects with lots of developers to use Feature branching and you can check the Branching Guidance for the latest recommendations from the Visual Studio ALM Rangers for other methods. In the diagram above you can see my recommendation for branching when using Scrum development with TFS 2010. It consists of a single Sprint branch to contain all the changes for the current sprint. The main branch has the permissions changes so contributors to the project can only Branch and Merge with “Main”. This will prevent accidental check-ins or checkouts of the “Main” line that would contaminate the code. The developers continue to develop on sprint one until the completion of the sprint. Note: In the real world, starting a new Greenfield project, this process starts at Sprint 2 as at the start of Sprint 1 you would have artifacts in version control and no need for isolation.   Figure: Once the sprint is complete the Sprint 1 code can then be merged back into the Main line. There are always good practices to follow, and one is to always do a Forward Integration from Main into Sprint 1 before you do a Reverse Integration from Sprint 1 back into Main. In this case it may seem superfluous, but this builds good muscle memory into your developer’s work ethic and means that no bad habits are learned that would interfere with additional Scrum Teams being added to the Product. The process of completing your sprint development: The Team completes their work according to their definition of done. Merge from “Main” into “Sprint1” (Forward Integration) Stabilize your code with any changes coming from other Scrum Teams working on the same product. If you have one Scrum Team this should be quick, but there may have been bug fixes in the Release branches. (we will talk about release branches later) Merge from “Sprint1” into “Main” to commit your changes. (Reverse Integration) Check-in Delete the Sprint1 branch Note: The Sprint 1 branch is no longer required as its useful life has been concluded. Check-in Done But you are not yet done with the Sprint. The goal in Scrum is to have a “potentially shippable product” at the end of every Sprint, and we do not have that yet, we only have finished code.   Figure: With Sprint 1 merged you can create a Release branch and run your final packaging and testing In 99% of all projects I have been involved in or watched, a “shippable product” only happens towards the end of the overall lifecycle, especially when sprints are short. The in-between releases are great demonstration releases, but not shippable. Perhaps it comes from my 80’s brain washing that we only ship when we reach the agreed quality and business feature bar. - Willy-Peter Schaub, VS ALM Ranger, Microsoft Although you should have been testing and packaging your code all the way through your Sprint 1 development, preferably using an automated process, you still need to test and package with stable unchanging code. This is where you do what at SSW we call a “Test Please”. This is first an internal test of the product to make sure it meets the needs of the customer and you generally use a resource external to your Team. Then a “Test Please” is conducted with the Product Owner to make sure he is happy with the output. You can read about how to conduct a Test Please on our Rules to Successful Projects: Do you conduct an internal "test please" prior to releasing a version to a client?   Figure: If you find a deviation from the expected result you fix it on the Release branch. If during your final testing or your “Test Please” you find there are issues or bugs then you should fix them on the release branch. If you can’t fix them within the time box of your Sprint, then you will need to create a Bug and put it onto the backlog for prioritization by the Product owner. Make sure you leave plenty of time between your merge from the development branch to find and fix any problems that are uncovered. This process is commonly called Stabilization and should always be conducted once you have completed all of your User Stories and integrated all of your branches. Even once you have stabilized and released, you should not delete the release branch as you would with the Sprint branch. It has a usefulness for servicing that may extend well beyond the limited life you expect of it. Note: Don't get forced by the business into adding features into a Release branch instead that indicates the unspoken requirement is that they are asking for a product spin-off. In this case you can create a new Team Project and branch from the required Release branch to create a new Main branch for that product. And you create a whole new backlog to work from.   Figure: When the Team decides it is happy with the product you can create a RTM branch. Once you have fixed all the bugs you can, and added any you can’t to the Product Backlog, and you Team is happy with the result you can create a Release. This would consist of doing the final Build and Packaging it up ready for your Sprint Review meeting. You would then create a read-only branch that represents the code you “shipped”. This is really an Audit trail branch that is optional, but is good practice. You could use a Label, but Labels are not Auditable and if a dispute was raised by the customer you can produce a verifiable version of the source code for an independent party to check. Rare I know, but you do not want to be at the wrong end of a legal battle. Like the Release branch the RTM branch should never be deleted, or only deleted according to your companies legal policy, which in the UK is usually 7 years.   Figure: If you have made any changes in the Release you will need to merge back up to Main in order to finalise the changes. Nothing is really ever done until it is in Main. The same rules apply when merging any fixes in the Release branch back into Main and you should do a reverse merge before a forward merge, again for the muscle memory more than necessity at this stage. Your Sprint is now nearly complete, and you can have a Sprint Review meeting knowing that you have made every effort and taken every precaution to protect your customer’s investment. Note: In order to really achieve protection for both you and your client you would add Automated Builds, Automated Tests, Automated Acceptance tests, Acceptance test tracking, Unit Tests, Load tests, Web test and all the other good engineering practices that help produce reliable software.     Figure: After the Sprint Planning meeting the process begins again. Where the Sprint Review and Retrospective meetings mark the end of the Sprint, the Sprint Planning meeting marks the beginning. After you have completed your Sprint Planning and you know what you are trying to achieve in Sprint 2 you can create your new Branch to develop in. How do we handle a bug(s) in production that can’t wait? Although in Scrum the only work done should be on the backlog there should be a little buffer added to the Sprint Planning for contingencies. One of these contingencies is a bug in the current release that can’t wait for the Sprint to finish. But how do you handle that? Willy-Peter Schaub asked an excellent question on the release activities: In reality Sprint 2 starts when sprint 1 ends + weekend. Should we not cater for a possible parallelism between Sprint 2 and the release activities of sprint 1? It would introduce FI’s from main to sprint 2, I guess. Your “Figure: Merging print 2 back into Main.” covers, what I tend to believe to be reality in most cases. - Willy-Peter Schaub, VS ALM Ranger, Microsoft I agree, and if you have a single Scrum team then your resources are limited. The Scrum Team is responsible for packaging and release, so at least one run at stabilization, package and release should be included in the Sprint time box. If more are needed on the current production release during the Sprint 2 time box then resource needs to be pulled from Sprint 2. The Product Owner and the Team have four choices (in order of disruption/cost): Backlog: Add the bug to the backlog and fix it in the next Sprint Buffer Time: Use any buffer time included in the current Sprint to fix the bug quickly Make time: Remove a Story from the current Sprint that is of equal value to the time lost fixing the bug(s) and releasing. Note: The Team must agree that it can still meet the Sprint Goal. Cancel Sprint: Cancel the sprint and concentrate all resource on fixing the bug(s) Note: This can be a very costly if the current sprint has already had a lot of work completed as it will be lost. The choice will depend on the complexity and severity of the bug(s) and both the Product Owner and the Team need to agree. In this case we will go with option #2 or #3 as they are uncomplicated but severe bugs. Figure: Real world issue where a bug needs fixed in the current release. If the bug(s) is urgent enough then then your only option is to fix it in place. You can edit the release branch to find and fix the bug, hopefully creating a test so it can’t happen again. Follow the prior process and conduct an internal and customer “Test Please” before releasing. You can read about how to conduct a Test Please on our Rules to Successful Projects: Do you conduct an internal "test please" prior to releasing a version to a client?   Figure: After you have fixed the bug you need to ship again. You then need to again create an RTM branch to hold the version of the code you released in escrow.   Figure: Main is now out of sync with your Release. We now need to get these new changes back up into the Main branch. Do a reverse and then forward merge again to get the new code into Main. But what about the branch, are developers not working on Sprint 2? Does Sprint 2 now have changes that are not in Main and Main now have changes that are not in Sprint 2? Well, yes… and this is part of the hit you take doing branching. But would this scenario even have been possible without branching?   Figure: Getting the changes in Main into Sprint 2 is very important. The Team now needs to do a Forward Integration merge into their Sprint and resolve any conflicts that occur. Maybe the bug has already been fixed in Sprint 2, maybe the bug no longer exists! This needs to be identified and resolved by the developers before they continue to get further out of Sync with Main. Note: Avoid the “Big bang merge” at all costs.   Figure: Merging Sprint 2 back into Main, the Forward Integration, and R0 terminates. Sprint 2 now merges (Reverse Integration) back into Main following the procedures we have already established.   Figure: The logical conclusion. This then allows the creation of the next release. By now you should be getting the big picture and hopefully you learned something useful from this post. I know I have enjoyed writing it as I find these exploratory posts coupled with real world experience really help harden my understanding.  Branching is a tool; it is not a silver bullet. Don’t over use it, and avoid “Anti-Patterns” where possible. Although the diagram above looks complicated I hope showing you how it is formed simplifies it as much as possible.   Technorati Tags: Branching,Scrum,VS ALM,TFS 2010,VS2010

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• Toorcon 15 (2013)

  - by danx

  The Toorcon gang (senior staff): h1kari (founder), nfiltr8, and Geo Introduction to Toorcon 15 (2013) A Tale of One Software Bypass of MS Windows 8 Secure Boot Breaching SSL, One Byte at a Time Running at 99%: Surviving an Application DoS Security Response in the Age of Mass Customized Attacks x86 Rewriting: Defeating RoP and other Shinanighans Clowntown Express: interesting bugs and running a bug bounty program Active Fingerprinting of Encrypted VPNs Making Attacks Go Backwards Mask Your Checksums—The Gorry Details Adventures with weird machines thirty years after "Reflections on Trusting Trust" Introduction to Toorcon 15 (2013) Toorcon 15 is the 15th annual security conference held in San Diego. I've attended about a third of them and blogged about previous conferences I attended here starting in 2003. As always, I've only summarized the talks I attended and interested me enough to write about them. Be aware that I may have misrepresented the speaker's remarks and that they are not my remarks or opinion, or those of my employer, so don't quote me or them. Those seeking further details may contact the speakers directly or use The Google. For some talks, I have a URL for further information. A Tale of One Software Bypass of MS Windows 8 Secure Boot Andrew Furtak and Oleksandr Bazhaniuk Yuri Bulygin, Oleksandr ("Alex") Bazhaniuk, and (not present) Andrew Furtak Yuri and Alex talked about UEFI and Bootkits and bypassing MS Windows 8 Secure Boot, with vendor recommendations. They previously gave this talk at the BlackHat 2013 conference. MS Windows 8 Secure Boot Overview UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is interface between hardware and OS. UEFI is processor and architecture independent. Malware can replace bootloader (bootx64.efi, bootmgfw.efi). Once replaced can modify kernel. Trivial to replace bootloader. Today many legacy bootkits—UEFI replaces them most of them. MS Windows 8 Secure Boot verifies everything you load, either through signatures or hashes. UEFI firmware relies on secure update (with signed update). You would think Secure Boot would rely on ROM (such as used for phones0, but you can't do that for PCs—PCs use writable memory with signatures DXE core verifies the UEFI boat loader(s) OS Loader (winload.efi, winresume.efi) verifies the OS kernel A chain of trust is established with a root key (Platform Key, PK), which is a cert belonging to the platform vendor. Key Exchange Keys (KEKs) verify an "authorized" database (db), and "forbidden" database (dbx). X.509 certs with SHA-1/SHA-256 hashes. Keys are stored in non-volatile (NV) flash-based NVRAM. Boot Services (BS) allow adding/deleting keys (can't be accessed once OS starts—which uses Run-Time (RT)). Root cert uses RSA-2048 public keys and PKCS#7 format signatures. SecureBoot — enable disable image signature checks SetupMode — update keys, self-signed keys, and secure boot variables CustomMode — allows updating keys Secure Boot policy settings are: always execute, never execute, allow execute on security violation, defer execute on security violation, deny execute on security violation, query user on security violation Attacking MS Windows 8 Secure Boot Secure Boot does NOT protect from physical access. Can disable from console. Each BIOS vendor implements Secure Boot differently. There are several platform and BIOS vendors. It becomes a "zoo" of implementations—which can be taken advantage of. Secure Boot is secure only when all vendors implement it correctly. Allow only UEFI firmware signed updates protect UEFI firmware from direct modification in flash memory protect FW update components program SPI controller securely protect secure boot policy settings in nvram protect runtime api disable compatibility support module which allows unsigned legacy Can corrupt the Platform Key (PK) EFI root certificate variable in SPI flash. If PK is not found, FW enters setup mode wich secure boot turned off. Can also exploit TPM in a similar manner. One is not supposed to be able to directly modify the PK in SPI flash from the OS though. But they found a bug that they can exploit from User Mode (undisclosed) and demoed the exploit. It loaded and ran their own bootkit. The exploit requires a reboot. Multiple vendors are vulnerable. They will disclose this exploit to vendors in the future. Recommendations: allow only signed updates protect UEFI fw in ROM protect EFI variable store in ROM Breaching SSL, One Byte at a Time Yoel Gluck and Angelo Prado Angelo Prado and Yoel Gluck, Salesforce.com CRIME is software that performs a "compression oracle attack." This is possible because the SSL protocol doesn't hide length, and because SSL compresses the header. CRIME requests with every possible character and measures the ciphertext length. Look for the plaintext which compresses the most and looks for the cookie one byte-at-a-time. SSL Compression uses LZ77 to reduce redundancy. Huffman coding replaces common byte sequences with shorter codes. US CERT thinks the SSL compression problem is fixed, but it isn't. They convinced CERT that it wasn't fixed and they issued a CVE. BREACH, breachattrack.com BREACH exploits the SSL response body (Accept-Encoding response, Content-Encoding). It takes advantage of the fact that the response is not compressed. BREACH uses gzip and needs fairly "stable" pages that are static for ~30 seconds. It needs attacker-supplied content (say from a web form or added to a URL parameter). BREACH listens to a session's requests and responses, then inserts extra requests and responses. Eventually, BREACH guesses a session's secret key. Can use compression to guess contents one byte at-a-time. For example, "Supersecret SupersecreX" (a wrong guess) compresses 10 bytes, and "Supersecret Supersecret" (a correct guess) compresses 11 bytes, so it can find each character by guessing every character. To start the guess, BREACH needs at least three known initial characters in the response sequence. Compression length then "leaks" information. Some roadblocks include no winners (all guesses wrong) or too many winners (multiple possibilities that compress the same). The solutions include: lookahead (guess 2 or 3 characters at-a-time instead of 1 character). Expensive rollback to last known conflict check compression ratio can brute-force first 3 "bootstrap" characters, if needed (expensive) block ciphers hide exact plain text length. Solution is to align response in advance to block size Mitigations length: use variable padding secrets: dynamic CSRF tokens per request secret: change over time separate secret to input-less servlets Future work eiter understand DEFLATE/GZIP HTTPS extensions Running at 99%: Surviving an Application DoS Ryan Huber Ryan Huber, Risk I/O Ryan first discussed various ways to do a denial of service (DoS) attack against web services. One usual method is to find a slow web page and do several wgets. Or download large files. Apache is not well suited at handling a large number of connections, but one can put something in front of it Can use Apache alternatives, such as nginx How to identify malicious hosts short, sudden web requests user-agent is obvious (curl, python) same url requested repeatedly no web page referer (not normal) hidden links. hide a link and see if a bot gets it restricted access if not your geo IP (unless the website is global) missing common headers in request regular timing first seen IP at beginning of attack count requests per hosts (usually a very large number) Use of captcha can mitigate attacks, but you'll lose a lot of genuine users. Bouncer, goo.gl/c2vyEc and www.github.com/rawdigits/Bouncer Bouncer is software written by Ryan in netflow. Bouncer has a small, unobtrusive footprint and detects DoS attempts. It closes blacklisted sockets immediately (not nice about it, no proper close connection). Aggregator collects requests and controls your web proxies. Need NTP on the front end web servers for clean data for use by bouncer. Bouncer is also useful for a popularity storm ("Slashdotting") and scraper storms. Future features: gzip collection data, documentation, consumer library, multitask, logging destroyed connections. Takeaways: DoS mitigation is easier with a complete picture Bouncer designed to make it easier to detect and defend DoS—not a complete cure Security Response in the Age of Mass Customized Attacks Peleus Uhley and Karthik Raman Peleus Uhley and Karthik Raman, Adobe ASSET, blogs.adobe.com/asset/ Peleus and Karthik talked about response to mass-customized exploits. Attackers behave much like a business. "Mass customization" refers to concept discussed in the book Future Perfect by Stan Davis of Harvard Business School. Mass customization is differentiating a product for an individual customer, but at a mass production price. For example, the same individual with a debit card receives basically the same customized ATM experience around the world. Or designing your own PC from commodity parts. Exploit kits are another example of mass customization. The kits support multiple browsers and plugins, allows new modules. Exploit kits are cheap and customizable. Organized gangs use exploit kits. A group at Berkeley looked at 77,000 malicious websites (Grier et al., "Manufacturing Compromise: The Emergence of Exploit-as-a-Service", 2012). They found 10,000 distinct binaries among them, but derived from only a dozen or so exploit kits. Characteristics of Mass Malware: potent, resilient, relatively low cost Technical characteristics: multiple OS, multipe payloads, multiple scenarios, multiple languages, obfuscation Response time for 0-day exploits has gone down from ~40 days 5 years ago to about ~10 days now. So the drive with malware is towards mass customized exploits, to avoid detection There's plenty of evicence that exploit development has Project Manager bureaucracy. They infer from the malware edicts to: support all versions of reader support all versions of windows support all versions of flash support all browsers write large complex, difficult to main code (8750 lines of JavaScript for example Exploits have "loose coupling" of multipe versions of software (adobe), OS, and browser. This allows specific attacks against specific versions of multiple pieces of software. Also allows exploits of more obscure software/OS/browsers and obscure versions. Gave examples of exploits that exploited 2, 3, 6, or 14 separate bugs. However, these complete exploits are more likely to be buggy or fragile in themselves and easier to defeat. Future research includes normalizing malware and Javascript. Conclusion: The coming trend is that mass-malware with mass zero-day attacks will result in mass customization of attacks. x86 Rewriting: Defeating RoP and other Shinanighans Richard Wartell Richard Wartell The attack vector we are addressing here is: First some malware causes a buffer overflow. The malware has no program access, but input access and buffer overflow code onto stack Later the stack became non-executable. The workaround malware used was to write a bogus return address to the stack jumping to malware Later came ASLR (Address Space Layout Randomization) to randomize memory layout and make addresses non-deterministic. The workaround malware used was to jump t existing code segments in the program that can be used in bad ways "RoP" is Return-oriented Programming attacks. RoP attacks use your own code and write return address on stack to (existing) expoitable code found in program ("gadgets"). Pinkie Pie was paid $60K last year for a RoP attack. One solution is using anti-RoP compilers that compile source code with NO return instructions. ASLR does not randomize address space, just "gadgets". IPR/ILR ("Instruction Location Randomization") randomizes each instruction with a virtual machine. Richard's goal was to randomize a binary with no source code access. He created "STIR" (Self-Transofrming Instruction Relocation). STIR disassembles binary and operates on "basic blocks" of code. The STIR disassembler is conservative in what to disassemble. Each basic block is moved to a random location in memory. Next, STIR writes new code sections with copies of "basic blocks" of code in randomized locations. The old code is copied and rewritten with jumps to new code. the original code sections in the file is marked non-executible. STIR has better entropy than ASLR in location of code. Makes brute force attacks much harder. STIR runs on MS Windows (PEM) and Linux (ELF). It eliminated 99.96% or more "gadgets" (i.e., moved the address). Overhead usually 5-10% on MS Windows, about 1.5-4% on Linux (but some code actually runs faster!). The unique thing about STIR is it requires no source access and the modified binary fully works! Current work is to rewrite code to enforce security policies. For example, don't create a *.{exe,msi,bat} file. Or don't connect to the network after reading from the disk. Clowntown Express: interesting bugs and running a bug bounty program Collin Greene Collin Greene, Facebook Collin talked about Facebook's bug bounty program. Background at FB: FB has good security frameworks, such as security teams, external audits, and cc'ing on diffs. But there's lots of "deep, dark, forgotten" parts of legacy FB code. Collin gave several examples of bountied bugs. Some bounty submissions were on software purchased from a third-party (but bounty claimers don't know and don't care). We use security questions, as does everyone else, but they are basically insecure (often easily discoverable). Collin didn't expect many bugs from the bounty program, but they ended getting 20+ good bugs in first 24 hours and good submissions continue to come in. Bug bounties bring people in with different perspectives, and are paid only for success. Bug bounty is a better use of a fixed amount of time and money versus just code review or static code analysis. The Bounty program started July 2011 and paid out $1.5 million to date. 14% of the submissions have been high priority problems that needed to be fixed immediately. The best bugs come from a small % of submitters (as with everything else)—the top paid submitters are paid 6 figures a year. Spammers like to backstab competitors. The youngest sumitter was 13. Some submitters have been hired. Bug bounties also allows to see bugs that were missed by tools or reviews, allowing improvement in the process. Bug bounties might not work for traditional software companies where the product has release cycle or is not on Internet. Active Fingerprinting of Encrypted VPNs Anna Shubina Anna Shubina, Dartmouth Institute for Security, Technology, and Society (I missed the start of her talk because another track went overtime. But I have the DVD of the talk, so I'll expand later) IPsec leaves fingerprints. Using netcat, one can easily visually distinguish various crypto chaining modes just from packet timing on a chart (example, DES-CBC versus AES-CBC) One can tell a lot about VPNs just from ping roundtrips (such as what router is used) Delayed packets are not informative about a network, especially if far away from the network More needed to explore about how TCP works in real life with respect to timing Making Attacks Go Backwards Fuzzynop FuzzyNop, Mandiant This talk is not about threat attribution (finding who), product solutions, politics, or sales pitches. But who are making these malware threats? It's not a single person or group—they have diverse skill levels. There's a lot of fat-fingered fumblers out there. Always look for low-hanging fruit first: "hiding" malware in the temp, recycle, or root directories creation of unnamed scheduled tasks obvious names of files and syscalls ("ClearEventLog") uncleared event logs. Clearing event log in itself, and time of clearing, is a red flag and good first clue to look for on a suspect system Reverse engineering is hard. Disassembler use takes practice and skill. A popular tool is IDA Pro, but it takes multiple interactive iterations to get a clean disassembly. Key loggers are used a lot in targeted attacks. They are typically custom code or built in a backdoor. A big tip-off is that non-printable characters need to be printed out (such as "[Ctrl]" "[RightShift]") or time stamp printf strings. Look for these in files. Presence is not proof they are used. Absence is not proof they are not used. Java exploits. Can parse jar file with idxparser.py and decomile Java file. Java typially used to target tech companies. Backdoors are the main persistence mechanism (provided externally) for malware. Also malware typically needs command and control. Application of Artificial Intelligence in Ad-Hoc Static Code Analysis John Ashaman John Ashaman, Security Innovation Initially John tried to analyze open source files with open source static analysis tools, but these showed thousands of false positives. Also tried using grep, but tis fails to find anything even mildly complex. So next John decided to write his own tool. His approach was to first generate a call graph then analyze the graph. However, the problem is that making a call graph is really hard. For example, one problem is "evil" coding techniques, such as passing function pointer. First the tool generated an Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) with the nodes created from method declarations and edges created from method use. Then the tool generated a control flow graph with the goal to find a path through the AST (a maze) from source to sink. The algorithm is to look at adjacent nodes to see if any are "scary" (a vulnerability), using heuristics for search order. The tool, called "Scat" (Static Code Analysis Tool), currently looks for C# vulnerabilities and some simple PHP. Later, he plans to add more PHP, then JSP and Java. For more information see his posts in Security Innovation blog and NRefactory on GitHub. Mask Your Checksums—The Gorry Details Eric (XlogicX) Davisson Eric (XlogicX) Davisson Sometimes in emailing or posting TCP/IP packets to analyze problems, you may want to mask the IP address. But to do this correctly, you need to mask the checksum too, or you'll leak information about the IP. Problem reports found in stackoverflow.com, sans.org, and pastebin.org are usually not masked, but a few companies do care. If only the IP is masked, the IP may be guessed from checksum (that is, it leaks data). Other parts of packet may leak more data about the IP. TCP and IP checksums both refer to the same data, so can get more bits of information out of using both checksums than just using one checksum. Also, one can usually determine the OS from the TTL field and ports in a packet header. If we get hundreds of possible results (16x each masked nibble that is unknown), one can do other things to narrow the results, such as look at packet contents for domain or geo information. With hundreds of results, can import as CSV format into a spreadsheet. Can corelate with geo data and see where each possibility is located. Eric then demoed a real email report with a masked IP packet attached. Was able to find the exact IP address, given the geo and university of the sender. Point is if you're going to mask a packet, do it right. Eric wouldn't usually bother, but do it correctly if at all, to not create a false impression of security. Adventures with weird machines thirty years after "Reflections on Trusting Trust" Sergey Bratus Sergey Bratus, Dartmouth College (and Julian Bangert and Rebecca Shapiro, not present) "Reflections on Trusting Trust" refers to Ken Thompson's classic 1984 paper. "You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself." There's invisible links in the chain-of-trust, such as "well-installed microcode bugs" or in the compiler, and other planted bugs. Thompson showed how a compiler can introduce and propagate bugs in unmodified source. But suppose if there's no bugs and you trust the author, can you trust the code? Hell No! There's too many factors—it's Babylonian in nature. Why not? Well, Input is not well-defined/recognized (code's assumptions about "checked" input will be violated (bug/vunerabiliy). For example, HTML is recursive, but Regex checking is not recursive. Input well-formed but so complex there's no telling what it does For example, ELF file parsing is complex and has multiple ways of parsing. Input is seen differently by different pieces of program or toolchain Any Input is a program input executes on input handlers (drives state changes & transitions) only a well-defined execution model can be trusted (regex/DFA, PDA, CFG) Input handler either is a "recognizer" for the inputs as a well-defined language (see langsec.org) or it's a "virtual machine" for inputs to drive into pwn-age ELF ABI (UNIX/Linux executible file format) case study. Problems can arise from these steps (without planting bugs): compiler linker loader ld.so/rtld relocator DWARF (debugger info) exceptions The problem is you can't really automatically analyze code (it's the "halting problem" and undecidable). Only solution is to freeze code and sign it. But you can't freeze everything! Can't freeze ASLR or loading—must have tables and metadata. Any sufficiently complex input data is the same as VM byte code Example, ELF relocation entries + dynamic symbols == a Turing Complete Machine (TM). @bxsays created a Turing machine in Linux from relocation data (not code) in an ELF file. For more information, see Rebecca "bx" Shapiro's presentation from last year's Toorcon, "Programming Weird Machines with ELF Metadata" @bxsays did same thing with Mach-O bytecode Or a DWARF exception handling data .eh_frame + glibc == Turning Machine X86 MMU (IDT, GDT, TSS): used address translation to create a Turning Machine. Page handler reads and writes (on page fault) memory. Uses a page table, which can be used as Turning Machine byte code. Example on Github using this TM that will fly a glider across the screen Next Sergey talked about "Parser Differentials". That having one input format, but two parsers, will create confusion and opportunity for exploitation. For example, CSRs are parsed during creation by cert requestor and again by another parser at the CA. Another example is ELF—several parsers in OS tool chain, which are all different. Can have two different Program Headers (PHDRs) because ld.so parses multiple PHDRs. The second PHDR can completely transform the executable. This is described in paper in the first issue of International Journal of PoC. Conclusions trusting computers not only about bugs! Bugs are part of a problem, but no by far all of it complex data formats means bugs no "chain of trust" in Babylon! (that is, with parser differentials) we need to squeeze complexity out of data until data stops being "code equivalent" Further information See and langsec.org. USENIX WOOT 2013 (Workshop on Offensive Technologies) for "weird machines" papers and videos.

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• The broken Promise of the Mobile Web

  - by Rick Strahl

  High end mobile devices have been with us now for almost 7 years and they have utterly transformed the way we access information. Mobile phones and smartphones that have access to the Internet and host smart applications are in the hands of a large percentage of the population of the world. In many places even very remote, cell phones and even smart phones are a common sight. I’ll never forget when I was in India in 2011 I was up in the Southern Indian mountains riding an elephant out of a tiny local village, with an elephant herder in front riding atop of the elephant in front of us. He was dressed in traditional garb with the loin wrap and head cloth/turban as did quite a few of the locals in this small out of the way and not so touristy village. So we’re slowly trundling along in the forest and he’s lazily using his stick to guide the elephant and… 10 minutes in he pulls out his cell phone from his sash and starts texting. In the middle of texting a huge pig jumps out from the side of the trail and he takes a picture running across our path in the jungle! So yeah, mobile technology is very pervasive and it’s reached into even very buried and unexpected parts of this world. Apps are still King Apps currently rule the roost when it comes to mobile devices and the applications that run on them. If there’s something that you need on your mobile device your first step usually is to look for an app, not use your browser. But native app development remains a pain in the butt, with the requirement to have to support 2 or 3 completely separate platforms. There are solutions that try to bridge that gap. Xamarin is on a tear at the moment, providing their cross-device toolkit to build applications using C#. While Xamarin tools are impressive – and also *very* expensive – they only address part of the development madness that is app development. There are still specific device integration isssues, dealing with the different developer programs, security and certificate setups and all that other noise that surrounds app development. There’s also PhoneGap/Cordova which provides a hybrid solution that involves creating local HTML/CSS/JavaScript based applications, and then packaging them to run in a specialized App container that can run on most mobile device platforms using a WebView interface. This allows for using of HTML technology, but it also still requires all the set up, configuration of APIs, security keys and certification and submission and deployment process just like native applications – you actually lose many of the benefits that  Web based apps bring. The big selling point of Cordova is that you get to use HTML have the ability to build your UI once for all platforms and run across all of them – but the rest of the app process remains in place. Apps can be a big pain to create and manage especially when we are talking about specialized or vertical business applications that aren’t geared at the mainstream market and that don’t fit the ‘store’ model. If you’re building a small intra department application you don’t want to deal with multiple device platforms and certification etc. for various public or corporate app stores. That model is simply not a good fit both from the development and deployment perspective. Even for commercial, big ticket apps, HTML as a UI platform offers many advantages over native, from write-once run-anywhere, to remote maintenance, single point of management and failure to having full control over the application as opposed to have the app store overloads censor you. In a lot of ways Web based HTML/CSS/JavaScript applications have so much potential for building better solutions based on existing Web technologies for the very same reasons a lot of content years ago moved off the desktop to the Web. To me the Web as a mobile platform makes perfect sense, but the reality of today’s Mobile Web unfortunately looks a little different… Where’s the Love for the Mobile Web? Yet here we are in the middle of 2014, nearly 7 years after the first iPhone was released and brought the promise of rich interactive information at your fingertips, and yet we still don’t really have a solid mobile Web platform. I know what you’re thinking: “But we have lots of HTML/JavaScript/CSS features that allows us to build nice mobile interfaces”. I agree to a point – it’s actually quite possible to build nice looking, rich and capable Web UI today. We have media queries to deal with varied display sizes, CSS transforms for smooth animations and transitions, tons of CSS improvements in CSS 3 that facilitate rich layout, a host of APIs geared towards mobile device features and lately even a number of JavaScript framework choices that facilitate development of multi-screen apps in a consistent manner. Personally I’ve been working a lot with AngularJs and heavily modified Bootstrap themes to build mobile first UIs and that’s been working very well to provide highly usable and attractive UI for typical mobile business applications. From the pure UI perspective things actually look very good. Not just about the UI But it’s not just about the UI - it’s also about integration with the mobile device. When it comes to putting all those pieces together into what amounts to a consolidated platform to build mobile Web applications, I think we still have a ways to go… there are a lot of missing pieces to make it all work together and integrate with the device more smoothly, and more importantly to make it work uniformly across the majority of devices. I think there are a number of reasons for this. Slow Standards Adoption HTML standards implementations and ratification has been dreadfully slow, and browser vendors all seem to pick and choose different pieces of the technology they implement. The end result is that we have a capable UI platform that’s missing some of the infrastructure pieces to make it whole on mobile devices. There’s lots of potential but what is lacking that final 10% to build truly compelling mobile applications that can compete favorably with native applications. Some of it is the fragmentation of browsers and the slow evolution of the mobile specific HTML APIs. A host of mobile standards exist but many of the standards are in the early review stage and they have been there stuck for long periods of time and seem to move at a glacial pace. Browser vendors seem even slower to implement them, and for good reason – non-ratified standards mean that implementations may change and vendor implementations tend to be experimental and  likely have to be changed later. Neither Vendors or developers are not keen on changing standards. This is the typical chicken and egg scenario, but without some forward momentum from some party we end up stuck in the mud. It seems that either the standards bodies or the vendors need to carry the torch forward and that doesn’t seem to be happening quickly enough. Mobile Device Integration just isn’t good enough Current standards are not far reaching enough to address a number of the use case scenarios necessary for many mobile applications. While not every application needs to have access to all mobile device features, almost every mobile application could benefit from some integration with other parts of the mobile device platform. Integration with GPS, phone, media, messaging, notifications, linking and contacts system are benefits that are unique to mobile applications and could be widely used, but are mostly (with the exception of GPS) inaccessible for Web based applications today. Unfortunately trying to do most of this today only with a mobile Web browser is a losing battle. Aside from PhoneGap/Cordova’s app centric model with its own custom API accessing mobile device features and the token exception of the GeoLocation API, most device integration features are not widely supported by the current crop of mobile browsers. For example there’s no usable messaging API that allows access to SMS or contacts from HTML. Even obvious components like the Media Capture API are only implemented partially by mobile devices. There are alternatives and workarounds for some of these interfaces by using browser specific code, but that’s might ugly and something that I thought we were trying to leave behind with newer browser standards. But it’s not quite working out that way. It’s utterly perplexing to me that mobile standards like Media Capture and Streams, Media Gallery Access, Responsive Images, Messaging API, Contacts Manager API have only minimal or no traction at all today. Keep in mind we’ve had mobile browsers for nearly 7 years now, and yet we still have to think about how to get access to an image from the image gallery or the camera on some devices? Heck Windows Phone IE Mobile just gained the ability to upload images recently in the Windows 8.1 Update – that’s feature that HTML has had for 20 years! These are simple concepts and common problems that should have been solved a long time ago. It’s extremely frustrating to see build 90% of a mobile Web app with relative ease and then hit a brick wall for the remaining 10%, which often can be show stoppers. The remaining 10% have to do with platform integration, browser differences and working around the limitations that browsers and ‘pinned’ applications impose on HTML applications. The maddening part is that these limitations seem arbitrary as they could easily work on all mobile platforms. For example, SMS has a URL Moniker interface that sort of works on Android, works badly with iOS (only works if the address is already in the contact list) and not at all on Windows Phone. There’s no reason this shouldn’t work universally using the same interface – after all all phones have supported SMS since before the year 2000! But, it doesn’t have to be this way Change can happen very quickly. Take the GeoLocation API for example. Geolocation has taken off at the very beginning of the mobile device era and today it works well, provides the necessary security (a big concern for many mobile APIs), and is supported by just about all major mobile and even desktop browsers today. It handles security concerns via prompts to avoid unwanted access which is a model that would work for most other device APIs in a similar fashion. One time approval and occasional re-approval if code changes or caches expire. Simple and only slightly intrusive. It all works well, even though GeoLocation actually has some physical limitations, such as representing the current location when no GPS device is present. Yet this is a solved problem, where other APIs that are conceptually much simpler to implement have failed to gain any traction at all. Technically none of these APIs should be a problem to implement, but it appears that the momentum is just not there. Inadequate Web Application Linking and Activation Another important piece of the puzzle missing is the integration of HTML based Web applications. Today HTML based applications are not first class citizens on mobile operating systems. When talking about HTML based content there’s a big difference between content and applications. Content is great for search engine discovery and plain browser usage. Content is usually accessed intermittently and permanent linking is not so critical for this type of content.  But applications have different needs. Applications need to be started up quickly and must be easily switchable to support a multi-tasking user workflow. Therefore, it’s pretty crucial that mobile Web apps are integrated into the underlying mobile OS and work with the standard task management features. Unfortunately this integration is not as smooth as it should be. It starts with actually trying to find mobile Web applications, to ‘installing’ them onto a phone in an easily accessible manner in a prominent position. The experience of discovering a Mobile Web ‘App’ and making it sticky is by no means as easy or satisfying. Today the way you’d go about this is: Open the browser Search for a Web Site in the browser with your search engine of choice Hope that you find the right site Hope that you actually find a site that works for your mobile device Click on the link and run the app in a fully chrome’d browser instance (read tiny surface area) Pin the app to the home screen (with all the limitations outline above) Hope you pointed at the right URL when you pinned Even for you and me as developers, there are a few steps in there that are painful and annoying, but think about the average user. First figuring out how to search for a specific site or URL? And then pinning the app and hopefully from the right location? You’ve probably lost more than half of your audience at that point. This experience sucks. For developers too this process is painful since app developers can’t control the shortcut creation directly. This problem often gets solved by crazy coding schemes, with annoying pop-ups that try to get people to create shortcuts via fancy animations that are both annoying and add overhead to each and every application that implements this sort of thing differently. And that’s not the end of it - getting the link onto the home screen with an application icon varies quite a bit between browsers. Apple’s non-standard meta tags are prominent and they work with iOS and Android (only more recent versions), but not on Windows Phone. Windows Phone instead requires you to create an actual screen or rather a partial screen be captured for a shortcut in the tile manager. Who had that brilliant idea I wonder? Surprisingly Chrome on recent Android versions seems to actually get it right – icons use pngs, pinning is easy and pinned applications properly behave like standalone apps and retain the browser’s active page state and content. Each of the platforms has a different way to specify icons (WP doesn’t allow you to use an icon image at all), and the most widely used interface in use today is a bunch of Apple specific meta tags that other browsers choose to support. The question is: Why is there no standard implementation for installing shortcuts across mobile platforms using an official format rather than a proprietary one? Then there’s iOS and the crazy way it treats home screen linked URLs using a crazy hybrid format that is neither as capable as a Web app running in Safari nor a WebView hosted application. Moving off the Web ‘app’ link when switching to another app actually causes the browser and preview it to ‘blank out’ the Web application in the Task View (see screenshot on the right). Then, when the ‘app’ is reactivated it ends up completely restarting the browser with the original link. This is crazy behavior that you can’t easily work around. In some situations you might be able to store the application state and restore it using LocalStorage, but for many scenarios that involve complex data sources (like say Google Maps) that’s not a possibility. The only reason for this screwed up behavior I can think of is that it is deliberate to make Web apps a pain in the butt to use and forcing users trough the App Store/PhoneGap/Cordova route. App linking and management is a very basic problem – something that we essentially have solved in every desktop browser – yet on mobile devices where it arguably matters a lot more to have easy access to web content we have to jump through hoops to have even a remotely decent linking/activation experience across browsers. Where’s the Money? It’s not surprising that device home screen integration and Mobile Web support in general is in such dismal shape – the mobile OS vendors benefit financially from App store sales and have little to gain from Web based applications that bypass the App store and the cash cow that it presents. On top of that, platform specific vendor lock-in of both end users and developers who have invested in hardware, apps and consumables is something that mobile platform vendors actually aspire to. Web based interfaces that are cross-platform are the anti-thesis of that and so again it’s no surprise that the mobile Web is on a struggling path. But – that may be changing. More and more we’re seeing operations shifting to services that are subscription based or otherwise collect money for usage, and that may drive more progress into the Web direction in the end . Nothing like the almighty dollar to drive innovation forward. Do we need a Mobile Web App Store? As much as I dislike moderated experiences in today’s massive App Stores, they do at least provide one single place to look for apps for your device. I think we could really use some sort of registry, that could provide something akin to an app store for mobile Web apps, to make it easier to actually find mobile applications. This could take the form of a specialized search engine, or maybe a more formal store/registry like structure. Something like apt-get/chocolatey for Web apps. It could be curated and provide at least some feedback and reviews that might help with the integrity of applications. Coupled to that could be a native application on each platform that would allow searching and browsing of the registry and then also handle installation in the form of providing the home screen linking, plus maybe an initial security configuration that determines what features are allowed access to for the app. I’m not holding my breath. In order for this sort of thing to take off and gain widespread appeal, a lot of coordination would be required. And in order to get enough traction it would have to come from a well known entity – a mobile Web app store from a no name source is unlikely to gain high enough usage numbers to make a difference. In a way this would eliminate some of the freedom of the Web, but of course this would also be an optional search path in addition to the standard open Web search mechanisms to find and access content today. Security Security is a big deal, and one of the perceived reasons why so many IT professionals appear to be willing to go back to the walled garden of deployed apps is that Apps are perceived as safe due to the official review and curation of the App stores. Curated stores are supposed to protect you from malware, illegal and misleading content. It doesn’t always work out that way and all the major vendors have had issues with security and the review process at some time or another. Security is critical, but I also think that Web applications in general pose less of a security threat than native applications, by nature of the sandboxed browser and JavaScript environments. Web applications run externally completely and in the HTML and JavaScript sandboxes, with only a very few controlled APIs allowing access to device specific features. And as discussed earlier – security for any device interaction can be granted the same for mobile applications through a Web browser, as they can for native applications either via explicit policies loaded from the Web, or via prompting as GeoLocation does today. Security is important, but it’s certainly solvable problem for Web applications even those that need to access device hardware. Security shouldn’t be a reason for Web apps to be an equal player in mobile applications. Apps are winning, but haven’t we been here before? So now we’re finding ourselves back in an era of installed app, rather than Web based and managed apps. Only it’s even worse today than with Desktop applications, in that the apps are going through a gatekeeper that charges a toll and censors what you can and can’t do in your apps. Frankly it’s a mystery to me why anybody would buy into this model and why it’s lasted this long when we’ve already been through this process. It’s crazy… It’s really a shame that this regression is happening. We have the technology to make mobile Web apps much more prominent, but yet we’re basically held back by what seems little more than bureaucracy, partisan bickering and self interest of the major parties involved. Back in the day of the desktop it was Internet Explorer’s 98+%  market shareholding back the Web from improvements for many years – now it’s the combined mobile OS market in control of the mobile browsers. If mobile Web apps were allowed to be treated the same as native apps with simple ways to install and run them consistently and persistently, that would go a long way to making mobile applications much more usable and seriously viable alternatives to native apps. But as it is mobile apps have a severe disadvantage in placement and operation. There are a few bright spots in all of this. Mozilla’s FireFoxOs is embracing the Web for it’s mobile OS by essentially building every app out of HTML and JavaScript based content. It supports both packaged and certified package modes (that can be put into the app store), and Open Web apps that are loaded and run completely off the Web and can also cache locally for offline operation using a manifest. Open Web apps are treated as full class citizens in FireFoxOS and run using the same mechanism as installed apps. Unfortunately FireFoxOs is getting a slow start with minimal device support and specifically targeting the low end market. We can hope that this approach will change and catch on with other vendors, but that’s also an uphill battle given the conflict of interest with platform lock in that it represents. Recent versions of Android also seem to be working reasonably well with mobile application integration onto the desktop and activation out of the box. Although it still uses the Apple meta tags to find icons and behavior settings, everything at least works as you would expect – icons to the desktop on pinning, WebView based full screen activation, and reliable application persistence as the browser/app is treated like a real application. Hopefully iOS will at some point provide this same level of rudimentary Web app support. What’s also interesting to me is that Microsoft hasn’t picked up on the obvious need for a solid Web App platform. Being a distant third in the mobile OS war, Microsoft certainly has nothing to lose and everything to gain by using fresh ideas and expanding into areas that the other major vendors are neglecting. But instead Microsoft is trying to beat the market leaders at their own game, fighting on their adversary’s terms instead of taking a new tack. Providing a kick ass mobile Web platform that takes the lead on some of the proposed mobile APIs would be something positive that Microsoft could do to improve its miserable position in the mobile device market. Where are we at with Mobile Web? It sure sounds like I’m really down on the Mobile Web, right? I’ve built a number of mobile apps in the last year and while overall result and response has been very positive to what we were able to accomplish in terms of UI, getting that final 10% that required device integration dialed was an absolute nightmare on every single one of them. Big compromises had to be made and some features were left out or had to be modified for some devices. In two cases we opted to go the Cordova route in order to get the integration we needed, along with the extra pain involved in that process. Unless you’re not integrating with device features and you don’t care deeply about a smooth integration with the mobile desktop, mobile Web development is fraught with frustration. So, yes I’m frustrated! But it’s not for lack of wanting the mobile Web to succeed. I am still a firm believer that we will eventually arrive a much more functional mobile Web platform that allows access to the most common device features in a sensible way. It wouldn't be difficult for device platform vendors to make Web based applications first class citizens on mobile devices. But unfortunately it looks like it will still be some time before this happens. So, what’s your experience building mobile Web apps? Are you finding similar issues? Just giving up on raw Web applications and building PhoneGap apps instead? Completely skipping the Web and going native? Leave a comment for discussion. Resources Rick Strahl on DotNet Rocks talking about Mobile Web© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2014Posted in HTML5  Mobile   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• Diving into OpenStack Network Architecture - Part 1

  - by Ronen Kofman

  v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} rkofman Normal rkofman 83 3045 2014-05-23T21:11:00Z 2014-05-27T06:58:00Z 3 1883 10739 Oracle Corporation 89 25 12597 12.00 140 Clean Clean false false false false EN-US X-NONE HE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-bidi-language:AR-SA;} Before we begin OpenStack networking has very powerful capabilities but at the same time it is quite complicated. In this blog series we will review an existing OpenStack setup using the Oracle OpenStack Tech Preview and explain the different network components through use cases and examples. The goal is to show how the different pieces come together and provide a bigger picture view of the network architecture in OpenStack. This can be very helpful to users making their first steps in OpenStack or anyone wishes to understand how networking works in this environment.  We will go through the basics first and build the examples as we go. According to the recent Icehouse user survey and the one before it, Neutron with Open vSwitch plug-in is the most widely used network setup both in production and in POCs (in terms of number of customers) and so in this blog series we will analyze this specific OpenStack networking setup. As we know there are many options to setup OpenStack networking and while Neturon + Open vSwitch is the most popular setup there is no claim that it is either best or the most efficient option. Neutron + Open vSwitch is an example, one which provides a good starting point for anyone interested in understanding OpenStack networking. Even if you are using different kind of network setup such as different Neutron plug-in or even not using Neutron at all this will still be a good starting point to understand the network architecture in OpenStack. The setup we are using for the examples is the one used in the Oracle OpenStack Tech Preview. Installing it is simple and it would be helpful to have it as reference. In this setup we use eth2 on all servers for VM network, all VM traffic will be flowing through this interface.The Oracle OpenStack Tech Preview is using VLANs for L2 isolation to provide tenant and network isolation. The following diagram shows how we have configured our deployment: This first post is a bit long and will focus on some basic concepts in OpenStack networking. The components we will be discussing are Open vSwitch, network namespaces, Linux bridge and veth pairs. Note that this is not meant to be a comprehensive review of these components, it is meant to describe the component as much as needed to understand OpenStack network architecture. All the components described here can be further explored using other resources. Open vSwitch (OVS) In the Oracle OpenStack Tech Preview OVS is used to connect virtual machines to the physical port (in our case eth2) as shown in the deployment diagram. OVS contains bridges and ports, the OVS bridges are different from the Linux bridge (controlled by the brctl command) which are also used in this setup. To get started let’s view the OVS structure, use the following command: # ovs-vsctl show 7ec51567-ab42-49e8-906d-b854309c9edf     Bridge br-int         Port br-int             Interface br-int type: internal         Port "int-br-eth2"             Interface "int-br-eth2"     Bridge "br-eth2"         Port "br-eth2"             Interface "br-eth2" type: internal         Port "eth2"             Interface "eth2"         Port "phy-br-eth2"             Interface "phy-br-eth2" ovs_version: "1.11.0" We see a standard post deployment OVS on a compute node with two bridges and several ports hanging off of each of them. The example above is a compute node without any VMs, we can see that the physical port eth2 is connected to a bridge called “br-eth2”. We also see two ports "int-br-eth2" and "phy-br-eth2" which are actually a veth pair and form virtual wire between the two bridges, veth pairs are discussed later in this post. When a virtual machine is created a port is created on one the br-int bridge and this port is eventually connected to the virtual machine (we will discuss the exact connectivity later in the series). Here is how OVS looks after a VM was launched: # ovs-vsctl show efd98c87-dc62-422d-8f73-a68c2a14e73d     Bridge br-int         Port "int-br-eth2"             Interface "int-br-eth2"         Port br-int             Interface br-int type: internal         Port "qvocb64ea96-9f" tag: 1             Interface "qvocb64ea96-9f"     Bridge "br-eth2"         Port "phy-br-eth2"             Interface "phy-br-eth2"         Port "br-eth2"             Interface "br-eth2" type: internal         Port "eth2"             Interface "eth2" ovs_version: "1.11.0" Bridge "br-int" now has a new port "qvocb64ea96-9f" which connects to the VM and tagged with VLAN 1. Every VM which will be launched will add a port on the “br-int” bridge for every network interface the VM has. Another useful command on OVS is dump-flows for example: # ovs-ofctl dump-flows br-int NXST_FLOW reply (xid=0x4): cookie=0x0, duration=735.544s, table=0, n_packets=70, n_bytes=9976, idle_age=17, priority=3,in_port=1,dl_vlan=1000 actions=mod_vlan_vid:1,NORMAL cookie=0x0, duration=76679.786s, table=0, n_packets=0, n_bytes=0, idle_age=65534, hard_age=65534, priority=2,in_port=1 actions=drop cookie=0x0, duration=76681.36s, table=0, n_packets=68, n_bytes=7950, idle_age=17, hard_age=65534, priority=1 actions=NORMAL As we see the port which is connected to the VM has the VLAN tag 1. However the port on the VM network (eth2) will be using tag 1000. OVS is modifying the vlan as the packet flow from the VM to the physical interface. In OpenStack the Open vSwitch agent takes care of programming the flows in Open vSwitch so the users do not have to deal with this at all. If you wish to learn more about how to program the Open vSwitch you can read more about it at http://openvswitch.org looking at the documentation describing the ovs-ofctl command. Network Namespaces (netns) Network namespaces is a very cool Linux feature can be used for many purposes and is heavily used in OpenStack networking. Network namespaces are isolated containers which can hold a network configuration and is not seen from outside of the namespace. A network namespace can be used to encapsulate specific network functionality or provide a network service in isolation as well as simply help to organize a complicated network setup. Using the Oracle OpenStack Tech Preview we are using the latest Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel R3 (UEK3), this kernel provides a complete support for netns. Let's see how namespaces work through couple of examples to control network namespaces we use the ip netns command: Defining a new namespace: # ip netns add my-ns # ip netns list my-ns As mentioned the namespace is an isolated container, we can perform all the normal actions in the namespace context using the exec command for example running the ifconfig command: # ip netns exec my-ns ifconfig -a lo        Link encap:Local Loopback           LOOPBACK  MTU:16436 Metric:1           RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0           TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0           RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b) We can run every command in the namespace context, this is especially useful for debug using tcpdump command, we can ping or ssh or define iptables all within the namespace. Connecting the namespace to the outside world: There are various ways to connect into a namespaces and between namespaces we will focus on how this is done in OpenStack. OpenStack uses a combination of Open vSwitch and network namespaces. OVS defines the interfaces and then we can add those interfaces to namespace. So first let's add a bridge to OVS: # ovs-vsctl add-br my-bridge Now let's add a port on the OVS and make it internal: # ovs-vsctl add-port my-bridge my-port # ovs-vsctl set Interface my-port type=internal And let's connect it into the namespace: # ip link set my-port netns my-ns Looking inside the namespace: # ip netns exec my-ns ifconfig -a lo        Link encap:Local Loopback           LOOPBACK  MTU:65536 Metric:1           RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0           TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0           RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b) my-port   Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 22:04:45:E2:85:21           BROADCAST  MTU:1500 Metric:1           RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0           TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0           RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b) Now we can add more ports to the OVS bridge and connect it to other namespaces or other device like physical interfaces. Neutron is using network namespaces to implement network services such as DCHP, routing, gateway, firewall, load balance and more. In the next post we will go into this in further details. Linux Bridge and veth pairs Linux bridge is used to connect the port from OVS to the VM. Every port goes from the OVS bridge to a Linux bridge and from there to the VM. The reason for using regular Linux bridges is for security groups’ enforcement. Security groups are implemented using iptables and iptables can only be applied to Linux bridges and not to OVS bridges. Veth pairs are used extensively throughout the network setup in OpenStack and are also a good tool to debug a network problem. Veth pairs are simply a virtual wire and so veths always come in pairs. Typically one side of the veth pair will connect to a bridge and the other side to another bridge or simply left as a usable interface. In this example we will create some veth pairs, connect them to bridges and test connectivity. This example is using regular Linux server and not an OpenStack node: Creating a veth pair, note that we define names for both ends: # ip link add veth0 type veth peer name veth1 # ifconfig -a . . veth0     Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 5E:2C:E6:03:D0:17           BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500 Metric:1           RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0           TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000           RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b) veth1     Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr E6:B6:E2:6D:42:B8           BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500 Metric:1           RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0           TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000           RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b) . . To make the example more meaningful this we will create the following setup: veth0 => veth1 => br-eth3 => eth3 ======> eth2 on another Linux server br-eth3 – a regular Linux bridge which will be connected to veth1 and eth3 eth3 – a physical interface with no IP on it, connected to a private network eth2 – a physical interface on the remote Linux box connected to the private network and configured with the IP of 50.50.50.1 Once we create the setup we will ping 50.50.50.1 (the remote IP) through veth0 to test that the connection is up: # brctl addbr br-eth3 # brctl addif br-eth3 eth3 # brctl addif br-eth3 veth1 # brctl show bridge name     bridge id               STP enabled     interfaces br-eth3         8000.00505682e7f6       no              eth3                                                         veth1 # ifconfig veth0 50.50.50.50 # ping -I veth0 50.50.50.51 PING 50.50.50.51 (50.50.50.51) from 50.50.50.50 veth0: 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from 50.50.50.51: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.454 ms 64 bytes from 50.50.50.51: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.298 ms When the naming is not as obvious as the previous example and we don't know who are the paired veth interfaces we can use the ethtool command to figure this out. The ethtool command returns an index we can look up using ip link command, for example: # ethtool -S veth1 NIC statistics: peer_ifindex: 12 # ip link . . 12: veth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP qlen 1000 Summary That’s all for now, we quickly reviewed OVS, network namespaces, Linux bridges and veth pairs. These components are heavily used in the OpenStack network architecture we are exploring and understanding them well will be very useful when reviewing the different use cases. In the next post we will look at how the OpenStack network is laid out connecting the virtual machines to each other and to the external world. @RonenKofman

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• Developing Spring Portlet for use inside Weblogic Portal / Webcenter Portal

  - by Murali Veligeti

  We need to understand the main difference between portlet workflow and servlet workflow.The main difference between portlet workflow and servlet workflow is that, the request to the portlet can have two distinct phases: 1) Action phase 2) Render phase. The Action phase is executed only once and is where any 'backend' changes or actions occur, such as making changes in a database. The Render phase then produces what is displayed to the user each time the display is refreshed. The critical point here is that for a single overall request, the action phase is executed only once, but the render phase may be executed multiple times. This provides a clean separation between the activities that modify the persistent state of your system and the activities that generate what is displayed to the user.The dual phases of portlet requests are one of the real strengths of the JSR-168 specification. For example, dynamic search results can be updated routinely on the display without the user explicitly re-running the search. Most other portlet MVC frameworks attempt to completely hide the two phases from the developer and make it look as much like traditional servlet development as possible - we think this approach removes one of the main benefits of using portlets. So, the separation of the two phases is preserved throughout the Spring Portlet MVC framework. The primary manifestation of this approach is that where the servlet version of the MVC classes will have one method that deals with the request, the portlet version of the MVC classes will have two methods that deal with the request: one for the action phase and one for the render phase. For example, where the servlet version of AbstractController has the handleRequestInternal(..) method, the portlet version of AbstractController has handleActionRequestInternal(..) and handleRenderRequestInternal(..) methods.The Spring Portlet Framework is designed around a DispatcherPortlet that dispatches requests to handlers, with configurable handler mappings and view resolution, just as the DispatcherServlet in the Spring Web Framework does.  Developing portlet.xml Let's start the sample development by creating the portlet.xml file in the /WebContent/WEB-INF/ folder as shown below: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <portlet-app version="2.0" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/portlet/portlet-app_2_0.xsd" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <portlet> <portlet-name>SpringPortletName</portlet-name> <portlet-class>org.springframework.web.portlet.DispatcherPortlet</portlet-class> <supports> <mime-type>text/html</mime-type> <portlet-mode>view</portlet-mode> </supports> <portlet-info> <title>SpringPortlet</title> </portlet-info> </portlet> </portlet-app> DispatcherPortlet is responsible for handling every client request. When it receives a request, it finds out which Controller class should be used for handling this request, and then it calls its handleActionRequest() or handleRenderRequest() method based on the request processing phase. The Controller class executes business logic and returns a View name that should be used for rendering markup to the user. The DispatcherPortlet then forwards control to that View for actual markup generation. As you can see, DispatcherPortlet is the central dispatcher for use within Spring Portlet MVC Framework. Note that your portlet application can define more than one DispatcherPortlet. If it does so, then each of these portlets operates its own namespace, loading its application context and handler mapping. The DispatcherPortlet is also responsible for loading application context (Spring configuration file) for this portlet. First, it tries to check the value of the configLocation portlet initialization parameter. If that parameter is not specified, it takes the portlet name (that is, the value of the <portlet-name> element), appends "-portlet.xml" to it, and tries to load that file from the /WEB-INF folder. In the portlet.xml file, we did not specify the configLocation initialization parameter, so let's create SpringPortletName-portlet.xml file in the next section. Developing SpringPortletName-portlet.xml Create the SpringPortletName-portlet.xml file in the /WebContent/WEB-INF folder of your application as shown below: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.0.xsd"> <bean id="viewResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver"> <property name="viewClass" value="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.JstlView"/> <property name="prefix" value="/jsp/"/> <property name="suffix" value=".jsp"/> </bean> <bean id="pointManager" class="com.wlp.spring.bo.internal.PointManagerImpl"> <property name="users"> <list> <ref bean="point1"/> <ref bean="point2"/> <ref bean="point3"/> <ref bean="point4"/> </list> </property> </bean> <bean id="point1" class="com.wlp.spring.bean.User"> <property name="name" value="Murali"/> <property name="points" value="6"/> </bean> <bean id="point2" class="com.wlp.spring.bean.User"> <property name="name" value="Sai"/> <property name="points" value="13"/> </bean> <bean id="point3" class="com.wlp.spring.bean.User"> <property name="name" value="Rama"/> <property name="points" value="43"/> </bean> <bean id="point4" class="com.wlp.spring.bean.User"> <property name="name" value="Krishna"/> <property name="points" value="23"/> </bean> <bean id="messageSource" class="org.springframework.context.support.ResourceBundleMessageSource"> <property name="basename" value="messages"/> </bean> <bean name="/users.htm" id="userController" class="com.wlp.spring.controller.UserController"> <property name="pointManager" ref="pointManager"/> </bean> <bean name="/pointincrease.htm" id="pointIncreaseController" class="com.wlp.spring.controller.IncreasePointsFormController"> <property name="sessionForm" value="true"/> <property name="pointManager" ref="pointManager"/> <property name="commandName" value="pointIncrease"/> <property name="commandClass" value="com.wlp.spring.bean.PointIncrease"/> <property name="formView" value="pointincrease"/> <property name="successView" value="users"/> </bean> <bean id="parameterMappingInterceptor" class="org.springframework.web.portlet.handler.ParameterMappingInterceptor" /> <bean id="portletModeParameterHandlerMapping" class="org.springframework.web.portlet.handler.PortletModeParameterHandlerMapping"> <property name="order" value="1" /> <property name="interceptors"> <list> <ref bean="parameterMappingInterceptor" /> </list> </property> <property name="portletModeParameterMap"> <map> <entry key="view"> <map> <entry key="pointincrease"> <ref bean="pointIncreaseController" /> </entry> <entry key="users"> <ref bean="userController" /> </entry> </map> </entry> </map> </property> </bean> <bean id="portletModeHandlerMapping" class="org.springframework.web.portlet.handler.PortletModeHandlerMapping"> <property name="order" value="2" /> <property name="portletModeMap"> <map> <entry key="view"> <ref bean="userController" /> </entry> </map> </property> </bean> </beans> The SpringPortletName-portlet.xml file is an application context file for your MVC portlet. It has a couple of bean definitions: viewController. At this point, remember that the viewController bean definition points to the com.ibm.developerworks.springmvc.ViewController.java class. portletModeHandlerMapping. As we discussed in the last section, whenever DispatcherPortlet gets a client request, it tries to find a suitable Controller class for handling that request. That is where PortletModeHandlerMapping comes into the picture. The PortletModeHandlerMapping class is a simple implementation of the HandlerMapping interface and is used by DispatcherPortlet to find a suitable Controller for every request. The PortletModeHandlerMapping class uses Portlet mode for the current request to find a suitable Controller class to use for handling the request. The portletModeMap property of portletModeHandlerMapping bean is the place where we map the Portlet mode name against the Controller class. In the sample code, we show that viewController is responsible for handling View mode requests. Developing UserController.java In the preceding section, you learned that the viewController bean is responsible for handling all the View mode requests. Your next step is to create the UserController.java class as shown below: public class UserController extends AbstractController { private PointManager pointManager; public void handleActionRequest(ActionRequest request, ActionResponse response) throws Exception { } public ModelAndView handleRenderRequest(RenderRequest request, RenderResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException { String now = (new java.util.Date()).toString(); Map<String, Object> myModel = new HashMap<String, Object>(); myModel.put("now", now); myModel.put("users", this.pointManager.getUsers()); return new ModelAndView("users", "model", myModel); } public void setPointManager(PointManager pointManager) { this.pointManager = pointManager; } } Every controller class in Spring Portlet MVC Framework must implement the org.springframework.web. portlet.mvc.Controller interface directly or indirectly. To make things easier, Spring Framework provides AbstractController class, which is the default implementation of the Controller interface. As a developer, you should always extend your controller from either AbstractController or one of its more specific subclasses. Any implementation of the Controller class should be reusable, thread-safe, and capable of handling multiple requests throughout the lifecycle of the portlet. In the sample code, we create the ViewController class by extending it from AbstractController. Because we don't want to do any action processing in the HelloSpringPortletMVC portlet, we override only the handleRenderRequest() method of AbstractController. Now, the only thing that HelloWorldPortletMVC should do is render the markup of View.jsp to the user when it receives a user request to do so. To do that, return the object of ModelAndView with a value of view equal to View. Developing web.xml According to Portlet Specification 1.0, every portlet application is also a Servlet Specification 2.3-compliant Web application, and it needs a Web application deployment descriptor (that is, web.xml). Let’s create the web.xml file in the /WEB-INF/ folder as shown in listing 4. Follow these steps: Open the existing web.xml file located at /WebContent/WEB-INF/web.xml. Replace the contents of this file with the code as shown below: <servlet> <servlet-name>ViewRendererServlet</servlet-name> <servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.ViewRendererServlet</servlet-class> </servlet> <servlet-mapping> <servlet-name>ViewRendererServlet</servlet-name> <url-pattern>/WEB-INF/servlet/view</url-pattern> </servlet-mapping> <context-param> <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name> <param-value>/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml</param-value> </context-param> <listener> <listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class> </listener> The web.xml file for the sample portlet declares two things: ViewRendererServlet. The ViewRendererServlet is the bridge servlet for portlet support. During the render phase, DispatcherPortlet wraps PortletRequest into ServletRequest and forwards control to ViewRendererServlet for actual rendering. This process allows Spring Portlet MVC Framework to use the same View infrastructure as that of its servlet version, that is, Spring Web MVC Framework. ContextLoaderListener. The ContextLoaderListener class takes care of loading Web application context at the time of the Web application startup. The Web application context is shared by all the portlets in the portlet application. In case of duplicate bean definition, the bean definition in the portlet application context takes precedence over the Web application context. The ContextLoader class tries to read the value of the contextConfigLocation Web context parameter to find out the location of the context file. If the contextConfigLocation parameter is not set, then it uses the default value, which is /WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml, to load the context file. The Portlet Controller interface requires two methods that handle the two phases of a portlet request: the action request and the render request. The action phase should be capable of handling an action request and the render phase should be capable of handling a render request and returning an appropriate model and view. While the Controller interface is quite abstract, Spring Portlet MVC offers a lot of controllers that already contain a lot of the functionality you might need – most of these are very similar to controllers from Spring Web MVC. The Controller interface just defines the most common functionality required of every controller - handling an action request, handling a render request, and returning a model and a view. How rendering works As you know, when the user tries to access a page with PointSystemPortletMVC portlet on it or when the user performs some action on any other portlet on that page or tries to refresh that page, a render request is sent to the PointSystemPortletMVC portlet. In the sample code, because DispatcherPortlet is the main portlet class, Weblogic Portal / Webcenter Portal calls its render() method and then the following sequence of events occurs: The render() method of DispatcherPortlet calls the doDispatch() method, which in turn calls the doRender() method. After the doRenderService() method gets control, first it tries to find out the locale of the request by calling the PortletRequest.getLocale() method. This locale is used while making all the locale-related decisions for choices such as which resource bundle should be loaded or which JSP should be displayed to the user based on the locale. After that, the doRenderService() method starts iterating through all the HandlerMapping classes configured for this portlet, calling their getHandler() method to identify the appropriate Controller for handling this request. In the sample code, we have configured only PortletModeHandlerMapping as a HandlerMapping class. The PortletModeHandlerMapping class reads the value of the current portlet mode, and based on that, it finds out, the Controller class that should be used to handle this request. In the sample code, ViewController is configured to handle the View mode request so that the PortletModeHandlerMapping class returns the object of ViewController. After the object of ViewController is returned, the doRenderService() method calls its handleRenderRequestInternal() method. Implementation of the handleRenderRequestInternal() method in ViewController.java is very simple. It logs a message saying that it got control, and then it creates an instance of ModelAndView with a value equal to View and returns it to DispatcherPortlet. After control returns to doRenderService(), the next task is to figure out how to render View. For that, DispatcherPortlet starts iterating through all the ViewResolvers configured in your portlet application, calling their resolveViewName() method. In the sample code we have configured only one ViewResolver, InternalResourceViewResolver. When its resolveViewName() method is called with viewName, it tries to add /WEB-INF/jsp as a prefix to the view name and to add JSP as a suffix. And it checks if /WEB-INF/jsp/View.jsp exists. If it does exist, it returns the object of JstlView wrapping View.jsp. After control is returned to the doRenderService() method, it creates the object PortletRequestDispatcher, which points to /WEB-INF/servlet/view – that is, ViewRendererServlet. Then it sets the object of JstlView in the request and dispatches the request to ViewRendererServlet. After ViewRendererServlet gets control, it reads the JstlView object from the request attribute and creates another RequestDispatcher pointing to the /WEB-INF/jsp/View.jsp URL and passes control to it for actual markup generation. The markup generated by View.jsp is returned to user. At this point, you may question the need for ViewRendererServlet. Why can't DispatcherPortlet directly forward control to View.jsp? Adding ViewRendererServlet in between allows Spring Portlet MVC Framework to reuse the existing View infrastructure. You may appreciate this more when we discuss how easy it is to integrate Apache Tiles Framework with your Spring Portlet MVC Framework. The attached project SpringPortlet.zip should be used to import the project in to your OEPE Workspace. SpringPortlet_Jars.zip contains jar files required for the application. Project is written on Spring 2.5.  The same JSR 168 portlet should work on Webcenter Portal as well.  Downloads: Download WeblogicPotal Project which consists of Spring Portlet. Download Spring Jars In-addition to above you need to download Spring.jar (Spring2.5)

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• The Incremental Architect&acute;s Napkin &ndash; #3 &ndash; Make Evolvability inevitable

  - by Ralf Westphal

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/theArchitectsNapkin/archive/2014/06/04/the-incremental-architectacutes-napkin-ndash-3-ndash-make-evolvability-inevitable.aspxThe easier something to measure the more likely it will be produced. Deviations between what is and what should be can be readily detected. That´s what automated acceptance tests are for. That´s what sprint reviews in Scrum are for. It´s no small wonder our software looks like it looks. It has all the traits whose conformance with requirements can easily be measured. And it´s lacking traits which cannot easily be measured. Evolvability (or Changeability) is such a trait. If an operation is correct, if an operation if fast enough, that can be checked very easily. But whether Evolvability is high or low, that cannot be checked by taking a measure or two. Evolvability might correlate with certain traits, e.g. number of lines of code (LOC) per function or Cyclomatic Complexity or test coverage. But there is no threshold value signalling “evolvability too low”; also Evolvability is hardly tangible for the customer. Nevertheless Evolvability is of great importance - at least in the long run. You can get away without much of it for a short time. Eventually, though, it´s needed like any other requirement. Or even more. Because without Evolvability no other requirement can be implemented. Evolvability is the foundation on which all else is build. Such fundamental importance is in stark contrast with its immeasurability. To compensate this, Evolvability must be put at the very center of software development. It must become the hub around everything else revolves. Since we cannot measure Evolvability, though, we cannot start watching it more. Instead we need to establish practices to keep it high (enough) at all times. Chefs have known that for long. That´s why everybody in a restaurant kitchen is constantly seeing after cleanliness. Hygiene is important as is to have clean tools at standardized locations. Only then the health of the patrons can be guaranteed and production efficiency is constantly high. Still a kitchen´s level of cleanliness is easier to measure than software Evolvability. That´s why important practices like reviews, pair programming, or TDD are not enough, I guess. What we need to keep Evolvability in focus and high is… to continually evolve. Change must not be something to avoid but too embrace. To me that means the whole change cycle from requirement analysis to delivery needs to be gone through more often. Scrum´s sprints of 4, 2 even 1 week are too long. Kanban´s flow of user stories across is too unreliable; it takes as long as it takes. Instead we should fix the cycle time at 2 days max. I call that Spinning. No increment must take longer than from this morning until tomorrow evening to finish. Then it should be acceptance checked by the customer (or his/her representative, e.g. a Product Owner). For me there are several resasons for such a fixed and short cycle time for each increment: Clear expectations Absolute estimates (“This will take X days to complete.”) are near impossible in software development as explained previously. Too much unplanned research and engineering work lurk in every feature. And then pervasive interruptions of work by peers and management. However, the smaller the scope the better our absolute estimates become. That´s because we understand better what really are the requirements and what the solution should look like. But maybe more importantly the shorter the timespan the more we can control how we use our time. So much can happen over the course of a week and longer timespans. But if push comes to shove I can block out all distractions and interruptions for a day or possibly two. That´s why I believe we can give rough absolute estimates on 3 levels: Noon Tonight Tomorrow Think of a meeting with a Product Owner at 8:30 in the morning. If she asks you, how long it will take you to implement a user story or bug fix, you can say, “It´ll be fixed by noon.”, or you can say, “I can manage to implement it until tonight before I leave.”, or you can say, “You´ll get it by tomorrow night at latest.” Yes, I believe all else would be naive. If you´re not confident to get something done by tomorrow night (some 34h from now) you just cannot reliably commit to any timeframe. That means you should not promise anything, you should not even start working on the issue. So when estimating use these four categories: Noon, Tonight, Tomorrow, NoClue - with NoClue meaning the requirement needs to be broken down further so each aspect can be assigned to one of the first three categories. If you like absolute estimates, here you go. But don´t do deep estimates. Don´t estimate dozens of issues; don´t think ahead (“Issue A is a Tonight, then B will be a Tomorrow, after that it´s C as a Noon, finally D is a Tonight - that´s what I´ll do this week.”). Just estimate so Work-in-Progress (WIP) is 1 for everybody - plus a small number of buffer issues. To be blunt: Yes, this makes promises impossible as to what a team will deliver in terms of scope at a certain date in the future. But it will give a Product Owner a clear picture of what to pull for acceptance feedback tonight and tomorrow. Trust through reliability Our trade is lacking trust. Customers don´t trust software companies/departments much. Managers don´t trust developers much. I find that perfectly understandable in the light of what we´re trying to accomplish: delivering software in the face of uncertainty by means of material good production. Customers as well as managers still expect software development to be close to production of houses or cars. But that´s a fundamental misunderstanding. Software development ist development. It´s basically research. As software developers we´re constantly executing experiments to find out what really provides value to users. We don´t know what they need, we just have mediated hypothesises. That´s why we cannot reliably deliver on preposterous demands. So trust is out of the window in no time. If we switch to delivering in short cycles, though, we can regain trust. Because estimates - explicit or implicit - up to 32 hours at most can be satisfied. I´d say: reliability over scope. It´s more important to reliably deliver what was promised then to cover a lot of requirement area. So when in doubt promise less - but deliver without delay. Deliver on scope (Functionality and Quality); but also deliver on Evolvability, i.e. on inner quality according to accepted principles. Always. Trust will be the reward. Less complexity of communication will follow. More goodwill buffer will follow. So don´t wait for some Kanban board to show you, that flow can be improved by scheduling smaller stories. You don´t need to learn that the hard way. Just start with small batch sizes of three different sizes. Fast feedback What has been finished can be checked for acceptance. Why wait for a sprint of several weeks to end? Why let the mental model of the issue and its solution dissipate? If you get final feedback after one or two weeks, you hardly remember what you did and why you did it. Resoning becomes hard. But more importantly youo probably are not in the mood anymore to go back to something you deemed done a long time ago. It´s boring, it´s frustrating to open up that mental box again. Learning is harder the longer it takes from event to feedback. Effort can be wasted between event (finishing an issue) and feedback, because other work might go in the wrong direction based on false premises. Checking finished issues for acceptance is the most important task of a Product Owner. It´s even more important than planning new issues. Because as long as work started is not released (accepted) it´s potential waste. So before starting new work better make sure work already done has value. By putting the emphasis on acceptance rather than planning true pull is established. As long as planning and starting work is more important, it´s a push process. Accept a Noon issue on the same day before leaving. Accept a Tonight issue before leaving today or first thing tomorrow morning. Accept a Tomorrow issue tomorrow night before leaving or early the day after tomorrow. After acceptance the developer(s) can start working on the next issue. Flexibility As if reliability/trust and fast feedback for less waste weren´t enough economic incentive, there is flexibility. After each issue the Product Owner can change course. If on Monday morning feature slices A, B, C, D, E were important and A, B, C were scheduled for acceptance by Monday evening and Tuesday evening, the Product Owner can change her mind at any time. Maybe after A got accepted she asks for continuation with D. But maybe, just maybe, she has gotten a completely different idea by then. Maybe she wants work to continue on F. And after B it´s neither D nor E, but G. And after G it´s D. With Spinning every 32 hours at latest priorities can be changed. And nothing is lost. Because what got accepted is of value. It provides an incremental value to the customer/user. Or it provides internal value to the Product Owner as increased knowledge/decreased uncertainty. I find such reactivity over commitment economically very benefical. Why commit a team to some workload for several weeks? It´s unnecessary at beast, and inflexible and wasteful at worst. If we cannot promise delivery of a certain scope on a certain date - which is what customers/management usually want -, we can at least provide them with unpredecented flexibility in the face of high uncertainty. Where the path is not clear, cannot be clear, make small steps so you´re able to change your course at any time. Premature completion Customers/management are used to premeditating budgets. They want to know exactly how much to pay for a certain amount of requirements. That´s understandable. But it does not match with the nature of software development. We should know that by now. Maybe there´s somewhere in the world some team who can consistently deliver on scope, quality, and time, and budget. Great! Congratulations! I, however, haven´t seen such a team yet. Which does not mean it´s impossible, but I think it´s nothing I can recommend to strive for. Rather I´d say: Don´t try this at home. It might hurt you one way or the other. However, what we can do, is allow customers/management stop work on features at any moment. With spinning every 32 hours a feature can be declared as finished - even though it might not be completed according to initial definition. I think, progress over completion is an important offer software development can make. Why think in terms of completion beyond a promise for the next 32 hours? Isn´t it more important to constantly move forward? Step by step. We´re not running sprints, we´re not running marathons, not even ultra-marathons. We´re in the sport of running forever. That makes it futile to stare at the finishing line. The very concept of a burn-down chart is misleading (in most cases). Whoever can only think in terms of completed requirements shuts out the chance for saving money. The requirements for a features mostly are uncertain. So how does a Product Owner know in the first place, how much is needed. Maybe more than specified is needed - which gets uncovered step by step with each finished increment. Maybe less than specified is needed. After each 4–32 hour increment the Product Owner can do an experient (or invite users to an experiment) if a particular trait of the software system is already good enough. And if so, she can switch the attention to a different aspect. In the end, requirements A, B, C then could be finished just 70%, 80%, and 50%. What the heck? It´s good enough - for now. 33% money saved. Wouldn´t that be splendid? Isn´t that a stunning argument for any budget-sensitive customer? You can save money and still get what you need? Pull on practices So far, in addition to more trust, more flexibility, less money spent, Spinning led to “doing less” which also means less code which of course means higher Evolvability per se. Last but not least, though, I think Spinning´s short acceptance cycles have one more effect. They excert pull-power on all sorts of practices known for increasing Evolvability. If, for example, you believe high automated test coverage helps Evolvability by lowering the fear of inadverted damage to a code base, why isn´t 90% of the developer community practicing automated tests consistently? I think, the answer is simple: Because they can do without. Somehow they manage to do enough manual checks before their rare releases/acceptance checks to ensure good enough correctness - at least in the short term. The same goes for other practices like component orientation, continuous build/integration, code reviews etc. None of that is compelling, urgent, imperative. Something else always seems more important. So Evolvability principles and practices fall through the cracks most of the time - until a project hits a wall. Then everybody becomes desperate; but by then (re)gaining Evolvability has become as very, very difficult and tedious undertaking. Sometimes up to the point where the existence of a project/company is in danger. With Spinning that´s different. If you´re practicing Spinning you cannot avoid all those practices. With Spinning you very quickly realize you cannot deliver reliably even on your 32 hour promises. Spinning thus is pulling on developers to adopt principles and practices for Evolvability. They will start actively looking for ways to keep their delivery rate high. And if not, management will soon tell them to do that. Because first the Product Owner then management will notice an increasing difficulty to deliver value within 32 hours. There, finally there emerges a way to measure Evolvability: The more frequent developers tell the Product Owner there is no way to deliver anything worth of feedback until tomorrow night, the poorer Evolvability is. Don´t count the “WTF!”, count the “No way!” utterances. In closing For sustainable software development we need to put Evolvability first. Functionality and Quality must not rule software development but be implemented within a framework ensuring (enough) Evolvability. Since Evolvability cannot be measured easily, I think we need to put software development “under pressure”. Software needs to be changed more often, in smaller increments. Each increment being relevant to the customer/user in some way. That does not mean each increment is worthy of shipment. It´s sufficient to gain further insight from it. Increments primarily serve the reduction of uncertainty, not sales. Sales even needs to be decoupled from this incremental progress. No more promises to sales. No more delivery au point. Rather sales should look at a stream of accepted increments (or incremental releases) and scoup from that whatever they find valuable. Sales and marketing need to realize they should work on what´s there, not what might be possible in the future. But I digress… In my view a Spinning cycle - which is not easy to reach, which requires practice - is the core practice to compensate the immeasurability of Evolvability. From start to finish of each issue in 32 hours max - that´s the challenge we need to accept if we´re serious increasing Evolvability. Fortunately higher Evolvability is not the only outcome of Spinning. Customer/management will like the increased flexibility and “getting more bang for the buck”.

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• ANTS Memory Profiler 7.0 Review

  - by Michael B. McLaughlin

  (This is my first review as a part of the GeeksWithBlogs.net Influencers program. It’s a program in which I (and the others who have been selected for it) get the opportunity to check out new products and services and write reviews about them. We don’t get paid for this, but we do generally get to keep a copy of the software or retain an account for some period of time on the service that we review. In this case I received a copy of Red Gate Software’s ANTS Memory Profiler 7.0, which was released in January. I don’t have any upgrade rights nor is my review guided, restrained, influenced, or otherwise controlled by Red Gate or anyone else. But I do get to keep the software license. I will always be clear about what I received whenever I do a review – I leave it up to you to decide whether you believe I can be objective. I believe I can be. If I used something and really didn’t like it, keeping a copy of it wouldn’t be worth anything to me. In that case though, I would simply uninstall/deactivate/whatever the software or service and tell the company what I didn’t like about it so they could (hopefully) make it better in the future. I don’t think it’d be polite to write up a terrible review, nor do I think it would be a particularly good use of my time. There are people who get paid for a living to review things, so I leave it to them to tell you what they think is bad and why. I’ll only spend my time telling you about things I think are good.) Overview of Common .NET Memory Problems When coming to land of managed memory from the wilds of unmanaged code, it’s easy to say to one’s self, “Wow! Now I never have to worry about memory problems again!” But this simply isn’t true. Managed code environments, such as .NET, make many, many things easier. You will never have to worry about memory corruption due to a bad pointer, for example (unless you’re working with unsafe code, of course). But managed code has its own set of memory concerns. For example, failing to unsubscribe from events when you are done with them leaves the publisher of an event with a reference to the subscriber. If you eliminate all your own references to the subscriber, then that memory is effectively lost since the GC won’t delete it because of the publishing object’s reference. When the publishing object itself becomes subject to garbage collection then you’ll get that memory back finally, but that could take a very long time depending of the life of the publisher. Another common source of resource leaks is failing to properly release unmanaged resources. When writing a class that contains members that hold unmanaged resources (e.g. any of the Stream-derived classes, IsolatedStorageFile, most classes ending in “Reader” or “Writer”), you should always implement IDisposable, making sure to use a properly written Dispose method. And when you are using an instance of a class that implements IDisposable, you should always make sure to use a 'using' statement in order to ensure that the object’s unmanaged resources are disposed of properly. (A ‘using’ statement is a nicer, cleaner looking, and easier to use version of a try-finally block. The compiler actually translates it as though it were a try-finally block. Note that Code Analysis warning 2202 (CA2202) will often be triggered by nested using blocks. A properly written dispose method ensures that it only runs once such that calling dispose multiple times should not be a problem. Nonetheless, CA2202 exists and if you want to avoid triggering it then you should write your code such that only the innermost IDisposable object uses a ‘using’ statement, with any outer code making use of appropriate try-finally blocks instead). Then, of course, there are situations where you are operating in a memory-constrained environment or else you want to limit or even eliminate allocations within a certain part of your program (e.g. within the main game loop of an XNA game) in order to avoid having the GC run. On the Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7, for example, for every 1 MB of heap allocations you make, the GC runs; the added time of a GC collection can cause a game to drop frames or run slowly thereby making it look bad. Eliminating allocations (or else minimizing them and calling an explicit Collect at an appropriate time) is a common way of avoiding this (the other way is to simplify your heap so that the GC’s latency is low enough not to cause performance issues). ANTS Memory Profiler 7.0 When the opportunity to review Red Gate’s recently released ANTS Memory Profiler 7.0 arose, I jumped at it. In order to review it, I was given a free copy (which does not include upgrade rights for future versions) which I am allowed to keep. For those of you who are familiar with ANTS Memory Profiler, you can find a list of new features and enhancements here. If you are an experienced .NET developer who is familiar with .NET memory management issues, ANTS Memory Profiler is great. More importantly still, if you are new to .NET development or you have no experience or limited experience with memory profiling, ANTS Memory Profiler is awesome. From the very beginning, it guides you through the process of memory profiling. If you’re experienced and just want dive in however, it doesn’t get in your way. The help items GAHSFLASHDAJLDJA are well designed and located right next to the UI controls so that they are easy to find without being intrusive. When you first launch it, it presents you with a “Getting Started” screen that contains links to “Memory profiling video tutorials”, “Strategies for memory profiling”, and the “ANTS Memory Profiler forum”. I’m normally the kind of person who looks at a screen like that only to find the “Don’t show this again” checkbox. Since I was doing a review, though, I decided I should examine them. I was pleasantly surprised. The overview video clocks in at three minutes and fifty seconds. It begins by showing you how to get started profiling an application. It explains that profiling is done by taking memory snapshots periodically while your program is running and then comparing them. ANTS Memory Profiler (I’m just going to call it “ANTS MP” from here) analyzes these snapshots in the background while your application is running. It briefly mentions a new feature in Version 7, a new API that give you the ability to trigger snapshots from within your application’s source code (more about this below). You can also, and this is the more common way you would do it, take a memory snapshot at any time from within the ANTS MP window by clicking the “Take Memory Snapshot” button in the upper right corner. The overview video goes on to demonstrate a basic profiling session on an application that pulls information from a database and displays it. It shows how to switch which snapshots you are comparing, explains the different sections of the Summary view and what they are showing, and proceeds to show you how to investigate memory problems using the “Instance Categorizer” to track the path from an object (or set of objects) to the GC’s root in order to find what things along the path are holding a reference to it/them. For a set of objects, you can then click on it and get the “Instance List” view. This displays all of the individual objects (including their individual sizes, values, etc.) of that type which share the same path to the GC root. You can then click on one of the objects to generate an “Instance Retention Graph” view. This lets you track directly up to see the reference chain for that individual object. In the overview video, it turned out that there was an event handler which was holding on to a reference, thereby keeping a large number of strings that should have been freed in memory. Lastly the video shows the “Class List” view, which lets you dig in deeply to find problems that might not have been clear when following the previous workflow. Once you have at least one memory snapshot you can begin analyzing. The main interface is in the “Analysis” tab. You can also switch to the “Session Overview” tab, which gives you several bar charts highlighting basic memory data about the snapshots you’ve taken. If you hover over the individual bars (and the individual colors in bars that have more than one), you will see a detailed text description of what the bar is representing visually. The Session Overview is good for a quick summary of memory usage and information about the different heaps. You are going to spend most of your time in the Analysis tab, but it’s good to remember that the Session Overview is there to give you some quick feedback on basic memory usage stats. As described above in the summary of the overview video, there is a certain natural workflow to the Analysis tab. You’ll spin up your application and take some snapshots at various times such as before and after clicking a button to open a window or before and after closing a window. Taking these snapshots lets you examine what is happening with memory. You would normally expect that a lot of memory would be freed up when closing a window or exiting a document. By taking snapshots before and after performing an action like that you can see whether or not the memory is really being freed. If you already know an area that’s giving you trouble, you can run your application just like normal until just before getting to that part and then you can take a few strategic snapshots that should help you pin down the problem. Something the overview didn’t go into is how to use the “Filters” section at the bottom of ANTS MP together with the Class List view in order to narrow things down. The video tutorials page has a nice 3 minute intro video called “How to use the filters”. It’s a nice introduction and covers some of the basics. I’m going to cover a bit more because I think they’re a really neat, really helpful feature. Large programs can bring up thousands of classes. Even simple programs can instantiate far more classes than you might realize. In a basic .NET 4 WPF application for example (and when I say basic, I mean just MainWindow.xaml with a button added to it), the unfiltered Class List view will have in excess of 1000 classes (my simple test app had anywhere from 1066 to 1148 classes depending on which snapshot I was using as the “Current” snapshot). This is amazing in some ways as it shows you how in stark detail just how immensely powerful the WPF framework is. But hunting through 1100 classes isn’t productive, no matter how cool it is that there are that many classes instantiated and doing all sorts of awesome things. Let’s say you wanted to examine just the classes your application contains source code for (in my simple example, that would be the MainWindow and App). Under “Basic Filters”, click on “Classes with source” under “Show only…”. Voilà. Down from 1070 classes in the snapshot I was using as “Current” to 2 classes. If you then click on a class’s name, it will show you (to the right of the class name) two little icon buttons. Hover over them and you will see that you can click one to view the Instance Categorizer for the class and another to view the Instance List for the class. You can also show classes based on which heap they live on. If you chose both a Baseline snapshot and a Current snapshot then you can use the “Comparing snapshots” filters to show only: “New objects”; “Surviving objects”; “Survivors in growing classes”; or “Zombie objects” (if you aren’t sure what one of these means, you can click the helpful “?” in a green circle icon to bring up a popup that explains them and provides context). Remember that your selection(s) under the “Show only…” heading will still apply, so you should update those selections to make sure you are seeing the view you want. There are also links under the “What is my memory problem?” heading that can help you diagnose the problems you are seeing including one for “I don’t know which kind I have” for situations where you know generally that your application has some problems but aren’t sure what the behavior you have been seeing (OutOfMemoryExceptions, continually growing memory usage, larger memory use than expected at certain points in the program). The Basic Filters are not the only filters there are. “Filter by Object Type” gives you the ability to filter by: “Objects that are disposable”; “Objects that are/are not disposed”; “Objects that are/are not GC roots” (GC roots are things like static variables); and “Objects that implement _______”. “Objects that implement” is particularly neat. Once you check the box, you can then add one or more classes and interfaces that an object must implement in order to survive the filtering. Lastly there is “Filter by Reference”, which gives you the option to pare down the list based on whether an object is “Kept in memory exclusively by” a particular item, a class/interface, or a namespace; whether an object is “Referenced by” one or more of those choices; and whether an object is “Never referenced by” one or more of those choices. Remember that filtering is cumulative, so anything you had set in one of the filter sections still remains in effect unless and until you go back and change it. There’s quite a bit more to ANTS MP – it’s a very full featured product – but I think I touched on all of the most significant pieces. You can use it to debug: a .NET executable; an ASP.NET web application (running on IIS); an ASP.NET web application (running on Visual Studio’s built-in web development server); a Silverlight 4 browser application; a Windows service; a COM+ server; and even something called an XBAP (local XAML browser application). You can also attach to a .NET 4 process to profile an application that’s already running. The startup screen also has a large number of “Charting Options” that let you adjust which statistics ANTS MP should collect. The default selection is a good, minimal set. It’s worth your time to browse through the charting options to examine other statistics that may also help you diagnose a particular problem. The more statistics ANTS MP collects, the longer it will take to collect statistics. So just turning everything on is probably a bad idea. But the option to selectively add in additional performance counters from the extensive list could be a very helpful thing for your memory profiling as it lets you see additional data that might provide clues about a particular problem that has been bothering you. ANTS MP integrates very nicely with all versions of Visual Studio that support plugins (i.e. all of the non-Express versions). Just note that if you choose “Profile Memory” from the “ANTS” menu that it will launch profiling for whichever project you have set as the Startup project. One quick tip from my experience so far using ANTS MP: if you want to properly understand your memory usage in an application you’ve written, first create an “empty” version of the type of project you are going to profile (a WPF application, an XNA game, etc.) and do a quick profiling session on that so that you know the baseline memory usage of the framework itself. By “empty” I mean just create a new project of that type in Visual Studio then compile it and run it with profiling – don’t do anything special or add in anything (except perhaps for any external libraries you’re planning to use). The first thing I tried ANTS MP out on was a demo XNA project of an editor that I’ve been working on for quite some time that involves a custom extension to XNA’s content pipeline. The first time I ran it and saw the unmanaged memory usage I was convinced I had some horrible bug that was creating extra copies of texture data (the demo project didn’t have a lot of texture data so when I saw a lot of unmanaged memory I instantly figured I was doing something wrong). Then I thought to run an empty project through and when I saw that the amount of unmanaged memory was virtually identical, it dawned on me that the CLR itself sits in unmanaged memory and that (thankfully) there was nothing wrong with my code! Quite a relief. Earlier, when discussing the overview video, I mentioned the API that lets you take snapshots from within your application. I gave it a quick trial and it’s very easy to integrate and make use of and is a really nice addition (especially for projects where you want to know what, if any, allocations there are in a specific, complicated section of code). The only concern I had was that if I hadn’t watched the overview video I might never have known it existed. Even then it took me five minutes of hunting around Red Gate’s website before I found the “Taking snapshots from your code" article that explains what DLL you need to add as a reference and what method of what class you should call in order to take an automatic snapshot (including the helpful warning to wrap it in a try-catch block since, under certain circumstances, it can raise an exception, such as trying to call it more than 5 times in 30 seconds. The difficulty in discovering and then finding information about the automatic snapshots API was one thing I thought could use improvement. Another thing I think would make it even better would be local copies of the webpages it links to. Although I’m generally always connected to the internet, I imagine there are more than a few developers who aren’t or who are behind very restrictive firewalls. For them (and for me, too, if my internet connection happens to be down), it would be nice to have those documents installed locally or to have the option to download an additional “documentation” package that would add local copies. Another thing that I wish could be easier to manage is the Filters area. Finding and setting individual filters is very easy as is understanding what those filter do. And breaking it up into three sections (basic, by object, and by reference) makes sense. But I could easily see myself running a long profiling session and forgetting that I had set some filter a long while earlier in a different filter section and then spending quite a bit of time trying to figure out why some problem that was clearly visible in the data wasn’t showing up in, e.g. the instance list before remembering to check all the filters for that one setting that was only culling a few things from view. Some sort of indicator icon next to the filter section names that appears you have at least one filter set in that area would be a nice visual clue to remind me that “oh yeah, I told it to only show objects on the Gen 2 heap! That’s why I’m not seeing those instances of the SuperMagic class!” Something that would be nice (but that Red Gate cannot really do anything about) would be if this could be used in Windows Phone 7 development. If Microsoft and Red Gate could work together to make this happen (even if just on the WP7 emulator), that would be amazing. Especially given the memory constraints that apps and games running on mobile devices need to work within, a good memory profiler would be a phenomenally helpful tool. If anyone at Microsoft reads this, it’d be really great if you could make something like that happen. Perhaps even a (subsidized) custom version just for WP7 development. (For XNA games, of course, you can create a Windows version of the game and use ANTS MP on the Windows version in order to get a better picture of your memory situation. For Silverlight on WP7, though, there’s quite a bit of educated guess work and WeakReference creation followed by forced collections in order to find the source of a memory problem.) The only other thing I found myself wanting was a “Back” button. Between my Windows Phone 7, Zune, and other things, I’ve grown very used to having a “back stack” that lets me just navigate back to where I came from. The ANTS MP interface is surprisingly easy to use given how much it lets you do, and once you start using it for any amount of time, you learn all of the different areas such that you know where to go. And it does remember the state of the areas you were previously in, of course. So if you go to, e.g., the Instance Retention Graph from the Class List and then return back to the Class List, it will remember which class you had selected and all that other state information. Still, a “Back” button would be a welcome addition to a future release. Bottom Line ANTS Memory Profiler is not an inexpensive tool. But my time is valuable. I can easily see ANTS MP saving me enough time tracking down memory problems to justify it on a cost basis. More importantly to me, knowing what is happening memory-wise in my programs and having the confidence that my code doesn’t have any hidden time bombs in it that will cause it to OOM if I leave it running for longer than I do when I spin it up real quickly for debugging or just to see how a new feature looks and feels is a good feeling. It’s a feeling that I like having and want to continue to have. I got the current version for free in order to review it. Having done so, I’ve now added it to my must-have tools and will gladly lay out the money for the next version when it comes out. It has a 14 day free trial, so if you aren’t sure if it’s right for you or if you think it seems interesting but aren’t really sure if it’s worth shelling out the money for it, give it a try.

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• C#/.NET Little Wonders: The ConcurrentDictionary

  - by James Michael Hare

  Once again we consider some of the lesser known classes and keywords of C#.  In this series of posts, we will discuss how the concurrent collections have been developed to help alleviate these multi-threading concerns.  Last week’s post began with a general introduction and discussed the ConcurrentStack<T> and ConcurrentQueue<T>.  Today's post discusses the ConcurrentDictionary<T> (originally I had intended to discuss ConcurrentBag this week as well, but ConcurrentDictionary had enough information to create a very full post on its own!).  Finally next week, we shall close with a discussion of the ConcurrentBag<T> and BlockingCollection<T>. For more of the "Little Wonders" posts, see the index here. Recap As you'll recall from the previous post, the original collections were object-based containers that accomplished synchronization through a Synchronized member.  While these were convenient because you didn't have to worry about writing your own synchronization logic, they were a bit too finely grained and if you needed to perform multiple operations under one lock, the automatic synchronization didn't buy much. With the advent of .NET 2.0, the original collections were succeeded by the generic collections which are fully type-safe, but eschew automatic synchronization.  This cuts both ways in that you have a lot more control as a developer over when and how fine-grained you want to synchronize, but on the other hand if you just want simple synchronization it creates more work. With .NET 4.0, we get the best of both worlds in generic collections.  A new breed of collections was born called the concurrent collections in the System.Collections.Concurrent namespace.  These amazing collections are fine-tuned to have best overall performance for situations requiring concurrent access.  They are not meant to replace the generic collections, but to simply be an alternative to creating your own locking mechanisms. Among those concurrent collections were the ConcurrentStack<T> and ConcurrentQueue<T> which provide classic LIFO and FIFO collections with a concurrent twist.  As we saw, some of the traditional methods that required calls to be made in a certain order (like checking for not IsEmpty before calling Pop()) were replaced in favor of an umbrella operation that combined both under one lock (like TryPop()). Now, let's take a look at the next in our series of concurrent collections!For some excellent information on the performance of the concurrent collections and how they perform compared to a traditional brute-force locking strategy, see this wonderful whitepaper by the Microsoft Parallel Computing Platform team here. ConcurrentDictionary – the fully thread-safe dictionary The ConcurrentDictionary<TKey,TValue> is the thread-safe counterpart to the generic Dictionary<TKey, TValue> collection.  Obviously, both are designed for quick – O(1) – lookups of data based on a key.  If you think of algorithms where you need lightning fast lookups of data and don’t care whether the data is maintained in any particular ordering or not, the unsorted dictionaries are generally the best way to go. Note: as a side note, there are sorted implementations of IDictionary, namely SortedDictionary and SortedList which are stored as an ordered tree and a ordered list respectively.  While these are not as fast as the non-sorted dictionaries – they are O(log2 n) – they are a great combination of both speed and ordering -- and still greatly outperform a linear search. Now, once again keep in mind that if all you need to do is load a collection once and then allow multi-threaded reading you do not need any locking.  Examples of this tend to be situations where you load a lookup or translation table once at program start, then keep it in memory for read-only reference.  In such cases locking is completely non-productive. However, most of the time when we need a concurrent dictionary we are interleaving both reads and updates.  This is where the ConcurrentDictionary really shines!  It achieves its thread-safety with no common lock to improve efficiency.  It actually uses a series of locks to provide concurrent updates, and has lockless reads!  This means that the ConcurrentDictionary gets even more efficient the higher the ratio of reads-to-writes you have. ConcurrentDictionary and Dictionary differences For the most part, the ConcurrentDictionary<TKey,TValue> behaves like it’s Dictionary<TKey,TValue> counterpart with a few differences.  Some notable examples of which are: Add() does not exist in the concurrent dictionary. This means you must use TryAdd(), AddOrUpdate(), or GetOrAdd().  It also means that you can’t use a collection initializer with the concurrent dictionary. TryAdd() replaced Add() to attempt atomic, safe adds. Because Add() only succeeds if the item doesn’t already exist, we need an atomic operation to check if the item exists, and if not add it while still under an atomic lock. TryUpdate() was added to attempt atomic, safe updates. If we want to update an item, we must make sure it exists first and that the original value is what we expected it to be.  If all these are true, we can update the item under one atomic step. TryRemove() was added to attempt atomic, safe removes. To safely attempt to remove a value we need to see if the key exists first, this checks for existence and removes under an atomic lock. AddOrUpdate() was added to attempt an thread-safe “upsert”. There are many times where you want to insert into a dictionary if the key doesn’t exist, or update the value if it does.  This allows you to make a thread-safe add-or-update. GetOrAdd() was added to attempt an thread-safe query/insert. Sometimes, you want to query for whether an item exists in the cache, and if it doesn’t insert a starting value for it.  This allows you to get the value if it exists and insert if not. Count, Keys, Values properties take a snapshot of the dictionary. Accessing these properties may interfere with add and update performance and should be used with caution. ToArray() returns a static snapshot of the dictionary. That is, the dictionary is locked, and then copied to an array as a O(n) operation.  GetEnumerator() is thread-safe and efficient, but allows dirty reads. Because reads require no locking, you can safely iterate over the contents of the dictionary.  The only downside is that, depending on timing, you may get dirty reads. Dirty reads during iteration The last point on GetEnumerator() bears some explanation.  Picture a scenario in which you call GetEnumerator() (or iterate using a foreach, etc.) and then, during that iteration the dictionary gets updated.  This may not sound like a big deal, but it can lead to inconsistent results if used incorrectly.  The problem is that items you already iterated over that are updated a split second after don’t show the update, but items that you iterate over that were updated a split second before do show the update.  Thus you may get a combination of items that are “stale” because you iterated before the update, and “fresh” because they were updated after GetEnumerator() but before the iteration reached them. Let’s illustrate with an example, let’s say you load up a concurrent dictionary like this: 1: // load up a dictionary. 2: var dictionary = new ConcurrentDictionary<string, int>(); 3:  4: dictionary["A"] = 1; 5: dictionary["B"] = 2; 6: dictionary["C"] = 3; 7: dictionary["D"] = 4; 8: dictionary["E"] = 5; 9: dictionary["F"] = 6; Then you have one task (using the wonderful TPL!) to iterate using dirty reads: 1: // attempt iteration in a separate thread 2: var iterationTask = new Task(() => 3: { 4: // iterates using a dirty read 5: foreach (var pair in dictionary) 6: { 7: Console.WriteLine(pair.Key + ":" + pair.Value); 8: } 9: }); And one task to attempt updates in a separate thread (probably): 1: // attempt updates in a separate thread 2: var updateTask = new Task(() => 3: { 4: // iterates, and updates the value by one 5: foreach (var pair in dictionary) 6: { 7: dictionary[pair.Key] = pair.Value + 1; 8: } 9: }); Now that we’ve done this, we can fire up both tasks and wait for them to complete: 1: // start both tasks 2: updateTask.Start(); 3: iterationTask.Start(); 4:  5: // wait for both to complete. 6: Task.WaitAll(updateTask, iterationTask); Now, if I you didn’t know about the dirty reads, you may have expected to see the iteration before the updates (such as A:1, B:2, C:3, D:4, E:5, F:6).  However, because the reads are dirty, we will quite possibly get a combination of some updated, some original.  My own run netted this result: 1: F:6 2: E:6 3: D:5 4: C:4 5: B:3 6: A:2 Note that, of course, iteration is not in order because ConcurrentDictionary, like Dictionary, is unordered.  Also note that both E and F show the value 6.  This is because the output task reached F before the update, but the updates for the rest of the items occurred before their output (probably because console output is very slow, comparatively). If we want to always guarantee that we will get a consistent snapshot to iterate over (that is, at the point we ask for it we see precisely what is in the dictionary and no subsequent updates during iteration), we should iterate over a call to ToArray() instead: 1: // attempt iteration in a separate thread 2: var iterationTask = new Task(() => 3: { 4: // iterates using a dirty read 5: foreach (var pair in dictionary.ToArray()) 6: { 7: Console.WriteLine(pair.Key + ":" + pair.Value); 8: } 9: }); The atomic Try…() methods As you can imagine TryAdd() and TryRemove() have few surprises.  Both first check the existence of the item to determine if it can be added or removed based on whether or not the key currently exists in the dictionary: 1: // try add attempts an add and returns false if it already exists 2: if (dictionary.TryAdd("G", 7)) 3: Console.WriteLine("G did not exist, now inserted with 7"); 4: else 5: Console.WriteLine("G already existed, insert failed."); TryRemove() also has the virtue of returning the value portion of the removed entry matching the given key: 1: // attempt to remove the value, if it exists it is removed and the original is returned 2: int removedValue; 3: if (dictionary.TryRemove("C", out removedValue)) 4: Console.WriteLine("Removed C and its value was " + removedValue); 5: else 6: Console.WriteLine("C did not exist, remove failed."); Now TryUpdate() is an interesting creature.  You might think from it’s name that TryUpdate() first checks for an item’s existence, and then updates if the item exists, otherwise it returns false.  Well, note quite... It turns out when you call TryUpdate() on a concurrent dictionary, you pass it not only the new value you want it to have, but also the value you expected it to have before the update.  If the item exists in the dictionary, and it has the value you expected, it will update it to the new value atomically and return true.  If the item is not in the dictionary or does not have the value you expected, it is not modified and false is returned. 1: // attempt to update the value, if it exists and if it has the expected original value 2: if (dictionary.TryUpdate("G", 42, 7)) 3: Console.WriteLine("G existed and was 7, now it's 42."); 4: else 5: Console.WriteLine("G either didn't exist, or wasn't 7."); The composite Add methods The ConcurrentDictionary also has composite add methods that can be used to perform updates and gets, with an add if the item is not existing at the time of the update or get. The first of these, AddOrUpdate(), allows you to add a new item to the dictionary if it doesn’t exist, or update the existing item if it does.  For example, let’s say you are creating a dictionary of counts of stock ticker symbols you’ve subscribed to from a market data feed: 1: public sealed class SubscriptionManager 2: { 3: private readonly ConcurrentDictionary<string, int> _subscriptions = new ConcurrentDictionary<string, int>(); 4:  5: // adds a new subscription, or increments the count of the existing one. 6: public void AddSubscription(string tickerKey) 7: { 8: // add a new subscription with count of 1, or update existing count by 1 if exists 9: var resultCount = _subscriptions.AddOrUpdate(tickerKey, 1, (symbol, count) => count + 1); 10:  11: // now check the result to see if we just incremented the count, or inserted first count 12: if (resultCount == 1) 13: { 14: // subscribe to symbol... 15: } 16: } 17: } Notice the update value factory Func delegate.  If the key does not exist in the dictionary, the add value is used (in this case 1 representing the first subscription for this symbol), but if the key already exists, it passes the key and current value to the update delegate which computes the new value to be stored in the dictionary.  The return result of this operation is the value used (in our case: 1 if added, existing value + 1 if updated). Likewise, the GetOrAdd() allows you to attempt to retrieve a value from the dictionary, and if the value does not currently exist in the dictionary it will insert a value.  This can be handy in cases where perhaps you wish to cache data, and thus you would query the cache to see if the item exists, and if it doesn’t you would put the item into the cache for the first time: 1: public sealed class PriceCache 2: { 3: private readonly ConcurrentDictionary<string, double> _cache = new ConcurrentDictionary<string, double>(); 4:  5: // adds a new subscription, or increments the count of the existing one. 6: public double QueryPrice(string tickerKey) 7: { 8: // check for the price in the cache, if it doesn't exist it will call the delegate to create value. 9: return _cache.GetOrAdd(tickerKey, symbol => GetCurrentPrice(symbol)); 10: } 11:  12: private double GetCurrentPrice(string tickerKey) 13: { 14: // do code to calculate actual true price. 15: } 16: } There are other variations of these two methods which vary whether a value is provided or a factory delegate, but otherwise they work much the same. Oddities with the composite Add methods The AddOrUpdate() and GetOrAdd() methods are totally thread-safe, on this you may rely, but they are not atomic.  It is important to note that the methods that use delegates execute those delegates outside of the lock.  This was done intentionally so that a user delegate (of which the ConcurrentDictionary has no control of course) does not take too long and lock out other threads. This is not necessarily an issue, per se, but it is something you must consider in your design.  The main thing to consider is that your delegate may get called to generate an item, but that item may not be the one returned!  Consider this scenario: A calls GetOrAdd and sees that the key does not currently exist, so it calls the delegate.  Now thread B also calls GetOrAdd and also sees that the key does not currently exist, and for whatever reason in this race condition it’s delegate completes first and it adds its new value to the dictionary.  Now A is done and goes to get the lock, and now sees that the item now exists.  In this case even though it called the delegate to create the item, it will pitch it because an item arrived between the time it attempted to create one and it attempted to add it. Let’s illustrate, assume this totally contrived example program which has a dictionary of char to int.  And in this dictionary we want to store a char and it’s ordinal (that is, A = 1, B = 2, etc).  So for our value generator, we will simply increment the previous value in a thread-safe way (perhaps using Interlocked): 1: public static class Program 2: { 3: private static int _nextNumber = 0; 4:  5: // the holder of the char to ordinal 6: private static ConcurrentDictionary<char, int> _dictionary 7: = new ConcurrentDictionary<char, int>(); 8:  9: // get the next id value 10: public static int NextId 11: { 12: get { return Interlocked.Increment(ref _nextNumber); } 13: } Then, we add a method that will perform our insert: 1: public static void Inserter() 2: { 3: for (int i = 0; i < 26; i++) 4: { 5: _dictionary.GetOrAdd((char)('A' + i), key => NextId); 6: } 7: } Finally, we run our test by starting two tasks to do this work and get the results… 1: public static void Main() 2: { 3: // 3 tasks attempting to get/insert 4: var tasks = new List<Task> 5: { 6: new Task(Inserter), 7: new Task(Inserter) 8: }; 9:  10: tasks.ForEach(t => t.Start()); 11: Task.WaitAll(tasks.ToArray()); 12:  13: foreach (var pair in _dictionary.OrderBy(p => p.Key)) 14: { 15: Console.WriteLine(pair.Key + ":" + pair.Value); 16: } 17: } If you run this with only one task, you get the expected A:1, B:2, ..., Z:26.  But running this in parallel you will get something a bit more complex.  My run netted these results: 1: A:1 2: B:3 3: C:4 4: D:5 5: E:6 6: F:7 7: G:8 8: H:9 9: I:10 10: J:11 11: K:12 12: L:13 13: M:14 14: N:15 15: O:16 16: P:17 17: Q:18 18: R:19 19: S:20 20: T:21 21: U:22 22: V:23 23: W:24 24: X:25 25: Y:26 26: Z:27 Notice that B is 3?  This is most likely because both threads attempted to call GetOrAdd() at roughly the same time and both saw that B did not exist, thus they both called the generator and one thread got back 2 and the other got back 3.  However, only one of those threads can get the lock at a time for the actual insert, and thus the one that generated the 3 won and the 3 was inserted and the 2 got discarded.  This is why on these methods your factory delegates should be careful not to have any logic that would be unsafe if the value they generate will be pitched in favor of another item generated at roughly the same time.  As such, it is probably a good idea to keep those generators as stateless as possible. Summary The ConcurrentDictionary is a very efficient and thread-safe version of the Dictionary generic collection.  It has all the benefits of type-safety that it’s generic collection counterpart does, and in addition is extremely efficient especially when there are more reads than writes concurrently. Tweet Technorati Tags: C#, .NET, Concurrent Collections, Collections, Little Wonders, Black Rabbit Coder,James Michael Hare

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, October 29, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, October 29, 2011Popular Releasespatterns & practices: Enterprise Library Contrib: Enterprise Library Contrib - 5.0 (Oct 2011): This release of Enterprise Library Contrib is based on the Microsoft patterns & practices Enterprise Library 5.0 core and contains the following: Common extensionsTypeConfigurationElement<T> - A Polymorphic Configuration Element without having to be part of a PolymorphicConfigurationElementCollection. AnonymousConfigurationElement - A Configuration element that can be uniquely identified without having to define its name explicitly. Data Access Application Block extensionsMySql Provider - ...Network Monitor Open Source Parsers: Network Monitor Parsers 3.4.2748: The Network Monitor Parsers packages contain parsers for more than 400 network protocols, including RFC based public protocols and protocols for Microsoft products defined in the Microsoft Open Specifications for Windows and SQL Server. NetworkMonitor_Parsers.msi is the base parser package which defines parsers for commonly used public protocols and protocols for Microsoft Windows. In this release, NetowrkMonitor_Parsers.msi continues to improve quality and fix bugs. It has included the fo...Duckworth Lewis Professional Edition Calculator: DLcalc 3.0: DLcalc 3.0 can perform Duckworth/Lewis Professional Edition calculations 100% accurately. It also produces over-by-over and ball-by-ball PAR score tables.Folder Bookmarks: Folder Bookmarks 2.2.0.1: In this version: Custom Icons - now you can change the icons of the bookmarks. By default, whenever an image is added, the icon is automatically changed to a thumbnail of the picture. This can be turned off in the settings (Options... > Settings) Ability to remove items from the 'Recent' category Bugfixes - 'Choose' button in 'Edit Bookmark' now works Another bug fix: another problem in the 'Edit Bookmark' windowMedia Companion: MC 3.420b Weekly: Ensure .NET 4.0 Full Framework is installed. (Available from http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=17718) Ensure the NFO ID fix is applied when transitioning from versions prior to 3.416b. (Details here) Movies Fixed: Fanart and poster scraping issues TV Shows (Re)Added: Rebuild single show Fixed: Issue when shows are moved from original location Ability to handle " for actor nicknames Crash when episode name contains "<" (does not scrape yet) Clears fanart when switch...patterns & practices - Unity: Unity 3.0 for .NET4.5 Preview: The Unity 3.0.1026.0 Preview enables Unity to work on .NET 4.5 with both the WinRT and desktop profiles. The major changes include: Unity projects updated to target .NET 4.5. Dynamic build plans modified to use compiled lambda expressions instead of Reflection.Emit Converting reflection to use the new TypeInfo for reflection. Projects updated to work with the Microsoft Visual Studio 2011 Preview Notes/Known Issues: The Microsoft.Practices.Unity.UnityServiceLocator class cannot be use...Managed Extensibility Framework: MEF 2 Preview 4: Detailed information on this release is available on the BCL team blog.Image Converter: Image Converter 0.3: New Features: - English and German support Technical Improvements: - Microsoft All Rules using Code Analysis Planned Features for future release: 1. Unit testing 2. Command line interface 3. Automatic UpdatesAcDown????? - Anime&Comic Downloader: AcDown????? v3.6: ?? ● AcDown??????????、??????，??????????????????????，???????Acfun、Bilibili、???、???、???、Tucao.cc、SF???、?????80????，???????????、?????????。 ● AcDown???????????????????????????，???，???????????????????。 ● AcDown???????C#??，????.NET Framework 2.0??。?????"Acfun?????"。 ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7 ????????????? ??：????????Windows XP???,?????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86)?.NET Framework 2.0???(x64)，?????"?????????"??? ??????????????，??????????： ??"AcDown?????"????????? ?? v3.6?? ??“????”...DotNetNuke® Events: 05.02.01: This release fixes any know bugs from any previous version. Events 05.02.01 will work for any DNN version 5.5.0 and up. Full details on the changes can be found at http://dnnevents.codeplex.com/workitem/list/basic Please review and rate this release... (stars are welcome)BUG FIXESAdded validation around category cookie RSS feed was missing an explicit close of the file when writing. Fixed. Added extra security into detail view .ICS Files did not include correct line folding. Fixed Cha...Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.33: Add JSParser.ParseExpression method to parse JavaScript expressions rather than source-elements. Add -strict switch (CodeSettings.StrictMode) to force input code to ECMA5 Strict-mode (extra error-checking, "use strict" at top). Fixed bug when MinifyCode setting was set to false but RemoveUnneededCode was left it's default value of true.Path Copy Copy: 8.0: New version that mostly adds lots of requested features: 11340 11339 11338 11337 This version also features a more elaborate Settings UI that has several tabs. I tried to add some notes to better explain the use and purpose of the various options. The Path Copy Copy documentation is also on the way, both to explain how to develop custom plugins and to explain how to pre-configure options if you're a network admin. Stay tuned.MVC Controls Toolkit: Mvc Controls Toolkit 1.5.0: Added: The new Client Blocks feaure of Views A new "move" js method for the TreeViews The NewHtmlCreated js event to the DataGrid Improved the ChoiceList structure that now allows also the selection list of a dropdown to be chosen with a lambda expression Improved the AcceptViewHintAttribute controller filter. Now a client can specify not only the name of a View or Partial View it prefers, but also to receive just the rough data in Json format. Fixed: Issue with partial thrust Cl...Free SharePoint Master Pages: Buried Alive (Halloween) Theme: Release Notes *Created for Halloween, you will find theme file, custom css file and images. *Created by Al Roome @AlstarRoome Features: Custom styling for web part Custom background *Screenshot https://s3.amazonaws.com/kkhipple/post/sharepoint-showcase-halloween.pngDevForce Application Framework: DevForce AF 2.0.3 RTW: PrerequisitesWPF 4.0 Silverlight 4.0 DevForce 2010 6.1.3.1 Download ContentsDebug and Release Assemblies API Documentation Source code License.txt Requirements.txt Release HighlightsNew: EventAggregator event forwarding New: EntityManagerInterceptor<T> to intercept EntityManger events New: IHarnessAware to allow for ViewModel setup when executed inside of the Development Harness New: Improved design time stability New: Support for add-in development New: CoroutineFns.To...NicAudio: NicAudio 2.0.5: Minor change to accept special DTS stereo modes (LtRt, AB,...)NDepend TFS 2010 integration: version 0.5.0 beta 1: Only the activity and the VS plugin are avalaible right now. They basically work. Data types that are logged into tfs reports are subject to change. This is no big deal since data is not yet sent into the warehouse.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...DotNetNuke® FAQ: 05.00.00: FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) 05.00.00 will work for any DNN version 5.6.1 and up. It is the first version which is rewritten in C#. The scope of this update is to fix all known issues and improve user interface. Please review and rate this release... (stars are welcome)BUG FIXESManage Categories button text was not localized Edit/Add FAQ Entry: button text was not localized ENHANCEMENTSAdded an option to select the control for category display: Listbox with checkboxes (flat category ...SiteMap Editor for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: SiteMap Editor (1.0.921.340): Added CodePlex and PayPal links New iconNew ProjectsAsynk: Asynk is a framework/application that allows existing applications to easily be extended with an offloaded asynchronous worker layer. Asynk is developed using C#.Blob Tower Defense: 3D tower defense game for Windows Phone 7. School project for Brno University of Technology, computer graphics class.Booz: Booz is... An extended version of the boo shell (booish2 to be precise). Offers additional commands like cd, md, ls etc. I hope this shell can be used to take the position of/surpass the native windows shell in the near future.CIMS: a sanction infomation system for sencience and technology of hustCrystalDot - Icon Collection / Pack (LGPL): .Net / Mono freundliche Varainte der Crystal-Icons von Everaldo Icon collection / pack for .NET and Mono designed by Everaldo - KDE style http://www.everaldo.com/crystal/dotetes: dotetes adalah teka teki silang tool dikembangkan dengan bahasa c#Emoe': This Project is a Windows Phone 7.1 application.Equation Inversion: Visual Studion 2008 Add-in for equation inversions.Exploring VMR Features on WEC7: This is the sample application helps you to do alpha blending the bitmap on camera streaming in Windows Embedded Compact 7 using Directshow video Renderer (VMR). It is a VS2008 based smart device project developed on C++. I have explained the sample application in the following blog link. http://www.e-consystems.com/blog/windowsce/?p=759 EzValidation: Custom validation extensions for ASP.NET MVC 3. Includes server and client side model based validation attributes for: -- Equal To -- Not Equal To -- Greater Than -- Greater Than or Equal To -- Less Than -- Less Than or Equal To Supports validating against: -- Another Model Field -- A Specific Value -- Current Date/Yesterday/Tomorrow (for Dates and Strings) Download & Install via NuGet "package-install ezvalidation"Flu.net: Flu.net is a tool that helps you creating your own fluent syntax for .NET Framework applications in a declarative fashion. It is aimed for infrastructures and other open-source projects use.For Chess Endgames: King vs. King Opposition Calculator: You must input the locations of 2 kings on a chessboard, and whose turn it is to move. The calculator will display which king has the opposition, and how it can be used or maintained.GameTrakXNA: This project aims to create a simple library to use the unique GameTrak controller within XNA and Flash.Google Speech Recognition Example: Google Speech Recognition contains a working example of application that uses google speech recognition API. App contains all necessary dlls to record, decode and send your voice request to google service and recieve a text representation of what you've said. It's developed in C#Interval Mandelbrot Explorer: Explore the Mandelbrot set using interval arithmetic.ISD training tasks: ISD training examples and tasksiTunesControlBar: The iTunesControlBar helps user control their iTunes Application while it is minimized. iTunesControlBar resides at the top of the screen, invisible when not used, and allows playback and volume control, library searches and media information without the need to bring up iTunes.iTurtle: A bunch of Powerscripts to automate server management in AD environment.M26WC - Mono 2.6 Wizard Control: Wizard which runs under Mono2.6 A fork of: http://aerowizard.codeplex.com/Microsoft Help Viewer 2: Help Viewer 2 is the help runtime for both Visual Studio 11 help and Windows 8 help. The code in this project will help you use and understand the HV2 runtime API.MONTRASEC: Monitoring Trafficking in human beings and Sexual Exploitation of Children: benchmarking for member state and EU reporting, turning the SIAMSECT templates into a user-friendly interface and reporting tool. MTF.NET Runtime: Managed Task Framework .NET Runtime The MTF.NET runtime software and resulting assemblies are required to run applications built using the Managed Task Framework.NET Professional (Visual Studio 2010 extension) software design editor. The MTF.NET team are committed to continuously improving the core MTF.NET runtime and ensuring it is always available free and fully transparent. Pandoras Box: A greenfield inversion of control project utilising the power and flexibility of expressions and preferring convention over configuration.Pass the Puzzle: Pass the Puzzle is a frantic word-guessing party game. The game displays a few letters, and the players must come up with words containing those letters. But beware: if the timer goes off, you lose! It is based on the folk party game Pass the Parcel and is written in C#.PerCiGal: Percigal is a project for the development of applications for managing your personal media library. It consists in - a windows application to use at home to catalog movies, TV series, cast and books, with the support of the Internet for information retrieval; - a web interface for viewing and cataloging everywhere your media; - an application for smartphones. Project Flying Carpet: Este jogo é um projeto para a cadeira Projeto de Jogos: Motores Jogos do curso de Jogos Digitais da Unisinos.proxy browser: sed leo Latin's Butterfly....Python Multiple Dispatch: Multiple dispatch (AKA multimethods) for Python 3 via a metaclass and type annotations.reDune: ?????????? ???? ? ????? «????????? ? ???????? ???????». ???????? ?? Dune2000 ?? Westwood ? Electronic Arts.Rereadable: Keep page from internet for read it latter.ServStop: ServStop is a .NET application that makes it easy to stop several system services at once. Now you don't have to change startup types or stop them one at a time. It has a simple list-based interface with the ability to save and load lists of user services to stop. Written in C#.SharePoint 2010 Audience Membership Workflow Activity (Full Trust): A simple SharePoint 2010 workflow activity / workflow condition to check whether the user initiating the workflow is a member of a specified audience. Farm-level .wsp solution, written in C#. Once installed, the workflow activity can be used in SharePoint Designer 2010 declarative workflows.SQL Server® to Firebird DB converter: Converts Microsoft SQL Server® database into Firebird database including entire structure and datastegitest: test projectSystem.Threading.Joins: The Joins project provides asynchronous concurrency semantics based on join calculus and modeled after the Microsoft Research C? (C Omega) project.TestAndroidGame: try dev a TestAndroidGametetribricks: block game Topographic Explorer: A project to import, convert, explore, manipulate, and save topographical maps. Looking to use C# and WPF.Trading: Under construction!!!Trombone: Trombone makes it easier for Windows Mobile Professional users to automate status reply through SMS. It's developed in Visual C# 2008.Tulsa SharePoint Interest Group: Repository for source code for the Tulsa SharePoint Interest Group's web site. The Tulsa SharePoint Interest Group is using the Community Kit for SharePoint. This project will house any modifications that are specific to our user group.World of Tanks RU tiny stats collection utilty.: Tiny utility to load players stats for World of Tanks RU server. Results saved to comma separated file.WS-Discovery Proxy: Attempt at creating general purpose WS-Discovery Proxy.Yamaha Tu?n Tr?c: This application is used to manage information for Yamaha Tu?n Tr?c

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• Ball bouncing at a certain angle and efficiency computations

  - by X Y

  I would like to make a pong game with a small twist (for now). Every time the ball bounces off one of the paddles i want it to be under a certain angle (between a min and a max). I simply can't wrap my head around how to actually do it (i have some thoughts and such but i simply cannot implement them properly - i feel i'm overcomplicating things). Here's an image with a small explanation . One other problem would be that the conditions for bouncing have to be different for every edge. For example, in the picture, on the two small horizontal edges i do not want a perfectly vertical bounce when in the middle of the edge but rather a constant angle (pi/4 maybe) in either direction depending on the collision point (before the middle of the edge, or after). All of my collisions are done with the Separating Axes Theorem (and seem to work fine). I'm looking for something efficient because i want to add a lot of things later on (maybe polygons with many edges and such). So i need to keep to a minimum the amount of checking done every frame. The collision algorithm begins testing whenever the bounding boxes of the paddle and the ball intersect. Is there something better to test for possible collisions every frame? (more efficient in the long run,with many more objects etc, not necessarily easy to code). I'm going to post the code for my game: Paddle Class public class Paddle : Microsoft.Xna.Framework.DrawableGameComponent { #region Private Members private SpriteBatch spriteBatch; private ContentManager contentManager; private bool keybEnabled; private bool isLeftPaddle; private Texture2D paddleSprite; private Vector2 paddlePosition; private float paddleSpeedY; private Vector2 paddleScale = new Vector2(1f, 1f); private const float DEFAULT_Y_SPEED = 150; private Vector2[] Normals2Edges; private Vector2[] Vertices = new Vector2[4]; private List<Vector2> lst = new List<Vector2>(); private Vector2 Edge; #endregion #region Properties public float Speed { get {return paddleSpeedY; } set { paddleSpeedY = value; } } public Vector2[] Normal2EdgesVector { get { NormalsToEdges(this.isLeftPaddle); return Normals2Edges; } } public Vector2[] VertexVector { get { return Vertices; } } public Vector2 Scale { get { return paddleScale; } set { paddleScale = value; NormalsToEdges(this.isLeftPaddle); } } public float X { get { return paddlePosition.X; } set { paddlePosition.X = value; } } public float Y { get { return paddlePosition.Y; } set { paddlePosition.Y = value; } } public float Width { get { return (Scale.X == 1f ? (float)paddleSprite.Width : paddleSprite.Width * Scale.X); } } public float Height { get { return ( Scale.Y==1f ? (float)paddleSprite.Height : paddleSprite.Height*Scale.Y ); } } public Texture2D GetSprite { get { return paddleSprite; } } public Rectangle Boundary { get { return new Rectangle((int)paddlePosition.X, (int)paddlePosition.Y, (int)this.Width, (int)this.Height); } } public bool KeyboardEnabled { get { return keybEnabled; } } #endregion private void NormalsToEdges(bool isLeftPaddle) { Normals2Edges = null; Edge = Vector2.Zero; lst.Clear(); for (int i = 0; i < Vertices.Length; i++) { Edge = Vertices[i + 1 == Vertices.Length ? 0 : i + 1] - Vertices[i]; if (Edge != Vector2.Zero) { Edge.Normalize(); //outer normal to edge !! (origin in top-left) lst.Add(new Vector2(Edge.Y, -Edge.X)); } } Normals2Edges = lst.ToArray(); } public float[] ProjectPaddle(Vector2 axis) { if (Vertices.Length == 0 || axis == Vector2.Zero) return (new float[2] { 0, 0 }); float min, max; min = Vector2.Dot(axis, Vertices[0]); max = min; for (int i = 1; i < Vertices.Length; i++) { float p = Vector2.Dot(axis, Vertices[i]); if (p < min) min = p; else if (p > max) max = p; } return (new float[2] { min, max }); } public Paddle(Game game, bool isLeftPaddle, bool enableKeyboard = true) : base(game) { contentManager = new ContentManager(game.Services); keybEnabled = enableKeyboard; this.isLeftPaddle = isLeftPaddle; } public void setPosition(Vector2 newPos) { X = newPos.X; Y = newPos.Y; } public override void Initialize() { base.Initialize(); this.Speed = DEFAULT_Y_SPEED; X = 0; Y = 0; NormalsToEdges(this.isLeftPaddle); } protected override void LoadContent() { spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice); paddleSprite = contentManager.Load<Texture2D>(@"Content\pongBar"); } public override void Update(GameTime gameTime) { //vertices array Vertices[0] = this.paddlePosition; Vertices[1] = this.paddlePosition + new Vector2(this.Width, 0); Vertices[2] = this.paddlePosition + new Vector2(this.Width, this.Height); Vertices[3] = this.paddlePosition + new Vector2(0, this.Height); // Move paddle, but don't allow movement off the screen if (KeyboardEnabled) { float moveDistance = Speed * (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds; KeyboardState newKeyState = Keyboard.GetState(); if (newKeyState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Down) && Y + paddleSprite.Height + moveDistance <= Game.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height) { Y += moveDistance; } else if (newKeyState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Up) && Y - moveDistance >= 0) { Y -= moveDistance; } } else { if (this.Y + this.Height > this.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height) { this.Y = this.Game.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height - this.Height - 1; } } base.Update(gameTime); } public override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteSortMode.Texture,null); spriteBatch.Draw(paddleSprite, paddlePosition, null, Color.White, 0f, Vector2.Zero, Scale, SpriteEffects.None, 0); spriteBatch.End(); base.Draw(gameTime); } } Ball Class public class Ball : Microsoft.Xna.Framework.DrawableGameComponent { #region Private Members private SpriteBatch spriteBatch; private ContentManager contentManager; private const float DEFAULT_SPEED = 50; private float speedIncrement = 0; private Vector2 ballScale = new Vector2(1f, 1f); private const float INCREASE_SPEED = 50; private Texture2D ballSprite; //initial texture private Vector2 ballPosition; //position private Vector2 centerOfBall; //center coords private Vector2 ballSpeed = new Vector2(DEFAULT_SPEED, DEFAULT_SPEED); //speed #endregion #region Properties public float DEFAULTSPEED { get { return DEFAULT_SPEED; } } public Vector2 ballCenter { get { return centerOfBall; } } public Vector2 Scale { get { return ballScale; } set { ballScale = value; } } public float SpeedX { get { return ballSpeed.X; } set { ballSpeed.X = value; } } public float SpeedY { get { return ballSpeed.Y; } set { ballSpeed.Y = value; } } public float X { get { return ballPosition.X; } set { ballPosition.X = value; } } public float Y { get { return ballPosition.Y; } set { ballPosition.Y = value; } } public Texture2D GetSprite { get { return ballSprite; } } public float Width { get { return (Scale.X == 1f ? (float)ballSprite.Width : ballSprite.Width * Scale.X); } } public float Height { get { return (Scale.Y == 1f ? (float)ballSprite.Height : ballSprite.Height * Scale.Y); } } public float SpeedIncreaseIncrement { get { return speedIncrement; } set { speedIncrement = value; } } public Rectangle Boundary { get { return new Rectangle((int)ballPosition.X, (int)ballPosition.Y, (int)this.Width, (int)this.Height); } } #endregion public Ball(Game game) : base(game) { contentManager = new ContentManager(game.Services); } public void Reset() { ballSpeed.X = DEFAULT_SPEED; ballSpeed.Y = DEFAULT_SPEED; ballPosition.X = Game.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Width / 2 - ballSprite.Width / 2; ballPosition.Y = Game.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height / 2 - ballSprite.Height / 2; } public void SpeedUp() { if (ballSpeed.Y < 0) ballSpeed.Y -= (INCREASE_SPEED + speedIncrement); else ballSpeed.Y += (INCREASE_SPEED + speedIncrement); if (ballSpeed.X < 0) ballSpeed.X -= (INCREASE_SPEED + speedIncrement); else ballSpeed.X += (INCREASE_SPEED + speedIncrement); } public float[] ProjectBall(Vector2 axis) { if (axis == Vector2.Zero) return (new float[2] { 0, 0 }); float min, max; min = Vector2.Dot(axis, this.ballCenter) - this.Width/2; //center - radius max = min + this.Width; //center + radius return (new float[2] { min, max }); } public void ChangeHorzDirection() { ballSpeed.X *= -1; } public void ChangeVertDirection() { ballSpeed.Y *= -1; } public override void Initialize() { base.Initialize(); ballPosition.X = Game.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Width / 2 - ballSprite.Width / 2; ballPosition.Y = Game.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height / 2 - ballSprite.Height / 2; } protected override void LoadContent() { spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice); ballSprite = contentManager.Load<Texture2D>(@"Content\ball"); } public override void Update(GameTime gameTime) { if (this.Y < 1 || this.Y > GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height - this.Height - 1) this.ChangeVertDirection(); centerOfBall = new Vector2(ballPosition.X + this.Width / 2, ballPosition.Y + this.Height / 2); base.Update(gameTime); } public override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { spriteBatch.Begin(); spriteBatch.Draw(ballSprite, ballPosition, null, Color.White, 0f, Vector2.Zero, Scale, SpriteEffects.None, 0); spriteBatch.End(); base.Draw(gameTime); } } Main game class public class gameStart : Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game { GraphicsDeviceManager graphics; SpriteBatch spriteBatch; public gameStart() { graphics = new GraphicsDeviceManager(this); Content.RootDirectory = "Content"; this.Window.Title = "Pong game"; } protected override void Initialize() { ball = new Ball(this); paddleLeft = new Paddle(this,true,false); paddleRight = new Paddle(this,false,true); Components.Add(ball); Components.Add(paddleLeft); Components.Add(paddleRight); this.Window.AllowUserResizing = false; this.IsMouseVisible = true; this.IsFixedTimeStep = false; this.isColliding = false; base.Initialize(); } #region MyPrivateStuff private Ball ball; private Paddle paddleLeft, paddleRight; private int[] bit = { -1, 1 }; private Random rnd = new Random(); private int updates = 0; enum nrPaddle { None, Left, Right }; private nrPaddle PongBar = nrPaddle.None; private ArrayList Axes = new ArrayList(); private Vector2 MTV; //minimum translation vector private bool isColliding; private float overlap; //smallest distance after projections private Vector2 overlapAxis; //axis of overlap #endregion protected override void LoadContent() { spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice); paddleLeft.setPosition(new Vector2(0, this.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height / 2 - paddleLeft.Height / 2)); paddleRight.setPosition(new Vector2(this.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Width - paddleRight.Width, this.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height / 2 - paddleRight.Height / 2)); paddleLeft.Scale = new Vector2(1f, 2f); //scale left paddle } private bool ShapesIntersect(Paddle paddle, Ball ball) { overlap = 1000000f; //large value overlapAxis = Vector2.Zero; MTV = Vector2.Zero; foreach (Vector2 ax in Axes) { float[] pad = paddle.ProjectPaddle(ax); //pad0 = min, pad1 = max float[] circle = ball.ProjectBall(ax); //circle0 = min, circle1 = max if (pad[1] <= circle[0] || circle[1] <= pad[0]) { return false; } if (pad[1] - circle[0] < circle[1] - pad[0]) { if (Math.Abs(overlap) > Math.Abs(-pad[1] + circle[0])) { overlap = -pad[1] + circle[0]; overlapAxis = ax; } } else { if (Math.Abs(overlap) > Math.Abs(circle[1] - pad[0])) { overlap = circle[1] - pad[0]; overlapAxis = ax; } } } if (overlapAxis != Vector2.Zero) { MTV = overlapAxis * overlap; } return true; } protected override void Update(GameTime gameTime) { updates += 1; float ftime = 5 * (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds; if (updates == 1) { isColliding = false; int Xrnd = bit[Convert.ToInt32(rnd.Next(0, 2))]; int Yrnd = bit[Convert.ToInt32(rnd.Next(0, 2))]; ball.SpeedX = Xrnd * ball.SpeedX; ball.SpeedY = Yrnd * ball.SpeedY; ball.X += ftime * ball.SpeedX; ball.Y += ftime * ball.SpeedY; } else { updates = 100; ball.X += ftime * ball.SpeedX; ball.Y += ftime * ball.SpeedY; } //autorun :) paddleLeft.Y = ball.Y; //collision detection PongBar = nrPaddle.None; if (ball.Boundary.Intersects(paddleLeft.Boundary)) { PongBar = nrPaddle.Left; if (!isColliding) { Axes.Clear(); Axes.AddRange(paddleLeft.Normal2EdgesVector); //axis from nearest vertex to ball's center Axes.Add(FORMULAS.NormAxisFromCircle2ClosestVertex(paddleLeft.VertexVector, ball.ballCenter)); } } else if (ball.Boundary.Intersects(paddleRight.Boundary)) { PongBar = nrPaddle.Right; if (!isColliding) { Axes.Clear(); Axes.AddRange(paddleRight.Normal2EdgesVector); //axis from nearest vertex to ball's center Axes.Add(FORMULAS.NormAxisFromCircle2ClosestVertex(paddleRight.VertexVector, ball.ballCenter)); } } if (PongBar != nrPaddle.None && !isColliding) switch (PongBar) { case nrPaddle.Left: if (ShapesIntersect(paddleLeft, ball)) { isColliding = true; if (MTV != Vector2.Zero) ball.X += MTV.X; ball.Y += MTV.Y; ball.ChangeHorzDirection(); } break; case nrPaddle.Right: if (ShapesIntersect(paddleRight, ball)) { isColliding = true; if (MTV != Vector2.Zero) ball.X += MTV.X; ball.Y += MTV.Y; ball.ChangeHorzDirection(); } break; default: break; } if (!ShapesIntersect(paddleRight, ball) && !ShapesIntersect(paddleLeft, ball)) isColliding = false; ball.X += ftime * ball.SpeedX; ball.Y += ftime * ball.SpeedY; //check ball movement if (ball.X > paddleRight.X + paddleRight.Width + 2) { //IncreaseScore(Left); ball.Reset(); updates = 0; return; } else if (ball.X < paddleLeft.X - 2) { //IncreaseScore(Right); ball.Reset(); updates = 0; return; } base.Update(gameTime); } protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.Aquamarine); spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteSortMode.BackToFront, BlendState.AlphaBlend); spriteBatch.End(); base.Draw(gameTime); } } And one method i've used: public static Vector2 NormAxisFromCircle2ClosestVertex(Vector2[] vertices, Vector2 circle) { Vector2 temp = Vector2.Zero; if (vertices.Length > 0) { float dist = (circle.X - vertices[0].X) * (circle.X - vertices[0].X) + (circle.Y - vertices[0].Y) * (circle.Y - vertices[0].Y); for (int i = 1; i < vertices.Length;i++) { if (dist > (circle.X - vertices[i].X) * (circle.X - vertices[i].X) + (circle.Y - vertices[i].Y) * (circle.Y - vertices[i].Y)) { temp = vertices[i]; //memorize the closest vertex dist = (circle.X - vertices[i].X) * (circle.X - vertices[i].X) + (circle.Y - vertices[i].Y) * (circle.Y - vertices[i].Y); } } temp = circle - temp; temp.Normalize(); } return temp; } Thanks in advance for any tips on the 4 issues. EDIT1: Something isn't working properly. The collision axis doesn't come out right and the interpolation also seems to have no effect. I've changed the code a bit: private bool ShapesIntersect(Paddle paddle, Ball ball) { overlap = 1000000f; //large value overlapAxis = Vector2.Zero; MTV = Vector2.Zero; foreach (Vector2 ax in Axes) { float[] pad = paddle.ProjectPaddle(ax); //pad0 = min, pad1 = max float[] circle = ball.ProjectBall(ax); //circle0 = min, circle1 = max if (pad[1] < circle[0] || circle[1] < pad[0]) { return false; } if (Math.Abs(pad[1] - circle[0]) < Math.Abs(circle[1] - pad[0])) { if (Math.Abs(overlap) > Math.Abs(-pad[1] + circle[0])) { overlap = -pad[1] + circle[0]; overlapAxis = ax * (-1); } //to get the proper axis } else { if (Math.Abs(overlap) > Math.Abs(circle[1] - pad[0])) { overlap = circle[1] - pad[0]; overlapAxis = ax; } } } if (overlapAxis != Vector2.Zero) { MTV = overlapAxis * Math.Abs(overlap); } return true; } And part of the Update method: if (ShapesIntersect(paddleRight, ball)) { isColliding = true; if (MTV != Vector2.Zero) { ball.X += MTV.X; ball.Y += MTV.Y; } //test if (overlapAxis.X == 0) //collision with horizontal edge { } else if (overlapAxis.Y == 0) //collision with vertical edge { float factor = Math.Abs(ball.ballCenter.Y - paddleRight.Y) / paddleRight.Height; if (factor > 1) factor = 1f; if (overlapAxis.X < 0) //left edge? ball.Speed = ball.DEFAULTSPEED * Vector2.Normalize(Vector2.Reflect(ball.Speed, (Vector2.Lerp(new Vector2(-1, -3), new Vector2(-1, 3), factor)))); else //right edge? ball.Speed = ball.DEFAULTSPEED * Vector2.Normalize(Vector2.Reflect(ball.Speed, (Vector2.Lerp(new Vector2(1, -3), new Vector2(1, 3), factor)))); } else //vertex collision??? { ball.Speed = -ball.Speed; } } What seems to happen is that "overlapAxis" doesn't always return the right one. So instead of (-1,0) i get the (1,0) (this happened even before i multiplied with -1 there). Sometimes there isn't even a collision registered even though the ball passes through the paddle... The interpolation also seems to have no effect as the angles barely change (or the overlapAxis is almost never (-1,0) or (1,0) but something like (0.9783473, 0.02743843)... ). What am i missing here? :(

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• Informed TDD &ndash; Kata &ldquo;To Roman Numerals&rdquo;

  - by Ralf Westphal

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/theArchitectsNapkin/archive/2014/05/28/informed-tdd-ndash-kata-ldquoto-roman-numeralsrdquo.aspxIn a comment on my article on what I call Informed TDD (ITDD) reader gustav asked how this approach would apply to the kata “To Roman Numerals”. And whether ITDD wasn´t a violation of TDD´s principle of leaving out “advanced topics like mocks”. I like to respond with this article to his questions. There´s more to say than fits into a commentary. Mocks and TDD I don´t see in how far TDD is avoiding or opposed to mocks. TDD and mocks are orthogonal. TDD is about pocess, mocks are about structure and costs. Maybe by moving forward in tiny red+green+refactor steps less need arises for mocks. But then… if the functionality you need to implement requires “expensive” resource access you can´t avoid using mocks. Because you don´t want to constantly run all your tests against the real resource. True, in ITDD mocks seem to be in almost inflationary use. That´s not what you usually see in TDD demonstrations. However, there´s a reason for that as I tried to explain. I don´t use mocks as proxies for “expensive” resource. Rather they are stand-ins for functionality not yet implemented. They allow me to get a test green on a high level of abstraction. That way I can move forward in a top-down fashion. But if you think of mocks as “advanced” or if you don´t want to use a tool like JustMock, then you don´t need to use mocks. You just need to stand the sight of red tests for a little longer ;-) Let me show you what I mean by that by doing a kata. ITDD for “To Roman Numerals” gustav asked for the kata “To Roman Numerals”. I won´t explain the requirements again. You can find descriptions and TDD demonstrations all over the internet, like this one from Corey Haines. Now here is, how I would do this kata differently. 1. Analyse A demonstration of TDD should never skip the analysis phase. It should be made explicit. The requirements should be formalized and acceptance test cases should be compiled. “Formalization” in this case to me means describing the API of the required functionality. “[D]esign a program to work with Roman numerals” like written in this “requirement document” is not enough to start software development. Coding should only begin, if the interface between the “system under development” and its context is clear. If this interface is not readily recognizable from the requirements, it has to be developed first. Exploration of interface alternatives might be in order. It might be necessary to show several interface mock-ups to the customer – even if that´s you fellow developer. Designing the interface is a task of it´s own. It should not be mixed with implementing the required functionality behind the interface. Unfortunately, though, this happens quite often in TDD demonstrations. TDD is used to explore the API and implement it at the same time. To me that´s a violation of the Single Responsibility Principle (SRP) which not only should hold for software functional units but also for tasks or activities. In the case of this kata the API fortunately is obvious. Just one function is needed: string ToRoman(int arabic). And it lives in a class ArabicRomanConversions. Now what about acceptance test cases? There are hardly any stated in the kata descriptions. Roman numerals are explained, but no specific test cases from the point of view of a customer. So I just “invent” some acceptance test cases by picking roman numerals from a wikipedia article. They are supposed to be just “typical examples” without special meaning. Given the acceptance test cases I then try to develop an understanding of the problem domain. I´ll spare you that. The domain is trivial and is explain in almost all kata descriptions. How roman numerals are built is not difficult to understand. What´s more difficult, though, might be to find an efficient solution to convert into them automatically. 2. Solve The usual TDD demonstration skips a solution finding phase. Like the interface exploration it´s mixed in with the implementation. But I don´t think this is how it should be done. I even think this is not how it really works for the people demonstrating TDD. They´re simplifying their true software development process because they want to show a streamlined TDD process. I doubt this is helping anybody. Before you code you better have a plan what to code. This does not mean you have to do “Big Design Up-Front”. It just means: Have a clear picture of the logical solution in your head before you start to build a physical solution (code). Evidently such a solution can only be as good as your understanding of the problem. If that´s limited your solution will be limited, too. Fortunately, in the case of this kata your understanding does not need to be limited. Thus the logical solution does not need to be limited or preliminary or tentative. That does not mean you need to know every line of code in advance. It just means you know the rough structure of your implementation beforehand. Because it should mirror the process described by the logical or conceptual solution. Here´s my solution approach: The arabic “encoding” of numbers represents them as an ordered set of powers of 10. Each digit is a factor to multiply a power of ten with. The “encoding” 123 is the short form for a set like this: {1*10^2, 2*10^1, 3*10^0}. And the number is the sum of the set members. The roman “encoding” is different. There is no base (like 10 for arabic numbers), there are just digits of different value, and they have to be written in descending order. The “encoding” XVI is short for [10, 5, 1]. And the number is still the sum of the members of this list. The roman “encoding” thus is simpler than the arabic. Each “digit” can be taken at face value. No multiplication with a base required. But what about IV which looks like a contradiction to the above rule? It is not – if you accept roman “digits” not to be limited to be single characters only. Usually I, V, X, L, C, D, M are viewed as “digits”, and IV, IX etc. are viewed as nuisances preventing a simple solution. All looks different, though, once IV, IX etc. are taken as “digits”. Then MCMLIV is just a sum: M+CM+L+IV which is 1000+900+50+4. Whereas before it would have been understood as M-C+M+L-I+V – which is more difficult because here some “digits” get subtracted. Here´s the list of roman “digits” with their values: {1, I}, {4, IV}, {5, V}, {9, IX}, {10, X}, {40, XL}, {50, L}, {90, XC}, {100, C}, {400, CD}, {500, D}, {900, CM}, {1000, M} Since I take IV, IX etc. as “digits” translating an arabic number becomes trivial. I just need to find the values of the roman “digits” making up the number, e.g. 1954 is made up of 1000, 900, 50, and 4. I call those “digits” factors. If I move from the highest factor (M=1000) to the lowest (I=1) then translation is a two phase process: Find all the factors Translate the factors found Compile the roman representation Translation is just a look-up. Finding, though, needs some calculation: Find the highest remaining factor fitting in the value Remember and subtract it from the value Repeat with remaining value and remaining factors Please note: This is just an algorithm. It´s not code, even though it might be close. Being so close to code in my solution approach is due to the triviality of the problem. In more realistic examples the conceptual solution would be on a higher level of abstraction. With this solution in hand I finally can do what TDD advocates: find and prioritize test cases. As I can see from the small process description above, there are two aspects to test: Test the translation Test the compilation Test finding the factors Testing the translation primarily means to check if the map of factors and digits is comprehensive. That´s simple, even though it might be tedious. Testing the compilation is trivial. Testing factor finding, though, is a tad more complicated. I can think of several steps: First check, if an arabic number equal to a factor is processed correctly (e.g. 1000=M). Then check if an arabic number consisting of two consecutive factors (e.g. 1900=[M,CM]) is processed correctly. Then check, if a number consisting of the same factor twice is processed correctly (e.g. 2000=[M,M]). Finally check, if an arabic number consisting of non-consecutive factors (e.g. 1400=[M,CD]) is processed correctly. I feel I can start an implementation now. If something becomes more complicated than expected I can slow down and repeat this process. 3. Implement First I write a test for the acceptance test cases. It´s red because there´s no implementation even of the API. That´s in conformance with “TDD lore”, I´d say: Next I implement the API: The acceptance test now is formally correct, but still red of course. This will not change even now that I zoom in. Because my goal is not to most quickly satisfy these tests, but to implement my solution in a stepwise manner. That I do by “faking” it: I just “assume” three functions to represent the transformation process of my solution: My hypothesis is that those three functions in conjunction produce correct results on the API-level. I just have to implement them correctly. That´s what I´m trying now – one by one. I start with a simple “detail function”: Translate(). And I start with all the test cases in the obvious equivalence partition: As you can see I dare to test a private method. Yes. That´s a white box test. But as you´ll see it won´t make my tests brittle. It serves a purpose right here and now: it lets me focus on getting one aspect of my solution right. Here´s the implementation to satisfy the test: It´s as simple as possible. Right how TDD wants me to do it: KISS. Now for the second equivalence partition: translating multiple factors. (It´a pattern: if you need to do something repeatedly separate the tests for doing it once and doing it multiple times.) In this partition I just need a single test case, I guess. Stepping up from a single translation to multiple translations is no rocket science: Usually I would have implemented the final code right away. Splitting it in two steps is just for “educational purposes” here. How small your implementation steps are is a matter of your programming competency. Some “see” the final code right away before their mental eye – others need to work their way towards it. Having two tests I find more important. Now for the next low hanging fruit: compilation. It´s even simpler than translation. A single test is enough, I guess. And normally I would not even have bothered to write that one, because the implementation is so simple. I don´t need to test .NET framework functionality. But again: if it serves the educational purpose… Finally the most complicated part of the solution: finding the factors. There are several equivalence partitions. But still I decide to write just a single test, since the structure of the test data is the same for all partitions: Again, I´m faking the implementation first: I focus on just the first test case. No looping yet. Faking lets me stay on a high level of abstraction. I can write down the implementation of the solution without bothering myself with details of how to actually accomplish the feat. That´s left for a drill down with a test of the fake function: There are two main equivalence partitions, I guess: either the first factor is appropriate or some next. The implementation seems easy. Both test cases are green. (Of course this only works on the premise that there´s always a matching factor. Which is the case since the smallest factor is 1.) And the first of the equivalence partitions on the higher level also is satisfied: Great, I can move on. Now for more than a single factor: Interestingly not just one test becomes green now, but all of them. Great! You might say, then I must have done not the simplest thing possible. And I would reply: I don´t care. I did the most obvious thing. But I also find this loop very simple. Even simpler than a recursion of which I had thought briefly during the problem solving phase. And by the way: Also the acceptance tests went green: Mission accomplished. At least functionality wise. Now I´ve to tidy up things a bit. TDD calls for refactoring. Not uch refactoring is needed, because I wrote the code in top-down fashion. I faked it until I made it. I endured red tests on higher levels while lower levels weren´t perfected yet. But this way I saved myself from refactoring tediousness. At the end, though, some refactoring is required. But maybe in a different way than you would expect. That´s why I rather call it “cleanup”. First I remove duplication. There are two places where factors are defined: in Translate() and in Find_factors(). So I factor the map out into a class constant. Which leads to a small conversion in Find_factors(): And now for the big cleanup: I remove all tests of private methods. They are scaffolding tests to me. They only have temporary value. They are brittle. Only acceptance tests need to remain. However, I carry over the single “digit” tests from Translate() to the acceptance test. I find them valuable to keep, since the other acceptance tests only exercise a subset of all roman “digits”. This then is my final test class: And this is the final production code: Test coverage as reported by NCrunch is 100%: Reflexion Is this the smallest possible code base for this kata? Sure not. You´ll find more concise solutions on the internet. But LOC are of relatively little concern – as long as I can understand the code quickly. So called “elegant” code, however, often is not easy to understand. The same goes for KISS code – especially if left unrefactored, as it is often the case. That´s why I progressed from requirements to final code the way I did. I first understood and solved the problem on a conceptual level. Then I implemented it top down according to my design. I also could have implemented it bottom-up, since I knew some bottom of the solution. That´s the leaves of the functional decomposition tree. Where things became fuzzy, since the design did not cover any more details as with Find_factors(), I repeated the process in the small, so to speak: fake some top level, endure red high level tests, while first solving a simpler problem. Using scaffolding tests (to be thrown away at the end) brought two advantages: Encapsulation of the implementation details was not compromised. Naturally private methods could stay private. I did not need to make them internal or public just to be able to test them. I was able to write focused tests for small aspects of the solution. No need to test everything through the solution root, the API. The bottom line thus for me is: Informed TDD produces cleaner code in a systematic way. It conforms to core principles of programming: Single Responsibility Principle and/or Separation of Concerns. Distinct roles in development – being a researcher, being an engineer, being a craftsman – are represented as different phases. First find what, what there is. Then devise a solution. Then code the solution, manifest the solution in code. Writing tests first is a good practice. But it should not be taken dogmatic. And above all it should not be overloaded with purposes. And finally: moving from top to bottom through a design produces refactored code right away. Clean code thus almost is inevitable – and not left to a refactoring step at the end which is skipped often for different reasons.   PS: Yes, I have done this kata several times. But that has only an impact on the time needed for phases 1 and 2. I won´t skip them because of that. And there are no shortcuts during implementation because of that.

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• Windows 7 intermittently drops wired internet/lan connection.

  - by CraigTP

  In a nutshell, my Windows 7 Ultimate PC intermittently drops it's internet connection. Why? Background: My PC is wired to my ADSL modem/router which is directly connected to the phone line. I also have wireless connectivity turned on within the router for a laptop to connect wirelessly. Every few hours or so, when using my PC, I find I cannot access the internet and pages will not load. Eventually, Windows7 will update the network icon in the task-tray to show the exclamation mark symbol on the network icon. Opening up the Network And Sharing Centre will show the red cross between the "Multiple Networks" and "The Internet". Here's a picture of the "Network And Sharing Centre" (grabbed when everything was working!) As you can see, I'm running Sun's VirtualBox on this machine and that creates a Network connection for itself. This doesn't seem to affect the intermittent dropping (i.e. the intermittent drops occur whether the VirtualBox connection is in use or not). When the connection does drop, I cannot access any internet pages, nor can I access the router's web admin page at http://192.168.1.1/, so I'm assuming I've lost all local LAN access too. It's definitely not the router (or the internet connection itself) as my laptop, using the wireless connection (and running Vista Home Premium) continues to be able to access the internet (and the router's web admin pages) just fine. Every time this happens, I can immediately restore all internet and LAN access by opening Network Adapter page, disabling the "Local Area Connection" and then re-enabling it. Give it a few seconds and everything is fine again. I assume this is because, beneath the GUI, it's effectively doing an "ipconfig /release" then "ipconfig /renew". Why does this happen in the first place, though? I've googled for this and seen quite a few other people (even on MSDN/Technet forums) experiencing the same or almost the same problem, but with no clear resolution. Suggestions of turning off IPv6 on the LAN adapter, and ensuring there's no power management "sleeping" the network adapter have been tried but do not cure the problem. There does not seem to be any particular sequence of events that cause it to happen either. I've had it go twice in 20 minutes when just randomly browsing the web with no other traffic, and I've also had it go once then not go again for 2-3 hours with the same sort of usage. Can anyone tell me why this is happening and how to make it stop? EDIT: Additional information based upon the answer provided so far: Firstly, I forgot the mention that this is Windows 7 64 bit if that makes any difference at all. I mentioned that I don't think the VirtualBox network adpater is causing this problem in any way, and I also have VirtualBox installed on two other machines, one running Vista Home Premium and the other running XP. Neither of these machine experience the same network connectivity issues as the Windows 7 machine. The IP assignment for the Windows 7 machine is the same both before and after the "drop". I have a DHCP server on the router issuing IP Addresses, however my Windows 7 machine uses a static address. Here's the output from "ipconfig": Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection: Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.2(Preferred) Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1 DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1 NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled Within the system's event logs, the only event that relates to the connection dropping is a "DNS Client Event" and this is generated after the connection has dropped and is an event detailing that DNS information can't be found for whatever website I may be trying to access, just as the connection drops: Log Name: System Source: Microsoft-Windows-DNS-Client Event ID: 1014 Task Category: None Level: Warning Keywords: User: NETWORK SERVICE Description: Name resolution for the name weather.service.msn.com timed out after none of the configured DNS servers responded. The network adapter chipset is Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller and I have confirmed that this is the correct chipset for the motherboard (Asus M4A77TD PRO), and in fact, Windows Update installed an updated driver for this on 12/Jan/2009. The details of the update say that it's a Realtek software update from December 2009. Incidentally, I was still having the same intermittent problems prior to this update. It seems to have made no difference at all. EDIT 2 (1 Feb 2010): In my quest to solve this problem, I have discovered some more interesting information. On another forum, someone suggested that I should try running Windows in "Safe Mode With Networking" and see if the problem continues to occur. This was a fantastic suggestion and I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner myself. So, I proceeded to run in Safe Mode with Networking for a number of hours, and amazingly, the "drops" didn't occur once. It was a positive discovery, however, due to the intermittent nature of the original problem, I wasn't completely convinced that the problem was cured. One thing I did note is that the fan on my GFX card was running alot louder than normal. This is due to the fact that I have an ASUS ENGTS250 graphics card (http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=B6imcoax3MRY42f3) which had a known problem with a noisy fan until a BIOS update fixed the issue. (See the "Manufacturer Response" here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121334 for details). Well, running in safe mode had the fan running (incorrectly) at full speed (as it did before the BIOS update), but with an (apparently) stable network connection. Obviously some driver was not loaded for the GFX card when in Safe Mode so this got me thinking about the GFX card (since the very noisy fan was quite obvious when running in Safe Mode). I rebooted into normal mode, and found that Nvidia had a very up-to-date new driver for my GFX card (only about 1 week old), so I downloaded the appropriate driver and installed it. After installation and a reboot, I was able to use my PC for an entire day with NO NETWORK DROPS!!! This was on Saturday. However, on the Sunday, I also had my PC for pretty much the entire day and experienced 2 network drops. No other changes have been made to my PC in this time. So, the story seems to be that updating my graphics card drivers seems to have improved (if not completely fixed) the issue, however, I'm still searching for a proper fix for this problem. Hopefully, this information may help anyone who may have additional ideas as to why this problem is occuring in the first place. (And why does new GFX card drivers have anything to do with the network?) I appreciate everyone's feedback so far. However, I'll have to ask once more if anyone has any further ideas of how to fix this particular problem? Thanks in advance.

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• How Do I make my own keyboard for an app in android

  - by Ephraim

  I am currently working on an app, that requires a keyboard in a different language (Specifically Hebrew), the problem is, that I don't know where to begin. I don't want the user to have to go onto an app store, and install a separate app that has more languages in it just to use my app, and, I only want the keyboard to be available in my app, ie, it shouldn't effect anything outside my specific app. the way I am doing it right now, is to create it as part of the main layout, and just make it visible whenever the user clicks on the Edit Text. the problem with this, is I can't get the size of it to readjust. I had originally tried using 2 different layouts (one in the res/layout folder, and one in the res/layout-lnd folder), but this caused different problems in my app, making it slower. so I am wondering 2 things, either of which should work. one: how would I create the layout for the keyboard to readjust. or Two: how would I make a keyboard correctly. here is the xml code that I am useing specifically partaining to the keyboard: <FrameLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:visibility="gone" android:background="@color/puzzle_dark" android:id="@+id/hebrwKeyboardView" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="146dip" android:layout_gravity="right|center_vertical|center_horizontal|bottom" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" android:clipChildren="false" android:orientation="vertical" > <TableLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="145dip" android:clipChildren="false" android:layout_gravity="center_vertical|center_horizontal|bottom" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" android:orientation="horizontal" > <TableLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="145dip" android:clipChildren="false" android:layout_gravity="center_vertical|center_horizontal|bottom" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" android:orientation="vertical" > <TableRow android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical|center" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" android:clipChildren="false" android:orientation="horizontal" android:stretchColumns="true"> <LinearLayout android:baselineAligned="true" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_gravity="center" android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" android:clipChildren="false" android:orientation="horizontal"> <Button android:id="@+id/KoofButton" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="35dip" android:text="@string/Koof" android:layout_gravity="center" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" android:ellipsize="marquee"/> <Button android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:id="@+id/raishButton" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="35dip" android:text="@string/Raish" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" android:ellipsize="marquee"/> <Button android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:id="@+id/alephButton" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="35dip" android:text="@string/Alef" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" android:ellipsize="marquee"/> <Button android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:id="@+id/tetButton" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal" android:layout_height="35dip" android:text="@string/Tet" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" android:ellipsize="marquee"/> <Button android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:id="@+id/vuvButton" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="35dip" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal" android:text="@string/Vuv" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" android:ellipsize="marquee"/> <Button android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:id="@+id/nunSophitButton" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="35dip" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal" android:text="@string/NunSofit" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" android:gravity="fill" android:ellipsize="marquee"/> <Button android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:id="@+id/memSofitButton" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal" android:layout_height="35dip" android:text="@string/MemSofit" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" android:ellipsize="marquee"/> <Button android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:id="@+id/payButton" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="35dip" android:text="@string/Pay" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal" android:ellipsize="marquee"/> </LinearLayout> </TableRow> <TableRow android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:clipChildren="true" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical|center" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" android:orientation="horizontal"> <RelativeLayout android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:clipChildren="true" android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal|center" android:gravity="bottom" android:orientation="horizontal"> <Button android:layout_alignWithParentIfMissing="true" android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:id="@+id/shinButton" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_centerHorizontal="true" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical|center" android:layout_height="35dip" android:text="@string/Shin" android:layout_alignParentLeft="true" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" /> <Button android:layout_centerHorizontal="true" android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:layout_toRightOf="@id/shinButton" android:id="@+id/dalidButton" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical|center" android:layout_height="35dip" android:text="@string/Dalid" android:layout_alignWithParentIfMissing="true" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" /> <Button android:layout_alignWithParentIfMissing="true" android:layout_centerHorizontal="true" android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:id="@+id/gimleButton" android:layout_toRightOf="@id/dalidButton" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical|center" android:layout_height="35dip" android:text="@string/Gimle" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" /> <Button android:layout_alignWithParentIfMissing="true" android:layout_centerHorizontal="true" android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:id="@+id/chufButton" android:layout_toRightOf="@id/gimleButton" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical|center" android:layout_height="35dip" android:text="@string/Chuf" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" /> <Button android:layout_alignWithParentIfMissing="true" android:layout_centerHorizontal="true" android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:id="@+id/ieyinButton" android:layout_toRightOf="@id/chufButton" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="35dip" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical|center" android:text="@string/Ieyin" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" /> <Button android:layout_alignWithParentIfMissing="true" android:layout_centerHorizontal="true" android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:id="@+id/yudButton" android:layout_toRightOf="@id/ieyinButton" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="35dip" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical|center" android:text="@string/Yud" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" /> <Button android:layout_alignWithParentIfMissing="true" android:layout_centerHorizontal="true" android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:id="@+id/chetButton" android:layout_toRightOf="@id/yudButton" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="35dip" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical|center" android:text="@string/Chet" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" /> <Button android:layout_alignWithParentIfMissing="true" android:layout_centerHorizontal="true" android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:id="@+id/lamidButton" android:layout_toRightOf="@id/chetButton" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="35dip" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical|center" android:text="@string/Lamid" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" /> <Button android:layout_alignWithParentIfMissing="true" android:layout_centerHorizontal="true" android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:id="@+id/chufSofitButton" android:layout_toRightOf="@id/lamidButton" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="35dip" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical|center" android:text="@string/ChufSofit" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" /> <Button android:layout_alignWithParentIfMissing="true" android:layout_centerHorizontal="true" android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:id="@+id/paySofitButton" android:layout_toRightOf="@id/chufSofitButton" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="35dip" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical|center" android:text="@string/PaySofit" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" /> </RelativeLayout> </TableRow> <TableRow android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical|center" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" android:orientation="horizontal"> <LinearLayout android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal|center" android:gravity="bottom" android:orientation="horizontal"> <Button android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:id="@+id/zionButton" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical|center" android:layout_height="35dip" android:text="@string/Zion" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" /> <Button android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:id="@+id/samichButton" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical|center" android:layout_height="35dip" android:text="@string/Samich" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" /> <Button android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:id="@+id/betButton" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical|center" android:layout_height="35dip" android:text="@string/Bet" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" /> <Button android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:id="@+id/heyButton" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical|center" android:layout_height="35dip" android:text="@string/Hey" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" /> <Button android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:id="@+id/nunButton" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="35dip" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical|center" android:text="@string/Nun" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" /> <Button android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:id="@+id/memButton" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="35dip" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical|center" android:text="@string/Mem" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" /> <Button android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:id="@+id/tzadiButton" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="35dip" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical|center" android:text="@string/Tzadi" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" /> <Button android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:id="@+id/tuffButton" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="35dip" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical|center" android:text="@string/Tuff" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" /> <Button android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:id="@+id/tzadiSofitButton" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="35dip" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical|center" android:text="@string/TzadiSofit" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" /> </LinearLayout> </TableRow> <TableRow android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical|center" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" android:orientation="horizontal"> <LinearLayout android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal|center" android:gravity="bottom" android:orientation="horizontal"> <Button android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:id="@+id/hebrewBackButton" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="35dip" android:layout_gravity="right" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" android:text="&lt;--"/> <Button android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:id="@+id/hebrewSpaceButton" android:layout_width="150dip" android:layout_height="35dip" android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical|center" android:text="" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" /> <Button android:soundEffectsEnabled="true" android:id="@+id/hebrewDoneButton" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:layout_gravity="right" android:text="Done" android:fitsSystemWindows="true" /> </LinearLayout> </TableRow> </TableLayout> </TableLayout> </FrameLayout> Here is a picture of what it looks like right now in portrait: and here is what it looks like in landscape:

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• Anyone have ideas for solving the "n items remaining" problem on Internet Explorer?

  - by CMPalmer

  In my ASP.Net app, which is javascript and jQuery heavy, but also uses master pages and .Net Ajax pieces, I am consistently seeing on the status bar of IE 6 (and occasionally IE 7) the message "2 items remaining" or "15 items remaining" followed by "loading somegraphicsfile.png|gif ." This message never goes away and may or may not prevent some page functionality from running (it certainly seems to bog down, but I'm not positive). I can cause this to happen 99% of the time by just refreshing an .aspx age, but the number of items and, sometimes, the file it mentions varies. Usually it is 2, 3, 12, 13, or 15. I've Googled for answers and there are several suggestions or explanations. Some of them haven't worked for us, and others aren't practical for us to implement or try. Here are some of the ideas/theories: IE isn't caching images right, so it repeatedly asks for the same image if the image is repeated on the page and the server assumes that it should be cached locally since it's already served it in that page context. IE displays the images correctly, but sits and waits for a server response that never comes. Typically the file it says it is waiting on is repeated on the page. The page is using PNG graphics with transparency. Indeed it is, but they are jQuery-UI Themeroller generated graphics which, according to the jQuery-UI folks, are IE safe. The jQuery-UI components are the only things using PNGs. All of our PNG references are in CSS, if that helps. I've changed some of the graphics from PNG to GIF, but it is just as likely to say it's waiting for somegraphicsfile.png as it is for somegraphicsfile.gif Images are being specified in CSS and/or JavaScript but are on things that aren't currently being displayed (display: none items for example). This may be true, but if it is, then I would think preloading images would work, but so far, adding a preloader doesn't do any good. IIS's caching policy is confusing the browser. If this is true, it is only Microsoft server SW having problems with Microsoft's browser (which doesn't surprise me at all). Unfortunately, I don't have much control over the IIS configuration that will be hosting the app. Has anyone seen this and found a way to combat it? Particularly on ASP.Net apps with jQuery and jQuery-UI? UPDATE One other data point: on at least one of the pages, just commenting out the jQuery-UI Datepicker component setup causes the problem to go away, but I don't think (or at least I'm not sure) if that fixes all of the pages. If it does "fix" them, I'll have to swap out plug-ins because that functionality needs to be there. There doesn't seem to be any open issues against jQuery-UI on IE6/7 currently... UPDATE 2 I checked the IIS settings and "enable content expiration" was not set on any of my folders. Unchecking that setting was a common suggestion for fixing this problem. I have another, simpler, page that I can consistently create the error on. I'm using the jQuery-UI 1.6rc6 file (although I've also tried jQuery-UI 1.7.1 with the same results). The problem only occurs when I refresh the page that contains the jQuery-UI Datepicker. If I comment out the Datepicker setup, the problem goes away. Here are a few things I notice when I do this: This page always says "(1 item remaining) Downloading picture http:///images/Calendar_scheduleHS.gif", but only when reloading. When I look at HTTP logging, I see that it requests that image from the server every time it is dynamically turned on, without regard to caching. All of the requests for that graphic are complete and return the graphic correctly. None are marked code 200 or 304 (indicating that the server is telling IE to use the cached version). Why it says waiting on that graphic when all of the requests have completed I have no idea. There is a single other graphic on the page (one of the UI PNG files) that has a code 304 (Not Modified). On another page where I managed to log HTTP traffic with "2 items remaining", two different graphic files (both UI PNGs) had a 304 as well (but neither was the one listed as "Downloading". This error is not innocuous - the page is not fully responsive. For example, if I click on one of the buttons which should execute a client-side action, the page refreshes. Going away from the page and coming back does not produce the error. I have moved the script and script references to the bottom of the content and this doesn't affect this problem. The script is still running in the $(document).ready() though (it's too hairy to divide out unless I absolutely have to). FINAL UPDATE AND ANSWER There were a lot of good answers and suggestions below, but none of them were exactly our problem. The closest one (and the one that led me to the solution) was the one about long running JavaScript, so I awarded the bounty there (I guess I could have answered it myself, but I'd rather reward info that leads to solutions). Here was our solution: We had multiple jQueryUI datepickers that were created on the $(document).ready event in script included from the ASP.Net master page. On this client page, a local script's $(document).ready event had script that destroyed the datepickers under certain conditions. We had to use "destroy" because the previous version of datepicker had a problem with "disable". When we upgraded to the latest version of jQuery UI (1.7.1) and replaced the "destroy"s with "disable"s for the datepickers, the problem went away (or mostly went away - if you do things too fast while the page is loading, it is still possible to get the "n items remaining" status). My theory as to what was happening goes like this: The page content loads and has 12 or so text boxes with the datepicker class. The master page script creates datepickers on those text boxes. IE queues up requests for each calendar graphic independently because IE doesn't know how to properly cache dynamic image requests. Before the requests get processed, the client area script destroys those datepickers so the graphics are no longer needed. IE is left with some number of orphaned requests that it doesn't know what to do with.

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• GridBagConstraints problem-moved to left and size isn't the same

  - by Damir

  I have in Java two panels which need to have same layout, there is my functions for initializations panels. private void InitializePanelCom(){ pnlCom=new JPanel(); pnlCom.setSize(300,160); pnlCom.setLocation(10, 60); add(pnlCom); GridBagLayout gb=new GridBagLayout(); GridBagConstraints gc=new GridBagConstraints(); pnlCom.setLayout(gb); jLabelcommPort = setJLabel("Com Port : "); jLabelbaudRate = setJLabel("Baud Rate : "); jLabelplcAddress = setJLabel("Plc Address : "); jLabelsendTime = setJLabel("Send Time : "); jLabelx50 = setJLabel(" x 50 ms (2 - 99)"); jComboBoxcommPort = setJComboBox(commPortList); jComboBoxbaudRate = setJComboBox(bitRateList); jTextAreaPlcAddress = setJTextField(""); jTextAreaSendTime = setJTextField(""); gc.insets = new Insets(10,0,0,0); gc.ipadx = 120; gc.weightx = 1; gc.gridx = 0; gc.gridy = 0; gc.anchor=GridBagConstraints.EAST; pnlCom.add(jLabelcommPort,gc); gc.insets = new Insets(10,0,0,0); gc.ipadx = 120; gc.weightx = 1; gc.gridx = 1; gc.gridy = 0; gc.anchor=GridBagConstraints.EAST; pnlCom.add(jComboBoxcommPort,gc); gc.insets=new Insets(10,0,0,0); gc.ipadx=120; gc.weightx=1; gc.gridx=0; gc.gridy=1; gc.anchor=GridBagConstraints.EAST; pnlCom.add(jLabelbaudRate,gc); gc.insets=new Insets(10,0,0,0); gc.ipadx=120; gc.weightx=1; gc.gridx=1; gc.gridy=1; gc.anchor=GridBagConstraints.EAST; pnlCom.add(jComboBoxbaudRate,gc); gc.insets=new Insets(10,0,0,0); gc.ipadx=120; gc.weightx=1; gc.gridx=0; gc.gridy=2; gc.anchor=GridBagConstraints.EAST; pnlCom.add(jLabelplcAddress,gc); gc.insets=new Insets(10,0,0,0); gc.ipadx=120; gc.weightx=1; gc.gridx=1; gc.gridy=2; gc.anchor=GridBagConstraints.EAST; pnlCom.add(jTextAreaPlcAddress,gc); gc.insets=new Insets(10,0,0,0); gc.ipadx=120; gc.weightx=1; gc.gridx=0; gc.gridy=3; gc.anchor=GridBagConstraints.EAST; pnlCom.add(jLabelsendTime,gc); gc.insets=new Insets(10,0,0,0); gc.ipadx=120; gc.weightx=1; gc.gridx=1; gc.gridy=3; gc.anchor=GridBagConstraints.EAST; pnlCom.add(jTextAreaSendTime,gc); gc.insets=new Insets(10,0,0,0); gc.ipadx=120; gc.weightx=1; gc.gridx=2; gc.gridy=3; gc.anchor=GridBagConstraints.EAST; pnlCom.add(jLabelx50,gc); } ![alt text][1] private void InitializePanelTcp(){ pnlTcp=new JPanel(); pnlTcp.setSize(300,160); pnlTcp.setLocation(10, 60); add(pnlTcp); GridBagLayout gb=new GridBagLayout(); GridBagConstraints gc=new GridBagConstraints(); pnlTcp.setLayout(gb); lblIPAddress=setJLabel("IP Address : "); txtIPAddress=setJTextField(""); lblPort=setJLabel("Port : "); txtPort=setJTextField(""); cmbBaudRateTCP = setJComboBox(bitRateList); lblBaudRateTCP = setJLabel("Baud Rate : "); lblParityCheck=setJLabel("Parity check : "); txtParityCheck=setJTextField(""); gc.insets = new Insets(10,0,0,0); //gc.ipadx = 20; gc.weightx = 0.3; gc.gridx = 0; gc.gridy = 0; gc.anchor=GridBagConstraints.WEST; pnlTcp.add(lblIPAddress,gc); gc.insets = new Insets(10,0,0,0); //gc.ipadx = 80; gc.weightx = 0.7; gc.gridx = 1; gc.gridy = 0; gc.anchor=GridBagConstraints.WEST; pnlTcp.add(txtIPAddress,gc); gc.insets=new Insets(10,0,0,0); //gc.ipadx=120; gc.weightx=0.3; gc.gridx=0; gc.gridy=1; gc.anchor=GridBagConstraints.WEST; pnlTcp.add(lblPort,gc); gc.insets=new Insets(10,0,0,0); //gc.ipadx=80; gc.weightx=0.7; gc.gridx=1; gc.gridy=1; gc.anchor=GridBagConstraints.WEST; pnlTcp.add(txtPort,gc); gc.insets=new Insets(10,0,0,0); //gc.ipadx=120; gc.weightx=0.3; gc.gridx=0; gc.gridy=2; gc.anchor=GridBagConstraints.WEST; pnlTcp.add(lblBaudRateTCP,gc); gc.insets=new Insets(10,0,0,0); //gc.ipadx=0; gc.weightx=0.7; gc.gridx=1; gc.gridy=2; gc.anchor=GridBagConstraints.WEST; pnlTcp.add(cmbBaudRateTCP,gc); gc.insets=new Insets(10,0,0,0); //gc.ipadx=120; gc.weightx=0.3; gc.gridx=0; gc.gridy=3; gc.anchor=GridBagConstraints.WEST; pnlTcp.add(lblParityCheck,gc); gc.insets=new Insets(10,0,0,0); //gc.ipadx=0; gc.weightx=1.7; gc.gridx=1; gc.gridy=3; gc.anchor=GridBagConstraints.WEST; pnlTcp.add(txtParityCheck,gc); } Problem is that second panel (initializetcp, second picture doesn't look the same, labels are moved at left , it is different ). Can anybody help, I am new with GridBagContsraints at all ?

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• TSQL Conditionally Select Specific Value

  - by Dzejms

  This is a follow-up to #1644748 where I successfully answered my own question, but Quassnoi helped me to realize that it was the wrong question. He gave me a solution that worked for my sample data, but I couldn't plug it back into the parent stored procedure because I fail at SQL 2005 syntax. So here is an attempt to paint the broader picture and ask what I actually need. This is part of a stored procedure that returns a list of items in a bug tracking application I've inherited. There are are over 100 fields and 26 joins so I'm pulling out only the mostly relevant bits. SELECT tickets.ticketid, tickets.tickettype, tickets_tickettype_lu.tickettypedesc, tickets.stage, tickets.position, tickets.sponsor, tickets.dev, tickets.qa, DATEDIFF(DAY, ticket_history_assignment.savedate, GETDATE()) as 'daysinqueue' FROM dbo.tickets WITH (NOLOCK) LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.tickets_tickettype_lu WITH (NOLOCK) ON tickets.tickettype = tickets_tickettype_lu.tickettypeid LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.tickets_history_assignment WITH (NOLOCK) ON tickets_history_assignment.ticketid = tickets.ticketid AND tickets_history_assignment.historyid = ( SELECT MAX(historyid) FROM dbo.tickets_history_assignment WITH (NOLOCK) WHERE tickets_history_assignment.ticketid = tickets.ticketid GROUP BY tickets_history_assignment.ticketid ) WHERE tickets.sponsor = @sponsor The area of interest is the daysinqueue subquery mess. The tickets_history_assignment table looks roughly as follows declare @tickets_history_assignment table ( historyid int, ticketid int, sponsor int, dev int, qa int, savedate datetime ) insert into @tickets_history_assignment values (1521402, 92774,20,14, 20, '2009-10-27 09:17:59.527') insert into @tickets_history_assignment values (1521399, 92774,20,14, 42, '2009-08-31 12:07:52.917') insert into @tickets_history_assignment values (1521311, 92774,100,14, 42, '2008-12-08 16:15:49.887') insert into @tickets_history_assignment values (1521336, 92774,100,14, 42, '2009-01-16 14:27:43.577') Whenever a ticket is saved, the current values for sponsor, dev and qa are stored in the tickets_history_assignment table with the ticketid and a timestamp. So it is possible for someone to change the value for qa, but leave sponsor alone. What I want to know, based on all of these conditions, is the historyid of the record in the tickets_history_assignment table where the sponsor value was last changed so that I can calculate the value for daysinqueue. If a record is inserted into the history table, and only the qa value has changed, I don't want that record. So simply relying on MAX(historyid) won't work for me. Quassnoi came up with the following which seemed to work with my sample data, but I can't plug it into the larger query, SQL Manager bitches about the WITH statement. ;WITH rows AS ( SELECT *, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY ticketid ORDER BY savedate DESC) AS rn FROM @Table ) SELECT rl.sponsor, ro.savedate FROM rows rl CROSS APPLY ( SELECT TOP 1 rc.savedate FROM rows rc JOIN rows rn ON rn.ticketid = rc.ticketid AND rn.rn = rc.rn + 1 AND rn.sponsor <> rc.sponsor WHERE rc.ticketid = rl.ticketid ORDER BY rc.rn ) ro WHERE rl.rn = 1 I played with it yesterday afternoon and got nowhere because I don't fundamentally understand what is going on here and how it should fit into the larger context. So, any takers? UPDATE Ok, here's the whole thing. I've been switching some of the table and column names in an attempt to simplify things so here's the full unedited mess. snip - old bad code Here are the errors: Msg 102, Level 15, State 1, Procedure usp_GetProjectRecordsByAssignment, Line 159 Incorrect syntax near ';'. Msg 102, Level 15, State 1, Procedure usp_GetProjectRecordsByAssignment, Line 179 Incorrect syntax near ')'. Line numbers are of course not correct but refer to ;WITH rows AS And the ')' char after the WHERE rl.rn = 1 ) Respectively Is there a tag for extra super long question? UPDATE #2 Here is the finished query for anyone who may need this: CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[usp_GetProjectRecordsByAssignment] ( @assigned numeric(18,0), @assignedtype numeric(18,0) ) AS SET NOCOUNT ON WITH rows AS ( SELECT *, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY recordid ORDER BY savedate DESC) AS rn FROM projects_history_assignment ) SELECT projects_records.recordid, projects_records.recordtype, projects_recordtype_lu.recordtypedesc, projects_records.stage, projects_stage_lu.stagedesc, projects_records.position, projects_position_lu.positiondesc, CASE projects_records.clientrequested WHEN '1' THEN 'Yes' WHEN '0' THEN 'No' END AS clientrequested, projects_records.reportingmethod, projects_reportingmethod_lu.reportingmethoddesc, projects_records.clientaccess, projects_clientaccess_lu.clientaccessdesc, projects_records.clientnumber, projects_records.project, projects_lu.projectdesc, projects_records.version, projects_version_lu.versiondesc, projects_records.projectedversion, projects_version_lu_projected.versiondesc AS projectedversiondesc, projects_records.sitetype, projects_sitetype_lu.sitetypedesc, projects_records.title, projects_records.module, projects_module_lu.moduledesc, projects_records.component, projects_component_lu.componentdesc, projects_records.loginusername, projects_records.loginpassword, projects_records.assistedusername, projects_records.browsername, projects_browsername_lu.browsernamedesc, projects_records.browserversion, projects_records.osname, projects_osname_lu.osnamedesc, projects_records.osversion, projects_records.errortype, projects_errortype_lu.errortypedesc, projects_records.gsipriority, projects_gsipriority_lu.gsiprioritydesc, projects_records.clientpriority, projects_clientpriority_lu.clientprioritydesc, projects_records.scheduledstartdate, projects_records.scheduledcompletiondate, projects_records.projectedhours, projects_records.actualstartdate, projects_records.actualcompletiondate, projects_records.actualhours, CASE projects_records.billclient WHEN '1' THEN 'Yes' WHEN '0' THEN 'No' END AS billclient, projects_records.billamount, projects_records.status, projects_status_lu.statusdesc, CASE CAST(projects_records.assigned AS VARCHAR(5)) WHEN '0' THEN 'N/A' WHEN '10000' THEN 'Unassigned' WHEN '20000' THEN 'Client' WHEN '30000' THEN 'Tech Support' WHEN '40000' THEN 'LMI Tech Support' WHEN '50000' THEN 'Upload' WHEN '60000' THEN 'Spider' WHEN '70000' THEN 'DB Admin' ELSE rtrim(users_assigned.nickname) + ' ' + rtrim(users_assigned.lastname) END AS assigned, CASE CAST(projects_records.assigneddev AS VARCHAR(5)) WHEN '0' THEN 'N/A' WHEN '10000' THEN 'Unassigned' ELSE rtrim(users_assigneddev.nickname) + ' ' + rtrim(users_assigneddev.lastname) END AS assigneddev, CASE CAST(projects_records.assignedqa AS VARCHAR(5)) WHEN '0' THEN 'N/A' WHEN '10000' THEN 'Unassigned' ELSE rtrim(users_assignedqa.nickname) + ' ' + rtrim(users_assignedqa.lastname) END AS assignedqa, CASE CAST(projects_records.assignedsponsor AS VARCHAR(5)) WHEN '0' THEN 'N/A' WHEN '10000' THEN 'Unassigned' ELSE rtrim(users_assignedsponsor.nickname) + ' ' + rtrim(users_assignedsponsor.lastname) END AS assignedsponsor, projects_records.clientcreated, CASE projects_records.clientcreated WHEN '1' THEN 'Yes' WHEN '0' THEN 'No' END AS clientcreateddesc, CASE projects_records.clientcreated WHEN '1' THEN rtrim(clientusers_createuser.firstname) + ' ' + rtrim(clientusers_createuser.lastname) + ' (Client)' ELSE rtrim(users_createuser.nickname) + ' ' + rtrim(users_createuser.lastname) END AS createuser, projects_records.createdate, projects_records.savedate, projects_resolution.sitesaffected, projects_sitesaffected_lu.sitesaffecteddesc, DATEDIFF(DAY, projects_history_assignment.savedate, GETDATE()) as 'daysinqueue', projects_records.iOnHitList, projects_records.changetype FROM dbo.projects_records WITH (NOLOCK) LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.projects_recordtype_lu WITH (NOLOCK) ON projects_records.recordtype = projects_recordtype_lu.recordtypeid LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.projects_stage_lu WITH (NOLOCK) ON projects_records.stage = projects_stage_lu.stageid LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.projects_position_lu WITH (NOLOCK) ON projects_records.position = projects_position_lu.positionid LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.projects_reportingmethod_lu WITH (NOLOCK) ON projects_records.reportingmethod = projects_reportingmethod_lu.reportingmethodid LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.projects_lu WITH (NOLOCK) ON projects_records.project = projects_lu.projectid LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.projects_version_lu WITH (NOLOCK) ON projects_records.version = projects_version_lu.versionid LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.projects_version_lu projects_version_lu_projected WITH (NOLOCK) ON projects_records.projectedversion = projects_version_lu_projected.versionid LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.projects_sitetype_lu WITH (NOLOCK) ON projects_records.sitetype = projects_sitetype_lu.sitetypeid LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.projects_module_lu WITH (NOLOCK) ON projects_records.module = projects_module_lu.moduleid LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.projects_component_lu WITH (NOLOCK) ON projects_records.component = projects_component_lu.componentid LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.projects_browsername_lu WITH (NOLOCK) ON projects_records.browsername = projects_browsername_lu.browsernameid LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.projects_osname_lu WITH (NOLOCK) ON projects_records.osname = projects_osname_lu.osnameid LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.projects_errortype_lu WITH (NOLOCK) ON projects_records.errortype = projects_errortype_lu.errortypeid LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.projects_resolution WITH (NOLOCK) ON projects_records.recordid = projects_resolution.recordid LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.projects_sitesaffected_lu WITH (NOLOCK) ON projects_resolution.sitesaffected = projects_sitesaffected_lu.sitesaffectedid LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.projects_gsipriority_lu WITH (NOLOCK) ON projects_records.gsipriority = projects_gsipriority_lu.gsipriorityid LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.projects_clientpriority_lu WITH (NOLOCK) ON projects_records.clientpriority = projects_clientpriority_lu.clientpriorityid LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.projects_status_lu WITH (NOLOCK) ON projects_records.status = projects_status_lu.statusid LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.projects_clientaccess_lu WITH (NOLOCK) ON projects_records.clientaccess = projects_clientaccess_lu.clientaccessid LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.users users_assigned WITH (NOLOCK) ON projects_records.assigned = users_assigned.userid LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.users users_assigneddev WITH (NOLOCK) ON projects_records.assigneddev = users_assigneddev.userid LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.users users_assignedqa WITH (NOLOCK) ON projects_records.assignedqa = users_assignedqa.userid LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.users users_assignedsponsor WITH (NOLOCK) ON projects_records.assignedsponsor = users_assignedsponsor.userid LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.users users_createuser WITH (NOLOCK) ON projects_records.createuser = users_createuser.userid LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.clientusers clientusers_createuser WITH (NOLOCK) ON projects_records.createuser = clientusers_createuser.userid LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.projects_history_assignment WITH (NOLOCK) ON projects_history_assignment.recordid = projects_records.recordid AND projects_history_assignment.historyid = ( SELECT ro.historyid FROM rows rl CROSS APPLY ( SELECT TOP 1 rc.historyid FROM rows rc JOIN rows rn ON rn.recordid = rc.recordid AND rn.rn = rc.rn + 1 AND rn.assigned <> rc.assigned WHERE rc.recordid = rl.recordid ORDER BY rc.rn ) ro WHERE rl.rn = 1 AND rl.recordid = projects_records.recordid ) WHERE (@assignedtype='0' and projects_records.assigned = @assigned) OR (@assignedtype='1' and projects_records.assigneddev = @assigned) OR (@assignedtype='2' and projects_records.assignedqa = @assigned) OR (@assignedtype='3' and projects_records.assignedsponsor = @assigned) OR (@assignedtype='4' and projects_records.createuser = @assigned)

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• Out of memory exception during scrolling of listview

  - by user1761316

  I am using facebook data like postedpicture,profile picture,name,message in my listview.I am getting an OOM error while doing fast scrolling of listview. I am also having scrollviewlistener in my application that loads more data when the scrollbar reaches the bottom of the screen.I just want to know whether I need to change anything in this class. imageLoader.DisplayImage(postimage.get(position).replace(" ", "%20"), postimg) ; I am using the above line to call the method in this imageloader class to set the bitmap to imageview. Here is my imageloader class import java.io.File; import java.io.FileInputStream; import java.io.FileNotFoundException; import java.io.FileOutputStream; import java.io.InputStream; import java.io.OutputStream; import java.net.HttpURLConnection; import java.net.URL; import java.util.Collections; import java.util.Map; import java.util.Stack; import java.util.WeakHashMap; import com.stellent.beerbro.Wall; import android.app.Activity; import android.content.Context; import android.graphics.Bitmap; import android.graphics.Bitmap.Config; import android.graphics.BitmapFactory; import android.graphics.Canvas; import android.graphics.Paint; import android.graphics.PorterDuff.Mode; import android.graphics.PorterDuffXfermode; import android.graphics.Rect; import android.graphics.RectF; import android.graphics.drawable.BitmapDrawable; import android.util.Log; import android.widget.ImageView; public class ImageLoader { MemoryCache memoryCache=new MemoryCache(); FileCache fileCache; private Map<ImageView, String> imageViews=Collections.synchronizedMap(new WeakHashMap<ImageView, String>()); public ImageLoader(Context context){ //Make the background thead low priority. This way it will not affect the UI performance photoLoaderThread.setPriority(Thread.NORM_PRIORITY-1); fileCache=new FileCache(context); } // final int stub_id=R.drawable.stub; public void DisplayImage(String url,ImageView imageView) { imageViews.put(imageView, url); System.gc(); // Bitmap bitmap=createScaledBitmap(memoryCache.get(url), 100,100,0); Bitmap bitmap=memoryCache.get(url); // Bitmap bitmaps=bitmap.createScaledBitmap(bitmap, 0, 100, 100); if(bitmap!=null) { imageView.setBackgroundDrawable(new BitmapDrawable(bitmap)); // imageView.setImageBitmap(getRoundedCornerBitmap( bitmap, 10,70,70)); // imageView.setImageBitmap(bitmap); // Log.v("first", "first"); } else { queuePhoto(url, imageView); // Log.v("second", "second"); } } private Bitmap createScaledBitmap(Bitmap bitmap, int i, int j, int k) { // TODO Auto-generated method stub return null; } private void queuePhoto(String url, ImageView imageView) { //This ImageView may be used for other images before. So there may be some old tasks in the queue. We need to discard them. photosQueue.Clean(imageView); PhotoToLoad p=new PhotoToLoad(url, imageView); synchronized(photosQueue.photosToLoad){ photosQueue.photosToLoad.push(p); photosQueue.photosToLoad.notifyAll(); } //start thread if it's not started yet if(photoLoaderThread.getState()==Thread.State.NEW) photoLoaderThread.start(); } public Bitmap getBitmap(String url) { File f=fileCache.getFile(url); //from SD cache Bitmap b = decodeFile(f); if(b!=null) return b; //from web try { Bitmap bitmap=null; URL imageUrl = new URL(url); HttpURLConnection conn = (HttpURLConnection)imageUrl.openConnection(); conn.setConnectTimeout(30000); conn.setReadTimeout(30000); InputStream is=conn.getInputStream(); OutputStream os = new FileOutputStream(f); Utils.CopyStream(is, os); os.close(); bitmap = decodeFile(f); return bitmap; } catch (Exception ex){ ex.printStackTrace(); return null; } }//Lalit //decodes image and scales it to reduce memory consumption private Bitmap decodeFile(File f){ try { //decode image size BitmapFactory.Options o = new BitmapFactory.Options(); o.inJustDecodeBounds = true; BitmapFactory.decodeStream(new FileInputStream(f),null,o); //Find the correct scale value. It should be the power of 2. final int REQUIRED_SIZE=Wall.width; final int REQUIRED_SIZE1=Wall.height; // final int REQUIRED_SIZE=250; // int width_tmp=o.outWidth, height_tmp=o.outHeight; int scale=1; // while(o.outWidth/scale/2>=REQUIRED_SIZE && o.outHeight/scale/2>=REQUIRED_SIZE) //// scale*=2; while(true){ if(width_tmp/2<REQUIRED_SIZE && height_tmp/2<REQUIRED_SIZE1) break; width_tmp/=2; height_tmp/=2; scale*=2; } //decode with inSampleSize BitmapFactory.Options o2 = new BitmapFactory.Options(); o2.inSampleSize=scale; // o2.inSampleSize=2; return BitmapFactory.decodeStream(new FileInputStream(f), null, o2); } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {} return null; } //Task for the queue private class PhotoToLoad { public String url; public ImageView imageView; public PhotoToLoad(String u, ImageView i){ url=u; imageView=i; } } PhotosQueue photosQueue=new PhotosQueue(); public void stopThread() { photoLoaderThread.interrupt(); } //stores list of photos to download class PhotosQueue { private Stack<PhotoToLoad> photosToLoad=new Stack<PhotoToLoad>(); //removes all instances of this ImageView public void Clean(ImageView image) { for(int j=0 ;j<photosToLoad.size();){ if(photosToLoad.get(j).imageView==image) photosToLoad.remove(j); else ++j; } } } class PhotosLoader extends Thread { public void run() { try { while(true) { //thread waits until there are any images to load in the queue if(photosQueue.photosToLoad.size()==0) synchronized(photosQueue.photosToLoad){ photosQueue.photosToLoad.wait(); } if(photosQueue.photosToLoad.size()!=0) { PhotoToLoad photoToLoad; synchronized(photosQueue.photosToLoad){ photoToLoad=photosQueue.photosToLoad.pop(); } Bitmap bmp=getBitmap(photoToLoad.url); memoryCache.put(photoToLoad.url, bmp); String tag=imageViews.get(photoToLoad.imageView); if(tag!=null && tag.equals(photoToLoad.url)){ BitmapDisplayer bd=new BitmapDisplayer(bmp, photoToLoad.imageView); Activity a=(Activity)photoToLoad.imageView.getContext(); a.runOnUiThread(bd); } } if(Thread.interrupted()) break; } } catch (InterruptedException e) { //allow thread to exit } } } PhotosLoader photoLoaderThread=new PhotosLoader(); //Used to display bitmap in the UI thread class BitmapDisplayer implements Runnable { Bitmap bitmap; ImageView imageView; public BitmapDisplayer(Bitmap b, ImageView i){bitmap=b;imageView=i;} public void run() { if(bitmap!=null) imageView.setBackgroundDrawable(new BitmapDrawable(bitmap)); } } public void clearCache() { memoryCache.clear(); fileCache.clear(); } public static Bitmap getRoundedCornerBitmap(Bitmap bitmap, int pixels,int width,int height) { Bitmap output = Bitmap.createBitmap(width,height, Config.ARGB_8888); Canvas canvas = new Canvas(output); final int color = 0xff424242; final Paint paint = new Paint(); final Rect rect = new Rect(0, 0, bitmap.getWidth(), bitmap.getHeight()); final RectF rectF = new RectF(rect); final float roundPx = pixels; paint.setAntiAlias(true); canvas.drawARGB(0, 0, 0, 0); paint.setColor(color); canvas.drawRoundRect(rectF, roundPx, roundPx, paint); paint.setXfermode(new PorterDuffXfermode(Mode.SRC_IN)); canvas.drawBitmap(bitmap, rect, rect, paint); return output; } }

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