Search Results

Search found 3673 results on 147 pages for 'architectures and technologies'.

Page 135/147 | < Previous Page | 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142  | Next Page >

• Revisiting .NET, but what should I focus on?

  - by Wayne M

  After about a two-year hiatus, I'm brushing up on my .NET skills to find a .NET job (my previous two positions have very little development, or development using legacy technologies, so apart from a few very minor apps I have not touched .NET in close to two years). I'm aware of things like ASP.NET MVC, and I have previously read on things like NHibernate and DI/IOC, albeit I have yet to use them apart from very trivial "Hello World" type applications. I have a subscription to Rob Conery's Tekpub website and occasionally watch these videos when I have free time. My concern is this: I don't live in a very technical area. I would be surprised if any but the most tech-savvy companies have heard of, let alone use, ASP.NET MVC, NHibernate (or even LINQ/EF), or know about IoC. I would be willing to bet a large sum of money that 95% of the possible jobs I could obtain will use the following: Visual Source Safe, if any VCS at all ASP.NET 2.0 Webforms (3.5 if lucky) Raw ADO.NET on top of a very thin implementation of the Gateway pattern Stored Procedures in the database for most CRUD operations Gratuitous use of code-behind, with a Service layer if I'm lucky If I were extremely lucky, I might find a shop that has heard of ORMs and either uses one, or has wrote their own data abstraction. Also if I were lucky, the company would be using Model-View-Presenter. In light of this I'm not sure what I should focus on learning. Personally, I would prefer to be using the latest stuff - ASP.NET MVC, NHibernate, jQuery, WCF etc. Reality says I should go back to the basics, since it looks like most potential opportunities aren't going to be anywhere near the cutting edge, or anywhere close to it. And, as much as I would like to find a position and start to show the other developers the benefits, in my past experience this has usually resulted in my being fired for "not being a team player" and doing things the bad old way. So, I am curious how you would approach a situation like this? What should I focus on, in order to A) Reaquaint myself with .NET, and B) Prepare myself to obtain a .NET job again that is more than likely going to use techniques that I and most other knowledgeable developers will scoff at?

  Read the article

• Server side Xforms form validation and integration into ASP.NET

  - by Nigel

  I have recently been investigating methods of creating web-based forms for an ASP.NET web application that can be edited and managed at runtime. For example an administrator might wish to add a new validation rule or a new set of fields. The holy grail would provide a means of specifying a form along with (potentially very complex) arbitrary validation rules, and allocation of data sources for each field. The specification would then be used to update the deployed form in the web application which would then validate submissions both on the client side and on the server side. My investigations led me to Xforms and a number of technologies that support it. One solution appears to be IBM Lotus Forms, but this requires a very large investment in terms of infrastructure, which makes it infeasible, although the forms designer may be useful as a stand-alone tool for creating the forms. I have also discounted browser plug-ins as the form must be publicly visible and cross-browser compliant. I have noticed that there are numerous javascript libraries that provide client side implementations given an Xforms schema. These would provide a partial solution but server side validation is still a requirement. Another option seems to involve the use of server side solutions such as the Java application Orbeon. Orbeon provides a tool for specifying the forms (although not as rich as Lotus Forms Designer), but the most interesting point is that it can translate an XForms schema into an XHTML form complete with validation. The fact that it is written in Java is not a big problem if it is possible to integrate with the existing ASP.NET application. So my question is whether anyone has done this before. It sounds like a problem that should have been solved but is inherently very complex. It seems possible to use an off-the-shelf tool to design the form and export it to an Xforms schema and xhtml form, and it seems possible to take that xforms schema and form and publish it using a client side library. What seems to be difficult is providing a means of validating the form submission on the server side and integrating the process nicely with .NET (although it seems the .NET community doesn't involve themselves with XForms; please correct me if I'm wrong on this count). I would be more than happy if a product provided something simple like a web service that could validate a submission against a schema. Maybe Orbeon does this but I'd be grateful if somebody in the know could point me in the right direction before I research it further. Many thanks.

  Read the article

• Asp.net MVC and MOSS 2010 integration

  - by Robert Koritnik

  Just a sidenote: I'm not sure whether I should post this to serverfault as well, because some MOSS admin may have some info for me as well? A bit of explanation first (without Asp.net MVC) Is it possible to integrate the two? Is it possible to write an application that would share at least credential information with MOSS? I have to write a MOSS application that has to do with these technologies: MOSS 2010 Personal client certificates authentication (most probably on USB keys) Active Directory Federation Services Separate SQL DB that would serve application specific data (separate as not being part of MOSS DB) How should it work? Users should authenticate using personal certificates into MOSS 2010 There would be a certain part of MOSS that would be related to my custom application This application should only authorize certain users via AD FS - I guess these users should have a certain security claim attached to them This application should manage users (that have access to this app) with additional (app specific) security claims related to this application (as additional application level authorization rights for individual application parts) This application should use custom SQL 2008 DB heavily with its own data This application should have the possibility to integrate with external systems as well (Exchange for instance to inject calendar entries, ERP systems etc) This application should be able to export its data (from its DB) to files. I don't know if it's possible, but it would be nice if the app could add these files to MOSS and attach authorization info to them so only users with sufficient rights would be able to view/open these files. Why Asp.net MVC then? I'm very well versed in Asp.net MVC (also with the latest version) and I haven't done anything on Sharepoint since version 2003 (which doesn't do me no good or prepare me for the latest version in any way shape or form). This project will most probably be a death march project so I would rather write my application as a UI rich Asp.net MVC application and somehow integrate it into MOSS. But not only via a link, because I would like to at least share credentials, so users wouldn't need to re-login when accessing my app. Using Asp.net MVC I would at least have the possibility to finish on time or be less death marching. Is this at all possible? Questions Is it possible to integrate Asp.net MVC into MOSS as described above? If integration is not possible, would it be possible to create a completely MOSS based application that would work as described? Which parts of MOSS 2010 should I use to accomplish what I need?

  Read the article

• Opera Mobile, offline web app development, and memory

  - by Jake Krohn

  I'm developing a data collection app for use on a HP iPAQ 211. I'm doing it as an offline web app (go with what you know) using Opera Mobile 9.7 and Google Gears. Being it is an offline app, it is very dependent on Javascript for much of its behavior. I'm using the LocalServer, Database, and Geolocation components of Gears, as well as the JQuery core and a couple of plugins for form validation and other usability tweaks (no jQuery UI). I've tried to be conservative with my programming style and free up or close resources whenever possible, but Opera just slowly dies after about 10-20 minutes of use. The Javascript engine stops responding, pages only half-load, and eventually stop loading completely. I'm guessing it's a resource issue. Quitting and relaunching the browser solves the problem, but only temporarily. The iPAQ ships with 128 MB of RAM, about 85-87 MB of which is available immediately after a reset. With only Opera running, there still remains about 50 MB that is left unused. My questions are thus: Is it possible to get Opera to address this unused RAM? Are there configuration settings in Opera or in the Windows Registry itself that will help improve performance? I know where to tweak, but the descriptions of the opera:config variables that I've found are less than helpful. Is is laughable to ask about memory management and jQuery in the same sentence? If not, does anyone have any suggestions? Finally, are my plans too ambitious, given the platform I have to work with? I know that Gears and Windows Mobile 6 are on their way out, but they (theoretically) suffice for what I need to do. I could ditch them in favor of an iPhone/iPod Touch, Mobile Safari, and HTML5 but I'd like to try to make this work first. I didn't think that Opera was a dog when it comes to JS performance, but perhaps it's worse than I thought. That this motley collection of technologies works at all is a minor miracle, but it needs to be faster and more stable. I appreciate any suggestions.

  Read the article

• Personal Project - Next practical language/tech to learn

  - by Paul Nathan

  I'm working on a personal project doing some finance analysis. It's a totally new field for me, and I'm really having fun with it so far, plus working in the high-level language arena is a great break from my embedded systems daytime work. I have a MySQL backend on a non-local server with a pile of stock data. My task now is to do some analysis of the stocks and produce something approximating a useful result. There are a couple technical difficulties. (1) I have a lot of records. To be precise, I believe I'm near 100K records right now, and this number grows by 6.1K each weekday. I need to create a way to rummage through these fields and do data analysis - based on a given computation, go look at this other set. Fine and dandy, nothing too outre. But this means I could really use a straightforward API for talking to MySQL. (2) Ideally, it runs on OS X 10.4.11. No Windows/Linux machine at home. (3) I can use PHP, C++, Perl, etc. I even have an R installation. I'm pretty flexible with stuff, so long as it runs on OS X. (Lots of options here, pick water, H20, or dihydrogen monoxide ;-) ) (4)Lack of hassle. While I like clever and fun ways of doing things, I'm trying to get some analysis done, not spend ten hours doing installation work and scratching my head figuring out a theoretical syntax question needed to spout out "hello world". What's the question? I'd like to dig into something different than my usual PHP/C++/C toolset. I'm looking for recommendations for languages/technologies that will assist me and meet the above requirements. In particular, I've heard a lot of buzz about F# and Python on SO. I've used CLISP for small problems before, and kinda liked it. I'm seeking opinions about those in particular. edit:since I rent the DB server and have a limited amount of CPU time online, I'm trying to do the analysis on a local machine.

  Read the article

• Flex+JPA/Hibernate+BlazeDS+MySQL how to debug this monster?!

  - by Zenzen

  Ok so I'm making a "simple" web app using the technologies from the topic, recently I found http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/flex_hibernate.html so I'm following it and I try to apply it to my app, the only difference being I'm working on a Mac and I'm using MAMP for the database (so no command line for me). The thing is I'm having some trouble with retrieving/connecting to the database. I have the remoting-config.xml, persistance.xml, a News.java class (my Entity), a NewsService.java class, a News.as class - all just like in the tutorial. I have of course this line in one of my .mxmls: <mx:RemoteObject id="loaderService" destination="newsService" result="handleLoadResult(event)" fault="handleFault(event)" showBusyCursor="true" /> And my remoting-config.xml looks like this (well part of it): <destination id="newsService"> <properties><source>com.gamelist.news.NewsService</source></properties> </destination> NewsService has a method: public List<News> getLatestNews() { EntityManagerFactory emf = Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory(PERSISTENCE_UNIT); EntityManager em = emf.createEntityManager(); Query findLatestQuery = em.createNamedQuery("news.findLatest"); List<News> news = findLatestQuery.getResultList(); return news; } And the named query is in the News class: @Entity @Table(name="GLT_NEWS") @NamedQueries({ @NamedQuery(name="news.findLatest", query="from GLT_NEWS order by new_date_added limit 5 ") }) The handledLoadResult looks like this: private function handleLoadResult(ev:ResultEvent):void { newsList = ev.result as ArrayCollection; newsRecords = newsList.length; } Where: [Bindable] private var newsList:ArrayCollection = new ArrayCollection(); But when I try to trigger: loaderService.getLatestNews(); nothing happens, newsList is empty. Few things I need to point out: 1) as I said I didn't install mysql manually, but I'm using MAMP (yes, the server's running), could this cause some trouble? 2) I already have a "gladm" database and I have a "GLT_NEWS" table with all the fields, is this bad? Basically the question is how am I suppose to debug this thing so I can find the mistake I'm making? I know that loadData() is executed (did a trace()), but I have no idea what happens with loaderService.getLatestNews()... @EDIT: ok so I see I'm getting an error in the "fault handler" which says "Error: Client.Error.MessageSend - Channel.Connect.Failed error NetConnection.Call.Failed: HTTP: Status 404: url: 'http://localhost:8080/WebContent/messagebroker/amf' - "

  Read the article

• iPhone SDK / Core Data usage scenario, similar to GAE data store?

  - by boliva

  Hi all, I am currently rewriting a map based App which I wrote in the past, specifically for 2.2.1 devices. Originally I wrote it to make use of SQLite databases but I would like to try and migrate it over Core Data, now that it's available on 3.X (for which I am rewriting to). I am fairly experienced in iPhone/Obj-C development, SQL and server backend technologies, but I have never had the chance to work with Core Data so IDK really if it's the appropiate tool for what I am trying to accomplish. The App works on a limited area in a map over which there are about 4000 placemarks, with different kinds of icons and sizes. Of course not all 4000 placemarks are shown at once but only those currently visible in the map viewport, and depending on the zoom level. What I am doing right now is, after the user moves the map in any way (panning or zooming) I am requesting from the backend server the required information for the placemarks that would be visible given the viewport coordinates boundaries and zoom level, however the process isn't as smooth as I'd like (the backend is sending its response in XML and I am compressing it using gzip), it takes anywhere from 1 to 3 seconds to update the display of the placemarks after the user ends moving the map. What I would like to do is to prefetch all the placemarks data at the App launch and use it all through the app life time - I don't mind storing it for later use because the data should be dynamic. The way I would do it right now is, after retrieving all the data, to store it on an SQLite db which I would query later, whenever the user moves the map, to return only the placemarks inside the viewport coordinate boundaries and specific to a given zoom level. Now, the question itself is, if is it possible to use some more 'native', object driven way to carry this queries process, which got me thinking about Core Data and if it is in any way similar to what Google App Engine offers through its datastore where you can fetch a number of objects from the backend given a certain query or criteria, without resorting to an SQL query itself. Like I said before I don't have any experience on Core Data but I have a pretty deep understanding of Obj-C and iPhone development, as well as SQL databases. Any guides on how to achieve what I'm trying (if possible at all) would be greatly appreciated.

  Read the article

• Advice for Architecture Design Logic for software application

  - by Prasad

  Hi, I have a framework of basic to complex set of objects/classes (C++) running into around 500. With some rules and regulations - all these objects can communicate with each other and hence can cover most of the common queries in the domain. My Dream: I want to provide these objects as icons/glyphs (as I learnt recently) on a workspace. All these objects can be dragged/dropped into the workspace. They have to communicate only through their methods(interface) and in addition to few iterative and conditional statements. All these objects are arranged finally to execute a protocol/workflow/dataflow/process. After drawing the flow, the user clicks the Execute/run button. All the user interaction should be multi-touch enabled. The best way to show my dream is : Jeff Han's Multitouch Video. consider Jeff is playing with my objects instead of the google maps. :-) it should be like playing a jigsaw puzzle. Objective: how can I achieve the following while working on this final product: a) the development should be flexible to enable provision for web services b) the development should enable easy web application development c) The development should enable client-server architecture - d) further it should also enable mouse based drag/drop desktop application like Adobe programs etc. I mean to say: I want to economize on investments. Now I list my efforts till now in design : a) Created an Editor (VB) where the user writes (manually) the object / class code b) On Run/Execute, the code is copied into a main() function and passed to interpreter. c) Catch the output and show it in the console. The interpreter can be separated to become a server and the Editor can become the client. This needs lot of standard client-server architecture work. But some how I am not comfortable in the tightness of this system. Without interpreter is there much faster and better embeddable solution to this? - other than writing a special compiler for these objects. Recently learned about AXIS-C++ can help me - looks like - a friend suggested. Is that the way to go ? Here are my questions: (pl. consider me a self taught programmer and NOT my domain) a) From the stage of C++ objects to multi-touch product, how can I make sure I will develop the parallel product/service models as well.? What should be architecture aspects I should consider ? b) What technologies are best suited for this? c) If I am thinking of moving to Cloud Computing, how difficult/ how redundant / how unnecessary my efforts will be ? d) How much time in months would it take to get the first beta ? I take the liberty to ask if any of the experts here are interested in this project, please email me: [email protected] Thank you for any help. Looking forward.

  Read the article

• Buy or Build for web deployment?

  - by Cannonade

  I have been evaluating the wide range of installation and web deployment solutions available for Windows applications. I will just clarify here (without too much detail, these tools have been covered in other questions) my understanding of the options: NSIS - Free tool that generates setup executables. Small binary. Specialized, sometimes obtuse, scripting language. Inno Setup - Free tools for setup executables. Various binary compression schemes. Pascal scripting engine. WIX - Free toolset to generate MSI binaries. XML definitions language. WIX ClickThrough - Additional tools for packaging, web download and auto update detection (now part of WIX core). InstallShield - Commercial development environment for installation packaging. Generates MSI binaries. C-like InstallScript language. Wise - Commercial development environment for installation packaging. Generates MSI binaries. ClickOnce - Visual Studio supported framework for publishing applications to a webserver, with automatic detection of updates. No support for custom installation requirements (INI files, registry etc ...). Packages setup as an MSI binary. Install Aware - Commercial development environment for installation. Generates MSI binaries. Automatic Update framwork (Web Update). If I have missed any, please let me know. And found some useful discussions of these technologies on StackOverflow: Best Simple Install System Best choice for Windows installers Alternatives to ClickOnce I have worked with a few of these solutions, as well as a handful of proprietary internal installation solutions. They are mostly concerned with packing installations and providing a framework for developers to access the run time environment. With the growing requirement for web deployment and automatic software updates, I expected to find more of a consensus among developers on a framework for web delivery of software and subsequent updates, I haven't really found that consensus. There are certainly solutions available (ClickOnce, ClickThrough, InstallShield Update Service), but they each have considerable limitations (please correct me if I mis-represent any of these). I would be interested in a framework that provided some of the following: Third party hosting/management of updates. Access to client environment (INI files, registry, etc..). User registration/activation. Feedback/Error reporting This is leaving me with the strong impression that the best way to approach the web deployment problem is through a custom built proprietary solution (possibly leveraging existing installer packaging). I have seen this sort of solution work well for a number of successful applications: FileZilla - HTTP request to update.filezilla-project.org to check for updates, downloads an NSIS binary (I think) and then shuts down to run the install.

  Read the article

• Accessing different connection strings at runtime in ASP.NET MVC 1

  - by Neil T.

  I'm trying to implement integration testing in my ASP.NET MVC 1.0 solution. The technologies in use are LINQ-to-SQL, NUnit and WatiN. I recently discovered a pattern that will allow me to create a testing version of the database on the fly without modifying the development version of the database. I needed this behavior in order to run my user interface tests in WatiN that may modify the database. The plan is to modify the connection string in the Web.config file, and pass that new connection string to the DataContext constructor. This way, I don't have to add routes or modify my URLs in order to perform the integration testing. I've set up the project so that the test setup can modify the connection string to point to the test database when the tests are running. The connection string is stored in web.config. The problem I'm having is that when I try to run the tests, I get a NullReferenceException when trying to access the HTTPContext. From everything that I have read so far, the HTTPContext is only available within the context of a controller. Here is the code for the property that is supposed to give me the reference to the Web.config file: private System.Configuration.Configuration WebConfig { get { ExeConfigurationFileMap fileMap = new ExeConfigurationFileMap(); // NullReferenceException occurs on this line. fileMap.ExeConfigFilename = HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~\\web.config"); System.Configuration.Configuration config = ConfigurationManager.OpenMappedExeConfiguration(fileMap, ConfigurationUserLevel.None); return config; } } Is there something that I am missing in order to make this work? Is there a better way to accomplish what I'm trying to achieve? UPDATE: I decided to abandon the modification of Web.config in lieu of a "request-scoped DataContext" pattern that I found here. From the looks of it, I believe it should give me the results I'm looking for. However, during the TextFixtureSetUp, I try to create a new copy of the database for testing purposes, and it fails silently. When I get to the tests, the repository still uses the production database connection string to load data.

  Read the article

• How to communicate between Client and Server in a Client-Server Application?

  - by Sanoj

  I would like to implement an Client-Server Application, where the business-logic, security validations and a database are at the server and the user interface are at the client. I would like to implement clients in different languages i.e. one in WPF/.NET, one Swing/Java , one in Android/Java and maybe one HTML/JavaScript client. The server will be on Internet, so I would like to be able to have encrypted communication. The client will send some lists of items to be added to the database, or update items, and do some transactions. The server will check if the items are already updated by another client, or update the item, add new items or delete items. How do I solve the communication between clients and the server in such a system? I have been thinking about: http/https webserver, and sending messages in JSON or XML and use Web Sockets for bi-directional communication. Use http in a RESTful way, except when WebSockets are needed. But I guess there are better solutions for native desktop applications than http? CORBA - I have just heard about it, and it's old and complex. Not much talk about it these days. XMPP/Jabber - I have just heard about it and I don't know if it fits me at all. EJabberd seams to be a popular implementation. AMQP - I have just heard about it and I don't know if it fits me at all. RabbitMQ seams to be a popular implementation. Windows Communication Foundation, Java RMI, Java Message Service - but are they language independent? I guess some of these alternatives are on different levels, maybe I can have i.e xmpp or amqp in web sockets over https? What technologys are used for this problem in companies today? and what is recommended to use? I have no experience of them other than webservers and http. Please give me some guidance in this jungle. What are the pros and cons of these technologies in my situation?

  Read the article

• Silverlight? WPF? or Windows Form?

  - by Amit

  After Silverlight 4.0 has been released with new WPF, I am kind of confused with these technologies: Silverlight? WPF? Windows Form? The main motive that we want to achieve for BIG business project is following: Performance Security And platform independent** If I consider all above three points then only Silverlight is the option as I don’t want people buying emulator on MacOS for WPF or Windows Form. Now how good the Silverlight is for Business applications, I was completely against when Silverlight 2.0 was in the market but now it is Silverlight 4.0 and they have provided many new features (but still basics) that is required in any challenging business applications. Comparing Silverlight and WPF -* Silverlight and WPF are very new technology and if I'd to compare from these two then I'd prefer WPF because it can be considered stable and mature. But it is not same as Windows Form. -* If I go with Silverlight then I am sure about keep updating to the latest version of Silverlight. I remembered when we were developing software for version 2.0 then we'd to create our own framework with dynamic loading DLL, and then Navigation concept. But everything was got changed once Silverlight 3.0 came. I don't want this to be happening with this new product. -* If we go with WPF then we don't get the platform independence. Now, why not we just focus on making WPF and then move to Silverlght. As someone (Tim?) from Microsoft has said that the idea is to make Silverlight as close as WPF. But if that is the case then why XAML structure is different; I will not be convinced with by saying that .Net framework for SL is too small.. well the difference is coming from the namespace ? I was searching on this subject and found "Microsoft WPF-Silverlight Comparison Whitepaper v1.1.pdf". This guide is very good that gives you ins-outs about how can we build common apps that runs on both. But again, it is comparing Silverlight 2 and not 4. I am sure many architect/ developers/ project managers must be facing similar kind of questions in their premises and wants to initiate this discussion, if it has not been :). We've still got 2 weeks to make this decision, so I'm expecting everyone to participate, gurus?

  Read the article

• Choosing the right .NET architecture. WCF? WPF/Forms, ASP.NET (MVC)?

  - by Tommy Jakobsen

  I’m in the situation that I have to design and implement a rather big system from the bottom. I’m having some (a lot actually) questions about the architecture that I would like your comments and thoughts on. I don’t hope that I’ve written too much here, but I wanted to give you all an idea of what the system is. Quick info about the applications, read if you want: I can’t share much detail about the project, but basically it’s a system where we offer our customer a service to manage their users. We have a hotline where the users call and our hotline uses an (windows) application (intranet) to manage the user’s data, etc. The customer also has a web application where they can see reports, information about their business and users, and the ability to modify their data. Modifying data is not just user data like address and so, but also information about the products/services the user has, which can be complicated. The applications will be built on Microsoft .NET Framework 4, with a MS SQL Server 2008 database. There will be a few applications that have to access this database, such as: Intranet application (used by us and our hotline) Customer web application type 1 Customer web application type 2 Customer web application type n different applications) … Now my big problem is what .NET parts I should use for such a system. For the “backend” I’ve considered using Windows Communication Foundation: Would WCF be a good choice? The intranet application will be an application that has to edit lots of records in the database. It has to be easy to navigate using the keyboard (fast to work with). Has a feature such as “find customer, find that, lookup this, choose this and update that”. What would be the best choice to develop this application in? Would it be WPF or good old Windows Forms? I don’t need all of the fancy graphics features in WPF, like 3D, but the application has to look nice (maybe something like the new Visual Studio/Office tools). And the same question goes for the web pages. They have much the same work to do, but not as many features as the intranet application, and not the same amount of data (much less). That is my questions for now. I’m hoping to get a discussion going that will open my eyes to some of these technologies, helping me decide architecture to go with. I would like to say thanks in advance, and let you all know that any thoughts will be much appreciated.

  Read the article

• Is there a path of least resistance that a newcomer to graphics-technology-adoption can take at this point in the .NET graphics world?

  - by Rao

  For the past 5 months or so, I've spent time learning C# using Andrew Troelsen's book and getting familiar with stuff in the .NET 4 stack... bits of ADO.NET, EF4 and a pinch of WCF to taste. I'm really interested in graphics development (not for games though), which is why I chose to go the .NET route when I decided choose from either Java or .NET to learn... since I heard about WPF and saw some sexy screenshots and all. I'm even almost done with the 4 WPF chapters in Troelsen's book. Now, all of a sudden I saw some post on a forum about how "WPF was dead" in the face of something called Silverlight. I searched more and saw all the confusion going on at present... even stuff like "Silverlight is dead too!" wrt HTML5. From what I gather, we are in a delicate period of time that will eventually decide which technology will stabilize, right? Even so, as someone new moving into UI & graphics development via .NET, I wish I could get some guidance from people more experienced people. Maybe I'm reading too much? Maybe I have missed some pieces of information? Maybe a path exists that minimizes tears of blood? In any case, here is a sample vomiting of my thoughts on which I'd appreciate some clarification or assurance or spanking: My present interest lies in desktop development. But on graduating from college, I wish to market myself as a .NET developer. The industry seems to be drooling for web stuff. Can Silverlight do both equally well? (I see on searches that SL works "out of browser"). I have two fair-sized hobby projects planned that will have hawt UIs with lots of drag n drop, sliding animations etc. These are intended to be desktop apps that will use reflection, database stuff using EF4, networking over LAN, reading-writing of files... does this affect which graphics technology can be used? At some laaaater point, if I become interested in doing a bit of 3D stuff in .NET, will that affect which technologies can be used? Or what if I look up to the heavens, stick out my middle finger, and do something crazy like go learn HTML5 even though my knowledge of it can be encapsulated in 2 sentences? Sorry I seem confused so much, I just want to know if there's a path of least resistance that a newcomer to graphics-technology-adoption can take at this point in the graphics world.

  Read the article

• Help me understand this "Programming pearls" bitsort program

  - by ardsrk

  Jon Bentley in Column 1 of his book programming pearls introduces a technique for sorting a sequence of non-zero positive integers using bit vectors. I have taken the program bitsort.c from here and pasted it below: /* Copyright (C) 1999 Lucent Technologies */ /* From 'Programming Pearls' by Jon Bentley */ /* bitsort.c -- bitmap sort from Column 1 * Sort distinct integers in the range [0..N-1] */ #include <stdio.h> #define BITSPERWORD 32 #define SHIFT 5 #define MASK 0x1F #define N 10000000 int a[1 + N/BITSPERWORD]; void set(int i) { int sh = i>>SHIFT; a[i>>SHIFT] |= (1<<(i & MASK)); } void clr(int i) { a[i>>SHIFT] &= ~(1<<(i & MASK)); } int test(int i){ return a[i>>SHIFT] & (1<<(i & MASK)); } int main() { int i; for (i = 0; i < N; i++) clr(i); /*Replace above 2 lines with below 3 for word-parallel init int top = 1 + N/BITSPERWORD; for (i = 0; i < top; i++) a[i] = 0; */ while (scanf("%d", &i) != EOF) set(i); for (i = 0; i < N; i++) if (test(i)) printf("%d\n", i); return 0; } I understand what the functions clr, set and test are doing and explain them below: ( please correct me if I am wrong here ). clr clears the ith bit set sets the ith bit test returns the value at the ith bit Now, I don't understand how the functions do what they do. I am unable to figure out all the bit manipulation happening in those three functions. Please help.

  Read the article

• Audio/video streaming on Windows platform

  - by bushtucker

  I'm building an interactive language learning application to be used in a classroom environment. The idea is that a teacher should be able to talk to the students (=audio stream to all students), let students talk to each other (= audio P2P) in groups of two or more, let students watch a video coming from a the DVD player or coming from a media server. It should be possible to save the audio/video streams. The teacher should also be able to monitor, take-over or block the desktop of the students. The platform is Windows and it's a desktop application, no web application. The audio delay should be as minimal as poosible. Optionally a student sitting at home should be supported, but it's not a high priority. I am now finished with the classroom control part of the application (login, monitor, block, ...) and want to start the audio and video part. I've been evaluating several options like DirectX, GStreamer and SIP but now I have to make a decision. DirectX seems an obvious choice for the Windows platform, but it only lets me capture and playback audio and video. The encoding/decoding/network part I should do myself. GStreamer contains all kinds of options to capture/encode/stream/save audio and video streams. I've experimented a bit with it (ossbuild) and it does seem to involve a lot of trial and error to make something work: - microphone capture (via directsoundsrc) produces cracking noises on some computers - rtpL16 payloader didn't work well - streaming raw audio over the network only working at a sampling rate of 8000, no higher - there are a lot of errors when receiving mpeg4 video (bad I-frame), on some computers worse than others It is my impression that gstreamer is primary targetted at linux platforms. Development and support for the Windows platform seems to be a little behind. Nevertheless it's a powerful framework that could save me months and years of work. SIP seems to be able to do everything I want, but it is targeted towards telephony and IM. I don't know how flexible SIP is. It seems to me that the SIP layer would just be overhead as I already have a central (teacher) application that can control and setup all the streams. The interesting parts of frameworks like opalvoip and freeswitch are the actual audio/video capture, the encoding and transmission. Does anyone know how these interesting parts relate a framework like gstreamer? Are they easy to integrate into a custom application? Are they flexible enough? Does anyone have experience with all or one of these technologies? Maybe there are even other options I can look at? Many thanks for your advice

  Read the article

• XML serialization options in .NET

  - by Borek

  I'm building a service that returns an XML (no SOAP, no ATOM, just plain old XML). Say that I have my domain objects already filled with data and just need to transform them to the XML format. What options do I have on .NET? Requirements: The transformation is not 1:1. Say that I have an Address property of type Address with nested properties like Line1, City, Postcode etc. This may need to result in an XML like <xaddr city="...">Line1, Postcode</xaddr>, i.e. quite different. Some XML elements/attributes are conditional, for example, if a Customer is under 18, the XML needs to contain some additional information. I only need to serialize the objects to XML, the other direction (XML to objects) is not important Some technologies, i.e. Data Contracts use .NET attributes. Other means of configuration (external XML config, buddy classes etc.) would be a plus. Here are the options as I see them as the moment. Corrections / additions will be very welcome. String concatenation - forget it, it was a joke :) Linq 2 XML - complete control but quite a lot of hand written code, would need good suite of unit tests View engines in ASP.NET MVC (or even Web Forms theoretically), the logic being in controllers. It's a question how to structure it, I can have simple rules engine in my controller(s) and one view template per each possible output, or have the decision logic directly in the template. Both have upsides and downsides. XML Serialization - I'm not sure about the flexibility here Data Contracts from WCF - not sure about the flexibility either, plus would they work in a simple ASP.NET MVC app (non-WCF service)? Are they a super-set of the standard XML serialization now? If it exists, some XML-to-object mapper. The more I think about it the more I think I'm looking for something like this but I couldn't find anything appropriate. Any comments / other options?

  Read the article

• Error in connecting Eclipse to SQL Server

  - by user3721900

  This is the syntax error Jun 10, 2014 5:15:51 PM org.apache.catalina.core.AprLifecycleListener init INFO: The APR based Apache Tomcat Native library which allows optimal performance in production environments was not found on the java.library.path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre7\bin;C:\Windows\Sun\Java\bin;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:/Program Files (x86)/Java/jre7/bin/client;C:/Program Files (x86)/Java/jre7/bin;C:/Program Files (x86)/Java/jre7/lib/i386;C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Common;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\iCLS Client\;C:\Program Files\Intel\iCLS Client\;C:\Program Files (x86)\AMD APP\bin\x86_64;C:\Program Files (x86)\AMD APP\bin\x86;C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live;C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Live\Shared;C:\Program Files (x86)\ATI Technologies\ATI.ACE\Core-Static;C:\Program Files\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\DAL;C:\Program Files\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\IPT;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\DAL;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\IPT;C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Web Platform Installer\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft ASP.NET\ASP.NET Web Pages\v1.0\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.0\Windows Performance Toolkit\;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\110\Tools\Binn\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microchip\MPLAB C32 Suite\bin;C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_25\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jdk1.7.0_03\bin;c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\VSShell\Common7\IDE\;c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\;c:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\;c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\100\DTS\Binn\;c:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\DTS\Binn\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\google_appengine\;C:\Users\Patrick\Desktop\2013-2014 2nd Sem Files\Eclipsee\eclipse;;. Jun 10, 2014 5:15:51 PM org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.SetPropertiesRule begin WARNING: [SetPropertiesRule]{Server/Service/Engine/Host/Context} Setting property 'source' to 'org.eclipse.jst.jee.server:B2B' did not find a matching property. Jun 10, 2014 5:15:51 PM org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol init INFO: Initializing ProtocolHandler ["http-bio-8080"] Jun 10, 2014 5:15:51 PM org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol init INFO: Initializing ProtocolHandler ["ajp-bio-8009"] Jun 10, 2014 5:15:51 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina load INFO: Initialization processed in 544 ms Jun 10, 2014 5:15:51 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService startInternal INFO: Starting service Catalina Jun 10, 2014 5:15:51 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine startInternal INFO: Starting Servlet Engine: Apache Tomcat/7.0.42 Jun 10, 2014 5:15:52 PM org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol start INFO: Starting ProtocolHandler ["http-bio-8080"] Jun 10, 2014 5:15:52 PM org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol start INFO: Starting ProtocolHandler ["ajp-bio-8009"] Jun 10, 2014 5:15:52 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina start INFO: Server startup in 374 ms com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerException: Incorrect syntax near '`'. This is my code package b2b.fishermall; public class ConnectionString extends SqlStringCommands { public String getDriver(){ return "com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDriver"; } public String getURL() { return "jdbc:sqlserver://localhost:1433;databaseName=B2B;integratedSecurity=true;"; } public String getUsername() { return ""; } public String getDbPassword() { return ""; } }

  Read the article

• How to create multiple Repository object inside a Repository class using Unit Of Work?

  - by Santosh

  I am newbie to MVC3 application development, currently, we need following Application technologies as requirement MVC3 framework IOC framework – Autofac to manage object creation dynamically Moq – Unit testing Entity Framework Repository and Unit Of Work Pattern of Model class I have gone through many article to explore an basic idea about the above points but still I am little bit confused on the “Repository and Unit Of Work Pattern “. Basically what I understand Unit Of Work is a pattern which will be followed along with Repository Pattern in order to share the single DB Context among all Repository object, So here is my design : IUnitOfWork.cs public interface IUnitOfWork : IDisposable { IPermitRepository Permit_Repository{ get; } IRebateRepository Rebate_Repository { get; } IBuildingTypeRepository BuildingType_Repository { get; } IEEProjectRepository EEProject_Repository { get; } IRebateLookupRepository RebateLookup_Repository { get; } IEEProjectTypeRepository EEProjectType_Repository { get; } void Save(); } UnitOfWork.cs public class UnitOfWork : IUnitOfWork { #region Private Members private readonly CEEPMSEntities context = new CEEPMSEntities(); private IPermitRepository permit_Repository; private IRebateRepository rebate_Repository; private IBuildingTypeRepository buildingType_Repository; private IEEProjectRepository eeProject_Repository; private IRebateLookupRepository rebateLookup_Repository; private IEEProjectTypeRepository eeProjectType_Repository; #endregion #region IUnitOfWork Implemenation public IPermitRepository Permit_Repository { get { if (this.permit_Repository == null) { this.permit_Repository = new PermitRepository(context); } return permit_Repository; } } public IRebateRepository Rebate_Repository { get { if (this.rebate_Repository == null) { this.rebate_Repository = new RebateRepository(context); } return rebate_Repository; } } } PermitRepository .cs public class PermitRepository : IPermitRepository { #region Private Members private CEEPMSEntities objectContext = null; private IObjectSet<Permit> objectSet = null; #endregion #region Constructors public PermitRepository() { } public PermitRepository(CEEPMSEntities _objectContext) { this.objectContext = _objectContext; this.objectSet = objectContext.CreateObjectSet<Permit>(); } #endregion public IEnumerable<RebateViewModel> GetRebatesByPermitId(int _permitId) { // need to implment } } PermitController .cs public class PermitController : Controller { #region Private Members IUnitOfWork CEEPMSContext = null; #endregion #region Constructors public PermitController(IUnitOfWork _CEEPMSContext) { if (_CEEPMSContext == null) { throw new ArgumentNullException("Object can not be null"); } CEEPMSContext = _CEEPMSContext; } #endregion } So here I am wondering how to generate a new Repository for example “TestRepository.cs” using same pattern where I can create more then one Repository object like RebateRepository rebateRepo = new RebateRepository () AddressRepository addressRepo = new AddressRepository() because , what ever Repository object I want to create I need an object of UnitOfWork first as implmented in the PermitController class. So if I would follow the same in each individual Repository class that would again break the priciple of Unit Of Work and create multiple instance of object context. So any idea or suggestion will be highly appreciated. Thank you

  Read the article

• Advice needed: stay with Java team or move to C++ team?

  - by user68759

  Some background - I have been programming in Java as a professional for the last few years. This is mainly using Java SE. I have also touched bits and pieces of other various Java technologies and have some basic knowledge about them. I consider my self as an intermediate Java programmer. I like Java very much. I think it is only going to get bigger. Recently, my manager asked my opinion on whether I would like to be transferred to another team within the company that is developing a product in C++. This is mainly because my current Java team simply didn't make enough money due to poor sales and the economic downturn. Now, I have never had any experience with C++ nor have I ever coded a single line of code in C++. I have always wanted to learn it and now is my chance. But I really want to make sure I get benefit out of it in the future, in the sense that I will have the skills that will still be on-demand in the future. So, what do you experts think? Is C++ still the language to learn these days to secure yourself for the future? What will I learn more in C++ but not in Java? And are they worthy to learn considering the current and possible future demands in IT industry? (Apart from the obvious more control over memory management and something along that line.) What is a good excuse to refuse the offer in order to stay with the Java team? I don't want to blatantly refuse it because you can never predict the future and I could possibly come back to my manager in the future and ask him to transfer me to the C++ team. How do I say it nicely that I am taking the offer but I would like to still be involved with Java one way or another, such as when there is a new Java project I would like to be considered. I have to admit that I am kind of 50-50 at the moment. I want to learn C++ for the sake of improving my skills and also helping my company to reduce the fund required for the Java team. But it is also hard for me to leave Java because I know Java is going to get bigger, so I am afraid of getting behind when I start concentrating on C++. I could, of course, decide to just join the C++ team, and then spend my free time reading about Java to keep in touch with it, but I thought I would ask anyway in case some people can point out the strong points of either over the other given the current and possibly future circumstances.

  Read the article

• Error on 64 Bit Install of IIS &ndash; LoadLibraryEx failed on aspnet_filter.dll

  - by Rick Strahl

  I’ve been having a few problems with my Windows 7 install and trying to get IIS applications to run properly in 64 bit. After installing IIS and creating virtual directories for several of my applications and firing them up I was left with the following error message from IIS: Calling LoadLibraryEx on ISAPI filter “c:\windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\aspnet_filter.dll” failed This is on Windows 7 64 bit and running on an ASP.NET 4.0 Application configured for running 64 bit (32 bit disabled). It’s also on what is essentially a brand new installation of IIS and Windows 7. So it failed right out of the box. The problem here is that IIS is trying to loading this ISAPI filter from the 32 bit folder – it should be loading from Framework64 folder note the Framework folder. The aspnet_filter.dll component is a small Win32 ISAPI filter used to back up the cookieless session state for ASP.NET on IIS 7 applications. It’s not terribly important because of this focus, but it’s a default loaded component. After a lot of fiddling I ended up with two solutions (with the help and support of some Twitter folks): Switch IIS to run in 32 bit mode Fix the filter listing in ApplicationHost.config Switching IIS to allow 32 Bit Code This is a quick fix for the problem above which enables 32 bit code in the Application Pool. The problem above is that IIS is trying to load a 32 bit ISAPI filter and enabling 32 bit code gets you around this problem. To configure your Application Pool, open the Application Pool in IIS Manager bring up Advanced Options and Enable 32 Bit Applications: And voila the error message above goes away. Fix Filters Enabling 32 bit code is a quick fix solution to this problem, but not an ideal one. If you’re running a pure .NET application that doesn’t need to do COM or pInvoke Interop with 32 bit apps there’s usually no need for enabling 32 bit code in an Application Pool as you can run in native 64 bit code. So trying to get 64 bit working natively is a pretty key feature in my opinion :-) So what’s the problem – why is IIS trying to load a 32 bit DLL in a 64 bit install, especially if the application pool is configured to not allow 32 bit code at all? The problem lies in the server configuration and the fact that 32 bit and 64 bit configuration settings exist side by side in IIS. If I open my Default Web Site (or any other root Web Site) and go to the ISAPI filter list here’s what I see: Notice that there are 3 entries for ASP.NET 4.0 in this list. Only two of them however are specifically scoped to the specifically to 32 bit or 64 bit. As you can see the 64 bit filter correctly points at the Framework64 folder to load the dll, while both the 32 bit and the ‘generic’ entry point at the plain Framework 32 bit folder. Aha! Hence lies our problem. You can edit ApplicationHost.config manually, but I ran into the nasty issue of not being able to easily edit that file with the 32 bit editor (who ever thought that was a good idea???? WTF). You have to open ApplicationHost.Config in a 64 bit native text editor – which Visual Studio is not. Or my favorite editor: EditPad Pro. Since I don’t have a native 64 bit editor handy Notepad was my only choice. Or as an alternative you can use the IIS 7.5 Configuration Editor which lets you interactively browse and edit most ApplicationHost settings. You can drill into the configuration hierarchy visually to find your keys and edit attributes and sub values in property editor type interface. I had no idea this tool existed prior to today and it’s pretty cool as it gives you some visual clues to options available – especially in absence of an Intellisense scheme you’d get in Visual Studio (which doesn’t work). To use the Configuration Editor go the Web Site root and use the Configuration Editor option in the Management Group. Drill into System.webServer/isapiFilters and then click on the Collection’s … button on the right. You should now see a display like this: which shows all the same attributes you’d see in ApplicationHost.config (cool!). These entries correspond to these raw ApplicationHost.config entries: <filter name="ASP.Net_4.0" path="C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\aspnet_filter.dll" enableCache="true" preCondition="runtimeVersionv4.0" /> <filter name="ASP.Net_4.0_64bit" path="C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_filter.dll" enableCache="true" preCondition="runtimeVersionv4.0,bitness64" /> <filter name="ASP.Net_4.0_32bit" path="C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\aspnet_filter.dll" enableCache="true" preCondition="runtimeVersionv4.0,bitness32" /> The key attribute we’re concerned with here is the preCondition and the bitness subvalue. Notice that the ‘generic’ version – which comes first in the filter list – has no bitness assigned to it, so it defaults to 32 bit and the 32 bit dll path. And this is where our problem comes from. The simple solution to fix the startup problem is to remove the generic entry from this list here or in the filters list shown earlier and leave only the bitness specific versions active. The preCondition attribute acts as a filter and as you can see here it filters the list by runtime version and bitness value. This is something to keep an eye out in general – if a bitness values are missing it’s easy to run into conflicts like this with any settings that are global and especially those that load modules and handlers and other executable code. On 64 bit systems it’s a good idea to explicitly set the bitness of all entries or remove the non-specific versions and add bit specific entries. So how did this get misconfigured? I installed IIS before everything else was installed on this machine and then went ahead and installed Visual Studio. I suspect the Visual Studio install munged this up as I never saw a similar problem on my live server where everything just worked right out of the box. In searching about this problem a lot of solutions pointed at using aspnet_regiis –r from the Framework64 directory, but that did not fix this extra entry in the filters list – it adds the required 32 bit and 64 bit entries, but it doesn’t remove the errand un-bitness set entry. Hopefully this post will help out anybody who runs into a similar situation without having to trouble shoot all the way down into the configuration settings and noticing the bitness settings. It’s a good lesson learned for me – this is my first desktop install of a 64 bit OS and things like this are what I was reluctant to find. Now that I ran into this I have a good idea what to look for with 32/64 bit misconfigurations in IIS at least.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in IIS7   ASP.NET  

  Read the article

• Week in Geek: USDA Chooses Microsoft for Cloud Services Edition

  - by Asian Angel

  This week we learned how to create geeky LED holiday lights with old bottles, dig deeper in Windows Defrag via the command prompt, use Google Chrome’s drag/drop feature to upload files easier, find great gift recommendations by looking through the How-To Geek holiday gift guide, and have fun adding Merry Christmas fonts to our computers. Photo by ntr23. Random Geek Links It has been a busy week, so we have extra news link goodness with information that is good for you to know. USDA making the move to Microsoft The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced that it has chosen Microsoft to host things like e-mail, instant messaging, and collaboration through the software giant’s Business Productivity Online Suite. Google says it was cut off from USDA project bid Google is claiming that it was not given a chance to bid on a cloud-computing project for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, for which the contract was awarded to rival Microsoft. Apache is being forced into a Java Fork When Oracle rolled over Apache and Google’s objections to its Java plans in December, the scene was set for Apache to leave and, eventually, force a Java code fork. Tumblr explains daylong outage After experiencing an outage that started on Sunday afternoon and stretched through most of the day yesterday, Tumblr has explained what happened. Google demos Chrome OS, launches pilot program During a press briefing this week in San Francisco, Google launched the Chrome application store and demonstrated Chrome OS, its browser-centric netbook operating system. Don’t expect Spotify in U.S. this holiday season As of last week, Spotify had yet to sign a single licensing deal with a major label, after spending more than a year negotiating, multiple music sources told CNET. December 2010 Patch Tuesday will come with most bulletins ever According to the Microsoft Security Response Center, Microsoft will issue 17 Security Bulletins addressing 40 vulnerabilities on Tuesday, December 14. It will also host a webcast to address customer questions the following day. Hacker plants back door in Symbian firmware Indian hacker Atul Alex has had a look at the firmware for Symbian S60 smartphones and come up with a back door for it. PC quarantines raise tough complexities The concept of quarantining PCs to prevent widespread infection is “interesting, but difficult to implement, with far too many problems”, said security experts. Symantec: DDoS attacks hard to defend It has surfaced that the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on Visa and MasterCard Web sites on Wednesday were carried out by a toolkit known as low orbit ion cannon (LOIC). Web Sockets and the risks of unfinished standards Enthusiasm for a promising new standard called Web Sockets has quickly cooled in some quarters as a potential security problem led some browser makers to hastily postpone support. Internet Explorer 9 to get tracking protection Microsoft is making changes to Internet Explorer 9’s security features that will better enable users to keep sites from tracking their activity across browsing sessions. NASA sold PCs with sensitive data NASA failed to remove sensitive data from computers that it sold, according to an audit report released this week. Cybercrooks create fake Amazon receipts The bad guys have created yet another online scam, this one involving fake Amazon receipts. World of Warcraft character move fees waived Until December 22, Blizzard will allow free realm transfers from 25 highly populated servers to alleviate log-in queues or performance issues. (The free transfers are one-way and one-time only.) SpaceX Dragon reaches orbit atop a Falcon with a fiery tail The Space Exploration Technologies corporation has become the first nongovernmental entity to put a vehicle into low Earth orbit. Geek Video of the Week If birds have wings, then why are the Angry Birds using slingshots? Photo by Dorkly Bits. Wait… Birds have Wings, Why are the Angry Ones Using Slingshots? Sysadmin Geek Tips How To Setup Email Alerts on Linux Using Gmail or SMTP Linux machines may require administrative intervention in countless ways, but without manually logging into them how would you know about it? Here’s how to setup emails to get notified when your machines want some tender love and attention. Random TinyHacker Links Red Panda Webcam Support Firefox and the Knoxville Zoo’s Red Panda program. Christmas Icons (Icons we like) Superb set of holiday icons by lgp85 at deviantArt. Download the .zip and use as .png or convert to .ico at Convertico.com or with tiny app Imagicon. Super User Questions Enjoy reading the great answers to this week’s popular questions from Super User Useful USB boot disks? DVD/CD burning .zip: is it more reliable, faster, longer lasting to burn a zip of files rather than the files as a folder? What are other ways to backup my files if I do not have an external drive? Anti virus what is the difference between these all? How can I block all Facebook elements/content? How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Have you had a busy week between work and preparing for the holidays? Get caught up on your HTG reading with our hottest articles of the week. 20 Windows Keyboard Shortcuts You Might Not Know The 50 Best Registry Hacks that Make Windows Better LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology HTG Explains: Which Linux File System Should You Choose? How to Use and Customize Google Chrome Web Apps One Year Ago on How-To Geek This week’s batch of retro geeky goodness is all about customizing Windows 7. ClassicShell Adds Classic Start Menu and Explorer Features to Windows 7 Get an Aero-Styled Classic Start Menu in Windows 7 Customize the Windows 7 Logon Screen Get the Classic Style Network Activity Indicator Back in Windows 7 How To Enable Check Boxes for Items In Windows 7 The Geek Note We would like you to join us in welcoming Jason Fitzpatrick to the writing staff here at How-To Geek. He started with us this past week, so take some time to read through his articles about the Wii, Kindle, & PlayStation 2 Peripherals and leave a friendly comment to say “Hi”! Got a great tip to share? Make sure to send it in to us at [email protected]. Photo by real00. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The 50 Best Registry Hacks that Make Windows Better The How-To Geek Holiday Gift Guide (Geeky Stuff We Like) LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 8: Filters Improve Digital Photography by Calibrating Your Monitor Our Favorite Tech: What We’re Thankful For at How-To Geek Settle into Orbit with the Voyage Theme for Chrome and Iron Awesome Safari Compass Icons Set Escape from the Exploding Planet Wallpaper Move Your Tumblr Blog to WordPress Pytask is an Easy to Use To-Do List Manager for Your Ubuntu System Snowy Christmas House Personas Theme for Firefox

  Read the article

• Oracle Enhances Oracle Social Cloud with Next-Generation User Experience

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Today’s enterprise must meet the technology standards of today’s consumer. According to a recent IDG Enterprise report, enterprises that invest in consumerized, easy-to-use technologies experience a 56 percent increase in employee productivity and a 46 percent increase in customer satisfaction. In order to deliver that simple and intuitive experience across even the most advanced social management capabilities, Oracle today introduced Social Station, an innovative new workspace within Oracle Social Cloud’s Social Relationship Management (SRM) platform. With Social Station, users benefit from a personalized and intuitive user experience that helps increase both the productivity and performance of social business practices. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; 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:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} News Facts Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; 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:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Oracle today introduced Social Station, an innovative new workspace within Oracle Social Cloud’s Social Relationship Management (SRM) platform that helps organizations socially enable the way they do business. With an advanced yet intuitive user interface, Social Station delivers a compelling user experience that improves productivity and helps users more easily deliver on social objectives. To help users quickly and easily build out and configure their social workspaces, Social Station provides drag-and-drop capabilities that allow users to personalize their workspace with different social modules. With a new Custom Analytics module that mixes and matches more than 120 metrics with thousands of customizable reporting options, users can customize their view of social data and access constantly refreshed updates that support real-time understanding. One-click sharing capabilities and annotation functionality within the new Custom Analytics module also drives productivity by improving sharing and collaboration across teams, departments, and executives. Multiview layout capabilities further allows visibility into social insights by offering users the flexibility to monitor conversations by network, stream, metric, graph type, date range, and relative time period. Social Station also includes an Enhanced Calendar module that provides a clear visual representation of content, posts, networks, and views, helping users easily and efficiently understand information and toggle between various functions and views. To support different user personas and social business needs, Oracle plans to continue building out Social Station with additional modules, including content curation, influencer engagement, and command center creation. /* 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; 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-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

  Read the article

• ActiveX component can't create Object Error? Check 64 bit Status

  - by Rick Strahl

  If you're running on IIS 7 and a 64 bit operating system you might run into the following error using ASP classic or ASP.NET with COM interop. In classic ASP applications the error will show up as: ActiveX component can't create object   (Error 429) (actually without error handling the error just shows up as 500 error page) In my case the code that's been giving me problems has been a FoxPro COM object I'd been using to serve banner ads to some of my pages. The code basically looks up banners from a database table and displays them at random. The ASP classic code that uses it looks like this: <% Set banner = Server.CreateObject("wwBanner.aspBanner") banner.BannerFile = "wwsitebanners" Response.Write(banner.GetBanner(-1)) %> Originally this code had no specific error checking as above so the ASP pages just failed with 500 error pages from the Web server. To find out what the problem is this code is more useful at least for debugging: <% ON ERROR RESUME NEXT Set banner = Server.CreateObject("wwBanner.aspBanner") Response.Write(err.Number & " - " & err.Description) banner.BannerFile = "wwsitebanners" Response.Write(banner.GetBanner(-1)) %> which results in: 429 - ActiveX component can't create object which at least gives you a slight clue. In ASP.NET invoking the same COM object with code like this: <% dynamic banner = wwUtils.CreateComInstance("wwBanner.aspBanner") as dynamic; banner.cBANNERFILE = "wwsitebanners"; Response.Write(banner.getBanner(-1)); %> results in: Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {B5DCBB81-D5F5-11D2-B85E-00600889F23B} failed due to the following error: 80040154 Class not registered (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80040154 (REGDB_E_CLASSNOTREG)). The class is in fact registered though and the COM server loads fine from a command prompt or other COM client. This error can be caused by a COM server that doesn't load. It looks like a COM registration error. There are a number of traditional reasons why this error can crop up of course. The server isn't registered (run regserver32 to register a DLL server or /regserver on an EXE server) Access permissions aren't set on the COM server (Web account has to be able to read the DLL ie. Network service) The COM server fails to load during initialization ie. failing during startup One thing I always do to check for COM errors fire up the server in a COM client outside of IIS and ensure that it works there first - it's almost always easier to debug a server outside of the Web environment. In my case I tried the server in Visual FoxPro on the server with: loBanners = CREATEOBJECT("wwBanner.aspBanner") loBanners.cBannerFile = "wwsitebanners" ? loBanners.GetBanner(-1) and it worked just fine. If you don't have a full dev environment on the server you can also use VBScript do the same thing and run the .vbs file from the command prompt: Set banner = Server.CreateObject("wwBanner.aspBanner") banner.BannerFile = "wwsitebanners" MsgBox(banner.getBanner(-1)) Since this both works it tells me the server is registered and working properly. This leaves startup failures or permissions as the problem. I double checked permissions for the Application Pool and the permissions of the folder where the DLL lives and both are properly set to allow access by the Application Pool impersonated user. Just to be sure I assigned an Admin user to the Application Pool but still no go. So now what? 64 bit Servers Ahoy A couple of weeks back I had set up a few of my Application pools to 64 bit mode. My server is Server 2008 64 bit and by default Application Pools run 64 bit. Originally when I installed the server I set up most of my Application Pools to 32 bit mainly for backwards compatibility. But as more of my code migrates to 64 bit OS's I figured it'd be a good idea to see how well code runs under 64 bit code. The transition has been mostly painless. Until today when I noticed the problem with the code above when scrolling to my IIS logs and noticing a lot of 500 errors on many of my ASP classic pages. The code in question in most of these pages deals with this single simple COM object. It took a while to figure out that the problem is caused by the Application Pool running in 64 bit mode. The issue is that 32 bit COM objects (ie. my old Visual FoxPro COM component) cannot be loaded in a 64 bit Application Pool. The ASP pages using this COM component broke on the day I switched my main Application Pool into 64 bit mode but I didn't find the problem until I searched my logs for errors by pure chance. To fix this is easy enough once you know what the problem is by switching the Application Pool to Enable 32-bit Applications: Once this is done the COM objects started working correctly again. 64 bit ASP and ASP.NET with DCOM Servers This is kind of off topic, but incidentally it's possible to load 32 bit DCOM (out of process) servers from ASP.NET and ASP classic even if those applications run in 64 bit application pools. In fact, in West Wind Web Connection I use this capability to run a 64 bit ASP.NET handler that talks to a 32 bit FoxPro COM server which allows West Wind Web Connection to run in native 64 bit mode without custom configuration (which is actually quite useful). It's probably not a common usage scenario but it's good to know that you can actually access 32 bit COM objects this way from ASP.NET. For West Wind Web Connection this works out well as the DCOM interface only makes one non-chatty call to the backend server that handles all the rest of the request processing. Application Pool Isolation is your Friend For me the recent incident of failure in the classic ASP pages has just been another reminder to be very careful with moving applications to 64 bit operation. There are many little traps when switching to 64 bit that are very difficult to track and test for. I described one issue I had a couple of months ago where one of the default ASP.NET filters was loading the wrong version (32bit instead of 64bit) which was extremely difficult to track down and was caused by a very sneaky configuration switch error (basically 3 different entries for the same ISAPI filter all with different bitness settings). It took me almost a full day to track this down). Recently I've been taken to isolate individual applications into separate Application Pools rather than my past practice of combining many apps into shared AppPools. This is a good practice assuming you have enough memory to make this work. Application Pool isolate provides more modularity and allows me to selectively move applications to 64 bit. The error above came about precisely because I moved one of my most populous app pools to 64 bit and forgot about the minimal COM object use in some of my old pages. It's easy to forget. To 64bit or Not Is it worth it to move to 64 bit? Currently I'd say -not really. In my - admittedly limited - testing I don't see any significant performance increases. In fact 64 bit apps just seem to consume considerably more memory (30-50% more in my pools on average) and performance is minimally improved (less than 5% at the very best) in the load testing I've performed on a couple of sites in both modes. The only real incentive for 64 bit would be applications that require huge data spaces that exceed the 32 bit 4 gigabyte memory limit. However I have a hard time imagining an application that needs 4 gigs of memory in a single Application Pool :-). Curious to hear other opinions on benefits of 64 bit operation. © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in COM   ASP.NET  FoxPro  

  Read the article

• LINQ to SQL and missing Many to Many EntityRefs

  - by Rick Strahl

  Ran into an odd behavior today with a many to many mapping of one of my tables in LINQ to SQL. Many to many mappings aren’t transparent in LINQ to SQL and it maps the link table the same way the SQL schema has it when creating one. In other words LINQ to SQL isn’t smart about many to many mappings and just treats it like the 3 underlying tables that make up the many to many relationship. Iain Galloway has a nice blog entry about Many to Many relationships in LINQ to SQL. I can live with that – it’s not really difficult to deal with this arrangement once mapped, especially when reading data back. Writing is a little more difficult as you do have to insert into two entities for new records, but nothing that can’t be handled in a small business object method with a few lines of code. When I created a database I’ve been using to experiment around with various different OR/Ms recently I found that for some reason LINQ to SQL was completely failing to map even to the linking table. As it turns out there’s a good reason why it fails, can you spot it below? (read on :-}) Here is the original database layout: There’s an items table, a category table and a link table that holds only the foreign keys to the Items and Category tables for a typical M->M relationship. When these three tables are imported into the model the *look* correct – I do get the relationships added (after modifying the entity names to strip the prefix): The relationship looks perfectly fine, both in the designer as well as in the XML document: <Table Name="dbo.wws_Item_Categories" Member="ItemCategories"> <Type Name="ItemCategory"> <Column Name="ItemId" Type="System.Guid" DbType="uniqueidentifier NOT NULL" CanBeNull="false" /> <Column Name="CategoryId" Type="System.Guid" DbType="uniqueidentifier NOT NULL" CanBeNull="false" /> <Association Name="ItemCategory_Category" Member="Categories" ThisKey="CategoryId" OtherKey="Id" Type="Category" /> <Association Name="Item_ItemCategory" Member="Item" ThisKey="ItemId" OtherKey="Id" Type="Item" IsForeignKey="true" /> </Type> </Table> <Table Name="dbo.wws_Categories" Member="Categories"> <Type Name="Category"> <Column Name="Id" Type="System.Guid" DbType="UniqueIdentifier NOT NULL" IsPrimaryKey="true" IsDbGenerated="true" CanBeNull="false" /> <Column Name="ParentId" Type="System.Guid" DbType="UniqueIdentifier" CanBeNull="true" /> <Column Name="CategoryName" Type="System.String" DbType="NVarChar(150)" CanBeNull="true" /> <Column Name="CategoryDescription" Type="System.String" DbType="NVarChar(MAX)" CanBeNull="true" /> <Column Name="tstamp" AccessModifier="Internal" Type="System.Data.Linq.Binary" DbType="rowversion" CanBeNull="true" IsVersion="true" /> <Association Name="ItemCategory_Category" Member="ItemCategory" ThisKey="Id" OtherKey="CategoryId" Type="ItemCategory" IsForeignKey="true" /> </Type> </Table> However when looking at the code generated these navigation properties (also on Item) are completely missing: [global::System.Data.Linq.Mapping.TableAttribute(Name="dbo.wws_Item_Categories")] [global::System.Runtime.Serialization.DataContractAttribute()] public partial class ItemCategory : Westwind.BusinessFramework.EntityBase { private System.Guid _ItemId; private System.Guid _CategoryId; public ItemCategory() { } [global::System.Data.Linq.Mapping.ColumnAttribute(Storage="_ItemId", DbType="uniqueidentifier NOT NULL")] [global::System.Runtime.Serialization.DataMemberAttribute(Order=1)] public System.Guid ItemId { get { return this._ItemId; } set { if ((this._ItemId != value)) { this._ItemId = value; } } } [global::System.Data.Linq.Mapping.ColumnAttribute(Storage="_CategoryId", DbType="uniqueidentifier NOT NULL")] [global::System.Runtime.Serialization.DataMemberAttribute(Order=2)] public System.Guid CategoryId { get { return this._CategoryId; } set { if ((this._CategoryId != value)) { this._CategoryId = value; } } } } Notice that the Item and Category association properties which should be EntityRef properties are completely missing. They’re there in the model, but the generated code – not so much. So what’s the problem here? The problem – it appears – is that LINQ to SQL requires primary keys on all entities it tracks. In order to support tracking – even of the link table entity – the link table requires a primary key. Real obvious ain’t it, especially since the designer happily lets you import the table and even shows the relationship and implicitly the related properties. Adding an Id field as a Pk to the database and then importing results in this model layout: which properly generates the Item and Category properties into the link entity. It’s ironic that LINQ to SQL *requires* the PK in the middle – the Entity Framework requires that a link table have *only* the two foreign key fields in a table in order to recognize a many to many relation. EF actually handles the M->M relation directly without the intermediate link entity unlike LINQ to SQL. [updated from comments – 12/24/2009] Another approach is to set up both ItemId and CategoryId in the database which shows up in LINQ to SQL like this: This also work in creating the Category and Item fields in the ItemCategory entity. Ultimately this is probably the best approach as it also guarantees uniqueness of the keys and so helps in database integrity. It took me a while to figure out WTF was going on here – lulled by the designer to think that the properties should be when they were not. It’s actually a well documented feature of L2S that each entity in the model requires a Pk but of course that’s easy to miss when the model viewer shows it to you and even the underlying XML model shows the Associations properly. This is one of the issue with L2S of course – you have to play by its rules and once you hit one of those rules there’s no way around them – you’re stuck with what it requires which in this case meant changing the database.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in ADO.NET  LINQ  

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142  | Next Page >